Radi. Less than a hamlet, a collection of a dozen houses and a population of no more than twenty. Ninety kilometres from Florence and forty from Pienza, the scene of the latest murder.
News had come as we were unloading Giancarlo’s office furniture. He hadn’t told me, but he’d ordered a desk, chair, filing cabinet and drafting table, all in stout military-grade beech, plus half a dozen plywood folding chairs that he told me would come in handy for around the house and to use outside instead of carting the kitchen chairs out onto the terrace. He’d asked his sister’s assistant, Roberto, to collect everything from the army surplus store in Pontassieve and bring it to La Mensola in Carla’s gallery truck, which was used for transporting large pieces of art and sculptures. He’d also ordered exactly the same typewriter as mine, plus another of the wooden desk boxes I’d also bought to go with it. Matching ‘his and his’, I’d thought, but was delighted that the drafting table was a present to me.
We were halfway up the stairs with the desk when Fabrizio arrived, his car skidding on the gravel of the driveway and nearly crashing into the back of Roberto’s truck, such was his haste to arrive.
“There’s another one!” he called out from the kitchen, running to the foot of the stairs.
“Another what?” Giancarlo asked.
“Another body, and this time, a survivor as well.”
Giancarlo grabbed his suit and said he’d change in the car, telling me he didn’t know when he’d be back.
Roberto and I finished unloading and I offered him some freshly baked bread with cold terrine and coffee. He was really interested in the house, so I showed him around both inside and out. However, it was my artwork he couldn’t take his eyes off, asking to return to my study and leafing through my sketches and the inked preparations for my book submission. He told me Carla would be very interested in my architectural drawings, especially those I’d done of buildings in Florence, explaining that, now visitors had started to return, souvenirs, especially watercolour paintings, were in great demand. I gave him two I’d done of the vista from the restaurant at Fiesole, looking down over the city, as a present for her.
He left about lunchtime, taking my wooden salad bowl with him as another gift for Carla, and although he was very pleasant company I was glad he’d gone, because my mind was still focused on Fabrizio’s two words: “a survivor”.
I’d kept my mouth shut. I’d wanted to go too, but thought that if I was needed, I’d be asked. The word “survivor” meant that the murderer had struck fairly recently. I assumed that he’d killed one person and thought the other to be dead … or that one victim had escaped somehow. I couldn’t stop myself inventing scenarios, so to distract my mind I got busy with other things. I went through the collection of tree sections that I’d put aside for the lathe. Then, after marking up two that I thought would make good-sized bowls, I decided to have lunch at home today instead of going to the trattoria. I made myself a sandwich with my “fancy French meatloaf” and some of my green tomato chutney, sat in the sun and tried to distract my mind by reading while I ate. A glass of water from the spring with a few chips of ice from the block in the icebox at my side, I was just starting to lose myself in one of the histories of Tuscany that I’d found in Tewksbury’s when another car drew up next to the house. It was Baldi.
“Sorry to disturb your lunch,” he said. “I can’t find anyone in the police station. Do you know where Manetti and Negri are?”
“They were here, but left hours ago. They didn’t say where they were going.” I thought it odd he used both Giancarlo and Fabrizio’s surnames, and, if he didn’t know about the new murders, it wasn’t my place to tell him.
“Have you seen my cousin, then?”
“He came for a swim late afternoon the day before yesterday, then stayed for dinner.”
“What time did he leave?”
“I’m sorry, Signor Baldi, but what’s this about?”
“Police business. Do you mind if I look down at the swimming hole?”
“Knock yourself out, but I doubt he’s there. He usually lets me know when he’s going for a dip.”
“Why would he do that?”
Once more, I could feel myself getting annoyed. “Because the pool is on my land and he’s polite.”
He cursed under his breath, then without another word drove off, leaving me wondering what the hell was going on.
I spent the rest of the afternoon picking figs. Besides four trees at the front of the land, near the olives, there were ten planted at the edge of the vegetable garden, separating it from the orchard. Figs were a favourite fruit of mine—and, as I discovered, also of the birds. We didn’t have so many fruit-eating birds back home—anyway, not in the part of the country where the monastery was—that was a problem in coastal areas. Fortunately I loved fig jam too and had bought cane trays and netting, so I cut some in half and laid them out to dry in the sun. With jam, figs bottled in syrup and dried figs, I’d have them all year long.
