‘Get in,’ the man replied, jerking his head at the car.
Once she was inside, everything happened very quickly. The driver shot forward, accelerating furiously, then braked and skidded over a low yellow ledge in the middle of the road. The Fiat swung round, screeching on the lava slabs, until it was facing in the opposite direction, then took off at high speed down the single lane supposedly reserved for buses. The man who had spoken to her now sat rigidly in the front seat, scanning the windows and mirrors as though monitoring a bank of radar screens.
It was almost as if she had been kidnapped, Carla reflected as they negotiated the stalled traffic in a large circular piazzale by dint of going the wrong way round the roundabout and appropriating part of the pavement. Neither man spoke, although the driver occasionally emitted low grunts. After about ten minutes, the man on the passenger side pulled a portable radio from his jacket and started a long sequence of brief exchanges. Places, times and distances were ticked off as though on a list. At length he switched off the radio and muttered something to the driver, who took the next exit and stopped under the bridge carrying the highway they had been on over a country road fringed with villas and two-storey apartment buildings. The columns supporting the bridge were covered in election posters displaying the local candidate of the right-wing National Alliance party, the recycled third- generation successor to Mussolini’s Fascists. The radio crackled again, and instructions were exchanged. Then another car materialized on the road ahead, drew level with theirs and then swung around to park behind them.
The man in the passenger seat was already outside, opening the back door of the Fiat and motioning Carla out. The back door of the other car was open and another man, this one in uniform and carrying a machine-gun, waved impatiently at her. ‘In here!’ he snapped. She was barely inside when he slammed the door, jumped into the front seat and yelled, ‘Go!’ The car screeched around the parked Fiat and roared away.
It was only then that Carla noticed the other woman, curled up in the other corner of the back seat in a loosely woven cotton gauze outfit with narrow trousers, daringly unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal her tanned arms, and a wide gold cuff bracelet on her right wrist. Her eyes were invisible behind a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. To Carla, who had only ever seen Corinna Nunziatella in high-heeled pumps and tailored suits, this was a revelation.
‘So did you enjoy the ride?’ the judge asked ironically.
‘Well, it beats taking the bus. But I can’t quite see why they went to all that trouble to protect me. I mean, my life’s not in danger.’
Corinna Nunziatella pushed the sunglasses up on to her brow and glanced at Carla sharply.
‘Of course not. They were protecting me, not you. The assumption is that all my friends, acquaintances and surviving relatives are under surveillance. Your phone may well be tapped, and your mail intercepted. They may even have bugged the office where we made the arrangement to meet tonight. What they wouldn’t know is where and when, but all they’d need to do is follow you and you’d lead them right to me.’
She smiled and shook her head impatiently.
‘Anyway, that’s all over. Now we can just enjoy ourselves for the rest of the evening.’
It soon became clear that this was not entirely true. The drive, up into the foothills of Etna to the north of the city, was a highly choreographed affair, involving constant radio contact between the two vehicles already engaged, as well as a third which was apparently located somewhere up ahead. Sometimes they slowed almost to a crawl, at others raced forward at speeds which pinned Carla back into the seat. Turns were taken seemingly at random, always at the last moment and without signalling, to the accompaniment of much squealing of tyres, ripping of gears and wrenching of the steering wheel.
‘Well, at least they’re enjoying themselves!’ Carla confided to Corinna with a fugitive smile, nodding her head at the two men in the front.
To her surprise, there was no answering smile.
‘Eighteen judges from the DIA or its predecessors have been killed in the last decade,’ Corinna Nunziatella replied. ‘In almost every case, their escorts have died with them. When they killed Falcone and his wife, the six men in the lead car were blown to pieces as well. In Borsellino’s case, it was eight. No, all appearances to the contrary, I don’t think they’re enjoying it all that much. If I hadn’t wanted to take you out to dinner tonight, they could have been safe at home with their wives and children watching TV. As it is, if they make a single mistake, they could be on TV.’
Carla nodded soberly.
‘I see,’ she said.
Observing her guest’s chastened expression, Corinna smiled and clasped her arm.
‘As a matter of fact, this is the first time I’ve been out in the evening since I took up this position with the DIA,’ she said. ‘Which is quite a compliment to you, my dear.’
A few minutes later they reached the brow of the hill they had been circuitously climbing all this time, between fields surrounded by stone walls and the occasional outcrop of modern housing, and passed a white sign marked TRECASTAGNI. Almost at once they turned right into a secluded driveway between high brick walls and came to a standstill. Carla opened the door and started to get out.
‘Not yet!’ one of the uniformed officers barked at her.
‘They need to make sure it’s clean,’ Corinna explained.
The blue Fiat had pulled up behind them. The two plain-clothed men got out and walked up a flight of steps into the complex of buildings to their left.
‘The lead car will be parked in the street outside,’ Corinna said. ‘In case we have to make a quick get-away and need a block thrown. The two men in the back-up will take a table inside and check out the other clients. This is a very well-known restaurant, and of course “they” like the better things in life.’
‘You mean the Mafia?’ demanded Carla. Not noticing Corinna Nunziatella’s slight wince, she went on, ‘I always thought that they were a bunch of peasants. Mamma’s homemade pasta or nothing.’
Corinna smiled wearily.
‘It’s a little more complex than that,’ she replied in a slightly patronizing tone. ‘Some of them are like that, but even they like to try to impress each other, and especially guests from out of town, precisely because they too know the stereotype and know that it’s true. But there is also quite a different class of person involved these days, men who spend their time moving around between here and Bangkok, Bogota, Miami, you name it. For them it’s even more important to show off their sophistication and wealth. It’s like wearing the right kind of clothes and accessories. No international drug baron is going to take you seriously as a major player if you invite him home for a plate of pasta, no matter how germina it is.’
Corinna was talking rapidly and a little distractedly, all the while scanning the steps leading up to the main building where the two plain-clothed escorts had disappeared.
‘What’s taking them all this time?’ she demanded.
As if in response, the radio crackled into life and one of the two ‘minders’ reappeared on the steps and walked towards the car, beckoning urgently.
‘It’s clean?’ asked Carla.
‘Apparently.’
The two women got out of the car and were led up a series of steps and exterior galleries into the building, then down again into the layered spaces of the restaurant, each at a different height and angle: bare stone walls, a large open fireplace, antique wooden cabinets supporting bottles of wine and oil. From exposed wooden beams hung folkloristic agricultural implements and stiff-limbed marionettes representing the Christian knights Rinaldo and Orlando.
‘Sorry about the delay, dottoressa,’ their escort murmured. ‘We were just about to give the all-clear when Giuseppe spotted a suspicious-looking couple of lads sitting at a table in the corner. Those two over there, see? So we went over to check them out, and guess what? It turns out they’re on the same detail as us! Some VIP politician from Rome is visiting and got taken out to dinner here.’
Carla was only too aware that these words had been addressed solely to Corinna. She was the star, the ‘VIP’, the only victim who would count. If an assassination attempt did take place, Carla would figure as no more than ‘collateral damage’, just like the police escort.
Corinna stood staring at the two men seated in the corner, then turned to the waiter who was indicating their table.
‘No, I’d like a different one, please,’ she said decisively. ‘Over there, by the fireplace.’
