The Kills: Sutler, the Massive, the Kill, and the Hit (87 page)

Under the plastic bags he found a litre can of engine oil. He threw the clothes into the field and when he returned to the car he thought he heard a cough, a definite cough. Marek stopped and listened and squinted up the track. It was nothing, he was certain, but nevertheless he needed to hurry. As he reached for the shoulder-bag he thought he heard the sound again. Not a cough this time but someone walking, the crisp break of dry grass underfoot. Marek paused and again stared hard into the night, and again discovered nothing. He swung the shoulder-bag out into the field, then, following the light cast by the headlamps he walked after them opening the can of oil. It wasn’t a cough this time but a huff – Marek stood over the clothes, he doused them with oil and was surprised that the clothes would not ignite. He attempted to light them with a handful of dried grasses, but again it wouldn’t catch. He plucked more grass, wound the strands into a knot and tried again. This time the grass caught, but the flames died as quickly as they had started. Behind him the first handful he’d thrown aside quickly caught fire – and just as swiftly died. If he couldn’t burn the clothes he would bury them. Unable to see where he had thrown the bag he searched the field and stepped carefully through the grass – and there, again, a rustle. This time he was certain he heard someone approaching.

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.

When he arrived Marek parked and waited. He smoked and considered the absurdity of driving so far to meet a woman he had often ridiculed. He wasn’t sure either what he wanted to ask.

The door opened directly onto the street, he watched a woman come out and manhandle a wheelchair onto the road. The chair was cumbersome, and strapped into it was a young boy, one arm on his lap the other held up to his chest, crooked, his head slightly twisted. The traffic could not see her, and came fast round the turn, coming dangerously close to the wheelchair. The woman lumbered the chair out onto the road, and once it was on even ground it seemed to move by itself. The woman, the child’s mother or aunt, walked beside the boy to protect him from the traffic. She walked with a little difficulty, a slight twist in her hips, an awkward gait, a plastic shopping bag hitched into her elbow that flew over her hands as the traffic passed close by them.

Marek considered returning to Naples.

The house sounded busy. Children upstairs, shouts coming from the kitchen, full of people who could not be seen. As no one answered the door Marek came timidly into the hall and then into the kitchen. Two women worked together, busy, preparing food, and they didn’t immediately notice him. When they did they sent him back down the hall and said he should go into the room on his left. Behind the building, through the open kitchen door, was a small courtyard, and he could see parts of cars and scooters parked up beside stacks of salvaged wood.

Nenella was younger than he expected, not much older, by appearance, than Marek himself. She wore jeans and a shirt with an embroidered design across the shoulder. Her hair was short and dyed a deep chestnut; she had none of the airs that he associated with faith healers and readers. There were newspapers spread out across the floor to either cover or collect, and at the back of the room, dark because of the drawn shutters, a fat old dog with rheumy eyes stretched out. Nenella appeared momentarily unsettled, surprised by Marek.

Disappointed that the woman appeared so ordinary, and a little ashamed to be explaining his doubts and troubles to a stranger, Marek began to stammer. Starting with the accident he described the difficulties and indifference that had settled upon him. Now anxious about what he was saying Marek began to sweat, and admitted that he did not know what he was doing.

After five minutes Nenella stopped him. There was nothing she could do. There was nothing to fix. She sent him away saying that she would not read for him. He would not conceive, she said, because he should have died that day. Every day after the accident came from a new life. He was a baby, she said, new-born, and there was no business between them.

He called Paola as he drove back and said that his mother was not well. He gave no details and used the tired language of those who don’t have time to explain.
She’d taken a turn for the worse.
She was seeing a specialist, he didn’t know when exactly, but it looked like they were running out of options. As far as he knew there were no further treatments possible. Lemi was coming from Frankfurt, they would stay at his cousin’s then drive to his mother’s house in Lvov. He didn’t know how long this would take. He hoped to be back in a week.

He returned to the palazzo one last time, collected his passport, left what money he could on the table. Just as he was about to leave he heard a key in the lock, and Paola came into the apartment on her own. He waited in the bedroom and said nothing as she crossed through to the bathroom. He wouldn’t normally be in the apartment at this time. So it was strange to him that she locked the bathroom door after herself, a piece of information he would not have guessed. He crept out of the bedroom and came slowly up the hall not wanting to make any noise, and not wanting to alarm or alert her. He thought of her without him, how his absence without an explanation would be cruel, and would hold her unnaturally to one place, where ordinarily, if they simply parted, she would be able to continue. She would understand the shape of such a departure. She would stay in the apartment, he could be certain of this. It wasn’t easy finding a place as good as this to live, certainly not at the rate she paid. He would stay with her, while apart, for long enough to ensure that he could hear about the palazzo. If anything happened, if the police started to make enquiries he would need to know. For the interim he would stay at his brother’s. He would wait, bide time until he could feel confident.

Then he would disappear. This much he had decided. Without Paola, without his mother, he would be untethered, and while this felt like a necessity, he realized that he had expected more with Paola, that while they weren’t perfect, they fitted, and that – he’d never thought of it so clearly before – he had expected to grow old with her.

The last details: the edge of parquet meeting the marble floor at the main entrance. The marble yellow and cracked at the wall, but bleached where it had been cleaned over many years. The weight of the door, and how, slow to draw shut, it became easier mid-swing. How the key needed to be turned twice to get the latch to properly cross the gap. These details would stay with him longer than the physical memory of Paola, how she lay beside him on their final night, her hand curved to the small of his back, how she muttered in her sleep when she slept on her side, small whispers, the subject: he could never guess.