The Collaborator

by Gerald Seymour

  They watched for a full minute. The noise grew as the mastiff-cross was unable to assert its authority over the pack, and the game was played out noisily. Traffic was backing up behind the police vehicle. The ambulance, called on their radio, would be there within minutes – not that a paramedic was going to be of any help to the poor bastard being pulled apart. Back-up was coming too.

  The observer said, ‘The big one, that’s a mastiff.’

  ‘On the leg.’

  ‘It was used as a fighting hound in Roman times, against lions. It’s a guard dog now, possessive, obstinate – it’s fucking big.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’

  ‘Are you going to put the man and the dog in the ambulance? Or are you planning to tell the dog to let go of the man?’

  ‘Shoot it.’

  ‘Shoot a mastiff? That’s like shooting Maradona himself? Shoot it with a handgun?’

  ‘Shoot the fucking thing.’

  The observer used his Beretta 93R to fire four 9mm rounds into the dog’s head before its grip on the body’s left leg loosened. The others had slunk away.

  An ambulance came, and the body was removed.

  From the pillion seat, over the shoulder, Massimo watched the ambulance pull away and the headlights caught an animal’s carcass spread out on the road. Beyond it, in deeper shadows, a group of dogs had gathered and Massimo could have sworn they were whining. The road was still blocked.

  The scooter jolted as it mounted the kerbstones and ploughed through the oleander that grew wild there, then again when it came down on to the road at the far side of the dog’s body.

  The township of Scampia had been built immediately after the earthquake of 23 November 1980 that had killed more than 2900 people, injured some ten thousand and destroyed the homes of three hundred thousand. Money wasn’t a consideration. The finest architects available were employed on creating a heaven for the dispossessed. Scampia rose from wasteground. Massimo had been born the year that the first blocks were laid. He had been twelve before he was driven past the great complex and shown the ludicrous size of the Sail. He had been back twice since then, once with a school party on a field trip to examine modern demography, once because a pretty shop girl lived there. His last journey to the jungle of concrete and heroin had been seven years ago. He was – and couldn’t have hidden it – terrified to be on the viale della Resistenza.

  The scooter braked. The engine was cut. Shadows moved. He thought himself encircled and the streetlights close to him were dark – he presumed they had been broken so that trading was easier. A finger jabbed at his chest, then his helmet. He lifted it off and it was taken from him. The finger pointed, and he made out an ebony black opening in a grey wall. He was told how many floors up he was going, and given the number, that he should use the name of Salvatore to get through the inner gates. The beat of Massimo, working for his uncle, was between Umberto’s office and the Palace of Justice, and there were excursions to visit clients in the gaols of Poggioreale and Posilippo. Twice there had been visits to the head of the Borelli clan, which had taken him and Umberto to Novara; they had stayed two nights in a decent pensione. He had not, till that day, had to make the big decisions in life: to go right or go left, destra o sinistra. He had been able to hide behind the enablement of justice – every man and woman’s right to professional representation. Now, facing the black pit of the opening, he was at the road’s fork.

  It was, of course, about fear.

  What was he afraid of? Going into the crowded stinking hell that was the Poggioreale gaol.

  Who was he afraid of? The old woman, dressed only in black, with the wizened face and throat, the bony hands, the sun’s cancer scars on the skin.

  What was he most frightened of?

  Her.

  He couldn’t quantify it. It existed. The glance and brilliance of the eyes denying age, the withering contempt in her voice, the touch of her fingers and their rap upon his skin when she gestured. He wouldn’t have told another human being about it, not Umberto or his grandmother. The fear lived. He could remember each word she had said, at what time it should be done and how the body should be disposed of. During every trial when a member of the Borelli clan was before a court, Massimo walked from his apartment across the pedestrian piazza with a capuccino in his hand and a sweet pastry, a sfogliatella, and he would cross the patterned paving where the witch had said the body should be left. He carried the sentence of death that would put the body there, and guilt made him shiver. He headed for the darkness.

