The Salamander Read online

  MORRIS LANGLO WEST was born in St Kilda, Melbourne, in 1916. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Christian Brothers seminary ‘as a kind of refuge’ from a difficult childhood. He attended the University of Melbourne and worked as a teacher. In 1941 he left the Christian Brothers without taking final vows. During World War II West worked as a code breaker, and for a time he was private secretary to former prime minister Billy Hughes.

  After the war, West became a successful writer and producer of radio serials. In 1955 he left Australia to build an international career as a writer and lived with his family in Austria, Italy, England and the USA. West also worked for a time as the Vatican correspondent for the British newspaper, the Daily Mail. He returned to Australia in 1982.

  Morris West wrote 30 books and many plays, and several of his novels were adapted for film. His books were published in 28 languages and sold more than 70 million copies worldwide. Each new book he wrote after he became an established writer sold more than one million copies.

  West received many awards and accolades over his long writing career, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the W.H. Heinemann Award of the Royal Society of Literature for The Devil’s Advocate. In 1978 he was elected a fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985, and was made an Officer of the Order (AO) in 1997.

  Morris West died at his desk in 1999.

  THE MORRIS WEST COLLECTION

  FICTION

  Moon in My Pocket (1945,as Julian Morris)

  Gallows on the Sand (1956)

  Kundu (1957)

  The Big Story (US title: The Crooked Road) (1957)

  The Concubine (US title: McCreary Moves In) (1958)

  The Second Victory (US title: Backlash) (1958)

  The Devil’s Advocate (1959)

  The Naked Country (1960)

  Daughter of Silence (1961)

  The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963)

  The Ambassador (1965)

  The Tower of Babel (1968)

  Summer of the Red Wolf (1971)

  The Salamander (1973)

  Harlequin (1974)

  The Navigator (1976)

  Proteus (1979)

  The Clowns of God (1981)

  The World is Made of Glass (1983)

  Cassidy (1986)

  Masterclass (1988)

  Lazarus (1990)

  The Ringmaster (1991)

  The Lovers (1993)

  Vanishing Point (1996)

  Eminence (1998)

  The Last Confession (2000, published posthumously)

  PLAYS

  The Illusionists (1955)

  The Devil’s Advocate (1961)

  Daughter of Silence (1962)

  The Heretic (1969)

  The World is Made of Glass (1982)

  NON-FICTION

  Children of the Sun (US title: Children of the Shadows) (1957)

  Scandal in the Assembly

  (1970, with Richard Frances)

  A View from the Ridge (1996, autobiography)

  Images and Inscriptions (1997, selected by Beryl Barraclough)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Terms used in the text do not always reflect current usage.

  This edition published by Allen & Unwin in 2017

  First published in Great Britain in 1973 by William Heinemann Ltd

  Copyright © The Morris West Collection 1973

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email:

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia www.trove.nla.gov.au

  Cover design: Julia Eim

  Cover image: Shutterstock

  ISBN 978 1 76029 763 3 (pbk)

  ISBN 978 1 76063 849 8 (ebook)

  for

  SILVIO STEFANO

  wise counsellor, honest advocate,

  friend of my heart

  If we could learn to look instead of gawking

  We’d see the horror in the heart of farce.

  If only we would act instead of talking,

  We would not always end up on our arse.

  This was the thing that had us nearly mastered!

  Don’t yet rejoice in his defeat, you men.

  For though the world stood up and stopped the bastard,

  The bitch that bore him is on heat again.

  From Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht,

  translated by George Tabori

  Contents

  Author's Note

  Book One

  One

  Book Two

  Two

  Book Three

  Three

  Author’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction. The events herein recorded are analogues and allegories. The characters are products of the author’s imagination.

  BOOK ONE

  Scrupulous people are not suited to great affairs.

  Turgot

  One

  BETWEEN midnight and dawn, while his fellow Romans were celebrating the end of Carnival, Massimo, Count Pantaleone, General of the Military Staff, died in his bed. A bachelor in his early sixties, a soldier of spartan habit, he died alone.

  His servant, a retired sergeant of cavalry, brought the General’s coffee at the accustomed hour of seven in the morning and found him lying on his back, fully clothed, gape-mouthed and staring at the coffered ceiling. The servant set down the coffee carefully, crossed himself, closed the dead eyes with two fifty-lire pieces, then telephoned the General’s aide, Captain Girolamo Carpi.

  Carpi telephoned the Director. The Director telephoned me. You will find my name on the Salamander dossier: Dante Alighieri Matucci, Colonel of Carabinieri, seconded for special duty to the Service of Defence Information.

