Killing Ground (47 page)

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

She was drawn to the door. She walked into the grey light of the church, broken only where the sun was against the many-coloured glass of the window. The door slammed shut behind her and faces turned to notice her, then looked away. She stood at the back.

She saw the plaques remembering the long-dead. The organ rose in a crescendo, not matched by the scattered voices.

Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and then proclaim, My God, how great Thou art. . . Then sings my soul, my saviour come to me, How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

It was the end of the service. A woman came and spoke to her, in piping English.

Was she new to Palermo? Had she mistaken the time of Sunday worship? She was most welcome whether or not she could sing - but could she sing? Would she like coffee?

Charley hoped so much to be wanted, loved, and she said she would like coffee. She went with other ladies, dressed as they would be for church in Exeter or Plymouth or Kingsbridge, up into the living room of the clergyman's apartment beside the church.

She wanted so much to please and to be welcomed . . . She was told that they were the remnants of a great English society that had been based in Palermo, they were the nannies who had married Sicilians and stayed, they were the artists who had fallen for the light over the mountains and on the sea and stayed, they had come to teach the English language and stayed . . . She was a plaything, exciting because she was new.

She fled. They wanted her name and her telephone number and her address. She could not lie to them. They wanted to know whether she would sing with the choir, whether she would come to the barn-dance evening, whether she could help with the flowers. If she stayed she would lie. She left them bewildered, confused, she fled out into the bright sun of the street.

Alone, miserable, lost, she went to the bus stop on the Via della Liberta that would take her back to the villa at Mondello, and she cursed Benny for not being available.

In the car, beside her husband, Angela had withdrawn into the web of her mind.

She wore a fine dress of respectful green, chosen by her husband, and a coat of fox pelts, chosen by her husband. She wore discreet jewellery at her throat and round her wrists and on her fingers, chosen by her husband. Her husband liked the coat of fox pelts and she wore it as if it were a badge of submission. The air-conditioner blew cool air over her. Her face was hidden from him by the dark glasses, chosen by her husband, that protected her eyes from the sun's glare that glittered up from the road. The children were in the back of the car, and the baby was corralled in the special seat, and they were quiet, subdued, as if they caught her mood. In the web of her mind were cascading thoughts . . .

She loathed Sicily. After Mass they had been to an apartment along the Via della Liberta, near their own apartment in the Giardino Inglese, and they had drunk aperitifs of Cinzano and nibbled at canapes, and her husband had murmured that their host was useful as a contact in business, and deference was shown her by the other wives . . . She had magnificence around her, status, ever more lavish presents brought from abroad . .

. She loathed the half-truths of the people and the double-talk of their coded whispers.

She was a prisoner . . . She had asked, quietly, if they could go to their own apartment in the Giardino Inglese, just to visit, not important, to collect clothes and more toys, and her husband had dismissed the suggestion. She had wondered if his woman was there .

. . She could not leave him. Her upbringing, her schooling, her rearing all served to prevent her leaving her husband. Her upbringing was the influence of her father, Catholic, conservative and working in the diplomatic section of the Vatican. Her schooling was the work of nuns. Her rearing was the effort of her mother to whom divorce was unthinkable and separation was disaster and marriage was for the extent of life. No court in Sicily would give her custody of the children if she left... If her husband recognized her unhappiness, driving the fast route to Mondello, if he cared for her unhappiness, he gave no sign to her. Only once had the mask cracked on his face, the morning he had been called down to the EUR to meet with the magistrate and the investigators of the Servizio Centrale Operativo, only that one morning had the bastard man crumpled - and he had come back, and he had laughed off the ignorance of the magistrate, and the matter was never talked of again. She did not know the detail of his involvement, she was the Sicilian wife kept quiet and beautiful under the weight of presents. She believed now that her husband's involvement was total, and she could not leave. The wife of Leoluca Bagarella had tried to leave, and it was said that she was dead, it was said in the Giornale di Sicilia that her way out was to have taken her life . .

