Suffer the Little Children Read Free Page A

something that resembled a tiger; and all of them slept on.
    The night exploded. The front door of the apartment burst inward and slammed against the wall: the handle gouged a hole in the plaster. A man leaped into the apartment: he wore a ski mask, something that resembled a camouflage uniform, and heavy boots; and he carried a machine-gun. Another masked man, similarly uniformed, followed him. Behind them came another man in a dark uniform but without a mask. Two more men in the same dark uniform remained outside the house.
    The two masked men ran through the living room and down the hall towards the bedrooms. The man without a mask followed more cautiously. One of the masked men opened the first door, and seeing it was a bathroom, left itopen and moved down the hallway towards an open door. He saw the cot, the mobiles moving slowly in the draught created by the open door.
    â€˜He’s here,’ the man called out, making no attempt to keep his voice down.
    The second masked man went to the door of the bedroom opposite. Still holding his machine-gun, he ran in, the other man close behind him. The two people in the bed sat up, startled by the light from the hallway: the third man had switched on the light before going into the room where the baby slept.
    The woman screamed and pulled the covers up over her breasts. Dottor Pedrolli launched himself from the bed so suddenly that the first intruder was taken by surprise. Before he could react, the naked man was on him, one fist crashing down on his head, the other slamming into his nose. The intruder cried out in pain and went down as Pedrolli screamed to his wife, ‘Call the police, call the police!’
    The second masked figure raised his gun and pointed it at Pedrolli. He said something, but the mask over his mouth distorted the words, and no one in the room could understand them. Pedrolli was beyond hearing him, anyway, and came at him, hands raised to attack. Instinctively, the masked man reacted. Raising the butt of his gun towards the head of the approaching figure, he caught him above the left ear.
    The woman screamed, and from the other room the baby sent up an answering wail, that high keening noise of infant panic. She pushedback the covers and, driven by instinct and no longer conscious of her nakedness, ran towards the door.
    She stopped abruptly when the man without a mask stepped into the doorway, blocking her escape. She raised her arms to cover her breasts in a gesture she was not conscious of making. Seeing the tableau in the room, he moved quickly to the side of the man with the rifle that pointed at the naked man who lay motionless at his feet. ‘You fool,’ he said and grabbed at the thick material of the other’s jacket. He pulled the man around in a semicircle and pushed him stumbling away. He turned back towards the woman and raised his hands, palms towards her. ‘The baby’s all right, Signora. Nothing will happen to him.’
    She stood, frozen in panic, unable to scream.
    The tension was broken by the masked man on the floor, who moaned and then struggled, as if drunkenly, to his feet. He put one gloved hand over his nose, and when he pulled it away he seemed shocked by the sight of his own blood. ‘He broke my nose,’ he said in a muffled voice, then pulled his mask over his face and let it fall to the floor. Blood continued to drip from his nose on to the front of his jacket. As he turned towards the man who appeared to be in charge, the woman saw the single word spelled out in iridescent letters on the back of his padded jacket.
    â€˜â€œCarabinieri?”’ she asked, her voice barely audible over the continued screams of the baby.
    â€˜Yes, Signora. Carabinieri,’ said the man who had spoken to her. ‘Didn’t you know we’d come, Signora?’ he asked, something close to sympathy in his voice.

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    GUIDO BRUNETTI LAY just on the edge of the sleep of the just, curled round the back