When the Dead Awaken (11 page)

‘Out!' she shouted.

‘The brake lines need soldering, Mum. I'm just about to—'

‘I'm counting to three, Gianni! One, two …'

‘Mum!'

The boy slid out on the mechanic board – a device Enzo had constructed from a sheet of plywood and an old skateboard. Her son was wearing an antique leather helmet and goggles, and presented her with the deadpan face of a fifteen-year-old. His hair was black and thick and fell in long locks. The goggles held a reflection of Enzo Canavaro's Holy Grail: a perfect 1958 Ferrari 250T Testarossa. Even Antonia was awestruck at the sight of the ingenious monocoque bodywork every time she entered the garage – as neat and sterile as an operating theatre. The twelve-cylinder aluminium engine hung suspended from chains
above the empty engine compartment. Enzo had bought the car as a wreck from some friends in Castellarano, but the restoration was nearing completion.

The whole town was waiting for the engine to go in, for the Testarossa to erupt in a tiger roar of rebirth. But Enzo kept them waiting. The timing was never quite right – according to some mystical calendar or planetary alignment known only to him.

Gianni's eyes were the exact the same shade of Black Sea blue as his mother's.

‘Homework?' she snarled.

‘Eh … yeah? What about it?'

‘And practising your cornet? You know you're playing tomorrow, don't you? Didn't Enzo remind you? I asked him to.'

A groan of outrage. Gianni wouldn't dream of betraying Enzo.

‘Off you go. Now!'

Sulking, the boy hung the helmet and goggles on the throttle of the Honda. He marched off without looking at her. She knew that Enzo was hiding, waiting for her to leave the garage. But she stayed. Her toe tapped the concrete floor with impatience as her gaze wandered across the icons on the rear wall: Enzo Ferrari wearing big sunglasses with black crepe draped around the picture frame and the Ferrari Formula One drivers' line of succession from Juan Manuel Fangio to Michael Schumacher.

‘Enzo? I'm waiting.'

He emerged from under the car and stood up with a series of cracks from his back. He watched her with a kind of pious indifference in his boxer's face.

Enzo was wearing a spotless, red Ferrari-mechanic's boiler suit.

Once Antonia had seen him almost naked one morning when she passed the bathroom. He had worn only a towel around his waist. The door was ajar and she had stopped to close it when she noticed him. Enzo Canavaro's back was a battlefield of jagged scars and white patches from skin transplants. Some transplants had taken, while other sections of his back were nothing but gnarled red and white scar tissue.

He had seen her reflection in the mirror and turned around to close the door. But not before giving her a look she didn't think a human being was capable of.

Stripped of self-pity or embarrassment.

The look of a wild thing.

Enzo's chest and stomach had made the skin on his back look like that of a newborn – and she had cried the rest of the afternoon, hidden away in her bedroom.

‘Gianni is my son, Enzo,' she shouted. ‘Do you hear me? He's only fifteen years old. Too young to understand what it means to shoulder the heavy responsibility for other people's lives, don't you think?'

His brown eyes blinked. Enzo's gaze was focused on the
cat on the wall. No one was ever too young for that, he would appear to think.

‘Gianni isn't here to be your companion or apprentice,' Antonia said. ‘He's my son. He has duties and homework and music practice. Do you understand? Tell me that you understand. That you're listening to me!'

Enzo cracked his knuckles; hung his head as much as a high priest of a Testarossa could. His enormous hands opened in a display of feigned contrition, he hunched his shoulders, and his mouth started to open, but Antonia was not in a forgiving mood.

‘Yes …' he began.

‘Yes what?'

‘Yes!'

She handed him an envelope.

‘A letter for you.' She looked at the address. ‘Enzo Johann Canavaro.'

He took the envelope without saying anything and stuck it in the inside pocket of the flame-red boiler suit. Every month a letter in a plain envelope would arrive. Postmarked Milan. No sender; handwritten address. Antonia had no idea of the contents, even though she had been tempted to steam open the letter several times.

But Enzo would have known immediately.

