Perseverance Street (37 page)

‘He was going to take me to feed the horses,’ Michael remembered.

‘Yes, that’s right! He was, my darling, but he was telling lies.’

‘Can I come with you? I don’t like it here. They all talk funny and there’s no one to play with.’

The blood was draining from Signora Mancini’s face. Tears of horror and despair were streaming down her cheeks. These people had come to take her son away. This beautiful boy brought to her by her husband. Her lying, deceitful husband whose face was puce with rage.

‘What the hell is this?’ he fumed, in Italian.

‘It’s my way of reuniting a mother with her son,’ said Charlie, also in Italian.

‘Mother?’ screamed Mancini’s wife. ‘You told me he was an orphan!’

‘I was told he was an orphan,’ protested Mancini.

‘He was abducted
from his mother by a friend of your husband,’ said Charlie evenly. ‘Either way, you two are in a lot of trouble.’

Two young men appeared, possibly called to the scene by the maid. ‘Get rid of them!’ screamed Mancini.

The two men approached Charlie. Lily turned her son round so that she could see the action but Michael couldn’t. Through her tears all she saw was a blur of arms and fists, culminating in the two men ending up on the floor, no threat to anyone, and Charlie scarcely out of breath.

Two older people arrived. A man and a woman. Lily guessed them to be Mancini’s in-laws, the Cominellis. The rich people who sent him money. Mancini began talking fast in Italian.

‘These people came here trying to extort money out of me. They say unless I give them three million lira they’re going to report me to the authorities for bringing Michael here illegally.’

The older couple glared at Charlie and at Lily, who was still hugging her son. Not knowing what was being said, Charlie spoke to them in Italian.

‘That woman is the boy’s mother. Major Mancini had him abducted from his home in England. We haven’t come for money. We’ve come to take the boy home to England where he belongs.’

Three more
men arrived. Charlie wondered where they were all coming from. Were they part of the Cominelli family or were they hired guards? These men looked more capable than the other two, who might well have been family members, and Charlie had serious doubts about handling the three newcomers. Mancini decided to join in. Lily watched as the four of them surrounded Charlie. There had to be a limit to his capabilities and these odds looked to be stretching things.

Charlie decided to compartmentalise his problem. One thing at a time. Mancini first. He knew the major was behind him and, by watching the eyes of one of the men in front, he could pretty much tell where. He spun round with his right arm stretched out and took Mancini down with his favourite chop to the neck. The major knew nothing about it.

Charlie felt one of the men behind him take him in a stranglehold, choking him. Lily screamed at the man to stop. Michael turned and saw this man who had arrived with his mother being beaten up. Lily looked at Cominelli, who was watching the fight with interest, and she realised that it would save his treasured reputation if Charlie didn’t come out of this alive. And if Charlie didn’t nor would she. Nor was Signora Cominelli showing any sign of stopping the fight. These people were prepared for her and Charlie to die rather than have their family name besmirched. Mancini’s wife was shivering with shock. Lily clung to Michael, not knowing what to do for the best.

Charlie was kicking
his legs as one man held him in a stranglehold and the other two punched him viciously about the head. Some of Charlie’s kicks were hitting their mark and one of the men doubled over in pain. Cominelli made a slight movement with his head which directed the injured man to approach Lily and take his revenge out on her. She stared at the approaching thug in abject desolation. She’d found her boy but at what cost? She kissed Michael’s head, knowing he was going to be snatched away from her at any second. A loud voice from over her shoulder shouted for all this to stop.

‘Basta!’

Lily looked up to see that all the action had stopped. The three men were all slowly raising their hands. Charlie had dropped to the floor with blood dripping from his face. She looked around to see three men in uniform pointing guns at the Italian thugs. The two that Charlie had taken down were stirring. Mancini was still out cold. Dee was standing behind the three men in uniform. The
carabinieri
.

‘Are you OK, Lily?’ she called out.

‘I am, Charlie isn’t, though.’

Cominelli started speaking in Italian to the
carabinieri
.

‘You know who I am.’

‘Yes, sir, we know who you are.’

‘Then I want these two people locked up for trespassing on my property and attempting to blackmail my son-in-law.’

‘He’s lying,’ said Charlie, also in Italian. ‘We came here to take that boy back to England from where he was abducted by him.’ He pointed to Mancini, then he looked at Lily who was still hugging Michael.

