by David Hewson
‘Go on.’ She only argued when there was time.
Property records. Just for Torcello. He wanted her to browse the database and see if there was anywhere with Calabrian connections. Or a name they recognized. Probably not Bergamotti. Maybe Ursi. Or Bianchi. Perhaps a connection with the registered owners of a place on Capri called Villa Carlotta.
‘Don’t want much, do you?’
He listened to the clatter of her fingers on the keyboard, could picture her at work at a desk in the centre of Rome. ‘How long’s it going to take?’
‘I’ll get back to you when I have something.’
Thirty minutes in the fast water taxi and he was standing beneath the outside canopy of the Locanda Cipriani handing over a hundred and forty euros, almost all the money he had left. One of the most elegant and expensive hotels in the lagoon but close up it looked unassuming, just a country inn, much as it must have done more than half a century before when Hemingway wrote most of a novel here.
Teresa called back.
‘Start talking,’ she told him.
‘About what?’
‘About what you’re doing in Venice. That could be a start.’
Diners were coming out of the restaurant, stumbling into waiting boats, falling on the leather seats in the stern, smiling at the pale blue sky. A fine late September afternoon away from the tourist mayhem of San Marco.
‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘So you won’t say. As far as I can see there’s fewer than thirty registered properties on Torcello. That make sense?’
‘Definitely,’ he said, looking around.
‘The only one that stands out’s a place called the Azienda Agricola San Giovanni. It’s owned by a company based in Monaco. So is the villa on Capri. Different company but that’s as close as I can get.’
‘Can you see it on a map?’
‘No. There aren’t conventional addresses. It’s the usual Venice thing. Just numbers. You want me to call the locals and send some backup?’
‘No.’
‘Wait a minute …’
‘It may be a dead end. I’ll probably be on a plane to Rome tonight. Don’t tell Leo. Don’t waste anyone’s time.’
A pause then. She knew when he was lying. ‘Look. If there’s something—’
‘Sorry. Got to go.’
A smiling waiter was hovering, looking for business. When Costa came off the call the man was over straight away asking what he wanted.
‘Advice. I’m looking for some friends. They’re from the south. Calabria. Got a little farm somewhere. The Azienda San Giovanni—’
The man nodded. ‘You mean the Rossi?’
A pause then: ‘Yes.’
‘They used to come here from time to time. Don’t know why they call that place an azienda. Don’t see them selling a thing from the fields.’
‘Recently?’
He thought for a moment then said, ‘The man. The young one. I saw him in his little boat yesterday, messing around. Looked like he was going shooting.’
‘How do I find the place?’
The man pointed down the canal the water taxi took. ‘You got to cross the Ponte del Diavolo. The Devil’s Bridge.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t hang around if you see a black cat. Means the bad man with the pitchfork’s coming for you.’
He had to push through a gaggle of tourists ambling towards the basilica. The afternoon was dead still with a stifling, close humidity to it. He felt exhausted, aware only of the need to go on, not knowing where this led. There hardly seemed a gap between Alessia’s grim words and even grimmer gift by the fresh grave in Manodiavolo, Reggio the morning before, Capri, then this remote part of the lagoon.
And the news about Lucia. The subtle, unspoken message in her aunt’s words. She died, along with her father. While Rocco lived and walked away.
Her silver bracelet still sat in his pocket, the bloodstain in his head.
There was a cafe halfway along the narrow, rural canal. He stopped and bought a coffee and a panino, asked about the farm again. The man pointed at a curious low bridge over the canal, pale brick, no parapets, just open sides.
‘Over the bridge. Used to be a monastery until Napoleon came along and knocked it down,’ the barista told him. ‘History’s all we’ve got here.’
‘Do you know them?’
He thought for a moment and nodded. ‘Calabrians.’ He lifted his arm as if to fire a shotgun. ‘Bang. That’s all the guy does. Don’t know how he gets to eat all those ducks. How the hell people like him get the money for a place like that.’
He hesitated, just for a moment, then asked, ‘Rocco?’
The waiter frowned. ‘Yeah. I think that’s him.’
Choices.
