When, on the afternoon of November 1, he went in person to Acting Prosecutor Cosenza to complain, he found he was the one being asked for a shoulder to cry on.

  ‘I read it, Chief Superintendent, I read it. And I agree with you that it’s first-class material, and that it would help our investigation enormously if we had the telephone number of this Lion. Military Intelligence must have it, because they did the phone taps. I’ve tried as best I could, but haven’t got anywhere. Unfortunately, as you well know, I have no power over the Secret Service - they don’t have to answer for their activities to any Prosecutor’s Department. So I’m in the same position as you, neither more nor less. All I can do is carry on with what’s left of the investigation, try and find Sandro Caruso and Leonardo Parisi, and hope that sooner or later Military Intelligence either condescend to return our calls, or get down to work on their own account and hand us the Lion on a silver platter. After all, what’s on those tapes is their province. They have to do something, don’t they?’

  ‘Do you have any idea how long they could take to translate and transcribe the tapes, put the material in order and work out a plan of action?’

  ‘I know, but what can we do? Patience is a virtue, they say, so we just have to be patient, Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘All this patience makes us look weak, when we should be strong.’

  ‘We’re not weak. The State isn’t weak. Don’t forget the arrest of Caputo. That took hard work and - yes - patience. In the long run, the State wins, Chief Superintendent. We just have to wait.’

  Ferrara nodded and took his leave.

  Let’s hope you’re right, he thought as he went out, but there was something very strange about the fact that the true head of the Mafia, after sitting pretty for more than twenty-five years, should have been captured at precisely that moment. He didn’t like to think that the Lion had had a hand in that arrest, too - although this Lion was certainly shaping up as the likeliest successor to Caputo, and seemed quite willing to provoke a war to get there.

  No, he didn’t like to think that.

  But he did.

  5

  On Friday November 2, All Souls’ Day, Chief Superintendent Ferrara decided not to go straight to Headquarters.

  ‘The Porte Sante cemetery,’ he ordered the driver. ‘And stop on the way at the first decent florist’s you find.’

  The cemetery, adjoining the Romanesque church of San Miniato al Monte to the south of the city, on the other side of the Arno, now houses only prominent figures or those who have a family vault. Anna Giulietti, being of an old and noble family, had her last resting place there.

  He found Anna’s elderly mother already at the graveside, supported by a nurse. He greeted her, but, when she lifted the black veil from her face and he saw her eyes brimming with tears, he decided not to pursue the conversation. He placed his wreath on the grave and for a long time stood at a respectful distance from the old woman, in silence.

  He remembered the beauty, in every sense, of his colleague, adviser, friend - and what else? He was still asking himself that question, and he still had not found an answer. He recalled her intelligence, her sense of duty, but also her unstinting loyalty, which sometimes led her to bend the rules just for him, even though respect for the rules was her life blood. They had fought and won many battles together, and she had fully deserved her recent appointment as acting prosecutor. How tragic that she had had so little time to enjoy it, and that she had paid such a high price for it!

  He made a silent vow to her that he would not rest until he had avenged her.

  Whatever it took.

  When he realised that her mother was throwing him a discreet glance from time to time, he felt embarrassed, wondering if by any chance she had read her daughter’s diary. But it wasn’t embarrassment that made him take a step back to avoid her gaze.

  It was to avoid her seeing his tears. For a man to cry might not be dignified, but for the head of the Squadra Mobile it would have been a scandal.

  He put those tears down, not so much to grief, as to age.

  More than six hundred miles away, Pippo Catalfano, district boss of Castelvetrano, was on his way to a very different kind of cemetery, although he did not know it yet. Nor did he know that he would have to make a stop along the way, a stop he had never imagined even in his worst nightmares.

  His day had got off to a very good start.

