Red Fox

CHAPTER TWENTY

Horizontal and thrusting with its brilliance, the dart of a lance, the first sunray pierced the wall of trees. The shaft picked at the ground in front of the fallen trunk, faded in the eddy of the branches, then returned. The sharpness held sway over the grey shadowed light.

It was the moment of ultimate decision for Giancarlo Battes tini. Move now or be damned and finished, vulnerable to the sniper's aim, naked to the gas and nausea cartridges, open to the bone-splintering bullets of the marksmen. His hands furtive, he reached for the flex at Geoffrey Harrison's ankles, swore at the skill of his own knot, and with difficulty loosened it. By the collar of the shirt he pulled his prisoner close to him and back down into the pit, so that the wire tied to the wrists and the roots would have more play. That was easier to unfasten, the work of a few seconds.

'What are we doing, Giancarlo?'

A grim, set smile. 'We go on another journey, 'Arrison,'

'Where are we going?'

Busy with his work, scraping together the strands of wire, Giancarlo muttered, 'You will know.'

The boy bound together the length of wire that he had used on Harrison's legs to the piece now trailing from his wrists.

'Kneel upright.'

Harrison stretched himself to the extent of the pit, wriggled and turned his ankles to restore the circulation and slowly raised his head above the rim. He lifted his shoulders, tautened his spine, and grimaced at the stiffness carried by his trapped night's sleep.

Giancarlo looped the wire around the front of his chest, then snuggled it behind his own back, drew it beneath his armpits and then again to Harrison's wrists. Pressed hard against his man, the boy entwined the knot that closed them together, linked them as one. With a hand he pulled Harrison's shirt from the waist of his trousers and the metal pistol barrel was formidable against the skin in the small of Harrison's back. The front gun-sight carved a scratch line in the flesh as Giancarlo armed the weapon.

' It is a light trigger, 'Arrison. When we start you should not talk, you should not slip. My finger will barely have to move, you understand?'

Harrison nodded, the questions stifled in his throat, choked on his tongue. No more compulsion to ask questions. Just a new horror, and what use explanation? Just a new abyss, and he was plunging.

'We stand up, and carefully.'

They straightened as one, the vibrations mingled, and Giancarlo pressed his head against Harrison's collar-bone.

But your legs don't work, Geoffrey, been tied too long. You'll slip, you'll bloody s t u m b l e… and then the bloody trigger goes.

How far does the finger move, how far… quarter of an inch, eighth of an inch? Concentrate, you bloody fool. One leg forward, put it down slowly, ease the weight on to it, stop, put the other foot forward, test the balance, stop again, put the next foot f o r w a r d

…

Harrison looked around him, blinked in the air, drank in its freshness, felt the erosion of Giancarlo's stale breath. It was a certain sort of freedom, a certain sort of release. Breathing something other than the odour of the earth. Nothing moved at the front, but there would be an army there, concealed, close and waiting. The voice bellowed behind his ear.

'Is Carboni there?'

Ahead of them was the path that they had walked down the previous morning, long ago, separated by infinite time. The route that Giancarlo had used to get his food and to drift away down when he went to the telephone in the darkness, and it was the way the child had come.

The stream of the sun caught the three men square as thev came forward on the path. They wore their badges of nationality, their flags for recognition. A short, rolling man at the front, balding, sallow. One behind him who held a submachine-gun diagonally across his waist, hair combed, the trace of a clipped moustache at his upper lip, his tie sombre and silk. The last was a stranger, clothes of a different cut, hair of a different trim, rounded shoulders and a pallor denied the Mediterranean. Two Italians and an Englishman. Harrison felt the weakness at his knees, the shake at his thighs and shins that was irresistible. The bastards had come. Long enough about it.

Harrison and Giancarlo were fused as one, responsive to each other's tremors, pliant to each other's movements. Three men facing them.

' I am Carboni.*

The words echoed in the trees, bounced from the moss-coated trunks.

Harrison felt the boy stiffen, readying himself. The last great battle, striving for strength and steel stamina.

'Listen, Carboni. This is your 'Arrison, this is your foreign dirt. I have tied him to me, and against his back, behind his heart, I have the P38. It is a hair-trigger, Carboni, tell your criminals, tell your gunmen that. If they shoot, my finger will move on the trigger… you are listening, Carboni? If you hit me,

'Arrison is dead. I am going to walk down the path, I am going to walk to my car. If you want 'Arrison alive, you do not impede me.'

Harrison was aware that the pressure of the circled barrel grew in his back, the impetus growing for movement.

' I am going to move forward. If you want 'Arrison, stay back.'

'What does he say?'

Carboni did not turn towards Carpenter and his sharp anxiety. He gazed on down the path at Harrison and Giancarlo.

