‘I’ll finish my drink and then we’ll let loose the hounds.’
A month before, Fred had said, he’d been in the small square as the last of the snow was being cleared and he’d seen the girl from the pizzeria. She might have recognised him because she’d ducked inside quickly. He’d noted that the scar had knitted but not well. The man had come out. Fred had made some remark about the girl’s wound and had been told she was due to see a quality plastic surgeon next week. They couldn’t have afforded it, but an envelope had been delivered: ten thousand euros, in large-denomination notes. No letter, no explanation. A bank had been instructed to make the delivery by hand. Fred had found the bank, based in Liechtenstein, but had been blocked by its secrecy culture. Carlo’s turn. He’d handed it to Vauxhall Bridge Cross, the spooks, where it had been used as a training exercise for the ‘best and brightest’ of a new intake. The big computers had been set to work and had located the origin of a telephone call. Simple.
Fred said, ‘It was flawed, sending the money to the girl to have her face fixed. Idiotic.’
‘He’s soft. He’d think himself hard but he isn’t.’
‘You can’t grow into them. They’re unique, those families. They’re successful because others can’t equal them. No one from inside such a family would show such weakness, sentimentality. It was an outsider’s error.’
Fred voiced the opinion that she was radiant, a woman on the edge of middle age who had lately found love.
Carlo thought he seemed confident, calm. His shades were over his eyes, and a gold chain hung round his neck.
‘They’ve done a good job on her nose.’
‘I never saw her smile when we were there . . . They’ll do her for murder and bang him up for “association”. She dropped a chap who was about to turn state witness. Made a good clean job of it.’ Carlo shrugged.
The French police could make the arrest and the Italians would swamp the town with a legion of government lawyers to hack through the extradition process. But it was a pleasure for Carlo and Fred to be there. It would happen with a degree of theatre. Carlo reached into his pocket and took out a scarlet handkerchief that Sandy had given him the previous Christmas. At last it had a use.
They could see Jago Browne and Giulietta Cancello easily from where they sat. What stuck in Carlo’s craw was that he had, at first, admired the bloody-mindedness of the young man who had dared to confront the family. In time he might find out, from interrogation reports, when the transfer of loyalty had happened, who had conjured it up, him or her.
‘Would you call it greed, Fred?’
‘I would quote to you from Friedrich Nietzsche. “For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing.” You accept that?’
‘I looked it up. It bothers me – the ease of corruption. We had Robert Walpole. He said, “Every man has his price.” Takes the gilt off the day.’
Fred said, ‘From George Washington, “Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” But it hurts. The young woman who did the driving for him, she’s gone to Milan and works in an orphanage. She hasn’t lost faith – didn’t look for a pay-off.’
Carlo had the handkerchief in his hand. He said, ‘Sir Walter Raleigh was a buccaneer and a pirate four hundred years ago, a man of letters, too, a poet. “No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought.” Time to hit the road.’
‘Right.’
‘A good result.’
‘Very good. An alright result. Yes.’