The Etruscan Net

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘Sindaco Trentanuove?’

  ‘No other.’

  Dindoni pondered. He said, ‘Sindaco Trentanuove is of the Communist party. If they make substantial gains in the local as well as the national elections – the one usually follows the other – his power will be ever greater than it is now. Yes?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Maria. ‘His power to help – and his power to punish.’

  There was a long silence, but Maria sat composedly. She knew that the battle was won.

  ‘If – I only say if – I desired to help, what would I have to do?’

  ‘See Avvocato Riccasoli, and tell him all that you know.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Tonight if you wish.’

  ‘How would it be arranged?’

  ‘He has given me a number to telephone. From there a message will be sent to him. He will arrange the meeting place. With me, it was a shop. With you – who knows. But it will be cleverly done. No one will suspect.’

  ‘And he will pay me money?’

  ‘So much for the information. So much more if you have to speak in Court.’

  Still Dindoni hesitated. He said, ‘How do we know he has this money? Where does he get it all from?’

  ‘There is nothing in that,’ said Maria impatiently. ‘He gets it from the Englishman’s sister. She has come to Florence, stuffed with money, to aid her brother.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Dindoni at last. ‘Telephone. But not from here. Not with those two men downstairs. Are they there now?’

  ‘I do not know, nor do I care. They will not touch us now. They are themselves hiding from the Police. They never come out by day.’

  ‘It is not day,’ said Dindoni. ‘It is night,’ and he shivered.

  ‘Day or night,’ said Maria. ‘What does it matter, if they do not know.’

  All the same, she closed the room door very softly when she went.

  Alone in his attic room, Dindoni found it beyond his power to keep still. He walked to the window, and peered down over the slates. The Via Torta was empty, and ill-lit. But there was a car parked twenty yards up on the right, and he saw the sudden glow of a cigarette. Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat of the car, waiting. Waiting for what? Dindoni swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.

  He walked over to the door, opened it an inch and listened. No sound at all.

  It was when he was walking back towards the bed that he saw it, and his heart turned over in his chest, then tripped and started to pound furiously. There was a red mist in front of his eyes and, as his legs gave way, he gripped the head of the bed to steady himself.

  God in heaven, what a fool he had been! What a blind stupid fool to listen to that whore, Maria! What, in the name of mercy was he to do now?

  As these thoughts, hardly thoughts, promptings of panic, raced through his mind, his eyes kept jerking back, as if hypnotized, to what he had seen.

  It was a small black metal box.

  It was inconspicuously placed, under the corner of the mantelshelf.

  He knew exactly what the box was. He had fixed it with his own hands in Milo Zecchi’s kitchen and had reeled out the thread-like, almost invisible, black wires through a crack in the window frame.

  He knew that if he looked, he would find the wires here. And he knew where they would lead. They would lead to a little room behind the bar which had once been a storeroom, and which now contained a table, two chairs and a truckle-bed.

  ‘I must get out of here,’ said Dindoni. The words were spoken inside his own head. With that treacherous black box listening, it was not safe even to whisper.

  He opened the door, and listened. Still no sound. Hope began to stir. If the men had been in their room, if they had overheard anything, surely they would have moved by now? Maybe they were both out, maybe that infernal machine was switched off.

  Dindoni reached the bar, crossed it, and had put out a hand to open the street door, when it burst open. Dindoni cowered. A red-faced man, whom he had never seen before, strode into the room, rapped on the zinc counter, and said, ‘Service. Why the hell can I never get any service in this dump?’ He glowered at Dindoni, who muttered, ‘The girl – she will be back in a moment,’ and shot out into the street before the man could say any more.

  The stout man and the thin man were standing behind the bead curtain which partitioned off the inner room.

  ‘So,’ said the stout man. ‘He has spotted the box, and is bolting.’

  ‘All the better,’ said the thin man.

  Together they crossed the bar.

