Lario nodded. ‘Right here in this very office.’
‘What kind of man did he seem to you?’
Lario shrugged. ‘Articulate. Calm. Intelligent. Capable.’
‘You were sitting here face to face with him, and you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary?’
Lario spread his hands. ‘What can I say? The man sat there. He was rational. He was perfectly normal, considering what he had just been through. He told me he was here on business—’
‘Did you ask him what kind of business?’ she cut in. ‘It did not strike me as being important. In any case he was due to fly back to England the next afternoon.’
‘And you believed that?’
‘Why would I not?’
‘Did you check it out?’
‘There was no reason to. He was not under suspicion at the time. He was l’eroe della galleria. I had no cause to suspect this man presented any threat to Tassoni or anyone else—’
She raised a hand to interrupt him. ‘So you just let him walk out of here, and the rest is history. More than a little slack, don’t you think?’
Lario’s face reddened and his eyes bulged. ‘How old are you?’ His tone was hard and challenging.
‘If it’s any of your business, I’m thirty-five.’
‘I have been a police officer since you were just a small girl. I’m not going to be treated like a fool by some raggazina.’
Darcey let him have a cool smile. ‘Let’s say I have every respect for your vastly superior experience and intuition. So educate me, Roberto. Why did Ben Hope kill Tassoni?’
Lario said nothing.
‘Maybe you think he didn’t do it?’
Lario was silent for a moment longer, then got up and headed for the door. ‘I have nothing more to add at this time, Signorina,’ he said brusquely.
‘That’s Commander,’ she fired at his back as he strode out of the room. But he was already out of the door and slamming it behind him. ‘Prick,’ she muttered under her breath and went back to the website to get the number for Le Val. She snatched up the phone and dialled. ‘Jeff Dekker, please.’
‘Speaking,’ said the voice on the other end. He sounded pleasant, but tense with worry. When she introduced herself, the pleasantness vanished and the worried tone turned to hostility.
‘Get lost. Drop dead.’
Darcey took a breath. She kept her voice soft and steady. ‘Don’t hang up, Mr Dekker. Please.’
‘I haven’t anything more to say than what I told the other arseholes who turned up here early this morning,’ Dekker said angrily. ‘You want to know what I told them, read my statement.’
‘I’m looking at it,’ she said. ‘Then you know exactly what I think. You’re hunting the wrong man.’
‘If he’s innocent, he has nothing to fear from us. He needs to come in. He needs to talk to me.’
Dekker chuckled grimly. ‘You’re wasting your time, you know. All of you. You haven’t a clue what you’re dealing with.’
‘I have a pretty fair idea,’ Darcey said.
‘And meanwhile, whoever did this is laughing their pants off.’
‘Have you heard anything from Ben?’
‘What makes you think I’d tell you if I had?’
‘Because you want to help your friend,’ Darcey said calmly. ‘He can’t run forever. I know how clever he is, but he’s not Superman. He’ll surface. They always do, and when that happens some trigger-happy cop fresh out of the academy is liable to put one in his back. So I suggest that the best thing you can do for Ben is to help me do my job and resolve this situation.’
Jeff Dekker paused, and when he spoke again, the defensive tone in his voice seemed to have slackened a little. ‘Ben called here.’
Darcey stiffened. That information wasn’t in Dekker’s police statement. ‘When?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. He left a message on the office phone, but I didn’t pick it up until just a couple of hours ago, after the Interpol people had left. We’ve been getting storms here. The phone lines go down sometimes.’
Darcey snatched up a pen and a notepad. ‘What did the message say?’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ Dekker said. ‘He was just checking in. He was calling from Rome airport. Said he was just about to leave for London, and that he’d be back home again in a couple of days or so.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Around four.’
‘And he didn’t say anything else?’
‘Only that his flight was delayed. I told you not to get too excited.’
Darcey’s heart had sunk again. ‘And you have no idea where he is now?’
