Killing Ground (15 page)

The senator said, 'You foreigners, you see La Cosa Nostra in Sicily as a "Spectre", you see it as a character in the fiction of Ian Fleming. It makes me laugh, your ignorance. The reality is a centaur, half a knight in bright armour and half a beast. La Cosa Nostra exists because the people want it to exist. It is in the people's life and souls and bloodstream. Consider. A boy of nineteen years has left school, and if he is admitted to the local family, he gets three million a month, security, structure, culture, and he gets a pistol. But the state cannot give him the security of work, can give him only the culture of TV game shows. The state offers legality, which he cannot eat. From La Cosa Nostra he gains, most important, his self-respect. If you are a foreigner, if you follow the image of "Spectre", you will believe that if the principals of La Cosa Nostra are arrested, then the organization is destroyed. You delude yourself, and you do not comprehend the uniqueness of the Sicilian people. As strangers here you will imagine that La Cosa Nostra rules by fear, but intimidation is a minor part of the organization's strength. Don't think of us as an oppressed society, in chains, pleading for liberation.

The author, Pitre, wrote, "Mafia unites the idea of beauty with superiority and valour in the best sense of the word, and something more - audacity but never arrogance," and there are more who believe him than deny him. To most people, most Sicilians, the Government of Rome is the true enemy. You asked me, does the arrest of Riina or Santapaola or Bagarella wound the power of La Cosa Nostra? My answer, there are many who are younger, as charismatic, to take their place. Do I disappoint you? This is not the war with a military solution that you want.'

The journalist blinked his eyes, tried to concentrate on what he was told and to write his longhand note.

The Capo district, the old quarter of the narrow streets and decaying buildings that had long ago been the glory of the Moorish city, was quiet. The bars were closed, the motorcycles were parked and chained, the windows were opened to admit the slight breath of the warm air. In his room Mario Ruggerio slept, dreamless, and a few inches from his limp and outstretched hand, on the floor beside his bed, was a loaded 9mm pistol. He slept in exhaustion after a day of figures and calculations and deals. A dead sleep that was not troubled by any threat, that he knew of, from any quarter, of imminent arrest. Lonely, without his wife, without the few that he loved, with his pistol on the floor and his calculator on the table,

Mario Ruggerio snored through the dark hours.

The time of the change of the guards' shift . . . Pasquale hurried, flashing his I/D at the soldiers on the street and the sergeant who watched the main entrance of the block.

Pasquale hurried because he was three minutes late for the start of his shift, and it was laid down that he should have been at the apartment a minimum of ten minutes before the shift of eight hours began. He was late for his shift because it had been the first night that his wife and the baby had been home, and he had lain beside her for three hours, awake and unable to sleep, ready to switch off the bleeped alarm the moment it sounded. The baby had been quiet in the cot at the end of the bed. His wife had lain still in the bed, buried in tiredness. He had not woken either his wife or his baby when he had slipped from under the single cotton sheet, dressed, gone on his toes from the bedroom.

The door was opened. He saw the disciplined annoyance on the face of the maresciallo. Pasquale muttered about his baby, coming home, asleep now, and when he shrugged his apology he expected a softening of the maresciallo's anger, because the older man had children, adored children, would understand. There was a cold, whispered criticism, and he squirmed the response that it would not happen again.

They knew where the polished floorboards of the hallway creaked. They avoided the loose boards. They went silently past the door behind which the magistrate slept.

Sometimes they heard him cry out, and sometimes they heard him tossing, restless.

In the seven weeks he had known the magistrate, Pasquale thought the saddest thing he had learned of the life of the man he protected was the going of Rocco Tardelli's wife and the taking of Rocco Tardelli's children. The maresciallo had told him. The day after the killing of Borsellino, the month after the murder of Falcone, Patrizia Tardelli shouting, 'Sicily is not worth a single drop of an honourable man's blood. Sicily is a place of vipers . . .' She had gone with her three children, as the maresciallo had told Pasquale, and the magistrate had not argued with her but had helped to carry their bags from the outer door to the car, and the ragazzi had hurried him away from the danger of the exposed pavement and not allowed him even to see the car disappear around the corner of the block. The maresciallo had said that afterwards, after they had gone, the magistrate had not wept but had gone to work. Pasquale thought it the saddest story he knew.

