No Mortal Thing: A Thriller Read online

  One boy drove. The other sat awkwardly behind Marcantonio in the bucket seat. He anticipated feigned anger, then compliance. Who would stand up to Marcantonio? Very few. The car accelerated and the wind whipped his spiked hair and riffled the front of his new shirt. The chain of gold links jumped over the hairs on his chest – so few.

  They wove among cars and taxis – a bus had to brake sharply to give them room. Nobody confronted him. Nobody gave him serious aggravation, nor ever had. He was the grandson of the padrino. He had pedigree and authority. At the age of twelve, his grandfather had given him a Kalashnikov assault rifle to hold, then shown him how a magazine was locked on, and pointed down the hill to the village on the last day of the year. His celebration of the end of 2007, and the imminent start of 2008, was to walk through the village at dusk, loosing off shots of high-velocity bullets at chimney stacks, roof tiles and the wheels of the car that belonged to the school teacher who had once tried to detain him for additional study.

  There had been no telephone calls to the carabinieri, no anonymous complaints posted to their nearest barracks. No one had come up the track to his father’s home, or his grandfather’s, and denounced him in person. He had understood, with the thudding of the weapon in his shoulder, the power born into him through blood.

  And girls. The first – not at the brothel in Locri, an older, experienced woman – had been halfway through his fourteenth year. There had been three more before his fourteenth birthday. He had taken them into the woods in the summer and to goatherds’ huts in winter, all willing because of his status in their community. No parent had complained and he could have had as many as he wanted.

  Soon after his fifteenth birthday he had been called upon to help his grandfather end a man’s life, by manual strangulation, and had not been found wanting. He had seen the approval – near pride – in the old eyes. No patrol car of the polizia had come, and no wagon from the carabinieri. When his father and uncle had been taken, Marcantonio had been ignored.

  He was intoccabile, untouchable.

  Tomorrow he would bask in the approval of his family, tell stories of deals successfully concluded, and see their love. Of course, there, he would be discreet. There was not here.

  There was pizzo money to be had. He shouldn’t have touched such a trivial matter in Berlin, where the business of the families was high finance, but he was addicted to his old life.

  He was driven towards the square where the cash would be waiting for him. There was a crisp early-morning chill in the air and the wind blew into their faces. The three voices joined in a song from the Aspromonte they had learned at their mothers’ knees.

  They hit the square. Marcantonio flipped his legs over the car door and headed for the pizzeria.

  Jago Browne watched from the bench. The young man, the leader, strode to the door. Another followed him and the third stayed outside, between the car and the door. His hand was inside his loose coat as if a weapon was hidden beneath it. He watched. What would Jago do? He didn’t know and told himself he couldn’t make decisions on hypothetical actions. Put it off. The investigator had told him to get a life and look the other way, which was not what his mother had done when the issue was the phone she had bought for him.

  Jago said, ‘I’ll see how it pans out. No harm in that.’

  Punctual, but without the buzz of enthusiasm that had once been his trademark, Carlo left for work.

  His home, rented, was down a lane, a century-old cottage of local brick. That Carlo had three suitcases’ worth of clothes inside the house was remarkable, considering the state of his finances. He paid half the rent and Sandy paid the rest. He sent money to Aggie, his first wife, living in Bristol with a near-delinquent son, who might be Carlo’s and might not; another slice of his income went to Betty, his second wife, who was in Essex, with squatter’s rights on the marital home. He was lucky to have found Sandy. She wasn’t at the door, when he set off. Sandy bred Labradors and spaniels, and seemed not to notice whether he was there or not, which suited him. Not many fell on their feet, third time round, but he might have.

  It would take him twenty minutes in the rain to get to the parking bay beneath his office. Had Sandy been at the door, with the tribe at her knees, nudging her hands for titbits, she might have asked what time he would be home.

  ‘The usual. Not expecting anything new – not scheduled anyway.’

  She might then have suggested a hook-up with some friends of hers for the weekend: a walk on the beaches by Orford – let the pack have a run – then a picnic lunch, rain or shine.

