No Mortal Thing: A Thriller (48 page)

They watched it – and watched the old woman, Mamma, bring out more washing, which would have been hers and her daughter’s but, as always, nothing of her husband’s. They watched Stefano feed the chickens, and Giulietta emerge from the front door to light her first cigarillo of the day. The sun climbed at leisure, and there was a babble of children’s voices. They had an agenda: enjoy the Scorpion Fly, prepare a cold breakfast, look after their personal hygiene, then start the slow business of packing up what they had brought. It would be a long, hot day.

‘Does it matter, Ciccio, if we fail in the mission and he stays free?’

‘It matters no more than the last time we failed and the last time we won. It’s the job. It’s not personal.’

‘The young man down there – that’s personal.’

‘Maybe he’s already pulled out.’

‘Did he kill Marcantonio?’

‘Of course not. A bank clerk against a seasoned criminal? No. Don’t forget, see, hear, know
nothing
. And survive.’

The children’s voices were louder.

He felt a serenity in the woods and among the rocks, with the cool of the early morning. The school group added to the atmosphere of peace and dignity.

They came in a crocodile and wore brightly coloured bibs. Boys and girls, who looked, from a distance, to be six or seven. They were shepherded by a teacher at the front and another at the back. Two of the men from the block on the track escorted them. Their voices were shrill. Jago assumed that the coffin lid would be off and that the undertaker would have tried to clean up the boy’s face after the basic autopsy had been done in the mortuary. The children were not cowed by where they were – they might have been going to play football in a park. Jago liked that. It would have been by arrangement. A dozen women, of different ages, all in neck-to-ankle black, had already arrived and now formed up at either side of the entrance to the house. Men had arrived in the last half-hour from the village but they stayed inside.

The moment was for the children. The old woman was on the step, with her daughter and daughter-in-law. The teachers propelled the children into a crescent, and they sang. It was hurriedly rehearsed but a flavour of spontaneity reached Jago in his vantage point. It might have been a hymn, one of the choral arrangements that were popular at St Bonaventure’s. There was no accompaniment, just the sound of little voices. Jago wondered how difficult it had been to persuade the staff at the school to bring the children up from the village. Perhaps a new roof was being talked of, or a playing field. Perhaps they had come simply because the family ensured that the community under their control lived well and had the money they needed to survive. Fun for the little ones to miss a morning’s lessons to sing at the home of the boss, whose words were law to their fathers, but who was hiding underground and had lost a grandson because Jago had thrown a tyre iron at him. One of their teachers was conducting them – too flamboyantly. Perhaps the school needed a new toilet block.

At a sudden gesture from the teacher, the children were silent for a moment, and the sound in Jago’s ears was of the birds singing their own anthems. The children said a prayer, only a few lines, more hesitantly than they had sung. Jago wondered whether the old woman – confronted with so many small innocent faces, clean, unblemished cheeks and laundered clothes – would have a wet eye. He looked hard at her. He could see a profile of her face, but no clenched hand, a wisp of a handkerchief held tight. He saw no movement towards her eyes. Neither the daughter nor the daughter-in-law wiped away a tear. He assumed it was how they lived, that it was about power. A family imported scores of kilos of cocaine and had produced an immature young man, who had found his pleasure in beating the prettiness out of a girl who was trying to establish a business in Berlin. The family’s power showed in the arrival of a class of schoolchildren to sing and pray. The family owned the village. It was a brief lesson, and he assimilated it. He doubted there were gold taps inside, and knew there was only a Fiat City-Van at the front door, but he sensed the power and would answer it. He knew where the cable join was.

The children waved. The old woman went back into the house. The daughter-in-law followed her. The children, with their escorts and teachers, skipped away down the track. In a few minutes they would be back in the sanctuary of their classroom. Giulietta stayed outside, lit her second cigarillo of the day and spoke to the handyman. A short exchange: her talking, him nodding agreement, showing he understood. Jago had expected the priest to be there, and noted his absence.

The sun had crawled a little higher. The dogs were quiet in the sunlight, their bellies full of the food that had been put out for them an hour earlier. More women came up the track.

There was a route down the hill, which seemed to lead from the boulders towards the stone on which the wolf had rested. It had tumbled directly down when shot, but Jago thought he saw a way to the right where it would be possible to crab among ledges. He would have to scramble the last twenty feet and would be behind the derelict shed, on ground that was hidden from him now. He would be within a minute of the sheets that hid the pathway.

He would have liked some coffee – strong, the coffee that the Turks in Kreuzberg would drink. Something to stiffen his resolve. There was no one to do that but himself.

He watched the dogs. It might take him hours to descend. They were curled up, asleep.

It was a brotherhood. Carlo held back as Fred led with the hugging and the brush kisses. It wasn’t how they did reunions at the Dooley Terminal, or how old friends met up at the Custom House on the Thames, but Fred knew what to do and did it well. They were in the back car park of the
carabinieri
building at Locri. They’d spent the night in a small hotel north of Siderno and dried out their clothes, set off at dawn and reached the barracks on the edge of the town. It was a fortified stronghold and, other than the road, looked out onto olive groves. Fred was their friend. A piece of paper confirmed Reggio’s authorisation for the two men to intrude but the reunions did the job better. Word had passed from Brancaleone that had put them in crime-scene gear the previous day. When Fred had been down in previous years, topping up his ’Ndrangheta file, he had brought whisky and dropped money into the box for the dependants of dead or sick men and women in the force. The whisky went into Christmas raffles, but the thought counted. Laughter ripped round the canteen at the story of a swim in the sea and soaked clothes. But the conversation soon turned serious. Fred was lectured on what it was like to be a
maresciallo
living in the town, with a wife, and children at school, being shunned and having no friends. The posting would be for four years and was necessary if an officer had ambitions. Living alone, but for the company of colleagues, was bearable for men, but the women suffered from the isolation. The talk moved on, the
maresciallo
leading it.

