Killing Ground (60 page)

'If that's what you want to believe . . .'

His shoulder was shaken. Axel Moen opened his eyes. The lying bastards, Dwight Smythe and Harry Compton were all warmth and concern. Yes, he'd slept well. He thought that the warmth and the concern were shit.

He went to the basin and sluiced cold water on his face and on his hands and his arms.

He thought 'Vanni Crespo tried to be gentle and sincere. 'Vanni told him that, while he had slept, the magistrate had been killed. A bomb had killed him. The magistrate with whom he had not shared Codename Helen was dead. He took a cup of water and swilled it in his mouth and spat it out. He looked around him a last time, his eyes soaked in the bare room, and he knew that he would never see his friend's room again.

Time to quit.

They went down the corridor and out of the living quarters of the barracks.

They stopped at the communications room, waited in the corridor. He saw 'Vanni Crespo lean over the technician, and smack his hand with emphasis on the work table, and in front of the technician was the second of the CSS 900 two-channel receivers.

He thought of her. He thought of his love for her. The Englishman carried his own receiver, and he would have no love for her.

They went out into the falling sunshine of the late afternoon to the cars.

She broke the rule. The rule had been set by Axel Moen. Axel Moen had quit.

'Angela, why—?'

'Why what?'

'Why did you make an issue—?'

'An issue of what?'

'Angela, why did you insist—?'

The rule set by Axel Moen was that she should never question, never pester, never persist. They stood beside the washing-line and Charley held the washed clothes that would hang on the line overnight, and the pegs, and passed them to Angela.

'Insist on what?'

'Angela, why did you demand that I come with you tonight?'

'I have small children.' 'Yes/

'I have a nanny/

'Yes.'

'I have a family occasion to attend, and my husband would like our children to be with us. If the children are with us, then so, too, should be their nanny.'

'Yes.'

The strain was off the face of Angela Ruggerio. Her smile was sweetness. To Charley, there was a strength in the face of Angela Ruggerio. But the smile of sweetness was not open. The smile was enigmatic, the smile was a fraud.

'You confuse me, Charley.'

'I'm sorry, I don't mean to.'

'In pain, Charley, in depression, I asked Peppino to bring you back to me. Everything that I ask for is given me by Peppino. But you have no life here, you have no happiness, you are a servant. But you do not complain. That is my confusion.'

'It was just an opportunity, you know, the right chance at the right time.'

'I took a telephone call for you. The caller said he was the chaplain of the Anglican church. You were later coming back than I thought. And you had to take the bus into Palermo, and then you would have had a long walk to the cathedral. I was worried, Charley, that you would be late for the start of the tour/

'No, no, I was there in time/

'Because we offer you so little, I thought it was good for you to have friends. In the book I found the telephone number of the Anglican church. I wanted to be certain they would wait for you. I spoke to the chaplain, to tell him that you were coming, that they should wait for you. I am glad, Charley, that you were not late for the tour.'

She had broken the rule. She had pushed, pestered, persisted. With the broken rule came the broken cover. She passed the last of the shirts from the basket and the pegs to hang it from. She could not read the face of Angela Ruggerio. They walked back to the kitchen.

The army colonel said that a new brigade of troops would be in Palermo within forty-eight hours, probably a paratroop unit.

'To do what? To direct the traffic?' It would be the Chief Prosecutor's last post before retirement. He had cracked a mould with his appointment. Before he had taken the post it had been given, for many years, to an outsider. It had been his great pride, that he, a Palermitan, had won the appointment.

The squadra mobile colonel said that four new teams of trained surveillance officers would be transferred from the mainland within the week.

'Excellent. Then we will know which dogs foul which pavements.' He felt a great weariness, an engulfing impatience, and a dripping flow of shame. He had shown no love for Rocco Tardelli and less support. He had laughed behind his hand at the man, and sneered at the man.

The deputy mayor said that the Minister of Justice would come himself to the funeral, and had telephoned his instructions that all resources should be diverted to this investigation.

