The Assassin's Dog

by David George Clarke

  The Assassin’s Dog

  David George Clarke

  Gupole Publications

  Copyright © 2019 by David George Clarke

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any of the characters or places to real persons living or dead or to real places is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Gail, with love, as always

  THE ASSASSIN’S DOG

  A COTTON & SILK THRILLER

  goccia

  Italian noun [feminine] /‘got:cha/

  drop; droplet

  If more than one person knows a secret,

  it is no longer a secret.

  Cosimo Graziano Rosselli, Assassin

  Part One

  Maurizio Cambroni

  Chapter One

  Incarceration in a high-security prison in the foothills of the Apennines, fifty miles south of Rome, had taken an uncompromising toll on Maurizio Cambroni. Frail and in permanent pain, the seventy-four-year-old former art dealer was dying, a wasted caricature of the scheming fraudster who had accrued millions peddling high-quality fakes. His waxen skin bore the craquelure of a Renaissance painting, while a hideous array of liver spots disfigured the crown of his bald head. Apart from gnarled, peasant hands that shook to a beat of their own creation, he lay motionless for hours on end in his bed in the drab prison clinic; moribund, his life force spent.

  Yet even as his body continued its unwavering decline, his mind still roiled and plotted, consumed by an unquenchable rage. And when that rage boiled over, as it did almost daily, his hooded eyes would flash open, the bitterness radiating from their black pupils like twin beacons of hatred. Someone had betrayed him, and in the sinister world of organised crime that permeated Maurizio’s life, there was no greater sin.

  Bedridden since his imprisonment, Maurizio had trawled through his memory, painstakingly recalling every moment of every day of the months leading up to his arrest. He had reviewed and catalogued every client, every visitor to the gallery and every employee for any evidence of duplicity. No one escaped scrutiny, his son Ettore included. Day by agonising day, he had doggedly hung on to life, determined to solve the riddle of his downfall.

  Slowly, one by one, he eliminated his clients from consideration, trusting his insight into their characters and an instinct honed over many years of double-dealing them.

  As for the forgers themselves, the craftsmen sequestered in a secret workshop above the main gallery, what possible gain could there have been for any of them in betraying him when his ruin was theirs too? And ruined they were when, to a man, they pleaded guilty to forgery. If they ever plied their trade again after their release from prison, it would be on the streets earning a pittance.

  Apart from Maurizio and his son Ettore, there were only three other employees in the main gallery. The first, the large African guard called Thompson, was like a faithful hound, his loyalty guaranteed by his generous salary. Earning more in a month than he had previously made in a year peddling fake designer goods in the Piazza della Repubblica, he was the Cambronis’ man. Maurizio was sure he could discount him.

  Of the other two, it seemed ridiculous even to consider Maria Renzo. A trusted old retainer, family almost, she had been part of the gallery for over forty years and was familiar with every one of the Cambronis’ devious schemes. It was true that the prosecutors had dropped the charges against her, but was that in return for information? Maurizio did not believe she was capable of such treachery. More likely, once the case against Maurizio became ironclad, the prosecutors had lost interest in her. You could only expect so much from state employees. No, Maria was above suspicion; she had to be.

  Which left only one person: the young woman employed to take up Maria’s duties when her failing health took its toll; the art expert with the refined Milanese accent who in no time had become indispensable, achieving record sales during the time of her employment. Ginevra Mancini.

  Had she really only been with them for a few months? It seemed so much longer; she had become part of the furniture. Maurizio had agonised over the personable young woman for many weeks, reviewing every moment of her employment before he could finally admit the obvious to himself: Ginevra Mancini had insinuated herself into his life for the sole purpose of betraying him. It hurt his pride to do so, not to say his self-esteem, but once he had capitulated to the notion, the young woman consumed his thoughts.

  How had she passed the rigorous scrutiny of his security team? They had bugged her apartment with hidden cameras and microphones, screened her belongings and checked her background numerous times. And every one of those times she had ticked all the boxes so perfectly that her very squeaky cleanness should have raised doubts. Instead, her flawless performance had fooled him as completely as it had Ettore and Maria. And as for the clients, they had loved her.

  Once Maurizio had convinced himself that Ginevra Mancini was his nemesis, he got word to his security team. But when they broke into her apartment, they found it empty. Mancini had disappeared, evaporated, vanished, leaving nothing to prove she had ever existed.

  But Maurizio didn’t need proof of her existence. She had existed and must still exist. The right person could find her and inflict the ultimate punishment. Knowing he was dying, Maurizio was determined to set the wheels of his revenge in motion. He wouldn’t live to receive the joyful news of Mancini’s execution, but knowing the score would be settled was satisfaction enough. No one crossed Maurizio or his kind and got away with it. A vestige of his former power and a few contacts remained. He simply needed to issue the instructions.

