Under Provenzano, the Mafia continued to do what it had always done: act as an alternative justice system. Out of reach of the authorities since 1963, Provenzano took over as capo di capi following Riina's arrest in 1993, and enforced a change of direction No more bloodshed, he insisted Only this way would the Mafia survive. Communicating with his network of subordinates by means of thousands of typed notes, he enforced the new Pax Mafiosa, deal by deal.If it worked, it is due to the absolute control over the island's gangsters previously established by Riina, but also for another reason. Exactly how deeply he was implicated we may never know for sure.

The national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Piero Grasso believes it is unlikely that he will turn informer.But when Riina's bloody challenge to Italy backfired, Uncle Bernie was around to pick up the pieces. He is also credited with planning a series of bombings on the Italian mainland. Provenzano, now known as "zu Binnu" (Uncle Bernie), took charge of the public works contracts, the network of protection money extorted from every enterprise on the island.Provenzano is said to have been involved in Riina's idea of stopping the Italian state dead in its tracks by killing the investigating magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. He has already been sentenced to life for his crimes in absentia.But despite his brutal past, Provenzano proved to be both more astute and less psychopathically violent than other Corleone bosses like Riina. For years he was content to remain in Riina's shadow: the boss managed the drugs trade, and prosecuted the war on the Italian state. Provenzano was put in charge of wiping them out, and is held responsible for some 300 deaths in Agrigento.

These were the Mafia wars of the 1980s and Provenzano's sharp-shooting continued to be a vital asset. In the early Nineties a new clan war broke out between the Corleonesi and a federation of gangs that had sprung up in the south and east of the island. It was the bloody handiwork of Riina, ably abetted by Provenzano, that put the Corleonesi on top of the heap by wiping out all the competition from other towns. Perhaps it was the grin on his lips that made Liggio dismiss him as an imbecile.When Provenzano was coming up in the clan, Corleone was merely one nasty little Mafia-ridden town among many others. He was also prone to smiling a lot, like his former boss Toto Riina, now doing life in prison. "I've never seen him angry," one supergrass later said of Riina, and it applied equally to Provenzano.

"You have no idea what damage you have done," he said calmly. They were his first public words in more than 40 years."He shoots like an angel but he has the brains of a chicken." This was the view of Provenzano held by his first boss Luciano Liggio But Liggio could not have been more wrong Like most Mafiosi, Provenzano had little education. The shepherd, about to climb back into his battered Fiat Panda, was detained Inside the farmhouse was Bernardo Provenzano He made no attempt to flee or resist. There had been no movements in or out of the farmhouse during the weeks of surveillance. Then the hand reached out for the parcel, and the police swooped.More than 50 special policesurrounded the farmhouse. Saveria Palazzolo is the wife of the Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano, on the run for 43 years The parcel contained freshly laundered clothes. But the parcel had been tracked on its progress from the house of one Saveria Benedetta Palazzolo, the owner of a laundry in Corleone The parcel had covered two kilometres in three days.