Coertze swore. ‘How the hell did she get to know about it?’
‘Alberto wrote a letter before he was killed.’
Coertze and Walker exchanged looks, and after a pregnant silence, Coertze said, ‘So Alberto was going to give us away, after all.’
I said, ‘He did give you away.’
‘Then why is the gold still there?’ demanded Coertze.
‘The letter was incomplete,’ I said. ‘It didn’t say exactly where the gold is.’
Coertze sighed windily. ‘Well, there’s not too much damage done.’
I fretted at his stupidity. ‘How do you suppose we’re going to get it out with half of Italy watching us?’ I asked. ‘She’s been on to you all the time—she’s watched you every time you’ve been in Italy and she’s been laughing at you. And she knows there’s something big under way now.’
‘That bitch would laugh at me,’ said Coertze viciously. ‘She always treated me like dirt. I suppose the Count has been laughing like hell, too.’
I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. ‘She says the Count knows nothing about it. Tell me about him.’
‘The Count? Oh, he’s an old no-good now. He didn’t get his estates back after the war—I don’t know why—and he’s as poor as a church mouse. He lives in a poky flat in Milan with hardly enough room to swing a cat.’
‘Who supports him?’
Coertze shrugged. ‘I dunno. Maybe she does—she can afford it. She married a Roman count; I heard he was stinking rich, so I suppose she passes on some of the housekeeping money to the old boy.’
‘Why don’t you like her?’
‘Oh, she’s one of these stuck-up society bitches—I never did like that kind. We get plenty in Houghton, but they’re worse here. She wouldn’t give me the time of day. Not like her old man. I get on well with him.’
I thought perhaps that on one of his visits to Italy Coertze had made a pass at her and been well and truly slapped down. A pass from Coertze would be clumsy and graceless, like being propositioned by a gorilla.
I said, ‘Was she around often during the times you were in Italy?’
He thought about that, and said, ‘Sometimes. She turned up at least once on every trip.’
‘That’s all she’d need. To locate you, I mean. She seems to have a circle of pretty useful friends and apparently they’re not the crowd you’d think a girl like that would mix with. She picked up Metcalfe’s signals to the Mediterranean ports and interpreted them correctly, so it looks as though she has brains as well as beauty.’
Coertze snorted. ‘Beauty! She’s a skinny bitch.’
She had got under his skin. I said, ‘That may be, but she’s got us cold. We can’t do a damn’ thing while she’s on our necks. To say nothing of Metcalfe, who’ll be on to us next. Funny that he hasn’t shown his hand in Rapallo yet.’
‘I tell you he’s scared off,’ growled Coertze.
I let that pass. ‘Anyway, we can’t do any heavy thinking about it until we find out exactly what she wants. I’m seeing her tomorrow morning, so perhaps I’ll be able to tell you more after that.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Coertze instantly.
‘She wants to see me, not you,’ I said. ‘That was something she specified.’
‘The bloody little bitch,’ exploded Coertze.
‘And for God’s sake, think up another word; I’m tired of that one,’ I said irritably.
He glowered at me. ‘You falling for her?’
I said wearily, ‘I don’t know the woman—I’ve seen her for just fifteen minutes. I’ll be better able to tell you about that tomorrow, too.’
‘Did she say anything about me?’ asked Walker.
‘No,’ I lied. There wasn’t any point in having both of them irritated at her—it was likely that we’d all have to work closely together, and the less friction the better. ‘But I’d better see her alone.’
Coertze growled under his breath, and I said, ‘Don’t worry; neither she nor I know where the gold is. We still need you—she and I and Metcalfe. We mustn’t forget Metcalfe.’
III
Early next morning I went to find the Three Fishes. It was just an ordinary dockside café, the kind of dump you find on any waterfront. Having marked it, I went for a stroll round the yacht basin, looking at the sleek sailing yachts and motor craft of the European rich. A lot were big boats needing a paid crew to handle them while the owner and his guests took it easy, but some were more to my taste—small, handy sailing cruisers run by their owners who weren’t afraid of a bit of work.
After a pleasant hour I began to feel hungry so I went back to the Three Fishes for a late breakfast and got there on the dot of nine. She wasn’t there, so I ordered breakfast and it turned out better than I expected. I had just started to eat when she slid into the seat opposite.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said.
‘That’s O.K.’
She was wearing slacks and sweater, the kind of clothes you see in the women’s magazines but seldom in real life. The sweater suited her.
She looked at my plate and said, ‘I had an early breakfast, but I think I’ll have another. Do you mind if I join you?’
‘It’s your party.’
‘The food is good here,’ she said, and called a waiter, ordering in rapid Italian. I continued to eat and said nothing. It was up to her to make the first move. As I had said—it was her party.
She didn’t say anything, either; but just watched me eat. When her own breakfast arrived she attacked it as though she hadn’t eaten for a week. She was a healthy girl with a healthy appetite. I finished my breakfast and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked.
I caught her with her mouth full and she shook her head, so I lit a cigarette. At last she pushed her plate aside with a sigh and took the cigarette I offered. ‘Do you know our Espresso?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I know it.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I forgot that it must have penetrated even your Darkest Africa. It is supposed to be for after dinner, but I drink it all the time. Would you like some?’
