Watts and Tingley were taken through to the old library where a middle-aged man and a woman waited. The couple introduced themselves as Patrice and Jeanne Magnon.
‘And why you are here?’ Watts said.
‘The Hathaway family did business with the Magnons for decades,’ Patrice said. ‘And whilst we liked John very much, business is business. He is gone, he will be missed, but the waters close over.’
Hathaway’s last moments had been spent in agony, impaled on a stake on the cliff just a few hundred yards from this house.
‘He left a will disposing of his property,’ Tingley said.
‘And we have heard that the woman who inherited is also dead. Barbara? Nature abhors a vacuum, does it not?’
‘I was standing next to her when she was killed,’ Tingley said quietly.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Patrice Magnan shrugged. ‘It is the modern world.’
‘In our family, Sean Reilly will be missed even more than John,’ Jeanne Magnon said. She had the gravelled voice of a heavy smoker. Of Jeanne Moreau, whom she vaguely resembled. Jolie laide.
Sean Reilly had been the right-hand man first of gangster Dennis Hathaway, then his son John. He had retired to this house and blown up himself and the Bosnian Serbs who had come to get him. That had been the start of the bloodbath.
‘Did you betray Hathaway?’ Tingley kept his voice low.
‘It is complicated,’ Jeanne said. ‘Charlie Laker visited us. You know him? A very bad man. He told our father, Marcel, that Hathaway had killed his own father, Dennis Hathaway. Marcel had wondered for forty years what had become of his old friend, Dennis. Now he felt the son had betrayed him. He wanted revenge. Then, we had warned John Hathaway we could not get involved in rough stuff.’
Watts indicated the two men hovering by the door.
‘Looks like you have your own tough guys.’
‘These?’ Jeanne said. ‘These are local boys. No match for the men from the Balkans.’ She shuddered. ‘That man Radislav. .’
Patrice put an arm round her shoulders for a moment but looked at the two Englishmen.
‘We betrayed him in that — like your Admiral Nelson — we turned a blind eye.’ Jeanne rubbed her face wearily. ‘But we had no choice.’
‘Charlie Laker knew our businesses, knew our weaknesses,’ Patrice said.
‘Where are Laker and Radislav now?’ Tingley said.
‘Long gone,’ Patrice said. ‘Laker back in England. In the north, I think. Radislav back to Bosnia.’
‘And Kadire?’
‘Drago Kadire? Was he even here?’
‘He shot the woman, Barbara, in Brighton a few days after Hathaway was killed here,’ Tingley said. ‘His face showed the signs of a bad beating. He could not have left England by plane. He would have been recognized too easily.’
Patrice Magnon tugged at his ear.
‘He probably went via Calais. Albanian gangs control the port. They smuggle girls and drugs and who knows what else into Britain every day. Then he would make his way south overland.’
‘Back to Bosnia,’ Tingley observed flatly.
Patrice and Jeanne exchanged a glance.
‘Actually, he is based in Italy,’ Jeanne said. ‘In Chiusi, north of Rome. He does work for the Mafia from time to time. Killing work. But he is involved in the smuggling of ancient artefacts and is also a kind of liaison between the Italian and the Balkan mafias.’
‘There is a man in Orvieto you should see,’ Patrice said. ‘Crespo di Bocci. He bears Kadire a grudge. Crespo is a smuggler of antiques, mostly. Not the worst in the hierarchy of crime. But he has killed, when necessary.’
‘And smuggled artefacts are one way the Mafia launders the money it makes from the traffic in despair,’ Watts said. ‘Drugs and people.’
Magnan nodded.
‘Sadly that is so.’
Tingley stood.
‘I want access to Hathaway’s armoury.’
‘And a car, I would imagine,’ Patrice said.
‘You can provide that?’ Tingley said.
‘Of course. And a passport?’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘We did like John Hathaway. Our small betrayal we did with a heavy heart.’
‘But now you take over his house — and French businesses?’
Patrice shrugged again.
‘That is the nature of our trade. It is not personal.’
Tingley nodded.
‘Show me the armoury.’
