Humphrey did his best. Bentley Horrocks was vain, not really a man of the world. The lawyer thought Stefano played it well. A smile and a wink, they said, was best when handling a man who had been condemned but was ignorant of it. He remembered seeing the two men with Bent outside the hotel – he had been in the lobby. Bent hadn’t answered when Humphrey had asked who they were. Silly boy for being seen with them, and a dangerous boy for Humphrey to know too well.
Jack said, ‘Where you deserve to be, Bent, top table and big league. Brilliant.’
Humphrey drove a big car, and assumed Bent had a Beemer or a Merc in London, perhaps even a Bentley cabriolet, so it had been a surprise for him to be ushered into the passenger seat of a Fiat mass-market, seen-better-days, City-Van. He went off, good as gold. They watched him driven round the corner and out of sight. He saw that Jack – no fool, Giacomo, a survivor, who put up with serious shit in the interests of comfort – was white-faced and his hands were trembling. He told Jack to clear their rooms, and pack the two bags: they’d be leaving for Lamezia in a half-hour.
‘You know what’s good for you, Jack? They’ve long arms, and not many places they don’t reach to. Always gets awkward when anyone opens their mouth out of turn, pulls anything fast on them . . .’
‘I do, Humphrey. I think I know it quite well – what’s good for me. Yes.’
‘Is that her?’
‘It is.’
Carlo’s question, Fred’s response.
She came towards them.
The carabinieri, same as the Customs man and the investigator, would have ‘seen it all’ and were not often fazed. Heads dropped or eyes went to the skies, to the lowering sun, big, red and full of war, and the loose puffs of cloud. She walked as if in a dream, the ID card on her chest. Her arms hung slack at her sides. She made no attempt to cover herself, as if she were beyond modesty. At first the maresciallo had followed her with his binoculars but now he let them hang from the neck strap. The women would have resumed the vigil, something to chat about over the open coffin.
She was alone and walked in the centre of the track, with no protection for her feet. Sometimes the rhythm of her stride broke and she hopped – must have stepped on a sharp flint.
The men stood aside, ignored her. Backs were turned, shoulders offered. One, not meeting her eyes, offered her an old sack, hessian, which he’d picked up from the ground beside the oil drum, and held it out to her. She didn’t take it so he let it fall.
She left them, looking straight ahead. From where they were, that far away, they had heard one long shout, an entreaty, but not her words.
Fred had said to Carlo, outside the communal house in Archi, when the door had been slammed on them, ‘God protect us from crusaders, bigots, her and her crowd . . . She laughs at us because we are the little people.’
Hilde was his wife, and Carlo’s woman was Sandy. That was established. They hadn’t fished out photographs but had mentioned them on the long journey from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Ionian coastline. He would not tell Hilde what he could see as he stood beside the bonnet of the carabinieri vehicle. None of the men were at ease, but he reckoned he and Carlo bore the heaviest responsibility. He would never speak of this walk to a living soul when he returned to his home and doubted that the Englishman would. It was because of him, because of the laptop left on a table in an interview room at the station in Bismarck-strasse. He could source it all back. She walked steadily, and he reckoned that her mind was numb. She hid nothing of herself, and nothing about her explained where Jago Browne was.
The maresciallo, at his elbow, said, ‘It’s about the power have. You understand? You think Carlo understands? They have the power to hurt far beyond the inflicting of pain. Total humiliation is worse than anything physical. That is what they have done to her. I cannot see a mark on her body. No electrodes have been used, no cigarette burns. They have broken no bones. She has lost her clothing, which she can replace for a hundred euros. She is scarred, though. She may never be free of the experience. Maybe six or seven women took part in stripping her. Technically that is an assault, but if I try to put them into a courtroom with no witness, I’ll be laughed at. Standing here, we are ignored. If I go closer, I risk a confrontation. They tolerate us here, but no nearer. On the eve of a funeral it doesn’t suit them to kick us half to death. They make the rules. They have awesome power.’
Fred tried to look into her eyes, to offer solidarity – and thought Carlo would – but she sleep-walked past them. She was given a blanket from the tailgate of a vehicle. It was draped over her shoulder, lay on the soft skin, covering one nipple but not the other. She didn’t wrap it closely around herself. A car door opened and she was helped inside. He considered, not seriously, going to the door and asking her if she had seen Jago Browne on the hill. If she had, how was he? Had he yet explained his intentions – and when was the silly fucker coming out and getting himself onto a plane? He could have asked all of that, but did not. He wondered, again, where the boy was and what he would do. He heard sobbing, quiet and not theatrical.
The maresciallo said, ‘They do what they want. They buy who and what they want. It is difficult to win.’