The wall was on a slight up-slope, so that the van rebounded from it a little way and drifted back out onto the road, releasing Dieter to fall like a broken toy to the ground. A moment of silence, as if the world was holding its breath. Then an alarm began wailing and people began screaming and running, terrified that Cesco was some crazed terrorist come to mow them down. He caught a whiff of fuel. It became so pungent that it roused him from his daze. He fumbled at his seat belt to release it, then threw open his door and almost fell out, staggering a safe distance away before collapsing onto his back on a small patch of grass, heaving in the fresh night air. Sirens sounded on every side. He raised his head as three squad cars converged from different directions.
If only they’d been this quick out at Taddeo’s.
‘It was him,’ yelled a woman, when the first squad car stopped beside her. ‘He drove that poor man straight into that wall.’
Two officers advanced upon him, hands on their holsters. Still lying on his back, he raised his arms above his head. A policewoman gestured for him to turn onto his front. He did so. They cuffed his hands behind his back, then hauled him to his feet and over to their car. More witnesses stepped forward. Flashes popped. A crude cordon was set up with yellow tape. An ambulance arrived. Its paramedics went to check on Dieter before returning to look at Cesco.
‘How is he?’ asked Cesco.
‘How do you think?’ retorted the paramedic. He treated Cesco professionally enough all the same, asking questions to assess concussion, then cleaning, stitching and dressing the gash on his thigh, before applying cream to the rope burns on his throat and chin. Then he assured the policewoman that Cesco was fit to be taken to the station and interrogated to her heart’s content. He stared out the window as they set off, unable to contain his smile at the sight of Dieter being zipped into a body bag.
‘Didn’t like him much, huh?’ asked the policewoman.
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Cesco.
‘That poor bastard you just murdered. Guess you didn’t like him much.’
‘I was going for the brake. My foot slipped.’
‘Hands slipped on the steering wheel too, I suppose? How unlucky.’
‘Stranger to you, was he?’ asked the driver. ‘Or did you know him?’
‘We’d met.’
‘Christ!’ laughed the woman. ‘He’s only gone and admitted it.’
‘Hope he likes prison food. He’ll be eating plenty.’
They passed a sign to the university hospital. He knew where he was now. They must have been all the way out near Capua. They drove on another five minutes to a police station, parked in an empty bay by the doors. People in reception watched sullenly as he was swept by them to an interview room with white plastic chairs and a wooden table bolted to the floor. They undid the cuff round his left wrist and clipped it instead to a steel ring on the table. Then they left him to it.
A camera on brackets whirred as it zoomed or panned, letting him know they were watching. Mind games, no doubt, intended to unnerve. He closed his eyes and used the time to rest and recuperate a little. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. The door banged open and two burly men came in. The younger of them was dressed sharply in new trainers, cream jeans and a brown leather jacket; the older in a shabby dark grey suit and matching brogues. But their stolid, implacable faces were a perfect match: the kind of men who made a virtue of their toughness, who wanted you to know they weren’t in the market for your bullshit. The elder checked his watch, spoke the time and date. Evidently the room was miked for sound. Then he spread his hands and invited Cesco to tell all. Cesco began by explaining how he’d found Taddeo Santoro murdered earlier that evening, and how he’d called the police only to be abducted before they could arrive.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ said leather jacket disgustedly. ‘Enough with the fairy tales.’
‘We should find him a frog,’ said his mate. ‘See what happens when they kiss.’
‘It’s the truth,’ said Cesco. ‘You have phones, don’t you? Check it out.’
‘You drove a man into a wall. You pulped him like a food mixer. This bullshit about your foot slipping—’
‘It’s not bullshit,’ said Cesco, rising painfully from his seat.
‘The fuck you doing?’ demanded leather jacket.
‘Showing you.’ Even with one hand cuffed to the table, he managed to undo his trousers and pull them down over his thigh. Then he peeled back the dressing to show them where Dieter had nicked him with his saw. Thanks to the paramedic’s liberal use of iodine and antiseptic cream, it looked far worse than it felt. ‘You try driving a van with your leg like that.’
‘You shouldn’t have been driving at all,’ said the older man grudgingly.
‘I had people shooting at me,’ said Cesco, doing his trousers back up, ‘and you expect me to observe the Highway Code?’
‘I expect you not to commit murder. Is that too much to ask?’
‘I’m telling you what happened. I’ve given you the names of people who can verify it. Not my fault you won’t call them.’
They moved their chairs a little further apart, so that he could only see one of them at a time. It was clearly designed to make him feel uncomfortable, and it worked a treat. They fired alternate questions, switching themes to make him contradict himself or otherwise trip up. The adrenaline drained inexorably. He felt exhausted, guilty and afraid. When all was said and done, it was true. He’d driven a man into a wall. In front of witnesses too.
Finally, they’d had enough. They left the room to confer. Ten minutes passed. Leather jacket came back in alone. ‘On your feet,’ he said.
‘I can go?’
He laughed in genuine amusement. ‘You killed a man in cold blood tonight. You’ll be lucky if you ever go anywhere again.’
Romeo Izzo was woken by the buzzing of his phone to find that he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He had a crick in his neck. He rubbed it with one hand even as he grabbed his phone. A man began talking rapidly, but he was still too addled with sleep and wine to take it in – not helped by his TV still being on, two women trying to flog him some gaudy-looking bracelet on a shopping channel. He turned it off, slapped himself on the cheek and asked the man to start again.
His name was Lorenzo Ucello, it turned out. He was a detective in the Polizia di Stato out in Afragola. Colleagues of his had taken a man named Cesco Rossi into custody earlier that evening, following a fatal road traffic accident. He and a colleague had just done his interview. He’d spun them the strangest story and given them Izzo’s name to verify. They’d ignored it at first, putting it down as the usual bullshit, but enough pieces of his account had now checked out that they’d decided to follow up.
‘You have him, then?’ asked Izzo groggily. ‘You have Rossi in custody?’
‘Yes. That’s why I’m calling.’
Izzo rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘I need to see him. I need to talk to him.’ But even he could hear himself slurring.
‘How about the morning?’ suggested Ucello kindly. ‘He’ll still be here, believe me. And we could use a break this end too.’
‘Good. Good.’ He sat back down again. ‘Maybe that would be wise. Give me your address. I’ll be there first thing.’ He took his details, finished the call and sat there with his head in his hands for a few more moments, trying to work out what it all meant, not just for Rossi and their investigation, but for tomorrow’s evacuation too. But his brain was mush. He was too tired to care. He took his glass to the sink to throw the dregs away. Then he rinsed out his mouth with water from the cold tap and dragged himself to bed.