The Collaborator

by Gerald Seymour

  ‘She’s lovely, isn’t she, Vinny’s sister?’

  ‘Leave it.’

  ‘Did you really do it with her – shag her? I used to watch her – I was out the back, and her room light would be on. Maybe she didn’t think anyone was there. I used to, you know – when she was taking them off. I did.’

  He didn’t think of the kid as a dirty-raincoat man, or a voyeur: they all did it. At his house, with a few beers taken, he and his friends had lined up to see across the garden to an upstairs window. He wasn’t proud of himself, but didn’t reckon it a hanging offence. Eddie thought that here, at least, the precocious adulthood of the kid came up short. Wouldn’t have had sex, not at nine or ten. He was let into the room. The door had been locked and no key in it, but the kid opened it with a fast movement and Eddie didn’t see whether he used a hairpin or a plastic card. He could smell her.

  ‘Not your concern…’

  Her perfume scent and slight body odour mingled. To smell her hurt him – like a kick, sharp, on his shin. The first thing that Eddie Deacon realised was that the room was only untidy. It had not been searched. The wardrobe doors were open but the dresses, blouses and skirts were on the hangers, and the drawers were not dragged open, tipped out. He hurried to the window, drew the curtains and switched on the torch.

  It was a single bed, unmade, the duvet pulled towards the pillow but not straightened and smoothed. He let the beam sweep the room. He knew what he was looking for, had not promised it to himself but had hoped… He was disappointed. He had wanted to find a photo frame on the little pine table beside the bed, on the chest, or the bookcase to the left of the window, with a picture of himself inside it.

  He set to work.

  Nothing in the room shouted that Immacolata Borelli was the lover of Eddie Deacon. His own room, on the other side of Dalston, had the blow-up image of her, and her dressing-gown, which she put on when she came off the bed and went to make tea or coffee or to bring him a beer. He had precious little money each week after he’d paid the rent, and presents for her were his definition of mild extravagance, but the last thing had been a scarf – silk, a sale in Regent Street, price slashed – and she’d said it was wonderful. He found it in the top right drawer of the chest.

  He had been three, four minutes in the room when the kid came to the door. He made a sucked sharp whistle, as if he wanted to be gone. As yet Eddie had found nothing. There were three more drawers in the chest, on the left side. He went through them faster as the kid watched.

  Nothing. Nothing in the pockets of clothes in the wardrobe. Nothing in the drawer of the bedside table. The kid came further into the room, snatched away the torch as if that were his right and shone the light into a wastepaper bin, picked it up and tipped it out. Eddie saw a ripped packet for tights, the wrapper from a tube of strong mints, two or three squashed paper handkerchiefs, a torn blouse, shredded brown paper that might have been used on a small parcel – and a plastic tray for sweet biscuits with Italian markings. The kid bent and sifted through what was on the carpet. He gave a scrap to Eddie. ‘About all there is.’

  Eddie Deacon held a piece of jagged paper, the tear running through a handwritten address – not the destination. Where the tear was, to the right, there were four scrawled lines. On the top line was ‘elli’. Below it was ‘cella’. Under that line was ‘157’. At the bottom was ‘poli’. He was trying to decipher it when the torch beam was cut.

  He was led, as if he were the child, out of the room and the lock was refastened. They went on tiptoe across the debris on the living-room floor to a window facing out on to the street. He was gestured to look down. There were two police officers on the front step, rubbing their hands and talking quietly. He realised then the quality of the kid’s anarchy.

  They went as silently as they had come. Down the drainpipe, across the yard and over the wall, through a garden and a side gate, supposedly fastened, then out on to a lit street. All tarted up, this one. Signs in the window proclaimed neighbourhood security co-operation, and alarm boxes winked lights.

  The kid turned to him. ‘Don’t give me any shit about what they call love. It’s all because she’s a great shag, yes?’

  He wondered if, one day, the kid might learn what was shit and what was something else, but was not confident of it – and he thought the boy didn’t want to hear about the pain of separation, the hurt of his Mac going out of his life, about fighting heart and soul to win back the one person, in his world, he could not be without. He had the scrap of paper in his pocket and knew where he would take it. The kid, at nine or ten, was riddled with cynicism, and love hadn’t reached him. Why disabuse…?

