The Burning Hill Read online

  About the Author

  On a June afternoon in 2000 there was a robbery just a few blocks from where the author was living in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro. It turned into a hostage situation. The teenage robber had survived a notorious massacre of street children outside a Rio church years before, and the tragedy that played out in the aftermath of the robbery on live TV news was an embodiment of the desperation of life at the bottom of the heap. An ugly thing in this beautiful city, shocking, even to a society inured to everyday violence.

  As a Brit new to Rio, the author was beguiled by the city, and found it profoundly disturbing to watch something happening just down the road that was so out of control and so wrong. The author spent a year in Brazil and now lives on the south coast of England with his Brazilian wife and two sons.

  The Burning Hill

  A.D. Flint

  This edition first published in 2018

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  © A.D. Flint, 2018

  The right of A.D. Flint to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-78965-019-8

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-78965-018-1

  Design by Mecob

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

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  For my wife, Eth. I could not have done this without you.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Dear Reader Letter

  Super Patrons

  Frontispiece

  Chapter 1 1993

  Chapter 2 2004

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  E
pilogue

  Chapter 1

  1993

  Vilson

  Most people looked right through Vilson, like he was invisible. Sometimes he wished he were. The barely there kid stood alone in the afternoon shadows of the church, away from the others. He saw the cop car drawing up before anyone else did, and something cold and slippery moved inside him. Fear uncurling. Cops never came with anything good. He wrapped his skinny arms around himself, his shoulders rounded and hunched.

  The Candelária church was in central Rio, an island with multiple lanes of traffic washing past, surrounded by modern office blocks. Over the last few months, it had become a safe haven for street kids, the sparse, dusty grounds at its front a patchwork of cardboard boxes flattened into mattresses.

  The cop car pulled over at the kerb alongside the encampment, near a bunch of older kids kicking a Fanta can around in the harsh sunlight. The cop squinted through his open window and jabbed a finger at them. “I told you lot to clear out of this place,” he shouted over the roar of the traffic.

  Most of the kids carried on with their game, making a show of ignoring the cop. The eldest of them was a twelve-year-old named Gabriel. Even as Vilson was praying that his big brother would walk away, Gabriel turned to the cop.

  “Oh yeah, sure,” he shouted, puffing out his chest, “and make it easier for you to catch us and beat us? Makes you a big man, huh?”

  “Watch your step or I’ll make you pay for that tongue, you little shit,” the cop shouted.

  Vilson wanted to step from the shadows, to make Gabriel come away. He saw Gabriel give his friends a little smile that told them he wasn’t going to fold up for some cop. He looked around and picked up a stone and threw it at the cop car. It thudded into the dull paintwork on the rear panel.

  “One more, just one more, and see what happens,” the cop shouted.

  The other kids jeered, grabbing anything to hand, rubbish and stones, to hurl at the car.

  The cop ducked his head back inside. Most of it missed the car, nothing hit him.

  “You can’t touch us.” Gabriel forced a grin as he gestured at the traffic and at the church.

  Gabriel had told Vilson often enough that they were safe on their island. Untouchable with so many eyes on their encampment. More and more kids were coming here, and Vilson watched and worried each time his brother led the celebration of another failed attempt to move them on. They were driving the cops nuts. Vilson and Gabriel and the others did what they had to do to survive and petty crime had soared in the surrounding area. It was an embarrassment for the cops.

  Vilson could see the cop gripping the steering wheel, choking down his rage, taking control of himself. The cop revved the engine, rattling the loose exhaust pipe. Regaining his voice, he shouted, “You’ll pay for this disrespect, I’m telling you.”

  The tyres squealed on the hot asphalt as the cop sped away. If there were any worries amongst the kids that the threat was genuine, they were swallowed in bravado as they cheered and threw more rubbish.

  Gabriel came over to the shadows, ruffling Vilson’s shock of matted hair. “Don’t look so worried, brother.”

  Vilson’s round eyes stared up at him from beneath the permanent crease in his brow. “You made him really angry. He said he would make us pay.”

  Gabriel sucked on his teeth. “Cops, man. Assholes who can’t get any other job. They’re the real criminals, not us.” He put an arm around Vilson. “Forget about him. They wouldn’t dare do anything to us here, not under the eye of God.”

  The heaviness that Vilson often felt lifted from him. Gabriel could make everything better with just a word or a gesture. It made his heart swell to have Gabriel as his brother. Everyone loved Gabriel.

  No one ever took them for brothers: Vilson was skinnier and lighter-skinned. He wished he looked more like Gabriel. He stopped hugging himself, dropping his arms, pushing his shoulders back, trying to imitate Gabriel’s confident posture.

  When their Mãe – their mother – had brought them to the church two years earlier, she had hugged each of them in turn. Vilson remembered the warmth of her body. She had bent down to look at them and told them to look after one another. Her eyes had filled with tears then and she had straightened and turned, quickly walking away without looking back. Gabriel had put an arm around Vilson then and pulled him close. He remembered feeling Gabriel’s body shaking against his and looking up to see tears streaming down his cheeks. Vilson was too young to understand.

  He had put his arms around Gabriel. “It’s okay, Mãe will be back soon. She said.”

