There were men and women at the Brancaleone barracks whom Fred knew, and more at Locri. Old friendships did not easily die. They had driven between the two at fearsome speed, with a squad car clearing the way, blue light spinning and siren wailing. There were police from European forces who came to southern Italy and never seemed able to lose the appearance of contempt for their ‘colleagues’ wrestling with the differing brands of the Mafia, Italy’s ever-present, crushing cross. Not Fred. He had spoken his mind quietly when the law-and-order people of Calabria had eaten, drunk and swum with him. He had listened and had been accepted. A bigger point, which weighed well: Fred carried the most recent CCTV pictures of the grandson, Marcantonio, which offered the best hope of a formal identification that did not rely on the family and their associates. He was a friend and beside him was Carlo, who had a magic slip of paper, authorisation, in the breast pocket of his shirt. Things happened in times of confusion; doors were left ajar. Men like himself and Carlo were skilled at getting a foot into the gap and exploiting it. When chaos flooded in so did advantage. It was a rare chance to be marginally useful, and to be closer to where the banker boy was.
The radio played. Consolata stirred on the camp bed in the storeroom. She caught a news flash. The station had the name, the village in east Calabria, and the reporter said ‘First reports state that the shooting was accidental.’ She almost gasped. Accidental? She was surrounded by crude shelves on which were stacked packets of paper, pens, pencils, pamphlets, and booklets issued by the government that listed successes in the war against the ’Ndrangheta. Cardboard files held indexed newspaper cuttings going back to the founding of the group’s campaign. Her clothes were folded on a wooden chair. She knew . . . Accidental . . . She understood.
Consolata had slept poorly, but for some of the night she had dreamed of him. The openness of his face, the flatness of his belly, his quiet when the stress had built as they had approached the village, the way he had left her, not turning for a last glance. She had thought of him, and the dream had carried her towards a time when the winding road on the Aspromonte was behind them, the sunlit beach stretched away, and the castle at Scilla watched over them. She had played her part, and he would have known it. There was chemistry between them, no doubt about it. They would walk on the beach, arm in arm, hip to hip, and elsewhere – far away. Consolata was sure of it. She was off the bed and dressed hurriedly.
It was done, finished. She would extract him.
She slipped out of sight.
It was cold, calculating, and was done. In her room, Giulietta shrugged off her suit, then put on old jeans and a lightweight cardigan. She transferred her cigarillos to her hip pocket.
It was easy for her to go from the kitchen door, unseen, and bypass the gathering on the patio where the corpse still lay: her mother remained in her chair, her sister-in-law was still on her knees, and Annunziata’s children hugged the legs of a village woman, a cousin. The men talked quietly, and the priest was on his phone, calling the undertaker in Locri. She went behind them. The wolf’s carcass had been kicked aside, and she had to step over it. She had heard already that an ambulance crew was blocked further down the road, near to Teresa’s villa, but she assumed the carabinieri would soon be there, would demand access, which could not be refused.
She went behind the trellis where the ripe grapes brushed against her hair, and past a child’s plastic pedal car. There were small beds where tomatoes grew well, and also chillis. She was behind the sheets. Her head was down so she would not be seen.