The Thing Itself (11 page)

Over the years, he had killed the serpent many times. He saw that it would never die but he also recognized something else. Somewhere in the struggle he had ingested the serpent. Now it writhed within him.

He looked back at Di Bocci.

‘
Mi scusi
,' he said. ‘I believe we have an enemy in common. Drago Kadire. I wondered if we might make common cause.'

Di Bocci's English was good.

‘Kadire betrayed a trust some years ago,' he said. ‘He lied to me. His lie had consequences.' He spread his small hands. ‘It is in the nature of our work that we are not always able to respond to provocation as we might wish.'

‘I could respond to that provocation for you and only he would know it was repayment for your slight.'

Di Bocci looked at Tingley for a long moment. Tingley looked beyond him to the tapestry. He saw how the colours had faded. He looked back at Di Bocci, who had an intense expression on his face. Tingley tilted his head.

‘You should visit my cousin in Chiusi,' Di Bocci said. ‘It is only twenty, twenty-five miles away. He will have something for you.'

‘What will he have for me?' Tingley said.

‘Kadire is away, in Ravenna, but in a few days he will be in Chiusi. Go to my cousin. We must not be seen to be implicated but he will help.'

Tingley took his time on the short drive to Chiusi. The road was dusty, narrow and empty. He was thinking about Kadire and a long, long day when John Hathaway's men were beating the bejesus out of the sniper to get him to give up his colleagues. Hathaway stretched out on a recliner on the balcony of his mansion in Brighton, nursing a rum and pep in honour of Tingley, who drank nothing but. Clearly hating the drink but saying:

‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe we can do something with it at cocktail hour in my bar.' He grimaced. ‘My former bar.'

The bar in the Marina that had been blown to smithereens by Kadire's comrades.

‘You know, Jimmy, I look out over my kingdom – damn near forty years I've been ruling Brighton – and all I can taste in my mouth is ash. It's all I've tasted for years. Every decade I've moved into legit stuff. And every decade I've got drawn back in to keep others off me. And I've been bad.'

Tingley grudgingly liked Hathaway, even though he knew he had done terrible things. But then Tingley had done terrible things. The difference was that Tingley had done them for good reasons. He hoped.

‘Do you ever wonder what might have been?' he said.

Hathaway put his drink down.

‘What might have been was what was. I don't think in any other terms. I don't know how to think in any other terms. But the thing I've wondered about over the years is whether I genuinely care about all the shit that has happened in my life. The shit that happened to other people in my life.'

‘And what do you conclude?' Tingley said.

‘That I don't. Which begs the bigger question – when did I stop caring? Sean Reilly asked me once, straight out: “Whose death from the early days do you regret most?” I guessed he was wondering about my girlfriend, Elaine, or my father or anyone from that early roster. What he didn't know was the truly terrible thing I did when I was a kid – a thing I can't explain even to myself.'

‘The only true account is the thing itself,' Tingley said. Hathaway looked across at him. Tingley shrugged. ‘Words to live by.'

Hathaway picked up his drink again, took a sip. He couldn't quite conceal his distaste, but whether for the drink or the sentiment Tingley couldn't be sure.

Tingley was jolted from his thoughts. Something long and thin was stretched across the curving road. By the time he realized it was a snake, sunning itself, he had already driven over it. Glancing in the mirror he saw the snake thrashing, frenzied, trying to bite its own tail. He lost sight of it as he rounded the next bend. He smiled grimly. Was this some kind of sign? He felt the stirring in his belly.

He settled back into his drive.

Hathaway had been in a gabby mood that night. Maybe it was the rum and pep.

‘I was a right tearaway when I was a teenager and I liked the idea of setting fire to one of the Lewes bonfires, up the road from here, before Guy Fawkes Night. Just for the crack.' He saw Tingley's look. ‘Bonfire night was big in Lewes. Still is big – burning the Pope in effigy remains the town's idea of a good time.

‘I'd gone up on the train doing a recce a few times. I'd settled on a bonfire erected by a bunch of Teddy boys calling themselves the Bonfire Boys. I hated Teds.

