The Savage Shore

by David Hewson

  He didn’t know quite where he was headed. Just where he wasn’t going back. That was enough in the circumstances. With money … more than enough.

  Vanni took the two donkeys with them, for the exercise, theirs, for sentiment, nothing else. They wandered the same path he’d walked along with Lucia days before. A heat haze had gathered over the coast as the afternoon wore on. The complex shoreline of bays and ridges and promontories seemed to move like a mirage far below.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Maso asked as they stopped by a mountain stream to let the animals drink.

  He and Gabriele didn’t look much like brothers. There had to be five, maybe ten years between them. Vanni had the appearance of a farmer, weather-beaten, tanned, strong-armed with leathery hands marked by years of work. Gabriele had a patrician manner about him, that dignified silver head of hair, a natural authority. He wasn’t sure the two men liked each other much. Or perhaps even were aware of their separate existences in the world outside.

  ‘We always get pushed out of paradise, don’t we?’ Vanni said and sat on a rock, gazing back towards the strait below. ‘That’s what happens.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It must hurt.’

  He frowned. ‘It doesn’t yet. I’m still here. So are my animals. A farmer can have them. That won’t be hard to arrange.’ He walked over to the donkeys, smiled as he stroked their rough, thick fur. ‘All things come to an end. I knew it would happen one day.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  Vanni left the beasts and came up to look at him. ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘Because your brother feels he’s no alternative. No natural successor in the family. The Bergamotti …’

  Vanni laughed and shook his head. ‘The Bergamotti. What nonsense is that? Lucia told you. We’re really called the Ursi. The bears. The mountain bears. Who’ve roamed these hills and played these games for much too long.’

  ‘She said?’

  ‘Of course. She told me everything. Well.’ He looked embarrassed for a moment. ‘Not everything. I do have eyes and ears though.’ His gaze became more fixed. ‘Will you try to see her … afterwards?’

  ‘I’d hope to,’ he answered honestly.

  Vanni shook his head and went back to the animals, shooing them away from the stream with a few gentle words of admonition before he returned. ‘But you won’t be Tomasso Leoni then. The world will be different. So will you.’ He reached over and placed a hand on Maso’s shoulder. ‘At least I hope so. They’ve tried hard to make you someone else. It’s only natural. Life on Aspromonte is much like a performance, like the Greeks used to put on round here all those centuries ago. Tragedy or comedy, or a bit of both, I’ve no idea. But this I do know.’ He glanced back at the coast for a moment. ‘Once my brother plays our final act tomorrow you must remember to take that mask off your face. Leave it on too long and the thing becomes a part of you. I wouldn’t want that. Nor would she.’

  They resumed their journey down the track, behind Silvio and Benito who seemed to know their way. Vanni appeared lost in himself for a while. Then he asked about Burano and the Venetian lagoon, the place where Gabriele seemed determined to take him. Did he know it? Was it anything like Aspromonte?

  No, he said. It was wild and desolate in parts though across the water planes came and went from the city airport. And not far away lay the Dolomites, the peaks capped by snow in winter.

  ‘Winter?’ Vanni asked. ‘That comes soon in the north I think. Tell me what it looks like.’

  Fog across the ghostly waters of the lagoon. Wildfowl scooting through the mist. Small fishing boats throwing nets and cages into the grey water, hunting for mantis shrimp and crab, eels and lagoon goby hidden in the mud.

  ‘You sound like you know that place?’

  ‘A little,’ he replied. ‘Never enough. No one does. Like here.’

  ‘No … swordfish?’ Vanni asked with a grin.

  ‘Nothing so big or grand or dangerous. I think you’ll like it there. People have little gardens. Orchards. Vineyards.’

  ‘They don’t have fragrant bergamotti though.’ His face was stern as they reached the stone platform where Maso had sat with Lucia that first day they became close. ‘And I go from eating pisci spata straight from the sweet clean waters of the Strait of Messina to little fishies they have to dig out of the mud. Huh. I will never see this place again. I will never smell the perfume of those trees. My beasts. My fields. My mountain, Aspromonte …’

  He sat down suddenly on a rock and wiped his eyes. After a while he asked, ‘Did you learn anything from that book our father wrote?’

