No Mortal Thing: A Thriller (36 page)

‘I want the property of Bernardo Cancello searched by an experienced team. He’s there, I’m sure of it. Months of work committed, resources I’ve fought for. It’s all slipping away from me. Please. I need a cordon set up close to the house and a quality team.’

The answer came fast – it might have been rehearsed. ‘I can’t authorise that. Too many men, too many hours, too much preparation, and no prior intelligence. Get me the man’s location and I’ll be there. No location, no search.’

‘He’s there.
La presenza e potenza
. He
has
to be there.’ But he’d said the obvious, which wouldn’t change the colonel’s mind. All of those who worked from the Palace took as a maxim for any
padrino
who had dropped out of sight that ‘presence is power’: they must be close to their contacts, dominate their heartland, be known to have control. He had aerial photographs of the house where the wife lived, with the daughter, and where the grandson was staying at the moment. When he gazed at the roof, the small backyard, the washing lines, the shed, and the old car at the front, he could also see caves, gullies, rock clefts and herdsmen’s tracks, a landscape that could swallow an army.

‘If you find intelligence, you’ll have support.’

He had no intelligence, and had the added complication of the man who had hidden near to the house. They shook hands and he let the
carabinieri
officer go to his meeting.

The door closed. He was alone – and had been for several days – and would soon be even more isolated. In the corridors people would whisper to each other behind their hands, and voices would drop when he passed.

They stood, facing the door.

The lawyer had warned them that the family’s arrival was imminent, then had hurried to the car park to greet them.

Bentley Horrocks was a half-pace ahead of Jack and stood with his arms folded and feet a little apart. He was working at the look he would give the man when he pitched up. Bent had enjoyed his walk in the sunshine, but now he had changed into an expensive shirt and trousers: Jack had polished his shoes. In his head he had the figure he would pay, and he knew the profit margins. Nervous? A little. Far from home and what he knew? A long way. He thought Humphrey, the lawyer, was a smarmy little bastard. He had been good in the old days when he’d practised close to the Central Criminal Court, and at Snaresbrook and Southwark, but had gone downhill since he’d moved to the sunshine and new avenues.

He broke his silence. ‘Getting near the big-time, Jack.’

‘Too right, Bent. The big-time, nearly there.’

‘I’ve come a long way for this.’

‘You have, Bent. A proper long way.’

‘And I’ll not be fucked about.’

‘Wouldn’t be clever, Bent, to fuck you about. They won’t, though. You’re meeting a main man, not just a gofer. Know what I mean?’

‘Someone at my level. Yes.’

He heard the sharp intake of Jack’s breath and a little involuntary whistle. It was a noise similar to the one Trace made when he shagged her. He missed Trace – missed everything he’d left behind in London or at the big house in the Kent countryside. Might even miss his wife.

‘Can I say something, Bent?’

It wasn’t often that Jack struck up a conversation. Far down the corridor, he heard a fire door slam. He nodded, waited to hear the footsteps. It was about status and prestige, him being accepted as a major player, meeting a leader of equal importance – not of greater importance – and doing business with a man such as himself who had clawed his way up the ladder to the heights. A man such as himself would value meeting Bentley Horrocks, who ran an area of south-east London, a man who stayed free and was, at a cost, untouchable. He had bought enough police to fill a section house, he liked to joke to himself, when he walked in his garden with the dogs for company.

‘Bent . . .’

Now he heard the footsteps. ‘Shoot.’

A touch of a stammer: ‘Give them respect, Bent. My advice is—’

‘I don’t beg, Jack. You learned nothing?’

‘You don’t have to beg, Bent. Just give them respect. It matters to them. Do it like you’ve never had to before. Please, Bent, respect.’

Of course he would. It would be an old man, a veteran of survival, like himself. There was a light tap on the door. He said, ‘Enter.’ First through was the lawyer, who stepped aside. Bent’s jaw sagged. It was a fucking kid. The lawyer was gabbling a name, but Bent didn’t take it in. His fists clenched. A fucking kid. Anywhere on his territory, south of the river, a kid of that age would reckon himself honoured to be tossed Bent’s car keys and told to park the motor. It would make his evening if he were given a few notes and told to fetch Trace and him a takeaway.