‘She’s the boy’s mother, as you can tell.’ He took a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘If you don’t believe me contact the British police. They’ve been searching for the boy for months.’

The paper had
Bannister’s contact details. ‘You can either telephone this British policeman or if that’s not possible from over here you can contact him by teleprinter.’

‘Telephone is possible,’ said one of the
carabinieri
after checking with his colleagues, who had both nodded.

‘They lie!’ screamed Signora Cominelli. ‘She isn’t his mother. My daughter is the boy’s mother.’

‘Show them your passport, Lily,’ said Charlie.

Lily, who had understood none of the conversation until Charlie asked her this, let go of Michael for the first time and opened her bag. She took out her passport that also had Michael’s photograph and details on it and handed it to a
carabiniere
without saying a word. He looked at the photograph and then at Michael before passing it to his colleagues.

‘This woman appears to be the boy’s mother,’ he announced. ‘I want everyone here to come to the station where we can sort all this out.’ He looked at Cominelli. ‘I assume, sir, that there is a telephone in your house.’

Cominelli scowled. His family reputation was ruined. Mancini began to come round. As he tried to sit up, his wife, who was ashen-faced and in floods of tears, suddenly flung herself at him. Kicking, screaming, gouging and biting. One of the
carabinieri
pulled her away, her legs still flailing, trying to get at her husband.

Mancini’s face
was white with shock and rage. His eyes widened and his hands quivered. He picked up a fruit knife from where it lay next to a bowl of fruit on the garden table and darted across to where Michael was standing, just a yard away from Lily and completely perplexed by what was happening. Mancini swept the boy up with his left arm and, with his right hand, held the knife to Michael’s throat. He backed away. The look on his face was that of an unbalanced man. He was grinning and staring all around. In the space of a few minutes his life had crumbled to ashes. Everything he held dear had been taken away from him. The shock of it all left him feeling he had nothing left to live for. He was shouting at the
carabinieri
with wild-eyed madness.

‘Now what are you going to do? Do you think you can get to me before I kill the boy?’ He spoke Italian. Lily didn’t understand.

‘What’s he saying, Charlie?’

Charlie couldn’t think of a reply. Mancini could. He now spoke English.

‘I’m going to kill the boy before anyone of you can get to me.’

‘No!’ screamed Lily. ‘Please, he hasn’t done anything to you.’

‘Hasn’t done anything? Do you know what I had to go through to get him here, just so I could satisfy that bitch of a wife of mine and her arrogant parents. It’s not even my fault we can’t have children ourselves. It’s that barren bitch who’s the problem.’

‘How dare you!’ yelled Cominelli. ‘There’s nothing wrong with my daughter.’

Mancini laughed maniacally. ‘Nothing wrong with her? I’ve got a daughter over in England that proves there’s nothing wrong with me.’

‘
Voi bastardi
!’ screamed his wife.

None of the
carabinieri
dared fire for fear
of hitting the boy. Michael, having now learned his fate, was crying with terror. Lily was fighting the impulse to rush this madman and rescue her son, but she knew that such a move might prompt him to plunge the knife into Michael’s throat. Charlie was sitting on the floor, dripping blood but with his eyes firmly on Mancini, who was standing ten feet away from him and liable to kill the boy at any second. The Italian drew his knife arm away in readiness to plunge it into the boy’s neck. He didn’t care what happened to him, he was that most dangerous of men – one with nothing to lose.

All eyes were on the knife in Mancini’s white-knuckled hand. The Cominellis were unconcerned about the outcome. If the boy died, so be it. He was not their grandchild any more. Their daughter was weeping with shock and despair. The son she had longed for was no longer her son and now the man who had lied to her about him was about to kill him.

Charlie was weighing up the options. The pain from his injuries was forgotten by the stress of the situation, but he
was
weaker. The blows he’d taken would slow him down, he knew that. Under normal circumstance he could cover the distance between him and Mancini in two seconds, exploding like a greyhound from a trap. If he screamed as he pounced Mancini would be unnerved, if only for a second or two, which was all the time he needed. With no time to spare he put his plan into action.

His scream was bloodcurdling. It
was a madman’s scream he’d practised before, and he knew it worked. He was within a yard of Mancini when the Italian turned the knife round and slashed at Charlie, ripping it into him. Charlie stumbled and fell to the ground with blood pumping from his chest. He twitched about, face down, for several seconds then lay still.

