English Rose for the Sicilian Doc

Matteo was squatting down next to one of the pits, talking in Italian to the archaeology student who was digging there. He was obviously asking about the soil strata at the side of the pit because the student ran his finger along a darker layer that indicated a fire maybe three hundred years ago.

He’d been kind, and he seemed willing to be a friend. Her life was on course now, and anything else would be madness. She’d messed up once, and now that she had William to consider, she couldn’t afford to do it again.

Matteo got to his feet and walked over to stand beside her. ‘You’re doing some fascinating work here.’

‘I’ve saved the most interesting thing for last.’

His eyes hooded lazily in an almost explicit invitation. ‘I’m already captivated. What more can you do?’

Rose gulped, turned her back on him in case she was tempted to improvise an answer, and started to lead him away from the main excavations, along a dusty pathway. ‘This is another find we made by mistake. No one knew it was there...’

She was shaking, blushing furiously and playing the tour guide so she could banish unwanted thoughts. Rose saw a figure up ahead of them and quickened her pace to catch up, reckoning that there was a certain degree of security in numbers.

‘David...’ The middle-aged man turned as she called his name. ‘I’d like you to meet Dr Matteo Di Salvo...’

‘Dr Di Salvo.’ The two men shook hands. ‘What’s your speciality?’

Matteo grinned. ‘Medicine. Rose has been kind enough to show me around this evening.’

David laughed over his own mistake and the two men began to chat, moving quickly from the necessary preliminaries of the weather and the spectacular view up here to Matteo’s questions about the site. He was interested in everything. Rose breathed a sigh of relief, reminding herself that she was just a very small part of everything that Matteo’s quick mind seemed to thrive on.

They climbed a little, over rough, stony ground, and then reached the mouth of a cave. David handed Matteo a hard hat from a box, and chalked the number three, along with the time, on the blackboard that hung outside.

‘Our little safety precaution.’ David smiled at Matteo. ‘Just in case anyone meets with an accident.’

She saw Matteo’s eyebrow quirk downwards, but he said nothing. ‘We also let the main office know when we’re coming down here.’ Under the intensity of Matteo’s gaze, the blackboard seemed a very amateurish and uncertain precaution.

‘Oh...yes, of course.’ David smiled. ‘Must remember to do that next time. I dare say that someone will be down to rescue you two if we don’t emerge in one piece, and I’ll just tag along.’

‘David...’ Rose shot him an exasperated look and he laughed, turning to Matteo.

‘She’s right, of course.’

‘Of course. I wouldn’t want to be caught ignoring the lady’s advice.’

Even in the chill of the cave, hot flushes spread over her skin. She wished he’d stop this. But then it seemed to come quite naturally to Matteo, and perhaps it didn’t really mean anything. She switched on her torch, swinging the beam down towards the area marked out by reflective tape, which designated where it was safe to walk, then up towards the roof of the cave.

‘You can see here that there are deposits from fires having been lit inside here.’ Matteo looked obligingly upwards, and nodded. ‘In the scheme of things they’re probably quite recent, maybe about the same time-frame as the bullet. But if we go further back...’

She led the way towards what looked like the back of the cave, ducking into a small passageway. Matteo followed her, gasping as he walked out into the high, stone cavern that lay beyond it.

‘You think this was used? In ancient times?’ He walked into the space, the beam of his torch reaching out into the darkness. It found quartz deposits to the right, and further on the small underground stream that bubbled its way into a deep pool in the corner of the cave.

‘We’ve found both Greek and Roman pottery in here,’ David replied. ‘And there’s some evidence that it may have been used right back into the Iron Age. It would be a very fine refuge in times of trouble and we think that people may have been coming here for centuries.’

‘These marks.’ Matteo turned to run his fingers lightly over the walls of the stone entranceway. ‘What are these?’

‘That’s one of the really interesting parts. We think they’re made with stone implements, not metal ones. It looks as if someone widened out the opening to the cave a very long time ago, probably so that it could be used. There are more caves beyond this one.’

