The bed in his chalet proves far too welcoming and, once he has locked the door, checked the windows are locked and taken a large kitchen knife out of the drawer and placed it by his bed, Ric lies down and waits for the arms of Hypnos to embrace him. Distant disco music drifts on the sulfurated air, but the slightest scratch of a beetle or the scraping of a bird jerks him rudely awake. Hypnos, the God of Sleep, is plying his trade elsewhere tonight and it is his sons, Morpheus, Phobetor and Phantasos, who come to lead him to a world of uneasy dreams.
This time the players wear no masks. They are no longer trying to deceive him; the time for deception is passed: Valeria is calling him in from the water and Marcello is urging him to hurry. Sandro is whispering words of warning and Old Nino offers him a glass of palm wine. The beautiful Giuliana is waiting outside his room, a room in which the little Commissario sits.
Ric wakes. It is night and the disco music has quieted. With the windows shut, it is unbearably hot in the room and the sheets are soaked with his sweat. There is a knock at the door.
He grabs the kitchen knife off the bedside table and clumsily feels his way to the door.
“Who is it?”
“Signor Ric, Kasim. Telefono per voi.”
Ric thinks quickly and decides it is not unreasonable to assume that it is Marcello who needs to speak to him. He dresses quickly, knowing he can’t turn the light on in case he is framed against it when he opens the door.
“Un momento, per favore, Kasim,” he replies. But instead of opening the door, he crosses the room and slips out through the sliding doors onto the patio.
The stars are out in force and he has no trouble finding his way quickly and quietly round the side.
Kasim, still dressed in his majordomo’s whites, is standing patiently outside his door. There is nobody with him.
“Hey, Kasim,” Ric calls softly.
The young man jumps and turns to face him. He is wide-eyed at the sight of the knife.
“Scusa, Kasim. Chi è?”
He shrugs, “Non lo so, Signor Ric.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Ric slips the knife in his back pocket and they walk down the lighted path towards the pool area. He watches the trees either side for the smallest movement.
“È tutto a posto, Kasim?”
Kasim keeps his head down, studying the path, “Si, signore. Everything is okay.”
The light in the office is on and the phone is lying out of its cradle.
Ciccio, wearing a dark grey suit and black shirt as if ready for a Saturday night dance, is standing by the desk.
“Sorry to disturb your sleeping, Ric,” he greets, smiling, “but it is time for us to leave.” His face looks thinner without his wrap-around sunglasses and the gun in his right hand lends him a pathetic, if threatening demeanour.
Ric studies the gun for a second, a semi-automatic fitted with a silencer. He throws Kasim a dull look, but notices the young man has a slight abrasion to his cheek. He lays his hand on Kasim’s shoulder and winces in sympathy. Not knowing the Italian, he tries to make up for his ignorance by employing a conciliatory tone, “I’m sorry Kasim, you shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of treatment on my behalf.”
Kasim tries to smile, though the mere thinning of his lips obviously pains him. “Non importa, Signor Ric.”
“Was that necessary?” Ric asks Ciccio.
He bridles, considering, “I am afraid it was. Young Kasim was reluctant to wake you. He required some encouragement.”
Ric squares up to the Sicilian, “Well, now you’ve got what you want, you can leave him out of this.”
Ciccio shrugs and grins, keeping the gun trained on Ric. “Sure, no problem. Young Kasim is staying here, but you, Ric, are coming with me.”
“Why not get it over with here? Now?”
“If I had wanted you dead, I would have shot you when you were walking down the path. But I think it would be better for you to come with me.”
“Where are we going, Ciccio?”
“Oh, for a short walk.” He waves the gun towards the door. “Now, Ric you walk in front of me and I will tell you where to go.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you will leave me no alternative other than to shoot you now… you and our young friend here. And, unless I am very much mistaken, you’d rather not go to your grave with Kasim’s blood on your conscience.”
“Conscience, Ciccio?” Ric replies, acidly. “Like I said earlier, that’s a commodity you don’t appear to possess.”
