Killing Ground

Chapter Sixteen

The great wooden horse figure was being towed by men in modern dress into a farmyard, and the men carried firearms and were swarthy-faced, hard-weathered-faced, and from the pockets of their trousers and their jackets and their anoraks spilled American dollar bills, and there were dollar bills in the mud and ignored, and they started to search the interior of the wooden horse figure, clambered into the hatch door in the horse figure's belly, and she was far to the back of the interior, and the torches of the men found her, and she screamed, and he heard the sirens…

The first sirens of the day had woken Harry Compton.

He'd slept rotten. Not the fault of the bed in the hotel room that he'd tossed half the night. He'd tossed, he'd put the light back on in the small hours and he'd tried to win some sleep by reading the file he had accumulated on Charlotte Parsons, Codename Helen, and he'd dreamed.

He thought he might have slept a little over three hours. He had thrust himself out of the bed and walked over the scattered bedclothes, and gone to the window and pushed back the shutters. He had seen the two cars powering along the street with the lights on the roofs and the sirens blasting. He'd seen the guns, he'd seen the guards, he had seen the slumped figure in the back of the lead car.

They'd met for breakfast.

At home, Fliss left him alone for breakfast. If she sat with him they argued. He took his breakfast alone in the kitchen at home, a snatched apple and a piece of toasted bread smeared with honey, and coffee. The American didn't seem to want to talk, which suited Harry Compton. The American had eggs and sausage and bacon cooked to extinction. They'd talk after breakfast, that seemed to be the deal. It was the American's problem that they hadn't been met, for the American to sort out, and for the American to argue that the mission of Codename Helen was dead in the water, aborted… There were mostly tourists in the breakfast room. There were couples from Britain and Germany and they wore bright clothes that were ridiculous for their age and their eyes were on their food and their guidebooks. Breakfast would be inclusive, so they were eating big, like the American, and they were gutting the guidebooks so that they would seem intelligent each time they were dumped off the bus and marched to the next antiquity. He was contemptuous of tourists because his mortgage was?67,000, monthly repayments hovering at?350 a month, and if the baby came then they would need a bigger place, bigger mortgage, bigger monthly drain. Most summers he went with Fliss for two weeks to her aunt's cottage in the Lakes, and most summers after a week there he was yearning to get back to S06 work. Harry Compton had told his wife that he'd be gone forty-eight hours, that he wouldn't be getting to see anything… He chewed on the bread roll, not fresh that morning, and the coffee was cold…

The man came from behind him.

The hand of the man brushed across the table and bounced the small basket that contained the bread rolls.

He had his back to the entrance of the breakfast room, hadn't seen the man come.

The hand was tanned and it had fair hairs growing on it. The hand scooped up Dwight Smythe's room key from beside the basket of bread rolls.

He was half out of his chair, the protest was in his throat, and he saw the American's face, impassive except that the big lips moved nervously.

'Leave it, Harry,' the American growled, water on shingle. Dwight Smythe, no fuss, laid down his fork and rested his hand loose on Harry Compton's arm.

He subsided back onto his chair. The man walked on, slipped the key to Dwight Smythe's room into his trouser pocket. The man was dressed casually, a check shirt and jeans, and he carried a plastic bag that was weighted, and the top of a sketch pad protruded from the top of the bag. The man wore a long pony-tail of fair hair, held close to his neck by a red plastic band. He was, to Harry Compton, like a drop-out, like a druggie. The man went to the end of the breakfast room and he was looking around him as if for a friend, as if to find someone he was due to meet. The man turned, the man had failed to find his friend, and he came back past them. Harry Compton saw the man's face. He saw drawn lines, as if the man were scarred with anxiety. He saw the man's waist and the bulge below where the shirt was tucked into the trouser belt. The man was gone past him.

'I think we'll have fresh coffee,' Dwight Smythe said, and his tongue brushed on his lips. 'This coffee's cold shit.'

Dwight Smythe called the girl, and it was ten minutes before the coffee came, and while they waited for the coffee the American ate two rolls of bread with jam on them, and he didn't talk… He was a detective sergeant, headhunted for an elite unit, he was supposed to have the qualities of a policeman and an accountant and a lawyer, and he reckoned that he knew nothing… They drank most of the second pot of coffee, and Dwight Smythe wiped the crumbs off his face… He wasn't firearms-trained, he had never carried a weapon more lethal than his truncheon, he knew nothing…

They went out of the breakfast room and crossed the hotel lobby. The British tourists were loading noisily into their bus, and the Germans were crowding round their courier.

They walked up the wide staircase, and then down the corridor. There was only a chambermaid in the corridor with her trolley of clean sheets, clean towels, soaps and shampoos. Harry Compton realized that he had glanced her over, as if a chambermaid could be a threat. The 'Non Disturbare' sign was on Dwight Smythe's door. He thought there would be a fight, but the fight was the American's problem. The chambermaid was in a room down the corridor. The American knocked lightly on his own door. The accent, American, was a murmur – the door was not fastened.