  A lot, he said. About the people and the land. About history and myth.

  ‘History is myth,’ Vanni declared. ‘That book’s a pack of lies. Poor Leoni, our teacher, wrote it and my father had the nerve to put his name upon the cover after the man died saving us from one more war. He could read. He just couldn’t write. After it came out he’d make us sit with him, going through the pages of those stories like every one of them was true. As if he wrote them. We are—’ his hand swept the horizon – ‘ghosts, Maso. My father was called Lo Spettro too. Born liars. Gabriele inherited that while I inherited Manodiavolo. I think I got the best of the bargain, don’t you?’

  ‘You can be happy in Burano. I’ll come and see you. We can go fishing in a little skiff.’

  He laughed at that. ‘No. You think you’ll find Lucia first. Make her happy. See that track?’ Beneath them was the same rough way up the hillside she’d pointed out, the rocky ridges around it silhouetted against the bright sky. ‘I was asked to tell you that’s the way they’ll come. That’s the place you’ll find them. Six hundred metres to the left there’s another, rougher track, up along a dried-up torrent. Your men can hide in the trees. No one will see if they take care. Can you make it out?’

  He walked to the edge of the platform and peered over the edge. A small wood of stubby firs ran downhill from the gravelly clearing where she’d said they’d park their vehicles. He could smell them from where he stood, a sharp resinous scent in the clean mountain air.

  ‘It would be preferable if there was no blood,’ Vanni added. ‘I’ve always felt there’s something holy to this hill. Something much older than our ancestor Carcagnosso. The Greeks worshipped here long before the Christians came. Call me superstitious but I doubt any spirits lurking would appreciate that stain.’

  ‘No one wants blood,’ he said.

  ‘That’s the other you talking,’ Vanni told him. ‘Not the man they think they made you.’ He patted the nearest animal, Silvio. ‘We should go back now. One last family supper for the Bergamotti in Manodiavolo. Tomorrow we will all be ghosts for real.’

  He was barely listening. The fir wood was small, the trees spindly and bare. It wouldn’t be easy to hide there unseen. The clearing was cramped, bounded on all sides by walls of bare pale stone. If violence broke out there’d be nowhere for anyone to run. A show of overwhelming force might be needed to persuade the Sicilians and the Calabrian capi to lay down their weapons. But a show of force required more cover than that little wood afforded. And if anything went wrong …

  ‘You look worried, Maso.’

  ‘We can do this. We’ve waited long enough.’

  Vanni took Silvio by the neck and guided the two animals onto the path back home.

  ‘I’m glad you feel confident. There was a story our father used to tell. From that old book. It used to scare me and as a child one always likes to feel scared from time to time. The old man always enjoyed that too. Putting the fear up people.’ He screwed up his face as if trying to remember. ‘Great God Pan is Dead. That’s what it’s called. Have you found it yet?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Well tonight, then. You should. Since Lucia has decided not to join us.’ He smiled. ‘Till tomorrow … reading may be all you’ve left to do. As for me—’ he looked around them – ‘I will miss this place. This life. It’s all I’ve ever known.’

  There was genuine work in
the office. Real properties to manage, rents to collect, impoverished tenants to deal with, kindly usually. The Bergamotti were known for looking after their own and to Lucia that came easily. Whenever she came down from Capri for a few days she always spent time working there. She liked the people, especially Francesca the office manager, a distant relative who never mentioned the ’ndrina or their family unless it was necessary. For her there was only the job, a salary, a business to run, people to deal with. The two of them had become friends after Lucia’s lost time. It was Francesca who found the villa in Capri, bargained for it with the local who’d been unwilling at first to sell until the money and the power of the Bergamotti proved persuasive.