“Enough talking,” Ciccio growls, “start walking.”
Ric turns slowly and starts towards the door. As he does so, he is aware of movement behind him. He glances back just as Ciccio slams the butt of the pistol into the side of Kasim’s head. The young man moans, clutches his face and slides unconscious to the floor.
“You arsehole, Ciccio,” Ric mutters.
“Save your breath,” he replies, raising his pistol. “I didn’t enjoy that any more than our young friend here, but I cannot have him raising the alarm. We have a way to go and we have to be at the other side of the island by dawn. Now move.”
“Why don’t you take one of the cars parked out the front?”
Ciccio shoots Ric a threatening glance. “Because, my friend, there is a police launch at the harbour and there is only one road that joins Vulcanello with Vulcano. There is no way of knowing if they are looking for you or me, but I suspect they are looking for both of us and I have no intention of advertising our journey.”
They walk down the winding drive to the gate; Ric a couple of paces ahead of the shepherding Ciccio.
The gatekeeper is asleep on his chair in a pool of light cast by a tall street lamp. Insects buzz and flutter in and out of the glow. He stirs when he hears them approach and is naturally surprised to see two men taking a stroll in the small hours of the morning. But, not thinking there is any danger, he hauls himself off his seat and stretches his limbs as he waits for them to reach him.
“Move to the left and then stand completely still,” Ciccio murmurs.
Ric is not minded to either move or reply. He knows he has to keep testing his captor.
“Gallese, let me remind you if there is any trouble here, I will shoot you and this old man. Understand?” The menace in his voice suggests Ciccio will be as good as his word.
Ric nods and walks over to the left-hand side of the gate.
“Buonasera,” the gatekeeper grumbles, irritated that someone should interrupt his dozing. “Che stai facendo a quest’ora?”
But instead of replying to the old boy’s greeting, Ciccio simply walks straight up to him, pulls the gun out from his waistband and slugs the man.
He staggers back, raising his hands in protest.
Ciccio ignores his protest and delivers him a second blow which fells him on the spot.
“You don’t take any prisoners do you, Ciccio.”
He waves the gun at Ric, “I don’t have time for detail. Open the gate and when we are through, close it and make it look how it is now.”
Ric unlocks the gate as Ciccio drags the gatekeeper’s body out of the light.
“Now, we walk down the hill and through the village. If anyone comes, you will leave the talking to me. And please, Ric, don’t make me tell you again. If there is any trouble I will deal with you first. No one is going to hear you die, eh?” He jabs the end of the silencer into Ric’s ribs. “Tell me you understand what I am saying.”
Ric hesitates in his stride, “Save it, Ciccio. You’ve got your message across. But one thing…”
“What is it you want to know?” he sneers. “I would have thought the situation was perfectly clear to a man of your intelligence.”
“No,” Ric changes his mind, “make that two things.” They continue walking down the slope towards the village and the harbour. “First off, you have me all wrong. I didn’t shoot, or assassinate as you like to call it, Girolamo Candela. I think I know who did, but if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. And second, doesn’t your God frown on your methods? Or will a trip to confession gain you your absolution?”
“Shut up, Ric,” he snaps back. “They are irrelevant to me; both God and Girolamo Candela.” He points the gun directly at Ric’s ribs. “Now, it would be better for you if you don’t talk until we are the other side of the harbour. Move!”
The road leads them down across the narrow isthmus which joins Vulcanello to its larger sister. They ghost past the sulphur pools and the raised terrace of Stevenson’s Cantine, and Ciccio steers them away from the harbour, taking a path that twists and turns between vacant shops and shuttered houses. They can hear people talking down at the quay, but other than that the village is peacefully asleep.
Somewhere over near the harbour a car starts.
Ciccio steps up behind Ric, grabs his arm and pulls him into a doorway.
Ric can feel the cold muzzle of the pistol poking into his ribs, the man’s breath against his neck.
