Think Wolf

by Michael Gregorio

  Cangio saw the expression on Loredana’s face.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ she said, reaching for her bag, as he reached for his wallet.

  Out in the street, she turned on him. ‘A quiet meal in Foligno with your girlfriend, eh? What the hell have Chinese cigarettes got to do with the death of Marzio Diamante?’

  She was angry, and for once, he didn’t know how to answer her.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Maria Gatti laid out the cards.

  Every time, Moon came out with Judgement as the second card in the set of three.

  The combination stank of betrayal, though who was betraying whom, she couldn’t say.

  Her heart was thumping painfully. It wasn’t often you turned up a sequence so negative, and she still hadn’t flipped the upper and lower cards that formed the cross.

  She hadn’t dared to turn them over, that was the truth of it.

  It was a warning, all right.

  And coming so soon after the evil spirit that had appeared the other night.

  Maria lit a cigarette from one of the guttering candles. You weren’t supposed to, but she wasn’t sure where she had put the lighter. She blew smoke at the ceiling and watched the blue cloud cut through the shadows and caress the oak beams, the dancing shapes of the furniture projected by the candlelight. The shadows were part of the drama the cards created on the table, strange shapes and distortions that were never the same from one night to the next. The shadows played their part, too.

  You could read whatever you liked into those, if you felt like doing it.

  Antonio Marra was becoming a problem.

  The Sun would decide, Judgement would decree.

  Which left the Moon, the mystery which cannot be revealed …

  She should have cut Antonio loose. He was like a kid who kept scuffing his knees but never seemed to learn the lesson. She would help him out of one hole, knowing that he’d go diving down into a deeper hole than the one he’d just climbed out of. He was lazy, careless, attracted by risks and easy profit, never able to see the danger until it was too late.

  He had started coming to see her again about three months before.

  Investors were pouring cash into the company, he said, turning Marra Truffles around. He’d soon be a millionaire, he said, but it made no sense. Who’d throw money into a company that wasn’t worth a fart? No sane businessman would take on someone else’s bad debts unless he saw an advantage in it for himself. But Marra couldn’t think that far. Antonio Marra couldn’t think at all.

  Then something must have frightened him, because he’d started phoning more and more.

  And then that thing had appeared during the séance.

  Maria stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray.

  That had really scared her. A body with no arms, no legs, no head.

  And now, tonight, the tarot cards.

  She found his number, pressed the button, held the phone to her ear.

  The number you have dialled is not available, a metallic voice said. Please leave a message after the beep.

  ‘Antonio, it’s me,’ she said, sorry he hadn’t answered, glad at the same time. ‘The tarot cards are still the same. The message is clear. Remember what I told you.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Call me back as soon as you can.’

  She snapped the mobile phone shut.

  She tried the cards again. Twice. It was always the same.

  The Moon with her disapproving frown, the third phase like the curved blade of an executioner’s axe.

  She turned away and opened the fridge door.

  It was like pulling the stopper from a perfume bottle. The scent came billowing out in a cloud. Antonio had given her a bag of truffles instead of paying. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  Why did they say the Virgin Mary smelled of roses?

  Roses were nothing compared to fresh truffles.

  That’s what Antonio had told her the first time he had asked her to read the cards for him two or three years before. Not long after that, the cops had questioned him. He’d been under pressure for a week or two, then it had all blown over. He had never told her what it was about, and she didn’t want to know, if she was honest.

  She picked a large truffle, and the thought of food began to push aside the tension the tarot cards had provoked. Spaghetti with truffles, washed down with what was left of the Trebbiano wine she’d uncorked the other night.

  That would put her in a better mood.

  She filled a saucepan with water, added salt and lit the gas, then held the truffle under the tap, rubbing it gently with an old toothbrush to remove the mud that was clinging to it. Next, she put a small frying pan on the stove, added olive oil, split a clove of garlic, then dropped it and a small red pepper into the oil. She grated the truffle as she waited for the oil to sizzle.

  That was when she heard a noise.

  She pushed aside the curtain; her face stared back at her in the glass.

  Night was always pitch black in the mountains. The only light she could see was a farm on the far side of the valley, five or six kilometres away.

  The noise could have been anything, a car on the road, or something blowing loose in the wind.

  She laid the table quickly and switched on the TV. They were talking about politics. She turned down the volume. Then she snagged a strand of spaghetti with a fork, raised it to her mouth and bit into the pasta. Al dente. Not too hard, and not too soft. The way it should be.

  She was pouring the pasta into a plastic colander when she heard the noise again.

  She stopped dead, the saucepan poised over the colander, listening to the low buzz of the TV, the sound of water gurgling down the plughole.

  Something out in the garden. A cat or a wolf …

  She gave the colander a shake, then poured the spaghetti into the pan with the truffle sauce.

  A rattling noise came from the door out in the hallway.

  She covered the pan with a lid, stepped into the hall and stared at the door.

  If anyone came to see her at home, they came by appointment.

  She hadn’t arranged a sitting that night.

  She inched towards the door on tiptoe, then heard a footstep on the gravel. The visitor must have seen the light in the kitchen and gone to look just as she was moving into the hallway. She half smiled to herself.

