Aidan Conway - A Cold Flame - A gripping crime thriller that will keep you hooked

“That won’t be necessary, Dottor Anselmi,” the president of the commission said before Francesco had managed to extract the relevant file. “Really, time is against us, as always, but it was, I think we all agree, a most interesting presentation. Even if I’m not sure it’s what our friends in ItalOil would want to hear,” he added, leaning back and laughing out loud. The three other members gave knowing smiles and also nodded their approval as the president craned his neck slightly to make eye contact with each in turn.

The clerk too, who had been hunched over his papers recording the candidates’ names and cross-checking documentation and identity cards all morning, would now have his small increment of institutional glory.

“The results of the concorso,” he announced , “will be published at the end of the week on the university’s website.”

“Ah, yes, just one thing.” The sole female interviewer was scanning the first page of Francesco’s CV through her bifocals. “If I may, it says here you are fluent in English.”

“Yes,” Francesco replied.

“I was wondering, could you envisage overseeing a course, or courses, for the faculty in the medium of English? How would you go about organizing, for example, training the stuff?”

“I’m sorry?” Francesco replied.

“How would you train the stuff,” she repeated.

“The staff,” the president said with careful emphasis and exhibiting only minor irritation.

“Oh, sorry,” said Francesco.

It was the one he hadn’t prepared for.

“Well,” he began, buying time. A helicopter’s unmistakable whop-whop overhead and a swirling emergency siren beyond the drawn blinds took everyone’s attention hostage for a moment.

“Do go on, please,” the president enjoined Francesco.

“Well, I would first assess their competences and then put out a call for the most suitable candidates to fill the vacant positions.”

“And the staff not ‘up to the job’?” said the bespectacled interviewer.

Francesco knew he had to answer, but he was fumbling.

“They could be moved to positions better-suited to their competences, and then offered training, in the long term, to get them up to speed.”

“Ah. I see.” She turned to the president of the commission. “I think that really is all now.”

“Very well,” he replied. “And unless there are any other questions.”

But something told Francesco it probably wasn’t what they had wanted to hear. And then maybe none of it had been. And his English was better than hers by a country-fucking-mile. Yet she was sitting there.

There was a knock at the door. A minor office flunkey clutching a piece of paper popped his head round. He looked, apart from his general obsequiousness, more than a little shaken.

“ Presidente Bonucci, Dottori, scusate. C’è una communicazione. ”

Allowing his glasses to slide down his nose, Professor Bonucci scanned the note while conveying its salient points. “‘Major security alert in City of Rome. Possibility of further explosions. All universities, places of worship, public buildings and schools to remain on high alert until further notice. Senior management to evaluate the situation and assess the practicalities of executing evacuation or effecting security lockdown.’”

He looked up.

“ Dottoresse e dottori , to use the popular contemporary lexicon, it would appear that we are ‘under attack’.”

An entire stretch of the Lungotevere – the one-way road system and footpath following the Tiber’s snaking course through the city – had been cordoned off. There were army bomb disposal units and armed personnel carriers, police vehicles with their lights flashing. Black-clad snipers crouched on the roofs of five-storey buildings and on balconies high above onlookers’ heads and at the strategic angles of Viale Trastevere overlooking Ponte Garibaldi. The municipal police had rejigged the one-way system so that nothing could pass if not with strict authorization. Even so, an animated discussion had broken out between a plump, wheezing traffic warden and a baby-faced carabiniere about the evident breakdown of communication between the various forces. Where all the diverted vehicles were going was anyone’s guess. But it was like leaving a tourniquet on the city. It stopped the bleeding but at what cost?

Rossi was standing in the middle of the road and assessing the extent of the bomb damage to the university’s facade when an old friend emerged from among a small crowd of uniforms and plain-clothes operatives.

“Well, surprise, surprise! How the hell did you get here?” said Rossi. “You’re Italy’s most wanted journalist. What happened to the security drill?”

Ever since he had escaped the assassination attempt in Sicily, Dario Iannelli had been living in hiding with a 24/7 armed guard. Collusion between politicians and organized crime in drugs and other profitable businesses had been at the root of his investigation, and it had all come to a head just as Rossi had been closing in on The Carpenter. Iannelli saw complex, sometimes wild, conspiracies everywhere but his insights gave Rossi frequent food for thought. What’s more, he trusted him. Rossi’s opportunities of seeing the journalist were infrequent now and usually involved first discovering his latest address via a strict protocol and then arranging for a rendezvous in the utmost secrecy.

Dario Iannelli lowered his dark glasses by the required number of degrees to look Rossi in the eyes before opening both arms and giving his old friend a firm embrace.

“Good to see you,” said Iannelli. “We weren’t far away, in transit, and I managed to persuade the guys here that it was about the safest place I could be in now. Given the traffic chaos, it seemed as good an idea as any other.”

He gestured to the civilian desert around them. Only uniforms and hardware to be seen. The other press guys had been forced to wait, but Iannelli had special security clearance.

“My somewhat anomalous state confers the occasional privilege on me.”

“So, surviving captivity?” said Rossi then.

“Next question,” Iannelli replied, the strain clearer in his face as he fully removed his designer shades.

“Well at least you’re getting to stretch your legs,” said Rossi, giving him a firm slap on the shoulders. “How are you bearing up?”

Iannelli gave a sigh.

“You can get used to anything, Mick. That’s what they tell me, but I have to stay alive.”

“Well, I was going to call you,” said Rossi, “to see if we might get together, but it seems events have got the better of us.”

Iannelli’s escort had maintained a discreet distance, but the journalist gestured for them to come over.

“Let me introduce you to my shadows,” he said, presenting the four plain-clothes officers of his escort, now his permanent companions. “They allow me ‘to live an ordinary life’,” he added drily. “Really looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Well, you’re still with us, aren’t you?” said Rossi.

“No comment.”

“So, who’s here?” Rossi continued. “Might save me some time if you tell me what you’ve got on all this.”

“More like who’s not here,” Iannelli replied. “Good time to do a break-in, I’d say. It’s very Italian, isn’t it? You know, the stable door after the horse has bolted and all that.”

“C’mon, Dario! Were they supposed to predict this? Is that it?”

“Intelligence? A security plan? This is a prime target in the capital and they managed to put a bomb outside? And the synagogue’s just down the road,” he added, gesturing across the river to where the four-sided dome could be glimpsed through the trees.