“Be careful,” Ciccio murmurs as he jabs the pistol in a little deeper.
A police car rounds the corner; its headlights sweep the wall beside them, lengthening the shadows. Ciccio tenses, but the car proceeds at a casual pace up the road to their right. When the noise from its engine eventually fades, he yanks Ric back out into the road and thrusts him forward.
At times, Ric wonders if he wouldn’t be better off making a run for it into the shadows, so he watches and waits for the right opportunity. But whenever he sees a chance, Ciccio seems to sense it too and closes up behind him.
After twenty minutes, they are through the town and stealing up the long straight road, which rises along the foot of the volcano before curving up and round towards the southern tip of the island. Once out of the village, they lack the protection of the shadows and though the moon has long since set in the south eastern sky, the canopy of stars lights their way as though they are strolling in daylight. Low white walls front the road, and thorn-edged agave and dwarf fan palms stand proud above the sourfig and bougainvillea crowding the gardens of single terrace houses.
“What’s up ahead that’s got you all fired up to get there by dawn, Ciccio?”
The slender Sicilian is beginning to find the rise of the slope hard going. He pauses to draw breath before answering, “A man is coming with a motoscafo. I have to meet him at Punta della Sciarra del Monte, below Monte Lentia; there is a track most of the way. By the time the police have had their breakfast I will be back in Palermo and you, my friend, can tell them your ridiculous fiction about Claudio. That is, if they can be bothered to listen to you. Do you really think they care what goes on out here in these little islands?”
Ric walks on for a minute before halting and turning round to face the labouring Francesco. “Listen to me, Ciccio, Marcello Maggiore has his brother’s body, I know it. He recovered it from Pietra Liscia. My guess is that’s why he brought me over to Vulcanello; to flush you out. He knows you killed Claudio and slipped out of Lipari. What makes you think Palermo will be safe for you after this? You know damn well he’ll find you and you know damn well what he’ll do to you when he does. Wouldn’t you be better off handing yourself in?”
“Marcello Maggiore,” he replies and spits. “He may be a man of influence around here, but in Palermo? I don’t think his friends are any grander than my friends. Lipari may be his town, but Palermo is mine. Now shut your mouth and keep walking.”
The road climbs straight and steady. To their right the houses give way to scrub and to their left the flanks of the forgia vecchia soar away up to the great crater of the Fossa.
“Up ahead, fifty metres,” Ciccio puffs, “there is a turning to the right. We take this and at the end there is a path that will lead us round Monte Lentia to the little village. When–”
A scraping brushing noise from the undergrowth startles them. Ciccio spins on his heels, loses his balance and staggers back into the broom that lines the road.
Ric, though, darts across the road in the direction the sound came from. He charges through the broom into the scrub beyond and runs straight into a goat.
It is difficult to tell who is the more shocked, the goat or Ric, as both are instantly winded. Fortunately Ric has missed its short, sharp horns and has clattered right into the centre of its long back, which softens the impact. But the collision causes him to fall over the top of the goat in the manner of a vault gone hideously wrong.
The bell at the animal’s neck clanks loudly and the goat bleats in dismay, but Ric has no time for apologies. He scrambles to his feet and takes off up the slope.
The slope is steep and the lava crumbles under his feet. He steps up and slides back, and the going is painfully slow. Grasping at bits of broom, tufts of hard grass and anything that will support him, he scrabbles and grapples and scrapes and crawls up the steepening gradient.
Very quickly he understands that his progress is slower than it need be; if he turns to his right he can traverse the slope. He slows his breathing, calms and quiets. He crouches behind a fern, takes the kitchen knife from his pocket and grips it, blade down.
His view down to the road is clear, the night is so bright that the stars throw countless shadows around him. He waits, listening, but all he can hear is the goat’s bell clanking as it saunters away from their unscheduled meeting.
There is no sign of Ciccio and Ric wonders whether he might have cut and run for his rendezvous with the boat; a sensible man would have. He weighs up his options: stay where he is until dawn and risk being caught by Ciccio when he breaks cover, or break cover while he still has an advantage lent him by the shadows.