  He left behind the scooter and its rider.

  A man loomed out and blocked his path. Massimo stammered the name. He wore his suit. Every day that he went to work he wore a suit, sometimes silk, sometimes cotton, sometimes mohair, and a shirt with a tie and good lace-up shoes. He didn’t think he possessed any clothing that would have made him feel unnoticed here.

  He was let through, and a mobile call was made. He thought he stepped on a syringe and held a handkerchief over his face against the smell… but he had more fear of her, and went on up the steps and remembered – word perfect – the message she had given.

  *

  ‘It’s a very grave situation, Dottore.’

  ‘Any situation involving criminality and a threat to an innocent’s life is grave.’

  Umberto, the lawyer, pursed his lips, seemed to feel genuine pain. ‘Again these wretches are using me as a conduit. I follow the paths of the law, and do my best to save a life. I seek no personal advantage. I’m above suspicion, with no guilt in this matter. Dottore, the wretches who are using me predict that the English boy will be killed tomorrow. Is Immacolata Borelli’s testimony so important?’

  The prosecutor didn’t answer. An answer was not yet required. He revolved a pencil in his hand and waited for the speech to continue. A sip of water was taken. The pause was allowed to continue for a beat or two.

  ‘As the messenger, I want only to help. Is the testimony of the Borelli girl so valuable? I hear many things in confidence as a legal practitioner. I’m told she’s disturbed, has psychological difficulties. She has an incomprehensible hostility towards her mother and siblings. I see an unreliable witness, a troubled woman with a misplaced sense of grievance against her relatives. I also see an innocent in desperate circumstances whose life may have only hours to run. If, Dottore, you could see a way to issuing some public statement to the media, stating without equivocation that Immacolata Borelli will not give evidence against her family, and that those members of the family recently arrested are to be released without charge, I believe I can save this young man’s life – as a messenger, you understand.’

  The prosecutor had taken no notes. He was aware, of course, of the need to prevaricate, delay and not to deny, but the lawyer would be as well versed as he was in the tactics of obfuscation and diversion. He thought a dance was played out, elaborate and choreographed, but a doomed dance for all that. His thoughts drifted. He remembered the dance his wife had seen, the Dying Swan, set to a cello solo by Camille Saint-Saëns, inspired by the poem of that name by the English milord, Tennyson, and designed first for Anna Pavlova to perform a century before. It was a good image – the Dying Swan.

  ‘Dottore, we are professional opponents, but we are also defenders of justice. You, as much as I, must have serious misgivings about the process of collaboration. Too often the evidence is unreliable and self-serving. Immacolata Borelli no doubt believes she can escape scrutiny of her own actions by concocting lies about her family. Perhaps, also, greed drives her – the more lurid her accusations, the greater the rewards that the state will drop into her bag. Collaboration makes for bad law. I have one thing further to say, Dottore, and it involves the image of the city we love and cherish. If Gabriella Borelli and her sons do not go to court it will not be noticed beyond the circulation area of Mattino and Cronaca. If the English boy dies, reports of his death will go round the world and our city will be denounced as a dangerous hell-hole. Is there something, Dotto
re, that I can take back to those who use me as a conduit of information?’

  The prosecutor laid his pencil neatly beside the blank sheet of paper. His hands went across his mouth, as if for prayer. He reflected. Had his career not taken a path towards making judgements on which freedoms depended, what might he have done with his life? He could have gone for well-paid management of the electricity-supply company, safe and honourable employers. He could have practised corporate law in Milan or Venice, civilised places. He could have forsworn responsibility and owned, with his wife, a hotel in the mountains. He could have been valueless. He thought he had respect for himself, and prized that achievement. To him it was of paramount importance. He said quietly, and with equally false sincerity, ‘We are all grateful, my friend, for the efforts you’re making on behalf of the innocent. I want you to know that I shall reflect on the substantive points you’ve laid before me, and I hope you’ll have an opportunity to urge those in contact with you to avoid precipitate action. I do not rule out an accommodation – it’s difficult but not impossible. I appreciate what you’re doing. If necessary, I’ll go to Rome next week to raise questions of priority with the minister. Thank you, my friend.’

