by L. S. Hilton
On the terrace, Da Silva pulled a packet of Marlboro Gold from his sweatshirt pocket and offered me one as our cappuccini arrived. It seemed we shared an approach to exercise, amongst other things. He lit me up with a heavy gold Dupont.
‘So,’ I began, once the waiter was out of hearing, ‘maybe we should speak English again? It might be more discreet.’
‘OK. What have you been thinking?’
‘About how this works. About what you do.’
‘I said yesterday, you’ll know what you need to know.’
‘Yes, I will, in the end. But it would be much less painful if you just told me. I’ll start with what I think.’
Da Silva sat back, quizzical, taking a long drag on his cigarette.
‘I friended your wife on Facebook. Quite some time ago.’
‘Yes. And? I don’t like you mentioning my wife.’
‘Her family name is Casachiara. Francesca Casachiara.’ Italian women do not customarily take their husbands’ name. ‘And she’s from Casilino in Rome,’ I went on, ‘where you grew up. But you told me you were born here, in the south, in Siderno.’ Casilino was a fairly grim sixties suburb not far from the city centre. ‘The Casachiaras are quite a big deal in Rome, aren’t they? When Francesca’s grandfather died his funeral shut down part of the city. The police helicopters couldn’t even get near – it was a scandal. Even the British press picked up on it, you know. They love a good Mafia story.’
Da Silva winced at that word. I knew that only amateurs used it, really, but I enjoyed his discomfort.
‘So – Romero from Siderno and Francesca from Casilino. What could the connection be? This is what I think. Round here’ – I gestured over the parapet of the terrace – ‘they reckon one per cent of the men are involved in – that thing. Many of you come from Siderno, or Bovalino.’
‘So?’
‘Do you remember where we first met, Romero? Lake Como, wasn’t it? So beautiful up there. You’d come to ask me about Cameron Fitzpatrick’s death.’
‘Yes, we’ve already been through all this.’
‘Keep your hair on. Bovalino. Cameron Fitzpatrick’s mother was from Bovalino. Chambermaid in a Roman hotel, wasn’t it?’
Da Silva’s lighter clicked again. I continued.
‘Fitzpatrick was born here, like you.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘There was a memorial service for Fitzpatrick in London last year. Such a tragedy, the murder. His mother flew over for it – her name was in the obituary. And then – electoral register, declarations of residence at the commune. You lot do love a document. The thing is, though, anyone who wants to play in your gang has to be born down here. Your blood family are also your clan family, if you like. This is where it all begins. This place. You’re all connected, though I admit it took me a while to work it out.’
Da Silva appeared to have eaten his fag.
‘Shall I go on? I like the next bit.’
He nodded.
‘There was a bit of a recruitment problem, wasn’t there? Too much muscle, not enough brains.’
‘Brava.’
Researching official documentation on the Italian Mafia was not such a thrilling activity as its subject suggested. Generational Hindrances to Internalisation of Competencies in Illegal Markets was one of the catchier titles. Basically, in a town where there was nothing much to do in winter except use sheep for target practice or fuck your sister, the quality of locally born clansmen was deteriorating. One too many thumbs. The strict rules about membership through birth were getting in the way of profits, particularly when it came to infiltrating legitimate businesses. So the families, the clans, devised a solution. College scholarships, business school, English lessons. All the training for a twenty-first-century operation.
‘There are ten big Calabrian . . . groups, do you prefer? – operating in the north of Italy. Connections with the Roman . . . groups are crucial. And you’re one of the new boys, aren’t you, Romero? With your dynastic marriage, your connections. You’re all over the place, with your university degrees and your nice suits and your taste for sushi. Law firms, planning offices, civil service? Even the Senate, if the press have it half right. All legit. Except you’re bent as fuck.’
I took another fag without asking and watched him. He looked back impassively, lizard-eyed.
‘Go on.’
So you and Fitzpatrick and Moncada were in on this arms thing together. Kazbich was your adviser, Raznatovic your supplier. That’s how Kazbich found me, over the Caravaggio. That’s how you knew what was in my apartment.’
‘That would be Alvin Spencer. The man you confessed to murdering?’ His voice was flat.
