Remorseless

by David George Clarke

  Olivia reached out and took Connie’s hand. “No Connie, you mustn’t. All the agents are lined up; it would be a terrible waste. And you know that some of the paintings are only available for a very limited time. You don’t want to miss this opportunity; there are some fine works listed.”

  “Your health is more important, Diana, I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  Olivia shook her head, wincing as she did. “Connie, these are difficult men, proud men.” She dropped her voice to an emphatic whisper. “Neapolitan men. They think differently, live by different rules. They’re not used to selling directly to women, not even if they are rich. They would see your not keeping your appointment just because your PA was ill as a slight. They might well withdraw their collections. You don’t want that.”

  She waited, letting Connie wrestle with her conscience. She knew how much Connie wanted the paintings on offer, and there was more than a grain of truth in what she had said: the gallery owners in Naples were hard to deal with. They were closed, suspicious men, unused to forthright American women who didn’t know their place. Contorni had helped to smooth the path, but even he, as a Roman, was an outsider, never to be completely trusted.

  Eventually Connie sighed, her resignation clear. “I know you’re right, Diana, and I know how hard you and Cesare have worked to set up these meetings. But let me at least call the doctor.”

  Olivia patted her hand. The last thing she wanted was to be waiting around for some doctor. “Let’s give it another day; I’m sure the pills will cut in soon. If I’m no better when you get back, I’ll see a doctor, I promise. But please don’t hurry back on my account. As I’ve tried to explain before, some of these men can’t be rushed. Let Cesare take the pulse of the meetings. If the trip needs more time, let it happen. I’ll be fine.”

  She forced a smile. “Now, off you go; Cesare will be waiting. You know how much he loves his flights in a private jet; they appeal to his sense of self-importance.”

  Olivia gave them fifteen minutes before getting showered and ready. It was the maid’s day off and she was alone in the villa, so there was no one to tell tales.

  Two days before at her house, she had taken a small handgun fitted with a silencer from one of the safes built into the walls of the smaller of the two cellars. She retrieved it now from where she had hidden it in her wardrobe and buried it in her handbag.

  After parking her car at the Santa Maria Novella Station in Florence an hour later, she walked through several back streets to the Cambroni gallery, pleased to see Thompson the doorman in his usual place as she passed on the opposite side of the street. He didn’t look up — passers-by were of no interest to him — and even if he had seen her, with her wig of short blonde hair, large sunglasses, jeans and short waist-length jacket, she bore little resemblance to the woman he had met with Signora Fairbright a few days before.

  Olivia was waiting for lunchtime when she knew the gallery would close, and she was hoping that Jennifer Cotton would oblige her by going home for lunch. Or perhaps she would be meeting her minders. That would be interesting.

  At one precisely, the door to the street swung open and Jennifer emerged alongside Ettore Cambroni. When the pair started to walk in the same direction, Olivia was concerned that they might be going to lunch together. But then they stopped, exchanged a few words and Cambroni headed off in the general direction of the Ponte Vecchio while Jennifer strode away in the opposite direction. Olivia smiled to herself; she needed Cotton to be alone.

  Keeping her distance, Olivia followed Jennifer, acutely aware of the need for caution. The girl had probably been trained in stealth techniques, her antennae fine-tuned to detect anyone trailing her. However, the spring in Cotton’s step seemed to say otherwise. There was an urgency about her pace, as if she were about to meet someone special, and there were no sudden changes of direction, pauses in doorways or shows of studying a shop window. Who could it be? A lover, perhaps? Whatever the reason, Olivia could see no evident caution in Cotton’s march through the back streets to her apartment building a few minutes from the gallery. From the shadows a hundred yards distant, Olivia saw the girl punch in a code and disappear through the entrance door. She hurried along the narrow side street, hugging the shadows until she was outside the entrance. There was an array of buzzers alongside name panels for the occupants of the six floors. And on the fourth, the one in which she was interested. 4A Mancini.

  Olivia looked along the street. Thirty yards from the entrance to Cotton’s apartment building was a wider section to the narrow street where an old building had been demolished and its replacement set back from the street, giving up just enough space to park a car. The space was empty. Olivia turned in the direction of the Santa Maria Novella station car park and hurried off.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  On the day of Connie’s visit to the gallery with Olivia and Cesare Contorni, Jennifer had been disappointed to be told that instead of accompanying Connie Fairbright around the collection of Renaissance portraits Ettore Cambroni had acquired, she was to work her charms on a Dutch couple who had called that morning to request a viewing. For Cambroni, mention by the couple of a rich Belgian widow from Antwerp who had spent a small fortune in the gallery over the years was temptation enough. If, as they insisted, this couple were good friends of hers, they must also be loaded.

  “Find out their tastes, Ginevra,” instructed Cambroni, “show them whatever we have. Retrieve paintings from the vault if necessary. But don’t let them leave without spending some good money, or at the very least, committing themselves heavily. Whatever they like, we can accommodate them, as you know.”

  “I assume, signore, that since they are new customers, they are restricted to seeing the first floor gallery only.”

