There was a short biography inset into the photograph with his name and dates. His family had apparently owned and worked land around Ginosa for three hundred years. Too young himself for active service in the Second World War, he’d volunteered for the Genio Guastatori instead, helping to clear Italy’s battlefields of unexploded munitions. It had given him a love for metal detection that had lasted his whole life. He’d been a common sight in the fields and valleys around Ginosa, particularly after his retirement, sweeping them for the artefacts here on display. Unfortunately, his passion for treasure hunting hadn’t been matched by diligence at record keeping, so it was impossible to say precisely where each piece was found, but the collection as a whole gave a fascinating glimpse of the town and larger region’s long and vibrant history.
There were glass-topped display cabinets against the walls, and more running down the centre, with the exhibits arranged thematically rather than by era. The first two had a military motif, with arrowheads, a shell casing, various military buttons, a pair of pitted knives and what was optimistically billed as the hilt of a Roman short sword. Then came jewellery, with rings, bracelets and other pieces – as well as colour photographs of Vittorio’s ring and brooches, their absence explained by a faded photocopy of a newspaper article about the theft.
Farm implements. Cutlery through the ages. Coins of varying vintages and interest. The gold solidus had been the star of that particular show, its absence again marked and explained by the same photocopied clipping. But there were other interesting coins too, staters from Magna Graecia all the way up to rare lire from the Italian Republic, along with others in too poor condition to identify, artfully arranged to spill out of a pair of small wooden chests. None that Carmen could see could plausibly be attributed to Alaric or his Visigoths, however, so she glanced at Zara with an apologetic smile, hoping that she wouldn’t hold this wasted trip against her, only to be startled by her flushed face and shining eyes. She asked the question with an eyebrow. Zara hesitated then pointed to the left of the two troves. ‘The one with the cup.’
Carmen leaned closer. The glass lid was old and scratched, and the way the strip lighting reflected made it hard to be sure. But yes, one of the coins did indeed seem to be stamped with a cup. ‘And?’ she asked.
Again that hesitation. ‘I’d need to see the other side.’ She made her way back to reception. Carmen could hear her talking animatedly. Then she reappeared with the receptionist, who unlocked the glass lid and lifted it like a bonnet. Zara pointed to the coin. The receptionist pulled on a pair of loose white gloves then took it delicately between her fingers, turned it to its obverse. Carmen peered closely. Again, she could see a design, but it was almost impossible to make out what. ‘A fleur-de-lis?’ she hazarded.
‘No,’ said Zara. ‘Three fruits hanging from a branch.’
‘Oh. Yes.’ She saw it now. ‘Well?’
‘A half-shekel. Year two of the Siege of Jerusalem.’
‘A half-shekel?’ frowned Carmen. ‘But that makes no…’ She stopped herself then gazed at Zara in astonishment. When Titus had led the Roman army to Israel to suppress the Great Revolt, thousands of rural Jews had fled to Jerusalem for sanctuary. They’d stayed there for the next three years, during which time they’d minted their own coins – including this one, apparently – until Titus had finally seized the city and torn down the temple, stripping both of their wealth and treasures to take back to Rome in triumph. And, realising that, Carmen realised something else too. It wasn’t Alaric himself that had brought Zara here from Sorrento. It was the whiff of sacred treasures.
The larger mystery remained, however. What was this coin doing in Ginosa at all? The coin and the sealstone too? Carmen wandered back over to the photograph of Genaro Scopece, the man who’d found them both, whose family had lived here for three hundred years and who’d been a common sight in the fields and valleys around Ginosa, particularly after his retirement. The one they’d called…
A monstrous suspicion came suddenly to her. She marched back over to the cabinet. ‘This man Genaro Scopece,’ she demanded, folding her arms in anger. ‘Why was he known as Il Siciliano?’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I
The curator’s pupils flickered like flies trapped beneath a shot glass. ‘It was his nickname,’ she said.
‘I get that,’ said Carmen drily. ‘What I’m asking is why was it his nickname? His family had lived here three hundred years. So why call him the Sicilian? Unless he’d lived in Sicily, that is? Is that where he found this coin?’
