There was nothing Carmen could say to Cesco that didn’t sound trite and inadequate. What use to tell him that he’d only been fourteen at the time, or that he’d most certainly have been murdered too if he’d gone back? He knew all that already, and yet it didn’t help. How could it? She held him instead, stroking his hair, offering him time in the darkness to compose himself. ‘How did you get back to shore?’ she asked gently, when she judged it right.
He was silent so long, she feared she’d pressed too soon. Then he began to talk. ‘I always was a strong swimmer,’ he said. ‘It was summer, the water was warm. I could see a lighthouse on the shore. I aimed for it until the current swept me away. Then I picked out other lights instead. I swam for hours. It was almost dawn when I reached land. I was exhausted, I couldn’t even stand. There were rocks. I remember cutting my hands and feet on them, how the saltwater burned. I reached a small beach with a few holiday homes behind it. I was completely naked, like I said. I found some clothes hanging out to dry on a line. I stole a T-shirt that fitted me like a ball gown, and a pair of shorts that I had to clutch with both hands to stop them from falling down. One of the back doors was open. I sneaked into the kitchen for some string to hold them up. There was a bowl of coins by the front door so I filled my pockets then went into town looking for a payphone. But I passed a newspaper kiosk before I found one. There were photos of my family splashed across all the front pages. Their bodies in the restaurant. My parents, my grandmother, my little cousin Romeo. That was how I found out.’
‘Oh my poor Cesco.’
‘I guess that was why they’d decided to get rid of me and Claudia. They didn’t need us any more. But I was too terrified to care about reasons. I just wanted to get safe. But how? My friends were all ’Ndrangheta. Every policeman I’d ever met had been on the take. There was only one person I completely trusted. My mother’s best friend from school, a woman called Emilia. Her father had moved to Oxford to help his brother run a restaurant there. She’d stayed on to become a teacher, then had married another teacher at her school called Richard Stone. They had two kids: Arthur, a year older than me and Didi; Lizzie, a year younger. Not twins, but about as close as you can get. They came out to stay several times. We all got on really well, and it was a cheap holiday for them. Anyway, I trusted Emilia absolutely. She was so obviously good. You know how it shines in some people?’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘So there I was, desperate for help. I called international enquiries and somehow got the number for her school. She was there, thank God. She was… I can’t tell you. She got on a flight to Naples that same evening and drove down to pick me up. We flew back to England the next morning, with me on her son’s passport. We had the same colouring, and who looks that closely at a boy travelling with his mother? She and Richard took me in. The whole family were incredibly kind. I mean incredibly kind.’ Carmen could feel the tears welling again inside him. ‘They wanted to adopt me officially but I had terrible nightmares about those men finding out and coming after me so we did it covertly instead. They confided in their head teacher. She helped us arrange it all. It worked fine for the next few years, until I left school. Then it became a problem. Applying to university or for any proper kind of job meant risking the truth coming out. That wouldn’t be bad just for me. It could have been ruinous for everyone who’d helped me too. Plus, to be frank, I was homesick. I missed Italy. I missed the language. I missed the sun. So one day the whole family went to visit Emilia’s parents. I feigned sickness and stayed behind. I wrote a thank-you note then borrowed Arthur’s passport, packed a bag and flew out. I stayed up north, as far from Cosenza as I could get, and I got by doing odd jobs and conning people. But of course that meant having to move every so often. And with each move I came a little further south.’
‘Emilia and her family? Did you keep in touch?’
‘No.’ He seemed set to justify himself but then thought better of it. ‘I sent Arthur back his passport, and then a couple of postcards to let them know I was okay. But they were so straight and honourable that frankly I was ashamed. It’s hard to be a disappointment to people who—’ He broke off suddenly. He sat up straight, a hushing finger to his lips. Now she heard it too: an engine straining at a gradient. She looked down the track even as headlights swept like a lighthouse beam around one of the hairpins below.
