The Partisan Heart

by Gordon Kerr

  ‘24-karat gold, sir, with a cluster of small diamonds set in the centre. A French piece and, I am afraid, sir, as with most of the pieces we sell, one of a kind. I regret, therefore, that I am unable to supply you with a replacement for the one which has been so sadly lost.’ A look of satisfaction spread across the bald man’s thin face, as if he were rather pleased that Michael had been mired in this situation and there was no way out.

  As for Michael, he was delighted that there was no other example of the vine leaf tie-pin. He had feared that he was going to have to shell out £650 for it, had Rogerson & Gilchrist been able to provide one.

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose I will just have to face the music,’ said Michael, pushing back his seat and beginning to rise.

  ‘Er, there is just one other thing, sir. The address to which the tie-pin was delivered, sir. According to our records it was sent to an address in Italy, and not to an address in England. Do you live in Italy, sir?’ The bald man put his hands together in an attitude of prayer, resting his chin on them.

  Michael stared at him, blinking and attempting to come up with an answer. Could he carry it off, he wondered? The address of Rosa’s boyfriend must be on that piece of paper lying across the desk from him. He had to get it somehow.

  ‘Oh God!’ He slumped back into the chair and held his face in his hands. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s just … she … my wife … she’s been having an affair … I can’t stand it anymore. I had to … to find out …’ Amateur dramatics, he thought, but perhaps it would be enough. He looked up, his eyes moist, where he had rubbed them furiously with a finger while his face was covered, but unable to produce tears. He was not that good an actor. His antics were having an effect, however. The bald man had sat bolt upright in his chair, shocked at such a show of emotion. Michael buried his face in his hands once more and began to sob. Was he overdoing it? Perhaps not, because he heard the chair across from him being pushed back on the pile of the plush carpet.

  ‘I’ll … I’ll … get you some water, sir.’ Michael looked between his fingers and saw the retreating back of the bald man heading for the door. As soon as he was out of sight he reached across the desk and grabbed the piece of paper that lay across it, hurriedly reading its contents. There it was at the bottom. Delivery address: Box 98432, Milano Centrale, Piazza Duca d’Aosta, 20124 Milano MI, Italy. Damn! A box number at the post office in the main station of Milan.

  He stuffed the piece of paper into his pocket as the bald man’s footsteps returned. Lifting his head from his hands he saw him enter the room, a glass of water in his hand.

  ‘Oh, there’ll be no need for that,’ said Michael rising from his chair, apparently miraculously recovered from his emotional collapse. The bald man stood with his mouth wide open as Michael walked past him saying, ‘Don’t worry yourself, chum; I’ll see myself out.’

  A box number. For a moment in that musty old room he had thought he was at least going to have a name to put to this anonymous man. Somehow that would have given him some satisfaction. Now, he was no further forward – but he was not even sure whether he really wanted to be any further forward.

  He turned down Kensington High Street and headed in the direction of the offices of the London Evening Post.

  Harry Jones’s office bore witness to an amazing career in news journalism. The walls were lined with his great stories, yellowing in frames and, indeed, they were the world’s great stories. He had given Londoners their version of history for nearly forty years, spending that entire time with the same newspaper, the last twenty as news editor. Rumours suggested that he had been offered the editorship of the Post – and a number of other papers – on numerous occasions, but would not leave his beloved newsroom, with its banks of hardened hacks banging away on typewriters and latterly on word processors. It was a sight he often described as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  Harry was on the phone as Michael was shown into the office by his secretary. He beckoned to him to come in and sit down while shouting down the line at some poor, benighted journalist who seemed to be singally failing to understand the story Harry wanted.

  ‘Christ, Michael, it would be easier if I were to write the bloody articles myself,’ he said in his rich Welsh voice, putting the phone down. ‘How are you, lad?’

  ‘Oh, I’m alright in the circumstances, Harry.’

  Michael’s relationship with Harry had always been an easy one. He had rarely given him occasion to lose his ragged temper at him and they had bonded early on in Michael’s career over countless whiskies in anonymous hotels, as they tried to record the boredom of party conferences or the corruption of local councillors.

