The Collaborator

by Gerald Seymour

  She said, ‘The cadaver should be left at the main door to the Palace of Justice, but not before nine in the morning.’

  He didn’t ask how a vehicle would bring a dead body across a wide piazza that was a pedestrian-only zone. How could it be tipped on to the patterned paving, under the sign that read, ‘Palazzo di Giustizia’ and the flag, when there was always a carabinieri vehicle parked there, with two armed men inside it from the protection unit? How? He did not ask.

  ‘I have spoken to Carmine. I told him what I thought and then I told him what he thought. It was the same.’ He thought, incredibly, that a suspicion of a smile hovered briefly at her lips. ‘You, Massimo, will take my instructions to Salvo. There is no time for a rendezvous. You take them to him. Kill him early in the morning and leave his body for when they arrive at work.’

  His hand shook. The direction of his car wobbled. He would not have dared to contradict Anna Borelli. They drove in silence the last kilometres to the parking area outside the walls, fences and watchtowers of the women’s gaol where the daughter-in-law was held.

  What did guys do? They had last visits, sent messages and wrote final letters. Eddie would have no visit, did not expect an opportunity to send a message, and could hardly write a last bloody letter with his hands trussed behind his back.

  What else did guys do? They put their affairs in order. Problem was that Eddie had no ‘affairs’ worthy of the name, none that were tidy or chaotic. He had no money beyond a current account and a Post Office savings book that had somehow been forgotten while he was at college or it would have been stripped bare. He had other things to exercise him than worrying about whether he had paid his tax, and whether the last pension contribution had gone out of his account, and that he hadn’t made a will.

  Was that actually what guys did?

  He thought that his father’s and mother’s affairs would be in order – last letters sealed, with a second-class stamp on them, legal things up to date, all relevant tax settled.

  It was because Eddie had become, after a fashion, comfortable and because his body hurt less that his mind had allowed that door to open. He was better off when the pain was rich and thinking didn’t intrude.

  Next thing would be – going through that door. How would they do it?

  Had to squirm. Had a flash in his mind of the hood going over his head, but seeing a pistol before his eyes were covered, or a knife, or being taken to a high floor and feeling the air on his skin and knowing he was beside an open window. Quite deliberately, Eddie turned on to his right side so that his weight crushed his ribs. The pain might have made him squeal, but he welcomed it, which seemed to slam that door. When ‘How would they do it?’ was gone, he rolled back. The exertion sent the pain into his head and feet, legs and arms, chest and stomach, but the mind was cleared.

  More philosophical.

  Quite a jab on the nose, actually. A reality check. Eddie Deacon’s life didn’t count when it was set against a principle.

  Pretty bloody heavy stuff.

  He chewed on it. Who had made the decision? Who had sat on the judgement bench? Had they applied logic and intellect to the process? Or tossed a bloody coin?

  If it was logic and intellect, would they go to a chapel, lower themselves on to a hassock and say a smug little prayer? If a coin had been tossed, would they have headed off to the pub and sunk a few, raising a glass to him – ‘Sorry and all that, Eddie, nothing personal’?

  Would have been nice if it was all faceless people. Big policemen in fancy uniforms, with medal ribbons in bright lines, politicians waiting for the limousine to pull up, escorts to open the door, and judges in robes – easier for Eddie if it was men who did not have faces.

  It was her.

  It was his Mac who had said that the ‘principle’ won out.

