The Milan Contract Page 4

  “Quick, come on. They’re going. We need to get out of here.”

  Kadin wrapped his arms around his father’s chest to help him stand, but Issam pushed him away and flapped weakly at his son’s shoulders.

  “No, stop. We cannot leave,” Issam said looking up at the blinking metal boxes in the ceiling. He flopped back against the wall as Kadin released his grip.

  “They’re watching us. We cannot leave.”

  Kadin fought a rising flush of anger.

  “What do you mean we can’t leave? What the hell is going on, Father? What have you done? What do they want?”

  Issam wiped away the last of his tears with a grubby finger.

  “What I’ve done Kadin, is no longer important. You need to listen to me. You have to listen to me.”

  Kadin ran to the barn door and peered through a gap in the planks. He darted back to his father and held his hand.

  “Father, you need to tell me quickly. We can go. We can run across the fields to get help.”

  “Kadin. Shut up and listen.” Issam’s tone was harsh and Kadin was instantly reminded of the bursts of anger that heralded his father’s return from a session at the bar. But Kadin saw and heard something else – his father wasn’t drunk or angry. He was terrified.

  “Kadin, this is a mess. A huge mess and it’s all my fault. I can never tell you the sorrow, the shame I feel.”

  Kadin waited impatiently, desperately repressing the myriad questions that fought to the surface of his aching mind.

  “We can work it out, Papa,” Kadin whispered gently.

  “It will not end well Kadin. Whatever we do, they are dangerous men. Vile. They don’t care about anyone. They feel nothing.”

  They both glanced up at the cameras.

  “Kadin, there is something that we, you, have to do for them. It is a terrible thing, but you have no choice.”

  Kadin shuddered.

  “Your mother, and Youssef and Soraya…” Issam closed his eyes as if doing so would prevent them from seeing his guilt.

  “They will kill them if you don’t do this thing.”

  Kadin’s anger rose in a wave of hatred and terror, as it did when he had to rush to his mother’s aid when his father started hitting her in drunken rage.

  “What have you done?” yelled Kadin, clutching at his father’s sweat-stained shirt, no longer caring about the blinking red lights. Kadin shook him violently, repeating the question over and over until he suddenly saw himself as his father, pulling at his mother’s clothing and shouting as she sobbed in surrender.

  Kadin let him go and sank to his knees.

  “We need to tell the police. Whatever you’ve done, I don’t care. We need to get help.”

  “No Kadin, it’s too late for that. If we don’t do what they want, they’ll kill us. All of us.”

  Kadin flopped against the wall and rubbed his pounding temples. He felt sick and utterly spent. He understood nothing about why he was in a derelict barn miles from home, next to his self-pitying father. But he knew that these men, these unspeaking monsters, would murder his sister, brother, and mother without a second’s thought.

  “What do they want?”

  Issam closed his eyes once more.

  “They want you to kill somebody.”

  12

  Sunday

  Milan, Italy

  Nyala didn’t look back until she was at least five hundred metres from the roadblock.

  ‘Murder.’ That’s what the policeman said. ‘Kadin, murder. That can’t be true. Murder?’ The word kept stabbing at her. She swallowed deeply, even though her mouth was dry, and her lips dragged across her teeth. What was it that she had seen in Kadin’s face, so thin and tight, his dark hair in clumped ribbons of grease? ‘Was he sweating?’ Maybe it wasn’t fear. Maybe he’d just been surprised to see her standing on the corner so early on a Sunday morning. Maybe he was running away because he’d witnessed the murder. ‘Maybe he…’ She saw him again, wrestling to remove the balaclava. ‘Kadin – Murder?’

  It was almost noon when Nyala told her father she wouldn’t be attending church, claiming a headache. Amadi Abebe stirred in his slumber and smiled as his daughter emptied the money bag onto the coffee table. She looked tired and maybe a little sad. Knowingly, he nodded. ‘Girl problems,’ he thought to himself as he drifted back to sleep.