  The company’s property empire stretched from the cramped slums of Reggio to holiday developments along the coast. There were tower block studios that would be condemned if the officials whose job it was to do so weren’t on the ’ndrina payroll. There were family houses on the edge of the city, estates built with Bergamotti money, modern boxes with modern conveniences, often rented to those the clan knew at reasonable rents.

  But Cariddi was a place for foreigners and tourists, the most beautiful town along the coast. There everything was about business and money. Those terraced waterfront houses now available for rent were either owned by a Bergamotti shell company or paid loyalty money to the clan in return for protection from any neighbouring gangs seeking influence. The restaurant the Romans had come to use so much was part of the property portfolio under the control of Alessia, Lucia’s aunt, who stopped by from time to time to check the food and talk to the staff about takings. Falcone had found his way there through the recommendation of the titular owner of their house, a woman arts lecturer at the university in Reggio. Though in truth the deeds belonged to Alessia who picked up most of the rent, four or five thousand a week in the height of the season, and used her as a genial front.

  A day in the office in Reggio’s commercial quarter was a pleasant way to pass the time. Especially after Rocco vanished in a hurry after telling her to stay clear of Manodiavolo for the night. She’d been about to argue but he wasn’t going to stay for that. The order came from on high, he said. So she could hang on in Reggio, finish the office work, then spend the night with Francesca and wait for news.

  It seemed a little odd but in truth she didn’t mind. There was something soothing, something normal, in dealing with emails, pretending to be ordinary for a while.

  Francesca had showed her how to put new rental details on the various websites they used, tedious, repetitive work but she liked it all the same. Cariddi was getting ever more popular. Thanks to the international letting sites they were attracting customers from all over Europe and beyond to that little stretch of coastline north of Reggio. Growing up she’d felt she lived at the very edge of the world, a wild and savage place that only the brave or the foolish traveller would wish to visit. But times were changing. Not that she’d mentioned a word of that to Francesca. Soon the Bergamotti regime would be gone. Another would take its place, perhaps one that wasn’t so benevolent to those who stayed behind.

  The business was, to all intents and purposes, above board and quite free of criminal connections. It would continue, as would Alessia. Her mother had died in that gang war of long ago but that was judged an accident, an aberration. Men fought, men died, men won and lost. Wives and mothers had, for the most part, a kind of sanctity, and not just in the Chapel of the Holy Clasp. The Calabrians were sentimental. Men she knew to be heartless killers would weep at the loss of a favourite dog or a stupid movie.

  ‘I am … done,’ Francesca announced, banging her hands theatrically on the keyboard in front of her. Then she closed her laptop and said, ‘How about a drink first? Then pizza? Maybe …’ Francesca winked. ‘Maybe we can hook up with some interesting guys. Who knows?’

  It was close to six. There were cocktail bars on the waterfront, flashy places, all of them mob-owned or mob-controlled, though that was never obvious. All the same they’d be busy and there might be men there she’d know. Men who’d know her too. In the circumstances …

  ‘Had my fill of interesting guys.’

  ‘I meant interesting nice guys.’

  ‘That type too.’

  Francesca put a hand on her arm and gasped. ‘Oh my God. You’ve got a boyfriend. Jesus. What’s he like? Someone I know?’

  ‘He’s not a boyfriend. And no. You don’t.’ You never will, she thought.

  ‘I am your best friend and putting you up for the night. You still won’t say—’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Just one little drink,’ Francesca begged. ‘A Hugo Spritz. Barely any booze in it. Come on. We’re done here. Let’s go.’

  Lucia grabbed her bag and keys and said, ‘You’re so damned insistent. Don’t you have a man back at home to go to?’

  ‘Nah. He’s out working or something. Seems there’s lots going on.’ She was close to forty, never married, never had any long-term boyfriend as far as Lucia knew. Didn’t want one either. ‘He’s walking round in that kind of funk they get when something’s up. I’m not asking. Last time I did that he said he was going to rob a bank. Did I want to come?’

  They headed for the door. She watched Francesca lock up.

  ‘It was a joke. I’m sure.’

