‘I hid between two garages, watching them. After ten minutes or so they went down the street to a cafe. When they went inside, I walked over to the bonfire.’
Hathaway tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.
‘It was about ten feet high, a conical pile of tree branches, planks and one railway sleeper with smaller lumps of wood and crates hanging precariously halfway up. An unbroken privet of tree branches around the base. I poured the petrol over the driest-looking piece of kindling and crouched down to light a match. The wind gusted the match out. And the second. I bent closer and put the matchbox and the next match into the wood. I struck the match.
‘The kindling went up with a whoosh. It surprised me. I staggered back, shaking my hand and twisting my head. Within seconds the flames were leaping high about the bonfire and racing round the perimeter, igniting all the kindling. I felt the prickly stumps of hair where my eyebrows had been. I looked down at my burned hand, already bright red with the skin puckering. I looked at the bonfire. It was burning well. I looked down the street towards the cafe. I turned and left.’
Tingley waited, sensing there was more.
‘Did I know the kid was in the den inside the bonfire when I lit the match? That’s the bit I can’t remember. I can see him peering at me through the piles of wood when I was crouching down but did I really see that? Do I just imagine it?’ Hathaway rubbed his eyes. ‘I really don’t know.’
Tingley couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hathaway sat up.
‘You reap what you sow, Jimmy boy. You reap what you sow.’
TWENTY-TWO
The countryside was lusher near Chiusi. Tingley saw the town perched on its tufa hill when he was still some way off. The land sloped gently away to a small lake. The road wound round the hill, threading between a series of steep, cultivated step terraces. He entered the town with the cathedral on his left and the Etruscan Museum on his right. He parked on a side street nearby.
The sun was bright. It was quiet. Siesta time in a backwater. He looked across the countryside. Then he turned towards the Villa di Bocci to get on with the job.
Crespo di Bocci’s cousin, Renaldo, was twenty years younger and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Plump, a cruel curl to his lips. A hint of the actor Peter Ustinov at his most lascivious.
He offered Tingley wine on a terrace looking out across the countryside. Renaldo waved his arm expansively.
‘All this is a vast necropolis. As Camars, this town was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan Federation. The Etruscans lived among their dead. With every rainfall, new treasures rise to the surface. There is a thirst for such treasures around the world.’ He pointed to the west. ‘That tufa hill there. It is the Poggio Gaiella. It has three storeys of passages and galleries, a labyrinth of them. It is regarded by some as the likeliest site for the mausoleum of Porsena, the great Etruscan emperor. You have heard of him?’
‘Horatio defended the gate of Rome against him, didn’t he?’
Renaldo bowed his head in assent.
‘There is a labyrinth of catacombs beneath the town, of course. Beneath this very house. Porsena was buried in the middle of a labyrinth with all his wealth about him. Now that would be a treasure worth finding.’
‘You smuggle artefacts, do you not?’
Renaldo ignored him.
‘Our family owned these fields and hills for generations. Then my grandfather took the wrong side.’
‘In World War Two?’
‘Before then. He became a fascist in the thirties. After the war our fortunes declined.’
Tingley nodded, wondering why he was being told this but thinking: only connect.
‘Your cousin said you would help me.’
‘My cousin does not speak for me.’ Renaldo di Bocci touched his fleshy lips with a forefinger. ‘Which is not to say that I won’t help you.’
‘You know who I want?’
‘Of course. But you must wait. You are welcome to stay here. In fact, I insist. Are you a reader?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Nor I, but it is a pity. We have a fine library here with many rare books. For a bookish man it would be a profitable place to pass a couple of days.’
‘As you say — a pity.’
‘A woman perhaps? A man?’
‘I’ll be fine as I am,’ Tingley said.
Tingley was not a religious man. He did enjoy the calm of churches, however. Their susurrating silence. He was sitting in the cathedral beside the palazzo watching a choir assemble when his solitude was disturbed by a hunched old woman in black who sat down beside him.
He stepped to the back of the church and phoned his friend, Bob Watts.
‘How’s it going?’ Watts said. ‘What’s that noise in the background?’
‘Evensong,’ Tingley said. ‘I figured the church might be the safest place from which to phone.’
‘How far along are you?’
‘Pretty far. These Mafiosi are being unusually helpful with Kadire. Suspiciously so.’
‘You think they’re setting you up?’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe just to do their dirty work for them. The old guy has a grudge against Kadire for some friend he offed. But his children seem strictly business. I don’t think they’d help if there weren’t a business advantage.’
‘And you are a business advantage,’ Watts said. ‘You’re not connected. Whatever you do can’t come back and hurt them.’
‘I know that will be how they see it. But they’re keeping me on ice at the moment.’
‘Watch out for yourself, Jimmy.’
A sudden spasm in his stomach made Tingley double over. He forced himself erect.
‘How are things your end?’ he said through gritted teeth,
‘My father has died.’
‘Bob, I’m really sorry.’
‘I have mixed feelings myself, as you know, Jimmy. I’m sorting out the funeral and so on. I’m staying at his place.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be back in time.’
‘Don’t worry. Where next? And when?’
‘I’m already here — place called Chiusi. Crespo’s cousin is putting me up — a dodgy piece of work called Renaldo. I think this is where it’s going to go down.’
‘Don’t know the place.’
‘Old Etruscan hill town, north of Rome.’
‘You OK?’ Watts said.
‘I’m fine. Locked and loaded. Gotta go, amigo. Raise a glass for your father from me.’
Tingley closed the connection. He looked up at the ceiling, letting the music wash over him.
TWENTY-THREE
Tingley and Renaldo dined alone that evening in the villa’s gloomy dining room. Two men in black were stationed by the door.
Tingley didn’t like Renaldo. He knew better than to deal in stereotypes but he could sense something