  “That’s right. She’ll be back soon.” They had held onto one another until Gabriel’s body had stopped shaking. He had then pulled away from Vilson, wiped the tears from his cheeks with his fingers and put his hands gently on Vilson’s shoulders, looking him in the eye. “Everything will be okay, brother.” The smile came back then. The Gabriel who always had mischief in him, who was always fun. As the months passed and still their mother had not returned, Vilson had felt increasingly lost and afraid. And Gabriel always comforted him and said everything would be okay, and Vilson tried his best to believe him.

  Gabriel ducked most stuff thrown his way with an effortless shrug or joke, and he never took a step back. Following his lead was harder than it looked. And sometimes Vilson caught Gabriel looking at him like he was wishing he had a better brother. That feeling was as bad as being scared. But Gabriel was always there come what may. Vilson always had his big brother.

  *

  Vilson awoke with a start late into that night, reaching out for Gabriel. The bed of flattened cardboard next to him was empty.

  It felt as though the darkness had stolen something terrible from his nightmare, and it was still out there, crawling, its pale belly to the ground, coming for him. With the day’s traffic gone it was silent, other than a low electrical hum from somewhere that made the silence even heavier. He sat up, hugging his knees to his chest. He tried to remember the prayers his mother had taught him. The words were jumbled and elusive, even the picture in his head of his mother’s face was unclear. It was so long since she had gone.

  A figure appeared through the low dusty haze. An adult. Another appeared a little further away. They were walking in a line.

  Even though they weren’t wearing uniforms it was obvious that they were cops. Vilson, like the other children who were awake, knew instinctively what was coming. And, like most of the others, he did nothing.

  There was a shot on the other side of the encampment and then all the cops started firing. A handful of children jumped up and scattered, only to be pulled down by the bullets. One child fell very close to him, a little girl, head cracking hard on the paving. Dead before she hit the ground. Vilson flinched, the shock brutal. Numbing.

  Without Gabriel, he could not snap himself into action. He needed his big brother. His eyes moved back to the cops and their slow, deliberate advance, his head barely turning, hoping that the faintness of movement might keep him invisible. One of the cops was less than ten metres away. Even in the smudgy glow of the street lights, Vilson could make out the grim concentration set on his face.

  A shout went up from one of the cops further down the line. More shouts as a group of children bolted into the road, trying to make the safety of the side streets. The line of cops broke as they gave chase.

  And still Vilson sat with his knees hugged to his chest. Someone grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. “Come on, man, let’s go.”

  It was Babão, a twitchy pinball of a kid who was always telling tall stories that no one ever believed. A stone in someone’s shoe, Gabriel had always said. Babão dragged him away, ducking behind trees and bins until they made the walls of the church and the deep shadow of a large stone buttress.

  They tried to catch their breath, hearing the shouts of the cops and the cracks of gunfire and the screams of children.

  “We’ve got to get away from here,” Babão whispered.

  “Not withou
t my brother, I can’t leave without him.” The words came out of Vilson in a thin wail.

  “Keep it down, man, you’ll get us shot. Your brother took his chance, he ran, he probably made it, who knows? Now we have to take our chance. Let’s go.”

  Vilson stood firm for a few moments and then let Babão pull him away.

  Although there were other off-duty cops and vigilantes in other death squads, killing children to clean up the streets, the Candelária massacre gained instant notoriety. Only three of the cops that took part were ever convicted. The massacre weighed heavily on the country, shameful, hard to forget. But then no one liked to think too much about the children that survived it either.

  Chapter 2

  2004

  Jake

  Blend into the background. That had been Jake’s priority when he’d arrived in Brazil. Copacabana wasn’t the place to do that. Too touristy. Brazilians would never recognise him but a few Brits had given him a quizzical glance or double take. He had moved on from his first stop and rented a little apartment in Ipanema and, in the following weeks, Copacabana’s sheen had started to fade. Eating in a restaurant near the beach one night, he had overheard a neighbouring diner, one of the sniffier residents of Ipanema, refer to it as Cocô-cabana – Cack-cabana. That hadn’t helped.

  He had cropped his hair and added some local shopping to the holdall of clothes he had brought from the UK. His fair skin had moved on a few shades and he was labouring to revive the latent Portuguese he had grown up hearing from his mother. He had found a teacher at a local language school willing to give him private lessons. He didn’t want to get involved with a group and he kept his teacher at arm’s length. But he was learning, and a couple of times he had even been mistaken for a Paulista, a native of São Paulo. And then his teacher told him about the bad blood between Paulistas and Cariocas. Paulistas wrote off their rivals as beach bums and, to Cariocas, Paulistas were a bunch of try-hards, so he was no longer taking it as a compliment. But it was a step up from gringo.

  And blending in had another practical purpose: it made him less of a target. Beneath the vibrant beauty of the city there was always the undercurrent of violence. He never wore a watch when he was out, and only carried a small amount of cash. That frisson of danger livened things up though. The alertness to what was coming down the street brought the pretty things into pin-sharp focus. The smells were strong in his nostrils, the sounds of the city clear. He was still looking for that fix of adrenaline, even after everything that had happened.