In the kitchen, among the mess of the heavy vests and the machine pistols, Pasquale filled the kettle in the sink where the magistrate's supper dishes had not yet been cleaned, and made the first coffee of the day. He poured the coffee for the maresciallo and himself. Later he would wash the dishes in the sink. They, the ragazzi, were not supposed to be the servants of the magistrate, or his messengers, or his cooks, nor would they ever be his true friends, but it would have seemed to each of them on the detail to be merciless to sit and watch as the magistrate washed his own dishes, prepared his food alone.

Pasquale asked what was the schedule of the day.

The maresciallo shrugged as if it were of no relevance.

'To Ucciardione . . . ?'

Again the shrug, as if it were of no importance whether they went again to the prison.

The forehead of Pasquale wrinkled in puzzlement. It was what had confused him the night before, when he had sat in front of the late evening television after his wife had gone to their bed and the baby to the new cot. He did not understand.

'The man who tries to be a pentito, he was very hard with him. All right, so we are not supposed to hear, to listen, but it is impossible not to hear what is said. "I can tell you where is Mario Ruggerio." Nothing happens. It is left. Why? Ruggerio is the biggest catch, Ruggerio is the target of Tardelli, Ruggerio is of international status. Am I very simple?'

'Simple and naive and with much to learn.' There was a weariness in the expression of the maresciallo. He held the coffee cup in two hands, as if one hand on the cup might have shaken and spilled the coffee. 'There is a saying on the island, "A man warned is a man saved." Dr Tardelli was warned long ago, and he has ignored the warning. But, important, he has not only been warned by La Cosa Nostra, he has been warned also by those who should be his colleagues. He has the quality of honesty, and it is that honesty that humiliates his colleagues. There is no serious effort to attack the enemy, the colleagues stand and watch from safety, and they wait to see Tardelli fall on his arse.

How many in the Palace of

Justice make certain, Jesu, so certain, that an investigation into La Cosa Nostra never hits their desks? Too many. He is accused of the personality cult, of judicial communism, of denigrating the reputation of Sicily. He is accused by those who have ambition and vanity and envy, but who do not have honesty. Which judge can he trust, which prosecutor, which magistrate, which carabiniere, which police officer? Pasquale, can he trust you?'

'That is insane.'

'Insane? Really? A judge in Calabria is arrested, mafia collusion. The head of the squadra mobile is arrested, mafia association. What is your price, Pasquale, if your wife is threatened or your baby? If a prime minister can be bought, what is the price of a young policeman with a wife and baby? Everywhere is the contamination of the bastards. The former head of International Affairs of the American Justice Department is charged with working for the Colombians. In Germany it is reported that new levels of corruption in public life have been reached. Maybe he trusts us because we ride with him, because we would die with him. He does not trust his colleagues.'

'Tell me.'

'Each time he offers protection to a pentito he has to be certain of the genuineness of the man. He may be dealing with a "placed" man, he may be sitting opposite a liar. If he diverts resources, the weight of an investigation, in the direction of a "placed" man or a liar, then he will be weakened. If he is weakened, then he is isolated. If he is isolated, then he is dead. It is necessary for him to go one short step at a time because he walks through a mine field. Heh, what would you prefer, boy? Would you prefer to be directing traffic in Milan?'

The coffee Pasquale drank was cold. He stood. He took off his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves, and ran hot water into the sink, and started to wash the magistrate's dishes.

Past two in the morning . . . The night duty manager reflected his annoyance at being called by the porter from his office and his catnap. He studied the computer screen.

'Difficult to help you, Sergeant. That's nearly a week ago. We've had 827 guests through since that night. All right, the date you want . . . 391 guests in residence. Bear with me. Are you sure this cannot wait till the morning?'