The man sat on Dwight Smythe's unmade bed. On the crumpled pillow was an ashtray. The man smoked his second cigarette, looked up as they came in, his hand had been over the bulge in his waist and now dropped away. The strain was stamped on the man's face. It was the American's problem, the American's job to do the dirty talk.

'Hi, Axel, good to see you.'

'Sorry for last night.'

'Not a problem. Axel, this is Harry Compton, out of London, a detective in the-'

Axel jerked across the bed and his body upset the ashtray and spilled the cigarette debris over the pillow, and he reached for the TV control and flicked buttons until he found loud rock, and he raised the volume.

Dwight Smythe said, soft, 'We were sent together, there's been high-grade crap between London and Washington.'

The cigarette went to the mouth, the hand snaked forward. The murmur stayed with the voice as if, Harry Compton thought, the shit had been kicked out of him. 'I'm Axel Moen, happy to meet you, Harry. Sorry I didn't make the airport.'

'Didn't matter, we had a good ride in,' Harry Compton said awkwardly. Not his problem, it was for the American to dish the shit.

'Axel, I'm not carrying good news/ Dwight Smythe blurted. 'I'm sorry, I'm only the goddam messenger.'

'What's the message?'

'Let me say this. When we met in London, when we travelled, we may not have hit it.

I might have sparked you. Maybe I thought you arrogant, maybe you thought me fourth-grade. That's past, gone.' 'Spit it.'

Dwight Smythe scratched at the short curled hair of his scalp, like he was buying time. 'It's not easy, not for me and not for Harry

… Up on high, Washington and London – Axel, they've killed it.'

Harry Compton waited for the fight back, waited for the anger to jut the chin, waited for the tirade about big men being short of balls.

'They're aborting. They've gone cold. They're frightened. They want your Codename Helen shipped out. They want her home.'

He saw Axel Moen's shoulders drop, as if the tension drained.

'They want her removed, immediately, from the field of danger. It's why I'm here, why Harry's here.'

He saw the light flicker back in Axel Moen's eyes, like a lamp hit them where before there had been darkness.

Axel Moen said, conversational, 'That's good thinking, it's right thinking, it's what I was getting to think myself. You see, not certain, but I think I am followed.'

He saw the slight smile break on Axel Moen's mouth, like ice was fractured.

Axel Moen said, 'They'd be too good for you to know it. It's what I think, that I am followed. I think they have a tail on me. Don't have the moment how, where, they made the link. It's why I didn't come to the airport to meet you. It's why I didn't plug in the phone when you were calling. If they can put the tail, they can put the bug. If there is a tail, then I have to believe they are here, outside, and waiting on me. When you think you have a tail, then you get sort of neurotic, because it can't be confirmed and it can't be denied. You know what I do each morning? I go out where she is, I watch her, I see her take the kids to school. I'm not close up, you understand. I'm two hundred metres away, three hundred, but I see her. I see her take the kids to school and I see her do the shopping. Sometimes, when she comes into the city, I follow her, I see where she goes and who she meets. I'm there, I'm a goddam shadow… You see, she's alone, it's like she's in a pit with them… I didn't go last night, and I didn't go this morning. Maybe they've seen me near her, maybe I'm providing a pattern for them. Maybe, if I'm there each day, I give them a chance to see the pattern… I'm cut off from her, I can't watch her, I can't protect her.'

He saw the shrug of Axel Moen, like a dream had died. The music played loud.

Harry Compton said, boorish, 'My instructions are to terminate this operation, to bring her home immediately.'

The cigarette was stubbed into the ashtray. The man had taken a pad from his pocket and he wrote briskly on it. Harry Compton waited. He had thought the man would fight and the man had crumpled. He had recognized the stress of Axel Moen and he saw now only a spent relief. The single sheet of paper was torn from the pad and passed to him.

Axel Moen lifted the bedside telephone and dialled. He read the message again. He understood. He took the telephone from Axel Moen. He shivered, as if he crossed a chasm.

'Hello, hello… I am afraid that I do not speak Italian… I do apologize for the intrusion… I am the chaplain to the Anglican church on Via Mariano Stabile, just out from England for a few weeks. Miss Charlotte Parsons came to our service last Sunday

… Oh, she's out at the moment, is she? Please, could you pass a message to her? I wanted her to know that we have an escorted tour this afternoon of the cathedral, with a guide. She seemed so interested in church history in Palermo. Three o'clock we are meeting outside the cathedral. We would be so delighted to see her if her duties permit it. Thank you so much…'

When the maresciallo had returned to the apartment he had not disturbed the magistrate.

He allowed the poor bastard to sleep. He had crossed the hall of the apartment, walking on his toes, and he had heard the dull snoring of the magistrate. His report on the residence in the Giardino Inglese would wait. He should have gone off duty, should have gone home to catnap for a few hours. He stayed on. He sat quiet in the kitchen, nursing the cold coffee, when the day shift arrived. They were all quiet men when they came, the driver of the chase car, the passenger for the chase car, Pasquale, all subdued.

