and was led to the Lancia.
It was time there, beside the car, for a brief moment when the professionalism of the Servizio Centrale Protezione was abandoned, thrown to the winds. Orecchia took her hand and kissed it lightly. Rossi kissed her on each cheek, cool lips. She knew them, knew of their families and their problems, their excitements and their moments of despair. They were, perhaps, her only family.
She sat in the back, encased by the dark privacy windows, and accepted now and did not query the vest that was laid on the seat beside her. Orecchia drove, for this final journey, in the middle of an October afternoon when light rain fell on the city and the mountain’s summit was hidden in gloomy cloud. Beyond the tunnel, the road ahead was blocked by police motorcycles, and they were given a free run on to an open road. She would never see the city again, knew it.
At the airport gate, Rossi laid his machine pistol on his lap, rummaged in his briefcase, produced her airline ticket and passed it to her. He said, quietly, that the aircraft was due to leave five minutes ago but was held for her. Then he gave her the new passport that carried the new name. They were at the terminal’s Departures door. Orecchia turned and faced her, then tapped the top of his head. She took her cue and lowered the dark glasses from her hair, covered her eyes with them and her upper face.
Rossi said, ‘At the gate they’re expecting us. We’ll be taken straight to the aircraft. I’m with you until the hatch closes after you… You’ll be met?’
‘I don’t know.’
Orecchia frowned. ‘You said you were coming?’
‘I did it by text. The number he used to have. What flight, where we should have dinner. I don’t know whether he has a different mobile… I didn’t call, maybe for fear of what I might be told.’
‘Are you sure of this?’ Rossi demanded of her.
‘Very sure – I’ve not had a text back but I’m sure… I hope I’ll find him.’ She paused, then said softly, ‘After what I did to him, what else – now – can I do? I must look for him – at the airport, in a restaurant we used, in the bar he liked. I owe it to him to look.’
Orecchia scribbled on a sheet of his notepad, then ripped it off. ‘Call me and tell me if you’ve found what you’re looking for.’
She smiled at them, and treasured them for their loyalty. ‘You’ll get one word, fatturato. In English that’s “turnover”. Then you’ll know I found him.’
Orecchia changed – was the professional, the guard. ‘You don’t stop, you follow Alessandro, you keep close to him. Goodbye, Signorina Immacolata, who is finished. Goodbye, whoever you have become, and today you are beautiful. I hope you’re met.’
The car door was opened for her.
She walked well. The gate closed behind her. She didn’t know if he would be there. She had a brisk stride and remembered a park, a bench and a young man, and a question put in innocence – and a great wrong done to him, and to others, in a faraway place.
Gerald Seymour
The Collaborator
Gerald Seymour spent fifteen years as an international television news reporter with ITN, covering Vietnam, the Middle East, and terrorism across the world. Seymour was on the streets of Londonderry on Bloody Sunday, and was a witness to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
Seymour's first novel was the acclaimed thriller Harry's Game, set in Belfast. He has since written twenty- four more bestselling novels, of which six have been filmed for television in the UK and US.
