The Geneva Deception

by James Twining

  Diving through the open doors, she jammed the key in the ignition, fired up the engine and selected reverse. Tom jumped in alongside her, the crack of a gun shot whistling overhead. The car leapt backwards and swung out, swiping the rear wing of the car parked next to them and setting off the harsh shriek of its two-tone alarm.

  ‘You’re facing the wrong way,’ Tom shouted, their windscreen now engulfed by the glare of the squad car’s headlights as it accelerated, wheelsspinning, towards them.

  ‘Don’t tell me how to drive,’ she retorted indignantly, turning to look back over her shoulder. ‘If I’d tried to reverse out the other way I’d have wrapped it around the pillar.’

  She stamped on the pedal, the car springing backwards and then yawing wildly as she fought to keep it straight, traces of foam making the wheel slick in her hands. Tyres screaming, they rounded the corner and then doubled back on themselves, the engine protesting with an angry whine as they sped down the central aisle, the revs climbing steeply.

  Another shot rang out. They both flinched. One of their headlights exploded.

  ‘Head down a floor,’ Tom suggested. ‘Try and get far enough ahead of them to flip it around.’

  She cannoned the wrong way on to the upramp, the gloom suddenly lit by a blaze of sparks as she glanced off the concrete and used the ramp’s curved walls to guide herself down to the second level.

  ‘Someone’s coming up the other way,’ Tom warned her as a second squad car, siren pulsing, stormed up the ramp towards them, the sweep of its headlights circling beneath them as it rose, like a shark closing in on a seal.

  She steered them off the ramp on to the flat, the floorpan slapping the concrete with a heavy bang. From behind them came the angry squeal of brakes as the squad car chasing them fishtailed to avoid colliding with the second police car coming up the other way. Allegra sensed her opportunity. Leaning on the clutch, she yanked on the handbrake and jerked the wheel hard to spin them round so that they were facing forward, then shoved the car into gear and accelerated away along the left-hand aisle, tyres smoking.

  ‘You’ve got one right behind, one to the right,’ Tom shouted over the engine noise, pointing to where the second car was now speeding down the central aisle, roughly parallel to them.

  ‘They’re going to try and cut us off at the end,’ she guessed, before glancing down at her lap. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Tom had leant forward and was feeling under the dashboard between her knees.

  ‘Looking for something,’ he said, straining to reach.

  ‘I can see that,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, his head almost resting on her lap.

  ‘There-’ he sat up, ‘the front air-bag switch. They put it down there in case you want to disable them.’

  She nodded in immediate understanding.

  ‘Hold on.’

  Checking in her mirror to see how close the car behind her was, she stamped on the brake. The ABS kicked in, the car juddering to a halt and forcing their pursuers to run into the back of them, the impact knocking them five or six feet forward and wrenching their boot open, so that it was flapping around like a half-opened tin can. What damage they had sustained was as nothing compared to the Fiat, however, which had, unsurprisingly, come off second best with both front tyres burst, the engine block almost in the front seat, and the bonnet concertinaed back on itself.

  Allegra glanced across at Tom with a satisfied grin, but he was pointing at the second police car, which was already at the far end of the second aisle and rounding the corner towards them.

  ‘Here comes the cavalry.’

  Dropping the Maserati into gear, she pulled forward and cut through a gap in the parked cars to her right to reach the central aisle and then spun round, so that she was facing back towards the exit ramp.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a frown.

  ‘Enjoying myself,’ she breathed.

  Gunning the motor hard, she took off, glancing across at the squad car racing down the adjacent aisle to make sure she was far enough ahead, its surging shape strobing across her eyes as she caught glimpses of it through gaps between the cars and the concrete pillars.

  ‘Now!’ Tom called, pulling his seat belt tight across himself and hanging on to the grab handle.

  She steered away from the line of cars to her right and then carved back in, ramming an Alfa square on. It jumped forward as if it had been fired from a cannon, colliding with the front of the VW parked only a few inches opposite it, which in turn T-boned the squad car as it came past, sending it ploughing into the line of parked cars on the far side of the aisle.

