No Mortal Thing: A Thriller

by Gerald Seymour

  The kid went to the back door, knocked and waited. When it was opened, the dogs bounded out. Jago realised they had been brought in during the storm, but not the washing. The kid left and the door was closed after him. He used no torch. Jago assumed he knew each stone, each trail; none was visible now.

  The kid had gone up the slope behind the derelict shed, climbed higher than where Jago was hidden, then looped behind him. Jago’s scent had been washed away by the sea, and now the route he had taken through the trees and over the rocks that had been cleansed by the rain, all trace of him gone. The dogs moved behind and above him. He wondered how close they were to the point where a man had sneezed twice.

  They would kill him if they found him. Well, he knew that.

  He had never been so cold. He had never before lost the free movement of his limbs. He had never been so hungry.

  He heard the dogs and the whistled commands. They said, at the money-laundering lectures he had attended, that the art of investigation was ‘follow the cash’. Jago had survived the storm and clung to a talisman. Follow the sheets. The dogs had gone, the wind was dropping and the rain had turned to drizzle. He could hear, if he strained to listen, the flap of the sheets as the pegs loosened.

  He had endured, which might have been a triumph but was not: he had done nothing. The night closed in and an owl screamed. The washing line was locked in his mind.

  10

  The rain had stopped but the wind was stronger. Jago saw home: his mother, brother and sister, Christmas, a few presents under a plastic tree. He had not wanted to play the games she’d bought after they’d had the turkey and hadn’t wanted to wear a paper hat. He saw the big office in the big building and the man who had greeted him as if he was going to be a satisfying ‘work in progress’. A girl in Lancaster had laughed in his face when he’d suggested they go out to the pub, and so had another, who had been with him on the dunes near to Carnforth – they’d watched the cockle pickers far out on the sands.

  The people in adjacent seats to his in the City were around him, as were those who sat near him in the Berlin office. He came back to the girl on the beach, to being in the sea and looking across the Strait. All was calm and peaceful – but those people were edging away from him now, and he wanted to call them back.

  Eventually he saw the monochrome face – as from a photograph – of Bernardo in the old picture, which showed a man of middle age, smiling and confident . . . and, last, there was another girl, the wound on her face open and oozing.

  Each time the madness unhinged him and the shout welled in his throat, he put his clenched fist into his mouth and clamped down his teeth until the blood ran. The pain brought respite from the dreams, but then he would slide back. When he was capable of rational thought he assumed he was subject to delirium, brought on by cold, hunger and lack of movement.

  First he saw stars. Then he saw the edge of a cloud wall. At its rim, it glowed silver.

  The daughter had come out to smoke again. Men had had torches and shown their faces when cigarettes were lit on the track.

  The kid had been out again with the dogs, no light, and had gone behind Jago, then joined the men on the track to the house. The wind was fiercer and branches cracked. Water tumbled to his right. The cloud was pushed on fast.

  The moon broke free of the cloud. The puddles under his body seeped away each time he wriggled. Jago thought, with the moon’s appearance, that the delirium might wane. The blood on his hand had dried. There were lights on in the house, more down the track, and a concentration of them in two towns, then the darkness of the sea. He thought he knew the family now and was almost a part of them. He knew the girl who smoked and the mother who ruled the kitchen. He knew the old man, the head of the family, whom he had never seen, and the handyman who drove the car. He knew Marcantonio.

  He crawled from the hole in which he had been hidden, and the madness left him. He pushed himself up into a crouch, then stretched. The bones in his back cracked as he straightened. The wind blew against him. He picked up the groundsheet and shook off the water. He laid it in front of him, then started to strip.

  He took off each garment, wrung it out and found a little point of rock where he could lodge it. He had satisfied himself that it could not be seen, that the undergrowth and the sight line hid it. The overhang behind him would prevent it being visible to the upper point from which he estimated the sneeze had come. He guessed the man who had sneezed was on surveillance and would have the best gear. He would be dry and snug. The wind swirled around him, and he held his arms across the front of his body. He tipped the water out of his trainers. His body was dry now, but the wind was cold.