They were making the breakfast, heating the bread rolls when the alarm bleeped in the bedroom. It was good that he had slept, the poor bastard, and the maresciallo wondered if he had taken another pill. He had not yet shaved when he came to the kitchen door. He was a figure of wreckage.

'I spoke, as you requested, with the portiere, who declined to be co-operative. I made a call. My friend on night duty at the Questura gave me what I needed… The portiere had a conviction at the assizes in Caltanisetta, many years back, but a conviction for theft. If it were known that the portiere of such a building had a conviction, then he would lose his job… now, he was co-operative. Giuseppe Ruggerio is a banker, he is a man of ostentatious wealth. He has the apartment, and he has a villa for the summer on the coast. His family – his wife and his children, a foreign girl who helps the signora with the children – are at the villa. The villa is at Mondello. Sometimes Giuseppe Ruggerio is at the villa, sometimes at the Giardino Inglese. At the moment he is in Mondello. I have the address of the villa. Dottore, I have to tell you that I was not kind to the portiere. He made the wise decision to be more co-operative. Three weeks ago, perhaps a little longer, Giuseppe Ruggerio took his family away for a weekend and men used the apartment. He knows that because there was a rubbish bag left out for him to clear, and he saw that there were many cigarettes in the rubbish, and the waste from food and bottles, but the portiere was sensible, he saw none of the men. It is the classic indication, dottore, as you will know better than I, of the use of the apartment as a covo.

That is all I have to report.' The maresciallo shrugged, as if it were nothing that he reported, and he saw the frail smile break on the magistrate's mouth, like there was light, small and faint light.

The magistrate shuffled away, scraping his slippers on the floor of the hallway. At the table they ate the bread rolls, and drank the coffee, and read the newspapers. He kept his secret, but the eyes of Pasquale were never off him. He heard the voice of the magistrate, from the office, across the hallway, into the kitchen.

The maresciallo chewed on his bread… Was the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, available to take a call?

He drank the coffee… When was it expected that the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, would return?

He glanced over the headlines of the newspaper… Would the captain, 'Vanni Crespo, meet with Dr Rocco Tardelli at five o'clock that afternoon at the posto di polizia at Mondello?

All the time that he ate, drank, read, he kept his secret and avoided the eyes of the young man, Pasquale. His name was called. He heard the reedy voice of the magistrate.

He was a dour and hard man, he was not popular with those who worked for him and nor did he seek popularity. He surrounded himself, picked the team, with men of a similar black-humoured resignation. They were unique in the service, they were aloof from the other teams of ragazzi, they guarded the magistrate who was the 'walking corpse'. He could make an error of selection and when he knew his error then it was rectified. He heard his name called and with a studied slowness he finished his mouthful and drank another gulp of the coffee and folded his newspaper. He went to the office in the living room, and he closed the door after him. He loved the man, he loved Rocco Tardelli as if they were family, he loved the poor bastard who sat at his desk in old pyjamas and a frayed dressing- gown. He thought he had brought the glimmer of light to the magistrate.

'You called, dottoreT Said in complaint.

'I have asked 'Vanni Crespo of the ROS to meet me this afternoon in Mondello. I want to see it for myself, the villa of Giuseppe Ruggerio.'

'To go to Mondello is to take an unnecessary risk.'

'I have to go, please, I have to see. I believe I have missed an opportunity, I believe the opportunity was there for me, I believe I have no one to blame but myself.'

'Then we go to Mondello,' the maresciallo said without kindness. 'We take the unnecessary risk.'

It was not in his way to show kindness to the man he loved.

'Thank you.'

He said brusquely, 'Dottore, the matter of the boy. I filed my assessment on the boy.

I have the answer to my recommendation, that he should be dismissed. You could, if you wish, intervene on his behalf, you could countermand the order.'

For a moment the magistrate tapped a pencil on the surface of his desk. 'If he is inefficient then he endangers us, if he endangers us, he should be got rid of. I will work here until we go to Mondello.'

Charley trudged up the hill, carried the day's shopping… Her mother would, that morning of the week, be going with her father to the supermarket in Kingsbridge, walking down the same aisles, groping for the same boring packaged food, grumbling at the cost, like she sleepwalked. The bell would be ringing in the playground for her 2B class to come back inside and, that morning of the week it would be painting, followed by reading, followed by arithmetic. Danny Bent would be walking his cattle from the milking parlour up the lane to the 15-acre field, and Fanny Carthew would be dusting her pictures and thinking she had talent, and Zach Jones would already be settled at his window and would be polishing his binoculars for another day of prying into strangers' lives, and Mrs Farson would be on her doorstep complaining to anyone who'd the inclination to listen that the Tourist Board did nothing for her and the County Council was mean with grants. The bird would be on the cliff perch, that morning and every morning of the week, high over the sea. She missed the bird, she missed only the killer peregrine falcon… She rang the bell at the gate. The 'lechie' admitted her. She walked up the path to the villa, and halfway up the path she stopped, and she pointed imperiously to dead leaves at the path for the 'lechie' bastard to clear.

