And what would he have done about it, precious Giancarlo?
Might have fired, might not, can't be sure.
But it would have been better than this, better than sitting the hours out.
Would it have been that easy in the car? He'd kept the door locked because that way there was one more movement required before it could have been opened, and more delay, more confusion, more chance for him to shoot.
Idiot, Geoffrey Harrison, bloody idiot. It wouldn't have mattered how long it took to get the door open because he'd have been flattened by then, squashed half out of existence, you're damn near double his bloody weight, starved little scare-crow.
But you didn't do it, Geoffrey, and there's no thanks in dreaming, no thanks in playing the bloody hero in the mind. The time was there and you bucked it, preferred to sit in the car and wait and see what happened.
You can see it now, lad, can't you? Half scared to bloody death already, and there's a pain in your balls and an ache in your chest and you want to cry for yourself. Scared out of your mind.
Too bloody right, and who wouldn't be? Because it's curtains, isn't it? Curtains and finish and they'll be getting the bloody box ready for you and cutting the flowers and choosing the plot, and the chaps in Head Office will have sent their black ties to the dry-cleaner's. Through his mind the misery was fuelled. No chance in a hundred bloody light years that Franca would get her marching orders. All in the imagination of the little prig. Couldn't let her out, not a hard line girl that it had taken months to get the manacles on. But that doesn't leave room, Geoffrey. Leaves you on a prayer and a hope. .. And what had Geoffrey bloody Harrison done, how come his number was spinning with the lottery balls?
God, he was going to cry again, could feel the tears coming, thirty-six years old and fit to wet himself, and no stake in the place, no commitment.
Wrong again, Geoffrey, you're bleeding the masses, crucifying the workers.
That's lunacy, bloody madness.
Not to this kid, not to little Mister Giancarlo Battestini, and he's going to blow the side of your bloody head off just to prove it's real.
Harrison lay with his eyes tight shut, fighting the welling moisture. The foul taste of the cotton handkerchief suppurated around his back teeth. Nausea rising and with it the terror that he would be unable to be sick and choke in his own vomit.
What a bloody way to go, choking in your own filth. Eyes so tight closed, lids squeezed so that they hurt, so that they were bruised.
Violet, darling bloody Violet, my bloody wife, I want to be with you darling, I want you to take me away from here. Violet, please, please, don't leave me here to them.
Near to his head a small branch cracked.
Harrison flashed open his eyes, swung his body up and blinked away the tears.
Ten feet from him was a pair of child's knee-high boots, their sheen broken by smears of dried mud and bramble scratches, the miniature replicas of an adult's farm wear, and rising out of them were little baggy trousers with the knees holed and the material faded with usage and washing. He twisted his head slowly higher and gulped in the salvation of a check sports shirt with the buttons haphazardly fastened and the sleeves floppily rolled. There was a sparse and skinny bronzed neck and a young clean face that was of the country and exposed to wind. Harrison sagged back, dropped himself hard against the earth. Thank God. A bloody ministering angel. White sheets, wings and a halo.
Thank God. He felt a shiver, the spasm of relief, running hard in him… but not to hang about, not with Giancarlo gone only for food. Come on, kid. God, I love you. Come on, but don't hang about. You're a bloody darling, you know that. But there's not all day. He looked up again into the child's face, and wondered why the little one just stood, stationary and still. Like a Pan statue, three paces away, not speaking, demonstrating a graveness at the cheeks, a caution in the eyes. Come on, kid, don't be frightened. He tried to wriggle his body so that the bound wrists would be visible – waste of time, the child could see the gag and the trussed legs. The little feet backed away, as if the movement disconcerted him. What's the bloody matter with the kid? Well, what do you expect, Geoffrey? What did your mother tell you when you were small and went out into the fields and woods to play, and along the street and out of sight of the row of houses that belonged in their road? Don't talk to strangers, there's funny people about, don't take sweets from them.
Harrison stared at the boy, stared and tried to understand.
Six, perhaps seven years old, deep and serious eyes, a puzzled and concerned mouth, hands that tugged and pulled the cloth of his trousers. Not an idiot, not a daft one, this child, but hesitant in coming forward as if the man who lay in this contorted posture was a forbidden apple. As best he could through the impediment of the gag Geoffrey Harrison tried to smile at the child and beckon with his head for the boy to come closer, but he won no response. Be a loner, wouldn't he, a self-contained tiny entity?
Won't take chewing gum from a man he doesn't know. It can't bloody happen to me. Please, not now, God. Please, God, not a trick like this on me. It was going to take time. But time wasn't available, not with Giancarlo gone only for food. What would the mean bastard do with the child? Think on that, Geoffrey, think on that as you try to win him forward, try to bring him closer. What does Giancarlo do with the kid if he finds him here, all bright eyes and a witness? That's an obscenity, that's foul.
But that's truth, Geoffrey… Hurry up, kid, come closer quickly.
Not just my life, your life is hanging on a cotton thread.
Geoffrey Harrison knew that he had no call on the child, that this was a private matter between himself and the boy Giancarlo.
But he beckoned again with his head and above the cloth at his mouth his cheeks creased in what he thought of as a welcome greeting.
The child watched him with neither a smile nor fear, and the small boots stayed rooted, neither slipping forward nor back. It would take a long time and Giancarlo might return before the work was finished.
There were many young campers on the wooded hills and beside the lake at Bracciano and the stubble-cheeked boy in the alimentari on the waterfront aroused no comment. High summer holiday season, and for many the cool, shaded slopes and the deep lake in its volcanic crater represented a more welcome resting ground than the scrum pack of the beaches. For those who had abandoned the city, however temporarily, the news bulletins went unheard, the newspapers unread. In the alimentari Giancarlo attracted no attention as he bought a plastic razor, an aerosol of shaving soap, and six rosetti filled with cheese and tomato slices.
From the alimentari he headed for the back lavatory of one of the small trattorie that stretched out on precarious stilts over the grey beach dust. With the cold water and the thickness of his cheek growth and the sharpness of the new blade he had to exercise care that he did not lacerate his face. It would not be a clean shave but sufficient to change his appearance and tidy him in the minds of any who looked at and examined him. He had once read that the art of successful evasion was a dark suit and a tie; he believed it. Who searches for the fanatic among the closely groomed? He grinned to himself, as if enjoying the self-bestowed title. The fanatic. Many labels they would be handing down from the top table of the Directorate of Democrazia Cristiana, and the Central Committee of the PCI, and they had seen nothing yet.
His humour was further improved by the wash, and there were more shops to visit. He bought socks, and a light T-shirt that carried a cheaply stencilled rendering of the fifteenth-century castle of Bracciano that dominated the village. His former clothes he stuffed into a rubbish bin. Further along the pavement he stopped and bought with coins from the newspaper stand the day's edition of il Messaggero. He looked into Geoffrey Harrison's picture, holding the page hard in front of his face. The company portrait, serene and sleek, harmless and smug, beaming success. On an inside page was the information that had led him to need a newspaper, the full story of the hunt with the facts available till two o'clock that morning and the name of the policeman who controlled the search. Dottore Giuseppe Carboni, working from the Questura. Giancarlo's mouth twisted with his innate contempt for his adversary. Among the clatter of loose change in his pocket were four gettoni, enough for his task. He hunted now for a bar or trattoria that had a closed phone booth, not willing to be overhead when he made his telephone call. At a bar he passed there were two coin telephones for the public, but both open and fastened to the wall where there would be no privacy.