Shout in the Dark (34 page)

Bruno felt the sickness passing. Enzo was an
unrepentant murderer. Today in Rome he would receive an appropriate
justice.

"
I hate it here," Laura whispered urgently.

Bruno signaled to her to be silent.
"Riccardo, you'd better go to the upper level. Wait for the young
German thug, the
zoticone
. Use
your knife. Enzo will hear the commotion and go up to see what's
happening. I want him to find the body. I'll follow him up and put
a knife in his back in all the confusion."

"
Don't be a fool, Bruno," snapped Riccardo. "We're not
playing games. We just want these scum out of the way. Who cares
what order we do it in?"

Bruno shook his head. "This is how I
planned it. I'm here to pay back Sturmbannführer Kessel for …
raping ... my Mamma." He felt another wave of nausea. Just saying
the words was painful. "Riccardo, we want revenge. Of all people,
Laura, you should want Enzo dead. Don't you want to plan and then
savor his moment of death?"

"
Just get on with it." Laura was shaking now. "You've both
got knives."

"
I think you're yellow, old man," said Riccardo, putting his
arm on Bruno's shoulder. "You can't bring yourself to do it." He
smiled. "If the task is too difficult, leave it to the young ones,
eh."

"
I'll do it," Bruno insisted, his breathing fast but
controlled. Enzo had grown up to be evil. Looking now at Enzo who
was in the street, staring up at the outside walls of the
Colosseum, he recalled the white marble stairways in the Via Tasso;
the uniformed soldiers talking in strange foreign voices. He could
never hear a German voice without seeing the high steel bed -- the
Sturmbannführer with his Mamma. He shuddered. The Sturmbannführer
and Enzo looked so alike.

One moment he was hearing strident voices in
the Gestapo Headquarters in the Via Tasso, the next he could see
his little brother running in from the yard at home clutching his
favorite blue knitted sailor doll. Had he really hated Enzo so much
in those early days?

Riccardo stood up. "I can't see the young
one, but your brother may have gone inside. I'm going to find them.
I'll kill them both if you like."

Bruno jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of
Riccardo roughly.

"
You stupid fool, you don't have a clue. That
zoticone
has gone up to see if it's
safe. He knows about Otto Bayer. He's probably armed."

"
And if he is, I suppose you have some clever plan," scoffed
Riccardo.

Bruno smiled.
"I'm going to talk to the skinhead. He wouldn't
shoot me in front of the visitors. I'll lead him into one of the
side rooms on the upper gallery where it's dark. Then I'll stick a
knife in him when he's least expecting it. You two don't understand
how it's done in the streets. I should have come here alone." He
closed his eyes. From his jacket he produced a long, highly
polished stiletto, one of a beautiful pair he had bought many years
ago. The sun flashed from the slender blade.

Once i
nside the Colosseum, Bruno watched Laura turn to Riccardo,
fear in her eyes. "Take me away," she pleaded. "If Bruno wants to
risk his life, that's up to him." A sudden sound of a passing siren
broke through the noise of traffic. "The
carabinieri
," she said in panic. "They're coming for
us."

Riccardo's voice was raised and angry. He
caught Laura by the arm and held her tightly. "This bimbo's not
going to run away," he protested to Bruno. "She's in this as deep
as we are. Let's go up and... Hell, the skinhead's already up
there! He must have used the other stairway while we were
talking."

Without a further word he pulled Laura with
him towards the steps to the upper gallery. Karl Bretz was leaning
over the railings, studying the people below.

KARL
BRETZ WAS growing impatient waiting for Herr Kessel to join
him. What did the old fool want him to do: check every alcove and
passageway for bogeymen? The place looked like a derelict railway
viaduct with huge arches, or an abandoned factory from the age of
steam. It was a wonder anyone came here, the place was in such a
mess. He moved away from the railings and went to the top of the
staircase to look down. A man with swept back hair waved to him as
though he knew him. Karl felt uncomfortable. No one in Rome would
know who he was. The man had a woman with him, and they were
climbing his way. He decided to stand back in one of the archways
and see what happened next.

