As night falls he buys some cheap, end-of-day bread and takes it to Pino and Luna. Luna slices it, rubs it with a finger dipped in olive oil and then the open side of a cut chilli pepper. They eat it with mashed fava beans and dark green chicory, and only water to drink, and Ettore tells them about Federico. Luna stops chewing, and can’t seem to swallow. They have stools to sit on, but no table. They eat from cracked bowls in their laps, with their feet tucked beneath them like schoolchildren; tall Pino hunched and folded with the ease of long habit. He has worked all day and has the smell of hard labour on him, and he eats ravenously, regardless of what is said. But when his bowl is empty he clears his throat.
‘When you find him, I’ll go with you,’ he says. Ettore shakes his head, puzzled. Pino always avoids violence.
‘No. Why get involved? It’s not your fight – keep your hands clean.’
‘I saw him, Ettore,’ says Pino, and his face shows his revulsion. ‘I saw what he was doing to Chiara. What he would have done, if I hadn’t put my boot in his guts. A man like that is like a mad dog – the duty falls on all of us to put him down. Or do what? Wait for him to attack my Luna next?’ He casts a glance at his young wife, whose eyes have gone wide in alarm at her husband’s words. ‘Besides,’ says Pino, taking Luna’s hand. ‘We loved Livia too.’
‘We did, poor Livia,’ says Luna. She looks at Ettore. ‘You must keep our Pino safe. You must.’
‘Manzo will be by himself. Helpless, like the women he preys on. We will be four strong when we take him,’ he says.
‘Yes. But still,’ says Luna.
Ettore watches the house on Via Garibaldi all through the night; tucked out of sight in a doorway. He sees a gang of blackshirts about their work, armed with pistols and cudgels, but Federico is not with them. The night is long, and mild, and with his eyes fixed on the street door Ettore’s mind wanders, skirting the weird and hazy world between sleep and waking. His thoughts turn into dreams and then jolt back into reality, over and over. He has Chiara in his arms; he is in the trenches at Isonzo; he is listening to Livia and the sweet, slight lisp when she spoke; he is a boy, hunting fossils in the dry stone walls; he is falling into the darkness of the hell mouth at Castellana. He’s made of stone, but at the same time he’s as weightless as the air. He’s smoke and smuts, blowing in the breeze, and Chiara is a dream he once had – a dream of longing, of another life completely.
At daybreak on Friday morning Ettore walks back into the old streets of Gioia and hands the pistol to Gianni, who takes it without a word. Then he goes to the church of Sant’Andrea, lies down on a pew and wraps his arms across his face to block out the light. He sleeps for hours, and when he wakes is on his feet at once, restless and hungry. It’s dark when Benedetto comes to find him; evening but not yet night. Ettore is in the bar opposite the castle, watching men argue and lose money at zecchinetta, when Livia’s oldest brother puts his head through the door, catches his eye and nods. Ettore’s pulse triples; he has to force himself to walk, not run.
‘Ready?’ says Benedetto. ‘We got lucky – Manzo was walking back towards town, all alone. Gianni was coming back from Vallarta with some others and saw him. He sent a friend back to tell me. He was walking out in the middle of nowhere, all alone! I think God must want him dead, too.’
‘He must do. Why walk, and not drive?’
‘Who knows – who cares? You want to get a knife? A club?’
‘Gianni has the gun? Then no,’ he says, when Benedetto nods. ‘But I must…’ Ettore pauses, about to say he must fetch Pino. In truth he doesn’t want his friend anywhere near this – it will be brutal, bloody. It will be everything Pino is not, and with anything like this there’s risk. There’s danger for all of them, of being discovered, of there being reprisals. But ignoring Pino’s request would be an insult to him, and the danger is small if they are smart about it. ‘I must go and bring Pino. He was fond of Livia. He wants to help.’
‘Come on then, and be quick,’ says Benedetto. Spoken sotto voce, his words sound like the grinding of rocks. ‘I’ll go with you.’
They walk out in darkness, along the south road, and turn off about three kilometres short of Leandro’s farm to go across country. Climbing over walls, trudging across stubble fields, stumbling over rocks. They don’t speak. Benedetto carries a club over his shoulder, as casually as a work tool; Pino and Ettore have empty hands, and none of them speak. Then out of the darkness looms the huge, pale shape of a straw rick, three metres high, waiting to be taken to a barn. With a slight misgiving, Ettore realises that they’re on dell’Arco land. Paola will be furious. But at the foot of the rick is Gianni’s dark, triumphant form, and in the light from his lantern, face down on the ground at his feet, is Federico. Hog-tied, hands to ankles behind his back, a filthy old rag stuffed into his mouth and a cut above one eyebrow oozing blood. Ettore feels Pino hesitate – a hung moment between steps, a quiet intake of breath. He turns to his friend.
‘If you want to go, it’s no shame,’ he says. ‘You should. This is not your problem.’ Pino swallows, and shakes his head. Gianni and Benedetto watch him steadily. Then Gianni almost smiles. He gives Federico a poke with the toe of his boot.
‘Stick around. Haven’t you ever seen old women watching a riot from up on a balcony? Gossiping and chewing their gums? You can be like one of them,’ he says, and Benedetto grins.
‘I’ll stay. For Livia,’ says Pino. Ettore clasps his shoulder briefly. Then all eyes turn to the figure on the ground.
Federico’s eyes are mad with anger; he’s breathing hard, kicking up the dust under his nose. When he sees Ettore he tries to say something, tries to spit out the rag.
‘I think he has something to say to you, Ettore,’ says Gianni, crouching over Federico like a hunter over a kill.
‘Let’s hear it,’ says Ettore. Gianni shrugs, reaches around and pulls the rag from Federico’s mouth. Benedetto lifts the club down off his shoulder and rests it in the palm of his hand. His eyes never leave his sister’s killer.
‘You!’ says Federico. He tries to spit but has no saliva. ‘So this is because I felt up your English whore? Are you in love with her?’ he asks scathingly.
‘I made a promise, nearly every day for the past seven months,’ says Ettore. ‘Do you know what the promise was?’ He feels calm now; the unnatural calm on the far side of crisis. Federico struggles against his ties, breathing through clenched teeth, saying nothing. ‘I promised my fiancée I would find out who attacked her, and left her to die, and that that man would burn.’ As he says this Ettore realises why Gianni has brought them to this straw rick – he realises that Livia’s brother has the same idea. He crouches down, speaks close to Federico’s ear. ‘You’re a dead man, Federico Manzo. How does it feel?’
‘You’re all dead. You’re all dead!’ Federico shouts, nearly incoherent with anger.
‘How many have you raped? How many killed?’ says Benedetto. Federico grins hysterically.
‘Hundreds! Fucking hundreds! I’ve had more pussy than any one of you limp-dicks will ever have. You’d better kill me, cafoni! You’d better kill me or you’ll all die, and your families with you!’
‘Don’t worry,’ Benedetto chuckles. ‘We’re going to.’
‘So I had your sweetheart, did I?’ Federico leers at Ettore. ‘Fucked her to death, did I? I wish I’d known she was yours. I’d have taken more time on her.’
‘Son of a whore!’ Pino exclaims. ‘Can’t you hear yourself? What kind of animal are you?’