Gerald Seymour - Red Fox

"They do not tell me such things.'

'Inadequate, Claudio… to save yourself.'

' I don't know. In God's name I don't know.'

Giancarlo saw the struggle for survival, the two extremes of the pendulum. If he spoke now the immediate risk to the pig's life would be removed, to be replaced in the fullness of time by the threat of the retribution that the organization would bring down on his dulled head should betrayal be his temporary salvation.

The boy sensed the conflict, the alternating fortunes of the two armies waging war in the man's mind.

'Then in your ignorance you die.'

Noisily because it was not a refined mechanism, Giancarlo drew back with his thumb the hammer of the pistol. It reverberated around the room, a sound that was sinister, irretrievable.

Claudio was half up on the bed, pushed from his elbows, his hand flown from the wound. Eyes, saucer-large and peering into the dimness, perspiration in bright rivers on his forehead. Dismal and pathetic and beaten, his attention committed to the rigid, unmoving barrel aimed at the centre of his ribcage.

'They will have taken him to the Mezzo Giorno,' Claudio whispered his response, the man who is behind the velvet curtain of the confessional and who has much to tell the Father and is afraid lest any other should hear his words.

'The Mezzo Giorno is half the country. Where in the south has he gone?'

Giancarlo pickaxed into the strata of the man. Domineering.

Holding in his cage the trapped rat, and offering it as yet no escape.

"They will have gone to the Aspromonte..

'The Aspromonte stretch a hundred kilometres across Calabria.

What will you have me do? Walk the length of them and shout and call and search in each farmhouse, each barn, each cave?

You do not satisfy me, Claudio.' Spoken with the chill and deep cold of the ice on the hills in winter.

'We are a family in the Aspromonte. There are many of us.

Some do one part of it, others take different work in the business.

They sent me to Rome to take him. There was a cousin and a nephew of the cousin that were to drive him to the Aspromonte where he would be held. There is another who will guard h i m..

'Where will they guard him?' The gun, hammer arched, inched closer to Claudio's head.

'God's truth, on the Soul of the Virgin, I do not know where they will hold him.'

The boy saw the despair written boldly, sensed that he was prising open the area of truth. 'Who is the man that will guard him?' The first minimal trace of kindness in the boy's voice.

'He is the brother of my wife. He is Alberto Sammartino.'

'Where does he live?'

'On the Acquaro road and near to Cosoleto.'

' I do not know those names.'

' It is the big road that comes into the mountains from Sinopli and that runs on towards Delianuova. Between Acquaro and Cosoleto is one kilometre. There is an olive orchard on the left side, about four hundred metres from Cosoleto, where the road begins to climb to the village. You will see the house set back from the road, there are many dogs there and some sheep. Once the house was white. His car is yellow, an Alfa. If you go there you will find him.'

'And he will be guarding the Englishman?'

'That was what had been arranged.'

'Perhaps you try only to trick me.'

'On the Virgin, I swear it.'

'You are a pig, Claudio. A snivelling coward pig. You swear on the Virgin and you betray the family of your wife, and you tell all to a boy. In the NAP we would die rather than leave our friends.'

'What will you do with me now?' A whipped dog, one that does not know whether its punishment is completed, whether it is still possible to regain affection. On a lower floor a lavatory flushed.

' I will tie you up and I will leave you here.' The automatic response. 'Turn over to your face on the pillow. Your hands behind your back.'

Giancarlo watched the man curl himself to his stomach. In his vision for a moment was the shamed grin of self-preservation on Claudio's face because he had won through with nothing more than a scratch across his cheek. Gone then, lost in the pillow and its grease coat.

When the man was still, Giancarlo moved quickly forward.

Poised himself, stiffened his muscles. He swung down the handle of the pistol with all his resources of strength on to the sun-darkened balding patch at the apex of Claudio's skull. One desperate rearing convulsion that caused the boy to adjust his aim. The breaking of eggs, the shrieking of the bedsprings and the tremor of breathing that has lost its pattern and will fade.

Giancarlo stepped back. An aching silence encircled him as he listened. Not the creak of a floorboard, not the pressure of a foot on a staircase step. All in their beds and tangled with their whores and boys. Blood on the wall behind the bed, spattered as if the molecules had parted on an explosive impact, was running from drops in downward lines across the painted plaster, and above their furthest orbit, untainted, was the smiling and restful face of the Madonna in her plastic frame with the cherubic child. The boy did not look at Claudio again.

He cleared the hip pocket from the strewn trousers on the floor and went on tiptoe to the door. He turned the key, carried outside with him the 'non disturbare' sign, attached it to the outer door handle, locked the door again and slipped away down the stairs. To the portiere he said'that his friend would sleep late, that he himself was taking an early coach to Milano. The man nodded, scarce aroused from his dozing sleep at the desk.

Far into the night and with little traffic to impede him as he crossed the streets, the wraith, Giancarlo Battestini, headed for the Termini.

What in Christ's name am I doing here?

The first thoughts of Archie Carpenter. He was naked under a sheet, illuminated by the light that pierced the plastic blind slats.

He flailed his arms at the hanging cloud of cigarette smoke, spat out the reek of brandy from the glasses that littered the dressing-table and window-sill.

Archie Carpenter sat up in bed, putting his memory together, slotting the evidence into place. Half the bloody night he'd spent with the men from ICH. All the way from the airport in the limousine he'd listened and they'd talked, he'd asked and they'd briefed. Convincing the big man from Chemical House of their competence, that's how he saw it. They'd taken care of his bags at the hotel with a finger snap and tramped into his room, rung down for a bottle of cognac and kept up the barrage till past three. He'd slept less than four hours and he had to show for it a headache and the clear knowledge that the intervention of Archie Carpenter had no chance of affecting Geoffrey Harrison's problems. He climbed out of bed and felt the weakness in his legs and the mind-bending pain behind his temples. Half midnight, at the latest, they wound things up in Motspur Park. Had to, didn't they? With babysitters at a pound an hour there wasn't much time after the ice-cream and fruit salad to sit on your arse and chat about the rate of income tax. And the brandy didn't flow, not out there in the suburbs, not at seven pounds a bottle.

A quick splash after coffee and the Mums and Dads were on their way. Not that the Carpenters had kids… that's another trial, Archie. Not for now, old sunshine.

He'd need a shower to flush it out of him.

Beside his bed, under a filled ashtray, was his diary. He thumbed through for the number the Managing Director had given him. A chap called Charlesworth, from the Embassy and said to be helpful. He dialled, listened to the telephone ringing out, took a time to answer. What you'd expect at this time in the morning.

'Pronto, Charlesworth.'

'My name's Carpenter. Archie Carpenter of ICH. I'm the company's Security Director…' Since when had he had a title like that? But it sounded right, just sort of slipped out like a palmed visiting card. 'They've asked me to come out here and see what's going on. With this fellow Harrison, I mean.'