‘So I go up there with petrol in a little bottle. Two Teds are standing beside this huge pile of wood, shielding cigarettes in their cupped hands. Both wore jeans with big cuffs and fake leather jackets. Very James Dean. I remember they were hunched against the wind off the Downs. It was biting.

‘I hid between two garages, watching them. After ten minutes or so they went down the street to a café. When they went inside, I walked over to the bonfire.'

Hathaway tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.

‘It was about ten feet high, a conical pile of tree branches, planks and one railway sleeper with smaller lumps of wood and crates hanging precariously halfway up. An unbroken privet of tree branches around the base. I poured the petrol over the driest-looking piece of kindling and crouched down to light a match. The wind gusted the match out. And the second. I bent closer and put the matchbox and the next match into the wood. I struck the match.

‘The kindling went up with a whoosh. It surprised me. I staggered back, shaking my hand and twisting my head. Within seconds the flames were leaping high about the bonfire and racing round the perimeter, igniting all the kindling. I felt the prickly stumps of hair where my eyebrows had been. I looked down at my burned hand, already bright red with the skin puckering. I looked at the bonfire. It was burning well. I looked down the street towards the café. I turned and left.'

Tingley waited, sensing there was more.

‘Did I know the kid was in the den inside the bonfire when I lit the match? That's the bit I can't remember. I can see him peering at me through the piles of wood when I was crouching down but did I really see that? Do I just imagine it?' Hathaway rubbed his eyes. ‘I really don't know.'

Tingley couldn't think of a single thing to say. Hathaway sat up.

‘You reap what you sow, Jimmy boy. You reap what you sow.'

T
he countryside was lusher near Chiusi. Tingley saw the town perched on its tufa hill when he was still some way off. The land sloped gently away to a small lake. The road wound round the hill, threading between a series of steep, cultivated step terraces. He entered the town with the cathedral on his left and the Etruscan Museum on his right. He parked on a side street nearby.

The sun was bright. It was quiet. Siesta time in a backwater. He looked across the countryside. Then he turned towards the Villa di Bocci to get on with the job.

Crespo di Bocci's cousin, Renaldo, was twenty years younger and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Plump, a cruel curl to his lips. A hint of the actor Peter Ustinov at his most lascivious.

He offered Tingley wine on a terrace looking out across the countryside. Renaldo waved his arm expansively.

‘All this is a vast necropolis. As Camars, this town was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan Federation. The Etruscans lived among their dead. With every rainfall, new treasures rise to the surface. There is a thirst for such treasures around the world.' He pointed to the west. ‘That tufa hill there. It is the Poggio Gaiella. It has three storeys of passages and galleries, a labyrinth of them. It is regarded by some as the likeliest site for the mausoleum of Porsena, the great Etruscan emperor. You have heard of him?'

‘Horatio defended the gate of Rome against him, didn't he?'

Renaldo bowed his head in assent.

‘There is a labyrinth of catacombs beneath the town, of course. Beneath this very house. Porsena was buried in the middle of a labyrinth with all his wealth about him. Now that would be a treasure worth finding.'

‘You smuggle artefacts, do you not?'

Renaldo ignored him.

‘Our family owned these fields and hills for generations. Then my grandfather took the wrong side.'

‘In World War Two?'

‘Before then. He became a fascist in the thirties. After the war our fortunes declined.'

Tingley nodded, wondering why he was being told this but thinking: only connect.

‘Your cousin said you would help me.'

‘My cousin does not speak for me.' Renaldo di Bocci touched his fleshy lips with a forefinger. ‘Which is not to say that I won't help you.'

‘You know who I want?'

‘Of course. But you must wait. You are welcome to stay here. In fact, I insist. Are you a reader?'

‘Not particularly.'

‘Nor I, but it is a pity. We have a fine library here with many rare books. For a bookish man it would be a profitable place to pass a couple of days.'

‘As you say – a pity.'

‘A woman perhaps? A man?'

‘I'll be fine as I am,' Tingley said.

