Close Range

by Nick Hale

  ‘And you know where this guy is?’ said Jake.

  ‘No,’ said Abri. ‘We kept that information to ourselves, in case one of us was caught.’

  The police officer closed his door and started his engine. ‘You think Granble might be tailing her?’ ‘It’s possible.’

  Abri took out her phone and speed-dialled a number. Jake watched worry creep over her face as she held it to her ear.

  ‘Damn it! It’s the answerphone,’ she said. ‘Hey, Mon, it’s Abs. Listen, something’s gone wrong.’ She paused, and Jake could see she was weighing up whether to mention Sienna. ‘We need to meet. In the square in front of the Duomo. Noon.’ She hung up. ‘I really hope she’s OK.’ ‘Why the Duomo?’ Jake asked. ‘Anyone can see you there.’ ‘Exactly,’ said Abri. ‘It’s the most open space in the city. Granble would have to be crazy, or desperate, to try something there.’

  Jake didn’t say that from what he’d seen Granble was crazy. And probably desperate too.

  He offered a hand to Abri as the police car drove off. ‘There’s no way you’re going there on your own.’

  The taxi pulled up at 11.55.

  The Duomo rose high above the surrounding buildings, the colour of sand. Its spires and arches reminded Jake of his time in Paris, studying at the Lycée near Notre-Dame. Abri was right. The square was teeming with tourists who consulted guidebooks and posed for photos. There were at least two guided tours making their way to the front of the cathedral. Jake caught snatches from a French group, learning that the Duomo was started in 1386 and was the fourth-largest cathedral in the world.

  If he survived today, he had a feeling he would always remember those two bits of trivia.

  The tour group drifted away. It looked like such a normal day in the city that Jake found it hard to get a grip on what was happening … Sienna’s body was, right now, lying dead and cold in a ransacked flat less than a mile away.

  From the grim look on Abri’s face as she paid the taxi driver, Jake guessed she was thinking similar thoughts.

  Jake and Abri tried to blend in. Abri was wearing an Inter Milan cap and a pair of oversize shades bought from a street stall a couple of blocks down from the cathedral. The last thing she wanted was for one of her fans to spot her and cause a scene.

  Jake scanned the crowd, looking for Monique. He felt a prickle of nerves in his gut when he couldn’t see her.

  ‘We’ll wait by the statue,’ said Abri, pointing to a sculpture at the edge of the square – a horseman on a pedestal.

  Jake kept his eyes peeled as they walked over. If Granble had tracked them here, would it really be that hard for another assassin to blend in with the crowd? He pushed the words ‘gun’ and ‘silencer’ out of his mind.

  At one minute before noon, a scooter rode up alongside them. Monique flipped back her visor, and kicked out the stand.

  ‘I’ve got news for you,’ she said. ‘Something big.’ Monique then seemed to notice Jake. ‘Hey! What the hell’s he doing here?’ she said. ‘Where’s Sienna?’

  Abri stepped forwards and placed her hand on Monique’s. ‘Listen, Mon. Granble’s on to us. He killed Sienna.’

  Monique sat back in her seat. For a moment, Jake thought she might faint.

  ‘What?’ she gasped. ‘No!’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Jake. ‘He nearly got Abri too.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ choked Monique. ‘We were so careful. How could Granble find out? Someone must have told him,’ she said, looking at Jake.

  ‘Have you met your fence?’ said Abri. ‘Have you handed over the diamonds?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything in front of him,’ said Monique, jutting her chin out.

  Abri slid an arm round her friend. ‘Jake’s on our side.’

  ‘We don’t need allies,’ said Monique, clenching her fists. ‘Christ, what were you thinking, Abs?’ She took off her helmet and ran her hands through her hair. A couple of guys sitting at a table in a café looked over, suddenly interested.

  ‘If you haven’t got rid of your diamonds yet, you need to do it ASAP,’ Abri said. ‘I’ll offload mine too. We need to disappear until all this blows over.’