‘Your blood-pressure medication,' she asked. ‘Have you taken it? No, of course not. Your face looks like it's trying to escape. Have you had another nosebleed?'

‘No.'

Antonia folded her arms across her chest. The sun was setting behind the roof and the garage light automatically came on in Enzo's five-by-six-metre-square kingdom – for which he insisted on paying additional rent.

‘Johann? Why Johann?'

Enzo smiled.

‘Why do you think they call me “The German”?'

‘Because you're so … so … incredibly pedantic about everything?'

‘Un-Italian, you mean?'

‘No … Yes!'

She shook her head, as always in doubt about what was true, false or irrelevant in Enzo's biographical information.

‘I'm about to start dinner,' she said.

‘Did you get them?' he asked her in a different voice. ‘The papers?'

He stood in the shadow and the light from the garage fell like a yellow cape around his shoulders. His figure grew denser and darker.

‘Yes. I got them … It's the last time, Enzo. I'm not doing it again. Do you hear me?'

He ignored her protest.

‘The girl … Amalia …'

‘Amalia Nesta. Aged seventeen. Motorbike. The bridge by
the gorge,' she repeated, sounding tired. ‘She's dead, Enzo, stone dead.'

The huge man nodded darkly. ‘Serramazzoni. It's the fifth time in three years.'

‘Then why do you need to know what happened? Tell me. It's not going to bring her back, Enzo.'

‘Bad luck or a preventable accident?' he asked. ‘Someone has to look into …'

Antonia knew that tomorrow Enzo would drive up to the bridge with his friends, all retired Ferrari mechanics. Like death's self-appointed actuaries they would take measurements, photograph the scene of the accident, study charts and enter data into spreadsheets. Antonia thought their undertaking was offensive and morbid.

‘We can't … control everything, Enzo.' ‘Yes! We have to. Don't say that! If I … if we just take enough care …'

He fell silent, but he had come close to gripping her forearm with his gigantic paw. He walked around her to get to the door to the stairs.

‘Take your damn pills,' she called out after him.

Enzo and the boy both ate in silence, barely taking their eyes off the plates, and Antonia said only as much as was necessary. Enzo got up as soon as he could, rinsed his plate under the tap and put his plate, cutlery and glass in the dishwasher. He looked at Antonia, took the case
file, pressed it to his chest and went off to his rooms. Enzo had fitted new and advanced locks on the doors; he had even offered to secure the whole shop with sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, but Antonia had said no. There hadn't been a burglary in Castellarano for as long as anyone could remember and she thought he was being ridiculous. She heard a window open and an electronic whirring from the garage: Enzo had burglarproofed his precious garage with a remote-controlled device.

Gianni made tea, and mother and son shared the last four biscuits in the tin. He looked up at the ceiling, which resounded with Enzo's footsteps.

‘Don't be mad at him, Mum,' he said.

‘I'm not. I'm mad at both of you.'

‘Okay …'

An hour later the boy opened the door to Apollonia and showed her into the kitchen. The blonde in the sharp designer glasses was the headmistress of the most exclusive girls' school south of Lausanne. Since 1733 the oldest and best families in Italy had sent their daughters to the convent school in Castellarano to lay the foundation for a successful marriage and a well-run household. And instil a favourable disposition towards sending their own daughters to the school when they themselves became mothers.

Her skirt was tight and her jacket wrapped itself lovingly around her petite body. Only a gold crucifix with a single ruby red tear on the lapel of her dark grey jacket revealed Apollonia's rank within the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was no older than Antonia.

Apollonia, too, was originally from Castellarano – the daughter of a pharmacist – and she had come back home: the little mountain town held an irresistible attraction for anyone who was born there.

She sat down on a kitchen chair, accepted a cup of tea, folded her trench coat in her lap and came straight to the point.

‘
The Mikado
, Antonia, is this year's performance for the Old Girls' Day. But my girls look like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga or Beyoncé. They don't look like anyone from the court of the Emperor of Japan, and certainly not like anything Gilbert and Sullivan would recognize. They need serious styling. A total makeover, in fact. All of them.'

Antonia pointed to herself. ‘Me?'

