When the Dead Awaken (7 page)

Soon every decision in ‘The System' would be taken by well-dressed MBAs in air-conditioned meeting rooms. In another place and in a language other than Italian. Today most of the family's income came from legitimate waste-management firms, property companies and farming that attracted generous grants from the European Union's Structural Funds. They had relocated practically all their bootleg factories to the Far East, just like legitimate businesses, to access the cheap, non-unionized, well-educated and compliant labour in India, Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia or China. Countries only a mouse click away.

The age of the white containers was past. The wrecked container from the
Taixan
had been one of the last.

The nurse pushed Anna's wheelchair up to the open terrace doors. His wife could hear the birds and breathe in
the scent of the flowers. He hoped that they would take her to a happy place.

She smiled when she saw him. She smiled at everyone.

Her eyes hadn't changed. They were still dark grey, and bright even though they no longer reflected her soul. The Alzheimer's had eaten up Anna's mind. Like black snails devouring white mushrooms, he thought.

He kissed her cheek.

She smiled and moved her gaze to the pots of forsythia on the tiled terrace, but no transition was reflected in her eyes. Everything she saw these days had the same value.

The estate's staff knew that Don Francesco preferred silence and they kept out of sight while the old man inspected his vines. He walked slowly while his brain calculated the position of the sun, the wind on his neck and the humidity of the air: key factors. He opened the door to an ancient three-wheel scooter with a truck body, rolled up his shirt sleeves, took a NY Giants baseball cap from the front seat and put it on. He picked up a basket and walked over to the vegetable beds to select vegetables and fruit for today's dinner.

He weighed a bunch of
nebbiolo
grapes in his hand, but decided on another, picked a melon and added aubergines, almonds and nectarines to his basket.

He heard Savelli's footsteps on the gravel and turned around.

‘Don.'

‘Urs. Welcome.'

‘How are you?'

‘Well … very well, I think.'

The old man offered him a bunch of grapes, but Savelli shook his head. He preferred his grapes at least five years old and in a bottle from an authorized Barolo producer.

‘You should eat more fruit, Urs.'

‘I'll try,' Urs Savelli said. ‘Your wife. How is
la signora
?'

The old man took off his cap and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his jacket.

‘Her head is as empty as a drum. Perhaps she's happier than all of us.'

Savelli nodded. ‘Perhaps.'

They sat down on a bench shaded by the pergola. The two men couldn't have been more different: Don Francesco was thickset and weather-beaten, while Savelli was dark, lean and sinister. Don Francesco had broad, skilled peasant hands while Savelli's were slender and restless. Don Francesco Terrasino was always dressed in well-worn, simple clothing while Savelli preferred expensive black suits, shiny shoes, a crisp white shirt and a dark tie. One spoke loudly and gesticulated eagerly, while the other whispered and let his eyes fill up the pauses.

The problem with these rare conversations was how to say the necessary without being specific. The bastards from the anti-Mafia unit, the ROS –
Raggruppamento Operative Speciale
 – stuck to Don Francesco's lips like limpets wherever
he went, with their blasted parabolic microphones, satellites, drones, their lip readers and telephoto lenses, but within the walls of the estate, on his own land, it was still possible to speak openly.

Fortunately the moves of the ROS were predictable. Their electronic gadgets would get them only so far. The art was to learn from the past. But the men and women in the ROS and the GIS were too young, too arrogant and too lacking in imagination to understand that. The general, Baron Agostino D'Avalos, had been different. He had possessed the aristocrat's genuine respect for the peasant.

Savelli took out his mobile and played the recordings from the white tents at the Vittorio Emanuele II Quay. The old man nodded.

‘It's unfortunate,' he said. ‘But does it matter? Everyone already knew.'

‘A random event,' the Albanian said. ‘The container, I mean.'

‘It was an unfortunate coincidence. Most unfortunate,' Don Francesco said.

Savelli nodded slightly and zoomed in on the last two names. Numbers twenty-nine and thirty.

‘These two haven't been forgotten. Lucia and Salvatore Forlani. They've been identified. They were in the container.'

