'Forty minutes ago,' Pucinelli said, turning down the baby's volume, 'the deep-voiced kidnapper telephoned here and said they would come out if certain conditions were met. No aeroplane - they've abandoned that. They want only to be sure they aren't shot. In about twenty minutes… that's one hour from when they telephoned… they say the mother will leave with the baby. Then one of the kidnappers will come out. There are to be no carabinieri anywhere in the flats. The stairs must be clear, also the front door and the pavement outside. The mother and baby will come out into the road, followed by the first kidnapper. He will have no gun. If he is taken peacefully, one of the children will leave, and after an interval, the father. If the second kidnapper is then sure he will be safe, he will come out with the second child in his arms. No gun. We are to arrest him quietly.'
I looked at him. 'Did they discuss all this between themselves? Did you hear them plan it, on the bug?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing.'
'They telephoned you very soon after Alessia was home.'
'Suspiciously soon.'
'You'll look for the radio?' I said.
'Yes.' He sighed. 'We have been monitoring radio frequencies these past few days. We've had no results, but I have thought once or twice before this that the kidnappers were being instructed.'
Instructed, I thought, by a very cool and bold intelligence. A pity such a brain was criminal.
'What do they plan to do with the money?' I asked.
'Leave it in the flat.'
I glanced at the screen which had shown the whereabouts of the homer in the ransom suitcase, but it was dark. I leant over and flicked the on-off switch, and the trace obligingly appeared, efficient and steady. The suitcase, at least, was still there.
I said, 'I'd like to go up there, as Signor Cenci's representative, to see that it's safely taken care of.'
With suppressed irritation he said, 'Very well."
'It's a great deal of money,' I said reasonably.
'Yes… yes, I suppose it is.' He spoke grudgingly, partly, I guessed, because he was himself honest, partly because he was a communist. So much wealth in one man's hands offended him, and he wouldn't care if Cenci lost it.
Across the street the flat's windows were still closed. All the windows of all the flats were closed, although the day was hot.
'Don't they ever open them?' I asked.
Pucinelli glanced across at the building. 'The kidnappers open the windows sometimes for a short while when we switch off the searchlights at dawn. The blinds are always drawn, even then. There are no people now in any of the other flats. We moved them for their own safety.'
Down on the road there was little movement. Most of the official cars had been withdrawn, leaving a good deal of empty space. Four carabinieri crouched with guns behind the pair still parked, their bodies tense. Metal barriers down the street kept a few onlookers at bay, and the television van looked closed. One or two photographers sat on the ground in its shade, drinking beer from cans. On the bug the colicky crying had stopped, but no one seemed to be saying very much. It was siesta, after all.
Without any warning a young woman walked from the flats carrying a baby and shielding her eyes against the brilliance of the sunlight. She was very dishevelled and also heavily pregnant.
Pucinelli glanced as if stung at his wristwatch, said 'They're early,' and jumped out of the van. I watched him through the dark glass as he strode without hesitation towards her, taking her arm. Her head turned towards him and she began to fall, Pucinelli catching the baby and signalling furiously with his head to his men behind the cars.
One scurried forward, hauled the fainting woman unceremoniously to her feet and hustled her into one of the cars. Pucinelli gave the baby a sick look, carried it at arm's length in the wake of its mother, and, having delivered it, wiped his hands disgustedly on a handkerchief.
The photographers and the television van came to life as if electrified, and a young plump man walked three steps out of the flats and slowly raised both hands.
Pucinelli, now sheltering behind the second car, stretched an arm through the window, removed a loudhailer, and spoke through it.
'Lie face down on the road. Legs apart. Arms outstretched.'
The plump young man wavered a second, looked as if he would retreat, and finally did as he was bid.
Pucinelli spoke again. 'Stay where you are. You will not be shot.'
There was a long breath-holding hush. Then a boy came out; about six, in shorts, shirt and bright blue and white training shoes. His mother frantically waved to him through the car window, and he ran across to her, looking back over his shoulder at the man on the ground.
I switched up the volume to full on the bug on the flat, but there was still no talking, simply a few grunts and unidentifiable movements. After a while these ended, and shortly afterwards another man walked out into the street, a youngish man this time, with his hands tied behind his back. He looked gaunt and tottery, with stubbled chin, and he stopped dead at the sight of the spreadeagled kidnapper.
'Come to the cars,' Pucinelli said through the loudhailer. 'You are safe.'
The man seemed unable to move. Pucinelli, again exposing his whole body to the still-present threat of the guns in the flat, walked calmly across the road, took him by the arm, and led him behind the car holding his wife.
The psychiatrists watching beside me shook their heads over Pucinelli, not approving such straightforward courage. I picked up a pair of binoculars which were lying on the bench and focused them on the opposite windows, but nothing stirred. Then I scanned the onlookers at the barriers down the street, and took in a close-up of the photographers, but there was no sign of the man from the motorway car park.
I put down the glasses, and time gradually stretched out, hot and silent, making me wonder, making everyone wonder if by some desperate mischance at the last minute the surrender had gone wrong. There was no sound from the bug. There was stillness in the street. Forty-six minutes had passed since the mother and baby had emerged.
Pucinelli spoke through the loudhailer with firmness but not aggression. 'Bring out the child. You will not be hurt.'
Nothing happened.
Pucinelli repeated his instructions.
Nothing.
I thought of guns, of desperation, of suicide, murder and spite.
Pucinelli's voice rang out. 'Your only hope of ever being released from prison is to come out now as arranged.9
No result.
Pucinelli's hand put the loudhailer through the car's window and reappeared holding a pistol. He pushed the pistol through his belt in the small of his back, and without more ado walked straight across the street and in through the door of the flats.
The psychiatrists gasped and made agitated motions with their hands and I wondered if I would ever have had the nerve, in those circumstances, to do what Pucinelli was doing.
There were no shots: none that we could hear. No sounds at all, just more long-drawn-out quiet.
The carabinieri behind the cars began to grow dangerously restive for lack of their leader and to look at each other for guidance, waving their guns conspicuously. The engineer in the van was muttering ominously under his breath, and there was still silence from the bug. If nothing happened soon, I thought, there could be another excited, destructive, half-cocked raid.
Then, suddenly there was a figure in the doorway: a strong burly man carrying a little girl like a feather on one arm.
Behind him came Pucinelli, gun nowhere in sight. He pointed to the first kidnapper, still spreadeagled, and the big man with a sort of furious resignation walked over to him and put the small child on the ground. Then he lowered his bulk into the same outstretched attitude, and the little girl, only a toddler, stood looking at him for a moment and then lay down and copied him, as if it were a game.
The carabinieri burst like uncorked furies from behind the cars and bristling with guns and handcuffs descended on the prone figures with no signs of loving-kindness. Pucinelli watched while the kidnappers were marched to the empty car and the child returned to her parents, then came casually back to the open door of the ambulance as if he'd been out for a stroll.