Goodnight Sweet Prince

27

‘Don’t look back. Don’t look round. Not yet anyway.’

Captain Ferrante was leading the way along the Via del Priori that joined the hospital and the morgue in the university district to Perugia’s main square. ‘I think we are being followed. I have thought it for some time.’

He looked across at Powerscourt. Powerscourt seemed more interested in a couple of very old Italian ladies, bent almost double, their bags of vegetables trailing along the road, streams of Italian pouring towards the pavements.

‘Can you tell if they are Italian or English?’

‘I cannot. They are a quick sight in a doorway here, a drawing back into the shadows there. The brown coat, I think. Sometimes the hat, sometimes not. Have you been followed before, Lord Powerscourt?’

‘I have, Captain Ferrante. But that was many years ago in India.’

Delhi, was it, or Calcutta? Delhi, he thought. And it was so difficult, he remembered, because there were so many people, so many faces that looked at you automatically if you were a white man. But only two of them were following you with knives, following the Englishman, one of the rulers. He remembered the urge to run, to get away from his pursuers as fast as possible, to sprint across the Maidan and disappear into some Government building and the safety of its files. A white man’s building, a ruler’s building. In there you would be safe. And then the knowledge that to run was to make yourself even more conspicuous, more visible still.

‘Well, we must think what to do about it. Or who it might be. Do you have any idea who it might be, Lord Powerscourt? Come, we shall talk of it later in your hotel. See, here is the Piazza IV Novembre. And here is the fountain where they find the body.’

On their left stood the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, the outside still unfinished after four hundred and fifty years. To their right the handsome Palazzo dei Priori with fine windows and Gothic sculptures, chains and bars of gates serving as memorials of ancient victories over Perugia’s enemies. Stretching away towards the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, the Corso Vannucci, named after Pietro Vannucci, Perugia’s most famous painter, Perugino. A great statue of King Vittorio Emanuele Due himself stood in the piazza. Powerscourt wondered if anybody had counted the numbers of statues of this Vittorio Emanuele all across his newly united country. He was always on his horse. He was in every major town and city in Italy, looking down on his people. Sculptors must have built their own memorials to him, so much business had he brought.

The fountain rose in three graceful tiers, a pair of twenty-four-sided pools topped by a bronze basin.

‘The people come to look at this fountain from all over the world,’ said Ferrante sadly. ‘Always, I think, they tell of the sculptures round the side, the delicate workmanship of the craftsmen, the little statues that show the heroes of Perugia’s history. They forget what it meant to the people of the city. They come here to get the fresh water. They come to do the washing in the little pools. I am sure all that was much more important to the people six hundred years ago than the sculptures. Fresh water on top of this hill, they must have thought it came from God.

‘But look.’ Ferrante drew Powerscourt right to the edge of the fountain. Two nuns were praying on the opposite side, their heads bowed. ‘They dump the body in the upper tier here. The doctors think the Lord Gresham was dead before they take out the knives. Then I think they cut his throat and the other parts. The blood flows over the top of this marble rim and down into the lower pool. I think they block up the passage of the water out of the fountain over there. So the fountain fills with the blood of the Gresham.

‘That is what the nuns see, on their way to the cathedral behind us. They see the marks on his hands and in his side. And because the water cannot find the way out, there is still a great deal of blood in here when the nuns come out from their service, even though the body has been taken away. Blood mixed with water is flowing over the rim of the Fontana Maggiore, down on to the street.’

A small group of pilgrims joined the nuns, kneeling on the hard stone of the square. The water flowed on, clear again now, dancing its way down into the fountain, the sound of its passage drowned out by the prayers and passing crowds.

‘Why do you think he was left here, Captain Ferrante? Did they mean to do it? Or were they surprised?’

‘I think they mean to make all these wounds. But I do not think they wanted to leave him here. I think they come into the piazza by one of these narrow streets. They mean to come out by another one, perhaps the one we walked down just now. Then they hear the noise. Maybe they hear the nuns coming. Do they sing, on their way to the church, those nuns? The killers panic. They make the quick cuts to the body. They run away. The good sisters find the corpse, the marks, the blood. They think it is a sign from God. When they come out from their praying, the body has gone. My men, they take him away. What do the nuns think? He has risen perhaps, risen from the dead. Here in Perugia, we have a second Resurrection at four o’clock in the morning. They are still praying now. They have never stopped. Always now there is a nun by the side of the fountain.’

Captain Ferrante made the sign of the cross, thinking perhaps of his brother the priest, the pious wife reminding him of his duties.

‘Let me buy you a glass of beer, Captain Ferrante. My hotel is just down here. Please, I insist.’

The two men set off down the Corso Vannucci. Stone griffins, symbols of Perugia, watched their passage. Living eyes, human eyes, spies’ eyes marked their short journey. University students were everywhere now, walking arm in arm up the street, sitting in the cafes, talking about their lectures, planning revolutions, falling in love. The sun was setting far away across the Umbrian hills in a pink sky, criss-crossed with black.