Lily screamed and moved towards Charlie but Mancini shouted at her to stay back. He was once again holding the knife at Michael’s throat. His face cracked in a wide, manic grin.

‘See? I kill your man. What have I got to lose by killing the boy?’

Dee approached Mancini from behind. As the Italian drew the knife back to stab Michael, she reached round him and grabbed his wrist, twisting it until he dropped the knife. Then she forced his arm downwards and backwards until she heard a bone snap. Mancini cried out in agony. Michael struggled free. One of the
carabinieri
shouted at Mancini to get to the ground. Dee didn’t understand the order but she helped Mancini comply, with a kick to his back. Lily ran to Michael, then still holding her son, knelt down by Charlie, who wasn’t moving a muscle. She looked up at Dee.

‘My God! He’s dead, Auntie Dee. He’s killed Charlie!’

A
carabiniere
stood over Mancini and pointed a pistol at his head. Another took Lily and Michael away from Charlie, as a third one knelt down to check Charlie for life signs.

For several
seconds there was a strange stillness and silence in the garden, as if no one quite knew what to do next. Mancini’s head was bobbing up and down, partly from pain, partly from rage, but mainly from despair. As if he realised the irreversible hopelessness of his situation he exploded into life. Using his good arm to bat the pistol away from the
carabiniere
standing over him he picked up the knife and flung himself in the direction of Lily and Michael to exact one last piece of retribution from these people who had destroyed him. He was within two feet of Lily, who was cowering with her eyes shut tight, when two guns fired in unison, sending him to the ground, dead. Lily opened her eyes and looked at the dead Italian, then beyond him at the prone body of Charlie, lying in a pool of blood.

She clung to
Michael and wept.

‘Come in … Ah, John.’

DI Foster looked up from his desk as Sergeant Bannister knocked and came into his office.

‘What is it?’

‘We’ve just had a teleprinter message from Venice, sir. The
carabinieri
– it’s the Italian police.’

‘I know what the
carabinieri
is, John. Please don’t tell me this is about this bloody Robinson woman and her stupid ideas about her boy being abducted by an Italian soldier.’

‘That’s pretty much it, sir.’

He handed the detective inspector a rolled-up scroll of paper which the inspector unravelled and read.

‘Hmm … It’s not very good English, but it seems she’s found her son over there.’

‘Yessir. It seems that her story was true … sir.’

Foster nodded as he read on. ‘Her son was abducted and sold to an Italian officer called Mancini. Mrs Robinson and the Maguire woman and Mr Cleghorn tracked the boy to Venice.’

He looked up at
Bannister. ‘Venice? How the hell did they manage that?’

‘Without
any help from us … sir.’

‘That’s because neither we nor the courts nor anyone believed her story, Sergeant. Jesus! This puts the law in a very bad light – us in particular.’

‘That’s true sir, but it’s good that she got her boy back.’

‘It’s not good for us, Sergeant. No doubt she’ll make a big thing about this to the papers.’

‘I think it’s a strong possibility, sir. There’s one other thing, sir, if you read on.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The report said that Mr Cleghorn was fatally wounded by Mancini and that Mancini was shot dead by the
carabinieri
.’

A week later. Millgarth Police Station, Leeds.

‘I have
an appointment with Detective Sergeant Bannister.’

The desk sergeant didn’t look up from the ledger he was poring over, which Lily thought was very rude.

‘My name is Lilian Robinson. Did you hear what I said, Sergeant?’

The sergeant now looked up. It was a name he recognised. A name that had done the police no favours. A name that was currently in the newspapers. Henry Smithson had written the story and had sold an exclusive to the
Daily Mail
. The story had told of how no one had believed war widow Lily Robinson. It told of how many people thought she’d murdered her missing son and hidden the body. It told of how her neighbours had blamed her, bullied her, and two of them had lied to get her in trouble with the courts. In a sub-heading, Perseverance Street had been given the title
The Street of Shame
. It told of how her dead husband’s family took her newborn baby from her and had left the boy alone outside a shop from where he’d been stolen. Even the police had had their doubts about Lily and had halfheartedly investigated Michael’s disappearance while all the time believing Lily had killed him. It told of her dreadful treatment at the hands of Dr Freeman after being sent by the court to Ecclestone House Hospital. Freeman was now in Armley jail, Leeds, awaiting trial. It told of the Randles who had abducted Michael pretending to be someone else and of Major Mancini and the Cominelli family in Venice and the stabbing of war hero Charlie.