Gerald Seymour - The Collaborator

‘I have had a short eyeball on the target hostage, Echo Delta Delta India Echo. He is held in an apartment of the Sail building, third level, Scampia, a Naples suburb. Initial indication is one hostage-taker, armed. Unlikely to be a covert exit point. Nothing by way of escape is negotiable. Target seemed from brief sighting at approx forty paces to be bound, had facial marks of abuse, but did not appear to have life-threatening injuries. Taker, my opinion, is unstable and unpredictable. Time to go to work. Out.’

He closed the call.

A waiter came to the table with the wine list, and Roddy Johnstone waved for it to be given to his guest.

‘You all right, Duck? You look a bit pale. Got a ghost showing up?’ the guest asked.

He shook his head. It was a decent restaurant, close to his office, and it was usual for him to bring prospective clients here, and convenient – halfway on foot between Grosvenor Square and Berkeley Square – for most. He asked his guest, who would be talking detail in a contract for the security of an oil-drilling programme in Georgia’s Taribani Field, zone fourteen in block twelve, which could be worth fifteen million American dollars over ten years, to select a wine and choose from the menu for both of them. He apologised for having been distracted by the call.

He went outside. He stood on the pavement and the doorman lit a cigarette for him. He had seen Lukas’s name come up on his mobile, had allowed him to talk, had not interrupted, had allowed him to ring off, had not spoken a word. Thoughts clouded his mind. He saw Lukas, saw a waste mass of concrete floors and walls, saw men with armed, aimed weapons, saw a young man who had gone off to get his girl back, had walked as an innocent into a snake’s nest, had been beaten and had had a gun barrel against his head, and he saw an idiot who would have pledged – because they all did – that he would not be captured alive, and again he saw his man, Lukas. He flicked the cigarette towards a drain cover and watched it gutter.

Not something he would have wished to do, but not something to be avoided. He dialled. He did it because a kidnapping was involved, and a boy had been brought into the extended family of Duck’s world. He would have cheapened himself had he not made the call then, there. He had no shame in admitting to himself that he cared.

He heard a call ring out, and heard it answered.

He said, ‘Mrs Deacon? Mrs Betty Deacon, yes?… It’s Roddy Johnstone from Ground Force. I won’t beat around… This is a holding call. The position is that I’ve just received confirmation of what we call an “eyeball”. It means that my man has seen your son, seen him physically, at a distance of about forty paces. He’s in reasonable physical condition… Mrs Deacon, we’re a long way from the end of this road. Eddie’s held by an armed man in a housing complex. The authorities are there, and my colleague is with them. He’s very good at what he does. Mrs Deacon, as soon as I have further news I’ll give it you… I shall hope for the best and I shall hope for it very soon, but we’re in uncertain times. Goodnight, Mrs Deacon, and my regards to your husband.’

He saw them too, winced, and wished he’d lit a second cigarette. He went back into the restaurant.

‘Everything all right?’ his guest asked.

He smiled. ‘Probably, perhaps – about as all right as it can be. Now, what have you ordered for us?’

Immacolata had been given pizza in the prosecutor’s office. She was not privy to events. He had been called out by his assistant three times, left his inner office, gone into the outer, took the phone and kept his voice at a pitch subdued enough for her not to hear what he said. She sensed that finality approached and that she was not invited to share it. Each time, when he came back, he had a deeper-cut frown on his forehead and then – as if he remembered its presence – would force a smile and attempt to wipe anxiety.

She ate the pizza and drank aerated water. She thought, in truth, they didn’t believe in her resolve. She cleared her plate and emptied the bottle. Immacolata said, and did her sweet, warm smile, ‘You need not be concerned for me. My mind is made up, and it’s not for changing.’

He looked at her quizzically, as if he didn’t yet understand her. ‘I work in this room, Signorina for six days out of seven every week, for a minimum of ten hours every day. I strive after successes, but they are rare and elusive. To arrest a de Lauro or a Lo Russo or a Licciardi or a Contini classes as success. Maybe once a year we take one. Because of you, the evidence you bring, I have been able to close down an entire family – not an individual but a whole clan… Does that then defeat the criminal conspiracy? No. But it halts the advance. In my terms, to halt an advance, to stop a flow of Vesuvio’s lava, is a success. Such are the crumbs off the table from which I survive. If you capitulate, Signorina, success is snatched away and the advance – irresistible – continues.’

‘I won’t capitulate.’

‘You will not say – now, at this moment – that the life of the boy matters more?’

‘No.’

‘Say it to me again, please.’

‘No… His life doesn’t matter more.’

‘Thank you.’

She stood up and let the pizza fragments fall from her lap on to his carpet and desk. She brushed the lap of her skirt, then took a little handkerchief from her bag and wiped the ring on the desk that the bottle had left. She touched her hair. She faced him. ‘I’m ready for my next test – yes? It’s a matter of giving proof? Where’s Eddie?’

‘In Scampia, in the Sail, at the mercy of your father’s killer. Salvatore controls him.’

‘Will you save him?’

‘We’ll try to.’

‘Could I save him?’

‘Of course.’

‘And the price would be my evidence?’

He shrugged. He didn’t have to give her his answer. She walked towards the door. It was as if she was an actor, on a stage, caught in a pool of light, and she knew the lines would not be spoken again, the questions and doubts would not be reiterated. She would not be thanked. She did not expect gratitude, and she thought humanity – what had been a variety of love – had been squeezed out of her, existed only in a padlock abandoned on a bridge. She said, ‘I am ready to go to Posilippo now, to give you proof and serve you the crumbs, success. Can we move? I hope your best is good enough for Eddie’s life.’

‘It’s only advice, not control.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Lukas answered. ‘I give advice and you – obvious – are free to take or ignore it… It’s the way, friend, it always is.’

He saw a wry smile spread on Castrolami’s face – almost Lukas grinned, as dry as the skin of a tomato left out in the midday sun, what they sold in a supermarket – and Castrolami asked, ‘What would be the first item of advice?’

Lukas squinted, looked up the length of the walkway. Two ROS guys, including the one they called Franco, the sniper, the franco tiratore , had gone up to the fourth level, had tracked along it then come down and were now hunkered in front of the far barred gate on the third level. The washing in front of him had not been torn away and it was only as he lay on his stomach that he could see the doorways and windows, the one door and the one window. He thought the section of walkway was now evacuated; if it wasn’t, if some had been determined to stay behind, they must take their chance. There should not be the distraction of bawled commands, or requests, on a bullhorn for people to get clear. Always difficult to make the last few shift – they had a sick relative who was bedridden, a dog and four cats, a stick insect and a snake, a programme was coming on the television that they never missed, they feared they’d be looted once they’d gone. What now to advise?