  ‘Very sad, Michael, very sad. Life can be so bloody cruel.’ He blinked at Michael and Michael thought Harry was about to burst into tears, his Welsh sensibilities getting the better of him. It passed, however. ‘What are you planning to do then, lad? When are we going to have you back, giving us the benefit of that fine purple prose of yours?’ Harry asked, reaching for the cup of coffee on his desk.

  ‘Or …’ looking straight into Michael’s eyes, ‘perhaps you’re not coming back?’

  Suddenly, Michael realised that Harry was right. He was, indeed, not coming back to these offices. Rather, he was returning to Italy to pursue the golden tie-pin and its owner. Why he wanted to do that and when he had made the decision, he did not know, but that was what he was going to do.

  ‘No, I’m not, Harry.’

  Harry stared at him. ‘I feared as much. What are you going to do then? Spend the bloody insurance money?’ He was rattled that his prediction was true. He also found it difficult to imagine anyone not wanting to work anymore in his beloved newsroom.

  ‘Well, not exactly …’ replied Michael, a little taken aback by Harry’s outburst. ‘There’s Rosa’s book to finish. Perhaps I’ll write one of my own. You know I’ve always wanted to.’

  ‘But to give up on this, Michael, to pack in your career. I have to admit I’ve been a little peeved at the time it’s taken you to return and I was half afraid that when you did finally get back into the land of the living – and I use that term completely unadvisedly – you wouldn’t like it and would try to make your exit. You’re good. I don’t want to lose you. These kids I’m forced to employ these days, some can write, I’ll give you that, but there aren’t many that come along who have that extra spark that you have, that can invest a story with a bit of spirit, with the stuff that makes the punters want to come back for more. You’re good, lad, you’re good. If it’s money …’

  ‘No, Harry, the money’s irrelevant.’ Michael leaned forward in his seat. ‘Look, I’ve always been straight with you. Let me explain what’s really going on.’

  And so, Michael recounted to Harry what he had discovered about Rosa’s relationship with the unknown Italian. He explained that he had to find out more about her life in the last few months. ‘And, of course, I do also need to get her book finished. I’m meeting with the publisher this afternoon. I just feel it will be a lasting memorial to her.’ He looked down at his shoes, musing on his lack of anger. ‘Her work deserves it, in spite of what she might have been doing to me personally.’

  Harry sat back and shook his head. ‘My God, lad! That’s terrible. Terrible.’ His Welsh accent drew out the first syllable of the word ‘terrible’ as if it were a mussel being pulled from a shell on the Anglesey coast. He looked at Michael, shaking his head. ‘You’re sure of this? You know you’ve been through rather a lot in the last few weeks.’

  ‘I’m not going mad, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Harry.’ And then, a little angrily, ‘I’m not bloody paranoid. That’s what has been happening and I want to go back to Italy to find out who this guy is that Rosa was having a thing with. I need to find out why it happened and learn how I could be so stupid as to not see it happening right under my nose.’

  Harry leaned back in his seat and was silent for a moment. ‘You know, old Leo Tolstoy once said something very interesting
, Michael. He said: ‘All newspaper and journalistic activity is an intellectual brothel from which there is no retreat.’ An intellectual brothel, Michael …’ He left a space in the conversation for emphasis.

  Harry often spouted quotes – Michael suspected he devoted some of his time to learning them at weekends, so that he could impress young staffers with his erudition. However, he often misunderstood their meaning, as at this time. ‘But you can generally walk out of brothels, Michael – a little unsteadily, mind you …’ He smiled as if at some distant memory. ‘… but just the same … If you are good at this work – as you undoubtedly are, Michael – there will be no escape. You will end up writing for some newspaper somewhere. And that will piss me off something rotten.’ He paused, thinking for a moment. ‘Look, here’s a thought. I want you to carry on working for me. You want to go to bloody Italy. We can make this work for both of us, make a virtue out of bloody necessity, as it were. You know that kidnapping? The Ronconi daughter? It was not far, I believe, from where your family live, down by Como, somewhere. Old Luigi Ronconi has heavy links with all the right people in Italy, as well as – if we believe the whispers, Michael – all the wrong people. The trail has gone completely cold and the Italian police are beginning to look even more stupid than they usually do. Why not go freelance for me and see what you can dig up? It would make those cretins upstairs happy. They’re trying to persuade me to get everyone to work on a freelance basis. Where’s the bloody loyalty, I keep asking them?’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t really thought …’

