The Blue Ring (A Creasy novel Book 3)

by A. J. Quinnell

  Creasy’s answer was immediate. ‘Because they know that I would die for them. That is the measure of leadership.’

  The Dane digested that and then remarked, ‘Obviously there is more than that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Creasy answered firmly. ‘And thank God there is more than that. They’re not just here because of me - that would never be enough for the likes of Maxie, Rene, Frank, or you, or Michael, or Guido, or Satta, or Pietro, or any other human being who can combine decency with a brain. They are here because they are angry to their guts. So what now, my Viking?’

  The Dane could see the last glimmer of light in the horizon.

  ‘What have you done about Gozo? It’s possible that Bellu talked before he died?’

  ‘I have made phone calls,’ Creasy answered. ‘Within twenty-four hours, five men of the calibre of Maxie, Rene and Frank will be arriving on Gozo. They will protect those whom I love. It’s only a precaution, because I doubt that Bellu talked before he died. The pathologist reports that first he was physically tortured to the extreme. Obviously he did not talk then, because they later gave him a massive dose of pure Valium in an effort to warp his mind. He may have talked under the influence but it would have been disjointed at best. He must have died soon after.’

  The Dane was curious to probe into Creasy’s mind; the very idea fascinated him. ‘What was your reaction to Bellu’s death? How do you put it on your balance sheet of morality? Do the means justify the end?’

  Creasy pushed his empty glass away from him and his soft voice was angry. Not at the Dane, not at himself, but at the twists and bends, bumps and holes of his entire life. ‘Bellu’s death shattered my friend Satta. That affects me more than the death itself.’ He leaned forward in the semi-darkness and gripped the Dane’s arm. ‘I tell you, I have seen enough death to make me feel I walk always on bones. There is nothing new. When the flesh is gone the bones look the same. I don’t care about death. I cannot see Bellu’s face any more. A face is a face, and a bone is a bone. The faces pass by in the night. A friend on a ridge who has a face one second and a mass of blood and bones the next. A face of a child once bright with life and a second later black with napalm. Faces that turn into rows of coffins or bodybags. Open graves and white headstones . . . Can you understand that?’

  The Dane shook his head.

  ‘Of course I cannot . . . And Creasy, I think you indulge yourself. You sound like steel on this quiet night. But I do not see or feel the steel . . . I sit with a man who knows more love than he understands. More love than he recognises. More love than he wants to accept. If you want my serious opinion, I think you’re full of bullshit.’

  Creasy laughed softly.

  ‘So I have a wise Viking . . . So what do we do now?’

  Jens pulled himself straight in his chair, and his voice changed tone.

  ‘Everything is speeding up,’ he said. ‘About now, Satta, Maxie and Frank are moving in on that prick General Gandolfo. Much will come of that. In the meantime, Michael is poised to penetrate “The Blue Ring” from inside. We now know the main characters. We know their philosophy and the parameters of their operation. No doubt in the next day or so you will move. The only thing missing from our knowledge is the name of the man behind it all . . . The spider at the centre of the web . . . There must be a spider . . . In all such things there is a spider. I feel that very soon we will know who that spider is. While your team burns down the web . . . you will kill the spider.’

  The horizon was now totally black; the Christmas tree had passed over it. They both looked at the blackness, and then the Dane said, almost in a whisper, ‘I have a sure feeling you will kill that spider. Then I will go home and be a husband, a father . . . and a good policeman.’

  Chapter 70

  On that same night two children started their separate journeys.

  In Gozo, Juliet yawned deeply as she helped Laura with the washing up. Laura glanced at her and smiled.

  ‘It’s the sea-air,’ she said. ‘It makes for a good sleep.’

  It was a Saturday evening and early that morning Juliet had gone fishing with Joey and his friends. In spite of their superstitions they had caught ten boxes of Lampuki, and Juliet had caught more than her share. The men had paid her the ultimate compliment as they unloaded the catch at the jetty beneath Gleneagles.

  ‘Come again,’ they had called. ‘Any time.’