  Just before nine in the morning, his former lieutenant Gino La Torre, whom he had given up for dead, suddenly turned up at his house. He made a great fuss of him, treating him almost as the prodigal son. He had him tell of his many adventures escaping first from Ferrara’s men, then from Caputo’s, the latter a lot more lethal than the Sicilian police - he’d had no trouble evading them all these years! They both laughed over this, and then Catalfano told La Torre all about the epic meeting at the Banca Polpolare di Montepellegrino, how it had been mediated by the Basilisk, who was Caputo’s man but impartial, because he was first and foremost a shrewd businessman, which was what a good mediator had to be. He had immediately understood which way the wind was blowing, and had told him that Caputo’s days were numbered. Things were changing at last, even in Sicily - they would soon be sorted out, and then the two of them, under the guidance of the Lion and the Basilisk, would be in charge.

  ‘There’s a world to be won here in Sicily,’ he had concluded, beaming. ‘And you’ll be with us at the top of the heap, Gino!’

  Then he suggested that they should celebrate his return by going out and having a slap-up fish dinner, just like the good old days, and La Torre, who was down at heel, gratefully accepted. But first, he said, perhaps Pippo could go with him to his hideout to pick up his few things. It was a cave in the mountains, no more than eighteen miles to the north.

  Pippo Catalfano calculated that he could easily get back in time. He gave instructions for his men - some thirty of them - to meet him at the restaurant, and set off his with his restored right arm in the direction Gino La Torre indicated.

  A mile or two after the exit from the autostrada, as they were starting to climb up into the mountains along a secondary road, the driver tensed at the sight of a car in the rear-view mirror, following some distance behind. The next time he looked, he saw that it had moved closer, and that there were two cars now. The third time he looked, there were three.

  He put his foot on the accelerator. ‘We’re being followed, boss.’

  Catalfano turned, and saw with dismay that he was right. He heard La Torre’s order in a firm voice, ‘Let them follow you. And slow down, don’t try to lose them.’

  When he turned round again, pale-faced, he saw Gino sitting there with a grim expression, a Colt in his right hand, pointed at him, and a Beretta in his left, held to the driver’s head.

  He said nothing, but started praying in silence.

  ‘Okay, now take the left-hand road when we get to the fork.’

  They travelled for a long time along almost deserted byroads, in a southerly direction, still followed by the three cars, now close behind, until they reached an area of open country near Agrigento, the sight of which made Catalfano shudder.

  On La Torre’s orders, the driver pulled up in front of a very high iron gate and sounded his horn. Immediately, the gate was opened. The car went through and all the way across a yard until it came to a brick building, where it stopped, as did the three cars behind it.

  La Torre made Pippo Catalfano get out. Sasà emerged from the first of the other cars, Molina from the second, and Don Pietro Uccelli from the third, each of them followed by three armed men.

  In total silence, they handcuffed Catalfano. With another pair of handcuffs, the driver was attached to the wheel of the car.

  They went inside the house.

  There were two rooms. One was very large and the other small and dark, with a toilet bowl barely visible in the light filtering in through a small window. In the larger room, amid crates of mineral water, jute sacks, ropes of various sizes and latex gloves like those used by surgeons, thirteen chairs had been placed in a circle, with a fourteenth chair in the middle.

  ‘You, there,’ Sasà ordered, nodding towards the chair in the middle.

  Pippo Catalfano was forced to sit down and his feet were tied. If he had still harboured some feeble hope, the sight of this place extinguished it completely. It was the warehouse, known only to a select few, nicknamed ‘the chamber of death’. He had always considered it a medieval relic of the old Mafia he had hoped to replace.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ he said, desperation giving him the strength to protest. ‘What have I ever done to you?’

  ‘Never mind that,’ La Torre said, enunciating his words clearly. ‘You must tell us where the traitors are.’

  ‘How am I supposed to do that? I don’t know, I’ve never seen them. Only the Basilisk that one time in Palermo, and you all saw him.’ He looked at each of them in turn, imploringly.

  ‘But you talk to him,’ La Torre insisted.

  ‘Yes. I told you.’

  ‘I know you did. But how do you talk to him? On the phone? Never in person?’

