The Thing Itself by Peter Guttridge Page B

the flames were leaping high about the bonfire and racing round the perimeter, igniting all the kindling. I felt the prickly stumps of hair where my eyebrows had been. I looked down at my burned hand, already bright red with the skin puckering. I looked at the bonfire. It was burning well. I looked down the street towards the café. I turned and left.’
    Tingley waited, sensing there was more.
    â€˜Did I know the kid was in the den inside the bonfire when I lit the match? That’s the bit I can’t remember. I can see him peering at me through the piles of wood when I was crouching down but did I really see that? Do I just imagine it?’ Hathaway rubbed his eyes. ‘I really don’t know.’
    Tingley couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hathaway sat up.
    â€˜You reap what you sow, Jimmy boy. You reap what you sow.’

TWENTY-TWO
    T he countryside was lusher near Chiusi. Tingley saw the town perched on its tufa hill when he was still some way off. The land sloped gently away to a small lake. The road wound round the hill, threading between a series of steep, cultivated step terraces. He entered the town with the cathedral on his left and the Etruscan Museum on his right. He parked on a side street nearby.
    The sun was bright. It was quiet. Siesta time in a backwater. He looked across the countryside. Then he turned towards the Villa di Bocci to get on with the job.
    Crespo di Bocci’s cousin, Renaldo, was twenty years younger and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Plump, a cruel curl to his lips. A hint of the actor Peter Ustinov at his most lascivious.
    He offered Tingley wine on a terrace looking out across the countryside. Renaldo waved his arm expansively.
    â€˜All this is a vast necropolis. As Camars, this town was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan Federation. The Etruscans lived among their dead. With every rainfall, new treasures rise to the surface. There is a thirst for such treasures around the world.’ He pointed to the west. ‘That tufa hill there. It is the Poggio Gaiella. It has three storeys of passages and galleries, a labyrinth of them. It is regarded by some as the likeliest site for the mausoleum of Porsena, the great Etruscan emperor. You have heard of him?’
    â€˜Horatio defended the gate of Rome against him, didn’t he?’
    Renaldo bowed his head in assent.
    â€˜There is a labyrinth of catacombs beneath the town, of course. Beneath this very house. Porsena was buried in the middle of a labyrinth with all his wealth about him. Now that would be a treasure worth finding.’
    â€˜You smuggle artefacts, do you not?’
    Renaldo ignored him.
    â€˜Our family owned these fields and hills for generations. Then my grandfather took the wrong side.’
    â€˜In World War Two?’
    â€˜Before then. He became a fascist in the thirties. After the war our fortunes declined.’
    Tingley nodded, wondering why he was being told this but thinking: only connect.
    â€˜Your cousin said you would help me.’
    â€˜My cousin does not speak for me.’ Renaldo di Bocci touched his fleshy lips with a forefinger. ‘Which is not to say that I won’t help you.’
    â€˜You know who I want?’
    â€˜Of course. But you must wait. You are welcome to stay here. In fact, I insist. Are you a reader?’
    â€˜Not particularly.’
    â€˜Nor I, but it is a pity. We have a fine library here with many rare books. For a bookish man it would be a profitable place to pass a couple of days.’
    â€˜As you say – a pity.’
    â€˜A woman perhaps? A man?’
    â€˜I’ll be fine as I am,’ Tingley said.
    Tingley was not a religious man. He did enjoy the calm of churches, however. Their susurrating silence. He was sitting in the cathedral beside the palazzo watching a choir assemble when his solitude was disturbed by a hunched old woman in black who sat down beside him.
    He stepped to the back of the