I said that I would, so she called out to the waiter, ‘Due Espressi,’ and turned back to me. ‘Well, Mr Halloran, have you thought about our conversation last night?’
I said I had thought about it.
‘And so?’
‘And so,’ I repeated. ‘Or more precisely—so what? I’ll need to know a lot more about you before I start confiding in you, Contessa.’
She seemed put out. ‘Don’t call me Contessa,’ she said pettishly. ‘What do you want to know?’
I flicked ash into the ashtray. ‘For one thing, how did you intercept Metcalfe’s message? It doesn’t seem a likely thing for a Contessa to come across—just like that.’
‘I told you I have friends,’ she said coldly.
‘Who are these friends?’
She sighed. ‘You know that my father and I were rebels against the Fascist Government during the war?’
‘You were with the partisans, I know.’
She gestured with her hand. ‘All right, with the partisans, if you wish. Although do not let my friends hear you say that—the Communists have made it a dirty word. My friends were also partisans and I have never lost contact with them. You see, I was only a little girl at the time and they made me a sort of mascot of the brigade. After the war most of them went back to their work, but some of them had never known any sort of life other than killing Germans. It is a hard thing to forget, you understand?’
I said, ‘You mean they’d had a taste of adventure, and liked it.’
‘That is right. There was plenty of adventure even after the war. Some of them stopped killing Germans and started to kill Communists—Italian Communists. It was dreadful. But the Communists were too strong, anyway. A few turned to other adventures—some are criminals—nothing serious, you understand; some smuggling, some things worse, but nothing very terrible in most cases. Being criminals, they also know other criminals.’
I began to see how it had been worked; it was all very logical, really.
‘There is a big man in Genoa, Torloni; he is a leader of criminals, a very big man in that sort of thing. He sent word to Savona, to Livorno, to Rapallo, to places as far south as Napoli, that he was interested in you and would pay for any information. He gave all your names and the name of your boat.’
That was the sort of pull Metcalfe would have. Probably this Torloni owed him a favour and was paying it off.
Francesca said, ‘My friends heard the name—Coertze. It is very uncommon in Italy, and they knew I was interested in a man of that name, so I was told of this. When I also heard the name of Walker I was sure that something was happening.’ She shrugged. ‘And then there was this Halloran—you. I did not know about you, so I am finding out.’
‘Has Torloni been told about us?’
She shook her head. ‘I told my friends to see that Torloni was not told. My friends are very strong on this coast; during the war all these hills belonged to us—not to the Germans.’
I began to get the picture. Francesca had been the mascot and, besides, she was the daughter of the revered leader. She was the Lady of the Manor, the Young Mistress who could do no wrong.
It looked also as though, just by chance, Metcalfe had been stymied—temporarily, at least. But I was landed with Francesca and her gang of merry men who had the advantage of knowing just what they wanted.
I said, ‘There’s another thing. You said your father doesn’t know anything about this. How can that be when Alberto Corso wrote him a letter?’
‘I never gave it to him,’ she said simply.
I looked at her quizzically. ‘Is that how a daughter behaves to her father? Not only reading his correspondence, but withholding it as well.’
‘It was not like that at all,’ she said sharply. ‘I will tell you how it was.’ She leaned her elbows on the table. ‘I was very young during the war, but my father made me work, everyone had to work. It was one of my tasks to gather together the possessions of those who were killed so that useful things could be saved and anything personal could be passed on to the family.
‘When Alberto was killed on the cliff I gathered his few things and I found the letter. It was addressed to my father and there were two pages, otherwise it was unfinished. I read it briefly and it seemed important, but how important it was I did not know because I was very young. I put it in my pocket to give to my father.
‘But there was a German attack and we had to move. We sheltered in a farmhouse but we had to move even from there very quickly. Now, I carried my own possessions in a little tin box and that was left in the farmhouse. It was only in 1946 that I went back to the farm to thank those people—the first chance I had.
‘They gave me wine and then the farmer’s wife brought out the little box and asked it if was mine. I had forgotten all about it and I had forgotten what was in it.’ She smiled. ‘There was a doll—no, not a doll; what you call an…Eddy-bear?’
‘A Teddy-bear.’
‘That is right; a Teddy-bear—I have still got it. There were some other things and Alberto’s letter was there also.’
I said, ‘And you still didn’t give it to your father. Why not?’
She thumped the table with a small fist. ‘It is difficult for you to understand the Italy of just after the war, but I will try to explain. The Communists were very strong, especially here in the north, and they ruined my father after the war. They said he had been a collaborationist and that he had fought the Communist partisans instead of fighting the Fascists. My father, who had been fighting the Fascists all his life! They brought up false evidence and no one would listen to him.
‘His estates had been confiscated by the Fascist Government and he could not get them back. How could he when Togliatti, the Vice-Premier of the Government, was the leader of the Italian Communist Party? They said, ‘No, this man was a collaborator, so he must be punished. But even with all their false evidence they dared not bring him to trial, but he could not get back his estates, and today he is a poor man.’