As he entered the darkened area he
stopped. The man and the woman were coming with him into what he
could now see was a small room. The woman was attractive, with dark
hair down to her shoulders. The man was a typical Italian, smartly
dressed, with thinning hair swept back to reveal a high
forehead.

He felt paralyzed, like the time his
mother caught him with his hands inside his pants. The man shouted
something in Italian. The words meant nothing, but the way they
were said sounded like a threat. He shook his head. Whoever these
two were, they had no business with him.

Suddenly the man produced a knife and
lunged forward with a yell, a stream of Italian words pouring from
his mouth. Karl stumbled back, trying to stay on his feet. There
was no way he could get his handgun from his pocket in time, but he
could deal with a knife attack. As the man came forward he caught
him by the wrist, bringing the man's hand high above his head. He
twisted the arm and brought it down on his shoulder. The man
dropped the knife. As Karl looked down, the woman ran forward and
kicked him in the crotch. He swore as he made his way out into the
bright sunlight, his eyes streaming from the pain.

Karl knew he had to get out of this place.
There were several exits and he went for the nearest. The fools
pushing their way up the stone steps were in his way, but their
shouts of protest as he knocked them aside made the people below
let him through. Herr Kessel was nowhere to be seen.

A quick run across the grass brought him
to the red Fiat. He wrenched the door open and slid in, fumbling
with nervous fingers to put his key in the ignition. The pain in
his crotch was pounding in time with his rapid heartbeats. As the
engine fired he put his foot hard on the gas and turned into the
main road, driving away from the danger. He wasn't running away out
of fear, but common sense told him to forget about Herr Kessel. The
Italian man and woman with the knife were insane. The last he saw
of them they were standing on the grass on the other side of the
road, looking helpless.

LAURA FELT
Riccardo keeping tight hold of her arm, but she
pulled herself free and ran across the busy street. A tram was
coming, packed with passengers. She cleared the orange front of the
tram by inches and ran into a bar. Riccardo had not come with her.
She sat at the back and stared at the shelves of bottles. A drink
was essential. As she got up to order a brandy, she caught sight of
a phone on the wall. Marco would come and rescue her. For perhaps
the first time in her life, apart from the talks she'd had with her
father, she was feeling the need for a priest's advice. Her hands
were shaking as she pressed the buttons for Marco's number in the
Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore.

"
This is Laura Rossetti, " she gasped.

"
Hi Laura." The voice sounded so calm.

"
Marco? Thank God you're there. I'm at the Colosseum.
Something dreadful is happening. I'm caught up in a terrible
situation. I..."

"
Slow down, Laura."

Marco's comforting voice was having the
required effect. She felt more composed now. "Marco, can you get a
taxi and come here straight away? Bruno and Riccardo... Hell,
Riccardo's here now. He wants me...
Let go!
"

MARCO PRESSED the receiver close to his ear.
He could hear someone shouting, and a woman screaming his name into
the phone. Was it some sort of trick, or was this a genuine cry for
help?

"
Laura," he called into the mouthpiece, "Laura, can you hear
me?"

The phone was dropped with a crash. A few
seconds later, an unknown man's voice spoke clearly. "If you're
Marco, you ought to know that your fancy woman has been taken
away." The voice became sarcastic. "What are you, some sort of
useless lover? Her husband is in one hell of a state. Take my
advice and stay off the nest for a few days. You could be in
trouble if he catches you."

There was a roar of raucous laughter from
the bar as the other customers shared the joke. Marco put the phone
down. Riccardo and Laura in a fight at the Colosseum, and Laura
urgently asking for his help? He had enough cash for a taxi. He
just hoped he'd be in time to prevent Laura getting
hurt.

RICCARDO WAS squeezing her arm so tightly
that Laura screamed out in pain.

