Brian Freemantle - Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

Naire-Hamilton’s car was waiting in Horseguards Road, by the park. He strode angrily towards it around the edge of the parade ground, head forward. Wilson had to step out to keep pace, which was difficult with his lame leg.

‘Who the hell does he think he is!’ exclaimed Naire-Hamilton.

‘The Prime Minister,’ said Wilson simply.

‘Damned upstart.’

The ambassador directed them to the reception room in which Charlie had been abandoned by Jane Williams on his first visit. There was a palatial embarrassment of space. The two men regarded each other warily, Charlie trying to conceal his apprehension. Inspector Moro was a pear-shaped shambles of a man. His clothes were a contradiction of effort; the shirt bubbled apart from the strain of each fastening and the crumpled silk suit that enveloped him looked like a cast-off from someone even larger. The heat troubled him, despite the air conditioning, so he frequently dabbed a once-white handkerchief around his face and inside the neckband of his shirt. Charlie’s impression was of a bloated python sweating to shed a skin.

‘You didn’t take long getting here.’

‘I was already in Rome,’ said Charlie.

‘I know.’

‘So why the surprise?’

‘No surprise: just curious.’

Charlie recognized that there was nothing scruffy about the questioning. Moro was conducting the interrogation exactly as he would have done in the circumstances, hard and sharp. The policeman’s English was immediate, without any pause for the right word.

‘Why curious?’ said Charlie.

‘You spend two days here, looking at the security and the collection. And then there’s a robbery,’ said Moro. ‘If you were a policeman, wouldn’t you be curious?’

‘I suppose so,’ conceded Charlie. ‘Except that I’m here at the villa and not on some plane going in the opposite direction.’

‘You wouldn’t have made it.’

‘What?’

‘The plane. I closed every airport against you four hours ago.’

Thank Christ he hadn’t tried to run, thought Charlie; but the numbing, cotton-wool-in-the-head feeling was making an uncomfortable return. ‘Satisfied?’ he said. He hoped his nervousness didn’t show.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It would be cleverer to come back, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’m not involved,’ insisted Charlie. Would the policeman already have made an identity check through the Interpol communications link? Charlie felt the sweat prick out on his back.

‘Convince me,’ said Moro.

‘How?’

‘Tell me how a security system as impregnable as this was so easily breached.’

‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

‘Perhaps it isn’t to me.’

‘It can’t possibly be an outside job,’ said Charlie. ‘There has to be inside knowledge of the alarms and the position of the safe.’

‘Which you knew.’

‘So did at least six other people, apart from the staff.’

‘Hardly impregnable, was it?’ said Moro.

‘No.’

‘Which could be expensive for you, either way.’

‘Either way?’

‘If you’ve got to pay out as a genuine insurer. Or if you’re involved. Because there’s no way you’re going to get out of Italy.’

The nausea swept through Charlie, so that he actually belched. He hadn’t expected the confrontation to be easy, but he hadn’t expected this sort of hostility either.

Moro made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘I haven’t investigated a crime for a long time,’ he said. ‘Not even a crime of this size.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘My job!’

‘What’s that?’

‘Diplomatic protection.’

Which accounted for the perfect English, thought Charlie. ‘What’s diplomatic about this?’

‘By tomorrow the newspapers here and abroad will be saying we can’t protect foreign politicians and diplomats, any more than the government can do anything effective to stamp out terrorism. Our subversive groups are quick to see a trend. We can’t take the risk, with the Summit.’

‘What Summit?’ said Charlie. Uncertainty was piling upon uncertainty.

‘In two weeks’ time Italy is hosting a Common Market and NATO Summit,’ said Moro.

The department wouldn’t be directly involved, calculated Charlie. But there would be a watching brief, with all the protection intelligence channelled for routine information. And that would extend to photographs. Charlie thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, clenching his fists until his fingers hurt, to stop the nervous shaking.

‘I understand your problem,’ he said.

‘I’m not sure that you do.’

Supercilious bastard, thought Charlie. ‘I’m sure you’ll explain it,’ he said.

The mockery got through to the Italian, his lip tightening against his teeth. ‘My orders from the Prime Minister’s office are to stop the trend, before it begins,’ he said. ‘And that means an arrest. So I’m going to get one.’

‘Which should save my company a lot of money.’

‘I’m not interested in saving your money.’

‘What are you interested in?’

‘Catching who did it.’

‘So?’

‘You want to recover what was stolen, to minimize your liability.’

‘Isn’t that the same?’

‘Don’t be smart,’ said Moro. ‘I know how these robberies are usually settled with insurance companies. Some black-car meeting in an alley with a ransom exchange. But that isn’t going to happen here. If there’s any contact for a percentage settlement I want to know about it. I want to know the time it’s made, when the meeting is arranged and I don’t care how much of the jewellery is lost in the process.’

Bollocks, thought Charlie.

‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘You speak the language well enough,’ said Charlie.

‘Try it any other way and there’ll still be an arrest. It’ll be yours, for impeding inquiries. And, if I find you’ve paid over any money, the charge will be complicity to rob.’

‘Loud and clear,’ said Charlie.

Moro smiled unexpectedly. It had the effect of puddling the fat on his cheeks. ‘I’m not intending it to be one-sided,’ said the detective, as a sudden concession. ‘For cooperation from you, there’ll be cooperation from me. I’ll show you the safe first.’

Moro had an odd rolling gait, as if his weight needed constant balancing, but he moved through the house with an immediate familiarity. There were police on guard outside both bedrooms leading to the dressing area. Moro entered through Billington’s door. There were more men inside, heads bent in the hunt for clues like those in the garden. The bed was unmade and Billington’s pyjamas were draped over a pillow. The examination of the dressing room had been completed and it was empty of forensic scientists. The area around the safe was white from fingerprint powder.

‘Absolutely clean,’ said the Italian.

Charlie raised his eyebrows. Stooping he saw they had even tested the securing bolt at the rear of the sideways-moving pedestal. ‘I’ve never known an installation like this,’ he said.

‘Neither have I.’

‘So it wouldn’t be an obvious place to look.’

‘No.’

‘What about entry?’ said Charlie.

‘Downstairs sitting room,’ said Moro.

There was more fingerprint powder around the French windows and sticky tape acted as hinges on two cleanly cut panes, one near the lock and another low, adjacent to the breaker alarm nipples. There were bypass clips still linking them.

‘What about them?’ asked Charlie.

‘Two thousand lire in any electrical shop in the city,’ said Moro.

Wind was gusting in from the sea, dissipating the oppressive midday heat. Moro’s hair lifted in the breeze, tousling untidily around his perspiring face. The two men walked out onto the verandah, and looked out towards the men suspended over the cliff in the window cleaner’s hoist.