The Thing Itself (20 page)

T
he Allies bypassed Chiusi, whilst keeping it hemmed in, so the bombardment stopped. Our unreal existence continued. Mostly the count loitered, seething with unfocused jealousy. Listening in doorways, whispering in quiet corners with his fascist cronies.

I'd been moved to a bedroom on the first floor. One afternoon I lay on the bed wondering if I was behaving improperly in the villa. Was I collaborating in some way? I couldn't see how. Although I might find the activities of the Italian fascists towards internal opposition before and during the war distasteful, I had been clearly instructed to safeguard the count against any post-war settling of scores.

I didn't realize I'd fallen asleep until the music woke me. I opened my eyes and thought for a moment I was out in the country. Stars in a turquoise sky shone above my head on the bed's painted canopy. After splashing my face at the sink, I went out into the corridor to locate the others. I took a wrong turn and found myself in an unfamiliar part of the house. I could not hear the music here and I was about to retrace my steps when a sliver of light shot out from beneath a door a few yards to my left.

I made my way cautiously to the door. I knew what I'd find even before I pushed it open. The soft candlelight. The black woollen dress discarded on the floor beside the man's dark trousers and jacket. The contessa, coiled on the bed with Knowles, asleep in his arms.

As I turned away from the tableau, I saw Knowles smile. He opened his eyes and looked at me, still smiling. I pulled the door closed.

The next day I found Knowles in the library. He was examining some ancient book. He looked up.

‘I didn't know you were such an academic,' I said, sitting down opposite him.

‘Why would you?'

‘You don't remember me, do you?'

Knowles put the book down.

‘Should I?'

‘I briefly ran the north-west branch of the BUF in 1935.'

He narrowed his eyes.

‘That's ringing a bell. A Blackburn lad?'

‘Born but not bred.'

‘A bobby in Brighton?'

‘I am that man.'

‘Well, well. Yes, I do vaguely remember. Last time I saw you was when we gave you the north-west job.'

‘Last time I saw you was in a members' billiards club in Wardour Street. Meeting the manager – an Italian gangster who was later hanged for murdering a Jewish one.'

He looked sharply at me.

‘I vaguely recall that club. We were trying to get the kike gangsters out of London – the small Jews. It was a Sabini brothers club. Those gangsters and the BUF had the same goals in that instance.'

‘The manager had the same name as one of the Brighton Trunk Murderers. Tony Mancini.'

Knowles frowned.

‘And was it him?'

‘No – seemed Mancini the Brighton man had stolen his name. You know the cases?'

‘Doesn't everyone of our generation?'

I sat down opposite him.

‘Tell me about you and the contessa.'

‘It means nothing.'

‘Does Alfonso know?

‘Are you mad? He would kill anyone he thought was her lover. He has always said that and I have no reason to doubt him.'

‘Why does she tolerate him?'

‘She is from a poor family. He has a position and money. He gave her a life of ease. Parlaying sex for a life of ease is not unknown . . .'

‘So why does she jeopardize her position by taking a lover?'

Knowles laughed ruefully.

‘Alfonso's mother encourages it. Alfonso is the last of the line but he is infertile. They cannot have a child. His mother advises her to take a lover from outside the family but to tell no one.' Knowles shrugged. ‘She told me.'

‘Does he know he is infertile?' I said.

Knowles looked up at the ceiling.

‘To the count, manliness – virility – is everything. It is the core of Italian fascism. That is why he despises me because I do not exhibit manly qualities.' He paused for a moment. ‘I do not get drunk and belch in other men's faces. I do not wrestle with them after dinner. I do not go into the hills to shoot boar and birds. I am thoughtful, so I must be homosexual.'

‘The perfect cover. And you are going to give the contessa a child?'

Knowles just looked at me.

That evening, after dinner, the count took me aside.

‘The German commander has been ordered to pull out tonight. Kesselring has finally persuaded the High Command that redeploying the weaponry from here after an orderly retreat makes more sense than leaving it exposed whilst this futile search for a tomb goes on. They will leave the town in your hands.'

