'Where is Angela?'
The villa was in darkness. Angela was in her room and maybe she was weeping, and maybe she was at the pills. 'Having a little rest.'
'I have some good news for you.'
Good news might be that there was a ticket for a flight, that she was being sent home, that she was returning to a room in a bungalow, to a classroom in a school. 'What's that?'
As if he played with her, as if he mocked her. He laid his briefcase on the patio table.
He went to the doors and switched on the patio light. The light on the patio made the night fall around her. He opened the briefcase. Smiling such sweetness.
'I told you there was a small possibility that your handbag might be dumped. We are very lucky. It was left near the Questura. Damaged, but containing your possessions.'
So close to her, his waist and his groin beside her head and her shoulders. He took her handbag and her cardigan from the briefcase, and each panel of the bag had been cut, and he said that the thief must have searched for a hidden compartment and something more valuable, and he put the handbag on the table. He gave her the keys and the lipstick and the powder box, and the credit card, and the diary, and he said that thieves were interested only in cash, and he gave her the purse, empty.
Peppino said, 'I am really so sorry, Charley, for your experience.'
She blurted, 'He's dead. The boy who robbed me, he's dead.'
His eyes narrowed. She saw the tension in his body. 'How can you know that?'
Axel Moen would have kicked her. Axel Moen would have slapped her. For a moment she had played the clever bitch. She had come out into the shadows of the patio, into the keener and fresher air, to clear her mind, and bloody waded in with two feet. She hesitated. 'I'm being silly. There was a photograph in the paper. A boy was dead in the street in Brancaccio.'
Soothing. 'But you did not see his face, you said he wore a helmet.'
Retreating. 'I thought I recognized the bike…'
'They are scum, Charley. They live on drugs to give them the courage to rob young girls and old women. They steal many bags in a day to feed their revolting habit.
Perhaps, before he had stolen from you, or afterwards, he thieved from a young girl or an old woman whose father or sons had influence. They lead a very dangerous life. You know, Charley, once there were some young boys, not aged more than sixteen years, and they stole the bag of a woman who was married to a mafioso. This criminal identified the boys and had them strangled and had their bodies left in a well. You are a caring person, but you should not concern yourself with the life or death of such scum.'
'Maybe I was wrong about the motorcycle. I am very grateful to you for taking so much trouble.'
His stomach and his groin rested against her shoulder. Always the smile on his face.
He took another handbag of soft leather from his briefcase and laid it in front of her.
'But you have no handbag. I took the liberty, Charley, to replace your handbag.
Please, open it. You see, I remember also that your necklace was broken. I cannot replace its sentimental importance to you, but I do my poor best.'
Angela stood in the doorway, and her hair was dishevelled from sleep, and the blouse hung loose from the waist of her skirt, and she was barefoot. Angela watched.
Inside the handbag was a thin jewellery box. Charley opened the box. The necklace of gold shimmered. She took the necklace in her fingers, felt the weight of the gold links. As she lifted it and draped it at her throat Peppino, so gentle, took it and fastened it, cold against her skin.
Angela turned away.
'Thank you,' Charley said. 'You are very kind to me.'
Peppino asked her to excuse him. He said that he was away early in the morning, that he must pack his bag.
She sat under the patio light, alone, and gazed out over the darkness. God, she wanted so much to be loved and to be held…
TO: D/S Harry Compton, S06. FROM:
Alf Rogers, DLO, Rome.
GIUSEPPE RUGGERIO, Apt 9, Giardino Inglese 43, Palermo, interesting because the heroes of the carabineri do not have files on him, Guardia di Finanze likewise, BUT a lady from SCO no doubt fancies my body.
RUGGERIO is a financial fixer, listed by SCO as living at Via Vincenzo Tiberio, Rome. No criminal history. (Unsurprised that locals have lost him
– workload, long lunches and inadequate resources to track movement, cannot cope.) BUT, BUT if we talk about same joker, he is younger brother of MARIO RUGGERIO (Grade A mafia fugitive). Because I am overworked, underpaid, reliant only on my considerable charm, difficult for me to learn more. DEA/FBI (Rome), underemployed and overpaid, have big dollar resources hence greater access than me – do I check with them for more GIUSEPPE RUGGERIO information?
Two pints, please, in Ferret and Firkin.
Luv, Alf.
Harry Compton stood over Miss Frobisher as she typed the reply for transmission to Rome. She oozed her disapproval, as if in the days of her youth, the days of carrier pigeons, certain standards prevailed in communications. And he didn't care what she thought and ignored her curled upper lip because the excitement ran with him.
TO: Alfred Rogers, DLO, British Embassy, Via XX Settembre, Rome.
FROM: D/S Harry Compton, S06.
Two half pints coming your way. We concerned about use of your body with lady from SCO – could lead to Post-coital Stress Disorder and her requirement for counselling. Do not, repeat NOT, share our interest in GIUSEPPE RUGGERIO with Yankee cousins, nor with locals.
Bestest, Harry.
Chapter Ten
'Do I really need to know this?'
The grievance, the story of the 'pressurization' of a young girl from south Devon, was climbing the ladder. From Detective Sergeant Harry Compton to his detective superintendent. From the detective superintendent to the commander of S06. From the commander to the assistant commissioner (Specialist Operations). At each step of the ladder the grievance was elaborated.
'I rather think, Fred, that you do – and I'd like to hear the views of colleagues.'
Around the polished table, bright in spring light thrown through the plate-glass windows, in a room on the sixth floor of the New Scotland Yard building, were the commanders who headed what they believed to be the elite specialized teams of the Metropolitan Police. Comfortable in their chairs, at the end of their monthly meeting, were the men who ran Anti-Terrorist Branch, International and Organized Crime, the Flying Squad, Special Branch, Royal and Diplomatic Protection and S06.
The assistant commissioner moved behind them, refilling the coffee cups from a jug.
'Right, shoot then.'
'Am I peeing in a gale? None of you knew that the DEA, our American friends, were recruiting in this country?'
Gestures and shrugs and shaken heads from Anti-Terrorist branch and Special Branch and from Royal and Diplomatic Protection, hardly likely to have been blown past their desks. The I; lying Squad man said that he rarely dealt with Americans, when he did it was FBI and, snigger, then when he was short of a good meal on expenses.
International and Organized Crime denied flatly that he had joint operations with DEA currently in place.
'Get to the point, please.'
'Of course, Fred. I am not a happy man, I regard this situation as intolerable.
