David Hewson - The Lizard's Bite

It wasn’t just a cuckoo clock. He should have remembered.

The tiny wooden doors opened. From within, circling, circling, came two small round wooden figures. Husband and wife, he in mountain dress, leather leggings, a colourful shirt with braces, and a small green hat with a minute visible feather in it. She . . .

Leo blinked. He remembered both figures now. The woman was plump and bustling and comical, in a white dress with blue spots, a kindly, rosy face, set forever in a wooden smile.

This woman was gone. In her place was a large, naked figure, no higher than a finger, but made of flesh, real flesh, pink and white and flaccid in the way he’d noticed when his mother walked out of the bathroom wearing nothing, unaware he was there.

Real flesh with weals and wounds and blood, real blood, blood that spat and spurted out of her under the vicious, constant blows of the little man who circled, arms thrashing, blade flashing.

Little Leo blinked. The clock was changing, even as he watched.

Now the little man wore a surgeon’s mask and a close-fitting surgical cap. His arm worked feverishly, slashing, slashing.

Under the knife we go we go . . .

. . . someone, the older Leo, sadly laughing, said at the back of his head.

There was screaming too. Screaming from the little figures in the clock. Screaming from beyond this cold, cold room.

Little Leo’s eyes fell on the door, the solid wooden barrier that led to his parents’ bedroom, a place he feared, a place where he didn’t belong. There was a huge carved wooden heart on the crossbeam, a sign of love, he imagined, though it seemed somehow out of place. And now this heart, old polished oak, was beating, slowly, weakly, pumping with a feeble resignation that was audible, moving in rhythm with his own, frightened pulse.

Behind this palpitating wooden heart was their sanctuary, their private place in which a child was never allowed, no matter how much he needed them, how frightened he felt. There was no glass panel here, no window, nothing to allow anyone to glimpse what happened behind that solid, impassable wood. There was, too, no stupid, weak means to circumvent what was meant to be—safety, security, certainty—when you placed a key in the door and turned the lock.

The key was there, on the table, taunting him. Old black metal, fancily worked so that it felt awkward in the hand, too large for the clumsy fingers of a child that grasped at the sharp angles of the handle and failed to find purchase. Even if he dared. Their bedroom was forbidden territory. Leo had known that all his short life. What happened there was for them alone.

The bell and the roar of the cuckoo ripped through the air again. Leo watched the pendulum make a single crossing, from left to right, then stay stuck in time, spotted now with blood from the plump little female figure who thrashed and screamed and fought in her tiny, tightly defined circle of life on the porch of the carved clock.

Nothing stops the flailing man, he thought. Not the pendulum. Not the ghostly voice in his head. Not God Himself. Because the flailing man is a part of God too, the part that always comes in the end.

But he couldn’t say the words this time. The pendulum never moved. Some deep, primeval fear began to wake inside little Leo Falcone’s head, turn his bowels to water, make him want to sit on this old seat and pee himself out of terror.

“The past is past,” the older voice said. “Trust me.”

“So what do I do?” he asked, bitter, refusing to break down in tears because that always gave the adults some comfort, and would do so even when those watching, older eyes were his own.

“What you’ll always do. First and last. So much it will get in the way of everything else. Think! ”

Leo waited and listened and tried to do as the voice said. He didn’t want to be in this place. He didn’t want to see behind the locked wooden door, with its crudely carved, dying heart, or use the big metal key on the table. More than anything, little Leo wished to sleep. To lay down his head on the table, close his eyes, think of nothing, embrace nothing but the dark which seemed, next to this crazed, inhospitable place, a warm and welcoming respite from the torments that were gathering around him.

“Please,” the old voice said, and it sounded terrified.

MAGGIORE LUCA ZECCHINI WAS A HAPPY MAN. HE WAS back in his beloved Verona after three days at a tedious conference in Milan. There would be a premiere of Il Trovatore in the Arena that evening, an event he would attend with a charming and beautiful tourist from San Diego he’d met on the train home the night before. And there was pranzo in Sergio’s, the little restaurant around the corner from the office, a place where a man could gather his thoughts. Lunch, for Zecchini, was a staging post for the day, a time at which one might reflect on a morning well spent, and look forward to a brisk afternoon of activity before shrugging off the dark, impeccable uniform of a major in the Carabinieri and re-entering civilian life. Few men enjoyed this small ceremony in the same way: as an ascetic exercise in self-detachment, not a quick opportunity for face-filling. Only one newcomer had, of late, entered the small circle of sympathetic friends invited to join Zecchini on occasion at Sergio’s. Thinking about that unlikely individual now, Zecchini’s mood became muted. Police work was never without its risks. He’d been with the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale since its formation in 1992. The world of art theft and smuggling, which he inhabited on a daily basis, was not immune to violence. Two fellow officers had lost their lives in the last six months mixing with gangsters trying to smuggle historic artefacts from Iraq through Italy on their way to Switzerland. All the same . . . some incidents seemed odd. Unnecessary. Inexplicable. And tragic, still, a week after the dreadful affair had appeared in the papers.

Zecchini stared at his plate of pork ribs with a portion of greens on the side and wondered whether they would really taste quite so good now. He should have asked Gina from San Diego to join him. Women loved the uniform. He used to joke with Falcone about their sartorial differences. The man from the state police always wore plain clothes, aware that the ugly blue wouldn’t have suited him. Falcone wasn’t a man who fitted in easily.

Then his eyes wandered down the street and met a sight Zecchini found both puzzling and of singular interest. Two men were walking towards him. One, tall and bulky in an ill-fitting grey suit, had a very ugly, scarred face and the physique of a boxer gone to seed. The second was an unusual foil: slight, young, short, in shirt and jeans, rather innocent-looking, except, as Zecchini saw when they got closer, in the eyes, which were determined and a little bleak.

These two were not, he decided, men to cross. And they were, somehow, recognisable too, if only he could place the memory.

Then the younger came over to his table, and asked, in a polite Roman accent, “Maggiore Zecchini?”

“Yes?”

The two men looked at one another, uncertain, it seemed to Zecchini, how to proceed. He thought about their appearance, and what they might do for a living. Then the connection clicked.

“You’re just as he described,” he told them. “Sit down. I’m in need of company.”

The bigger one was at the table in an instant, eyeing Zecchini’s ribs. The younger man pulled up a chair, close to Zecchini. There was no one else on the pavement. The young man clearly wanted to make sure they could talk in privacy.