He pulled open the door with a confident tug and took a slight step back, poised to spring as his eyes surveyed the area covered by the pool of light. There was no one there.
He leaned forward, peering into the darkness. Had he imagined the knock?
“Hello?” he called.
“Good evening, Detective Constable Brooke,” said a voice from the darkness. “I doubt you were expecting me.”
A figure stepped forward out of the shadows, but remained well out of reach. He was about four inches shorter than Gus and dressed entirely in black: tight leggings, a lightweight padded jacket, a ski mask covering most of his face, a thin glove on the one hand Gus could see, the left, and the straps of a backpack over his shoulders. From his stance, he looked fit and well toned, not someone to mess with.
“The element of surprise is always an advantage,” said the man. “You thought I would continue to send you messages and more of the many images I have of your unfortunate superintendent, didn’t you?”
He paused, his eyes piercing into Gus’s eyes. “We can talk about them in a moment, but first, I should apologise for wasting your time searching for this.”
His left hand swung forward as he tossed something small and light towards Gus. Gus’s automatic reaction was to catch it.
“You bastard,” said Gus, glancing at the earring. “You had it all the time. Did you take it off her?”
“No, Detective Brooke, I did not,” lied Rosselli. “I found it when I inspected your cottage after you cleaned up. You overlooked a number of important things, you see, one of them being the earring.”
“No way!” said Gus, shaking his head. “I would have seen it.”
“You have too much faith in your own abilities, detective. You should be careful; it could get you into trouble. However, the important thing is that you have the earring now. What will you do with it? Put it back in the poor lady’s ear? Or perhaps you can keep it as a trophy.”
Gus’s body tensed at the taunt. Everything was telling him to rush this man and overpower him, ruin his stupid scheme, whatever it was. But something about the man’s confidence stopped him, plus he couldn’t see what was in the man’s right hand.
“What do you want?” he snapped.
“Good question, Gus. You don’t mind if I call you Gus, do you? What do I want? Well, first I’d like to come in. It’s not the warmest of evenings and we have much to discuss. I’m sure you’d agree it would be better done inside.”
Gus stared at him in disbelief. “You expect me to invite you in?”
“Well, it’s not as if I haven’t seen your place before, Gus. I’m pretty familiar with it, really.”
“Jesus!” muttered Gus. He stood aside, making room for Rosselli to pass.
Rosselli laughed. “No, no, that wouldn’t do, now, would it? You back into the kitchen so that you can keep an eye on me, and of course, I can do the same with you as I follow. And please, Gus, keep your distance. I don’t want you coming within six feet of me.”
As Gus moved slowly backwards, Rosselli sighed. “I’m not convinced you understand me. Perhaps I should show you what I have in my other hand.”
He brought his right arm forward and held up the Glock with the silencer attached.
“Had much firearms training, Gus? It’s an excellent weapon. And with my level of accuracy, you’d be dead before the sound wave from the discharge reached you; you’d die not hearing or feeling a thing.”
He smiled. “Reassuring, don’t you think?”
Gus backed away from him, his eyes flicking from the gun to the man’s face.
Rosselli followed him in and pushed the door shut behind him. He looked around and gestured towards one of the two easy chairs near the wood-burning stove. It was the perfect spot; far harder to get out of in a hurry without signalling your intention well in advance. Brooke was much less likely to try to rush him from there.
As Gus sat down, Rosselli pulled one of the two bar stools away from the island unit to give himself room to manoeuvre should he need it. He lay the Glock on the countertop, sat on the stool and turned to Gus.
“Well, my young detective,” he said, as he pulled back the ski mask to reveal his face, “you have got yourself in a mess, haven’t you?” His smile was all sympathy, but Gus simply glared at him. He felt utterly outwitted.
“Am I right in assuming that it was all some dreadful accident?” continued Rosselli. “You had a fun night in the sack, but your superintendent slipped and had a fatal fall in the bathroom? That’s certainly how it looked from her injuries. May I assume also there was quite a bit of alcohol involved?”
Gus glared, resenting the accuracy of what he was hearing. “Yes,” he muttered, “to all of it.”
Rosselli nodded. “Tell me, Gus, I’m intrigued. Do all young and junior police officers like you end up in bed with their seniors? It seems a strange way to run a police force.”
Gus’s eyes flashed angrily for a moment but then his face sagged and he sighed heavily. “How the hell was I to know she was my senior officer? I’d never seen her before. Her car skidded to a halt in front of me with a puncture and I stopped to help her out. We were both soaked from the filthy weather so she came back here. We both willingly took advantage of the situation and clearly we’d both been there before since we lied to each other about our names, meaning neither of us knew who the other was. Fucking hilarious, when you think about it, except for the way it turned out.”
Rosselli nodded. “I can appreciate your predicament and you might have got away with it, depending on how observant your wife is.” He paused, his expression now full of regret. “Actually, I doubt you would have got away with it; there’s still too much evidence in this cottage I think your wife will pick up on. But of course that wouldn’t necessarily lead to the discovery of the superintendent’s body; it might simply mean your wife kicks you out. The body could easily have remained where you put it for years. It’s a good spot.”
