‘ Grazie.’ Louisa keeps her eyes closed to begin with. Even through her lids, the daylight is bright, and the tight binding has made her pupils and skin sore.
The first thing she sees is the back of the front passenger seat, then the windows on her side of the vehicle. They’re heavily tinted, the kind that are so dark that from the outside you can’t see in. She’s in some expensive four-by-four, but she can’t see any badging and can’t work out the model or make.
She turns to the man alongside her and tries to give him a friendly look. Year One psychology taught her that if kidnappers see their captives as human, they have more difficulty hurting them.
She’s not so sure it has any effect.
The guy’s every bit as big as she imagined, but surprisingly he’s rake thin and has arms like the hind legs of a bull. She realises that her inner prejudices equated the unwashed smell with someone fat.
‘Thanks for taking that off,’ she says, gradually widening her eyes to get them used to the light. ‘I thought I was going to pass out.’
‘Shut up!’ shouts the driver, without turning round. ‘Just sit there and shut the fuck up!’
Louisa takes the hint.
In the silence that follows, she works out that the short-tempered driver is Purple Cloak and the other two men in the car with her are the two Scarlet Cloaks she saw when they were holding her underground.
As they crawl over the cobbled and congested back streets, she takes strange comfort in the familiarity of seeing traffic jammed up all around her.
Are the doors centrally locked?
She thinks they probably are. It would be stupid if they weren’t.
And even if they weren’t, could she flip the handle and make a run for it without being grabbed by the half- bull, half-man creature sitting next to her?
She reckons not.
The most sobering thought is that if she tries and fails, she knows she won’t get another chance. They’ll watch her even more closely. Distrust her even more.
She has to be patient.
The chance will come.
She distracts herself with more traffic-watching. The road around her is now completely jammed. Car horns blare every other second. Drivers mouth madly at each other from their little vehicular goldfish bowls.
The traffic starts to move.
It’s like someone flicked a switch.
The car she’s in glides past a huge furniture van that’s now shoehorned down a side street and is no longer blocking the traffic.
They turn the corner and she instantly recognises where she is.
They’re approaching the Tiber.
Just minutes from the rendezvous site.
94
Santa Cecilia stands on the west side of the river, almost equidistant between the Ponte Palatino and the Ponte Portese.
Valentina sees it for what it is.
Architectural mesmerism.
It’s one of those buildings that draws the eye to everything that’s not really important.
For a start, there’s the distraction of a walled and gated courtyard so well designed that even in the depths of winter you can imagine the riot of colour set to explode in spring. Then there’s a vast fountain, dominated by a giant ancient cantharus – a water vessel second to none.
But none of what’s on show is what’s really important about Santa Cecilia.
As Alfie told them, the fascinating stuff is inside, below ground, and in all the stories and legends that hover around the place.
Valentina weighs it up from the car, almost a hundred metres away. ‘It’s useless. Those damned archways, gates and pillars at the entrance to the courtyard block out so much of the church. Without a full surveillance team, I feel like a Japanese tourist trying to cover a moon landing with a point and shoot.’
Federico Assante is sitting low in the back. ‘Did you see Tom go inside?’
‘About a minute ago.’ She wonders if she’s doing the right thing. If she’d called Caesario, he’d have had to take her seriously and put a proper team out here. On the other hand, she’d have lost a golden opportunity to ensure that Louisa would drop her testimony against herself and Federico. She glances at her watch. Three minutes to eleven. ‘We’d better get in position.’
Federico ties on a headscarf Valentina bought en route and wraps up tight in blankets that she brought from the hotel. The only thing that could give the game away from a distance is his feet. They bought a pair of low- heeled black women’s shoes, but Federico has taken to them like a drunk to ice.
Valentina gets out of the car and goes round the back.
Now she’s out on the street, she presumes her every move is being watched.
She opens the rear door and begins to act in character. ‘Take it easy now, you’re very weak. Let me help you out of there.’
The lieutenant tries to keep his head down and his back bent as he clambers out of the car.
Valentina puts a protective arm around him, just as she would a frail old grandmother. ‘We’re going to walk you over to the fountain, where we’ll meet Dr Verdetti.’
Federico shuffles along, acutely aware that nothing about his walk is feminine. The best he can do is move slowly so it looks like he’s weak and in pain.
The wind across the street blows up into his face and threatens to dislodge his headscarf. He grabs it and inches it further down his forehead.
It takes them almost a year to make the hundred metres to the fountain.
Or at least it feels like that.
The wind kicks up again, and with it comes the first spit of a light shower. Valentina uses it as an excuse to hold Federico close to her, his face all but buried between her breasts.
Not that he minds.
She glances at her watch. Almost five past. There’s no sign of Louisa.
She swivels her head and looks around, as would anyone innocently trying to find their boss at a public meeting point.
Nothing.
All stake-outs and stings get the adrenalin rushing, and this one is no different. Both Valentina and Federico are fully tanked, and they have to use all their professionalism not to do anything rash.
A group of pensioners emerges from the church, chattering enthusiastically.
Valentina takes some comfort from the fact that Tom is inside somewhere.
If she needs him, she knows he’ll come through for her.
The shower starts to become more of a downpour. The rain driving into her face gives her an idea. ‘Come on, let’s get you back to the car before you get soaking wet.’ She turns a bewildered Federico round and all but frogmarches him towards her Fiat.
‘Hey!’ he whispers anxiously, head pressed to her arm as they walk. ‘What are you doing?’
Valentina ignores him.
Her instincts tell her they’ve already been spotted.
She’s pretty certain the kidnappers will recognise her motive as just being protective of a sickly patient.
But it’s a gamble. A big one.
She pulls open the passenger’s door and gently manoeuvres the swathed Federico inside. She leans into the car and whispers, ‘Keep your head down. Wait until I’m all the way back inside the courtyard, and then drive off and park up a few streets away.’
