No Mortal Thing: A Thriller

by Gerald Seymour

  He went on down, and the barking of the dogs was sharper.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘What? Where?’

  Fabio had been dozing, and Ciccio shook him. The night’s cold was in their bones and they were hungry. Ciccio gripped Fabio’s shoulder. He peered forward, and the wall of quiet bounced back at him.

  Fabio said, ‘We have twenty-two scorpion flies in the jar, all dead. Twenty-two is enough. Did you see another?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’

  ‘Are you dead? Didn’t you see?’

  ‘I’d like the fruit candy and the bread. I want to piss and—’

  Ciccio hit him on the back of the head, hard.

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘A man passed us. Went on down towards the Bravo Charlie house.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘I think camouflage clothing. I saw him for two, three seconds, then he was gone. What does that tell us?’

  Fabio didn’t answer. Both men were alert, gazing down at what little of the house they could see. Nothing was different. They heard only the barking of the dogs, then the chugging of the City-Van, which backed close to the kitchen door. Marcantonio was there, and Stefano had driven.

  ‘They can’t link it, can they?’ Fabio said. ‘The wife is screwing the boyfriend because Article 41bis has left her short. The boyfriend is dead. The woman has disappeared, but it will be lupara bianca, of course. What else? Her husband is in gaol. Her father-in-law is too old. The boy is capable. But the prosecutor has no evidence against him, and we can’t identify the presence of the old man. What does it add up to?’

  ‘That we go somewhere else next week to look for scorpion flies.’

  ‘I need a piss.’

  Ciccio murmured. ‘Go ahead, and don’t spill it. I don’t know what I saw. No weapon.’

  He had been up from before first light. The prosecutor lived in a respected quarter of Reggio, in a house that was like most others in the street – four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office downstairs, a front garden laid out as a labour-saving patio, another patio at the back, with an unsatisfactory view of distant hills and the start of the Aspromonte range. His home was different from the others around it because of an ugly concrete wall, crudely rendered, that surrounded it. The gates at the front were higher than an eyeline.

  A peculiar life. When he went to work he was low in the back of the armoured car, his escort tailing him. If he took the kids to school, it was the same escort and protection. If his wife did it, she went alone. Always, when he was at home, the car was outside and two of the guards were in it. Always, the rest of the team were in the wooden hut at the back. He lived with them, as did his wife and children.

  For what? For the future of Scorpion Fly. From dawn, he had sat at his desk. He had rung three colleagues, two men and the third was the new female star at the Palace of Justice.

  Poison had dripped into his ear.

  One of the men had refused to speak on his behalf about surveillance resources and deployment extension, had described his efforts as feeble and said a conclusion was overdue in the investigation into that ‘minor’ family. The second man had seemed to wring his hands at the injustice of such a situation, then countered: ‘The rest of us are worthless. We acknowledge the importance of what you’re doing, my friend, but we would be grateful for the return of the resources when you have no further need of them.’

  The woman had talked to him, at length, about investigations she was carrying out into the activities of the Strangio, Nirta, Pelle and Votari families, all of San Luca. Would he care to send her a paper in which he explained why the disappearance and probable murder of the wife of a comparatively insignificant criminal from a family of secondary importance should outweigh her efforts in bringing charges against the leading clans in the hierarchy of the ’Ndrangheta? She asked if he had managed to catch her TV appearance on Rai Uno the previous week, and her emphasis on the bringing to justice of those whose arrests ‘mattered’ in the war.

  A carabinieri colonel had told him, ‘My hands are tied. It isn’t my decision.’ A Squadra Mobile officer had seemed to shrug helplessly and had confessed, ‘If I had men, Dottore, with the necessary skills, I would task them for you. I don’t so. I can’t help.’

  Each looked to their own future. His was bleak.

