Gerald Seymour - The Collaborator

Orecchia pushed the fruit bowl towards her. He would have been fifteen years the elder, wiry thin, and his shirt seemed a size too large and fell loose from his shoulders, except where the holster harness trapped the fabric. His tie was the more vivid. He had a worn face – had been there, had done whatever, had seen it. She gulped coffee, snatched up a roll and tore it into pieces.

Rossi said, ‘Signorina, we are from the Servizio Centrale Protezione, under the authority of the Interior Ministry. You will be given later a form in triplicate that you will read and sign. By agreeing to the conditions laid down by us, you commit yourself to obeying instructions and following the advice we will offer. You are not a free agent. You have made an agreement with the state, and we expect you to honour it. We’re a specialised team, trained to handle and protect collaborators. We’re not nannies, chauffeurs, psychiatrists or servants – and, most certainly, we’re not friends. It was your decision to be where you are today. You were not under duress to take this course. From us you can expect dedication and professionalism.’

Orecchia said, ‘It was not thought, Signorina, that you needed a female officer attached to you. There are very few. Those we have are allocated to women we consider inexperienced in the role of a pentita , and the pressures that will inevitably be exerted. I have read the file. You are from a family high in the ranks of the organised-crime clans in Naples.’

Rossi: ‘We don’t think you’re fragile, Signorina.’

Orecchia: ‘As tough as the boot on an artisan’s foot.’

Rossi paused, eyed her, without charity or respect, but his tone was as correct as if it had been taught on a course: ‘Nothing about you, Signorina, is unique. You’re one of many we have overseen. We understand the psychological stresses you will endure. You will believe you can escape from us, go home, walk on your own streets, explain and be forgiven, then forgotten. They’ll kill you, Signorina. You’ll lie in the dirt of a street among dog’s mess and rubbish, and you’ll bleed. A crowd will gather to stare at you and not one person will shed a tear of sympathy. And you can put the scum where they belong – in maximum security, and under Article 41 bis, and you can be born again. You will not run from us.’

Orecchia scratched a mole on his nose. He wore a wedding ring, narrow, and she wondered if he went home often and if, when he was at home, he told his wife the secrets of his work. He spoke quietly and she had to lean across the mess of crumbs and orange peel to hear him. ‘In a few hours, Signorina, it will be realised that you have collaborated, become an infame, and they will search for you. Alessandro has talked about a shot in the head fired from the pillion of a scooter as you walk a street in Naples – or Rome, or Milan, or Genoa – but he’s told you the minimum. To me, from what I know, it’s predictable that they’d wish – before killing you – to hurt you, but you’re of the Borelli clan and you know what happens when a message is to be sent. In the most recent killing – the funeral is today – the victim’s testicles were cut off and placed in his mouth, then his head was cut off and placed in his groin. That is reality.’

‘We’re not bullet-catchers or human shields.’

‘We know our trade. We’ll do all in our power to protect you.’

She poured more coffee for herself, slurped it. The doorbell rang. Orecchia glanced at his watch, was satisfied. Rossi took his hand off the pistol in the holster and went to the hall, but Orecchia stayed in front of her, blocking a view of her from the archway linking the kitchen to the hall. His hand did not leave the pistol in his holster.

Immacolata was introduced to the prosecutor. She had seen him many times before – on most days his picture was in Cronaca or Il Mattino, or his image was broadcast on the local RAI channel, and he had been in court when she had seen her father brought in chains to the cage. He was slighter than she had imagined, his hair was thinner and his checks had the pallor of exhaustion. She thought of the magnetism in her father’s eyes, the way they mesmerised and captured attention. Ash stained the front of the prosecutor’s jacket and he dumped a heavy briefcase on the kitchen table.

He pulled out a file with her name and photograph on it. She thought of the cemetery at Nola. The table was cleared. She was told that the woman with the prosecutor was his personal assistant. A tape-recorder was laid on the table and wires were connected to a small microphone. She noticed now that the plates and cups had been stacked in the sink, and the guns had gone.

The tape-recorder was switched on, there were the briefest preliminaries. Immacolata kept the cemetery in her mind, the statue of Angelabella, the screams directed at her, the anger, and the pain inflicted on her. She started to talk.

Gabriella Borelli needed to work. There had been La Piccolina a decade earlier, and before the Little Girl, as Maria Licciardi was known, there had been Rosetta Cutolo, known as ‘Ice Eyes’ in the city. There had been Carmela Marzano and Pupetta Maresca. All had been figures of consequence on the streets of Naples, as was Gabriella Borelli. She had to work if she was to cling to the most important strand in the life of a woman who craved and valued the title ‘ la madrina ’, which was power. The gaining of it far outstripped the acquisition of money. Power came, primarily, from the ability to do successful deals.

She could not hide in an underground den, as Pasquale had been able to. She needed meetings, and to be at them without the clay of the countryside on her shoes or the dust of cement-floored bunkers on her skirt. She was in the back room of a pizzeria on the northern side of the via Foria, one of the busiest streets in the city for traffic and pedestrians, where noise and movement were constant, overpowering and engulfing. She had slept fitfully at the home of the mother of a man who drove cement-mixing trucks for the clan; had arrived on the doorstep, had been admitted in time to see the midnight news on the local RAI channel, had seen tape of Giovanni and Silvio paraded past the ranks of the paparazzi, an old monochrome picture of Vincenzo, had heard the mayor in front of the grand building on piazza Municipio speak of a ‘great blow against the heart of the evil of the criminal culture’ of the city. She had been brought fruit and cheese and had been offered the woman’s big bed, had declined and slept on a settee, with her handbag on the floor beside her head, the small pistol in it within easy reach. It was the first time she had used that address as a refuge for a single night: it would not have been known as a place of importance to her – as were the safe-houses that had been raided. She understood that she had been betrayed from inside the clan, but did not yet know by whom. She had been gone early in the morning, as the city’s life returned, and had walked to the pizzeria.

Salvatore was outside the inner door.

She met with Albanians. They talked of the movement of girls – none, she demanded, to be more than fourteen – who would be taken from Moldova overland to Tirana, then brought to the Adriatic coast to be ferried by speedboat to a fishing village north of the Italian port of Bari, then driven to Naples. She was firm on the price, would not haggle. She demanded also that the girls be made available for medical examination to prove virginity, then stared at a dull ceiling light while they bickered among themselves. She presumed they would have learned that she was a police and carabinieri front-line target, that her organisation was in danger of being successfully dismantled, and that they might believe she was vulnerable.

The matter of the girls was dealt with. Brusquely, she continued with the agenda: refined heroin – the poppies from Afghanistan, the chemical from the laboratories of Turkey, then shipped from the Balkans and Montenegro to the port of Naples. The price of the heroin. Again, no debate permitted. She said what she would pay. Monies were agreed, delivery dates accepted.