The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

  ‘I take your point,’ the man said.

  They went to the corner to talk, quietly but not bothering to make sure he couldn’t hear. He and Chuk weren’t important. Something else, it seemed, was.

  Mostly the discussion seemed to be about someone they called Il Macellaio, the Butcher, a nickname spoken in hushed fear, almost awe. Then the stranger walked to the window and made a call in a dialect-strewn voice so difficult Emmanuel could barely understand a word.

  Santo Vottari sat at the table, arms folded, waiting. He was the subordinate here. Just like when he was with the crimine Rocco Bergamotti.

  The call ended. Gaetano Sciarra came back and the two of them talked. It sounded like Sciarra was giving out orders. All the time Chuk cowered in the corner, that quick smile of his long gone, his big white eyes on the grubby timber floorboards of the dump that was his home.

  ‘Well,’ Sciarra said suddenly with a clap of his hands. ‘This was a profitable, a fortuitous day.’ He came back and his arm wound round Emmanuel’s shoulder. ‘We owe you for that, my friend. Owe you dearly. Santo. Give him his due.’

  ‘What?’ Vottari didn’t like that. Money only went one way for him.

  ‘I said give him his money back. You Calabrians gone deaf or something?’

  The wad came out. Emmanuel grabbed it the moment he could with a quick low grunt of thanks.

  ‘Santo’s driving back to Reggio now. I guess you don’t want to go with him.’

  ‘Never setting foot in that place again. Never working in some bar. With some screaming monkey.’

  ‘You’re African, man,’ Vottari snapped.

  ‘Yeah,’ Emmanuel retorted. ‘We got monkeys everywhere. We grow up with them. They live in our houses. We eat the things. Sleep with them. What do you know about us? What do you care?’

  He’d never spoken to any of them like that before. It felt good. Stupid maybe. But righteous.

  ‘The man wants to go home,’ the Sicilian said with a last squeeze of his arm. ‘He’s earned that. Get your things. Go downstairs. You can pick up that ferry to Malta from Pozzallo. Your cousin can drive you.’

  Chuk didn’t move.

  ‘Downstairs,’ Sciarra said again.

  He did as they asked. There wasn’t much choice. Five minutes later Chuk came down with the keys for a rusty white van parked by the side.

  ‘Get in,’ his cousin ordered and didn’t look his way.

  Lombardi had turned up without warning from Rome. Marched into the rented house and said he wanted to eat. So there they were, Falcone, Peroni and Teresa Lupo dining with him outside on the Cariddi boardwalk at the restaurant they’d come to think of as their own. The same fish as they’d picked that first day: swordfish, shrimp and calamari. The same wine. The same attentive waiter, Toni, who kept asking questions. Was the young Indian woman coming back? And the quiet man with glasses who never spoke much? Where had they gone? And how long was everyone on holiday? It was unusual to have visitors in town for more than a few days, not that they weren’t welcome.

  Their answers were evasive and, Peroni felt, unconvincing. Everyone in this little place had some connection to the Bergamotti. From Elena Sposato in her kiosk cafe to the people running this restaurant. They might not have belonged to the ’ndrina but they knew someone who did. And if there was a little thing to be reported – a doubt, an overheard whisper, a suspicion – then that would be passed on. Because the Bergamotti were their people, their lords and masters, caring ones too who, for the most part, kept their wards safe. So long as everyone knew their place and did what they were told.

  Lombardi watched Toni pour the wine then when he’d gone said, ‘We can’t keep this up. I’m going to have to put a deadline on this project. The longer it goes on the less I trust them. We still don’t really understand what’s in it for the Bergamotti anyway. Maybe …’ He let out a long, pained sigh as if some perceived offence was personal, aimed solely at him. ‘Maybe I’ve been misled.’

  Peroni watched Teresa, knowing she’d be unable to stop herself speaking, knowing too what she’d say.

