Michael Morley - Viper

'Fifty years old – half a fucking century, Sal, it's a wonder you have the strength to haul yourself out of bed in the morning. I salute you.' Valsi raised another cold one to his lips.

'Salute! Although, to be honest, I've never felt stronger or fitter than I do now.' Sal raised his own glass of Cola Lite.

'Maybe you should look for a new job, something softer, a bit easier on the old bones?' chided Pennestri.

Sal forced a smile. 'You know, old bones or not, I'm stronger and tougher than anyone around this table. You'd all do well to remember it.'

'Even your boss?' said Valsi. There was a hint of steely challenge in his voice. 'You think you're stronger than me?'

Sal smiled again, but this time he didn't have to force it.

'Bruno, I know I'm stronger than you.'

'Okay, birthday boy.' Valsi stripped off his jacket and rolled up a sleeve. 'Arm wrestle me.'

Pennestri and Farina exchanged glances. This was going to be good.

Valsi had wrestled plenty in prison, and had never lost. 'Guys, clear the table. Make room for me and Grandpa.'

Looking across the table, now sticky with beer, he saw no fear in Salvatore Giacomo's eyes. Pennestri and Farina moved plates and glasses from the surface.

'Break a glass,' insisted Valsi. 'Put half of it on one side, half on the other.' He grinned at Sal. 'Let's make it more interesting.'

Pennestri rolled a beer glass in two napkins and dropped it on the floor. Sal watched with amusement as he sprinkled slivers and shards at opposite ends of the table. 'I'm going for a piss, Bruno. While I'm away, take time to think about whether you really want to do this.' He started to rise from his chair but Valsi grabbed him by the forearm. 'You leave the table when I tell you, and you don't piss until I tell you. Now wrestle.'

Sal laughed at him. 'Don't be such a child. I work for your father-in-law, not you. The Don told me to keep you out of trouble, not cut you up.' He pulled his arm free.

'Just wrestle, you fucking coward,' insisted Valsi. 'Don Fredo would expect you to be a man not a chicken.'

Sal's smile dropped. He'd been pushed too far. 'Okay. Let's do as you say.' Jacket still on, he angled his elbow and opened his hand so Bruno could grip it.

'You call it, Tonino,' Valsi ordered. He moulded his fingers into Sal's grip. Tried to gain the first advantage.

Farina looked at the men's faces, then counted a beat. 'Go!'

Valsi's biceps tensed and bulged. Blue veins rippled down his arm. He powered all his superior weight into Sal's arm.

The Snake rocked for a moment. His opponent's speed and sudden force made his whole body quake. His elbow slid and almost buckled. He felt his wrist being stretched and strained. Each opponent's arm shook under the effort. Valsi slowly began to inch his way to victory. 'Birthday, or no fucking birthday, I'm going to teach you a lesson, motherfucker.'

Sal looked at the broken glass, ominously positioned exactly where his hand would be crushed back. His arm was now almost at a forty-five-degree angle, but his face still showed no fear. Slowly and very deliberately he began squeezing Valsi's hand.

It took Valsi several seconds to work out what was happening. Sal's arm wasn't going back any further. It wasn't going down. But a vice-like grip was gradually crushing his fingers.

Sal's eyes registered no emotion. He carried on crushing. He could feel the bones in Valsi's fingers grinding against each other. He kept squeezing.

The pain started to show on Valsi's face. Pennestri and Farina could see it too.

Sal hunched forward a little. 'Would you like to stop?' he whispered across the table.

Valsi said nothing. He tried to use the pain to summon a second surge of strength. He channelled all his efforts into ramming Sal's hand down on to the jagged glass. But he couldn't.

The Snake's iron grip tightened another notch.

Then another.

And another.

Valsi hung his head low. The pain was unbearable. He wanted to scream. Yell his head off like a teenage girl at a horror movie. He ground his teeth and ate up the agony. Swallowed the fear, and the shame that came with it. But he knew he didn't have much longer. Soon the bastard would break his hand. Crush his fingers like day-old breadsticks.

'We can stop whenever you want.' said Sal, in a humiliating matter-of-fact tone. 'Just say it.'

Valsi's eyes blazed. Defiance. One last effort.

But he didn't have anything to give.

Sal swung Valsi's crushed hand and drained arm up into the vertical, then, like a felled tree, down towards the spikes of shining glass.

Valsi shut his eyes. Readied himself for the pain. And the humiliation.

And it came. But not in the way he expected. Much worse.

Sal let go.

Just a centimetre from victory, the Snake opened his fingers and slipped his arm away. 'Enough,' he said, as though bored with a naughty child. 'I'm going to take that piss now.'

Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna In a grey anteroom to hell – a waiting room inside the carabinieri barracks – the parents of Francesca Di Lauro wept in each other's arms. It was the first time they'd touched since divorcing more than ten years ago.

The Di Lauros had thought they could never feel sadder than the moment when they'd learned of their daughter's murder. But the news that she'd also been pregnant had ratcheted them deeper into the depths of despair.

Bernadetta Di Lauro raised her head from her ex-husband's tear-soaked shoulder. She looked sadly into the eyes that she knew had once adored her. 'I'm sorry. I just can't make sense of this.'

He patted her hand gently. 'I know. I don't believe it either. It all seems so unreal.'

She found a handkerchief in her purse, next to a small photograph of Francesca graduating from university. She blew her nose and dabbed her eyes. Dreaded to think what she looked like.

Genarro Di Lauro blinked back the last of his own tears. He was still in shock. He'd never got over the trauma of learning that his daughter had gone missing. Now he could barely cope with the news that the police had identified the remains of her body. Remains. That's what they'd called them – remains – what an awful word. The leftovers. The discarded bits. The final dregs of life that couldn't be better hidden. The remains.

'Genarro!'

Bernadetta's raised voice made him realize that he'd been miles away. Lost again in the uniquely depressive fog that engulfs parents of murdered children. 'What?'

She smiled at him and nodded towards a young carabinieri officer. The policeman was about the same age as Francesca would have been. He looked smart in his full uniform. No doubt his parents' pride and joy. 'The Capitano is ready to see you now.' His voice was soft and respectful. His eyes suggested he understood their pain. But, of course, he didn't. Couldn't. Not until he was much older and a father himself.

Sylvia Tomms had met them before. She made them as comfortable as possible. Not in her broom cupboard of an office but in a special room reserved for breaking bad news. The furnishings were less harsh but still businesslike. Brown cotton sofas were grouped around a low wooden table littered with plastic cups of coffee left by previous grievers. She cursed the fact that they hadn't been cleared and hastily palmed them into a steel bin.

'Do you have any idea who may have been the father of my daughter's child?' asked Genarro.

Sylvia winced. 'I'd hoped that was something you or your wife might be able to help us with.'

'Ex-wife,' corrected Bernadetta and in the same breath wished she hadn't. She felt her husband – ex-husband – squeeze her hand and somehow the reassurance made her feel like crying again.

'Before she went missing, was she seeing anyone regularly?'