The Etruscan Net (12 page)

‘The goods I had to offer are no longer for sale.’

‘What were the goods?’

‘I have no doubt that you would like to know that. You would pay handsomely for the information. You have come out here with your pockets bulging with money. Then let me tell you, Captain, exactly what you and your friend can do–’ He articulated the street-boy obscenity carefully.

‘I see,’ said the Commander. He walked to the door. ‘Then it would seem that I’ve had my journey for nothing.’ His calmness infuriated Labro. For a moment it looked as though he was going to hit him. But there was a warning in the Commander’s eye which restrained him.

‘If you should change your mind, you know where you can get in touch with me. I’ll wish you good evening.’

The Commander walked out into the farmyard. There was a suspicion which had to be confirmed. The tracks of the Michelin tyres were visible in the film of mud over the cobble-stones. They led round towards the back of the building. The Commander followed them carefully.

Statics and Dynamics

‘It is
my
house,’ said Annunziata. ‘All of it. The front part and the back part. Every room. And I say that Dindoni shall not stay in it for another day.’

‘We can’t turn him out into the street,’ said Tina.

‘Then he shall be given a week to find other accommodation.’

‘What of the business?’

‘Why should I care about the business. Your father was a careful man. We have money. Sufficient for our needs.’

‘If you’re sure of that,’ said Tina doubtfully. ‘Perhaps we could let the room at the back to an artist. There are many who require accommodation. I saw an advertisement in the papers only yesterday – God in heaven!’

She had been turning the pages of the
Corriere di Firenze
as she spoke. A photograph in the news section had suddenly caught her eye.

‘What does it say,
cara
? Read it to me.’

‘Look! Look! That woman.’

‘What does it say,
cara
? Read it to me.’

‘It says, “An important witness in the case of the Englishman Broke accused of running down and killing a citizen of Florence, Milo Zecchi, is Maria Calzaletta”–’

‘Well?’

‘There is a photograph of her, see.’ She pushed the newspaper across. Her mother had found her glasses. She said, ‘It is a face that has a certain familiarity.’

‘It’s Maria, Dindoni’s woman. She works at the café on the corner. I have seen her a hundred times.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘It is not a good photograph,’ agreed Tina. ‘But yes, I am certain of it.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means that what we had thought is true. There
was
a conspiracy. Dindoni arranged it all. He desired this business. He could not wait.’

‘Dindoni?’ said Annunziata doubtfully.

‘Not on his own. He had help of course. Do you remember Milo told us? He was being followed by two men. We laughed at him at the time. But it was true. Dindoni must have told them that Milo was going out that night. And yet–’ Tina’s enthusiasm suffered a set-back. ‘How
could
he have known. He was so careful to talk about it only in this room. What is wrong, Mother?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You do not look well.’

‘It’s nothing. It was speaking of Milo. You brought it all back to me. What will you do now?’

‘I shall question this woman.’

‘That’s good,’ said Annunziata. ‘You question her.’ She seemed anxious to get her daughter out of the room.

Mercurio was sitting in his car at the corner of the street and climbed out as she came up. Tina’s first thought was to ignore him. Then it occurred to her that she could do with some support. She said, ‘I have business in this café. You can come with me if you wish.’

The front room, as was usual at that early hour in the evening, was empty, but they could hear someone moving about inside the alcove behind the bead-curtains. They went through. Maria was taking bottles from a carton and arranging them on one of the shelves. She suspended operations when she saw them, looked indifferently at Tina, more agreeably at Mercurio.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘We would like some information,’ said Tina. She slammed the newspaper down on the table. ‘Is that your photograph?’

‘I expect so,’ said Maria, without looking at it.

‘Then it
is
you who are giving evidence to the Police.’

‘I told them what I saw – and heard.’

Tina laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

‘You told them what your fancy man, Dindo, ordered you to tell them.’

‘I told them the truth.’

‘Strange that you should have chanced to be in the Via Canina at half past ten.’

‘Is there any law against it?’

‘Why were you not here? That is the busy time here, isn’t it? As much as a dump like this ever can be busy.’

Maria ignored this insult. She said, ‘If you want to know, we shut at nine o’clock that evening. Old Tortoni agreed to it. I told him I had to visit my sister. She lives near the Porta Romana. I was on my way back from her house when this thing happened.’

Mercurio said, ‘That sounds to me like a story. It is something you have learned up to recite to the Police. Now tell us what really happened?’

