The Marco Effect: A Department Q Novel (5 page)

How Zola had managed to declare himself their indisputable guiding light was something Marco had difficulty grasping. Why did the other adults put up with it? The only things he did were to terrorize them, dominate their lives, and relieve them of everything they had struggled to scrape together. And when such thoughts troubled Marco’s mind he felt shame on behalf of the grown-ups, and especially his father.

This evening he raised himself onto his elbows in bed, fully aware he had ventured onto thin ice. Zola had not really done him harm back there in the living room, but his eyes had warned of miseries to come. Of that he was certain.

He knew he must speak to his father about Samuel. He needed to speak to someone, at least. The question was whether it would help. For some time his father had seemed so distant. As though something had happened that had really affected him.

The first time Marco had noticed it was almost two years before, when his father had sat one morning with his brow furrowed in a frown, passively staring at the food put before him. Marco had thought he must be ill, but the following day he was more energetic than he had been for months. Some said he had begun to chew khat like a number of others, but regardless of what he was up to, the furrows in his brow had come to stay. For some time Marco kept his concerns to himself, but eventually he confided in Miryam and asked if she knew anything.

“You’re dreaming, Marco. Your father’s exactly the same as he’s always been,” she said, and tried to smile.

They spoke no more of it, and Marco endeavored to put it from his mind.

But then, six months ago, he had noticed once more the look on his father’s face, though now a slightly different variant. There had been quite a bit of turbulence throughout the night, but after ten the kids were not allowed to leave their rooms, for which reason it couldn’t have been caused by any of them.

Marco had been woken in the middle of a dream by the sound of
tumult in the hallway. Judging by the nature of the groans he heard, hard punishment was being meted out. Punishment so harsh that knowledge of what had taken place seemed etched in his father’s face the next morning as though branded there by hot iron. But Marco had no idea who had been on the receiving end, or for what reason. Certainly not a member of the clan, otherwise he would have known.

Since then, his father had slept in Lajla’s room on the other side of the living room.

Now, hungry and unable to sleep, Marco threw off the bed covers and made his way down the hall toward the kitchen. As he passed the living-room door he heard his father’s voice protesting vigorously behind it, then Zola’s calming him down.

“If we don’t put a stop to your son’s rebellion, it will not only mean lost earnings, it will also mean he will be spreading his poison to the other kids. You have to expect he will betray us one day and destroy everything, don’t you realize that?”

He heard his father protest again. This time with more desperation to his voice. It wasn’t normal for him.

“Marco will never go to the police, Zola,” he replied, urgency in his voice. “Once I’ve had a word with him he’ll toe the line. He won’t run away either. That’s just something he says. You know how he is. A bright boy with too many ideas in his head. A little too bright sometimes, but never with the intention of doing us harm. Zola, surely you can see that? Won’t you please leave him alone?”

“No,” Zola replied curtly. It was his call. He had the power.

Marco glanced down the passageway. Any minute now Chris could appear with the absinthe Zola always demanded for his nightcap. And when he did, Marco mustn’t be caught eavesdropping.

“You should know that Samuel has told me he’s seen Marco hesitate when he’s pickpocketing and stealing handbags,” Zola went on. “If it’s true, he can put us all in peril. You know that as well as I do. Those who hesitate will sooner or later be caught. And they’re the kind who can’t keep their mouths shut, either, when it really counts. You can’t bank on him being loyal toward us or the clan when things go wrong. That’s a fact.”

Then Marco put his ear against the door, his breathing as quiet as a
mouse so the dog inside would not begin to growl. Was that really how Samuel spoke of him? It wasn’t true at all. When had he ever hesitated in his work? Never!

But Samuel had, on many occasions. And yet they had defended him. The fool.

“Marco’s old enough now for the invalid scam, so there’s no two ways about it. We know how great the benefits are. Look at Miryam.”

“But can’t you see there’s a difference between him and Miryam?” It was his father’s voice, imploring. “Her misfortune
was
an accident.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?” The words were followed by dry laughter. Marco felt a chill. What did he mean? That it wasn’t an accident? Miryam had stumbled while she was running across the road, everyone knew that.