  ‘Can’t see why not. No panic that I know of.’ He might have added, more grimly, ‘And when was there last a panic?’ But she had gone for her morning trudge.

  Carlo was reputed to smoke and drink heavily. She seemed not to care about that, or about his moustache. She didn’t want to hear his stories about the good old days with the Investigation Unit or about his Rome attachment. And Sandy, bless her, never said she knew his favourites by heart – such as the one he claimed had made him an icon at the Custom House: the ‘fight’ and the ‘visit’. They had been the Immortals: they had worked from a big room in the Investigation Unit, which housed two teams. All were perpetually exhausted from the long hours they put in and were watched over by a legion of bureaucrats, who had no comprehension of the traumas of front-line work. A mood had snapped and a fist fight had broken out. Grown men, mostly middle-aged, belting each other when the newly installed director of investigations had walked in. Shock horror. But, as someone had pointed out breathlessly, ‘You can’t put lions on the street and expect kittens in the office.’ He loved that one, told it most weeks. But Carlo was no longer a lion, and no longer on the street. He did kitten work now.

  What he would most have liked in his life was the unpredictable: getting up in the morning and not knowing what would have hit him by the evening, the raw excitement and the fear of falling short.

  He drove towards Felixstowe Docks – and maybe a seizure, another that was not worth him getting into.

  The young man came out, sauntered across the pavement and held up a wad of notes so that the goon who had stayed outside could see that the pizzo had been paid. They waited for the other. Perhaps he’d gone to the toilet. The money had gone into a pocket and the two embraced. The pizzeria man was at the far side of the door and Jago thought he was crying – the back of his hand went twice over his eyes. He didn’t know what to do so he did nothing.

  ‘Bent by name and bent by nature.’ He rather liked that, thought of it as a compliment because it meant they were talking about him.

  He was Bentley Horrocks. In many files of the organisations tasked with combating crime barons, his age was listed as fifty-one. His address was given as a seven-bedroom mansion, south of Meopham in Kent. His wife was down as Angela, but he referred to her as ‘Angel’, and he had two daughters in private education. A mistress, Tracey, was installed at Canada Wharf. He visited her every Tuesday and on occasional Fridays. The files encompassed his dealings in property development in south-east London, reclamation of wasteground, scrap-metal clearance – also extortion, Class-A importation, money-laundering and other ‘interests’ in Peckham and Rotherhithe, and Bermondsey, south of the river. He had been subject to four heavyweight investigations and, each time, had seen them off.

  He walked in the grounds of his property, circling in the centre of a wide lawn, with Jack – around the same age but not his equal. Both men, on that wet, windy morning, wore anoraks, with scarves covering their lower faces. Bent assumed that he was continuously under police surveillance and even here, with no sign of watchers or cameras, he reckoned they’d want to video the movement of his mouth, then run the tapes for lip-readers to interpret. He had made a science of caution, and was a free man.

  ‘Can’t stand still,’ was one of Bent’s maxims.

  Jack usually answered, ‘Too right, Bent. Just can’t stand still.’

  A dilemma faced him. Should he keep climbing th
e increasingly fragile ladder, or stay at the level he was at? A big force inside the United Kingdom, a man who could ‘melt’ hard guys with his stare . . .

  ‘It’s when you’re weak, when you’re not moving forward . . .’

  ‘Spot on, Bent. Weak when you’re not going forward . . .’

  Jack told him about the pattern of flights they would use, what passports through which airport, and when they were due to arrive at their destination. A big step, beyond any comfort zone he was familiar with.

  ‘What sort of place is it?’

  Jack answered, obsequious, an accountant who took care of detail and was not consulted on strategy. ‘A good place for you, Bent. Not like the shit here, but on a different level. Where you should be, Bent. Where the big money is and the big players, Bent. When you’re there, you’ve left this garbage behind you.’

  He paused. He kicked a few of the early leaves that had come down in the night, and the rain dribbled on his face, soaking into his scarf. Jack stayed close to him and would have tried to read his mind. The scumbag made an issue of reading his mind and his mood . . . Heroin was dead, the amphetamine trade was saturated, but the cocaine marketplace had room, in his estimation, for further expansion, which was why he would break a self-imposed rule, and travel far from his own territory. He barely knew where it was.

