He wound back down the hairpin hill to Chiaia then cut through the noisy tight alleys of the Spanish quarter, weaving between tourists and the weary traders pushing carts of bling. He passed Università then cut east to Piazza Nolana, named for the pair of medieval turrets that squatted like a pair of buttocks either side of the arsehole street behind. He rumbled along it then down the familiar ramp of the private parking garage. He parked in his old spot then nodded to an open-mouthed Fernando in his glass booth and made his way back up onto the street. The hookers were out as ever. He walked towards them. One of the older ones put on a smile and came to meet him. She recognised him and stopped dead. Her eyes went wide with alarm; she made a shooing motion with her hand to warn him to get out. He shook his head. ‘Call her,’ he said. ‘Tell her I’m back.’ Then he turned and made his way between the turrets out onto the piazza.
His old bar was open for business, he saw, but he had no desire to explain himself to his old boss and colleagues, or indeed to bring trouble down upon their heads, so he found himself a cold stone bench instead, and settled down to wait.
II
Carmen gazed deep into the grotto, trying to penetrate its darkness with her old childhood imagination, to see it as might a Visigoth king whose pagan childhood had only partly been trammelled by Christian doctrine. Alaric had most likely died of malaria, the Roman fever. If so, his court physicians might well have had him brought here, both for its fresh clean water and for the sanctuary it offered from the hot afternoon sun. And it was all too easy for her to see him choosing it as his last resting place, both for its beauty and tranquillity. ‘I think this is it,’ she said softly. ‘Heaven help me, but I do.’
‘On what evidence?’ asked Zara.
‘Scopece’s artefacts. Where else could they have come from?’
‘We need more than that to go on. Anyway, the Visigoths diverted the river, didn’t they? How on earth could anyone divert this?’
Carmen looked down again. ‘You couldn’t,’ she admitted. ‘Not once it was inside the mountain. But perhaps before. What was that place again? Caselle in Pittari? We need to go see it.’
Zara nodded. ‘I’ll call Dov.’
There was no signal inside or even outside the grotto. Instead, they found another rock staircase that zigzagged up the gorge to the town of Morigerati directly above. Zara texted Dov when they arrived. He replied that he was still tied up but that they should go have lunch. He’d come and collect them in an hour or so.
Morigerati was a little larger than Sicilì. But only a little. They wandered it for a while, looking for somewhere to eat. A cobbled alley was cordoned off as workmen laid a jigsaw of new stones, pounding them level in their wet cement with a sledgehammer and a wooden plank. They found a cafe with a pergola terrace where they lunched on chickpea and goat’s cheese tagliatelle, bowls of pistachio ice cream and coffees that arrived even as Dov texted to say he was five minutes out.
They settled up and went to meet him. Zara told him of their morning’s discoveries as they set off up a mountain pass to Caselle in Pittari. Carmen sat in the back and gazed out over forested hillsides down to the startling blue Tyrrhenian Sea. They were high enough here that the vineyards still wore their orange winter netting, the peaks their caps of ice. Low timber barriers protected the road from landslides, while from all sides came the growl and screech of chainsaws replenishing stocks of household fuel. They turned right at a junction along a road that lay across a narrow valley from Caselle in Pittari, a town of tall thin houses huddled tightly on a hilltop, like too many commuters crammed into a carriage. A sign alerted them to where the Bussento entered the mountain. They parked on the verge and took a moment to admire the view out over the countryside, including a lake shaped like the lid of a grand piano, penned behind a grey dam wall.
A rock staircase slashed the wooded hillside like a Zorro blade. The trees sang with wildlife as they set off down. An eagle perched on a bare branch squirted out an imperious jet of bright white shit in their direction. They crossed a footbridge over a deep sinkhole then emerged from the trees to be confronted by a toe-tingling wall of rock, as though a mountain had simply sheared in two to leave behind this vast and craggy cliff face, turned by the afternoon sunlight into a Cilento Rushmore.