  “Yes, we can’t be too careful, even if they appear to be genuinely wealthy. And we have Signora Fairbright and her party arriving this morning as well. She seems to be the sort of person who expects exclusivity; I don’t think she would appreciate having to share her space with others.”

  His rare smile was artful as he tilted his head to Jennifer, who thought the unusual distortion of his normally severe features made him look like a hungry python.

  “I know I can rely on you, Ginevra.”

  “Thank you, signore.”

  The Dutch couple had proved demanding, wanting to know every smallest detail of the provenance of each of the paintings that interested them. Their knowledge was broad and Jennifer found herself wondering if she should recommend to the Cambronis that it might be risky to substitute any of the paintings they were looking at with fakes. But then she remembered why she was there, what the police hoped to achieve. Maybe this couple was exactly the break the team needed to expose the Cambronis for what they were. In the meantime she would continue as instructed by Ettore Cambroni and let the deals evolve.

  When Connie took the time to seek Jennifer out, it created a few moments of light relief after an hour of heavy discussion. The Dutch couple too seemed to appreciate the short distraction. Connie mentioned her companion, as she had on her previous visit to the gallery, and dispatched Cesare to find her. When he came back empty-handed, Jennifer glanced along the gallery just as Olivia was heading for the stairs, her back to the gallery. As her eyes fell on her, something distant in the deep recesses of her brain sparked, but the spark was weak, gone as quickly as it came, and before she could link the image with any other information buried in her memory, the woman had disappeared.

  Joining Connie for lunch was out of the question. The Dutch couple had made their own arrangements and insisted Jennifer go with them. As a result, Jennifer didn’t pursue the spark, and it didn’t seem important enough for her to check the CCTV records to see if the woman was shown.

  The Dutch couple returned to the gallery for the next four days wanting more and more information before, on the fifth day, they finally purchased a stunning portrait of a young Florentine street urchin by the eighteenth century French painter Pierre Lab
reche. Jennifer had coveted the painting for some time and had been hatching a plan to persuade Pietro to buy it. However, a sale was a sale and the Dutch couple were thrilled with their purchase.

  Jennifer declined their offer to join them for lunch; she was intending to spend an hour at her flat on a Skype call to Derek who was currently involved in a case that saw him spending many long evenings and nights staking out the East Midlands headquarters of a criminal network employing under-age Eastern European girls in a pornography and prostitution racket. His only opportunity for calls was therefore limited to lunchtimes, soon after he woke up following his night shift.

  Shortly before one o’clock, Ettore Cambroni indicated it was time to close the gallery until it reopened at four, and Jennifer hurried through the narrow cobbled Florentine streets that led to her apartment. At least for this apartment she had no need to take the diversionary tactics required for visiting the watchers and she was eager to speak to Derek.

  Rather than wait for the ancient lift, she ran up the stairs to her fourth floor apartment and headed directly for the vacuum cleaner and her hidden mobile phone, the one she used for communicating with Felice and Godden beyond coded texts on her ordinary phone, and for calls to Derek and Henry. The phone was sealed in a ziplock pouch inside the dust bag.

  “Yo, babe!” cried Derek as their call connected and they could see each other. With fibre-optic connections at both ends, the image was crisp, vividly clear and free of pixelation. “How’s it going?”

  “You’re looking at the Cambroni gallery’s sales assistant of the year. I’ve just pulled off another big-bucks sale to enrich their very dodgy coffers.”

  “I thought you were the only sales assistant.”

  “I am, effectively, since Maria is at work so little now, but that doesn’t mean my brilliance isn’t appreciated.”

  “What about your modesty? Are they impressed by that too?”

  “You betcha; they love me. Can’t believe their luck.”

  “It’s going to be a bit of a rude awakening then. Are you any closer to your endgame?”

  “Top secret, dear boy, you never know who’s listening.”

  “Bollocks, Moneypenny. This is 007 you’re talking to.”

  “Then you should understand the need for caution. But yes, I think we’re getting close. I’ve got another meeting this evening with the team and we’re going to discuss strategy.”

  “So by this time next week you could be back in Nottingham?”

  “I suppose it’s a possibility; I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I doubt it though, the paperwork will be horrible once this part’s over. And there are all the previous sales to follow up on.”

  “Surely the Italians will field that for their end, and Godden for yours. After all, he’s only interested in the UK connection.”

  “You reckon? I’ve a strong feeling that yours truly will be hauled in to push paper, so a week might be a tad ambitious.”

  “Weekends?”

  “What are they?”

  “Days allocated since the dawn of man for relaxation.”

  “Interesting concept, but relaxation wasn’t what I had in mind once I’m back in my flat in The Park.”

  “Really? Are you still bent on pounding the streets and frightening dog walkers with your racing bike?”

  “That would be outside my flat. What I’m thinking of inside is far more energetic.”

  “Can’t think what you’re on about, DC Cotton. I guess you’ll just have to show me.”

  “Use your imagination. Right, it’s your turn to tell me how you’re getting on. How are the midnight trysts?”

  “Mind-numbing, to tell the truth. The info is developing at snail’s pace.”

  “There must be something to divert my mind from thoughts of selling paintings.”