But Harry Compton, after another evening beavering at the solicitor's files and archives, had chosen to visit the hotel in Portman Square on his way home. It was what was called, a bullshit expression, a 'window of opportunity'. In the morning he would be back at the solicitor's papers, so, definitely, it could not wait.

'Well, of the 391 residents, twenty-one declared Italian passports. Wait again, I'll check the details . . .'

The fingers flitted over the computer's keys.

'You said, "resident in Palermo". No, can't help. Of the Italian passport holders that night, none declared residency in Palermo. You're being economical. Could you tell me why Fraud Squad is here at this wretched hour?'

He felt the blow, like a punch. He swore under his breath.

'Are you sure?'

'That's what I said, friend - none lists residence in Palermo, Sicily.'

'What about the dinner bill? Table twelve in the restaurant, did one of them sign?'

'No can help. That's a restaurant matter. The restaurant's closed, has been cleared for ninety minutes. Have to come back in the morning.'

'Get it open.'

'I beg your pardon.'

Harry Compton, detective sergeant in S06, reckoned he loathed the languid little creep across the reception counter. 'I said, get it open.'

They went into the dim-lit restaurant. A sous waiter was found, smoking, in the kitchen. The keys were produced. A drawer was opened. The receipts and order bills were taken from the drawer. There had been eighty-three diners on the evening that concerned him. He took the bundle of receipts and order bills to a table and asked to be brought a beer . . .

It was near the bottom of the pile, sod's law, the sheet of paper for table twelve, the printout sheet with the illegible signature and the digits of the room number of the resident. He gulped the beer.

He strode with the sheet of paper back to the reception desk and trilled the bell hard for the night duty manager.

'Room 338, I want that gentleman's card.'

'Are you entitled to that information?'

'I am - and I am also entitled to report to Public Health that a dirty little creature was smoking in your kitchen.'

The bill was printed out for him, with the check-in card carrying the personal details of the guest who had occupied room 338. It was an afterthought. Should have been routine, but he was so goddam tired. The night duty manager was disappearing back to his office.

'Oh, and I require a list of the telephone numbers called from that room. Yes, now, please.'

'Did you go back, where you were before?'

'I did.'

'Never worth it, going back. It seems unimportant, what was once special.'

'I walked from the block along past the tennis club and into Piazza Fleming. It was the way that I used to take small Mario to the school bus.'

'Going back is time wasted, sentimental.'

'If you have any other criticisms to make, could we do them in a job lot and get them over with, Mr Moen? It gets to be tedious, your criticism.'

If Charley annoyed him then, he did not show it. If she amused him, he did not show it. They were by the footbridge, high on the promenade above the water, across from the fortress of Sant'Angelo. She had been at the rendezvous on time and then she had waited. It had been ten minutes after she had come to the bridge that she had seen him, coming easily through a traffic flow, stopping, then skipping forward, confident. He'd told her that he had watched her through those ten minutes and he'd satisfied himself that she was not followed. He hadn't made a big deal of the fact that, his opinion, she might have been followed, just said it and unsettled her. She gazed down into the slow movement of the green-brown water below.

'Are you going to ask me what I did last night?'

'No.'

So Charley did not tell Axel Moen about walking the streets of the centro storico and dousing herself in nostalgia. Nor did she tell him of sitting, anarchic and alone, in a ristorante and eating till her stomach bulged and drinking the best portion of a litre of house wine. She did not tell him that she had showered, walked naked from the bathroom and seen on the television the picture of a man's body in Palermo whose balls were in his mouth, and didn't tell that the night had been a long nightmare.

'What did you do last night?'

The dry voice, as if reciting from a catalogue. 'Went to a party.'

'Could you have taken me?'

'I had someone to go with.'

He stood beside her. He held a padded paper bag in his hand. The labels had been pulled from it. She saw the great tree logs and the big branches, debris of the winter floods, now marooned against the piers of the bridge. She looked up at the fortress of Sant'Angelo. She had been round it, alone, in the summer of 1992, tramped the narrow corridors and climbed the worn steps and marvelled at the symmetry of its architects, so many centuries ago, in creating the perfect circular shape. It had been then a place of friendship.