  ‘We’ll enjoy it, won’t we? Calabria, where the action is?’

  ‘And do some serious business, Bent.’

  Jack had said they were little more than peasants – and Jack would know because he’d been christened Giacomo and was from good Italian stock, immigrants and ice cream, who had settled in Chatham. They’d show Bent proper deference, not like those Russian bastards. Deference always topped the list of Bent’s demands. He’d offer big money and make bigger money, times over. A different level, higher up the ladder. He whistled for his dogs, pulled his scarf off his mouth and went back to his house. Angel – if she wasn’t still pissed from last night – would have done him breakfast. The forecast said it would rain most of the day – but his iPad said that the sun would be shining on the Calabrian coast. He thought himself beyond the reach of little people, out of their league.

  Another scream, a man’s voice. At first the cry was of surprise, then of extreme pain. The one who had stayed longer inside came through the door, bent at the stomach, head lowered, his hands over his groin.

  Jago was on his feet.

  The park was empty – no dog-walkers, no buggy-pushers, no smokers. The traffic flowed on the street and pedestrians were moving briskly past the pizzeria. The citizens of Savignyplatz and Charlottenburg ignored the movements and sounds they skirted. The girl had followed the guy out, defiant.

  The young man had twisted to face the action. The one by the car, rooted to the spot, watched his friend staggering towards him. That didn’t figure in the equation of a simple cash collection. Behind the girl was the man who would have paid over the pizzo that had been waved on the pavement as a symbol of success. She might have barged past him, elbowed him clear, and had kneed or kicked the groin of the guy who had lingered – perhaps gone to the toilet.

  Jago watched. The man was not a fighter. He lacked the hand-to-eye co-ordination that was second nature in the Canning Town warrens. The younger man, the leader, flattened him. He was a fighter. The grabbing of a wrist, and the twist of the arm, provoked a squeal of pain, and the man was prone on the pavement. He wore a long waiter’s apron, which had been crisp and white and was now dirty. He writhed, helpless and defenceless. The man by the car had a pistol out. The leader had his arm behind him, hand outstretched, waited, then snapped his fingers. The magazine was detached, a bullet prised out. It went into the leader’s hand. He held it close to the waiter’s face, fingers, then forced it between his teeth as he gasped and retched. An awful croak. Jago heard it, but no one else did.

  They laughed. She came past the man. She took their attention.

  The man on the ground spat out the bullet, which rolled along the pavement. The faint sunlight caught it, a jewel among the dirt.

  Her target was the leader.

  To Jago, there was at that moment a trace of confusion on the man’s face. His hand went back behind him, reaching for the pistol, which was given to him.

  Jago couldn’t shout.

  A hand reached out – quite delicate fingers, with manicured nails. Every detail was clear to Jago, and he started to run. It had the girl by the throat, and the pistol came slowly from behind. The man held her at arm’s length, keeping her clear of him, except for her feet. She hopped from one foot to the other, swinging the free foot at his shins. Her shoes were light, for wearing all day in a pizzeria, not for brawling on the street and disputing extortion money.

  Jago ran.

  He seemed to see his mother, the pocket-sized Carmel, who had come back into their home, breathing hard, and had tipped his phone onto the table where his homework was unfinished. Then she had enrolled him in the boxing club. Two weeks later he had fought for survival in the ring and stayed on his feet. Four weeks after that, one of the boys who had taken his phone was mismatched with a clever fighter and had had the arrogance punched out of him. Jago had gone to boxing all the time he had been at St Bonaventure’s and had never been hurt again. He had been left alone.

  He ran out of the park, through the gap in the trimmed privet hedge, and into the street. Two cars blasted their horns at him, and he heard the screech of tyres.

  She had not been shot, but the barrel, a dull black, was inches from her forehead.

  There were shootings, knifings and kickings in Canning Town, reports of such filling the local paper, but he had never seen one. He didn’t know what a shooting would look like.