Decisions.
Forks in the long, long road.
The man went back into the kitchen to find something.
Costa reached over behind the bar and stole the short, sharp knife that stood beside a half-severed lemon. It jangled in his pocket against Lucia’s silver clasp as he left.
Across the Devil’s Bridge the path meandered like an Aspromonte lane, through tiny vineyards, orchards, past slender rivulets choked with weed, by the ruins of an ancient building, a scattering of giant stones across a swampy field. Then, close to the shore, a house emerged. It wasn’t what he expected, a rundown little farm like one of the Manodiavolo outbuildings. The place was grand, a mansion, two storeys, the style Venetian Gothic, ochre walls with wide lancet windows and green shutters, most of them closed. A small blue and white motor launch, old and stained by the waters of the lagoon, was moored by a decaying jetty. Across the flat, still channel stood the multi-coloured houses of Burano and the vaporetto stop where one of the mid-sized motonavi they used for the outlying islands was manoeuvring in to dock.
As he walked round the back a modern swimming pool emerged, an incongruous bright blue, tables and closed umbrellas all round. The place might have made a small hotel but at that moment it seemed quite deserted. Then, as he crept round, close to the wall it came to him: the acrid smell of a cigar. In an instant he was in Reggio, that grimy industrial park on the hot day they’d pretended to murder Falcone and Gianni Peroni.
Ahead there was what looked like the door to the kitchen. Open. A few metres away a ramshackle gardener’s hut was leaning at a crazy angle by the path to a vegetable plot full of cavolo nero, artichokes and tomatoes, much like the one Vanni had maintained in the south. He could see him here in his head, bending, smiling as he tended the plants, talking to them as he worked.
Creeping round the door his hand crept to his pocket. As his fingers closed on the knife the cigar stink got stronger. There were sudden steps behind, a firm hand on his shoulder, cold metal pressed hard against his neck.
‘Jesus,’ Rocco whispered close to his ear. ‘Your kind never learns.’
He slipped the knife from his fingers to his sleeve, turned round and found himself facing a man he barely recognized. Rocco had cut off all his hair so there was just stubble there and pale scalp beneath. No sunglasses. No designer clothes. He wore a pair of farmers’ overalls, blue, dirty. Could have been just another lagoon peasant working on the fields. His face seemed different too. More narrow as if he hadn’t eaten much. As if something had been weighing on his mind.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
The gun was at an angle, half-pointed at Costa’s chest.
‘Looking for explanations.’
A boat’s engine sounded on the water. The racket it made sent a couple of pure white egret squawking out of the reeds.
‘This was a big mistake, Maso. What am I supposed to do with you now?’
There was that old note of casual cruelty in his voice. Nothing in the world was going to wash him clean of that.
‘The name’s Nic Costa. I’m a police officer. There was no Maso—’
‘We noticed. You never fooled anyone. Why do you think it all went—’
One chance was all he had. His right hand came down and the littl
e knife slipped from his sleeve. Fell straight into his grasping fingers and then the blade flashed quick and sure towards Rocco’s gun hand.
A yell of pain. The weapon fell to the ground. Costa threw aside the knife, leapt for the gun, rolled down to the grassy ground, got a grip round the butt, rolled again, stopped.
Rocco was sucking at his hand, his face the picture of fury.
The only sound now was the distant quacking of ducks. Then an explosion somewhere, a shotgun it sounded like.
‘It’s the hunting season, Rocco,’ he said, getting to his feet. The gun felt good. It seemed to lift in his hand of its own accord until the barrel pointed straight at the man in front of him.
‘What did your father do with traitors?’ he asked.
Rocco frowned. ‘The same as me. What do you think? Come on, man. Quit pretending. You said it yourself. You’re a cop from Rome. Not Maso Leoni. We invented him. We put an end to his little life the day the Bergamotti died.’
‘They didn’t just die. Someone killed them.’ The gun didn’t waver. He glanced around, just for a second to make the point. ‘You can tell me. We’re out here. No one near. No one to know. No one to see. Everyone gone except you. Why …?’