  The red-faced man said ‘Service?’ hopefully, but they ignored him, and went out into the street. Dindoni was turning the corner.

  ‘He will make for the crowds,’ said the stout man comfortably.

  ‘He will feel safe in a crowd,’ agreed the thin man.

  They, too, reached the street corner.

  Behind them a car door opened and shut quietly.

  As Dindoni got clear of the house, and the pounding of his heart slowed down, he began to recover the power of thought. His first step must be to contact Maria and warn her. She had gone out to telephone. The nearest boxes were in the Piazza della Signoria. He would look for her there. But if he failed to find her. Could he possibly return to the house?

  Dindoni shuddered.

  He would never return to the house, except with a strong guard of policemen. As this thought crossed his mind, he began to realize the difficulty he was in. For what could he possibly say to the Police? Could he tell them that he had accepted instructions, and money, from two criminals? That he had then been persuaded, by further promises of money, to betray them? That they might have got to know of his intentions; and if so, would have only one objective, to silence him? What would the Police say to all that? They would laugh and tell him to stop reading i gialli.

  It was at this point in his desperate deliberations that Dindoni stepped out of the side road into the street of the Lion, and realized, for the first time, that something was happening.

  A wave of men and women was sweeping up from the Lungarno. It was like the flood, but composed, not of the waters of the Arno, but of a great crowd of citizens. The front rank, as it were the crest of the wave, carried white banners. Behind them rolled a disorderly mob of men and women, singing, bawling slogans, and waving clenched fists aloft.

  A glance at one of the banners showed Dindoni that this was a phalanx of the Communist party, celebrating the closing of the polls and a conviction of victory.

  It was a question of going with them, or going under. Dindoni was sucked into the throng. They seemed to be heading for the Piazza della Signoria, traditional ground for demonstrations.

  Had he been able to keep up with the leaders, all might have been well. Hampered by his crippled leg he could not manage this and, like an inexperienced surf rider, fell back from the crest of the wave, and was sucked into the trough behind.

  Hands grabbed at him. He tripped, and nearly fell. Tripped again. His one thought now was to get out of it, to get to the pavement, to cling on to something solid. He staggered, and nearly went down again.

  This time a strong hand had him by either arm, holding him up, edging him out of the crowd.

  He turned his head, and found himself looking almost down the throat of the thin man, his discoloured teeth showing in a grin of pure enjoyment.

  Dindoni screamed.

  A woman in front of him turned her head and bawled ‘That’s right! Up the Communist party!’

  A mist was clouding Dindoni’s eyes. The strength had gone out of him. His legs were refusing to answer the last flutterings of his will. By the time the two men had dragged him clear of the crowd, and into the comparative calm of a side street, his knees had buckled and his eyes were glazed.

  ‘The gentleman would appear to have fainted,’ said the stout man. ‘What shall we do with him?’

  ‘It would be an unthinkable waste of energy to carry it,’ said the thin man, look
ing down at the crumpled bag of clothes, moaning and twitching on the pavement.

  ‘We could borrow a car,’ suggested the stout man,

  ‘There will be any number to choose from on a night like this. Watch him. I will be back within five minutes.’

  ‘And what do I say if a policeman comes along?’

  ‘Tell him the excitement has been too much for the poor gentleman.’

  Dimly, the noise of the rioting crowds floated up to Commander Comber’s flat, where he, Elizabeth and Tina sat at their regular evening conference. Tonight, the confederacy had an air of optimism. They were discussing their new champion.

  ‘Extraordinary fellow,’ said the Commander. ‘Looks like an old pansy.’

  ‘Pansy?’ said Tina, recalling her conversation with Broke. ‘Finocchio!’

  ‘Yes. But actually nothing of the sort. If half the stories I hear about him are correct, that is.’

  ‘He’s clever,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘Pretty unscrupulous too. I gather he’s simply using Miss Broke’s money to bribe Maria and Dindoni.’