‘No, I don’t. As though I’d tell you if I did.’
‘Why was he travelling to London?’
‘That’s personal.’
‘Nothing is personal in a murder investigation, Mr Dekker.’
‘Because it’s where his girlfriend lives,’ he said after a beat. ‘Name and address?’
Dekker sighed irritably, and then told her. Darcey wrote it down. ‘Brooke Marcel. Is she French?’
‘Half French, on her father’s side. Don’t think she’ll tell you anything different from what I’ve said.’
‘What was the purpose of Ben’s trip to Italy?’
‘I think he mentioned something about wanting to kill this guy called Tass-something.’
‘Please, Mr Dekker.’
‘He was there to offer a job to someone.’
‘A job?’
‘Here at Le Val. I imagine you’ve seen the kind of work we do.’
‘And I imagine you can tell me the name of this person he was looking to employ?’
‘Yes, I can,’ Dekker said. ‘Though it won’t do you any good whatsoever. And if you’re thinking of calling him, let me tell you he’s not as warm and fuzzy as me.’
‘Thank you for the warning. I’d appreciate that name,’ Darcey said patiently.
Jeff Dekker told her.
She made him repeat it, then wrote it down on her pad underneath the details for Brooke Marcel.
She thanked Dekker, put the phone down and sat for a long time staring at the name of the man he’d just given her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Richmond, London
Marshall killed the purring engine of his Bentley, took a deep breath and then got out and started walking towards the familiar red-brick Victorian house that featured in his nightly dreams. He could think of nothing but Brooke. Couldn’t sit still, couldn’t watch TV or read the paper. Britain could be at war, the prime minister could have been caught with a rent boy, and he wouldn’t have known or cared.
Marshall paused at Brooke’s door, cleared his throat and knocked loudly, twice, heart thumping under his Versace suit. He blinked in surprise when the door opened and there was a young Asian guy standing there holding a small watering can.
‘H-hello,’ Marshall stammered. ‘Hi. You’re Marshall, right?’
‘What?’
‘We met. Brooke’s party, a few months ago? You’re Phoebe’s husband.’
‘And you’re Amal. I remember now.’
Amal smiled, but he seemed a little edgy. ‘Listen, if you’re looking for Brooke, I’m afraid she’s not around.’
‘Oh,’ Marshall said, scrutinising him closely.
‘She’s gone away for a few days. I’m looking after her plants.’ He raised the watering can, as if to make his point.
Yup, Marshall thought. This young guy was definitely acting guarded. He wondered why that might be. ‘Off to France again?’ he said breezily.
‘No,’ Amal said. ‘I mean yes. Yeah, that’s it. Right.’
Marshall dealt with much better liars than Amal every day at the office, and years of practice had taught him he could get around anyone. He was known, and widely feared, for having a mind that stored information like a bank vault and the ability to retrieve instantly any shred of detail that could serve him, even years later.
He smiled warmly.
‘That’s a real shame about Brooke. Never mind. Hey, how’s the writing going? I remember you said you were working on a play.’
Amal looked surprised for a moment, then smiled back, the ice melting suddenly. ‘That’s right.’
Vanity. The most exploitable vice under the sun. ‘Actually, I was thinking about you just the other day,’ Marshall went on.
‘You were?’
‘Absolutely. One of my clients is just about to take over this big, big theatre. Guy’s worth a trillion quid. I can’t say too much about it now, not until the deal’s finalised. But I think he’s going to be on the lookout for talented playwrights. Top notch productions, big budget. I think your stuff could be right up his street. If you wanted, I could put in a mention. Could be a good opportunity for you.’
‘Wow. That’d be great. Thanks, Marshall.’
Marshall grinned his most generous grin. Once you softened them up, it was time to press your advantage. ‘Listen, the reason I’m here is that Brooke had this novel she wanted to lend me. I was in the area and thought I’d come by to pick it up. I know where it is, on the bookcase near her desk. Mind if I pop inside and get it?’
