‘I don’t believe this.’
‘It’ll be what flew past – belongs to whoever’s further down. He’ll be wet through with no proper kit, trying to dry it and himself. The wind took his vest. And that’s where it landed.’
‘Look how he’s moving – doesn’t know where any trail is. Where are the dogs? What do we do?’
‘I don’t know! He’s on borrowed time.’
They watched.
A shadowy figure came out of the thin line of trees at the base of the hill. It crouched, took stock, then went forward, bent double. The wind pitched him forward and he lost his balance, then regained it. There was a light inside the house, on the main landing at the top of the stairs.
A dog barked.
The man went forward, a sort of crabbing movement, towards the vest. He dropped down beside it, picked it up and thrust it into a pocket. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, jeans and trainers. His shirt clung to his body and his jacket flapped open. He seemed to hesitate.
Fabio said, ‘The dogs are shut inside. If they’d been loose . . . What’s so important about a vest?’
‘Thank him,’ Ciccio muttered. ‘If they’d found it there would be a search – and we’re where they’d look.’
A dog barked, woke the pack. A cacophony of noise came from the house towards them . . .
They did surveillance: they were there to observe and the unforgivable crime was to blow a position. It was the ultimate sin. They could use force only if their lives were endangered. They could do nothing but watch. The man seemed to grope in his trousers and was beside the City-Van.
‘Fuck me! Did you see that?’
He thought the man, from the glint of poor light on chrome, had keys out of his pocket and was beside the City-Van. Incomprehensible.
He held the keys hard against the bodywork of the vehicle, took a deep breath and walked.
He did it steadily, as if he had time to kill.
A few metres away the dogs pounded against the door.
He had a job to do. He would do it in his own time as best he could.
The line was cut into the paintwork as he went from rear to front. Jago pressed hard with the short blade of the penknife Consolata has given him. Above the front wheel, he turned and started back. He did it methodically. It seemed important to use the blade.
He heard a shout from inside the house and lights were coming on upstairs. His clothing chilled him, and the light-headed recklessness he felt was close to the delirium he had experienced at the height of the storm . . .
There were cats in Canning Town, around their building, and many were strays. Some were put out at night and allowed in only to be fed; others were pampered, their owner’s best or only friend. It didn’t matter whether the cat was an outsider or on the inside track if it was male: they sprayed their territory so that every other cat knew they had been there. They made their mark. Jago left the scratch, tramlines, the best he could manage.
If he’d had petrol and matches he could have sloshed it over the vehicle and set fire to it. If he’d had some dry paper and a functioning fag-lighter he could have made a spill and flung it down the fuel pipe. He had the penknife. He bent one last time and stabbed, with all his strength, at the rear passenger-side tyre. He felt the rubber give under the pressure and the blade slipped in. He tugged it back, folded and pocketed it . . .
There had been a teacher at his school who was ex-military, a disciplinarian, and never took shite from the kids. That teacher never hurried. When there was a fight in the playground, he never sprinted to break it up. Never broke sweat. Jago turned away.
A light on now downstairs and shouts from far away on the track. Jago slipped back towards the cover of the trees.
He didn’t know whether what he had done was puerile or something to be proud of. Would he, one day, be sitting in a comfortable swing chair in a glass-sided office and considering with satisfaction what he had done against the might of ’Ndrangheta, organised-crime barons, annual turnover approximately forty-five billion euros? He climbed. He had little light to guide him, using his fingers to haul himself up the wet rock faces.
The dogs were out. The men who came up the track shouted and waved torches. The daughter, Giulietta, was outside – he could hear her voice and the orders she gave.