‘You didn’t arrest me then and you’re hardly likely to now. I think . . .’ I put my head to one side. ‘I think you would have killed me, the other day.’
‘I’m only sorry I was interrupted.’
‘Yet here we are.’
Da Silva stretched his arms above his head, flexing his triceps diagonally one after the other.
‘So, back in Paris,’ I went on. ‘What was it, four years ago? A cop calling himself Renaud Cleret found me. He believed you were working together. I was all set to skip town, and you were waiting for me, at the airport. I assume you have to catch the odd criminal now and then, to maintain the cover? But you lost me. If it hadn’t been for that text . . .’
The text I had sent from Cleret’s phone: Does the name Gentileschi mean anything to you? Eight words that had pursued me ever since.
‘What happened to him? To Cleret?’ The question showed he had dropped all attempt at ignorance, that the bones of the story it had taken me most of the night to piece together were correct.
‘Your old colleague? You don’t want to know. Really.’
Some memories have a synaesthetic quality, the prompt of one sense discovering the recollection of another. The thick gulp of Renaud’s carotid artery as the knife entered his neck conjured the wine-coloured spiral of his blood sluicing down the drain, its foetid sweetness ever present, that night in Paris. I’d wrapped his head in clingfilm, then a plastic bag, then into a cheap sports-carrier and dumped it in the Seine. As far as I knew, it had never been found.
I stubbed out my fag in the floral border. ‘Well?’
‘I’m going to take a shower. And then I suggest you stop interfering and get on with what you’re here to do.’
‘No. I want to know. I’ve said I’ll do the work. It’s not as though I have much choice, is it? But I want to know what it’s going to pay for.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘I’m an artist now. I need inspiration. And you need me, so you’ll tell me. Raznatovic isn’t going to wait for his money forever.’
‘You’re not indispensable, whatever line you gave in Albania.’
‘No. But Fitzpatrick is gone, Moncada is gone, Kazbich is gone. They were the ones who designed the fakes for you. Who moved them. You’ve already admitted it. Whilst I’m already so deep in crap with you, you know I can’t escape. You won’t find anyone who knows piss about pictures who’s got such good reasons to keep their mouth shut before Raznatovic runs out of patience.’
5
An hour later we were in da Silva’s car, the same black one that had brought me from Venice, heading back up to Capo Rizzuto. There were more women than yesterday working the lay-bys, taking advantage of the family holiday. Da Silva drove in silence. He had changed into jeans and a navy V-neck sweater over a white shirt, the preppy clothes and his short hair making him seem younger than in uniform. I had to admit he was in pretty good shape. Navy had been my choice too, a button-through suede Chloé dress, gathered at the small of the back, under a softly tailored tweed three-quarter jacket, with flat Ferragamo boots. The elves had forgotten my scent, without which I didn’t feel quite dressed, but with a whisper of make-up I felt quite like my old self. More like my old self than I had in a long time. It was an absurd outfit for a visit to a police s
tation, but the pleasure of having my own things again made me want to dress up a bit. At least, that was my story and I was sticking to it.
‘The port’s along here,’ said da Silva finally, as we pulled off onto a freshly tarmacked track.
‘This is where the boats go out, to pick people up. The camp’s about a kilometre up the coast.’
He flashed his ID at the sentry on the barrier and we found a space in the crowded car park.
‘How come it’s so busy?’ I asked.
‘Christmas. They’ll be getting the boats ready for the search – they’ll expect plenty of refs tonight.’
As he spoke we were walking down to a pier, where three large motorboats striped with the Guardia’s insignia were moored. A group of uniforms loaded orange lifejackets and crates of water bottles, radios crackled, a bale of blankets was tossed up into waiting hands.
‘The traffickers charge extra at Christmas. More chance of a sympathetic reception,’ explained da Silva matter-of-factly. He stooped to give a hand to a young woman struggling with a heavy red first aid box. She glanced curiously at me as she thanked him and he wished her a happy Christmas. I marvelled at his assurance amongst his colleagues, the cool fit of his mask. Did none of them have any idea? Or did they just not believe in asking questions? Some of these people would be setting out later, leaving their own families to rescue others. How could they be unaware of what was going on under their noses? I remembered something I had read yesterday evening, a miraculously lucky victim to a botched Mafia hit who had refused to testify. ‘It’s true they put sixty-three shots in my back,’ the man had said, ‘but I’m sure it was by mistake.’ Maybe it’s easier to keep silent about something whose very existence is never acknowledged.