  There was an abrupt, empty moment of calm, the squad car’s blue light pulsing weakly in the gloom. Then a jarring chorus of car alarms kicked in, each singing in a different key and to a different tempo, roused by the force of the crash.

  ‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’ Tom asked with an approving nod.

  ‘Rush hour in Rome.’ She smiled, breathing hard.

  ‘Do you think Johnny will notice the damage?’

  She glanced in the mirror and saw the boot lid flapping around behind them like a loose sail, then looked along the crumpled bonnet at the cloud of steam rising from the cracked radiator.

  ‘It’ll polish out.’ She grinned.

  Reversing out, the steering pulling heavily to the right, she nursed the car down the exit ramp and then made her way out on to the street.

  FORTY

  Desposito Eroli, Via Erulo Eroli, Rome 19th March-9.23 a.m.

  ‘I thought you told these idiots to hold off until we got here when they called?’ Gallo said in an accusing tone as Salvatore hurried towards him, his notebook clutched to his chest.

  Misfortune was snapping at his heels like one of those annoying handbag dogs, it seemed. First the triangulation of Allegra’s mobile phone signal, only for her to have vanished by the time they got there. Then a sighting reported by the officers here, only for her to slip through his fingers a second time, it now seemed.

  ‘I did,’ Salvatore sighed wearily. ‘Apparently they were trying to lock down the area in case they drove off.’

  ‘Lock down the area? The stupid bastards have been watching too much TV,’ Gallo glowered at the two men in neck braces being stretchered past him into a waiting ambulance. ‘It’s just as well she’s put them in hospital. She’s saved me the trouble.’ Cursing under his breath, he lit a cigarette.

  ‘You mean they saved you the trouble,’ Salvatore corrected him.

  ‘She wasn’t alone?’ Gallo glanced up, surprised, brushing his long silvery hair back behind each ear.

  ‘There was a man.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘Not sure yet.’

  A pause, as Gallo let this sink in. He’d not banked on her teaming up with someone. Certainly not this soon.

  ‘What were they doing here?’

  ‘They were seen opening up a black Maserati. Registration number…JT149VT,’ Salvatore read from his notebook.

  ‘Presumably not hers? Not on a lieutenant’s salary.’

  ‘Cavalli’s.’

  Gallo span round to face him.

  ‘Cavalli’s?’ he spat. ‘What the hell was she looking for?’ He glared at the building behind him as if it was somehow at fault and owed him an answer. To his surprise, it gave him one.

  ‘There must be a camera up there!’ He pointed at the lens fixed above the entrance. ‘Get me the disc.’

  A few minutes later they were seated around a small monitor in the sentry post, Salvatore forwarding to the time of the last entry in the log. For ten, maybe twenty seconds, the grainy black-and-white footage showed nothing but parked cars and the wet concrete floor, but then, just as Gallo was about to hit the fast forward button again, two people appeared in the shot.

  ‘That’s not her,’ Salvatore said with a shake of his head.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Gallo breathed, reluctantly putting his glasses on so he could see properly. ‘She’s
cut her hair. Dyed it, too. Clever girl.’ His face broke into a grudging smile. ‘And who are you?’ He leaned forward and hit the pause button, squinting to try and make out the face of the man walking next to her.

  ‘Never seen him before,’ Salvatore shrugged.

  ‘Get a print of this off to the lab when we’ve finished,’ Gallo ordered, starting the disc again. ‘Get them to run it through the system. Interpol too.’

  ‘Where did she get his car keys?’ Salvatore asked with a frown as they watched Allegra beep the car open and then step round to the boot.

  ‘Evidence room, they were probably on the same set as…’ Gallo broke off with a frown as he saw Allegra retrieve something from the boot. He paused the footage again. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Christ knows.’ Salvatore shrugged. ‘The picture’s too dark. I’ll ask the lab to see what they can do with it.’

  ‘I thought you said that car had been searched?’ Gallo barked angrily.

  ‘I…I thought it had,’ Salvatore stammered. Coughing nervously, he restarted the film only to pause it himself a few moments later.

  ‘He’s got something too,’ he said, squinting as he tried to make out the image. ‘Looks like…a piece of paper. Or maybe a photo?’

  ‘I want the names of whoever searched that car,’ Gallo said through gritted teeth. ‘Their names and their fucking badges.’

