There are businessmen at the tables around Esmond, mostly Italian, their conversations carried out in low, confidential voices. He sips, looking at his watch and then along to the Paszkowski next door, where German soldiers eat pastries with their coffee, the golden flakes lifted skywards by the breeze that drifts up from the Arno. An SS Hauptsturmführer leafs through a copy of Der Schwarze Korps, licking his finger to turn the page. Waiters come and go, nodding their heads and muttering a half-insolent Danke when one of the Germans settles his bill.
Ada comes to sit at Esmond’s table, her hair tucked up under a cloche hat. ‘Hello,’ she smiles thinly at him, her voice cool and businesslike. She puts her purse on the table and from it draws out a make-up compact, dabbing a thin layer of powder under her eyes. ‘He’s coming,’ she says, without looking up.
Esmond waits until Tosca catches his eye and then nods. She, a small, blonde figure, walks up from underneath the arch swinging her bag, large and black. Esmond watches her take a seat at the Paszkowski and attach the bag to the hook beneath the table. She smiles at the waiter when he comes to take her order. Now Antonio lowers his newspaper and begins to move up towards the cafés on the north side of the piazza. He reaches Tosca just as Carità’s ambulance pulls into the square.
The tall figure of Piero Koch, in a long coat of black leather, is the first to step from the ambulance, then two guards, one of whom Esmond recognises from the shootings in the Cascine. The guards carry MAB 38s on straps around their shoulders. Finally, Carità and his mistress, the giggling, underdressed Milly. They sit down in their usual place at the front of the Paszkowski, two tables away from where Antonio and Tosca are locked in conversation, their heads leaning in towards one another. Koch and the guards stand at the entrance of the bar, scanning the piazza warily. The waiter brings two glasses of brandy to the table and Esmond can hear Carità’s high, yelping laugh.
He takes a sip of his coffee and glances at his watch again. Just on time, the Bianchi pulls up the via Calimala. Bruno is at the wheel, his elbow resting on the open window, the matchstick dancing in his mouth the only sign of his nerves. The car is moving very slowly, comes to a stop in front of the Savoy, and waits. Somewhere, a bell tolls the quarter-hour. In the stillness after, Esmond hears a dull clunk and Ada draws in a breath, almost a sob. He looks across to the Paszkowski and sees Tosca, hand to her mouth, staring down at the floor where Antonio is desperately scrabbling on his hands and knees. Esmond feels his lungs empty, his eyes fixed on Tosca’s horrified face.
‘Eine bombe!’ The SS officer is on his feet, pointing at Antonio, who gives up on whatever he’s looking for and rises, pulling a revolver from his waistband. The two guards bring their guns to their shoulders, but there are too many Germans and they can’t get a clear shot at him. Now Carità is up, hands raised, an unctuous grin on his face. Tosca goes to stand beside her lover, pressing herself against him as, with his jaw set, he points his revolver straight at Carità. Stillness.
‘A Mexican standoff? I don’t like your odds.’ Carità’s voice rises into a cackle. ‘Time is also not on your side.’ He gestures towards the German soldiers who are standing at the south side of the square and now, alerted by the SS officer’s shout, heading up towards the Paszkowski. ‘I’d surrender now if I were you. Less chance of your girlfriend getting killed.’
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Antonio says, his Sicilian accent punching out.
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Tosca repeats.
There is a longer silence. Esmond watches Koch’s hunched, angular frame shuffling slowly round to stand behind Antonio, a long hand reaching into the pocket of his coat. He thinks about shouting out, tries to stir himself into action, but feels jammed. A chair scrapes beside him as Ada gets to her feet. He looks up at her, helplessly, as she draws the Beretta from her pocket. Koch has pulled out his own gun and is aiming at Antonio’s head as Ada fires, twice, at the hunched back, and the gangly frame rears up, gives a little shudder, and then bends over on itself, two scorched holes in the black leather. There are shouts from the guards, Milly lets out a cry, one of the waiters begins a prayer. Koch collapses forward onto a table and draws plates and glasses clattering to the floor beside him.
Ada shoots again, this time over the heads of the Germans standing motionless on the terrace of the Paszkowski. She takes off her cloche hat and shakes her hair down over her shoulders. The soldiers run, perhaps thirty of them, their boots crackling on the stones of the square. Antonio is firing at Carità, who is crouching with Milly behind an upturned table, but the bullets ping off the metal. Ada looks down at Esmond.
‘Come on!’ he says, rising. ‘We can get to the car if we go now.’
She shakes her head, eyes wide and bright, her wet lips open. ‘I love you,’ she says, and turns. Firing at the guards, at Carità, Ada crosses at a crouching run to where Antonio and Tosca are standing. Then the three of them back slowly away from the terrace and onto the via Brunelleschi. Antonio is empty; soon Ada too. Just before they move out of sight, Esmond sees Ada looking over towards him, a grin, her pale face softening. He rises, moves to follow, everything in him rushing towards her, love minting courage in his heart. Again, a little shake of her head. Then she turns, takes Tosca by the hand, and they run.
The terraces of the two cafés erupt. The SS officer is shouting into the café’s telephone, which has been brought to his table. The businessmen around Esmond rise, dusting their clothes. Everyone is talking, a few relieved chuckles. The soldiers have arrived and Carità is yelling at them, gesturing up the road. Milly is standing over Koch’s body, her hand pressed to her mouth. Esmond pulls the beret down on his head, aware of the approaching soldiers. As the patrons of the two cafés begin to scuttle away in nervous clusters, he hurries to the Bianchi, his heart an animal flutter in his chest. Opening the passenger door, he slips into the seat.
‘Quickly, after them,’ he says.
Bruno is mouthing Cazzo, cazzo, cazzo, slamming his hand down on the steering wheel.
‘She shot Koch. Is he—?’
‘I think so.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Let’s go after them.’ Esmond says.
Bruno looks over at Esmond and shakes his head. ‘Too risky. They’ll have more chance on foot. They’re together, they know what they’re doing.’
‘But—’
Bruno holds up a hand. ‘We have a rendezvous at the Corsini Gardens at one. We need to stick to the plan.’
Esmond sees the soldiers in the café glance over towards the car. Bruno starts the engine and they speed up the via Roma and through the city. They’re half an hour early when they arrive at the gates of the Palazzo Corsini. The Marchesa seats them in the lemon house, overlooking the gardens where birds sing spring and fountains babble. Esmond taps his foot, looks at his watch every few seconds, gets up and paces from one end of the glass house to the other, the image of Koch’s death-shudder in every direction. Bruno sits very still, breathing slowly. Finally they see a figure making its way towards them through the parterre.