Dinnertime came and went. By now, in early July, it was still light outside until about a quarter to eight. I sat out on the shelf on one of the new collapsible chairs Giancarlo had bought, another at my side with a glass of wine on it, watching the sky change from orange to a dim glow behind the trees as night fell. I smiled to hear the soft hoot of an owl, high up in the pine tree, metres above my head. Another answered off in the distance and I watched as mine flew off towards the north, its wings spread and after a few flaps, gliding noiselessly.
I finished a cigarette, and was yawning, wondering if it was too early to go to bed, when I heard the sound of a truck at the front gate. Marco, the younger of the Mori brothers, came running down the drive. I called out to him and he looked up.
“Is Signor Manetti here?” he asked urgently.
“No, he’s gone to Radi. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
“There’s no one at the police station. Do you have your rifle?”
“Yes. Why? Is there some problem.”
“Can you come, Damson? We need help.”
“Where are we going?”
“To my parents’ farm. Quickly.”
I grabbed my rifle from the wardrobe in my bedroom, threw on a light jacket and put a box of cartridges in one pocket, then pulled on my work trousers and heavy boots. I quickly scribbled a note and left it on the kitchen table, telling Giancarlo where I’d gone and that there might be a problem. I drew him a quick map of how to find the farm; he’d never been there.
I couldn’t get sense out of Marco; he was rattled by something and speaking very, very quickly. All he’d say that no one had been hurt but that something had frightened them. In the back of my mind, I prepared myself for whatever it might be. I didn’t think there were bears in Italy any more. Perhaps a wolf? Or maybe a belligerent vagrant—a lot had been seen in the area this past month. I rolled up the car window. For early July, it was cool.
The Mori farm was on a small road that led west from the road to Montefollonico. Marco parked the truck in the driveway and I got out, slinging my rifle over my shoulder. The family was standing in a small group at the side of the house, looking off into the darkness to the northeast, from which direction the wind was blowing, hence the coolness.
“Come,” Mario said, telling his parents to stay put and indicating that his brother and I should follow him.
I followed them down through the stables at the back of the house and into a field of barley, at the end of which was a small wood, behind it a tall outcrop of rock. We clambered to the top and he put his finger to his lips, then said, “Ascoltare! ”
I stilled my breathing and turned my head slightly to listen in the direction he was pointing. I heard nothing for a while until … yes, there it was, a very distant wail. I was expecting a wolf, so that was what I heard.
“It’s a wolf?” I whispered.
“No, a human being,” Marco replied.
I listened again. There was silence, then again that cry.
“What’s in that direction?”
“Petroia is perhaps three kilometres to the northwest, but the sound is coming from closer than that. There’s a charcoal-burner’s hut about a kilometre away, but it’s empty now. The man who owns it lives in Madonnino and doesn’t start work until October.”
After a long silence the sound started again. This time it came on a breeze, making the sound a little louder, and there was no mistaking that it was a human being in agony. I could almost hear the terror in the voice.
I signalled to Marco to lead the way. Clouds had started to move in but there was enough reflected moonlight to see where we were going. It took about thirty minutes to reach the hut because the woodland was so dense with thick patches of brambles that tore at our clothes, making it a slog. I hushed the brothers and signalled them to stay put and hidden in the trees while I made my way through the bushes until I was at the edge of the clearing at the back of the hut.
I weighed it up in my mind. It was large enough to be either one large room, or two smaller ones. Through the opened window that faced towards where I was crouched, I could see flickering light, most likely candles. Just as I was about to scuttle across the clearing towards the wall next to the window, a voice from inside started yelling, “No! No! No!” then the unmistakable sound of an attenuated scream filled with pure terror. My blood ran cold. I’d heard that sound before: men being tortured.
I cleared my mind of things that had happened during my war and readied myself for whatever situation I might find inside. Quietly rotating the bolt of my rifle, I pushed a five-round cartridge into place, pulled a round into the chamber, then crawled on my belly across the clearing, holding my breath as I flattened myself against the wall. I heard thumps and groans—someone was being punched or kicked.
