The light hurt his eyes but he stared straight into it. He thought it was the same torch that had been used to illuminate the wolf’s head. Then he had seen the pain in the beast’s features, but it hadn’t flinched. As his example, Jago took a young wolf, with a wounded side. The animal had not backed down. He had his own torch and penknife.
He moved very slowly. It might have been a spider on a single strand of web that had come down from the ceiling and brushed the back of his neck, or a scrap of soil that had been dislodged. It irritated the skin at the gap where his hair and shirt met. It had been good of Consolata to bring clean clothing for him, but it was the food he had wanted – anything more from her? He didn’t think so. He hadn’t asked for her involvement. He laid the penknife in front of his crossed legs and showed that his hand was empty. He held it up, as if he was making an oath. He thought it would be Giulietta who held the pistol he had heard being armed. Unlikely that the old man would have been able – from his breathing – to hold it steady.
Her breathing was calm. The shouts far beyond the cave entrance were rarer and more distant. The drone of the helicopter placed it further away – he thought it was now over the village, searching there. Sometimes he heard the kid whistle for the dogs, but not close.
After he had shown his hand, and hadn’t blinked in the power of the beam, he reached behind his head, found where the spider or the soil had touched him and scratched. He brought his hand back to the front, showed his empty palm, then rested it on his knee, leaving the penknife, blade open, on the cave floor. A flattened cigarette packet lay near to the knife, saved from decay by its plastic wrapping, and there were slivers of silver foil from chewing-gum. He must show neither fear nor impatience.
They couldn’t come out of the cave without passing him, dead, incapacitated or alive. He didn’t smile at the torch beam when he had eased the discomfort on his neck because to try to make easy contact would demonstrate weakness. He didn’t play poker, had never sat in a smoke-filled room with a tumbler of Scotch and gambled with cards. It was about bluff. He would wait and however long it took, he would see the face of the old man and learn how greatly he had taxed him. It seemed that nothing was more important to Jago than seeing the jaw, cheeks, mouth and eyes of the padrino, and moving on from the monochrome image. When he had seen the face, learned the damage he had done, the power would have been transferred to him. He could wait.
The wind had freshened behind him. Jago fancied that old leaves danced. He heard the first patter of rain.
Jago had come of his own free will to a far corner of Europe and sat in a cave. He was sheltered from the coming storm and outside – in the mountains, coastal towns and hard-to-locate villages – were the organisers of the greatest criminal clans anywhere in the world as he knew it. The heat of the day had gone and the chill had settled under the low ceiling. The rain would soon surge and the drips would fall. When he put on his torch he would look into the face of the old man who was responsible for what had happened in the cave – and much else. He could have smiled at the thought of it, seeing the pain he had caused, the confusion he had brought down on the clan, but he kept his expression wooden and passive.
He no longer heard the helicopter. The shouts had died. The wind blew more fiercely and would scatter a carpet of leaves over the path they had taken, where their footprints might have shown. The rain would further degrade the scent they had left. He waited, the torch loose in his hand. He thought the old man’s breathing had regained a regular rhythm. Perhaps he was over the experience of darkness in the dungeon. Jago wondered how long she could hold the pistol’s aim.
Consolata came back to the squat. It was late but another meeting was in progress.
She stood at the door and watched them for a moment. Then Pietro gave her the dismissive wave that meant he had seen her, but that she should not interrupt – and that she had no part to play in their deliberations. She felt wretched, awkward in the clothing that had been wished on her, which was too large. She would tell no one. She went down the stairs and into the basement storeroom. Her bed was in the corner, beside the line of filing cabinets. Her pillow was under a poster of the group holding a big anti-Mafia banner when they had marched in Rosarno. She saw her bag. She didn’t think it had been searched: they had ignored her. She wouldn’t tell them of going to a park, dumping leaflets and finding a boy, or of taking him to a place of danger, or of facilitating the killing of a family heir, or of being rejected, humiliated. Her secret.