The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

  ‘All this trouble and expense,’ he said. ‘I trust it’s worth it. Anyone who wants to be one of our soldiers must shoot. Can you?’

  Lucia groaned and left them, shaking her head.

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘Let’s see.’

  Rocco lugged a small suitcase out of the back of the car.

  At the back of the farm, next to a pen where black and pink pigs ran around snorting and shovelling at the earth, he opened it. Night was coming on and they must have been at altitude. There was a chill breeze rolling down the mountain. The place smelled of wild herbs and livestock. A small arsenal sat in Rocco’s suitcase. Two handguns. Two machine pistols, stacks of shells. They emptied ammunition into targets among the trees until the light began to fade, the pigs running round, squealing in terror all the time.

  ‘So you know how to handle a weapon,’ Rocco said after he emptied the last magazine. ‘You need to learn to keep your mouth shut. I don’t have time to wet nurse you. Nor does my sister, whatever impression she may give.’

  He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘One other thing, Maso. Don’t confuse geniality for friendship. With anyone you meet.’

  Back in the house, after a change of clothes and a shower, a simple supper was waiting, roast pork for them, grilled vegetables and cheese for him. Rocco vanished again to make some calls. Lucia had changed into a white silk shirt and blue denims. He’d chosen something from the clothes she’d bought him: a purple polo and green chinos.

  ‘Paul and Shark suits you,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do you ever think of colours? Purple and green?’

  He looked at himself and said, ‘Not much.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Maso? You look troubled. We’ve been your guides. Taken you places most people don’t see. Bought you food and clothes. And still …’

  He wondered whether to say it but there seemed nothing to lose. ‘The woman who was with me—’

  ‘She looked foreign.’

  ‘Her father came from India. She’s Roman born and bred.’

  ‘Which is foreign to me.’

  He raised his glass and accepted the reproach.

  ‘Is she your lover?’

  ‘No. A colleague.’

  ‘My aunt believed otherwise.’

  ‘Your aunt was wrong. Rosa’s sensitive. I’m worried about her being a prisoner. If you’d wanted a hostage you’d only to ask. We could have found someone stronger.’

  She reached over and stole a slice of chargrilled aubergine from his plate. ‘I should eat more vegetables. I do when I’m home.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘I can’t imagine the state police would simply offer up a hostage if a bunch of criminals asked for one. Can you?’

  A reasonable point, he said.

  ‘Quite. You’ve nothing to worry about. We didn’t keep your friend. She’s back with your people in Cariddi.’

  He nodded, thinking. ‘Then why—’

  ‘Because my brother wanted it. He likes a little drama. But we have much on our minds and my aunt would make a terrible manutengola. She goes nuts around other people. As others go nuts around her. We spared your friend. Your … colleague.’

  There was a commotion by the stables where they were staying in converted blocks. Rocco on the phone, animated, angry.

  ‘Don’t let him know I told you that. You won’t run. You have a … determined look about you. Like someone who wants to see things through.’

  ‘Thank you for the clothes, signora. The food, the wine, the company.’

  ‘My name is Lucia. Kindly use it.’

  ‘Lucia.’

  She poured him more wine, then a glass for her.

  ‘At least you drink. Tomorrow you go to your final destination. Be wise. Be careful. If in doubt about anything … come to me. No one but me.’

  In Cariddi the days after Costa’s disappearance seemed to drift into nothingness. It was as if the team there were trapped in an extended, dreamlike Fata Morgana of their own. Falcone spent hours on an encrypted line to Rome telling no one else much about what he was discussing. Peroni, bored and a little anxious, had hung around the seafront bar of Elena Sposato, talking to her and her son Roberto, drinking lots of coffee and occasionally the odd beer. The place was called the Kiosco Paradiso though there seemed little heavenly about it. The thug in the dark suit came back every day at the same time, drank a beer or a brandy he never paid for, leered at the woman behind the counter, ignored both the boy and Peroni, then left.