Angela was in the kitchen. Peppino had gone to work. The baby slept in the carrycot on the kitchen table.

'There was a call for you.'

'For me? Who?'

'You did not tell me you had been to church last Sunday.'

'Sorry, no, I didn't.'

'It is not necessary, Charley, to apologize because you went to church. They rang for you.'

'For me? Why?'

'The priest rang, the chaplain. You told them you were interested in the history of Palermo.'

'Did I?'

'You must have, because they rang to say there was an escorted tour of the cathedral this afternoon – they hoped you would come. Three o'clock.'

She didn't think. Charley said, 'Can't, not then. The children have to be picked up.'

She saw the puzzled frown of Angela, the confusion. There was no make-up on Angela's face, she did not use cosmetics until the evening, until Peppino came home.

Without make-up, Angela's face was easier to read because the worry lines and the frown lines were sharper. The talk, the confessional, beside the washing-line had not been referred to again, as if it had never happened. Angela stared at her.

T think you should go. I will do the children. It is good that you should make friends here, Charley. When you came to Rome you were a child, you were from school. You have come back, you are a woman, you have a job. I worry for you, Charley. I say, and I do not understand why does a young woman come back here, leave her home and leave her job, to do the work of a child. Why? You have eyes, you have ears and senses, you know what sort of family we are. We are not a house of happiness. Each day, every day you are here, I wait for you to come to me to say that you wish to go home. Why are you here? What have we to offer you, Charley?'

Charley tried to laugh. 'Right, culture beckons. God, I'll have to catch up on the guidebook. It's very kind of you, Angela, to get the children.'

She went into the bedrooms. It was an escape, making the beds. He had said that she should never relax, never be complacent with her security. When she had finished the bed in small Mario's room she sat on it, and she held tight at her wrist so that her fist enveloped the watch… At the end of the service in the Anglican church on Mariano Stabile, the chaplain had listed the forthcoming activities of the parish – a jumble sale, a bring-and-buy sale, choir practice, an outing to the Valle dei Templi at Agrigento – but no mention of a visit with a guide to the cathedral in Palermo. She understood. She took the broom and began, methodically, to sweep the floor of small Mario's room.

The wind came off the sea. The hot air of the wind blew hard through the coils of the razor wire topping the walls, and it howled in the watchtowers, and it eddied over the compound where the helicopter waited. Salvatore Ruggerio, in prison uniform, was handcuffed to a carabiniere soldier before the barred gate to the compound was unlocked. Under the terms of Article 41 II (1992) he was subject to 'harsh prison regime'. He must wear uniform for the flight, he must be handcuffed at all times. He had made a droll joke as the handcuff was snapped on his wrist. Did they think he was going to run away? Did they think that over the sea he would open the hatch door and jump? Did they think he intended to jump into the sea and then walk away over the sea?

They had all laughed with him, the carabineri and the prison staff, because it was always wise to laugh at the humour of a 'harsh regime' prisoner. The safety of themselves, of their families, could not be guaranteed if they made an enemy of a 'harsh regime' prisoner such as Salvatore Ruggerio. And he joked more with them. He said to them that, for certain, the judges would find him innocent of the charges laid against him, murder and extortion and intimidation, and that he was confident of release. Other charges of which he had been convicted, murder and extortion and intimidation, would be set aside. He would be disappointed not to meet with them again. They had all laughed at his joke… He walked slowly, his own pace, across the compound, and the young carabiniere handcuffed to him did not hurry the brother of Mario Ruggerio. He was pasty, pale-faced from eight years in the cells. A prison official walked behind him, carrying his small suitcase that held his clothes for the court appearance. He was already sentenced to life imprisonment; when he was tried again in the bunker of Ucciardione he could expect only further life sentences. As was right for a man of his age, he was helped up into the military helicopter. The handcuff on his wrist was now shackled to the iron frame of the cot seat. He listened with indifference as the loader recited the emergency landing procedures, and the procedures if they splashed down over water. Ear baffles were carefully slipped onto his head. They would fly from the island prison of Asinara, across Sardinia to the airforce base at Cagliari, refuel there, then take the long haul of three hundred kilometres over the sea to Palermo, and he would sleep.

They had come from the garage. In the garage was the car taken from outside an apartment block in Sciacca. The car was now fitted with new registration plates, and the bomb was laid on the back seat of the car and was covered by a rug.

They had come from the garage, and they stood on the junction of the narrow Via delle Croci, where it was crossed by the Via Ventura. It was important to Mario Ruggerio that he should see the place for himself. He walked round the delivery van that kept the space on the Via delle Croci.

He saw it for himself, and was satisfied. Tano told him, with detail, that most times when the magistrate came away from Ucciardione he was driven up the Via delle Croci.

He passed no comment. Standing at the back of the van he could look down the street to the walls of the prison… His opinion, there would be a week of ferocious denunciation, a week of demonstrations in the streets, a week of politicians queuing to enter television studios, and then the silence would fall. For a week, he could live with the clamour… His opinion, a signal would be sent through Sicily and Italy, and the signal would be read by his people in Germany and France, the signal would reach New York and London, and the signal would travel to Cali and Medellfn and to Tokyo and to Hong Kong, to Moscow and Grozny. It was necessary that it was understood, by means of the signal, that a new power ruled in Palermo.

