But they and the guys on the hill were pulling out. He’d be on his own if he stayed, no friend within reach. Fred used his phone to check flights out, and book seats, to Rome together, then onwards separately. Carlo thought it would be fun to meet Bentley Horrocks on the leg to Heathrow – intimidating but fun.
Cars streamed from the house higher up the track, younger men driving, their elders beside them, their faces turned away from the carabinieri photographer. From what he could see of them, Carlo thought their expressions masked their feelings: there was no sign of hate, contempt, arrogance or humility. They didn’t notice the men in uniform, and the cars travelled a respectful speed, slowing to go into the chicane, then accelerating out of it. Dust billowed after them.
The maresciallo said, ‘The families have destroyed Calabria, with physical and moral vandalism. We can’t break it. Is your man on the mountain so conceited that he believes it possible to alter the historical certainties of the region? To do what we cannot? Or is it a gesture?’
‘I’ve never liked gestures,’ Carlo said, ‘but I’m not reading him too well.’
He had a quick look behind him.
Time to go: the sheets had rippled, as if something had brushed against them. He had not seen the old woman and imagined that she was entertaining those who had come to keep vigil with her. He had heard cars leaving, and when he’d lifted his head the obvious had been confirmed. The men had gone. Bernardo would have entertained them – the movement at the far side of the sheets had told him that the padrino was going to his bunker.
Jago pushed himself forward.
He had worn down the lichen on the stones under the boulders, compressed the moss and flattened the grass. There was a small bag that he had managed to push under the boulder on the left side so it was well hidden. The two lines he had scratched on the side of the opposite boulder were clear to see. He had done it with the penknife. Simple, like a signature. He had been there and left evidence as proof: only the young man who lay dead in an open coffin would have recognised the significance of two scratched lines. He would not linger on the way out.
It was the last time he’d see it. The gap into which he had wriggled seemed so narrow.
The kid was out, and so were the dogs. They were on the far side of the property, climbing. Jago had a good view of the kid and didn’t feel threatened. He was confident that it was the right time, and he thought it best to be away and clear in daylight. His chance, he reckoned, of getting away up the slopes and over the rock falls, was good in daylight, and slight in darkness. That was his banker’s training: an evaluation of risk.
He went down, trying to hug ground that was in shadow. He didn’t know where Giulietta, the handyman or the daughter-in-law were, but he could see the men far down the track keeping watch there, and beyond them, near to the bend that was the start of the village, carabinieri trucks were parked across the road. They’d be too far away to save him. He went steadily and carefully, thinking of the pandemonium he would create when the power failed . . .
17
Jago did his best to be silent but he trod on dry twigs, which snapped, and scuffed dried leaves.
He had slipped twice. The first time he had gone down hard and broken the fall by clinging to a birch sapling growing from a crevice. On the second, his left foot had hit a level platform of rock that might have been three inches at the widest point. Pain had shot up his leg into his pelvis. Delusions gripped him. He thought he was closer to the family than to anyone sitting in judgement over him at the bank. His chair had been taken by someone else now.
His trainer soles scraped over rock surfaces and squealed as they slipped. Each time, Jago stopped. He froze and hugged the ground, tried to bury himself in rock, scrape a trench where the moss and earth were less than an inch deep, or to hide behind a tree trunk that was four or five inches in diameter. He had come halfway down. He hadn’t been seen: no one had come out of the house. He believed that the head of the family had retreated to his bunker, that the kid and the dogs were on the far side of the valley, that the men stayed at the outer gate and the uniforms were further away, beyond earshot. When he stopped he worked hard to slow his breathing.
The chair in Sales was occupied. Jago could not see the occupant’s face but he seemed to have strong shoulders and wore a white shirt with a tie. A suit jacket was draped on the chair back. He was close to the FrauBoss, and his blond hair, cut short, contrasted with her ebony. It had not taken Human Resources long to find a replacement. A few days – he was not sure how many, or what day of the week it was. That had little relevance when he was sliding on his backside down rock faces, or clinging by his fingertips to ledges. Below him was a patio and beyond that an open area in which the hard seat was still placed, the trellis of vines, and the line of sheets. He could see the shed better now, the walls and the damaged frame of what had once been a window. The chickens ignored him, and he couldn’t see the cockerel.