A Dead Man in Naples (4 page)

Not too shameful a finger, thought Seymour, since so many people in Naples appeared to have Esposito as a surname and seemed prepared to use it happily. About every other shop bore the name proudly on its front. A more practical reason probably was the difficulty of distinguishing between so many. With so many Espositos, which was the one you wanted? This was particularly important to the army, most of whose recruits were named Esposito.

The number on Scampion’s lottery ticket referred to a girl foundling who had been admitted to the Hospital on 27th March 1880. She had been given the name Margareta, after the saint of the day, together with the universal Esposito. Margareta Esposito was, then, the person whose identity mattered so much to the purchaser of the ticket that he or she had used it as their special number for betting.

And what had happened to her? asked Seymour. Was she still at the Hospital?’

‘Oh, no,’ said the nun, consulting her records: she had left when she was thirteen.

What to do? asked Seymour.

‘Probably marry,’ thought the nun. Their girls were much sought after as wives. They were educated, well trained, and disciplined. And religious, of course. All qualities thought desirable in a wife.

Some, however, would go on to a trade, for which, again, they were much sought after, on the grounds that they had been brought up to work hard and not answer back.

And this one, this Margareta Esposito, had she left to marry or to take up a trade?

The nun consulted her records, and then frowned. On this one, she said, she would have to consult Sister Geneviève. Who would at the moment, she guessed, be in the chapel.

A choir was practising in the chapel when they went in. They were singing rather beautifully.

Three nuns were conducting the practice. One was actually a member of the choir and was leading it. Another was conducting. A third, much older than the other two, so old that she was bent down double, and had to sit down to one side, was offering a kind of general supervision. This was Sister Geneviève. She had, said the nun who had brought them in, herself conducted the choir for many years, but recently, as infirmity grew, she had taken to playing a more minor part. It was Sister Geneviève, said the nun, who had been in charge of the choir at the time Margareta Esposito had been one of its leading members.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said brightly, ‘I remember Margareta. What a beautiful voice she had! So beautiful that the Pietà came after her. You know about the Pietà, of course? No? Well, it is Vivaldi’s church. At Venice. An institution, like ours, for foundlings, and he was Director of Music there. Goodness, how I would have liked to have been there when he was! He wrote music especially for them. They were all girls, of course, and so good!

‘Even after he died, the musical tradition continued. But in late years they were not always altogether scrupulous. When they heard of an outstanding singer in a place like ours they would tempt her away. And they tempted Margareta. We resisted, of course, but they had friends in high places and we were not able to prevail against them. So Margareta left us before we had really had the benefit of her remarkable voice. It
was
a remarkable voice. I can still hear it . . .’

She closed her eyes.

‘I can still hear it in my head. Such a pity that she left! From all points of view, hers as much as our own. For while she benefited from the Pietà, of course – who could not benefit? – she became more worldly. She lost the simple faith that we had given her, lost, perhaps, the love and respect with which we surrounded her. She became, so I have heard, wilder, less reconciled. It is a difficult time for girls, those years between fifteen and eighteen, and if there are not good people at hand, they can go astray.’

‘And Margareta Esposito went astray?’ asked Seymour.

‘Very much so.’ Sister Geneviève sighed. ‘She became an opera singer.’

‘An opera singer? Well, that’s rather good, isn’t it?’

‘Some would think so, but . . . Many, perhaps, would think so,’ conceded Sister Geneviève despite herself. ‘And certainly she had the voice for it. When she was with us her voice was still young and I thought we could develop it in terms of church music. And there was always that timbre there, and I suppose that as she grew older, her voice changed and she lost some of the early purity and gained in the capacity to produce deeper, richer notes. Colour – she always had plenty of colour. Too much, perhaps. I tried to discipline it out of her, but I don’t think the Pietà were as successful. But who am I to say? Her voice changed, that was all. And perhaps she changed with it.

‘Anyway, she left the Pietà. They lost her voice but gained in reputation, and Margareta went on to do very well.’

‘She still sings?’