Downwards they went, ever downwards. They heard rushing water ahead. A sign warned them of surges from the Lake Sabetta dam. Then they were beside the Bussento itself, gushing along the narrow valley floor before being swallowed by the ogreish mouth of a vast cavern, around which shrubs grew like misshapen teeth from every ledge and crevice. There were no helpful walkways here. They had to make their own way along the bank then across the river by leaping from boulder to boulder. They were almost there before Carmen realised Dov wasn’t with them. She glanced around and saw him wandering off upstream instead. A last look up. The cliff rose so sheer above her that she almost toppled over backwards. Three tiny black specks circled high in the sky above them – birds of prey waiting patiently for lunch. They entered the cave. It lacked the Gothic splendour of the grotto, far wider but not so tall. It bent away from the afternoon sunlight too, swiftly leaving them in such darkness that Zara took out her phone for its torch. Declarations of young love had been scratched into the rock, with other graffiti so worn by damp and time that it was hard to make them out at all.
The way grew too difficult for Zara, but Carmen borrowed her phone and pressed on, shimmying along a wall, leaping athletically from boulder to boulder. She spotted what looked like markings in the ceiling, but it was impossible to make them out from the cavern floor. The limestone was gaunt with clefts and fissures. Though cold and slippery, the wall was an easier climb than the one in her university gym. Lack of light was the greater problem. She kept pausing to map out her next section. She anchored herself to the wall with one hand then reached out Zara’s camera phone in the other, tapping out photographs with her finger, the flashes dazzling in the darkness.
‘What have you found?’ asked Zara.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Carmen. She flipped through the pictures she’d taken. It looked like a pair of outspread wings. ‘Maybe a bird of some kind.’
Dov appeared at the cavern mouth. He cupped his hands around his eyes as he peered into the darkness. ‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘Are you guys still in here?’
‘Yes,’ said Zara. ‘Why?’
‘I just got a text from the damned airline. A fuck-up with our flights. We need to deal with it right now. Just you, Zara. But out here, where there’s a signal.’
Zara looked up at Carmen. ‘Will you be okay?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Carmen assured her.
‘Okay. I’ll only be a moment.’
Carmen watched her pick her way back along the bank to the cavern mouth. Then she and Dov vanished out of sight. Such a clumsy lie about their flights. Yet Zara had played along. All Carmen’s separate threads of doubt at once wove themselves into a single cloth. It had been Dov rather than some doppelgänger in the cafe that first morning, which surely meant that their later meeting at the gelateria had been planned, not chance. The way Zara had recoiled from Dov last night, implying they weren’t even lovers. And the Calabrian car-hire map beneath the seat that meant they’d flown in to Lamezia, making a lie of their story about a Sorrento wedding.
No. They were here for a different reason. They were here for the temple treasures.
And she was helping them.
One thing to realise; another to respond. Making unsupported accusations against Zara would only invite indignant denials that might ruin her own career before it had even started. She had no friends to turn to, no reputation, no qualifications of note. No place to stay except the cottage, no transport except the car. She couldn’t even speak the damned language. Baldassare was visiting tomorrow, yes, and would be disposed both to trust her and to help. But it was hardly his area and he was already carrying more than enough burdens for any one man.
For a moment, she resolved to p
ut it from her mind, to pretend she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. But then, perversely, she remembered Cesco sitting beside her hospital bed spouting his pious bullshit about the duty they owed archaeology. It had meant nothing to him, of course, but it had to her. And it was a duty she owed still.
She climbed carefully back down from her ledge and picked her way along the wall then headed for the cavern mouth, holding Zara’s phone out in front of her, searching for a signal.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I
La Università di Napoli Federico II was only a short walk from Piazza Nolana, making Cesco’s old bar-pizzeria a favoured haunt for students killing time between lectures. In fine weather, they’d sit out at the sunshade tables, smoking, drinking, eating ice creams and sharing pizzas. But one of the students had stood out from the rest. Older, solitary, diligent. She’d been an evening regular, ordering herself a light snack and a non-alcoholic drink then sitting alone at an inside table with a view of the Nolana turrets. Then she’d put in earbuds to review her day’s lectures, jotting notes on a yellow pad and checking references in her textbooks.