The old man nodded. He had always had the strength to do what was necessary, and to do it immediately. This
ability had earned him a seat on the Council; it had earned him the estate, status and respect. Killing women and children would, however, always be a mortal sin.

He made the sign of the cross and his croaking voice broke.

‘Is this really necessary, Urs. Now? It's been three years, hasn't it? Why do I have to think about them now?'

Savelli played the recording of Assistant Public Prosecutor Sabrina D'Avalos; unrecognizable in the blue suit, leaning over tray number thirty-one, then easily recognizable, walking across the area between the containers on the quay. The pictures had been taken from one of the cranes at the port and from a considerable distance, but the quality was excellent. The assistant public prosecutor strode along, looking down at the tarmac. The sun bounced off her aviator sunglasses and the camera had caught a glimpse of her nickel-plated pistol in its shoulder holster as she got into her car.

‘Who is the woman?' Don Francesco asked.

‘One of Federico Renda's young ones. She's in the NAC.'

‘
Figlio di puttana
,' Don Francesco whispered quickly, as if the Albanian had spoken the name of the evil one.

He chewed a grape without tasting it, spat the pips out into the palm of his hand and flicked them on the ground behind the bench.

Savelli drew triangles in the gravel with the tip of his makila.

‘She had a meeting with Renda two hours after she left the quay,' he said. ‘We can only guess at the content of their conversation, of course, but I believe they talked about the woman and the boy. Incidentally, they're still on the Interior Ministry's witness protection programme.'

‘Is she well connected?'

‘She's the daughter of Baron D'Avalos, no less,' Savelli said.

Don Francesco had to stand up. He walked over to a vine and tightened a wire loop to bring the stem closer to the post.

‘How much does she know?' he asked.

‘I'm not worried about her. She knows nothing, Don. There is nothing to know.'

‘Get someone to watch her, Urs. From a distance. You don't mess with a public prosecutor, you hear? Least of all her. That business with her father was bad enough. A sin. Like shooting the last elephant in the world,' the Capo said. ‘You destroyed everything in that office?'

‘Of course.'

‘Good. Very, very good.'

Don Francesco turned his faded green eyes on his captain.

‘You don't kill a public prosecutor, Urs,' he repeated.

Don Francesco constantly reiterated that the organization's new cause, its transformation, grew stronger with the passage of time. It was a simple message. They didn't
need another martyr, a new Giovanni Falcone who would make the public rise up, turn over every sacred stone, test their frail alliances with emasculated and vain politicians in Rome, make young Vatican priests write thoughtless things on their blogs. Federico Renda was an isolated incident and it had purely been a question of self-defence. Besides, he was from Naples and ought to have known better.

The Albanian didn't disagree with Don Francesco. The murder of General Agostino D'Avalos had been necessary, a means to an end. But the murder had caused a storm of protest and resulted in unprecedented political agreement to fight the Mafia. A tacit acceptance that retribution killings were carried out. This had meant new powers and resources for the ROS and the GIS. Leading figures in the Camorra, in the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria and Corleone on Sicily disappeared without trace in the months that followed the general's death. These killings continued until the leaders of the elite units managed to restore discipline.

‘No idiots, Urs,' the old man said.

Savelli straightened up and looked across the low, yellow buildings to the white walls that enclosed the estate. As always the world – Naples – felt very far away. Here reigned the same timeless peace as in the mountains and the woods around his house in Orbara in the Basque countryside.

‘I'll find a couple of men to follow her who aren't complete idiots.'

Francesco Terrasino nodded. ‘I know it won't be easy,' he said.

The Albanian smiled and stood up. He walked into the green shadows and disappeared.

It was so straightforward, Don Francesco thought. A masterstroke of simplicity. Savelli would open a trap door concealed under some empty feed sacks, climb down a ladder and walk through the tunnel that stretched under the greenhouses, the outer wall and the road outside. At the end of the tunnel, two hundred metres away, he would reach a door leading to the basement of an innocuous carpentry business. The carpenter was an old friend who would sometimes carry out work on the estate and who played cards with Don Francesco. There was a garage in the basement. Savelli would get into a van parked there and drive off.

