continued.
“You were in Albania not so long ago yourself. You know how things are.”
He nodded. “As bad as I’ve seen them.”
“Did you notice any churches on your travels?”
“One or two still seemed to be functioning, but I know the official party line is to clamp down on religious observances of any sort.”
“They’ve almost completely crushed Islam,” she said in a dry, matter-of-fact voice. “The Albanian Orthodox Church has come out of it a little better because they deposed their archbishop and put in a priest loyal to Communism. It’s the Roman Catholic Church that has been most harshly persecuted.”
“A familiar pattern,” Chavasse said. “The organization Communism fears most.”
“Out of two archbishops and four bishops arrested, two have been shot and another’s on the books as having died in prison. The Church has almost ceased to exist in Albania, or so the authorities hoped.”
“I must admit that was the impression I got.”
“During the past year there’s been an amazing revival in the north,” she said. “Headed by the Franciscan fathers at Scutari. Even non-Catholics have been swarming into the church there. It’s had the central government in Tirana quite worried. They decided to do something about it. Something spectacular.”
“Such as?”
“There’s a famous shrine outside the city dedicated to Our Lady of Scutari. A grotto and medicinal spring. The usual sort of thing. A place of pilgrimage since the Crusades. The statue is ebony and leafed with gold. Very ancient. They call her the Black Madonna. It’s traditionally said that it was only because of her miraculous powers that the Turkish overlords of ancient times allowed Christianity to survive at all in the country.”
“What did the central government intend to do?”
“Destroy the shrine, seize the statue and burn it publicly in the main square at Scutari. The Franciscan fathers were warned and managed to spirit the Madonna away on the very day the authorities were going to act.”
“Where is it now?”
“Somewhere in the Buene Marshes at the bottom of a lagoon in my brother’s launch.”
“What happened?”
“It’s easily told.” She shrugged. “My brother, Marco, was interested in a society of Albanian refugees living in Taranto. One of them, a man called Ramiz, got word about the Madonna through a cousin living in Albania at Tama. That’s a small town on the river ten miles inland.”
“And this society decided to go in and bring her out?”
“The Black Madonna is no ordinary statue, Paul,” she said seriously. “She symbolizes all the hope that’s left for Albania in a hard world. They realized what a tremendous psychological effect it would have upon the morale of Albanians everywhere if it were made public in the Italian press that the statue had reached Italy in safety.”
“And you went in with them? With Marco?”
“It’s an easy passage and the Albanian navy is extremely weak, so getting into the marshes is no problem. We picked up the statue at a prearranged spot on the first night. Unfortunately, we ran into a patrol boat next morning on the way out. There was some shooting and the launch was badly damaged. She sank in a small lagoon and we took to the rubber dinghy. They hunted us for most of the day. Marco was shot toward evening. I didn’t want to leave his body, but we didn’t have much choice. Later that night, we reached the coast and Ramiz stole a small sailing boat. That’s how we got back.”
“And where is this man Ramiz now?” Chavasse asked.
“Somewhere in Matano. He telephoned me in Rome yesterday and told me to meet him at a hotel on the waterfront. You see, he’s managed to get hold of a launch.”
Chavasse stared at her, an incredulous frown on his face. “Are you trying to tell me you intend to go back into those damned marshes?”
“That was the general idea.”
“Just the two of you, you and Ramiz?” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t last five minutes.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s worth a try.” He started to protest but she raised a hand. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life living with the thought that my brother died for nothing when I could at least have tried to do something about it. The Minettis are a proud family, Paul. We take care of our dead. I know what Marco would have done and I am the only one left to do it.”
She sat there, her face very pale in the lamplight. Chavasse took her hands, reached across and kissed her gently on the mouth.
“This lagoon where the launch sank, you know where it is?”
She nodded, frowning slightly. “Why?”
He grinned. “You surely didn’t think I’d let you go in on your own?”
There was a look of complete bewilderment on her face. “But why, Paul? Give me one good reason why you should risk your life for me?”
“Let’s just say I’m bored stiff after a week of lazing around on the beach and leave it at that. This man Ramiz, you’ve got his address?”
She took a scrap of paper from her handbag and handed it to him. “I don’t think it’s far from here.”
He slipped it into his pocket. “Right, let’s get going.”
“To see Ramiz?”
He shook his head. “That comes later. First we’ll call on a good friend of mine, the kind of friend you need for a job like this. Someone with no scruples, who knows the Albanian coast like the back of his hand and runs the fastest boat in the Adriatic.”
At the door, she turned, looked up at him searchingly. Something glowed in her eyes and color flooded her cheeks. Quite suddenly, she seemed confident, sure of herself again.
“It’s going to be all right, angel. I promise you.”
He raised her hand briefly to his lips, opened the door and gently pushed her into the corridor.
FIVE
THE AIR IN THE ROOM WAS STILL HEAVILY tainted by cigarette smoke, but the card players had gone. In the light of the shaded lamp, a British Admiralty chart of the Drin Gulf area of the Albanian coast was unfolded across the table. Chavasse and Orsini leaned over it and Francesca sat beside them.
“The Buene River runs down to the coast from Lake Scutari, or Shkoder, as they call it these days,” Orsini said.
“What about these coastal marshes? Are they as bad as Francesca says?”
Orsini nodded. “One hell of a place. A maze of narrow channels, saltwater lagoons and malaria-infested swamps. Unless you knew where to look, you could search for a year for that launch and never find it.”
“Anyone living there?”
“A few fishermen and wildfowlers, mainly geghs. The Reds haven’t done too well in those parts. The whole area’s always been a sort of refuge for people on the run.”
“You know it well?”
Orsini grinned. “I’d say I’ve made the run into those marshes at least half a dozen times this year. Penicillin, sulphonamide, guns, nylons. There’s a lot of money to be made and the Albanian navy can’t do much to stop it.”
“Still a risky business, though.”
“For amateurs, anything is risky.” Orsini turned to Francesca. “This man Ramiz, what did he do for a living?”
“He was an artist. I believe he did most of his sailing at weekends.”
Orsini looked at the ceiling and raised his hands helplessly. “My God, what a setup. That he got you back safely to Italy is a miracle, signorina.”
The door opened and Carlo came in carrying cups on a tray. He handed them round and Chavasse sipped hot coffee. He frowned down at the map, following the main channel, then turned to Francesca.
