He wore his best suit, from Paris, because he was invited that evening to a celebration of the family. Beside the door to Departures he met with the tail. Through the glass doors he saw them. They were at the check-in desk. Through the glass he saw the back of the target's head, the long hair caught tight with an elastic band, and he saw the men with him, and the guns.
He squirmed. He did not know how it was possible to obey the instruction given him by Mario Ruggerio.
She had towelled the children from their bath, now Charley dressed them.
Angela had chosen the clothes they should wear, then gone to her bedroom.
A floral dress for Francesca, and a long brushing of her jetcoloured hair, and a ribbon to go in her hair. A white shirt and a silk child's tie for small Mario and black trousers that Charley had ironed, and a comb run through his slicked hair, and lace-up shoes that Charley had polished. She played firm with the children, so that they laughed, and she won them over as she could, no snivelling and no sulking, and she told them how angry she would be, breathing fire, real fire, if they dirtied their clothes before they left the villa. She bathed the baby, tickled the baby in the bath so that it gurgled happiness, and she dried the baby, and powdered its body, and buttoned on the nappy, and dressed the baby in a romper suit of burgundy-red.
Charley showered.
When she came out of the shower she took her towel and she dried the watch on her wrist, over which the water had cascaded.
She went back down the corridor to her room and she wore only her dressing-gown.
She passed Peppino and she dropped her eyes, and she thought she saw the bulge of him, and she had believed she had control of him. She sprayed herself with lotion. She dressed. The blouse of royal-blue and the short skirt of bottle-green. She stroked the brush on her hair.
She went into the kitchen.
Angela was beautiful. Angela wore a hugging dress of turquoise and the jewellery flashed at her throat. Angela was packing a shopping bag with spare nappies for the baby and a filled bottle… She remembered the old people who had come to dinner, Peppino's parents, peasants. Charley thought that Angela made herself beautiful so that she stood apart from those people, the peasants, so that she was separated from the brother… And there were books for Francesca and small Mario in the shopping bag.
Angela looked up, saw her. 'You are lovely.'
'Thank you.'
'Very young, very explosive, very vital.'
'If you say so.'
'But, you spoil it…'
'I do? How?'
'You wear that watch. You are so feminine, so gamine, but the watch is for a workman or a diver under the sea or a soldier.'
'It's the only one I've got,' Charley said.
'You want a watch? I have four watches, four of Peppino's presents. I will find you-'
'Doesn't matter, but thank you.'
'It is so vulgar, you have to have another watch.'
Charley blurted, 'It was a gift, from someone I admired. I do not want to wear another watch.'
She felt the weight of the watch on her wrist, clumsy and awkward, dulled steel on her skin. Angela's eyes danced brightly in front of her, but her face was a mask.
'I only try to be helpful, Charley. You wear what you want to wear.'
'I need to get some lipstick on. Excuse me.'
She was going to the door of the kitchen.
Angela said, conversational, 'It is a very bad day for all of us, Charley. It is the day when a good man was murdered. He would have made a mistake. Of course, I do not know what was his mistake. Maybe he made the mistake of trying to work alone.
Maybe he made the mistake of trying to swim against the currents in the sea. Maybe he made the mistake of trying to push too hard… With your complexion, Charley, I think a pink, quite soft, would be nice, for your mouth… It is most dangerous, as the poor man found, to make mistakes here.'
She said that she had a pink lipstick, crushed pink, quite soft. She made a play at smiling. She felt the sinking dead weight in her stomach. She went back into her bedroom. She sat on the bed and she scratched in her mind for the code call, sat so still until she was certain of it. Her finger was on the button of the watch on her wrist. She wondered who would listen if Axel had quit. She wondered how quickly he would come, come running as Axel had come. She'd find him, one day, afterwards, she'd find him and he would give her back her own watch, the gold watch that was her father's present to her, but she would never wear that watch. She would find Axel Moen, somewhere, and he could give her back the gold watch. She would not wear it. She would wear, until the day she died, God help her, the watch of vulgar dulled steel that was cold on her wrist.
She pressed the button. She made the signal.
His legs jerked up.
It was as if a shock charged through his body. The shock was the bleeping pattern of the tone call in Harry Compton's ear. Because the inductor was deep in his ear the pattern of the call seemed to ring in every recess of his skull.
He gulped. He was struggling for concentration. There was a call, simultaneous, for the last passengers for the flight to Milan. The sounds merged… They were through into Departures. They'd gone through the passport check. 'Vanni Crespo's I/D had taken them all through, and the balaclava brigade behind them. The shops and the bar were on the wrong side of the door, and they were scattered on benches. There were two empty seats between Harry Compton and Axel Moen, who sat close to the Italian, and Dwight Smythe was away from them and by the glass floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the apron.
'The call – the call went/ he stammered.
The Italian jackknifed off the bench and came to him.
'What was the call?'
He was supposed to be a trained operative. He reckoned himself among the best and among the brightest of the young intake into S06. He reckoned himself shit-hot on close-up surveillance and the art of gutting a balance sheet. He squeezed his eyes shut and he tried to find the concentration. He could have said when the flight would leave for Milan, what gate it would board through, and the time it would arrive at Milan…
'I'm trying-'
'What was the signal?'
The Italian was close to him, spurting garlic breath and whisky breath and cigarette breath at him. Harry Compton jabbered, 'I'm sorry, I didn't get the pattern, there was so much other…'
Dwight Smythe had sidled close and stood awkward, like he didn't know how he should intervene, what he should say. Axel Moen was blank-faced, staring at the ceiling. The Italian had his hands locked onto Harry Compton's head and his fingernail was digging into Harry Compton's ear. The Italian, with his nail, was gouging the damn thing from the ear. It came again. Harry Compton flung his head back and he pushed the Italian away, and he had the palm of his hand over his ear, and his head sank down between his knees. He heard the second transmission of the signal. He described the rhythm, gave the pattern of the tone call, the pauses, the short blasts and the long blasts that cried inside his skull. The Italian crouched beside him.
'It's Stand-by alert. Holy Mother, she sends the Stand-by alert,' 'Vanni Crespo murmured.
Another bleeping between them, and 'Vanni was scrabbling in his pocket.
Axel Moen said, total calmness, 'Today he has killed the man who investigated him.
He has eliminated a threat to him. Perhaps it is the time of the crowning, the anointing with goddam oil. Perhaps it is the time he gathers his court, his goddam family…'
'Vanni Crespo had the mobile phone out of his pocket, killed the bleep, pressed it at his ear, listened.