  It was stubbornness that had caused him to fight his corner, push harder than he might otherwise have done, and he had thought this a soft target after the evidence laid by a turncoat. The opportunity to bring down an entire family was appealing, not merely to lop the branches of the tree but to fell the whole thing. He gazed out of his window, through the bulletproof glass. Two of his escort lounged on plastic chairs and smoked. Sometimes they played basketball with his kids or chatted to his wife. If he capitulated, as his country had done in 1943 with the landing of the Allies in the south, his bodyguards would be reassigned. They would have other children to play with, other wives to talk to, other bulletproof cars to drive.

  It hung by a thread, which might hold for a few more days or might not. He relied on the abilities, and dedication, of the boys on the mountain, hidden and watching. Without a sighting the poison of colleagues would kill him. An irony, a harsh one, was that the scorpion fly only simulated a killer. His phone rang.

  He snatched it up, a drowning man gripping a straw. He was told of a killing in Rome, in the Borghese Gardens, of a pentito, a man who had been isolated and abandoned. He listened, replaced the phone, and sat at his desk with his head lowered. He believed the family of Bernardo, padrino, were mocking him.

  The family was gathered. Bernardo sat beside her. No general gifts were permitted, but the porcelain Madonna stood in front of her, and Marcantonio sat opposite. Giulietta was there and Teresa, and the smaller grandchildren, who had no mother.

  Stefano did not sit with them but played a small accordion, the old music, songs of the ’Ndrangheta and the mountains. Mamma had cooked and Giulietta had helped. Teresa had fussed around them, but it was Mamma’s day and she had called the shots. A small, discreet, careful celebration. One outsider only was invited to share the meal with the family: the priest. Father Demetrio sat on the far side of Bernardo, near to Giulietta, and already their heads were close. Bernardo assumed they were not discussing the Rosary, any order of service or the latest pronouncement from the Holy See: Father Demetrio had a good head for figures, had baptised all the grandchildren and had married Rocco and Domenico. Bernardo would talk to him, but later.

  There was a little wine, watered for the children. Pasta with seafood was served first, then beef, chewy and on the bone, but Mamma had good teeth. She might be enjoying it, Bernardo thought, but didn’t show it. When had she ever shown pleasure? When had she ever shown tenderness or grief? She was as hard as the rock of the cliffs behind the house and he doubted that she missed him when he slept in his buried bunker . . . but she was a good wife. She had never criticised him, never complained about his behaviour, especially in the days when he had made many afternoon visits to Brancaleone, and she kept a good home for him.

  The mood of the gathering was triumphant. As it should have been.

  And Giulietta, his conduit of news, had met a courier from the city across the mountains. She had been handed a message written with a fine nib on a single cigarette paper, which told of bitterness and division at the Palace of Justice, the weakening of a certain prosecutor’s influence, and confirmed what he had heard earlier: that an investigation had run its course and had failed.

  There were toasts, which Mamma acknowledged, and more toasts to the absent ones, Rocco and Domenico. The Priest’s face had been suitably impassive. He had not glanced at the small children, Nando and Salvo, when their father’s name was spoken.

  Marcantonio praised his grandmother and received the dismissive wave of a gnarled fist. Bernardo thought the family at peace.

  After the beef there was cake, a crochette of dried figs. Giuliet
ta had slipped away to the first floor where she had an office – nothing kept in it was incriminating, but she dealt there with legal matters. Bernardo heard the printer. He used a BlackBerry occasionally, not since word of the investigation had been passed to him, but never a computer. He left no footprint: his daughter was his link with sophisticated modern life.

  He waited for her return. Without his sons and his grandson, he had depended on her. There were cousins and nephews on the fringe of the family who fulfilled functions and had responsibilities, but if they observed him to be weakening they would close in on him. There was no place among the families for an enfeebled padrino. And good times lay ahead: soon Marcantonio would be at home, playing his part. There were no gifts that day, but he had prepared a small offering for Mamma that he believed she would like. By now, the family who lived behind shuttered front windows would have seen the young Indian-born deacon who assisted Father Demetrio. They would know, but would make no public sign of grief – they wouldn’t dare.