‘Accidents. Always it is the accidents that make our life difficult.’ Ferrante was sipping slowly at his beer in a quiet corner of the hotel. Powerscourt saw that he could watch the entrance without being seen from the street. There were no lemon cakes here, only a few olives.

‘I think, Lord Powerscourt, I think of what was meant to happen, probably meant to happen. The assassins kill the Lord Gresham. They mean to leave the body somewhere. Nobody knows who he is. After a time he becomes another unknown dead person, buried with the other unknowns in the graves with no name over in the camposanto. But no. There is the accident. They are surprised, the killers. They panic. They dump the body. The nuns find it. They make the great fuss about the sign from God. It appears in your Times. You come to Perugia. Now we know who he is. But maybe they wait for you too, the killers. Somehow they know you are going to come. Maybe killers read The Times like everybody else in England. They think the Lord Powerscourt too, he will come to Perugia.

‘I tell you one thing, my friend. They will not kill you here. They will not kill you in Italy. They will have to kill Domenico Ferrante first!’

Powerscourt laughed and clasped him on the shoulder. This is getting to be a habit, he thought, embracing Italians, Pannone and Ferrante both. Two in less than a month.

‘Captain Ferrante! I am most grateful to you. I am sure that the answer to my problem lies in London, not in Perugia. Tomorrow I must go home.’

‘How do we get you home, though, my friend? That is the question. I do not think you should go back the way you came.’ Captain Ferrante was lighting a large cigar. Great clouds of smoke billowed round their little sofa, as though they were at the front of a train. ‘I did not like the look of that man who came in just now,’ he said, creating yet more clouds of smoke. ‘If we are hard to see, so much the better. Tonight, Lord Powerscourt, I keep the watch on this hotel. Very discreetly, you understand. Maybe we can catch one of these watchers and get the truth out of him. Maybe.

‘Tomorrow morning I shall come for you very early. We go to Assisi. I put you on the mail train for Rome. You go with the parcels and the letters, you understand. There are no passengers. From Rome there is the train that goes to Paris, I think. Two of my men will come with you. Just in case.’

Ferrante remembered the words of his friend the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He may be in more danger than he realises. Please send him back safely, however difficult it may be.

‘My friend. My friend.’ Ferrante ordered two more beers and another foul cigar.

‘I remember the case we had here in Italy two years ago, I think. In the end three people were killed. The first was the victim the killer intended to murder all along. But he make the mistakes along the way. Two other people know that he is the murderer. He cannot bear that other people know his secret. They could betray him. They know too much. So he kill them too. Is that how it is with you, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt thought of Suter and Shepstone in that drawing-room in Marlborough House, poring over their map of Italy, Dawnay waiting for his orders beside them. Probably they had killed Gresham. He knew they had killed Gresham. But he, Powerscourt, knew about the blackmail, he knew about the thirteen years of payments to the boys from HMS Britannia, he knew about the young man dead from syphilis. He knew the reason behind the useless voyage round the world with Lord George Scott and the parson person on HMS Bacchante. He knew about Prince Eddy and that secret homosexual club in Chiswick. He knew who killed Prince Eddy. He knew who killed Prince Eddy’s killer.

He knew too much.

If you were Suter and Shepstone, you wouldn’t want all that knowledge wandering round London or Perugia. You wouldn’t even want it wandering round Northamptonshire. You’d want it killed off for good.

Lord Francis Powerscourt. RIP.

He turned back to Captain Ferrante. ‘I think that is how it is with me. At the beginning of this case, my friend, I think all I have to do is to find a murderer. So, I find him. Then I have to find who killed the murderer. I think I have found them too. Now I have to find a way of stopping them before they kill me. Because I am the man who knows too much.’

That night Powerscourt had a dream. It was night-time in the Cathedral Square. An opera was in progress. The sides of the cathedral and the Palazzo dei Priori were lined with singers. Trumpeters stood sentry on the roof. Flaming torches threw long shadows across the audience in the square below. A girl was singing an aria, leaning on the edge of the fountain, her hand trailing in the water. A man was rushing at great speed through the square. The man, Powerscourt, paused briefly to sing a last duet with the girl. A mob was following him. Three soldiers in splendid uniforms held the mob back. Powerscourt could see that Captain Ferrante, in medieval costume, was leading the defence. Ferrante fell. The mob surged on towards the man by the fountain. The man turned, running desperately down one of the narrow streets, his feet slipping on the slope.

The woman by the fountain sang him a last goodbye.

Powerscourt raced off down the street. The music came to a great crescendo. Two gunshots rang out into the night, filling the silence left by the last chords.

He woke up.

William Leith wouldn’t approve of mail trains as a means of transport, Powerscourt said to himself the following morning. It was hard to see the elegant figure of Lord Rosebery crouching in the dark, surrounded by black sacks of Italian post. Dawn came in slivers through the slits of the carriages, the countryside slowly lit up in stripes outside. There was no glass. The wind whistled in and rushed around the sacks and the three people surrounding them, Powerscourt and his police escort, two very serious men with thin moustaches and long black gloves.

