The Memory Man

by Steven Savile

  She’d got what she needed out of the place, definitive proof of the pattern. Memini Bonn.

  A police car rolled up outside the apartment building just as she turned left at the mouth of the alleyway, heading back towards the subway. She heard the car doors slam as the uniformed officers clambered out.

  The secret service had beaten the beat cops to the punch, despite the fact she’d called in to dispatch to report the incident, giving the uniforms what should have been an unassailable head start. What that told her was that SAPO were monitoring either her calls or had an alert in the system set to trigger as soon as the address came up. One choice was considerably better than the other. She discounted the possibility of uniform tipping the secret service off purely and simply because they’d still responded to the call, and SAPO would have shut that down.

  The fourth alternative was a variant on the same, that Kalle had sold her out, which made no sense, why help and hinder at the same time, unless he just wanted to be seen to help but not actually help?

  The only other possibility was that SAPO were monitoring his calls and for a black-hat hacker who survived through a mix of skill and paranoia that didn’t exactly seem likely.

  The only answer that made any sense to her cop brain was that they were watching her or the house, and of the two she knew which one her money was on.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Rome. The eternal. But sadly not frozen in time.

  The telephone was a fine invention, but Ash was more for the face-to-face encounter. So much was lost without the nuance of body language and those micro-emotions that gave away the truth behind the words, those tells were always there if you knew what to look for. He wanted to sit down with the judge, Paulo Maffrici.

  It was late by the time he landed, and the taxi driver tried to pull a fast one with his change. The guy was all chatty, and as Ash handed over the fifty the guy palmed it and held up a five saying it wasn’t enough. Ash flipped open his wallet, making sure the word police on the top of his identification was there for the man to see, and asked him, ‘Are you sure about that? You might want to check again.’ The guy nodded and promised it was an honest mistake, which of course it was anything but. He drove Ash to the hotel Laura had booked him into, which was down on the Tiber in Trastavere, the old workers’ quarter. He always liked this part of the city because it had very little in the way of pretence about it, unlike the more ancient areas around it. Good food, cheap; good wine, again cheap. He didn’t have Donatti to play host, but that was fine.

  He took a walk to find food. The thing about Italy was that despite the fact most sensible people back home would be nursing their nightcaps by now the locals were just sitting down for their evening meal. He found a little place along Piazza di Sant’Egidio. The prosciutto and mozzarella, on a bed of rocket and toasted flatbread, came on a wooden chopping board along with a selection of olive oils and balsamic. It tasted even better than it looked. He washed it down with a couple of glasses of red wine picked from a precious wall balanced floor to ceiling with bottles.

  Setting his knife and fork aside, he called Laura on her mobile, knowing she’d pick up despite the hour. There was nothing nine-to-five about their relationship.

  ‘I’ve arranged for you to see the judge at eleven,’ Laura said. ‘But, I should warn you, he isn’t a willing interviewee. I had to call in a few favours to get you a sit-down with him. He seems … difficult.’

  ‘That’s a nice way of putting it,’ he said.

  ‘He’s not big on talking. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise seeing as he’s been heavily involved in prosecuting organized crime in the city, and according to our local boys has received no fewer than three hundred death threats in the last decade.’

  ‘So what makes this one different? Why suddenly go into protective custody if you’re a fully paid-up member of a Threat of the Month club?’

  ‘It was the wife that reported it, not the judge.’

  ‘That, or the message this time makes it a credible threat, because he remembers Bonn,’ Ash said.

  ‘He’s adamant that you’re making a wasted journey. Claims it is just some crackpot, and that he’s got nothing to tell you that isn’t in his statement.’

  ‘That’s fine. Sometimes it’s not the words. And, you know me, I don’t trust anyone to tell me the truth unless I’m looking them in the eye.’

  ‘Please tell me you’re not about to call a high-ranking judge a liar?’

  ‘There are plenty of liars in high places. Power is no indication of purity, you know that.’

