'If you do not move, I s h o o t..
'Empty threat. I don't move, you don't shoot.'
Who'd know you, Archie? The girls in the office, in the typists' pool? The men in the pub off the evening train from the City?
The neighbour who borrowed the push-mower alternate Saturday mornings? Who'd know Archie Carpenter in a wood at Bracciano?
' I have the gun at his b a c k…'
' I don't care where you've put the bloody thing. I don't move, you don't shoot. It's easy, a ten-year-old knows that.'
Stretching the boy. Out into the risk area, out into the storm.
Watch the eyes, Archie, watch the blinking and the uncertainty and the fidgefe Traversing and hesitant, and the fear's building.
The bully when he's outnumbered, when the other kids come back to the playground. Careful, Archie… Gone past that place, off Mum's knee, playing it the grown-up way.
'You do not believe that I will s h o o t… '
'Right, Giancarlo. I don't believe it. I tell you why. You're thinking what happens if you do. I'll help you, I'll tell you. I strangle you, boy. With my hands I strangle you. There's a hundred men out there behind me that want to do it. They won't get near you. You'll be done by the time they reach you.'
Carpenter held him unswervingly. Never left the eyes of the boy. Always there when he turned back, always present. Lowering over him, heavy as a snowcloud, absorbing the hatred.
' I've no gun, but if you fire on Harrison, I'm on you. You've trussed yourself, silly boy, that's why I'll get you. I used to be a policeman, I've seen people that have been strangled. Their eyes come half out of their head, they shit themselves, they wet their legs. That's for you, so give me the gun.'
You never saw anyone strangled in your bloody life, not ever.
Steady it, Archie. Turn it over, could be possible that the physical isn't the soft belly of the boy. Don't make him play the martyr, don't put coal on that fire. What else gets to a psychopath?
'I'm going to start walking, you cannot take him from m e…'
Giancarlo holding his defensive line. The rout not accomplished.
'Get out of our way.'
Harrison gazing at Carpenter, like he doesn't know what's happening, like he's out on his feet. Best bloody way. Who's going to tell Geoffrey Harrison? Who's that one down to?
Archie Carpenter going to do it? Well done, Geoffrey, we're 1 very pleased you've come out of this s a f e l y… excellent s h o w… but there's been a bit of bother while you've been a w a y… well, the missus a c t u a l l y… but you understand that, Geoffrey, good lad, thought you would…
Throw in the big one, Archie. Go for broke. All the chips on the green cloth, into the centre of the table.
' I saw your woman last night, Giancarlo. Raddled old bitch.
Bit old for a boy, wasn't she?'
He saw the short-worn composure break on the boy's face, saw the anger lines form and then knit on his forehead.
' I wouldn't have thought a boy would be interested in a work-horse like that.'
The blood was running fast to the boy's cheeks, the flush dispersing under his skin, the eyes slitted in loathing.
'Do you know what she called you when they interrogated her?
You want to know? A little bed-wetter. Franca Tantardini's opinion on lover boy… '
'Get out of my way.' The words came fast and weighted by the boy's fury.
Carpenter could see the nausea rising in Geoffrey Harrison's face, the eroded self-control. Wouldn't last much longer, wouldn't sustain the supreme effort. Batter on, Archie, belt the little bastard.
The sound of the voices carried easily among the trees. Carboni had eased his pistol from the jacket pocket and it hung from his fingers as a token of participation. Beside him Francesco Vellosi still stood, eye at the gun- sight, tight in anticipation, ignoring the fly that played at his nose.
'Why does he say these things?'
Vellosi never wavered from his aim. 'Quiet, Giuseppe, quiet.'
'How many others have there been, boy, do you know? I mean, you weren't the first, were you?'
'Get out of my way… '
Not much longer, Archie. Hold your ground and it's disintegration time, spitting collapse. Forgetting where he is, and what he's here for, like we want him to be. Don't run now, Archie, just round the corner is Shangri-La that you came for.
Almost at the fingertips, almost there to touch.
They'd all been there, boy, every grubby finger, every sweaty armpit in the movement, did you know t h a t…?'
He's rising, Archie. The slimed creature forced out of the deep water. Coming for you, Archie. Hold the line, sunshine. Come on, Archie bloody Carpenter from Motspur bloody Park, don't let old Harrison down now, not when he's flaking, not when Violet's on her back and cold. Watch him, watch the struggle in the shirt. The gun comes next. You'll see the barrel, you'll see the fist on it, and the finger that's lost behind the trigger guard. Hold the bloody line, Archie.
'I wouldn't have done what you've done, not for a cow like that. You know, Giancarlo, you might even have got the scabs from her… '
Carpenter laughed out loud, shaking in his merriment, confronting his fear. Was laughing as he saw the pistol emerge from behind Harrison and be raised at him as fast as a snake strikes.
He looked into the torture of Giancarlo's face, sucked at the agony. Well done, Archie, you made it, sunshine. First time in your bloody life, across the finish line and in front. Ludicrous, the look on the kid's face.
The gun was coming, something bright with menace from beneath a winter sea. The pistol showing, sharp and tooled, and aiming.
The one shot, the whiplash crack.
Carpenter was on the ground, thrown backwards, the involuntary reflex. Cemented and imprinted high on his face was a splitting smile.
Harrison staggered, legs weak and resisting his efforts to with-stand the weight of the smitten Giancarlo dragging down the wire that wrapped their waists. Blood on Harrison's face, loose and dripping, and a mess of brain matter and no hands free to clear the sheen of destruction from his eyes.
Carboni recoiled from the explosion beside his ear. He pivoted towards Vellosi, gazed at him and saw the grim pleasure spreading like an opening flower on his companion's face.
And then the running.
Men rising from their hidden places, careering over fallen branches, bullocking through undergrowth. Carboni joined the herd as if time now were at last special. Francesco Vellosi dropped the rifle barrel with deliberation, bent down and picked up the single brass cartridge case and pocketed it. He turned and with an easy movement tossed the gun back to its owner, the carabinieri sergeant. Revenge exacted. He walked, tall and erect, towards the huddle that was gathering around Geoffrey Harrison.
With a knife a policeman sliced through the flex that held Harrison to Giancarlo Battestini. The body of the boy, shorn of its support, slumped to the ground. One half of his face was intact, unblemished and waxen; the other was obliterated, removed as if in tribute to the marksmanship and the brutal power of the high velocity bullet. Freed, rubbing hard at his wrists, Harrison dived away from his helpers, turned his back on them and vomited into the dried grass at the edge of the clearing.
They gave him room, respected him.
Archie Carpenter pulled himself to his knees, rose unsteadily to his feet, and clamped his fingers together to hide the tumult and the shaking that gripped them. He stood aside, a stranger at a party.
When Harrison came back to the group, he spoke simply, without idiocy. 'What happened… I don't know what happened?'
Vellosi pointed across the clearing to Carpenter. This man was prepared to offer his life for yours.' He spoke gruffly, and then his hand slipped in support to Harrison's armpit. 'He gave himself to Battestini that you should be
