The Assassin's Dog

by David George Clarke

  “Aren’t you amazed at how serendipitous this all is?” enthused Rosselli. “I mean, of all the people I could have rescued from their friend’s violent husband, I choose the one person who works at one of my oldest friend’s villa in the countryside.”

  Sonia’s laugh was edged with nervousness. She didn’t know what serendipitous meant, but if this clever man thought it was amazing, she would accept it.

  Rosselli sat back and let a triumphant grin form on his face.

  “You know, Connie being away gives me the perfect opportunity to set up a little trick I’ve been planning for ages. She loves the games I play on her. Always has.”

  He smiled to keep the encouragement going. “I was going to make a copy of one of her photos with my phone and then play around with it on Photoshop. Do you like doing that, Sonia?”

  Sonia pulled a face, hoping it would hide her lack of understanding. “I’m not much good with computers.”

  Rosselli laughed. “I can’t believe that. You play with your phone, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, it’s the same, only better. I must show you sometime.”

  “Where did you meet the signora?” she asked. The suddenness of the question surprised him, but he was up to the innocent challenge.

  “Let me see, it must have been about twenty years ago when she came on a trip to Italy with her late husband. He was always occupied with his business affairs, but Connie loves art and even back then she had plans to start a collection.”

  He smiled wistfully, giving the impression of fond memories.

  “I had just set up my first gallery, in Rome. She came in one day and we immediately took to each other, as friends, of course.” He paused and laughed. “She quickly told me she was married. I think she was worried about the reputation of young Italian men with foreigners.”

  Sonia blushed, adding, “Not just foreigners.”

  Rosselli’s knowing smile was designed to confirm his interest in her.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “I sold her some paintings, modern pieces that were not really what she was looking for, but she liked them for the boldness of their colour and brush strokes. I remember she said she found them refreshing. Yes, that was the word she used.”

  He repeated it in English, and although it meant nothing to Sonia, she was suitably impressed by what she saw as his worldliness. She had never had a conversation with anyone as knowledgeable as this man before.

  “How are you feeling, Sonia?” asked Rosselli, reaching out to touch her arm, an expression of concern on his face. “Would you like another corretto? I think it would do you good. That was an intense few moments. Fortunately, I’ve done some training in martial arts. It’s very useful in situations like that.”

  “I don’t think I should, Gianpietro,” she said, enjoying addressing him by his name. “I’m not used to alcohol.”

  “Of course. Perhaps another coffee then, without anything in it. I certainly feel as if I could use one.”

  She hesitated. “I should be getting back to Mamma. She worries if I’m gone for too long, but … well, I’m sure another few minutes won’t hurt. Thank you, I’d love another coffee.”

  Two minutes later he was back with coffees, glasses of water and a selection of pastries.

  “These look too delicious to ignore, don’t you agree? The owner tells me they are fresh from the oven. Please, try one. Or more, if you like.” He laughed, encouraging her.

  He paused to let her bite into one of the pastries before continuing.

  “I was thinking, while I was getting the coffee,” he said, allowing a little hesitancy into his voice. “With Connie being away, I can’t just turn up at the villa unannounced. She told me in an email that she has a whole new security team since my last visit, and, of course, they won’t know me. It would be embarrassing for me to be turned away and embarrassing for them when Connie found out.”

  He looked up to make sure he had her attention.

  “I was wondering, Sonia. Are you working tomorrow? At the villa, I mean.”

  “Yes,” enthused Sonia through a mouthful of pastry.

  Rosselli quietly swallowed his disgust: table manners and etiquette were paramount to him.

  “Excellent!” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “I was wondering if you’d like to help me with my little scheme.”

  “How can I do that?”

  “Oh, it’s very simple. The last time I was at the villa was just after the restoration was finished. I don’t think you were working there then; I’d remember if you had been.” He smiled, letting his eyes capture hers.

  “No,” she said, soaking up the flattery, “I started working there about six weeks after Signora Fairbright moved in.”

  Rosselli nodded. “That explains it.”

  He leaned closer. “I remember seeing several photographs of Connie around the place,” — he was ad libbing wildly and hoping he had got it right — “on her own and with Henry Silk.” He paused, wanting to draw the information from Sonia. “I’ll bet there are some new ones since then, too, aren’t there?”

  Sonia frowned, thinking about the photographs.

  “A couple,” she said. “There’s one of Signor Silk with his daughter, I don’t know if you saw that.”

  “His daughter? No, I don’t remember any of his daughter. But one of her with Henry would be perfect. That would add so much to what I’m planning for Connie.”

  “How can I help?” asked Sonia, excited now by the prospect of being part of this man’s scheme. Rosselli wanted to kiss her.

  “Simple. You have a smart phone, don’t you?”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out an ageing iPhone.

  “I love that model! I used to have one, but it was stolen,” said Rosselli, drawing her in further. “What you could do for me, Sonia, is take some shots on your phone of some of the photos at the villa. One with Connie and Henry together and the one of Henry with his daughter. Could you do that, take the photos on your phone?”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “Perfect! But since I’d like what I’m doing with them to be a complete surprise, it would be better if you didn’t tell Irena or anyone else at the villa. Just take the shots when there’s no one around and we can meet up again and transfer them to my phone.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I’ll show you tomorrow. It couldn’t be easier.”