  The fate of Ettore Cambroni was altogether different from that of his father, owing largely to his choice of lawyer. Trusted by the mob and with links to a labyrinthine network of favours and hypocrisy, the astute Silvano Da Maggio knew the Art Fraud Squad’s main target was Maurizio. He also understood that given the choice between a fight that might see the entire case collapse or the old man’s head on a platter in exchange for Ettore’s freedom, they would choose the latter. Ever philosophical, the urbane Commissario Massimo Felice, head of the Art Fraud Squad, had been around long enough to be content with Maurizio Cambroni taking the fall and his empire collapsing.

  Not that Ettore was celebrating. His days in the art world finished and his reputation with the mob destroyed, he was a beaten man, his self-esteem in shreds. The grand family villa in the Chianti hills he had once occupied now forfeit to the State, he passed his miserable days cloistered in the seclusion of his modest Florence apartment.

  Ettore only ever left the apartment when his father summoned him to his sick bed in the prison clinic, an order he hated receiving. Entering the prison filled him with foreboding. Every time its gates slammed shut, its very walls seemed to close in on him and the threat that someone would contrive a reason to keep him there taunted him like a demon. His father only summoned him rarely, but when he did, Ettore had no choice but to obey. And now that Maurizio had finished his deliberations, the final summons arrived.

  “Babbo!” Ettore gasped in shock when he saw his father’s skeletal features, the shape of the old man’s emaciated frame hardly registering beneath the bedcover. In the three months since Ettore’s last visit, the decline in Maurizio’s condition was profound.

  Cambroni senior’s eyelids flickered open, his eyes locking onto his son’s. With the slightest twitch of the index finger of his left hand, he instructed Ettore to move towards him. Ettore took a tenta
tive step forward, his deference to the power of the old man as strong as ever.

  Maurizio moved his head impatiently. “Closer,” he rasped. What he had to say to his son was for no one else’s ears. Suspicious of everything and everybody, he assumed the room was bugged. Why wouldn’t it be? The authorities wanted to listen to everything.

  Ettore bent over, turning his head so that his right ear brushed his father’s lips. No microphone could now register what Maurizio said, and Ettore’s head blocked Maurizio’s mouth from the view of any camera.

  The message was a simple one, the two whispered words a barely audible hiss.

  “Ginevra Mancini.”

  Ettore straightened, his eyes falling once more on the wasted shell of his father.

  Satisfied he had his son’s attention, Maurizio lifted his hand towards his neck and with a slow but unambiguous gesture, dragged his extended index finger across his throat.

  “I’m surprised he took so long to work it out,” declared Maria Renzo.

  Bolstered by cushions, she was sitting in a chair close to an electric heater in the sitting room of her apartment, a room Ettore considered was already unhealthily hot.

  Maria’s relief when no charges were laid against her had been immense: she was old and her health would have suffered irreparably. However, she had followed Maurizio Cambroni’s trial with a heavy heart, despairing over the daily flow of scurrilous minutiae from the ever-salivating gutter press.

  “I always suspected that girl,” she lied, knowing full well it was her approval that had persuaded Maurizio to accept Ginevra Mancini.

  “You never said anything,” said Ettore, his tone accusatory.

  “Not my place,” the old woman retaliated.

  “Then why did you say she was perfect?” snapped Ettore. “I remember your exact words. You said nothing about any doubts.”

  “She fooled everyone, not just me. I saw your eyes roaming her body. She was the perfect honey trap for you both. Madonna, men are so gullible.” She crossed herself in case she had offended the Virgin.

  Ettore sighed his resignation. “We were all to blame. She was so convincing; I think she understood more about art than any of us. Wherever did the police find her? I can’t believe someone so talented works for them.”

  Maria nodded. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot and wondering. I remember that when she spoke English to clients, the rich American woman, for example, she sounded very English. Not that I know much English but I’ve seen other Italian women speaking English to foreigners, and they have an Italian way of doing it. With Ginevra it was different. I can’t put my finger on it but I’m wondering now if when she was with us she was acting a part.”

  “You think she might have been English?” said Ettore, the surprise clear in his tone.

  Maria’s shoulders lifted in an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s possible.”

  Ettore stood up and paced the room. “I have to find her, Maria. Babbo insists. It’s his dying … I was going to say wish, but it’s an order. He wants her dealt with. And if what you’ve just suggested is true, it makes the search even more difficult. She might not even be in Italy.”

  Maria’s embittered mouth tightened, her meagre lips disappearing. “Of course, Ginevra Mancini won’t be her real name. That fop of a commissario will have given her a false identity. The bastard. What sort of mother allows her son to become a police officer?” She crossed herself again.

  Ettore stopped pacing. “I will try to call in what few favours I have left. I need someone to find her, someone who is also competent to take the job to its required conclusion. Someone good. But I need something to tell him. Anything.”

  Maria’s head bobbed with sudden animation. “The American woman!” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “Ginevra got on well with her. She only sold her genuine paintings, the sort we used as sweeteners. She didn’t want the woman to waste her money.”