  ‘Not exactly bribe. What he says is that before he can plan the defence he’s got to find out what happened. And the only person who can really tell him that is Dindoni.’

  Tina said, ‘Dindoni is a – I can tell you the word in Italian, but I cannot translate it.’ She told him the word in Italian.

  ‘Better leave it untranslated,’ said the Commander. ‘What a row those chaps are making.’ He moved across to the window. There were lines of tossing lights where torch-lit processions wound through the streets, and a more solid glare from the direction of the Palazzo Vecchio.

  ‘If they don’t look out,’ said Elizabeth, ‘they’ll set the town on fire.’

  Miss Plant was saying the same thing to Sir Gerald Weighill. She had narrowly escaped a crowd pouring down the Lungarno, and had dived into the Consulate for sanctuary.

  ‘It’s so stupid. They don’t even know the result of the poll yet. That won’t be out until tomorrow.’

  ‘That enables all parties to rejoice tonight,’ said the Consul. ‘Anticipation always beats realization.’

  ‘It’s my anticipation,’ said Miss Plant, ‘that we shall have a conflagration. It might be very serious. This dry weather has made everything like tinder. A fire to windward could burn down half the city.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely.’

  ‘People didn’t think the flood was likely.’

  The Sindaco sat in his office with the window open on the street. He had studied the straw-votes and opinion polls, and the smell of victory was in his nostrils. It would not be an out-and-out victory. Indeed, such a thing would have been embarrassing. The Communist party was not equipped, with talent or experience, to run the whole Government. But an increase in votes would automatically mean an increase in offices and influence. They might become the dominant partner in a coalition.

  The Sindaco stepped up to the window. A passing band of youths recognized him, and threw up hands in greeting.

  The Sindaco raised his own clenched fist in reply.

  To Broke, in his cell in the Murate prison, the noise of rejoicing came muted, like the surge on a distant shore. It did not register as a matter deserving any particular attention. It was, as he was coming to realize, one of the compensations of imprisonment that what went on in the outside world affected you very little.

  Even that great question, which should have occupied his mind day and night, the outcome of his trial, had ceased to be a matter of paramount interest. Things of more immediate concern were crowding it out. What food he would get at the next meal? When he would be allowed his next bath? Might he be forced to share a cell with another prisoner? He sincerely hoped not. He was entirely satisfied with his own company and the solace of books.

  Paradise Lost was open on the bunk beside him. In his leisurely reading he had got as far as Book Eight.

  What callest thou solitude? Is not the earth

  With various living creatures, and the air

  Replenished: And all those at thy command

  To come and play before thee. Knowest thou not

  Their language and their ways?

  That was really more Robinson Crusoe with his cat and his parrots. There were prisoners who had made friends of mice. Even of spiders, he had read. It would take a very long time to understand their language and their ways.

  They also know

  And reason, not contemptibly. With these

  Find pastime and bear rule. Thy realm is large.

  ‘Thy realm is large,’ Broke repeated the words to himself, over and over again. He felt a curious form of contentment. He recognized that it might only be numbness; a lack of feeling as the anaesthetic took charge.

  Probably, it was wrong to let go. Certainly he was letting down all those good friends of his outside who were rallying to his cause. He must not forget them. He must get a grip on himself.

  He picked up the book and continued to read.

  By midnight Florence was aglow with lights and bonfires, but the night was calm, and there seemed no danger of the general conflagaration which Miss Plant had feared. It was all the more inexplicable that farmer Pietro Agostini, whose holding lay a full five kilometres outside the city bounds, coming out for a final inspection of his outhouses, should have found a hay and fern stack already well alight.

  He bawled for his wife, who came running.

  ‘Telephone for the fire brigade.’

  ‘What use,’ said his wife. ‘The brigades will all be fully occupied in the town. It will burn out. We are well insured.’

  ‘As long as the sparks catch nothing else,’ said Agostini. He moved nearer the rick, and sniffed.