As I was about to peer around the edge of the window, I heard someone inside pulling at the back door, next to where I was crouching, so I scurried around the edge of the hut. A person had come outside and was pissing noisily onto the ground. I took my chance and poked my nose around the other window of the room. I had no idea how many people were inside, so my glance was fleeting. There was a figure on the floor and other than that the small room was empty, except for a table and a single chair.
I took another quick look.
On the floor, lying on his shoulders, was a man. His legs were bent over his head and tied to his arms, immobilising him, his buttocks in the air. The sound of pissing getting sporadic, I had one last look. There was no doubt it was our killer. Cigarette butts on the floor surrounded the blindfolded man, who sobbed quietly, calling for his mother.
The outside door slammed shut and I ducked down out of sight, returning to my previous position near the back door.
I was just about to make a move when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marco push through the bushes, looking to see where I was. It was a rule of thumb among soldiers that a person new in the field would always do the complete opposite of what they’d been told to do. Instead of waiting in the bushes, he’d decided he’d come and join me.
I waved, trying to tell him not to move forward, but he obviously couldn’t see me and ran to where I’d just been, around the corner from me. I crawled carefully to the side of the hut, but, although he was barely two metres away, he had his back to me. I ran my fingers through the dirt trying to find a pebble to throw at him, eventually finding a small piece of wood. I threw it. It bounced off his back—and he let out a yell, then turned and fired his pistol at me.
The shot went way over my head. I leapt into the room in time to hear the back door slam shut, so I yelled at Marco to see to the man on the floor. Ennio came hurtling out of the bushes and dived through one window as I tried to climb out of it. I collided with him, cursed, then ran off after the man who’d been in the house, catching a glimpse of him as he disappeared into the trees. He was dressed in black, wearing a dark-coloured merchant seaman’s “beanie” and gloves. If he’d been armed, he’d have turned around and shot me … that was my guess, anyway. He was certainly lithe, and from what I could tell had no idea of how to avoid capture. He crashed through the bushes like a boar on a rampage, making it easy for me to follow him.
He had perhaps ten metres on me when the sounds of his escape stopped. Had I not collided with Ennio I would have caught up with him much sooner, probably before he’d even reached the tree line of the clearing.
Rule one of combat: never underestimate an enemy. I crouched, stilled my breathing and concentrated, listening for the faintest of sounds. There was a radius in front of me where I thought he would most likely be, and far too much debris on the ground to make any approach noiselessly. The night was very still.
I stood up, dismayed to hear someone calling my name. Once more one of the brothers had come looking for me. “Stay where you are!” I called out over my shoulder. I hoped my Italian was clear enough, but at the sound of my voice the crashing started again.
This time, I wasn’t prepared to let him get away, and I pushed onwards. Eventually, I saw him standing on the edge of what appeared to be a rock ledge. I fired in the air above his head. He ducked down on all fours, then hesitated, as if he was about to jump. I made my way slowly towards him, pulling another round into the chamber.
“On your feet,” I said.
He raised his hands in the air, but remained crouched down.
“Alzati! ”
He ignored my order to stand, so I poked his back with the barrel of my rifle, about to take a step forward to grab the back of his pullover when my world went dark.
*****
It was light when I opened my eyes. Had I been asleep? No, there was a throbbing pain in my head and the taste of blood in my mouth. Slowly, I remembered what had happened. Someone had slugged me from behind. How had I not heard someone creep up on me? That would never have happened during the war.
I tried to raise myself onto one elbow, but couldn’t move. It took me a fraction of a second to take stock of my situation: my hands were tied to my feet behind my back, a strip of cloth used as a gag pulled tightly, cutting into the corners of my mouth. I worked it with my teeth, and tried to push against it with my tongue, but it wouldn’t loosen. The gag was soaked with my saliva and I tasted blood when I bit on it—I guessed it was my own.
I looked around, my head pounding, the sun not yet high in the sky; I reckoned on it being around nine or ten in the morning. I must have been here for getting on for eleven hours at least. Aware that it was most likely our murderer whom I’d chased into the woods, I clenched my buttocks, testing for cigarette burns. No pain.
