‘Listen to me, Adam. I—’
‘We’ve listened to you too fucking much.’
‘Listen to me.’ I had the attention of the nearest espresso-sipping bar-propper even if I didn’t have Adam’s. I was thinking fast, though not necessarily as carefully as I needed to. Everything might still be all right. Might. But I couldn’t ignore Gandolfi’s presence on the ferry. I had to do something. Or, rather, since Adam was in Naples and I wasn’t, he had to do something. I lowered my voice. ‘Get yourself over to the ferry terminal. You need to be there when the ferry docks. That’ll be in about forty minutes, so you’ve got plenty of time. The man with the case is wearing a dark suit and a straw hat. We need to be sure he isn’t being followed.’
‘How am I supposed to know?’
‘Watch out for a middle-aged bloke in a pale-blue suit, grey-haired, good-looking. He got on the ferry after our man. I don’t think he’s tailing him, but if he is …’
‘Yeah? If he is?’
‘Then we might have a problem.’
‘What d’you expect me to do about it if we have?’
‘Nothing.’ It was beginning to sound like a bad idea even as I outlined it. I couldn’t be sure Adam wouldn’t draw attention to himself somehow, which might only make matters worse. ‘Don’t intervene, Adam. Just watch what happens.’
‘Watch some bastard walk away with my money, you mean?’
‘I’m sure your father’s explained that—’
‘Yeah, Dad’s explained. You’ve explained. Everyone’s fucking explained. OK, Kellaway. Leave this to me.’
‘It’s not—’ But he’d hung up. And I knew calling again was pointless. I put the phone back on the hook and hurried out of the bar.
All was picture-postcard peaceful on the Marina Grande harbourfront. The ferry was still visible, ploughing a white furrow through the deep-blue sea as it headed for Naples. The sun was warm in my face. The air was fresh. It seemed inconceivable that Muriel Lashley’s life hung in the balance this summer morning. But it did. And there was nothing – absolutely nothing – I could do about it.
I went back to the villa and told Jacqueline what had happened. She wasn’t sure it had been wise to send Adam to the ferry terminal and neither was I. But the die was cast. There were still good reasons to think everything would proceed smoothly. The money had been paid. Now, surely, Muriel would be released. I imagined her being helped out of a small motorboat on to a pontoon at the Borgo Marinaro and left to find her way to where Lashley was waiting for her. It wasn’t so hard to believe.
Time passed, slowly but inexorably. Then, at last, the telephone rang.
It was Lashley. And the tone of his voice told me at once that all my believing had been for nothing.
THIRTY-ONE
THE BAD NEWS in Lashley’s first phone call was followed by worse in his second and worse still, in its own way, in his third. Jacqueline and I sat in the Villa Orchis struggling to come to terms with all that occurred as the morning elapsed, waiting helplessly for the consequences to reveal themselves. All we knew for certain was that those consequences would be bleak and bitter.
The sequence of events, once it was clear, told its own terrible story. It began with Lashley standing for half an hour outside Piovra, one of the bars in the Borgo Marinaro. He’d been told Muriel would be brought to him there and he assumed she’d be delivered by boat. But nothing happened. Time dragged by. Piovra opened for business. Still nothing happened.
Then the Piovra barman came out, saying there was someone on the phone wanting to talk to him. Lashley went into the bar and picked up the phone. He recognized the caller’s voice at once. It was the negotiator he’d been dealing with. But he was no longer negotiating.
‘You broke your word, Signor Lashley. The police are on us. You should not have gone to them. The deal is off.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘You will not see your wife today.’
The call ended there, leaving Lashley bewildered and distraught. He wondered if he should phone the police at once, but instead he hurried back to the hotel.
More or less simultaneously, about a kilometre north of the Borgo Marinaro, the ferry from Capri was docking at the Molo Beverello. Adam was watching from the corner of the ticket office as the passengers disembarked. He spotted Bartolomeo at once. And the man in the pale-blue suit – Gandolfi – was close behind. He stayed that way as Bartolomeo headed away from the ferry in the direction of the car park.