  The pistol was used as a blunt instrument. Jago thought it deliberate, calculated. The barrel went into her face, the tip buried in her cheek. The foresight was jerked up, tearing apart the skin, the muscle and cartilage. He saw the blood.

  The fight had gone out of her. The hand came off her throat and she sank to the ground.

  Jago was on the pavement. What to do?

  The leader showed no pleasure in what he had done, no concern, and acted like it was everyday business. In a sharp movement he wiped the barrel and the bloodied foresight on her jeans and apron. A last glance at the wound and the blood now was flowing freely. She whimpered, beaten. The bullet lay close to her. It was picked up and pocketed.

  A life-defining moment. Jago took his last steps across the pavement, readied himself for the impact and flew. It would have been a leg that tripped him. He had no control and his arms couldn’t break his fall. The pavement soared at him. He struck it and the breath jerked out of him. He gasped. There was blood on his face. He had no strength. A car pulled away. She cried softly, and he saw the length of the cut on her face, how wide it was. He felt vomit rising into his throat, and felt the depths, too, of his failure.

  Bernardo heard the child.

  He heard her most clearly, and the clank of the chain, when he had switched off the bunker’s internal lights and was on his hands and knees in the tunnel. The concrete was rough against his trousers, his bones ached and he had only a small torch beam to show him how near he was to the outer entrance.

  The child had been in a cave, its opening between slabs of granite, half hidden by boulders. First the family had found the cave, then raised the money to buy the child. She came from Firenze, a surgeon’s youngest, aged twelve. She had been walking to school when she was taken and had been held for two weeks while her captors looked for a buyer in the Aspromonte. It was the first time that the family had invested in the trade. They had paid the equivalent in lira of a hundred thousand euros. The child had been driven south and the handover had taken place in a disused quarry off the main highway near to Capistrano. There was no sign of illness – only terror.

  Bernardo had dragged her into the cave – his brothers had held back – and had fastened the chain to the ring they had concreted in the previous week. The
re was straw for her, and a bottle of water – it was summer so it would not have been too cold. Bernardo, of course, had never been to Firenze, had never seen the luxurious apartment block where the family of a prominent surgeon might live. He would have understood little of the child’s mind, would have thought it similar to his sons’ – they were close to that age. But he had barely known them, and had waited impatiently for them to grow up. He had lit her candle for her, then shown her the lavatory bucket, the bucket that held washing water, the water bottles – even some sandwiches that Mamma had made. He had turned his back on the candle and the crying, and had wormed his way out of the narrow exit. All the time he could hear, as he went away, the crying and the rattle of the chain as she tugged at it. He had left her. Thirty-six years ago she had been worth the equivalent of a million American dollars, which would set up the family for their next venture. Today Giulietta would have called it ‘seed money’ or ‘venture capital’.

  He had never exchanged a single word with her, had merely gesticulated with his hands. Bernardo, who was a padrino within his community, had power over almost everything that affected him, but he could not lose the sound of the child’s voice and the choke of the tears.

  The door moved and Mamma was in front of him with the bowl in which she had brought the fowls’ feed. They were round her ankles, busy pecking. A good day faced him. His grandson would travel that evening.

  He straightened, and could no longer hear the child.

  Jago crawled towards a rubbish bin, one with different slots for plastic, newspapers and bottles. He reached up and pulled himself first to his knees, then almost upright. He leaned on the top, where people stubbed out their fags. He looked around him.

  She wasn’t there. A dribble of blood showed where she had been.

  He sagged. He saw the shoes, the same mismatch. Small pieces of torn card drifted down. The logo of his bank was visible, then shifted when a dog on a lead walked over it. He looked up: an expensive skirt, a coat that stank of money. She would have been a prime client. He was supposed to care. Corporate discipline demanded he be devastated that he had lost a potential customer because he had brawled in the street, had joined an argument in which he had no stake. She walked away. He used the bin again as a prop and levered himself upright. A sign in the pizzeria’s window said the place was shut. The inside lights were off. People watched him. Mothers, teenagers, children, a postman . . .