  ‘A great shag,’ Eddie Deacon said.

  They did high fives, whacked their hands together, and he watched the kid walk off. Just a kid, but with a bounce and a roll in his stride. There was the flash of a match, and a wisp of smoke curled away from his face.

  Couldn’t help himself. Eddie Deacon called, ‘She’s fantastic, the light for me. Thank you for helping me. She’s more important to me than anything.’

  If the kid heard he gave no sign of it but kept going towards the corner. Daft to have confided that to an urchin, a thief, but it was heartfelt.

  She stood by the window, full length, with a sliding door that led to the balcony. The nightdress, bought in London, was shorter than she had thought, thinner, and hung tight on her. She had no slippers, sandals or flip-flops so Immacolata was barefoot on the marble flooring. She assumed that any of the penthouse apartments in such a block, in such a location, would have a veneer of marble in the living room. The sun was up, just above the distant mountain range.

  She didn’t know Rome, had been there once with her mother, years before, to stand on an Easter Sunday in the piazza San Pietro and see the tiny far-away figure of the Holy Father. So she had not recognised the route taken by the two cars as they had sped towards the centre, then veered away, crossed the river again and climbed a hill. The headlights had speared up and caught pine branches. No sirens and no blue lights. Nothing to indicate that the passenger in the lead car was a collaboratore di justizia, was protected, a pentita who would give evidence against her family in return for clemency, an infame, who would be despised in the streets where she had been reared. She came unheralded and unannounced. She had been hustled out of the car, and the guns were there, but under draped coats. She had been bundled into the lift, then almost pushed the few steps from the lift door into the penthouse.

  She had been ignored at first by Castrolami, who was on his mobile – she’d heard him swear – and eyed by the two men who were to mind her.

  Cold cuts of meat, a salad, fruit and cheese, laid out on plates, were taken from the refrigerator.

  She was told nothing, shown to a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, and had heard the door locked. It was done quietly and she reckoned it was not intended that she should hear it. A poor night’s sleep, almost nightmares when she did drift off, able now to comprehend what she had done. At half past six, according to her watch, she had heard the key turn in the lock. She’d gone into the living room. The two men were up, smartly dressed, shirtsleeves and ties, shoulder-holster harnesses across their chests with weapons.

  In case she had forgotten overnight, she was told – after the hope was expressed that she had enjoyed a satisfactory rest – that their names were Giacomo Orecchia and Alessandro Rossi. She’d nodded, then gone to the window.

  She had intended to provoke them.

  Immacolata wore only the flimsy cotton nightdress, white but with flowers at the collar, and stood in front of the window as the sun came up over the rooftops, towers and spires. She eased her feet apart, let her heels be half a metre separated. She could feel, through the pane, that the sun already had the power to warm and would have lit the outline of her body. It was not normal for Immacolata Borelli to glory in her body, to use it as a tool or as a weapon. She imagined the way the light silhouetted it. Then she turned.

  It would have
been their skill that they moved in silence; neither watched her. The younger was out through the door, in the kitchen area, and sat at a table, looking at a newspaper – he was Rossi. The older one, Orecchia, was in a bedroom, again with the door open, smoothing a duvet and straightening a coverlet. It had been for nothing, her gesture. She had flaunted her body, to tease or confuse, and it hadn’t been noticed.

  From the kitchen, Rossi: ‘Would you like coffee, Signorina? And we have panini or bread, fruit, and cheese. Some of it or all?’

  Whatever. Did she care? Hardly. ‘I don’t know…’

  Orecchia said, ‘Do you want some coffee before you dress or while you’re still almost naked?’

  She met his eyes. She realised then that he had taken a gamble with her: that he could ridicule her, showing he recognised the game she was playing and would not tolerate it so had laughed at her. She flushed and twisted away from them so that neither would see, through the flimsy material, the curve of her bosom, the cherrystone nipples or the hair above her thighs. Orecchia reached behind the bedroom door and his hand appeared with a heavy towelling robe. He threw it at her. It landed on the marble beside her so she had to bend to lift it up, with an arm across her chest as she did so. She slipped into the robe, belittled and angry.

