‘I would, too.’
He tried to sound authoritative: ‘Then you’d better take me.’
A smile slashed the kid’s face and Eddie saw it when another match was struck and cigarette lit. He was told to give it a couple of hours, then come back – and that it would cost him.
He had no doubt that the kid would have the skills to break into a property that had a police guard on the front step.
*
Salvatore felt her tremble. He had not known Gabriella Borelli, madrina, leader of the clan, show fear, but she shook and couldn’t stifle it. He held her close to him and the warmth came off her body. One arm was close round her shoulders and the other round the small of her back. She was twice his age. She was the most feared woman in the city. He could feel the straps of her underwear, and she would have felt the hardness against her belly. He could have pushed aside her coat, lifted her skirt, pulled down the panties, then flicked his own zip and hitched her up so that her arms were round his neck. Could have leaned her back against a wall and gone into her. Had he, it would have been – sad – the stupidest action of his life. Against a wall of old brick, put up by craftsmen centuries before, to have fucked a madrina while her husband was in gaol in the north and subject to Article 41 bis would have condemned him. Already Salvatore, Il Pistole, was a marked man and could live with it. If he fucked Gabriella Borelli he was a dead man and walking nowhere. And yet… He let a hand worm round from her back along the top of the pelvis, let it slide down and heard her breath quicken. And yet… He was not stupid.
He kissed her lightly on the forehead, at the hairline, and eased back from her. He thought – could not see in the darkness – that she clenched her fists and maybe drove the nails into the soft palms. He was glad, then, that he had backed off first. Her face would have hardened, and her jaw would be out.
The moment – body against body, juices aroused, heat rising – would not be referred to again. She would show no sign in the future of that intimacy. Neither would he. He thought she would have been a good fuck, better than the daughter. Salvatore knew that if ever she believed he was conceited enough to think he had any hold over her she would destroy him.
She touched his arm. It seemed to acknowledge a moment of weakness that was now stamped on, bagged, disposed of. She said, ‘They have searched five addresses I use. Who knew five of my addresses?’
No cheek, no attempt to joke. ‘I did.’ He knew she would consider him as much of a suspect as anyone else. She had the ability to detach herself, analyse, and act. It was not necessary to bluster innocence to her.
‘Who else?’
The wall behind her was high, dwarfing them, and above it was the Certosa di San Martino, of the fourteenth century, and behind the monastery, the fortress of Sant’Elmo, whose first stones had been laid eight hundred years before. That he was in the deep shadow of two of the most remarkable buildings in a city that was, itself, a miracle of history did not impress the clan’s principal killer. He had one boast only: he would never be taken alive. Coming after him were the police detectives and the ROS investigators, the families and associates of those he had killed on the instructions of the Borelli clan, and if he rose too fast that clan would destroy him.
He had been found and taken in hand by Pasquale when he was a scugnizzo. The padrino had lifted him off the street, where he thieved, conned and tricked for food and money, no family to care for him, and created a ladder of advancement for him to climb. He had done street-corner spotting – who came into Forcella, what was their business and where they went – message-running, with tiny scraps of paper, sealed in plastic and secreted in body orifices, and had given out beatings when monies due were not paid. When he was eighteen, Pasquale – identifying talent where he could find it – had put the P38 into his smooth hand, had driven him to a disused quarry beyond Acerra and let him fire two magazines at rusty cans. A week later he had been given his first living, walking, breathing, spitting, cursing target. He had money and status, and wouldn’t see his thirtieth birthday, which he accepted. He would be dead, and would not have – at his last breath – a regret.
‘All the brothers, they knew.’ He had taken instructions from Vincenzo before his flight to London but always after a moment had elapsed as if clarifying that his obedience was considered, not automatic, and instructions from Giovanni only if they were prefaced with ‘My mother says.’ He was contemptuous of Silvio and had never received an instruction from him. It did not cross his mind that he should include the sister, now gone eight months, with the brothers in having knowledge of the safe-houses.