Amal was all smiles now, his guard completely dropped. ‘Sure, no problem. Be my guest.’
Seconds later, Marshall was making a bee-line for the door of Brooke’s study while Amal was safely out of the way watering the flower beds outside. Marshall was an expert snoop, and he knew exactly where to look for what he wanted. A quick scan of Brooke’s desk yielded no clues as to where she might have gone, so he fired up her Mac and went into her emails.
‘France my arse,’ he muttered as he found the ticket booking confirmation. She’d gone to Portugal.
And Marshall knew precisely where in Portugal. He thought back to the terrible week last May he and Phoebe had spent at Brooke’s rundown rustic getaway. The worst holiday of his life. No pool, no nothing, not even a mobile signal that he could use to keep in touch with the office. Phoebe had loved it, but he couldn’t leave the place fast enough. For some reason Brooke thought it was just heaven. That was where he’d find her, for sure.
Marshall quickly powered down the computer, snatched a book at random from her shelf to back up his cover story with Amal, and left the apartment.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Rome
‘Where are we going?’ Buitoni asked as Darcey led him down to the police car pool. She was clutching the keys to one of the unmarked Carabinieri pursuit Alfa Romeo GTs.
‘To the airport,’ she said, glancing at her watch. It was 2.47 p.m.
He gave her a blank look.
‘Because Ben Hope called his business partner from there just over an hour before the Tassoni shooting,’ she explained. ‘The question is, what was he doing there?’
Buitoni thought about it as they approached the car. ‘He could have been going there to meet someone. The weapon might have been in a luggage locker there.’
‘Hope called from the departure lounge. He was waiting for a flight.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I checked it out. The 16:03 to Heathrow. Take-off was delayed for nearly an hour. Hope was on the passenger list. Business class. You want to know the seat number?’
Buitoni looked baffled. ‘He was heading for London?’
‘Certainly looks that way.’
‘But he didn’t get on the plane.’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Buitoni said. ‘Was he just going through the motions to throw us off?’
‘You think he’d be that stupid? Nobody walks in and out of an airport without being filmed on a million cameras. That’s why I want to go there. The security footage might tell us something.’ Darcey tossed the Alfa keys in the air, and Buitoni caught them. ‘You drive,’ she said.
After a stuttering journey through the snarled Rome traffic, they blasted the 30 kilometres of open road to Fiumicino. At the airport security section, a couple of surly guys in uniform led them into a control room where banks of screens fed back constant live footage from the hundreds of cameras throughout the complex. Everything was backed up on a massive hard drive that was hooked up to yet more screens, so that live and recorded footage could be viewed simultaneously. Darcey had Buitoni request to view playback from the previous afternoon, from around the time Ben Hope might have turned up in the departure lounge.
Things did not move fast. By the time the technicians had eventually dug out the right section of recordings, Darcey had paced miles up and down the corridor outside the control room. She and Buitoni sat on plastic chairs to view the screens while a technician worked the computer.
Actually spotting Hope among the thousands of tiny figures that came and went, moving comically in speeded-up motion, was a painfully slow task. After an eternity of staring hard at the screens and sipping a Coke, Darcey’s eyes felt as raw as steaks. But then, finally, her searching gaze found its mark. The blond hair, the leather jacket, the easy way he moved. He was carrying a green canvas bag with a lot of miles on it.
‘Got you,’ she said with a smile.
‘You see him?’
Darcey pointed. ‘There.’
She and Buitoni watched as Hope walked calmly over to a seat on the far side of the lounge and sat quietly. He had that capacity she’d only ever seen in Special Forces soldiers, to sit completely immobile for long periods. In a sea of fast-moving bodies he was the only one frozen still. Unnoticed by the crowds that came and went – but watching everything around him.
Then, at a certain point, something seemed to catch his eye and his position shifted.
‘What’s he looking at?’ Buitoni said.