Sabrina packed quickly. Clothes, underwear and toiletries were followed by her iPod, four identical, cheap analogue wristwatches and an extra magazine for the Walther.

She sat for a long time holding her father's old shortbarrelled Colt .32 revolver before she put it in a side pocket of her sports bag. The holster was as soft as kid gloves, and could be strapped around her ankle. This weapon was the only one of her father's personal possessions she had wanted after his death. The trigger of the revolver was as sensitive as a young woman's inner thigh – inasmuch as he could remember a young woman's inner thigh, her father used to say.

She swung the cylinder open and spun it. All chambers were loaded except the last. The one that would lie under the hammer.

‘Amazing. Very impressive.'

Federico Renda was unaccustomed to uttering words of praise.

He found a magnifying glass in a desk drawer and subjected the black strip to fresh scrutiny.

Sabrina raised her hand to her mouth and yawned. Her eyelids kept closing in the quiet office.

‘Three years,' he said.

‘The thing would appear to still work,' she nodded.

‘It's a miracle, Dottoressa D'Avalos, not a “thing”,' the public prosecutor declared. ‘Where did you find it?'

‘In a baker's bag.'

‘So you've received everything from Milan?'

‘I think so. Thank you.'

Renda twisted the small strip between his fingers.

‘Perhaps it isn't totally indestructible, you know,' she remarked.

‘I'm sorry. Can I keep it?'

‘I would rather you didn't.'

‘No … of course.'

Reluctantly he pushed the strip across the desk; Sabrina picked it up between two nails and returned it to her purse.

‘You're going to Milan?'

‘Yes. I think I need to talk to the case officer from the witness protection programme, Nestore Raspallo. If there is an error in the files it should be corrected. Also, I would like to speak to Massimiliano Di Luca. Evidence suggests that Forlani and Di Luca were friends as well as business
partners. They were photographed together on several occasions. Including at Di Luca's home.

‘Is he in Italy at the moment?'

‘Yes.'

‘In his emporium in Via Alessandro Manzoni?'

‘I presume so,' she said. ‘He's launching his autumn collection shortly. I imagine he's rushed off his feet.'

‘Have you spoken to him? Made an appointment?'

‘No.'

Renda looked her up and down. He saw a scuffed light brown leather jacket, a grey T-shirt from Naples Zoo with a zebra on the chest, ripped jeans and old trainers.

‘You'll be shot before you even get through the revolving door in that outfit.'

‘I've packed a change of clothes,' she said. ‘Smart clothes.'

‘Even so, I'll call ahead,' Renda said. ‘Is twelve noon tomorrow good for you?'

‘You can do that?'

‘I know someone who can,' he assured her.

‘Thank you. And another thing.'

‘Yes?'

‘Did anyone take over the project? Did Camera Nazionale and Massimiliano Di Luca hire new scientists to carry on the work of Batista and Forlani?'

Renda nodded and made a note on a pad.

‘That's a fair question, dottoressa,' he said. ‘I'll look into it.'

‘Thank you. Dr Raimondo Sapienza called me this morning … at a quarter past six. They have found lesions on the boy's throat that suggest he was garrotted. His mother was shot in the chest, twice. The bullet holes were close, neat and professional. One of the slugs is well preserved. I would like …'

Renda leaned across the desk. Partly to ease his aching back, partly to study Sabrina more closely. He knew she was intelligent and that she put in a lot of overtime at the Palace of Justice, that she was tenacious and apparently fearless – and that she was one of the first aristocratic staff members – but then all his assistant public prosecutors were stubborn and uncompromising. It was a job requirement. Besides, his young staff's role models were practically unattainable: Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino, Chinnici and Casson. The golden generation. Heroes and martyrs. But perhaps Sabrina D'Avalos really was something special. The GIS instructors who had been responsible for her advanced physical and military training seemed to think so. At the first confrontation with one of the GIS's barrel-chested, close-combat instructors, the slender woman had managed to break the instructor's jaw and inflict severe bruising to his genitals. No one had ever seen anything like it. She had walked away without a scratch.