We passed to the end of the pier, where the waves chopped through the sound of our conversation.
‘You said you wanted to know,’ da Silva murmured. ‘Here it is. The equipment goes on the boats. When they connect with the right agent, we exchange it for the refs.’
‘You mean the weapons?’
‘What else would I mean?’
‘And then?’
‘Libya, Syria, Iraq – even further. Wherever the customer wants to take them, that’s not our business.’
I had to admire the simplicity of it. And the audacity. Humanitarian rescue as a cover for shifting AK47s.
‘What happens to the people?’
‘Most of them end up there, to start with.’ He indicated a headland across the bay to our left. Shielding my eyes against the sun, I could make out heavy twists of barbed wire, blocking access to the cliffs, and what looked like a holiday camp, rows of small wooden chalets. A group of men were playing football between the low buildings. One of them wore a red and blue striped shirt with ‘MESSI’ stencilled on the back.
‘But how?’ I still couldn’t get my head round it.
‘The crates are unloaded into the dinghies. The guys who take them off don’t know anything more than that. Or they know better than to ask.’
‘But how does the gear get here in the first place?’
‘God. Don’t you ever shut up?’
I turned to face him, the wind blowing my hair back from my face. ‘I saved your life, you saved mine. You said you’d explain.’
He pointed up the coast as though he was showing me the view.
‘Military trucks.’
In the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Raznatovic had made his fortune as an arms dealer. A huge swathe of eastern Europe had basically become a car boot sale for state-issued weapons – at one time you could pick up an AK47 for a hundred dollars.
‘No bother with the borders,’ I observed.
Serbia was perfect for moving military contraband into the Schengen area of Europe – once inside, army vehicles could move freely.
‘Exactly. Once the stuff’s out of Serbia, it’s stored in barracks and moved in trucks. Some of it official, most of it not. We get the refs to unload it, further down the coast. Takes a few minutes per truck. We pay them,’ he added, when he saw the expression on my face. ‘Two euros an hour. Same as they’d get for tomatoes. Then it’s divided up; some of it comes here, the rest distributed along the coast. Got it?’
One of the distant football players had saved a goal, throwing himself theatrically to the ground as he dived for the ball. I thought of those hands, how they would rest tiredly in his lap after a night moving heavy boxes, shifting the very tools that had shattered his life. It was grotesque, when you thought about it. But then no one ever really thinks about it. They look at the shot of the dead kid on the beach and scroll down their feed to the amusing kittens, the inspirational yoga poses.
‘Impressive,’ I murmured.
‘Shall we go back now? It’s bloody freezing.’
*
Da Silva disappeared after we returned to the hotel. He said he was joining some of his family for the Christmas Eve dinner and then going to Mass. I spent the afternoon reading, then took myself for a walk. The last of the shops were closing, people were busy buying emergency gifts and supplies, everyone wishing each other happy Christmas. Walking alone through the cheery crowds felt like the worst kind of cliché. For a while I sat on a bench overlooking the sea while it got dark, and smoked until I felt dizzy. Then I called my mother, but she didn’t answer. Pissed, of course, sleeping off Christmas Eve afternoon in the pub. I left a message apologising for the late arrival of her gift, blaming the Italian post, and said I was planning ‘a quiet one’. She wouldn’t have been expecting me to come back. I wished her all the best and hung up.
