Lone Wolf

by Michael Gregorio

  He slid the drawer closed, took out his phone, and made a call.

  ‘Rocco? It’s me again.’

  The voice at the other end growled the same old question.

  ‘No use at all. Still, it’s only a question of time.’

  ‘Call me when you’ve got something,’ Rocco said, and closed the call.

  Assisi, Umbria

  Lucia Grossi was sitting at a table in the airport concourse.

  She smiled and waved, calling them over like the hostess on a TV show.

  Cangio wondered what she was doing there. No one could drive from the carabinieri command post north of Perugia to St Francis of Assisi Airport in less time than it had taken them to drive there from Valnerina. Not even the head of Special Crimes in a souped-up squad car with blue lights flashing and sirens blaring.

  ‘I ordered coffee,’ she said, waving her hand in the air, A waiter came bounding over with an espresso, a macchiato, and a cappuccino. ‘I hope that I got it right,’ she said, taking the espresso from the tray.

  Another party trick, Cangio thought. She had drunk coffee with both of them before.

  Harris was still in the throes of confusion as he reached for the cappuccino. ‘How did you guess that we’d be coming here?’ he asked.

  ‘Shall we call it … female intuition?’

  She was putting on a shameless performance for the Man from the Yard. Still, he wasn’t quite the guileless lamb that Cangio had taken him for. Harris’s face turned to stone as he asked, ‘Who exactly did you speak to in London?’

  Cangio saw a hint of a blush as Lucia Grossi ran her fingers through her hair. ‘It was a … Mr Jardine, I believe.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Jardine,’ Harris corrected her. ‘My section leader.’

  ‘I thought I’d better bring him up to speed. I told him I had designated someone to help you in your search,’ she said with a nod in Cangio’s direction.

  Cangio swallowed his coffee, and ignored the burning in his throat.

  He had no name, no role, he was just someone that she had designated.

  ‘Mr Jardine said you had sent him a photo of a possible suspect, and that his team would be doing their best to put a name to the face. That was fast work, congratulations.’ She beamed a smile at Harris. ‘I was already halfway here when you phoned me. They’ll check the airport, I thought, it’s the next logical step. A little official help will speed things along, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.’

  An Italian cop would have called it ‘interfering with an investigation’.

  Cangio asked himself what Harris would have to say about it.

  Harris ran his hand through his stubbly hair. ‘So, you thought you’d give us a surprise?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Lucia Grossi said. ‘I called the airport on the way, and spoke with the security manager. I told him that I … that you would like to see the video footage of the boarding of last Thursday’s flight – there was only one flight, as you know – to Stansted Airport. He was so impressed when he heard that you’re from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘New Scotland Yard,’ Desmond Harris corrected her.

  ‘He’s expecting someone dressed as Sherlock Holmes,’ she joked.

  Cangio watched Harris, silently egging him on. Go on, Desmond, put her in her place. Weren’t the English supposed to be masters of sarcasm? A nasty word or two would do no harm. And if she pretended not to understand, he was ready to provide an exact translation, and maybe rub a bit more salt in the wound.

  ‘I can only thank you,’ Harris said with a shrug. ‘I’ll be sure to inform DCI Jardine of the invaluable assistance I’ve received from you and Ranger Cangio.’

  ‘Jardine thanked me when I spoke to him,’ she said. ‘And we managed to sort out a minor problem at the same time.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Harris leant forward, glancing to see if Cangio had guessed what was coming next.

  Cangio concentrated on the coffee left at the bottom of his cup before he drained it.

  ‘I told him that a formal note from Scotland Yard requesting our assistance would be appreciated.’ Lucia Grossi’s red lipstick seemed to take on a glossier hue. ‘As you know, the United Kingdom has recently opted to leave the European Union. Well, I mean to say, if we are obliged to divert manpower from our own investigations, Scotland Yard can hardly expect us to simply fall in and cooperate any more. I need a signed request for help to pass on to my superiors. They’ll have to justify the time and expense which is involved, as you can imagine. We are pleased to share information, but only within reason. There are limits, you know.’