' The boy has the gun at Harrison's back. He says it is hair-triggered. He wants to drive away from here… '

Vellosi, in English, because that was the language of the moment.

'Giuseppe, he doesn't walk out of here.'

T h e n Harrison dies.'

T h e boy cannot leave here.' The spitting whisper of the cobra.

' I am here to save Harrison.' Confusion, catastrophe ravaging at Carboni.

'If Battestini walks out of here, if he leaves the wood, he has ridiculed us. One boy and he has beaten u s… '

' I have to save Harrison.' Carboni wavering, torn and pulled and tossed.

'We have to save I t a l y… Think, Carboni, of the implications if the boy walks clear. One against so many, and he wins because we have no courage.'

Violet Harrison dead and mangled on her back in a plastic sack on the morgue slab, incised for autopsy, viewed by path-ologists. And Geoffrey Harrison to lie beside her with a pencil hole in his back and a cavity large enough to fit a lemon into at his chest. Get off your arse, Archie Carpenter. Get into the big boys' league. It's your man out there, Archie, so get off your bloody arse and get walking.

A short jab of his elbow and Archie Carpenter was past Carboni and Vellosi. Three quick strides and he was clear of them… and who was going to run forward to pull him back?

'Watch the boy, Carboni, watch the boy and be ready.'

Giancarlo watched him come. Saw the purposeful clean steps eat into the dividing distance. Nothing to be read from the face of the man, nothing that spoke of danger and risk, nothing from which to recognize his emotions. The command to halt, the shout, was beyond the boy. Fascinated, spellbound. And the light caught at the man's face as he passed between two trees and there was no shop window of fear. A man with a job to do, and getting it over with, and wearing a crumpled suit.

Giancarlo felt his hand on the pistol butt cavort with the weapon. He could not hold it still and motionless.

Francesco Vellosi spun on his heel, raking the trees and bushes behind him till he saw the carabinieri sergeant with the rifle, kneeling and in cover. His fingers snapped for the man's attention and he tossed the submachine-gun towards him, gestured for the rifle and caught it as it was thrown to him. The rifle slipped to his shoulder. Rock steady, unwavering, and the needle of the front sight rested centrally in the V of the rear attachment by his right eye. The line was on the small part of Giancarlo Battestini's head that was visible to him.

The void cut, the gap halved, Archie Carpenter spoke. Almost surprised to hear his own voice. Brisk and full of business.

'Geoffrey Harrison. I'm Archie Carpenter… does this Battestini speak English?'

No preamble, dominate from the start, the way they taught them far back, the Metropolitan Police drill on approaching an armed man.

He saw the half head on Harrison's shoulder, an unfinished ventriloquist's dummy, dumped on a perch, lacking a body.

Harrison's lips moved and then his tongue brushed against them, the moisture glistening. Poor blighter's at the limit.

'He does.'

Still moving, still hacking and cutting at the intervening space, Carpenter called, 'Giancarlo… your name, right?..'. I've come for the gun.'

Edging his way forward, slower steps as the distance telescoped, and the spots and the beard growth on Giancarlo's face were sharp and visible, and the colour at his eyes was dark and haunted. Ten yards short and the scream from the boy.

'Stop, no closer.'

'Just the gun, Giancarlo, just give it to me.' But Carpenter obeyed and now stood his ground, fair and square across the path. Saw the sweat on the boy's forehead and the tangled skeins of his hair and the yellowed teeth.

'You move aside, you give us r o o m…'

'I'm not moving. I'm here and I want the gun from you.'

Where did you get it from, Archie, which silk hat? Out of the hallway of a flat, out of the staircase of a high building, out of a woman past her break-point. Ran once, not again. Once was enough to turn the shoulder, not ever again.

'If you do not move, I s h o o t..

'Empty threat. I don't move, you don't shoot.'

Who'd know you, Archie? The girls in the office, in the typists' pool? The men in the pub off the evening train from the City?

The neighbour who borrowed the push-mower alternate Saturday mornings? Who'd know Archie Carpenter in a wood at Bracciano?

' I have the gun at his b a c k…'

' I don't care where you've put the bloody thing. I don't move, you don't shoot. It's easy, a ten-year-old knows that.'

Stretching the boy. Out into the risk area, out into the storm.

Watch the eyes, Archie, watch the blinking and the uncertainty and the fidgefe Traversing and hesitant, and the fear's building.

The bully when he's outnumbered, when the other kids come back to the playground. Careful, Archie… Gone past that place, off Mum's knee, playing it the grown-up way.

'You do not believe that I will s h o o t… '

'Right, Giancarlo. I don't believe it. I tell you why. You're thinking what happens if you do. I'll help you, I'll tell you. I strangle you, boy. With my hands I strangle you. There's a hundred men out there behind me that want to do it. They won't get near you. You'll be done by the time they reach you.'