‘Those.’ She pointed at another screen, which showed a different angle on the departure lounge and a boutique window filled with televisions. ‘Can we get a close up?’ she asked, and Buitoni relayed the request to the technician. The image swelled on the screen, pixellated momentarily and then sharpened.
‘I know what that is,’ Buitoni said. ‘It’s the report on the arrest of Tito Palazzo, the guy who assaulted Tassoni.’
‘Keep watching.’
The screens displayed the time 16:51 as Hope suddenly rose from his seat and headed out of the lounge with a crowd of other passengers.
‘Nine minutes to five, his flight was called,’ Darcey said.
‘He really looks like he means to get on that plane,’ Buitoni mumbled, looking more baffled than ever.
They followed his progress on another screen. But something was wrong. As their man approached the walkway to the plane, he began to slow down. His body language was strange, his head carriage low. People jostled him from behind as he finally ground to a halt and just stood there.
‘What the hell is he thinking?’ Darcey said.
Buitoni shook his head, staring in fascination as the figure on the screen turned around and started heading back in the opposite direction. ‘I think this is it. The moment where something snaps in his mind. A switch was triggered.’
Darcey glanced at him. ‘Maybe.’
‘For sure. He’d just been watching Tassoni on TV. He decides not to take the flight. He turns around and heads for the villa. It all makes sense again.’
‘He’s just gone through airport security. Where’s the .357?’
‘Stashed somewhere else. To pick up en route, maybe.’
‘Hold on. He’s already stashed a weapon before “something snaps”?’
‘Does it really matter? We know he did it.’
Darcey bit her lip and went on watching as the cameras followed the fugitive through the airport. Now the un certainty in his body language had evaporated and there was purpose in his stride.
‘There,’ Buitoni said as they watched Hope going to the lockers and opening one up. ‘Just like I said. The whole thing was a feint. He’s only come here to pick up the gun. It’s in the locker.’
Darcey stared closely. ‘You’re wrong, Paolo. He’s not picking up anything. He’s l
eaving his bag there.’
The time readout was just seconds after 17:17 as Ben climbed into the taxi and it pulled away.
‘There he goes,’ Buitoni said with conviction. ‘Straight to Tassoni’s and bang, bang, bang.’
Darcey didn’t answer. She stood up. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’ Back in the airport parking lot, Buitoni was walking around to the driver’s side when she plucked the key from his fingers and jumped in behind the wheel. The inside of the Alfa felt like a pizza oven after a couple of hours standing in the sun. Darcey checked her watch again. It was 4.42 p.m. She fired up the engine and wound down the windows. ‘You navigate.’
‘Where to?’
‘Casa Tassoni,’ she replied.
Buitoni was thrown back in his seat as she took off and went skidding out of the car park. She used the siren to carve a path through the traffic as she headed back towards the city with the speedometer nudging the hundred and seventy kilometres an hour mark.
‘Mind telling me what this is about?’ Buitoni asked her.
‘Call it an experiment,’ she said as she zipped past a speeding BMW so fast it looked like it was standing still.
She barely slowed for the city. By then, Buitoni was rigid and pale, holding his door handle in a death grip. ‘Three guys are sitting in a bar,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘One of them is telling a Carabinieri joke. The second guy thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, but the third one’s all serious. First guy asks him, “What’s wrong?” He replies, “I’m a Carabinieri.” First guy says, “Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to you later.”’
Darcey laughed as she took the racing line through a busy junction at over ninety, ignoring the chorus of horns from swerving drivers. She dived through a gap that was maybe an inch wider than the Alfa, changed down and put her foot to the floor.
‘See, you do appreciate humour,’ Buitoni said. ‘I’m laughing at you, Paolo. Look at you. White as a sheet. Practically chattering your teeth. I thought Italian drivers liked to go fast.’
‘We also like to reach our destination in one piece. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer that I drove?’
The Ben Hope Collection: 6 BOOK SET Page 189