‘Why’s none of your business.’ Rocco stepped closer, held out his hand. ‘Use that thing before I take it from you.’
One shot. Good and proper. Bullets cost money. Shouldn’t need more.
Footsteps behind. He was still hovering between two worlds. Then a voice close by barked, ‘Nic!’
The gun felt heavy. Wrong.
‘Give me that,’ she said and snatched the weapon from his hands.
It took the longest moment to believe it was really her. The hair was shorter too, almost a crew cut, tinted a fashionable steel blue over blonde. Dark-rimmed spectacles that made her eyes seem larger. A gingham shirt. Pale jeans that looked brand new. Two full shopping bags from Conad sitting on the ground.
She might have been an account manager at a trendy advertising agency.
A busy mother returning home.
A teacher.
Or … anything.
The Bergamotti, whoever they were, lived like chameleons, forever adapting, changing, shifting shape and nature to stay alive.
‘I don’t know about anyone else,’ Rocco announced, ‘but I need a drink.’ He sucked his fingers again. ‘And a plaster. Don’t worry.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘I probably deserved that. I’ll leave you two alone.’
He picked up the shopping and went inside.
Costa said, ‘They told me you were dead.’
It was impossible to read her face. Perhaps it always had been.
‘Please tell me you weren’t going to shoot my brother.’
‘Thought of it,’ he admitted. ‘Thought I had good reason. He pulled the gun on me.’
‘You sound like children.’ She placed the weapon on the windowsill. ‘We don’t need a drink. Do we?’
‘Just answers. I’m owed.’
Lucia put a finger to her lips, thinking. Then: ‘No. You’re not. But you’ll get them anyway. Sort of.’ She came closer and there was a fragrance on her now, a formal, adult scent he’d never noticed before. ‘How did you find us?’
‘I looked.’
‘You’re good at looking.’
‘It’s what I do.’
She smiled and there was sadness in it. ‘You’re not the only one. Shame.’ She glanced at the house, the garden, the quiet lagoon by the dock where two boats were now moored, both old and a touch decrepit. ‘Come on. Let me show you our demons.’
The last time he’d been in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta it was with his late wife. He didn’t remember much about the place, marooned as it was in this corner of the lagoon, an ancient basilica left behind by time. They’d been too engrossed in one another, too much in love to take notice of anything else. This was different. They had to look. Lucia was insistent. So he sat with her in the quiet, dark nave, back to the altar, as she pointed out the details of the extraordinary scene on the west wall above the door where they’d entered. A panoramic medieval vision of the end of the world, the Last Judgement, rose in front of them, a jewelled masterpiece of golden mosaics glittering in the last of early-evening sun. The chosen rising to heaven; sinners being torn apart by black demons, stabbed by avenging angels, beneath them all the horrors of hell, skulls with serpents snaking out of eye sockets, the physical decay of death.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’
‘Yes …’
‘I come here every day.’
There were a couple of tourists around, and an elderly male attendant watching them like a hawk.
‘Why?’
‘To pray, silly. Why else?’ She edged nearer. ‘You don’t, do you?’
‘No.’ He gestured at the towering story before them. Sinners being pushed to hell, some of them simply for who they were: Jews and Muslims. Foreigners beyond the reach of the Pope. ‘I don’t believe in that.’
‘Me neither. Not all of it anyway. But I like praying. I like the idea of talking to someone you can’t see. Who maybe doesn’t exist. But somehow they listen all the same.’
He touched her arm, ran a finger along the olive-brown bare skin. ‘The tattoos …’
She laughed and looked away. ‘Ah. Them. They were only good for two or three weeks. I was worried they’d rub off.’
It seemed obvious now. Part of the disguise, the picture she’d leave behind. ‘That’s how we’d describe you. When you all ran. A woman with tattoos.’ Then he touched the scar. ‘That’s real anyway.’
‘Fell off my bike. When I was twelve.’
‘So many stories …’
There was a fleeting look of regret then. ‘They weren’t all lies. I did lose it for a while. I did … fall. I think that’s when Dad realized we couldn’t go on the way we were. When he started to try to come up with some means to get us out, away from all the damage. It was a long time in the planning before we sent word to those people in Rome. Not that it did any good.’
‘I’m sorry. He was kind to me. A … a good man.’
‘Good?’ she asked. ‘You think that?’
‘From what I saw.’
‘You saw what we wanted you to see.’
‘Alessia took me to Manodiavolo. She showed me—’
‘I know what she showed you. I know she told you not to chase us too.’
He shrugged and said he couldn’t help it.
‘I told her you wouldn’t listen. They called him Lo Spettro, remember? It wasn’t just Dad. We all grew up learning to be ghosts. That’s how we survived. Being anonymous. Being … kind of nothing. Which may keep you alive but after a while you wonder … who are you really? The Sicilians … the other gangs. Apart from Mancuso, they were different. They lived out in the open. They knew one day there might be a visit. From you. More likely from some men with guns. Dad didn’t want that for us. In the end he didn’t want any of it. Just peace. A place we could be safe. But no one retires from the ’ndrina. Especially not the capo.’
It was starting to come clear.
‘So you vanish and leave us Mancuso and the others as an offering? A way to say … don’t come for us?’
‘Half a bargain’s better than no bargain at all.’
He had to say it. ‘I thought it was Rocco who betrayed you.’
‘So I gathered.’
‘Rocco and Santo Vottari.’
He could see the old Lucia in her face then. ‘Vottari. The bastard got to know somehow. So he and Mancuso’s people bundled me into a van and took me over the water. A guest. No one does that to the Bergamotti. It’s like a declaration of war. The Sicilians called Rocco. Told him they’d worked out what was going on. Mancuso wouldn’t be coming. None of the other capi. Some people, innocents, in their place. There had to be a reckoning. I guess Dad didn’t think he had a choice. So he offered his head in return for ours. Not that I knew. They had me by then. Vottari’s got his reward. He’s been sho
oting his mouth off all over Reggio. If we could do something.’ She shut her eyes all of a sudden. Pain. ‘Oh shit. See. I still think that way. My God …’
He tried to hold her but she was too quick, too strong, and fled outside. He followed slowly. When he found her she was on the terrace of the Cipriani swirling a cocktail stick in a glass of spritz, the glasses off her face now, her eyes pink from tears.
Costa sat down and ordered one for himself. The same waiter he’d met earlier came out and brought it, a plate of cicchetti too. The drink took him straight back to Venice: strong, both bitter and sweet, a taste that belonged to the lagoon.
‘What I’d give to go back,’ she murmured. ‘To see his grave. Those cypresses. That place. He loved Manodiavolo. I don’t know if he could have lived anywhere else really. It was just a dream. We fooled ourselves. We were so desperate …’
She wiped her eyes and took a long swig of Campari. ‘They snatched me that last night, never told me a thing. So I didn’t know he’d struck a bargain. I thought I was just a surety and the moment things turned bad they’d kill me. Maybe they were going to anyway.’ Her face turned hard, her gaze stayed on the cathedral across the way. ‘The man who came for me was called Gaetano Sciarra. You saw him around Manodiavolo. He was Mancuso’s nephew, not that I knew. All I saw was a Sicilian with a gun and lots of swagger. So …’ Another gulp of spritz. ‘I didn’t wait. I killed him instead. Then ran all the way here. We’re good at running. You probably noticed. Turned out I could kill a man quite easily too. Though … it hurts.’ She turned to him. ‘Something always hurts.’
Costa took the bracelet from his jacket and placed it on the table.
‘It has his blood on it, Nic. I can’t touch that thing again.’
He pointed to the stain. ‘I thought it was yours.’
‘I know.’
She wouldn’t look at him.
‘Alessia wanted me to. So did you—’
‘I was trying to be kind! Not cruel!’ Her voice was breaking. Her eyes were wild. ‘We just wanted to be free of that damned prison. To live like other people. Out in the open. Not wondering if there was some thug around the corner with a gun. Or a life spent in jail. There’s a kind of sanctity in being ordinary. My father said that all the time. Why do you think he lived in Manodiavolo? Why do you think we took those risks?’