No Mortal Thing: A Thriller (14 page)

The day wore on, and they almost slept until there was a convulsion from Ciccio, and a curse from Fabio: another scorpion fly in the bottle, the perforated cap back on, and the thing was trapped. Another diversion, better than the usual talk. It was good to look at the captured fly with a tail that looked lethal. Interesting to watch it scrabble for freedom, and fail.

There were two hard chairs in the interview room. They had walked back to the police station.

Jago Browne was surprised that the investigator had invited him in. ‘It’s been a long day and a traumatic one for you. I’d like to offer you coffee and straighten out a couple of points.’

Jago had been left alone. He checked his phone. Four messages from the
FrauBoss
, which displayed her irritation at him taking sick leave, then not answering his landline, emails or her texts. The investigator had come back into the room with two coffees, cardboard mugs, on top of his Apple iPad. He passed Jago one of the coffees, switched on the iPad, produced a packet of biscuits and split the wrapper. Jago’s anger ebbed over what had been done to the girl, but still burned for what had been done to himself. He sipped the coffee, which was dreadful, and listened, as was expected of him.

‘You think me idle, uncaring, and you are entitled to your opinion. I do what I can and don’t attempt the impossible because that way my time is wasted and I burn.
They
defeat me. Understand. We are the power house of Europe. It is natural that another colossus, from the top of European criminal activity, should make a second home in Germany. They are not Sicilian or Neapolitan, but ’Ndrangheta from Calabria. They seek to be, as you would say, ‘under the radar’. They infiltrate and bring with them their money, huge profits from cocaine–, weapons–, child– and any other trafficking. We are a country and a people burdened by the past. We had a police state. We had draconian laws. Then came 1945 and an Allied military government, the imposition of democracy, and a constitution with the purpose of preventing the abuses that a Fascist government had practised. That is very good. The freedom of the individual is guaranteed. The police cannot abuse ordinary people. Much to admire . . . and it is admired hugely by the Calabrian gangster families who come here. They buy a lot and sell a little, and they have created a diaspora inside Germany. They are allowed, almost, to walk free. The young man who sliced a girl’s face is Marcantonio. He is twenty. Don’t let your coffee get cold.’

He ignored the coffee, and ate another biscuit. Sometimes, as the investigator talked, he hit keys, then turned back to Jago. He seemed sincere, and was probably more than twice Jago’s age. At the bank they were lectured on money-laundering and the procedures to counter it; the younger personnel were cautioned against the friendship of potential investors with cash, and little rewards that were hardly worth noticing. He pushed away the cup.

‘It is possible to intercept his phones, but before I can do that, under German law, I must offer precise evidence in justification. I cannot say that I
believe
or
suspect
criminal involvement. My chiefs are against allowing Italian officers onto our territory. They despise our brothers from the Mediterranean. A man who was a waiter in a Leipzig trattoria, earning a thousand euros a month, suddenly finds the cash to buy a ten-million-euro hotel. I am certain he is a ‘place man’ but cannot prove it, so I cannot tap into his conversations. They are peasants and without education, my superiors reckon, but they are capable of dealing in huge sums on the Frankfurt bourse. When, finally, we awoke to the situation – and the British are like us, no better, no worse – it was too late. They are embedded. They own significant percentages of our hotels, restaurants, travel agents and prostitutes. I go to my chief, who is many years younger than me and a bureaucrat, and request resources for an investigation. His first question to me is ‘Has there been a complaint? Show me.’ Now I have to say there has been no complaint lodged by a victim of assault. The end. I urge you to take my advice. Be very careful, Jago Browne, because they’re serious people. When they come out from ‘under the radar’, they’re unpleasant. They’re cruel and arrogant, which comes from the belief that they are beyond the law. Sometimes they are right. Would you like a fresh coffee? Of course you would.’

His mug was picked up. Across the table from Jago, the wrong way round for him, was the iPad. He saw, inverted, a head-and-shoulders photograph with text alongside it and headings.