  ‘If you’re talking about pulling out,’ she said jabbing at the man from Rome with a prawn head, ‘forget it. I won’t be coming. You seem to forget—’

  ‘The longer we stay the more we risk detection by the Sicilians. The other ’ndrine—’

  ‘Risk detection?’ Peroni repeated. ‘You mean they got us sussed? They’ve done that already. And stop talking like you’re sending an email to your boss. Risk detection …’

  ‘They’ve got Nic,’ Teresa said. More softly she added, ‘They’ve got Silvio.’ She nodded at the hills that rose so quickly and steeply behind the village. ‘If we walk away like craven cowards we leave them behind in some shallow grave up there among the rocks.’

  Lombardi wriggled on his seat. ‘We’ve lines of communication. Maybe I can persuade them to return to the status quo.’

  Christ, Peroni thought. It was like listening to an office memo brought to life.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said. ‘The Bergamotti have put themselves on the line. They can’t retreat from here. Someone would talk. Mancuso would tear them to shreds if he knew they’d been offering up his head. The other ’ndrine could sit back, tut tut, then march in and fight a war over the pieces. We’re staying till this is done.’

  ‘Falcone …’

  Always turn to the senior officer, if you want to bring people in line. A civil servant through and through.

  ‘We need a word,’ Falcone said and led Lombardi to the edge of the deck. A couple of feluccas were drifting slowly across the horizon, men spying the blue water from their towers, harpooners at the end of the passarella, weapons in their arms. This place kept turning whatever happened. The pair’s voices became heated until they realized the waiter was watching, maybe trying to listen from the door to the dining room inside. Then they came back. Falcone looked even more shifty than usual.

  ‘Two more days,’ he announced. ‘Then we assess where we are and make a decision.’

  Lombardi picked at a piece of swordfish, stuffed it in his mouth and mumbled through the shreds, ‘I have to go.’

  In silence they watched him leave.

  ‘Two days. Two weeks. Two months. Two years,’ said Teresa. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving without them.’

  Peroni raised a finger and said, ‘Same here.’

  ‘And what would you do, exactly?’ Falcone demanded.

  ‘If the rest of you vanish? If Lombardi scurries back to his office and starts to write a few memos to cover his back for when the inquests start?’ Peroni pulled up his chair and frowned. ‘I’d take the car up into those hills and go looking for them. Probably find myself a gun from somewhere if I could.’

  ‘Me with him,’ Teresa added.

  ‘Lombardi will stretch to three days,’ Falcone said. ‘That’s as much as I could get out of him.’

  ‘Leo—’

  ‘But you’ll have room in the car for me,’ he added and it wasn’t a question.

  Just a few words and they broke the atmosphere. Peroni smiled and raised his wine. So did Teresa. The three of them tapped their glasses together on the table above the gently churning water.

  ‘Here’s to Nic,’ Peroni said. ‘And Silvio. And us. I don’t …’ He was never good with words. ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘You shouldn’t have thrown him out.’ Falcone was staring straight at her. ‘He wanders round like a stray all the time. I kicked him over that nonsense at the bar. He’s kicked himself. Plenty. You can see that. He doesn’t need more from you.’

  ‘These are private matters, Leo.’ She looked shocked. Falcone was such a careful man when it came to anything personal. ‘Stay out of them.’

  ‘It isn’t a private matter if it gets in the way of business. What happened with the Sposato woman’s done with. She’s fine. I checked. I went over there.’

  He tapped his glass with Peroni’s again.

  ‘You went over th
ere?’ she asked. ‘I was going to do that.’

  ‘Well you don’t need to now. I had a good cup of coffee. She knew straight away I was from here. Guessed pretty much why too. Seems a very smart woman.’ He waited for her quiet curses to finish then added, ‘She said some kind of … gentleman from Rome helped her out with a problem. It was awkward for a while. But she’s grateful. It’s in the past for her. That’s how it should be with us.’

  Peroni nodded, thinking this through. ‘That little creep wasn’t meant to be picking on her. I said these guys have got this thing about honour—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what the cause is,’ Falcone interrupted. ‘She’s fine. The boy of hers too. It’s done with. You need to let him back into your room.’ He looked at the feluccas on the sea for a moment. ‘For one thing he’s in the single right next to me now and his snoring keeps me awake. Also—’

  ‘Enough! Enough!’ she cried. Her hand came over and took Peroni’s giant fist. ‘He’s back. I made my point. It wasn’t … forever, Leo. He knew that. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Peroni said because it was expected. ‘Thanks and—’

  Falcone wasn’t listening. Lombardi had returned and stood at the restaurant door, beckoning with a wagging finger.