  Lucia Grossi laced her fingers and sat back comfortably in her seat.

  Was this a full-blown diplomatic stand-off? Cangio asked himself.

  ‘Well, Mr Jardine saw my point. I’m expecting a fax from London at any moment. With everything in order, I don’t see any black clouds on the horizon.’ She stood up. ‘The security manager will be waiting for us, I imagine. His name is Lorenzo Duranti. By now, he ought to have located the tapes that I asked him to find.’

  Cangio tried to imagine what it meant for Lucia Grossi and her career, the chance to show off a request for assistance from Scotland Yard in an investigation that she was personally coordinating.

  It reminded him of the motto one of his workmates in London – a salesman who would have slit every throat in the office to make a big deal – had printed on his visiting-card: Quo non ascendam?

  How high can I go?

  Did Lucia Grossi have the legend tattooed somewhere on her body?

  Valnerina

  Rain lashed down on Monte Coscerno.

  The soil was thin, the grass sparse, streams formed everywhere.

  The wolf was still lying in the hollow, couldn’t move out of it, though he hadn’t drowned.

  The pool of water had quickly turned to mud, then a tiny dam had burst, and the level had stopped climbing.

  The rest of the pack still hadn’t come back.

  Perhaps they had found food …

  The rain rolled over the mountainside, filling the air like thick smoke, obscuring everything, dampening down every sound.

  There was nothing beyond the pool of mud and his own helplessness.

  Cold and shivering, weak from loss of blood, exhausted now, indifferent to its fate, just waiting for a death which wouldn’t come, the wolf must have closed its eyes, then fallen into a stupor …

  He woke with a shock, and tried to move.

  His vision was blurred, the rainwater running off his muzzle and into his eyes. He bowed his head, then lifted it, looked into the fog that clung to him like chicken down when they raided a henhouse.

  He shuddered with fright, unable to move a limb.

  There was something there.

  In the fog, so close, invisible.

  He could smell it …

  A stink of something earthy – sweaty and rancid.

  Then something moved in the swirling fog, coming closer.

  He raised his eyes, saw two bright lamps glare in the fog above him …

  Then claws swiped through the mist – CRRRACK! – and he was dead.

  TEN

  Catanzaro, Calabria

  Don Michele knew that someone was there.

  He’d heard the door move on its hinges, felt the displacement of air in the room.

  His hearing seemed to be getting better as his sight got worse and worse.

  They’d given him glasses, but that didn’t really help. He was seeing double, even triple sometimes. Keratoconus was what they called it. It was like looking through a prism, the image all fragmented into shards. And then there was the endless itching and burning. Fucking shite!

  ‘Rocco?’

  Rocco Montale flopped down on the sofa.

  ‘We need to spread the net wider, boss,’ he said. ‘Gino called me from the mortuary. The quality of corpse down there isn’t up to much. They only get a dozen stiffs a week, and half of them are geriatrics who’v
e died in the hospital. It’s standard procedure, he says. You die in a hospital, they have to give you a post-mortem, make sure you ain’t the victim of some mercy-killing medic. Most of them were half-blind, anyway – cataracts, diabetes, old age …’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Motor accidents. Not much left to play about with. Faces splattered all over the windscreen or the road.’

  Don Michele was wearing his glasses, looked a sight, his corneas turning into protruding cones that seemed to fix on you like some unblinking nutcase in Kung Fu Panda or The Penguins of Madagascar. Rocco watched the animations with his kids.

  ‘So, what now, boss?’

  ‘This fucking truce,’ Don Michele said. ‘We could have walloped someone from a rival clan …’

  ‘We could pick up someone off the streets. Some useless motherf …’

  Don Michele shook his head. ‘Not on,’ he said. ‘A kidnapping with murder thrown in? Some innocent Joe, his family kicking up a rumpus? The coppers would go wild. They couldn’t let something like that slip by. It’s not an option …’

  ‘There is one option, though. We talked about it the other week, Don Michè. Let me have a word with Carlo Piscitelli …’

  ‘Come off it,’ Don Michele said. ‘I told you, didn’t I? How the fuck would you feel looking out at the world through the eyes of one of them? It’s got to feel right, you know what I mean? I mean, if it don’t feel right, then … then, fuck me!’