. He stroked her hand, a small and unimportant gesture to him, as if he patted the paw of a prized pedigree dog, and he smiled in his confidence . . . Angela detested her husband.

If it were not for the brother, the stumbling, fat little snail of a man, then her husband would be nothing more than another criminal on the streets of the island she loathed. It made her sick, physically sick, when the rough hands of the brother touched the smooth skin of her piccolo Mario, when he slipped through a back door early in the morning or late in the night and touched her son and played on the floor with her son . . .

Angela smiled at her husband, and he could not see her eyes.

The tail was on 'Vanni Crespo.

Before, the tail had been successful only sporadically, but Carmine had directed more men, more picciotti, to the tail.

The tail could now report each day on the pattern of the life of 'Vanni Crespo. They knew the clothes he would wear, casual or formal or the builder's overalls. They knew the cars he would use, the Alfetta, the Fiat 127, the builder's van. By trial, by error, Carmine had dictated what resources were necessary to cover the movements of 'Vanni Crespo. Each end of the main road leading from the carabineri barracks at Monreale was watched that Sunday morning by a car and by two youths on motorcycles.

The previous evening, it had been reported to Carmine, 'Vanni Crespo had driven the builder's van to meet with a woman in a lay-by on the road between Trapani and Erice, and the previous afternoon he had used the Fiat 127 and called on the home of a colleague living in Altofonte, and the previous morning he had been in the Alfetta to the barracks at Bagheria.

Carmine had learned the patience of Mario Ruggerio. Each time he met with the men who drove the cars and the picciotti with the motorcycles, he repeated the description -

weight near to 80 kilos, height near to 185 centimetres, fair skin, gold hair - of the American man taken to see the magistrate, Tardelli.

Two cars, three motorcycles, changing position as they went, followed the Fiat 127

from the barracks at Monreale down the fast road, Route 186, towards Palermo.

'I said to him, "It is a sad game to play when there is no trust." I said that to him.'

'He told you that it was not personal.'

'I suggested to him that he had put "an agent of small importance" close to Mario Ruggerio.'

'Which he did not care to confirm.'

'I remarked to him that I would not wish it to lie on my conscience, the danger to that agent, unless the life of the agent was held to be of no importance.'

'He did not debate semantics with you,' 'Vanni said. 'May I tell you, dottore, what he asked me when we came out of your place in the Palazzo? He asked why you pissed on him. I said you were anxious that you might not have a free hole in your diary for his funeral and for his agent's funeral. They're earnest people, the Americans, he found it difficult to register the humour of what I said.'

"Vanni, please, I need help.'

They were alone in the sun-less room of the apartment. Out in the kitchen a radio played, and there were the distant voices of his ragazzi. He had apologized sincerely for interfering with the Sunday plans of the carabiniere officer, but that was the day in the week when he conducted his business within the confinement of the office in his apartment. He did not go to Mass on Sundays, did not take the bread and the wine of Communion, did not think it right to go to a church with his guards and their guns. He would go to church only for funerals and for occasional moments of stressed reflection when he could judge that a church would be emptied, but not on Sunday mornings. His wife would be in church for the Mass in Udine with his children, and he could tell himself that he did not care what man now stood and sat and knelt beside his wife.

'How may I help, dottore?'

'I grasp at straws. Mario Ruggerio has taken, with blood, the supreme position.'

'I read the digests from Intelligence.'

'Each new man, when he takes the supreme position, must demonstrate to the families that he has strength.'

'I know the history.'

'To demonstrate that strength he must attack the state, show that he has no fear of the state. It is now, 'Vanni, a time of extreme danger.' The carabiniere officer, without asking permission, had lit a cigarette, and the smoke from the cigarette watered his eyes. 'It is possible that I am the target, possible, that will demonstrate the strength, but there are many others.' The carabiniere officer was shifting in his seat, awkward, dragging at his cigarette. 'I take you into areas of confidence, 'Vanni, as I hope you will take me into your confidence. This morning I go to the Chief Prosecutor, by whom I will be criticized and taunted, with great politeness, concerning my efforts to capture Mario Ruggerio. I had a wretch who wished for the status of pentito. On the limited information he provided I was given meagre resources for a surveillance of the Capo district, a failure. I urged the wretch to give me more information, played on the psychology of his fear, and he hanged himself, a failure. I have spoken in the last hours with the DIA and with the squadra mobile and they have nothing for me, more failure.