“Could have?” said Gus. “Does that mean you’re going to report me?”
Rosselli shook his head, his face registering his utter distaste at such a notion.
“No, no, of course not. I wouldn’t dream of—”
“As long as I pay you a hefty amount of money?” interrupted Gus, his tone sarcastic.
Rosselli reply was dismissive. “Money? No, Gus, it’s not your money I want.”
“Then what do you want?”
Rosselli gave a slight shrug, as if the answer should be all too obvious. “Your assistance. A guarantee of your help.”
“You want my help?” Gus’s mouth wrinkled in scorn. “Why should I help you? You’ve screwed up my plan. Without you sticking your nose in, Trisha McVie might never have been found.”
Rosselli’s smile was condescending. “You are forgetting your wife. She will definitely be suspicious, and once your friends in the police have spoken to her, they will put two and two together. I’m sure it’s only because you are one of their colleagues that they are blind to what should have been blazingly obvious. But they’ll get there, and when they do, you’ll be in trouble.”
“So what have I got to lose?” said Gus, shifting his body and legs as subtly as he could to prepare himself to spring at the man.
But Rosselli had read him. A slight smile still on his face, he fixed a hypnotic stare into Gus’s eyes and suddenly, with no warning, the gun was in his hand and pointing at Gus.
“I’m ahead of you, my young friend, so I think you should relax.”
Gus sat back in the chair, raising his arms in a gesture of submission.
“That was fast,” he said.
“Practice makes perfect,” replied Rosselli. He replaced the gun on the countertop without taking his eyes off Gus.
“What I don’t understand,” said Gus, “apart from the fact that I don’t appear to have much choice, is if I help you, what do I get out of it? It sounds like you’re going to watch me just dig a big hole for myself.”
“T
hat’s a good point, Gus. You are right to expect something in return for helping me. Let me see. Yes, I could help you move the body somewhere it definitely will never be found. I’d recommend cutting it up into small pieces and distributing them in rubbish bins over a wide area.”
Gus shuddered. “I’m not sure I could do that.”
“Happy to oblige, Gus, don’t you worry,” said Rosselli, enjoying himself with the lie.
“What about this cottage?” said Gus.
“What about it?”
“You said I’d missed some evidence, something that might incriminate me if my wife found it.”
“You strike a hard bargain,” continued Rosselli with amusement, “but, yes, I can help you with that as well. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First things first. We need to establish the rules of the game.”
“Rules?”
“Yes, Gus, rules. You see, you are a police officer, and that means from my perspective you are inherently untrustworthy. I cannot rely on you and so I must be sure of what you will and won’t do. And what you won’t do is try to double-cross me.”
He paused and his face darkened. “Ever.”
He studied Gus’s eyes. “I can see defiance, Gus. That’s not good. You’re thinking that you’ll appear to agree with me to appease me but then quietly let me down. It’s a natural enough reaction.”
“Fine,” spat Gus. “Whatever you say. Come on, enlighten me. Tell me your plan.”
Rosselli shook his head. “You have a poor attitude, Gus. Remember, I’m the only person who can rescue you from yourself. Now, let me tell you one or two things to sharpen up your thinking.
“Firstly, I should let you know that I am not working alone. I have a partner who watches from afar to check on my well-being. I report to this person every twelve hours with a coded message that informs him I am in no trouble. But, as professionals, our protocols allow for contingencies. It could be, for some reason, that I can’t send the message exactly on time, so we allow for a little slippage. However, if after another twelve hours, he has still not received a signal, his instructions as of this evening are to kill you.”
While he was telling the truth about the conversations with Giorgio, the death threat to Gus was fiction.
Gus blanched; the man’s cold, clinical delivery was more than unnerving.
“So you see,” continued Rosselli, “if I were to be separated from my means of communication because, say, I had been apprehended or arrested, my partner would seek you out and execute you. You’d be surprised how quickly it would happen and I can assure you that you certainly wouldn’t see it coming.”
He paused to let Gus process the information before continuing.
“But, that’s not all. You see, you might think you could try to outwit my partner. It’s a possibility I have to allow for and so in the unlikely eventuality that you did, I have made copies of everything I have on you: the photographs of the poor superintendent, a detailed account of your actions, a list of the evidence that is still here and in the factory to support the account, many other photos of you at the factory all of which are terribly incriminating, in fact a complete dossier of your actions with the superintendent and compelling evidence to support it. You wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. As a police officer who had behaved so badly, an example would be made of you. You would go to prison for a long time. And where will these copies be sent? Well, if my partner isn’t around to stop it, they will automatically go to your superiors, and just in case they decide they are not going to take action, copies will also go to the press. I should add that we’re not just talking about the present. If I help you by disposing of the unfortunate superintendent’s body, I shall, of course, record that and all the details will be added to the dossier.”
He paused, his face now serious, his eyes cold. “So, detective, I think you get the picture. Am I right?”