‘Milk, no sugar, yes?’

The door closed.

There was a coffee machine in the corridor a few metres from the interview room. He might have a minute, perhaps two. Jago scrabbled in his pocket. There was a receipt from a dry cleaner on Lietzenburgerstrasse, near the language school where the bank employees had a discount. He had his pen. He turned the iPad and began to scribble.

He found the address in Berlin of Marcantonio Cancello, then the name of the village on the eastern side of Calabria. He flicked the screen and saw the names of parents and an uncle, who had children but no wife. A little pyramid had been constructed with the names, ‘Bernardo’ at the top and his date of birth, then Bernardo’s wife. He wrote everything he could get onto the small piece of paper and cursed that he had not picked up a notebook at his apartment.

He heard the footfall in the corridor and flipped the iPad back as it had been.

Extraordinary. Bizarre.

He sat back in his chair, played bored, looked at the door as the handle turned.

Fred Seitz, regarded by his colleagues as dull but honest, had satisfied himself that the young man had had time to gut the entry on his iPad.

Kindness? Not really. In respect for a Samaritan who had tried to help? Something like that. In the room, which was often used by the investigator and his colleagues, a camera beamed back to a screen an image of the interview room’s interior. He had seen Jago Browne writing frantically. He rarely had an opportunity to move outside the constrictions of his service. He went.

‘The machine is broken. We must survive without coffee. Of course, my friend, you should always leave police work to policemen – it’s safer. Like you, in spite of the firearm I carry and my warrant card, I feel frustrated at the lack of arrests and my inability to hurt dangerous people. They are conceited. We are the little people and do not matter, and they keep around them only those who are frightened of them. My parents were in Rostock. You know Rostock? The great port city for heavy ship-building in Communist times. Gangsters came there after reunification. A nephew of my cousin was once slapped in the face for not getting off the pavement when a gang leader passed. I’m sorry – I am rambling. The nephew saw the car they had just parked, a BMW, took out his house keys, scratched two lines along the length of the bodywork and ran. If they had caught him, they would have killed him. I told that boy some harsh truths. Gangsters hate violation of their property because that is disrespect, and he should make sure he is fit and can sprint fast. He should also get out of Rostock. I told him I did not condone what he had done and would arrest him without hesitation if he did it again. I don’t want to see you again, Jago Browne. You should go back to your bank, and be a success in your chosen industry. Don’t look for excitement in any unknown area. I shall be away for a few days, and when I come back I shall do what I can within my schedules and budget, but it will not be much.’

He showed Jago out. He yearned for the freedom of a beach.

Marcantonio swore and dropped his bag onto the pavement. He had forgotten the small porcelain Madonna he was taking to his grandmother – and he was already late for the flight. He turned on his heel, ran up the steps to the front entrance and had to key in the code.

‘It’s the only Lamezia connection! You’d better hurry,’ came the yell. His distant cousin was at the wheel of the car and glanced pointedly at his watch.

A man was approaching the vehicle, but he barely noticed him as the door swung open and he started for the stairs – the lift was too slow. He heard a shout – not pain, but naked fury. What to do? In Marcantonio’s life his grandmother was more important than his cousin’s shout of protest. He went on up the stairs and had to unlock the mortise, go inside and disable the alarm, then into the bedroom. Where was it? He had forgotten what the wrapping paper looked like. What colour? And the blinds were down so it was dark.

He found it. It went into his pocket. The figure was beautiful in his eyes, and she would like it. He had nothing for the
padrino
, his grandfather, but the old man would be well satisfied.

He came out, did the alarm, then went quickly down the stairs, but had to find the button that unlatched the door. He heard the crescendo of his driver’s shouts. He went out, skipped down the steps to the pavement and nearly tripped over his bag. He saw what had been done to the passenger side of the BMW. Two silver lines sliced the paintwork. A young man, back to him, was sauntering down the street, well dressed, in a suit, the glint of keys in his hand.