‘Yes – and who else?’
‘Did Carmine and Anna Borelli know the addresses?’
Her father- and mother-in-law might have known two of the five, three at maximum. Not all.
‘Did Umberto know?’
The lawyer, used by the family for more than thirty years, was now elderly, run to obesity and looked a fool, a pompous one, but his intellect was sharper than any other city lawyer’s. He was skilled in the manipulation of court processes, the transfer of monies while they were rinsed clean, and the avoidance of surveillance. Umberto, perhaps, was a more significant aide to the clan than Salvatore, the killer.
She thought briefly, then replied that the lawyer might have known two addresses, no more.
‘Did Pasquale know?’
She did not dismiss it. Her body seemed to stiffen, tighten, then a coil was loosened. She relaxed. She said that however desperate her husband was to regain his freedom, he wouldn’t dare to betray her – and he would have known three addresses, but not five.
He shrugged, had no more to offer. He took out a small pocket torch and flashed it three times down the lane. He heard the response, the gunning of a scooter engine. It came forward, no lights shown. Did she want to be taken somewhere? She shook her head decisively. Who now to trust?
She walked away. He thought her wealth could have provided her with a Bentley, a Maserati or a Porsche, a driver in uniform and a guard to protect her. The scooter came up and collected him, the lights were flicked on and he saw her trudging the other way, along the rough track that would bring her out on the corso Vittorio Emanuele. He didn’t know where she would head for but he reckoned it an hour’s fast walking to get back to Forcella and Sanità.
He sat astride the pillion, slapped his man on the shoulder – he called him ‘Fangio’ – and they powered away. He did not look down from the track at the beauty of the bay and the reflections on the sea from ships’ lamps and portholes or up at the illuminated ramparts of the castle. He let his mind scratch at the problem. Who had betrayed the clan? Who had earned death – not the fast death of the P38, but slow, stretched death? Who?
The aircraft landed, hit hard. She reached out, instinct, as the wheels bounced and the aircraft seemed to fly again, then the impact was repeated. Her hand took his. The fingers did not close on hers, and there was no comfort from them. Then she realised Castrolami thought nothing of her and had no concern whether she was terrified on landing or not.
They taxied, turned, idled and then, with a last lurch, the aircraft braked and was still. A ripple of applause shimmered behind them: it had not been a smooth flight, with turbulence over southern France, then powerful cross-winds as they had descended on Fiumicino, and the landing had been rough. Immacolata Borelli did not join in. She had only once, while they were in the air, left her seat. Then she had gone to the toilets in front of Business and had changed into the few new clothes she had been permitted to buy. She had washed her face and hands and had looked at herself in the mirror. She had tried to smile – and could not.
She had returned to her seat. Castrolami had not spoken to her. She thought he reckoned it enough that he had her on the plane, out of British jurisdiction and on her way to Italy, home. He hadn’t asked if she was comfortable, if she was hungry, if she wanted a drink or a magazine. He had scribbled on a pad, might have been his report or his expenses, and she thought his so
cks smelled worse in the cabin than they had in the car.
She heard, behind her, a stampede. She had expected that she would have to wait. Castrolami squeezed his bulk past her, no apology, stood in the aisle and successfully blocked any passenger wanting to short-cut through Business to the forward door. Then he flicked his fingers – as if he had called a dog. She didn’t move. Heard the flick of the fingers again, louder, more insistent and closer to her ear. Sat, didn’t shift. The hand came down – the one she had clutched when the plane hit – caught her coat and yanked her up. Her waist snagged on the belt, still fastened. His other hand came across her thighs, almost groping her, and opened the catch. She thought he wouldn’t have noticed where his hand had been. She stood.
She saw that two stewardesses and a purser eyed her, almost stripped her. It was obvious that she was a fugitive returning. No sympathy, no clemency. She had been offered a rug for her knees and had declined it, also earphones for the stereo. The trolley had come with newspapers – Corriere, Messaggero and Repubblica and she’d said she didn’t want one. A few remarks only, and she wondered if they were sufficient for the cabin crew to know she was Neapolitan. If she was from Naples and in custody, she was a camorrista. She understood then that few shoulders would offer her a place to weep.