  Her eyes roamed the room while her ideas took on flesh. “I’d bet on a saint’s bones the American woman used her real name. She had no reason to fake it. Find her and you’ll find a way to Ginevra.”

  For the first time since entering the room, Ettore’s shoulders relaxed as a malevolent sneer formed on his lips.

  “Connie Fairbright,” he said. “The rich American’s name was Connie Fairbright.”

  Chapter Two

  Ten days after Maurizio Cambroni tasked his son Ettore with finding and killing Ginevra Mancini, the old man was dead. He had held on for almost two years, determined to solve the puzzle of his betrayal. But once he had made his final decision, once he had rejected all other possibilities, once his ire had focussed to a white-hot pool of hatred and he had issued his final instructions, he sensed an immediate response from his body, its inexorable rate of decline shifting up a gear as his life’s spirit prepared to leave.

  The funeral was sparsely attended, with only a few reluctant family members pressed into service by Ettore. At one time, Maurizio’s fame as an art dealer would have seen many of his wealthy clients crossing continents to pay their respects. But the trial had changed all that. Most of those wealthy clients now knew they were the owners of a good number of brilliantly executed fakes for which they had paid enormous sums. Few people would now cross the road for the man, let alone a continent. Even Maurizio’s mob contacts were mostly absent, wary of who might be watching and secretly filming them. Mostly absent, but not completely. There was one. A strutting young man of around twenty dressed in attitude and a snappy suit. He was fodder for the mob, disposable and deniable, although he wasn’t bright enough to know it. He was there for one reason: to place a wreath that concealed a small sealed envelope.

  Given the number of his men compromised by Maurizio Cambroni’s trial who were now serving long prison sentences, the strutting young man’s boss had considered sending a bomb rather than flowers. But business was business. Ettore’s requirements demanded specific talents. Expensive talents. There was money to be made.

  When Ettore had made contact the day after Maurizio issued his instructions, he was told to meet an intermediary in a faceless backstreet Florentine bar. All pretence at niceties ignored, Ettore went straight to the point. “I have heard you have someone who is clever, someone good enough to trace a woman I am looking for and resourceful enough to kill her while making her death seem like an accident.”

  The intermediary’s eyes, cold, lifeless orbs that revealed nothing, were fixed on Ettore’s.

  “It will be expensive,” he said, finally.

  “I will pay whatever is necessary.”

  The man grunted. “Someone will contact you.”

  He stood and walked to the door, his coffee untouched on the counter.

  The small envelope in the wreath contained a scrap of brown paper folded into quarters. Written on it was a mobile phone number. In the seclusion of the study in his Florence apartment, Ettore stared at the number and memorised it before burning the piece of paper. He knew little of modern technology, but enough to know that phones could be tracked, so he wasn’t stupid enough to call the number from his regular phone. Instead, he retrieved one of a number of anonymous burner phones from a wall safe and took a walk to a quiet backstreet where he knew he would not be overheard.

  The number answered after two rings. “Pronto.” The voice was refined but accented. Possibly Sicilian.

  Ettore knew the form.

  “Alvino gave me this number,” he said, using the nickname for his mob contact, a name that reflected the man’s reputation for fearlessness, a man who had guts. Use of the name was a signal to the responder that Ettore was genuine. “I need the full extent of your services,” he added.

  There was a pause. Ettore pressed the phone to his ear, but he could hear nothing.

  After a long full minute, the voice at the other end barked a question.

  “You are using a burner phone?”

  “Of course.”

  “At precisely eight
this evening you will receive a text message on your phone from another number, not this one. Do not call this number again; it will not work. The message will be an address. Be there at noon tomorrow and be sure to take all the usual precautions. When you enter the building, go up one floor, turn right at the top of the stairs and walk to the door at the end of the corridor. Go inside, sit down at the table and wait. Once you have received the text message, delete it and destroy your phone.”

  Before Ettore had a chance to respond, the line went dead.

  The room in the featureless, backstreet building was in darkness apart from a desk light pointing straight towards the single chair where Ettore sat as instructed. The light was dazzling, but that was the point: Ettore was not expected to see the facial features of anyone else who entered the room.

  After ten minutes, he was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake when a voice pierced the darkness from beyond the lamp.

  “Relax, Signor Cambroni, you were not followed, I have confirmed it.” The voice was the same one he had heard on the phone the previous day, the slightest Sicilian lilt hidden under layers of refinement.

  Ettore’s eyes widened in shock. He had heard nothing; no door opening or closing; no breathing apart from his own. Had the man been there all the time?

  He decided he should exert a little authority, not just be putty to this man. He was no novice.

  “Of course I wasn’t followed. I took every precaution. I—”

  “You didn’t spot my man, Signor Cambroni.” The interruption was a calm yet authoritative statement. Not a question. “He watched you all the way from your apartment.”