He explained. 'Shit.'
He showed the communication.
'Bloody hell.'
'So what do I do?' Harry Compton could play dumb-insolent as well as the next. He stood in front of the boss-man, with his hands folded across his groin, and the look of innocence on his face. He knew the track that the investigation had taken, that it had gone up the ladder to the commander, from the commander to the assistant commissioner (Special Operations). He knew the spat with the Americans had reached the stratosphere level.
'It's out of my hands.'
'What's best then – that I bin it?'
'Don't smart-talk me.'
'I rather need to know what I should do. We can put a full surveillance on Blake for a start, go for a full search warrant for Mr Blake. We can shake him up.'
'I'm not permitted to scratch my bloody nose on this one without authorization, not before we've heard from Rome, then I have to have you back down in Devon and a fat lot-'
'What I'm asking, do I do something or do I go back to sifting minimal scams on the good old pensioners' savings?'
Harry Compton thought the biro in the hands of his boss man might just break, big fingers twisting it in frustration. 'You're a clever little chap, Harry.
Put yourself where I am, ringfenced by the God Almighties, make a suggestion that's half sensible.'
'Fair assumption that Fiori, Ruggerio, will go back to his good friend. I'd stake it out, and I'd sweep his paperwork – and I'd belt Alf Rogers hard, so's it hurt, and keep belting him till he delivers.'
'So get on with it, and don't embarrass me. You embarrass me and you'll be back helping old ladies across the road.'
He went back to his office. He phoned the car pool and the Stores section and told them what he wanted. He scrawled the message, and he was whistling because he felt good, and handed it to Miss Frobisher for transmission.
TO: Alf Rogers, DLO, British Embassy, Via XX Settembre, Rome.
FROM: Harry Compton, S06.
Relevant word in my last was 'urgently'. Stop squeezing your blackheads and do some WORK. Soonest, we must have updated biog. on MARIO
RUGGERIO with assessment of links to brother GIUSEPPE. I grovel because I need ACTION. I would have thought you have a small window of opportunity for research between getting out of your pit, paying off your women, and the opening of the many bars you maintain in profit.
PLEASE …
Bestest, Harry.
PS. Don't know where this one's going, but it's tasty.
'Would you like to come, Angela?' No, Angela did not want to come because she had a headache and needed to stay in her room.
'Can I leave Mauro?' Yes, Angela would look after Mauro in her room because the baby was asleep.
And Charley was to be certain that small Mario and Francesca did not get cold – God, and it was 70 degrees out there, and Charley had swum off the beach at Bigbury and at Thurlestone and Outer Hope when it was bloody freezing, when her legs and body and arms were goosed. She thought it would do small Mario good, be a useful lesson to the little blighter, to be in the water and struggling because he could not swim. Small Mario was already getting to be, Charley's opinion, revolting and Sicilian, already standing in front of the mirror to check his hair, already posturing at her as if she were merely the hired help. She'd seen it that week, the difference in the child. She might just make certain that he went right under and took the sea water into his nose. It wasn't the child's fault, just the culture of the place… 'I'll make sure they don't get cold.'
So many times each day Charley had to pinch herself, gouge the nails of her fingers into herself, because then she could keep the reality with the fantasy, marry the mundane of life in the villa with the lie that was tight on her wrist. She had the towels and the swimsuits for the children in a beach bag, and in the beach bag were her own underclothes, because she had already changed into her bikini, and her sun-lotion tube.
She had the bright, coloured water-rings for the kids, and Francesca had found a toy sailing boat from last summer and small Mario had his football.
Angela's call – they would be all right? 'They'll be all right, Angela. Hope your headache gets better…'
The gardener opened the gate for them. She didn't think he knew much about swimming. The gardener stank. She didn't think he knew much about washing. She'd get round to it one day, her bikini on the sunbed, and she'd loose the top, she'd give the old 'lechie' a sight to keep the bastard awake at night. They went down the hill, and Francesca held her hand and skipped along and small Mario bounced the football like a basketball player. She wondered where he was, where Axel Moen was. Always with her, the dulled routine of minding the children and the exciting sensation of the lie.
Twice she looked behind her, tried to be casual, but she didn't see him, didn't see his face or the hanging pony-tail of his hair. It would have been good to be on the beach with him, clear of the kids, on a towel on the sand with him, and in the water with him. .. They went through the piazza, and the teenagers were gathered there, boys and girls, with their scooters and motorcycles, and they went past the shops that were opening again for the afternoon, scraping up the shutters, expanding the awnings. She told small Mario, sharply, that he must not bounce the ball as they crossed the road near the newspaper kiosk and close to the Saracen tower.
It might have been wonderful, she thought, going through Mondello to the beach, if it hadn't been for the bloody watch she wore on her wrist. And with the watch, as if to hammer her, like a replaying tape, was her voice snapping at her father, and her voice taunting the young man, Benny. It might have been perfect, going in the warm sunshine towards the gold of the beach and the blue of the sea, except that she lived the lie. The fingernails dug at the palm of her hand to kill the lie.
Across the road, they walked alongside the beach, hugging the shade of the spread pines. The tide was out and the sand was golden, clean. The junk litter would come later, with the crowds, the next month and the month after, when all Palermo descended on Mondello. The beach was brilliant to her, like the beaches of Thurlestone and Bigbury before the tourists came. Charley led the way down onto the sand and she kicked off her sneakers and hopped at the sudden heat on the soles of her feet, and the children laughed with her. Small Mario booted his football ahead and they ran after it, whooping and noisy, all the way to the tideline that changed the sand from pale gold to the lustre of ochre. Charley was first to the football, never could kick a ball, and it skewed off to the right and careered towards a couple on a towel, and the couple were kissing, the boy under the girl. Lucky cow. She went to the ball, and the couple didn't notice her, cared not to look at her, and she picked the ball up and took it away, as if she were a prim and proper little miss. There were four boys with a transistor radio some yards behind her, and they whistled once, and Charley turned and gave them a single finger, and they jeered once. There was another couple, away towards the new town and the pier, reading magazines.
She put the bag down on the tideline.
The sea ran out into the crescent bay in front of her. Far ahead were the small boats, far beyond the small boats was a car ferry coming towards the docks at Palermo that were hidden by the scree slopes of Monte Pellegrino. From the bag she took a sheet of plastic and laid it flat on the sand, and then she laid two towels on the plastic. The sun beat on her, the strength of the sun on the sand and the water dazzled her. She wrapped her towel, the big towel, around Francesca and undressed the little girl and helped her, full of giggles, into the swimsuit, and to do the same for small Mario she had to pull faces and make a game and beat the shyness of the child. She folded their clothes and put them carefully in the bag. Francesca was puffing her breath into the plastic water-ring and small Mario dribbled the football around the towels. Charley pulled off her blouse and unbuttoned her skirt, and she did not look round to see if the boys with the transistor ogled her. The sun's force caught at the whiteness of her skin. It would have been perfect if it had not been for the lie. Francesca was pulling her hand, wanted to go to the water. Small Mario was tugging her hand, wanted to play football with her.