  Nyala changed into her shorts, vest and trainers and jogged out of the apartment block. Turning left, she headed west, following the course of the railway line until she reached Parco Franco Verga, a wide expanse of grassland, popular with dog walkers and BMXers. She sprinted the last two hundred metres to a wooden bench on the edge of a makeshift football pitch. Using the back of the seat, she stretched each of her long, dark legs whilst surveying the park. She was alone.

  She sat on the graffiti-covered bench and clutched the mobile phone to her chest, closing her eyes for a few seconds. She punched in the code that made the screen light up. ‘Kadin Bennani’ was listed under ‘Contacts’. Nyala stared at the name, rehearsing what she would say when he picked up the phone and said, “Hi Ny, how are you?” in his kind and cheerful tone. She knew so little for sure, but she knew she needed to hear his voice, to know he was all right, that he wasn’t a murderer, that she had everything wrong. She wanted to hear him laugh at her for being silly and to tease her for jumping to crazy, perverse conclusions.

  He was her closest friend. He had kissed her once outside of church. She’d always hoped that he wanted to kiss her again. But she could wait; he was shy and easily flustered. His courage would grow in time. She would wait.

  She saw him rip the balaclava from his face.

  Nyala pressed ‘Call’ and held her breath. Ring, pause, ring, pause. She fought the temptation to hang up at the end of each cycle but was released from her torment when a female voice invited her to leave a message. She hung up.

  For the next two hours Nyala jogged aimlessly around the park. She bought a bottle of mineral water from a kiosk and sipped at it until its contents became warm and stale. Four times she called Kadin’s number and on each occasion, her need to hear his voice grew. By the time she returned home to help her nana prepare dinner, Nyala felt she was being consumed by her desperation to know – and to understand.

  She was unusually quiet during the meal and grateful that her grandmother didn’t press her on why she hadn’t been to church. Nyala squeezed the papery skin of her nana’s hand and the old lady nodded back.

  Amadi Abebe pushed his chair back in the self-satisfied way he always did after Sunday dinner.

  “Hey Nyala, have you seen Kadin today?”

  Nyala’s mouth closed and then opened. She blinked slowly, her eyes bright white and wide in alarm.

  “It’s just that he didn’t come round for the rent and I was wondering if you’d seen him?”

  “No, I haven’t seen him all day,” Nyala stammered as she got up to clear the table.

  In the relative sanctuary of the kitchen, as she was scraping food into the bin, she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder.

  “Has something happened? Is everything OK between you and Kadin?” her grandmother whispered.

  Nyala dropped a plate into the warm, soapy water and clung to the edge of the sink, arms stiff, head buried in her chest.

  “Everything’s fine, Nana,” she said without turning.

  “You know Nyala, sometimes things aren’t as bad as you think.”

  ‘And sometimes, things are far worse,’ she thought, fighting back the tears that were welling again.

  13

  Saturday – The Day Before the Murder

  San Carlo, 60 km East of Milan, Italy

  It had taken Issam more than an hour to calm Kadin after telling him of the plot to kill an unknown man outside the Hotel Napoli on Sunday. Kadin cried, his father cried, they both shouted; at themselves, at the cameras, and each other.

  Nobody came to the barn that first night, although from the door, Kadin could see the BMW p
arked on a rise about two kilometres away, the hazy yellow moon picking out the bright silver metal against the brown and grey scrub.

  ◆◆◆

  As the first grey ribbons of daylight spilt onto the floor through the ragged timbers, Issam and Kadin picked at beans from a tin and drank mineral water from plastic bottles that smelt of chlorine. They ate and drank in silence.

  Then Issam emptied a cardboard box onto the table. He worked slowly, avoiding Kadin’s gaze. Four black and white photographs of a hotel entrance, two pictures of Milano Centrale station and a magazine clipping of a black Mercedes. Next to the photos he placed a slim, grey and silver padded sleeve that reminded Kadin of a bottle cooler.

  “Signal suppressor for his mobile phone. Stops it being tracked. Mobile phones are like beacons, Kadin.”

  Finally, Issam produced the matt-grey Ruger semi-automatic pistol along with a slim, black magazine loaded with bright brass and copper-coloured bullets.

  For a long time, Kadin pushed the gun away and refused to look at the pictures.

  “There must be another way, Father,” he implored.

  Issam screamed at his son in frustration as he hobbled around the barn floor, leaving dark trails in the sand whilst cursing in Arabic. Kadin sat on a chair with his hands over his ears, tears stinging his eyes.

  After each of Kadin’s refusals to cooperate, Issam Bennani glanced at the cameras and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, gently whispering the names of his mother, brother and sister. He spoke of the cost of failing these men in their suits with their guns and their cameras, and their utter ambivalence towards pain, suffering and the lives of an immigrant family.

  Slowly, and for only a few minutes at a time, Issam Bennani revealed the plan that would end in a stranger’s death. Kadin watched as his father picked up the picture of the Mercedes before laying it on the table. Issam’s right hand was clenched, but Kadin could see a small sliver of yellow metal between his fingers. ‘A key,’ he thought, trying not to look up at the blinking red light.

  Kadin shuffled forward to the edge of the table and, staring into his father’s eyes, he nodded. His father smiled.

  “Kadin, you need to concentrate. If you want your family to be safe, you need to listen.”

  Kadin picked up on the slight inflexion his father had placed on the word ‘safe’. ‘The key is to a safe?’ But what safe and where? What’s in it? How would it help them? Kadin wanted to scream, but he sat listening, straining to pick up on further clues.

  His father moved on to the photographs of the hotel and pushed a print across the table. The weight of the key dropping into his lap made him flinch and he had to fight the temptation to look down. Very slowly, he slipped the key into the waistband of his jeans.

  Issam took his son through the plan: from where Kadin would be dropped off to collect his Vespa, to the hotel, the killing, and then home again via the garage. But when Issam began telling him how he should escape after the killing, Kadin picked up on the stress his father was placing on certain words.

  “Don’t forget to go straight home,” became, ‘Don’t go home.’ And there it was again; “The key to being safe is the garage.” ‘Key, safe, garage.’

  His father was telling him what he had to do. And what he definitely should not do.

  Kadin laid a gentle hand on his father’s. “Can we start again? I promise I will concentrate this time.”

  ◆◆◆

  At dusk, Issam persuaded Kadin to go into the yard at the rear of the barn. Under the watchful eye of yet another camera fixed high on the wall, he patiently showed Kadin how to load, cock and fire the pistol. A sandbag was placed on top of a crate, which in turn was set on top of a steel drum. It was not lost on Kadin that the sandbag was now at head height. Kadin fired a few rounds into the sandbag from close range, but he hated the moment of anticipation as he squeezed the trigger, so he closed his eyes just before the explosion jerked his wrist upwards and sent a wave of warmth across the back of his hands.

  “You need to keep your eyes open, Kadin. Aim down the sight,” his father begged.

  But Kadin couldn’t bear to watch the twitch of the hessian as a bullet slammed into it, or the sand that spilt from the ragged hole and trickled onto the steel drum.

  Eventually, Issam gave up and led Kadin back inside. He removed the magazine from the pistol and, using a wooden pallet, acted the role of the man who would step down from the hotel for Kadin to kill. Issam walked and talked and turned and walked and talked and begged. But Kadin would not raise the empty gun to his father’s head and refused to pull the trigger. Suddenly, Kadin screamed in anger, threw down the pistol and collapsed into a chair. Issam dropped onto his twisted knees, imploring his son to shoot him.

  Kadin glanced up at the camera when he heard the sound of an approaching car. As its headlights illuminated the open door, Kadin’s hatred and anger rose up, exploding into shards of fury. He would not listen any longer. He would not kill the man at the hotel. He would not become them. He would die, but he would not die alone.

  He snatched the pistol from the floor and grabbed the magazine from the table. ‘At least five bullets. It was enough.’ As the headlights were switched off, he yanked his father’s shoulder so that he could look into his sad and fear-ridden eyes. Issam’s face was grey with dust and despair; narrow streaks of brown and silver ran to the corners of his mouth. Filled with determination and anger, Kadin spoke quickly.