  A squad car suddenly appeared at the top edge of the screen and one of the guards Gallo had just seen being loaded into the ambulance stepped out. He ejected the disc, lip curled in disgust.

  ‘Put out a revised description of Damico and get something worked up for this guy, whoever he is,’ he ordered. ‘Then-’

  ‘Colonel, we’ve found the car!’ A young officer had appeared at the door, breathing hard. ‘Abandoned in the Borghese Gardens.’

  ‘And Lieutenant Damico?’

  ‘No sign of her, I’m afraid.’

  Salvatore stood up, giving Gallo an expectant look.

  ‘Go.’ He nodded. ‘Take whoever you need. Find her. She can’t have got far if she’s on foot.’

  Gallo waited until the room was empty and then dug his phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.

  ‘It’s me.’ He lit another cigarette and took a long drag. ‘We just missed her again.’

  He listened, making a face.

  ‘She came looking for Cavalli’s car…I don’t know why, but she found something he’d hidden in it…If I had to guess, a photograph.’

  Another pause as he listened, his expression hardening.

  ‘How should I know what was on it?’ he said angrily. ‘I was rather hoping you could tell me.’

  FORTY-ONE

  Spagna Metropolitana station, Rome 19th March-9.27 a.m.

  The train galloped into the station, its metal flanks elaborately embroidered with graffiti-the angry poetry of Rome’s disenfranchised youth delivered at the point of an aerosol can. In a few places, the authorities had scrubbed the carriages clean, no doubt in the hope of protecting the wider population from these dangerously subversive voices. Their efforts, however, had largely been in vain, the ghostly outline of the censored thoughts still clearly visible where the chemicals had bleached them, like a scar that refused to heal.

  The doors hissed open and a muscular human wave swept Tom and Allegra through the tunnels and up the escalators, until it broke as it reached the street above, beaching them in the shadow of the Spanish Steps.

  ‘Let’s head into the centre,’ Tom said, shaking off the street hawkers tugging at his sleeve and pointing himself towards the seductive windows of the Via Condotti. ‘Stick with the crowds.’

  ‘I know a good place for a coffee,’ Allegra suggested with a nod.

  Ten minutes later and they were opposite each other in a small cubicle at the rear of a bar on the Piazza Campo Marzio, tucking into pastries and espressos.

  ‘Too strong for you?’ Allegra asked with a smile as Tom took a sip.

  ‘Just right.’ He grimaced, licking the grit from his front teeth as he glanced round.

  The place didn’t look as though it had been touched in thirty years, its floor tiles cracked and lifting, the brick walls stained yellow by smoke and festooned with faded Roma flags, tattered banners and crookedly framed match-day programmes. Pride of place, behind the battlescarred bar, had been given to a signed photograph of a previous Roma club captain who, in what looked like more prosperous times, had clearly once stopped in for a complimentary Prosecco. Apart from Tom and Allegra, it was more or less deserted, a few construction workers loitering at the bar. One had his foot resting on his hardhat, like a hunter posing for a photo with his kill.

  ‘Did you choose this place on purpose?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Caravaggio killed a man near the Campo Marzio.’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’ She frowned. ‘Some sort of a duel, wasn’t it?’

  ‘An argument over the score during a game of tennis,’ Tom explained, emptying another sugar into his coffee to smooth its bitter edge. ‘Or so the story goes. Swords were drawn, and in the struggle…’

  ‘Which is how he ended up in Sicily?’

  ‘Via Naples and Malta,’ Tom confirmed. ‘He painted the Nativity while he was still on the run.’ A pause. ‘That’s the wonderful thing about Caravaggio. That he could be so deeply flawed as a person, and yet capable of such beauty. They say his paintings are like a mirror to the soul.’

  ‘Even yours?’ she asked, Tom detecting the hint of a serious question lurking behind her teasing smile.

  ‘Perhaps. If I had one.’ He smiled back.

  Allegra ordered another round of coffees.

  ‘So what are we going to do about Johnny?’ she asked as the waiter shuffled away.

  ‘What can we do?’ Tom shrugged. ‘Even if we hadn’t trashed the car, the cops will be all over it by now. We’re just going to have to wait until Archie calls and then pay him the cash instead.’