'More resources. What generosity. We may have more flowers and a bigger choir in the cathedral.' The Chief Prosecutor threw down his pen at the papers in front of him.

'And we have to do something. It is required of us that we do something.'

The deputy mayor said that, in an hour, he would make a televised statement, a strong denunciation.

'Which will have a quite extraordinary impact upon the Men of Honour. Perhaps they will fart when they see you.'

The colonel of the squadra mobile said that every possible associate of Mario Ruggerio would, that night, be watched.

'But we don't know who are his associates. If we had known, he would have been incarcerated this year, last year, ten years ago.'

The army colonel said that each soldier under his command in Palermo was out now on patrol in every quarter of the city.

'Your soldiers are ignorant and untrained conscripts, and we cannot even tell them what is the appearance of Mario Ruggerio. Probably they would stop the cars and help him across the street.'

'I think you take a very negative attitude,' the deputy mayor said.

He had come to this meeting, down the great corridor on the third floor of the Palazzo di Giustizia, the place they called the Palace of Poisons. He had passed the office of Rocco Tardelli. He had recognized the guard. The guard was dust-covered and his face was blood-smeared. He thought the guard had the look of a woman who will not leave the mortuary where a still-born baby lies. From behind the door was the sound of the violation of the office of Rocco Tardelli. He had come to the meeting and he had heard the gestures that would be made.

'Do you know what happens at this moment? Do you know the reality of what happens? In the apartment of my dead colleague, and in the office of my dead colleague, there are now artisans working with oxyacetyline cutters so that the personal safes at his home, at his workplace, may be opened. For each safe he kept only one set of keys, and the keys were on his person and his person is bits. We have not found his keys in the Via della Croci. He had only one set of keys because he did not trust those with whom he worked. He employed no secretary, no aide, no staff. He did not trust us.

That is the kernel of my problem, that a brave man could not trust his colleagues.

Maybe in one of his safes will be his description of an avenue of enquiry that he did not share because he had no trust. And Mario Ruggerio will laugh at our gestures and celebrate and walk in freedom. Yes, my attitude is negative.'

From a distance, the tail watched the house and the closed street and the parked cars and the carabineri with their guns and flak vests and balaclava masks. The arrival at the house was reported.

'How long have we got?' Harry Compton fidgeted his fingers.

'Enough time/ the Italian said.

In London, of course, there were police undercover men and women. They'd be undercover in Vice or Organized Crime or with Drugs Squad. Harry Compton didn't know any of them. They'd have the full back-up. They'd have a chief superintendent wetting his smalls for them each night. They'd have support. He stood in the apartment.

The man seemed to have no interest in the packing of his few effects. The bag was packed by the Italian and the Afro-American. The man, Axel Moen, had let them in, like he didn't care that they trampled through his life, and he'd gone to the table against the wall on the far side of the room from the window. The light came badly from the small ceiling bulb, and he sat in shadow and wrote. Harry Compton stood by the door beside the big policeman who wore the anorak of the carabineri, who held the machine-gun. He watched, he was an intruder present at the end of a dream, and he was responsible for the waking.

The Italian collected the books on archaeology, Roman and Greek and Carthaginian antiquities, and the Afro-American took the clothes from the wardrobe and the chest and folded them and laid them with precision in the bag, and the man sat in shadow and wrote busily on a big notepad.

The man hadn't spoken as they had driven from the barracks to the narrow street.

They'd brought three cars, and they'd blocked off the street ahead of the house and before it. Harry Compton, stretching his mind, could not imagine what it would be like to live undercover, without back-up. The bag was packed, was zipped shut. The room was stripped of the presence of Axel Moen. The Afro-American was about to speak, probably he'd something asinine on his tongue about planes not waiting, but the Italian had touched his arm. Axel Moen, sitting in the shadow of the room, wrote his letter, and the Italian guarded his last rites as a vixen would have protected a cub.