  “OK,” said Derek, dropping his voice. “Here’s how it sits.”

  He spent the next twenty minutes giving details of his case, although as always, he avoided mentioning any names or locations despite his total confidence in the security system Ced Fisher had installed in both his and Jennifer’s phones.

  After another exchange of nonsense about the SCF office in Nottingham, Derek announced that he had to get to work. “Sitting around all night in a draughty derelict building may sound like a plum posting, but like you, I still have the paperwork to attend to,” he said. “What are you up to now? Back to the grind?”

  “Actually, I’m going to get an hour’s shuteye. The siesta really is a most civilised practice, especially when tonight’s session promises to be lengthy.”

  They rang off. Jennifer put the phone back in the vacuum cleaner’s dust bag and headed for the bedroom, setting the alarm on her ordinary phone to ensure she’d be back to work on time.

  At three thirty, refreshed after her nap, she was ready to face any afternoon customers. Boosted as always by her call to Derek, she set the apartment’s security and CCTV, locked the door and skipped down the stairs.

  Outside in the narrow, deserted street, the only sound was the click of her heels echoing from the cobbles and the ancient stones of the surrounding buildings. Thirty yards from the entrance to her building, a large Audi hatchback occupied the spot where the street briefly widened, but this was normal; the space was often used by one or other of the nearby residents during siesta time, and Jennifer took little notice of the car now parked there beyond noting that the tailgate was open and a jack was sitting on the street. As she walked past the car, she heard footsteps behind her and a voice say, “Mi scusi, signorina.”

  Jennifer sensed from the accent that the woman speaking was a foreigner, but in Florence that was hardly unusual. She turned and was confronted with the barrel of a small, silenced handgun pointing at her chest. Automatically half raising her hands, she looked up from the gun to the face of the person holding it. As she took in the woman’s features, she gasped, a cold shiver of fear raking her spine.

  “Freneton,” she whispered, her heart racing.

  The spark she had felt briefly in the gallery days before rekindled, this time stronger as she fitted the pieces together.

  “You were at the gallery. What are you up to?”

  “Time for chit-chat later, Cotton, assuming I can contain my enthusiasm to kill you.”

  She pointed towards the car with the gun. “Get into the back,” she snarled, “before I change my mind. I can assure you that nothing would give me greater pleasure than shooting you here and now. But as it happens, you are temporarily more useful to me alive.”

  She took a step forward, but still remained too far out of range for Jennifer to make a move.

  “I won’t say it again, Cotton. Get in.”

  Jennifer walked slowly to the rear of the car and stopped.

  “In!” growled Olivia through clenched teeth.

  Jennifer reluctantly climbed into the luggage area and made to turn around, her eyes scanning the surrounding buildings for any sign of someone emerging.

  Olivia was gesticulating with the gun.

  “Lie down with your back to me. Foetal position. Hands to your face.”

  Jennifer lay down and no sooner had she turned away than she felt the sharp jab of a needle in her neck. Briefly her head was a vortex of jagged light spinning out of control, after which there was silence and blackness.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  At three thirty the following morning, Derek Thyme’s head was nodding slowly, the long hours of tedium starting to take their toll. For the last four hours there had been no activity in the building opposite that was the focus of his interest, but less and less of his attention, and in spite of several strong coffees, he was struggling to keep awake.

  When the phone in his pocket vibrated with a message, he assumed it was Pete Harding, his replacement in the boring stake-out duties, texting to say he was on his way.

  Derek pulled out the phone, his witty response to what would doubtless be the usual crude comment already half-formed in his h
ead. He had the brightness turned down to prevent the screen lighting up the room like a beacon and revealing his presence to anyone outside who happened to be looking his way. Holding the phone low under the table where he was sitting he peered at the screen to see the first part of the message.

  There was only one line. As he read it, Derek snapped awake with a start.

  ‘Urgent. Call me ASAP. Godden’

  He stared in disbelief at the screen. What had happened? It must be something serious for Godden to get in touch at this hour. He felt his breathing increase and his gut tighten as various possibilities flooded his mind, all of them unthinkable. Jen. Something had happened to her. He checked the time, willing Pete Harding to be early for once. He had to call Godden but he and his team weren’t allowed to talk beyond whispers in the observation room; that could only happen in the back room.

  In the early days of the stake-out there had always been two of them on duty, so one or the other could always cross the hallway to call in any urgent information without compromising the operation. But as one uneventful week gave way to the next, the bosses had scrutinised the budgets and decreed that one officer per shift would do. If he needed to leave his post for a bathroom break or to make a cup of coffee, he could turn on the video surveillance camera and leave the room, so long as the absence wasn’t for more than a few minutes.

  Derek checked the video camera focus, pressed the record button and zoomed out to make sure the field of view covered all he could see with his naked eye, after which he rushed from the room, hitting Godden’s name in his contacts list as he did.

  Godden answered immediately.

  “Derek, thanks for calling back so quickly.”

  “Sir, it’s the middle of the night. What’s happened?”

  “It’s Jennifer, Derek, we’ve lost track of her. When was the last time you spoke?”