He was not certain but he thought he felt a weakness.
Could have been mistaken, didn’t believe so. Eddie Deacon worked at the link, running it on the rough concrete ridge. What was certain, the pit where his nail went was always deeper.
Lukas said, ‘Do you want any smart shit talk from me about what volcanoes I’ve visited, where I’ve picked up hunks of lava? I can do that talk if it’s necessary. I don’t think it is. The view is non-existent. Comfort is non-existent. Shade is non-existent. We’re the only two cretins in this place too dumb to bring water. You have, friend, my undivided attention.’
He saw Castrolami’s lips purse, reckoned the anger was at the edge of control. He thought the morning wasted. Lukas said, ‘Say what you want to say.’
There was a harshness about the crater’s rim, and the sun came up from the stones of lava fields to reflect back into his eyes. He looked down, could see far into the hole, and found himself straining to see better. A hawk soared on the east side. The drop of the cliffs from the rim to the core was uneven, ragged. Faint curls of thin smoke or steam emerged from the rocks and dissipated. Lukas supposed there was some relevance to it… and was patient. He was rewarded.
Castrolami said, defiant, ‘I should bring here everybody who visits the city to meet me. I should use it as a theatre set to explain the reality of Naples. Anyway, you are ready?’
Lukas didn’t often do snide and smartass, thought the rewards short-lived. He would need the big, sweaty, armpit-stinking carabinieri guy. He said, ‘I am.’
Castrolami flung out a hand theatrically, waved at the hole. ‘It is one thousand nine hundred and thirty years, less one month, since the eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Ercolano. There was an eruption in the year 1631, three more in the eighteenth century, four in the nineteenth century. There have been two in the last century, 1929 and 1944. Look down. You see nothing that is threatening. It is at peace, something dead. That it exploded is in history, not actual. You cannot look down and see anything that is a maximum danger. Maybe it is only the newspapers that speak of the danger. Look at it, see nothing, and be blind.’
Lukas permitted himself to be led. Did not interrupt. He assumed that Castrolami had flogged his body through the ordeal of the climb for a good reason, and waited for it.
‘The scientists call it, in English language, the “plug”. For us it is the tappo. The plug holds down the lava underneath. The plug hides the reality of what is there. The plug, to keep the vision of harmless peace, is some ten kilometres deep. Below the plug is the burning liquid mass, the lava, and you have to imagine an enormous cavern in which it boils, bubbles and is unseen, and that cavern may have a diameter of up to two hundred kilometres. If the plug breaks the cavern is emptied and pours upwards. The volcano is the city of Naples. At peace and tranquil, with fine churches and wonderful galleries and good food and wine, a triumph of sophistication, and safe. It is an illusion maintained by the strength of the plug. Out of sight and beyond your gaze there are powerful destructive forces. I brought you here to explain about Naples, the real danger and the false calm. We can go now.’
Lukas did not chide, did not complain. He thought, actually, it had been a good image and he doubted he would soon lose the sight of the scree slopes, the rockfall debris, the rough lava pieces and the smoke wisps that were all of the great forces at play he could see. He must imagine.
He started out again on the path, and dust slithered under his soles. The tourists came by him, gasping, struggling, and the sun was higher, hotter. He paused and looked down, not into the pit and on to the plug but at the city. He saw nothing that threatened, only the mist. He saw no danger in the faint hazed buildings that were toy-sized. Hard for him to understand that a poison was down there, hedged in by the blue of the sea. ‘I have it, thank you. Yes, let’s go.’
He thought of the boy – not good for him to feel emotional involvement. About the same age as the son who lived with his mother in the trailer camp, and didn’t write. He had heard from the London office that the boy’s parents spoke well of their son, and with love, and were on their knees with anxiety. He thought his own son, placed where the boy was, would have lost any will to fight after about ten minutes of capture, maybe less. He liked the face of the boy from the picture sent to him, and thought his own son nondescript, perhaps ugly. But Lukas didn’t do soap-opera sentiment. It wasn’t about the son he wished he’d had. Anyone, lame and halt or fit and fresh, would have his utmost endeavour. He had killed the thought of his own detached family, but not his mind image of the boy. They went down together. He thought Eddie Deacon would be existing in a living hell. Maybe the city itself lived under a plug but could destroy.
‘It is a good place, you agree?’
‘Do you want me to flatter you or kick you?’
‘Nothing in Naples is as it seems.’
‘Wrong,’ Lukas said. ‘The boy is kidnapped. That “is as it seems”. I enjoyed the walk, and this is not about tectonic plates, it’s about criminality. Don’t give it excuses. And I’ll buy you lunch.’
*
He thought it would break in another hour if he could increase the pressure on the link where it ran on the concrete. It seemed to bend, fractionally, in his hands.
When he had broken the link, and the chains hung from the two manacles, what would he do?
Couldn’t face that. Couldn’t think about it while the chain still held. Christ, why did nobody come? Why no sirens? Why no help? Why did nobody care? Could have screamed it – didn’t. Eddie went on sawing at the link.
‘Very grave times, Professore. Grave and unhappy.’
‘Please, distinguished avvocato, explain your request for our meeting.’ The prosecutor had not done the lawyer the favour of meeting him in his personal office – had he done so, he would then have had to abandon it while fumigation and scrubbing were carried out. He was able to be civil to and understanding of the principal criminals he met after their arrest, always found them polite and correct, of good intelligence and, in a few cases, exceptional intellect. He found some well read in modern classics and some in poetry, and with a few he had discussed with passion his love of opera. He was not sworn at, neither did he feel his home and family were threatened. The professionals – the lice on the criminals’ backs – disgusted him.
‘You understand, Professore, that material comes, unsolicited and without prior notification, through the post to my office.’
‘I understand.’
‘Material that is sent anonymously, no cover note of explanation. In this case a single sheet featuring a photograph and a written demand. Upon receiving it, I immediately telephoned your office, Professore, and you were gracious enough to permit this meeting.’
Everyone called the lawyer by his given name, Umberto. He gloried in that familiarity. Even members of the judiciary were known to use it in court. The prosecutor would not. The professional men were, the prosecutor’s belief, essential crutches for criminality. They cared for the legal matters that were the inevitable cost of a career in organised crime: they opened the bank accounts and transferred the laundered monies; they placed investments and advised on what stock should be bought or sold; they were the politicians paid handsomely for access to contracts. Sometimes, if he walked alone and unknown in the darkness and thought deeply, the prosecutor considered that the professionals might indeed be the ones who pulled the strings and the clan leaders were mere marionettes. This lawyer disgusted him, but was clever. Many man-hours had been devoted in the Palace of Justice to bringing him before the courts. As yet they had failed.
‘What do you have for me?’
‘I must say also – I was this morning stopped in the street by a stranger. A message was given to me. I have this…’
From a frayed and scratched briefcase – a symbol of experience and also of humble poverty – a transparent sheath was taken. Not ‘poverty’. The lawyer would be worth, for his work with the Borelli clan, many tens of millions of euros – paid well because he served well. The meeting was in an interview room. There was a table, with an ashtray and, four chairs. Three walls were bare and one carried a framed portrait of the President of the Republic; it was minimalist and intended to offer no comfort. The sheath was passed across the table. He saw a photograph printed on the top half of the page, and under it was the handwritten message: