depraved in the man. The obvious thought was paedophilia, the twenty-first century disease.
Renaldo’s mood had changed.
‘Any word of Kadire?’ Tingley said.
‘If we deliver Kadire — what do we get in return?’
Tingley hesitated with his reply. He no longer had any clout with the British secret services for whom he’d so often been contracted. In recent months, he’d first used up his favours then burned his boats.
‘I’m sure there are deals to be done,’ he said. ‘As I understand it, this is returning a favour to the late John Hathaway.’
‘Hathaway. Dennis Hathaway I knew many years ago. We met in Spain. His son, John, I am aware of. Favours, however, I do not know about. And you say John too is dead? This is a favour for a dead man, then?’
Tingley put his knife and fork down and stood.
‘I don’t wish to waste your time.’
Renaldo looked surprised.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I understood you could help me. If you cannot. .’
Tingley turned and walked to the door. Renaldo di Bocci’s two men moved to block his way. Tingley wagged a warning finger at them.
‘Signor Tingley, please,’ Di Bocci called after him. ‘Please sit down.’
Tingley kept walking. He was sure he had been sent into a trap. The two men looked beyond him for a signal from Di Bocci. The serpent writhed. Tingley ruptured the knee of the man to his left with a heel kick. He brought his elbow down hard on the collar of the one to his right and felt the bone snap.
He pulled open the doors and strode down the long corridor to the exit. He wasn’t armed but his car — and its arsenal — was nearby. He heard footsteps behind him but he ignored them. He pulled open the outer door, rabbit-punched the man standing outside it as he started to turn, ran down half a dozen steps and continued running for his car.
He had lifted the lid on the boot when he heard the clatter of a dozen men following him down the street. When he turned, he was cradling the Gatling gun. Cartoon-like, the men facing him stopped abruptly, cannoning into each other or slipping on the cobbles.
Tingley wasn’t worried about these men. He was most worried about someone in a tower a mile away with a high-powered rifle trained on him. Not now, though, not here. Here the streets were narrow, the buildings high. Here it would be at close quarters from an upstairs window.
He walked back down the street. The men made a ragged line. Two in the middle parted and Renaldo di Bocci stepped from behind them. Tingley halted ten yards away.
Di Bocci was flushed and angry.
‘You insult my hospitality,’ he said.
‘Oh, please,’ Tingley said. ‘Spare me all that “my house is your house” rubbish. You would have no compunction about drowning me in the bath if that’s what was required.’
Di Bocci frowned as he struggled to comprehend. The man next to Di Bocci whispered in his ear. Di Bocci scowled at Tingley.
‘You are not what I expected,’ he said.
‘Whereas you are exactly what I expected.’
Di Bocci looked from Tingley’s face to the Gatling gun.
‘Kadire will be at Sant’Antimo at eleven in the morning, the day after tomorrow. He has a meeting with some colleagues of mine.’
‘How many colleagues?’
‘Sant’Antimo,’ Di Bocci said, turning away and signalling his men to follow.
Tingley watched them go, wondering where Sant’Antimo was and, more importantly, where it would be safe to sleep tonight.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tingley drove out of Chiusi on winding roads, watching for any sign of a follower. The abbey church of Sant’ Antimo was in Montalcino, a French Romanesque building plonked down in the middle of Italy. He had been online getting images of its location and its layout. He intended to be there twelve hours before the meeting was due to happen.
He had spent several hours with Google Maps and other online resources getting the lay of the land around Sant’Antimo. He was confident he could avoid any kind of ambush going in. Coming out was something else again.
It took two further hours to reach Sant’Antimo. For most of his journey, Tingley was caught in a convoy of lorries grinding slowly through the hilly landscape. He saw the church from the road in a valley; it was set among low wooded hills a couple of miles below the little village of Castelnuovo dell’ Abate. A tall cypress stood alone beside the square tower, equalling its height.
He pulled over to the side of the road and took out his binoculars. The way he figured, if it was a set-up, Kadire would be somewhere up here or in the church tower. Either way, he would be waiting to shoot him as he approached. He watched the tower for any sign, anything at all.
After half an hour he got back in the car and drove slowly down towards the church. He parked lengthways against the church wall, passenger side out, the church between him and any vantage point on the hill.
He came out of the car between driver’s door and church wall and made the five yards to the entrance in a crouching run. Once inside, he ducked into a corner angle and swept the interior.
There were a dozen or so people scattered around the church. Nearest were a fashionably dressed young Italian couple who were scratching their names with a penknife on to one of the twelfth-century capitals. Aside from that vandalism, nothing untoward that he could see.
The high walls were undecorated, honey-coloured brick but, with the light coming through the plain windows, they seemed luminous. Beams of sunlight fell through those windows like solid slabs, their edges sharply defined.
He knew the layout of the church from the research he’d done online. He moved down the south aisle towards the altar. He looked into a doorway that led through to the sacristy and then up a spiral staircase that he knew from the floor plan led to the matroneum. He passed the altar, ducking his head to look down into the tiny crypt beneath it. He’d read it had formed part of a ninth-century church, supposedly founded by Charlemagne on this site. He walked behind the altar into the north aisle, stopped at the entrance to the bell tower.
He glanced up at the windows to the matroneum in the blank wall opposite. He could see a figure standing in the window recess, although he couldn’t make out the face. He had the impression that the person was studying him. Tingley stared back.
‘Tingley, nice to see you again,’ a voice beside him said. Kadire, his face still a bruised mess, was standing by his shoulder, leaning on a walking stick. Tingley turned.
‘You’re early.’
Kadire smiled — it looked grotesque given his facial injuries — but said nothing. He pointed with his stick across the church to the spiral staircase.
‘Shall we get out of everybody’s way?’
Tingley glanced back at the window. The figure had gone.
Kadire led the way slowly up the spiral staircase, pausing once to catch his breath. At the top of the stairs he stood aside to let Tingley enter the room first. Tingley went by him warily but the room was empty.
‘Did the exterior of the church look familiar, Tingley? Andrei Tarkovsky filmed it for use in his film
‘I didn’t know,’ Tingley said, looking around the matroneum. It had been divided into two rooms, both hung with wall paintings and furnished with chairs and wooden sofas. Tingley walked past the enormous fifteenth-century fireplace to look into the next room, then went across to the window recess. He could see the length of the nave