‘He will disobey Hitler's direct command?'

‘Hitler is already doubtless obsessed with some new nonsense his astrologers have brought to his attention, even as his thousand-year Reich crumbles around him.'

When the Germans left, Knowles left too. The count's fascist friends melted away. The count and contessa packed in preparation for their move to Rome.

‘Under your escort, Major Tempest,' the count said, an ingratiating smile on his face. ‘I think it advisable until feelings here have died down a little.'

I did not hide my distaste for the count. I had been in radio contact with the Allies as soon as the Germans had left. I had asked if my orders to protect the count still stood. The answer had been in the affirmative. On no account should I allow the count to be subjected to any unfavourable word or act. Investigation of his wartime activities was to be discouraged.

In the hospital I found Allied prisoners of war, captured during our failed attack on the town. They had been well looked after. I armed those who had recovered from their injuries and went to the cathedral square to announce that the Allies had formally liberated the town. Then I returned to the villa with them to await the arrival of the partisans.

Six came out of the hills the next day. Fabbio Cortone led them. When they came to the villa to arrest the count, I showed them the safe-conduct passes for the count and contessa. I insisted that they were under Allied protection. I stood firm when Cortone declared that the count had committed atrocities against the partisans during the war.

All the partisans were armed and angry. I showed no emotion even when Cortone showed me the injuries the fascists, at the count's behest, had done to two of his men. As I closed the door on them, I saw the disgust in Cortone's face. It scarcely compared with the disgust I felt for myself.

I
never saw Knowles again, but in 1945 I attended the Nuremberg trials. I was trying to make sense of what had happened in the war. Not the people I had killed, but the millions murdered. Nuremberg had been chosen as the venue for the trials for symbolic reasons. It was there Hitler had held his grandiose rallies; there he had passed a law stripping Jews of their German citizenship. For the same symbolic reason the RAF had pretty much demolished the medieval quarters in bombing raids. Nuremberg was war-wrecked, its citizens gaunt and exhausted.

Lord Birkett was the British black-capped judge pronouncing the death sentence on Nazi war criminals in the Palace of Justice. The last time I'd seen him, he'd been plain Norman Birkett, barrister, successfully defending Tony Mancini, aka Jack Notyre, at Lewes Crown Court against the charge of murdering his mistress, Violette Kay.

The man hanging the criminals Birkett sentenced to death was Albert Pierrepoint, the butcher from Clayton I'd met in 1935. It had taken him until 1941 to move from assistant to official executioner. He told me that when I bumped into him in a
bierkeller
. I reminded him of our last meeting, almost ten years earlier.

‘I remember,' he said. ‘You still a Blackshirt?'

‘That was a mistake,' I said. ‘We stood for order but we caused disorder.'

‘Some mistakes you can recover from. I deal with people whose mistakes have consequences they can't evade.'

‘When were you first in charge of the whole thing?' I asked. ‘The hangings.'

‘1941. Seventeenth of October. Pentonville Prison. Happy enough fellow. Last thing he said before he went through the hatch was “Cheerio”.'

Pierrepoint and I sipped our beer. It was rubbish but then we'd bombed the breweries to buggery.

‘I did tell him he should have had a word with my dad,' he said.

I frowned.

‘You've lost me.'

‘Well, I was hanging him for knifing somebody in a brawl but he also told me that, years before, he'd chopped up some lass and he'd had a bugger of a time doing it. Didn't know anything about jointing meat, you see. My dad, now, he could have jointed an elephant without breaking sweat.'

My mind reeled from more than the drink.

‘What was this man's name?'

Pierrepoint thought for a moment.

‘Antonio Mancini. “Baby” to his friends. Soho gangster. Knifed a thug from a rival gang. A Jewish gang. It could have gone either way – who lived, who died, I mean. It would have made no difference to me – one of them would have dangled from the end of my rope.'

‘Baby Mancini.'

‘Daft name for a grown man, I know.'

I nodded slowly.

‘I met him once,' I said. ‘Just for five minutes.'