Ric looks to his right; there is cover, but the flank of the volcano grows steeper and is cut by rainwater gullies, some of which deepen into ravines. His only way out is either up or to his right; a course that will eventually lead him to rejoin the road.
He waits, holding his breath and listening. When even the bell of the goat has rung its last, he sets off along the slope. The going is tough, not so much in making progress, rather than in making progress quietly, as each footfall dislodges lumps of rock and lava, which roll until coming to rest against pockets of broom.
After half an hour, the undergrowth gives way to an open area staked with signs. It is the car park at the foot of the zigzag path up to the Gran Cratere of the Fossa.
Ric waits and watches, but nothing moves.
He creeps out from his hiding place onto the loose lava sand at the edge of the car park.
“What took you so long?” Ciccio asks with a heavy dose of sarcasm. The voice comes from not more than a couple of yards away. He steps out from the shelter of the shadows, his pistol glinting in the starlight.
Ric shrugs and quips, “That goat had a lot to get off its chest.”
Ciccio chuckles, “You know, Ric, you may just be telling me the truth. Either you are out of practice or you really are not the assassin I’ve taken you for. There was no other place for you to go but here.” He raises his arm and points the pistol very directly at Ric’s head. “Now come with me. We haven’t much time; dawn is only half an hour away and it will take us that long to get beyond Monte Lentia. But first, give me the knife you have in your right hand.”
“What knife?”
Ciccio cocks the pistol, “Now!”
Ric throws the knife at Ciccio’s feet. But the sun will not be long in waking to chase the shadows from Vulcano and so rid Ric of any chance of escape. He knows he has to play for as much time as he can draw.
“There’s still something bothering me, Ciccio.”
“Shut up, Ric. Get moving.”
“No, hang on a minute. We’re not running from the Fascists now. This isn’t 1930. Christ knows, Ciccio, it was difficult enough getting off the island eighty years ago, think how much harder it’ll be now. The police will see your boat coming for miles. They’ll pick it up on the radar, wait until you’re on board and then close in on you. You’ll have nowhere to run when they stop you out in the water.”
Ciccio snarls, “You think my friends will bring taxi mare? They are used to outrunning the police; they will not catch us. Now stop talking and move before I run out of what little charity I have left. Go on, move,” he hisses, cocking his pistol again.
Ric feels inclined to put his hands on his head and slope off like a prisoner of war, but he can gauge the impatience in his guard’s voice and knows he’s pushed the man about as far as he can.
“Okay, Ciccio, I give in. Let’s go.”
They walk down to the road and pause before crossing. When Ric gets to the middle, he hesitates. He can hear a car. He waits, turning to his left.
“Get moving, you fool!” Ciccio snaps.
But Ric holds his ground. The flash of the car’s headlights sweep the hillside of Monte Lentia, like the beam of a lighthouse.
They stand and watch, transfixed. The road curves a couple of hundred metres beyond them to the south. And as they watch, the headlights appear and approach at speed.
The air is strangely cool and Ric turns and looks to the east. A slender yellow glow fringes the horizon.
“Move, Ric, or I will shoot you.”
Ciccio steps back and pulls Ric out of the road. He drags his prisoner back into the car park and in frustration slashes him over the head with his pistol.
Ric covers his head in self-defence and crouches down.
The car slows and stops. Two policemen get out and start walking towards the car park.
While Ciccio watches them, thinking he has for the moment subdued his hostage, Ric bolts. He is hoping that even though the pistol is silenced, the Sicilian will not risk giving their position away by using it.
The sand and gravel are soft and the running is hard work. He starts up the hill until he comes across a path which climbs away to his right. The track alternates between hard lava and scree, and he stumbles often as he scrambles up the slope as fast as he can.
