Cry Wolf Read online

  She heard a crash in the living room as a mirror or a picture hit the tiles. She looked in the direction of her own bedroom. Her husband was holding on to the doorpost like a drowning man, his face pale and drawn, as if his heart was acting up. Then she was hustled aside as Federico was taken out in pyjamas and bare feet, a man shouting into his ear, ‘Where are the guns? Where’ve you hidden them?’

  Federico shouted back: ‘What guns? What the fuck is this?’

  Before she blacked out again, Signora Donati saw her husband sink down on his knees, his hands grasping at his chest and throat.

  05.38

  Riccardo Bucci was being led from the house, hands cuffed behind his back.

  Out in the street he saw an army of men in black with masks and machine guns, the waiting carabinieri car, the neighbours who had come out of their houses to see what was going on. As someone put a hand on his head and forced him down, pushing him into the back of the car, he tried to count how many armed men there were.

  Next thing, he was in the car, a masked man sitting on either side of him.

  ‘Are you Martians?’ Riccardo asked. ‘Oi, is this a film?’

  05.48

  The cars and vans were travelling in convoy towards the maximum-security prison. There were no sirens or flashing lights, but the vehicles were moving fast, overtaking the sparse local traffic on the road at that time of the morning.

  Overhead, a helicopter flew low, following their progress.

  The other three helicopters were still hovering over the town. Then an order must have come through, because they suddenly sheered away, heading south, back to where they had come from, disappearing as three black dots behind the distant hills.

  Four suspects had been arrested without a shot being fired. One hundred and five men had taken part in the assault. None of the armed forces had been injured.

  Operation ‘Lone Wolves’ had been a success.

  06.30

  General Corsini and Magistrate Catapanni left the carabinieri station.

  Outside, members of the local press were waiting in the street, firing off questions as the two men climbed into the chauffeur-driven car that would take them to the prison where the suspects were being held for interrogation. The general made a brief statement, knowing that the national press and television crews would already be on the road, heading north.

  ‘There will be a press conference later this morning in Perugia …’

  ‘What’s it all about, General?’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  General Corsini held up his hand for silence. ‘A victory for law and order,’ he said. ‘Full details and press sheets will be released at midday. You are all invited to attend.’

  FORTY

  19 September – 10.30

  Raniero was driving.

  ZÌ Luigi filled the passenger seat, his face set hard like a widow at her husband’s funeral. He hadn’t said a word so far, slumped in the corner, staring morosely out of the window, as if he blamed Raniero for what had needed to be done.

  There was no going back on it, that was for sure.

  Zì Luigi had said it himself – Corrado was a timebomb ready to go off. If he had spoken with a magistrate, they’d all have been blown away.

  Raniero pushed the button, lowered the car window, lit a cigarette then threw the car into the next bend. Driving up was Zì Luigi’s idea. A fucking wake was what he wanted.

  ‘We’ll get his stuff, Raniè. His sister, Lisa, should have his stuff.’

  ‘If that’s what you want, Zì Luì,’ Raniero had said.

  They were heading up the mountain to the farmhouse, as if they had nothing better to do. If Corrado’s sister had any sense at all she’d be glad to be shut of him.

  As they pulled into the farmyard, the hens scattered before the wheels. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t kill those fucking birds. Raniero wondered what the Zì would want to do with them. The thought of a crate of hens travelling south with Corrado’s coffin made him want to laugh out loud. Instead, he pulled on the handbrake, then turned a serious face to Zì Luigi. ‘This is it,’ he said solemnly.

  Zì Luigi ignored him, pushed the door open, got out of the car and climbed the short stone stairway up to the front door of the farm like a man who was going to the gallows.

  Raniero trailed behind, then stood to face him by the front door.

  Zì Luigi’s mouth went tight. He laid his hand on Raniero’s arm. ‘Thanks, Raniè,’ he said, real quiet.

  Thanks, Raniè? He had never heard that word on Zì Luigi’s lips.

  ‘Let me show you the way,’ Raniero said, pushing the door open. ‘He never bothered to lock the place. Corrado wasn’t afraid of no one.’

