Red Fox (19 page)

Sleeping-bags and a camping stove, and the Roneo machine on which the communiques were run off. None of the possessions of the cell would have been visible if the doors had been carelessly opened because time had been lavished on the garage. If the dirt on the floor were brushed away the outline of a trap door became apparent. They had carved through the cement and underneath had dug out a tomb some two metres wide, two and a half metres long and a metre and a half high. A narrow plumbing pipe to the surface brought air to them. This was the hide-away in times of great danger, and this was where three young men sheltered because it was just a day since La Tantardini had been taken and they had abandoned their safe house. Though she was a leader, who could say whether she would talk to her interrogators? Dark and closed, the pit provided a lair for the men who breathed the damp and must-laden air. There was the son of a banker, the son of a landowner, the son of a Professor of Economics at the University of Trento.

Above them, and muffled through the thickness of the cement, came four sharp raps at the closed wooden doors of the garage.

It was a sign they recognized, the signal that a courier had visited them. An envelope had been pushed far from sight under the cover of the doorway, the message it held dispatched four hours earlier from the island of Asinara.

For Tantardini. Reprisal. Number Four.

In the pit among the cell's papers would be the code sheet that would identify Number Four, the target the young men must reach for. They would wait several minutes in the calm of the darkness before levering aside the entrance and crawling upwards to find and read the communication.

Through the morning as the sun rose and blazed with its full force on the tin roof above him they left Harrison to himself. No food, no water, and he hadn't the stomach and courage to call for either. Preferring not to risk another beating, he kept his peace, chained in the oven space that they had chosen for him.

There were pains in many parts of his body, slow and creeping and twisting at the bruised muscle layers. And there was the heat, combining with the welts and bruises to empty his mind, leave his imagination as an unused void.

Deep in sweat, heavy in self-pity, slumped on the hay and straw, conscious of his own rising smells, he ebbed away the hours without hope, without anticipation.

Giancarlo was half asleep, meandering in the demi-state between dream and consciousness, relaxed and settled, the plan in his mind evaluated and approved. Small and lone and hungry for the action he had decided upon, he was sprawled indifferently between the padded seat back and the hard face of the window's glass. The sights beyond the comfort of the speeding train were ignored.

It would be hot that day in Pescara, hot and shrouded in a sea-top mist, and noisy and dusty from the car wheels and the tramping of the thousands who would have come to roast themselves on the thin sand line between promenade and water. The shop would be open and his father wheedling the lady customers. Perhaps his father would know by now, would know of his boy.

Perhaps the polizia would have come, pained and apologetic because this was a respectable citizen. His father would curse him, his mother cry in her handkerchief. Would he shut the shop if the polizia came and announced with due solemnity that little Giancarlo was with the NAP and living in a covo with a feared terrorist, the most dangerous woman in the land and their lad co-habiting? They would hate him. Hate him for what he had done to them. And the base rock of their hatred would be their majestic, colossal absence of understanding of why he had taken his road.

Stupid, pathetic, insignificant, little crawling fleas. Giancarlo rolled the words round his tongue. Grovelling servants, in perpetual obeisance to a system that was rotten and outworn.

Cowering behind the facade of phoniness. Savagely he recalled the wedding of his elder brother. Hair oil and incense, an intoning doddering priest, a hotel reception on the sea front that neither the groom's nor the bride's father could afford. New suits and hair trims for the men, new dresses for the ladies and jewellery out from the wall safes. An exhibition of waste and deception, and Giancarlo had left early, walked across the evening town and locked himself in his room and lain in the darkness till his father, much later, hammered at the door and shouted of the offence given to aunts and cousins and friends. The boy had despised his father for it, despised him for the chastity-belt of conformity.

Governing them was the necessity of normality; the mayor must come to the flat each year, the bishop to the shop, and after Mass in April the shining new BMW must be blessed by the priest and a fee given. They buckled their knees, ran their hands together damp with nervousness when a town hall official visited to safeguard his votes; a rotten little creep with his hand in the till, and they treated him like Christ Almighty. The relationship was past repair. Past patching and bandaging.