Christ, my head hurt. I soon realised I was lying on my side on the edge of the rock ledge where the man I’d been chasing had been standing. Someone had whacked me with something hard. I twisted around. Where was my rifle? Then I saw it, over the edge of the ledge about six feet below me. The drop was too great; I’d break something if I tried to roll over and fall to the ground. Damn, whoever it was had tied my hands so tightly that my fingers were numb.
I caterpillared myself on my side to the edge of the ledge where the rock met the soil. A small tree gave me some shade. This was the worst possible way of being tied up; there was no trick in the book to get some relief in the pain in my shoulders, knees, and hips from being arched backwards. I desperately needed to piss, so let go in my trousers.
The fact that I couldn’t feel my hands meant that the ropes were cutting off my circulation. I urgently needed to do something about it. So, remembering my training, I opened and closed my hands, alternately spreading my fingers as wide as I could, then clenching my hands into fists. Fists narrowed the wrists. Before long, I could start to feel pins and needles, which meant blood was flowing more freely.
Then, very faintly in the distance, I could hear men shouting. Someone surely must be looking for me? I tried to yell but the gag prevented me from making anything more than a muffled call. There was nothing for it; I had to get to my rifle and somehow fire off a shot without putting a bullet in myself.
So, despite the pain in my head, my shoulders and my hips, I wriggled from under the tree and onto the soil next to the overhang, scudding down the slope on my belly for a few feet until I was stopped by the trunk of another tree. I struggled to roll onto my side, grunting with the effort. Then, finally, when I did jerk over onto my shoulder, I bashed the corner of my forehead on a rock, and blood began to seep into my eye.
When my panting subsided, I heard men’s voices in the distance again. It sounded like there were quite a few, but some seemed to be a little closer than others. I could vaguely hear the closer ones were calling my name. It was incredibly painful and difficult to edge my way to my rifle. Then, extra-cautious not to discharge it, I shifted it with my shoulder so the barrel was pointing into the scrub. I manoeuvred myself, lying across the rifle on my back, my hands feeling around carefully to check that the safety was off; then waited to regain my breath and stillness after the exertion. I cautiously felt around with my hands, working out how I could get a finger into the trigger guard.
After a minute or two, the voices began to sound closer, perhaps fifteen to twenty metres away. “Damson!” It was Marco’s voice.
I bit down on the gag, closed my eyes and eased my finger through the trigger guard, then carefully squeezed. The sound of the rifle’s discharge caused a flurry of shouts from the men, followed by a volley of returned shots that whizzed over my head. I could imagine them crouching, waiting for return fire and listening to see if they could hear anyone crashing through the bushes—that was what I would have done, so hoped it was instinctive. In the following silence, I began pushing against the gag with my tongue, yelling as best I could.
“He’s here! He’s here!” someone above me called out, then whistled loudly.
I heard scrabbling above me, then a pair of boots landed near my face and the rifle was withdrawn from under me. “Damson!” Fabrizio yelled, desperately trying to pull the gag from my mouth.
Then a few other voices joined in and I saw pairs of legs milling around, followed by a large-bladed knife, which I felt slide down my cheek and begin to saw through the fabric of whatever had been tied around my head. Finally, it came out and I spat out a mouthful of blood and spit. “Untie me!” I yelled. However, as it was in English, no one seemed to do anything.
There was something I already knew about Italians: when anything untoward happened, everyone would start yelling at the same time and arguments would break out. I was lying there listening to them giving each other instructions, my joints screaming with pain, Fabrizio patting my face asking if I was all right.
“Fermatevi! ” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Everyone fell silent. “Per l’amor di Dio, sciolatemi i legami! ” I knew what I’d said probably sounded biblical, but my plea to cut the ropes tying my arms and legs had an instant effect. I could feel several pairs of hands pulling at whatever knots there were until Fabrizio passed over his knife.
“Water, water. Does anyone have water?” I heard myself saying before the pain shot through my body as I was helped to unfold. I threw up on the ground between my feet, noticing for the first time that not only had my boots gone, but also my jacket.