For a moment all was silent inside the room. He could clearly picture the shock on his father’s face. But his father said nothing.

“Listen,” Zola continued. “We must look after the youngsters, make sure they’ve a bright future, yes? That’s why we can’t afford to be soft and make mistakes, do you understand? Soon we’ll have scraped enough money together to settle in the Philippines. I think you’d do well to remember that this has been our dream from the start. There’s a place for Marco in that dream, too.”

A minute passed before Marco’s father replied. It was clear he was already coming to terms with defeat. “And that’s why Marco must be maimed? Is that really what you want, Zola?”

Marco clenched his fists. Hit him, Father. Hit him, he urged in silence. You’re Zola’s elder brother. Tell him to leave me be.

“It’s just a small sacrifice for the benefit of the clan, don’t you agree? We sedate the boy and put his leg out into the traffic. It will be over in an instant. The Danish hospitals are good, they’ll fix him up well enough. And if he won’t go along voluntarily, we’ll have to help him, yes? If you oppose me on this issue, I may select you instead, you realize that, don’t you?”

Marco held his breath and saw Miryam’s hobbling figure in his mind’s eye. He fought back the tears. Was that how it happened? They had turned her into a cripple.

Say something, Father!, he urged again. But from behind the door came the sound of one voice only. The wrong one.

“Accident, disfigurement, insurance payout. So it will proceed,” Zola continued. “And as a permanently beneficial side effect, we will have created for ourselves a thoroughbred beggar who is unable to run anywhere.”

A faint draught in the passage made Marco turn, but too late. The kitchen door had opened and the figure that stepped out had seen him.

“What are you up to, boy?” Chris’s voice slashed through the dimness.

In an instant Marco sprang free of the wall and made a dash as Chris leaped after him, and the door of the living room was flung open.

Many times before he had told himself that if ever such a situation should occur he would seek refuge in one of the neighbor’s houses. But now everything around him seemed dead. The wind was whistling through the many trees between which the houses lay, quiet as mausoleums: dark, lifeless, deceased. All the windows around him were unlit. Only the faint glare of a single television screen was visible farther down the road.

And that was the house he ran toward, filled with dread.

“I won’t make it,” he kept telling himself as a cold rain began to wet his face. He would be caught before he ever roused the residents from their armchairs. He had to find another way.

Marco twisted round and glanced behind him as he ran, trying not to stumble over the curbs with his bare feet. Now he could see that two of his older cousins were on his heels, too, and they were fast. He hurled himself into the gravel on his stomach and squirmed through a hole in a hedge too small for the others to negotiate.

If he could cut through this garden and get to the main road, he might have a chance.

An automatic floodlight mounted on the house’s gable end tripped, painting the garden bright white. He saw the people inside come to the picture window of the living room, but he was already on his way through the next hedge, from where he rolled down into the ditch at the side of the main road.

Behind him came shouts for him to stop, but Marco’s attention was fixed on the passing cars and the thicket of trees halfway up the hill a few hundred meters beyond. That was where he needed to go. Any moment now they would have run down the residential street and emerge onto the road farther on. If he didn’t get away now, he would be done for.

A blue beam of halogen headlights tipped over the ridge, revealing the rainy tarmac to be a glittering bridge to freedom. If he ran into the middle of the road and stopped the car it might save him. And if it refused to stop, he would throw himself into its path and put an end to his trials. Rather that than spend the rest of his life a crippled beggar like Miryam.

“Stop!” he cried out as the car came toward him, his arms waving. Then he made directly for the headlight beams, like a moth to a flame.

Over his shoulder he could see his pursuers coming round the houses and spilling out onto the road. From that distance he was unable to see who they were, but it had to be his cousins and some of the other kids because they were so quick. He would have only seconds to stop the car and convince the driver to help him before they caught up.

