He had a good view of her. She came out with the handyman, and the old woman hovered by the kitchen door. Jago thought the entertainment had begun.
He felt the excitement he’d known as a child when he was taken to see a film or to a show in the West End, the anticipation of hearing an orchestra tuning or sitting forward as the lights dimmed.
The old woman held some clothes while the handyman had a newspaper and a small plastic container for petrol. Giulietta kicked off her shoes, then dropped her suit trousers – her legs were pale, not browned by the sun – and snatched the pair of jeans her mother held out to her. She had on a different blouse from the one she’d worn when coming to the front of the house. There was no panic, but she was quick, which told Jago that time was short. He thought that traders could move fast when the markets needed a reaction, but didn’t panic, not even at the cliff edge of a crash. They kept their cool, as did she. He didn’t know why the clothes had to be destroyed. They went into the oil drum where the trash was incinerated, and the fuel was splashed on top. The women stood back as the handyman did the business with a spill of rolled paper and a match.
Jago’s mind leaped – it wasn’t too great a chasm to cross. Clothes for destruction had been in up-close-and-personal contact with a killing. The flames climbed higher. Easy for Jago to see that Giulietta had fastened her jeans and was ready to take the small pistol her mother offered. It went into her waistband. A car cleansed and clothing burned. Evidence of a murderous few hours, Jago thought.
Giulietta led; the handyman followed.
The old woman was back inside. The kid now loitered and the dogs picked up the mood, were poised, but didn’t know where the threat lay. The grandson would still be in the coffin in the house – maybe the lid had been screwed down. Jago had seen Marcantonio’s confidence, had watched him strut about, as if he thought it his right to do so. Now he was forgotten. She had control. Giulietta had sent her mother inside and the handyman was following in her wake, a bag carrier . . . She was behind the trellis now, and he saw the ripple of the sheets as she passed behind them.
A little light fell from the kitchen, a little more from the fire in the oil drum, a fraction of moonlight from between the trees. He saw her crouch and fiddle with something. She must have found a switch or a catch that was controlled by electricity. It had been pretty obvious to Jago that the doorway was electrically powered: logical because of the weight of the stones in the wall. She was scrabbling, and must have failed. She whistled. He knew the sound, had learned its pitch. It was the whistle the kid gave when he directed the dogs. The kid ran towards her, and she must have made a gesture he recognised but that Jago couldn’t see. He sprinted behind the sheet, under cover of the trellis, and was lost. The dogs scampered about, confused. The television or radio was loud in the kitchen. She was still struggling, trying to use her weight to open the door. Stones had come loose from the wall and she scrabbled, like people did on news bulletins when there had been an earthquake and victims were buried. The kid came back.
Jago saw the hammer.
She belted at something. The handyman tried to push her aside and do the job himself. She wouldn’t have it. She hit again. Her calm was replaced now with frantic hammering . . .
Stone-faced, pissed off, they were in their cave and had taken out the bare minimum of the kit they had packed. The messages on the screen had been pithy, unpleasant. For days they had been on top of the sheets hanging on the line, for days they’d had the view of part of a derelict shed’s roof and of the ground where the chickens scratched. They had been upstaged by a maresciallo at a roadblock, who was two hundred and fifty metres back from them and claimed to have identified the bunker where the head of the clan had his refuge. They didn’t know where the Englishman was. Now they could hear but not see. They could hear hammering, the wrenching of metal and stones landing on the ground, but they couldn’t see what was happening.
Fabio had muttered, ‘If that’s where he is, they won’t believe we had no idea of it. We’ll be accused of collaboration.’
Ciccio had said, ‘Life isn’t fair. If it was, everyone would be a hero, not washed up, like we are.’
The hammering reached fever point.