  ‘It’s not that simple any more,’ said Monique. ‘My fence, he told me that the diamonds are –’

  Monique seemed to jump a little, then rolled back on her heels. She clutched her chest as though she’d realised she’d left something out of her pocket.

  ‘Mon?’ said Abri. ‘What’s up?’

  A trickle of blood escaped from the corner of her mouth. She dropped her hands. They too were covered in blood, and a dark pattern blossomed through her blue jumper.

  Jake looked up, sweeping the buildings on all sides. He hadn’t even heard the shot.

  Sniper!

  ‘… they’re … f-fake,’ Monique stammered.

  17

  ‘Mon!’ Abri shrieked.

  Jake pulled her away and dived under the nearest table. There was a thump, and a dent appeared in the thick plastic above his head. A bullet. One of the men at the next table shouted ‘Mafiosi!’ and people scattered off their chairs in all directions.

  ‘Mon?’ said Abri, reaching a hand towards Monique.

  ‘Keep down,’ Jake hissed.

  Monique toppled sideways on to the ground, dead already. The scooter crashed on top of her legs. A tourist with a camera saw the body and screamed. Others joined the commotion, as blood began to pool under Monique. Abri was frozen beside Jake.

  Jake pushed Abri under a sunshade. The shots seemed to have stopped, and with all the gathered people Jake guessed the gunman wouldn’t try again.

  ‘We have to leave now,’ he said, pulling Abri with him back towards Monique.

  At the dead model’s side, he gently unhooked her handbag from her arm. A woman shouted something in what Jake thought was German. He ignored her. If there was no ID it would take the police longer to link the killing to Abri and Sienna. Someone else called out in Italian that someone should stop him. Jake saw angry, confused faces gathered around. It wouldn’t be long before this crowd turned ugly. He grabbed the bike’s handles and pulled it upright.

  Abri crouched at Monique’s side.

  ‘Get on!’ Jake shouted.

  Abri suddenly lost her tough veneer. She looked like a lost child. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Monique …’

  ‘She’s gone,’ said Jake, tugging her arm. Abri offered little resistance, and climbed up behind him on the scooter. Jake heard the wail of police sirens, not far off. The crowd was thickening, and one of the men from the table in the café came forwards and put his hands on the handlebars.

  ‘Stop!’ he said.

  I don’t have time for this, Jake thought. Abri was holding his waist limply, but not saying anything.

  He kicked up the stand, and shoved the Italian roughly in the chest. The guy stumbled over a fallen chair and landed on his backside. He shouted something that Jake could guess wasn’t pretty.

  ‘Hold on!’ he said to Abri.

  Jake gunned the throttle, and the scooter roared off across the square.

  A woman leading a toddler pulled her child away, but Jake had already swerved around them. He braked hard as he came to a queue lining up outside the cathedral’s main entrance. Looking back, he saw the crowd around Monique was bigger than before. Among them was a police officer wearing a peaked cap. The man whom Jake had shoved to the ground was pointing wildly in their direction.

  It wouldn’t be long.

  Jake yanked the handlebars around. He saw the police officer walking swiftly across the square towards him. Abri’s grip tightened round his middle.

  ‘That way!’ she said, finding her voice again. She pointed to a road leading off the side of the square. Via Ugo Foscolo.

  The police officer shouted, and his hat fell off his head as he broke into a run. Jake twisted the throttle, jinked around a street-sweeper and into traffic. A barrage of horns announced the drivers’ displeasure. Jake ignored them, cutting across
two lanes of traffic and into the small side road. Shops selling postcards and tourist paraphernalia lined the street and it was busy with people.

  Jake mounted the pavement to avoid a black-clad old lady with a small dog, but clipped one of the postcard stands with his outstretched knee. It spun round, and cards cascaded across the street like confetti. Jake heard someone shouting, ‘Oh mio Dio!’

  At the other end of the street, two more police appeared. Jake braked and put down his foot. They were trapped.

  Or maybe not, thought Jake. On the opposite side of the road, between an ice-cream parlour and a stall selling miniature models of the Duomo, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Colosseum, there was what looked like an alleyway. Jake lifted his foot and steered the bike towards it. Sure enough, a narrow passage threaded past dustbins to what looked like an exit about fifty metres down.