  ‘Just don’t go getting the guys there riled up, Pete. It’s all well and good to go in like a bull in a china shop every now and then but you never know when we might need their help.’

  ‘You know me. I’m a fucking delight.’ She barked a harsh laugh in his ear. ‘I’m going to be discreet, promise,’ he said, more seriously. ‘I want to look into his eyes when I say the words EuropaChild Foundation. I want to see if there’s a flicker of recognition, or if it genuinely means nothing to him. It’s a split-second thing, while his reptile brain tries to decide how best to lie. Then I’m going to ask him what happened in Bonn.’

  ‘You know he’ll deny all knowledge of Bonn. He has to if he’s going to maintain it’s all a big hoax.’

  ‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘I want him to lie. I want him to know I know he’s lying. I’m not afraid of a judge. I don’t give a shit about the political niceties of a corrupt justice system like Italy’s. He can’t fuck up my career any more spectacularly than I’ve already fucked it up myself. So, I can push harder than the Carabinieri.’

  ‘Don’t interrogate a bloody judge, Pete.’

  He smiled at that. ‘I promise.’

  And with that he killed the call and went to take in a little night air. This part of Rome was a different beast to the main tourist traps. Youths parked their Vespas along the side of the road, and gathered in groups around old boom boxes blaring out tunes so loudly the speakers distorted. Girls danced in the street with boys; girls danced in the street with other girls; boys danced in the street with boys. They linked hands and jived along with the tunes in a very obvious mating ritual. Some of the boys, too cool for their own good, perched on the stones of a broken wall, hands cupped around the thin dog ends of hand-rolled cigarettes, blowing smoke whilst the pretended they were living la dolce vita.

  He walked alongside the Tiber then back to his hotel, and bed.

  He slept the sleep of the damned: fitful, broken, and tangled up in febrile dreams.

  He woke to a pre-breakfast call from Donatti. He answered it hazily, throat raw and words weak as he rolled over, saying, ‘Ash?’

  ‘Ah, Peter, my friend, what is this I hear? You are here in my glorious home and you did not call me? Did we not have an agreement that I would show you my city as only a local can?’ He sounded far too awake for his own good.

  ‘I thought you were in Paris?’ Ash said.

  ‘Yesterday’s news. I had accomplished all I could there, which I admit was distressingly little, and am now resigned to the fact that it is only a matter of time before we hear the worst.’

  ‘It was always the most likely possibility,’ he agreed. ‘And even more so now that it looks as though Tournard’s disappearance is part of something bigger than just the murder of Jonas Anglemark.’

  ‘Just? Isn’t that a terrifying word in this context, my friend? I assume that is why you are here, to talk to Judge Maffrici?’

  ‘You really do hear everything, don’t you?’

  ‘My boss sees everything, hears everything, and knows everything,’ the Church man said. Ash could hear the grin in his voice.

  ‘That’s got to come in handy.’

  ‘You can’t seriously believe Maffrici is involved?’ Donatti said, changing the subject.

  ‘There have been developments. I know I promised to share intel, but I really can’t discuss this stuff now, Ernesto.’ He hardly ever used his old friend’s giv
en name. He hoped that would go a long way to explaining just how serious things were now, and not just for the missing Tournard. ‘But I will give you this much: he may be able to shed some light on an aspect of your search.’ It was more than he should have said. Donatti wasn’t an idiot. He could join dots and see patterns with a clarity that evaded most cops Ash had met. The guy had a way of making assumptions that hit way too close to the mark. ‘Needless to say, that is between you, me, and your boss. No one hears a word, you understand? No running back to the Holy See to tattle. It’s imperative no one knows what I’m looking for. All it needs is someone to overhear a careless word and they’ll close ranks.’

  ‘I understand, my friend, and value your trust. I cannot believe it. Maffrici involved …’ he tailed off.

  ‘It’s not certain that he is,’ Ash half-lied. He might not have concrete proof the judge was up to his neck in it yet, but he was involved. The finger and its accompanying note were all the proof he needed of that. ‘I’m more interested in knowing how you found out that I was coming.’