Cesco had tried flirting lightly with her on her first couple of visits, as he’d flirted lightly with all of the single women who came in. But his efforts had only made her smile, and not in a good way, so he’d left her alone after that. Yet his pride had undeniably been stung.
She’d been thirty or so, a year or two older than himself. Short, plump and typically dressed in biker chic, with tight leather trousers and studded jackets, her fingers and throat glittering with gemstones in silver and platinum settings. Her best feature had been her gorgeous long black hair. She’d normally come in with it already hanging loose, but one night it had been raining outside, so she’d still been wearing her motorcycle helmet. She’d taken it off right in front of him, shaking out her hair so that it had tumbled in oiled black coils almost down to her waist. She hadn’t meant it to be erotic, but it had been. She’d caught him staring open-mouthed at her, and had scowled indignantly, as though he’d taken an unforgivable liberty. He’d even feared she might make a complaint. But she hadn’t. And the next time she’d come in, she’d still been wearing her helmet, even though it had been dry out. And then she’d waited until he was watching before she’d taken it off too.
A couple of nights later, she’d ordered a rare second drink. She’d asked him about his accent when he’d brought it over. Then she’d left him a ten-euro tip with a phone number written on it. It was almost closing time so he’d asked permission to slip off early. He’d hurried after her, footsteps ringing on the piazza cobbles. She hadn’t even looked around, vanishing instead into a private parking garage. He hadn’t known what to do, worrying that he’d misread the situation, that the phone number had already been on the banknote. The whores had watched him dithering and had made such fun of him that he’d almost turned tail. But then Rosaria had come roaring up the exit ramp on a sumptuous cherry-and-cream Ducati and pulled up right beside him. ‘Well?’ she’d asked, as he stood there foolishly. ‘Are you getting on or what?’
There’d been no rear bar for him to hold on to. He’d rested his hands primly on her waist instead. She’d accelerated away so fast it had almost blown him off the back. He’d grabbed on to her for dear life. He’d thought she was doing it to impress. But no. It was simply how she rode. How she’d been in bed too. In everything. When Rosaria wanted something, she took it. Within a week, he’d virtually moved in. She gave him keys to her apartment and a wardrobe for the clothes she bought him. Better still, because the commute from her place to the bar was such a nightmare on public transport, and because her term had ended for the summer, she’d lent him her Ducati and her pass to the private garage, slumming it herself in a powder-blue Mercedes soft top.
It had all seemed too good to be true.
Then three fearsome young men had turned up when he was alone at her apartment one afternoon, and he’d realised that it was.
II
Dov waited until he and Zara were clear of the cavern before speaking. ‘Well? What have you found?’
‘Some symbols in the roof,’ said Zara.
‘Gothic?’
‘I haven’t seen them yet. Is that really why you called me out?’
‘I’ve something to show you.’ He turned and led her along the bank, past the steps down which they’d arrived and then onwards upstream towards the hydroelectric dam. The way grew ever more tangled. They had to clamber over boulders and pick paths around thorn bushes. The gorge narrowed and its gradient steepened, so that the river turned for a while into a fierce cataract, towards the top of which a large number of unusually massive boulders had been deposited by a landslide. The trunk of a fallen tree was pinned by the press of water against two of these boulders, forming a crude barrier that had caught so much silt and other debris that it had formed a natural dam, forcing the entire Bussento through the narrow remaining channel, roaring and splashing furiously. But then they were above it and the gorge opened wide, turning the river into a surprisingly placid lake.
Dov spread his hands to indicate it all. ‘You were asking how the Visigoths diverted the river,’ he said. ‘I give you the answer.’
