Their US visas were granted. They could visit as tourists for a period of ninety days and were prohibited from doing any paid work, but if they wanted to apply for permanent residence and become US citizens they could apply to the Department of Immigration in Washington, D.C.
They went to the Banco Nazionale and, after showing Harry’s passport, withdrew the cash Arthur Rowland had sent. They found the Alitalia office in the Via del Corso. There were no direct flights from Italy to the US but they could fly to London and get a PanAm flight to New York. He bought two tickets for London on the next day’s flight and then took Lucia to lunch in a restaurant at the foot of the Spanish Steps.
“I have never been away from Italy,” she said wistfully. “What is London like? I hear it is very exciting.”
“We won’t get a chance to see it this time; we’ll just be passing through the airport, but I promise to take you round the London sights when we get back.”
“That will be nice.” She raised her wine glass and beamed at him. “And New York! Wow! I can’t wait.”
“It’s my first time too.” They were sitting outside in the shade of an umbrella, but when she leaned back and the sun caught her hair, it glowed with a rich, intense colour that filled his heart with love. He leaned forward and took her hand. “I’m not sure you will be able to come home for a while,” he said, worried the thought might upset her.
“This is my country, but it is not my home. There is nothing for me here,” she said, shaking her head as if in regret. He cast his mind back to the farmhouse in Solano, convinced she was thinking the same. She suddenly brightened. “Maybe we can emigrate to America?” It took him aback. It was something he hadn’t considered because he was focused on just one thing: finding Catalina. And once that was done, he assumed the future would naturally drop into place. But Italy was ruled out for now if not forever, he had no desire to return to Berlin and had long since ceased to regard England as his natural home. Maybe America was the place to start a new life? It remained the land of opportunity and the land of the free. But what struck him most of all was that she had said “we”. He had never felt so liberated and confident as he did at this precise moment and he knew the reason. He had met the love of his life.
“We can do anything we want, Lucia. You can do anything you want, you just have to name it.”
She took a sip of wine and he hoped it wasn’t just the alcohol making her grin coquettishly at him. “I want to be with you, Harrimale.”
He pulled her towards him and they kissed across the table.
“Buongiorno, signore e signora! Questo è amore!” said the waiter, startling them as he placed two menus on the table and they laughed out loud.
***
The recently opened Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport was teeming with passengers, porters, handsome airline pilots and beautiful air hostesses as well as a number of armed polizia. Harry carried a suitcase in each hand as he strode across the marble-floored concourse with Lucia gripping his arm and looking around nervously.
“Don’t worry. No one’s interested in us,” he said, trying to put her mind at ease.
“Then why do I think I have done something wrong?”
“You haven’t.”
“I have run away from my husband and now I’m leaving the country with a handsome inglese. This is a crime in Italy!”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where do we go?” she said, still flustered, gripping her passport in her spare hand.
“We have to drop our bags off. They have porters who’ll take them to the plane. And you can put your passport away; you won’t need it.”
“Then why did you make me get one?” she said, sounding disappointed.
“You’ll need to show it in London and New York, but you don’t need it for leaving. We just show our tickets.”
They reached the luggage conveyor and Harry handed over the suitcases to a man in an Alitalia uniform, who wrote out two tags and tied them to the handles. Within seconds their bags were gone. He turned round. Lucia was standing by a kiosk, looking at a rack of newspapers. She was frozen to the spot.
“C’mon,” he said, “they’re boarding the plane,” but she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were fixed on the newspaper in front of her, her arms crossed tightly around her chest, and she was shivering. “What is it?” He caught the headline in massive print. “Morte a Montellano!”
Two photos dominated the front page of Il Tempo. The one on the left was of a body lying on the ground, white shirt open but stained black, a pool of black on the ground by his head. Despite the fuzzy picture, he recognised the gold medallion and the Rolex. He could also understand the words under the headline: mafioso, morto and the name under the picture Luigi Barone.
Next to him, in a separate story, a police mug shot below a banner that included the words Assassino, fuga and Interpol, and the name below: Ernst Kessler. Lucia was shaking uncontrollably and he pulled her away.
“Harry. Oh Harry, my God!”
He plucked the paper out of the stand and handed the seller a hundred lire, then grabbed her arm.
“Come away, we’ve got to get on the plane.”
He marched her across the concourse to the departures hall and found the gate, showed their tickets to a hostess at the desk and stepped outside onto the apron where their plane was waiting. He half-dragged, half-carried the numb Lucia up the stairs and they found two seats near the back.
“Is the signora not well?” asked an attractive, slim stewardess in a crisp uniform.
“My wife is on her first flight. She’s a bit worried,” he said.
“Then all she needs is a glass of Prosecco. I shall bring.”
“I am your wife now,” said Lucia after a moment, staring into space.
“It just came out. Sorry.”
She looked into his eyes and gave him a weak smile. “I am your wife now.”
***
The flight to Heathrow took four hours. Lucia downed her Prosecco in two gulps and promptly went to sleep despite the terrific noise on take-off and the constant drone of four propellers. He held her hand throughout and only disturbed her when views of London appeared through the circular window.
He’d tried to sleep himself, but his mind had been racing again. The newspaper report said Barone was dead, killed in a gang-war shoot-out and Kessler was on the loose having murdered a polizia. Barone would never bother them again, but Harry could not quash the lingering fear that Kessler might still come after him even though he could have no idea where they were going and was himself the subject of an international manhunt. By any reasonable measure, it was the last they would see of him, yet something still nagged at the back of his mind. He’d impressed on Bianchi how dangerous the German was and it gave him no satisfaction to find out he’d been right. He knew that when it came to Ernst Kessler, he couldn’t afford to take anything for granted.
He’d watched her sleeping peacefully and resolved to protect her at any cost. He and Lucia were together now, for as long as they wanted to be together and nothing could tear them apart.