The boy mouthed his insults, sometimes aloud, sometimes without sound, working off, as an athlete sheds weight in road-work, the relaxed rest that had held him during the early hours of the journey. The society of clientilismo; who his father knew in business, had been to school with, was owed a favour by, the way towards a job for a growing boy. The society of the bust-arelle; the little envelopes of old banknotes that smoothed and purred their way around the town hall. The society of evasione; avoidance of commitment to the weak, the ethic of selfishness and personal preservation. That was their society and he had vowed that the break was final, and the adhesive quality of family blood was inadequate to change his determination.

The train rolled on, Napoli left behind.

A boy who had killed and found it no special experience, who sometimes smiled and sometimes laughed and who had no companion, Giancarlo Battestini on the rapido to Reggio.

The screams of the cleaning woman carried far down the column of the staircase well.

The shrieks brought the day porter of the pensione as fast up the steps as his age and infirmity would permit, and when he arrived panting at the upper landing the woman was still bent to the door keyhole, the clean folded sheets on the floor beneath her feet, her bucket in one hand, her sweeping broom in the other.

He had fished the pass key from his pocket, opened the door, taken a cursory look, mouthed a prayer and pushed the woman back from the door. He had locked the room again and without explanation scrambled back down the stairs to raise management and authority.

With sirens and gusto the carabinieri arrived, running from the car, leaving the winking blue light revolving, pacing through the hall in a clatter of heavy boots and pounding on the stairs past the opened rooms of those who had been roused and wondered at the intrusion.

The barest glance at the battered head and the accompanying bloodstains was sufficient to convince the maresciallo that hope of life and survival had long expired. One man he sent to the car to radio for the necessary assistance, another he detailed to stand by the door and prevent entry by the gathering crowd on the landing - salesmen, servicemen on leave and waiting for later trains in the day, and the prostitutes who had kept them company during the night. By the time the maresciallo had found the dead man's identity card there were more sirens in the air, warning all those who heard of further misery, the reckoning time for an un-fortunate.

Below on the street, another gathering, few of their faces betraying sympathy. The day porter stood among them, a man much in demand at this time, with the story to tell of what he had seen.

A blue Fiat 132 limousine brought Archie Carpenter from International Chemical Holdings through the old battered dignity of central Rome to the formidable front archway of the Questura. Like a bloody great museum, he'd thought. More churches per square yard than any place he knew, cupolas and domes by the dozen. The history, the markets, the shops, the women, bloody fantastic the whole place. Oozing chic steady class, he'd felt; dirty and sophisticated, filthy and smart. Women with a couple of hundred pounds' worth of summer dress picking their way between the rubbish bags, dogs crapping on the pavements of the High Street; never seen anything like it. And now this place, police headquarters for the city - a great grey stone heap, coated in pigeon dirt. Flag limp and refusing to stir on the pole above him.

He gave Carboni's name at the front desk and showed the official the name written on paper. Had to do that because they'd looked blank when he opened his mouth. But the name seemed to mean something because heels clicked together and there were bows and ushering arms towards the lift.

Archie Carpenter laughed behind his hand. Wouldn't be like this if one of their lot came over to the Yard. Be made to sit down for half an hour while they sorted out his accreditation, checked through to his appointment, made him fill out a form with three carbons. And no chance of getting called 'Dottore', no bloody chance. All a bit strange, but then it had been strange all morning - from the Embassy man who wouldn't talk to the time when he'd gone into an empty office at ICH and dialled the number they'd given him for Violet Harrison.

Yes, he could come round if he wanted to. If there was something that he had to say to her, then he should come round, otherwise she'd be going out. Carpenter had stuck at it. He had to see her, Head Office was particularly keen that he should personally make sure everything possible was being done for her.

