The dogs quartered the ground, scattering gravel, bursting through the lower scrub, but the wind would have screwed up their sense of smell. He noted a thinner voice then, and thought the boy who patrolled with the dogs was there, and the man who drove the car. They were all milling around, confused.
Would he go back to Lamezia, ferried there by Consolata, and tell her he had done well? That he had confronted the family, taken a step against them? What had he done? she might ask, as she drove towards the airport. He had put the penknife she’d given him to good use. How good? He had scratched the side of a vehicle. A Maserati, a Ferrari, a top-of-the-range Porsche? No. A City-Van fit for the scrapyard. And he had punctured one of its tyres. He might give her back her penknife or keep it as a souvenir. Her head would shake and any admiration in her eyes would vanish.
He could return to Berlin, take the S-bahn across the city, go to the square and sit on a bench, then wait to see if the girl came out of the pizzeria. If she did, he could go to her, tell her that he had been to Calabria, had hidden above the home of her attacker and scratched the paintwork of a car. He might even show her the penknife. She would look at him with contempt.
Jago climbed on. The last of the moonlight guided him. He heard Marcantonio’s voice. He found the two boulders, twisted round and slid backwards inside.
Giulietta had a dressing-gown on, was bare-legged – she seemed to have lost interest. Marcantonio was beside the City-Van, Stefano showing him the scratches. Jago was just near enough to see his astonishment. Marcantonio wore boxer shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt, his carefully spiked hair a wild mess. Only Marcantonio understood.
Jago lay very still. He saw that Marcantonio had a torch, a spotlight type, with a long, powerful beam. It was aimed up the slope, showing branches, tree trunks, and bounced off rock faces. Because of the torch he could no longer see Marcantonio’s face but imagined it creased with fury. It was still dark, but dawn was on the horizon. It would not be bright for hours. Marcantonio had time to brood on the City-Van’s scratches.
It was personal, between himself and the grandson of the family, who could strut about and not be confronted. Jago wondered how it would be to have come from a family of huge wealth and power, and be destined for vast authority. The torch beam played on the trees and found nothing. The others would have wondered when the vehicle had been damaged by vandals, wherever it had been. Not Marcantonio.
The torch was killed. The dogs were quiet. Marcantonio and Giulietta headed for the house, as did the driver. The kid, half dressed, called the dogs. The men went away down the track, and silence fell, but for the wind in the trees.
He thought he had done well. The rain had passed. Jago imagined the anger he had provoked. He wanted to see more. Today would be bright and hot. He hadn’t done enough but it was a start.
11
He had not seen it before the sun had risen high enough to clear the trees. An emptiness. There were heavy shadows behind the back door of the house, and beyond the line of the overgrown vine on the trellis, then darkness.
When the sun cleared the roof tiles, the warmth fell not only on Jago but also onto the washing line. The light was brilliant so he had a clear view of the path and the low retaining wall behind it. He could follow the broken stone paving to a halfway point where the slabs had slipped. The ground under them had slid down and the path went on to the pole from which the line was slung, then another wall and the roof of the derelict shed. Without the sun, Jago would not have registered the path and its emptiness.
The wind had dropped: the gale was now a blustery breeze. He studied the track, and the taut line.
The sheets had been a casualty. They were in the mud at the side of the path, trapped against the stones of the retaining wall. They were of good quality, he thought, better than those he had had in the attic studio on Stresemannstrasse, but had been left out to take their chance when the storm had hit. They lay in crumpled heaps. The emptiness was where they had been. Now they would need a double wash, with plenty of detergent – they were covered with mud.
Jago studied them. He was supposed to be capable of making good judgements. The bank paid him to be sharp.
Between the third and fourth sheets, where they had been dumped by the wind the path was deeper in the centre and shallower at the edges. The slip ran for some three metres, more than a third of the distance between the trellis and the wall that blocked the view of the near-ruined shed.
A cable . . .