but that highway had long been superseded by the autostrada and the community itself subsumed into the suburbs of the city. Its centre was a modest piazza completely clogged with parked cars. Benedetto left the van a block further on and then doubled back, apparently talking non-stop on his mobile. In reality he was moving his lips silently while his colleague from the MotoGuzzi crew briefed him on the current situation. Mantega was still in the bar, drinking a cappuccino which he had already paid for, a slightly unusual thing to do in such a humble establishment. He had not apparently made contact with anybody.
After a brief glance inside, Benedetto took up position outside the bar, in the informal car park that the original piazzetta , a mere widening of the main road, had become. The bar was empty except for Mantega and three elderly men who looked as if they had been there since it opened. When Benedetto next looked – turning casually in the manner of a shiftless youth intent on his phone conversation – the target had emerged from the café and was now weaving his way rapidly through the ranks of parked cars, across the highway and into the station yard just as a diesel railcar emerged from the right and slowed to a halt. This was awkward. By the rule book, one of the others should have taken over at this point, but there was no time for that. Benedetto sprinted after him, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck on the highway, and reached the platform just as the doors of the railcar were closing. He levered the rear one open and climbed aboard.
There were about a dozen other passengers. Benedetto slid on to a seat at the rear. Fortunately, Nicola Mantega had chosen to sit facing forward and gave no sign of having noticed Benedetto’s presence. When the guard came round, both men bought tickets. In Mantega’s case, this involved quite a lengthy discussion, but the roar of the engine as they climbed the steep gradient out of the valley made it impossible for Benedetto to hear what was said. He himself bought a single ticket all the way, then went to the lavatory and made a number of phone calls.
The back-up team at the Questura did their best, but it was an impossible task. There were twenty-six scheduled stops on the three and a half hour trip across the rugged interior of Calabria, twelve of which lay in the neighbouring province of Catanzaro and hence would require the co-operation of the authorities in that city, which was unlikely to be rapidly forthcoming at a time when most of their senior personnel would either be on the way home for lunch or at a restaurant. The metre-gauge railcar trundled along at no more than forty kilometres an hour, but on the winding, unimproved roads of that area even the MotoGuzzi would be hard pressed to maintain a better average speed. All Benedetto’s instincts told him that Nicola Mantega was headed for a covert meeting with the kidnappers, the vital link in the chain of evidence that would bring the dormant investigation to life, and eventually to court. But there would be further feints, dodges and cut-outs at the other end, and he himself, alone and on foot, could do nothing.
In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In addition to the scheduled stations, the train also passed a number of fermate facoltative , unmanned halts where it could be stopped by request to the guard. It was at one of these, located at the head of a remote valley which the line looped languidly around, that Nicola Mantega descended. There was an abandoned station, its windows and doorways bricked up, and a disused siding and goods shed. Behind this, a heavily overgrown dirt track rose up the bare hillside, presumably leading to the village that had given the station its name, but there was no sign of it or of any other human presence in the scrubby landscape. The railcar revved up its engine in a cloud of diesel fumes and then sidled off. Benedetto headed for the solitude of the lavatory and
After a brief glance inside, Benedetto took up position outside the bar, in the informal car park that the original piazzetta , a mere widening of the main road, had become. The bar was empty except for Mantega and three elderly men who looked as if they had been there since it opened. When Benedetto next looked – turning casually in the manner of a shiftless youth intent on his phone conversation – the target had emerged from the café and was now weaving his way rapidly through the ranks of parked cars, across the highway and into the station yard just as a diesel railcar emerged from the right and slowed to a halt. This was awkward. By the rule book, one of the others should have taken over at this point, but there was no time for that. Benedetto sprinted after him, narrowly avoiding an oncoming truck on the highway, and reached the platform just as the doors of the railcar were closing. He levered the rear one open and climbed aboard.
There were about a dozen other passengers. Benedetto slid on to a seat at the rear. Fortunately, Nicola Mantega had chosen to sit facing forward and gave no sign of having noticed Benedetto’s presence. When the guard came round, both men bought tickets. In Mantega’s case, this involved quite a lengthy discussion, but the roar of the engine as they climbed the steep gradient out of the valley made it impossible for Benedetto to hear what was said. He himself bought a single ticket all the way, then went to the lavatory and made a number of phone calls.
The back-up team at the Questura did their best, but it was an impossible task. There were twenty-six scheduled stops on the three and a half hour trip across the rugged interior of Calabria, twelve of which lay in the neighbouring province of Catanzaro and hence would require the co-operation of the authorities in that city, which was unlikely to be rapidly forthcoming at a time when most of their senior personnel would either be on the way home for lunch or at a restaurant. The metre-gauge railcar trundled along at no more than forty kilometres an hour, but on the winding, unimproved roads of that area even the MotoGuzzi would be hard pressed to maintain a better average speed. All Benedetto’s instincts told him that Nicola Mantega was headed for a covert meeting with the kidnappers, the vital link in the chain of evidence that would bring the dormant investigation to life, and eventually to court. But there would be further feints, dodges and cut-outs at the other end, and he himself, alone and on foot, could do nothing.
In the end, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. In addition to the scheduled stations, the train also passed a number of fermate facoltative , unmanned halts where it could be stopped by request to the guard. It was at one of these, located at the head of a remote valley which the line looped languidly around, that Nicola Mantega descended. There was an abandoned station, its windows and doorways bricked up, and a disused siding and goods shed. Behind this, a heavily overgrown dirt track rose up the bare hillside, presumably leading to the village that had given the station its name, but there was no sign of it or of any other human presence in the scrubby landscape. The railcar revved up its engine in a cloud of diesel fumes and then sidled off. Benedetto headed for the solitude of the lavatory and
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