  ‘Yeah. A joke. He’s got some other woman. Round Locri way I think. It’s fine by me. I don’t want him hanging round the place all the time. I mean …’ That smile again. ‘Just say we meet two guys tonight. Just for tonight. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re a terrible person. One drink. Pizza. Your place.’

  ‘You used to be fun. No. I correct myself. You didn’t. That was someone else.’

  There was a small private car park round the back. Just her Ford estate with the company logo on the side and Lucia’s scooter in there now.

  ‘You should come up to Capri some time. Meet a rich guy in the piazza. They’d like you there.’

  ‘You mean I’m brassy and flashy.’

  She was. All jewellery and gaudy clothes and a smile so big it looked as if it could reach across the strait to Sicily if it wanted.

  ‘No. I just meant it might be fun.’

  ‘A good kind of fun. Not the bad kind.’

  ‘Don’t do the bad kind anymore.’

  She nudged Lucia’s elbow. ‘You can tell me all about him over a Hugo. Is he from round here?’

  They walked to her car.

  ‘Not exactly. I don’t know … I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere. Nothing lasts really, does it?’

  ‘Best that way—’

  She didn’t finish. An old white van had turned up, tyres screeching, parked diagonally across the bays at the end.

  ‘This is private,’ Francesca yelled before anyone got out. ‘You can’t just drive in here and …’

  The door was opening, Santo Vottari climbing out. Someone with him neither of them recognized. Same kind of build, same shades in the hair. But different somehow.

  Santo marched up, took one look at Francesca and said, ‘Beat it.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that you punk—’

  ‘I said beat it. Me and Lucia got business.’ He grinned. ‘Her old man sent me. You want to mess with him?’

  ‘Show some manners,’ Lucia told him.

  ‘Lady. It’s best you go,’ the other one said and he sounded different. Sicilian maybe. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Lucia cut in. ‘Leave me to talk to them. Teach Santo here some respect …’

  ‘Plenty of things I could teach you in return,’ he snapped back with a leer.

  Francesca wasn’t moving. ‘Lucia. If you want …’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘’Course she’s fine. She’s Lo Spettro’s daughter. Didn’t you know that? Really? Didn’t you know?’ He nodded at the estate car. ‘Get out of here. Her old man sent us on business. Don’t want the likes of you gossiping about it either.’
r />   She went after that. Lucia watched the car turn out into the street, Francesca looking back, worried. A Hugo Spritz would have been nice. She liked them. They weren’t so strong as the Campari ones she used to down like beer back in the bad times on the coast.

  ‘You never did know how to behave,’ she said when the car turned round the corner. ‘That’ll come back to bite you.’

  He laughed. Then reached out and touched the dragon tattoo on her arm, amused at the way she shrank from him. The stranger was getting something out of his pocket. A strip of fabric. It took her a moment to work out what it was.

  ‘I like that,’ Vottari said. ‘Never noticed it before. I’m going to do the biting from now on. Did he do that to you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The fake. The one who said he was from Canada. Did he bite you, honey?’

  The piece of fabric was a gag. She saw that now, too late. They were on her and it didn’t matter how much she struggled and fought and scratched and screamed. They were always going to win.

  ‘What is this?’ she yelled at them as they bundled her into the van, still trying to get the thing round her mouth.

  ‘We need a guest,’ the stranger said. ‘You’re not the only ones who’ve got that habit. Get in.’

  The gag went round. They pushed her inside, tied her wrists, her legs as she writhed and tried to screech. The van must have had an animal in it sometime. She could smell the thing and there was a wire grate dividing the back from the seats up front.

  No point in struggling. She knew that. They drove a little way and then she watched Vottari get out, saw what lay beyond him. The ferry terminal at Villa San Giovanni. Soon they were on the brief boat ride across the Strait of Messina and she saw the bulk of Etna rising through the window.

  ‘Welcome to Sicily,’ the man up front said when he hit the E90 autostrada. ‘Be good. Then everything will be fine. Tutto bene. Tutto.’