‘It happened as I have said.’

‘Odd,’ said Tina, ‘that you should have decided, suddenly, to visit your sister when it is well known that you have not spoken to her for two years – since she married your boyfriend–’

‘That’s a lie,’ said Maria, a spot of colour appearing in both cheeks.

‘And since when has anyone coming from the Porta Romana needed to go down the Via Canina?’

‘I refuse to answer your questions.’

‘Who was here, that night, at nine o’clock when you shut the café?’

‘Who?’

‘Those two men were here, weren’t they? The fat one and the thin one.’

Maria said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She said it without confidence.

‘Oh, come now,’ said Tina. ‘You can’t be as stupid as that. They’ve been here every night for the last ten days, putting their feet up, and having drinks on the house.’

Mercurio suddenly said, in a loud and authoritative voice. ‘I smell blood.’

The women stared at him. Maria had turned pale.

‘I have certain divine attributes. I can look forward into the future, and back into the past. And I can tell you this–’ He transfixed Maria with a look of sombre power. ‘On the night you are speaking of, something horrible happened,
in this room.
’

Maria said, ‘Don’t look at me like that. Nothing happened here. Or if it did, it was nothing to do with me. I wasn’t here–’

The words were coming faster and faster, and ended with a noise which was half a gasp and half a scream, but this was nothing to do with Mercurio. It was caused by the stout man coming through the bead-curtains. He said, ‘Are these people annoying you,
carissima
?’

Tina said, ‘Oh!’

Mercurio, who still seemed to be in the grip of some external force, swung slowly round, looked at the stout man, and said, ‘The blood is on your hands.’

‘I think you had better go, both of you,’ said the stout man. ‘You are upsetting the management.’

Tina said, ‘We’ve got as much right to be here as you have, fatty.’

The man ignored her. He stepped quickly up to Mercurio, and grabbed him by the collar of his coat. He might as well have tried to hold an eel. Mercurio’s curiously mobile body twisted under his grasp, and the man was left holding the coat.

Tina looked about her for a weapon. The nearest was a cue off the bar-billiards table. She screamed out ‘Take your hands off him, you beast,’ and swung, butt-end foremost, at his head.

The man side-stepped the blow easily. Maria, who was standing behind him, was not so lucky. The heavy butt hit her on the side of the head with a noise like an old and well-oiled bat meeting a leather cricket ball, and she dropped.

The stout man ignored them both. He had eyes only for Mercurio. He said, ‘If you want to turn this into a strip-tease act, let us play it that way.’ He darted forward, shot out his hands, grabbed Mercurio’s silk shirt, and pulled. It came away with a ripping sound, exposing a blue silk singlet.

Mercurio said, ‘Beast,’ and threw himself at the man, who hit him in the stomach. This, at least, was his intention. But Mercurio, who was as agile as his opponent, half turned at the last moment, took the blow on his hip, and flung his arms round the stout man, clasping him to him. Then, as the man jerked his head away, he buried his teeth in his ear.

Most people when bitten in the ear would scream. The stout man did not. He disengaged his right arm, quite calmly, put his hand up, and felt for Mercurio’s eyes. Mercurio let go of his ear, and twisted his face away.

The hand followed it.

The stout man said, hardly raising his voice, ‘I am going to blind you.’

It was Mercurio who screamed.

This brought Tina back into the fight. Up to that point she had been trying to assure herself that Maria was not dead. Now she picked up the fallen cue, swung it carefully, like a golfer addressing a drive, and hit the stout man very hard on the back of his head, just above the point where his neck joined his skull.

The man folded up. His knees buckled and he fell, without losing his grip on Mercurio, who fell with him. Mercurio seemed to have fainted.

Tina seized the nearest bottle, jerked out the cork, and poured the contents over Mercurio’s face.

The boy spluttered, sat up and said, ‘Stop that. What on earth are you doing with that stuff? It’s gin.’

Maria, on the floor, gave a groan and rolled over on to her face.

‘Thank God!’ said Tina. ‘I thought I’d killed her.’

‘What about that one?’

‘Him! I don’t care if I have killed him.’

Mercurio looked at the bodies on the floor, looked at Tina, still holding the billiard cue, looked down at himself, and started to giggle.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I think we’d better get away from here. Right away. I’ll drive you out to my house–’

Tina said, doubtfully, ‘All right. But I hope we aren’t stopped. You look terrible. And smell terrible too–’

They reached the Villa Rasenna unchallenged. Mercurio parked the car, and led the way to a side door.

