He waited until he was waved to a chair, then sat and handed the maresciallo the plastic folder he had prepared. A waiter approached. He ordered Coca-Cola. The folder, with the name on it of Marianna Rossetti and that day’s date, was opened. His report covered five closely typed pages. He knew that, two days before, the maresciallo had met with the girl’s father and was aware of the circumstances and cause of the girl’s death. He himself had been ordered to the basilica and the cemetery to watch, listen – it had been explained to him that the family’s emotions ran high. Also, he knew that a researcher at the hospital had published material in the foreign- language edition of the Lancet Oncology under a title that referred to il triangolo della morte, and that in the secure archive section of the barracks there was a small mountain of files dealing with the area’s contamination. The maresciallo had read the first two pages, and he sat in silence. The waiter brought his Coca-Cola, with an espresso and a large measure of Stock brandy. He had known the maresciallo always spent time here in the evening and that he could be certain of finding him. He tried to read the other man’s face, but saw nothing. He had hoped for praise.
The question was as blunt as it was unexpected: ‘Have you drunk alcohol tonight?’
And he had believed that praise was due. The father and mother of the deceased had made no attempt to lower their voices so he had heard them crystal clear. Within minutes what they had said was written in his notebook as virtual verbatim. He had the accusation, the condemnation and the name. An older man, jaundiced and cynical, from long service with the Arma – what the carabinieri called themselves – might have hung back, lounged against a distant headstone, smoked a quiet cheroot and reflected on what a shit place Nola was. The young man had made certain he was close enough to hear every word and to see the violence shown towards the woman. He accepted that he would not be praised.
‘No. I haven’t had a drink for three-’
He was interrupted. The report was in the folder, which was pushed back across the table. The maresciallo had a mobile and was scrolling, then making a connection. The young man was shown his superior’s back as a call was made. He couldn’t hear what was said. The chair scraped as the maresciallo turned to him.
‘If you haven’t had a drink, you can drive to Naples. There’s a barracks at piazza Dante. You’re expected.’
‘Excuse me.’
‘What?’
‘My report – is it useful?’
The maresciallo swirled the coffee, drank it, then some brandy, and coughed. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps, if you want praise, you should ask the officer I’m sending you to. My old mother does jigsaw puzzles to pass her time, and tells me that discovering where one piece fits will solve the rest. There may be a thousand pieces on the tray in front of her, but slotting one piece into its home makes the rest easy. I can’t say whether or not what you have told me is that one piece. Twenty-five years ago I was at the training college in Campobasso with Mario Castrolami, who’s waiting for you at the piazza Dante. He will decide whether or not you’ve helped to solve the puzzle or made it more difficult.’
‘Thank you.’
He had the folder under his arm as he walked to the door. In the glass he saw the maresciallo wave to the waiter, who poured another measure of Stock. He went out into the late evening and felt the warmth on his face. He didn’t know whether or not he had learned something useful that day. He started his car and drove towards Naples. He wouldn’t be there, he estimated, before eleven, and wondered what sort of investigator was still at his desk at that time, and what a physical and verbal attack on a young woman at a funeral might mean.
‘Fucking brilliant.’
He turned the third page, and started on the fourth. He saw, from the corner of his eye, the carabinieri recruit, the kid just off the training course, flush with pleasure.
‘Not you. You want a lecture? I’ll give you one. If you stand against the power of the Camorra clans, you’ll have behind you tens of thousands of uniformed men. But still, I think, you’ll hesitate. Luigi Rossetti – who stands behind him? Only his wife. But he had the courage, alone, to stand up against the weasel girl from a clan family. All you’ve done is listen. Don’t think you have the courage of the Rossetti parents. Did the weasel swear at them when they attacked her?’
‘She said nothing.’
‘Did she challenge them? Do I need to offer protection to the parents? Can he go back to teaching, she to her work? Their courage was amazing, but should they spend the rest of their days in hiding? Are they dead already? What did you read on her face?’
‘Humiliation.’
Castrolami finished reading and shuffled the pages, straightening them. He chuckled, but without mirth. ‘Understand. This weasel is the daughter of Pasquale and Gabriella Borelli, the sister of Vincenzo and-’
The recruit interrupted him, which very few did. ‘It was humiliation. Also, she’s a member of the clan, yes, but also a friend of Marianna Rossetti. She came to Marianna Rossetti’s funeral and brought flowers. The Rossetti family have no connection – my maresciallo is definite on this – with the Camorra inside Nola or beyond it. This friendship crossed a divide.’
The pencil had a blunt tip and was chewed at the other end. Castrolami rapped it on his desk, found a small place, a few centimetres square, clear of papers and beat a tattoo. His forehead was cut with a frown. Mario Castrolami could accept preconceptions and believe them, but when he was confronted with a superior argument he could ditch them. The Borelli girl had been at the funeral.
‘It’s rare, but not unknown, for a member of a clan to have a friendship with someone outside it.’
‘She didn’t fight back. She was shamed.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Is it useful?’
On the desk, files and folders made foothills and mountains. Coffee had sustained him through the evening. Around his desk, against the walls, there were filing cabinets, some locked and others open, showing squashed-in paper. There were more files at his feet, and on the bookshelves that flanked the door. He could have pointed to them or to the chart Sellotaped to the wall on the right of the door, which listed the clans and the districts they fed off, with lines running between them, blue to show alliances and red to show feuds, or to the montage of mug-shots on a board that hung to the left of the door, a hundred faces, men and women, categorised as major organised- crime players. He could have waved his arms theatrically to demonstrate the scale of the war in which he was a foot-soldier, the numbers of the enemy, and spoken of a campaign without end. Had he done so, he thought he would have cheapened himself.
‘In a year or two, what you’ve brought me may prove important – or in a week. I don’t know… The problem is that you didn’t see Immacolata Borelli arrive, and you don’t know how she left. Where did she come from? What was her destination? You’ve given me a little, which is tantalising… Thank you.’
Alone again, he felt excited, which was unusual for him, after twenty-five years with the Arma, and seventeen in the ROS. But it was there, unmistakable. He sank down from his chair, was on hands and knees, and his stomach sagged as he burrowed for the file that held her photograph. When he found it and extracted the photograph – taken in Forcella by a long-lens surveillance camera – he stared at it. Could a woman from that family show remorse and be humiliated by the death of a friend? He gazed at the photograph and searched for an answer.
Time ebbed. Eddie was slumped on the bed.
Before getting back to his room, he had sat for three hours in the restaurant on the left side, going up, of Kingsland high street. Opposite him there had been an empty chair and a laid place that went unused.
The heels of his trainers left smears on the coverlet. Her face would have puckered, a frown wrinkling her forehead, if she had been there to see them. She was not. Her picture, straight ahead of him, had pride of place on the wall facing the bed. The landlord’s offering, a Victorian artist’s effort at cattle grazing beside the Thames, was out of sight behind the wardrobe, Mac’s picture in its place. She was in the Mall, in front of the Palace, smiling, her hair thrown back, T-shirt strained, and the sun was on her. It was the best photograph he had of her, so he’d taken the memory stick to the camera shop the Punjabis ran, in Dalston Lane, where they’d blown it up to thirty inches by twenty. The picture was stuck to the wall – if it was taken down the paper would come with it. He thought it was there in perpetuity and had come to believe that he and Mac were in it for the long term.
The Afghan place, which did a wonderful lamb dish, was their favourite, and they could make the food last for
