The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

  ‘You said it was for business.’

  She shook her head and he found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. High in the mountain she looked so at home. As if the peaks and wild land around them were a part of her. ‘Only in part. Mostly it’s a ritual. An offering of thanks. A prayer for the future. We bring in a priest brought in for the occasion. A man who may one day wear the red hat of a cardinal. We’ve friends in many places. It’s best you never forget that.’

  This was all deliberate. The ’ndrina using Lucia to set out the first part of the plan. Though how he was meant to communicate it to Falcone and the team he’d still no idea.

  ‘So you want us to take them where they leave their cars? Down the hill?’

  ‘Not in the chapel. That would be wrong. Not in Manodiavolo. Nowhere near us. My father will be there. You’ll need plenty of men. Armed. If some of them are local I wouldn’t mention where they’re going until it’s too late for them to refuse. You might find a sudden outbreak of sickness has gripped their ranks. And at least one of them will talk.’

  He went a little way down the second track. The space she must have been talking about became visible after a while, surrounded by mountain pines. A rugged 4×4 was parked there already, no one visible near it.

  ‘There are … hurdles to clear before this can happen,’ she told him. ‘Come now. It’s time to go home.’

  ‘Hurdles for me?’

  ‘You’re very quick,’ she replied with a bright smile. ‘It would be best if you hid that. But yes. Hurdles that are very much for you. Now …’ She tucked the torch back into her belt. ‘We must go.’

  They were halfway down the track, emerging from the shadowy corridor between the crags, when the man with the shotgun pounced. He was about the same height, swarthy, muscular, with shiny, wavy black hair, a pair of sunglasses pushed back on top. The weapon he held in his strong, tanned arms was a short-barrelled lupara shotgun with a wide khaki strap running round his back. He held it diagonally across his body and grinned at them, like a hunter who’d found fresh prey.

  ‘Pretty lady,’ he said in a heavy Calabrian accent, looking Lucia up and down. ‘Out wandering the hills. Just the two of you. Did no one tell you there are wolves up here?’

  She folded her arms and leaned against a rock, sending a couple of lizards scurrying into the cracks.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Lucia asked.

  ‘I said. A pretty lady. Wandering places she shouldn’t. Some foreign creep with her.’ He cocked his head. ‘I heard you talking on the way. What the hell kind of accent’s that?’

  ‘What do you want?’ Maso Leoni asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Oh just the usual.’ A grin. A wink. ‘Money. And from this pretty lady … a kiss.’ He gripped his groin briefly with a free hand and made a coarse gesture. ‘To begin with. Run away, foreigner. Leave us now. We’ve business and—’

  It wasn’t hard. They were just a couple of steps apart. He jabbed his elbow out, quick and sharp, took the guy in the chest, got both hands on the barrel of the shotgun, held it firm, brought up the stock and slammed it hard into the side of his head. The newcomer shrieked with shock and pain. At that moment he wrestled the strap from round his shoulders, got the shotgun free, kicked him once in the shin, watched as he went down to the hard ground.

  The barrel was in the crouching man’s face in three or four seconds, no more. For some reason the newcomer was laughing in between holding his head, still glancing at Lucia with that same avaricious expression he’d had from the start.

  ‘What do you want me to do with him?’ he asked.

  ‘Say hello,’ she said with a scowl. ‘Santo Vottari. Meet Tomasso Leoni. His friends call him Maso, I believe.’

  ‘Maso it is then.’ The man struggled to his feet, brushed himself down, stuck out his hand and winked at him. ‘They said you came all the way from Canada. Your old man kicked you out for being a pain in the butt. That right?’

  There were two tests here. Being able to deal with a threat. Being capable of keeping a secret too. Santo Vottari had to be a foot soldier, probably with no idea what was going on. It was important to keep it that way.

  ‘I guess I was a pain,’ he replied. ‘I always wanted to come here anyway. It’s where we’re from.’

  Santo frowned and moved his head from side to side, in doubt. ‘Doesn’t make you one of us.’