‘Fascinating.’ Matteo really did seem fascinated. ‘May I have a look around?’

‘Yes, of course. Keep to the area inside the tape, that’s the area that has already been processed.’ Rose shone her torch onto the route that led to the next cave, marked out on each side by reflective tape. ‘If you happen to see any Roman-style jewellery scattered around, give me a shout.’

‘You wish.’ David chuckled, switching on one of the large lights standing on tripods around the areas where the archaeologists were currently working. ‘I’m going to do some more on that boring old pottery. You go look for buried treasure.’

She let Matteo look around then led him through a succession of smaller caves, showing him where they’d made finds as she went. Away from the lights, his features were sharper, even more striking. And Rose couldn’t help staring at him every chance she got. His tall frame, his relaxed gait. Matteo was like a work of art standing still, but it was the way he moved that made her head swim.

Her head really was swimming and her legs felt suddenly unsteady. Maybe there was something wrong with the air in here. Rose heard her torch clatter at her feet before she’d even realised that she’d dropped it and it went out suddenly. In the moments before the beam of Matteo’s torch swung round towards her she saw a faint glimmer of light in the far corner of the cave.

‘What’s that?’ She was blinded by his torch, shining straight at her. ‘Turn the light out, I can see daylight.’

‘Forget about that...’

‘No... Turn your light out.’ No one had been working in this cave and they’d thought it was the last in the series. But there was something beyond it.

Matteo strode towards her, his fingers closing around her arm. ‘Don’t be alarmed.’ His voice was low and steady. ‘It’s a minor earthquake.’

CHAPTER FOUR (#ufa4b93e6-3477-5c37-a1ee-67a584390df8)

IT FELT LIKE a very small earthquake, the kind that were common around here and which most local people took in their stride. But they were underground, which meant that its effects weren’t as keenly felt as they would be on the surface. And Matteo had no way of knowing whether this was the main shock or a foreshock.

‘Is it over?’ She’d held on to him for a moment, but now she stepped back.

‘I don’t know. We should go and find David and get out of here.’ The caves may have survived thousands of years, and probably many tremors just like this, but in Matteo’s book it was always preferable to have clear sky over your head in circumstances like these. And there was always the danger of displaced earth from the hillside blocking the entrance.

She took one last look at the corner of the cave that had drawn her interest just a few moments ago, and gave a little huff of exasperation. Still she didn’t seem to want to move.

‘Pronto, bella...’ There may not have been any rocks tumbling onto their heads, but all he could think about was getting her outside and to the safest place he could find, and that stripped everything but the most obvious truths away, along with the need to speak English.

‘Yes... David...’ Suddenly she was on the same page as him, bending to pick up her torch and taking his hand, leading the way swiftly through the caves that led back to the large cavern where they’d left David. She let out a little cry when she saw him, lying on his side a little way away from where he’d been working, amongst the collapsed wreckage of the tripod that had supported the light he’d been working by.

Matteo followed her over. She fell to her knees, and in the light of her torch Matteo could see a dark stain on the side of David’s head. When he bent down, the metallic smell of blood reached him.

‘He must have fallen and hit his head.’ Rose was clearing away the broken legs of the tripod, and as Matteo moved round to take a better look, she scooted backwards to give him some room.

The wound on David’s head was bleeding, but that wasn’t what concerned Matteo. He seemed to be having some difficulty breathing, and his eyes were squeezed shut as if he was in pain.

‘He has angina.’ Rose’s voice behind him.

‘Do you have any pain in your chest?’ David’s eyes had flickered open and Matteo tried the question in the hope that he could answer.

‘Yes...’

‘Okay, we’re going to sit you up straight.’ In common with most unforeseen emergencies, the priorities weren’t clear-cut, but a decision had to be made. Just as the cut to David’s head could wait, the need to get out and into the open air had to be balanced against the greater risk of trying to move David at the moment.

Rose took his other side and they gently sat David up. His breathing immediately seemed to come much more easily.

‘Do you have medication?’