  “Father, I cannot do this thing. They are evil, these men, and if I kill this person I will become like them, evil and without a soul. We have to fight.”

  Issam’s face remained frozen in hopelessness and Kadin pushed him away in disgust.

  With trembling fingers, Kadin slipped the magazine into its housing, cocked the pistol, and released the safety catch. He switched on the construction light and without looking up, positioned himself against the wall. He was breathing heavily but forced air into his lungs and held his breath long enough for a surge of energy to rise up from his stomach and out through his mouth in a long, controlled sigh. Lifting both arms, he pointed the barrel of the gun at the doorway.

  The tall, ponytailed man was carrying a sports bag. He stopped, peered quizzically at the pistol and then up to the blinking red light. He let the bag drop. There was no fear, no doubt in his eyes.

  “This ends right now,” Kadin said as his finger took up first pressure on the trigger, just as Issam had taught him.

  “OK,” said the man, shrugging his shoulders and raising an eyebrow. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Kadin’s arm began shaking from the strain of holding the gun with outstretched arms. The barrel slowly arced downwards.

  “I kill you, and him, the other one outside in the car.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I take my family away. Where scum like you can’t touch them.”

  The man looked puzzled, as if trying to imagine the scene.

  “Have you ever seen a child that’s been set on fire, Kadin?”

  Kadin lurched forward, plunging the gun barrel into the man’s face. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, even as the gun sight ploughed a jagged trough through his cheek. A trickle of blood ran down towards his chin.

  “That man out there, the other guy. He’s set light to kids before. I’ve seen him do it. Means nothing to him.”

  Kadin’s hands were now shaking so much that the barrel of the pistol began drawing a red line across the man’s face.

  “They don’t die straight away you know. They scream for a while before they go.”

  The sound of grinding teeth rose above the short snatches of breath escaping from Kadin’s nose.

  “Kill me, kill him. There’s a thousand more of us that will find you and your family.”

  Issam whispered his son’s name.

  “He’s right, Kadin. They will find us, all of us.”

  Kadin’s fear, anger and rising claustrophobia exploded in a long high-pitched wail as he pointed the gu
n skywards and emptied the magazine in a rapid staccato of metallic explosions. Wisps of brightly lit smoke furled around their heads. The man casually wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand.

  “Finished?”

  Kadin was on his knees, sobbing. Around his crotch, a dark patch was spreading. His father went to him.

  The man picked up the sports bag and placed it on the table.

  “Clothes. Put them on. We leave in an hour.”

  But they weren’t listening anymore, so the man reached into his breast pocket and tossed onto the floor a black and white photograph of a grey-haired man.

  “Your target,” he said casually as he sauntered out of the barn. “Make sure you can recognise him.”

  14

  Sunday

  Guardia di Finanza Headquarters, Milan, Italy

  After his discussion with Corporal Sigonella at the barricade, Raphael Conza asked the taxi driver to take him back to Finanza headquarters, where he read through the statements sent to him by Brocelli. He also found the pathologist’s interim report. ‘Subject to further examination’, the bullet that entered Stolz’s forehead was fired from a distance of around one metre. The report also supported Captain Brocelli’s theory; that the round would be discovered in Stolz’s cranium.

  Conza made notes. That’s what he always did. Lots of notes. In his roll-door cabinet was a cardboard box containing fifty B5 pre-lined notepads. A new box would be ordered before two months had passed.

  It was while studying European history at university that Conza realised the habit he’d adopted in a childhood spent largely alone, was a blessing when it came to learning. As an eight-year-old, he’d recorded everything in writing: car numbers, train times, holidays, and visits to the house by dignitaries and politicians.

  Aged twelve, he started to keep a diary, and in his bedroom closet there were sixteen volumes, each page containing at least one coded entry. Conza would occasionally read his old diaries; they helped him keep alive the memory of a father who he’d watched being carried to a mausoleum adorned with the family name. In his diary on that day, aged ten, he had simply written, ‘Papino se n'è andato’ – ‘Daddy’s gone’.