‘Not now. She married, I think. Well, that is good, is God’s will for some of us. But I think it was a loss. A loss to God. Such a talent should have been used for God’s purposes. But who am I to say that it was not? I do not like opera myself, but it gives pleasure to so many that it cannot be altogether evil. Maybe God thought she could serve Him best in that way. Who knows?’

‘And you have lost track of her now?’ asked Seymour.

‘I do not follow the opera,’ said Sister Geneviève, ‘and, in any case, she no longer sings. But I can tell you one thing. She has not altogether forgotten us. Sometimes our daughters come back. Years later, sometimes. And when they do, they sometimes take away their things. Those little things they brought with them when they were admitted as a baby, things that speak to them, perhaps, of the mother they never knew. An amulet say, or a charm. Sometimes, too, they take away the label that they were given when they entered and which they kept through all the time they were here – something to remind them, perhaps, of us, or, more probably, of the child they were once and which they are no longer. I looked once to see if Margareta had come back. She had. And she had taken away her things. And her label.’

As they were coming back from the Hospital they went past the Porta Capuana, which was as usual bustling with people, animals, carts, and trade of all kinds. You could hear it as you approached: the bleating, whinnying and people talking at top volume, gesticulating as they did so. In several places tables had come together to form a kind of impromptu café, and in one of these they saw Giuseppi, contributing his quota to the noise.

And right beside him, arms akimbo, in exactly the pose of her grandmother and, no doubt, the other long-suffering women of Naples, was Francesca.

‘Grandmother says: what about the office?’

Giuseppi waved a dismissive hand.

‘And Jalila,’ persisted Francesca.

‘Later, later,’ said Giuseppi, continuing with his conversation.

‘You
promised
,’ said Francesca. ‘You said you would go to the office with Jalila.’

‘Well, I will. In a bit.’

‘Grandmother says you won’t have time to do it before lunch.’

Giuseppi waved an airy hand.

Giuseppi waved an airy ‘Yes, I will,’ he said.

‘And that you won’t get lunch unless you’ve done it.’

This stopped Giuseppi in mid-flow.

‘There’s plenty of time,’ he protested.

‘And she meant it,’ said Francesca implacably.

‘Look, I’ve said I will –’

‘It will be too late. You know what they’re like. They’ll be closing early for lunch. And then Jalila will be going without money for another day. And It Will Be Your Fault.’

Giuseppi began to get up, still talking.

‘And Rinaldo and Pietro,’ said Francesca.

‘What?’ said the other two men at the table.

‘That’s the point of it,’ said Francesca. ‘The point of him talking to you. To get you to go with him.’

‘Go where?’ said one of the men, astonished.

‘To the office. To get them to pay Jalila her pension.’

‘I was coming to that!’ protested Giuseppi.

‘Jalila?’

‘Yes. Tonio’s widow. She’s had nothing so far.’

‘That’s not right!’

‘It’s an injustice.’

‘And Grandmother said you were just the men to put it right. You were to go with Grandfather. Otherwise he would wander off the point.’

The men laughed.

‘It’s true, Giuseppi!’

‘And so he was to ask you to come with him.’

‘Well, I don’t mind that. This is the widow of an Italian soldier, and she’s got her rights. Not only that, she’s one of ours. In a manner of speaking.’

‘Even if she’s an Arab,’ said the other man.

Seymour and Chantale were still having lunch when Giuseppi returned.

‘Well,’ said Maria, ‘did you get it?’

‘Yes. It will start next week.’

‘That’s no good. They’ll have found a reason why it shouldn’t by then.’

‘And meanwhile,’ said Giuseppi, ‘they’re paying her some money in advance.’

‘Next week too?’

Giuseppi put his hand in his pocket and produced some notes.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘That was Pietro’s idea. He and Rinaldo insisted on it.’

‘I suppose it’s something,’ said Maria grudgingly. ‘But I’ll believe that about the pension starting when I see it.’

‘Oh, it will start,’ said Giuseppi confidently. ‘You see, Rinaldo told them that Our Friends held an interest.’

‘You told them
that
?’

‘Yes.’

‘But what happens when they find out?’

‘Rinaldo’s going to have a word with them tonight.’

