Marcantonio swore and dropped his bag onto the pavement. He had forgotten the small porcelain Madonna he was taking to his grandmother – and he was already late for the flight. He turned on his heel, ran up the steps to the front entrance and had to key in the code.
‘It’s the only Lamezia connection! You’d better hurry,’ came the yell. His distant cousin was at the wheel of the car and glanced pointedly at his watch.
A man was approaching the vehicle, but he barely noticed him as the door swung open and he started for the stairs – the lift was too slow. He heard a shout – not pain, but naked fury. What to do? In Marcantonio’s life his grandmother was more important than his cousin’s shout of protest. He went on up the stairs and had to unlock the mortise, go inside and disable the alarm, then into the bedroom. Where was it? He had forgotten what the wrapping paper looked like. What colour? And the blinds were down so it was dark.
He found it. It went into his pocket. The figure was beautiful in his eyes, and she would like it. He had nothing for the padrino, his grandfather, but the old man would be well satisfied.
He came out, did the alarm, then went quickly down the stairs, but had to find the button that unlatched the door. He heard the crescendo of his driver’s shouts. He went out, skipped down the steps to the pavement and nearly tripped over his bag. He saw what had been done to the passenger side of the BMW. Two silver lines sliced the paintwork. A young man, back to him, was sauntering down the street, well dressed, in a suit, the glint of keys in his hand.
The car was Marcantonio’s pride and joy, and it was ruined. Had it happened at his home, in the foothills of the mountains, a life would have been taken – but he had a flight to catch. Anyone nearby would have heard him as he spat the words but none would have understood the dialect of the eastern side of the Aspromonte mountains. ‘I’ll have your balls if I ever see you again. You’re dead. Dead, do you hear me?’ He hadn’t seen the vandal’s face, but he was tall, erect and walking steadily – then disappeared around the corner.
Jago Browne had never done anything like that before. He could still feel the gentle pressure he’d applied to the key, the ease with which it had floated across the paintwork. It was what kids did, anywhere between the Beckton Arms and the bottom of Freemasons Road, not what young bank executives did when supposedly on sick leave.
There was an alleyway at the side of a building. He ducked into it, went to a recessed doorway and pulled out his phone. Lamezia? The screen told where it was, and which airlines flew there. He began to shiver. It was step towards a different level. Was he a career banker, on the path that would lead him one day to become a successor to the FrauBoss? Did he care if clients slept with true ‘peace of mind’ because he watched over their finances? He shut his eyes and saw the scar on the girl’s face, the scar on the bodywork of a top-of-the-range car. He walked away, back to the street.
Hilde would drive north from Berlin to the coast and was already at the wheel of the camper.
Fred Seitz carried their bags out of the apartment door. His office computer was switched off, as was his phone. Hilde’s was on: if their son or daughter wanted them they would call her. If someone at Bismarckstrasse wanted him, they could wait. He dumped the bags in the boot and got into the passenger seat. Hilde eased the car out into the street. Ahead of them were the high walls of the Moabit gaol, where some of his clients would sleep that night. He would sit quietly, at least for the start of the 220–kilometre drive to the Baltic. They would grab fast food in Rostock, then go west towards Rerik and park among the dunes above their favourite beach. He wanted quiet because of what he had seen that day, what he had said about getting a life and . . . The girl’s face, had upset him. Leaving his iPad switched on had been unprofessional and irresponsible. There were moments when his work seemed to constrict him. He needed to be away, to forget.
He was probably making too much of what he had done.
The FrauBoss had been surprised to see him, but Jago had explained that the pills must be working because he felt better. He needn’t have come in at all, late on a Friday afternoon. He had gone through his emails, which had piled up.
Was he going away for the weekend? Hannelore was taking an evening flight to Stuttgart to see her parents – he was welcome to go with her. Magda was ready for her run but she supposed he wasn’t up to joining her. Sigismund and Elke were going to the new DiCaprio, and the FrauBoss was without her nanny that evening so she was off home.