  Ten minutes they waited. Ten awkward minutes. Relationships were best felt, he thought, not discussed. Emotions had no need of words. Of explanations. The two of them had fallen into each other’s arms years before in the oddest of circumstances. Reluctantly almost. Cooped up in her little flat near the Spanish Steps, walking to work together in the Questura, they’d become a happy, settled couple and never even talked of marriage because there was nothing else they needed. Just one another.

  Then came Cariddi. A test, he thought. Something that tore them out of the comfortable world of Rome and challenged them with a place so foreign it might have been a different country, a game of play-acting that made them live behind masks, disguise their feelings, their fears, their longings. Maybe it was good to be challenged. Maybe, with luck, you came out of it stronger. Once the masks were off.

  She took her eyes off Falcone and Lombardi engaged in deep conversation by the water’s edge. It wasn’t hard to see she’d thought of something important, and he knew he was going to hear it.

  ‘When we get back to Rome. Whenever that is,’ Teresa told him in her loud and certain voice, ‘I’m getting the workmen in to change that bathroom. It’s an antique. I want one of those new rain shower gadgets. The sort where you don’t need a door any more. You can’t just let things ride.’

  ‘Good idea,’ he said and squeezed her hand. ‘I can do some decorating if you like.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Decorating? You’ve never offered to decorate before. Are you any good at it?’

  ‘Slow but reliable. Very good value too.’

  ‘You all over,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Usually. Maybe not here. That woman in the bar … I was just trying to help. That’s all it was. Never … anything …’

  ‘I know. I know. I never thought … not for a moment. We’re stuck with one another, aren’t we?’

  ‘For better or worse.’ He raised his glass again.

  ‘That’s not a marriage proposal, is it?’

  He hesitated, wondering what he’d said and how best to proceed. ‘Not unless you want it to be. I mean—’

  ‘Later,’ she cut in. ‘Leo …’

  Falcone was coming back, a distracted look on his face that meant his thoughts were somewhere else entirely. The man from the Ministry of Justice had scooted off to the door and was vanishing past the waiter hovering there, looking ready to come and see what they wanted for dessert.

  ‘Well?’ Teresa asked when Falcone sat down, gulped at his wine, said not a word.

  Falcone’s phone rang. He answered straight away. The conversation seemed to be one-sided. It ended with one word: good. Then he was pouring more wine, still thinking.

  ‘News by any chance?’ Teresa asked.

  ‘It looks like tomorrow. Lombardi was about to get in his car when he got a call from Intelligence saying something was up in Sicily. The Mancuso people were making plans to move. That was Rocco Bergamotti. He’s heard the same. We should be ready by tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘All very quick,’ Peroni noted. ‘Lombardi one minute. The local hood the next. This feels stage-managed or something—’

  ‘For God’s sake! We’ve been waiting for this for weeks and now you’re moaning.’

  ‘Not moaning. I guess I hate the fact someone else is in the driving seat. They have been all along.’

  Falcone downed more wine, watched in silence by the two of them. ‘Lombardi’s going to make arrangements about troops. He’s shipping them in …’

  ‘Troops?’ Teresa asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘He doesn’t want to bring in the locals unless he has to. In case something leaks. Nic’s going to come here in the morning. We’ll find out more then.’

  ‘And Silvio?’ she asked.

  ‘When it’s done. When they’re all safe. Till then he’s their … guest.’

  ‘Hostage. Let’s use our words. Not theirs.’

  Falcone’s cold grey eyes turned on her for a moment. ‘Hostage then. If you like. If you think it makes a difference.’

  ‘And till then?’ Peroni asked.

  ‘We do nothing. We talk to no one. We … wait.’

  The waiter came over.

  ‘There are special dolci today,’ he announced, all smiles. ‘Crostata, crema and ciambellone. Sweet panzerotti with ricotta too. All made with a calabresi speciality we grow along our rugged coast. A fruit. Bergamotto. Like a big lemon. You know it?’