  ‘He’s working on it,’ Lucia said. ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘Good. Sorry about the little game.’ Santo nodded in her direction. ‘It was her idea and what Lucia wants Lucia gets. Can I have my shotgun back now?’

  He handed it over. Santo slung the thing over his shoulder as if it was a part of him.

  ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘Both of you.’

  Then she walked ahead, out into the bright afternoon, taking the path back to Manodiavolo.

  Santo waited, let her get ahead. When Lucia was out of earshot his sharp elbows nudged Maso Leoni in the side.

  ‘She is a pretty thing, the capo’s daughter,’ Santo whispered. ‘One day I’m working my way into those tight pants. You watch. Well …’ He corrected himself. ‘I don’t mean … watch.’

  A bird cried somewhere. A hawk or an owl.

  ‘Welcome, friend,’ Santo said and patted his shoulder. ‘You can handle yourself. That’s a start.’

  Peroni was in the kitchen washing his hands when they got back. He’d no idea where Teresa and Falcone had been but from Leo’s grumbling it sounded as if they’d tried a different restaurant and found it wanting. Silvio must have been in his room glued to the laptop as usual. They’d bumped into one another as Peroni returned and the eager young man from Forensic had taken one look at him, muttered a rare curse then vanished.

  His knuckles were raw and bleeding. His chest hurt. The thug had fought back when Peroni dragged him off Elena Sposato. More than expected, which was a big mistake on his part. Everything was different in Calabria. Punks who’d whine and run away back in Rome the moment you whispered boo stood their ground here.

  But not for long.

  ‘Good evening,’ Peroni said as Teresa came into the kitchen, placed her bag on the table. ‘Could you possibly find me some plasters?’

  Falcone must have heard. He zoomed into the room straight away and asked, ‘Why?’

  He grimaced and showed them his battered and bloody hands. ‘Sorry, Leo. Truly I am.’

  Teresa was shading her eyes and saying, ‘Oh Christ.’ A few other things besides.

  ‘I can’t just stand to one side and watch. I won’t. Best send me back to Rome right now—’

  ‘We can’t, you fool!’ Teresa yelled at him. ‘What have you done?’

  He shrugged, dried his hands. They stung. If he hadn’t held back somewhat he might have broken something. Then he walked out to the terrace and they followed him. The Kiosco Paradiso was closed, the front boarded up. No watermelons for sale. No sad little kid playing on the rough front terrace.

  ‘Probably something stupid,’ he murmured. ‘But necessary.’

  Lucia went down the hill as fast and nimble as a mountain goat. The two men followed at a distance, Santo Vottari chatting all the way. About her. About how she’d gone a little crazy with men and drink and drugs on the coast. Then got herself sorted, wouldn’t marry and preferred to live somewhere else, north, he thought, though he wasn’t sure. The Bergamotti – he called them that – were the most secretive of the ’Ndrangheta families. They kept their real name hidden and worked through a strict hierarchy of ranks. The foot soldiers at the bottom only dealt with the men above them. He was one of the lucky ones who’d met Lucia and her brother. Only a handful ever encountered the capo, Lo Spettro, the head of the clan. Santo had heard stories over the years. He was a man in his mid-sixties or so, a widower who moved around Calabria and further afield as he wished, issuing orders through his family, Rocco, Lucia and their aunt Alessia.

  ‘You’re lucky to get in with the boss guys so soon. You something special, Maso?�
��

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘They must.’

  He tried to keep his eyes on the fast-vanishing figure ahead of them. They were nearly back in Manodiavolo. He could see the church, the little cemetery full of shattered headstones behind the hill, the sign of the old shop, half-off on rusty hinges, the bakers with the wrecked stone oven inside. In the courtyard by the fountain was something new: a shiny little Fiat Cinquecento, white with a red stripe on the side. The ghost village had another visitor.

  As they rounded a bluff covered in thorns and rampant ivy Santo reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. ‘Jesus. See that.’

  There was a man seated at a table brought out into the middle of the little square. He wore a navy blue felt hat, what looked like a pale linen jacket and matching trousers. As they watched he removed the fedora, let loose a head of long white hair. Then Rocco appeared carrying a tray of beer and some kind of food. The man in the photo in the santina’s hut. And in the palazzo.