Carpenter held him unswervingly. Never left the eyes of the boy. Always there when he turned back, always present. Lowering over him, heavy as a snowcloud, absorbing the hatred.

' I've no gun, but if you fire on Harrison, I'm on you. You've trussed yourself, silly boy, that's why I'll get you. I used to be a policeman, I've seen people that have been strangled. Their eyes come half out of their head, they shit themselves, they wet their legs. That's for you, so give me the gun.'

You never saw anyone strangled in your bloody life, not ever.

Steady it, Archie. Turn it over, could be possible that the physical isn't the soft belly of the boy. Don't make him play the martyr, don't put coal on that fire. What else gets to a psychopath?

'I'm going to start walking, you cannot take him from m e…'

Giancarlo holding his defensive line. The rout not accomplished.

'Get out of our way.'

Harrison gazing at Carpenter, like he doesn't know what's happening, like he's out on his feet. Best bloody way. Who's going to tell Geoffrey Harrison? Who's that one down to?

Archie Carpenter going to do it? Well done, Geoffrey, we're 1 very pleased you've come out of this s a f e l y… excellent s h o w… but there's been a bit of bother while you've been a w a y… well, the missus a c t u a l l y… but you understand that, Geoffrey, good lad, thought you would…

Throw in the big one, Archie. Go for broke. All the chips on the green cloth, into the centre of the table.

' I saw your woman last night, Giancarlo. Raddled old bitch.

Bit old for a boy, wasn't she?'

He saw the short-worn composure break on the boy's face, saw the anger lines form and then knit on his forehead.

' I wouldn't have thought a boy would be interested in a work-horse like that.'

The blood was running fast to the boy's cheeks, the flush dispersing under his skin, the eyes slitted in loathing.

'Do you know what she called you when they interrogated her?

You want to know? A little bed-wetter. Franca Tantardini's opinion on lover boy… '

'Get out of my way.' The words came fast and weighted by the boy's fury.

Carpenter could see the nausea rising in Geoffrey Harrison's face, the eroded self-control. Wouldn't last much longer, wouldn't sustain the supreme effort. Batter on, Archie, belt the little bastard.

The sound of the voices carried easily among the trees. Carboni had eased his pistol from the jacket pocket and it hung from his fingers as a token of participation. Beside him Francesco Vellosi still stood, eye at the gun-sight, tight in anticipation, ignoring the fly that played at his nose.

'Why does he say these things?"

Vellosi never wavered from his aim. 'Quiet, Giuseppe, quiet.'

'How many others have there been, boy, do you know? I mean, you weren't the first, were you?'

'Get out of my way… '

Not much longer, Archie. Hold your ground and it's disintegration time, spitting collapse. Forgetting where he is, and what he's here for, like we want him to be. Don't run now, Archie, just round the corner is Shangri-La that you came for.

Almost at the fingertips, almost there to touch.

They'd all been there, boy, every grubby finger, every sweaty armpit in the movement, did you know t h a t…?'

He's rising, Archie. The slimed creature forced out of the deep water. Coming for you, Archie. Hold the line, sunshine. Come on, Archie bloody Carpenter from Motspur bloody Park, don't let old Harrison down now, not when he's flaking, not when Violet's on her back and cold. Watch him, watch the struggle in the shirt. The gun comes next. You'll see the barrel, you'll see the fist on it, and the finger that's lost behind the trigger guard. Hold the bloody line, Archie.

'I wouldn't have done what you've done, not for a cow like that. You know, Giancarlo, you might even have got the scabs from her… '

Carpenter laughed out loud, shaking in his merriment, confronting his fear. Was laughing as he saw the pistol emerge from behind Harrison and be raised at him as fast as a snake strikes.

He looked into the torture of Giancarlo's face, sucked at the agony. Well done, Archie, you made it, sunshine. First time in your bloody life, across the finish line and in front. Ludicrous, the look on the kid's face.

The gun was coming, something bright with menace from beneath a winter sea. The pistol showing, sharp and tooled, and aiming.

The one shot, the whiplash crack.

Carpenter was on the ground, thrown backwards, the involuntary reflex. Cemented and imprinted high on his face was a splitting smile.

Harrison staggered, legs weak and resisting his efforts to with-stand the weight of the smitten Giancarlo dragging down the wire that wrapped their waists. Blood on Harrison's face, loose and dripping, and a mess of brain matter and no hands free to clear the sheen of destruction from his eyes.

Carboni recoiled from the explosion beside his ear. He pivoted towards Vellosi, gazed at him and saw the grim pleasure spreading like an opening flower on his companion's face.