A flash of sunlight from a windscreen drew Adam’s attention to a car moving slowly round the curve of the exit road, waiting, perhaps, for Bartolomeo. Gandolfi may have had the same thought. He quickened his pace, overtook Bartolomeo and stepped into his path.
There was an exchange of words, inaudible to Adam. Gandolfi flourished some identification and pointed to the briefcase. More words came, tenser and faster. And more pointing. Bartolomeo shrugged and set the briefcase down. Gandolfi looked at it and said something. Perhaps he was expecting the case to be opened. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Bartolomeo pulled out a gun and shot Gandolfi in the chest.
A woman screamed. Bystanders scattered. Adam took cover behind the ticket office. Gandolfi fell to the ground. Bartolomeo grabbed the briefcase and ran to the car, which took off with a squeal of tyres, pulled straight on to the main road and sped away.
The shocked bystanders recovered themselves slowly. Gandolfi lay where he’d fallen, bleeding heavily and groaning. Someone ran to call an ambulance. Adam walked away fast, heading for the Excelsior.
By the time he arrived, Lashley had already spoken to me, so he realized at once, when Adam told him what had happened, that the man Bartolomeo had shot was Commissioner Gandolfi. The game was up. He phoned the police.
Adam protested that this wrecked Muriel’s chances of being freed. He couldn’t seem to understand that the shooting of a senior officer meant the police would soon be coming to us even if we didn’t go to them. It was better to tell them everything. Well, maybe he didn’t want to understand. And Lashley didn’t have the heart to point out that with the money in their hands and a full-scale police investigation sure to follow, the Camorra had no reason now to let Muriel go. He tried to squeeze something hopeful from the negotiator’s parting remark – ‘You will not see your wife today’ – but that was largely for Adam’s benefit. He entertained little hope himself, as he admitted to me later.
‘Whether Gandolfi followed you from the villa or just showed up to catch that ferry by chance we may never know, but the result couldn’t have been worse. The police will want to make someone suffer for the murder of one of their own. They’ll do everything they can to catch the people behind it. That makes Muriel a potential witness against them as well as their hostage. To imagine they’ll release her in such circumstances is’ – he sighed – ‘simply unrealistic.’
By then, Lashley knew, because the police had told him, that Gandolfi was dead. Once they’d realized a previously unreported kidnapping had cost their colleague his life, their initial sympathy had given way to hostility, exacerbated by Adam’s finger-jabbing demands that they ‘fucking do something’. What they’d done, after his finger-jabbing had escalated to shoulder-shoving, was arrest him.
‘I should have stopped Adam before he went so far,’ Lashley admitted. ‘But I was so appalled by how badly wrong things had gone so damn quickly that I couldn’t seem to concentrate. The police will probably just detain him overnight. Theoretically, they could charge us all with obstruction of justice. So this fellow the Consulate’s sent to see me says, anyway. But he doubts it’ll come to that and so do I. Don’t reproach yourself for anything you did or didn’t do. We all acted in good faith and for the best as we saw it. The fact that the outcome’s been disastrous doesn’t alter that.’
It was a brave assertion by Lashley, but I wasn’t sure he really believed it. He’d booked himself in for a second night at the Excelsior, so as to be on hand when Adam was released. It had been made clear
that Jacqueline and I would be required to report with Lashley to Police Headquarters in Naples later on Monday to make full statements. The man from the British Consulate had supplied the name of a lawyer we’d do well to consult. The mechanism of an official reaction to the murder of Commissioner Gandolfi and the kidnapping of Muriel Lashley was cranking into motion.
The blowing of the lid on the kidnap plot meant those close to Muriel who’d hitherto been told nothing about it now had to be informed. There was no way round it. Secrecy had got us nowhere. The awful truth had to be confessed. I knew Lashley would tell Harriet and Vivien without further delay. And I knew that would bring Vivien to Capri, probably by Tuesday at the latest. I could remember a time when I’d have been elated that I was going to see her again. Now the prospect was simply one more layer of dread. As Lashley had put it, things had gone wrong so damn quickly.
