The scorpion fly was beautiful. They had killed so many unnecessarily in the jar: they had been trapped, then died in the damp captivity.
His own situation was bad, but Ciccio’s was worse. Ciccio was Fabio’s best friend, only friend, his irreplaceable friend. Ciccio’s Neomi had a degenerative condition of the hip or pelvis. The four use to ski together in the Alto Adige but that was not possible now. In the summers they would go together to the beaches up by Salerno, where the men would not be recognised, but Neomi hardly swam now and could not play beach games. The strain told on all of them. When they talked about women it was not their conquests but the value of being together, quiet and calm. Hard times. Enough stories circulated in their barracks about men coming off a surveillance duty, arriving home in the middle of the night to find a strange car parked outside the block, knickers on the stairs and chaos. There but for the grace of the good Lord . . .
Fabio murmured, ‘Do you hate it?’
‘Hate what?’ Ciccio, puzzled, looked away from the scorpion fly but his hands were poised to sweep it up.
‘Do you hate that insect?’
‘Of course not. I love it.’
‘Why condemn it for the benefit of an entomologist’s study if it’s done you no harm?’
Ciccio took the plastic jar from Fabio. He put it by his shoulder and let it slip. It rolled back to lodge between them. Both chuckled. They could laugh soundlessly, and rejoice. Better to have saved the life of a Scorpion Fly and have laughed than to have gone further with their analysis of the women. The insect stayed close. It was not afraid of them.
And Scorpion Fly, the operation originated by a prosecutor in the Palace of Justice on the far side of the Aspromonte peaks was running towards its conclusion.
They watched it – and watched the old woman, Mamma, bring out more washing, which would have been hers and her daughter’s but, as always, nothing of her husband’s. They watched Stefano feed the chickens, and Giulietta emerge from the front door to light her first cigarillo of the day. The sun climbed at leisure, and there was a babble of children’s voices. They had an agenda: enjoy the Scorpion Fly, prepare a cold breakfast, look after their personal hygiene, then start the slow business of packing up what they had brought. It would be a long, hot day.
‘Does it matter, Ciccio, if we fail in the mission and he stays free?’
‘It matters no more than the last time we failed and the last time we won. It’s the job. It’s not personal.’
‘The young man down there – that’s personal.’
‘Maybe he’s already pulled out.’
‘Did he kill Marcantonio?’
‘Of course not. A bank clerk against a seasoned criminal? No. Don’t forget, see, hear, know nothing. And survive.’
The children’s voices were louder.
He felt a serenity in the woods and among the rocks, with the cool of the early morning. The school group added to the atmosphere of peace and dignity.
They came in a crocodile and wore brightly coloured bibs. Boys and girls, who looked, from a distance, to be six or seven. They were shepherded by a teacher at the front and another at the back. Two of the men from the block on the track escorted them. Their voices were shrill. Jago assumed that the coffin lid would be off and that the undertaker would have tried to clean up the boy’s face after the basic autopsy had been done in the mortuary. The children were not cowed by where they were – they might have been going to play football in a park. Jago liked that. It would have been by arrangement. A dozen women, of different ages, all in neck-to-ankle black, had already arrived and now formed up at either side of the entrance to the house. Men had arrived in the last half-hour from the village but they stayed inside.