  His Immacolata… He was curled on his side, the pressure off his ribcage, and the pain had subsided. It might have been, from what Eddie remembered, three weeks after he had met her, maybe four, and they had been in the pub with the boys from the house. He’d only been on the second pint and his glass wasn’t even half empty, but she had pushed the table, reached out her hand and taken his, then yanked him up and led him out. They had gone back to the house and she had set the pace, going ever quicker, had run the length of the street to the steps and the front door. It had not been a slow seduction undressing, but a strip-off – and she had beaten him to it, naked when he still had his socks on. They had made love fast, then again, slower, and hadn’t stopped when the boys had come back from the pub. They had done it again when the house was quiet and the boys’ late film was finished. He’d probably only ever said it to her once, whispered it in her ear with wonderment: ‘I love you, Immacolata, and will love you till… ’ She hadn’t let him finish. He thought, remembering the declaration, that it had been after the first time and before the second. The third time, bloody near knackered, she had brought him on hard and deep, and he had damn near broken the bed. He had meant it, every word, every syllable – ‘… will love you till… ’ She hadn’t let him say how long he would love her, and her mouth had closed over his, and her tongue had stilled his, and her body had brought warm sweat to his and he had squirmed under her. ‘I love you, Immacolata… ’ He had said it, she had not. There was a cough at the door.

  Salvatore was there.

  His Immacolata… Only once had they shared a sour exchange. He’d drunk too much, she was sober. He’d wanted horseplay, she’d wanted to read a textbook. He’d had a normal, undemanding day tomorrow, she’d had an exam.

  Salvatore leaned on the door jamb and watched him, was huge above him.

  His Immacolata… He had told her, boisterous, to ‘lighten up’, she had told him he was wasting his talent, could do more and go further, that he could make a difference – and he had flounced out, gone for a leak, and it had never been mentioned again and there had been no suggestion as to how he could ‘make a difference’.

  Salvatore studied him, as if he was an enigma. Mindful that he was open to another kicking, Eddie glimpsed the face looming over him, and thought it vulnerable – bloody bizarre.

  Returned to the core theme. The principle had won, breasted the tape, for Immacolata’s prize. He had not won, bloody hadn’t. Principle coming before his survival didn’t make him angry: it stifled his feelings.

  Salvatore had a cigarette in his mouth. Smoke came up from it and went towards the web where the big spider was. Abruptly, he moved a hand – Eddie, trussed, unable to shift, didn’t feel threatened – which went into his pocket and took out a pack of Marlboro Lights. He pulled out a cigarette and bent to slip the filter into Eddie’s mouth, where the lips felt triple-size swollen, and lit it. He didn’t say anything, and Eddie didn’t thank him.

  Three times the ash broke off and scattered on Eddie’s chest, then Salvatore retrieved the stub and trod it out under his trainer. He didn’t leave, but stayed in the doorway and stared down.

  He did not know if it had been, for Immacolata, a big or small decision to go with the principle rather than his life… He didn’t think he’d ever get to know.

  There was a sliver of window that Eddie could see, past Salvatore’s shoulder, and he realised that the day had died and the light had failed, that dusk closed on the buildings. He didn’t know if he would see the dawn – because he was second to the principle.

  A body lay on the paving at the base of the giant block that was the Sail where in excess of ten thousand souls lived, and it was unreported. Many who lived in the disparate towers of Scampia, with a population of seventy thousand souls, walked close to it as the shadows lengthened, but were careful not to see it… The rats had drained the pool of blood. Later, with darkness, they might start on the cheeks or the throat.

  Few of the residents of the third level of the Sail knew of the first movements along the walkway. It was a precaution. Heavy sacks, filled with packages sealed in oiled, water-resistant paper, were carried away. And – an additional precaution
– the locks on the barred gates were checked and heavier chains used to fasten them. Merely as a precaution, the clan capo who controlled that sector moved out, slipped away, went unnoticed.

  Massimo had waited more than fifteen minutes at the chaotic road junction at piazza Nicola Amore, one of the pods for tunnelling the new metro system, when he was flashed by a scooter.

  He was given a helmet. Awkwardly, he climbed astride the pillion and had barely achieved a grip on the man’s heavy leather coat when it surged away. Massimo knew the statutes of the law – he could have quoted the article that listed Accessory to Murder. The scooter wove though rush-hour traffic. He didn’t know whether he could control the feeling of acute sickness or whether he would fill the interior of the helmet with vomit.

  Castrolami came into the annexe.

  Lukas raised his head, queried with his eyes.

  Castrolami said, ‘She’s strong, she’s fine. I have other surprises for her, but she’s good. What do we have here?’

