Peter Guttridge - The Thing Itself

‘My ancestors were merchant explorers. That is a scene of their ships departing from Genoa — or returning. I have never been sure.’

Tingley sat and fingered the pendant at his neck. St George slaying the dragon, represented as a winged serpent. When Tingley was young, he believed you only had to slay the dragon once.

How wrong he was. He soon learned that the dragon’s teeth, falling to the earth, seeded it with evil yet again.

Over the years, he had killed the serpent many times. He saw that it would never die but he also recognized something else. Somewhere in the struggle he had ingested the serpent. Now it writhed within him.

He looked back at Di Bocci.

‘ Mi scusi ,’ he said. ‘I believe we have an enemy in common. Drago Kadire. I wondered if we might make common cause.’

Di Bocci’s English was good.

‘Kadire betrayed a trust some years ago,’ he said. ‘He lied to me. His lie had consequences.’ He spread his small hands. ‘It is in the nature of our work that we are not always able to respond to provocation as we might wish.’

‘I could respond to that provocation for you and only he would know it was repayment for your slight.’

Di Bocci looked at Tingley for a long moment. Tingley looked beyond him to the tapestry. He saw how the colours had faded. He looked back at Di Bocci, who had an intense expression on his face. Tingley tilted his head.

‘You should visit my cousin in Chiusi,’ Di Bocci said. ‘It is only twenty, twenty-five miles away. He will have something for you.’

‘What will he have for me?’ Tingley said.

‘Kadire is away, in Ravenna, but in a few days he will be in Chiusi. Go to my cousin. We must not be seen to be implicated but he will help.’

Tingley took his time on the short drive to Chiusi. The road was dusty, narrow and empty. He was thinking about Kadire and a long, long day when John Hathaway’s men were beating the bejesus out of the sniper to get him to give up his colleagues. Hathaway stretched out on a recliner on the balcony of his mansion in Brighton, nursing a rum and pep in honour of Tingley, who drank nothing but. Clearly hating the drink but saying:

‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe we can do something with it at cocktail hour in my bar.’ He grimaced. ‘My former bar.’

The bar in the Marina that had been blown to smithereens by Kadire’s comrades.

‘You know, Jimmy, I look out over my kingdom — damn near forty years I’ve been ruling Brighton — and all I can taste in my mouth is ash. It’s all I’ve tasted for years. Every decade I’ve moved into legit stuff. And every decade I’ve got drawn back in to keep others off me. And I’ve been bad.’

Tingley grudgingly liked Hathaway, even though he knew he had done terrible things. But then Tingley had done terrible things. The difference was that Tingley had done them for good reasons. He hoped.

‘Do you ever wonder what might have been?’ he said.

Hathaway put his drink down.

‘What might have been was what was. I don’t think in any other terms. I don’t know how to think in any other terms. But the thing I’ve wondered about over the years is whether I genuinely care about all the shit that has happened in my life. The shit that happened to other people in my life.’

‘And what do you conclude?’ Tingley said.

‘That I don’t. Which begs the bigger question — when did I stop caring? Sean Reilly asked me once, straight out: “Whose death from the early days do you regret most?” I guessed he was wondering about my girlfriend, Elaine, or my father or anyone from that early roster. What he didn’t know was the truly terrible thing I did when I was a kid — a thing I can’t explain even to myself.’

‘The only true account is the thing itself,’ Tingley said. Hathaway looked across at him. Tingley shrugged. ‘Words to live by.’

Hathaway picked up his drink again, took a sip. He couldn’t quite conceal his distaste, but whether for the drink or the sentiment Tingley couldn’t be sure.

Tingley was jolted from his thoughts. Something long and thin was stretched across the curving road. By the time he realized it was a snake, sunning itself, he had already driven over it. Glancing in the mirror he saw the snake thrashing, frenzied, trying to bite its own tail. He lost sight of it as he rounded the next bend. He smiled grimly. Was this some kind of sign? He felt the stirring in his belly.

He settled back into his drive.

Hathaway had been in a gabby mood that night. Maybe it was the rum and pep.

‘I was a right tearaway when I was a teenager and I liked the idea of setting fire to one of the Lewes bonfires, up the road from here, before Guy Fawkes Night. Just for the crack.’ He saw Tingley’s look. ‘Bonfire night was big in Lewes. Still is big — burning the Pope in effigy remains the town’s idea of a good time.

‘I’d gone up on the train doing a recce a few times. I’d settled on a bonfire erected by a bunch of Teddy boys calling themselves the Bonfire Boys. I hated Teds.

‘So I go up there with petrol in a little bottle. Two Teds are standing beside this huge pile of wood, shielding cigarettes in their cupped hands. Both wore jeans with big cuffs and fake leather jackets. Very James Dean. I remember they were hunched against the wind off the Downs. It was biting.

‘I hid between two garages, watching them. After ten minutes or so they went down the street to a cafe. When they went inside, I walked over to the bonfire.’

Hathaway tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.

‘It was about ten feet high, a conical pile of tree branches, planks and one railway sleeper with smaller lumps of wood and crates hanging precariously halfway up. An unbroken privet of tree branches around the base. I poured the petrol over the driest-looking piece of kindling and crouched down to light a match. The wind gusted the match out. And the second. I bent closer and put the matchbox and the next match into the wood. I struck the match.

‘The kindling went up with a whoosh. It surprised me. I staggered back, shaking my hand and twisting my head. Within seconds the flames were leaping high about the bonfire and racing round the perimeter, igniting all the kindling. I felt the prickly stumps of hair where my eyebrows had been. I looked down at my burned hand, already bright red with the skin puckering. I looked at the bonfire. It was burning well. I looked down the street towards the cafe. I turned and left.’

Tingley waited, sensing there was more.

‘Did I know the kid was in the den inside the bonfire when I lit the match? That’s the bit I can’t remember. I can see him peering at me through the piles of wood when I was crouching down but did I really see that? Do I just imagine it?’ Hathaway rubbed his eyes. ‘I really don’t know.’

Tingley couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hathaway sat up.

‘You reap what you sow, Jimmy boy. You reap what you sow.’

The countryside was lusher near Chiusi. Tingley saw the town perched on its tufa hill when he was still some way off. The land sloped gently away to a small lake. The road wound round the hill, threading between a series of steep, cultivated step terraces. He entered the town with the cathedral on his left and the Etruscan Museum on his right. He parked on a side street nearby.

The sun was bright. It was quiet. Siesta time in a backwater. He looked across the countryside. Then he turned towards the Villa di Bocci to get on with the job.

Crespo di Bocci’s cousin, Renaldo, was twenty years younger and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Plump, a cruel curl to his lips. A hint of the actor Peter Ustinov at his most lascivious.