The car flashed its lights, but the driver did not slow down. For a moment he was certain it wouldn’t stop and prepared to meet his fate when suddenly he heard the squeal of brakes and saw the vehicle begin to veer from side to side like a man inebriated.

Don’t move, or else he’ll just zoom on by, he told himself, trying to predict the direction in which the driver would next yank the wheel. He wasn’t going to let him past.

For a split second Marco saw the front of the car loom toward him like an executioner’s ax, and then with a whoosh of tires against the wet asphalt it came to a sudden halt, with Marco’s knee against the front bumper, as an extremely agitated man hurled abuse at him from the other side of the thrashing wipers.

Marco sprang to the passenger side and flung open the door before the man could react.

“What the hell are you playing at, you little brat?” the driver yelled, his face white as chalk from the shock.

“You’ve got to take me with you or those men there are going to get me,” Marco begged, pointing down into the dip in the road from where his pursuers were now approaching.

The man’s expression changed from shock to rage in a second.

“What the fuck? Are you a Paki?” he screamed, leaning over to the passenger seat and without warning lashing a fist at Marco’s head.

The punch caught him awkwardly, but hard enough to send him backward onto the road as the man slammed the door shut with a hail of invective to the effect that apes like him could damn well fend for themselves.

Marco felt the asphalt eating its way through his pajamas. It hurt but wasn’t nearly as painful as lying flat in the middle of the road in darkness and seeing the car accelerate off with the beam of its headlights aimed straight at those who were after him.

“Stop the car!” one of them shouted. Then came the dull thud of gunshots, but the vehicle hurtled on, picking up speed and heading directly toward the flock, forcing them to leap for their lives. And then it was gone.

He heard the confusion among them as he rolled over into the ditch and crawled under a bush. They must have thought he’d managed to throw himself into the car before it sped away. He crawled on all fours deeper into the underbrush at the edge of the woods that bordered the road as he strained his ears to hear what his pursuers were up to.

Peering through the vegetation, he saw that some men had now joined his young pursuers. From their silhouettes he took them to be Zola, Chris, and his father.

The young ones pointed up the road to where Marco had stopped the car, then turned in the direction in which it had disappeared. Suddenly a fist flew through the air and a figure slumped to the ground. Punishment for failing to capture the fugitive came promptly. What else did they expect?

He heard a barked order to search the area, and the group consolidated and began jogging toward the place where he lay concealed. He needed to get into the woods or somewhere else they wouldn’t look. He raised himself warily toward the dark, expansive landscape of tree trunks,
shivering from the rapid cooling of his skin and the adrenaline pumping through his body. The rain had soaked his pajamas, making them feel like they were made of sponge as the icy cold bit through his skin and feet. He realized at the first step that he wouldn’t get far without shoes, and now his pursuers were so close he could tell the voices apart.

It sounded like they were all there: Hector, Pico, Romeo, Zola, Samuel, his father, and the others. Even a pair of female voices vibrated above the trees.

Only then did Marco truly sense fear.

“I didn’t see him in the car,” Samuel shouted in Italian, another answering in English that they wouldn’t have seen him even if he had been inside.

Again, Samuel had betrayed him.

And now Zola’s fury rose up above this chaos of voices. Fury at their having allowed the boy to run, fury at their not having checked well enough to know for sure whether he’d been in the car, fury at shots having been fired. Now they would have to suspend all activities for a long time, he yelled at them, his voice trembling. It was going to cost them, and those who had fired the shots would be made to pay. The younger members of the clan would need to make themselves scarce in the days that followed, until the dust had settled. More than likely, the man in the car would go to the police, and when he did, the kids would have to be nowhere near the neighborhood if searches were carried out and questions asked.

“Comb the area and see if Marco’s still here,” Zola commanded. “And if he makes a run for it again, you’ve my permission to shoot. Just make sure you hit him, that’s all. Marco has become a danger to all of us.”

He was shocked. They were going to shoot him because he was dangerous. Yet he had done nothing but contradict Zola and run away. Was that all it took? What about the others who had deserted the flock from time to time? Had Zola had them shot, too?