No Mortal Thing: A Thriller (26 page)

‘It’s a dump.’

‘Right, Bent.’

‘Why’d they put us here?’

‘It’ll be because they own it.’

‘It’s crap . . .’ He saw Jack’s face screw up. ‘I’d thought they’d do better for us.’

‘As you say, Bent. They might have done better for us. But . . .’

They were in Brancaleone, which barely figured in the guidebooks. The hotel was on the hill behind it. An English guy lived up the coast – Humphrey. He’d met the flight and driven them down in an old Jaguar, almost a museum piece. He’d checked them in but hadn’t come upstairs with them: the lifts were ‘resting’. Humphrey had been, long ago, a sharp junior who had traded at Woolwich Crown Court on the defence side, taken early retirement to Torquay, needing a quick change of location, then made another move. He ‘fixed’ for trusted people, and was now in a development seven klicks towards Reggio. Humphrey had seen that there was no need for passports to be shown at the desk – good ones or otherwise – no signatures or addresses required. Now he had gone, and had been vague about the schedule. It had been a long day, and Bent had spent half the night sitting out at Canada Wharf. He felt nervous, and his temper was short. They were on the second floor. The room was for tourists and the signs were in German. Jack was pointing, jabbing with his finger.

It took Bent a moment to read him. The finger went from the ceiling light to the television, from the floor switch to the air-conditioner, then to the telephone.

Bent said, ‘Will we get a steak here?’

Jack answered him, ‘More likely pasta, then fish.’

‘And a mouthful of bones.’

‘What you say, Bent.’

The sliding door squealed and he went out onto the balcony. From the keys hanging on hooks at Reception, Bent Horrocks had reckoned they had about 15 per cent occupancy, but it might have been less. It would have throbbed in high season – maybe half of Hamburg or the Ruhr would have been there. There was a ribbon road below them with shops and small businesses, nothing much that caught his eye, a few villas and some two-storey apartment blocks – the latter confused him, half built, floors, roof and supports but no walls – then the beach. Not pretty, like the Algarve or anywhere Trace would have liked. The sand was dun-coloured, like the biscuits his mother always had in the tin when he went to Margate. He had sharp eyes, and even at that distance, it was obvious that the rubbish had not been cleared from round the bins. Jack had joined him, cigarettes out. They lit up.

Side of mouth: ‘We likely to be bugged?’

‘My advice, Bent, say nothing except when you’re wanting a piss, unless Humphrey’s with us. He’ll know. If it’s you and me it’s down on the beach. It’s a serious place, Bent, with serious people, and big rewards for getting it right.’

‘I hear you. Why are all those blocks unfinished? Seems a waste to . . .’

‘What you say, Bent, a waste. Could have been a laundering job, but the law landed on them and confiscated the property. They do that, take the assets.’

‘We right to come here?’

‘It’s the big league, Bent. Where you should be.’

‘Where I want to be.’

‘And ought to be.’

‘I’ll not take shit from them. Never have and never will.’

‘It’ll be good, Bent. Big league.’

It looked a pretty ordinary place. Quiet. It looked as if not much happened at Brancaleone. He liked the thought of ‘big league’.

‘If he’s in difficulties, he’ll get no sympathy.’ Carlo had taken a train.

‘Too grand for us. We’re not up to his standards.’ He’d walked from the station.

‘Forgot about us and where he came from.’ There were little side roads off the main streets, and cul-de-sacs. The light was going and TV sets flickered. The kids were out on the corners, hoods up and forward, scarves looped across their faces. Too late for children to be playing outside. The fast-food outlets were slack. He’d been past the pub, had known of it from his days working in London, and Freemasons Road. He found the turning he wanted. The kids would have reckoned him a policeman because of his walk and posture. They’d have known about policemen, every last one of them.

‘Don’t they call it the throw-away society? If you’re last year’s big thing, you don’t take kindly to being trashed.’ He’d rung the bell. A girl had answered it, nice nails and hair. She’d have been the sister listed in the file. Behind her was the brother, different father. Carlo had introduced himself. He could do the look well when he needed help. He’d been gestured in, had wiped his shoes carefully, shown respect. It was a decent home, clean and warm. Comfortable, but the value of money counted. There were neat front doors and handkerchief gardens in the street, all filled with refuse bins. The mother was washing her hair but came down, with a towel as a turban. She sat on the sofa, her daughter and son behind her, as if she needed their protection.

‘We did all that we could for him, and got nothing back.’ She was slight, her face worn and tired. She might have been attractive once, a long time ago. Still, she had managed to attract three different blokes – nothing to do with Carlo. He had to build a profile and start to understand the man who had gone bare-arsed to Calabria, planning to start a commotion. He might get his head blown off or his face rearranged to the extent that he was unrecognisable when he lay in intensive care. Bizarre. Carlo had come to Canning Town expecting to hear about a good guy who helped old ladies across busy roads, did meals on wheels at weekends, but his own mother had bad-mouthed him.

‘He went to the best school round here. Uniform was dear. Billy and Georgina went short because of him. He had the chance to break free . . . I’m not saying we wanted to cling to his coat tails and have him pull us up, not saying that, but Jago hasn’t been to see us for two years, not even at Christmas. You want to know about him? He needs to win. Going to university was winning. Getting into a bank was winning. You say he’s on an exchange in Germany. He’d count that as winning. He’d see us as losers, wouldn’t want to know. Where he’s gone, what he’s going to do there – what’s brought you here on a Sunday afternoon – it’ll be about winning. You say it started with a girl getting her face slashed. It’ll be about excitement. Excitement is winning. From you being here, I suppose it’s a bad place to go for excitement and a hard place for winning. Don’t answer that. It was good of you to call, but you needn’t come back. A text will do if you’ve something to say.’

He let himself out.