The next thing I remembered was being bundled into the back of a car, stretched out on the back seat, a tin mug of water held to my lips, then the car hurtling off over a very bumpy road, Fabrizio crouched in the seat well behind the driver, holding my hand and asking over and over whether I’d been shot or stabbed. The pain in my head was starting to overpower my joints’ screams for attention.
Again more yelling, more people bundled around the car as I was helped out then carried into the surgery of the local doctor, Signor Ambrosio, whose wife shooed everyone out of his surgery while he sat me on the edge of his examination table. My command of Italian was slipping with the degree of the pain I felt, so it was with no small amount of joy that I called out to Father Ignazio when he burst into the room.
“Send word to Giancarlo,” I said, in Latin. “He’s in Radi. There’s been another murder there, but the Mori brothers and I disturbed the murderer last night—”
“Yes, I know. The man whose life you saved was taken to Siena hospital. That’s where Giancarlo is now, trying to interview him. I’ve just telephoned to say you’ve been found alive. He’s on his way—”
“There’s no need.”
“There’s every need. The killer is here and you’ve seen him. Besides, he’s frantic with worry. I couldn’t tell him anything about how you are because no one knew—”
“Please, Father. I need to examine this young man,” the doctor said, obviously finally fed up with us speaking in a language he didn’t understand.
His examination was not unfamiliar. I’d had an identical one when I’d been blown up by a grenade in New Britain. The doctor stripped off my shirt and ran his fingers over my scars, asking where and how I’d come by them. I was too fatigued to speak in Italian so I asked Father Ignazio to translate. He checked me for concussion, then, satisfied that I was a lunatic because I’d given chase to a murderer in the dark, told me that I needed stitches in the back of my head where I’d been clobbered, and that I needed twenty-four to forty-eight hours of observation. He wasn’t entirely sure that I hadn’t received a hairline skull fracture, and kept urging me to allow myself to be taken to the hospital in Siena, which I kept refusing. I needed to wait for Giancarlo.
*****
I was sleeping when he arrived. I slowly became aware that he was sitting next to me, holding my hand.
“Where am I?” I mumbled. Normally what I said would have been far pithier, but the doctor had given me a muscle relaxant to help with my aching joints and stretched ligaments.
“Dr Ambrosio has put you in a room off his surgery,” Giancarlo replied. “He said he’d given you something to help you sleep.”
I tried to sit up, but felt too weak. “Sorry,” I said.
“I was so bloody worried about you.”
“Bloody?” I chuckled.
“Your bad influence is rubbing off on me. Damson, I—”
I turned my head just in time, vomiting over the side of the bed. I was aware that Giancarlo was calling out for the doctor, then the next thing I knew was being bundled into an old-fashioned cane wheelchair and being told over and over not to close my eyes.
*****
I hated the idea of being in hospital. I was told that I’d protested all the way in the ambulance, but was acquiescent in the X-ray room. It was as the doctor had suspected: I’d suffered a hairline fracture of the skull and, as a result, severe concussion. Two days after I’d arrived, I was still spontaneously vomiting and felt dizzy every time I managed to escape the eagle eye of the nurses and tried to get out of bed. My head still ached, but, as my speech was clear and vision normal, the consultant, who spoke excellent French, explained that he felt there was no brain damage, but my symptoms would last for a week or more, and that over the next five to six days I needed to stay under observation.
“Five years in the army, three of which fighting the Japanese, and I never once ended up flat on my back, and now here I am …” My voice faded at the amused expression of the young doctor. He patted my arm in a “there, there” gesture, then told me to drink the flat, warm chinotto in the glass the nurse had left next to the bed.
On the fifth day of being confined to bed, Giancarlo was finally given permission to speak with me for more than a few minutes. I was told that if I didn’t overdo it I could be discharged the following day. He looked incredibly tired when he arrived at nine in the morning, having left Pienza at seven, needing to call into the office before he drove to see me. He told me that he was allowed twenty minutes, after which Father Ignazio, who’d come with him, could visit briefly. He pulled the curtains around my bed and when one of the nurses objected he showed his police badge and told her that what we had to discuss was private. Despite that, he absolutely refused to tell me anything about what had happened until I came home. It felt immensely unfair, but my protestations were stifled by his mouth against mine. Slow, tender kissing. It was just what I needed.