  In the bar Tony had treated her with unreserved respect, giving her a glass of his own wine.

  ‘You are a fisherman,’ he had said proudly.

  ‘Fisherwoman,’ she had corrected him.

  Solemnly he had shaken his head. ‘No, on this island you are now a fisherman, even if you put on a skirt and wear lipstick.’

  She had suddenly felt very grown up.

  Now, as she wiped the last of the plates, and stacked them in the cupboard, she said to Laura, ‘It’s Sunday tomorrow . . . Can I sleep late?’

  ‘Of course,’ Laura answered. ‘Sleep as late as you want, but don’t forget we’re having lunch at Joey’s. Maria is making Lampuki pie and she prepares it almost as well as I do.’

  In her bedroom, Juliet carefully counted out the money again and packed it away, together with her passport, into her purse. She selected the clothes she would need, put them into the canvas bag and put her purse on top. Then she sat on her bed patiently and waited, knowing that within the hour the rest of the house would be asleep.

  She knew she would have to slip out very quietly. The dogs would not be a problem, because on the last two nights she had done a couple of trial runs, going out into the courtyard after midnight. The dogs were Tal-Fenecks, a breed almost exclusive to Malta; hunting dogs, famous for their ability to catch rabbits on the steepest slopes. On each occasion they had slipped up to her silently, sniffing and recognising her smell and whining with pleasure as she had patted them. But the bloody cockerel was a problem. It roosted fifty metres away in an old carob tree and announced any sound to the entire world. So she decided to slip out the front door and work her way down a narrow path to the seashore and then around the coast to the harbour.

  First she wrote a note to Laura and Paul, telling them not to worry. She explained that she wanted to be with her father and brother, no matter what the danger. By the time they found the note she would be in Rome. She had booked her flight by phone from the house on the hill. She would catch the early four o’clock ferry to Malta; catch a bus to Valetta and then another bus to the airport, arriving in plenty of time to get the seven o’clock flight to Rome, arriving there at eight-twenty. Then she would catch a plane or a train down to Naples. She had the address of the Pensione Splendide. She knew that Creasy and Michael would be angry, but she had decided she was more than a child; she would handle their anger. At least she could cook for them and help around the pensione. She would be part of it.

  She slipped out of the house just after two in the morning, her bag slung over her shoulder. The cockerel heard nothing, but she had not gone a hundred metres before two shapes loomed up behind her. She stopped and patted them and felt their cold muzzles poking at her face.

  ‘Go home,’ she whispered fiercely.

  She might have been talking to the rocks around her. They followed her down the path to the shore and then around the coast to the small harbour, as though they were fellow conspirators.

  The overnight ferry from Naples docked in the Grand Harbour of Valetta at three a.m. Franco Delors passed swiftly through customs and immigration, hailed a taxi and asked the driver, ‘Can you get to Cirkewwa in time to catch the five o’clock ferry to Gozo?’

  ‘No problem,’ the driver said cheerfully. ‘Just hold on to your seat.’

  Juliet bought a ticket and walked onto the ferry together with a host of farmers and fishermen taking their produce and catches to the early Malta markets.

  Half an hour later the ferry warped into Cirkewwa. She was one of the first off. As she went down the ramp a man walked past her onto the ferry. He glanced
at her and carried on walking, but ten metres on he stopped abruptly, turned and watched her hurry towards the waiting green bus. He stood there for several seconds as the other passengers streamed past him. Then he followed her. He saw her get on to the bus. A taxi had pulled up and disgorged several tourists, their eyes bleary from lack of sleep. The bus was pulling away.

  Franco Delors grabbed the taxi driver and asked him, ‘Where is that bus going?’

  ‘Valetta,’ came the reply.

  ‘Follow it,’ Delors said, climbing into the back seat.

  At the airport Juliet bought her pre-booked ticket at the Alitalia counter. Delors hovered in the background. She then went to the cafeteria and drank tea and ate toast and marmalade. In the meantime Delors had also purchased a ticket to Rome and made a phone call to Jean Lucca Donati.

