I put my hand over hers to show that I understood. It quivered like the body of an animal that’s been trapped. She took her hand away. ‘I–I don’t like to be touched,’ she said apologetically.
‘Why didn’t you leave Fertile?’ I asked to hide my embarrassment.
‘Where was I to go?’ she asked. ‘I did run away once. It was after he beat me that first time. That was last winter. It was cold and I had no food. I got as far as Vicovaro. But it snowed that night. And nobody would help me. They thought I was just a dishonest girl who hadn’t got a man. It was worse than being at the farm. He came for me next morning and I was glad to go back because I was so cold. I have never tried again. I know what life is like in Napoli. I was afraid Roma would be the same. A city is more lonely than the country. It is more cruel. Here I have friends. They cannot help me, but it is good to have friends. The dogs know me and the children, and there are women like Emma Scafelli here who are kind to me. It helps when you do not belong to nobody.’
‘You could have married,’ I suggested.
But she gave a forlorn shake of the head. ‘There were boys in the village who wanted me. Some would have married me. But it was no good. You do not know what an Italian mountain village is like. People are born and live and die in the village. They are lost if they leave. No man would have dared to marry and stay. Mancini would have ruined him — and his family. It is difficult to make you understand. But a man like Mancini is very powerful in Percile.’
I sifted a handful of pebbles through my fingers. It was strange and quite horrible to hear this kid, who was born in a nice bourgeois environment, talking so matter-of-factly of things with which she should never have come in contact. It was like hearing a little child swearing. And yet despite all her farmyard knowledge of human nature, she preserved an essential air of innocence.
The sound of a horse’s hoofs drumming up the dirt bank of the stream made me turn my head. Horse and rider were coming from the direction of Percile. As they drew near I recognized the thick-set figure of Mancini. The girl had suddenly tensed with a sharp intake of breath.
I got to my feet as the man reined in his small mare on the bank above us. His temper showed in his face as he flung off the horse. He carried a heavy bullock whip and he looked ugly. Boyd bent down to pick up a stone from the bed of the stream. The old woman stood with her bare feet in the sparkling water and a frightened look on her.face.
The whip cracked and cut across Monique’s back. ”Via! A casapresto!’ he roared. ‘And you,’ he shouted at us, his Italian almost unintelligible in his rage, ‘get off my land, both of you.’
He stood on the bank above us — big and angry, like a bull that has been tormented by darts.
‘The girl is French,’ I said. ‘I am taking her back to her mother in England.’
‘The girl stays here,’ he thundered. ‘She is Italian and I am her guardian.’
Monique turned to me. Her face was resolute, resigned. ‘Please go,’ she said. ‘I was foolish to think that you could take me away. It was kind of you to come. Tell my mother that I am alive and well. Please say nothing — of this.’
She had spoken in English. And because he could not understand it infuriated him. ‘You little cretina!’ he stormed. ‘Get back to the farm or I’ll thrash you so that you never walk again.’
‘I must go,’ she said. ‘See, there are others coming. They have guns …’
I looked down the track towards the farm. Two men were running along the bank and the barrels of their shotguns glittered in the sunlight.
‘Goodbye,’ she said.
Then she climbed the bank and began to walk back along the track towards the farm, a lonely slip of a girl, her bare legs white against the black of her miserable dress.
‘Now get off my land,’ Mancini ordered.
My mind was made up now. ‘We’ll be at the farm at two in the morning,’ I called after her in English. ‘Try and meet us outside. If you can’t, show a white handkerchief at your window and we’ll get you out.’
She stopped at that, standing very still. She nodded her head and then turned and walked on along the dusty track.
I climbed up the bank with Boyd behind me. Face to face with Mancini I realized what a colossally powerful animal he was. He stood head and shoulders above me.
‘I am going to Roma now,’ I told him. ‘In a few days time you will hear from my lawyers. If you so much as touch a hair of that girl’s head in the meantime I’ll have you arrested by the Carabinieri.’ I mentioned the name of the Questore in Rome and added, ‘He is an old friend of mine.’
I saw that I had impressed him. Friends in Italy mean power and he was not so much of a peasant that he did not understand the danger of running up against the Questore. But the man’s temper was so violent that his only answer was to flourish his whip. The leather thong of it cut across my upflung arm and curled with a sting across my back. ‘Via!’ he shouted. ‘Via!’ And he swore violently.
‘You’ll regret that,’ I said. ‘And remember — beat that girl again and you’ll find yourself in the Regina Coeli prison.’ I turned and walked back with Boyd up the path to the farmstead and through the fields to the road and the waiting car.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We stayed the night at Vicovaro, slipping out of the albergo at one in the morning. We let the Italian driver sleep on. We wanted no witnesses. The moon was lower over the mountain tops as we drove the Lancia towards Fertile.
Looking back on it, I suppose it was a pretty crazy thing to do. Kidnapping girls isn’t the healthiest of sports, especially in Italy where the jails have a bad reputation. But I don’t see what else we could have done. After what she had told me I could not leave her at the farm. And how else was I to get her away? A legal wrangle would have lasted years.
When I broached the matter to Boyd, he said, ‘Wot the hell! We didn’t conquer this bleedin’ country to have bastards like Mancini chuckin’ their weight about and beating up girls who should by rights be in Blighty.’ And he didn’t know the full story of what the girl had been through. ‘Anyway, it ain’t as dangerous as you make out,’ he added. ‘If we get the kid out orl right, reckon Mancini won’t squawk. And the law ain’t orl that hot in this land of treasures. I found that out pretty nippy like when we was running the coastal trade. An’ I don’t reckon it’ll have changed much in a couple of years. The Carabinieri ain’t paid enough to make it worf their while ter refuse a bribe like wot a London copper is.’ And he gave me a sly wink.
There was a lot in what he said. The difficulty was going to be to get her out of the farm. I found myself wishing that Stuart was with us and that we had those arms that Dugan had found. If they were waiting for us with shotguns, it wasn’t going to be too healthy.
We reached the spot where we had parked the car the previous morning. I turned and then switched off. ‘You’ll find the ignition key under the left-hand seat,’ I told Boyd.
Then we went down through the fields to the stream and along the bank towards Percile. It was nearly two when we reached the Mancini farm, a vague huddle of buildings in the shadow of the trees. The moon had set behind the mountains now, but the pale light of it still lingered in the warm summer sky.
We entered the yard of the farm stealthily and stood in the shadow of an outhouse that smelt of pigs. The place was very silent. And yet it did not seem asleep. It had the watchful stillness of a wild thing. The air was heavy with the rank odours of the farm. But it was not the smell of an English farm. It was foreign and made me feel jumpy.
We didn’t speak, but stood quite still until the luminous dial of my watch showed it to be past two.