‘With Our Friends?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I don’t like that,’ said Maria.

‘Well, I don’t like it, either. But it was the best we could do in the circumstances. Look, you’ve no idea what it takes to shift these bureaucrats. Unless you put the fear of God into them, they won’t do anything.’

‘All the same –’

‘It will be all right. Rinaldo is going to speak to them. Tonight. They’ll do it as a favour.’

‘And what favour will they ask for in return?’

‘Look, it will be as a general favour. They won’t be asking for anything particular in return.’

‘Well, if they do –
when
they do – just tell me about it, will you? I don’t want you getting mixed up in anything like that.’

‘Look, I’ve always stood out against that sort of thing, haven’t I? Refused to pay protection? Turned them away when they came round asking for something?’

‘Yes, but now you haven’t. You’ve asked
them
for something.’

‘You wanted me to get the money for Jalila, didn’t you?’

‘Not like this. Not in this way.’

‘You want me to go back and tell Rinaldo that it’s all off?’

‘I just don’t want us to have too much to do with the Camorra, that’s all.’

‘It’s not as easy as that,’ Giuseppi complained, after Maria had gone back into the kitchen. ‘You can’t get anything done in Naples unless you go through the Camorra. Well, you don’t even need to go through them. You just need to know that you have their support. Or, at least, that they’re not against it. And they’re not usually against seeing that people get their dues. Ordinary people, that is. I mean, it would be stupid of them, wouldn’t it? It could put people’s backs up. And they’re usually on the side of the poor. But you’ve got to go about it in the right way. Make sure that what you want doesn’t clash with something that they’ve got in mind. Often you’ve just got to let them know. Just mention it. That’s what Rinaldo’s doing tonight. Not asking for anything, just mentioning it. What’s wrong with that? And, anyway, she herself told me to bring him in on it, didn’t she?’

He poured himself a glass of wine.

‘The thing is, you see, it’s not entirely straightforward. Jalila’s being an Arab, you see. I mean, in the ordinary way, if it was just the widow of a soldier, and he was one of ours, there’d be no problem. But her being an Arab. Look, it doesn’t matter to me, her being an Arab. She’s just Tonio’s widow, as far as I’m concerned.

‘Tonio’s my brother’s son. Born the same year as our Marcello. The two of them were always close, always did things together. Enlisted together. The fools! Well, there wasn’t much else for them to do round here. Anyway, they went into the army together and were sent out to Libya together.

‘Only Tonio got himself killed. But not before he had had time to marry and have children. So when he died there was a question of what to do with the wife and kids. Well, you would have thought that the best thing would be for her family to look after them. But there were problems about that, apparently, and Marcello said that Tonio had laid it upon him as a sacred trust to see that they were provided for.

‘Well, I don’t know how he thought he was going to do that on a private’s pay but what he did was to send her home to my brother’s family. Well, of course, they agreed to take her. It was only right, her being their son’s wife. But my brother is older than I am, and so is my sister-in-law, and her health is none too good. It’s a lot to take on. Of course, we do what we can to help, but it’s not easy. People look at Jalila all the time, you know, and they wonder. What is she doing here?

‘But that’s war for you. You go off with your flags flying and everyone cheering and all the girls around your neck. But then the casualties begin to come home. And, of course, some, like Tonio, don’t come home at all. And then you know what war is. And you begin to wonder, if you’ve not wondered before, what the hell Italy is doing out there.

‘Liberating people and opening up trade, they say. But it’s not our people who are liberated, and it’s not the ordinary men who benefit from the trade. It’s the banks and the big people. And the small ones, like Tonio, are the ones who get hit by the bullets.’

Chapter Four

Down the street came the cyclists, pedalling furiously: three out in front, then several in a bunch, and, finally, some solitary ones straggling behind them. The scattered crowd raised a cheer. And there ahead of them was Porta Capuana with the crowded thoroughfares on either side and a great crush of people coming and going.

The Porta was the announced finishing point, but the racers, mercifully, stopped some hundred yards short, where two officials in the colours of the Racing Club of Naples, surrounded by a herd of urchins, were furiously waving flags. Two or three other men in the Club’s colours were intercepting the riders as they came in and noting down their times and numbers on clipboards.