  Teresa had taken to long walks along the beach beyond the rocky headland and solitary swims while Silvio Di Capua had played with his techno toys. And Rosa … she worried Peroni most of all, not least because Falcone seemed oblivious to her emotional state.

  In their own, interior silences, they felt crippled and helpless, waiting on news of what might have happened in the hills, knowing that there was only one source from which that might arrive. The Bergamotti. Who did not exist, as Peroni knew full well, not that he had told the rest of them. There seemed no point and something in Falcone’s manner told him that it was best not to add another layer of complexity to the situation. And so they waited, on others. Nothing he could say or do would change that one bit.

  He’d taken to visiting the little café twice a day, talking to the charming young son and the woman too, though that was never easy. He’d asked again about the book and its author, Bergamotti, and she’d repeated what she’d told him before. The name was an alias, a mask people used to hide behind. When she said that there’d been a look in her eye, cautious, close to fear. It made him realize people hereabouts were forever heedful, keen not to step on the wrong toes, offend someone with higher connections, utter an unfortunate private thought. There was no way one could ask a direct question. To say to the young Roberto, ‘How did your father die?’

  Only other sources could provide those answers which was why, as the morning zephyr from the hills began to conquer the cool breeze off the Tyrrhenian, he found himself once more alone on the rough concrete terrace of the Paradiso, scouring the news services on his phone. One question only he’d asked the boy that morning: what was your father’s name?

  Paolo Gentile.

  A fisherman. That was all he had. Nor did the search engines know much more.

  The second macchiato of the day sat in front of him as Peroni’s fat and clumsy fingers stabbed at his personal phone looking for information on Paolo Gentile, late of the town of Cariddi in the province of Reggio Calabria. After a couple of minutes he knew little more. Gentile had died the previous November. A death notice in the paper described him as a loving husband to Elena Sposato and father to little Roberto, a much-admired crew man on the boats, both the swordfish feluccas and local inshore craft, that operated out of the town harbour. One story had a photo of him: an unsmiling man with receding hair, a careworn, lined face, hard and dark. Nothing about how he died, aged thirty-four. Not a hint of illness or accident.

  There were footsteps close by. It was the woman, so he quickly put his phone in his pocket, looked up and smiled. Elena Sposato had brought him a plate of watermelon, the scarlet flesh so fresh the juice was running off the plate.

  ‘On the house,’ she said. ‘You spend so much time on my terrace. Not with your friends.’

  ‘Another macchiato, signora. Please.’

  ‘That would be three in little more than an hour. Too much coffee is bad for you. Eat the watermelon. You’re a big man. You need to watch your heart.’

  ‘I do.’

  She pushed the fruit at him and went back to the bar. The thug was there, tapping his keys on the counter.

  Peroni had his police phone with him but they weren’t supposed to use those here. There was always the chance someone on the inside, someone corrupt, might see he was in Calabria working, not on holiday as the office supposed. It was a slim chance it seemed to him and if something untoward had happened to Paolo Gentile then it would
surely be on the database somewhere.

  He looked around him, aware that Falcone would fly off the handle if he knew about this, then started the phone, logged into the internal intelligence network and typed the name. It was a cursory report from the Reggio Questura network. A Cariddi fisherman found shot dead on the beach one winter morning. Cut about as if tortured. A criss-cross of four parallel marks had been scraped on his chest, seemingly by his murderer’s fingernails. The report called it a ‘cardata da cruci’. It seemed to mean ‘carded from crosses’, as if the man’s skin was wool to be teased. Peroni realized he’d heard it once before. Seen it too. Those marks scratched into the right cheek of the decapitated swordfish they’d been shown in the restaurant by Toni, the talkative waiter.

  The case was marked unsolved. There had been no activity on the investigation, such as it was, in ten months. Whoever murdered Paolo Gentile was still walking free.

  ‘And you had his skin underneath your nails, you bastard,’ Peroni whispered to himself. ‘They must have pulled in someone …’

  But if they had it wasn’t on the system. He quickly closed down the work phone and stuffed it back in his jacket. It was the only way he was going to find out what happened to Gentile. Still, perhaps using the thing was unwise.