He asked Franco where should be the celebration for his family – in Palermo, in the country, in a hotel or a restaurant or a villa.. .?

The telephone bleeped in the inside pocket of Carmine's jacket.

He said, dry, 'It'll be the death of you, that thing, as it has been the death of many.'

Carmine listened. The call was a few seconds in length and coded. The city was divided into numbered squares for the code, and principal buildings or landmarks inside the squares had been allocated separate numbers, and the name of the American in the code was a single letter of the alphabet.

'Or the life of me, or the life of you,' Carmine said.

Now Mario Ruggerio checked again with Tano as to the hour in the night when the delivery van would be driven away and replaced among the parked vehicles by the car in the garage that had been taken from Sciacca.

Carmine hurried, in the few seconds' length of the coded call he had heard the urgency of the tail. He waddled, his short and thick legs striding quickly, towards where his car was parked.

In the garden outside the sweat had run on him. Inside the cathedral it seemed to freeze on his back. Dwight had followed the Englishman through the low arched door, and maybe six times in the last five minutes he had glanced down at his watch. They stood at the back and the Englishman leafed through the pages of a guidebook he'd bought, as if to hold the cover it was necessary to do the tourist thing.

He could see Axel Moen. He had been there before them. Dwight Smythe could see the back of Axel Moen and there was light on his hair that fell below his shoulder line.

There was a tremor in the Englishman's voice, like he was frightened, like they both were…

'Do you know, this pile was started by an Englishman. He was archbishop here. He was Gualtiero Offamiglio, which is Walter of the Mill. Do you know, he started putting this lot together exactly 810 years ago? Think on it. I mean, what sort of journey was it from England to here, 810 years ago? Forget the building, just getting here was incredible-'

'Can you leave it?'

'I was only saying that it was-'

'I was saying, cut the shit.'

He was supposed to push paper and balance a budget and keep the leave charts tidy.

He wasn't supposed to stand with the sweat freezing on his back and on his gut to watch an agent meet with an informer. Dwight Smythe liked church, but he liked church that was simple. He went with his wife each Sunday to a Baptist place up in London's Highgate, where the middle classes of the Anglo- African community came, where they sang loud to lift a low roof. The cathedral wasn't his place. The Baptist church that he knew was a place of safety and light – and, hell, here it was danger, it was grey darkness. He watched Axel Moen's back. Up ahead of Axel Moen, where the light pierced from high windows and made a many-coloured tapestry of cones, was a group of tourists. Further ahead of Axel Moen, young unseen voices, was a choir practising.

The Englishman whispered, 'I think that's her.' He made a small gesture. Dwight Smythe followed the line of the pointed finger. There was a young woman walking slowly down the central aisle. At times the light shafted down on her and lit the fairness of her hair in green and blue and red and white, but mostly her hair was in grey gloom.

She went down the aisle slowly and looked around her. He thought she played a part, did it well, a foreigner in the aisle of the cathedral and looking around her with awe, like there wasn't danger in the place. She wore a white blouse that was cut away on her shoulders. Her shoulders were red from the sun, as if they had already been burned and not yet been tanned. She wore old faded jeans. She was going down the aisle towards where Axel Moen sat. He would not have seen her yet.

'You know that's her?'

'There was a picture in her home. I saw the picture.' There was a hoarseness in the Englishman's voice. 'How's she going to be when she gets told?'

'Get her out tonight?'

'Too right, straight on the freedom bird.'

'Is she stupid?'

'Not what I hear.'

'If she's not stupid, she might just kiss you when she hears it's finished.'

They watched. She went down the aisle. She went past the line of wooden seats on which Axel Moen sat. She was good. She did not give a sign of recognizing him, but she would have seen the pony-tail of hair on his shoulders. She faced the altar and genuflected and crossed herself, and then she slipped into the row of chairs in front of Axel Moen. Maybe he said something to her, but she gave no sign of it. She sat for a full minute on her chair, as if in contemplation. He wondered what was the future of Axel Moen. Could be the slot they'd made in Lagos, and it could be there was no future – could be that he was headed for that place in Wisconsin and hooking trebles into small fish… She stood. She went forward and she tagged with the tourist group. She was goddam good.

The maresciallo was bent over the street map, the map was spread over the table. Under the map were the used plates from their lunch, and their cups and their guns. The chase-car driver lay on the floor beside the cooker and slept, and the passenger of the chase car sat on a hard chair and his head was on his chest and his eyes were closed.

Pasquale studied the manual of the Beretta, tried to learn each working part, and the words and the diagrams seemed to bounce back from the tiredness of his mind.

His eyes never left the map. There was a cruel coldness in the abrupt voice of the maresciallo. 'I regret, Pasquale, as a result of your assessment, you are not considered suitable for this work.'

The boy was staring at him, gaping mouth, in shock. 'Why?… Why?'