  The Service is usually called by its Italian initials, SID (Servizio Informazione Difesa). Like every other intelligence service, it spends a huge amount of taxpayers’ money perpetuating itself, and somewhat less in scavenging information which hopefully will protect the Republic against invaders, traitors, spies, saboteurs and political terrorists. You will gather I am sceptical about its value. I have a right to be. I work in it; but every man who works in it becomes disillusioned in some fashion. The Service encourages the loss of innocence; it makes for pliable instruments of policy. However, that’s a digression…

  Massimo, Count Pantaleone, General of the Military Staff, was dead. I was appointed to stage a clean exit for the corpse. I needed help. The Army supplied it in the shape of a senior medical officer, rank of Colonel, and a military advocate, rank of Major. We drove together to the General’s apartment. Captain Carpi received us. The General’s servant was weeping over a glass of grappa in the kitchen. So far, so good. No confusion. No neighbours on the landing. No relatives yet informed. I had no great respect for Carpi, but I had to commend his discretion.

  The medical officer made a cursory examination and decided that the General had died from an overdose of barbiturates, self-administered. He wrote a certificate, countersigned by the military advocate, which stated that the cause of death was cardiac arrest. It was not a false document; simply a convenient one. The General’s heart had stopped. A pity it hadn’t stopped years ago. A scandal would benefit no one. It might harm a great many innocent people.

  At eight-thirty, a military ambulance arrived and removed the body. I remained in the apartment with Carpi and the servant. The servant made us coffee and while we drank it, I questioned him. His answers established a series of simple facts.

  The General had dined out. He had returned twenty minutes before midnight and retired immediately to his bedroom. The servant had secured doors and windows, set the burglar alarm and gone to bed. He had risen at six-thirty and prepared the morning coffee… Visitors? None… Intruders? None. The alarms had not been triggered. Telephone calls, in or out? No way to know. The General would use the private line in his bedroom. Certainly the domestic telephone had not sounded… The General’s demeanour? Normal. He was a taciturn man. Hard to know what he was thinking at any time. That was all… I gave him a pat on the shoulder and dismissed him to the kitchen.

  Carpi closed the door behind him, poured two glasses of the General’s whisky, presented one to me and asked a question:

  ‘What do we tell his friends – and the Press?’

  It was the sort of question he would ask: trivial and irrelevant.

  ‘You saw the death certificate, signed and notarized: natural causes, cardiac arrest.’

  ‘And the autopsy report?’

  ‘My dear Captain, for an ambitious man you are very naïve. There will be no autopsy. The General’s body has been taken to a mortuary where it will be prepared
for a brief lying-in-state. We want him seen. We want him honoured. We want him mourned as a noble servant of the Republic – which in a certain sense he was.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we want him forgotten. You can help us there.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Your patron is dead. You did well for us. You deserve a better appointment. I’d suggest something far away from Rome – the Alto Adige, perhaps Taranto, or even Sardinia. You will find promotion a lot quicker in places like that.’

  ‘I’d like to think about it.’

  ‘No time, Captain I You pick up your transfer papers this morning. You deliver them, completed and signed, by five o’clock this afternoon. I guarantee you will have a new posting immediately after the funeral… And, Captain?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You will remember that you are in a very delicate position. You accepted to spy on a superior officer. We of SID are grateful; but your officer colleagues would despise you. The slightest indiscretion would therefore damage your career, and might well expose you to great personal danger. I trust you understand me?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. You may go now… Oh, a small matter.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have a key to the apartment. Leave it here please.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Oh, the usual routine. I examine papers and documents. I file a report. Please try to be sad at the funeral… Ciao !’

  Carpi went out, wrapping the rags of his dignity around him. He was one of those weak, handsome fellows, who always need, and generally attract, a patron: and who will always betray him to a more potent one. I had used him to report on Pantaleone’s movements, contacts and political activities. Now he was a redundant nuisance. I poured myself another glass of whisky and tried to set my thoughts in order.

  The Pantaleone affair had all the makings of a political time-bomb. The irony was that you could shout the name up and down the Corso and not one in a thousand of the citizens of the Republic would recognize it. Of those who did recognize it, not one in ten would understand its potency or the magnitude of the conspiracy which had been built around it. The Director understood; so did I. I had dossiers on all the principal participants. For a long time I had chafed at my impotence to do anything about them. They were not criminals – at least not yet. They were all high men – ministers, deputies, industrialists, service officers, bureaucrats – who looked to a day when the confusions of Italy – unstable government, industrial unrest, a faltering economy, an inept bureaucracy and a very frustrated people – would bring the country to the brink of revolution.

  On that day, which was closer than many people imagined, the conspirators hoped to seize power and present themselves to a bewildered populace as the saviours of the Republic and the conservators of good order and human rights. Their hope was tolerably well-founded. If a Junta of Greek Colonels had done it, there was no good reason why a much larger and more powerful group of Italians could not do it better … especially if they had the support of the Army and the active co-operation of the Forces of Public Security.

