“Filing what?”
“Expenses.”
“May I?” James took the piece of paper Carlo was writing on. “‘Captain Teodor Benesti, informant, two hundred lire,’” he read. “‘Marshal Antonio Mostovo, contact, two hundred lire. Carla Loretti, gift, one cheese and a blanket, value fifty lire.’ What are these?”
“Payments,” Carlo said, taking the paper back.
“Payments for what?”
“For information.”
James experienced a sinking sensation. “Bribes, you mean?”
Carlo shrugged. “If you like.”
“I don’t like,” James said firmly. “I don’t know how Jackson ran this show, but paying informants is completely against the rules.”
Carlo looked at him without expression. “You are mistaken. These figures do not relate to the payment of bribes. They are a record of the bribes we have been offered.”
“Oh, I see,” James said, relieved. It was clearly correct to record any attempt at corrupting FSS personnel, even if no money was actually changing hands.
“And the money we are given,” Carlo continued, “goes into a tin in the cupboard. So we always know exactly how much there is.”
The sinking sensation returned. “What happens to the money in the tin?”
“We use it for the bribes we give out,” Enrico said. The two men watched James impassively.
He took a deep breath. “There must be no more payments. Of any kind, given or received. Is that clear?”
“Sì,” Enrico muttered.
“Of course,” Carlo said. But he carried on writing out his list, just the same.
“While I am here, we will…” James struggled to think of an appropriate metaphor. “We will play with a straight bat,” he suggested. No, damn it, that wasn’t right. He had just told them that he would be playing with a straight owl, or possibly a straight pigeon. “With a straight mallet,” he said, miming helpfully.
“Ah, your English cricket,” Carlo said, with a practiced lack of interest. “Unfortunately we cannot play today. We are much too busy.”
The two Italians said nothing more for several minutes. But when James left the room Enrico murmured under his breath, “Ogni scupa nova fa scrusciu.” Every new broom makes a noise.
By noon James had sorted the mess of papers into three large piles, which he had mentally dubbed Fascists, Criminals and Madmen. Most important of all, he had located the Black Book, the log of known criminal elements in the area. Unfortunately, Jackson seemed to have been less than meticulous about this as well. It started reasonably enough, with a neat list of names and addresses, and “fascist” or “mobster” written next to each one, together with a brief summary of the evidence against them. As James turned the pages, however, the information became more and more scant. Against one man’s name Jackson had written “believed to have three nipples”; against another, the single word “effeminate.” A certain Annunziata di Fraterno was “aristocratic; known to have nymphomaniac tendencies,” while one Giorgio Rossetti was “pathologically afraid of wasps.”
Fascinated despite himself, James had sat down to read further when the door opened and three men walked in. As one of them was a major, and presumably James’s CO, he jumped to his feet and saluted sharply. Carlo and Enrico glanced up disdainfully, before carrying on with whatever it was they were doing.
Major Heathcote was a harassed-looking man of about forty. “Frankly, I don’t give a duck’s arse about the Eyeties,” he told James. “I simply want to get this district under some semblance of control. We all thought we’d be in Rome by now, but unfortunately the Jerries have dug in about sixty miles north at Monte Cassino and it’s getting pretty grim. Come to me if there’s anything you can’t handle, but I’m really hoping you won’t have to.”
James agreed that he would probably need to bother the major very little, and the CO started to leave. “Oh, and weddings,” he said, suddenly swiveling round and fixing James with a steely expression. “Try not to let the men get married. It causes no end of resentment, and it makes the soldiers soft. No one wants to die when they’ve got an Italian senorita keeping the bed warm for them sixty miles behind the front lines.”
“Signorina, sir.”
“I’m sorry?”
“‘Senorita’ would be Spanish.” Conscious that Major Heathcote had probably not come there to have his Italian corrected, James moved swiftly on. “Don’t worry, sir, Jackson briefed me very thoroughly on the marriage situation.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
The major left, accompanied by one of the men. The other man, a captain with startlingly blue eyes, stuck out his hand.
“Tom Jeffries, A-force,” he said cheerfully. “Jumbo to my pals. My office is just upstairs, though of course I’m not there much.” He winked conspiratorially.
A-force were the cloak-and-dagger boys. Presumably Jeffries meant that he was usually away doing top-secret work behind enemy lines. “Oh, of course,” James said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Listen, do you fancy a spot of lunch? There’s a place down the road which does a very nice veal chop.”
And so, for the second time in twenty-four hours, James found himself being ushered into Zi’Teresa’s. If the maître d’was surprised to see him he didn’t show it, though Jeffries looked a little nonplussed when Angelo showed them, with a hint of a wink, to “Captain Gould’s usual table.”
As they ate, Jeffries quizzed James about his combat experience, which up to that time had been limited, to say the least.
“Not to worry. We might be able to slip you into something of ours now and again,” Jeffries said. “We’ve usually got a few people popping in and out of EOT, killing Jerries, and to tell the truth an Italian speaker’s always welcome. It gets our boys into no end of trouble, not being able to speak the language.”
James made some vague noises of enthusiasm intended to imply how much he regretted that he was too busy to pop into Enemy Occupied Territory alongside a bunch of bloodthirsty maniacs who didn’t speak Italian. In an effort to change the subject he lowered his voice and said, “Shame what Major Heathcote was saying about the advance.”
“What about it?”
“Well, that it’s got bogged down at this Monte Cassino place.”
Jeffries’s eyes twinkled. “That depends on how you look at it. Think about it. Why are we here?”
“To beat the Germans?”
Jeffries shook his head. “To tie up as many Germans as possible while the main show gets underway in France, that’s why. The last thing Churchill wants is for the Jerry divisions in Italy to nip back over the Alps and reinforce their defenses over there. So while they think they’re holding us back, they’re actually falling into our trap. Look, Gould. Can I give you some advice?”
Zi’ Teresa’s certainly seemed to be the place for being given advice. “Of course.”
“This whole show,” Jeffries said, “this whole country, in fact, is just a massive ruddy diversion. If I were you, I’d allow yourself to be diverted. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
A woman approached the table. She was tall and extremely beautiful, with long black hair artfully pinned and curled around her head, and a slim dress of some slinky material that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Mayfair dance hall. She also, James noticed, had a glass eye, which looked at him fixedly as she bent down to kiss Jeffries’s cheek. There was a faint waft of expensive perfume.
“Speaking of which—may I introduce Elena, my girl?” Jeffries said. “Darling, this is Captain Gould.”
“Pleased to meet you,” James said, getting to his feet.
“Actually, she doesn’t speak much English,” Jeffries said. “Completely charming, though. She’s a schoolteacher.”
“Buongiorno, signorina,” James said. “Molto piacere di conoscerla.”