She looked around in puzzlement. It was several seconds before she saw it. All those huge boulders they’d just passed weren’t the product of some ancient landslide. No. They’d been dragged here deliberately as bulwarks for a dam built across the gorge’s throat, to be completed with earthworks and timbers from these hillsides. With a slave army at their disposal, and such abundant raw materials to hand, it would have been simple for the Visigoths to pen the Bussento here for days at a time, especially before the autumn rains started in earnest. If they then fitted it with a crude sluice gate, they could even withdraw their slaves from the caves at set intervals in order to drain it themselves before damming it up again for another tranche of time.
‘It’s possible, then,’ she murmured. ‘He really could be in there.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Dov. ‘I think he could be.’
‘What now?’
‘I report back to Avram. You downplay it with Carmen. Convince her there’s nothing here. Put her on a train back to Rome, if you can. Then we’ll set about exploring it properly.’
They fell silent on their return, the better to concentrate on their footing. Zara became aware of Carmen’s voice ahead, chattering to someone. Only she couldn’t hear whoever she was chattering to. They hurried forward and found her talking on Zara’s phone.
‘What the hell!’ protested Zara.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Carmen. She ended the call and came to meet them, her cheeks flushed with excitement or exertion. ‘I couldn’t find you anywhere. And I had to know. That symbol in the roof. I managed to catch it perfectly on one of my shots. It’s an eagle holding a standard or a cross, something like that. Look for yourselves. I’d swear it’s Visigothic. But what do I know, right? So I sent it to Professor Bianchi.’
‘Professor Bianchi?’ asked Dov.
‘My Sapienza professor,’ explained Carmen, nodding vigorously, as if to persuade them of the rightness of her action. ‘One of the world’s great experts.’
‘And?’ asked Zara. ‘What did he say?’
She beamed happily at them both. ‘He thinks they’re the real thing too. He’s promised to notify the Ministry of Culture for us. And he’s coming down on Friday with an assistant, to see them for himself.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
I
Dov dropped Zara and Carmen back at the cottage then excused himself with an invented work commitment and headed straight off again. He drove safely out of earshot then clutched the wheel and yelled at his windscreen. Carmen had been lying through her teeth. She hadn’t called her professor to ask his opinion of the symbols. She’d called him because she’d realised what they were up to, and wanted help. Yet alongside the dismay there was admiration too, and the perverse euphoria he always felt when he found himself in jeopardy.
His first task now was to find out what he was dealing with. He took the back road out of Sicilì to the small parking area above the grotto, then hurried down the stone staircase to its foot, where he paid his five euros to the pretty girl in the deckchair. He expected to find another cave like the one in Caselle in Pittari. But it wasn’t that way at all. He stood upon the viewing platform bridge and drank it in. Zara and Carmen had been right. Caselle was a cavern. This was a cathedral.
The passage at the far end of the bridge was roped off to the public. Dov checked he was alone then ducked beneath it. It quickly grew dark. He turned on his phone’s torch. The passage took him gently downwards, its ceiling so low that in places he had to stoop. Cobwebs caught in his face, while patches of dryish clay on the floor took and held his footprints. That his were the only ones there suggested that he was the first person down here in at least a week, probably much longer. The sound of rushing water diminished. Then it grew loud again. The tunnel opened up on his left and there was the Bussento right by his feet, frothing luminescent against the rocks. He squatted down. The way the cavern curved meant that he could only see the far end of the viewing platform he’d just crossed, silhouetted against the pale glow of the grotto’s mouth. Upstream, by contrast, the total darkness made a mockery of his torch’s beam. He cupped his hand in the icy water to judge its speed. Ten kilometres an hour or so. Certainly too swift to swim against. And the walls, though craggy, looked difficult to traverse at speed.
He retreated up the passage and back to his car. He had no signal for his phone so he drove until he found one. He searched online for outdoors sports stores nearby. There were plenty of small ones, for the Cilento was a hiker’s paradise, but the nearest of any real size was in Potenza, an hour’s drive away. He set off at once, to reach it before it closed, and called Avram on his way.
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