  ‘Yes, it is her . . . I have no doubts. She was coming off the ferry as I was going on . . . I followed her to the airport . . . I’m booked on the same flight . . . Have some people at Fiumicino. No, she did not recognise me . . . she was zonked out on heroin the only time she saw me in Marseille . . . No, I am not mistaken. She has the face of an angel. I would not forget it . . . Of course. The flight gets in at eight-twenty. I’ll be right behind her. Have your people in front.’

  Katrin had no surname, as befits an orphan. Even that name had been given to her arbitrarily; with the trauma of watching her parents shot she could not remember her given name. But she had adjusted well to the orphanage. So well that she had been selected by Sister Assunta to be the first of her charges to be given up to adoption.

  Sister Assunta herself had prepared the child, washing her long, blonde hair and dressing her in the new jeans and T-shirt which had been part of a large donation of clothes from Malta. She had talked to her reassuringly, telling her that she was going for the first time in her life on a boat trip to a wonderful new country called Italy, where she would meet her new parents. She would have a new home and much love and go to a good school and one day would come back to visit Sister Assunta and the other nuns and bring them lots of good Italian chocolate.

  Katrin had laughed and promised to return.

  Chapter 71

  On Sundays Joey and Maria allowed themselves the unusual luxury of sleeping late. They would get up about nine-thirty instead of six o’clock, eat a light breakfast, attend the eleven o’clock mass and then go on to Joey’s parents for a late lunch.

  On this Sunday, however, Joey got up grumbling at six-thirty, because they had some English tourist friends who were catching the seven o’clock ferry on their way home. Joey felt he should wave them goodbye. He left a sleeping Maria, climbed into the Land Rover and free-wheeled most of the way down to the harbour.

  Having done his duty, he walked across the concourse to the Pit Stop snack bar and ordered a cappuccino from his friend Jason.

  He had just taken the first sip, when Jason said, ‘That girl staying with your parents . . .’

  “What about her?’ Joey said, immediately alert.

  ‘Well, she went to Malta early this morning.’

  Joey’s head snapped up. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m sure it was her,’ Jason replied. ‘I was just opening up and saw her walk past to catch the four o’clock ferry. She was carrying a bag. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but she had your two Tal-Fenecks with her.’ He laughed. ‘They wanted to go on the ferry with her and she had to shoo them off. I watched them head back up the hill after the ferry left.’

  For a moment Joey stood at the bar looking down at his cup, then he asked urgently, ‘Are you sure it was her, Jason?’

  The young man nodded.

  ‘I’m sure, Joey. I only saw her once, but it was enough . . . The kind of girl you keep in mind for three or four years later . . . She’s going to be a beauty.’

  The next moment Joey was heading through the open door and running for his Land Rover.

  Laura was up and bustling around the kitchen. She looked up, startled, as Joey ran in.

  ‘What are you doing up so early?’

  ‘Never mind. Where’s Juliet?”

  ‘Fast asleep. She wanted a lie-in this morning. Why?’

  ‘I was just down at the ferry,’ he gasped. ‘Jason at the Pit Stop told me he saw her catch the four o’clock ferry. The dogs were with her.”

  ‘The dogs are here,’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘Yes, of course. They came back after she’d gone . . . Let’s look.’

  They hurried up the outside steps to the guest wing. Laura tried the door. It was locked. She banged on it and shouted, ‘Juliet!’ several times. There was no answer, and Joey elbowed her aside, squatted down and looked through the keyhole.

  ‘There’s no key,’ he said. ‘She must have locked it from the outside.’

  Paul came up the steps, his hair ruffled and his eyes sleepy.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Joey explained while Laura ran down to the kitchen for the spare key.

  The bed was neatly made. There was a note on the bedside table.

  Laura picked it up and read the words out loud. ‘“Please don’t worry, I have been very happy here with you but I feel so nervous about Creasy and Michael and so useless just waiting. Maybe there is something I can do there. I know where they are and by the time you read this I will be in Italy. I have some money and I will be able to take care of myself. Love, Juliet”.’

