Viper

66

Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii It took Antonio Castellani two more pots of coffee to tell Pietro everything about Franco, Paolo and his hugely dysfunctional extended family.

The more he heard, the more Pietro was convinced that Paolo Falconi was no gunman and no serial killer. But his cousin Franco stayed top of the list of key suspects.

He was about to wind up and leave when Antonio stopped him in his tracks. 'There is something that I didn't tell you yesterday. A secret I thought I would take to the grave.' He opened his hands expansively, a sign of surrender. 'With all this happening, I think I should talk about it.'

Pietro couldn't help but glance at his watch. His business was done and whatever secret Antonio had, he was sure it wasn't going to help his case.

'For years now I have been paying debts to the Camorra, to the Finelli clan.'

Pietro nodded sympathetically. 'You and many others. I have colleagues who may be able to help you. I'll write…'

'Shush, let me finish. This is not about the pizzu. I don't mind a little tax here and there. This is something more.'

'I'm sorry. Please go ahead.'

'Finelli sent his yobs, his guys, to frighten me away from my home. I have a debt from decades ago – fifty years in fact – now they want to foreclose, shut me down and build on the land. I'll have nothing.'

Pietro was worried. This was a messy secret. Messy secrets meant a lot of social work and wasted time, something he couldn't afford right now. 'You won't lose your home. These days we have special units that can protect you. People can intervene and -'

The old man cut him off again. 'You young are so impatient. Let me have my say. It will not be the waste of time you fear.'

And so Pietro sat back and gritted his teeth. Slowly the story of the gambling debt and the crude and cruel threats of the hired muscle unfolded. His sympathy went out to the old man. Life had certainly dealt him the proverbial losing hand. He was about to try – for the third time – to give him a contact name and number in the anti-Camorra unit, when Antonio Castellani shuffled to the back of the caravan and returned with half a dozen scrapbooks and photo albums.

'Signor Castellani, please. I really must go now.' Pietro rose and began to pull on his coat.

The old man ignored him. 'When your team searched the other day they only glanced at these. They should have looked closer. They should not have rushed – like you are doing now.'

Pietro's eyes fell on the faded newsprint and old black and white pictures stuck in a cheap cardboard binder that was thick with dust and smelled like stale bread.

'These books go back half a century,' said Antonio proudly. 'They are records of every payment I've made. Every meeting I've ever had with the Camorra. They start with the late Luigi Finelli and then go on to his son, Fredo.' He turned a wad of crinkly pages and stopped at a news cutting that showed Bruno Valsi going to prison. 'And then they finish with Fredo's son-in-law, this little bastard. I'm sure you recognize him.'

Pietro certainly did. He took the book in his hands. The pages at the front and back were decoys. They were filled with boring family memorabilia – marriage certificates, birthday cards and school reports. But sandwiched between them was a layer of dynamite. Antonio Castellani's scrapbooks were personal logs of all the dealings he'd had over the years with the Finelli clan. He'd kept an account of all his payments, taken notes of all his conversations with them, jotted down every rumour and half-truth he'd ever heard about how they operated. And he'd listed every name and associate he'd heard mentioned. Antonio explained that his dearly departed wife, God bless her soul, had even secretly taken photographs of protection money being paid and countless henchmen coming and going in a variety of cars.

The biggest prize of all, though, were the photographs and corresponding notes and maps relating to weapons that Fredo Finelli had demanded Antonio hold for him. It had been an old gangster trick. Wipe a gun clean of your own prints and then have it held – and in doing so, printed – by someone indebted to you. If it was ever discovered by the cops, then the holder was expected to take the fall. Certainly they'd never dare divulge the true owner's identity. The consequences would be fatal.

Antonio had clearly kept all the stuff as an insurance payment, and now – with Valsi and his thugs threatening to evict him – it was time to cash it in. Pietro stared in silence at the documents. They were Camorra treasure maps. Find the guns, match the documents and, with Antonio as a witness, it would be a prosecution gold rush.

Antonio nodded at the undivided attention he was now getting. 'I'll make more caffe,' he said. 'I think it will take you a while to get through all that.'

And it did.

It was dark when Pietro left the caravan and walked back to his battered and rusty Lancia. He sat inside with the engine off and let it all sink in.

The futures of Bruno Valsi and Fredo Finelli – the two biggest names in Camorra circles – lay solely in his hands.

Suddenly, finding Franco Castellani really didn't seem to matter as much as deciding how he handled the information that he knew could change his career forever.