She was smaller than when he’d met her on the street. Then she had been dressed warmly for the late evening: now she had on just a thin cotton nightdress. ‘What do you want? Why have you come here?’
She was in the doorway, a man in a dressing-gown hovering behind her.
Fred said, ‘It’s about Jago Browne, where you took him and—’
‘What do you know of him? And what do you know about Calabria and survival in this city?’
Fred stayed calm. The police in Berlin did courses on anger management, how to confront verbal assault. He was the voice of reason. ‘He should not be here. Certain matters should be left to law-enforcement officers to deal with.’
‘You know nothing.’
‘What I do know is that if he is taken he will be cut into small pieces. Without mercy.’
‘He’s too old to need a nanny.’
Carlo spoke, ‘What part of yourself did you wave at him?’
She flared, ‘Were you ever on your knees fighting because you believed in something? I think you just took the work benefits and the overtime payments.’
They turned away. Fred thought it a ‘clusterfuck’ moment. The door slammed behind them.
Fred said, through gritted teeth, ‘I don’t know why we bother.’
He sensed Carlo’s grin. ‘Because we get better pensions.’
‘God protect us from crusaders, bigots, her and her crowd. You know what we had in Germany in the Middle Ages? We had feudal warrior barons, each with a fortress, and they ran their territories ruthlessly. Their word was law. Nothing changed. It just transferred here from Saxony, Thuringia and Mecklenburg. The Englishman came here with stupidity. She waved God knows what at him . . . She laughs at us because we are the little people.’
‘If I was asked, “What did you do, Dad, in the great war against organised crime?” I’d say I ticked off the days till my ID was shredded, put in the expenses, then enjoyed the pension scheme. Anything else?’
Fred felt Carlo’s heavy hand settle on his shoulder. Good expenses? Yes, why not? Knowing their place? Absolutely . . . But every once in a while, the ‘little people’ – he and Carlo – had a special moment: the dawn raid, the ram hitting the door at first light, the dog inside barking, the woman at the top of the stairs with her dressing-gown not properly fastened, the kids howling, and the ‘fat cat’ stumbling from his bed, muttering to his wife about calling the lawyer, dressing at gunpoint and the cuffs going on. Might be worth ten million or a hundred million. The shock on their faces, and the sense of outrage at an invasion of their world. It happened once in a while.
They would screw Bentley Horrocks in a good cause because he was staying at a hotel that intelligence stated was part of the investment portfolio of Bernardo Cancello and his family. Also, Fred knew Brancaleone and fancied he might get to swim there. He and Carlo were growing closer, near enough now to josh with each other, but Fred could show fierce determination, and he was confident that Carlo would match him.
‘I want to say my piece about her. In a theatre she has only a walk-on part. Our dear Consolata is not the lead in the performance. She thinks she is, but she isn’t. She’s a convenience. Am I right? Time will tell. I’ll drive.’
Carlo took the wheel.
It was the hour before dawn, the time when men died in their beds, the lucky and the few. The time when the storm squads of the cacciatore would break into a bunker or flood a safe house, throw a flash-and-bang grenade and take a prisoner. It was the time when a man eased from a woman’s bed because soon a cuckolded husband would be back from a night’s thieving, the time when dogs slept and owls were quiet. Very soon the cockerel would crow, not that Bernardo would hear it. He tossed in his bed.