  The unwanted visitor was on his second coffee and grappa. Free no doubt. Or rather Elena, who had vanished into the kitchen, had paid. The man in black swigged down his coffee and drink and looked ready to follow her in a moment.

  Peroni got up. He was fast for his size and age. Six strides from the terrace to the counter and his hand was on the man’s arm before he could take a step towards the little terraced house behind the bar where Elena and her son lived.

  ‘A word, sir.’

  Two sly eyes stared back at him. He had a narrow, cruel face and a smile that was halfway to a sneer. Close up it wasn’t hard to see the suit was old and worn and there was something shabby about him, about the black Fiat he came in too which had more than its share of dents and scratches. A lowly foot soldier out to get what he could, perhaps without the knowledge of his betters.

  ‘Friend,’ Peroni began, still holding him, though it was obvious this was not welcome.

  ‘I’m not your friend. Take your hand off me.’

  ‘Of course.’ Peroni did so and held up his two arms by way of apology. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Not in the least.’

  Honour, Peroni thought again. The intelligence he’d read in Rome used that word a lot.

  ‘All I want is a favour. A good deed. The kind of thing a benevolent man like you would willingly and graciously give.’

  ‘I don’t even know you.’

  Peroni smiled, leaned over the bar, took the grappa bottle and poured him another shot. ‘My old priest in Tuscany always said the gifts we give to strangers, with no expectation of reward, are the ones that get us into heaven.’

  All he got back was an uncomprehending glare, then: ‘What are you after?’

  ‘Your understanding. Your compassion. Your forbearance.’ Nothing at that. ‘The lady here is troubled for a variety of reasons. I think … business is bad. She’s on her own. A widow.’

  The man reminded him of low-level hoods back home, the kind who collected ‘insurance’ from small traders too scared to refuse.

  ‘I know who Elena Sposato is. Don’t need you to tell me.’

  Roberto was kicking a football along the pebbled beach alone, while in the distance a gaggle of kids of a similar age played together. Either they ignored him or he felt too shy or scared to join them.

  ‘Her son’s a solitary child. They have their problems. A little sympathy is due.’

  The man laughed and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. ‘Sympathy?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘You mean thinking a widow’s an easy screw, huh? Desperate for this?’ He made an obscene gesture with one arm and gyrated his hips like a lousy dancer in a bad rock video. ‘I know what you want. You want to get your cock there first and leave the local guys behind—’

  Staying calm was hard. ‘No. Not at all—’

  ‘You bastards from the north are all the same. Looking down on us.’

  It was hopeless. Peroni knew that. Perhaps he had from the start. He’d been foolish and maybe now he was making the situation worse. Of more concern he could feel his temper start to rise, a rare event these days, and one that never boded well.

  ‘All I ask is that you leave her alone. You would earn my gratitude.’

  ‘And if I don’t.’

  The words came unbidden. He found himself leaning forward, close enough so his breath touched the man’s face, the way he used to scare lowlife like this in Rome, leaning on pimps and dealers and other such scum.

  ‘You will earn my lasting ingratitude. Which any man with half a brain will find unwelcome.’ He stroked the guy’s greasy, unwashed hair. ‘There is a brain here somewhere, friend. Tell me. Isn’t there?’

  A silence followed, one he knew so well. It represented the moment a dispute slipped subtly from mere argument to an outright clash of wills. One man wins, the other backs down. This gang minion was lean, cheeks hollow and pockmarked, eyes dead. Peroni could take him down with two quick blows to the gut and a swipe across the face. Nothing to it. He looked a coward at heart, a minion who got his kicks from picking on frightened people. Women. Kids. The old. The lowest they had around here and something had happened that meant no one kept him in line.

  But if he did give way to his instincts and beat the punk to a pulp …

  It was years since Peroni had even had that thought let alone the urge. His temper had gone or so he thought until this wild, raw land reminded him it only slumbered. And what would that short and satisfying explosion mean for Elena Sposato? For the team in the house down the street? For Nic Costa, lost in the wilds of Aspromonte?

