'I'm sorry, Harry.' The detective superintendent had his head down. 'I was the one who flew it high, got the kite into the wind, and fucked up. You've done well, and no thanks to me. If I authorized, here, now, what you want, quite reasonably, I'd be dead in the water. Don't think I feel good.'
'I doubt you do.'
'Give that bugger in Rome, idle sod, another belt, then get yourself down to Devon like I told you.'
'Thank you.'
'I want to bury those arrogant bastards, poaching from our patch, so get me a profile on Miss Charlotte Eunice Parsons… and don't make waves that splash me.'
'Charley? Where are you, Charley?'
She lay on the sunbed. The warmth played on her body. She lay on her back and she splayed out her legs so that the sun's heat was on her thighs. Her eyes were closed, but she could hear the scrape of the brush used by the 'lechie' on a path further down the garden. Each time that the motion of the brush was silenced she assumed that he gazed at her. She had looked in the dictionary that morning, after coming back from the school and the kindergarten, to find the word. The word was libertino. That was too good a word, in translation, for a lecher, foul old bastard with his peering eyes…
The watch was on her wrist. The watch would not leave her wrist, not when she was in the bath or the shower, not when she was in the sea. The white ring on her wrist, under the watch, would not be touched by the sun. But the rest of her body, too damn right, that would get the sun…
She had rung Benny that morning from a pay-phone in a bar facing onto the piazza, after she had dropped the children at school and kindergarten, and heard his voice that was distant and unsure, and gushed her thanks for the day in the countryside, and resurrected the invitation for him to guide her around the duomo and the Quattro Canti and the Cappella Palatina and the Palazzo Sclafani. She'd bullied him and told him when she could next be in
Palermo. She wanted the sun to have been on her, on all of her body except for her wrist, when she went into Palermo to see Benny. God, he wasn't much, didn't have much other than a dream, was all that was on offer.
She hadn't thought, not when she had sat on the cliff with Axel Moen, not when she had stood beside the river with Axel Moen in Rome, not on the train, not in Mondello, not in the villa, that the waiting would be so bloody hard. And it was worse now, the waiting, because she had seen the helicopter and the men with the guns, seen the response of Axel Moen to the pressing of the panic button. So bloody hard to wait. She opened her eyes, blinked at the brightness. The gardener was some fifteen paces from her and used the brush with a desultory and bored motion, and he looked away when she caught his glance. She rolled over onto her stomach. She twisted her hands over her back and unfastened the straps of the bikini top. She had never thought the waiting would be so bloody hard. Maybe it would all be waiting, maybe it would never happen, maybe it was just the illusion of Axel Moen. God, it was eating at her, the waiting.
'Here, Angela. I'm here.'
She pushed herself up and the bikini top fell away. Her elbows took her weight. She could not see the gardener, but away behind I he bushes there was the scrape of his brush. Angela came from the patio. She saw Angela's face, distracted, and there was a tautness. Angela had seen her.
The lips pursed, the frown dug deeper. 'I don't think, Charley, that is suitable.'
Bloody hell, but Charley grinned. 'You used to.'
Snapped. 'That was Civitaveccia, that was not Palermo. Please make yourself decent.'
Did she want to talk about it? Was now the time to press it? Would there be tears?
The lie came first. Each day she thought that Angela was more distanced from her. It was not in the interest of the lie to flush out the feelings of Angela Ruggerio, poor bitch.
Charley acted the lie, the chastened girl, and slipped her arms through the straps of the bikini and wriggled to fasten the clasp. Angela held a small piece of paper in her fingers, and her purse, and the fingers moved restless and wretched. It was all going to come, one day. Whether the lie was served or not, the confidences would gush and the tears would follow. Charley sat up.
She said cheerfully, 'Expect you're right.'
'I have a list for the shops.'
'Right, I'll do it when I get the children.'
'For now, Charley.'
It was hell's hot out there. It was all right in the heat lying nine-tenths stripped, but it was bloody hot to be traipsing back down the hill, and in two hours she would be going to get the children. But she lived the lie.
'No problem.'
Charley stood. Gently she took the list for the shopping from Angela's fidgeting fingers. A long list, a list for a meal for guests, not for a meal around the table in the kitchen where they ate when Peppino was away. She scanned it – oils, sauces, vegetables for a salad and vegetables for cooking and meat, mineral water, wine, cheese and fruit.
As if Angela pleaded with her. 'You don't tell Peppino that I forgot, you don't tell him
…'
'Of course not.' She tried to smile comfort.
'Am I pathetic to you?'
'Don't be daft.' She didn't want the tears, didn't want the confidences. 'So how many are coming?'
'It is tomorrow the birthday of Peppino's father. It is the eighty-fourth birthday tomorrow of Peppino's father. Peppino's father and his mother. Did I tell you that Peppino's father and mother lived near to Palermo?' Her voice was brittle, slashing.
'They are peasants, they are ignorant, they are not educated, but Peppino would want them fed well, and I forgot.'
'Peppino, he won't be here-'
'Back this evening, hurrying back from wherever.' A sneer flickered the muscles at her mouth. 'Back because it is the birthday of his father, which I forgot.'
Charley interrupted briskly, 'So the children, yes? You and Peppino, yes? His parents?
Me?'
'Of course, you live with us, of course you are there.'
Charley smiled. 'That's for four, six, and me, which makes seven. I'll go and get changed.'
She took the list and the purse. She headed for the patio.
'For eight – it is possible that someone else comes/ Angela said, from behind Charley.
'But I do not think I would be told.'
Charley stopped. She didn't turn. She thought that if she turned, Angela Ruggerio might see the brightness in her eyes. Charley said, 'Eight, fine, I'll buy for eight. I'll just chuck on a skirt and a T-shirt.'
Every time before he had ridden in the lead car, and sometimes he was given the keys to drive the lead car. But the maresciallo had promised that he was watched, as a probationer, and from their keen watching they would have seen his tiredness. Pasquale had been told to drive the chase car. He could not blame the tiredness on the baby, or on the soft and rhythmic snoring of his wife beside him, the tiredness was from the nightmare that had stayed with him through the night.
The route chosen by the maresciallo for the journey between the Palazzo di Giustizia and Ucciardione Prison took them around the sharp bends of the Piazza San Francesca di Paoli, onto Via Mariano Stabile, from Mariano Stabile a sharp left for Via Roma and then Piazza Sturzo, then straight on before the final right turn into Via della Croci, which would run them the last stretch to the gates of Ucciardione. The route of every journey in the city was decided first by the maresciallo, who poured over the street maps each morning, who badgered Tardelli for his day's programme and the timing of the programme. The routes chosen by the maresciallo were not communicated to a central switchboard for fear of betrayal or interception. Now, one thing for Pasquale to drive the lead car,. mother thing for him to take the chase car and have his speed and cornering and acceleration and braking determined by the car in front. He was stressed.