The moment was for the children. The old woman was on the step, with her daughter and daughter-in-law. The teachers propelled the children into a crescent, and they sang. It was hurriedly rehearsed but a flavour of spontaneity reached Jago in his vantage point. It might have been a hymn, one of the choral arrangements that were popular at St Bonaventure’s. There was no accompaniment, just the sound of little voices. Jago wondered how difficult it had been to persuade the staff at the school to bring the children up from the village. Perhaps a new roof was being talked of, or a playing field. Perhaps they had come simply because the family ensured that the community under their control lived well and had the money they needed to survive. Fun for the little ones to miss a morning’s lessons to sing at the home of the boss, whose words were law to their fathers, but who was hiding underground and had lost a grandson because Jago had thrown a tyre iron at him. One of their teachers was conducting them – too flamboyantly. Perhaps the school needed a new toilet block.
At a sudden gesture from the teacher, the children were silent for a moment, and the sound in Jago’s ears was of the birds singing their own anthems. The children said a prayer, only a few lines, more hesitantly than they had sung. Jago wondered whether the old woman – confronted with so many small innocent faces, clean, unblemished cheeks and laundered clothes – would have a wet eye. He looked hard at her. He could see a profile of her face, but no clenched hand, a wisp of a handkerchief held tight. He saw no movement towards her eyes. Neither the daughter nor the daughter-in-law wiped away a tear. He assumed it was how they lived, that it was about power. A family imported scores of kilos of cocaine and had produced an immature young man, who had found his pleasure in beating the prettiness out of a girl who was trying to establish a business in Berlin. The family’s power showed in the arrival of a class of schoolchildren to sing and pray. The family owned the village. It was a brief lesson, and he assimilated it. He doubted there were gold taps inside, and knew there was only a Fiat City-Van at the front door, but he sensed the power and would answer it. He knew where the cable join was.
The children waved. The old woman went back into the house. The daughter-in-law followed her. The children, with their escorts and teachers, skipped away down the track. In a few minutes they would be back in the sanctuary of their classroom. Giulietta stayed outside, lit her second cigarillo of the day and spoke to the handyman. A short exchange: her talking, him nodding agreement, showing he understood. Jago had expected the priest to be there, and noted his absence.
The sun had crawled a little higher. The dogs were quiet in the sunlight, their bellies full of the food that had been put out for them an hour earlier. More women came up the track.
There was a route down the hill, which seemed to lead from the boulders towards the stone on which the wolf had rested. It had tumbled directly down when shot, but Jago thought he saw a way to the right where it would be possible to crab among ledges. He would have to scramble the last twenty feet and would be behind the derelict shed, on ground that was hidden from him now. He would be within a minute of the sheets that hid the pathway.
He would have liked some coffee – strong, the coffee that the Turks in Kreuzberg would drink. Something to stiffen his resolve. There was no one to do that but himself.
He watched the dogs. It might take him hours to descend. They were curled up, asleep.
It was a brotherhood. Carlo held back as Fred led with the hugging and the brush kisses. It wasn’t how they did reunions at the Dooley Terminal, or how old friends met up at the Custom House on the Thames, but Fred knew what to do and did it well. They were in the back car park of the carabinieri building at Locri. They’d spent the night in a small hotel north of Siderno and dried out their clothes, set off at dawn and reached the barracks on the edge of the town. It was a fortified stronghold and, other than the road, looked out onto olive groves. Fred was their friend. A piece of paper confirmed Reggio’s authorisation for the two men to intrude but the reunions did the job better. Word had passed from Brancaleone that had put them in crime-scene gear the previous day. When Fred had been down in previous years, topping up his ’Ndrangheta file, he had brought whisky and dropped money into the box for the dependants of dead or sick men and women in the force. The whisky went into Christmas raffles, but the thought counted. Laughter ripped round the canteen at the story of a swim in the sea and soaked clothes. But the conversation soon turned serious. Fred was lectured on what it was like to be a maresciallo living in the town, with a wife, and children at school, being shunned and having no friends. The posting would be for four years and was necessary if an officer had ambitions. Living alone, but for the company of colleagues, was bearable for men, but the women suffered from the isolation. The talk moved on, the maresciallo leading it.
Trust among brothers. The final day of an investigation. A surveillance point to be wound down. Limited roadblocks to be pulled out.
‘He’s there, for sure, but we can’t wait for ever. He’s a cruel man and an influential criminal. There are many who are similar or worse. We allocate resources where they show best results. Your man on the hill – we call him the nomade – we think he played a part. There was a metal object beside the body of the grandson. Did it cause him to shoot himself, an object hurled at him? Would anyone intervene when a wolf is to be killed?’
Fred said, ‘I expected to hear from your people in Reggio that the banker had left in the night from Lamezia. Why would he stay longer?’