  They stepped into the gloomy interior. One of the windows was open, thank Christ, so the place didn’t smell too bad. The remains of Corrado’s last meal lay decomposing on the table – half a loaf had turned black, while a lump of cheese was green and black, crawling with maggots.

  ‘They didn’t give him the time to wash the plates before they took him off.’

  Raniero pointed to an empty coffee cup, a curling rind of orange peel, the stub of a cigar. ‘At least he finished his dinner in peace,’ he said with a shrug.

  Zì Luigi stood in the doorway like an unwelcome guest.

  Raniero turned to face him. ‘He’d be glad to know you’ve come to pay your last respects,’ he said. ‘He really would.’

  Zì Luigi took a couple of steps forward.

  ‘It reminds me of the place where he was born,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘Identical, more or less. Thirteen of them – mother, father, grandma, ten kids. Corrado was the fifth of the litter. All of them dead now, except for Lisa. Just one big room … They ate there, slept there, sat around the fire together at night. A door like that one, too,’ he pointed to the far end of the room, ‘leading to the outhouse where they kept the cows and pigs.’

  Raniero pulled a chair away from the table and offered it to Zì Luigi.

  The Zì sat down and shook his head.

  ‘You didn’t know Corrado like me,’ he said.

  Raniero pulled out another chair, dusted it off. He didn’t want to ruin his suit. Still, there were more important things to clean up here than a pair of costly trousers. He sat down, wondering where to start.

  ‘You raised him out of the dirt, Zì. You made Corrado what he was.’

  He’d said the right thing evidently, because Zì Luigi let go of the breath he’d been holding down inside himself with a loud sigh.

  Raniero piled it on. ‘Corrado Formisano. Dead-Eye Dick …’

  Zì Luigi nodded. ‘A loaded Magnum, that’s what he was. You just had to point him in the right direction. No need to tell him twice what needed doing. Not then, anyway.’ He raised his hand, waved it in front of his face. ‘And talk about creative …’

  Raniero nodded.

  ‘He rubbed them out with passion, skill …’

  ‘Still,’ cut in Raniero, ‘hacking off a wolf’s head, putting it on public show, dropping us in the shit like that … God knows where that idea came from.’

  Zì Luigi passed his hand over the chequered plastic tablecloth as if he was wiping it clean. ‘Prison burns some people up inside.’

  Raniero looked around the room. It looked like a prison cell before you stuck your pin-ups on the wall. A single unmade bed in the corner, a portable TV on top of the fridge, an ancient wood-burning stove in the corner.

  Raniero recalled the first time he had met Corrado. Out at Zì Luigi’s country villa twenty years before. Corrado Formisano with a long-nosed pistol, showing off to Raniero and the other kids. He’d clipped a bunch of grapes off a vine twenty feet away with a single shot, then held the fruit up like a trophy. He’d been a good-looking man back then, robust and heavy, with a head of curly black hair. The day they’d brought Landini’s body up, he recalled the surprise he had felt. Corrado seemed to have shrunk, his curls tinged with grey like a fresh coating of
frost. Maximum-security prison had crushed the life out of him, and getting out hadn’t made things any easier. Far from home, and only one bungled job to show for it, Corrado must have known that he was on the downward slope.

  Raniero raised his palms in the air.

  ‘You did the right thing, Zì. Corrado had to go.’

  ‘He lost his head …’ Luigi murmured. ‘Lost it totally.’

  Raniero lit a cigarette, didn’t say a word.

  ‘I did right by him,’ Zì Luigi was saying. ‘It’s the first rule, Raniero: never forget the soldiers. Not when they go to jail, not even when they end up in the cemetery. They’ve got wives, kids, responsibilities …’

  Raniero blew out smoke, his patience stretched, sitting there listening to the old wanker when there were more important things to do. There was nothing more to be said, in any case.

  ‘Don’t let it get to you, Zì,’ he said, putting an end to the weepy pantomime. ‘It’s water down the toilet.’

  Zì Luigi stood up and stared at him. ‘Once the mud settles,’ he said, ‘we’ll put the pieces back together.’

