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.
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.’