  Sonia thought through the instructions.

  “I can do it while Irena’s cleaning the kitchen. The photos are in the bedroom, you see.”

  Rosselli sat back and beamed. “That would be absolutely wonderful, Sonia. I shall be forever in your debt. And once Connie sees what I’ve put together, so will she. As for Henry’s daughter, she’ll think it’s hilarious.”

  “I can’t wait to see it,” said Sonia. “You will show me, won’t you? Once you’ve finished.”

  “Of course, Sonia, of course. But again, we must keep it our little secret.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I can see that this is going to be the start of a very special friendship. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have bumped into you. And please tell Irena that I’m a man of my word when you see her. She’ll understand.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Soon after seven the following evening, the two met again at the same bar. In the interim, confident that after he had collected the photographs from Sonia he would be finished in the area, Rosselli had driven back to Rome to leave Goccia in his apartment with his partner Giorgio, the only other human being he trusted with his secrets.

  He returned the Panda to an ancient lock-up garage in a back street before walking three streets to a larger lock-up where he housed a Toyota 4x4 and a steel-grey two-door BMW saloon, the latter a car that far more suited the image that Sonia would have of him than the ageing Panda.

  Rosselli was early and when Sonia walked into the bar, he hardly recognised her. She had attempted a chic, sophisticated l
ook: figure-hugging black trousers and a loose white silk blouse with a high cutaway collar. The blouse was open to just above her breasts, now far more in evidence than the previous evening, thanks to the help of an uplifting bra. A necklace of red beads completed the ensemble, but what surprised Rosselli more was not only her hair, which was now clean, sleek and falling lightly onto her shoulders, but also the absence of spectacles. Her face looked totally different. He wasn’t convinced the contact lenses Sonia was wearing helped her plain looks, but the girl was clearly pulling out all the stops.

  “Sonia!” he said, standing and reaching out to take both her hands in his. “You look sensational!”

  He leaned forward to air-kiss both cheeks. “You should talk to Henry Silk about being in one of his movies. No, not just one; all his movies! You should star alongside him. A home-grown Italian bombshell. You would take Hollywood by storm.”

  “I don’t think I would do very well in Hollywood,” she replied, blushing, “I don’t speak any English, and they say that American English is even harder because it’s full of slang.”

  Rosselli shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “They have language coaches, voice-overs, all sorts of tricks. Once they’re done, you would sound like the perfect Italian film star, purring her English to the delight of the audience.”

  Sonia’s laugh revealed her discoloured teeth. Rosselli averted his eyes.

  “Tell me about your day. Was it successful?”

  Resting her elbows on the table, she leaned her chin onto her hands and tilted her head coyly, a slight smile on her face. “Maybe,” she said, with what she hoped was a teasing tone to her voice.

  Rosselli fought hard to quell his impatience.

  “I can’t wait to see the shots. Are they good? I’ve been thinking about them all day and I’ve got several great ideas. I know Connie will love it when she sees what I’ve done.”

  Sonia sat back and reached for her small handbag. But before she opened it, she caught Rosselli’s eyes again.

  “Did you mention something about dinner?” she said, trying to sound sophisticated.

  Rosselli wanted to snatch her bag and run, but instead he wagged a finger at her.

  “You have pre-empted me, Sonia. I assumed, no, that’s wrong of me, I hoped we should be having dinner together, but I was going to rely on you to recommend a restaurant. I am, after all, a stranger to these parts. It doesn’t have to be in Castiglion Fiorentino. I’ve heard that Cortona has some excellent restaurants, or Arezzo, perhaps. What do you think?”

  Sonia wrinkled her brow, appearing to think of a restaurant, but really she was imagining walking through the streets of Arezzo, the nearest large city, arm in arm with this man, or even hand in hand.

  “There are several in Arezzo, so I’ve heard. I haven’t actually been to any. Perhaps we could look online for a recommendation.”

  “Excellent idea,” Rosselli enthused. He had already done it, just to be sure. “Actually, now you mention it, I remember someone telling me there’s a famous one in the Piazza Grande, up in the old town. I think it’s called the Golden Lance. Have you heard of it?”

  Sonia nodded enthusiastically and Rosselli felt himself weakening. After all, he needed to eat and this guileless woman had, he hoped, got him the information he wanted. Perhaps he should confirm that first.

  “Why don’t we sort out the photographs and then we can head off?” he suggested.

  “Oh yes,” giggled Sonia, “I almost forgot.”

  She opened her bag, removed her phone and touched the photos icon. She had copied three photos, but only one showing Henry Silk with a young woman whom Rosselli had to assume was Jennifer.

  “These are perfect, Sonia, well done! And that’s a lovely shot of Henry’s daughter, don’t you think? I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Now, let’s just airdrop them to my phone and we’re done.”

  He swiped the screen of her phone, hit a couple of icons and in a moment, his phone pinged.