‘How could we possibly know that? I told you. He left no records.’
‘But he might have found them there, yes? Or anywhere else he travelled, for that matter.’
It was Zara’s turn to fold her arms. ‘Where exactly on Sicily did he live?’
‘He didn’t,’ said the woman. But her defiance wilted beneath their joint gazes. ‘He did live for a while in Sicilì.’
‘Sicilì?’
‘It’s a village,’ she sighed. ‘In the Cilento. His wife had a farm there. But then she died and he came home.’
‘The Cilento?’ asked Zara, tapping it into her phone.
‘South of Sorrento,’ said Carmen with a slight frown, for Zara and Dov must have driven through it on their drive down from Sorrento. She turned back to the curator. ‘How long did he live there?’
‘I don’t know. We don’t have dates.’
‘Roughly, then. A year? Five? Ten?’ The flush on the curator’s face gave her away. Carmen stared at her in disbelief. ‘Twenty? Thirty?’
‘I’m sure it can’t have been as much as thirty,’ she said, shuffling her feet uncomfortably, like a shy teen at a dance.
An unfamiliar fury welled inside Carmen. ‘This room is a fraud,’ she said. ‘This whole room.’
Zara tugged her sleeve. Carmen shook her off, thinking she was only seeking to calm her. Then she took her by her wrist and held out her phone. ‘Look,’ she said. Carmen took it irritably. A map of Sicilì was open on the screen. She was about to ask what she was supposed to be looking at when she noticed the river it was on. More particularly, she noticed its name.
For it was a river called the Bussento.
II
It was late afternoon when Cesco woke, aching in every joint. Standing up was a nightmare. He hobbled to the sink to splash cold water on his face, then washed down a pair of painkillers. The aching and the stiffness slowly eased. He zombie-walked down the hallway for a hot shower then sat on his bed to clean and dress his shotgun wounds as best he could. He struggled into fresh clothes then took his laptop out onto the Pozzuoli Lungomare.
There was a chill breeze, and only a few hardy swimmers and sunbathers were out. The sea broke half-heartedly against the rocks and shingle, before lazily withdrawing. Further out, a murmuration of starlings drew swirls, vortices and other astonishing patterns in the sky. No wonder the Romans had used them for augury. He took a beer at a cafe with Wi-Fi. Baldassare had replied to his email, thanking him earnestly for his part in saving his family, while chiding him for slipping away before he could say it in person. He gave him his word that he’d keep his identity secret as long as he wished. And he added that he had some momentous news – news too sensitive for email, but which he’d very much like to discuss in person.
The last thing Cesco wanted was a return to Cosenza. He replied suggesting a video chat instead. Baldassare responded almost at once, claiming reasons it needed to be face-to-face. But Cesco didn’t have to come back if he didn’t wish. Name a time and place within reason, and Baldassare would meet him there.
Cesco played piano on his laptop keyboard. He even began composing a reply asking tartly how he could be sure it wasn’t some kind of trap, but he deleted it before sending. He’d helped Baldassare save his wife and daughter. The man would die rather than betray him. With a sigh, he decided to accept. He opened a map in his browser, with Pozzuoli at the top and Cosenza at the bottom, then looked for somewh
ere roughly halfway between. Polla would do nicely. He was still too sore and tired to face a long ride tomorrow, however, so he suggested they meet midday on Thursday, choosing a cafe at random and including his new phone number just in case.
Perfect, replied Baldassare. He’d see him there.
III
Carmen and Zara stepped out of the museum into late afternoon sunshine that provided almost too perfect a metaphor for their fumbling search for Alaric. Was it possible, was it truly possible, that after hundreds of years of failed efforts to find Alaric’s tomb near Cosenza, it was actually in the Cilento instead? Zara was clearly thinking exactly the same. ‘Do we know this river was even called the Bussento back then?’
Carmen nodded. She already knew the answer, though its significance had never occurred to her before. She took back the phone and on its map followed the river a few kilometres downstream to the coast – and yes, there it was, the small resort town of Policastro. ‘This used to be a major Roman port,’ she told Zara. ‘Policastro Buxentum. Policastro on the Bussento.’