  ‘Oh, come on. At the very least it will give you the opportunity to speak to me every now and then. You can tell me about the sunset over the Alps or whatever the bloody mountains are over there. What do you think?’

  Michael considered the offer for no more than a moment. ‘Alright, Harry. You’re on. I’ll see what I can dig up. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Great, lad, great!’ said Harry as a sharp knock on the door was followed by his secretary walking in.

  ‘His Lordship rang down asking if you would just pop upstairs, Mr Jones.’

  ‘Bloody hell. What does he want now?’ he asked, shaking his head.

  They both stood up.

  ‘I’ll get someone to organise a freelance contract for you, Michael.’ He extended his hand and they shook across the ash-dusted desk. ‘You take care of yourself, now, you hear?’

  He wanted to leave almost immediately. Walking out into the street, he felt as if London had virtually ceased to exist for him. He crossed the road and entered Kensington Gardens and watched pigeons clustered around a ragged looking woman who was feeding them crusts of bread. Their wings beat against each other in their furious haste to get as close to her outstretched hands as possible. A smile of utter bliss was etched on her face and she was completely oblivious to the fact that the worn velvet hat she wore was slipping from her head.

  Once it would all have meant something to him – the uniformed nannies pushing expensive prams through the park, the red buses making their way along Bayswater Road – none of it mattered to him anymore. All that mattered … Well what did matter? Rosa’s infidelity was a fact. Perhaps getting away and throwing himself into her book and this kidnap story would help clear his head of it all. A drive down to the Channel and then through France – that would help. Long straight French roads, hyphenated by plane trees, the bark peeling from them and that characteristic white necklace of paint a few feet from the ground. That had always helped.

  By the time he returned home it was set in his mind. Tonight, he would pack and he would leave for Milan first thing in the morning. He would not tell Renzo and Giovanna. He really did not want to see them so soon, and felt that he should create some distance between himself and the bad time of the last month. Making contact with them would only put him back in the midst of it all once more.

  He fell asleep early, at last in the bed he had shared with Rosa. He felt apprehensive. As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered where he would be at this time the following night and through which wall the blue car would come crashing with the limp body of Rosa crucified on its bonnet once more.

  He awoke early and felt refreshed. It was the most sleep he had enjoyed in weeks. He had had the dream, of course, but, having wakened with the first intimations of daylight, he gulped down a glass of cold water, pulled the quilt around himself and had fallen asleep again almost immediately.

  Around eight he stood, looking out of the kitchen window, drinking a coffee. Everything was ready – bills paid, a postcard sent to John to let him know he was off on a job, but not indicating where he had gone, windows locked, electricity switched off.

  As he carried his suitcase to the door around eight, a large envelope fell through. He recognised John’s handwriting on the address label and realised it would be the contact sheets from the rolls of film he had given him a couple of nights ago. He picked it up and put it into the zippered pocket on the outside of the bag, waited until he heard John’s car drive off, opened the door and stepped out of the house.

  6

  November 1943

  Southern slopes

  The Valtellina

  North Italy

  Sandro shivered as a breath of wind rounded the side of the mountain and found its way between the buttons of his coat. Every now and then he would start as a small animal skittered through the undergrowth. From behind him came the soft murmur of deep voices and the occasional crackle as a pocket of gas in a piece of wood on the fire exploded amidst the flames. The smell of meat cooking on the fire drifted towards him and he longed to be closer to the heat of the fire instead of staring into the deadness of this dangerous black night.