  The collator used his hands for the gesture. The psychologist murmured, ‘Niente di nuovo,’ and shrugged, seeming to squirm a little at ‘Nothing new’, and the ROS men kept their heads down, as if they declined to be part of the failure.

  Lukas said, to himself, to Castrolami, to anyone with nothing better to do than strain and listen to the gentle lilt of his voice, the soft accent when he spoke in Italian, ‘It’s what we do, isn’t it? We sit around and we wait. We live off sandwiches and fries and high-dosage coffee, and we tell ourselves that the break will come. Don’t know from where and don’t know how but we have to believe it will. Smoke too much, eat too much, drink too much caffeine, but be ready to go, because we’re not the people out with the kids at a parents’ staff meeting, and we’re not at the goddam cinema, and we’re not doing a fishing weekend up-country, so we wait, and we believe it’ll come… And if we get the break, and if we get up front and we have audio contacts, maybe even an eyeball contact, it may get played out for a week or be settled in a half-minute – a few words that foul up or do the business. We hit the break running, and we can’t say we’re tired or that we’re coming off shift, or that we’re going into a meal stoppage, and because of all that we’re the privileged few. What’s best – my small, insignificant opinion – is that we’re not in armies and we don’t have a big picture to fulfil, or generals breathing on our shoulders. We’re anonymous and unsung, and we don’t get to stand in a line for a regulation quota of medals. We live in the dirt, we operate in dark corners, we’re accountable only to success or failure. We smell and don’t get back home or to a hotel room for changes of underwear and socks, but there’s no place I’d rather be, and there are no people here that I wouldn’t want to be with. I hope we get the boy back. That about wraps up the bullshit stakes – apologies and all that.’

  One of the ROS guys muttered, ‘Bravo,’ and repeated himself. Another slapped the stock of a weapon he was cleaning. Lukas had not, in his adult and working life, made a remotely similar declaration. It was as if the boy, the victim, had released something trapped deep in his soul, reached where no others had. Someone else folded his magazine tight and hit Bravo’s head with it in simulated applause. And he recognised that a sense of growing apprehension, new and unlearned, had driven him to make the speech. And there was a short rippled clap from the collator and the psychologist. Apprehension? He cut it. Before it blazed, he doused it.

  Castrolami, dry, asked, ‘You do that talk most days?’

  ‘Every morning in front of the shaving mirror.’

  The quip, bogus, was ignored. ‘Are you quitting, win or lose?’

  ‘Doubt I’ve anything else to do. Suppose not.’

  ‘Why did you say that stuff?’

  ‘Seemed a good idea.’ Lukas grinned. ‘You wait for the break – what’s the puzzle? You don’t know where it’s coming from, but the chance is that it comes.’

  17

  He was asked by a voice, now detached, the face in shadow, did he want food? It hurt Eddie to speak. It meant he had to suck air into his lungs, which expanded his ribcage and the bones that might be cracked. His throat was dry, his lips grotesquely misshapen. His voice was a croak. ‘I don’t… Thank you. No.’

  There was no reaction: no indication of softening and a degree of kindness, or offence that the offer was refused. Eddie couldn’t read the face high above him. He was unable to judge whether the chance of food meant that his hope of survival was greater or less. Did they bloody bond? Was it a last meal being ordered? He couldn’t control the rambling of his thoughts, which bounced, pinballs in a machine: home, Immacolata, work, the guys in the house, her again, pains in his chest and head, curry in the Afghan, the knife or the pistol, Immacolata. Some of the thoughts, jumbled and without process, were comforting; others wounded.

  He didn’t understand why the man, Salvatore, stood over him, watched him.

  Should he have accepted the food?

  Did refusing it diminish his lifespan by a day, an hour, five minutes, or did it make no difference?

  He had said he didn’t want food because he wasn’t hungry – seemed a good enough reason to turn it down. His throat itched, seemed rubbed raw.

  Eddie wheezed, ‘Please, I’d like water.’

  ‘You would like water?’

