‘I believe so.’
The investigator had produced a notepad and pencil but had written only a line at the top of the page, then closed it. Now it had gone back into his pocket, with the pencil. He produced a pipe, which whistled as he sucked the stem. ‘What do you expect me to do?’
‘As a police officer, I expect you to investigate the assault, interview the girl concerned, follow that up, identify our assailant, then arrest and charge him.’
‘Are you widely travelled, Mr Browne?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘But you are aware of the Italian diaspora – of course you are.’
Jago said sharply, ‘I know many Italians live here. I have eyes in my head.’
‘You have not visited Italy?’
‘No. Does that make me an inferior witness to criminal acts?’
‘I understand, Mr Browne, your irritation with my questions. I assure you they are relevant.’
‘I’ve given you chapter and verse on a crime.’
‘You want me to be honest?’
‘Does honesty mean evasion, denial, what we call “sweeping under the carpet”, too unimportant for you to—’
‘Allow me to be honest. It’s always good to speak the truth, even when it’s unpalatable.’
The smile had broadened. The investigator had pushed back his chair and stood up. His police pistol, in a grubby holster, was against his hip, his shirt was not clean, he wore no tie and his trousers were crumpled. At the Plaistow police station, where they handled Canning Town, they would have been red-faced at his rudeness. He thought the man didn’t give a damn.
‘Mr Browne, in Germany we are a colony of Italy. Not of the Italian state but of the various arms of the Italian Mafia. They bring their customs, behaviour and daily habits inside our frontiers. Although they live in Germany they don’t change their culture. It’s a ghetto life. They exploit the lax legislation concerning criminal association and they do well – extremely well. In Germany, the principal representatives of the generic Mafia are the ’Ndrangheta. Have you heard of ’Ndrangheta, Mr Browne? It would help your understanding if you have.’
‘I know nothing about them. Why should I?’
‘Because you are a banker. It says here, above your signature, that you work in a bank. You can recite big numbers, understand spreadsheets and statistics . . .’
‘I’ve reported what happened to me and a young woman. Have I wasted your time?’
If Fred Seitz was about to lose his cool he hid it well. ‘They bring into our country billions of euros. Billions. They buy up hotels and apartment blocks, businesses and restaurants. A man who has no visible sign of income suddenly purchases a four-star hotel and pays ten million euros. We are swamped by them. It is the proceeds of cocaine money. Right at the bottom of the scale, their protection rackets are perpetrated on legitimate business – not for billions or millions or even hundreds of thousands. They’re Italians, and that is how they live. What am I supposed to do? Nothing – so I cannot justify spending much more of my time on it. Sorry, but that’s the truth.”
‘You’ll turn your back on it and walk away?’ Jago felt the tiredness crushing him. He stood up and picked up his briefcase.
‘Do you want my advice?’
He said he did.
‘Does your employer know you’re here?’
He shook his head.
The investigator said, ‘I admire what you did. You intervened when many didn’t. Pin a medal on yourself, but do it in private. You will note that I took no statement from you. As far as the legalities of this incident go, you played no part in it. What is it to do with you? Get a life – look the other way. The Italians and their gangster habits are not your priority. Do you smoke, Mr Browne? Would you like a cigarette?’
He did. Jago felt the need of one. The investigator must have liked him because Rauchen Verboten took a back seat. A window was opened on one side of a central pillar, then a second. Both had been locked but the other man used a straightened paper clip to unfasten them. He led and Jago followed. A leg out and over the window ledge and they could almost have kicked the heads of pedestrians on the Bismarckstrasse pavement. There was a cloud of smoke as the pipe was lit, then acrid fumes. Jago dragged on his cigarette. He thought it the work of an expert because there was a smoke detector in the centre of the interview-room ceiling. He was told that if you sat under a desk in the office and smoked close to the floor, the alarm would sound because it was well made, German manufactured. A flicker of a grin. When he had finished his cigarette he threw it onto the pavement while the investigator hammered the pipe bowl on the outer wall. Jago saw many marks on that stretch of wall where the paintwork was dented. It would have been a familiar routine. He brought his leg back inside.