An envelope was passed. The policeman talked of the information scraps he had gained in a month of the work of other magistrates and other prosecutors.
He went on his way to the post, and dreamed of the pizzeria near to the railway station in Hanover, then to the Palazzo di Giustizia.
Her mother would have said that she should not have taken the money, and her father would have said that it would have seemed ungrateful to refuse the money. The purse in her handbag bulged with the roll of notes. Her mother would have said that it was simple human nature, like it or not, for people to look in the drawers of a guest, and her father would have said that she had probably forgotten where she had laid down her book and whether her pants had been on top of or below her bras.
Charley had the money, and she wore the handbag draped from her shoulder across her chest. She didn't know.
She could not know, and all through the night she tossed and twisted it in her mind, whether the movement of her book and her clothes was the mark of suspicion against her, or was in innocence, or was her bloody imagination. The taxi driver in Mondello had quoted her 20,000, sod that. She had come on the bus along the road that was shadowed by the height of Monte Pellegrino, on the road that skirted the La Favorita park where the whores were already gathered, on the road that cut through the high-rise blocks. Where the Via della Liberta merged into the Piazza Crispi, Charley had pushed her way to the bus door.
Better to think it was her bloody imagination. But, he had said, the damned faceless man creeping behind her, 'Don't ever relax. Don't go complacent.' She felt a freedom, as if the garden gate of the villa, when it had slammed shut behind her, had been a gaol's gate. She walked along the Via della Liberta. They were beautiful shops, they were better than any of the shops in Plymouth or Exeter. The temperature was near to the seventies, and the women around her had fur coats hoisted loose on their shoulders, and the men wore their best loden coats. It was so bloody hot, and she was in a blouse and jeans with a light cardigan tied to the strap of her handbag, bloody peacocks around her.
The women had their jewellery on, rings and bracelets and necklaces, as if they were out for an anniversary dinner and not merely promenading, and Charley only wore the thin little chain of poor gold that her uncle had sent down to her for her eighteenth birthday… And bugger Axel Moen, who was a cold bastard… She had bounce in her stride, she had control. There was no street like the Via della Liberta in Plymouth or Exeter. Three lanes of traffic running in each direction and a wide centre area with benches under the shade of trees. To Charley Parsons it was a little piece of joy. She heard the shouting. She looked across the traffic lanes and the centre area, and she saw a street leading away in which there were no vehicles parked, and a soldier was gesturing with his rifle, and playing dumb-innocent was a squat little man with a pick-up truck loaded with builder's gear. She watched the yelling soldier and the obstinate little man trade insults. She murmured, 'Go on, old boy, give the pompous bastard stick,' just as they had given stick to the bloody policemen in their battle gear at the harbour in Brightlingsea. She had been free then, on the picket line and trying to block the lorries carrying the animals to Europe. She could have clapped because the squat little man had won the day, and the soldier stood, threatening, over him with the rifle, had gained the right to park his pick-up and to unload his sacks of concrete mix.
She grinned, she moved on. Her mother would have said that she had insufficient respect for authority, her father would have said she was a damned little anarchist…
She held tight to her bag because Angela had told her she should.
Not the Via Siracusa, the next street off the Via della Liberta from the Via Siracusa.
She couldn't think when, if ever, she had had as much cash, as thick a roll of notes, in her purse. She saw the sign of the boutique, where Peppino had said it would be. She was flushed, a little thrilled. God, that amount of money to spend on herself. What would the cold bastard have said? She stopped outside the boutique, in front of the window of clothed model figures. She looked around her. As with a child's guilt, she looked for Axel Moen. Did not see him. Nor did Charley see the young man who sat astride a motorcycle, up the street from her.
The prices on the model figures were just incredible, out of this bloody world, but she had the money in her purse. Best foot forward, ma'am. She pushed open the door of the shop. Go hack it, Charley. She did not see the young man astride the motorcycle, the engine idling, slide down the smoked black visor of his crash helmet.
Soft music played. The lighting was clever. She was of importance. God, eat your heart out, British Home Stores in Exeter, Marks and bloody Spencer in Plymouth. She tried four blouses, her mind played the calculations of translating from lire to sterling.
Christ, Charley… Big breath, deep breath. She chose a blouse of royal-blue, and the touch of it on her fingers was so soft. She tried three skirts, short minis, and they'd be better when she'd done time on the beach and burned the whiteness off her knees and thighs. She chose a skirt in bottle-green. She paid, stripped the notes off the roll. She took the bag they gave her. Bugger where the money had come from. Bugger that Giuseppe Ruggerio washed money. She had enough in her purse to go on to find a throat scarf and maybe a good pair of dark glasses. She came out of the shop, and she did not see the haughty smiles of the sales staff, as if they thought her an ingenua. She stood on the pavement, savouring the moment. Her mother would have said that it was criminal to spend that much on clothes, her father would have said they were the clothes of a spoiled child. She did not see the young man, head hidden in the crash helmet, nudge his motorcycle forward.
It was a few yards from the open space of the pavement of the Via della Liberta…
Meandering past a shoe shop…
Heard nothing and seen nothing, and the blow belted her.
As if her chest was torn apart, as if the strap of her handbag cut into her back and her breast.
She clung to the strap. Trying to scream, and spinning, and there was the roar of the motorcycle against her, and the black shape of the crash helmet was above her.
Falling, and the boot came into her face. The boot came from below a scarlet-painted fuel tank, and on the tank was an eagle's head. The boot savaged her.
She held the handbag strap and she was dragged on the pavement. Kicked again, and letting loose of the strap and covering her face.
On the pavement and the foul filth of the motorcycle exhaust blasting at her, choking. The gloved hand came down, crude, bulged fingers, and caught at the necklace that was the present of her uncle, and ripped at it, and it broke, and was coiled in the gutter beside her.
Charley lay on the pavement, and under her body was the shopping bag. She sobbed into the dirt of the pavement.
The motorcycle was gone.
A man walked past her, and looked away. She sobbed and she swore. Two women, queens in their finery, quickened their step and hurried by her. She wept and she cursed.
Kids were going by her, fast little trainer shoes scurrying. After them were high heels and shoes of worked leather. In pain, she wept. In anger, she cursed. The pain was in her chest and her face and her elbows and her knees. The anger was for all of them, the fucking bastards, who hurried by. She pushed herself to her knees, Christ, and it hurt because her knees were red-raw from being dragged, and she could see right down to the Via della Liberta, and across she could see a soldier on the far corner with his rifle held in alertness and he didn't come to help her. As if she carried a yellow flag, bloody leprosy, bloody HIV, was quarantined, they went by her, the fucking bastards. She was on her feet, she staggered, she lurched towards a man, and she saw the horror on his face, and he pushed her away. She fell. She was on the pavement.