by LJ Ross
Ryan entered the building foyer and flashed his warrant card at the concierge, who stood up to chase after him as he made directly for the bank of lifts.
“Scusi! Signore! Non ti e permesso lassu!”
Ryan dodged him with ease and took the stairs three at a time, sprinting upward towards the fourth floor. He burst onto the landing, barely noticing its luxury furnishings as he jogged along the corridor searching for the right apartment. Finally, he came to a door at the end with a brass number ‘12’ and an ornate doorbell beside it.
He didn’t hesitate.
“Armstrong! Police! Open the door!”
He banged a fist on the sturdy oak panel and, when nothing happened, he took a step backwards, ready to ram his body into the wood to force entry.
But two pairs of strong arms caught him from behind.
“Ryan! Porca merda, stay back!”
Ricci hauled him away with the help of a breathless concierge and another police officer while Ryan fought like an angry wasp.
Just then, the door opened.
* * *
Armstrong stood in the doorway of his apartment with a towel wrapped around his lower body, revealing a muscular, hairless torso. His skin appeared to be wet from a recent shower and he held another towel in his hands, which he used to dab at his face.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
“Sir, we apologise for the disturbance, but we’ve received a report—” Ricci began to explain, but was cut off when Armstrong caught sight of Ryan.
“I might have known!” he sneered. “You’ll stop at nothing to destroy my reputation with your conspiracy theories. Harassing me in my own country not enough for you, eh, Ryan? You have to come to Italy, to spoil what should be one of the greatest moments of my career?”
Ryan had heard enough.
In one fluid motion, he reared away from the hapless concierge and elbowed Armstrong aside, storming into the apartment to search each of the rooms in turn before anyone could stop him.
“This is an outrage!” Armstrong yelled. “I’m calling my lawyer.”
“Please, signore, there is no need—”
Ricci tried to placate him, but it was no use. The phone was already ringing.
“I’ll have your job for this,” Armstrong vowed.
Rapping out a series of orders to his sergeant concerning damage limitation, Ricci hurried after Ryan.
He found him in the bedroom, looking confused.
“She’s not here,” he said, staring at the wardrobes he’d pulled open and at the neatly-made bed in the centre of it all.
“I can see that!” Ricci shouted. “I want you to leave, or I will have you removed. Even now, Armstrong is calling his lawyer who will make a formal complaint on his behalf before the night is out. It was badly done,” Ricci finished, and put a none-too-gentle hand into the small of Ryan’s back to propel him out of the room.
“I don’t understand,” Ryan said, ignoring Ricci’s diatribe. “Why would anyone make an anonymous call about a woman screaming in Apartment 12?”
“It was obviously a false tip-off. It happens all the time; you should know that.”
Ricci frog-marched him through the apartment, but Ryan stopped when he reached Armstrong, who was standing beside the front door with a towelling robe draped over his shoulders while Banotti did her best to convince him not to make a complaint to their superiors.
When he looked up and saw Ryan again, his lip curled.
“You’re finished,” he said.
“On the contrary,” Ryan told him. “I’m just getting started.”
* * *
On the street outside, Inspector Ricci rounded on Ryan immediately.
“What the hell do you think you were doing back there?” he burst out, squaring up to him while passers-by slowed at the sound of raised voices.
“My job!” Ryan shot back. “Acting on information that was time-sensitive.”
“We agreed at the start, this is my city, my investigation—”
“And you agreed to act,” Ryan reminded him. “Instead, I was left standing out on the street, losing vital minutes as you took your time getting here. The police station is a couple of minutes’ drive from here, no more.”
“We came as quickly as we could,” Ricci said, flushing a bit.
“Not quickly enough.” Ryan was merciless. He had to be. “And the sirens? That gave Armstrong time to cover himself. I don’t know how, yet, but I’ll find out.”
“A body does not vanish into thin air,” Ricci laughed, shaking his head at what he thought was pig-headedness. “As for the tip-off, I told you before, it was obviously a hoax. Somebody looking to make trouble for Armstrong, for some reason, a competitor—”
“Bullshit. It wasn’t a hoax.”
“The woman was not there!”
Ryan stepped closer, lowering his voice.
“What did you think Armstrong had been doing, when he opened the door?”
“He had just come out of the shower or a bath. We interrupted him, obviously.”
Ryan smiled grimly.
“I checked the bathroom,” he said. “There wasn’t a drop of water in the bath, or the shower. That’s unusual, for a man whose hair was so wet.”
Ricci’s lips clamped shut and his eyes strayed upward, to the fourth floor of the grand old palace that was now a haven for its ultra-rich inhabitants. Taking her opportunity in a moment of calm, Sergeant Banotti stepped forward to speak quietly in his ear and Ricci nodded.
“Martina Calari’s parents have arrived at the police station,” he said, running tired hands through his hair. “I need to go back and speak to them.”
“And say what?” Ryan asked. “Are you going to tell them what you told me? That she hasn’t been missing long enough to cause concern; that it hasn’t been anywhere near twenty-four hours and to come back tomorrow?”