A hand was offered. He took it. The handshake was indifferent. He thought the kid reckoned it a chore to have to shake his hand, like he was doing Bent a favour. The kid looked into his face, seemed to evaluate him and showed no indication of being impressed. He sat down in the chair that Bent would have taken, and Humphrey lowered himself towards the carpet – he needed help to get down, then produced a notepad and pencil. That was how they would do business: with a notepad.

Jack whispered in his ear, ‘Steady, Bent. Outline agreed now, then a handshake, and no going back. The detail tomorrow, or the day after. The handshake is final, Bent. It’s the big man’s grandson. Bent, please, smile at him. They’ll want to know how much weight, cost per kilo and shipment, which is extra.’

The kid lounged in the chair, then swung his feet onto the low table, scattering the magazines and brochures. His eyes went to the TV and lit up – girls were dancing on the screen. The kid had good hands, solid, chunky fingers. No acne, only a small scar. Humphrey reached to Bent, tugged at his trouser leg, pointed to a hard chair and started to write.

Bent brought the chair forward. The kid ignored him. The lawyer had written on three lines:
Weight. Price. Delivery
. No hassle, no barter, no bargain – he could have been in a fucking pound shop down the Elephant and Castle. He bit his tongue, held tight to the pencil, and considered what he would do to Jack when he was shot of the business. He considered what weight he’d buy, how much he would pay, and where he would want delivery. But the kid turned away from the TV screen. Humphrey muttered in his ear, then wrote down the figure for the weight they would sell, the price per kilo and where they would deliver to. The pad was passed back to Bent. No negotiation, no respect. He seethed.

He moved, not with a plan but from desperation.

Jago was in poorer shape than the wolf. Hard to see the beast but it lay on its side on a slab of rock, the wound open to the air. Since it had found the slab, it hadn’t moved.

Only God knew how many hours earlier he had heard the sneeze – too long now to be clear in his mind. He came out of the gap where the two boulders bedded and turned away from the wolf, from the kid who was feeding the dogs from a washing-up bowl, from the old woman, who had brought out Marcantonio’s shirts and hung them from hooks behind the trellis – there was no room for them on the line with the bed linen – and away from Giulietta, who paced and smoked and quartered the front area. It was obvious to Jago that Bernardo’s shirts would be washed, dried and ironed inside, then taken to the cellar or the excavated hole or the cave to which the cable ran.

He went up the hill, with only the memory of the sneeze to guide him. He had known, through the late afternoon and into the early evening, with the light failing, that he must find food. Two choices: he could go down, bang on the door, appear, like a vagabond in the kitchen and ask to be fed or go up the hill, in the direction of the sneeze, and try to locate whoever was there. Jago was close to collapse. Delirium lapped in his mind, threatening to drown him. He had to eat. He didn’t know whom he would find, whether he would be welcomed or attacked. Uppermost in his mind was the certainty that he could not see through another night without food. It was a steep climb.

If he came to the place where a man had sneezed, it would be by an animal’s instinct: he had no other guide.

He reckoned himself close to the end of the road. Last time he’d been there? Maybe when his phone had been taken and Billy had saved him. He should have collected water during the storm and hadn’t. The hunger-strikers in Ireland had used water to prolong their fast. He hadn’t eaten or drunk any water and the weakness ran through him. Each movement seemed to weaken him further. He went on. He tried to be quiet but sometimes a twig cracked beneath his feet and song birds careered away from him. He went on, and his mind rambled . . . dishes his mother cooked, the stuff that came round on the trolley in the City, the health fascists’ favourites in Berlin, a spider’s meal and . . . He was on his knees and his hands. It was aimed at the centre of his forehead.

He saw the darkened recess. He saw two faces and camouflage clothing.

Closest to him was the barrel of the pistol, and the foresight; its paintwork was chipped. The pistol had the look of a world-weary object, but one that was kept in good enough order to work. The hand holding it was steady. Jago had found the man who had sneezed.