One of the more useful lessons of my childhood is that junkies always know where to score. They’ll find the place on the outskirts of town with the twisted dropped wraps hiding in the paving stones, the bent spoons in dustbins. When I saw the Santa girl from the roadside strolling along the front, I reconfigured my plans for the evening. I hadn’t been all that keen on dining à trois with the wheelchairs anyway. I stubbed out my umpteenth fag and followed her. Dressed in skinny jeans and a purple satin Puffa jacket, she wasn’t working, but she remained conspicuous – not only for the colour of her skin, still a rarity in Italy, but for the way she carried herself, erect and graceful, moving through the remains of the festive shoppers according to some invisible choreography. She glided a little further along the marina and then turned up one of the ugly modern streets which divided the centro storico from the sea. Trailing about twenty metres behind her, I crossed a wide boulevard into a polished marble square with a small baroque church at one end, its cream stucco gleaming in the winter dark. Behind the church, I dropped back as we entered narrower streets; I didn’t want the sound of my boots on the smooth stone to alarm her. She stopped to check her phone and I hung back in a doorway, elated by the sensation of pursuit.
The ancient streets rose as they twisted until we came out on a perpendicular alley, running against the grounds of the white mass of the Siderno castle, the highest point of the old city, where she ducked under an arched stone gateway. Tea lights in brown paper bags of sand lit up bare walls which had been laid by the kings of Aragon. There was music playing faintly, something wailing and jazzy as I descended a narrow flight of curving steps into a cellar. It looked like my girl already had a date – she was enveloped in the sturdy arms of a shaven-headed woman, old-school man’s shirt and braces over a thick, squat body, the cluster of piercings in her ear twinkling through Santa girl’s hair in the candlelight. A high bench and a shelf of bottles made a bar. I ordered a tumbler of filthy red and looked around for a plan B. There were maybe about twenty people in the small space, a mix of hipster Italian kids proudly escaping Christmas Eve and several groups of Africans and Arabs, maybe some of them from the camp. Two men, a short bearded Italian boy and a tall black guy in a patterned shirt, slow-danced rapturously near the speaker, eyes locked as they swayed. A line of crates topped with mismatched cushions along the back wall made for the seating, I took one and lit a cigarette, waiti
ng and watching the dancers.
‘Ciao.’ A guy two crates along, not bad, long legged, narrow, a wide clever forehead. I smiled and he bumped his seat over. The room grew busier as we chatted over the music, he bought me another drink and rested his arm over my shoulder, testing. I let it stay there. When we’d ascertained I spoke French we switched from his jerky Italian. He said his name was Serafim, that he was from Egypt originally, he had a job as a mechanic, studied English in the evenings. He told me he dreamed of going to London one day. ‘Carnaby Street,’ he smiled. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was all Zara and noodle bars. A wave of cold air from the door preceded another gust of drinkers, four Italians. Serafim waved one of them over, introduced him as his friend, Raffaele.
‘Seriously? Serafim and Raffaele? Are you making that up?’
‘No. Maybe, if you like.’
OK, then. Raffaele was blondish, shorter than his mate, tight, gym-stoked body. He had the look on him, I thought, and when Serafim went up to the bar he pulled me in for a kiss. I opened under his mouth, letting my hands find the tight muscle of his torso under his sweatshirt, and when Serafim came back I turned my head and smiled again and gave my mouth to his. So familiar, so easy.
‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’ Serafim asked.
‘With both of you?’
Raffaele nodded slowly.
‘Sure. I’ll grab a bottle.’
We left arm-in-arm, me in between their shoulders. ‘This way,’ said Serafim. So they’d done this before. All the better. They guided me up the steps to the alley, crossed it and moved a little way along the castle wall until we came to a wooden door with a half-hearted padlock.
‘Shhhh!’ one of them giggled as we slipped through the gap. The door led to another flight of steps, between the castle walls, much darker and colder. A part of my brain asked if I should be frightened, but it was the part of my brain that doesn’t work properly, so I ignored it. We came out into a wide, scruffy courtyard, tufts of grass sprouting between huge, ancient paving stones. Serafim led the way, crossing to an open loggia that I guessed would give a view of the sea on the other side. Cats skittered in the corners, the occasional pair of green eyes flaring spookily. At the end of the loggia, an enclosed space, barely even a room, just a curved wall with a row of candles in tomato cans tracing its shape. Serafim lit them one by one. We passed a bottle of more filthy red, each of us taking a single, solemn drink. It was freezing, but my skin felt hot, plump with blood. For a moment, we all paused, looking at one another, then I took off my coat and laid it on the ground, followed by my dress.