  Giulietta brought in the tureen of white china, not used by Mamma for years. A little frown knitted Mamma’s forehead – she hadn’t planned this. A sharp look at Giulietta. The lid was whipped away. Mamma peered at the photograph inside the tureen, and understood. Bernardo would have sworn that his wife almost smiled. It was the ANSA agency photograph, posted on the internet. The man was on the bench, slumped sideways. Blood obscured much of his face, but his mouth bulged, as if something filled it. The crotch of his trousers was dark-stained. She lifted out the photograph and took a sip of water, as if that were enough celebration for the killing of an infame who had damaged her family. Teresa saw it and nodded; Father Demetrio was impassive. The children were not shown it, but Marcantonio grinned. Bernardo heard him murmur to Giulietta that he felt jealous of the man who had done it.

  Mamma cackled, a crow’s call, as she realised what was filling the dead man’s mouth. The music was louder, perfect for the day, and power had been asserted.

  ‘I wouldn’t question your ability to handle banking matters so please don’t question my professionalism as a police officer.’

  She was talking to him as if he were a hotel porter. What had Fred Seitz done? What had he not done? How would Jago Browne, on a year’s exchange from London, know that a brawl in the street, and the subsequent disfiguring attack on a young woman, involved crime families in the Italian region of Calabria? She might have sensed weakness in his posture, detected bluster and evasion, but could not have proved it. His temper had risen because his job hung on a laptop left open when he had gone for coffee. If that were discovered, he would be out of KrimPol by the end of the weekend. His temper was exacerbated by her haughty superiority and his own vulnerability.

  ‘You did nothing.’

  ‘I will not answer to a civilian for my actions. More important, what has he taken?’

  He was angry, too, because his weekend was wrecked. A call from a senior for him to hit the road, so he had . . . hit the road. They would already have gone through his calls on the desk phone and been into his laptop. They would have traced messages to and from carabinieri records, a family named and biographies passed, all done through an old network and not submitted for approval. He liked his job, and it was falling apart in his hands. There was sand in his shoes and he was dressed for the weekend. The bitch across the table was in her finery.

  ‘Perhaps he took nothing.’

  ‘He met you. Did you brief him on Calabria?’

  An old lesson, long learned. If you’re telling a lie, tell it decisively. ‘I did not. That is a disgraceful, slanderous suggestion – and we’re wasting time. Describe him to me.’

  ‘He was not one of us. He’s different.’

  ‘In what way?’ He thought it important that he regained partial control.

  ‘I was uncertain of his enthusiasm for our work culture.’

  ‘He’s a bank employee. Must he live, breathe, sleep the bank?’

  ‘You don’t understand. He works for our much-admired bank. Young men and women go to great lengths to be allowed through our doors. For him, it was a privilege. Young people come as interns, unpaid, and are grateful for the opportunity. We safeguard our clients’ money. We protect them from the turbulence of the modern financial world. It should be everything in his life and I don’t think it was.’

  ‘Please explain.’

  ‘I can’t. I find it incomprehensible that anyone should need anything away from the bank.’

  He thanked her brusquely and was on his way. He did not give her a chance to regain the high ground and probe with more questions. He understood the business perfectly – he came across them; middle-class kids, comfortable, destroyed by the boredom of safety. They could have been flogging narcotics, eking out the dream of Baader-Meinhof and looking to be a ‘white skin’ for a Middle Eastern group. They might have been buying a handgun and holding up immigrant cafés – or have gone to kick shite out of an ’Ndrangheta family’s star kid, which would be exciting – and lunacy. Much of his own life was dull, which he could handle. Responsibility for his actions weighed on him, almost crushed him. Fred Seitz was on a plane in the morning.

  A call came, on a weekend afternoon.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Carlo? That my old mate?’

  ‘Yes.’ A familiar voice.

  ‘Bagsy here.’