  ‘We both have our secrets,’ Donatti said. ‘You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. Isn’t that how it works?’

  ‘That’s a very British expression, but no can do.’

  ‘Pity. I hope we will get to spend some time together before you leave? There is so much I would love to show you. It always helps to know your friends, I think, when you know where they come from.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Ash said. ‘No promises. But maybe we can have a beer before I head back to the airport.’

  ‘We should do that,’ Donatti agreed, taking it as a done deal.

  Ash ended the call and dropped the silent phone onto the bed.

  He felt the fine hairs along the nape his neck prickle.

  It came down to patterns of behaviour. We all have our tells, our giveaways. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Donatti to call in a favour from someone in Rome’s police, one law man to another, so they’d tip him off about Ash’s arrival. And in a city like Rome it is hard to imagine someone rising to the rank of judge without developing some sort of ties to the Church, if not directly with the Vatican itself. It was a small city in that regard. Power begat power. Influence fed off influence. A man like Donatti, in a city like this, was one of the hidden powerbrokers. They used to call them kingmakers. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the network of influence the man had amassed during his rise until finally he was so connected the Vatican turned to him as their fixer.

  He was a man who got things done.

  But that wasn’t what was interesting – or at least it shouldn’t have been, not by itself. He’d always known Donatti had his own agenda here, and they were only working in tandem whilst their purposes aligned. So, no, what was interesting was why the Church’s fixer was so interested in Ash’s travel arrangements. It wasn’t just that he’d extended an invitation to Rome, either. So, it had to be Maffrici, didn’t it? Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is always the most likely.

  Which meant a connection between the Vatican itself and the disappearance of Monsignor Tournard, Jonas Anglemark, Patrick Dooley, and Paulo Maffrici. That was the simplest explanation for Donatti’s repeated requests for circumspection, and requests for time in delaying Tournard’s case being escalated to Missing Persons. And the simplest answer meant Donatti had his own motivations, especially when it came to calling so early in the morning.

  The simplest explanation demanded he turn over a stone he would never have thought to turn over if Donatti hadn’t called. They’d run all sorts of background checks into the victims and the EuropaChild Foundation, but what they hadn’t done was run the same checks for links between the Vatican and the orphanages. Or, more directly, between Ernesto Donatti, the foundation, or any of the orphanages it ran.

  Sometimes he hated the simplest explanation, because it cut right to the heart of the matter, and that wound could do serious damage to the matter of the heart.

  THIRTY-SIX

  The serviceman at the security gate had been expecting him, even though he showed a certain amount of disdain at his presence.

  He scrutinized both Ash’s passport and his Eurocrimes Division identification and was happy to let Ash enter but wouldn’t allow the taxi to drive up to the main door of the safe house.

  Ash didn’t make a fuss, but rather asked the driver to return in an hour to collect him and promised a healthy tip. He pointed to a spot on the side of the road a little walk from the house’s wrought-iron gate and tapped his watch. One hour. Of course, there was every chance the judge would dismiss him almost as soon as he arrived, and Ash would be left kicking the kerb for most of that hour.

  The house itself stood back from the road, behind a high yellow wall that was topped with climbing plants. It was not how he imagined a safe house; a gravel driveway swept through the lush garden. There were swings to the left, and a terraced area to the right where more people sat, this time reading the daily news and sipping at early morning cappuccinos. He was early. More than quarter of an hour ahead of schedule, mainly because he wanted to rattle the judge and catch him before he’d had time to calm himself in preparation for their interview.

  He walked up the driveway, gravel crunching under his shoes. The sun was already high enough in the sky to make the heat noticeable. Give it another hour or so and it would be close to unbearable.

  The people reading in the shadow of the terrace paid him no heed. No, that wasn’t right, he realized. One of them, at least, watched him closely as he walked towards the main door.

