There was no riot. Carmine Borelli was as good as his word. A crowd was outside now and resentful murmurs eddied. The police stood nervously, defensively, around their vehicles and the outer door, with gas loaded and baton rounds. The grandfather came to the window. He opened it wide, pushed back the shutters and his arms were out – as if he were Papa, the place was piazza San Pietro and it was the Sabbath. He made a calming gesture with his gnarled hands. His word, in Forcella, carried weight, and had done since American troops had released him from a cell in the Poggioreale gaol after he had told the intelligence officer that he was a political prisoner, a youthful but implacable enemy of Mussolini’s Fascism. He did not wish a disturbance outside his home because it might aggravate his wife’s heart condition. The scugnizzi were denied their hour. They let the rocks drop to the cobbles and put the fire bombs – petrol in Coca-Cola bottles – in shop doorways. Not even they, feral and wild, would ignore the demand of Carmine Borelli.
Silvio was driven away. His hair was in place, and no missiles were thrown or gas fired.
When they had gone and the street had emptied, Carmine Borelli leaned against the living-room wall. His jaw jutted, his face was set and the blood drained from his bitten lips. He knew, and Anna knew, that they couldn’t use a telephone but must wait for news. How great was the attack on the clan, his family?
She had the shop, its owner and contents to herself. In the salon, below the piazza dei Martiri, Gabriella Borelli was queen. It was in the folklore of the family that she had spent sixty thousand euros on dresses, chosen, purchased and carried away on the afternoon that her husband had stalked, confronted and shot a man from the piazza Garibaldi who had ambitions to reach into Forcella. Also in the folklore of the family, but not talked of, was the stacking of the boxes containing the dresses in a lock-up garage for a full half-year before Pasquale had decided it safe for her to wear such expensive clothes at a hotel south of Sorrento where, under false names, he had taken her.
The obvious shops for her to visit, the most exclusive in the city, were down the hill from the piazza dei Martiri in the via Calabritto where there were the outlets for Valentino, Prada, Damiani, Gucci and Louis Vuitton, and shoes from Alberto Guardini, but she preferred a smaller street behind the via Calabritto. She was, of course, one of the wealthiest women in the city, and had control of sums in excess of half a billion euros. Price was immaterial to Gabriella Borelli. What mattered to her more was that she could not drive a top-of-the-range Mercedes sports to Capodichino, book a first class air ticket to Gran Canaria, stay at a hotel with a hundred luxury rooms, take a suite, then soak up the sun during the day, dance in the evening, and strip for the night in a king-size bed with Pasquale or… It was not possible. She stood in her underwear – brassiere and knickers – in front of the full-length mirror and held up to her the dresses and pirouetted, letting the music, a string quartet, waft over her.
She had no stake in the shop, minor or major. Could have bought it outright, and not noticed the price. The family owned hotels, apartments, time-share blocks, offices and many shops. However, it was more satisfactory to have a straightforward commercial arrangement to buy clothes even if they were seldom on her back.
Those she didn’t like – too small or tight, too revealing for her age, she threw on the floor. The owner could pick them up, smooth and rehang them. Those she liked she laid across a chair. She could have had any of the dresses she tried – which were a genuine label from Paris, Milan or London – manufactured for her, exact imitations, in the sweat-shops on the slopes of Vesuvio. The little factories, hidden among villages on the slopes, were the responsibility of her eldest son, Vincenzo. She yearned for Vincenzo more than she did for her husband, suffered from her inability to talk to him, to hear his certainties. In fact, she purchased the label, not the dress. It was an escape for her.
Discarded dresses lay on the carpet, but she had chosen four. Perhaps one more would go on the chair. She was, normally, a middle-aged woman scurrying alone on the streets, or driving a small car with plates that showed it to be old. There were the boxes in the lock-up garage, and more in a basement, and she had had an air-conditioning system fitted in a cellar behind the Duomo where more clothes were stored, unworn, and in three of the safe-houses she flitted between there were wardrobes filled with dresses, skirts, light jackets and blouses. The escape was to dream, and dream alone. The money the clan had accumulated brought power, influence, control and authority – but the opportunity to pamper herself was remote. She smiled cheerfully and the owner clucked with enthusiasm. The dress was turquoise, not so close round her waist as to accentuate the first traces of flab, neither a tart’s dress nor a matron’s. It covered her knees. It would have looked well on her daughter, Immacolata – it was the first time that day she had thought of her. It would have fitted Immacolata but she wouldn’t have chosen it. There were girls at the heart of the Contini clan, the Misso clan and the Lo Russo clan who would have worn that dress, turned heads and stopped conversations, but not her dull, dreary Immacolata. She held the dress up to her and the owner – with skill – gave a small squeal and clapped her hands. Gabriella Borelli turned the full circle, then laid it on the chair with the others. She didn’t know when she would wear it… she saw herself – made up, with jewellery from strong boxes in two of the safe-houses, or the diamonds kept for her by the few she could depend on – as she walked on the young man’s arm past the small orchestra, the restaurant manager grovelling a greeting, and was taken to the best table. Above her was the suite, and in the suite was the king-size bed, and the young man who admired the turquoise-silk dress was- A telephone rang.
She felt a chill and shivered. She recognised that call tone. It had no romance, no style, was not stolen from an opera aria or something popular. It was piercing, like a car’s alarm. Brief, then silence. She turned her back on the clothes and went to the chair where her coat and bag were.
Salvatore had that number, the young man who… and Umberto, the lawyer long used by the family. It was for times of emergency.
A text message waited. ‘Three run, Four run – Bravo five boxes – Twelve walk – block 5 alpha.’ She studied the text, memorised and deleted it.
She said to the owner that she would call for the dresses she had chosen and would then settle the account. The owner was at pains to indicate that settlement was a small matter and should not concern the signora. Gabriella Borelli left the shop the way she had come, through the staff area, past the toilets and the storeroom, then went out into the street through a reinforced door. She waited. She listened. She looked from a corner for a loose cordon, for men who lounged and smoked or sat in parked cars. The text messages she sent and received on her mobile were always coded: ‘Three’ was Giovanni, ‘Four’ was Silvio and ‘run’ was arrested. She was ‘Bravo’ and ‘boxes’ were safe-houses that had been hit. ‘Twelve’ was Salvatore and ‘walk’ meant still at liberty, while ‘block 5 alpha’ told her where he would be and at what time.
She was a woman in a dowdy coat because the chill came in from the sea with the evening, and slipped among shadows. Dreams had been curtailed and an escape cut short. Fuck Giovanni and fuck Silvio. If five of her safe-houses had been hit, searched, then the security of the clan, on which she prided herself, was split open. How was it possible? Almost – not quite – fear held her.
The pictures came on the screen. There were digital images of Vincenzo Borelli in the custody suite at a London police station, full face and profile. They were replaced by a photograph of Giovanni Borelli being brought out of a door, wearing only boxer shorts. An officer behind him carried a bundle of clothing. The youngest, Silvio, walked meekly, appearing confused, between two towering men. The locations followed the individuals, a sequence of smashed-down doors, succeeded by an interior of a living room or bedroom.