He had reached into his pocket and produced a pair of dark glasses. He handed them to her. The lights were poor in the cabin and outside it was late evening. She shook her head.
Castrolami said, ‘Maybe there’s a photographer. How do I know, when I have no control over it, what the security’s like? I’m off my patch. Maybe this place leaks. Maybe your name is out. You want to make it easier for them? Put them on and turn up your coat collar. I don’t want you dead, Signorina…’
She put on the glasses and pulled up the collar so that it half covered her cheeks. She thought, was not certain because his voice was only a murmur, that he added, ‘Not before we’ve had you in court and testifying.’
He took her arm, led her out through the door and on to the pier, then down a flight of side steps into the night. Two cars waited, and men had sub-machine guns. The rear door of the lead car was open for her. Fingers lay on trigger guards. She was from a clan family and couldn’t play at ignorance, and she understood the reaction towards a traitor and knew their fate. She attempted to bring to mind Marianna Rossetti’s face, the last time she had seen it, without the ravages of leukaemia.
Immacolata Borelli had completed the first stage of her journey home. She dropped her head, sank on to the back seat and the crackle of radios was around her as she was driven away.
Music played at one café and the last stages of a soccer game were on a television at the other. Lukas was about halfway between the soccer and the music, and had yesterday’s Herald Tribune in front of him with a month-old copy of Match.
Most evenings, when he was in Paris, he walked down the rue de Bellechasse and on to the rue St Dominique. There, he would pause outside the building with the double gate wide enough for a carriage and pair to go through, and he would take a moment under the plaque to consider the life and work of J. B. Dumas, Chimiste-Secretaire Perpetuel de l’Academie des Sciences, and note a date carved in the stone that put recognition of this man at 209 years ago. It was important for Lukas to stop for those few seconds, break his evening walk to the Bar le Bellechasse, the Drop Café or the Café des Deux Musées, because then he placed matters in his life into a correct perspective, one that he could manage to be alongside. There would be no plaque erected in Kabul, or Baghdad, up in the forests of the Midwest or in the triple-canopy jungle high in the Cordillera Central east of Cali for a co-ordinator who made the judgement – weighed lives and deaths – between the arguments of the negotiators and the storm-squad commanders. Nobody would read a plaque naming Lukas Sometimes a Saviour and sometimes a Killer, Federal Bureau of Investigation and lately of Ground Force Security (London). Lukas did not rate himself important enough to warrant a plaque.
He thought them good people who served in the cafés and bars he patronised. They were ordinary people, who would not know of the situations that confronted him when he worked. It was better not to bring back to Paris with him, in his rucksack, the situations and knife-edges on which he operated. If business was slack they talked to him about the concerns and excitements of ‘ordinary’ people, and did not push for entry into his life – his unexplained absences – or pry, and they brought him beer and he gave them tips in midsummer and before Christmas. He paid always for what was brought to him unless the patron came with the drink. They could all set agendas and choose the subjects – had free range – except one area. He would steer the talk away from sons: he didn’t welcome chatter about the triumphs and failures of sons. It was an area of pain suppressed, not shared, and he managed the deflection with subtle skill. In the bars and cafés, wiling away the evening hours, he never drank so that his mind clouded: the telephone in the apartment could ring at any time and activate the voicemail.
There was agitation at the far end of the bar. His name was called by a white-aproned waiter and he was told that the game had gone to penalty kicks and he should come for the death throes, but he smiled, shook his head, stayed in his chair and nursed his beer. Tomorrow, he thought, he would go to the museums – first the Musée d’Orsay and then that of the Legion – if the telephone had not rung and no message had been left.
5
The kid hissed, ‘No lights, only the torch. And no torch till the curtains are done.’
Eddie Deacon could honestly have said that never in his life had he done anything that warranted the intervention of the police. Maybe he was a bit drunk sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night, rolling along the street and using a lamp-post as a crutch, but he hadn’t done anything that required an officer to get stuck into him. It didn’t make him special, just ordinary. If a policeman’s torch had lit him now, it would have been handcuffs, the back of a wagon and a cell door slamming.
The kid had asked for fifty; they had haggled. He had settled for thirty. Eddie thought the kid might be as young as nine. Newspapers he glanced at in the staff room carried interminable features on the spread of hooligans on the capital’s streets. Thirty pounds had been passed, and to make it up Eddie had had to empty a pocket and dig up pound and fifty-pence coins. It was big money to him, but he didn’t think it was high-value work to the kid… He rather liked him.
They had gone to the parallel street at the back. The kid had led and Eddie had followed. There was a locked iron gate at the side of a four-house terrace, and the kid had unfastened the lock as if it was easier than opening a toothpaste tube. They had edged along a garden, while inside a baby cried and a television played, and Eddie had been helped over the end wall. They had dropped down into a yard filled with sodden cardboard cartons that would have come from the shop alongside the steps to the door used by Immacolata and her brother. Next, up a drainpipe using a dumped stool to get clear of the ground, then a window ledge. The kid used a penknife on the window while Eddie tottered beside him. The kid was sure-footed and showed no fear. The window was levered up and a small thin arm, width of a broomstick, came down, a hand took Eddie’s and wrenched it through the gap. Funny thing. When the small hand took his weight, Eddie never doubted that he was safe.
What he liked about the kid was his sheer anarchy. Didn’t do arithmetic, as nine- or ten-year-olds should, but did burglary. Didn’t do joined-up writing and reading aloud but did house-breaking. And smiled: wasn’t sour-faced, but had an openness and a sense of untamed rebellion about him that were captivating. They stood statue still in the darkened room, listened and heard nothing. Then the window was closed and the kid said – still a treble voice – his friend Vinny had boasted that a new alarm system had been installed, had cost a grand, that the system couldn’t be interfered with by an intruder. The kid said, shrill whisper, that the system was shit and he’d gone into the apartment by this route, disabled it and brought out a leather-covered Filofax by wa
y of proof and carried it to the trattoria where Vinny ate his pizza. Eddie hadn’t understood how the circuits could be blocked but Vinny had. He had given the kid fifty pounds.
The kid worshipped Vinny. Only when he was talking about him did the anarchy light go out of his eyes. He had looked away just once, not done eyeball-to-eyeball, when Eddie had asked what work was Vinny in. The kid had said, ‘Business,’ and looked away. Eddie remembered how he had been at that age – guarded, protected, supervised, bred on a wish-list of ambition and success, and damn near frightened of his own shadow.
The curtain was drawn. A palm-sized hand torch was passed to him. ‘Is it in her room?’ the kid asked.
He nodded. The kid took his arm and took him across what he now realised was a spare room, storeroom, into a central corridor and then the living area. The torch beam raked it. It was chaotic. Every drawer was out and upturned, the contents on the carpet. Every cushion was off the chairs and dumped. Pictures hung at wild angles, and Eddie thought they’d been shifted to see if they concealed anything. The magazines had been opened and dropped. He asked, confused, why it had been done. The kid told him, matter-of-fact, that there must have been a problem with the VAT. Then he repeated that he had heard police talk of the girl – Immacolata – who had gone back to Italy, her bag to follow. The kitchen was more chaos, plates scattered, saucepans on the floor or in the sink, refrigerator left open, sachets of pasta sauce slit as if they might have concealed something. The kid now amplified explanations and Eddie made out an exaggerated wink when he was told that people in ‘business’ sometimes forgot what VAT they owed.
Eddie didn’t use his brain to analyse, then challenge. The kid seemed to glide over what was on the floor; but Eddie didn’t. He kicked a china cup and heard it disintegrate, glass crunched under his feet. Then the small hand was tugging him and he was facing a closed door.
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