And then the running.

Men rising from their hidden places, careering over fallen branches, bullocking through undergrowth. Carboni joined the herd as if time now were at last special. Francesco Vellosi dropped the rifle barrel with deliberation, bent down and picked up the single brass cartridge case and pocketed it. He turned and with an easy movement tossed the gun back to its owner, the carabinieri sergeant. Revenge exacted. He walked, tall and erect, towards the huddle that was gathering around Geoffrey Harrison.

With a knife a policeman sliced through the flex that held Harrison to Giancarlo Battestini. The body of the boy, shorn of its support, slumped to the ground. One half of his face was intact, unblemished and waxen; the other was obliterated, removed as if in tribute to the marksmanship and the brutal power of the high velocity bullet. Freed, rubbing hard at his wrists, Harrison dived away from his helpers, turned his back on them and vomited into the dried grass at the edge of the clearing.

They gave him room, respected him.

Archie Carpenter pulled himself to his knees, rose unsteadily to his feet, and clamped his fingers together to hide the tumult and the shaking that gripped them. He stood aside, a stranger at a party.

When Harrison came back to the group, he spoke simply, without idiocy. 'What happened… I don't know what happened?'

Vellosi pointed across the clearing to Carpenter. This man was prepared to offer his life for yours.' He spoke gruffly, and then his hand slipped in support to Harrison's armpit. 'He gave himself to Battestini that you should be saved.'

Their eyes met in a fleeting moment, then Carpenter turned his head from the deep puzzlement of Harrison's gaze, and seemed to those who watched him to shrug his shoulders as if an episode had ended, a man had done his work and needed no praise nor thanks. Studiously Carpenter began to wipe the clinging leaves and sticks from his back and his trousers.

They moved from the clearing. Vellosi and Harrison setting the slow pace at the front, Carboni busy and bustling behind them, Carpenter trailing. Harrison did not look round for a final glimpse of Giancarlo's body, stumbled away, reliant on the help of the hand that helped him. They moved at cortege speed and the route along the path was lined with the unsmiling faces of men in uniform who held rifles and submachine-guns and did not flinch from the hurt daubed on Harrison's face. They masked their feelings, those who stared, because death was recent among the trees and the devastating speed of the violence had stripped from them the elation of victory.

' I didn't understand what he was doing, this man Carpenter.'

From behind Harrison's shoulder, Carboni spoke. 'He had to get the pistol from your back, he had to produce the pistol against himself if your danger were to be taken. That was why he taunted the boy. He gave the opportunity to Francesco.

Francesco had a half face to shoot for. That there was the chance was because of Carpenter.'

Carboni, still walking, swung his head towards Carpenter, saw only a shaded half smile, a tint of sadness.

'My God… God help us.' Harrison walked with his eyes closed, led as a blind man on a street pavement. He struggled for his words, confronting the shock and exhaustion. 'Why was another life… why was another man's life, less important than mine?'

' I don't know,' said Carboni.!

'Get me home, please, get me to my wife.'

The quick light of warning flashed between the policeman and the head of the anti-terrorist squad. Carboni stopped and grabbed surely for Carpenter's sleeve and drew him forward.

The procession had stopped. The four men were in a group, a huddle of shoulders, and those in uniform faded back, abandoning them.

'You have something to tell your man, Archie,' Carboni spoke in a whisper.

'Charlesworth can… '

'No, Archie, for you, it is your work.*

'Not here… '

Archie wriggling, sliding in the mud stream, seeking to extricate himself, and Harrison peering into him, unshaven face close, bad breath reeking. Come on, Archie, this is what you saved him for, this is the moment you preserved him for. Can't slip the buck to Charlesworth, can't push it further away. It's now it has to be said, and it's you who have to say it.

'It's about Violet, Geoffrey…' Carboni and Vellosi watched the shame driving up on Carpenter's face, realized the bewilderment creeping again into the man whose arms they held.

'What about her?'

'Violet… I'm sorry.'

'Where is she?' The shriek coming from Harrison, the embarrassment flowing into Vellosi and Carboni.

A sudden coldness from Carpenter, as if from this came his protection, as if his face could be hidden by chilled words. 'She's dead, Harrison. She piled into a lorry last night. She was alone.'

Vellosi and Carboni hurried forward, half carrying, half dragging the weight of Harrison between them. Carpenter detached himself and hung back. Nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. The speed of the group quickened, past the man who stood with the broken shotgun and the small boy, past the field hedgerows, on down to the road. They slid Harrison into the back of Carboni's car, Carboni followed him, clapped his hands and the driver accelerated away.

His arm hanging from Carpenter's shoulder, Vellosi watched the car spin round the first curve.

'You did well, my friend.'

Thank you,' said Carpenter.