When he turned back to the car Marek was surprised to see a dog. Bleached white in the headlights, the animal appeared big and strong, with fluorescent eyes, a heavy black mouth; it stepped lightly through the grass. Head dipped it picked up the scent of blood and took a position between Marek and the clothes. As Marek moved forward the dog hunched in threat. He kicked sand, threw stones, a clod of earth, and the animal dodged and weaved back, swift and lithe, it came threateningly close. ‘Just go,’ Marek hissed, gestured. ‘Go. Go.’ But the creature set its shoulders back and gave a slow rolling growl. Behind the dog and the clothes the grass again began to burn with a soft crackle.
It was just becoming light, a pink hue opening at the horizon, the hills, barely described, becoming distinguishable in the last of the black night, a smog caught about the bay.
Marek returned to the car aware that it was becoming bright enough for him to be seen. People would shortly be rising, heading to work. The car would be easy to remember, the clothes would not, just clothes on a wasteland, dried and dirty. He saw the estate now, high-rises built on a flattened section of land, turned to the bay, closer than he’d imagined. Further away, at the edge of the wasteland were the abandoned factories he’d driven by. He would dump the plastic in one of the buildings. The dog, now settled in front of the clothes, watched him back away.
He drove slowly back down the track. In the early morning light, the warehouses appeared less ominous. At the junction he remembered to slow down for the dumpster. He turned the car into a small alley and parked. Along the verge lay a pile of rotting flowers. He hauled the dumpster inside the factory. One wheel caught on the threshold and he hoisted it up, then shunted the dumpster across the room, the noise starting up a dog in the distance. The floor was gritted with broken glass, cushions taken from a couch set beside the remains of a small fire, among the ashes were several syringes. It was light enough to see now, and he quickly took the plastic out of the car, bag by bag, to the dumpster. Breath held, head turned, he worked quickly. By the last run it had become bright enough to see that the small alley ended in a steeper slope of smooth black basalt which tipped directly into the sea. He walked to the edge, and decided to dump the bags into the sea.
Hefting the bags back out of the dumpster was an unpleasant business, and one of the bags flattened at the bottom of the dumpster was difficult to reach. Once most of them were down to the shoreline he began to look for stones to weigh them down. He found pieces of concrete in the building, but not enough, so he tethered the bags together and weighed down the first.
He undressed by the shore, washed out his clothes then laid them on the stones which held a body heat from the previous day. He worked naked, made sure the bags were securely knotted one to the other, then carried the heavier bag with him and he picked his way slowly into the water. The sea was cold, welcomingly so, and gave him the odd sensation of being both awake and revived, while also being exhausted, so much so that he seemed to be observing his own movements, how he waded slowly through the water, how tedious it was to draw the bags one by one in a slack chain behind him.
He dropped the bag at his feet when the water was head-high, nudged them still further with his foot, and was pleased to see — at last, something was working — that all but one bag was submerged. Gouts of air belched from the bags as they sank, and holding the last bag he squeezed out the air, compressed it, turned his head away so that nothing would spill over him, then ducking under the water he felt for a stone, and lifted it over the last bag to secure it.
A shoal of small silver fish began to gather about him. The bags now submerged sent out a powdery rust. Marek also, his chest and arms specked and fouled, gave off a dusty cloud, and the fish, tiny, glass-like, sparks of light, flashed about him, feeding, and seemed miraculous.
Marek sat on the rocks and smoked. He had done well to separate himself from the basement room and the brothers, but while he might have broken the obvious links, there were, he guessed, many other connections. A body, if there was a body, which would have its own story, then Peña, and Paola, Lanzetti, and maybe even Salvatore, who could each connect him to the brothers. Without evidence, without the room, there would be nothing concrete. He didn’t know how he would manage if the police questioned him. Brushing away mosquitoes he looked back along the coastline at the grey outline of the city and thought that he had never seen a place so beautiful or heard a sound so lovely as the slap of the waves against the shore.
Marek dressed and returned to the car, relieved for the moment. The car, however, would not start. He had run out of fuel. Marek returned to the shore, swearing, cursing his bad luck. Hadn’t Tony said as much, warned him she just runs out and dies. How could he possibly have let this happen? If he bought fuel in Ercolano he would be remembered, he would be connected with the place. If he left the car, he risked it being damaged or stolen. His only option would be to return to Naples, buy fuel in the city and come back for the car. This, he guessed, would take no longer than two hours.
* * *
Half an hour after he caught the train, the first of the bags, tugged loose by the current, floated free from the stone and came to the surface. The incoming tide drove it back to the shore and it pulled behind it the others so that they could be seen from the shore as black rounded humps bobbing at the surface.
* * *
The solution came easier than he expected. As soon as he arrived back at the palazzo he found the boy Cecco idling in front of the tabaccaio. Marek signalled to him and called him to the palazzo and asked if he could drive. Of course he could drive. Did he want money? Of course, he could always use money. If he wanted he could come with him to Ercolano. Marek laughed while he explained the situation: I need someone to buy some fuel, that’s all. ‘I can trust you?’
Cecco nodded. He could be trusted. He would be careful.
Marek took the train back to Ercolano with Cecco, had the boy buy a canister, then walk to a garage to buy fuel. At the last moment he decided that Cecco could also collect the car. He didn’t want to be seen, and thought no one would pay attention to the boy. He gave clear and direct instructions. Find the car beside the warehouses and bring it back. Did he understand? If he brought the car back to the station he could pick up Marek. ‘I’ve someone to meet,’ he lied, ‘come back to the station. I’ll meet you here.’ That’s all he was asking. How difficult could that be?
Cecco nodded. He knew nothing, and that was good. The less he knew the less he could blab to the police.
* * *
Marek traced his change of luck back to the accident. He did not know how to describe it. It wasn’t that he was unlucky; it was something infinitely more complex.
He paid Cecco generously, told him to be quiet about the errand, then left him at the station. He drove away from the city toward Salerno and with the mountains to his left and in front, determined to perform one last task. Pagani was joined to Torre del Greco and the larger sprawl of Naples, one town blending without break into another. Smaller barn-like houses butted beside villas and developments. Paola always pointed out Nenella’s, a family house shared by three generations, isolated by busy roads that cut by on all sides.