  They looked at each other, and Joey said, ‘Where on earth would she find money?’

  ‘Up at the house,’ Laura snapped. ‘She was up there all day last Sunday. Creasy kept a lot of money there in the wall-safe in his bedroom. He or Michael must have shown her how to open it.’

  Paul looked at his watch. It was seven-fifteen.

  ‘She must have been going for the seven o’clock flight to Rome,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it’s late. Maybe we can stop her.’

  They all ran down to the kitchen and the ever practical Laura took charge. She phoned George Zammit at home and got his wife, who informed her that he had just left for police headquarters. Being a senior superintendent in an increasingly modernised police force, Laura was talking to him within a minute on his mobile phone. She was clear and concise. George simply told her to hang up and wait. He would call her back.

  The three Schembris sat in the kitchen, looking at the phone. It rang two minutes later. Yes, the immigration computer showed that one Juliet Creasy had caught the Alitalia flight to Rome. It was scheduled for seven a.m. but had taken off at seven-fourteen. Its ETA Rome was eight thirty-eight. Laura looked at her watch. The plane would land in exactly one hour and three minutes.

  ‘I can call Rome,’ George said, ‘and have the police waiting for her and put her back on the next flight.’ Laura thought for only a few seconds.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Creasy’s in Naples with Guido. I’ll phone him now and see what he wants to do. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.’

  Chapter 72

  Creasy heard the phone ring as he was having breakfast. He heard Guido’s faint voice answering in the kitchen. A few moments later the voice rose.

  ‘Creasy. Get in here. It’s Laura . . . An emergency!’

  Creasy listened to Laura’s controlled words, then said, ‘Wait!’ He cupped the mouthpiece and rapidly explained the situation to Guido. They both glanced at their watches.

  ‘Just about an hour,’ Guido said. ‘Add another twenty to thirty minutes for immigration and customs. Are you going to have George Zammit phone his counterpart in Rome?’

  Creasy shook his head.

  ‘No, let’s keep the police out of this. The question is whether she left for the reasons she mentioned in her note or whether there’s something else behind it.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Creasy shrugged.

  ‘Who knows, maybe Bellu did talk under the influence of that Valium. Maybe they’ve already targeted Gozo. Maybe that’s what’s behind it. My people don’t arrive i
n Gozo until this afternoon.’

  Guido said sceptically, ‘But the information is that she walked onto the ferry alone. It doesn’t sound like a “snatch”.’

  ‘True,’ Creasy agreed, ‘But they could be waiting for her at Rome airport. She’s only a child. Maybe she was led into this somehow.’

  Guido glanced at his watch again.

  ‘Anyway, Michael’s in Rome with Rene, and Maxie and Frank arrived there last night.’

  Creasy also glanced at his watch.

  ‘I don’t want to involve Michael. He’s very close now, and I must do nothing to compromise his cover. I’ll send Maxie and Frank, Rene can cover them from the background. What’s Michael’s number?’

  Jens was standing at the kitchen door. He had been listening to the last part of the conversation. He plucked the number from his photographic brain and called it out. Both men turned in surprise, and then Creasy was making the call.

  Michael was fast asleep, but he came awake in seconds. He listened quietly without asking any questions, then he too looked at his watch and said, ‘I’ll get on to it. Rene is here, and Maxie and Frank will be at the hotel nearby. They weren’t due to meet Satta until eleven. I’ll plan the operation and get back to you.’

  Chapter 73

  She had been too excited to eat the plastic breakfast from the plastic tray. The plane was half-empty and she had a row of three seats to herself. She drank the good coffee and a stewardess refilled her cup, sat on the edge of the seat and chatted to her for a few minutes. She leaned across and pointed out of the window. It was a clear morning and Juliet could see the green fields and the rising Appenine mountains.

  ‘Have you been to Rome before?’ the stewardess asked.

  ‘No, it’s my first time in Italy.’

  ‘Is someone meeting you?’

  ‘No, I’m catching the twelve o’clock train to Naples. Is the railway station near the airport?”