going to be safe is absolutely crucial. The truth is, Florence is looking like it’s going to be critical to victory. Whoever wins Florence wins Italy.’
‘I’m ready to help in any way,’ Livia said with conviction.
‘Good. Now the Germans will eventually work out what’s going on, of course, so we suggest that you keep on the move.’
Livia looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘What I mean is that the Germans will be able to trace the origin of your signal, so it’s essential you move to a different place each day to avoid discovery.’
‘I see.’ Livia looked up at her father. ‘So we’ll need a series of safe houses.’
‘Exactly.’ David glanced nervously at them both. ‘There is inevitably great danger associated with this operation.’
‘I appreciate that,’ said Livia. ‘I also appreciate my father’s faith in me.’
Giacomo smiled at Livia. ‘It will be called Radio Cora. It stands for Commission Radio.’
‘And I need hardly tell you,’ David went on gravely, ‘it may well prove an indispensable link in our defeat of the enemy.’
Twenty-Three
Rome
January 1944
One cold afternoon in January, Isabella was at the golf club, idly playing a round of bridge with three middle-aged friends, when Stefano rushed in ashen-faced and collapsed onto a bar stool.
Isabella put her cards face down on the table. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ she asked her fellow players.
She hurried across the club room and sat down next to him. ‘Stefano darling, what on earth is the matter?’
‘Have you heard the news?’ he asked.
‘What news? There is so much of it, and none of it’s good.’
‘About Ciano, of course.’
She shook her head.
‘He’s been executed – a week, or so ago – I only just heard. Shot in the back, strapped to a chair.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I mean, I never liked him much, but I wouldn’t wish that on him.’
‘Mussolini’s own son-in-law!’ exclaimed Stefano. ‘How could a father do that to his own daughter, killing her husband?’ He ordered a large whisky from the bartender.
‘Is she all right?’ asked Isabella.
‘Rumour has it she’s gone to Switzerland.’
‘Well I never met her, but I can’t help feeling sorry for her,’ Isabella said. ‘Was there a trial?’
‘If you can call it that. Two days of a tribunal, and finally found guilty of treason. Bit of a foregone conclusion, if you ask me. Ciano argued he was merely seeking to support the regime during the crisis, but the court saw it differently. What was it they said?’ Stefano took a gulp of his drink. ‘That Ciano “tended towards the elimination of Fascism and its Duce”. I tell you, Isabella, between the Allies in the south and the mad Fascists in the north, we’re doomed.’ He sank the remains of his whisky and demanded another.
That evening, back at the villa, Isabella sat at Vicenzo’s desk in the window of the sitting room. Outside, it was snowing heavily. The dogs lay at her feet and a fire crackled comfortingly in the grate. Ciano’s death had unnerved her. She had never liked him – had found him insufferable in many ways – but the idea that a loyal Fascist could be dispensed with so summarily was alarming. Although she had moved in Fascist circles, she did not consider herself to be one of them. If anything, she was apolitical. She had merely gone along with the way things were, in order to work – to survive. Now it occurred to her that if the Fascist authorities could turn on their own previously loyal ministers, what would they do to someone like Vicenzo – a man who opposed them completely?
Unnerved, and desperate to get news of events, she turned on the radio. She knew there was a British radio station, Radio Londra, but had never looked for it, partly because it was illegal to listen to it, and it was against her nature to break the law. But after that day’s events she decided to risk it. She turned the dial until she found the station. There was an interesting discussion programme in which a well-known liberal was challenging the Fascist orthodoxy. This was followed by a news broadcast, delivered in Italian by a man with a soft, calm English voice.
Allied troops have moved up from their stronghold in Sicily, landing virtually unopposed at the coastal town of Anzio as part of ‘Operation Shingle’. British and American infantry divisions were supported by both tank and airborne battalions. By the end of the day, 36,000 troops were landed ashore.