condemnation of the killing of a child in a gun battle was not backed. For a few days after the girl died there were demonstrations of hostility towards the clan. The anger was a wind that blew out very soon, and the priest was isolated, under threat. When the TV cameras had gone, and their lights, he was alone. He is now in Rome, and when he comes back to visit his mother and father he has an explosion-proof car to travel in and armed bodyguards to escort him. Our cloth and our collar do not protect us. There are bullet marks by the main door and you passed them. It is not easy to stand against such a force. You wish me to ask in my pulpit on Sunday for information to be given to the police concerning the boy. I would be wasting my breath. They are the state, not you, Dottore Castrolami. They have complete power, complete authority. Even inside this house of God I feel the fear. It is always with us. It shames me, but it’s there. Fear is in the fabric of this street, this church, this congregation, this priest. A priest stood out against the Casalesi clan and was shot dead. You say you have few hours left, and you have no idea where the boy is held. I’m grateful for the trust you place in me that you can give me information so sensitive, and I can suggest only that you pray for good fortune and that the sun will shine on your endeavour. It is Naples. We are all, believe me, friend, powerless in the face of this force of evil. We lack the strength to stand against it. But I tell you, friend, if it is one or the other – the force of justice exerted against the family of Forcella or the boy’s life – I choose justice. I feel inadequate, a failed man, not only today but every day I serve here. I will pray for the boy, but privately. The Church has little use for another hero, less for another martyr.’
Castrolami shook his hand, then Lukas. They left him in the quiet, cool, empty cavern of his church, and went back out into the sunshine. Lukas was not a man, ever, to criticise the actions, the self-preservation and the priorities of a victim skewered on dilemmas. They went for coffee.
Did he want it?
Eddie shivered.
The enormity of what he had achieved struck him, a hammer blow. He was shivering, his legs were trembling spasmodically and his hands shook.
He had two hinges loose.
He could now, using the galvanised bucket for leverage and the head of the nail as a screw-driver, free the hinges from the door.
At any moment, on his decision, with a five-minute window to shift the screws, he could open the door, forcing the bolt from its slot, and go through it. He would have the nail as a weapon, with the end of the chain and its pin.
He didn’t know what was beyond the door.
He could get through one, might find another that was locked, bolted and barricaded… might find that the handle turned and it opened. He might confront, beyond it, three men with knives, guns and coshes, or he might find it empty, or one man asleep. He might be too high up to go out through a window – or there might be a flat roof for him to drop down on.
He didn’t know.
If he opened the door that took him beyond the chance to turn back – he’d be going for broke. If they caught him they’d hurt him, then kill him.
Choices faced Eddie Deacon, almost crushed him.
Gerald Seymour
The Collaborator
15
It was as if Eddie pressed on a coiled spring. His breathing was hard, uncontrolled. His leg muscles had tightened and his hands were clumsy, insensitive. Tension built in him.
He did it.
Eddie had the galvanised bucket under the lower hinge bar. The upper was already detached and had swung away from the steel-sheeted door. He let the spring go; his energy danced free. All of his strength now was directed on to the bucket and his fingers were gripping it. He pulled, tugged, forced back the bucket and the two screws screeched. He had been more careful, had worked slower, on the upper hinge and it had made less noise. Now the lower hinge made a cat-fight sound. No going back. A sound – proverbial – to wake the dead. Enough to wake any guy on sentry duty, drowsy in a chair. He did the last heave, and was hurled back across the space as the hinge bar came away and one of the screws exploded into his face, like gunfire. The bolt fittings loosed. The door sagged and fell away.
A strip of light came into the space. Eddie could see where he had been – walls that were graffiti-marked, and his own name a scrawl across other writing, the boarded window, the turned-over bucket and the plastic bag in which the food had been, the bottle on its side, the crevice of broken concrete from which the chain’s pin had been dislodged, and the hood. He could see all of that. Then he scooped up the length of chain, might have been five feet of it, the nail in his right hand, and he put his body into the gap, using his hips and shoulders to force the opening wider. He was snagged – he struggled, writhed… and broke out.
He didn’t know how much time he’d used since the screech of the screws – seemed an age, might have been a few seconds. Time, then, was most precious to him.
Eddie crouched. He had two weapons and readied them. He had the nail held like a knife for stabbing downwards, and the chain with the pin on it which he could swing as a flail. The room was small, empty. No chairs, no table, no cupboards or chests, but there were sacks against one wall, three, opened, and in them were stacked packages in sealed oiled paper – like it was their warehouse. There was wallpaper, peeled and damp-stained, with mould by the skirting and a loud flower pattern, and there was a window, daylight.
Going fast, crab-like, Eddie reached it. Light poured through it and stung his eyes. He blinked and they watered. He didn’t know how long he had been in darkness or with the hood over his face. He realised, peering through the grime on the glass, that he was high in a block. He could see below an empty road, then a path on which dogs fought, snarling and posturing, and a woman pushed a buggy. Beyond, kids kicked a football and the shadows were small, the sun high. He saw also that a man urinated in the bushes, his back to the block, and further down the road a couple, young, looked behind them furtively, then went into the cover. He knew he could have waved at that window, screamed, jumped up and down and yelled some more but no one would hear, see or care about him – not even the bloody dogs. But he pulled at the window latches. They were rotten and broke, and he had the window wide. Eddie had to close his eyes to protect them from the glare. He stood vulnerable – thought it pathetic – rooted and blind. He had to open his eyes, take the pain. He did.
He put his head out of the window. He saw a cruising police car, but only the tail, then it was gone – and a scooter coming up the street. The driver and his pillion wore black helmets with darkened visors.
What was he looking for? Perhaps he hoped to find, under that window, a drainpipe or a balcony, a hand reaching up from a window below, or a builder’s ladder, the convenience of a fireescape. He craned forward, lost sight of the dogs and the kids, the woman with the buggy and the man who had now zipped up and was walking. The scooter had gone and the road was empty again. There was nothing. Maybe a film stuntman could have done something, or a Special Forces soldier, a guy from a comic – not Eddie Deacon. There was no hand or foot grip, and the pavement was fifty, sixty feet below, the drop sheer.
He heard, behind him, the door open, then an oath.
Turning, he faced the man. Young, muscled, not focused but confused, T-shirt and jeans, hair slicked with gel and a chain on his neck with a crucifix hanging. Eddie saw every feature of him. The sun spot on his temple and the mole on his chin, his T-shirt inside the belt on the jean waist. Not more than two seconds, and Eddie had absorbed that the man had no weapon.
He charged him. Hit him hard, clenched fist holding the nail, hit him in the chest where the ribcage gives way to soft stomach skin. Didn’t know who he was, why he was there. Eddie felt he’d punctured him. Hadn’t seen him before. Hit him, wounded and hurt him, because he was in the doorway. The man grunted and doubled. Eddie didn’t know whether it was a flesh wound or a fatal injury to an organ. He pushed him aside. As the man went down, Eddie went through the doorway.
He was in another room. The men’s hands loosened, the cards fell haphazardly to the table and dropped on to the banknotes they played for. Chairs were pushed back and the table rocked as knees caught its underside.