‘If you have the time. It's a major commitment,' the headmistress warned her. ‘They rehearse every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The first night is in two weeks. If Signor Conti needs you for a death we'll understand, of course.'

‘There's nothing I would rather do. It sounds exciting!'

‘Competent students from the upper school will help you.' Apollonia blew steam from the rim of the cup.
‘We have plenty of white kabuki paint or whatever you call it.'

‘Thank you. I would love to do it.'

Milan

Teenagers were skateboarding in the park outside the Grand Hotel, moving at dizzying speed between hedges, rock gardens, steps and railings with the total lack of fear only fourteen-year-olds possess. Sabrina D'Avalos continued along the little street south of the cathedral. Regardless of whether she walked in the sun or shade, she had a sense of being under surveillance. A tightness in her chest.

How strange to feel both lonely and observed at the same time.

She had identified two of her tails on the Corso outside the Palace of Justice. It wasn't difficult once you knew how. People's social interaction, even in open squares and in crowds, still remained so predictable that deviations stood out – especially if you were as paranoid as she was. A man in a pavement café, dressed like a tourist in shorts, bumbag and sandals, with a camera slung over his shoulder, had tried too hard to ignore her when she walked past. But
when she was fifty metres away he looked after her and got up – she could see him reflected in the window of a computer shop. He had already left the exact money on the table. Another middle-aged man, dressed like your average businessman, emerged from a chemist's ten metres behind Sabrina and adapted his footsteps a little too neatly to match hers.

The two men also walked at the same speed, as if a cable connected them. Her neck started to feel sweaty. Both men moved smoothly and economically and appeared to be in good shape. They were presumably faster than her, even over a short distance. The tourist's bumbag and the businessman's folded-up newspaper also meant the likelihood of easily accessible weapons.

She walked fast and didn't look back.

In Corso di Porta Vittoria she reduced her speed and synchronized her entrance into a department store to put a group of college students between her and her pursuers. In the glass of the revolving door she saw the two men accelerate before their path was blocked by the impenetrable group of youngsters.

Coin was busy. Sabrina made her way through the crowds in the perfumery, went around a pillar and ran downstairs to the basement where lavatories, lockers and telephone booths were located. She took the lift to the third floor: Men's and Boys' Wear. She found a black hoodie at least three sizes too big and a pair of black jeans a size
too small. She paid without trying on the clothes and dropped her shoulder bag into the shopping bag. In the sports section she bought a pair of large, masculine sunglasses.

On the floor below, Sabrina found a quiet changing room. She loosened her ponytail and combed her hair forwards so that it covered the scarred part of her face, put her leather jacket and blue jeans in the plastic bag, and put on the hoodie and the tight jeans. She pulled the hood over her head, looked in the mirror, applied thick black mascara and black kohl. She was fairly pleased with the result. Assistant Public Prosecutor Sabrina D'Avalos had entered the cubicle, and an introverted, androgynous emo had emerged instead – or so she hoped. She sat down on the stool in the changing room and placed the four identical cheap wristwatches that she had brought with her from Naples on the floor. She twisted off the plastic straps and binned them. She put two of the watches in separate scrunched-up cigarette packages, one in an empty sweet bag and the last in an empty tampon box.

She left the changing room and tried to slouch like a boy. A pursuer would be looking out as much for a person's pattern of movement as external features when trying to identify his target.

At a side exit she mingled with another small group of teenagers on their way out through the revolving door. She
asked a girl for directions to the nearest Internet café. The girl answered her as she would any other Milanese teenager. Sabrina almost smiled, but stopped herself. Emos don't smile.

She hung around the area outside the cathedral for a couple of hours. Ate pizza slices, drank cola, smoked cigarettes and sat on a bench in the square for a long time, watching early evening tourists and pigeons. A young couple sat down on the bench next to her and parked a sleeping child in a buggy in front of them. Sabrina looked at them and did a double take. She recognized the woman from her law course … Sofia something or other … and the young man had sat in the row behind her in the lecture hall for several years. The woman glanced at Sabrina's hooded figure and carried on talking regardless. Shortly afterwards they got up and left.