Gerald Seymour - The Collaborator

The struggle for possession moved away from the refuse bins and the body was carried through scrub towards the viale della Resistenza, the dogs howling, barking, whining, yapping and dragging what their teeth held.

The mastiff-cross couldn’t lose his pack. The game progressed. It didn’t wish to chew the man’s flesh, but it was sport to have smaller dogs compete for possession. Bones were broken, joints dislocated but the sinew, gristle and muscle held the body together.

They were in the middle of the road.

The big dog still had the leg and ten others had a grip on the arms and the clothing. The body seemed suspended a metre or so from the tarmacadam. They tugged, growled, snarled and… A cruising police patrol car swerved to a halt.

The observer said, ‘I can’t fucking believe what I’m seeing.’

The driver said, ‘If you want to throw up, do it out of the car.’

They watched for a full minute. The noise grew as the mastiff-cross was unable to assert its authority over the pack, and the game was played out noisily. Traffic was backing up behind the police vehicle. The ambulance, called on their radio, would be there within minutes – not that a paramedic was going to be of any help to the poor bastard being pulled apart. Back-up was coming too.

The observer said, ‘The big one, that’s a mastiff.’

‘On the leg.’

‘It was used as a fighting hound in Roman times, against lions. It’s a guard dog now, possessive, obstinate – it’s fucking big.’

‘What are you telling me?’

‘Are you going to put the man and the dog in the ambulance? Or are you planning to tell the dog to let go of the man?’

‘Shoot it.’

‘Shoot a mastiff? That’s like shooting Maradona himself? Shoot it with a handgun?’

‘Shoot the fucking thing.’

The observer used his Beretta 93R to fire four 9mm rounds into the dog’s head before its grip on the body’s left leg loosened. The others had slunk away.

An ambulance came, and the body was removed.

From the pillion seat, over the shoulder, Massimo watched the ambulance pull away and the headlights caught an animal’s carcass spread out on the road. Beyond it, in deeper shadows, a group of dogs had gathered and Massimo could have sworn they were whining. The road was still blocked.

The scooter jolted as it mounted the kerbstones and ploughed through the oleander that grew wild there, then again when it came down on to the road at the far side of the dog’s body.

The township of Scampia had been built immediately after the earthquake of 23 November 1980 that had killed more than 2900 people, injured some ten thousand and destroyed the homes of three hundred thousand. Money wasn’t a consideration. The finest architects available were employed on creating a heaven for the dispossessed. Scampia rose from wasteground. Massimo had been born the year that the first blocks were laid. He had been twelve before he was driven past the great complex and shown the ludicrous size of the Sail. He had been back twice since then, once with a school party on a field trip to examine modern demography, once because a pretty shop girl lived there. His last journey to the jungle of concrete and heroin had been seven years ago. He was – and couldn’t have hidden it – terrified to be on the viale della Resistenza.

The scooter braked. The engine was cut. Shadows moved. He thought himself encircled and the streetlights close to him were dark – he presumed they had been broken so that trading was easier. A finger jabbed at his chest, then his helmet. He lifted it off and it was taken from him. The finger pointed, and he made out an ebony black opening in a grey wall. He was told how many floors up he was going, and given the number, that he should use the name of Salvatore to get through the inner gates. The beat of Massimo, working for his uncle, was between Umberto’s office and the Palace of Justice, and there were excursions to visit clients in the gaols of Poggioreale and Posilippo. Twice there had been visits to the head of the Borelli clan, which had taken him and Umberto to Novara; they had stayed two nights in a decent pensione. He had not, till that day, had to make the big decisions in life: to go right or go left, destra o sinistra. He had been able to hide behind the enablement of justice – every man and woman’s right to professional representation. Now, facing the black pit of the opening, he was at the road’s fork.

It was, of course, about fear.

What was he afraid of? Going into the crowded stinking hell that was the Poggioreale gaol.

Who was he afraid of? The old woman, dressed only in black, with the wizened face and throat, the bony hands, the sun’s cancer scars on the skin.

What was he most frightened of?

Her.

He couldn’t quantify it. It existed. The glance and brilliance of the eyes denying age, the withering contempt in her voice, the touch of her fingers and their rap upon his skin when she gestured. He wouldn’t have told another human being about it, not Umberto or his grandmother. The fear lived. He could remember each word she had said, at what time it should be done and how the body should be disposed of. During every trial when a member of the Borelli clan was before a court, Massimo walked from his apartment across the pedestrian piazza with a capuccino in his hand and a sweet pastry, a sfogliatella, and he would cross the patterned paving where the witch had said the body should be left. He carried the sentence of death that would put the body there, and guilt made him shiver. He headed for the darkness.

He left behind the scooter and its rider.

A man loomed out and blocked his path. Massimo stammered the name. He wore his suit. Every day that he went to work he wore a suit, sometimes silk, sometimes cotton, sometimes mohair, and a shirt with a tie and good lace-up shoes. He didn’t think he possessed any clothing that would have made him feel unnoticed here.

He was let through, and a mobile call was made. He thought he stepped on a syringe and held a handkerchief over his face against the smell… but he had more fear of her, and went on up the steps and remembered – word perfect – the message she had given.

*

‘It’s a very grave situation, Dottore.’

‘Any situation involving criminality and a threat to an innocent’s life is grave.’

Umberto, the lawyer, pursed his lips, seemed to feel genuine pain. ‘Again these wretches are using me as a conduit. I follow the paths of the law, and do my best to save a life. I seek no personal advantage. I’m above suspicion, with no guilt in this matter. Dottore, the wretches who are using me predict that the English boy will be killed tomorrow. Is Immacolata Borelli’s testimony so important?’

The prosecutor didn’t answer. An answer was not yet required. He revolved a pencil in his hand and waited for the speech to continue. A sip of water was taken. The pause was allowed to continue for a beat or two.

‘As the messenger, I want only to help. Is the testimony of the Borelli girl so valuable? I hear many things in confidence as a legal practitioner. I’m told she’s disturbed, has psychological difficulties. She has an incomprehensible hostility towards her mother and siblings. I see an unreliable witness, a troubled woman with a misplaced sense of grievance against her relatives. I also see an innocent in desperate circumstances whose life may have only hours to run. If, Dottore, you could see a way to issuing some public statement to the media, stating without equivocation that Immacolata Borelli will not give evidence against her family, and that those members of the family recently arrested are to be released without charge, I believe I can save this young man’s life – as a messenger, you understand.’