  ‘Think about it,’ Peroni said and patted his shoulder, which was stained with dirt and the grey-white speckles of old dandruff.

  Then before anything else could happen his phone rang. The personal one.

  ‘Are you hanging around that damned bar again?’ Falcone asked.

  ‘Coffee. That’s all.’

  ‘Get back here. We have a visitor.’

  They were waiting for him in the first-floor dining room at the front of the rented house. The furniture was modern and pale blue and arranged in a way that seemed to say: this place is for temporary visitors, not a home. But around the walls ran tiles depicting the swordfish hunt back in the day when it was down to teams of strong men in rowing feluccas, a harpooner on a modest prow, a spotter up a short mast. Beneath the blue drawings were the names of famous fishermen, poems and, on a few, tales of their deaths, lost to cruel sea or the thrashing blade of an angry fish. Stories, it seemed to Peroni, were never far away in Cariddi and carried a weight they never possessed in Rome.

  From the window he could see the thug had left the bar, doubtless in a foul mood, consumed by a mix of fear and anger. Threatening him was not a wise move any more than the sly, perhaps irresponsible, check on Paolo Gentile. Not that he’d regretted either. Close up to the weasel-faced creature he’d felt that spark of fury that had, on occasion, caused him difficulties as an inspector policing the brothels, pimps and hookers of Rome. Something in Peroni always responded to the sight of a woman being bullied and abused. The only reason that hadn’t happened of late was that he’d been bounced back down to agente, the lowest rank, when he fell from a kind of uneasy grace, and moved to duties that took him away from the grim world of exploitation and trafficking. And he’d met Teresa Lupo who had tamed him. Or so they both believed.

  Three or four hundred metres along the shore Elena Sposato was wiping down the counter though he doubted it was necessary. Roberto hadn’t moved from the beach where he continued to kick his old red ball against the rocks quite alone.

  Teresa was on the terrace smoking. Something she hadn’t done in years. Then she threw the cigarette over the wall
into the sluggish turquoise waves and marched back, barely looking at him. Rosa was silent standing in the corner. Silvio Di Capua kept tapping nervously at his iPad. Falcone was in quiet conversation with Lombardi, the thin, unsmiling man from Rome who had set up this strange mission in the first place after the tipoff from the south.

  He must have driven all the way, Peroni thought. It was just after one in the afternoon. An early start from Rome would get him here in six or seven hours and Lombardi, an officious pen-pusher who seemed to flit between the Ministry of Justice and its various outposts as he wished, was just the kind to start off at the crack of dawn. As usual he wore a suit, blue, largely uncreased in spite of the journey, and carried a leather portfolio case under his arm, one he always seemed reluctant to open, at least in Peroni’s presence.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Falcone said and summoned them to the table. A vase full of artificial flowers sat incongruously at its centre. ‘Have we swept the room?’

  ‘Every morning,’ Di Capua said a touch testily. ‘As you asked.’

  ‘Why bother?’ Peroni wondered, taking the chair next to him. Teresa seemed to want to be with Rosa for some reason. ‘They know we’re here. They know who we are. Why would they want to bug us?’

  ‘Precautions,’ was all Falcone said.

  Lombardi took the seat by his side and opened his portfolio. There was a lined pad there. Completely blank. He said nothing so Peroni asked, ‘Since our lives are on the line here … may I ask where this intelligence first came from? About our mysterious pentito’s sudden burst of conscience?’

  Lombardi looked no more than thirty-five. Doubtless he had a fine degree, possibly from an international school, and could speak any number of languages. He’d never worked in the field. That much was crystal clear from the way he spoke and acted. The messy, asymmetrical task of law enforcement was for him a matter of intellectual rigour. A game, a kind of chess, played on a board composed primarily of unwitting and unknowledgeable pawns.

  ‘We’re not in the habit of making information widely available—’