‘I will not answer to a civilian for my actions. More important, what has he taken?’
He was angry, too, because his weekend was wrecked. A call from a senior for him to hit the road, so he had . . . hit the road. They would already have gone through his calls on the desk phone and been into his laptop. They would have traced messages to and from carabinieri records, a family named and biographies passed, all done through an old network and not submitted for approval. He liked his job, and it was falling apart in his hands. There was sand in his shoes and he was dressed for the weekend. The bitch across the table was in her finery.
‘Perhaps he took nothing.’
‘He met you. Did you brief him on Calabria?’
An old lesson, long learned. If you’re telling a lie, tell it decisively. ‘I did not. That is a disgraceful, slanderous suggestion – and we’re wasting time. Describe him to me.’
‘He was not one of us. He’s different.’
‘In what way?’ He thought it important that he regained partial control.
‘I was uncertain of his enthusiasm for our work culture.’
‘He’s a bank employee. Must he live, breathe, sleep the bank?’
‘You don’t understand. He works for our much-admired bank. Young men and women go to great lengths to be allowed through our doors. For him, it was a privilege. Young people come as interns, unpaid, and are grateful for the opportunity. We safeguard our clients’ money. We protect them from the turbulence of the modern financial world. It should be everything in his life and I don’t think it was.’
‘Please explain.’
‘I can’t. I find it incomprehensible that anyone should need anything away from the bank.’
He thanked her brusquely and was on his way. He did not give her a chance to regain the high ground and probe with more questions. He understood the business perfectly – he came across them; middle-class kids, comfortable, destroyed by the boredom of safety. They could have been flogging narcotics, eking out the dream of Baader-Meinhof and looking to be a ‘white skin’ for a Middle Eastern group. They might have been buying a handgun and holding up immigrant cafés – or have gone to kick shite out of an ’Ndrangheta family’s star kid, which would be exciting – and lunacy. Much of his own life was dull, which he could handle. Responsibility for his actions weighed on him, almost crushed him. Fred Seitz was on a plane in the morning.
A call came, on a weekend afternoon.
‘Yes?’
‘Carlo? That my old mate?’
‘Yes.’ A familiar voice.
‘Bagsy here.’
‘What the hell do you want?’ He knew Bagsy well enough, had been on the team in Green Lanes with him. Bagsy had been promoted over him, and now ran the unit that controlled the liaison officers abroad, had looked after him during the Rome years and had signed off his expenses.
‘Actually, I want you in London.’
He knew his diary, didn’t need to flip it up on his phone. ‘Next week I can make Wednesday – leaving drinks? Would Wednesday suit?’
‘Last time I did the drive from where you are up to Custom House it took a bit over two hours. Let’s say three. Custom House in three. That’s today, Carlo, three from now. Bring a bag of warm-weather stuff and your passport. Cheers, Carlo.’
He was still shaking.
It was not what he had seen ahead and below that had caused a wave of near panic to engulf him. Jago couldn’t hold his hands steady, and he had been in the place a few minutes more than six hours. It was a good place, the best he had seen. He had slid down a short rock face and had found it at the base. Two boulders had lodged against each other, leaving a space into which he had wriggled. He assumed that the boulders were securely together and would stand firm.
He had a view of the house. He could see, about a hundred yards away, the area for cars to turn in front of it, and one side of it, and the kitchen door. There was a vine trellis, washing hanging on the line, limp sheets, and a stone shed – he could see half of a wall, its roof and where chickens scratched. It was what he had seen on his way to this place under the twin boulders that had caused him, almost, to yell. He had seen the matriarch, the daughter who had been on the police file, the small children and their mother, the other two, who were orphaned. And, as he had known he would, he had seen Marcantonio, who sauntered in the sunshine in front of the house, smoked, scratched an armpit and smoothed his hair. Jago remembered the anger he had caused, the adrenalin rush it had given him – but he couldn’t stop shaking because of the cave he had stumbled on. As if it haunted him.
8