  Their figure-head had been named for a long time: that noble soldier, one-time junior aide to Marshal Badoglio, passionate patriot, friend of the common man, General Massimo Pantaleone. Now the General had removed himself from the scene. Why had he done it? Who, or what, had nudged him towards the final act; and why again? Was there a new man waiting in the wings? Who was he? When and how would he reveal himself? And was the day already at hand? I was commissioned to answer all these questions; and the margin for error was very slim indeed.

  Even a hint that an investigation was in progress would split the country down the middle. If the Press got half an idea that a dubious document had been notarized and uttered by the Army, there would be headlines in every newspaper in the world.

  Conspiracy is endemic to Italy, always has been, since Romulus and Remus began horse-trading from Tiber Island; but if the dimension of this plot were made known and the very real possibility that it might succeed … Dio! There would be barricades in the streets and blood on the tram-tracks within a day: one could not rule out even mutiny in the armed services, whose political loyalties were deeply divided between Left and Right. I had made no idle threat to Captain Carpi. If he tried to sell himself or his information to new masters, an accident would be speedily arranged for him. Meantime, I had my own work to do.

  I drank the last of the whisky and began to comb the apartment for papers. I opened drawers and cupboards and tested each one for secret hiding-places. I went through the pockets of each garment in the wardrobe. I shook out every book in the library and removed the blotting paper from the desk-pad. I made no attempt to examine what I found; but simply piled it into a heap. There would be hours of work to sift and analyse it all – and very little value at the end. The General was too old a fox to have left dangerous documents lying about his house.

  Still, I could not afford to take risks; so I moved pictures and mats in search of a concealed safe. Then I made a final circuit, lifting ornaments, upending cups and vases, prising up the felt beds of the jewel-cases which held the General’s orders and decorations. Even so, I nearly missed the card.

  It was lying on its edge against the skirting board, behind the bedside table; a small rectangle of stiff paste-board with a design on one side and an inscription on the other. Both the design and the inscription had been done by hand in black Indian ink. The design had been executed at a single stroke, in a series of intricate whorls and flourishes. It showed a salamander with a coronet on its head, couched in a bed of flames. The inscription was four words of perfect copperplate: ‘Un bel domani, fratello’.

  ‘One fine tomorrow, brother’ … It was a very Italian phrase, which could preface a variety of sentiments: a vain hope, a promise of reward, a threat of vengeance, a rallying cry. The word ‘brother’ was ambiguous, too, and the salamander made no sense at all, unless it were the symbol of a club or a fraternity. Yet there was no association with any sign or code-name in my dossiers. I decided to refer it to the specialists. I went back to the study, picked up a clean envelope, sealed the card inside it and put it in the pocket of my jacket.

  Then I decided it was time for a private chat with the sergeant of cavalry. I found him in the kitchen, a dejected old man ruminating over an uncertain future. I consoled him with the thought that the General had probably remembered him in his will, and that, at least, he was entitled to severance pay from the deceased’s estate. He brightened then and offered me wine and cheese. As we drank together, he became garrulous; and I was happy to let him ramble.

  ‘… He didn’t have to be a soldier, you know. The Pantaleone always had money running out of their ears. Not that they were free with it. Lord, no! They looked at both sides of a coin and wept before they spent it. Probably that’s why they stayed rich. Lands in the Romagna, apartment buildings in Lazio, the old estate in Frascati, the villa on Ponza – of course, she’s got that now.’

  ‘Who has?’

  ‘You know – the Polish woman. The one he had dinner with last night. What’s her name? … Anders – that’s it – Anders. She’s been his girl-friend for years. Although, I must say, he was pretty close about it. He never brought her here. Funny that… He didn’t want people to think he was enjoying himself. Like we used to say in the Army, he was born with a ram-rod up his backside. I knew about her, of course. I used to take her calls… Sometimes I went to her place to deliver things for the General. Good-looking woman, not over the hill yet, either. Which reminds me Someone ought to tell her what’s happened.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Where does she live?’

  The question was a blind. I knew the answer and a great deal more about Lili Anders.

  ‘Parioli. The address is in the General’s pocket book.’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Hey! Now that’s a thing! You’re not taking any of the General’s stuff away are you? I’m responsible. I don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘I’m taking all his papers, and I’ll borrow a valise to carry them.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘A matter of security. We can’t leave confidential documents lying around. So, we’ll go through the lot, take out the ones that belong to the Army and return the private ones to his lawyer. You won’t have any trouble, because I’ll give you an official receipt before I leave. Clear?’