  ‘Hang on!’ he told Abri. ‘And keep your knees tucked in.’

  ‘You can’t go down there!’ she gasped. ‘It’s not wide enough.’

  Jake tucked the front wheel into the alley. Abri was wrong: there were about two centimetres either side of the handlebars. Not much, but enough.

  Jake moved the bike slowly, keeping it steady. Gradually he built up speed. They ripped over a discarded pizza box and other rubbish. At the far end, they hit a main road. Jake waited for a moment, then he steered back into traffic. There were dozens of other scooters and, in a few seconds, he was confident that they’d be lost in the pack.

  ‘Are they still following us?’ he asked Abri, then felt her twist in the seat.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘but keep going.’

  Jake took a couple more turns, driving away from the cathedral and into more residential areas. After a few hundred metres, he saw the turning to an underground car park and steered the bike down the ramp.

  He didn’t realise how hard he was focusing until he killed the engine. Sweat was dripping down his back and his heart was pounding like a jackhammer. Abri climbed off and he did the same. She leant against a concrete column with one hand and bent over, dry-retching.

  Jake’s mind was racing.

  Fake diamonds? That’s what Monique had said, wasn’t it? He shook his head to clear it.

  ‘We have to get you to the police – you need protection,’ he said to Abri.

  ‘This is crazy,’ she said, wiping her mouth. ‘This can’t be happening.’

  ‘It is,’ said Jake. ‘Someone killed Sienna and Monique, and you’re going to be next.’

  ‘But the diamonds …’ Abri began.

  ‘Forget the diamonds,’ said Jake. ‘We need to hand them over to the police. It’s the only way to stop the killing.’

  ‘But what about me?’ asked Abri. ‘I’ll be arrested.’

  Jake didn’t say anything. Better that than strangled or bleeding out while tourists took their holiday snaps.

  ‘I can’t believe they’re both dead,’ said Abri, the tears welling in her eyes. ‘We were in this together, from the start …’

  As the first tear trickled down her cheek, she fell against Jake’s shoulder. He put his arm round her and kept his eyes on the entrance to the car park. The police were on the lookout for a killer and Jake realised that they were the prime suspects. It would only take one trigger-happy policeman and they’d both be killed.

  Abri sniffed and looked up. With her bloodshot eyes and messy hair, it was easy to forget that she was a supermodel.

  ‘I don’t want to go to prison,’ she said.

  Jake tried to think through the options. They couldn’t stay on the run forever. Either Granble or the police would catch them. If they gave themselves up willingly, explained the situation with a lawyer present, then perhaps Abri would get off with a lighter sentence.

  ‘If Monique was right, you only stole fake diamonds from Granble,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Abri. ‘She must have been wrong.’

  ‘Those were her last words,’ said Jake.

  ‘But why would Granble use fakes?’ asked Abri. ‘He’s all about the flawless quality of his stones. His guy had a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. That’s serious precautions for a bunch of phoney stones.’

  Jake remembered Granble’s terrier preventing his mum taking close-ups. It made sense – fake diamonds would not have stood up to the close scrutiny of a camera lens.

  ‘Maybe for appearance’s sake,’ said Jake. ‘I mean, the crown jewels in the Tower of London are all replicas. Granble clearly wants people to believe the stones are the real deal.’

  ‘But the shoot was top secret – there was so much security. Why go to such lengths? If the protection’s there, he could just use the real stones.’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Well, your little stunt proved that wasn’t the case, right?’

  Abri nodded. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this. For Sienna and Monique.’

  A new plan was forming in the back of Jake’s mind. The police couldn’t be trusted to bring the models’ killers to justice, and Jake would bet his last euro that Granble would distance himself from any connection to the scandal. If the diamonds were fake, then his dad needed to know. It could be crucial in his mission to bring down Granble.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We need to get away from here.’

  ‘You’re not going to turn me in?’ Abri said.

  ‘That depends,’ Jake replied.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether you can trust me.’

