The Lost Relic

shouting, and the heavy thumping that was coming from beyond the rectangular strip of white light that outlined the door.

Reality was suddenly sharp and clear. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was 1.14 a.m. He was still fully dressed, wearing his shoes. He must have fallen asleep on the bed.

‘Polizia!’ yelled a voice from outside. The next thump on the door was a shattering crash that splintered the frame. The lock was still holding, but another impact like that and they’d be in.

Three options. One, stick around and find out what they wanted. Two, grab the .45 Ruger and start blasting holes in the door. Ben glanced back at the open window as another massive thud filled the room. He decided he preferred the third option. He snatched up his jacket and slipped it on.

The door crashed open in a shower of splinters. Armed police burst in, yelling and waving their pistols.

Before they’d even stepped over the threshold, Ben was already out of the open window, dropping down out of sight below the ledge and shooting out his right hand to grab hold of the bracket of the neon sign fixed to the wall a metre away. It held his weight. As he hung from it, his legs kicking in space, he could hear the cops crashing about in the hotel room. More yells. Another loud thud as they burst into the bathroom. Probably expecting to find him in the shower.

He glanced down. It was a pretty long drop to the street below, about seven or eight metres. The pavement seemed about an inch wide. Traffic rolled by, skirting around the two police Alfa Romeos that were pulled up outside the hotel entrance.

All he had to do was get down to the street before someone spotted him. He guessed that would happen within about the next fifteen seconds. He scrabbled the toecaps of his shoes against the wall, trying to get a purchase on it, but the stonework was covered in a smooth render that offered no footholds. Two metres to his right, an iron drainpipe was solidly attached to the wall. If he could get to it . . .

But it was too far to reach. He dangled helplessly. Any second now, the cops would be at the window.

Two more police-marked Alfas came screeching around the street corner and skidded to a halt outside the hotel. The doors flew open and four more Carabinieri scrambled out clutching pistols. They made straight for the hotel entrance.

All they had to do was look up.

‘I told you we should have taken a right back there!’ Gary Parsons seethed at his wife from behind the wheel of the six-berth motorhome as it lumbered through the night traffic. ‘Christ, you’re the one with the map!’

‘This thing’s all wrong,’ his wife Annabel complained, flapping the unfolded map across the dashboard. ‘I’m telling you I followed it perfectly—’

‘How can it be wrong? It’s a fucking map, for God’s sake. You read it, it tells you where to go. How hard can it be?’

‘Don’t yell like that. You’ll wake the kids.’

‘We should have been at the campsite hours ago,’ he grumbled bitterly. ‘Now we’re lost in the middle of Rome, thanks to you. I think I’m perfectly justified in yelling.’

‘What’s going on here?’ his wife said, pointing, as they passed a lit-up hotel entrance that was swarming with police.

‘How the hell should I know?’

They both shut up as they heard a soft thump from somewhere above them.

‘What was that?’ she said.

‘Dunno. Sounded like something landed on the roof.’

‘Or you’ve gone and hit something, more like,’ she said archly.

Gary looked in the mirrors, then craned his neck out of the window, thinking the high top of the vehicle must have snagged a streetlight or a road sign that he’d failed to notice while they’d been arguing. But he could see nothing. He damn well hoped he hadn’t damaged the new satellite dish.

His wife said, ‘Better stop and see what you’ve done.’

‘I’ve got nowhere to pull over,’ he replied through gritted teeth. ‘Can’t you see I’m in the middle of traffic? Look at all these police cars. You want me to get bloody arrested?’

‘Stop yelling!’

‘This is all your fault!’

The couple went on arguing as the motorhome lumbered on by the hotel and continued up the street.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ben lay pressed flat against the broad white expanse of the motorhome roof, feeling the vibrating thrum of the diesel engine through his body as they rolled away from the hotel.

Not exactly the ideal getaway vehicle. The thing couldn’t be doing more than thirty kilometres an hour, and he was plastered across the top of it for all to see. He craned his head to look behind him. Over the top of a large cargo storage box and two kids’ bicycles lashed to a luggage rack he could see the window of what had been his hotel room until just a moment ago. Dark silhouettes of the cops were milling around in the lit-up windows. Nobody was pointing after him, shouting ‘There he goes!’. As long as they all stayed focused on the inside of the room for another few seconds, he was clean away.

The motorhome kept moving, and Ben kept his gaze fixed on the receding hotel window. Nothing happened. Then, as the vehicle reached the corner of the street, it turned sharply to the left and he held on tight to the luggage rack to stop himself sliding sideways. These things hadn’t been designed with roof passengers in mind. He looked back once more as the side of a tall building blocked the hotel and the parked police cars from view.

Nobody came round the corner in pursuit. It wasn’t the most elegant escape ever made, but it was the end result that mattered. Ben imagined the police storming about the place, wondering where the hell he’d disappeared to, kicking in doors all through the hotel and arguing with the receptionist who’d be insisting that the guest hadn’t left the building. In different circumstances it might have made him smile. Maybe he could smile about it later, once he knew what all this was about. Maybe Roberto Lario had decided to have another polite chat about the gallery robbery. More likely, it had something to do with the late Urbano Tassoni.

The joys of celebrity, Ben thought. Someone must have spotted him going into the politician’s place and recognised him from the newspapers or TV. Just great.

Two hundred metres further up the street, he felt himself sliding towards the bulky overcab section of the roof as the motorhome braked for a red light. ‘This is my stop,’ he muttered as he scrambled back towards the rear of the vehicle, looking for a way down. An aluminium access ladder ran down from the roof. He swung nimbly over the edge, climbed down the narrow rungs and dropped to the road as two young guys in a little Fiat pulled up behind. The lights turned green and the huge white boxy motorhome rumbled off, a giant fridge on wheels with British plates and a big GB sticker on the back.

Ben stepped aside to let the Fiat pass. The two young guys inside were staring at him, and one of them tapped a finger to his temple and said something to his friend that was probably ‘These Brits are crazy’.

Ben didn’t hang around waiting for them to recognise him, too. He ran across the road and began walking fast up the pavement, past closed shop doorways and windows. The streets were mostly empty, which made him feel conspicuous and vulnerable. Another police Alfa sped by, lights flashing.

He paused and turned away from the street to gaze at a bright boutique display. Just a casual window shopper out for a night stroll. Then he realised the window was full of half-naked female mannequins modelling lacy underwear, and moved on quickly. The pervert thing wasn’t an ideal way to avoid police attention.

The Alfa passed on by. Ben kept walking. But then, fifty metres down the road, it suddenly pulled a screeching U-turn and came back after him. He broke into a run, the clapping echo of his footsteps loud in the empty street. The car chased him. A squeal of brakes; he heard its doors open. A voice yelling ‘Alt! Polizia!’