Tingley was not a religious man. He did enjoy the calm of churches, however. Their susurrating silence. He was sitting in the cathedral beside the palazzo watching a choir assemble when his solitude was disturbed by a hunched old woman in black who sat down beside him.

He stepped to the back of the church and phoned his friend, Bob Watts.

‘How's it going?' Watts said. ‘What's that noise in the background?'

‘Evensong,' Tingley said. ‘I figured the church might be the safest place from which to phone.'

‘How far along are you?'

‘Pretty far. These Mafiosi are being unusually helpful with Kadire. Suspiciously so.'

‘You think they're setting you up?'

‘I'm not sure. Maybe just to do their dirty work for them. The old guy has a grudge against Kadire for some friend he offed. But his children seem strictly business. I don't think they'd help if there weren't a business advantage.'

‘And you are a business advantage,' Watts said. ‘You're not connected. Whatever you do can't come back and hurt them.'

‘I know that will be how they see it. But they're keeping me on ice at the moment.'

‘Watch out for yourself, Jimmy.'

A sudden spasm in his stomach made Tingley double over. He forced himself erect.

‘How are things your end?' he said through gritted teeth,

‘My father has died.'

‘Bob, I'm really sorry.'

‘I have mixed feelings myself, as you know, Jimmy. I'm sorting out the funeral and so on. I'm staying at his place.'

‘I don't think I'll be back in time.'

‘Don't worry. Where next? And when?'

‘I'm already here – place called Chiusi. Crespo's cousin is putting me up – a dodgy piece of work called Renaldo. I think this is where it's going to go down.'

‘Don't know the place.'

‘Old Etruscan hill town, north of Rome.'

‘You OK?' Watts said.

‘I'm fine. Locked and loaded. Gotta go, amigo. Raise a glass for your father from me.'

Tingley closed the connection. He looked up at the ceiling, letting the music wash over him.

T
ingley and Renaldo dined alone that evening in the villa's gloomy dining room. Two men in black were stationed by the door.

Tingley didn't like Renaldo. He knew better than to deal in stereotypes but he could sense something depraved in the man. The obvious thought was paedophilia, the twenty-first century disease.

Renaldo's mood had changed.

‘Any word of Kadire?' Tingley said.

‘If we deliver Kadire – what do we get in return?'

Tingley hesitated with his reply. He no longer had any clout with the British secret services for whom he'd so often been contracted. In recent months, he'd first used up his favours then burned his boats.

‘I'm sure there are deals to be done,' he said. ‘As I understand it, this is returning a favour to the late John Hathaway.'

‘Hathaway. Dennis Hathaway I knew many years ago. We met in Spain. His son, John, I am aware of. Favours, however, I do not know about. And you say John too is dead? This is a favour for a dead man, then?'

Tingley put his knife and fork down and stood.

‘I don't wish to waste your time.'

Renaldo looked surprised.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I understood you could help me. If you cannot . . .'

Tingley turned and walked to the door. Renaldo di Bocci's two men moved to block his way. Tingley wagged a warning finger at them.

‘Signor Tingley, please,' Di Bocci called after him. ‘Please sit down.'

Tingley kept walking. He was sure he had been sent into a trap. The two men looked beyond him for a signal from Di Bocci. The serpent writhed. Tingley ruptured the knee of the man to his left with a heel kick. He brought his elbow down hard on the collar of the one to his right and felt the bone snap.

He pulled open the doors and strode down the long corridor to the exit. He wasn't armed but his car – and its arsenal – was nearby. He heard footsteps behind him but he ignored them. He pulled open the outer door, rabbit-punched the man standing outside it as he started to turn, ran down half a dozen steps and continued running for his car.

He had lifted the lid on the boot when he heard the clatter of a dozen men following him down the street. When he turned, he was cradling the Gatling gun. Cartoon-like, the men facing him stopped abruptly, cannoning into each other or slipping on the cobbles.

Tingley wasn't worried about these men. He was most worried about someone in a tower a mile away with a high-powered rifle trained on him. Not now, though, not here. Here the streets were narrow, the buildings high. Here it would be at close quarters from an upstairs window.