  Towards the end of the summer of 1943, as the time rapidly approached when he would be called into the bedraggled Italian army, he had instead joined up with a group of local men who, earlier in the year, had taken up arms against the occupying Germans. It was difficult, however. Everyone had expected that the Allies would be sending money, arms and advisors to help defeat the Germans, but, so far, they had sent nothing. All because in Milan and across the rest of northern Italy, they were busy arguing amongst themselves. Communists were arguing with non-Communists and other factions, some of whom were no more than thieves and killers, added to the Allies’ perception of chaos. Consequently, they were unwilling to provide the necessary back-up that would really give the Germans something to think about and the groups had to make do and mend with stolen weapons and their own initiative rather than a strategy concerted by the OSS or the British Secret Service from their headquarters in Berne.

  Thus, it was an old pre-war rifle of his father’s that Sandro nervously raised to his cheek as he heard a noise behind him.

  ‘You must get warmer clothing,’ a gruff voice said out of the darkness. ‘I think I have an old greatcoat I could let you have, or perhaps we can get you one tomorrow off the body of a dead German. German coats are the best, you know.’

  Sandro could barely make out the shape of Luigi moving up the slope towards him, the darkness was so profound. There was no moon tonight and the stars were hidden behind stormy clouds.

  ‘Here, have some food. It might warm you up.’ He was carrying a metal plate on which was a piece of chicken which had been roasted on the fire at the mouth of the cave in which they were going to spend the night. ‘Only another hour or so and I’ll send Dino up to relieve you.’

  Once again Sandro felt guilt well up in him, as it always did when he talked to Luigi. Angela and he now met and made love on a very regular basis. It had been going on over a period of nine months and had continued even when, with his father’s help, Sandro had joined this group, which was commanded by Luigi Ronconi.

  ‘Oh, th … thank you.’ He was barely able to speak, it was so cold, and he welcomed the warmth of the plate as he grasped it.

  ‘It will be difficult tomorrow, you know,’ said Luigi, turning to look out over the valley. ‘We must take von Stoltenberg alive or it is just a waste of
time. Although I guess, even if he is killed, we will have achieved something, although he would undoubtedly be replaced almost immediately and we would have to start all over again.’ And then, turning solicitously to Sandro; ‘It’ll be your first real piece of action, Sandro. How do you feel?’ Sandro felt Luigi’s big hand clasp his shoulder. The guilt was almost making him sick. ‘Tell me, do you think you’re up to it?’

  ‘Yes, of course, of course, I’m ready to do what has to be done. It’s why I joined in the first place.’

  ‘Good lad. It’s not easy to go to sleep knowing that when you wake up you are likely to kill a man. A man who may have a wife and children, who is loved by people and will be missed by them. You have to know that you’re doing it for the right reason. That’s what separates us from them, the Germans. Our fight is a just fight. Theirs is evil. Tomorrow just do what I tell you. Stay close and use your ammunition wisely. Make every bullet count. And no heroics, remember. Keep your head well down. And remember what we’re fighting for – our freedom and the freedom of our loved ones.’

  He removed his hand from Sandro’s shoulder, smiled, turned and walked back down towards the cave entrance and the warmth of the fire around which the hushed voices of their comrades could just be heard. Over his shoulder he called out: ‘And keep your eyes peeled.’

  The night passed slowly. Sandro’s friend, Dino, who had joined this group at the same time, relieved him, as promised by Luigi, with a grunt and a yawn but Sandro, back in the cave and wrapped in a blanket borrowed from his own bed at home, was unable to do more than doze for short spells. He smelled the smells of his own house from the blanket – he tried to identify them; the cooking smells of the kitchen, herbs and game and cheese, mingling with the scent of mothballs from his father’s wedding suit, which hung in the ancient wardrobe in the corner of his room – so strange out here in the mountains, mixed with the scent of pine needles and damp earth. During the few times that he did drop off, he found himself in the midst of dreams that were exceedingly vivid at the time but completely forgotten on waking. All he could remember was that they had been deeply unsettling.