  Rossi called, ‘I make good coffee, Signorina, and I bought the bread this morning while you slept. My suggestion: breakfast now, dress afterwards. Then we have visitors and work.’

  She believed they were treating her as they would a spoiled child, and seemed to have set guidelines. They had not leered at her or been shocked by her. They had, with laid-back politeness, almost taken her legs off at the knees. She stumbled across the marble, bare feet slipping, losing her poise, to her bedroom door. She showered – found a small bar of soap there and a sachet of shampoo, and she had her own washbag. She barely allowed the water to run hot, then was out and drying herself viciously. She dressed – new underwear, the same outer clothing she had travelled in, and left her hair damp. She could smell the coffee and the warmed panini.

  Beyond the window there were similar blocks to the one she was in, surrounded by high steel fences with sharp spikes; the walls had broken glass embedded in concrete on the brickwork. She saw a maid beating a carpet on a balcony, and a man, who wore only shorts on another, was smoking and scratching his chest. A woman watered her plants with a hose. She did not belong in their world. Perhaps she belonged to no world. Her nakedness had been her attempt to take control of the void into which she had thrown herself.

  She was as much a prisoner in that apartment as she would have been in a cell in the Poggioreale gaol. They might have read her.

  ‘Signorina, the coffee is ready.’

  ‘Bread and fruit are on the table, Signorina.’

  She went into the kitchen and sat with them. Rossi was the heavier and she imagined he worked out in a gym. His arm muscles bulged in the short sleeves of his shirt, he was clean-shaven and a little gel had gone on his hair. She recognised the pistol in the holster as a Beretta. He poured her coffee.

  Orecchia pushed the fruit bowl towards her. He would have been fifteen years the elder, wiry thin, and his shirt seemed a size too large and fell loose from his shoulders, except where the holster harness trapped the fabric. His tie was the more vivid. He had a worn face – had been there, had done whatever, had seen it. She gulped coffee, snatched up a roll and tore it into pieces.

  Rossi said, ‘Signorina, we are from the Servizio Centrale Protezione, under the authority of the Interior Ministry. You will be given later a form in triplicate that you will read and sign. By agreeing to the conditions laid down by us, you commit yourself to obeying instructions and following the advice we will offer. You are not a free agent. You have made an agreement with the state, and we expect you to honour it. We’re a specialised team, trained to handle and protect collaborators. We’re not nannies, chauffeurs, psychiatrists or servants – and, most certainly, we’re not friends. It was your decision to be where you are today. You were not under duress to take this course. From us you can expect dedication and professionalism.’

  Orecchia said, ‘It was not thought, Signorina, that you needed a female officer attached to you. There are very few. Those we have are allocated to women we consider inexperienced in the role of a pentita, and the pressures that will inevitably be exerted. I have read the file. You are from a family high in the ranks of the organised-crime clans in Naples.’

  Rossi: ‘We don’t think you’re fragile, Signorina.’

  Orecchia: ‘As tough as the boot on an artisan’s foot.’

  Rossi paused, eyed her, without charity or respect, but his tone was as correct as if it had been taught on a course: ‘Nothing about you, Signorina, is unique. You’re one of many we have overseen. We understand the psychological stresses you will endure. You will believe you can escape from us, go home, walk on your own streets, explain and be forgiven, then forgotten. They’ll kill you, Signorina. You’ll lie in the dirt of a street among dog’s mess and rubbish, and you’ll bleed. A crowd will gather to stare at you and not one person will shed a tear of sympathy. And you can put the scum where they belong – in maximum security, and under Article 41 bis, and you can be born again. You will not run from us.’

  Orecchia scratched a mole on his nose. He wore a wedding ring, narrow, and she wondered if he went home often and if, when he was at home, he told his wife the secrets of his work. He spoke quietly and she had to lean across the mess of crumbs and orange peel to hear him. ‘In a few hours, Signorina, it will be realised that you have collaborated, become an infame, and they will search for you. Alessandro has talked about a shot in the head fired from the pillion of a scooter as you walk a street in Naples – or Rome, or Milan, or Genoa – but he’s told you the minimum. To me, from what I know, it’s predictable that they’d wish – before killing you – to hurt you, but you’re of the Borelli clan and you know what happens when a message is to be sent. In the most recent killing – the funeral is today – the victim’s testicles were cut off and placed in his mouth, then his head was cut off and placed in his groin. That is reality.’