There was a guesthouse by the airport where they’d booked him in, convenient for early-morning flights. Nothing was as it seemed – the spice of life. It never was, in Carlo’s experience. He’d have agreed with what she’d said.
A hard place for winning
. That hit the nail on the head. He walked fast towards the station. There’d be tears at the end of it. There usually were when amateurs got involved.

The beast was hurt. It was separated from the pack, frightened, and flies clustered over the wound. It was hungry, isolated and lost. The clouds had built. Evening seemed to come fast and the light failed.

A big clap of thunder.

Jago was on his stomach. He had not decided what he would do. He was uncertain about his target. He had a degree of security when he was wedged into the space under the two great boulders but had not yet summoned the strength of purpose – guts or commitment – to wriggle out of his hide, go down the slope and do something.

He was on the groundsheet, wrapped in the coat. Wind blustered through the trees, scattering leaves. The sheets behind the house had begun to flap where previously they had been limp.

The first drops fell. He was watching the back door, wondering which of them would run out to snatch the laundry off the line, throw them into a basket and rush back inside. He waited and watched and no one came.

Lights went on inside, and he saw two windows closed. Big drops of rain hit the leaves above and the stones in front of him. The first little river had begun to flow. There was more thunder, and sheet lightning. He wondered whether a shower or a storm was coming.

The rain pattered hard and Jago had nowhere to shelter.

9

When he moved, a lake of trapped water lapped round him. There was no light, only a lessening of the total blackness.

It was not the best place to be. Jago had thought himself blessed when he had found the gap under the two great stones. It gave him a matchless vantage point where he was protected and hidden. Now, the rain made rivers on the hillside. One tumbled under the twin boulders and flowed over the slab where he lay, dammed by his body. Its depth built up under his armpits and against his crotch. His clothing was inadequate and the ground sheet useless.

It had seemed to Jago that the village marked the epicentre of the storm. Thunder had crashed and flashes of lightning had lit the roof of the house . . . The cockerel had woken him, crowing for attention. There were no cockerels in Canning Town or Stresemannstrasse.

Rainwater cascaded down the slopes of the boulders to fall on his shoulders and the back of his head. It was down his neck and had puddled under his chest and waist. It dribbled across his forehead into his eyes and mouth.

The cockerel had given up. Other than the rain, Jago heard nothing. He had begun to take pride in his disciplines. He didn’t cough or sneeze, and stayed where he was – he didn’t know where the dogs slept. There was a covered box near the back door and they had hung around it during daylight, but whether they were there now asleep or awake and alert, he had no idea.

He had put off a big moment. When to eat the second half of the chocolate. Now resolve fled. Jago fished it out of his pocket. It was soaked and the chocolate was sticky as he peeled off the wrapper. There were no lights in the upper windows of the house. There was nothing there on which he should concentrate. He ate the chocolate in three mouthfuls. It was not how they ate at the bank, either in the coffee shop before the day started or when the trolley came round mid-morning. Some would already have been to the gym, then showered and headed for coffee and a biscuit – they would have taken tiny bites and made it last. When the trolley came there were fat-free meals – salads, fruit and fish. It would have been noticed halfway across Sales if he had gobbled half a bar of a chocolate in three bites.

The lake he was lying in had become a fast-flowing stream. He wanted to pee. Should he manoeuvre onto his side, put his weight on his hip, then try to direct the urine into the rainwater coming past him? The alternative was to crawl forward, drag himself upright and hope his hands weren’t too frozen to fumble with his zip. Important to check the wind direction. It would be futile to attempt to determine the value of being where he was. Better to worry about relieving himself and at what speed to eat chocolate.

A man sneezed.

There was the noise of water flowing, of the wind catching high branches, and the crisp, clear sound of a sneeze, then a choke, which was a second stifled. It had come from behind and above him. He couldn’t have estimated how close it had been because the wind was blowing from that direction. Twenty yards or fifty.

Jago lay on his stomach. He didn’t pee, just strained to hear better. The second sneeze had been fainter, more muffled. He froze, as still as stone.

Ciccio thought it a noise to raise the dead. Fabio was humiliated.

Ciccio couldn’t believe that his friend, colleague and surveillance partner would sneeze so loudly. Fabio gripped the sleeve of Ciccio’s jacket: his gesture of apology. The moment passed.

They were dry. Their gear was waterproof and they could shelter in the recess. That bloody bird had woken Ciccio while Fabio was on watch. There were no lights in the house that they could see. Fabio murmured another apology, and Ciccio punched him.

The rain was brutal. Neither man nor beast would be out in it.

Ciccio murmured, mouth to ear, ‘Your sneeze makes no difference in the grand scheme of things. Nobody heard you because nobody’s around. We’re alone. You could take off your clothes, stand in the open, wash yourself in the rain and sing an aria without being seen or heard. I have a problem. Will the scorpion flies in the jar deteriorate in the damp? Will they be useless for my friend’s research? Should we ditch them and catch some more when this fucking rain stops?’

Fabio told him he was more interested in discussing breakfast: should they have the fruit candy from the pre-packaged meals today or tomorrow?

Were they wasting their time? Neither, Ciccio knew, could doubt the purpose of the mission. They could harbour doubt but not share it. The cloud was solid and the wind moaned above them. Both men would now have started to count the hours that remained for them to endure on the hillside. They would be thinking of their women, hot showers, proper sleep and beer. It was necessary for both Ciccio and Fabio to remember the good days when they had watched from an eyrie as a storm squad of
cacciatore
troops exploded into a building with stun grenades and went for an arrest based on information provided by the guys in the covert OP. It was always good then, the insect bites and constipation. But they had seen no trace of the target.

Fabio whispered, ‘It’s under control. It won’t happen again.’

‘Who was there to hear you? Only that fucking bird.’