  Rocco knew he was going to have to talk seriously to the man. He didn’t like it, but he knew he had no option. If the boss went blind they were finished. But if he saved his sight, they might have a chance. Still, if he saved his eyes and didn’t like what he got, that would be a problem. He might decide to take it out on whoever had made the suggestion.

  Rocco knew that no one else was close enough, or trusted enough, to say what he was going to say.

  ‘Look at it this way, Don Michè,’ he said, and regretted his choice of words immediately.

  ‘Look at it what fucking way!’ Don Michele growled. ‘I can’t see a fucking thing.’

  ‘It would just be temporary,’ Rocco said, getting into his stride quickly, speaking with conviction. ‘It’ll give you the time to find a better solution. To be honest, boss, I’ve … I’ve had a word with Carlo Piscitelli already. Word’s passing down the line. When the right one arrives, he’ll give us the word, then you can have a … a think for yourself.’ He bit hard on his tongue. He’d almost said ‘have a look for yourself’. ‘Then, when something better comes along …’

  ‘Gimme a whiskey,’ Don Michele said.

  He was drinking heavily these days, morning, noon, and night.

  As Rocco handed him the cut-crystal glass, the boss took a drink, swallowed it in one, said, ‘OK, OK. Let’s see what Carlo can come up with.’

  He didn’t sound convinced, but that didn’t matter to Rocco.

  The important thing was that Don Michele hadn’t said no.

  Monte Coscerno, Valneria

  The wolves emerged from the mist.

  Suddenly, the leader stopped in his tracks.

  The others pulled up short and raised their noses in the air.

  There was a strange smell, a foul stink, that clung to the turf.

  Their territory had been invaded.

  The leader sank down, stretched forward, pointing his nose at a divot.

  Something had slipped or slithered on the grass, turning up the damp earth.

  He began to growl, a deep earthy guttural sound that began in his throat and vibrated through his body, raising his hackles. He bared his teeth, flattened his ears along the sides of his skull.

  The others watched him, imitating his stance, growling, too, knowing something was wrong, not knowing what it was, ready to attack if he did, ready to run if running was the right response to the danger.

  The female nudged him aside, sank her nose into the divot. She started growling, too.

  This was her domain, the den so close. There were no pups yet, but soon there would be. She would decide whether they would leave or stay.

  She raised her muzzle, and smelled another smell.

  She weighed the smells one against the other. The smell from the divot was strong, but it wasn’t so fresh. The fresh smell drew her forward. Hunger pushed her onward. The leader and cubs fell in behind as she edged forward, one paw at a time, a brief quivering hesitation between each step.

  There was blood, she was sure of it …

  And the vile smell grew weaker as they moved towards the empty den in the fog.

  The smell of blood grew stronger, bones appeared, a carcase stretched out on the ground. The injured cub was dead. More than dead. Torn to pieces. Tatters were scattered in the mud where they had left him when they went out hunting.

  The cubs began to whimper and cry.

  Not for the dead.

  It was the sight of blood that set them off, and hunger that drove them on.

  The sight of blood and fresh meat.

  As the lead wolf dug his teeth into the haunch of their dead brother, the she-wolf and her family began to jostle and tug at what was left.

  The wolf they had left behind was dead.

  Killed …

  He wasn’t rotting carrion.

  His blood was wholesome, fresh.

  But most important, he was meat …

  Assisi Airport

  ‘Call up that snap, Duranti.’

  Grossi tapped the screen to show him where she wanted the photo which had passed from phone to phone, and a moment later it opened up as a separate window. From the way she ordered Duranti about, and the way he went along with it, Cangio wondered whether she might have saved his life at some point, too.

