The Hunting Season (Daniel Leicester) by Tom Benjamin

Author:Tom Benjamin [Benjamin, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2020-11-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Ciro was a spindly, weasel-faced young man with a Campanian accent and one of those severe haircuts, almost a Mohican, favoured by Napoli soccer players and Camorristi. Here was a guy who had clearly grown up amid the clans, and I didn’t have any doubt that breaking and entering was merely a minor accomplishment on his CV. He was a reminder, if any were needed, that despite the supposedly ‘ordinary, decent criminal’ credentials of the Nonnies – an established Bolognese crime family specialising in burglary, prostitution, gambling, and, of late, online phishing – there was really no such thing as ordinary and decent and they would have plenty of links with the multinationals south of Rome. In fact, probably the only reason set-ups like the Nonnies continued to be tolerated by the clans was to reassure the folk from the north that there was no real rush to reform. What happened in Naples stayed in Naples, that was the myth. Ciro here, and very possibly a dish of tagliatelle garnished with counterfeit truffles, was the reality.

I was surprised he had arranged to meet so early – it was 10 p.m., which seemed like a very public time to stage a break-in – but the Comandante hadn’t batted an eyelid, so I wasn’t going to ask. Meeting beneath the portico outside our office, we were able to walk to the venue, which also lacked the drama I would usually associate with this kind of activity, but I suppose that too made sense – it shouldn’t be too much trouble to get into the agency, and as for a getaway car, well, parking in the centre was a nightmare this time of the evening.

The Comandante had wanted to accompany us, even if it only meant keeping watch, but I persuaded him to stay in the office. The clear, warm days were opening up the sky to an evening chill and we could do without him being laid up in bed like Nonna Miranda; though I had to acknowledge that this concern may in itself have been a symptom of my own submission to the Italian obsession with a colpo d’aria – the perils of ‘a hit of air’. Soon I’d be going on about my cervicale, a mysterious zone between the shoulder blades and the neck that seemed to afflict every other native of Italy and was the source of discussion almost as feverish as that about food.

Fortunately, Virtus were not playing at the PalaDozza, so the street was quiet, free of the mammalian shadows that lurked along Bologna’s ancient porticoes. It was illuminated instead by the even, limpid amber of any modern city, so there was little mystery about Via Ercolani, and neither was there anything apparently suspicious about the three of us, I hoped, strolling along, perhaps after an early dinner or a late aperitivo.

Jacopo and I stood, frankly nervous, our hands in our pockets, while Ciro knelt down and unlocked the padlock that secured the closed shutter as

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