A Cold Flame

by Aidan Conway

  But now as she lay there knowing sleep might never come, she began to ask herself what the secrets might be.

  Yana too had not slept well. The bed was comfortable, hard enough for once, but it was strange to be waking here, neither at home nor with Michael. Tatiana had made her very welcome, and she had been glad to see her. They had talked a lot, caught up, and it had been nice to be part of the family. Part of a family. The children were sweet with good manners, well brought up, she thought. Not like so many of those she saw on a daily basis going back and forth to the school near the Wellness Centre, those who verbally abused their parents and whose parents, if they were there at all, allowed themselves to be abused. Always with their grandparents, as far as she could see. Dumped on them. And then when the parents took over, at the weekends and in the evenings, it looked like they had forgotten how it was done.

  But what business of hers was that? For her, today was a big day. Of course that was the reason why she had not slept properly. That and other thoughts.

  Nurse Rinaldi really quite liked the early shift. Getting out before the traffic, the sun coming up with you as you got ready to face the day. The smell of coffee and breakfast permeated the ground floor of the hospital as she made her way along the all-too familiar path to the ward. Through the windows of the corridor connecting one wing to another she could see the first intrusions of light into the courtyard and the car park and delivery bay. Colder. Not yet autumnal but a few signs were there.

  She put a hand into her pocket to search for a tissue but was surprised to find something else there. A card. It puzzled her for a moment and then it clicked. The policeman’s card. Rossi. She must have put the same jacket on after Inspector Rossi had spoken to her some weeks earlier and slipped the card into the pocket. He had asked her to call if there was anything at all that she remembered. She stopped at the water fountain and filled a plastic cup. She saw the bin was already half full. She would use the same one until it cracked.

  She stood then and sipped at the cool water and then she stopped. Maybe there was something. There had been one other peculiarity but it was just odd, surely. Not of any significance. Still, if he had urged her to call? If he had given her his card.

  But no. She took it out again. Detective Inspector Michael Rossi. Office and mobile. E-mail too. No. What could be done now? There was no recycling bin for paper. She popped the card back in her pocket.

  “Ah, Nurse Rinaldi,” said a young doctor making rapid progress along the corridor in her direction.

  “Dottor Sensi, Buongiorno,” she said.

  He stopped in front of her. “Will you join me for coffee or are you duty-bound once more?”

  His eyes gleamed with enthusiasm and vigour. He was a very fine man indeed, she thought. And an excellent plastic surgeon. He was heading for great things, so they all said. Perhaps to America.

  “Certainly, Dottore,” she said. “And we can discuss some of the day’s duties as we do.”

  “Work, work, work, Rinaldi. You never stop, do you,” he said. “Oh, and by the way. That policeman was here for you yesterday afternoon. Said he was passing and didn’t have your number to hand. But he said you had his for sure. He has a thing for you, it seems,” he joked.

  She fondled the card in her pocket. She remembered the effect her dress had had on the inspector and gave a little chuckle to herself. She thought he had liked her too, but he hadn’t seemed the type to try it on. But it was true. Sometimes it didn’t matter what you did. Destiny would find you out regardless.

  Forty

  Rossi opened one eye. His head had been pounding for some time but only now had he decided to break cover. Where was he? He opened the other. At home on the sofa. Thank God. The TV was on the same news channel but turned down. He lowered a leg on to the floor and tried to sit up. A glass lay on the floor, its spilled contents leaving a tacky yellow stain on the tiles. And to think that Yana had been on to him to get a wood floor, parquet. It wouldn’t stand a chance.

  He felt a pang of relief mixed with guilt as he tried to remember how he’d got home. He must have walked because the muscles of his thighs and calves were stiff and sore. At least the exercise had taken some of the edge off his hangover. Some. He turned round to see the state of the bottle. Still some left in it. He had probably fallen asleep before he could finish it. Small mercy then.

  He staggered out into the hallway. The front door was closed but not locked. And his wallet? Still in his pocket. His phone? On the desk. Three missed calls. The sun was well up and was warming the apartment and dazzling him. He headed back to the kitchen for water. Then a shower.

  He sat under the powerful jet to conserve his energy as the water pummelled his skull and neck, trying to claw back any significant memories. He must have blacked out then when he had got home. Some fragments were coming back but he was in one piece and alone. He hadn’t been robbed. He hadn’t been hurt. But he was behind schedule. The doorbell rang once. Then again. He waited. It rang again. He clambered out and, grabbing a towel, lurched towards the intercom.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank goodness you’re there. Where have you been?”

  It was Katia.

  “Sick,” said Rossi. “What is it?”

  “We’ve got a match on the picture. Almost certain. Can we talk?”

  Rossi pressed the buzzer.

  “Come up and make yourself at home.”

  ***

  Katia had given Rossi one knowing look and had then made the largest available pot of coffee and following more of Rossi’s instructions was now bringing a pan of scrambled eggs to completion.

  “Well, I trust this will have the desired effect,” she said, eyeing his now more human form. Katia switched off the gas. The heat of the pan would do the rest.