“Damson, I want you to know that I—”
I hushed him by kissing him back. “It’s too early for me yet, Giancarlo,” I said, between kisses.
“But, tell me at least do I have any chance of—”
My kiss this time was deeper, more exploratory, one hand around his neck. “Give me time, please. I care for you more than for anyone … that includes Renzo, in case you’re still worried. I think about him less frequently these days, and what I feel for you is still growing.”
“Then there’s hope?”
“There’s more than hope,” I said. “But if we don’t stop kissing right now we’ll either get caught, or, broken head or no broken head, I’ll bend you over the hospital bed and have my way with you.”
He laughed. “The doctor told me you must take it easy for a few days when you get home. Any more dizziness or fainting and you’ll need to come straight back here. Every day, you’re to visit Dr Ambrosio for him to check you over. If you don’t agree to these terms, you’ll have to stay here for another five days.”
“Five days more?” I was appalled.
“Yes. So promise me, Damson.”
I kissed my crucifix and promised to be a good boy.
“I’ll send Alfonso in. I have to get back to Pienza. You won’t believe the amount of paperwork I have to do—”
“Just tell me one thing before you go. The man I was chasing …?”
He shook his head. “No sign of him. I’ll tell you tomorrow once we get you home. Okay?”
“There were two of them, Giancarlo,” I said, urgently.
“Two?”
“I had the point of my rifle pressed against the back of the man I’d been chasing. Someone else slugged me.”
“Two more minutes!” the nurse called out from behind the screen.
“I’ll tell you more tomorrow when I get out of here,” I said.
“All right,” he whispered, kissing me once more, while running his hand under the sheet. I was hard. “Dirty bugger,” he whispered, smiling into my eyes.
“Those are my two middle names, didn’t you know that?”
“You can’t fool me, I know your middle name is Padraig.”
Thank God we’d been speaking in English. The nurse’s face was very sombre when she came to take my temperature and my pulse before she went to fetch Father Ignazio.
*****
“So you didn’t get a good look at him, or the person who clobbered you?” Giancarlo asked.
“No. Blast that damned doctor for not letting you visit earlier. I could have told you that last week in hospital. I even asked them to give you a note, but they smiled at me as though I were a halfwit and gave me another tablet that made me drowsy.”
It was good to be home. Giancarlo had picked me up at the hospital early and we’d driven straight back to La Mensola, stopping briefly in Buonconvento to pick up something for breakfast. The hospital offering had been two boiled eggs with dry soda bread and a glass of water every day, and I was craving something proper to eat. Giancarlo wanted to spend some time alone with me before Fabrizio arrived at eleven to be there when Giancarlo took my statement.
The stove was lit when we arrived and a new block of ice in the icebox, thanks to Father Ignazio, who said hello then left us alone—he’d also been watering my vegetable garden and herb pots while I’d been away. The first thing I did was make coffee for Giancarlo and tea for me. We sat at the kitchen table while I quickly went through the events of the night we’d run into the killer. I learned that the lone survivor of the previous attack in Radi had died before anyone could speak with him, but the man we’d saved in the charcoal-burner’s hut was still in hospital. That was all Giancarlo wanted to tell me until Fabrizio arrived, encouraging me to share anything with him now that I wouldn’t want to say in front of his colleague.
“What could there be?”
“Nothing, Damson. I’m just giving you the opportunity.”
“The only opportunity I want is to finish my tea, then drag you upstairs by the collar.”
“Oh, you’ve been given the green light?”
“I told the doctor I had a girlfriend. He said my ‘girlfriend’ needed to be careful with me. Only performing oral sex on me, and if there’s to be penetration she should be on top, making sure I don’t exert myself too much.”
“Oh, I think I can follow that prescription,” he said.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to, but I’m not sure I can just lie there passively. I’ve missed you too much.”
Fabrizio arrived a little before eleven, by which time we’d spent an hour in bed, then gone for a swim, me being very careful to keep the back of my head dry—I had an impressive fourteen stitches. I had to breast stroke. Normally I loved to dive, always wondering if there were Roman tributes lying undiscovered for almost two millennia at the bottom of the pool, hidden five metres below the surface, and sunk into the mud.