The piazza was signposted, and only a short walk. They set off towards it. Then Zara stopped dead and took Carmen’s arm. ‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Jordanes,’ she said. ‘I haven’t read his history of the Goths in years. But doesn’t he say that Alaric was buried beneath the Busento near Cosenza? I mean he actually specifies Cosenza, I’m sure of it.’
‘Oh,’ said Carmen. ‘Yes. You’re right.’
They walked on slowly, deflated by disappointment. They reached the piazza. Dov was sitting at an outside table drinking coffee. He saw them and came hurrying. ‘You were quick,’ he said. Then, looking from face to face, he said: ‘You’ve found something, haven’t you?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Zara. ‘We thought we had, but it turns out not.’ She explained about the half-shekel, the second Bussento and the Roman historian Jordanes. An overburdened moped drove by, the screech of its engine forcing them into silence until it passed. The interlude gave Carmen a chance for further thought – for the discovery of a second Bussento near which Visigothic artefacts might well have been found was too great a coincidence to give up so easily.
Then she saw it.
‘Jordanes didn’t witness Alaric’s burial himself,’ she told them. ‘All he did was summarise the history of the Goths written by another historian called Cassiodorus, whose original has since been lost.’
‘So?’ asked Dov.
‘Cassiodorus didn’t witness the burial himself either. In fact, he wasn’t even born for another seventy-odd years after Alaric’s death. But he worked in the Gothic court where he had full access to their archives, and to the leading families too. And he seems to have been a reliable chronicler elsewhere, so his account has to be taken seriously.’
‘Okay.’
‘The thing is, both Cassiodorus and Jordanes had strong connections to Calabria. Cassiodorus wasn’t just born and raised there, he retired there too, to a monastery he himself founded not that far from Cosenza. As for Jordanes, we’re not one hundred per cent sure it was the same person, but there was a Bishop Jordanes of Crotone around the same time. And Crotone is close to Cosenza too.’
Dov frowned. ‘But surely that just makes their testimony stronger?’
‘No. Think about it. Imagine you’re either of these two men. You read in your source material that Alaric was laid to rest beneath a river called the Bussento in southern Italy. That’s great! You know the Busento well. You visited it as a child. It’s only a day’s ride away. It’s just a few kilometres long, so while there’s no mention of Cosenza in the text you read, you know by definition it must have been close to it. You add that detail in, therefore, in perfect good faith, and throw in a little local colour too. But in fact it wasn’t the Cosenza Busento at all. It was this other one. And here’s the thing: we have an independent report of Alaric’s death from a guy called Philostorgius who was alive when it happened. He only records it as an aside, and doesn’t mention the burial at all, which is why historians have always preferred Cassiodorus. But he states that Alaric died in Campania, not Calabria.’
Dov nodded. ‘And this place Sicilì is in Campania?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And it makes sense, does it? Historically, I mean?’
Carmen glanced at Zara. Zara gestured for her to keep talking. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘The generally accepted narrative goes something like this: Alaric and his men grew sick of wandering around Italy. It’s tough, living off the land, especially in the winter. What they longed for was a homeland of their own. That’s why they besieged Rome in the first place, to pressure the emperor into giving them one. He refused. So they sacked Rome and took their loot south, planning to cross the Mediterranean to Carthage, which was fertile and weakly defended. But they lost so many men just trying to reach Sicily that they fell back to Cosenza, where Alaric died. But that last part makes no sense. It was two hundred kilometres back to Cosenza. That’s not a falling back. It’s a retreat. A retracing. The only way it makes sense is if Alaric had given up on Carthage altogether and had decided to head north to France or Spain instead – exactly as his brother-in-law Athaulf did after inheriting the crown. In which case, Policastro would have made far more sense than Cosenza as a place to pass the winter. It was warmer, more fertile and most of all it had a major port for bringing in supplies, to be paid for with their Roman gold. If you had a large army to see through till spring, which would you choose?’