Gus was crushed. He had been offered no room to manoeuvre.
“What is it you want me to do?” he said, his voice hardly audible.
Rosselli smiled. “Right now, Gus, nothing. Nothing at all. I simply need to know that should I need something from you, I can rely on you providing it.”
Gus shook his head. “I still don’—”
“Don’t get it, Gus?” snapped Rosselli, as if reprimanding a naughty child. “Come on, surely even in your confused state you should understand. You’re a police officer. I and the people I work for might need your assistance someday, somewhere, to help something … go away, shall we say?”
“Are you talking about organised crime?” said Gus, the light dawning, “because if you are—”
“What? If I am what?” interrupted Rosselli. “What will you do? Come clean and be willing to throw away your future and your freedom? I don’t think so.”
Gus stared at Rosselli in horror at the thought of what he’d got himself into, not realising for one moment that Rosselli was making it all up.
“What are you?” said Gus, as he thought through the conversation. “A fixer for the head honcho of a drugs ring or something? Someone who seeks out suckers like me and effectively blackmails them into working for them?”
Rosselli smiled. “Fixer,” he said. “I like the sound of that, and yes, detective, it’s not far from the truth, although you make it sound rather melodramatic.”
In reality, about a million miles from the truth, he thought to himself.
“So,” said Rosselli, standing and picking up the Glock, “let’s not waste any more of your time. I think we’ve covered everything. I fully intend to keep my side of the bargain. I’ll be in touch soon about the removal and permanent disposal of the superintendent’s body and about cleaning up this place so your wife doesn’t throw you out. We have plenty of time before she returns home.”
He turned and walked to the kitchen door. Opening it, he looked back. “And Gus, don’t think about following me or doing anything stupid. I have eyes on you, I’ll know what you’re doing almost before you’ve done it. Just relax and wait for my call. It seems to me we have a mutually beneficial partnership, don’t you think?”
The door slammed, leaving Gus staring at its bland, painted surface, wondering what had just happened and whether his life would ever be the same again.
Part Six
Jennifer Cotton
Chapter Forty-Four
Sonia Landi was worried. It had been two months since Gianpietro Tebaldi had magically appeared in her life, charmed her with his sophistication and cast a seductive spell on her; two months since the most wonderful dinner under the stars in the Piazza Grande; two months since the phone call that ruined it all.
She thought endlessly about Gianpietro’s poor mother and the selfless way Gianpietro had abandoned his plans for them that evening to rush to his mamma like the dutiful son he was. And she still fantasised about a huge bed in a luxurious hotel room or a love nest somewhere in the hills. He had left her with the gentlest of kisses, followed by flowers the next day and later by chocolates and notes of reassurance about his mother’s recovery.
So why had she heard nothing more? Why had Gianpietro not called or written?
What if he were, with his impeccable manners, shielding her from some terrible news about his mother? Had the poor lady recovered or had she, perhaps, succumbed to whatever illness had struck her down? Was Gianpietro too grief-stricken to contact Sonia, bearing the weight of his sorrow alone?
Sonia had spent long hours anguishing over these possibilities, convincing herself that she, and only she, was the one to help Gianpietro through his misery. If only he could understand she was there for him, waiting to help him, ready to lift him out of his despair and move onwards in their new life together.
She had to make contact; it was the only way, even if it risked spoiling the surprise he had in store for the signora. Surely his little scheme had been forgotten in the all-consuming tragedy that had overtaken him, so really there was nothing to spoil. Perhaps the signora, his old and dear fri
end, didn’t know about his mother’s illness, perhaps this was another example of Gianpietro’s sensitivity towards those close to him, not wanting to burden them with his pain.
Sonia’s daily routine included dusting and tidying the master bedroom of Villa Brillante, the room where the three silver-framed photographs she had copied with her phone for Gianpietro were displayed. And every day she spent more and more time staring at the photographs as her level of concern over Gianpietro increased.
After noticing Sonia’s time performing her bedroom chores was getting longer and longer, Connie watched her over several days before eventually attempting to raise the subject.
“Is something the matter, Sonia?” she said, as she walked silently into the bedroom. The maid was standing motionless in front of the photographs and the question took her by surprise.
“Signora!” she gasped, snapping out of her reverie in embarrassment.
“You don’t seem yourself,” said Connie. “You keep staring at those photographs.”
Sonia was having trouble working out Connie’s Italian, the words, heavily accented with American vowels, were difficult to follow, especially to an ear normally tuned to the local Castiglion Fiorentino dialect.
“I am sorry, signora, I don’t understand.”
Connie tried again, speaking slowly and simply, remembering her unconventional Italian tutor Alessandro Rossi’s instructions back in Rome. “If you can’t say it one way, you must find another. Think, Connie, think about the message you are trying to get across and reduce it to its simplest components.”
“Tell me what it is about the photographs that you like so much. I think the one of Signor Silk with his daughter is very good, don’t you? It captures such a feeling of joy in both of them.”
Sonia frowned at her. She had to seize the opportunity but she wasn’t sure the signora would understand.
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