'For the most obvious of reasons, inefficiency.'

The boy was peering at him, blinking his eyes fast. 'When? When do I leave?'

'There is a replacement tomorrow. You go when the replacement is available.'

The boy was trying to hold back tears. 'Did Dr Tardelli not speak for me?'

'It was Dr Tardelli who said you were not fitted for the work.'

He might have punched the boy Pasquale, might have kicked the boy. The maresciallo wrote from the map the name of each street they would use on the journey to Mondello.

Carmine was in the traffic on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, jammed. The city was closing down for the siesta. The tail called him again on his mobile and gave him the code digits and the code letter. Carmine was in the traffic, locked.

Axel went forward. A full five minutes he had left her with the group around the guide.

He had waited until the guide was criticizing a woman for wanting to take flash photographs. In the moment of distraction he went forward and he took her arm, where it was narrow at the elbow below the sleeve of her blouse and he squeezed her arm, and she didn't turn. He stood behind Charley.

The tourists were German. The guide spoke in German.

'There is still, as you see, enough of the original Norman carving to impress – it is the shame of the building that too much of the craftsmen's work of the twelfth century was destroyed by the barbarians of the Gothic period…'

Axel murmured into her hair. 'We speak Italian, these people won't understand Italian.' 'OK.'

They moved with the group. '… Both the portals that you see and the doors are from the fifteenth century. In the desecration of the interior it is remarkable they survived.

The building is a hybrid, each generation and each imperial conqueror came with his own desire for immortality, and achieved only historic vandalism.' The tourists tittered.

'I don't mess with you, kid. I don't play with you. I always gave it you straight.'

'What do you need to say?'

'It's not easy, what I've to say… I respect you…'

'Say it, what you want to say.'

There was an advance-course instructor at Quantico. He didn't get the rookies, he worked with the guys who operated in danger. The instructor was said to be, on the use of agents, super-Grade A, shit-hot. Axel Moen had done the week's course before he'd shipped down to La Paz. The instructor said that when you handled agents, then you lost your moral virginity. The instructor said that an agent was an item without human value, the agent was just a means to an end, the agent was a coded cipher, the agent was never a person… An agent had died, crucified on the back of a door… An agent stood in the dark shadow of the cathedral of Palermo… Christ, the goddam instructor at Quantico would never have run an agent himself, never felt the dependency and the trust, and never known the dirtiness.

Axel said it quick. 'It's over, finished, it's killed. The big cats say it's wound up. It's the time, their order, to abort.'

No expression in her voice, a calmness. 'It's in place, it's happening, just have to be patient.'

'Not me, not at my level. You've been brilliant. The fat cats want you gone. They want you on the flight out.'

'Why?'

'It should never have happened. You were pressured. Shouldn't have been asked, shouldn't have travelled.'

'Not an answer.'

'Put straight, the risk to your safety is too great, the danger to your person.'

'And I've been through three levels of hell for nothing?'

'It's not your fault, there's no blame attached to you. The opposite… It is finished because the fat cats made an order, but anyway it is not sustainable. I have watched you each day, I follow you, I'm a shadow to you. Not any more, I am under surveillance,

'I think I have a tail. As much as them, I am the danger to you.'

'Then fuck off away.'

She'd turned. She looked into his face. He saw a blazed anger.

Axel said, soft, 'At the main door there's an Afro-American, and there's an English guy. You go to them, they'll take you home.'

As if she despised him, 'And you?'

'I'm shipping out. I don't make the rules. I'm just a servant of government.' She hurt him. He could not think when he had been worse hurt. Like she stripped him, like she laughed at him. She seemed to him, as if in contempt of him, to be listening to the guide

… The guide was talking about the tomb of Roger II, crowned in AD 1130, buried at Cefalu, followed by William the Bad, who was succeeded by William the Good, who funded Walter of the Mill to build the heap, who brought back the remains of Roger II. .. She listened, she ignored him. She left him dead.

'The guys at the door, get on over to them.'

She had the sweet smile. It was the mischief smile in the photograph at her home, and what he had seen on the cliff where she had taken him, it was the smile that the instructor on the agent course at Quantico would have warned against. It was the smile that he loved.

'Listen for when I call. If you've quit, give the gear to someone else who'll listen.

Make sure that somebody listens, if you've quit.'

She was away from him. She intruded into the heart of the group, she was beside the guide.

The helicopter arced over the city. Salvatore had woken. The new blocks of Palermo were laid out in a geometric shape below him, and the old districts made puzzle patterns. He did not believe it was within the power of his brother that he would ever again walk on the new streets and in the old districts. The old days, the days before Riina, the days when Luciano Liggio controlled the Court of Appeal and could achieve the quashing of sentences, were finished. Escape was against the ethic of La Cosa Nostra, to attempt to escape was to betray a man's dignity. The helicopter banked. He wondered where in the new streets and the old districts was his brother. It was said in the gaol at Asinara that his brother was now capo di tutti capi, and he had noted the new deference that was shown him by men who had previously grovelled to his fellow prisoners, Riina and Bagarella and Santapaola. He did not love his brother, but if his brother held the supreme power, then life in Asinara would be more easy. He saw the old ochre walls of Ucciardione Prison climb to meet him.