Patrice looked at Bob Watts.
‘You too?’
Watts shook his head.
‘I have other plans. But there is something I need from you. Papers. Old papers to do with an unsolved murder from 1934.’
Watts was interested in the identity of the Brighton Trunk Murderer, the never-identified man who had so callously left a naked woman’s torso at Brighton railway station, her legs and feet in a suitcase at King’s Cross.
John Hathaway had mentioned before his death that his gangster father, Dennis, had acquired from a bent copper in 1964 most of the police files on the Brighton Trunk Murder. They were thought destroyed that year by then Chief Constable Philip Simpson, a close friend of Watts’s father. Dennis Hathaway had used the contents of the files to blackmail the corrupt Chief Constable Simpson.
John Hathaway had left them in the safe keeping of Sean Reilly in Varengeville-sur-mer.
Watts didn’t for one moment think his father had been the Brighton Trunk Murderer but there were other things hinted at in his father’s diary. Rape. Corruption. Betrayal. He wanted to see what the files said about those things.
‘I need some papers,’ he told the Magnons. ‘Old papers of no interest or value to you. They were in Sean Reilly’s keeping but I don’t exactly know where in the house they are.’
Patrice Magnon had gestured round the library.
‘I would imagine papers would be somewhere here. Papers you can have. Old papers, that is. Feel free to look.’
A half-hour later Tingley came back into the room. Watts was putting his mobile phone away.
‘I’ve got to go back,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Tingley said.
‘On the next ferry.’
Tingley waited.
‘My father’s housekeeper has just telephoned. My father has had a stroke.’
Tingley reached out and squeezed his friend’s arm.
‘I’m sorry, Bob.’
Watts nodded.
‘You got the papers you needed?’ Tingley said.
Watts indicated boxes of files beside a long table.
They went to a bar on the waterfront. Windows fogged, rain sluicing the streets.
‘Your dad is a fine man,’ Tingley said.
‘I don’t know what my father is,’ Watts said.
They parted at the ferry terminal in Dieppe. A clap of thunder sounded like artillery fire.
‘You going to be OK?’ Watts said.
‘I’m loaded for bear,’ Tingley said, patting the boot of the car.
‘You’re loaded for World War Three,’ Watts said. ‘God knows what Hathaway intended to do with rocket launchers.’ He put his hand on Tingley’s shoulder. ‘God knows what you’re going to do with them.’
‘Radislav is long overdue.’
‘But first Kadire?’ Watts said.
‘But first Kadire.’ Tingley held out his hand. ‘Once everything is sorted about your dad, you’re going after Charlie Laker?’
‘Him and others.’
They shook hands, then Watts turned and walked to where his own car was parked. He looked back and Tingley was watching him go. Thunder rolled. Neither man waved.
TWENTY-ONE
Crespo di Bocci had pale, papery skin and black eyes that glittered in the gloom of his drawing room. He was sitting behind a broad desk in an ornate chair when Tingley was ushered in by Guiseppe di Bocci. Federico was already stationed inside the door.
The old Di Bocci was thin within his
suit, narrow-shouldered. He watched Tingley walk over to take the chair in front of the desk and saw Tingley’s eyes flicker to the large tapestry hanging on the wall behind him.
‘My ancestors were merchant explorers. That is a scene of their ships departing from Genoa — or returning. I have never been sure.’
Tingley sat and fingered the pendant at his neck. St George slaying the dragon, represented as a winged serpent. When Tingley was young, he believed you only had to slay the dragon once.
How wrong he was. He soon learned that the dragon’s teeth, falling to the earth, seeded it with evil yet again.
Over the years, he had killed the serpent many times. He saw that it would never die but he also recognized something else. Somewhere in the struggle he had ingested the serpent. Now it writhed within him.
He looked back at Di Bocci.
‘Mi scusi,’ he said. ‘I believe we have an enemy in common. Drago Kadire. I wondered if we might make common cause.’
Di Bocci’s English was good.