Trust among brothers. The final day of an investigation. A surveillance point to be wound down. Limited roadblocks to be pulled out.

‘He’s there, for sure, but we can’t wait for ever. He’s a cruel man and an influential criminal. There are many who are similar or worse. We allocate resources where they show best results. Your man on the hill – we call him the
nomade
– we think he played a part. There was a metal object beside the body of the grandson. Did it cause him to shoot himself, an object hurled at him? Would anyone intervene when a wolf is to be killed?’

Fred said, ‘I expected to hear from your people in Reggio that the banker had left in the night from Lamezia. Why would he stay longer?’

Carlo said, ‘I think he has a bird’s eye view and doesn’t want to leave it.’

Neither man said that, in their understanding of the psychology governing Jago Browne’s actions, he was driven, unable to turn his back on a challenge. It was obvious to both of them, though.

‘If they find him, he’ll disappear.’

Carlo said, ‘I don’t wish to cause offence but you should evaluate the washing line.’

Fred said, ‘The washing line is the answer – we think.’

A shrug, ‘Our surveillance has a view of it but has seen nothing.’

They were invited. No reason to refuse. A show of authority was to be mounted that day. Bravado and probably meaningless, but if they wished, they could attend. Fred accepted. Coffee was served.

He drove carefully, as always.

For Father Demetrio, the vehicle was neither a status symbol nor comfortable. It was to get him – dry and reasonably warm – between two points. He had been delayed.

Would he preside over the funeral? He had accepted the invitation and was loath to break his word. By then he would have betrayed them, damaged the family to an unparalleled level, but he had agreed to officiate at the funeral and he could not retract his promise. His housekeeper had taken a phone call. A family with a smallholding high above the village, who scratched a living in the forest from the mushroom crops, had sent a message saying that they needed
urgently
to see him on an important matter. They were on their way. He had waited, and had lost the chance of an early start, straight after his dawn devotions.

He checked frequently in the mirror and from time to time was aware of vehicles behind him – lorries, delivery vans and a dark HiLux. It was a difficult road, with few opportunities for overtaking and the queue built behind him. When a lorry, close to his back bumper, flashed its headlights at him, he would ease over against either the cliff edge, where sometimes there was an accident barrier, or to a vertical wall of blasted rock, fashioned by dynamite and sledgehammers. The passing drivers would look down at him, ready to curse him for delaying them, then see his collar, wave, smile, and give him a fanfare on the horn. The HiLux did not pass him, but stayed tucked in. There was always a motorist who didn’t wish to lead and was happier when someone ahead negotiated the hairpins.

Another message had come by hand – no explanation. The family were not coming. Peculiar, but . . . Later that morning, the old man’s wife, a hard bitch, would be in the church in the village, supervising the flower arrangements. There was always a grand display when a dedicated criminal was laid to rest, usually white lilies, which stained if the stamens fell on the altar cloth or a carpet. He considered his address as he drove, often in low gear because they had not yet come to a high point.

He might say, ‘I have known Marcantonio for all of his cruelly short life and have taken pleasure in the sharpness of his wit, the profundity of his offerings, the depth of his concern for others and, above all, for the sincerity of his faith.’

He could say, ‘We have to believe that, on rare occasions, the dear Lord who looks down on us determines that He will test us and so allows into our midst a creature that is vile, almost totally evil and without a redeeming feature. That was Marcantonio.’

Traffic surged past him because the road had widened across a short plateau. There were tight bends ahead. Much went past him but the big vehicle – black-painted, with privacy windows – did not take its chance to leave him behind. It was close to him, but he couldn’t see the driver. He lowered his window and waved it on – the road in front was clear and nothing had yet come up against the tail of the HiLux. He saw no indicator light, and it did not come up to pass him. It was a bad stretch, and the local authority had promised a barrier but had not delivered one yet. He could see far below a dry riverbed and rocks that were angled and sharp.

Father Demetrio might say, ‘Young people, and we who are older, in our community, could set themselves the challenge of emulating Marcantonio. A scholar at his books, a devoted son and grandson to his family, a neighbour we would all want, a leader, and a young man who symbolised kindness to those less fortunate, care and generosity.’

Father Demetrio could say, ‘Marcantonio goes to the cemetery unloved and unadmired by any person in our community who is not bonded to his family’s criminal conspiracy. Perhaps he had no choice but to take the road he embarked on: the smuggling of narcotics, the use of extortion to fill his bank accounts, the peddling of immigrants half crazed with fear, of weapons of war, and of children to markets where they are bought and sold as slaves, then put to work in the filthy pornography trade.’

It was a bad drop and rock falls had dislodged any pine trees. There was nothing to check the fall of a vehicle if it went too close to the edge of the road, strayed over the warning line of faded white paint.

He might say, ‘He lit all of our lives. He is now under the protection of Jesus. We are all better persons for having known him. We will not forget him and will cherish our memories of dear Marcantonio.’

Or, ‘I suppose there were redeeming features in his life, but Marcantonio guarded them from me. I saw no sign, ever, of modesty or love, or of any desire to fulfil any task that he did not reason would bring advantage to himself.’

The vehicle behind was so close.

‘An example to us all.’

‘An example to us all of what happens to the young when they live, and are reared, in the hate-filled environment of a criminal family that permits no conscience, has no hesitation in inflicting pain, misery and dependency in the interests of personal gain. Good riddance and—’