Carmine came into the cathedral. He had left the car double-parked. He had run, hard as he could, the last two hundred metres. The tail was by the wall, in shadow. He squinted the length of the aisle. He saw the tourist group, he saw a girl who was younger than the other women of the group, he saw the guide, he saw the group moving further away from him, he saw the long fair hair of the American. The girl left the group, and he saw the radiance in her face, and he thought it was like so many of the bitches who had found their God… The American with the long hair was talking urgently to a tourist.

The tourist had a camera and binoculars. He saw the American stand beside the tourist and talk with him.

'Is that the contact?'

And the tail admitted, stammered, that perhaps it was the contact, but he had had to come out to call, he could not call from inside the cathedral building. They watched the American.

The last thing she heard, when she split from the group of tourists, was Axel's voice.

Axel was speaking harsh conversational German. She thought that he talked in German, had chosen one of the group to speak with, in case he was followed, in case he had been watched, as if to draw a tail from her. She learned. She walked up the aisle towards the low-set door through which the sunshine pierced the gloom. They were at the door – God, they were so bloody obvious – the black American and the Englishman.

The black American took half a stride towards her but the Englishman caught his arm.

She looked through them, she went past them.

What she had wanted, more than anything she had ever wanted, was to be held and loved by Axel Moen… and the bastard walked out on her. She was alone. It would be a fantasy for her to be held and loved by the bastard, have the buttons undone and the zip pulled down by the bastard, only a dream. The bastard…

The sun hit Charley's face. Just a little bit of a girl, was she? Could be given the big talk, could she? Could be pitched in, could she? Change of plan. Could be aborted, could she? The brightness of the sun burst on her eyes. Charley walked. The anger consumed her. The target of the anger was Axel Moen who quit on her, and the Afro-American, and the Englishman who looked scared fit to piss…

Charley walked fast down the Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

They were pathetic.

She strode down the Via Marqueda and over the Piazza Verdi and onto the Via Ruggero Settima. She was going to the room of Benny Rizzo. She would use him because he was available. Going to his room to unbutton and unzip, use him as a substitute because he was available. She went into the street behind the Piazza Castelnuovo, and past the closed gates of the school where he taught. She pushed her way into the building and she scrambled fast up the stairs. At the landing, outside his door, were two black plastic rubbish bags, filled. She pressed the bell. She heard no sound from inside. She kept her finger on the bell. She needed him. He did not have a death threat because he was ineffective. He was not killed as his father had been because he was not noticed. The bell shrilled behind the door.

'He is not here.'

An old woman came up the stairs. It was the woman she had seen going to church.

'Not back from school?'

'Not coming back, gone.' The woman put down her shopping bags and was searching her handbag for the key to her door.

'What do you mean?'

'Did he not tell you?' The slyness was on her face. 'Not tell you that he was taking the ferry for Naples? You do not believe me?'

The old woman bent and her claw nails tore at the tops of the black plastic bags. The rubbish was revealed, the pamphlets and the sheets from the photocopier, and the books. Charley saw the poster, crumpled, a pool of blood on the street and the slogan caption 'Basta!'. She was alone… She heard the laughter of the old woman

… It would be her story, hers alone, that would be told… She ran back down the stairs.

They drove into the yard at the back of the police station. The magistrate looked around the cars parked in the yard. The boy, Pasquale, had driven badly, and the maresciallo had cursed him. He looked for the familiar face. The boy had been told, and the boy would believe he was betrayed, the boy would not understand that he was saved. For one more day only the boy would have to travel past the endless ranks of parked cars and parked vans and parked motorcycles. He did not expect to be thanked by the boy because the boy would never be told that he was saved. At the far end of the yard was a butcher's delivery vehicle. He saw 'Vanni. 'Vanni jumped out of the vehicle and came quickly across the yard. He was dressed as a butcher. He stank as a butcher. 'Vanni slipped down into the car, beside the magistrate.

'Thank you for coming, 'Vanni. I talk while we go.'

'Whatever, please…'

Out on the street, and the chase car had dropped back, and the light was off the roof, they went slowly. Perhaps the boy had forgotten how to drive as a normal motorist, but they burst a junction when they should have given way, and twice the boy missed his gears, and the curse of the maresciallo was in the boy's ear. Maybe, one day, the kind and good boy, Pasquale, would understand what had been done for him… They travelled on the road round the crescent of the beach.

'One may be intelligent, and at the same time display stupidity. One can see everything, and at the same time be blind. One can be supreme in complicated analysis, and at the same time lose the obvious. I hunt Mario Ruggerio, and I have been stupid, blind, I have missed the obvious. The family will be the core of his life.'

They came to the old town, and they passed the Saracen tower.