  Raniero bit his tongue to stop himself from saying something nasty. Some people didn’t know when to keep their gobs shut. He’d have given the Rolex he was wearing to hear the old man say, just once: I blew it, Raniè, I really fucked it up. Maybe I should go and have a nice lie-down and let you young lads do the business. If he’d said that, Raniero would have respected him. Instead, he blamed it all on Corrado. Raniero shook his head. Zì Luigi had been in charge. The operation was his. If it got fucked up – if someone fucked it up – it was his fault.

  Zì Luigi was moving round the room, picking things up, putting them down again. Then he reached the fridge and stopped dead in his tracks. He opened the door, took a look inside, turned to Raniero and said: ‘If we eat now, we won’t have to stop till we’re south of Naples. There’s eggs, tomatoes, onions … I don’t know about you, Raniè, but I’m starving.’

  Raniero couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘It’s a custom in the village me and Corrado come from,’ Zì Luì was saying, ‘to have a bite to eat in the house of the late departed. There’s three chairs as well – two for us and one for Corrado.’

  A picnic with a ghost, Raniero thought.

  ‘Let me do it, Zì,’ he said. ‘Don’t want you messing up your best suit, do we?’

  Zì Luigi sat down like a sack of potatoes, drumming his fingers on the tabletop.

  ‘I was hoping you’d offer,’ he said. ‘I ain’t never cooked a thing in my life. I always had women do that stuff for me. Where did you learn, anyway?’

  ‘In jail,’ Raniero said. ‘What about an omelette? In honour of Corrado.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Zì Luigi said, smiling almost. ‘With what?’

  ‘Onions?’ Raniero suggested.

  Zì Luigi clicked his tongue against his teeth. ‘Perfect.’

  Raniero spotted a bottle of red wine that was already open, the cork pushed back to stop it turning to vinegar.

  ‘Just think, Zì,’ he said as he laid two glasses out on the table, ‘he’d be chuffed to know you’re drinking his wine, and in his house, too.’

  ‘Did he suffer, do you think?’ Zì Luigi said, a grimace on his face.

  He was acting brave now. He hadn’t wanted to know when Raniero phoned to tell him that the thing was done and the danger was past. There’d be nothing in the papers in the days to come. The authorities held back on details about prison deaths.

  ‘It was over before he knew it,’ Raniero said. ‘I swear on the Holy Virgin.’

  He was beginning to enjoy himself, working up an appetite now. He poured some olive oil into a frying pan and lit the gas with his lighter. He set an onion on the chopping block, took a knife from the draining board and tried the cutting edge with his thumb.

  ‘This should be sharp enough,’ he said. He chopped the onions and threw them into the pan. Then he cracked an egg against the edge of the sink, dropped it into a bowl and threw the shell in the sink.

  ‘If you’re hungry, Zì, let’s make it four,’ he said, cracking three more, whisking the eggs then adding salt and paper. ‘The milk’s off, but who cares?’

  Soon, the onions began to splutter and spit.

  ‘Don’t burn them,’ Luigi warned him, moving towards the cooker.

  ‘Would I do that, Zì?’

  Raniero turned to meet him, knife in hand.

  Luigi looked up and Raniero pushed the knife hard into his throat, ducking to avoid the spray of blood then giving the blade a couple of twists to drive it home, the way you did when you were tightening a screw.

  When he felt the muscles clench around the blade, he pulled it out.

  Zì Luigi was bug-eyed, staring at him, the hole in his throat making a noise like the onions sizzling in the frying pan.

  He fell down on his knees, and Raniero watched him.

  A strange smell was coming from the cooker. Raniero turned towards it, meaning to shut off the gas. He saw the red stuff mixed in with the onions. Tomatoes? he thought. He hadn’t bothered with tomatoes.

  Zì Luigi’s blood was frying in the oil, the red spots turning black, swelling up in bubbles until they popped. As Raniero shut off the gas, he heard the body hit the tiles behind him.

  ‘You ruined my fucking omelette,’ he said.

  He glanced at Zì Luigi as he dropped the knife into the sink, ran the tap and washed the blood from his right hand beneath the ice-cold water. Then he bent down and slipped the pistol from the holster under Zì Luigi’s left armpit. The grip was warm, tacky with blood.

  It was the silver-grey Bersa 380 that he had always fancied. He held it under the tap by the trigger guard, saw the blood turn pink, then pale, then vanish down the drain. He stuck the gun in the back of his belt, felt a trickle of cold water running down between his buttocks and hoped it wouldn’t stain his trousers.

