It had been a good summer, warm, with little rain. There were corners of his garden, tucked out of sight or shielded by trees, where he had been able to sit and allow the sunlight to filter onto his legs, hips and back. The weather had been good for his arthritis. Dancing, therefore, was easier than it would have been had he attempted it in the spring. The single sheet of cigarette paper had been brought by hand from Rome, not entrusted to BlackBerry instant messaging or Skype. A man had flown from Ciampino, Rome, to Lamezia, where he had been picked up by a cousin and driven to Locri, which was overlooked by the village where Bernardo lived. Every week on that day, Giulietta went to the local covered market to buy vegetables – she hardly needed them because Bernardo grew enough for the family. Today the sliver of paper had been slid into her hand. She had brought it to him, then whispered in his ear what verbal message the courier could take back on the next flight.
His dance was almost a jig. He was sure he wasn’t being watched by strangers to the village. Enough of the picciotti scrambled regularly over the rocks and along the goat trails on the steep-sided hills above his home, checking for ROS teams. The message was confirmation. A man had been located. A traitor had been identified as living in Rome, his address pinpointed. It confirmed the instruction Bernardo had sent back with the courier to those who now watched the target and would carry out the sentence of death. The killing would be publicised and no tears would be shed in the villages around Bernardo’s home. His dance steps were in the tradition of the Aspromonte mountains.
It would be good for his sons to learn that the man who had put them in their cells was dead.
He would have liked his grandson to kill the turncoat with a knife, face to face, seeing the fear build, or with a pistol, sidling close, then shouting a name. It wouldn’t be the name given to the rat by the Servizio Centrale di Protezione, but his old name, bestowed at his baptism. He would start and turn, then face the last few seconds of his life. It had been almost as great a disgrace to Bernardo as any that had befallen him. A pentito on the fringes of his clan, a former man of honour who knew some of the clan’s secrets, had taken seventeen men to the aula bunker in Reggio where, in the subterranean fortified courthouse, he had given the evidence that had sentenced them with Bernardo’s sons, to long, life-destroying sentences. He grinned to himself.
Two treats awaited Mamma for her birthday. The death of a rat and, a more joyous gift, the return of his grandson for the celebration. He would not stay long, but Bernardo would see the boy he had missed so much. His organisation was sealed in blood and by the family ties. The greater the trust, the closer the blood. None was closer to Bernardo than his grandson . . . and the reports that came from Germany were not good. He shrugged.
His lettuces had flourished. The tomatoes were good, and the vines had done well. The olive groves he owned were lower in the valley, and the crop was excellent; the harvest was almost complete. He lived a fine life. The imprisonment of his sons was the price the family had paid for its success. He had little to worry him and the children of the ‘disappeared’ Annunziata had moved in with Rocco’s wife, but they were often in his own kitchen and Mamma was firm but loving. A large cargo was at sea. A rat had been identified and would be dead within the week. Marcantonio would soon be home, and as the day approached, he had noticed a softening in his wife’s stern features. And he had, he supposed, come to terms with the hidden bunker that had become his second home.
Giulietta told him each month what she estimated the inner family, where the blood line was strongest, to be worth. She would list the value of investments and would murmur a figure in his ear. Each time she did that, her voice shook and her cheeks flushed. They were worth, Giulietta told him, in excess of four hundred million euros. She was like her father and mother – and there was nothing in the modest room at her parents’ home where she lived that stank of wealth. For her, it was about power.
Giulietta was a fine daughter, almost as good as another son. She worshipped at the same altar as himself: wealth was power. Power was the ability to buy. Any man had his price. There were two important men in his life: the first was a clerk in the Palace of Justice, and the second worked as a civilian at the Questura; sometimes as he went about his work he heard gossip and saw screens used by men and women of the Squadra Mobile. From those two men, Bernardo had discovered that he was under investigation and that his liberty depended on him sleeping in the buried container and being always watchful, always suspicious. He could do that without difficulty. He was a peasant by nature, a contadino. The peasant, mindful of enemies, looked for what was best in the future. It was easy for him to be an optimist, and the news that day had been gratifying.
It was a fine morning. The skies above the village were cloudless. He believed himself secure.
‘If he’s there, wouldn’t we see him?’
They had seen chickens, dogs and Mamma – but not their target.
‘He’s as cunning as an old vixen.’
Fabio said, ‘He’s seventy-four. What sort of life can he be living? He’s somewhere in a hole in the ground, no daylight, can’t walk down the track to see his family. What’s he hanging onto – if he’s there?’