All around me is the murmur of sneering laughter.'

'What do you want of me?'

'You run an agent of small importance, you collaborate with the American, you thought last week that the agent was close. We had champagne, iced, and we waited ...

It was a blow to my stomach. Please, give me hope, more than a floating straw, 'Vanni, share with me the detail of your agent.'

'You embarrass me, dottore, but the gift is not mine to give.'

The carabiniere officer jackknifed to his feet. The magistrate saw the turmoil that he had made, and the officer bit at his lip. It was the true moment, and he recognized it clearly, of his isolation.

'Of course. Thank you, on a Sunday, for your time.'

Within fifteen minutes of the departure of the carabiniere officer, 'Vanni Crespo, his friend who would not share with him, Rocco Tardelli was on the move. The ragazzi were quiet around him, moodily silent in the cars. They read the signs of the isolation of a man. The signs were across the inside pages of the newspaper. The newspaper wrote that a prisoner in Ucciardione Prison had three times met with Magistrate Tardelli, and wrote that the prisoner had been told by his wife that she rejected his collaboration, and wrote that the prisoner in Ucciardione Prison had hanged himself, wrote that there should be restrictions on the activities of ambitious magistrates.

They crossed the city . . .

The Chief Prosecutor had glanced sharply at his watch, as if to indicate that he had guests to welcome shortly. He had given no indication that Rocco Tardelli should join his guests for lunch.

'You are an impediment, Rocco. You make a bad image. You disturb the equilibrium.

You make a problem for me. You fight a crusade, you bully your colleagues, you demand resources. Your crusade, your bullying, your resources, where do they take us?

They take us to a prisoner, harassed and threatened, driven to take his own life. Where do we go now? From which direction comes the next tragic disaster? I recommend, as a true friend, Rocco, that you should consider your position most carefully. You should consider your position and your future.'

He could go so easily. He could pass his files to a colleague, he could turn his back on the sniggered laughter and the poisoned barbs, he could be off the island by the evening car ferry or by the early afternoon flight. He could win the smiles and relief and thanks of his ragazzi. He could go so easily.

'What do you say, Rocco? What would be the best for all of us?' The smile beamed in his face as if to reassure him. 'Is it not time that new horizons beckoned you?'

He felt old and tired and frightened. The bell rang. The guests had come with flowers and with presents. Old, tired, frightened, and dressed in the clothes he wore for Sundays because he did not go to Mass and did not entertain. His Sunday clothes were crumpled trousers and a shirt that should have been washed and shoes that should have been polished. After he had been hustled through the door, down the flight of stairs, across the pavement and into his armour-protected car, after they had driven past the parked cars and vans and motorcycles, after they had come back to his home, he would eat alone in his room. That would be his Sunday, and the next Sunday, isolated . . . He had needed to know the detail, hold the comfort of it, of the agent in place . . .

He murmured, as he went to the door, 'I don't quit.'

Benny held the spray can.

The door was closed. The shutters were across the windows. The radio played inside.

He aimed. He squirted the spray can. His hand shook. The paint of the spray can was a brilliant red. The red was the colour of blood. The blood from the wounds of his father, the blood that had seeped and spilled on him. The word was forming on the door beside the black drainpipe. A dog barked at him. What she had said beat in his mind as the red paint formed the word ... 'Is it good to be so ineffective that one is unnoticed?'

She made the strength for him as if she stood beside him, goaded him. 'Is it good to be only an irritation and ignored?' Goaded him because he was ineffective and an irritation and he helped with a newsletter and went to meetings and gummed envelopes. It was for his father. The word, dripping with the scarlet of blood, was on the door of the home of Rosario and Agata Ruggerio. It was madness. ASSASSINO.