  A matter of time: how long before the clothes dried in the wind? Another matter: how long before he froze to death, naked? And another: how long before the moon had climbed high enough to light the ledge where he stood? He didn’t think he could be seen from behind, where the sneezes had come from, or by the men down the track or the kid with the dogs.

  His vest went.

  It was white, had been washed at the laundry off Stresemann-strasse. Something, a twig or a leaf, had caught between the toes of his left foot. He had kicked out and the movement had dislodged the vest. It had been laid neatly. The wind had lifted it as if it was a crisps packet at a school gate. He lurched to catch it.

  And failed.

  He trod on sharp rock and recoiled.

  But for that pain, Jago might have caught his vest. It floated, and the wind took it across to where the hillside fell away. It cleared some scrub and snagged on a branch, waving like a flag.

  Jago sagged. He could have cried. He was no longer a part of that family.

  They were in a bed-and-breakfast because the German embassy in Rome had not thought it appropriate to book them into a hotel. The place was three streets back from the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, no view from either room, but the showers were hot.

  They had come back to the address and checked in. They had left a trail of rivulets from the front door to the reception table, made lakes under their feet while they checked in, then splashed towards the stairs. That had been where Carlo had declared himself. He’d said, ‘Fred, I want you to know I’m a low achiever, a plodder. That’s the nature of my working life.’

  The German had answered, ‘I am no different. Our word is Arbeitstier. I do what I can, give my best, but have not yet changed the world. My best is probably poor. I am beyond middle age, almost a veteran, and I am not considered suitable for promotion.’

  A sodden hug at the top of the stairs and they had gone to their rooms. Carlo assumed that a pile of clothing lay abandoned on Fred’s floor. The shower warmed him – gave him hope for the future. But the knock on the door was peremptory, the sort that cops or Customs delivered. He’d done it himself. There was a towel round his waist when he opened the door, and he’d dripped more water across the floor from the bathroom.

  Carlo had said, ‘A “plodder” is an honourable rank, but seldom wins a medal. I think we oil the cogs.’

  Fred had replied, ‘The crowds don’t cheer when an Arbeitstier goes by, but we have a part to play.’

  Three carabinieri stood in the doorway: impeccable uniforms, laundered white shirts, neatly knotted ties. One’s fists were clenched, all had set jaws, and no respect in their eyes. Carlo was not sure whether the tuck he’d done with the towel would hold, and whether he’d suffer worse embarrassment. The next door was open too: Fred’s head poked out. There was a face at the back, the last of the three. He might have been an older man, with three-day designer stubble. The uniform looked inappropriate on him. His face lightened. The grin cracked it open. Laughter rang out. ‘Hey, it’s Carlo!’

  ‘Fuck me, Tano! Top man.’

  The guy’s arms wrapped around him. The towel might have slipped but it didn’t seem to matter. The carabinieri hadn’t been given their names, but knew where they were staying. They had come to deliver an ultimatum from the prosecutor: the Palace of Justice at eight in t
he morning. An old association was rekindled, and kisses were exchanged. Then Fred was pulled in, and the other two in their uniforms. Fred said whom he had worked with after Duisburg. No one talked shop, and nothing was said about the missing Jago Browne. There was chatter about promotion and retirement, marriages and mistresses, who had moved away, who was disgraced, and a time was fixed for a meeting in the Ciroma Bar when the uniforms would have been ditched for jeans and T-shirts.

  A grimace, and Tano, the maresciallo with the build of a veteran boxer said, ‘But I could weep for the circumstances that bring you back to us, Carlo. Your fugitive may speed the professional death of a valued law enforcer – but that’s for tomorrow. Tonight is old times.’

  They were gone. He clutched the towel and felt a little better.

  Fred smiled, wintry. ‘Friendship is good but never helped put on handcuffs. A girl’s face was cut, there was extortion. I was as unprofessional as I’ve ever been. I, too, want to hurt that family. We are not here for a vacation, a circus or nostalgia.’

  ‘A few beers, and whatever we can manage, that’s all we can hope for. Why they sent us.’

