They watched her through the binoculars.
Ciccio might have been wrong – she might once have been beautiful – but he doubted it. They knew her as Maria Concello, but logged her on the electronic report sheet as ‘Mike Charlie’. They saw her throw a cupful of corn beyond the front entrance to the house. There, they had a good eyeball on her. She would have been clucking for her chickens, which were locked up at night but let out at dawn by the handyman, Stefano – ‘Sierra’. Ciccio was convinced she’d never been worth a second glance. The families used marriage to form alliances, and the strength of her family would have served as her dowry.
Quite soon, Giulietta – ‘Golf Charlie’ – would come up the track, and later the grandchildren, with their mother. The only target was ‘Bravo Charlie’: they had no recent photograph of him, but they would have recognised him, had he appeared, as an old man, lame on the left, with thick white hair. The pentito who had blown away the sons had said Bernardo still had his hair. His wife had a sharp face – jutting nose, a prominent chin, heavy grey eyebrows and a short, scrawny neck. She did not appear to have aged and thereby lost her looks.
She turned. Only a few chickens had come for their food. She went along the unfinished paving by the side wall and disappeared behind the trellis and the sheets that were already hanging on the line, flapping in a light wind. It was weeks since Fabio and Ciccio had observed how often they were washed, how long they spent drying on the line and how often they were left to stiffen in the sunshine or to be soaked in a rare storm. She appeared again, this time with fowls at her feet. She was close to the shed, a dog with her.
They took turns with the binoculars and both knew almost each wrinkle on her face – but they weren’t interested in her.
Fabio and Ciccio were a major resource. There would have been a half-dozen prosecutors in Calabria who made representations to the colonel running the surveillance teams in the carabinieri. Each would emphasise the importance of their own investigation. The prosecutor who had commissioned Fabio and Ciccio would have had his back to the wall, and they would do what they could, but if Bravo Charlie didn’t appear . . . Ciccio whispered about the woman’s ugliness and wondered whether she had ever been different.
Fabio logged her appearance, and they discussed their breakfast. As carabinieri, they had army survival rations: the breakfast was a chocolate bar, some sweet bread and a measure of cold coffee. For lunch they had a choice of tortellini al ragù, pasta e fagioli or insalata di riso. There had been times when the two men had almost fallen out over the choice of field rations.
They hated to fail. If they did not get an eyeball, fare a occhio, they would crawl away at the end of a long duty, file an interim brief, soak in the shower and go home to their women in the knowledge that their prosecutor’s case was weakened.
A stick broke under a foot. A dog barked. Each was armed. A major inquest would follow if they fired, wounded or killed. Every morning, close to that time, a foot-soldier came with a dog and walked the boundaries of the property. The discussion of menus was suspended. They couldn’t stretch or clear their throats, but they were confident. If asked, each would have said he was the best. That was why they were on the squad, why they had been chosen. The sounds died. The quiet returned. Nothing moved. They waited, watched.
Three cigarettes were smoked, none by him. The filters lay on the paving.
Abruptly, the woman – prospective client – stood up. With the soles of her unmatched shoes, she squashed any life from the butts. The man came out of the pizzeria and looked up and down the street. He was at least fifty paces from where Jago sat but he recognised the man’s fear. Then the door slammed after him. They had not reported the incident: had they done so, there would have been a squad car parked nearby. He wondered if the investigator would show, or if the matter was too insignificant. It was at about this time yesterday that the Audi had stopped at the door.
Jago wasn’t looking at his ‘client’. He was talking mechanically now and she’d have known it. She hadn’t given him a card or scribbled a phone number for an appointment, and she was on her way. It was a brush-off but seemed immaterial. He said, from the side of his mouth, his eyes on the door, ‘Thank you for your interest. I’ll follow it up with my manager.’