  ‘We’re not bullet-catchers or human shields.’

  ‘We know our trade. We’ll do all in our power to protect you.’

  She poured more coffee for herself, slurped it. The doorbell rang. Orecchia glanced at his watch, was satisfied. Rossi took his hand off the pistol in the holster and went to the hall, but Orecchia stayed in front of her, blocking a view of her from the archway linking the kitchen to the hall. His hand did not leave the pistol in his holster.

  Immacolata was introduced to the prosecutor. She had seen him many times before – on most days his picture was in Cronaca or Il Mattino, or his image was broadcast on the local RAI channel, and he had been in court when she had seen her father brought in chains to the cage. He was slighter than she had imagined, his hair was thinner and his checks had the pallor of exhaustion. She thought of the magnetism in her father’s eyes, the way they mesmerised and captured attention. Ash stained the front of the prosecutor’s jacket and he dumped a heavy briefcase on the kitchen table.

  He pulled out a file with her name and photograph on it. She thought of the cemetery at Nola. The table was cleared. She was told that the woman with the prosecutor was his personal assistant. A tape-recorder was laid on the table and wires were connected to a small microphone. She noticed now that the plates and cups had been stacked in the sink, and the guns had gone.

  The tape-recorder was switched on, there were the briefest preliminaries. Immacolata kept the cemetery in her mind, the statue of Angelabella, the screams directed at her, the anger, and the pain inflicted on her. She started to talk.

  Gabriella Borelli needed to work. There had been La Piccolina a decade earlier, and before the Little Girl, as Maria Licciardi was known, there had been Rosetta Cutolo, known as ‘Ice Eyes’ in the city. There had been Carmela Marzano and Pupetta Maresca. All had been figures of consequence on the streets
of Naples, as was Gabriella Borelli. She had to work if she was to cling to the most important strand in the life of a woman who craved and valued the title ‘la madrina’, which was power. The gaining of it far outstripped the acquisition of money. Power came, primarily, from the ability to do successful deals.

  She could not hide in an underground den, as Pasquale had been able to. She needed meetings, and to be at them without the clay of the countryside on her shoes or the dust of cement-floored bunkers on her skirt. She was in the back room of a pizzeria on the northern side of the via Foria, one of the busiest streets in the city for traffic and pedestrians, where noise and movement were constant, overpowering and engulfing. She had slept fitfully at the home of the mother of a man who drove cement-mixing trucks for the clan; had arrived on the doorstep, had been admitted in time to see the midnight news on the local RAI channel, had seen tape of Giovanni and Silvio paraded past the ranks of the paparazzi, an old monochrome picture of Vincenzo, had heard the mayor in front of the grand building on piazza Municipio speak of a ‘great blow against the heart of the evil of the criminal culture’ of the city. She had been brought fruit and cheese and had been offered the woman’s big bed, had declined and slept on a settee, with her handbag on the floor beside her head, the small pistol in it within easy reach. It was the first time she had used that address as a refuge for a single night: it would not have been known as a place of importance to her – as were the safe-houses that had been raided. She understood that she had been betrayed from inside the clan, but did not yet know by whom. She had been gone early in the morning, as the city’s life returned, and had walked to the pizzeria.

  Salvatore was outside the inner door.

  She met with Albanians. They talked of the movement of girls – none, she demanded, to be more than fourteen – who would be taken from Moldova overland to Tirana, then brought to the Adriatic coast to be ferried by speedboat to a fishing village north of the Italian port of Bari, then driven to Naples. She was firm on the price, would not haggle. She demanded also that the girls be made available for medical examination to prove virginity, then stared at a dull ceiling light while they bickered among themselves. She presumed they would have learned that she was a police and carabinieri front-line target, that her organisation was in danger of being successfully dismantled, and that they might believe she was vulnerable.