  ‘That’s him,’ Santo said in a needless whisper. ‘Has to be. Lo Spettro. The capo.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Snow-white hair. Rocco told me about that the other day. Christ. Who are you, man? You got Lucia coming to see you. Rocco. Now the big guy …’

  She was walking into the courtyard, smiling, kissing her brother first, then the man in the linen suit, embracing him with a familiar, loving hug.

  ‘He never comes and sees the troops,’ Santo murmured. ‘Jesus. I wish I’d known.’

  ‘You think the capo of the Bergamotti sends out invitations?’

  Santo eyed him, not suspicious, just surprised. ‘You’re a fast one. They teach that in Canada?’

  ‘Doesn’t need teaching.’

  ‘That accent of yours sounds more like Rome to me.’

  ‘My uncle came from there not long ago. Mostly I talk Italian with him.’

  The man with the shotgun over his shoulder wasn’t really listening. He was watching what was going on in the square.

  ‘Come on, Maso,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over with. Our betters are waiting on us.’ Then a frown. ‘Something’s going on here. And something going on …’ He rubbed his hands and winked. ‘That’s opportunity.’

  After they descended the last hundred metres or so he let Santo Vottari go first since he seemed to want it. Rocco introduced them and for the first time gave the capo of the ’ndrina a name: Gabriele Bergamotti. While Maso stood back and listened, Santo bowed, got on one knee, placed the shotgun on the worn cobbles of Manodiavolo, and started a rambling speech about how grateful he was to be a humble member of the finest, most honourable ’ndrina in the world. How dedicated, how loyal, how willing to do anything to prove his worth in the hope – his eyes stole towards Lucia at that moment, which seemed to amuse her – the sincere wish that one day his fidelity might be rewarded if the capo saw fit.

  The man with the white hair sat on a wicker chair, sipping at a beer, splitting pistachios with his nails, listening. He didn’t smile. He didn’t scowl. He didn’t look bored. Just nodded as Santo got on with his meandering speech.

  It ended as Vanni returned breathless from the lane that led to the fields, Silvio and Benito, the donkeys, tugging a pair of carts laden with charcoal fresh from the mound the two of them had built the day before. The old man seemed able to direct the animals through a few gentle words and gestures alone. No need of a bridle let alone a whip.

  ‘That was very good,’ Gabriele Bergamotti said when there was a gap in the kneeling man’s devotions. ‘I’m fortunate to have such a loyal and decent soldier among our ranks—’

  ‘None more loyal, boss. None more eager—’

  ‘Good.’

  Gabriele smiled then and showed a set of fine, too-white teeth, doubtless false, the entire set. His face was pleasant, round, genial, not careworn in the least, that of a friendly grandfather. Though his blue eyes seemed very sharp, almost northern in appearance, the colour of the Tyrrhenian off Cariddi the day they arrived. There was Norman blood – Viking in origin – throughout the south, in Sicily and the toe, and sometimes, in the hair, the skin, the eyes. Or so the book they’d given him, written by this man’s father, claimed.

  ‘My poor brother’s struggling with the burden he’s bringing up from the fire,’ Gabriele announced in a deep and friendly, almost theatrical tone, with only the slightest accent of the south. ‘Be a good man and help him, will you? I would be most grateful. And so I’m sure will he.’

  ‘For you, boss, anything,’ Santo replied and after a salute went off to take instructions from Vanni who was waiting by the cart.

  He came forward. It seemed expected. Gabriele looked him up and down. As Nic Costa he’d been close to many powerful individuals. Even the president of Italy for a while. This man had the same presence about him, as if he was able to treat every occasion as a performance, the world a stage on which to stroll.

  ‘There was a real Tomasso Leoni,’ he said. ‘We chose that name because of him.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘My teacher. Here. We had to stay at home. It wasn’t safe to go to any ordinary school much as he would have liked it. Me too. Still, my father insisted I receive an education.’