  ‘Please… yes… please.’ Did it play well if he grovelled? Should he not stand upright for himself? Eddie didn’t know whether he should be cowed or whether he should goddam show some fight – there was no one to tell him. He thought he needed to earn respect and wouldn’t if he bowed, scraped, slithered. ‘I want some water.’

  ‘You want water?’

  ‘Bring me water.’

  Would he be kicked? Was there any more shit left in him to be kicked out? He saw the shadow turn and it was gone from the doorway. The darkness was falling. A light came on down a corridor and he heard running water. Well, Eddie had a target, a new aim. Might not live, might not hang on and cling to the pulsebeat, but he was looking to achieve respect. What a man wanted. The tap was turned off. A light was switched off. The feet came back down the corridor and across the room, then the shadow shape filled the doorway.

  Eddie looked up at the shadow. ‘Thank you…’ He coughed. ‘… for bringing me water. Thank you.’

  The shadow moved. A bucket swung. The water came in a wall, slapped hard into Eddie’s face and drenched him. It was in his eyes, his ears, up his nostrils and down his throat. His lips smarted and he feel sharp stubs of pain from the grazes on his face. The water puddled on the floor round him. He expected, then, to be kicked and tried to curl himself up so that the soft parts of his body were better protected – but no kick came. He thought he would hear the maniacal laughter of a man demented. There was none.

  More movement in the doorway.

  Eddie dared to look.

  The man, Salvatore, bent his knees, slid his back down the door jamb, then pushed his legs out. His trainers buffeted Eddie’s knees, but it wasn’t a kicking.

  Salvatore sat with him.

  A second cigarette was offered, held up in front of his eyes, and Eddie nodded. It was put between his lips. There was a brief flash from the lighter and Eddie sucked. He could hear distant, occasional traffic and a cacophony of barking dogs. The smoke climbed. His thoughts were sharp now, as if they’d been tempered on stone, and the moments when he had bounced them, juggled them, were gone. He had learned a truth: a man had total physical control over him, could snuff out his life as easily as he would let go of the little lever that kept the cigarette lighter alive, yet the man was vulnerable. Eddie reckoned that the water thrown over him, and the cigarette between his swelled lips were signs of earned respect.

  ‘If you want to talk,’ Eddie said, ‘I’ll listen.’

  There was only silence and he could hear the rhythm of Salvatore’s breathing.

  And Eddie heard, also, the dogs bark again, raucous, as if a pack hunted.

  They had frightened away the rats, which scurried
to holes. The dogs circled the body.

  The rats and dogs fed well round the rubbish bins at the base of the Sail. The rats had made a meal of the blood, and the dogs, soon, would use the body as a toy.

  A mastiff-cross was the pack leader. Had that dog been a pedigree, a pure Neapolitan mastiff – the symbol of the most fanatical tifosi following the city’s Serie A football team in the glory days when Diego Maradona had lit it – it would have been pampered, not running free among the rubbish bags of Naples’s most deprived rione. It would not have gone close to the corpse, sniffed it, then worried at its clothing and taken a leg in its jaws. This animal, though born to a mongrel bitch, retained many of the mastiff characteristics. It weighed in excess of seventy kilos, and lifted the man with ease. The beasts in its pack attempted to join in, tugging at the other leg, the arms, the head and strips of clothing.

  The struggle for possession moved away from the refuse bins and the body was carried through scrub towards the viale della Resistenza, the dogs howling, barking, whining, yapping and dragging what their teeth held.

  The mastiff-cross couldn’t lose his pack. The game progressed. It didn’t wish to chew the man’s flesh, but it was sport to have smaller dogs compete for possession. Bones were broken, joints dislocated but the sinew, gristle and muscle held the body together.

  They were in the middle of the road.

  The big dog still had the leg and ten others had a grip on the arms and the clothing. The body seemed suspended a metre or so from the tarmacadam. They tugged, growled, snarled and… A cruising police patrol car swerved to a halt.

  The observer said, ‘I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing.’

  The driver said, ‘If you want to throw up, do it out of the car.’