  ‘Archie?’

  ‘My business partner,’ Tom explained. ‘He’s on his way to Geneva, but he knows people here. The sort of people who can lend us fifty grand without asking too many questions. It might take until tonight, but as soon as we have it we go back to Johnny, hand it over and see what he knows.’

  One of the workers made his way past them, returning a few moments later wiping his hands on his trousers and fastening his fly, the toilet flushing lustily behind him.

  ‘Show me that photo again,’ Allegra said, when he was out of earshot.

  Reaching into his pocket, Tom laid the Polaroid down between them. It showed a sculpted man’s face against a black background, a jagged edge marking where part of his chin and left cheek had broken off.

  ‘It looks like marble. A statue fragment,’ she said slowly, turning it to face her. ‘Beautifully carved…’ She ran her fingers across the photo’s surface, as if trying to stroke its lips. ‘Almost certainly looted.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Tomb-robbers always use Polaroids. It avoids the risk of sending negatives off to be developed. And they can’t be as easily emailed around as digital photos, allowing you to keep track of who has seen what.’

  ‘Are you sure it’s marble?’ Tom frowned. ‘It looks pretty thin. Almost like some sort of mask.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said, peering at the image. ‘Strange. To be honest, I’ve never really seen anything like it before.’

  ‘Then we need to find someone who has. The photo was pushed too far down that seat to have fallen there accidentally. Cavalli must have hidden it for a reason.’

  ‘Well the obvious person is…’ Allegra began, breaking off as she realised what she was saying.

  ‘Your friend, the professor?’ Tom guessed.

  ‘I wasn’t thinking.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no way I’m-’

  ‘You won’t have to, I’ll do the talking,’ Tom reassured her. ‘Where can I find him?’

  ‘Forget it,’
she sighed impatiently. ‘Gallo will have someone watching his apartment.’

  ‘He must go out?’

  ‘Not if he can avoid it,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘Bad hip and a completely irrational fear of weeds.’

  ‘Weeds?’

  ‘He’s old. It’s a long story.’

  Tom noticed that, for the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to smile. Then, just as quickly, her face clouded over again.

  ‘Then I’ll have to find a way in. There must be-’

  ‘What time is it?’ she interrupted, gripping Tom’s arm.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The time?’

  He glanced up at the pizza-inspired clock tethered to the wall over the toilet.

  ‘Just after ten. Why?’ Tom asked as she excitedly stuffed the photograph into her pocket.

  ‘He’s giving a lecture this morning,’ she exclaimed, sidling along the bench so that she could stand up. ‘I saw his notes yesterday. Eleven o’clock at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj.’

  Tom jumped up, throwing a handful of change down.

  ‘That doesn’t give us much time.’

  FORTY-TWO

  Hotel Ritz, Madrid, Spain 19th March-9.48 a.m.

  ‘Oh. It’s you.’

  Director Bury’s face fell, either too jet-lagged or annoyed to conceal his disappointment. It was hard to tell.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Verity Bruce nodded, trying to sound like she hadn’t noticed. ‘It’s me.’

  There was a long pause, and he looked at her hopefully, as if she might suddenly remember that she needed to be somewhere else, or that she had accidentally knocked on the wrong door. But she said nothing, playing instead with the silver locket around her neck in the knowledge that it would draw his eyes towards the bronzed curve of her breasts.

  ‘Yes, well,’ Bury coughed nervously, his eyes flicking to his feet and then to a point about three inches above her head. ‘You’d better come in.’

  To say that he had been deliberately avoiding her since the unveiling of the kouros would have been going too far. They’d both had lunch with someone from the mayor’s office the previous day, for example, both sat in the first-class cabin together on the flight over and both been guests at that morning’s cultural exchange breakfast at the embassy. But to say that he had been avoiding being alone with her would have been entirely accurate. He had sought safety in numbers, inventing a reason to leave the lunch early so they wouldn’t have to share a taxi back to the museum, arriving at the breakfast late to avoid getting trapped over muffins and orange juice. That’s why she’d followed him back to his hotel suite now. She’d known he would be alone and out of excuses.