He’d seen them board the coach, lugging rucksacks and tripods. Their spotter scopes were in canvas lagging. Jago had never done any birdwatching, but there had been people in Lancashire, at the university, who had gone out onto the sands of Morecambe Bay. He’d never seen the point. But the relevance of the story was forced down his throat.
‘Why shed a tear, if you’re Calabrian, for a honey buzzard, or a lammergeier, or an imperial eagle? Life’s cheap down there. Murders are two a penny. No bigger deal to take a human life than to blast a kite or a sparrow hawk to kingdom come.’
Another voice: ‘The killing of raptors at migration is well documented, but we hope to show by the example of our international interest that all wildlife matters. We don’t want only to look on the dark side.’
The Doomsday merchant came back strongly: ‘And this road we’re on. It’s wonderful – and so it should be for what it’s cost over the last thirty years. It’s a Mafia road, courtesy of European taxpayers. Billions paid, and most of it into gangster pockets . . . I bet there’s a fair few in the concrete. This lot down here, they make ours look like choristers.’
‘Shut up, Duncan.’
Now there was quiet behind him. They went along a wide, fast road, through massive tunnels that lanced big spurs of rock, over steepling viaducts and could see tiny lights, isolated, in the deep gorge valleys below. There were lines of cones and stretches where the work had been left unfinished. It was fifteen hours, close enough, since he had left Berlin.
The talk behind him changed, and the gloom lifted. He wavered. Jago’s bag was in the overhead rack. He didn’t know whether he would dump it in Reggio later that evening, or in the airport at Lamezia Terme. They compared makes of spotter scopes to the Swarovski range. Jago had no interest in that, but had heard about the killing of people, rip-offs on construction projects and the slaughter of birds. He sat upright, rigid, and could not recapture his earlier certainty.
There were banks of lights ahead, but to his right a dark strip, a gulf, then more streetlights and homes. He checked his phone screen and realised they were close to the strait and Sicily. He sought to grip the talisman images and sounds: a facial scar and twin scratches in metallic paint, a shout of shock and a yell of venom. He had no plan, he was hungry, and someone behind him was snoring softly. He would look into the man’s face, into the eyes, see confusion and fear . . . They came into the city, and he was beyond the limits of his experience.
Consolata could have taken his eyes out with her fingers, but kept them clamped tight on her bag. It was the end of their wasted day.
Massimo had said, ‘I’m entitled to criticise you. Your bag is almost full and mine is almost empty because I have given out our fliers and you have not. You glare at people and you’re rude to them. Your problem is that you don’t believe in non-violent action.’
He had gone back to his mother with his empty bag. He would eat with her, then take a bus to Archi. In the squat he would tell them about Consolata’s heresies. The air would be thick with cigarette smoke and she would be denounced.
She sat on a bench. Consolata could recall each word that had been said and fancied her link with the group had been cut. ‘You seem to threaten people when you want to show an alternative to the aggression of ’Ndrangheta. I wouldn’t stop to talk to you. You saw for yourself where your attitude takes you – they hurry past you. They don’t want a lecture. Consolata, ’Ndrangheta is a criminal conspiracy that depends upon fear, terror and suspicion. If you hector those you seek to influence, you show no alternative to the gangsters. It’s about turning the other cheek and demonstrating the supreme example of non-violence. I don’t think you’re capable of that. You want to fight, fight, fight.’
He had walked away, tall and haughty. By now he would be regaling his mother with Consolata’s shortcomings. He would have rated it a thoroughly satisfactory day, in which he had spread the word of opposition to criminality and corruption. He believed in the group’s solidarity and that radical opinions should not be tolerated. No quick fix but the importance of holding the high moral ground.