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘Give us the numbers, then,’ La Torre said, with a sardonic grin. ‘We’d be happy with that. We’re good people, and we like you.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ Catalfano said, and he quickly recited the numbers, which he knew by heart.

  Then Don Pietro Uccelli said, ‘Why did you betray us?’

  ‘I haven’t betrayed you, I—’ he began, but immediately broke off because he knew it was pointless. Instead, he implored, ‘Kill me with a single shot, don’t strangle me. And don’t dispose of my body. I’d like my children to be able to mourn over my grave.’

  No one replied.

  Pippo Catalfano closed his eyes.

  The men looked at each other, waiting for a signal that no one any longer had the authority to give.

  Then they all looked at Gino La Torre, investing him with the role for which Caputo, deep down, had already destined him.

  It was up to him to kill the boss of the Castelvetrano district and take his place.

  Gino walked up to him with a short rope in his hand, put it around his neck and started to squeeze, almost gently at first and then with increasing force.

  Catalfano let out a guttural moan, his face became swollen and purple, and his eyes rolled up. His body was shaken by spasms as if he were being given a series of electric shocks. The spasms grew more intense, and then slowly diminished in strength until the body was completely still.

  ‘Now if anyone wants to say goodbye they can,’ La Torre said, moving aside. It was the customary invitation to the others to pull the fatal rope if they so wished.

  In turn, each of those present did so.

  They put the body in a trunk and one of the Mafiosi, the youngest of them, poured in the contents of an entire drum of acid. Within a couple of hours there was nothing left of the body. When it was pure liquid, they emptied it in the garden, where it formed a black patch which would disappear the first time it rained.

  A second patch also marked the end of the unfortunate driver.

  6

  They had not yet put a tap on the Taliban’s phones, and the Squadra Mobile was running on empty, which drove Ferrara mad. There was no lack of activity, but because of the inexplicable difficulties he continued to encounter, he did not feel that his efforts were focused on the main objective. Was it his fault? he kept asking himself. But he did not see what else he could have done, and the impasse was certainly not down to lack of trying. Apart from his professional pride and his need to protect himself, there was also - and this mattered more than all the rest - the promise he had made over the grave of Anna Giulietti.

  To escape the sense of stagnation which he felt on the first floor of Headquarters, that Saturday he decided to go and see if the Carabinieri had any news for him.

  Major Alibrandi greeted him with the usual courtesy, even though he was very busy.

  The barracks was in a state of great excitement, but not for the reasons Ferrara would have liked. All the activity was connected with the Carabinieri’s participation in the Afghanistan operation, and Ferrara saw officers from other parts of the army and even other countries.

  The investigation into the Florence bombings seemed to have faded into the background, or even to have been forgotten entirely.

  Major Alibrandi confirmed his suspicions. ‘Now that all the main suspects have either died or disappeared, the case is practically closed as far as we’re concerned. We’ve alerted all our stations to keep an eye open for Leonardo Parisi and Sandro Caruso, but there’s nothing more we can do.’

  ‘But did you see the report I sent you on the phone taps, with the information on this man, the Lion?’

  ‘Yes, and I even talked to Acting Prosecutor Cosenza about it, but the ball’s out of our court now. It’s down to Military Intelligence, the Anti-Mafia Squad - and you, of course. Right now we have other fish to fry, believe me.’

  It was pointless to insist.

  Ferrara took his leave.

  ‘Goodbye, Chief Superintendent. Oh, by the way, Captain Somenti asked me to give you his regards if I saw you. You remember him, don’t you? I get the impression he really admires you.’

  ‘Why?’ Ferrara said, startled. ‘Have you seen him recently?’

  ‘Yes, of course, he’s in Florence. Officially, it’s to do with those phone taps you mentioned, and to see Ahmed Farah - who’s now got an armed escort, by the way, courtesy of the Florence bureau of Military Intelligence. But actually, trust me, the reason he’s here is much more personal. What do they say? Cherchez la femme!’