  When the bastard had been shown out and escorted from the building, the prosecutor stayed by his phone. Dusk turned to evening, and it didn’t ring.

  Salvatore stood over the boy. There was no light and he could see only the outline of the body, but he could hear the breathing and smell the boy.

  He broke the silence that had been long, lonely. There were other men outside the main door on the walkway but none inside. Those who had been hurt and who had taken revenge were gone… He needed to talk.

  ‘What do they call you? At your home, in your family, how do they call you?’

  Salvatore didn’t know anything about the season of spring, had not noticed its start six months ago, or the blooming of small flowers. Without a sense of romance or fantasy, he would not have seen that question – ‘What do they call you… how do they call you?’ – as a mood change, as if he had come from the darkness of winter. Why should he wish to know such a thing about a boy he was shortly to slaughter? In Forcella he wouldn’t have asked or in Sanità. He wouldn’t have asked if Fangio had been with him, or if he had come from Gabriella Borelli. And flowers played no part in the life of Salvatore, Il Pistole, and he had never in his life picked or bought any to give to a girl. If he had given a bouquet to Gabriella Borelli she would have laughed in his face and maybe slapped it. He didn’t know whether his own parents were still alive, or had been buried and had needed flowers. Maybe there would be flowers at his own funeral, because he would not be taken alive to rot in a cell – and maybe kids would throw flowers at the hearse as it passed. He didn’t see that asking such questions weakened his resolve to kill and, if he had been told, he would not have believed it.

  ‘They call me Eddie.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘It’s what they call me. Eddie.’

  ‘Where is the home of Eddie?’

  Many thousands of people lived inside the Sail, and many tens of thousands in the other towers around it, but quiet had fallen, which heightened his isolation. The need to talk was an itch that had to be scratched.

  ‘In the country.’

  ‘What is in the country?’

  ‘Fields – green fields – villages built of stone, with churches, and a river through the fields, and cows.’

  ‘We do not have fields, green, because it is too warm, and everything is built in concrete, and we do not have cows but we have buffalo – and we have to kill many.’

  ‘Why are the buffalo killed?’

  ‘They have poison.’

  He heard surprise, a smear of confusion, from the shape on the floor. ‘How do they have poison?’

  ‘It happens. There is poison.’

  ‘Ridiculous – where is the poison? Why are the buffalo killed?’

  ‘The buffalo make the milk for the mozzarella cheese, and they have poison so the cheese cannot be eaten and they are killed. Enough.’

  ‘Where is the poison from?’

  ‘Too many questions.’

  ‘Why is there poison for the buffalo to eat?’

  ‘You ask too much. It is enough.’

  He kicked out. He caught the boy on the hip, and the jolt went up through Salvatore’s ankle and his knee and right to the joint in his pelvis. The boy did not shout or whimper, but seemed to wriggle further from him. Salvatore thought he had shown weakness by kicking Eddie, but he was angry: he had wanted to talk, he had asked in innocence where the boy came from, and had said in innocence – without thought – that buffalo were killed because the cheese made from their milk was poisoned, and he had been questioned. Salvatore, Il Pistole, was not questioned by any man. He could not have said, ‘They are poisoned because we, the clans, have killed the ground with toxic material from which great disposal profits are made, and the ground is poisoned for generations to come, and the poison is now in the blood of the buffalo and the milk for the mozzarella is contaminated. We spread the poison so that we could make money.’ He could not say it. Instead he kicked. Again, he heard the quiet and felt the aloneness.

  ‘It is a good place, the village, Eddie?’

  The handler, Beppe, was told by his line manager to bring to his office the recent package from the agent, Delta465/Foxtrot. He retrieved it from his safe and carried it along the high, echoing corridors of the building, knocked and was admitted.