  Then he spotted the blood on the shoulder of his jacket. Fuck! Another good suit gone.

  His phone was sitting on the table by the wine glass. He picked it up, made a call and heard a voice he recognized.

  ‘You got it sorted, Raniè?’

  ‘All sorted, Don Michè.’

  FORTY-ONE

  19 September – 11.00

  Sebastiano Cangio was halfway up the mountain road.

  He and Marzio had been taking turns to feed the animals since the arrest of Corrado Formisano the week before. It was the state of the cow that worried them the most. Unless she was milked every day she might develop mastitis, and that would do her permanent damage.

  He turned on the radio for the mid-morning news. The speaker was reading an item about the US president, who was due to land in Rome that afternoon for a three-day visit, including an audience with the Pope. Next came news of an explosion in Turin; a family of six had died when their apartment had blown up after a gas leak. It was the usual smattering of bland official press releases mixed in with bleak, private tragedies. He didn’t bother to switch the radio off, but he wasn’t paying it much attention.

  Then the speaker said something which caught his attention.

  ‘… Umbria. Four men were arrested in the early hours of the morning. General Arturo Corsini, head of the national Carabinieri Special Forces squad in Rome, revealed that armed officers had taken into custody four suspects who are believed to belong to a major terrorist organization after a surprise swoop at dawn … ’

  Cangio stood on the brake and the car skidded to the side of the road.

  The Legend?

  He slammed his hand on the dashboard and shouted at the radio.

  ‘Terrorists?’

  Had some stupid journalist got the news twisted? The Legend was watching the ’Ndrangheta in Umbria, keeping tabs on criminal infiltration into the area.

  ‘… The suspects are being held in the local maximum-security prison. Further details are expected later this morning in the course of a press conference in Perugia—’r />
  ‘What the fuck are you saying?’ Cangio shouted at the radio.

  The radio seemed to answer him back. ‘That is the end of the news.’

  He rolled down the window.

  His head was spinning.

  He gasped for air like a fish out of water.

  FORTY-TWO

  19 September – midday

  The conference room was packed.

  Frescoed nymphs danced on the ceiling high above the assembly. Journalists from most of the national newspapers filled the seats, smartphones, iPads and mini-recorders in their hands, eager to be in on the scoop. A dozen television stations had sent along their camera crews and top reporters. Mingling with the press were members of the regional government, the local police, armed forces, members of President Pignatti’s personal staff plus a lot more people who shouldn’t have been there at all – people who had seen the fuss in the entrance hall and wanted to know what it was all about.

  Still, a crowd was a crowd.

  At twelve o’clock the spotlights came on in a blaze and the cameras were rolling. General Corsini leaned close to the microphone, tapped it in the time-honoured manner and began the proceedings.

  ‘As most of you know, a major carabiniere operation took place at dawn this morning under my command. Four suspects have been arrested, and they are undergoing interrogation at this moment regarding terrorist attacks which have taken place in the region in recent months. A list of their names will be handed out at the end of this session.

  ‘“Lone Wolves”, the codename for this particular operation, was chosen to indicate the singular nature of a terrorist cell that I have been tracking for quite some time. To avoid surveillance they took to the woods and mountains to plan their criminal activities, sweeping into town to launch their attacks. As you all know, important reconstruction work has begun in the province. While much has been done to alleviate the suffering of those who lost the most in the major earthquake of 2009, rebuilding has not gone forward as swiftly as was hoped on account of opposition from certain quarters, notably those who condemn modernization and redevelopment out of hand. In most cases, the opposition has been vocal – genuine “environmentalists”, let’s call them, but there has also been a disturbing undercurrent of vandalism, malicious damage against property, and intimidation aimed at persons in positions of authority, notably the delivery of explosive devices by way of the public post.’ He waved his hand in the direction of Donatella Pignatti, though he didn’t mention the president by name. ‘While purporting to be nature lovers, guardians of local history and so on, these individuals have crossed the criminal line, using threats to further their idealistic ends. Acts of violence and subversion cannot, and will not, be condoned by the State. Criminal behaviour will always be subject to the direst repression within the limits of the law.’