Shout in the Dark (30 page)

Close to the road he passed a low stone
barn, a building in a poor state of repair with no roof. Around the
walls he could see smoke stains, fresh and black against the red,
weathered stone. A sharp unpleasant smell made him choke. A mixture
of burning plastic and... He sniffed deeply as he got closer. The
smell was not unlike that of a barbecue.

The wide doorway to the roofless barn
contained the smoldering remains of a station wagon. A large Audi,
probably once dark red, stood on massive five-spoke alloy wheels,
its tires melted in the intense heat. The fuel tank must have gone
up in a ball of flame shattering the car's windows. A glow of
warmth struck him in the face. He put the detector down but held
the spade defensively.

Then he saw the charred body bent over the
distorted steering wheel, its wrists bound to the rim with thick
wire.

"
What the hell are you up to, Sartini?"

He spun round. Riccardo stood in the
doorway.

"
This is horrible. I feel sick." Laura stood white faced at
the open door to the old barn, holding tightly onto Riccardo's
arm.

Riccardo looked as smartly dressed as he
had been in the restaurant. He spoke angrily to Laura. "You're a
stupid cow.
Vacca!
I can't
think why you came back, and I can't think why you had to
bring
him!
" He seemed
to have no interest in the body in the Audi as he jerked his thumb
at Marco.

Marco ignored the contempt. "Is this a
suicide?"

"
You're mad, Sartini. Haven't you noticed?" Riccardo kicked
some dust from the doorway against the warped registration plate.
"This is a
German
vehicle."

It might be nothing more than a
coincidence but Marco remembered a red Audi station wagon driving
this way yesterday with German plates. The stench of burned plastic
and flesh clung to the inside of his nose. Wherever he stood the
smell of violent death hit him with each intake of
breath.

Laura gasped something that Marco was
unable to hear. Whatever it was, it made Riccardo put his arm round
her. Riccardo's voice sounded more gentle now. "It's too late,
Laura. Look at him, there's nothing we can do to help."

"
So who do we tell?" Marco spoke more to himself than to the
others.

Laura tried to whisper something to
Riccardo but he shrugged her off. "This is a
German
car, Marco!"

"
So?"

"
A German car at Monte Sisto. You still don't understand, so
I'll explain. There are plenty of people in Monte Sisto who
remember the war. People who had their lives ruined, their families
tortured, their children taken. Every village around here has
horrifying stories of Nazi brutality to tell. They fought the
German occupiers secretly. They set ambushes and killed them. You
can be sure they still know how to kill them today." He flung an
arm out in the direction of the unfriendly village. "There are
still partisans -- and
that's
where they come from!"

Marco blew his nose violently. The smell
seemed less disgusting. Either that or he was growing accustomed to
the tang of scorched flesh. "I can't believe local people would
kill an innocent German tourist. It's ridiculous!"

Laura held tightly to Riccardo's arm as he
whispered in her ear. Then she said, "It might be true, Marco.
Terrible things happened in the region. Maybe they're still
happening."

Riccardo turned away from the burned Audi.
"She's right. If you don't believe us, walk to the village, or go
down to that farm. Go on, report this death -- and see what they do
to us. We've got to think of Laura."

Marco stared at the funeral pyre. A sudden
cracking noise from the bodywork made him jump. It was only the
metal contracting, but it made him realize there could be people
prowling about. Someone had taken Laura's Alfa yesterday afternoon.
The hill of Monte Sisto seemed an odd place, though the little
village was odder still.

"
So what now?"

Riccardo was already outside with Laura
leaning on his arm. "We just get the hell out of here,
Marco.
Rapidamente!
And
for Laura's sake we keep our mouths shut."

A sudden breeze blew a cloud of acrid
smoke
and warm air from
the stone doorway. Marco moved into the open air but the smell was
still there. His imagination was too vivid to allow his stomach to
lie inactive any longer and he went round the corner of the barn to
be sick.

Riccardo Fermi had been strangely unmoved by
the sight of the corpse gripping the wheel. Marco returned for a
further glance inside. The blackened corpse looked set to drive the
shell of the station wagon from the stone building; the gaping
mouth of brown, even teeth shouting for the way ahead to be
cleared. But it was easy to see that the shackled figure had never
stood a chance once the first tongues of flame licked up
eagerly.

"
You're a priest, and you're scared to look at death?"
Riccardo's voice was full of scorn. "If you want to be afraid of
anything, Marco, be afraid of the partisans -- the people in the
village who did this.
Come on!
"

Marco felt ashamed of his behavior. He was
still a priest. He had neglected the brief prayer for peace for a
man's soul in order to find peace for himself.

"
I was only joking," called Riccardo as Marco strode back
into the barn. "That man was a
stronzo
. Bastards like that don't deserve mercy -- alive or dead.
They thought nothing of burning whole communities alive in the
war."

Marco returned to the doorway.
"This
stronzo
as you
call him could have been an innocent tourist. Surely you don't see
every German as a Nazi?"

Riccardo spat on the grass in contempt.
"
Stronzo!
Bastard! This man was contaminated by Nazi filth! If you go
near him you'll be contaminated, too!"

"
You knew him?" It seemed the only possible explanation for
Riccardo's outburst.

Riccardo turned away from the barn. "I'm
taking Laura away from here."

Laura was crying, whispering into
Riccardo's ear again. Riccardo tried without success to comfort
her.

Marco felt compelled to return inside and
pray with the body. "You two go on back to Laura's Alfa. I'll join
you soon."

"
You're not going to do anything stupid?" Riccardo sounded
anxious.

"
Stupid?"

"
Like going to report this death. It's nothing to do with
us.
Nothing!
Someone
will find the body soon enough, and I don't want Laura to be
involved. Even if you're not bothered about your
own
life you've got to think of
Laura Rossetti. Partisans never want witnesses."

Laura looked up, her face still pale. "Do
what you have to do, then go back to the quarry and wait. Riccardo
says his car is with mine. It's dark blue."

Marco carried out his ritual over the
burned body, but the words were empty. This was not loveable Old
Savio on the sidewalk in the Piazza Venezia. The harsh words of
Riccardo about Nazi guilt made the prayer for peace sound a sham,
a
finzione
.

MO WATCHED FROM the dense shelter of the
fig trees that grew wild and neglected
at one side of the old stone building. He liked
the man who had gone back into the barn. He was a man who would
show some kindness to a
scemo bambino
. But the kind man was going away. Mo's breath came
quickly, his misshapen chest unable to keep up with the fast
intakes. Bad people had come back. The bad man who hurt the driver
of the big red station wagon. Maybe there would be another fire.
Another look into the doorway of hell.

He felt tired. His body was all pain. He
needed rest. He needed food. The rats had eaten his food last
night. The bad man and the woman were talking loudly. He listened,
taking in some of the words and sorting them into simple
phrases.

The woman was saying, "You kill him. Bruno
kill him, too. You come here yesterday to kill him."

The bad man sounded very angry, "We all
want him dead."

The woman said, "You want to kill more
people. You bad."

The thoughts and the words went round in
his mind in a muddle. The bad man said the woman must help kill
more men. The woman was saying no. The woman walked away then came
back. She said she no idea the body was here.

Woman and bad man started shouting.

Woman cry.

From the shelter of the large leaves Mo
felt moved to comfort the woman crying such big tears. Slowly he
dragged himself from the fig trees.

"
Cattivo!
" The sharp first syllable followed by the long drawn out
gasp of the other two made the bad man and the woman look up in
fright.

"
Bad! You bad!"

Behind Mo, the ground fell away steeply.
There were thick bushes down there by the side of the road. His
body hurt. Bad man look at him. Woman cry out. Bad man pick up
stone. Bad man come to him.

Bad man
cattivo
.

Exhausted, twisted, and wracked with pain,
Mo tried to drag himself away.

The man brought the stone down on his head.
A light of dazzling intensity made him cry out just once as he fell
backwards over the rock face.

The pain vanished and the white light filled
his mind.

MARCO
WAS RELIEVED to discover the two cars in the old quarry. He
waited impatiently for Laura and Riccardo to catch up with him.
Riccardo was right: Monte Sisto was not a secure place. Anyone
might be in the bushes watching, ready to claim a further victim.
He had already heard a shout in the distance. But the
carabinieri
had to be told about the body
in the barn. And they had to be told today.

He became aware of a sound amongst the
bushes. A breaking branch. Someone was coming along the edge of the
hill. The leaves shivered.

To his relief he heard Laura and Riccardo
talking and saw them emerge from the narrow path. Laura looked even
more pale, if that was possible; her large brown eyes empty of
life.

"
It's a bad place this," said Marco, wondering if Laura was
as sensitive to the atmosphere as he was.

"
That's because terrible things happened here in the war."
Laura sniffled, still holding Riccardo's arm.

Marco added, "Yesterday as well, by the
look of that body. Do you honestly think someone killed him because
of the war?"

Laura burst into tears. "That man was a
German, Marco. He deserved to die."

"
Then you must know something I don't," snapped Marco. "I
can't get a signal on my cell phone. Whether you like it or not,
I'm going to that farm over there to report the body."

"
Then you'd better take Laura's car back to Rome. We're not
hanging around. And don't mention our names."

THE FARMER TOOK a dislike to the man who
came banging on his farmhouse door, claiming to be a priest.
He called himself Father Marco,
but no priest wearing jeans and without a clerical collar had ever
set foot in Monte Sisto before. If this was the modern Church it
might as well close down tomorrow. It made him feel good to think
that he had given up going. But he sensed an urgency about the
man's manner that was compelling, and he went with him reluctantly
to the barn.

He stood there
in front of his barn with the stranger. Never
before had he seen such a grim end to a life. Last night Mo claimed
he had seen something that obviously frightened him. Mo had turned
up at the farm talking about flames, but he was used to the youth's
stupid behavior by now and had taken no notice. The barn was
nothing but a shell, and would need good money spending on it
before it could be used in the autumn. Perhaps there would be
insurance.

He turned away in frustration. He didn't
want people nosing around his property. Before the authorities
came, he would have to hide the drums of surplus fertilizer that
were neatly stacked in the yard behind the house. Surely this young
man wasn't with the plain clothes
carabinieri
, spying on his private dealings.

That body in the barn couldn't have been
there for more than a day or two. This man who said he was a priest
told him to call the
carabinieri
. He'd phone the press first. After hiding things he didn't
want seen. There was money to be made from the press. And from the
television.

He was worried. One of his daughters had
walked to the village earlier to see a friend. Not many vehicles
used this road, but those that did were often driven too fast. It
sounded as though someone was lying injured in the bushes. Then
came the sobbing moan, the half formed words he knew so
well.