Stefano had to drive slowly, which irritated Marcantonio, who was reminded of the acceleration his Audi was capable of, then of the scar along the bodywork. He was angry: they hadn’t followed the bastard who had done it because of the supposed tight flight schedule. They could have chased him, caught him, beaten him into the ground and dumped him in the canal or had a driver take him out to the Grunewald and dig a grave for him – and still have had time to cancel the booking and buy another ticket. He had sent no message ahead. He would not have used a phone to communicate with his family.
They were on the back road, far beyond Taurianova and Cittanova. It was narrow, with sharp bends, and rock faces towered above them. He saw a boy with a herd of goats, a teenager, probably only three or four years younger than himself. The kid would have seen the little vehicle coming towards him and slowing because the road was filled with his animals. The kid went forward with his dog and a stick to move them to give the City-Van free passage. That was when Marcantonio knew he was close to home. The vehicle had been recognised. The kid waved cheerfully as they passed him . . . In time, Marcantonio would rule the village, and his word would be law. He did not know how long it would be. He saw a church, a small bar where a man was wiping the tables, and the first children were arriving at a school, an old woman walking along the road, bent under a load of wood. All gestured with affection and respect to the little vehicle that Stefano drove.
If there had been watchers, the City-Van would have aroused no suspicion, as a Mercedes or BMW might have done. Such vehicles were suitable for Locri, Siderno and Bovalino, where the tourist hotels were, but in the foothills of the Aspromonte, money was guarded and kept hidden. There was a story Marcantonio loved. An old man, a leader of a cosca – a favourite word, the protection of close, tough leaves – had buried eight million euro in banknotes to keep them safe from the polizia and carabinieri. He had dug a pit, put the cash in plastic bags, then filled in the hole. Later, the bags had been dug up. The notes were sodden, disfigured and useless. Eight million euros! They had been left beside the road.
They were in the village and drove up the one street. There were waves from a woman sweeping her step and a man smoking a cigarette. He felt good, safe, and the frustrations of the journey were behind him.
The family always kept the wooden shutters closed at the front of the house. At the back, in the sweltering heat of high summer, every door and window was wide open. A mother lived there, with her son, the son’s partner, and two small children. They would have heard, early in the morning, the chugging engine of the Fiat City-Van. Everyone in the village knew the sound of that engine. It was because of the mother’s first-born, the son’s elder brother, the wife’s brother-in-law and the children’s uncle that they lived in a bubble of privacy; the mother wore black, although she wasn’t widowed – her husband was employed on building sites in Scandinavia. The son wore black, too, and the daughter-in-law, and the children didn’t play in the street. They were isolated, had nowhere to make another home. It was because of the elder son, the elder brother, the uncle. He was a pentito – meaning ‘penitent’, or ‘he who repents’ – and was long gone. He had last been seen in Calabria when giving evidence in the aula bunker, the underground, bombproof courtroom, against Rocco and Domenico Cancello, plus nine of their blood relations and associates. He had been granted immunity from prosecution because his evidence had resulted in two sentences of Article 41 bis and other terms of imprisonment ranging from nine to fifteen years. He had not repented, but had faced the prospect of a lengthy stretch for acting as a courier in bringing forty kilos of unrefined cocaine out of the Gioia Tauro port complex. He had collaborated with the state, believing that to be a fair exchange. The remaining members of that household walked a tightrope close to death because they had harboured an infame, a traitor. They were cousins, with a trace of blood to Bernardo. They wore black to imitate a state of mourning. They said, to whoever would listen, ‘We are no longer his family,’ and had made a statement to the Cronaca declaring, ‘He is not and never has been worthy of belonging to a clean-living, honest family like ours.’
That had saved them from assassination.
Since the day he had been taken out of the aula bunker to the helicopter pad they had had no contact with him. They didn’t know where he was resettled and what identity had been given him. They were captives in the village, an example to others of the danger of harbouring a turncoat, an informer. Now they denounced him but on the day before he had set off for the docks to drive away with Class-A drugs he would have been called ‘a wonderful son . . . a beloved brother, an uncle who was a gift from God’. Always, in that house with the closed shutters, there was tension when they heard that engine. Their survival rested on the goodwill of the padrino, who held their lives in his hand. After him it would be his potential successor, the grandson. They lived under the shadow of fear.