I had no doubt who was primarily to blame for that. I left Jacqueline to explain to Patrizia and Elena what was going on, a task I didn’t envy her, and headed for the Gabbiano. The police didn’t yet know who’d made the anonymous call that had prompted Gandolfi to visit Capri. I fully intended to tell them. But not before I demanded an explanation from him myself.
It was mid-afternoon when I reached the Gabbiano. The atmosphere was quiet and somnolent. A man emerged sleepily from a cubbyhole and gave me Thompson’s room number. There were no phones in the rooms, which was fine by me. The less warning Thompson had of my arrival the better.
His guttural, belated response to my thumps on his door suggested he’d been asleep himself. He was still asking who I was and what I wanted when I tried the handle and found the door wasn’t locked.
‘Kellaway?’ He was sitting on the edge of the bed when I entered the small, shutter-darkened room. He was dressed only in socks, trousers and a vest. He glared at me blearily. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘You promised you’d say nothing.’
I moved to the window and pushed the shutters open. The sunlight that flooded in dazzled him and fell on a dog-eared pink wallet-file lying on the bedside table. The flap was open. Thompson flicked it over, concealing the contents, while shielding his eyes with the other hand.
‘Why did you call the police?’ I demanded, standing directly in front of him.
‘I … didn’t.’
‘No one else knew, Thompson. It has to have been you.’
‘I made no call.’
‘Didn’t you hear what I just said? No one else knew.’
‘This call was … anonymous?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then someone else did know. Because I didn’t call.’ He pulled his shirt off the bedpost and struggled into it. ‘When’s this supposed to have happened?’
‘Yesterday. And there’s no “supposed” about it. The police have been on to us. You sabotaged the delivery of the ransom. An officer’s been killed and—’
‘Killed?’ That seemed to worry him more than anything else. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The kidnappers shot him and made off with the ransom money. They didn’t release Muriel Lashley. Chances are they aren’t going to now. Thanks to you.’
‘A policeman shot?’
‘Yes . Commissario Gandolfi.’
‘Bloody hell.’ He abandoned fiddling with his shirt buttons. ‘That’ll have put the cat among the pigeons.’
‘More than you bargained on, is it? The police won’t thank you for leading Gandolfi on with your crazy allegations about Strake’s murder, you know.’
‘Strake? What’s he got to …’ He stopped in mid-question, silenced by the realization that he’d just admitted he knew the name.
‘How did you find out about him?’
Thompson tried to look puzzled. ‘Who?’
‘Gordon Strake.’ I stepped closer. ‘All in here, is it?’
I grabbed the wallet-file a split-second before he did and carried it towards the window. He lurched off the bed and came after me with a growled, ‘Give that here’. But all I gave him was an elbow in the stomach.
It doubled him up. His face turned a deep red and, with a groan, he sank back down on to the bed, clinging to the post for support. ‘You bugger, you,’ he gasped. ‘I’m getting over … a hernia operation.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t stay home to recuperate, then, isn’t it?’
I opened the file. Inside were pages of scrawled notes, photocopied newspaper articles and a sheaf of black-and-white photographs. The topmost picture was of Vivien … and me. We were standing next to her Mini in Walworth the day in 1969 she’d travelled down from Cambridge to ask for my help in exposing the truth that lay behind Oliver’s death. We were smiling at each other, blithely unaware that somewhere, not far off, Thompson was training his camera on us.
The other pictures were all of Vivien. They looked to have been taken in Cambridge. The Honourable Roger featured in a couple of them. I held them up for Thompson to see. ‘You took these?’
‘To show Mrs Lashley.’ He winced. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘And these newspaper articles?’ I glanced through them. They were from the Cornish Guardian and the Western Morning News: inquest verdicts on Oliver and his father, reports of Wren’s merger with Cornish China Clays, an interview with Greville Lashley. Thompson had been a busy boy.
‘Background information,’ he said defensively. ‘I was just doing my job.’
‘Did you follow us here fifteen years ago?’
‘No. Mrs Lashley called me off when I told her Vivien had contacted you again.’
‘Why?’
‘Who knows? Maybe she didn’t need proof positive that you were porking her daughter.’