‘Are you the last, Umberto?’

‘Me?’ affecting affront. ‘No, there are others behind me.’

And, indeed, one or two fresh riders, or, possibly, not quite so fresh, were just coming into view.

‘That last hill was a killer!’ said one, panting.

‘You’ve got to take it fast,’ someone advised him.

‘What do you think I was doing?’

‘Maybe we ought to make the last bit downhill next time.’

‘What, and have a big pile-up at the end?’

‘It would add something.’

‘A dozen people with their necks broken?’

‘You know what I mean. A bit of extra excitement.’

‘There’s enough excitement as there is. And suppose some daft bugger runs in front?’

‘He could run out now.’

‘Yes, but if we are all going that much faster, and we were all in a bunch at the end, it could cause mayhem!’

At the moment the racers had a hundred yards or so to slow to a stop before they ran into the great stone wall of the Porta. Even so, there was much skidding of bicycles at the last moment.

‘Darling, you were tremendous!’ said a woman’s voice among the skids.

‘I was, wasn’t I?’

‘And your shorts, dear, are even more tremendous.’

‘I did what you said. Sat down in the water with them on to shrink them.’

‘It worked perfectly. Skintight, and shows everything off to advantage.’

‘Not too tight? I thought I heard a split at one point.’

‘Let me look. Oh, good heavens! There’s a great tear and everything’s dangling out!’

‘Jesus!’

‘What was that you were saying about adding to the excitement?’

‘Christ, let me have a towel, somebody!’

‘She’s having you on, Vincente,’ someone advised.

‘Is she? Luisa, you bitch!’

‘Luisa,’ said Richards, ‘can I introduce you to a colleague of mine? This is Seymour. Seymour, this is the Marchesa.’

‘So I guessed. Delighted to meet you, Marchesa.’

‘And you speak Italian? Why, this is a strange thing! The Foreign Office don’t usually send people here who can speak Italian.’

‘He is not Foreign Office. He’s here on holiday. With his fiancée.’

‘Ah? And what have you done with your fiancée, Mr Seymour? Where is she?’

‘Over here,’ said Chantale. ‘Keeping out of the way.’

‘Advisedly. I have noticed that when they cross the finishing line, the first thing they do is throw their arms round the nearest woman. I have never been able to make out whether it is the release of heaving passion temporarily bridled for the length of the race or because otherwise they would fall off. The latter, I suspect. Of course all these under-age girls love it. But you and I, Signorina, being more chaste, or, at any rate, more mature, can do without it.’

‘In my case, it’s chaste, Marchesa,’ declared Chantale.

‘Of course. And an Englishwoman’s natural reserve. But then, you are not an Englishwoman, are you, Signorina? Where are you from? Libya?’

‘Morocco.’

‘Ah, then, our gallant soldiers will still have some way to go even when they get to Libya, if they want to find someone like you. They will just have to pedal further, that’s all. Which they may well be prepared to do, of course, if they see someone like you at the end of the road. However, I am forgetting. The French have got there first. Closely followed, it would appear, by the British.’

‘Seymour is a policeman,’ said Richards. ‘We thought that while he was here he might take a look at that Scampion business.’

‘It’s taken them long enough to send someone,’ said the Marchesa. And is he up to the job? said her look of cool appraisal.

‘I would appreciate a private word with you, Marchesa,’ said Seymour.

‘No words are private in Naples,’ said the Marchesa, ‘but you can try. I shall be in the San Stefano at lunchtime.’

‘You’re supposed to be having lunch with me,’ complained Vincente.

‘Why, so I am. Bring your fiancée along, Mr Seymour, and she and Vincente can entertain each other while we talk. Vincente is my cousin, Signorina, and quite safe. That is, he’s entirely biddable. I find that it is not what men have in mind that is significant – they all have the same thing in mind – but whether they’ll do what they’re told. Vincente will always do what he is told.’

‘Luisa, you bitch!’ said Vincente.

‘The San Stefano at one,’ said the Marchesa.