  Of course: Giulia Roversi! How come he had never thought of that?

  When he got back to the office, he tracked down her number and called her.

  The captain was with her.

  Taking advantage of the fine weather, they agreed to meet at the Caffè Rivoire in the Piazza della Signoria. Thanks to the long weekend, and the warm sun that bathed the statues and the facades of the old palaces with light, the square was swarming with the sounds and colours of cohorts of tourists. To Ferrara, it seemed like another world.

  ‘Actually, I’m not here officially,’ Somenti said. ‘Farah asked to see me, and besides, I wanted to talk to Giulia again. I really can’t get her out of my head. I think you’ve gathered that much, haven’t you? And then the Florence bureau called me to say they’d had instructions to provide Farah with an escort - not before time, if you ask me. Not that he took it well, you know what he’s like, but the orders come straight from the Ministry, so he’ll just have to make the best of a bad job.’

  ‘I agree with you. Ahmed is reckless, he needs protection.

  But to think, Captain, I spent so much time trying to get hold of you, and here you were, right here in Florence. If only I’d known!’

  ‘I’m sorry, they didn’t tell me. I’d have liked to come and see you, but I didn’t want to bother you. Why were you trying to get hold of me?’

  ‘Because of those phone intercepts. Have you read them?’

  ‘No. When I left, the originals of the tapes had just gone to the appropriate department for deciphering and transcription. But Farah told me. It’s truly astonishing, the number of terrorists who are taking root here. I immediately faxed my chief, and as soon as I get back I want to be one of the team that nabs them! We’ll dismantle the network piece by piece, don’t worry.’

  ‘Good. But look, I’m not trying to interfere or grab the glory for my squad, only I’d like the Lion for myself, if possible. There are a few things I’d like to ask him.’

  Captain Somenti smiled. ‘Yes, Farah told me all about the Mafia’s drugs for arms swap. I can understand your interest, especially after what happened. But he also told me you were already working on that angle.’

  ‘I would be if I could have the support of your people,’ Ferrara said. ‘Do you have any idea why your chief won’t return my calls?’

  Somenti smiled, not in the least surprised. ‘Who, Spadaro? He’s a waste of space, Chief Superintendent. He’s always out of the office, on some vague ‘mission’ or other. The only things he’s interested in are women and his pension. We all know that.’

  ‘So if I want help, you’re the one to ask.’

  ‘Anything I can do.’

  ‘What I’d like is the Lion’s number, if that’s not asking too much.’

  ‘Is that all? That’s easy.’

  ‘But I need it right away.’

  ‘It’ll have to be on Monday.’ He smiled again. ‘No point trying on a Saturday or a Sunday, even when there’s a war on. You know what government departments are like. I’m going back to Rome tomorrow. I’ll call you first thing Monday morning.’

  ‘OK,’ Ferrara said, resigned to the wait: he knew how these things worked.

  7

  Duranti had invited them again that Sunday.

  It had been less an invitation than an appeal, and it would have been impossible to refuse. Besides, the weather was wonderful, and Ferrara had nothing else to do while waiting both for Somenti’s phone call, and for the tap on the terrorists’ phones to be authorised, so naturally he accepted. Petra, who felt quite at home now in Zanego, was delighted and had taken advantage of the occasion to make an appointment with the architect. She had taken care to buy two bottles of the best Brunello di Montalcino available on the market to take Duranti.

  As it was a holiday weekend, the traffic was quite heavy. Along the winding exit that led from the mouth of the River Magra to Montemarcello, Ferrara, who was driving his elderly Mercedes, had to slow down several times behind cyclists out for a day trip, often riding side by side and taking up half a lane. And he was forced to a complete standstill when he reached the stretch of road looking out over the mouth of the Magra and the curve of the coast to beyond Viareggio, which was packed with cars that had stopped to let their passengers take photographs or simply admire the view. The air was so clear that you could see the distant outlines of Sardinia and even the island of Elba.

 

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