Legacy of Sorrows (17 page)

Bertolini was watching us very closely, obviously looking for a weakness in my explanation. He said, ‘Tell me about the Sambucci couple you met there at the hotel.'

I took a deep breath before answering, ‘I knew them from when I was a boy in my home village before the massacre. I know you're aware about what happened on Monte Sole from your talk with Italo Arcari; however I knew the Sambucci's lived in Bologna on Via Venezia and I also knew they would be there at the Hotel Bristol at the same time we were going, so we had agreed to meet up there.'

Bertolini gave me a condescending look, ‘Do you expect me to believe that four survivors of the Monte Sole massacre booked into the same hotel, on the same night that the SS unit responsible for the slaughter were having a reunion dinner, and that one of the main perpetrators of the massacre was found dead in his room by an apparent suicide. Also, the fact that the same hotel was bombed later by Italian WWII hand grenades that you and your friend Arcari were trained in using during your time with the partisans, and that thirty innocent people were killed. Have I missed anything out?' he asked in a pseudo-comical sounding voice.

I could hear Maria taking a sharp intake of breath. This was the first time that all of the details had been packaged up so neatly for her, and it was proving to be a frightening experience. There was the distinct possibility that her husband was a killer many times over.

Werner Brenst sat at home looking over what he had just written in his notebook. He was concerned over a few points in his unofficial investigation. The first one was he didn't trust the Italian police to follow this investigation through to its proper conclusion, and secondly, he was becoming more convinced that the older Italian, Graziano Sambucci, was responsible for the murder of Hans Kuller. He knew that he had the room next door to Kuller at the hotel, and that his family had been murdered by him on the mountain. In other words, he had motive and was in the right place at the right time. He suspected that the other two younger Italians were involved in the bombing of the hotel, but as that didn't immediately concern him, they weren't his prime focus. ‘I'll sort out the old man first, then I will make the other two pay for trying to bomb us all. Yes, the old man was the one. He had killed my friend Kuller.' To Brenst, the military bond of those years was indissoluble, even after all of this time in civilian life, in his eyes, if Kuller had not gone down in the snow to help him up, and then stay down with him when the Russian tank appeared, he would probably have died with the rest of his squad that day. He felt he owed Kuller a brotherly debt for saving his life, and in the SS tradition he now felt the time was right to repay that debt with the taking of his killer's life. He now made plans to revisit Bologna, his previous killing ground, to kill again. This time it was for the honour of his comrade.

Chapter 16

G
raziano
was acting agitated and bad tempered. Ivana clearly knew the reason for his change of mood. He was concerned in case the two men returned to harm them. She watched him as he cleaned and loaded his old Beretta before putting it in the sideboard drawer in the kitchen.

He didn't talk about why he was doing this. He didn't have to. Ivana had known him long enough to recognise fear in his eyes. Like the day on the mountain when they had witnessed the massacre of their family. That day Graziano had the same look. A kind of fear mixed in with anger. He turned to face her. ‘Ivana, until all of this is over I want you to keep the door locked at all times and to be careful who you open it to. OK?'

Ivana walked across to him and gave him a hug. ‘Graziano,
amore
, we have been through so much together and we will see this through together. Don't worry so much, no one suspects us, we're in the clear. Don't worry about Italo and Bruno, they won't come for us or harm us.'

Graziano seemed to relax a little. ‘Maybe you're right, maybe not, but we'll take extra precautions just in case.'

Maria had calmed down a little. She was now thinking clearly and wanted some more answers as she still wasn't sure of the truth. ‘I want to understand why you lied to me about the fishing trip, Bruno, and why you couldn't trust me to understand why you had to go to find Kuller.'I tried to explain to her that I wanted to keep her out of this. This was something I had to do, but even feeling that way, I still hadn't killed Kuller. I had promised Maria that I wouldn't and I had kept that promise.

She had gone upstairs to be alone and I sought comfort in a bottle of grappa. My mind was in total confusion. ‘Where do I turn now? Who do I speak to? What should I now do?' I just sat in my armchair and gradually emptied the bottle until I fell asleep. It seemed to be an easier solution. When I eventually awoke it was daylight and Moreno was sitting opposite me with a look of disgust on his face.

‘Papà, this is no answer to the problem. Don't go down this road.' At this he got up and left for work. My head was throbbing and my throat was dry, so I went upstairs to probably face another hard time from Maria.

Werner bought his ticket at the platform machine before boarding the train. He wanted to get to Bologna for around sunset, do what he had planned and then return on the train back to Vienna the same night.

He had it set in his mind how this would go. He would force entry into the Sambucci's home and kill the old man. Bang, bang. Two shots, then out the door. He would be wearing a face mask so he wouldn't be recognised in case Sambucci's wife was there. He smiled to himself ‘Once I kill him I will be even with Kuller and will be free of any commitment to the SS. I won't attend any more of their meetings. It's time to move on.'

Eventually the train pulled into the Bologna station and Brenst got out to a hatful of memories. He remembered herding the Jews from the area onto cattle trucks lined up in the marshalling yards and listening to their unanswered cries for help. He felt it was wrong then and now he felt disgusted by their actions. At that time it was war, but he could never reconcile war with what they did to the Jews. He heard the stories other SS men brought back with them from various death camps and pretended he didn't understand what they meant by exterminating them.

He remembered the layout of the city fairly well and decided to walk the short distance to the Via Venezia and the Sambucci's flat.

He felt the gun in his anorak pocket and experienced a sense of familiarity as he touched it. Very soon he would be at the flat and his training would kick in.
You don't hesitate from what you plan to do. Act confidently and get out as soon as completed
.