  “Here you go,” she said, plonking the pan in the centre of the breakfast bar. “Self-service I’m afraid. So, are you ready to listen now?”

  “Go on,” said Rossi, reaching out to shovel the hangover cure onto patchily buttered toast.

  “Portrait of Lucrezia Borgia.”

  “Certain?” said Rossi.

  “As good as.”

  “So?”

  “Stolen.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Went missing from a gallery in Brescia around 1999. Probably an inside job.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “Plenty, but no convictions. Here,” she said passing him a sheet of names. Rossi gave them a cursory scan then stopped and almost dropped his fork.

  “What is it?” said Katia.

  “This,” said Rossi, pointing to a name halfway down the list, his mouth still full of half-chewed toast and eggs. “This!”

  Katia took the sheet.

  “Marciano?”

  Rossi was nodding, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  “Marciano!” he spluttered. “He was killed. Don’t you remember? The same day in January as the unidentified African on Via Tuscolana, the guy dumped with the pig’s head. The same day as Cardinal Terranova. The day after they tried to kill Iannelli in Sicily!”

  Marciano had been a local hood, known to Rossi as a pretty much one-man operation who, with hired help, had been working the Eastern European prostitutes and transexuals before beginning to make his move into legitimate sectors – real estate, construction and so forth. He had even been courting contacts in the Church to that end before his untimely end. His death had, however, been painted as a Mafia settling of scores. Rossi hadn’t believed it then and believed it even less now.

  He was drinking yet more coffee. After the initial elation and the shock of the possible coincidences he was taking it more slowly. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Study the facts. Find the link.

  “So, a painting possibly stolen by a local hood ends up in the rooms of a retired Belgian priest. It then goes missing from the scene in the immediate aftermath of the cleric’s murder. The same local hood, however, had been murdered, decapitated to boot, on the very day that a pr
ominent cardinal departed this mortal coil.”

  “Nothing obviously suspicious yet. Just interesting coincidences right?” said Katia.

  “But worth digging deeper. Why the mutilation of the corpse, for example?”

  “Well, if the painting was known to be stolen, by removing it from harm’s way someone was covering their tracks. Someone in the Order.”

  “But that doesn’t explain the mutilation,” said Rossi.

  “That was supposed to be part of the Islamist terrorism matrix. The hypocrisy. Humiliation, denigration. Make sure he’s unworthy of an open coffin burial. What do you think? But doesn’t sound a bit Mafia if you think about it? Maybe revenge for Marciano?”

  Rossi stood up and went to the window, steadier now on his feet. He turned to Katia.

  “What if it was to hide the face? To remove his identity?”

  “To what end?”

  “And what if it wasn’t Father Brell? What if there never was any Father Brell?”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Katia. “But who mutilated the corpse? Why would a murderer want to conceal the priest’s identity?”

  “And what if it wasn’t the murderer who did it?”

  “Who then?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that it may not be as straightforward as it seems. In fact, I’m not sure I hold with the Islamist motive at all.”

  “Some sort of conspiracy?” said Katia. “A settling of scores? Underworld scores?”

  Rossi was shaking his head. The hangover had matured enough to make his thoughts insightful but not quite incisive. He felt he was close to something now. Closer than they had ever been and he was damned if he was going to let it get away from him.

  “I still don’t know. I just don’t like a lot of the easy assumptions and the possible inconsistencies. There are too many variables here which could go either way. Who killed him? We don’t have a single verifiable trace. How did he get in? Why? Who knows something? Did anyone help him? Who took or moved the painting and to where, if it wasn’t stolen.”

  “And maybe it was.”

  “After the photo was taken? And then he disfigures the face? Pretty cool customer. And why did he want the face to be seen by Iannelli? Why Iannelli?”

  “He went to the press. To a free spirit.”

  “Also someone with a Mafia death sentence hanging over him. Maybe he knows him. And this is his calling card.”

  Rossi checked his phone.

  “Carrara’s on his way,” he said. “Look, let’s see what he makes of it. Oh, and by the way, good work and all that. You’ve exceeded all expectations.”

  Katia shrugged.

  “When’s Maroni in town?” said Rossi coming back to earth with a bump.

  “Tomorrow, or the day after. Why?”

  “Reports. He wants something he can show to the top brass. Is this any good?”

  “I don’t think it’s exactly what he’s looking for but it will show we’ve been busy.”

  “He’ll throw it back in my face. Say I’m after the Pink Panther next.”

  “Not the imaginative type, is he?”

  “No. A good cop but he’s a servant of a higher order, treading a very thin line.”

  Rossi reached out for his phone and checked through his missed calls.

  “You,” he said. “Twice. Oh, and a private number.”

  “Recognize it?”

  “Vaguely. Does this mean anything to you?” he said and reeled off a Rome number.

  “That’s EUR. And only seven digits, which sounds like a hospital”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. All the public hospitals I know have seven digit numbers.”

  Rossi sat up.

  “Which could be Sant’Eugenio. Where Ivan the Russian was. Where Rinaldi works.”