Pierrepoint was an unnervingly placid man. He remained still, watching me, waiting for more.

‘This lass,' I said. ‘He killed her?'

He shook his head.

‘I don't think so. Helping out his brother-in-law after the fact, apparently.' He shrugged, though he seemed to make heavy work of the gesture. ‘Strange favours some folk do.'

‘Who was his brother-in-law?' I said. ‘It wasn't a bloke called Martin Charteris, was it?'

Pierrepoint frowned.

‘No idea.'

And that should have been it with regard to the Brighton Trunk Murders and the hangings of Albert Pierrepoint and the two Tony Mancinis. But, of course, nothing ever finishes. No story is ever really done.

A year later I was back in London working for military intelligence. I bumped into Pierrepoint again. I was on my way to meet Ian Fleming – he had some girls lined up. But this bloke and his feelings for his chilly occupation fascinated me. Since I'd last seen him, he'd executed at least two hundred Nazi war criminals. Now he was back at Pentonville, hanging home-grown traitors.

Over a pint he said: ‘Good job you got out of the Blackshirts when you did. I hanged two of your former comrades yesterday. Lord Haw-Haw and another bloke who'd been high up. Mosley's unofficial ambassador to Italy. Picked up in Germany.'

‘Eric Knowles?' I said.

‘You knew him too?'

I was remembering the time Charteris had taken me to Tony Mancini's club. As we were standing at the bar, Eric Knowles had come in and gone upstairs.

I laughed. A bleak laugh.

‘Albert, as I get older I'm not sure I know anybody.'

K
ate Simpson was dressed and sitting on the edge of her bed when Sarah Gilchrist walked in. She gave the policewoman a lopsided grin. The bruising round her eyes had turned yellow and the swelling on her lip had subsided a little.

‘Ready?' Gilchrist said.

‘You're sure about this?'

‘Sure I'm sure. You did the same for me.'

‘Only for a few days, though.'

Gilchrist picked up Kate's backpack from a chair.

‘Stay as long as you like.'

Kate's legs trembled as she got out of bed. Although physically she was making a rapid recovery, emotionally and psychologically she was still fragile from the shock and viciousness of the attack.

What she'd actually done to defend herself was something of a blur. She remembered the man hitting her, his weight crushing her, his hand jammed between her legs. She remembered scrabbling under the pillow and grabbing the volt gun. Pressing it to his temple and pushing the button.

She couldn't face the thought of going back to her flat. Her mother had originally suggested she go up to London and stay at the family home but she had made it sound like an inconvenience. Anyway, Kate didn't want to be in the same house as her father. Plus, her mother had not bothered to get in touch since the initial offer.

Her father hadn't visited. He'd phoned, pleading pressure of work. She'd asked him what was behind the attack and he'd been evasive.

‘Some business complications, that's all.'

‘That's not all. That man made it very personal.'

‘It will all be taken care of, darling,' he said.

She cringed at the word ‘darling' coming from a man she despised.

Her father had at least taken care of her bail. She found it hard to take in the fact she had killed someone and might go to jail for it.

Gilchrist had offered the sofa bed in her new flat. This was by way of thanks for Kate putting Gilchrist up when the policewoman's flat had been torched to discourage her from investigating the Milldean Massacre. Since Kate had a crush on her, it was a no-brainer, as Simon at Southern Shores Radio was fond of saying. Kate was on sick leave from her job there and looked forward to a week or two of rest and recuperation.

Gilchrist's phone rang as they stood on the steps of the hospital.

‘DI Gilchrist. Hello? Yes, ma'am. Immediately, ma'am.' She put her phone away and turned to Kate's inquiring look. ‘The chief constable wants a word.'

Kate panicked.

‘Are we in it?'

‘Not we,' Gilchrist said. ‘Me. And I've a horrible feeling I know what she wants a word about.'

Tingley slept late. After a quick breakfast he headed for the trolley car that went to the top of the nearby mountain. He walked down the Via Garibaldi, the sky a deep blue and the sun glaring on thick white walls. He was sweating again. He bought a newspaper from a kiosk and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.