He saw the flats in front of him and he checked what he had written down in his notebook. Flat 1A, ground floor.

He walked up to the door and checked it was the right one. He knocked and waited. A gruff voice answered ‘Who's there?' Brenst knocked again and this time the voice said ‘Go away, I'll call the police.'

Graziano took his Beretta from the drawer and motioned for Ivana to lie behind the settee facing the outside door. Before joining her there he switched off all the lights in the house. He primed his gun and waited.

Brest knew that the element of surprise was now gone and that his prey was spooked, so he decided to go in hard. He pulled out his gun and took a run at the door, tensing himself for a shoulder charge. He hit the door full force and felt the lock give. He rushed into the flat and dived to the floor. Sambucci had turned out all the lights and was poised, gun in hand, behind the settee. Brenst heard the sound of two or three shots being fired at him and returned fire at the muzzle flashes. He heard a yell of pain as one of his shots found its mark. A wounded Graziano stood and ran at him firing on automatic with surprising speed for an old man and Brenst felt the rounds enter his chest. As he lay mortally wounded on the floor he loosed off a couple of shots at Sambucci, more in hope than anything else. As his eyes closed he thought he heard the sound of a body falling in front of him.

The noise made by the shootings attracted the attention of neighbours and passers-by who crowded round the shattered doorway of the flat and stared at the two dead bodies lying on the floor next to each other.

Someone had called the police and they were very soon in attendance. When they entered the flat they found Ivana Sambucci in a state of shock sitting on the floor against a wall. They called for an ambulance, but by the time it arrived Ivana Sambucci had died of a massive heart attack.

When Comandante Bertolini was informed that the two older Italians who had been at the Hotel Bristol were dead, and the violent circumstances surrounding their death, he had a feeling that the stranger in the flat was the key to many things. He ordered his team to liaise with the Austrian police over the dead man and to get his photograph and fingerprints to them as soon as they could.

When the results came back, he wasn't too surprised to find out that Werner Brenst was an ex member of 16th Waffen SS and was at the hotel the night of the reunion. He sat at his desk thinking, ‘Why did Brenst want to kill Sambucci? What did he know or suspect?'

He picked up his phone and spoke to one of his team, ‘Get me all the background you can on Graziano Sambucci and send a team to search his home and any other places he may have. Look out for anything that can be tied in with this case, or anything else that looks unusual.'

Before the end of his working day he had his answer. Sambucci's father and two of his children had been killed in the massacre on Monte Sole. He apparently wanted revenge for this and had intended blowing up the SS unit responsible at their reunion in Vienna when Walter Reder was their guest of honour. This was corroborated by three grenades his team had found in a lockup garage belonging to Sambucci. Tests showed they were of the same type and batch as the ones used in the bombing.

‘So,' thought Bertolini, ‘Brenst found his killer and so did we'

His thoughts wandered to Arcari and Verdi and he wondered what their involvement was in this, if any at all. He also wondered if Kuller's was really a suicide after all and if the two suspects he had marked down for killing him were completely innocent. Either way, he knew that unless he had more evidence he wouldn't be able to take it any further. With the Sambuccis dead, the evidence he needed had died with them, and it's not without probability that if Kuller was murdered, then it could have been the Sambuccis that killed him.

With a deep sigh he closed the case file, switched off his desk light and headed home.

Chapter 17

S
ome
years had passed since the events of the Hotel Bristol and Maria had come to terms with the lies I had told her about that period. Moreno is all grown up now and is married to a lovely young girl called Monica. They have three children, Moreno, Bruno, and Carla, and they live on Corso Garibaldi in Bologna.

After the events of the Hotel Bristol I had experienced an emotional release that had led me to a more secure place within myself. I still have bad dreams, and I still hear the screams of the dying, but they are not as loud or as vivid. Somehow, even writing about the events on the mountain has been a cathartic experience for me.

I am now in my eightieth year and I am struggling to put the events of my life to paper, however my family have been very supportive of me.

I know that I am the last one from that experience still alive, as I lost my best friend Italo to the ravages of lung cancer five years ago.

For my eightieth birthday Moreno made me promise that I would go back to visit Marzabotto with Maria and all of his family. Perhaps it is time to take this last step for who knows how many years I have left.

I agreed, with a resolved hesitancy, to go back to the mountain on the day of my birthday and that I would join them in prayer at the ruins of the farmhouse and at my old home. I suppose it's a gesture that marks the occasion when I bend the knee at these places for if there is a God I believe he must be a monstrous creature who revels in the blood of the innocents. I will not be able to pray there for it is an art that has been lost by me through the events of time, but I promised myself that at least I will show respect for my dead family and will contain my oaths at the ones who took their lives.

Epilogue

A
pril
18th 2011
     Moreno has come in his estate car to take us up the mountain. Maria and I have been silent for much of the morning. I think she is trying to respect my quiet and thoughtful demeanour.

Moreno opened the door and came in with Monica and the children. ‘Hi Papà, happy birthday. You two all set then?' We both smiled and nodded.

The journey was a little cramped in the car but I was glad of the children's singing and childish chatter. It seemed to fill us with just the right level of levity. Soon the mountain came into view and the car began the steep ascent up the winding road. I noticed that there had been no tarmac laid and it looked exactly the same as yesteryear.

We finally came to the small track leading up to my Aunt and Uncle's farmhouse and Moreno slowed down. We had to stop about fifty metres from the farmhouse as the track had, over the course of time, become quite overgrown. As we got out the car I heard the sound of the birds singing in the trees. It has always been so here. Perhaps it was the amount of trees and shrubbery lining the track that attracted them there.