‘Kadire betrayed a trust some years ago,’ he said. ‘He lied to me. His lie had consequences.’ He spread his small hands. ‘It is in the nature of our work that we are not always able to respond to provocation as we might wish.’
‘I could respond to that provocation for you and only he would know it was repayment for your slight.’
Di Bocci looked at Tingley for a long moment. Tingley looked beyond him to the tapestry. He saw how the colours had faded. He looked back at Di Bocci, who had an intense expression on his face. Tingley tilted his head.
‘You should visit my cousin in Chiusi,’ Di Bocci said. ‘It is only twenty, twenty-five miles away. He will have something for you.’
‘What will he have for me?’ Tingley said.
‘Kadire is away, in Ravenna, but in a few days he will be in Chiusi. Go to my cousin. We must not be seen to be implicated but he will help.’
Tingley took his time on the short drive to Chiusi. The road was dusty, narrow and empty. He was thinking about Kadire and a long, long day when John Hathaway’s men were beating the bejesus out of the sniper to get him to give up his colleagues. Hathaway stretched out on a recliner on the balcony of his mansion in Brighton, nursing a rum and pep in honour of Tingley, who drank nothing but. Clearly hating the drink but saying:
‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe we can do something with it at cocktail hour in my bar.’ He grimaced. ‘My former bar.’
The bar in the Marina that had been blown to smithereens by Kadire’s comrades.
‘You know, Jimmy, I look out over my kingdom — damn near forty years I’ve been ruling Brighton — and all I can taste in my mouth is ash. It’s all I’ve tasted for years. Every decade I’ve moved into legit stuff. And every decade I’ve got drawn back in to keep others off me. And I’ve been bad.’
Tingley grudgingly liked Hathaway, even though he knew he had done terrible things. But then Tingley had done terrible things. The difference was that Tingley had done them for good reasons. He hoped.
‘Do you ever wonder what might have been?’ he said.
Hathaway put his drink down.
‘What might have been was what was. I don’t think in any other terms. I don’t know how to think in any other terms. But the thing I’ve wondered about over the years is whether I genuinely care about all the shit that has happened in my life. The shit that happened to other people in my life.’
‘And what do you conclude?’ Tingley said.
‘That I don’t. Which begs the bigger question — when did I stop caring? Sean Reilly asked me once, straight out: “Whose death from the early days do you regret most?” I guessed he was wondering about my girlfriend, Elaine, or my father or anyone from that early roster. What he didn’t know was the truly terrible thing I did when I was a kid — a thing I can’t explain even to myself.’
‘The only true account is the thing itself,’ Tingley said. Hathaway looked across at him. Tingley shrugged. ‘Words to live by.’
Hathaway picked up his drink again, took a sip. He couldn’t quite conceal his distaste, but whether for the drink or the sentiment Tingley couldn’t be sure.
Tingley was jolted from his thoughts. Something long and thin was stretched across the curving road. By the time he realized it was a snake, sunning itself, he had already driven over it. Glancing in the mirror he saw the snake thrashing, frenzied, trying to bite its own tail. He lost sight of it as he rounded the next bend. He smiled grimly. Was this some kind of sign? He felt the stirring in his belly.
He settled back into his drive.
Hathaway had been in a gabby mood that night. Maybe it was the rum and pep.
‘I was a right tearaway when I was a teenager and I liked the idea of setting fire to one of the Lewes bonfires, up the road from here, before Guy Fawkes Night. Just for the crack.’ He saw Tingley’s look. ‘Bonfire night was big in Lewes. Still is big — burning the Pope in effigy remains the town’s idea of a good time.
‘I’d gone up on the train doing a recce a few times. I’d settled on a bonfire erected by a bunch of Teddy boys calling themselves the Bonfire Boys. I hated Teds.
‘So I go up there with petrol in a little bottle. Two Teds are standing beside this huge pile of wood, shielding cigarettes in their cupped hands. Both wore jeans with big cuffs and fake leather jackets. Very James Dean. I remember they were hunched against the wind off the Downs. It was biting.
‘I hid between two garages, watching them. After ten minutes or so they went down the street to a cafe. When they went inside, I walked over to the bonfire.’
