He had been up from before first light. The prosecutor lived in a respected quarter of Reggio, in a house that was like most others in the street – four bedrooms, two bathrooms, an office downstairs, a front garden laid out as a labour-saving patio, another patio at the back, with an unsatisfactory view of distant hills and the start of the Aspromonte range. His home was different from the others around it because of an ugly concrete wall, crudely rendered, that surrounded it. The gates at the front were higher than an eyeline.
A peculiar life. When he went to work he was low in the back of the armoured car, his escort tailing him. If he took the kids to school, it was the same escort and protection. If his wife did it, she went alone. Always, when he was at home, the car was outside and two of the guards were in it. Always, the rest of the team were in the wooden hut at the back. He lived with them, as did his wife and children.
For what? For the future of Scorpion Fly. From dawn, he had sat at his desk. He had rung three colleagues, two men and the third was the new female star at the Palace of Justice.
Poison had dripped into his ear.
One of the men had refused to speak on his behalf about surveillance resources and deployment extension, had described his efforts as feeble and said a conclusion was overdue in the investigation into that ‘minor’ family. The second man had seemed to wring his hands at the injustice of such a situation, then countered: ‘The rest of us are worthless. We acknowledge the importance of what you’re doing, my friend, but we would be grateful for the return of the resources when you have no further need of them.’
The woman had talked to him, at length, about investigations she was carrying out into the activities of the Strangio, Nirta, Pelle and Votari families, all of San Luca. Would he care to send her a paper in which he explained why the disappearance and probable murder of the wife of a comparatively insignificant criminal from a family of secondary importance should outweigh her efforts in bringing charges against the leading clans in the hierarchy of the ’Ndrangheta? She asked if he had managed to catch her TV appearance on Rai Uno the previous week, and her emphasis on the bringing to justice of those whose arrests ‘mattered’ in the war.
A carabinieri colonel had told him, ‘My hands are tied. It isn’t my decision.’ A Squadra Mobile officer had seemed to shrug helplessly and had confessed, ‘If I had men, Dottore, with the necessary skills, I would task them for you. I don’t so. I can’t help.’
Each looked to their own future. His was bleak.
It was stubbornness that had caused him to fight his corner, push harder than he might otherwise have done, and he had thought this a soft target after the evidence laid by a turncoat. The opportunity to bring down an entire family was appealing, not merely to lop the branches of the tree but to fell the whole thing. He gazed out of his window, through the bulletproof glass. Two of his escort lounged on plastic chairs and smoked. Sometimes they played basketball with his kids or chatted to his wife. If he capitulated, as his country had done in 1943 with the landing of the Allies in the south, his bodyguards would be reassigned. They would have other children to play with, other wives to talk to, other bulletproof cars to drive.
It hung by a thread, which might hold for a few more days or might not. He relied on the abilities, and dedication, of the boys on the mountain, hidden and watching. Without a sighting the poison of colleagues would kill him. An irony, a harsh one, was that the scorpion fly only simulated a killer. His phone rang.
He snatched it up, a drowning man gripping a straw. He was told of a killing in Rome, in the Borghese Gardens, of a pentito, a man who had been isolated and abandoned. He listened, replaced the phone, and sat at his desk with his head lowered. He believed the family of Bernardo, padrino, were mocking him.
The family was gathered. Bernardo sat beside her. No general gifts were permitted, but the porcelain Madonna stood in front of her, and Marcantonio sat opposite. Giulietta was there and Teresa, and the smaller grandchildren, who had no mother.