Ricci sighed.
“She went missing after work, so I’m going to request the CCTV from the Uffizi to see if it can help us. I’m going to send in the sweepers to see if there are any traces at her apartment and we’ll speak to her fiancé.” He paused, lifting his eyes to meet Ryan’s blazing ones. “At this stage, I do not have to do any of that, but I’m going to act. On one condition: that you do not.”
He lifted a hand and swept it through the air.
“No more contact with Armstrong, no more observations, no more breaches of jurisdiction. In return, I will do all I can, but you must trust me.”
There was a word that carried a wealth of meaning, Ryan thought.
“And what if I happen to meet Armstrong in a social setting?”
“There is no reason that you would.”
“My wife and I will be at the party tomorrow night,” he said. “It will be impossible to escape the acquaintance.”
Ricci was surprised.
“It is an invitation-only event, how—?”
“You’re not the only one with connections.”
Ricci’s face darkened, but he didn’t enquire further.
“It doesn’t matter. You will not be going, nor will your wife. You have caused enough trouble this evening and we cannot afford any more. This is a final warning, Ryan.”
As Ricci headed back to his car, Ryan turned to look up at the palazzo towering behind him and locked eyes with the man who watched him from one of the higher windows. Anger washed over him as he saw Armstrong’s smiling face, which bore the smug expression of a man who believed he was above the law.
Time, Ryan thought.
The most precious of all commodities; and his time was running out.
CHAPTER 21
Saturday, 24th February
Chief Constable Sandra Morrison was at her desk in Northumbria Police Headquarters before eight. She’d had a dreadful night’s sleep, having spent most of it tossing and turning in her bed. Around four-thirty, she’d accepted defeat and resigned herself to a day filled with a higher-than-usual caffeine content.
All of which made her smile, because he was describing Ryan to a tee.
How many times had her star detective frustrated her with his forthright methods and uncompromising view of policing?
Too many to count.
She leaned back in her desk chair while the sun rose in the window behind her, brightening the functional office with its taupe-coloured walls. She raised a third cup of coffee to her lips and thought about the Problem of Ryan.
If it was a problem, at all.
Yes, he was pig-headed at times. He could be stubborn, unyielding and it was an understatement to say that he did not suffer fools gladly. But he was always kind, he could be very charismatic—though her choice of word would have embarrassed him—and sensitive to the victims of crime. He was also highly perceptive, with an unrivalled understanding of what made the criminal mind tick. Above all else, Ryan was a complicated man with a simple moral compass, which distinguished ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ and seldom wavered. Because of it, he would never, ever, accept a second-rate approach to the ongoing fight against serious crime. It was, in part, due to the loss and trauma he had experienced first-hand but that alone wasn’t responsible. It took a patchwork of life experiences to build up the fabric of a person and whatever it was that had contributed to the man Ryan was today had made him virtually incorruptible.
And hard to manage, she added, with a small smile.
Morrison had a reputation for being a fair woman but one who was not afraid of tackling difficult decisions or conversations, where necessary. If she felt the situation warranted her intervention, she would not hesitate to recall her man and give him a thorough dressing down for his behaviour; after all, Ryan was not in Italy as a private tourist, he was there in his capacity as a Chief Inspector of the Northumbria Police Constabulary, albeit unofficially.
She spent another couple of minutes mulling the situation over, then leaned across to place a call through to DI MacKenzie, who answered almost immediately.
There are, after all, two sides to every story.
* * *
“You wanted to see me, Ma’am?”
After a courteous tap on the Chief Constable’s office door, MacKenzie stepped inside.
“Yes. Close the door, would you?”
MacKenzie did as she was bid and came to stand in front of Morrison’s desk, which took up almost the full width of the room.
“Have a seat,” the other woman offered.
MacKenzie took the same approach as Ryan as far as proffered seating was concerned and tended towards the presumption that, when a senior officer invited you to sit, it was because they were about to impart news that was either very good, or very bad.
“How’s things?”
Subconsciously, MacKenzie’s back straightened a bit in the uncomfortable visitor’s chair as she prepared to deliver a progress report.
“I hope things have transitioned as smoothly as possible over the past couple of days,” she said. “The staff seem happy enough and we’re just about juggling workload.”
“Quiet time of year, in comparison with the usual rounds of GBH and robbery leading up to Christmas,” Morrison observed. “Same pattern, every year.”
MacKenzie nodded.
“What about numbers? Anything taxing?”
“We caught a new one up at Warkworth on Thursday morning,” MacKenzie said. “I wouldn’t say it’s taxing us, yet, but we’re about to review the victim’s work history to see if he was dealing with anything that triggers a connection with organised crime. That’s likely to put a bit of strain on resources and, as you know, his death was reported on Wednesday’s evening news so that adds a bit of public pressure. I’m waiting to hear from forensics to see if there’s a lead there but, so far, we haven’t been lucky.”
“Pity,” Morrison said. “Did I hear the victim was a ferryman for the castle?”
“Yes, although he had recently changed his name and relocated to Warkworth from Newcastle, where he had lived and worked as a successful prosecuting barrister for years.”