They got to their feet without a word. Cesco hurried to the Harley then they pushed it along one of the narrow footpaths, jolting over ruts and roots. They’d barely left the clearing when a pair of SUVs arrived behind them, their headlights illuminating the woods. Doors opened and slammed. Torches flashed. But she and Cesco pushed onwards and soon were out of sight and sound.
The cloud was thickening; so too the canopy of trees. Only rare shafts of moonlight made it through, lighting the grass like silver tinsel. The footpath degraded into an animal track that then vanished altogether. It was the end of the line for the Harley. They laid it out of sight behind a thorn bush then pushed on, fighting through the undergrowth, picking brambles from their clothes. Cesco kept checking his phone, but still no signal. Brief flashes from its torch helped them pick their way. A murmur ahead grew slowly into a rumble. Carmen put a hand on his forearm. ‘You hear that?’ she whispered. ‘It’s the river.’
‘You mean the Bussento?’ said Cesco, with just a hint of dryness in his voice.
‘I’ll tell you all about it, I swear,’ she promised. ‘But the point is that it has a footpath on this side. It leads to a grotto and then up some cliff steps to the next town along, a place called Morigerati. I know for a fact we can get a signal there.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’
The way grew absurdly tangled. They had to fight between fat bushes of fierce thorns. Night-time creatures scurried all around them, startled by their clumsy progress. Between the cloud and the thick canopy, it was almost pitch black. Carmen took Cesco’s arm to stay with him. A bird took off from beneath her feet, giving her such a fright that she slid her hand down to the comfort of his. He interlaced fingers with her, gave her a reassuring squeeze. They reached the top of an embankment populated by stumpy trees that in the darkness seemed almost to claw like hands up out of the moist soft earth. The river was running at its foot; she could see it by the glints of reflected moonlight. It was possible that the ’Ndrangheta had looped around to cut them off, so they crouched there for a minute or so, letting their eyes adjust, making sure it was safe.
Cesco went down first, lurching in short bursts from tree to tree. She followed close behind. The soil was so loose that her feet kept sliding from under her. But they made it safely to the bottom. Lights blazed orange on a nearby hilltop, like the campfires of an invading army. ‘Morigerati,’ she murmured. Then she took Cesco by the hand once more, and they set off together towards it.
The two rental vans had already arrived at the rendezvous point above the Lake Sabetta dam by the time Dov, Yonatan and Noah returned to it. Among their other supplies, they’d brought a pair of satellite phones. Dov found a flat piece of ground in the clearing on which to set up the first of the dishes. With the help of a hand-held compass, he locked it onto its geostationary satellite, then opened up its companion laptop to show Noah how to use it, so that he might provide them with an early warning should the dam be repaired despite their sabotage, and the Bussento released once more.
That done, he and Yonatan grabbed their things and climbed into the back of the second van. Zara was already sitting there, across from Yani, glaring the world’s bluntest daggers. Dov grinned and sat beside her even as they set off. ‘I’ve got something for you,’ he told her, rummaging through his bag. He took out a video camera, switched it on and began filming her, moving it around as she tried to hide her face behind her hand.
‘Stop that!’ she protested.
‘Little bit shy, are we?’ He held it out to her. ‘You’ll need to get over that fast. It’s your official role tonight. Mission chronicler. Documenting for posterity our heroic efforts to reclaim our nation’s treasures.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Oh, but I am. You never know when it might come in useful. So make sure you capture everything, from the moment we arrive inside the grotto until we leave. Our equipment, our journey, the chamber, the plinth, whatever we find beneath. And turn it on yourself every so often, like in the documentaries. You know. Talk about all that shit you’ve been telling me about Alaric and the two Bussentos, the sack of Jerusalem. In English, mind. We might need a wide audience. Oh, and keep repeating what outstanding patriots we all are, risking our lives and freedom to bring the Menorah and the other treasures safely home again.’
‘Aren’t I compromised enough already for you?’ she asked sourly.
‘Not by a long shot, no.’
‘And if I refuse? If I throw your camera in the river?’
Dov gave her a savage grin. ‘Do you really want to put that to the test?’ he asked.