  ‘We are here to cringe, Carlo, because of Jago Browne. They will piss on the Arbeitstier and the plodder.’

  They closed their doors, went to dress.

  The bet had been on two safe certainties. Marcantonio had watched the transfer from the fishing boat in the port of Villa San Giovanni.

  It wasn’t unusual for the boat to have been out in poor weather because swordfish was a delicacy and paid better in the market than anything else dragged out of the strait. Also, the fishermen were exceptional sailors – and these were difficult financial times: work must be done. The boat had brought in two fifty-kilo packs of the highest quality cocaine, the purest – the profit margin for the family would be at least ten times what they had paid for it. It had been hidden in the space above the rudder-shaft housing before the container vessel had left Venezuelan waters. North of the strait, a crew member had checked the flotation belts and that the electronics on the packages were armed, then tipped them into the sea at a point registered by his GPS gear. The fishermen had caught no swordfish but the cargo they brought back was worth infinitely more.

  Marcantonio had been at the back of the quay when the two parcels were lifted ashore, Stefano alongside him. Rigging rattled sharply around them. It would have been a hard night at sea – the gusts were fierce, channelled up the strait. Neither the fishermen nor the men who had met them spoke to him. They were freelancers, available for hire. His own family took charge of moving the cocaine, wrapped in protective canvas, with water-resistant paper underneath. Heavy adhesive strips held the packages together. It was good that he should be seen, but he would not interfere: he had to keep a firewall, if possible, between himself and those who handled the product. That he was there showed he would soon be a major player. The craft bounced against the quay, its rigging rattling. There would have been officials on duty in the port offices but they were looked after when a consignment came ashore.

  They had driven north.

  Now they were stopped on a side-road, south of Rosarno, due east of Gioia Tauro and a kilometre beyond the few lights of Rizziconi. The road ran straight and headlights could be seen from hundreds of metres in either direction. Two Ford vans waited and men talked quietly, smoking hard. There was occasional muffled laughter.

  When the first lights appeared there was a simultaneous radio message, a number of bleeps. The backs of the vans were opened, and the drivers readied the engines. There would be two more packages, each weighing in at fifty kilos. They had been among the container ship’s cargo when it docked that evening. The men who controlled the docks could decide in which order containers were taken off by the cranes. Others, who had duplicate seals for the container locks, could open them and put the bags holding the product inside a ‘clean’ container then replace the seal. The main exporter did not know that they were being used as a mule. Dock workers at the supposedly secure complex at Gioia Tauro, could break the duplicate seal, take out the bags and replace the seal with another. A Customs check would show an unbroken seal and they would have no interest in searching the container, a slow, laborious, man-intensive job, even with dogs. The bags would have gone into the boot of a worker’s car and be driven out when he came off shift. Now that car arrived, scraped and muddy after the storm. As was usual, the affluence was hidden.

  A man came up to Marcantonio and shook his hand, kissed his cheeks, then ducked his head in respect. The packages were stowed, and the vans’ doors closed. The car left, the vans followed. More switches would follow north of Naples, and then beyond Milan. The family had facilitated a sale to a dealer in Hamburg, another in Cologne, and a third package would be split for cutting and degrading, for sale on the streets of Scandinavian cities. The fourth would be shipped across southern France to northern Spain, then onwards to markets in Barcelona, Santander and Bilbao. Marcantonio did not have to be there, but it was further indication that he would soon be a true Man of Honour. He had felt the excitement and the tension on the quay and at the roadside. He felt fulfilled. Berlin was so dull.

  He knew the market held up well in difficult times. It was not so true of Berlin but he had read there of an analysis of sewage in Milan, Naples and Rome: cocaine sold well and the profits they enjoyed now seemed guaranteed for the future.

  Stefano would drive him home in the City-Van.

  Consolata made a list: apples, milk, water, ham, bread, cheese and energy bars. That was the first. The second should have contained items such as trainers and waterproofs – but she hadn’t enough money. She was loath to borrow or steal from her mother, and wasn’t prepared to go back to the squat and demand a float from expenses, so, it remained empty. She could afford to buy some of the food but she’d get the rest from her mother.