Well, in that case, she'd said, he'd better come and she wouldn't go out. She'd stay at home. Like she was doing him a favour, and would about six o'clock be right, and they could have a drink.

Well, not what you'd expect, was it, Archie?

Down the corridors they went, Carpenter a pace behind his escort, bisecting the endless central carpet, worn and faded, hearing all about him the slow crack of typewriters, turning his eyes away when two men came out of an office in front and gave each other a big smacker on the cheeks. Round a corner, down another corridor, like a charity hike.

And then he was there. A young man was shaking his hand and prattling in the local and Carpenter was smiling and nodding, catching on with the manners. The inner door of the office burst open.

The man who came through the door was short, grossly over-weight but moving with the speed of a crocodile on the scent of fresh meat. Papers and a cassette recorder were gripped in his left hand, the other remained free for waving as a stage prop to the waterfall of words. Carpenter understood not a phrase, stood rooted to the carpet. Both of them hammering away, and at the body work, arms round the shoulders, heads close enough to recognize the toothpaste. Something had gone well. He was acting as if he'd drawn the favourite in the Irish Sweepstake, the little fellow with the big belly.

A change of gear, an effortless switch to English, and, the recorder and paperwork passed to his subordinate, Giuseppe Carboni introduced himself.

'I am Carboni. And you are Carpenter? Good. You come from London, from ICH? Excellent. You come at the right moment. Everything is well. Come into my room.'

Can't be bad, thought Carpenter, and followed the disappearing figure into the inner office, where he looked round him, swayed a bit. Massive and tasteful, furnished and carpeted.

Prints on the wall of old Rome, velvet drapes on the windows, a framed portrait of the President on a desk half submerged in an Everest of files. He sat himself down opposite the desk.

'Carpenter, this morning I am proud. This morning I am very happy and I will tell you why . . . '

Carpenter inclined his head, had the routine straight, gave him a flash of teeth. Roll on, let the dam break.

.. Let me tell you that from yesterday morning when I first heard of what happened to your Mr Harrison, from the time I first telephoned to the Embassy, this has been a case that has worried and disturbed me. To be frank, there are not many of these kidnappings that greatly affect me. Most of the people who are taken are excessively rich and you will have read of how much money they can pay for their release. And after they have been freed many are investigated with enthusiasm by the Guardia di Finanze, our fiscal police. One wonders how it is, in a modern society, that individuals can legally accumulate such funds, hundreds of thousands of dollars are necessary to win freedom.

They give us little help, these people, neither the families during the imprisonment, nor the victim after return. They shut us out so that we must work from the side, from the edge. When our record of arrests is decried, then I sweat, Carpenter, because we work with only one hand free.'

' I understand,' said Carpenter. He had heard this, and it stank and ran against all his police training. Intolerable.

'When it is children, or teenage girls, the innocent parties, then it hurts more. But your Mr Harrison, he is an ordinary businessman, I do not seek to denigrate him, but an ordinary fellow. Not important, not rich, not prepared. The shock for him, the ordeal, may be psychologically catastrophic. You know, Carpenter, I was up half the night worrying about this man . . . '

'Why?' Carpenter cut in, partly from impatience at having the news that provoked the ebullience withheld from him, partly because the syrup was too thick. Benedictine, when he wanted Scotch.

'You laugh at me, you laugh at me because you do not believe I am serious. You have not been a policeman for twenty-eight years in Italy. Had you been, then you would know my feelings.

Harrison is clean, Harrison is not tainted, Harrison observes legality. He is in our country as a baby, a baby without clothes, without malice, and he deserves our protection, which is why I work to bring him back.'

'Thank you,' Carpenter spoke with simplicity. He believed he understood and warmed all the time to the barely shaven, perspiring man across the desk from him.

'You have come to supervise the payment of an extraordinary sum for Harrison's release. Why else would you c o m e ? . .

Carpenter flushed.

'. . . It does not embarrass me, it was my own advice to your Embassy. What I have to tell you is that it may not be necessary.