The car was Marcantonio’s pride and joy, and it was ruined. Had it happened at his home, in the foothills of the mountains, a life would have been taken – but he had a flight to catch. Anyone nearby would have heard him as he spat the words but none would have understood the dialect of the eastern side of the Aspromonte mountains. ‘I’ll have your balls if I ever see you again. You’re dead. Dead, do you hear me?’ He hadn’t seen the vandal’s face, but he was tall, erect and walking steadily – then disappeared around the corner.

Jago Browne had never done anything like that before. He could still feel the gentle pressure he’d applied to the key, the ease with which it had floated across the paintwork. It was what kids did, anywhere between the Beckton Arms and the bottom of Freemasons Road, not what young bank executives did when supposedly on sick leave.

There was an alleyway at the side of a building. He ducked into it, went to a recessed doorway and pulled out his phone. Lamezia? The screen told where it was, and which airlines flew there. He began to shiver. It was step towards a different level. Was he a career banker, on the path that would lead him one day to become a successor to the
FrauBoss
? Did he care if clients slept with true ‘peace of mind’ because
he
watched over their finances? He shut his eyes and saw the scar on the girl’s face, the scar on the bodywork of a top-of-the-range car. He walked away, back to the street.

Hilde would drive north from Berlin to the coast and was already at the wheel of the camper.

Fred Seitz carried their bags out of the apartment door. His office computer was switched off, as was his phone. Hilde’s was on: if their son or daughter wanted them they would call her. If someone at Bismarckstrasse wanted him, they could wait. He dumped the bags in the boot and got into the passenger seat. Hilde eased the car out into the street. Ahead of them were the high walls of the Moabit gaol, where some of his clients would sleep that night. He would sit quietly, at least for the start of the 220–kilometre drive to the Baltic. They would grab fast food in Rostock, then go west towards Rerik and park among the dunes above their favourite beach. He wanted quiet because of what he had seen that day, what he had said about getting a life and . . . The girl’s face, had upset him. Leaving his iPad switched on had been unprofessional and irresponsible. There were moments when his work seemed to constrict him. He needed to be away, to forget.

He was probably making too much of what he had done.

The
FrauBoss
had been surprised to see him, but Jago had explained that the pills must be working because he felt better. He needn’t have come in at all, late on a Friday afternoon. He had gone through his emails, which had piled up.

Was he going away for the weekend? Hannelore was taking an evening flight to Stuttgart to see her parents – he was welcome to go with her. Magda was ready for her run but she supposed he wasn’t up to joining her. Sigismund and Elke were going to the new DiCaprio, and the
FrauBoss
was without her nanny that evening so she was off home.

They drifted away.

He had gone back to his apartment earlier, put on his other work suit and taken the damaged trousers to the dry cleaner’s. They would do what they could with the tear. The previous receipt they had issued him was in his wallet. The woman had been sympathetic about the trousers, and unconcerned about the ‘lost’ receipt. He had taken home his clean clothes.

The
FrauBoss
and her team had gone; the great clocks that showed the time in other countries had been dimmed. There was a night-duty boy, Boris, but only the crown of his head was visible above the partitions. The TV screen flickered but the sound was off, and he had little interest in how the Dow was performing.

Jago saw the face of the girl, the scar that would never heal, and the face of Marcantonio. He worked at his computer and the emails diminished.

What was he for? He didn’t know. When would he find the answer?

Soon, perhaps, because it would be difficult if he did not.

5

The team at the bank was paramount. It had an ethos, a code, a discipline. Jago turned his back on them. A guy at Broadgate, in a bar after dismissal for poor time-keeping, had yelled: ‘The best-kept secret in that bloody place? There’s life outside.’ The bank was supposed to be his life, his horizon, would answer all his needs in exchange for total loyalty. Now he opened the door to another world.