  She was at her parents’ home. They had gone to bed, and their car was in the lock-up at the back. She had the foldaway bed in the room that had once been hers and was now her mother’s workroom – she should not have had to take in sewing. A guest at the hotel had a jacket that had shed a button: Consolata’s mother would take it home, return it the next day, and a little more cash would slip into her purse. If the business had not been stolen she would have worked in the shop, and Consolata’s father would not have had to drive a delivery truck in Sicily.

  She had thought of Jago during the night. He was rarely out of her mind. He would have been cold and drenched. The certainty would have oozed out of him. She would go back. It was important that she kept her word. The radio news said nothing about ’Ndrangheta but was filled with stories of floods, landslips, closed roads and power cuts. He might be on the road. She had imagined him struggling along, shoes waterlogged, no cars stopping on such a night. She had no idea whether her journey, after daybreak, would be wasted. She might see him at the rendezvous or on the road, if his resolve had cracked – perhaps even where she was now: Consolata had his rucksack. She did not know how he would have survived the storm.

  Consolata had thought she understood the naïve Englishman who had come to Reggio and whom she had accosted. She had searched his rucksack, expecting to learn more about him. He had not touched her on the beach and had not looked back when they’d arrived at the drop-off point, just stared through her. The rucksack had told her nothing. It held the bare necessities – no book, pictures or music. Spare underwear, socks, another shirt, and a pair of trousers. Consolata could not have said what she’d hoped to find in the bag, but she had looked for a degree of meaning and found nothing.

  She was annoyed that he confused her. But what he achieved would be on the radio, and she would feel a private pride. She wouldn’t share it.

  ‘I sit around all day, half the night, watch the rain falling . . . and wait. What sort of message am I supposed to get from that?’

  ‘Different people from us, Bent, without our sense of timekeeping,’ the lawyer, Humphrey, soothed him. ‘Not an easy place to do
business, but the rewards . . .’

  ‘Do they know who I am? Answer me.’

  ‘I’ve learned – the hard way – that it’s best to relax and go with the flow. Always best, Bent, to keep calm.’

  ‘I might as well go home.’

  Jack had been down to Torbay, in south Devon, when Humphrey had last slipped over for a few days with his elderly father, using the Brittany Ferries route from Spain to Plymouth. Humphrey had not enthused at the prospect of Bentley Horrocks making the journey. Jack had insisted. ‘He’s a big man who’s getting bigger.’

  Humphrey had grimaced. ‘They’re picky about who they do business with. They’re not just thugs, Jack. They’re thugs and businessmen.’

  They had been in a working men’s club and Humphrey had been moaning about the absence in Calabria of English beer, as they’d talked in a corner – no way Crime Squad detectives would have had a wire in there.

  Jack had said, ‘He’s got young dogs snapping at his heels, and he’s static at the moment, needs to move into a bigger league. Big fish in a puddle. You can fix it.’ Most of that day, Jack had wished that the old solicitor – good at what he did and always close to the wind – had turned him down. He hadn’t. Now they were in the crap hotel in Brancaleone and a whole day had gone by with barely a view of the beach. He had tried to set some ground rules and top of the list was keeping the mobiles switched off, all six that they had brought with them.

  ‘Sorry and all that, Bent, but walking out won’t help. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. I can’t—’

  ‘Tell me what you can do.’

  ‘—hurry these people up. They’re the major players in the world. They have people knocking on the door most days. You have to be patient.’

  Another shrug. Jack wondered what they could do to kill time. The food here wasn’t great, there was a noisy party going on in the dining room and the pool had been drained. The shops were long closed, and they couldn’t even use the phones. There was no Scrabble and he doubted Bent could play chess. Jack thought it interesting that Humphrey, who’d licked arses in London till his tongue was raw, had tried to pacify Bent, stop him pacing and jabbing his finger. He’d stood up for himself. Jack understood: Humphrey now ran with serious players and did little jobs for them. He fed off the crumbs from their table – while Bentley Horrocks was at the level of ‘Take it or leave it’.