They'd get him out, Harry Compton thought, get him on the flight, get shot of the responsibility for him, and then he would make his pitch for the girl. There was fierce argument in the street below. There was a hammering cacophony of horns because the street was blocked by three cars and by armed men. Harry Compton's pitch about the girl would be that they should drive from the airport to the villa, wherever it was, and lift the girl out. If she wanted to go screaming, then she could go that way, if she wanted to go kicking, then she could kick, if she needed to be handcuffed, if she needed a strait-jacket, then he would oblige, if she argued, the way he felt, he'd tape her mouth.

He could recognize the symptoms of fear. He was so bloody aggressive. They should get the man on the flight, they should get the girl out of the villa, they should close down on the place and turn their backs to it, fuck the hell out of it and go. The aggression came from the fear. The fear came from the growing dusk falling on the street, the guns that guarded them. And the man kept on with his writing, like there wasn't a hurry, like the flight would wait . . . She'd kill him, Fliss would, if he came back without a present for her, and she wouldn't understand, and he wouldn't tell her why he hadn't gone shopping, why he hadn't even bought anything for Miss Frobisher, wouldn't tell her of his fear . . .

The notepaper, three sheets, was folded. There was shouting on the stairs, a woman's voice, shrill. The man, Axel Moen, in his own time, took an envelope from the drawer of the table, and put the sheets of notepaper into the envelope. He slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his shirt and lifted out a small gold wrist-watch, a woman's watch, and placed it in the envelope with the sheets of notepaper. He licked the flap of the envelope and fastened it down. He wrote a name on the envelope, and there wasn't the light for Harry Compton to read the name, and he gave the envelope to Dwight Smythe.

They went out through the door. They had stripped the room and taken the identity from it. The dream was gone. Harry Compton had killed the dream . . . The woman was at the bottom of the stairs and she shouted her abuse at the policeman who barred her, at them as they came down. He caught the drift. She screamed at them in a patois of English and Italian. She had taken a spy into her house. What would happen to her?

They had endangered her. The whole street knew a spy had lived in her house. Who would protect her? She was not answered. She spat in the face of Axel Moen.

The car doors slammed. They pulled away into the dusk. The dream was dead.

From a distance, the tail watched as the men came out of the house. A description was given of the long-haired American. It was reported that he carried a travel bag.

Charley asked, 'What should I wear?'

Peppino lounged on the big chair in the living room. His papers were around him. He looked up and at the first moment there was annoyance at the distraction, and then the slow grin came to his face.

'Whatever makes you feel good.'

She was in control. She felt no fear. The darkness gathered outside the living-room windows and she saw the shadow shape of the gardener pass.

'I'd want to wear the right thing - wouldn't want to get it wrong.'

'If you would like it, I will come and help you choose what you should wear.'

'Good.'

She had the power over him. He stood. He glanced furtively towards the kitchen.

Angela was in the kitchen with the children and their colouring books and their crayons. She had the power over them all. The power flushed in her . . . Axel Moen would have sworn at her, and warned her . . . The power was a narcotic in her. She led him into her room. He followed. He waited at the door. She drew the curtains of the window and then she crouched down at her chest of drawers and took out the blouse that he had paid for, and the drawer was left open and he would be able to see her neatly folded underwear . . . She did not care that Angela knew the lie, and she did not care that Axel Moen would have sworn and warned . . . She faced him, and she held the blouse of royal blue across her chest so that he could see the line of it and the cut of it, and swivelled with it and then tossed it on the bed. She sought control. She went to the wardrobe, and he drifted towards her. She heard the brush of his feet, coming closer to her. She took the skirt of bottle-green from the clip hanger in the wardrobe and she held it across her hips and stomach and thighs. She felt the warmth of his breath on the skin at her shoulders and she knew the scent of him. His fingers touched her and groped under her arms and towards her breasts. She demanded control. She lifted him, she collapsed him.

'Sorry, Peppino, it's "curse" time - bad luck.'

The tail was a motorcycle and a car. The motorcycle was ahead and the car followed.