I hadn’t yet added the legs to the table I was constructing for outside, so we put my two saw horses on the flagstones, resting the table top on them. It was very pleasant sitting in the shade of the grape vine on Giancarlo’s new collapsible chairs, bunches of purple fruit dangling over our heads, not yet ready to pick, but nearly there.
With Fabrizio came Onofrio Manfredi, Giancarlo’s colleague from Florence. I’d met him several times. He looked as haggard as I must have; he’d driven back early in the morning after spending the night with his wife and new baby.
Once we were all seated, I described the evening that I’d disturbed the killer in minute detail, answering questions when prompted for more information.
“There was a very brief moment when I told him to stand up that he hesitated. I don’t know how to describe it, but it felt like he was going to turn around and say something.”
Giancarlo translated what I’d said, then asked me if I could describe the feeling.
“I know it sounds stupid, because I had no idea who he was, but I got the impression he didn’t want to hurt me.”
“Why would that be?” Giancarlo asked.
“I have no idea, and, as I said, it was a feeling, nothing substantial.”
“Perhaps it was the memory of something that happened to you during the war,” Onofrio said. “I get those sorts of associations a lot when I’m arresting violent criminals. It’s as if I can sense what’s going on in their minds. They want you to be their friend and are desperate for you to tell them it’s all been a misunderstanding and that they can go free.”
I needed help with a few of his phrases, but understood, then shrugged, admitting that perhaps he was correct.
They grilled me over and over for a description—anything. I lost count of how many times I repeated that it was dark, he was wearing black clothing and gloves and a dark beanie, and, from my impression of the way he moved, was young, possibly about the same age and build as me—although I did impress upon them that black clothing in the dark tended to make people appear slimmer than perhaps they really were.
“He never spoke?” Onofrio asked.
“Not a word, not even a grunt, so I could get no idea of the tone of his voice.” I opened my sketchpad and showed them a drawing I’d made of the man crouching at the edge of the ledge, his hands on the back of his neck. “If Marco had listened to me and stayed in the woods with his brother, I think we’d either have him in captivity or at least I could have made you a drawing of his face.”
“Marco was worried for you, Damson,” Fabrizio said. “Don’t blame him too much; and you scared the shit out of him when you threw that stick at him. Besides, he’s mortified that he might be responsible for the killer getting away and you nearly being killed.”
My head was beginning to pound again, so I went into the house and took two of the tablets the hospital doctor had given me to help with the pain. Giancarlo followed me back from the kitchen with a bottle of red, some cheese, and a loaf of bread we’d bought at the same time as the pastries on our way home. I looked longingly at the bottle, but had been given strict orders not to mix my medication with alcohol.
“Where did Marco get his pistol?” I asked Giancarlo, in English. “Why at least didn’t he let me know he had one? It would have been more useful for me in a situation like that than my rifle, which is an unwieldy bastard.”
Giancarlo spoke with Fabrizio, then to me. “Fabrizio said that Marco didn’t want his brother to know that he’d kept one from the war.”
“From the war? He could have only been fifteen or sixteen in 1945.”
“This is our homeland, Damson. Children and women fought the Nazis with whatever they could lay their hands on.”
“Tell me one more thing. I’m curious to know if there was any response to the newspaper article.”
“Newspaper article?”
“Yes. My drawing of the man from Arezzo—Signor Gemello.”
“Ah, yes! Almost twenty responses. One of our colleagues has been sifting through them and telephoning the respondents—those who have a telephone connected. Otherwise, he’s directing the local constabulary to visit them. So far, there have been a lot of ‘vengeance’ denunciations of people who either bear no resemblance to the man or have completely different names.”
“And the man who we found at the charcoal-burner’s hut?”
Giancarlo threw an anxious look at Fabrizio, then translated what we’d been saying. Fabrizio responded to me in Italian. “He was in terrible pain when he arrived at the hospital, and incomprehensible.”
“But what did he say?”
“He’s said nothing so far, Damson. He’s recovering from surgery. They found the handle of a frusta da cavallo in his rectum, which perforated his bowel.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I don’t understand what that is.”
He neighed, then mimed whipping the side of his thigh with a riding crop.