  ‘How do you suppose it happened?’ said his wife. ‘Perhaps one of the men was careless with a cigarette. I have warned them before. What is the matter?’

  ‘The matter,’ said Agostini, ‘is that I can smell petrol. Come closer.’

  He shielded his hand against the heat which was building up. His wife sidled up to him. She, too, could smell the pungent reek.

  Her scream and her husband’s shout of horror came together. A truss of blazing straw fell away and showed them, projecting from the heart of the fire, a single human leg.

  Agostini darted forward, realized that he could do nothing, and fell back, swearing.

  He could see, more clearly as the flames threw up more light, that the foot at the end of the leg wore a curiously shaped brown boot with a built-up surgical sole.

  Part Three

  The Wheels Turn

  1

  Colonel Doria

  On 17 July the political correspondent of Osservatore Romano reported that the President of the Republic had spent two hours in conclave with Doctor Pasquale, head of the Christian Democrat Party. He gave his readers a summary of the discussions which had taken place behind closed doors at the Quirinale. Since the political correspondent had certainly not been invited to be present at this discussion, much of the report must have been intelligent guesswork, depending on the device, well-known to political correspondents, of stating, as fact, matters which, given certain premises, must logically transpire.

  The elections, so recently and hectically concluded, had produced no clear-cut mandate for any party. The Christian Democrats had suffered marginal losses. Their normal allies, the loosely knit collection who called themselves, with singular inaccuracy, the United Socialists, had lost nearly a third of their seats. Almost the whole of these had gone to the Communists, who were now, by some way, the largest minority party in the Chamber of Deputies.

  The United Socialists had apparently concluded that this electoral set-back was due to acting for too long as fifth wheel to the chariot of the Christian Democrats, attracting to themselves most of the unpopularity which tends to gather round a coalition. They had therefore refused to take part in the caretaker government which, as was customary, followed the elections.

  The problem before the Presid
ent, said the Osservatore’s correspondent, underlining the obvious with a heavy pencil, was to persuade the leader of the Christian Democrats to form at least a loose alliance with the Communists, in order to produce a government which would not be outvoted in the chamber every day of the week. It would not be a coalition. Neither party was ready for that. It would be a working arrangement.

  What was, however, quite clear, was that the Communists would not co-operate unless they were given some substantial inducement to do so. This inducement must include one or more of the key ministries. The price which the Communists were thought to be demanding was the Ministry of the Interior. ‘Was that,’ asked the writer, ‘too heavy a price to pay?’

  Since the two hours of discussion resulted in no apparent moves, he concluded that it was. But stalemate had not yet been reached. After all, there were other ministries – the Exterior; Grace and Justice; Defence; Agriculture.

  ‘The next few days,’ the correspondent had written in the original version of his article, ‘will no doubt reveal which of these important posts is to be handed over to a party which has, in the past, openly dedicated itself to the destruction of the machinery of government and justice.’

  The Editor, however, reflecting that they might yet see a Communist as Minister of the Interior, had prudently deleted this final comment.

  ‘I cannot disguise from you,’ said Avvocato Riccasoli sadly, ‘that it constitutes a heavy blow to our hopes. If we had available to us the testimony of Dindoni, however unwillingly given, I should have rated our chances high. Now that he is gone, I scarcely like to give you too much encouragement.’

  ‘I take it there’s no doubt that it was Dindoni,’ said the Commander.

  The conference was taking place in his flat. Elizabeth looked depressed. Tina had been crying.

  ‘It is true,’ said Riccasoli, ‘that by the time the fire was finally brought under control, early on the following morning – this I had from the farmer – the body was almost entirely consumed. But three facts are inescapable. First, that Dindoni has completely disappeared. Secondly, that an examination of the bone structure of the body shows a deformed hip. And finally, that the farmer, in the instant before the fire took control, clearly saw a brown boot with a surgical sole such as Dindoni was wearing.’