  A second uniformed officer waited for him at the foot of a short flight of stone steps up to the door.

  Ash nodded to the man as he puffed out his chest. It was a curiously male ritual, he thought, and a rather pointless one as a kick to the bollocks was a universal leveller, no matter how broad your ribcage or glorious your plume of peacock feathers. He was all for practicality.

  The second man checked his papers again, then patted him down, looking for a weapon. ‘I’m British,’ he said. ‘We don’t carry guns, we stop our criminals with a stern voice.’

  The sentry did his best to keep a straight face but couldn’t stop the smirk.

  He rang the doorbell.

  ‘I could have done that,’ Ash said.

  A woman opened the door. She smiled. It seemed genuine enough, the tiny lines around her eyes wrinkling as well as those at the corners of her mouth.

  She ushered him inside. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘This way. The judge is expecting you.’

  Her heels clicked neatly on the marble floor tiles as she walked ahead of him. There was a confidence to her walk that spoke of belonging. She was in charge here, not any of the muscle heads he’d seen outside. He heard voices echoing through an open door as they swept through the hallways. The house was surprisingly spacious, with plenty of ostentatious wealth on display in the form of vases and marble heads.

  She paused on the threshold and motioned for him to go inside.

  There were two men, one he knew well.

  He did his best to mask his surprise at the sight of Ernesto Donatti leaning forward in the plush armchair, talking to Maffrici like they were the best of old friends.

  Seeing Ash, the Church’s fixer broke into a wide smile and held out a warm hand, which, Ash noted, was busy holding the thick end of a hand-rolled Cuban cigar. Curls of smoke rafted up across the other man’s face.

  The judge was a big man, both in height, towering over Ash as he rose to his feet in greeting, and in girth as his legs struggled with his weight. He looked a good twenty years older than the photograph Laura had sent him. Stress had a way of exacting its toll. Sleep deprivation, likewise.

  ‘Peter, my friend,’ Donatti said, overly loud, overly cheerful all things considered, ‘I would like you to meet Paulo, my other dear friend.’

  ‘Such a small world, wouldn’t you agree, Mr Ash?’ Maffrici said, holding out a meaty ham-hock of a hand for Ash to shake. His grip wa
s firm but stopped short of being uncomfortable. He wasn’t looking to exert power or prove his manliness in it. Ash had met plenty of people who tried the power-shake to prove they were the alpha male in any given first meeting, usually what he did then was take a grip of their shoulder like the hand clasp couldn’t possibly be enough to prove how very happy he was to meet them, and counter their downward pull with a move of his own that if he wanted to could put them on their knees. He really didn’t have a lot of time for macho bullshit.

  Ash liked to think he was a decent judge of character, and his first impression of Maffrici was that here was a man who would have been comfortable no matter which side of the law he had chosen to make his life.

  ‘Please, join us.’

  Ash took the third seat on the far side of the small table, while the judge offered him the choice of smokes from a humidor that probably cost half of his annual wage. He declined. Likewise, he put his hand across the top of the crystal tumbler on the table in front of him as the man moved to fill it from the whisky decanter.

  ‘Thank you so much for seeing me. I’m sure you’re a very busy man.’

  ‘Ordinarily, yes, but at the moment I am at something of a loose end. I can’t so much as walk to the news-stand down the street without a small coterie of armed men escorting me. It’s too much effort, to be honest. So for now I am content to try and enjoy this enforced holiday.’

  ‘Holiday,’ Ash said with a smile.

  ‘It sounds better than house arrest,’ Maffrici said.

  ‘Now, now, Paulo. It’s for your own protection, and you know that,’ Donatti said.

  ‘I appreciate your concern. You are a dear friend, Ernesto, but even you must admit this is –’ Maffrici waved his hands to encompass the whole room as he searched for the word he wanted – ‘overkill.’

  ‘Better overkill than just the second half of the word,’ Donatti said, no trace of humour in his response.

  ‘Well, yes. Now, Peter, may I call you Peter?’