  ‘Action!’ Duranti murmured to himself as he pressed a button, and the video began.

  Passengers were queuing with their luggage, tickets, and passports, preparing to board the 11.30 flight to London the previous Thursday.

  They were crammed in the tiny office of Lorenzo Duranti, four people cooped up inside a tiny plastic cubicle. The video ran on for almost twenty minutes until the face of the man in Nora’s photo cropped up: ‘Unknown One,’ as Desmond Harris called him.

  Unknown One was standing in line behind a man who was wearing a large blue turban. Unknown Two, the man who had eaten with Unknown One at Il Covo del Pescatore, was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘He probably took a different flight home,’ Lucia Grossi said.

  ‘He may have decided to stay in Italy for some reason,’ Cangio suggested.

  ‘In that case, my staff will find him,’ Grossi said quickly.

  Unknown One did not remain unknown for long.

  Duranti called up the on-board checklist, identified the only Indian passenger on the flight, then came up with the name of the man who had followed him into the departure lounge.

  ‘We follow all the standard EU checking procedures,’ Duranti boasted.

  Kit Andrews had been born in Ipswich, UK, in 1977, the passenger list revealed.

  Desmond Harris put through a call to London, gave someone the name and passport number.

  Five minutes later, his phone rang.

  Harris answered, staring at Lucia Grossi, then he shook his head. ‘Kit Andrews died in a car accident four years ago,’ he said. ‘A false name, and a false passport.’

  Duranti made a point of defending the good name of the security staff. ‘Our employees are carefully selected and expertly trained. OK, we’re only a small provincial airport, but the anti-terrorist regulations are strictly adhered to.’

  Lucia Grossi stood up, and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Not to worry, Duranti, spotting him was the hardest part. No doubt Scotland Yard will come up with a name. Now, is it possible to find out when “Kit” arrived in Perugia?’

  Of course it was possible. Mortified with humiliation for the gaping hole which had just shown up in the security measures for which he was responsible, horrified by the loss of face,
not only in front of Captain Lucia Grossi, commander of the SCS, but also in the eyes of Inspector Harris of Scotland Yard, the passenger list for Monday 12th flashed up on the screen in a matter of seconds.

  It was printed out and handed to Lucia Grossi.

  Would she read it first, Cangio wondered, or would she pass it on to Harris?

  A glance was all she needed to find what she wanted, before handing it on politely to her foreign colleague.

  Harris didn’t bother to look at it.

  ‘We still don’t know who the other man was,’ he said. ‘Duranti, do you have a video of Kit Andrews arriving in Italy?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Lorenzo Duranti replied, typing the date and flight number into the computer. ‘We keep all video records for six months.’

  Within minutes, they were watching the scene in the arrivals hall as the passengers on flight FR4593 from Stansted presented their passports at the security booth. Kit Andrews was one of the first to go through the checkpoint, carrying hand luggage only, a big black leather tote bag. He looked relaxed, less tense, than the day on which he had flown back to London. As the official handed back his passport, Kit Andrews raised his eyes, looked into the camera, and gave a two-fingered salute, the way an off-duty soldier might have done.

  Was it a sign of relief? Cangio wondered. Knowing now that the passport was false, it was easy to think of Kit as a hardened criminal, who had just got away with whatever deception he had had in mind.

  A man ten places behind him in the queue looked nervous.

  ‘Bushy eyebrows, and black hair. Could he be Unknown Two?’ Desmond Harris said, pointing him out on the screen.

  Unknown Two looked like someone who needed urgently to go to the toilet.

  Duranti checked the list again, and came up with the name of Barry Farrington.

  While Harris made another call to London, Grossi asked Duranti to run the sequence through again.

  Cangio edged closer to the screen, watching carefully as Barry Farrington approached the desk with his passport in his hand, glancing at it before he handed it over to the policeman on duty. Was he making sure that everything was in order? While the border guard leafed slowly through the pages, glancing at the passenger, then checking again on his computer screen, Farrington shuffled his feet and moved his head.