* * *

The cyclists began to wheel their bicycles away to the square in front of the Palazzo Reale where they congregated before and after the races.

‘My last time,’ one of them said to Vincente. ‘I’m off to Libya next week.’

‘Lucky sod!’ said Vincente.

The other man looked at him curiously.

‘Your turn never comes up, Vincente, does it?’

‘I know, Umberto. It’s not for want of reminding. I remind them every time.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘But you’re right. I’m beginning to think it can’t be an accident. I think my father must have fixed it.’

‘You think he doesn’t want you to go?’

‘I think my mother doesn’t want me to go. And she can wrap my father around her little finger.’

‘Can’t you bypass them somehow?’

‘I thought of speaking to Alessandro, Luisa’s husband. He’s well up in Rome. I would ask Luisa to speak to him, only she says she doesn’t want to lose her little cousin just yet. Not until another good dancer comes along. “Listen, Luisa,” I say, “there are dozens of good dancers among the officers.” “But they’re all so sweaty,” she says. “It’s all the bicycling they do. And, while we’re on the subject, Vincente, can I just drop a hint?” “I always have a shower when I get back to the barracks after racing,” I say. “Yes, but before you get back to barracks –”’

‘That’s unreasonable!’ said Umberto.

‘That’s what I tell her, but she waves it away.’

Umberto laughed. ‘She’s a character, isn’t she? A real character!’

‘She’s all right,’ Vincente conceded. ‘It’s just that she’s a bit out of place down here. “That’s why I can’t let you go and get yourself killed just yet, Vincente,” she says. “You’re the one thing I’ve got to remind me of Rome. Without you I would dwindle away. Just disappear.” I’ve tried it – tried getting her to speak to Alessandro. But somehow it never works. She always slips away somehow. “I’m the wrong person,” she says. “I never speak to my husband, and in the days when I did, he never listened to me.”’

‘Well, keep trying,’ said Umberto, wheeling his bicycle away.

‘They are
so
beautiful,’ sighed Francesca.

‘If I had as much money as they have, I would be beautiful, too,’ said Giorgio.

‘Money isn’t everything,’ said Francesca.

‘Maybe, but it means you can buy a good bicycle.’

‘If things work out the way you want,’ said Francesca kindly, ‘you
will
be able to buy a good bicycle.’

‘Yes, but it will take so long! Another eighteen months before I can enlist, then three years in the ranks, and only then can I come home. And buy a bicycle.’

‘And marry,’ sighed Francesca. ‘I will still be waiting for you, Giorgio.’

‘I’ll probably get shot,’ said Giorgio gloomily.

Francesca laid her hand on his arm.

‘Do not say that, Giorgio. Do not ever say that. Even in jest.’

‘Maybe I won’t die,’ said Giorgio, pleased with the effect he had produced.

Seymour went over to one of the race officials who was just packing up.

‘Another successful event,’ he said.

‘It was, wasn’t it?’ agreed the man.

‘The loss of that poor Englishman who was killed doesn’t seem to have affected things.’

‘No, it hasn’t. Of course, other people stepped in. Vincente, for example. These days, though, it mostly runs itself.’

‘Ah, you say that. But without the help of devoted people like you –’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There would be others. I used to race myself, you know. But then I had an injury.’

‘It’s good of you to stay involved.’

‘I’d go mad, otherwise. I was about to be posted but then, when the injury happened, of course I couldn’t go. I’ve just been hanging around here!’

‘I was shocked when I heard about the Englishman. Stabbed! In broad daylight! I didn’t realize that sort of thing happened down here.’

‘Well, it does. There are plenty of people in the back streets who are a bit too ready with a knife.’

‘But why? He doesn’t seem to have been the sort of chap who would bring a thing like that upon himself.’

‘Well, no.’

‘I wondered if it was anything to do with the racing?’

‘I don’t think so. Why should it be?’

‘Well, look, I’m a stranger here so I wouldn’t know. But there’s a lot of betting, isn’t there? And I wondered if that could be something to do with it?’

‘Well, it could, to be honest. There
is
a lot of betting, although I didn’t notice there was that much on us. But where there is betting, there is usually the Camorra. And if there was something going on, they might be ready to use their knives.’