  The line manager said, ‘Whether he was taken to the window and thrown out, therefore murdered, whether he was in flight and crawled out in an escape attempt and fell, whether he has determined to take his own life to avoid capture and the rigour of interrogation, I don’t know. Whatever, he’s in the mortuary of the hospital in Secondigliano, and in due course we’ll find some women to claim him and show suitable grief. This evening, we have no more use for him. We don’t admit to ownership or knowledge of him. Because we don’t need to safeguard that intelligence source, his past film can be sent to the relevant officials. There is a carabinieri officer, Marco Castrolami, at piazza Dante. He should be given the films and told that the camera was sourced at apartment 374 on the third level of the Sail. He should be assured that this material reached us only this evening and has been transferred to him directly, without delay. We will answer no other questions about the film. Beppe, the death of an agent, whether by murder, accident or suicide, is sad. It leaves emptiness and creates humility, tomorrow is another day. Take it. Thank you.’

  He put it into his leather bag, hitched it on his shoulder, and went off down the wide, high corridor, symbol of an age of power. He didn’t know that a life depended on the package in the bag that swung against his hip.

  The priest had told her she was sitting in the seat Eddie Deacon had taken when he had come to the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. She didn’t know the priest well, had seldom confessed to him before she had gone to London. She had known better the one who had fled under armed guard to Rome, who had despised her and her family. Two of Castrolami’s men were on the door, one inside and one out, and another was at the side entrance to the sacristy. Two women were at the altar, arranging the flowers, and they would have seen her come in, but hadn’t acknowledged her, their backs to her: know nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. Immacolata thought Castrolami, three rows behind her, was playing with her.

  The priest said, ‘If you’ve come to me for the Church’s praise of what you’re doing you’ll leave with empty pockets. I, the Church, have little interest in your conversion to legality. Society in this city embraces criminality, which feeds half of our population, provides work and opportunity, is enjoyed. I hazard the opinion that the majority of Neapolitans take pleasure and pride from the reputation of their home as the centre of the western world’s most successful criminal conspiracy. The reason for your conversion, after so many years of benefiting from illegality, is not important to me. You denounce your family. You seek
to imprison your mother and brothers, to earn their enmity for the rest of the days you will all breathe God’s air, and reconciliation will be denied you even on a death-bed. Your family is destroyed, but that doesn’t mean Forcella is freed from its criminal burden. Outsiders will use these streets as a battleground while they fight for supremacy over insiders who believe they are the natural successors to your family. Equilibrium is broken and I will be called upon for many funerals. It will be a time of great danger for the old and young who live here. Your actions will create no respite… and you will have on your shoulders, until the day God calls you, the weight of responsibility for the life of the boy who came, with his love, to find you. All you will have as solace is a principle. Those are the complications you face, the potholes in the road you have taken, but I admire your determination to walk along it. The example you set cannot be countered by sneers or contempt, and cannot be ignored. Immacolata, may God go with you.’

  They prayed together, hunched down, for a bare half-minute. Then she stood up, straightened her skirt, tugged down her blouse, and pushed her hair back from her forehead. She did not look again into the priest’s face, and did not shake his hand. Facing the altar, she crossed herself, then turned.

  At the door, Castrolami asked, ‘Do you want to do it?’

  No answer, but a firm nod, her hair bouncing on her neck.

  He said, ‘I can’t predict the reaction.’

  She gave him a cold smile, showing him her authority. He wondered then – at that moment, and as the evening settled on the via Forcella – how Eddie Deacon had thought of love when he had stood with her.

  ‘Right. We’ll get this fucking circus on the road. If I grab you, don’t fight me. If I run, run with me.’

  They came down the steps of the church, past the twin chips where the bullets had nicked the stone pillars. They turned to their right. Two of the men, those from the front entrance, walked ahead of her, each with his right hand hidden under his jacket; the one who had watched the sacristy door was behind. She didn’t know whether he would have his pistol exposed or secreted. Castrolami was half a pace behind her, at her right shoulder.