She cursed him, not aloud, and despised herself for following him. It had been easy to come down, find this ledge, sliding on the backside of her jeans the last two metres, but was harder to pull herself up. She had a grip with one trainer and a hold with one hand, fingers gripping a smooth rock surface, but her foot slid away and she lurched back. She tried again, but her fingers couldn’t take the strain and, once more, she toppled back, and swore, then went at it yet again.
She was up off the ledge and had a good grip with foot and fingers when the dogs came. Not big ones, not the dogs the police used or the military. There had been dogs of that build, that aggression, round the bigger rubbish dumps in Archi. They would fight each other for food scraps, but the worst ferocity would be directed at anyone foolish enough to interfere with them. They had her legs and she lost the foothold, kicked to get them clear of her and fell over the edge.
The dogs went with her. Two leaped after her and one clung by its teeth to her jeans and held tight. She was shouting, near terror, and the dogs were snarling. She rolled and cannoned off a tree, then bounced into a rock face. She was dazed now, unable to help herself, and another dog had its teeth on her arm. The anorak was ripping. The kid was above her, crabbing sideways, sure-footed, managing the ground with ease. It was a snapshot moment, as if a camera had captured it: the coldness in the face, the absence of excitement, the lack of emotion. He was a teenager and had smooth cheeks. His eyes never left her and showed no pleasure at her fate but no sympathy either. Dead eyes. She rolled further, and the ground came up fast to meet her. She hit a chair on the slabs of the patio.
An old woman had come out with a broom, which she waved at the dogs. They backed off. Consolata saw a face that was lined with age and the skin sagging, and knew she was confronting the mamma of the family. First a cackle, then the face set. Aspromonte granite.
The old woman, ankle to throat in black, called, ‘We have a little bitch, all bones, a little spy, watching us.’
They had a fine view of the yard, and the kitchen door.
Women spilled out of it. They seemed uniformed in black, the ‘mourning squad’, and came armed. Some were hideously skeletal, others grotesquely obese. They would have been roused from their vigil over the dead boy by the snarling of the dogs and the old woman’s shout. From the kitchen, some had brought knives and one had a saucepan. Another brandished a meat cleaver, and the last gripped the handle of a lump hammer.
‘Report or not?’
Fabio hissed, ‘I have never been unprofessional and—’
The dogs were outside the circle of women, sniffing the backs of legs. The kid had come down from the rocks and had the wisdom to stay back. The low sunlight caught the steel of the knives, the pan, the cleaver and the rim of the hammer head. Fabio thought he might be sick. He could no longer see her. She was blocked by the women’s backs. They bent. He heard no scream, and the dogs were quiet. The kid was at the edge of the yard and did nothing.
‘Do we shoot?’ Fabio asked.
A hoarse answer from Ciccio: ‘We shoot only to preserve life, our lives or a victim’s. We do not shoot to warn. If we shoot it is to kill. Do you need me to read you the regulations? We do not do warning shots. Ever.’
‘Or shout?’
‘We’re not “intervention”, we’re “surveillance”. We watch, we note.’
‘She was your girl. You knew her . . .’ Fabio let it tail off. It was a cheap shot. He couldn’t see her. He hadn’t met her. Ciccio had not brought her on a foursome outing for a meal, a drink, a movie. He had kept her to himself. It was difficult to work out what the women were doing. They were crouched now, but he didn’t think the knives had been used, while the hammer and the saucepan were not raised high to strike. A card came up in a wizened hand. It was encased in cellophane, and would have been hung around Consolata’s neck. Fabio had his pistol in one hand and a pepper spray in the other, but Ciccio held the binoculars. It was an ID card. It was passed among the women. Ciccio mouthed that it was the card for a member of the Addio Pizzo or the Reggio Libera. Gales of coarse laughter rose to them.
Fabio said, ‘The camera! Use the camera.’
‘Can’t.’
‘Use the camera! Record it!’
A hesitation. ‘It’s packed. It’s in the fucking case. Lenses are off. Everything stowed.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘Fuck you, Fabio. You saw me pack it. We agreed. We were due to go – we had nothing to report, nothing to see. It was over, finished.’
Two good friends had fallen out. That was new in their relationship. It had damaged mutual fondness and respect, which might not be retrieved. They didn’t shoot, shout or use the camera. The women were bent over the girl.