  “Rinaldi?”

  “A nurse, at the hospital,” said Rossi. He held up a hand as he dialled the number. There was a queuing system in operation. He snapped his phone shut and nodded. It was right.

  “And where does she fit in?” said Katia.

  “Well,” said Rossi, “that would be letting you into a secret.”

  “Rossi and Carrara’s little secret, I imagine.”

  “Something like that,” said Rossi. If she wasn’t to be trusted, now was the point of no return. Katia shifted to a more comfortable position on the sofa, tucking her legs under her in anticipation of a decent story.

  Rossi noted it and made a brief calculation. She was on his sofa. She had practically made his breakfast. She had seen him at his worst and she looked OK with it all. If he wasn’t going to be able to trust himself, he was beginning to feel he might be approaching another kind of crossroads.

  “Well you’ve gone and got me all excited now,” she said. “So I hope you’re not going to disappoint me.”

  Rossi had given her the low-down, from the fire through to Ivan and his own chance meeting with Tiziana and the subsequent Iannelli link.

  “This Iannelli seems to pop up just about everywhere,” Katia commented after Rossi had finished.

  “Something of a lightning rod, it would seem. Always where the action is.”

  “He’s got a nose for it.”

  “He’s got a brain for it,” said Rossi.

  “So, Iannelli meets Jibril, the guy we presume has been looking for his murdered friend. He gives him his business card, including his e-mail address. And whoever kills our Father Brell figure e-mails Iannelli the picture of his misdeeds.”

  Rossi shrugged.

  “Probabilities. Coincidence. Iannelli is high-profile, after all.”

  “And you don’t think they could be one and the same person? This Jibril and the priest’s killer?”

  “For what reason?”

  “That’s the missing element in the equation.”

  “If there is an equation,” said Rossi.

  “Can you see why this guy would want to kill a priest?”

  “Rapid radicalization? A jihadist infiltrator? The newspapers love all that.”

  “Put it in your report.”

  “Without a single shred of proof?”

  The intercom buzzed.

  “That will be Carrara,” said Rossi.

  Katia was on her feet in a flash.

  “I’ll get it. Give him a surprise.”

  As she skipped out, Rossi realized he had never seen her like this in any previous work environment. She had always been elegant, courteous, yet deadly serious, a credit to the force and all that. But now.

  He roused himself to get the coffee on. His head was showing some signs of clearing, a Godsend as it was shaping up to be an unexpectedly busy day. Rinaldi would be the first stop after they had brainstormed Brell theories and then they would work on Marciano and the painting. Lucrezia Borgia no less.

  ***

  Carrara’s look said it all. Very cosy.

  “I hadn’t been answering my phone,” said Rossi by initial way of explanation, “and Katia here tracked me down.”

  “I’ve been learning what makes him tick,” she said, glancing now between the two seasoned but starkly contrasting comrades and enjoying just a little the sudden disorientation her presence had caused them.

  “Heavy night, was it?” said Carrara.

  “It got a tad out of hand. Let’s say I had a mild blowout, all right?”

  Carrara headed towards the kitchen as more coffee began to announce its arrival.

  “I notice you weren’t too worried about my state or whereabouts,” Rossi called after him.

  “I told you, I was otherwise engaged,” Carrara replied, busying himself with cups as a half-speed Rossi followed to loiter at the doorway. “Non-negotiable family engagements. You should try it sometime. It would do you the world of good to stop going over the case. And bringing your work home,” he added with a knowing jerk of the head.

  Rossi wagged a discreet “don’t-go-there” finger.

  “Well, regardless of my bad behaviour and your work-life
balance, Katia’s come up trumps,” said Rossi in a self-consciously professional tone. “And we’ve got ourselves an ID on the painting,” he said, smiling through another spasm of residual pain.

  “I don’t know,” said Carrara reflecting on the various hypotheses. “We can see what comes up when we get all the witness statements. The new improved witness statements.”

  “That sounds dodgy,” said Katia. “Not putting words into people’s mouths, are we?”

  “There are many ways to ask a question,” said Rossi. “The trick is getting the right question to get at the truth.”

  “Like ‘was there anything strange recently in the priest’s behaviour?’” said Carrara. “Or ‘how would you describe the priest in the last few weeks?’”

  “Exactly,” said Rossi. “Question one could be an encouragement to create something strange, to invent it.”

  “And question two might let it go unnoticed, even if there was something to report,” said Katia. “The chances are they’ll say he was just his usual self.”

  Rossi nodded and sipped his coffee.

  “Anyway,” said Carrara, “I’m going back to finish all that later. What about you?”

  Rossi scratched his head.

  “Nurse Rinaldi,” he said, remembering the missed call. He called the hospital again and this time was put through to reception. He explained who he was and waited.

  “Could you give me …Yes … Thank you,” he said then killed the call. “She’s in theatre for at least another two hours, but is off from this afternoon and tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can catch her at home.”

  “Going in alone or do you think you’ll need backup,” said Katia.