‘That was dee-licious,’ declared Baldassare, pushing away his empty plate before leaning back in his chair and folding his hands over his bulging stomach. ‘Truly exquisite. The finest meal I have eaten in many, many years.’
‘There’s more,’ grinned Bettina.
‘More? More? How could there possibly be more? We’ve already eaten all the food in Cosenza. How will our poor neighbours survive?’
‘I made a cassata cake. For your birthday that we missed.’
‘Oh,’ he said. He kept his smile going as best he could, though he could feel it dying behind his eyes. His birthday had been perhaps his lowest point. He’d spent most of it in bed, curled up in a ball. For the first time that night, he couldn’t help but think of those two ’Ndrangheta fugitives, and the bitterness and hatred he felt were like his insides being given an acid bath. He waited until Bettina had gone through to the kitchen then felt for his phone to check for news. But his phone wasn’t even in his pocket. He must have left in the car.
Alessandra sensed him about to rise. She covered his hand with her own. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not tonight. Can’t you see how happy Bettina is?’
Bettina reached in her hand at that moment, to dim the lights. Then she backed in through the door holding the cassata cake on a silver platter, her eyes down and her tongue bitten sideways between her teeth in her concentration not to drop it. The three toy candles she’d planted in it fluttered weakly until she set it down in front of him, then instantly they sprang up strong and bright again. She smiled at him in triumph and the love he felt for her pierced his side like a crucifixion lance. Then he closed his eyes and made his wish and blew the candles out.
The footpath walked very differently in the darkness, what with Carmen’s nerves already frayed by the knowledge that the ’Ndrangheta were out in numbers hunting for her and Cesco. Imagination was mostly a gift, but she could have done without it right now, the way it turned every tree into a lurking figure, every rustle into an ambush.
Yet nothing happened.
The hilltop lights of Morigerati remained their beacon. They slowly drew closer. The footpath diverged from the river, as she remembered, taking them up through that unruly orchard. They’d almost reached the grotto staircase when they heard an engine and then a vehicle pulled into the small parking area to their left, crunching to a halt a stone’s throw away, its headlights dazzling her and Cesco and forcing them to throw themselves to the ground. The headlights were thankfully turned off, only for a second vehicle to arrive, pulling up alongside the first. Men got out and began conferring in low, furtive voices. She could only think that the ’Ndrangheta had consulted a map, seen their possible escape route and come to cut them off. In which case they’d got here just in time.
The second set of headlights finally turned off. At once, Carmen grabbed Cesco by the wrist and led him hurrying forward to the stone steps down to the valley floor where that girl in the deckchair had sold them their grotto tickets. Their night vision had been utterly degraded by the headlights, however, which made the staircase a nightmare to navigate at speed. The steps were scattered with fallen branches that rustled and snapped whenever they trod on them. Worse, they were of different lengths and drops too, so that they kept being jolted by landing too soon, or finding only air where they’d expected solid ground. And now she heard a noise behind and glanced around to see a flash of torchlight. She feared for a moment that they must have been seen, that they were coming after them – yet they showed no urgency. It made no sense to her, but she didn’t have time to puzzle it out. It took all her concentration to keep her footing until they finally reached the valley floor.
The ticket girl had sited her deckchair by the place where the path divided, the left-hand fork leading to the cliff steps up to Morigerati, the right-hand fork leading to the grotto. Carmen peeled her eyes for the split but she must have missed it in the darkness for they found themselves arriving on the wooden deck directly outside the grotto mouth. She muttered an apology to Cesco and made to turn back only to discover that their pursuers were still close behind. And now they had nowhere left to flee except into the grotto itself.
They went in and climbed down a few steps and crouched there to watch. A trail of dark figures now arrived outside, setting down weighty loads then rubbing their sore palms against their trousers before heading back the way they’d come. Her spirits began to lift. If they all left again, they could sneak out while they were gone. But two of them remained. To her bemusement, they set a miniature satellite dish on the ground and aimed it up at the sky with the help of a compass. Then they opened up a laptop beside it, by the light of whose screen she finally saw their faces.
And one of them was Dov.