  ‘Antonio? Is that you?’

  He must have heard her phone message and decided to stop by.

  She slipped the chain off the door and pulled back the deadbolt, already speaking as she turned the lock. ‘Were you in the area when I called you?’

  ‘Yes,’ a voice said, as she opened the door.

  It didn’t sound like Marra.

  As the door swung back, a fist smashed into her face.

  A shadow grabbed her by the throat, pushing her backwards into the kitchen.

  The attacker held her down as she fell on to the table, then swept something up, splattering hot wax in her face, burning her tongue and cheeks.

  The heavy metal candlestick came crashing down on her forehead.

  Again and again and again.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Cangio knew that he was making a mistake.

  Intruding where he hadn’t been invited, they were not going to like it.

  Manlio Pastore had phoned him at half-past seven.

  ‘There’s cop cars up in Cerreto. Them two again,’ he’d said in a throaty rumble. ‘I thought you’d want to know.’

  It might have been funny the way everyone spoke of Grossi and Esposito, but if the Regional Crime Squad had been called out, there was nothing to laugh about.

  ‘The first house before you reach the village,’ Manlio told him. ‘You can’t miss it.’

  As he raced down the mountainside and turned onto the Valnerina road, he realised with a start what he was letting himself in for. Everything to the right of the highway was national park, while Cerreto was up on top of a mountain off to the left. It was out of his ju
risdiction. Maybe they’d just tell him to get lost and go back to work.

  Whatever was going on, he wanted to know.

  Now, not later.

  Of course, they might just be checking leads, catching up with people before they left for work, trying to clear things up.

  And if they asked him what he was doing there?

  He smiled for the first time that morning.

  He’d tell them he was going up to Cerreto to have his breakfast. The bar in the main square served the best cappuccino in Umbria. It might be nothing, after all, just routine checks involving anyone in the area who had known Marzio.

  He tried to believe it, but it wouldn’t wash.

  The RCS meant serious crimes.

  The road up to Cerreto was one blind bend after another, the narrow road jutting out from the cliffside on concrete props in places. He had almost reached the top when a car flew out of a bend; a Mercedes Coupé racing downhill fast cut the corner and crossed the centre line, heading straight at him.

  Cangio jammed his foot on the brake.

  The driver of the Mercedes did the same. Both cars slewed and skidded, coming to a halt just inches apart, nose to nose, bumper to bumper, miraculously untouched. Two pairs of sunglasses stared out of the Mercedes, a third man, silhouetted in the light from the rear window, sitting on the bench seat behind them.

  ‘A close shave,’ Cangio muttered to himself.

  The man in the back seat leant forward, saying something to the driver.

  What was Antonio Marra doing up there?

  Cangio slipped the gear lever into reverse and edged back from the Mercedes, his eyes fixed on the driver’s dark glasses, making room to let him pass. Had the cars collided, one of them would have been hitting the ground a hundred and fifty metres below at that very moment.

  An electric shock jolted through his veins.

  He clenched his teeth to stop from shouting out.

  It wasn’t pain, or anger. It was worse. Like being pitched back into the middle of the nightmare which had troubled him for months.

  He was looking into the muzzle of a gun, a finger tightening on the trigger, two dark eyes peering out at him from a full-face crash helmet. And on the killer’s neck, a blue tattoo of a lizard.

  He had run away to London after that experience. He had relived it in his dreams most nights, waking up in a cold sweat as he heard the metallic click of the empty pistol pointing at his forehead.

  The driver of the Mercedes had glanced to the right, gauging the gap as he steered the big car through it, exposing his neck as he looked down into the abyss. And Cangio had spotted the lizard tattooed beneath his left ear.

  The driver glanced back at him, and nodded. No harm done.

  Cangio had to force himself to raise his thumb as the Mercedes surged away.

  He watched in the rear view mirror as it disappeared around the bend, heading down into the valley. He felt as if the nightmare bullet had just hit him between the eyes. Then he began to breathe again. Was the driver the gunman he had seen at Soverato beach the summer before last? Another member of the same clan?

  That tattoo was the proof.

  He’d been right from the start: the enemy was back.

  The ’Ndrangheta.

  Had the gunman known or recognised him?

  As he turned the key, revved the engine, and pulled away, another thought came into his mind. What was Antonio Marra doing in the Mercedes with them?

  It wasn’t far to the top. As he rounded the final bend, the road flattened out. On the right was a farmhouse at the end of a short dirt track. Two carabinieri vehicles were parked outside. He stopped by the side of the dirt road, then started to walk towards the trio who were gathered outside the front door.

  Sustrico, Grossi and Esposito.

  Tonino Sustrico saw him first. The brigadiere raised his chin as if to say Ah, you’re here. He took half a dozen paces in Cangio’s direction. Grossi and Esposito looked the other way, freezing him out. They were going to make him walk barefoot on sharp stones before they’d tell him what was going on.

  ‘I was on the point of calling you,’ Sustrico said ‘And they say this place is off the beaten track! It’s worse than High Mass in the cathedral on Christmas Day. Everyone sees you if you go, and takes notice if you don’t. Who told you we were—’

  Cangio changed route quickly. ‘You were going to you call me?’ he said

  Sustrico pointed behind him with his thumb, and made a grimace. ‘Those two want to speak with you.’