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ He knew Bagsy well enough, had been on the team in Green Lanes with him. Bagsy had been promoted over him, and now ran the unit that controlled the liaison officers abroad, had looked after him during the Rome years and had signed off his expenses.

  ‘Actually, I want you in London.’

  He knew his diary, didn’t need to flip it up on his phone. ‘Next week I can make Wednesday – leaving drinks? Would Wednesday suit?’

  ‘Last time I did the drive from where you are up to Custom House it took a bit over two hours. Let’s say three. Custom House in three. That’s today, Carlo, three from now. Bring a bag of warm-weather stuff and your passport. Cheers, Carlo.’

  He was still shaking.

  It was not what he had seen ahead and below that had caused a wave of near panic to engulf him. Jago couldn’t hold his hands steady, and he had been in the place a few minutes more than six hours. It was a good place, the best he had seen. He had slid down a short rock face and had found it at the base. Two boulders had lodged against each other, leaving a space into which he had wriggled. He assumed that the boulders were securely together and would stand firm.

  He had a view of the house. He could see, about a hundred yards away, the area for cars to turn in front of it, and one side of it, and the kitchen door. There was a vine trellis, washing hanging on the line, limp sheets, and a stone shed – he could see half of a wall, its roof and where chickens scratched. It was what he had seen on his way to this place under the twin boulders that had caused him, almost, to yell. He had seen the matriarch, the daughter who had been on the police file, the small children and their mother, the other two, who were orphaned. And, as he had known he would, he had seen Marcantonio, who sauntered in the sunshine in front of the house, smoked, scratched an armpit and smoothed his hair. Jago remembered the anger he had caused, the adrenalin rush it had given him – but he couldn’t stop shaking because of the cave he had stumbled on. As if it haunted him.

  8

  He supposed it a house like any other, that of a peasant who had done well. How well? He couldn’t tell.

  He could see a building of perhaps a half-dozen bedrooms, and a patio at the front with plant pots, but they were empty. There was a portico over the front door that looked like a recent addition, and an extension to the side facing him. The portico’s pillars were fresh and clean, but the side wall was still concrete blocks, short of the rendering needed to finish it. Cement was visible in the gaps round the windows on the ground floor and upstairs. Outside the kitchen door there was a row of boots and a heap of chopped wood, but his view was broken by the thickness of th
e vine stems on the trellis. He thought a path went up from the backyard, beyond the trellis and the washing line, but then there was a wall, solid bushes, perhaps laurel, and the shed.

  Jago could see little behind him, and the views to either side of his position were restricted by rock outcrops and the trees that sprouted from sheer rock slopes. Music drifted up to him, and a murmur of voices. Marcantonio was playing football with the children at the front – it was landscaped and had been grassed but not watered so the ‘pitch’ was a dull ochre. There was no big car, just a Fiat van and Fiat saloon, the priest’s. The daughter and daughter-in-law were at the back – they might have been taking a break from washing the dishes after the Sunday meal. The daughter-in-law was a smart, stylish woman, but the daughter was drab. He saw the matriarch again, and a handyman who carried out a bucket of vegetable peelings for the chickens.

  The shake in his hands was dying.

  Watching the family after their Sunday meal calmed him. Little actions that reeked of the ordinary, the occasional shouts from the football game. He had noted that Marcantonio was never successfully tackled, never lost the ball, never missed a shot on the goal. The others had sight of it only when he decided they would. The boy never looked up. His gaze never raked the rock faces behind the house.

  He thought the shaking would be back during the night. What he had seen in the cave would touch him. He had found it soon after she had left him. A few steps, a scramble, a roll across a bank of moss, then the old path, grass growing on it – he thought he was the first to use it for years – and the entrance to a cave. There was a patch in front of it where there was only dried mud and worn stone. He had hesitated and considered. He could hear sounds from below him, a radio, voices and a vehicle. Was there any virtue in exploring the cleft in the rock? It might have potential as a sort of refuge. He had switched on his small torch and crawled inside.