He stood. He was confused and it was an effort to get upright, but the elementary truth was that they wouldn’t shoot because of the noise. He saw another hand, which clutched a canister. He remembered, hazily, the dog with impaired eyesight. Jago stood upright. He spoke no Italian and imagined that the men were unlikely to speak English. He had no wish to debate. The pistol barrel followed him. He put his fingers to his mouth and made a chewing motion. Simple enough. Then he gave them a profile, raised his hands and cupped them at his mouth, as if he was about to shout. Clear enough. The final signal: his hands – with two thumbs and eight fingers he seemed to start a countdown. The pistol was loosed and laid in front of them.

Food materialised in small sealed packs and juice sachets. Not much, sufficient. Nothing was said. He was crouched and stumbling, grabbing at the pieces and stuffing them into pockets. A hand that held a phone or transmitter snaked to him, holding a lit screen. It was for him to look at. Jago saw himself. He wore a suit, a decent shirt and a quiet, conservative tie, as the bank required. He smiled, in the picture, self-deprecating, not arrogant, as Wilhelmina would have wished. He didn’t know what to say.

One grinned, then gave him the universal sign, the middle finger, and waved him away. One called after him, with a hint of humour, ‘
Vaffanculo, amico
.’

Jago was gone. He thought he understood what they had told him, grimaced, and went down.

Bernardo ate an early dinner with Mamma.

She served pasta with tomato sauce, then pork. Later she would bring cheese. Bernardo consumed his food at a steady pace, but his plate was overloaded. Age and lack of exercise had curbed his appetite. He had downed only half of the pasta, and now he struggled with the pork. She ate little, had never eaten much, and had never cooked well. She was unimaginative with what she prepared, which was the prime reason why Giulietta joined them infrequently at the table. She often had meals at Teresa’s, or went to Siderno where there was a lawyer with whom she did business. She’d eat with him twice a week, or take a sandwich to her office. He didn’t need to eat out of politeness for his wife’s efforts. If he didn’t like what she had made, he would push it away. He didn’t eat that late afternoon because a new worry had begun to nag at him.

As Giulietta had worked on her computer, two development possibilities had caught her attention – apartments and a club-house on the extreme southern sliver of land where Croatia met Serbia, and a similar site on the Bulgarian coast north-east of Varna, near to the border with Romania. He might need to invest up to five million euros, and couldn’t make such a decision without her advice. It would be good when Marcantonio came back to live with them. Then he could rest, knowing his back was protected.

The nagging worry was about protection. The decision on the priest, his long-time friend Father Demetrio, had been taken. When his mind was made up on such a matter, he did not change it. It was as if a door had closed. The method of the accident would be resolved. After the priest, who posed the next threat? Who, outside the close blood links of the family, could wound him?

He had known Stefano since his driver was a baby and he himself was ten. Stefano had been at his side as punch-bag, servant, driver and keeper of secrets. Stefano had carried the child, dead, cold and stiff, head lolling – out of the cave, into the daylight and up the hill. He had searched out a place for the grave and dug it. He had wrapped a towel around the body, than had covered it with the soil. Bernardo had been unable to watch – too difficult. The worst part was when the priest had said the prayers two days later, and they had scrambled down the hill afterwards without a backward glance. He had studied Stefano’s face, expecting to see moisture in the eyes – nothing. Months later, the money had come. It had been on the old oak table in the kitchen and it had taken most of an afternoon to count it. It had stayed that night in the bag under the big bed. The family had not looked back from the day it had been invested and the first shipment had come through.

He wondered now from which man came the greater threat: from the priest or his driver, who brought food to the house, cleared the fires, was always at the kitchen door and knew the entry mechanism for the bunker. Bernardo had killed men and had brought into Europe vast quantities of narcotics. He had bought and sold firearms, and had traded in juveniles, who went to the brothels of northern Europe or Spain. He had cheated the government, and the taxpayers of the European Union. All of this, yet it was only the child that lingered with him.