  Evidently, the brigadiere still hadn’t warmed to the RCS.

  ‘What would they want to speak to me about?’

  Sustrico puffed out his cheeks. ‘You’d better ask them,’ he said.

  A mobile CS van parked in the lee of the house told Cangio to expect the worst. Add the rest – the killer of his nightmares in a car with Antonio Marra, the presence of the hot-shot cops from Perugia – and what did you have?

  ’Ndrangheta.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  Sustrico lowered his head. ‘If the vultures are here …’ he said, without saying any more.

  ‘Who called them?’

  ‘A couple of men have been working behind the house for a week, fixing metal nets to catch falling rocks. The shutters are usually open, they said. The woman gives them tea or coffee. This morning the shutters were closed. The workmen were concerned … for their coffee, I bet. They went to knock on the front door, found it open. I was on duty when the call came in. When I saw the mess, I had to call for them.’ Sustrico frowned. ‘A bad job all round.’

  Grossi and Esposito turned towards him in that instant. They didn’t make a move to greet him, standing there like a pair of defenders waiting for a dangerous free kick to be taken.

  ‘Cangio,’ Lucia Grossi said with a bemused expression. ‘What a coincidence!’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Esposito growled.

  The breakfast in Cerreto story dissolved in an instant. ‘A little bird,’ he said.

  ‘Which little bird was that?’ Esposito couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  Cangio smiled. ‘The woods around here are full of them. An anonymous phone call saying there were police cars in the vicinity.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Esposito nodded. ‘I nearly forgot. The king of the jungle. If anything happens in your neck of the woods, you jump straight on it. Just in case it makes the news—’

  ‘This is my neck of the woods,’ Cangio shot back at him. ‘If anything happens, it’s my job to check it out. That’s what the county pays me for.’

  ‘OK, you two, cut it out,’ snapped Lucia Grossi, playing the peacemaker. ‘You’re here now, Cangio, and that’s the important thing. We were thinking over something you said about the night your partner was found. That’s why we wanted you to … Hang on, though. First, we’ll take a peek, then hear what you’ve got to say about it.’

  ‘It? What are you talking about?’

  The cops exchanged a glance like two soloists getting ready to hit the opening note on cue. Without a word Lucia Grossi led him into the house.

  The first thing that hit him was the smell of cat piss.

  Then cats emerged from out of the gloom for an instant to stare at them, before darting away into the darkness. There were pictures, statues and figures made of metal, wood and plastic, a row of skulls the size of apples hanging on the walls. Cats. On a table in the far corner, a stuffed cat sat beneath a dusty glass dome.

  ‘What a name!’ Jerry Esposito hissed. ‘Maria Gatti as in cats. Was she born with it, do you reckon, or was it part of the pantomime?’

  Cangio bent down before the glass dome. Wild green eyes stared back at him. The animal’s mouth was howling, showing sharp, pointed teeth. Let me go, or I’ll rip your eyes out! it seemed to be screeching.

  Cangio turned to Esposito. ‘I imagine you know what she did?’

  ‘Played the witch is what we hear.’ Esposito clicked his tongue. ‘Gives me
the creeps, this place.’

  ‘There’s more to see,’ Lucia Grossi added, leading Cangio into the kitchen.

  It was a big room, maybe the largest in the house, a massive open fireplace on the left, a long dining table in the middle, a big stone sink on the right. The room smelled of damp and centuries of cooking. And there was something else that turned his stomach.

  Blood.

  Two technicians in white plastic coveralls were working by the sink, one brushing for fingerprints, the other one taking photographs.

  A body was laid out on the floor, a white foot peeping out from beneath a dark green cotton shroud. A depression in the floor contained a lake of blood, while thin dark veins of blood had spread across the room, following the zigzag pattern of the tiles.

  Cangio tried to imagine the body hidden beneath the cloth, but something protruding from the corpse formed a wigwam, with a pointed tent where the heart ought to be.

  Grossi and Esposito seemed to be in no hurry to show him the body.

  Cangio swallowed hard.

  ‘I saw Antonio Marra going down the hill as I was coming up.’

  ‘We sent for him,’ Lucia Grossi said, ‘but we didn’t show him this. It wouldn’t have served any purpose.’

  So why are you showing me? thought Cangio.

  ‘What’s Marra got to do with it?’ he asked, bending low, as if all his attention was centred on the corpse.

  ‘Maria Gatti’s phone,’ Esposito replied. ‘He was the last person she called.’

  Cangio looked towards the sink on the far side of the large room.

  His throat was dry; he would have given anything for a glass of water.

  ‘They were long-time friends,’ Esposito said.

  ‘Marra was in a car with two men. Did they know Maria Gatti, as well?’

  Cangio held his breath, expecting to be told to mind his own business.

  ‘They were clients, apparently,’ Esposito said. ‘They did him a favour, drove him up here. He wasn’t sure he could make it on his own when he heard the news. To say that he was in a state says little.’