'To strangers and rivals he will display a psychopathic cruelty, but for his family he will have only a sickening sentimentality… Four years ago, in Rome, I met with his youngest brother. His brother was Giuseppe, he was a bright and alert businessman, a credit to the enterprise of the modern Italian – don't laugh, I checked, he actually paid his taxes in full. It was impossible to believe that he came from the same peasant stock as his eldest brother.'

The maresciallo gave the whispered directions to the boy. They turned towards the hill over Mondello, went slowly up a narrow and cobbled street.

'He attacked me, he criticized me for calling him to an interview at the SCO building.

He said that he should not have been persecuted for his blood relationship. I apologized.

I forgot him. The memory of him died in an unread file, forgotten. This morning I hear that he returned three years ago to Palermo. I hear that he lives in great affluence. He has a home that is a palace in the Giardino Inglese, he has a villa here.'

They wove a way round a gaping hole where electricity men worked, they went past the high walls and the big gates and the leaping dogs.

'He is connected in business with the wealthiest of the city, he is frequently abroad, he is a success. I could go to my peers, 'Vanni, I could again request resources for surveillance, I could beg and plead for resources, and I would again be criticized for the persecution of an innocent. I can come to you, 'Vanni, I can talk of an old friendship.'

The maresciallo turned. His finger came fast from its resting place on the safety of his machine-gun, and pointed to the gates of the villa. There was wire on the top of the gates, and there was shattered glass set into the top of the wall beside the gates. Again the sharp hissed whisper of the maresciallo and the boy braked the car. Through bushes, between trees, over the gate and the wall was the roof of the villa and the upper windows.

'I can ask for the team of the Reparto Operativo Speciale to move on this villa, no connection with me. I can ask it of you… Never have we found the banker of Mario Ruggerio, never have we known the link of Mario Ruggerio to the international situation. I think, perhaps, it was under my feet, beneath my eyes… You will do it for me?'

'No.'

'For friendship, 'Vanni, for the trust we have in each other.'

'No, I cannot.'

'Search it, turn it over, hunt for a notebook or a deposit book, an address book. I am in darkness. Please.'

He caught the collar of the butcher's coat, and 'Vanni would not look into his face.

'Vanni stared at the floor of the car. He said dully, 'I cannot – I would compromise an operation.'

'What operation?'

The maresciallo had heard the footfall first. He was twisted in his seat. He held the machine-gun just below the level of the door's window.

'I told you that it was not in my gift to give…'

The boy heard the footfall and his hands were rigid on the wheel and the gearstick.

'… I am sorry, I cannot share it.'

Tardelli turned. She walked past the car. She did not look into the car. She wore a cut-away blouse low on her shoulders and clean jeans. Her head was high, and her chin was out, and she walked with a brisk purpose. He saw the strength in her face and the boldness of her walk. She went to the gate ahead of them and she reached up to the bell.

He saw no fear in her. She scratched at her back, removing an irritation. There was no weight to her, no size to her. She was 'an agent of small importance'. He slapped Pasquale, the boy, on the shoulder, and made the gesture. He looked away from her. As the gate opened, as a servant stood aside for her, the car powered away.

'You know why we do not win, 'Vanni? You knew, and you did not mark it for me, you did not share. We cannot win when we fight harder against each other than we fight against them.'

He slumped back in his seat. The darkness was around him.

In the evening Salvatore received the visit of his mother. She came alone and she told him that his father suffered that day from the problem with his chest. He thought her more frail than when he had last seen her, but it was two years since she had been declared well enough to make the long journey to Asinara. He could not kiss his mother because he was a prisoner subject to a harsh regime, there was a screen of thick glass beween them. He asked about the health of his father and the health of his brother, Carmelo, and the health of his sister. He did not speak the name of his elder brother into the microphone that linked them, nor did he speak the name of his youngest brother. He told his mother that his own health was satisfactory. He showed no emotion, no misery

– to have complained or to have wept would be to show a loss of dignity in the presence of the prison officials. From her handbag his mother took a handkerchief. She blew her nose into the handkerchief. She held the handkerchief, and her crabbed old fingers unwound the single sheet of cigarette paper. The cigarette paper was, for a short moment, revealed in the palm of her hand, close to the glass screen. He read the message. His mother crumpled the paper into her handkerchief, put her handkerchief back into her handbag. He told his mother that he hoped she would be able to visit him again soon, and that then his father might be well enough to come with her. Salvatore had been nine years old when he had first come to the damp and dark visiting rooms of Ucciardione to see his father. He had been sixteen years old when he had first come with his mother to the same rooms to see his elder brother. He had been nineteen years old when his mother had first come to visit him. He understood the workings of the prison, as if it were a home to him. After the termination of the visit, as he was escorted back to his cell, Salvatore Ruggerio requested a meeting with the governor. He walked with dignity to his cell, and men stood aside for him, and men ducked their heads in respect to him. At each step of the iron staircase, at each pace on the stone landings, he felt the power of his brother that settled on him. At his cell door he repeated the request, that he should meet with the governor. The door of the cell was locked behind him. He stood heavily on his bed. He could see between the bars of the cell. He looked at the lights of the city, and he remembered the message from his brother that had been shown him.