‘Who would know about this? About the betting world, I mean? The lottery is municipal, isn’t it? We have private bookmakers at home.’

‘Well, we don’t exactly have bookmakers, but just about every bar in Naples has a finger in the pie. You could try asking in one of them. But I’ll tell you what.’ The man laughed. ‘The person to ask is Father Pepito.’

‘Father Pepito?’

‘Yes. He has a parish just outside Naples. Or, at least, he did have until they caught up with him. They found that there was an obscure lottery office in a little village and every week a considerable sum was being paid out in winnings. They looked into it and found that the winner was always the same man, a priest.

‘He was a man of exemplary piety and spent all his winnings on good causes, the Church, charities, gifts to the poor. Never on himself. So people said, well, look, maybe the Madonna helps him. Gives him the tips in a dream. She might do that if it was all for the poor.

‘And his bosses in the Church, the Cardinal himself, so they say, said, well, look, he’s only doing good, and, certainly, the people he helps could do with the money. The Church is glad of the money. And then charities, well, they’re all beyond reproach. Of course, we’ve got to be sure that it’s all above board. Well, they checked, and everything
was
above board. So they said, well, okay, you can go on. But keep it decent. And how do you do it, by the way?

‘Well, he said, before I became a priest I was a professor. At Salerno University. I was a mathematician and interested in probability theory. And I worked out this system . . .

‘Well, of course, they couldn’t leave it like that and wanted to know more. But he wouldn’t tell them. No, he said, I’m using it for God’s purposes and that ought to be enough for you. But it wasn’t enough for the people in the tax office and they began asking questions.

‘Well, I don’t know what they found, but one day Father Pepito got called in by the bishop. I don’t know what was said but after that Father Pepito stopped placing bets. I think a deal was struck with the tax authorities. They would take no action if the betting stopped and the bishop kept an eye on him. Anyway, after that, Father Pepito stopped betting. He was transferred to another church, one closer to the city, where the bishop could see what he was doing, and concentrated on his duties as priest.

‘But if you need to know anything about betting in Naples, he’s the man I suggest you go to.’

When, later, Seymour and Chantale got to the San Stefano, they found Vincente there but no Marchesa.

‘She’s awful!’ Vincente said. ‘She always does this!’

‘She’s awful!’ Vincente ‘Doesn’t turn up?’

‘Oh, she turns up. Eventually. But late. Always late! But at least
you
are here, Signorina,’ he said, kissing Chantale’s hand, which Chantale liked but Seymour didn’t.

He led them into a large lounge. It was a very high room with shutters over the windows and glass doors which opened on to a little patio with orange trees in pots and small tubbed palm trees. In one corner, behind the orange trees, there was a table and benches.

‘This pleases you?’ Vincente said to Chantale.

‘It seems just right. Cool in the shade but with a little air.’

‘Yes. Inside, it is cool but there is no air.’

‘Will the Marchesa find us?’ asked Seymour.

‘Oh, yes. When she gets here,’ said Vincente gloomily. He brightened. ‘We could have a drink,’ he said, ‘and put it on her bill. Alimoncello, Signorina? They do cocktails here but I don’t know that I would recommend them. I think I shall have a beer.’

‘A beer for me, too, please,’ said Seymour.

Vincente disappeared inside and came back followed by a waiter with a tray on which were the various drinks, together with bowls of pistachio nuts and olives.

‘If she leaves it too long, we’ll have lunch,’ he said. ‘We’ll put that on her bill, too. She’ll complain but she’s got pots of money. Her husband, Alessandro, is a banker. Not a lot of it comes my way, though, I have to say.’

‘And your cousin has been banished here, I gather,’ said Seymour.

‘Banished?’ said Chantale. ‘To Naples?’

Vincente nodded. ‘Alessandro insisted that she leave Rome. It got so bad. But where could she go? She barely knew that there
were
places outside Rome. Milan? But that is where Alessandro does a lot of business and he wasn’t having her there. Florence? But that was where she had been before and where it got so awful. Naples was the only place left.’