Hathaway tilted his head back and stared up at the sky.
‘It was about ten feet high, a conical pile of tree branches, planks and one railway sleeper with smaller lumps of wood and crates hanging precariously halfway up. An unbroken privet of tree branches around the base. I poured the petrol over the driest-looking piece of kindling and crouched down to light a match. The wind gusted the match out. And the second. I bent closer and put the matchbox and the next match into the wood. I struck the match.
‘The kindling went up with a whoosh. It surprised me. I staggered back, shaking my hand and twisting my head. Within seconds the flames were leaping high about the bonfire and racing round the perimeter, igniting all the kindling. I felt the prickly stumps of hair where my eyebrows had been. I looked down at my burned hand, already bright red with the skin puckering. I looked at the bonfire. It was burning well. I looked down the street towards the cafe. I turned and left.’
Tingley waited, sensing there was more.
‘Did I know the kid was in the den inside the bonfire when I lit the match? That’s the bit I can’t remember. I can see him peering at me through the piles of wood when I was crouching down but did I really see that? Do I just imagine it?’ Hathaway rubbed his eyes. ‘I really don’t know.’
Tingley couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Hathaway sat up.
‘You reap what you sow, Jimmy boy. You reap what you sow.’
TWENTY-TWO
The countryside was lusher near Chiusi. Tingley saw the town perched on its tufa hill when he was still some way off. The land sloped gently away to a small lake. The road wound round the hill, threading between a series of steep, cultivated step terraces. He entered the town with the cathedral on his left and the Etruscan Museum on his right. He parked on a side street nearby.
The sun was bright. It was quiet. Siesta time in a backwater. He looked across the countryside. Then he turned towards the Villa di Bocci to get on with the job.
Crespo di Bocci’s cousin, Renaldo, was twenty years younger and as unlike him as it was possible to be. Plump, a cruel curl to his lips. A hint of the actor Peter Ustinov at his most lascivious.
He offered Tingley wine on a terrace looking out across the countryside. Renaldo waved his arm expansively.
‘All this is a vast necropolis. As Camars, this town was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan Federation. The Etruscans lived among their dea
d. With every rainfall, new treasures rise to the surface. There is a thirst for such treasures around the world.’ He pointed to the west. ‘That tufa hill there. It is the Poggio Gaiella. It has three storeys of passages and galleries, a labyrinth of them. It is regarded by some as the likeliest site for the mausoleum of Porsena, the great Etruscan emperor. You have heard of him?’
‘Horatio defended the gate of Rome against him, didn’t he?’
Renaldo bowed his head in assent.
‘There is a labyrinth of catacombs beneath the town, of course. Beneath this very house. Porsena was buried in the middle of a labyrinth with all his wealth about him. Now that would be a treasure worth finding.’
‘You smuggle artefacts, do you not?’
Renaldo ignored him.
‘Our family owned these fields and hills for generations. Then my grandfather took the wrong side.’
‘In World War Two?’
‘Before then. He became a fascist in the thirties. After the war our fortunes declined.’
Tingley nodded, wondering why he was being told this but thinking: only connect.
‘Your cousin said you would help me.’
‘My cousin does not speak for me.’ Renaldo di Bocci touched his fleshy lips with a forefinger. ‘Which is not to say that I won’t help you.’
‘You know who I want?’
‘Of course. But you must wait. You are welcome to stay here. In fact, I insist. Are you a reader?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Nor I, but it is a pity. We have a fine library here with many rare books. For a bookish man it would be a profitable place to pass a couple of days.’
‘As you say — a pity.’
‘A woman perhaps? A man?’
‘I’ll be fine as I am,’ Tingley said.
Tingley was not a religious man. He did enjoy the calm of churches, however. Their susurrating silence. He was sitting in the cathedral beside the palazzo watching a choir assemble when his solitude was disturbed by a hunched old woman in black who sat down beside him.
He stepped to the back of the church and phoned his friend, Bob Watts.
‘How’s it going?’ Watts said. ‘What’s that noise in the background?’
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