"
Who the hell were you phoning?" Riccardo
demanded.

"
A taxi. I want to go home. And let go of my arm, you're
hurting me."

Riccardo slapped her across the face.
"Liar. There are taxis waiting over there if you want one. You were
phoning your priest. What did you want to do --
confess?"

"
I don't want to be mixed up in this anymore. And I dropped
my phone back there in the bar."

"
You can get your phone. We don't want to leave any evidence
behind. We're not mixed up in it anymore. Bruno doesn't want us. He
told us to go." He caught hold of her other arm as well. "I'm
taking you straight back to your apartment, and then I'm going to
work. Make sure someone sees you when you go in. If Bruno kills his
brother, you're going to need a good alibi."

Chapter
29

Colosseum

IT WAS A
RELIEF to know that Laura and Riccardo had gone.
Bruno sighed. Enzo had made his way to the top level and seemed
unaware that his young minder had run off. The whole amphitheatre
was the web, with the big fly now securely trapped in it. There
would be only one winner in Rome today: the spider.

Bruno paid his entrance fee and walked
towards the stone staircase that would take him to the upper floor.
When his half-brother's new name was published, the killing would
cause panic among Mussolini's elderly followers. There were plenty
of them still around, men who had gone on to be members of the now
disbanded MSI, the
Movimento Sociale Italiano
, the successor to Mussolini's Fascist Party. They
were living outwardly decent lives while hiding their extreme
right-wing past. Bruno thought about the list he had compiled over
the years, many of the names formerly in prominent positions, now
spending their retirement in tranquility. Every surviving person on
the list had been identified and photographed. The files on his
computer at work had a disturbing story to tell.

Within days he was going to expose the
senior members -- men who had secretly supported the Nazis and
later done so much damage to the unions and the workers. They would
spend their last days living in terror of retribution from the
people they had wronged. When he published Enzo's Nazi background,
everyone would understand the motive behind the killings, but no
one would suspect him of masterminding the revenge. No, not
revenge, he had to remind himself. This was punishment --
justice.

Massive brick supports ran up from stage
to stage of the crumbling amphitheatre, reaching almost to the top
of the high outer wall. These supports had once held row upon row
of marble seats, stepped up so that each line of eager spectators
could have a clear view of the blood sports in the arena below.
Following its partial collapse in earthquakes in the ninth and
thirteenth centuries, generations of builders had used the
Colosseum as a quarry, taking the cut marble for palaces, churches
and humble dwellings. The brick vaulting that had supported each
tier of seats now looked like sloping buttresses and arches, still
preventing the remains of the enormous oval amphitheatre from
falling in on itself.

Enzo was standing by the railings, looking
down into the central arena. For a crazy moment Bruno wanted to
rush forward and tip him over, sending his half-brother crashing
onto the stone walls that made up the floor below. But although it
was early, there were visitors crowding the walkway. Enzo turned,
attracted by the shout of a child. He saw Bruno and came
forward.

"
I thought you'd be here," he said quietly.

Bruno pointed at him. "You're a murderer,"
he taunted. "A monster. The Shrine of Evil will never be
yours!"

"
I'm not afraid of you, Bruno." His brother's voice sounded
remarkably calm, the Italian accent flawless. "I have only to call
for help and the security guards will arrest you."

"
You do that, Enzo, and I'll tell them you murdered Canon
Levi eighteen years ago."

He caught hold of Enzo and pulled him
roughly to the shelter of one of the deep alcoves that surrounded
the walkway, confident in his ability with a knife. In the center
of the alcove was an exquisitely detailed model of the Colosseum on
a stand. An older man and a young woman were standing in the
darkness in a guilty embrace. They moved out quickly as Bruno
pushed Enzo through the doorway onto the floor. Enzo lay where he
was for a moment, concentrating on the blade in Bruno's hand.
Slowly he lowered his hand and closed his fingers round the dust
beneath the display.