  “There,” he said, “as simple as that. Excellent! Well, that’s the business sorted for the evening; I can’t thank you enough. I’m going to have such fun playing with these. I can’t wait for Connie to see the results.”

  He returned the phone to Sonia and held out his hand. “Shall we? My car is just outside the walls.”

  As the evening light over the Piazza Grande faded into deep cobalt, their dinner under the portico lived up to the reviews Rosselli had read online. For Sonia, every moment was magical, and when Rosselli showed interest in her collection of Tyrollean cuckoo clocks, she decided to let this man do as he pleased with her. She would go with him to wherever he chose.

  For Rosselli, Sonia’s body language made it all too obvious what she wanted, which was precisely what he didn’t want. The thought of disappearing to a hotel room with her, or even a fumble in his car in a quiet spot in a nearby wood, filled him with horror. Sonia or any woman, it made no difference; the idea was simply abhorrent.

  However, he had met many other Sonias over the years while gathering information during the preparative phases of countless assignments, although few had been as guileless, and he had a tried-and-tested escape plan. A second phone in his pocket, an older design with keys, was programmed to send a single word text when he pressed a sequence of three keys. Within five minutes, he would receive a phone call on his smartphone from Giorgio posing as his brother insisting he return to Rome immediately. Their mother had been taken ill and he must drop everything and come at once.

  Rosselli played the part well. They were strolling back through the Piazza del Duomo on the way to the Pietri car park north of the city walls. Rosselli had one arm around Sonia who was leaning into his body. She had drunk two glasses of wine, far more than she was used to, and was a little unsteady on her feet. With his free hand, Rosselli felt inside his jacket pocket and pressed the appropriate buttons on the old phone. As they approached his car, the shrill of his ringtone broke the spell of the comfortable silence between them.

  “I think I’ll ignore that,” he said. “I’ll turn it off so that we aren’t disturbed again.”

  He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and made to switch it off. But Sonia stopped him. “What if it’s important?”

  Rosselli laughed. “At ten thirty on a Wednesday night? I doubt it.”

  He paused for effect before shrugging his shoulders “OK, if you think I should.”

  His dismissive glance at the screen was immediately followed by a theatrical double take. “It’s … it’s my brother,” he said, frowning. “Sorry, Sonia, I’d better take it. He never calls me this late. In fact he hardly ever calls me at all.”

  The rest of the theatre played out according to plan; Sonia was far too concerned about Gianpetro’s mother to worry about the fragments of her shattered dreams now evaporating into the night. There would be other nights, she was sure. She even suggested she took a taxi home rather than delay the poor man, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and thirty minutes later Rosselli duly dropped her off outside her apartment with a brief kiss and a promise to get in touch as soon as he could.

  The next day, a huge bunch of flowers was delivered to Sonia’s apartment together with a note of apology. The following week, a card arrived with the good news that his mother was showing signs of recovery along with the bad news that he had been called urgently to a sale in New York by a client he couldn’t afford to refuse. Chocolates and another brief note that told Sonia nothing appeared a week later but after that, she heard no more. She didn’t worry, even though she had overlooked taking Gianpietro’s phone number or his address in Rome. Connie Fairbright knew Gianpietro Tebaldi and since they were old friends, he would probably arrive one day at the villa and surprise her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cosimo Graziano Rosselli’s final meeting with Ettore Cambroni in the neglected back-street building craving the mercy of a demolition order was brief and to the point.

  As before, Ettore was given no opportunity to see Ro
sselli’s face. Not that the ruined art forger was interested; he had worked with the mob for long enough to know ignorance was the best policy.

  Once again, he was made to wait, a common enough tactic to put him on edge, and as before, when he finally spoke, Rosselli’s voice cut through the darkness of the room with the clinical precision of a surgeon’s scalpel.

  “In the folder in front of you is a photograph.”

  There it was again, an echo in the tone, no more, but still enough for Ettore to hear the underlying cadences of a Sicilian.

  He had seen the folder as soon as he sat down on the upright chair, but he hadn’t dared to open it. He assumed it represented a test, a measure of his patience, and he wasn’t going there, but in the wait before Rosselli spoke, Ettore’s eyes kept drifting back to it.

  “Look at the woman in the photograph inside and tell me if she is the subject of this contract.” Rosselli knew it was. How could it not be? But he needed to hear it from his client.

  Ettore leaned forward and pulled the folder closer, staring at the cover for a few seconds before slowly opening it. And there she was. Ginevra Mancini. Not just looking back at him, but laughing, as if to mock him and his gullibility. His fingers closed into a ball around the edge of the folder, bending and creasing it as his grip tightened. The room around him ceased to exist as his whole consciousness focussed on the image of Jennifer. He hardly even registered the man standing next to her in the photograph.

  “Well?” came the same bark, slicing through the room’s silence, the very air molecules forced apart by its authority.

  Ettore didn’t answer immediately, his voice paralysed with tension.

  Finally, as his eyes narrowed in hatred, he confirmed what Rosselli had come to hear.

  “It’s her. That is Ginevra Mancini. This time you got it right.” His mouth twisted into a vicious snarl. “I could kill her with my bare hands.”