Francesca’s eyes were full of tears. She wiped them with a tissue and said, ‘Excuse me, but my feeling on this is strong.’
I said awkwardly, ‘That’s all right.’
She looked up and said, ‘These Communists with their fighting against the Fascists. My father fought ten times harder than any of them. Have you heard of the 52nd Partisan Brigade?’
I shook my head.
‘That was the famous Communist Brigade which captured Mussolini. The famous Garibaldi Brigade. Do you know how many men were in this so-famous Garibaldi Brigade in 1945?’
I said, ‘I know very little about it.’
‘Eighteen men,’ she said contemptuously. ‘Eighteen men called themselves the 52nd Brigade. My father commanded fifty times as many men. But when I went to Parma for the anniversary celebrations in 1949 the Garibaldi Brigade marched through the street and there were hundreds of men. All the Communist scum had crawled out of their holes now the war was over and it was safe. They marched through the streets and every man wore a red scarf about his neck and every man called himself a partisan. They even painted the statue of Garibaldi so that it had a red shirt and a red hat. So my friends and I do not call ourselves partisans, and you must not call us by that word the Communists have made a mockery of.’
She was shaking with rage. Her fists were clenched and she looked at me with eyes bright with unshed tears.
‘The Communists ruined my father because they knew he was a strong man and because they knew he would oppose them in Italy. He was a liberal, he was for the middle of the road—the middle way. He who is in the middle of the road gets knocked down, but he could not understand that,’ she said sombrely. ‘He thought it was an honourable fight—as though the Communists have ever fought honourably.’
It was a moving story and typical of our times. I also observed that it fitted with what Coertze had told me. I said, ‘But the Communists are not nearly as strong today. Is it not possible for your father to appeal and to have his case reviewed?’
‘Mud sticks, whoever throws it,’ she said sadly. ‘Besides, the war was a long time ago—people do not like to be reminded about those times—and people, especially officials, never like to admit their mistakes.’
She was realistic about the world and I realized that I must be realistic too. I said, ‘But what has this got to do with the letter?’
‘You wanted to know why I did not give the letter to my father after the war; is that so?’
‘Yes.’
She smiled tightly. ‘You must meet my father and then you would understand. You see, whatever you are looking for is valuable. I understood from Alberto’s letter that there are papers and a lot of gold bars. Now, my father is an honourable man. He would return everything to the Government because from the Government it came. To him, it would be unthinkable to keep any of the gold for himself. It would be dishonourable.’
She looked down at the backs of her hands. ‘Now, I am not an honourable woman. It hurts me to see my father so poor he has to live in a Milan slum, that he has to sell his furniture to buy food to eat. He is an old man—it is not right that he should live like that. But if I can get some money I would see that he had a happy old age. He does not need to know where the money comes from.’
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her thoughtfully. I looked at the expensive, fashion-plate clothing she was wearing, and she coloured under my scrutiny. I said softly, ‘Why don’t you send him money? I hear you made a good marriage; you ought to be able to spare a little for an old man.’
Her lips twisted in a harsh smile. ‘You don’t know anything about me, do you, Mr Halloran? I can assure you that I have no money and no husband, either—or no one that I would care to call my husband.’ She moved her hands forward on the table. ‘I sold my rings to get money to send to my father, and that was a long time ago. If it were not for my friends I would be on the stree
ts. No, I have no money, Mr Halloran.’
There was something here I did not understand, but I didn’t press it. The reason she wanted to cut in didn’t matter; all that mattered was she had us over a barrel. With her connections we could not make a move in Italy without falling over an ex-partisan friend of hers. If we tried to lift the gold without coming to terms with her she would coolly step in at the right time and take the lot. She had us taped.
I said, ‘You’re as bad as Metcalfe.’
‘That is something I wanted to ask you,’ she said. ‘Who is this Metcalfe?’
‘He’s up to the same lark that you are.’
Her command of English was not up to that. ‘Lark?’ she said in mystification. ‘That is a bird?’
I said, ‘He’s one of our mutual competitors. He’s after the gold, too.’ I leaned over the table. ‘Now, if we cut you in, we would want certain guarantees.’
‘I do not think you are in a position to demand guarantees,’ she said coldly.
‘Nevertheless, we would want them. Don’t worry, this is in your interest, too. Metcalfe is the man behind Torloni and he’s quite a boy. Now, we would want protection against Metcalfe and anything he could throw against us. From what you’ve said, Torloni carries a bit of weight, and if he hasn’t got enough, Metcalfe can probably drum up some more. What I want to know is—can you give us protection against that lot?’
‘I can find a hundred men, any time I want,’ she said proudly.
‘What kind of men?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Old soldiers on pension?’
She smiled. ‘Most of my wartime friends live quietly and go about their work. I would not want them to be mixed up in anything illegal or violent, although they would help if they had to. But my…’ she hesitated for a word, ‘…my more unsavoury friends I would willingly commit to this affair. I told you they are adventurous and they are not old men—no older than you, Mr Halloran,’ she ended sweetly.
‘A hundred of them?’
She thought a little. ‘Fifty, then,’ she compromised. ‘My father’s hill fighters will be more than a match for those dockland gangsters.’
The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter Page 11