I took a stride towards the bed with the fleeting intention of punching Thompson in his foul mouth. Then I stopped. I half suspected he wanted me to hit him, so he’d have a bruise to show off later to the police.
‘Beating up an old man is all you’re good for, isn’t it, Kellaway?’ he sneered.
‘How did you find out about Strake?’
‘All I know is what Mrs Lashley told me fifteen years ago. An ex-employee of her family firm, name of Strake, had supposedly been harassing her son before his suicide. She asked me to keep an eye out for him while I was checking on Vivien in case he was doing the same to her. But I never saw hide nor hair of him. Why would he be of any interest to the Italian police?’
It was a good act. He sounded almost innocently curious. But I was sure he’d made the anonymous call alleging a connection between Muriel’s disappearance and Strake’s murder. He couldn’t fool me. ‘You know why he’d be of interest, Thompson. You told them why.’
‘You’ve got the wrong man. I didn’t make that call.’
‘Of course you did. No one else could have. As you can be certain I’ll tell them.’
‘Don’t do that.’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Listen …’ He licked his lips nervously. ‘Policemen cut up rough when one of their own gets it. I’ve seen it happen. I wouldn’t trust I-tie rozzers to be too … particular. I’m not as young as I was. I need you to keep my name out of this. And I can do you a favour in return.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘Whatever happens – I mean, whatever – I’ll keep my mouth shut. The police’ll hear nothing from me. You’ve got my word on it.’
‘And your word’s worth precisely what?’
‘As much as yours or Lashley’s, the way things are.’
He had me there, as he must have realized. I had no way of gauging how much he knew about Strake’s murder and he was too clever to tell me, but I was technically party to a perversion of the course of justice, something I wasn’t eager to discuss with Gandolfi’s grieving colleagues in the Naples police. Arguably, the same applied to Lashley. Just how much trouble Thompson could land us in was unclear. But in that lack of clarity lay his bargaining power.
‘Does that ugly look on your face mean you’ll g
et down off your high horse and put my offer to your boss?’ he asked with a smirk. ‘If you think you’d choke on a “yes”, I’ll settle for a nod.’
Lashley agreed with me that, galling though it was, we’d be wise to say nothing to the police about Thompson. As far as they were to know, we had no idea who’d phoned them, nor why the caller should have alleged Muriel’s kidnapping was somehow connected with Strake’s murder.
Jacqueline, as supportive as ever, assured us she’d be equally circumspect in what she said. ‘It won’t be difficult,’ she predicted. ‘They won’t think I know anything useful.’
But she knew a great deal now, of course. Enough to prompt her to ask me, as we faced a blank and anxious evening together at the villa, ‘Do you wish you’d gone to the police back in ’sixty-nine and told them everything, Jonathan?’
I didn’t have to ponder the question for long. ‘Absolutely.’ But … ‘At the time, though, there seemed to be so many good reasons not to. I never imagined Strake would come back to haunt us.’
‘Nor that anything like this would ever happen, I guess.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Greville sounded awful low when we spoke. Do you think there’s any hope for Muriel?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
It might have been more accurate to say I didn’t want to know. But that was a luxury I wasn’t to be allowed to enjoy for long. We were about to set off for Marina Grande the following morning, in time for the ten o’clock ferry to Naples, when the telephone rang.
It was Lashley. ‘The police have just called, Jonathan,’ he announced, with sombre lack of preamble. ‘A body’s been washed ashore near Ercolano. They think it may be Muriel. I’m leaving straight away. You and Jacqueline … should prepare yourselves for the worst.’
THIRTY-TWO
THE BODY WASHED ashore near Ercolano that morning was Muriel Lashley, of course. She’d drowned, presumably after being thrown overboard the previous night from a boat somewhere in the Bay of Naples. Technically, according to Cremonesi, the suave and softly spoken lawyer put our way by the British Consulate, there was some question as to whether this could be regarded as murder, especially since there was no hard evidence she’d been kidnapped in the first place beyond the photograph Lashley had been sent. There were no recordings of the phone calls her kidnappers had made and no eyewitnesses to her abduction.
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