Shout in the Dark

by Christopher Wright

  Chapter 20

  Rome

  KESSEL WAS SHORT of temper. Otto Bayer seemed to be treating this trip to Italy as a holiday, wanting to photograph the sights at every opportunity.

  Two fruitless days spent driving round the Roman countryside looking for deserted monasteries, with a Hasselblad camera and an equipment case full of lenses, was a shameless combination of business with pleasure: Otto Bayer's business and Otto Bayer's pleasure. This man was making money whether they found the relic or not. Kessel needed things to happen fast. The longer the search took, the more time there was for either Bruno or Phönix to interfere.

  If the monks were still at the monastery they would surely know something about the relic. With a bit of luck they would still have it. Getting it from them was a problem for Karl to solve. Otto had promised much but always failed to deliver. So where was that monastery? The photographer was useless.

  "Anhalten!" Kessel gave his instructions to the short-sleeved Otto who was browning his left arm on the frame of the open window as he drove. "Give me the phone. I have to make a private call."

  Otto dutifully pulled off the road onto a dusty patch under the shadow of a row of pines. Kessel reached forward and unlatched the cell phone from its cradle. He walked a suitable distance from the car and dialed a Rome number, a dread in his heart. He was doing the thing he had vowed he would never do again; never since he had finally settled in Germany.

  The phone was answered. "This is Renata Bastiani. Who is it?"

  "Mamma? It's Enzo!" How he loathed his old Italian name. The hurt went too deep for the wounds to heal, and the tone of his mother's voice brought back vivid images of his childhood. He could feel the sweat running from his face, and it was already marking his shirt with dark patches.

  He turned to see both Otto and Karl watching from the car with interest. He dabbed at his face with his handkerchief. Damn those two.

  "Let me come and see you, Mamma... Yes, I'd like to come this evening. At eight?... Bruno? Is he there with you now?... No, of course I don't want to see him. Make sure he's gone or I... Yes, eight o'clock."

  He switched off the phone. He should have guessed that Bruno was living at home again. Bruno was always running home to Mamma. There was no way he would meet that Jewboy from his bleak childhood.

  If Bruno had flown to Köln to see the Bayers, he must also be after the relic. What possible interest could it be to a left wing fanatic? Karl must not dispose of Bruno until that question had been answered.

  He hurried back to the car while Karl and Otto continued to stare out at him.

  "What's the matter with you two?" he snapped. "Haven't you seen anyone use a phone before? Wake up, Otto, and get us back to Rome. I have an appointment this evening -- but first I'm taking you to see the sights."

  Colosseum

  GINA PEPINO WAS the thinnest of the Gypsy children, and the oldest. With two brothers and a sister to support, as well as a disabled father, and a mother always too busy to leave the caravans, she was in charge of the family purse. Disabled or not, her father Guido seemed nimble enough to get here every evening to keep an eye on things, and later in the evening to leave them while he went to meet his friends in one of the bars. Gina often thought it was a pity there was no work her father could manage during the day.

  Earning money near the Colosseum was never a problem. In the summer there was more money around and more valuables of every sort, but in any season the pickings were sufficient for her family to exist in some luxury. She knew of other Gypsy families who were ill and dying from disease. In the winter the cold could kill any of them, but perhaps even the rich Romans found the cold of winter deadly. Now in the summer it was the heat beating down on their caravans that caused the problems.

  On this day as every other day in the tourist season, Gina and two of her brothers were playing with a large sheet of cardboard by the side of the Via dei Fori Imperiali. The wide, straight street was Gina's idea of an avenue up to heaven, except that instead of the celestial city this one ended at a tumbledown, circular building that attracted never-ending coachloads of rich people.

  With her mid-brown hair and eyes of the darkest chocolate, Gina knew some tourists considered her cute. She heard them saying it. But her dark eyes were set deep in a face of harsh skin. Lack of care and nourishment seemed to have turned her into an old woman at the age of twelve.

  She and her brothers were on the lookout for two or three tourists on their own. Laughing, her brothers would push the large sheet of cardboard at the tourists' faces, making it seem like a game and getting the visitors to Rome to join in the fun. It was simple and it paid for food.

  OTTO PARKED his Audi in one of the narrow roads at the back of the amphitheatre and set the alarm. It paid to be careful with a stylish station wagon in a place like this, he told Kessel.

  Karl was already pushing on ahead, making his way through the early evening sightseers to cross the busy street. Kessel hurried to catch up, leaving Otto some way behind. "Tell me, Karl, do you like the car?"

  "An Audi? It's looks good enough to me, Herr Kessel."

  "Serve Achtzehn Deutschland Reinigung well and a car like that could be yours. Maybe even that one."

  Karl opened his mouth and stared. "When?"

  "I'll tell you when. Quiet now, here comes Otto."

  The Colosseum was still open to visitors. "Quite staggering when you get close," observed Kessel as they entered one of the huge arches, adding with a laugh, "The Colosseum was once a place of extermination for the undesirables, Karl."

  "Its real name is the Flavian Amphitheatre, Herr Kessel. It was like a football ground. Eighty numbered entrances and fifty thousand spectators. I've been reading your guide book."

  The young neo-Nazi showed a surprising knowledge. Kessel again saw Karl Bretz in a new light. Perhaps he wasn't quite the Dummkopf he appeared on the surface.