Morrison frowned.
“His name was Charon?”
“No, ma’am—that was his new name. Previously, he was Edward Clarkson.”
Morrison’s sandy blonde eyebrows raised a bit.
“I know him,” she said. “Or, rather, I knew him back in the days when I was building cases for trial. He was lethal in court but not very likeable on a personal level, I seem to recall.”
MacKenzie was unsurprised, since that tallied with everything she had already heard.
“There’s some suggestion he was connected with former DCS Gregson,” she added, somewhat hesitantly. The Department was still dealing with the extensive fall-out following that man’s wide-ranging and corrupt criminal activity, so it was always a touchy subject to raise.
“Another one,” Morrison muttered.
“Possibly, yes.”
MacKenzie felt a fleeting moment of sympathy for the other woman, who carried a heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders. It gave her no pleasure to add to add to the existing burden.
“We’ll look into it, ma’am, and update you if there’s anything concerning on that score.”
“Thank you,” Morrison said.
There was a short, awkward silence and MacKenzie assumed that was the end of the meeting. She began to rise from her chair, then Morrison’s voice had her plopping back down again.
“The thing is, Denise, you’re needed elsewhere. I heard from my counterpart in Italy last night,” she explained. “It seems Ryan has been rubbing people up the wrong way, shaking things up…in other words, being himself.”
MacKenzie’s face broke into a huge grin.
“He has a tendency to do that.”
Morrison gave a rueful smile, then became serious again.
“They want him out,” she said. “They think he has a personal vendetta against Nathan Armstrong and he’s a liability.”
There was another short pause.
“You want me to go and bring him back?” MacKenzie asked, and her voice cooled, just a fraction.
“No,” Morrison replied. “I want you to go and help him bring the bastard in.” She’d made the mistake of doubting Ryan’s instincts and abilities once before. It wasn’t a mistake she planned to make again.
MacKenzie found a new level of respect for the woman sitting across the desk.
“When should I leave?”
“As soon as you’ve briefed a suitable replacement,” Morrison replied.
“Phillips—?”
“No, take him with you. Those two are like peas in a bloody pod,” she muttered, affectionately. “What about Lowerson?”
MacKenzie thought of the young detective constable, a man who had lost his way for a while but who would always remain their friend. Only the week before, he’d been through his own personal hell and was taking time off to recover himself.
It was too soon to ask him to come back, and she said as much.
“Agreed,” Morrison said, then seemed to shrug it off. “Alright, leave that to me. You and Phillips concentrate on getting yourselves over there and find out what the hell has been going on. You can probably manage Operation Hotspur remotely, for the sake of a couple of days, but I’ll keep an eye on it from this end.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
As MacKenzie rose to leave, she paused.
“Can I ask you something?”
Morrison waited.
“Why not just tell him to come home, to stop rocking
the boat?”
Morrison huffed out a laugh.
“Firstly, he’d never listen. Secondly, Ryan wasn’t the only one to feel burned when Armstrong walked out of the foyer downstairs, free as a bird. I’ve looked back over the files, myself. It was a travesty and it needs to be corrected, morally and otherwise. Our first duty is to protect, and that’s exactly what Ryan is trying to do.” She shrugged. “Does that answer your question, DI MacKenzie?”
“Admirably, ma’am.”
CHAPTER 22
Ryan had not slept particularly well, either, but it had nothing to do with his present standing in the eyes of the Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali and everything to do with the mystery of what had happened the previous evening. All through the night, his mind grappled with the questions of who had placed a call to the Gruppo with their tip-off about Armstrong’s apartment and where Armstrong had taken Martina Calari, the events planner at the Uffizi Gallery.
If he hadn’t been aware of Armstrong’s history and exploits, Ryan might have passed off a chance meeting with a Parisian waiter as coincidence. However, a second ‘chance’ meeting with an Italian lawyer and a third ‘chance’ association between Armstrong’s forthcoming party at the Uffizi and the subsequent disappearance of the woman who was planning the event was too much to swallow.
The fact was, he needed more information: he needed to see the CCTV from the Uffizi Gallery; he needed to speak to those who had been last to see Martina Calari before she disappeared; he needed to know how far the police had traced the anonymous tip-off; and he needed to listen to the call himself.
He couldn’t do any of those things without making his peace with Inspector Ricci.
Humble pie was not a favourite dish of Ryan’s—in fact, he was hard-pressed to remember the last time he’d swallowed any—but he was prepared to make sacrifices for the greater good of the investigation.
“Ricci!”
He pushed away from where he’d been lounging on his scooter for the past forty minutes waiting for the inspector to emerge from his apartment building. It wasn’t far from the Boboli Gardens, an impressive park located directly behind the imposing edifice of the Pitti Palace, which had been the main residence of the Medici grand dukes in the sixteenth century. As with much of ‘Old Florence’, Ricci’s apartment building consisted of a period property that had been divided into numerous apartments with a central courtyard concealed behind a set of tall, heavy oak doors that opened directly onto the pavement.