  18

  Silence descended over the car park.

  ‘Tell me where the diamonds are,’ Jake said.

  Abri shook her head. ‘Me, the girls – we had a pact. I can’t.’

  ‘The girls are dead,’ said Jake, more harshly than he needed to. ‘The pact is void.’

  Abri walked towards a far wall of the car park. Her body language said it all – she wanted to be away from this.

  ‘I can help you,’ Jake pressed.

  ‘You’ll be in danger too, if I tell you.’

  ‘I’m in danger already,’ said Jake.

  Abri put her hands on her hips and looked towards the ceiling. Her lips moved silently. Jake could see she was coming round, running out of options.

  She pursed her lips, and gave him a long stare. ‘They’re at the church,’ she said.

  It took Jake a second to process. ‘The church where you did the photo shoot?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jake shook his head in wonder. ‘The last place Granble would think to look.’

  He made a mental calculation. Half an hour to get to the church, then another twenty minutes to deliver the fake diamonds to his dad.

  He sat back on the bike. ‘Where are they exactly?’ he asked Abri, kicking away the stand.

  ‘Hey!’ she said. She advanced towards him. ‘You’re not going without me!’

  ‘You should stay out of the way,’ said Jake. ‘I can handle this myself.’

  ‘No way,’ said Abri. She planted her feet in front of the bike, and gripped the handlebars. Her hands over his. ‘You won’t be able to find the diamonds without me.’

  Jake thought about the church. It wasn’t that big. He could find them on his own.

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ said Jake. ‘I’m trying to look after you.’

  Abri moved away and swung her leg over the saddle behind him. She put her lips close to his ear.

  ‘Then trust me,’ she said.

  Jake twisted the throttle and sent the scooter up the ramp.

  They drove back to the church, taking the back roads as often as possible. Abri gave him a nudge when she spotted a police car in the distance, and Jake pulled over beside a monument to Vittorio Emanuele, until it had cruised past. By now he was sure the authorities across the city would have a half-decent description of a young man and beautiful woman whizzing around the city on a blue Vespa. The only thing going in their favour was that in Milan, Vespas were everywhere. And hot women were hardly an endangered species in Italy�
��s fashion capital.

  Jake wondered if he should call his dad now. Once Monique’s identity hit the airwaves and TV stations, the link with Abri would be made quickly. Jake could see it clearly in his mind’s eye. His mum would be on the phone to his dad, or vice versa. There would be shouting. He was supposed to be with you … No, you were looking after him.

  But if Jake called him now he knew exactly what his dad would say. Forget the diamonds. Come to me. And hell was going to freeze over before Jake took a step back from this. Abri needed him.

  There was no time to lose.

  They stopped at some lights, and Jake checked his mirrors. Two cars back was a silver Fiat that he was sure he’d seen pass them at the monument. But they’d made several turns since then. He couldn’t make out the driver’s face past his sunshade, but there was no one else in the car. He twisted to speak to Abri.

  ‘Just going to take a little detour,’ he said. ‘Make sure we’re not being tailed.’

  He indicated right, and saw the Fiat do the same.

  Jake’s skin prickled.

  As soon as the lights went orange, he skidded away with a stink of burnt rubber and gave the bike throttle. He put another fifty yards between them and the Fiat, then took another right, then a left into a courtyard surrounded by office buildings. He turned the bike round and stalled. Abri’s grip round his waist tightened.

  ‘You think someone’s behind us?’ she said.

  A couple of seconds later, the silver car cruised slowly past. The driver was looking the other way and didn’t see Jake.

  ‘Not any more,’ he said.

  Twenty minutes later, Jake parked the bike across the square from the church to make sure all was quiet. They waited five minutes, but he only saw an elderly lady carrying a netted bag of tomatoes and courgettes.

  They jogged together across the square as the late afternoon sun dipped away behind the buildings opposite. The front gates were bolted from the inside, so they went to the side door where the security guards had been standing. That, too, wouldn’t budge.

  Jake took a step back, ready to kick, but Abri put an arm across his chest.