  ‘Coffee and grappa,’ Falcone told him. ‘We’ll skip dessert.’

  ‘Bergamotto’s the aroma, the flavour of this part of the world, sir. You should try it. I’ll bring you a selection. On the house. From me.’

  Close to four in the afternoon Maso was back working with Vanni beneath the shadow of the fractured campanile. Manodiavolo was baking in the dry, still, summer heat. Insects everywhere, birds of prey soaring in the sky. They’d fetched a large beach umbrella out into the piazza for Gabriele who now sat in his customary chair at the table beneath its shade, sipping a glass of iced water with bergamot juice and sugar, reading a book. He’d caught sight of the title when he fetched more iced water from the palazzo: Agamemnon by Aeschylus. A play from what he recalled, not a book at all. Ancient Greek which was fitting for the surroundings but a curious choice for a capo known as Lo Spettro. The Bergamotti were odd and elusive creatures, difficult to pin down in the bright light of day.

  The old man had returned in his little cinquecento just after two. He would, he said, be staying at the house that night, with Rocco and Lucia when they returned from the office on the coast. Something was afoot. It had to be. The atmosphere had changed. Even Vanni, who always appeared more focused on the day-to-day running of Manodiavolo and the happiness of his donkeys, seemed to have noticed.

  Then there was the sound of a fast car racing up the hill. The scarlet Alfa 4×4 roared up the last few metres of cobbles, its front wheels flying briefly in the air, swerved, screeched to a halt by the old wellhead.

  ‘No need to drive like an idiot,’ Vanni yelled at Rocco as he clambered out of the front. ‘We know you’re one already.’

  The younger man just glared at him and checked his watch.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’ Vanni added.

  Gabriele had seemed absorbed by the book but then he raised his head. ‘Yes. Where is she?’

  Back in Reggio he said. ‘She’s got her scooter, hasn’t she? I’m not a damned chauffeur.’ He’d got on a sky blue shirt and matching trousers, white shoes, the usual sunglasses back on his black hair. Casual looking; not that it worked. ‘There’s news. We need to talk.’

  They sat around the table, Rocco with a beer, then a second, Gabriele sipping at his drink, Maso and Vanni with icy water from the well. The Sicilians had calle
d that lunchtime, Rocco said. Mancuso was willing to attend the service in the chapel in the hills. Then sit down with Gabriele and the other ’ndrine capi and talk business.

  ‘Am I meant to be party to this discussion?’ Vanni asked. ‘You usually talk business when I’m absent.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gabriele replied immediately. ‘You know more about this place than anyone. You can find your way around like a mountain goat. We need the cavern ready.’ He peered across the table. ‘We need you to support us. Family …’

  Vanni frowned. ‘You know I’m no good at things like this. I’m not … a man of honour as you call it. I can kill a hen. An old donkey when he’s crying out for deliverance. But a man …’ He shook his head then growled, ‘Leave me out of your plans—’

  ‘We can’t,’ Rocco told him. ‘This is our moment. Once it’s passed nothing will be the same.’ He hesitated and looked at Gabriele. ‘You need to tell him.’

  Silence, then Vanni asked, ‘Tell me what?’

  The old man took a deep breath. ‘If everything goes to plan we leave here tomorrow.’ He grabbed at the glass. ‘By here I mean … everywhere. Reggio. Calabria. For good.’

  Vanni glanced at Maso then turned on his brother. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’

  ‘The end of the Bergamotti,’ Gabriele said with a shrug. ‘I’m going into retirement. And for your sakes, with a little help from our new friend here, I’m taking you along with me.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to go?’

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ Rocco told him. ‘My father’s turning pentito. He’s going to give the cops Mancuso, Il Macellaio, the Butcher from Palermo. And a good few others.’

  ‘What?’ No one spoke. Vanni turned to Maso. ‘So who, in that case, is this charming young man I believed to be one of your guests?’

  Gabriele closed the pages of his book and slapped it on the table. ‘He’s a policeman. From Rome.’

  ‘Rome?’