James Twining - The Geneva Deception

‘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.’

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.’