Ciccio is coming after him. Ric can hear his laboured breathing and his heavy footfall, but he knows he is younger and fitter than his pursuer and that the odds of making it up out of sight before the light betrays him are in his favour. The scree beneath his feet is loose and he feels as though he is running on quick sand; working hard but getting little return for his effort. The only comfort is that if Ciccio is making similarly heavy weather of the going, Ric might build up a slender lead.
When the path draws level with the summit of Monte Lentia away across the shallow valley, Ric risks a pause to look back. The crown of the sun has burst the horizon and he can see Lipari across the Bocche di Vulcano and beyond it the island of Salina.
The black shirted Ciccio is fifty metres below him, hustling up the slope; the two policemen a further hundred metres or so behind him.
Ric gasps and drags great draughts of air deep into his lungs. The smell of the sulphur from the crater is strong, the taste thick and acidly metallic on his tongue. Without knowing where he is going, except up to the rim of the crater and therefore away from the danger, he sets off again.
The path bends sharply and the drop beside it is precipitous. Deep, ridged gullies cut down the lava face and across the path, and in places the track has been washed clean away. A second sharp bend reveals an open flank up to the rim of the crater.
He can’t see Ciccio because he is concealed by the bend and the slope, but Ric knows he will be helplessly exposed once he starts the final climb. His pace has slowed to little more than a jog as he tries to conserve both his breath and his energy for the final climb. He looks back down. There is no choice but to carry on. He breathes deep and attacks the slope in short, regular steps.
Ten minutes later, he reaches the rim of the crater. Expecting to find some relief in the form of cover, Ric is disappointed. What faces him is a barren landscape of brown shale broken only by lumps of yellow and white magma. The crater of the volcano is vast, almost a kilometre across and the steep sides descend into a lagoon of pale grey lava overlaid with wisps of steam. The path splits into two; one tracing a southerly ridge up to the summit, the other a slight descent round to a concrete hut, beyond which clouds of yellow and white gas issue from the slopes either side.
Ric glances back down and watches Ciccio making his way up towards him. Not knowing whether the path upwards to the summit will leave him at a dead end, he jogs away down the slope towards the hut.
The pungent odour of sulphur dries his throat and forces him to gag and spit as he shambles along the path. The sun is clear above the eastern sea now and the ground beneath his feet begins to heat through his shoes.
Sadly, though the hut is solid and square, its metal door is locked shut.
Ciccio clears the rim; he has reached the fork in the path. He hesitates and seeing that Ric has not opted for the route up to the summit, he starts over towards the hut.
Ric looks around for some place to hide, but there is nothing that will afford him any kind of shelter. His only hope is that the clouds of yellow and white sulphur gas seeping from the fissures around the rim will obscure his flight. But the gas that swirls around them is noxious and when he jogs through it, it blinds him. He loses his footing and falls, and in putting his hands out to soften his landing, he burns his palms. He gets to his feet, but finds he is criminally dizzy. The acrid stench coats his lungs and sears his nostrils. His eyes water, he begins to cough uncontrollably. He retches.
Ric staggers away, not realising he is moving closer to the centre of the field of fumaroles. How long he is wandering around in a daze for, he doesn’t know. He can hear a voice. Someone is calling him and he can’t think who it might be. Knowing he will suffocate if he stays where he is, he starts to walk in the direction of the voice.
“It is difficult to imagine what could be worse,” Ciccio says from no more than ten paces in front of him, “drowning in the fluid that is filling your lungs or being shot. Personally I would prefer a quick end; pulmonary oedema, so people say, is very painful and really makes no sense.”
Even if he possessed the wherewithal to reply, Ric isn’t sure he would choose to. All he can think of to say is, “You killed Claudio, Ciccio. You killed him, stole his lucky charm and buried him in an unmarked grave. You have no heart.”
Ciccio grins, his demonic expression wreathed in the vapours of the underworld. In his sober suit and suntan, he looks the perfect executioner; the Mafioso stepped out for an early morning murder.
