Jago was almost on them before he was aware of it – they wore camouflage, with dark cream or mud on their hands. A fine net of russet material mixed with natural colours – black, olive green, sweeps of brown brushstrokes – but the lens behind it caught the light. He paused for a few seconds, then went past them.
They exchanged no words. It never crossed Jago’s mind to offer gratitude for the food they had given him, ask about the weather forecast or the weekend’s Serie A games. He could not have said whether they would, from that vantage point, have seen him take aim, then hurl the tyre iron at Marcantonio as he levelled the shotgun on the crippled wolf – Jago’s friend. There was only one similarity between him and them. He was quiet, light on his feet, and thought he could compete with them in skills that would be second nature to them and new to himself. The similarity? He knew the family, was growing closer to it, and they, too, would be familiar with its members, their vagaries and habits. A second similarity: they would be waiting for a sighting of the old man and they, too, would have just the black-and-white photograph, decades old, for identification. He and they shared ignorance. Both waited.
Higher up was the open space where trees and foliage pressed close around what a poet might have called a glade. There was grass and soft moss, and the sun filtered through the leaves. In the books his mother read it was the sort of place where a boy might take a girl. It was hidden, and the house was not visible. He sat, checked his watch and determined how long he would wait. He might have slept. If he had slept and dreamed, he might have seen the man he had never met.
Giulietta walked with her father. They were there to be seen. It was a way of answering those who might have whispered the poison of doubt. He had gone past the war memorial of Locri and by the statue in the small square that commemorated Padre Pio. They had had coffee in a bar on a side-street, the Via Piave, had sauntered along Via Giacomo Matteotti, and now he was at the fruit and vegetable market. He would have brought tomatoes and olives here most weeks recently, had he not been incarcerated in the bunker. It was important that day that men should note he was free, not crushed by the death of his grandson. It was on the radio – and would have been the subject of vivid gossip. The corpse was now in the Ospedale Civile, and the rumour mill would be spinning that the death was ‘mysterious’. It would have been known that he was in hiding, that a magistrate in Reggio was conducting an investigation into his affairs. It was important to be seen – and to be seen with his daughter. Word would pass to those of influence in the community.
The town of Locri housed a carabinieri unit and a team from the Squadra Mobile. The Guardia di Finanze was also present. It was possible, in this town, that a rival might pick up a firearm, hurry to where he was in the marketplace, and blow the back off his head, probably dropping his daughter at the same moment. It was not possible that any man who had seen him on the street, or had taken coffee with him, or now discussed the quality of the fruit and vegetables on sale, the effect of the recent storm on the crops in the poly-tunnels would reach for a mobile phone. Of that he was certain. No one would dial the numbers of any of the three police units in the town. None would be told that a wanted man, gone to ground, was close to them and vulnerable.
He had good conversations in the market, and seemed not to hurry, but Giulietta watched his back and carried in her handbag an Italian-made Beretta 84F.380 Auto calibre, deluxe, with gold inlay. She could use it – probably shot better than his grandson had. Men would murmur about her behind their hands, about her nose, but not to his face. Men talked about the produce, about the weather, and when Marcantonio was mentioned it was with sympathy. It was not Bernardo’s prime territory but he was accepted there. He had a financial interest in some bars, a restaurant and two of the new apartment blocks along the Siderno road. It was good to have Giulietta with him, but it hurt that she had no man to look after her and that now no one other than his daughter could take over the family business. Would a woman be tolerated as an equal? He couldn’t say. He shrugged off commiseration about his grandson.
He had been seen.