  "And it only took eight years to build," added Karl.

  Three ragged children were playing in the street, poor children without shoes. They seemed to be having fun with a large piece of cardboard, chasing each other and squealing with laughter. Suddenly the brats were at their feet.

  "Spare some money for an ice-cream, signori?" pleaded the eldest.

  Kessel, always suspicious of begging children, instinctively held his hand against his trouser pocket to guard his wallet. "Certamente no!" His Italian was perfect and his loud voice usually frightened beggars away.

  Up came the cardboard sheet, forcing him to throw his head back to avoid being hit. To the children it was obviously just a bit of fun, making the adults raise their heads out of danger. To Kessel, unaware at that moment of the busy little hands working unseen below the cardboard, it was annoying in the extreme. Then as suddenly as they had appeared the laughing children ran off up the grass towards some bushes.

  "What did they want?" asked Karl.

  "Money for ice cream. Beggars on the streets! Where are the carabinieri, that's what I'd... Those filthy kids! They've taken my wallet! It has details of the ADR in it!"

  Karl was quick despite his lumbering frame -- too quick for undernourished Gypsy children. Gina and her brothers were just cresting the top of the grassy slope when he caught up with them. Gina screamed with terror as she took a last look at the big man before darting behind a wall.

  Karl slid round the corner on the dry grass, catching hold of the wall to reduce his speed for the sharp turn. His reactions were slowed and he was unable to change from hunter to hunted. The blade slashed across his right arm. Facing him, knife at arm's length, was Guido Pepino.

  The Gypsy children cowered behind their small, dark-skinned father. Karl drew his Göring dagger before a second blow could do any damage. With blood oozing from his forearm, he deliberately dived to the ground and rolled over. His training had been sound. As his body came full circle he swept himself upright, dagger ahead, thrusting upwards with the full weight of his moving body behind it.

  The Gypsy had prob
ably not expected such skill and speed. Karl's dagger went deep into Guido Pepino's thigh. The Gypsy pulled himself away, horror on his dirt-ingrained face. His knife fell to the ground as he clutched his leg. Karl struck again, aiming for the stomach but hitting the lower ribs instead.

  As their father fell, a scream went up from the children. Karl grabbed the terrified girl, holding the Göring dagger, bright red with blood, to her throat.

  "Where's the wallet?" he yelled, ignoring the man twisting in agony at his feet.

  The children, probably unable to understand German, seemed to interpret the question from the desperation in the large man's voice. The sight of their father's blood on the foreigner's knife scared them.

  "Si, si!" the girl replied earnestly, pulling the wallet from beneath her dress.

  Nursing his slashed arm Karl returned to the main street, the wallet held tightly in his hand. The children ran ahead, pleading with the gathering crowd to come and help their father.

  A carabinieri car, cruising the Via dei Fori Imperiali, did a slow U-turn to investigate the commotion. As the hysterical Gina started to cry loudly, Karl wrapped his arm in his hastily removed sweatshirt and melted into the crowd. Within seconds, he had blended in with the tourists taking an evening stroll around the Colosseum.

  While the Gypsy was taken in a critical condition to the local hospital with a perforated lung, his children were probably already planning to be back the next day playing tricks with their sheet of cardboard to amuse the wealthy tourists.

  "You're a fool!" said Kessel coldly. He patted the wallet. "But, Karl, thanks for getting it back. There are too many names in there for it to fall into the wrong hands."

  "It was your own fault, Herr Kessel," said Karl calmly. "The worst thing you can do when you fear pickpockets is to check the pocket it's in. Those kids knew exactly where your wallet was."

  Kessel ignored him. He didn't need lessons from this overweight youth. "Otto, I've had enough of this ruin. Drop me somewhere down by the Palazzo Venezia. I've got someone to see at eight but I want to get my hair cut first. Take Karl back to the hotel and keep him out of sight. Don't go near a hospital: the carabinieri will be looking for a man with knife wounds."

  "That's great!" groaned Karl. "What do you want me to do, bleed to death?"

  "Find a pharmacy, Otto. Get a big sticking plaster for that arm of his, but make sure he stays in the car. I'll give you some... Those bloody Gypsies! They've been in here! They've had my little notebook of phone numbers. And my credit card. We're going to be short of money!"

  "Most of your money's in the hotel safe," Karl said reassuringly. "It's okay, Herr Kessel, I'll get your card stopped. You go to your appointment. I don't mind speaking to the bank -- if you've got their number."

  "Of course I haven't got the number! Um Gottes willen, Karl! I've just told you: the phone list has been stolen!"

  "I know how to cancel a credit card," said Otto, starting the engine of his Audi. "I always keep the number in my wallet."

  Kessel gave a dry smile and reached into an inner pocket. "Those kids missed this." He pulled out a charge card. "There's not a lot of money on it. I keep it for emergencies. And I've still got my driving license, for what it's worth." He wanted to appear in control of the situation. "Karl's right, we have enough money at the hotel for a few days. We'll be all right as soon as the new card comes. Get it sent to the hotel by express post, Karl, and I'm trusting you to cancel the old one. Those Gypsies have probably sold it by now."

  "Leave it to me, Herr Kessel."

  "Thanks." Kessel leaned across to Karl and spoke softly to avoid Otto overhearing. "You'll be all right, Otto's going to look after you until I get back. But don't ask him to show you any photos of his mother."