A rueful grin from Ciccio. ‘He’s there.’
Their heads were together. They spoke in the faintest of whispers. Their appearance differed only to their wives and the maresciallo who commanded the surveillance unit. Fabio was two centimetres taller than Ciccio and his feet a size smaller than his friend’s; there was fractionally more brown in Ciccio’s hair, and a trace of ginger in Fabio’s beard. They had been together, a bonded partnership, for four years and took leave together from the Raggrupamento Operativo Speciale barracks outside Reggio Calabria. They holidayed in the same hotels or beach apartments, and their wives endured their relationship. It was under strain, had probably run its course, but neither would yet speak of fracture. That morning domestic life was far in the background. They had come to the hide that overlooked a part of the house seven hours earlier, at dead of night.
‘It’s a fucked-up life,’ Fabio said.
‘The price he pays for being the boss . . .’ Ciccio managed a slight shrug.
They wore British-manufactured gillie suits, German-made socks under their Italian boots, and the ’scope was Chinese. The smell was their own. It would get worse. They had done a week’s reconnaissance in August when they had found this cleft between two mammoth rocks. It was not perfect because, below them, the trees had not yet shed their leaves and the view of the house was partially obscured. They could see the wide turning point of the track and any car that came up it but not the door. At the back, the kitchen door was masked from them but they could identify anyone who took three or four paces away from it and kept to the right of the yard. If that person, usually Mamma – Maria Cancello, aged sixty-three and wearing her age poorly – went to the left, a conifer allowed them a fleeting glimpse. She kept a line of washing up alongside a path leading away from the yard, up rough steps to a shed, of which they could see the back wall and all of the roof. Windows on the far side of the house were hidden from them but if lights were on in the master bedroom or the one adjacent to it, where the daughter slept, they saw the occupants. If they had come nearer to the house they would have been at greater risk of discovery by the dogs that were always with Mamma or the daughter. If they had been further back, higher and able to see over the tree canopy, they would have endangered themselves – there were herdsmen’s tracks where the slopes were gentler and every day picciotti came with dogs. They had brought with them survival rations, plastic bottles for urine, tinfoil strips to wrap faeces, and would take their rubbish out with them. The hide was ‘protected’: a man would have to scramble, clinging to rocks, roots and branches, as he descended into the space between the big boulders. They must not leave a trail of scuffed earth, dislodged stones or crushed lichen when they came and went. When they were not there, another ROS team kept a watch on the house but from higher and further back. As Fabio said, often enough, ‘They can’t see anything.’
As Ciccio said, frequently, ‘They’re just clocking up overtime and might as well be in Cosenza or in bed.’
They thought themselves the best, took pride in their work, but hadn’t yet located their target, the padrino of the Cancello clan. It hardly mattered to them where they were and who they were searching for: there was no shortage of photographs on the most-wanted lists. ‘Scorpion Fly’ was a long investigation and a prosecutor in the Palace of Justice had emphasised its importance. Scarce resources had been committed to it.
Both knew most of what there was to learn about the scorpion fly: Panorpa communis. The male’s wingspan averaged thirty-five millimetres, and it trailed what seemed to be a scorpion’s sting from its rear. In fact, it was two tiny hooks with which the male held tight to the female during mating. It was a member of the Heteroptera family.
They captured them, when they could, for a cousin of Ciccio’s, an entomologist. When they laid hands on one it went into a small plastic jar. It was a poor morning for scorpion flies.
‘If he’s there, in a hole, how would that make life worthwhile?’ Fabio asked.
Two driven men, hating corruption and the virus of organised crime endemic in their society, little cogs in a big wheel, watched the limited view of the house and saw Mamma wave away her daughter. What kept them alert was the hope that they would identify the target, find his hole and call in the arrest squad. They knew about the missing daughter-in-law, Annunziata, and of a grandson who seemed to have left home. ‘Hope’ was a candle flame and often it guttered.