‘They will come with you to Paris,’ Ferrante had said, pressing a small heavy package into Powerscourt’s pocket as they left. ‘The gun. It is loaded. Just in case, my friend. Just in case.’

They embraced again, in the cold of Assisi station, guards patrolling the length of the train, smoke rising from the front.

In Rome the escort changed into uniform, splendid hats giving extra authority to the dark blue of their jackets and the shiny black of their trousers. Only one of them spoke English. Powerscourt and he had strange conversations on the journey, about the man’s family, about his grandfather who had marched with Garibaldi and his grandmother who had never forgiven him for leaving home for such a long time. All these marches, she said, they’re a waste of time, if you ask me. It’ll be just the same if there is a king as it was before, everything costing too much in the shops. Powerscourt told him about Lady Lucy and the fact they were going to get married. He got very excited about that, Giulio, translating rapidly for his friend outside in the corridor, endlessly watching the doors, his hand clutching something heavy in his pocket. Giulio wanted to know if he would ask Queen Victoria to his wedding. Somehow Powerscourt didn’t think so. He didn’t think he’d be inviting any members of the Royal Family.

If he lived long enough to get married.

Always they watched, north from Rome through the mountains, into the plains of Lombardy. They watched as they crossed the Alps in the dark. They watched as the train made its way north along the banks of the Rhone in the sunlight. They watched as they drew near to Paris, eyes never resting, every stranger who passed by their compartment inspected like smugglers’ luggage at the customs point.

They came with him to Calais, even though their orders said to leave him in Paris. ‘You cannot imagine the Capitano Ferrante when he is cross,’ Giulio had said. ‘It is very frightful. He say, see you safe to England. So, Lord Powerscourt, we see you safe to England.’

They watched across the flat expanses of northern France, the church steeples the only relief from the monotony of the plains. They watched him on to the boat. They inspected all the other passengers. They watched as the boat drew out, waving vigorously to Powerscourt as he stood on the deck.

‘Arrivederci! Ciao!’ they shouted from the shore. They watched until the boat had gone almost out of sight, ears straining for pistol shots or screams. They watched until there was nothing left to see, except the dark grey waters of the English Channel.

Lady Rosalind herself opened the front door of her house in St James’s Square.

‘Francis, Francis, you are back. At last. Thank God you are safe. Come and sit down.’

‘Why should I not be safe, Rosalind?’ said Powerscourt, relieved that the curtains in the drawing-room were still intact.

‘Francis, it’s Lord Johnny, Lord Johnny Fitzgerald. He’s been shot.’

‘Christ,’ said Powerscourt. Christ in heaven. Great waves of anger rushed through him. ‘When was he shot? Is he all right? Is he dead?’

‘No, he’s not dead. But it’s a miracle he’s still alive. He’s going to pull through. I went to see him yesterday in Rokesley.’

‘He’s in Rokesley?’

‘Yes, he went there two days ago. He said he was tired of waiting for you to come back to London. He said you must have wandered off to look at some bloody frescoes or something. He wanted to go and look at the birds.’ Rosalind spoke very softly now. ‘He’d gone out for a walk towards Fotheringhay. He said he’d seen a pair of kestrels. He heard shooting. He thought it was just an ordinary shooting party. He turned suddenly because he thought he saw one of these birds off to one side. Somebody fired. The bullet went into his chest on the right-hand side. If he hadn’t turned it would have gone right through his heart.’

The bastards, thought Powerscourt. The bastards.

‘A farmer found him and brought him back to the house. The doctors say he can’t be moved. I’m afraid there was a great deal of blood all over your hall and up into your bed. They said it would be the best place for him. He’s very weak. He’s lost a lot of blood. But he’ll get better.

‘The point is this, Francis.’ Rosalind looked at him as if he had come back from another world. ‘He was wearing your big green cape. On his walk. The one you always wear when you are in Rokesley. Lord Johnny told me before he passed out again. He didn’t think they meant to kill him. They meant to kill you.’

‘I must go to him, Rosalind. I must go at once.’

Powerscourt went to the window and pulled the precious curtain back a fraction. He peered outside into the square. He waited until his eyes got used to the dark.

‘Rosalind, can you see anyone out there? Anyone who might be watching the house?’

Together they stared into the wet London night. There was nothing suspicious. A policeman patrolled round the gardens in the middle. A couple of cabs delivered their passengers. A stray dog barked for its lost people.

What was that, down in the corner? Was that a coat, ducking into the shadows?

Powerscourt waited. The shadows refused to give up their secrets. You couldn’t tell. He sat down and wrote some letters. To William McKenzie, requesting his immediate presence at Rokesley. To Lady Lucy, telling her about Fitzgerald’s injury. To Rosebery, asking for an urgent meeting. To William Burke, saying that he wished to ask his advice at the earliest possible opportunity.

Outlines of a plan were forming in Powerscourt’s mind, a plan that might keep him alive, alive to marry Lady Lucy and to welcome the flowers of spring, a plan that required the presence of William Burke, financier, man of business, director of Finch’s amp; Co. in the final scene of the last act.