Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

Joey realized what was different.

Light spewed out at the end of the rutted, holed road from the windows of a house around which was set a skeleton of scaffolding poles. The light reflected on the sleek paintwork of a black Mercedes saloon, and danced back from the radiator screen. At the side of what had been only hall a house, captured by the light, were stacked piles ol concrete building blocks, and there were two cement mixers. The light, splaying from the window, fell on the slabs of a newly laid patio space between the scaffolding and the parked car, and was reflected up to show Joey the clean new roof timbers that peeped from under a spread tarpaulin.

Joey walked towards the light. He saw through the window the naked bulb hanging from new flex.

Before, there had been a grimy, unpolished, inadequate, smelly oil lamp in the room, humble but it had given out a glow ol pride. He went past the Mercedes and banged on the door with his clenched fist, hit it until the pain ran in rivers through his body.

The Eagle hung back. He was, of course, too experienced in the matters of criminal law to believe that staying back, not actually taking part, would in any way mitigate his guilt. The books to prove the guilt lined the shelves ol the office over the launderette; principal among, litem was Archbold, three inches thick of thin india paper and close print, with a leather cover, selling him back each January three hundred and twenty-five pounds. He would be accused, even if he pleaded he'd stayed back of 'acting in common' with Mister and Atkins. If he snivelled that he had not known what was to happen, he would still be guilty as an 'accessory to murder' For 'acting in common' or for being an 'accessory to murder' the sentence was the same life imprisonment. But that was semantics

… God alone knew the penalty in Sarajevo, most likely bollocks defenestration then filleting… It was his squeamishness, which Mister despised, that caused him to stay deep in the shadows. They didn't need him. God's truth, they hadn't needed him at a l l…

Atkins had done the dogs. All show, all piss and wind, the dogs had been. His dogs, at home with Mo could make a pretence of ferocity but embarrassed themselves with it. Atkins had slipped into the bushes by the grass, had sat down, had cooed at them, and the brutes had shown that their teeth and menace were a sham. Atkins had held the dogs, and Mister had chopped the back of his hand on to the pretty boy's neck, felled him, stuffed the gagging handkerchief into his mouth and wrenched his arms behind his back. Atkins had hooked the dog's leashes to a park-bench stanchion – which would hold them for a few minutes before they broke free – then had run after them, past the trailing Eagle, to help Mister drag Enver down the side alley that led to the river from the park. There was a dribble of moisture on the pavement, and the smell. The bladder had gone first, then the sphincter. The last few paces, from the alleyway to the bridge, the boy had known what was coming to him and had struggled for his life. Atkins, in that final stampede, had hissed, 'Don't you bloody bite me, you bastard.' The struggling and the way his arms were held up behind his back would have meant they were half dislocated out of the shoulder joints.

The Eagle winced. At the end, he couldn't help himself but watch. Mister raised his arm and chopped again, full force, on the back of the boy's neck. They were in the middle of the bridge. A car was turning on to it, but the lights hadn't yet come far enough round to light the rail. The boy slumped under the force of the blow. Maybe he was unconscious, maybe just dazed. It was all one movement. Mister and Atkins had him up, like he was dead weight, and over, like he was dumped trash. There was the splash. The car's lights illuminated the the of them as they walked back to where the Tagle waited. The boy would have been incapable of survival when he went into the water that flowed last, dark, deep, under the bridge's rail. They came towards him. The boy would drown. The drowning wouldn't help the Cruncher, nor the Cruncher's rent boys, nor the Cruncher's parents in their Torbay bungalow. It was about Mister's sell respect and Mister's dignity. As they reached him, Atkins was pulling off his glove and looking at his hand The Eagle heard Mister say,

'You're all right, didn't break the skin-nothing like a good pair ol gloves You did well, Atkins, brilliant.' At worst it was 'acting in common', at best it was

'accessory lo murder.' They didn't wait for him.

The Eagle bent over until his head was down at his knees, and vomited up his hotel dinner.

' I am not Falcone'

Joey shook his head, 'I don't know who is… '

'Nor am I Borsellino,' the judge said softly

' I don't know who you're talking about.'

She interrupted, spoke sharply, 'Giovanni Falcone was a magistrate in Sicily, He arrested many of the Mafia and prosecuted them, imprisoned them. He was killed by a culvert bomb, with his wife and his bodyguards. He was followed by Paulo Borsellino who pursued the Mafia with the same dedication.

Borsellino was killed by a car bomb, with his bodyguards. 'They stood against the tide.'

The room was a building site. They were itinerants, travellers, squatting in their own home. Across the table were layered sheets of newspaper: across the newspaper was a sandy shore of dust. Two of the four walls had been stripped of the plaster rendering, to expose old stone. It had been a room, as he remembered it, of dirty, uncomfortable peace when it had been lit by the oil-lamps, but the new electricity threw down a glaring brightness. There were shining new plastic window-frames in place of the rotten splintered wood that was now propped against the wall. Joey was perched on the end of the table and faced her father, who sat on the bed in his shirtsleeves, close to a three-bar electric fire. She rounded on them, with the restlessness of a zoo-caged animal, circled them in her chair.

' I am not a hero. They were martyrs to the reputation of jurisprudence. I am not them. They looked into the abyss, as I have done. They jumped, I stepped back.'

She said with scorn, as if to support her father,

'There were great demonstrations in Palermo after the killings, many thousands were on the streets to denounce the Mafia. The Mafia is still alive, but Falcone and Borsellino are dead.'

'You said you helped me so that you might regain your self respect.'

When the oil-lamps lit the room, the judge had had a face of old dignity. Under the new glare, the face was haunted by defeat. Joey had no business to be there, he was a criticism of them.

The judge said wearily, 'It was a dream… Do you know who has had the biggest funeral in Sarajevo, during the war and since? Musan Topalovic. To the people on the streets of Sarajevo he was a hero and a martyr. He called himself Caco. Who killed the hero?

He was shot by Muslim government troops during a few days of crackdown on criminality in the last year of the war, to show a skim of respectability to the foreign powers. In the first days of the siege he held a line with what he named the Tenth Mountain Brigade, a formation ot rats from the sewers. He was a butcher before he was a hero and a martyr, he slit the throats of Serbs who had stayed in the city, after he had robbed them, and he burned their bodies. He was a man of evil… Four years ago his body was dug up and carried shoulder high through the streets, to a new and more respectable grave. Shops emptied, and the cafe, and the bars. I see it in my mind, the worship of those who watched. I awoke, Joey, from the dream. The people ol Sarajevo did not want me – they wanted as their hero and their martyr the man who was a butcher, Caco. They would not want me who was an insignificant imitation of Falcone and Borsellino… Everything I said to you, it was only a dream.'