With midday coming, it was close to the high seventies and in the afternoon the temperature might hit eighty. But where he had taken his pitch there was shadow from the doorway. Down and across the street, there was a foot bridge over the river, marked by a larger-than-life-size statue of Thomas Jefferson. Lukas didn’t know much about Jefferson’s life and times, but it was a good place for the artist. Tourists from the United States came and took photographs of the statue, then seemed to want to remember the place with something more authentic, so they purchased his crayon drawings of the statue, the bridge, the river, and the Louvre, which was on the far side of the Seine. Usually, when he was at home, Lukas would come to that doorway and settle beside his friend. If his friend was concentrating, he would sit quietly and do some thinking of his own.
If they talked it was about little things. The price of bread, the state of the football championship, whether the weather was lifting or closing in. He would never pry into Philippe’s life, and in return he was not asked, when he came back after a week or three, or a month, where he had been or why. There was always, in late September, a strong odour rising off the river because its level was low, and when he looked upstream he could see the little island covered with Notre Dame. He came to this place, unwound his emotions, let them slacken, and was distanced from where he’d been – Afghanistan, Iraq, an Uzbek or Tajik city, the jungle of the high mountains in Colombia – and Philippe wouldn’t press him. Why was the man his friend? In one limited area there was total and compelling frankness between them. Philippe said his work was shit, and Lukas never disagreed. He valued honesty – men and women died when assault-squad commanders or hostage negotiators and co-ordinators fought little patches of territory and declined to be truthful. The work was shit, but it sold and fed his friend, and meant there was a place for at least another month where Lukas could find company.
He was anonymous here, which suited him. He didn’t carry a mobile in Paris, but the way he lived his life meant he was seldom far from the telephone on the small table inside the apartment’s front door, and a light flashed if a call had come in and a message had been left. He always hesitated a couple of seconds, no more, before he picked it up when the light flashed red.
They’d gone round it for a long time and had now reached consensus. Philippe, busy on Jefferson’s face, the second work since the discussion had begun, was certain who would win the weekend’s football games, and Lukas agreed. In his own trade, he knew that disagreement killed.
Three times a day, Lukas was out of his apartment, but seldom for more than two hours. It was always a stampede to catch up when the call came and the light flashed red.
Philippe shared his flask – it was good coffee, as always.
4
He disliked to ask a favour, to place himself in debt or obligation to any man. He hadn’t asked one but Castrolami had endured an uncomfortable, awkward day, but now he had purpose. They were out of the city and on to the motorway. It was not yet dusk, but the sun was sinking and it would be evening when they left Heathrow, night when they reached Fiumicino. The man from the embassy drove.
In the hours since they had left the park, they had shopped – underclothes for her in a chain store. He had passed her euros from his wallet, which she had placed in her purse, then used British currency – he thought her the daughter of her father because she hadn’t given him change for what she had purchased. He had hustled her. They had been brought fifteen minutes in the car away from the park and he thought they were nearer to the heart of the city but distanced from where she lived and where her brother might be. Then she found a nightdress, a washbag and the items to go with it. For himself there was a sandwich in a cardboard and cellophane wrapping. He had not discussed with her the possibility of her returning to the apartment and packing a bag: it had been stated as fact that there was no question of her going near her street. They had stopped outside a railway station near the shopping area, and she had walked with him to a fast-photo booth and done portraits. Then they had killed time.
Had Mario Castrolami been prepared to ask for favours a choice might have presented itself.
He could have used the embassy man to contact the London police and request a secure room – in a police station, wherever – for them to wait in. In Naples, it was common talk among the Squadra Mobile and the carabinieri that the British police, in particular the London force, were self-serving and unhelpful to the point of obstruction. They lived, it was said, in a fantasy land of imagined and patronising superiority… So he had no secure room with the London police. He believed he must take precautions against a collapse of her determination, a sea- change in her mood: he couldn’t rely on her to say where they could lie up for the day – there might be a back doorway on to a street through which she could slip and disappear. Nor was he prepared to take Signorina Immacolata into the embassy to wile away the hours. He didn’t know the personnel so he didn’t trust them: he had had the driver from the ambassador’s staff park a block away from the embassy; then had given him the photographs of her from the booth. The man had been gone for half an hour, then returned with the new passport. It was not yet noon, so they had gone to another park. She had said it was Hyde Park. The rear doors of the car had been locked, and the radio turned up.
It was slow on the six-lane motorway.
Castrolami couldn’t have taken her out on the first available flight with seats free. He wasn’t prepared to move her until a signal came to him, via his mobile, that the extradition unit had eyeball on Vincenzo Borelli. She had not complained, had accepted what was incarceration, had refused food, had not asked for a lavatory, had not made empty conversation. It suited him that he was not required to do small-talk, and that others would begin the detailed debrief. He was not much more, really, than the bag-carrier. He neither liked nor disliked her, was neither attracted to nor disgusted by her. Her breathing was steady, giving no indication of stress… but he kept an eye on the front windscreen. The driver had a day-old copy of Corriere della Sera, and had heaved the news and arts sections over his shoulder and into Castrolami’s lap while keeping the sport pages. But Castrolami hadn’t looked at the paper and neither had she. They had watched the movement in the park – pedestrians, pram-pushers and horse-riders – and hadn’t talked. The call had come. His bladder had hurt, but he had known the vigil was near to its end. He didn’t know how she felt now that the surveillance team had eyeball on her brother, and didn’t ask.
They were leaving behind the tower blocks of London and the sun was dipping down. He had half expected her to crumple and look for comfort from him – she’d get fuck-all if she did. A bag-carrier didn’t do nurse. She sat bolt upright and her lip wobbled occasionally, but there were no tears.
Further out of the city, the traffic speeded up. The mobile-phone messages had told him of the eyeball in London, the readiness at the palace in Naples, the teams gathered in briefing rooms at the Questura and at the barracks in piazza Dante. He had gutted her for headline information before they had gone on the shopping jaunt and that information had gone. He doubted that she could, now, step back.
He had made one accommodation to his principle of refusing to ask favours. At the terminal the car was met – only a protocol chief, but sufficient, carrying the printouts of two tickets.
The plastic bag dangled from her fist. It was the symbol, he reckoned, of how far she had come. Her possessions were in one cheap bag, and they consisted of underwear, washing kit and a nightdress. Then there was whatever she had in her handbag. Castrolami handed his passport and the one she would use to the protocol guy. They were examined, the title pages flicked, and they were taken through locked doors and into hidden corridors where only permanent Heathrow staff had access. They emerged into a departure area, were given the printouts and brought to a Passport Control desk – one at the end, which had a Position Closed sign but where a young woman sat. She looked at the pages, at the faces, handed the documents back. There was a screen ahead, and he saw that the Rome flight had been called. He had been told that if the traffic was heavy on the motorway, and they were late, the flight would be delayed. He had a hand on her arm and steered her towards the pier, then hooked out his mobile, dialled, waited, was connected.
He said where they were, confirmed the schedule. He was told the operation had been named Partenope. He shut the mobile and switched it off. They came to the last exit off the pier. He thought she had walked well, not stumbling, not faltering. Maybe she was, as he had suspected, a hard bitch under the veneer of sadness at the death of a friend, hard and uncaring.
Would she stay the course? They all said they would, but only a few did, and were alive, able to build a new life, when the trials were over.
He stood aside and let his hand fall from her arm. He couldn’t read her, couldn’t pierce her thoughts. She