  ‘You never told me about a teacher,’ Lucia said and Rocco nodded at that.

  ‘So much of the past is misery,’ he murmured. ‘Leoni was a good man. A very knowledgeable fellow too. One time the Sicilians came for us when there was a dispute.’ He gestured round the crumbling, deserted village. ‘Here. I’ll show you something.’

  He picked up a handful of nuts and got up, easily. A fit, strong man, tall, still imposing.

  ‘Follow me.’

  They walked up the steps of the church, past the broken spire, into the cemetery behind. Many of the headstones were in pieces, the names worn away by age and the harsh mountain weather. In the harsh afternoon sun crooked cypresses cast spiky shadows across the broken monuments and the jigsaws of cracked paving. There couldn’t be more than a hundred graves here, most of them centuries old.

  ‘We prevailed in the end but that day Tomasso gave his life for mine. So in a way for yours too.’ He stopped and pointed at a bare patch of ground covered in weeds. ‘We buried him hereabouts. I wanted to put up some kind of monument but my father forbade it. Manodiavolo was supposed to be a place for ghosts, he said. It would be wrong to try to bring it back to life. Who knew what that might summon?’

  His foot scraped at the earth with the toe of a polished brown brogue. ‘A very well-read gentleman. Learned. He helped my father with that book that bears his name. To be truthful I suspect Tomasso wrote most of it. But without the Bergamotti it would never have been published. So we earned our name on the cover.’

  He came up close and stared in Maso’s eyes. There was the fragrance of beer and something sweet on his breath and his icy blue eyes shone as if lit from inside. ‘The new Tomasso Leoni. I hope you prove as intelligent and dutiful as the good man who bore that name for real.’

  ‘I’m here for a reason. You asked for it. I need details. Dates. Agreements. When can we—?’

  ‘It’s too early to start asking when.’

  He could see there was no point in arguing. One other question then. It had to be asked.

  ‘Why are you doing this? I think we’re due an answer there.’

  The old man scowled. ‘Does the giver need to explain the gift?’

  ‘On this occasion … it would help.’

  Gabriele Bergamotti looked around him. ‘This world is changing. It’s not the one I grew up in. A place of honour and duty. Somewhere the ’ndrina cared for its flock. We had to. No one in Rome would lift a finger for the people of Aspromonte. Now … everything’s about money and power and influence. Who you are, what you believe no longer matters. I don’t want my children swept up in that nonsense. You can take me. You let me live my days free in the place of my own choosing, a small villa I own on Burano where I will watch the
fishermen and the hunters on the Venetian lagoon and never trouble you again. Lucia and Rocco you never touch. You don’t go looking for them or asking what they do, where they get their money. All of which will be legitimate so you’ll have no cause. The rest of the ’ndrina …’ He glanced at Santo Vottari across the little piazza, grumbling as he picked up filthy charcoal from the cart. ‘Do with as you see fit. Is that reason enough for you, Roman? Are you able to agree?’

  He nodded and said the truth: all of this could be arranged. It was nothing less than they’d expected.

  ‘Good. We need you to be able to move freely between us and your colleagues, Maso. Until you’re seen to be one of us, accepted, that is not possible. These men suspect everyone and everything. So it will be a perilous journey. First of all, appreciate this. No one here understands who you really are except me, my two children. And my sister Alessia. Not that I wish her involved any more than she has been. Fools like that crude swaggering footman my son brought here—’

  ‘Santo’s OK,’ Rocco objected.

  ‘How many times must I tell you?’ His voice rose, became hard and domineering. ‘You must look into a man’s eyes. I did when he was fawning on the ground. There’s nothing there but darkness.’

  The vehemence seemed to take Rocco aback and he didn’t like it. ‘If you say so …’

  ‘I do. That man’s the creature of whoever pays him. He must never know. Nor Vanni. My brother’s a poor and hopeless fool, too simple for our schemes. You understand this? I’m asking my children, Maso. Not just you.’

  The two of them looked at one another.

  ‘We understand,’ Lucia said before her brother could speak. ‘Don’t worry.’