‘I will be here to see there is justice done, yes.’
The count looked anxiously at me. He had been a good-looking man but in his middle years he had thickened, become jowly. His eyes were red-rimmed, broken veins clustered on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
‘Justice,’ he sneered. ‘Those communist bastards just want to share in what others have worked for years to build up. Nobody in this town supports them. And anyone will tell you I haven’t done anything wrong. The Germans have treated us decently. More than decently.’
Franca, the contessa, entered the room. She glanced at the flask of wine but didn’t acknowledge it.
‘Captain Tempest. You look much better this morning.’ She sat on the sofa. ‘Doesn’t he look better, Alfonso?’
The count’s eyes flickered between his wife and me.
‘He does indeed, my dear.’
I recognized jealousy in his look. The contessa was a shapely woman and her black woollen dress emphasized her breasts and hips. She had dark, melancholy eyes and thick black hair. Her lips were full, her complexion olive. I could smell her perfume but I could also feel her sexual heat, as, I imagine, did any man who came across her.
The count indicated a tapestry behind him. It showed ships at sea, merchants standing in harbour.
‘My ancestor Guiseppe — the one wearing the hat — was a great adventurer. A man of vision. But there was none to follow him, He marks our family’s greatest expansion. After him, we contracted, slowly at first, then at a greater pace. During the Risorgimento we alone in Chiusi sided with the Pope. We lost much of our fortune and earned the enmity of others. Thereafter, for a hundred years, we converted investments into cash.
‘I tried to expand. With the fascist revolution, anything seemed possible for a man of vigour and courage.’ The count scowled. ‘But then the war came. And suddenly honest labour had no reward.’ He looked at me, measuring me.
‘In the last century my grandfather and my father both made a little money selling antiquities they uncovered on our land. You may know we live in an area rich in Etruscan remains. I did a little of it myself before the war, selling to private collectors what I was able to discover in the tunnels that run beneath this villa. For pocket money, really.’ He stopped abruptly. ‘You will protect us from the partisans when they come down from the mountains.’
FORTY-ONE
Victor Tempest exercise book five cont.
The 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.