Dov nodded. ‘So what do we do now?’ he asked.
‘How about we go to Sicilì,’ suggested Zara, ‘and take a look?’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I
Tomas Gentile knew the building that Carmen Nero was staying in from his prior monitoring of her phone. Her specific apartment became apparent when he and Guido arrived to scout it out, thanks to the balcony flowerpots that matched the website photograph. Its lights were out, however. Maybe she and Cesco Rossi had both left town. Certainly Rossi was likely gone, after fleeing them and crashing his van. But Nero had given those sketches to the police that same morning, which suggested she at least was still around. There were parking spaces outside the building, but in a kind of cul-de-sac that would leave them at risk of being trapped by a traffic snarl-up. He had Guido park on the bridge road instead, choosing a spot with views of the building’s front door and Nero’s apartment.
‘Want me to do it?’ asked Guido.
Tomas shook his head. Jobs like these required subtlety and quick thinking, not exactly Guido’s strengths. If the nightmares came, so be it. After all, one didn’t judge a man by how he felt but by what he did. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Keep the engine running.’ He turned up his jacket collar, put on his dark glasses and baseball cap. He got out and stood against the car to tuck the hunting knife and automatic pistol into his waistband, hiding them beneath his jacket. Then he made his way down a flight of steps into the cul-de-sac and across to the building. It had a glass front door. He could see the brightly lit lobby inside with two rows of letterboxes and a CCTV camera. It had a keypad lock and intercom buzzers for each apartment.
There was a fir tree across the way. He loitered against it for ten minutes before a woman came out holding a furled umbrella and looking nervously upwards. He grabbed the door before it closed and slipped inside, head averted from the camera. He hurried light-footed up to the top floor. A TV was playing across the landing, but Nero’s apartment was silent. It had a peephole but no doorbell. He took his gun in his hand then stood to one side and knocked. There was no response. He knocked louder. Still nothing. He hid his gun again then went back down and out to the car.
‘No luck?’ asked Guido sympathetically.
‘She’s not there.’
‘What now, then?’
Tomas looked around. The evening passeggiata was underway, couples streaming arm in arm towards Corso Mazzini to greet with astonishment and delight t
he exact same people they’d greeted with astonishment and delight the night before. But they were away from the street lamps here, with a clear line of sight of Nero’s apartment and the building’s front door. They were highly unlikely to find anything better. ‘We wait,’ he said.
II
Lightning ripped open the sky as they approached Cosenza, letting the heavens fall. Rain swept in frenzied flurries across their windscreen. Huge puddles formed upon the motorway, so that each car sent up a great curtain of white spray to blind the one behind. Within a minute or two, traffic had seized up.
Zara took her phone back out. She’d been trying, on and off, to find a place to stay in Sicilì itself. But in vain. The town had no hotel, nor even an inn with rooms. It did have two apartments for rent, and a nearby agriturismo, but all were fully booked. And it was hard to judge the options further afield on her small screen with her battery already running low, so they’d agreed to leave it for the night then head up in the morning, taking whatever they could find. But now, idly searching for more information on Sicilì itself, she landed on a municipal website she hadn’t seen before with helpful lists of local shops, businesses and properties for rent. Most were in the neighbouring town of Morigerati, but it also included the three Sicilì properties she’d already seen, and a fourth which she had not – a two-bedroom cottage on the lower fringes of the town, whose owner, Faustino – according to its brief blurb – had moved to Rome for work, and so rented it out for a little extra income. She described it to Dov and Carmen. They urged her to call the number. Faustino himself answered on the second ring. Background noises made it clear he was out with friends. They each had to shout to make themselves heard. He and his girlfriend would be visiting Sicilì the weekend after next, he told her, but it was free until then. It was fully furnished and they’d find the key beneath a brick outside the door, but they had to understand that it was not the Ritz. There was neither Wi-Fi nor signal for their mobiles, though they could find both up in Sicilì itself. As for the cottage, it was a thing of beauty in fine weather but cranky in the bad, suffering from draughts, damp and temperamental plumbing. Were they still interested?
The Sacred Spoils Page 22