“You are right, Ric. I killed the poor young man. He was such a delicate flower, so sensitive; too sensitive for his ambition. But, you are absolutely wrong when you say I stole this?” He puts his hand in his pocket and pulls out the cuorniceddu.
“This worthless piece of shit?” He throws it at Ric’s feet. “I gave it to him for his birthday ten years ago; it was mine in the first place. And what would be the profit in him taking it to the next world? There is no room for superstition in the afterlife, Ric. It is a shame though; he would have needed his cuorniceddu in the company of a man like you; a man who wears the malocchio. It’s a shame you never got to meet him. Perhaps you will soon.”
Ric rubs his eyes in an attempt to gain some focus. He reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief, but all he finds is the ontreto he picked up off the floor of Marcello’s boat; he grips it, nervously, pricking his fingers on the sharp spines. Ric is now way beyond angry that he should find himself in such a desolate place, standing before a man with murder in his heart. He is tired and frustrated that his search for his roots should lead him to such an end. But most of all he regrets doubting Marcello, even if the burly Liparotan has set him up to flush Francesco Ferro from his hiding place.
“You know, Ric,” Ciccio continues in a triumphant tone, “this is a fitting place for you to die. People say the Fossa is the gateway to the underworld. They say Vulcan, the God of Fire, makes his furnaces here in the entrance to hell.”
Ciccio raises the gun, cocks it and aims.
“You forget, Ciccio, I have met Claudio. Only because of you, I met him too late to save his life.”
As a cloud of sulphur gas drifts between them, Ric summons all the latent fury his frustrations have put at his disposal, draws the ontreto from his pocket and flings it at Ciccio.
The squid-jag hits him in the face and the umbrella of hooks stick into the soft flesh at his eyebrow. He screams and reels back beneath the blow. As he does so, a cloud of gas shoots from a fissure at his feet and envelopes him.
Ric lurches away swiftly to his right, but he stumbles over a rock and falls. The ground burns his hands a he heaves himself upright and starts running. But, he trips again, half-falls and staggers. He is running blind across the slope, hoping beyond hope that he will soon clear the field of fumaroles.
At last his vision clears and the air thins. He falls, gets back up and gulps in as much of the clean air as he can manage.
He looks round to see where Ciccio is, but again, he is standing right in front of him.
The Sicilian is clutching his face, the ontreto still hanging limply from his eyebrow, obscuring his sight. Blood pours down his cheek and he is trying to staunch the flow of it with his left hand whilst at the same time aiming the pistol with his right.
Ric lunges at him and knocks him down. He grabs Ciccio’s wrist and tries to wrest the gun from his hand. But Ciccio pulls away. He half stands and staggers, and drags Ric back towards the belching fumaroles.
The ground scalds them as they land struggling, wrestling, punching and kicking.
Ric grabs at Ciccio’s wrist once more and manages to get a grip on it. His face is inches from Ciccio’s. The terror of knowing only one of them can survive is written large in his eyes.
“A fitting place, you said, Ciccio,” he shouts. “Well perhaps it’s time for you to go to hell.”
Instead of trying to pull the gun from his hand, Ric pushes it away, but holds on and forces Ciccio’s hand into the yellow crusted fissure of a fumarole.
He screams and tries to let go of the gun, but Ric forces his arm further into the crack and, after hanging on for as long as the immense heat allows, he releases his grip. Ric rolls away and stumbles and lurches until he is upright.
Ciccio is on his knees, clutching his cauterised hand, screaming. His perfect black suit is sullied by the yellow sulphur and his expression suggests he is horrified it could be so.
Ric steps back, gasps and steps immediately forward again. He kicks Ciccio as hard as he can in the side of his head.
Francesco Ferro falls back, rolls and collapses onto his front. And as he collapses, so his head drops into the crystalline cleft of a crack in the earth’s surface. A geyser of yellow-white gas, like the ink which shoots from the octopus, spews from the fumarole directly into his face.
Ciccio jerks, twitches like a demented Sicilian puppet and stills.