‘We can go straight up to my bedroom.’

‘To your–?’

‘Oh, that’s all right. Come
on.
’

In the bedroom he drew up a chair for Tina, poured her out a drink, and disappeared into the bathroom with an armful of clean clothes. The events in the café seemed to have given him a certain confidence.

When he reappeared twenty minutes later, he was his dapper self again.

‘That’s much better,’ said Tina. ‘You can hardly smell the gin at all. I’m sorry I poured it all over you. I thought it was water.’

‘You were splendid.’ said Mercurio.

‘You were pretty good yourself,’ said Tina. ‘You nearly bit his ear off.’

‘I wasn’t too bad, was I?’

They admired themselves, in silence, for a few moments.

‘Did you know,’ said Mercurio, ‘that I have certain quite remarkable attributes?’

‘One can detect that.’

‘That is the reason that Bruno adopted me. He was looking for Tages.’

‘For who?’

‘For Tages. It’s part of the Etruscan religion. They believed that every so often a baby called Tages was born who had divinity.’

‘How would they know?’ said Tina cautiously.

‘They would know because he would be perfect in every particular. Physical and mental. His proportions would be exact. He would excel at all natural sports, like running and jumping and riding and swimming.’

‘How could you tell – babies don’t ride or swim, do they?’

‘If your proportions are correct, and you suffer from no defect, these things follow.’

‘I suppose they must.’

‘But it is not only physical things. The mental side is even more important. It became clear at a very early age that I had exceptional mental powers. Particularly in the field of mathematics. At an early age I could perform astonishing feats of mental arithmetic. When I was seven, I gave a demonstration at the University of Perugia – that is Bruno’s university. In front of the Professors of the Mathematical Faculty. I multiplied seven-figure numbers in my head, and cubed other numbers of up to five figures.’

‘Goodness,’ said Tina. The events of the evening were combining with the drink to produce an overpowering desire for sleep. Mercurio seemed to have got his second wind.

‘It did not stop at that. Infant prodigies of this sort are not uncommon. They burn themselves out. I progressed to more sophisticated fields. At nine I was interested in permutations and combinations. At eleven, statics and dynamics. At twelve, the calculus.’

‘Did it do you any good? I mean, knowing all these things, was it any use to you?’

Mercurio grinned, losing some of his divinity in the process. ‘I’ll show you how useful it was,’ he said. ‘Come along.’

He led the way out of the room and down the back stairs, into the basement. They went along a corridor and came to a stout oak door, set in the thickness of the wall, which Mercurio unlocked, with a key from his chain.

‘Goodness,’ said Tina. ‘What on earth is it?’

‘Oh, this is Bruno’s tomb.’

‘He’s going to be buried here?’

‘That’s what he thinks.’

‘With all these pots and statues and things. Aren’t they terribly valuable?’

‘They’re all right,’ said Mercurio indifferently. ‘But they’re not the things that really matter. Look at the wall over there. No, a bit lower down. That’s right. Tap it with your knuckles.’

‘It’s not stone at all. It’s iron.’

‘It’s the door of a safe. Iron painted to look like stone. Clever, isn’t it?’

‘How does it open?’

‘Like this.’

Mercurio had taken out a penknife. He pushed the blade into a crack, and a square panel hinged outwards, revealing a dial.

‘It’s a combination lock. If you set the right eight numbers in the right order on the dial the door opens.’

‘Do you know the answer?’

‘Nobody knows the answer, except Bruno. Or that’s what he thought.’

Tina was examining the numbers on the lock. She felt excited and wide-awake again. She slid the smooth steel dial round with her finger, hearing it click as it moved. She set one or two complete numbers. ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘You’d have to try for a long time to hit on the right ones, that is if you didn’t know it, wouldn’t you?’

‘Eight sets of numerals, from one to nine, but excluding nought, will give you forty-three million, forty-six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-one possibilities.’

‘It would take some time to try all those, wouldn’t it?’

‘If you took six seconds to set the dial and try the door and kept it up, without stopping, you could do it in eight years, sixty-eight days and nine hours, approximately.’

‘Approximately?’

‘That makes no allowance for leap years.’

‘I don’t think I’ll try it, thank you.’

‘There’s no need. As it happens, I have managed to work out the correct number.’