‘I already did.’
‘They’ll eat my balls . . . No, she’s up. I tell you the wolf moved. She goes to it – fucking hell! She’s kicked its head. Barefoot. That was one hell of a kick, maybe broke its neck. She’s set the dogs on it – God, I could throw up. She’s gone inside. The dogs are fighting over it. She’s back, carrying a chair. Now she’s sitting beside the body of her grandson. What can I say?’
‘Not much. How about “You reap what you sow”?’
‘Or “He that kills with the sword must die by the sword” Book of Revelation . . . The dogs have ripped that fucking wolf apart. It’s not pretty. Will the old man show himself?’
Jago backed away. He had killed a man. He supposed he should have been shaking, and turned away to shut out the sight. He was quite calm, but deep in his guts adrenalin pumped.
A tableau laid out below him.
The grandmother was keeping vigil. He’d heard the word, seen TV documentaries on tribal life in Africa: there had been a particular sound that women made, a high-pitched wail. He heard it now, as would the men above him . . . and others.
Villagers came up the track, the thin and fit leading the rest, who were obese or old and struggling. Some had clubs, two carried handguns and one had an assault rifle – Jago thought he had been delayed by the need to go to a hiding place and collect it. It would have been a prime killing machine and marked him out as trusted. They ignored the woman, let her sit and cry while they worked quickly around her. It would have been their evaluation. Some crouched and others stood. They formed a ring around the body, the blood and the old woman’s chair. The evidence was noted. The dogs had abandoned the wolf and were now beside and under the old woman’s chair. The weapon was close to Marcantonio’s right hand and one man lifted it, broke it, ejected the cartridge cases and passed it to the rifleman. Jago saw all of that, the shrugs, the feeble shows of sympathy, and reckoned that the investigation was almost concluded, with a verdict of ‘accidental death’. He saw that the tyre iron was between the feet of a big man, one of those who had watched the end of the lane, one of the last to get there, who had taken off his cap and was holding it in respect with both hands.
Jago felt neither guilt nor elation.
Teresa appeared. He knew her from the photographs on the laptop. A good-looking woman, she had thrown on some clothes and a pair of sandals. Jago had seen her several times, at the front door, but the old woman had never come out to see her off: no kissing, no hugs. She crouched over her son’s head. It was inevitable that blood from the wound would soak into her blouse. She had done what was asked of her and produced the heir – Jago assumed that Marcantonio had had a destiny in the pyramid structure of the family, had been destined for the top. She had reason to hug the broken head, near to unrecognisable after the pellet blast. Jago fancied he had had an insight into the family’s workings. It was an interesting spectacle. He thought himself a changed man.
The man with the cap in his hand caught at the sleeve of the one with the assault rifle, and seemed nervous. He pointed at the tyre iron.
‘Just a diversion.’
‘Light relief.’
‘Go and hack it,’ Carlo prompted.
He was a long way from home, the manuals of procedure locked in his floor safe. Being involved in a bit of unauthorised detail gave him acute pleasure – as it had when he had left the fired-up laptop open on the desk.
Fred said, ‘Good, isn’t it, what we do? Just nudging things along.’
Carlo said, ‘We might use short-cuts and go up no-entries. Cut corners.’
‘Like a couple of puppies off the leash.’
‘Cause some havoc . . .’
First light, and the greyness matched the lobby’s interior. Fred had left Carlo sitting on the bonnet of the small hire car. He went through the swing doors. A girl was doing her makeup behind the reception desk, and an older woman was manoeuvring a floor polisher. Fred, if pressed, could manage charm and a conspiratorial way that usually saw him home. He had a talent for being believed. He was at the desk, smiled and lowered his head to speak softly to her. She looked up from her mirror.
‘You have a gentleman here, a Mr Horrocks, staying with you. I want to surprise him. Which room, please?’
He was told that the gentleman had gone out.
‘Already? Extraordinary.’
He was walking on the beach. His friend was still in his room on the second floor. Did the gentleman wish . . .?
‘No, thank you. He’ll come back through this door, yes? He’ll be so pleased to see me.’