The Lost Relic

‘What?’

‘We met. Brooke’s party, a few months ago? You’re Phoebe’s husband.’

‘And you’re Amal. I remember now.’

Amal smiled, but he seemed a little edgy. ‘Listen, if you’re looking for Brooke, I’m afraid she’s not around.’

‘Oh,’ Marshall said, scrutinising him closely.

‘She’s gone away for a few days. I’m looking after her plants.’ He raised the watering can, as if to make his point.

Yup, Marshall thought. This young guy was definitely acting guarded. He wondered why that might be. ‘Off to France again?’ he said breezily.

‘No,’ Amal said. ‘I mean yes. Yeah, that’s it. Right.’

Marshall dealt with much better liars than Amal every day at the office, and years of practice had taught him he could get around anyone. He was known, and widely feared, for having a mind that stored information like a bank vault and the ability to retrieve instantly any shred of detail that could serve him, even years later.

He smiled warmly. ‘That’s a real shame about Brooke. Never mind. Hey, how’s the writing going? I remember you said you were working on a play.’

Amal looked surprised for a moment, then smiled back, the ice melting suddenly. ‘That’s right.’

Vanity. The most exploitable vice under the sun. ‘Actually, I was thinking about you just the other day,’ Marshall went on.

‘You were?’

‘Absolutely. One of my clients is just about to take over this big, big theatre. Guy’s worth a trillion quid. I can’t say too much about it now, not until the deal’s finalised. But I think he’s going to be on the lookout for talented playwrights. Top notch productions, big budget. I think your stuff could be right up his street. If you wanted, I could put in a mention. Could be a good opportunity for you.’

‘Wow. That’d be great. Thanks, Marshall.’

Marshall grinned his most generous grin. Once you softened them up, it was time to press your advantage. ‘Listen, the reason I’m here is that Brooke had this novel she wanted to lend me. I was in the area and thought I’d come by to pick it up. I know where it is, on the bookcase near her desk. Mind if I pop inside and get it?’

Amal was all smiles now, his guard completely dropped. ‘Sure, no problem. Be my guest.’

Seconds later, Marshall was making a bee-line for the door of Brooke’s study while Amal was safely out of the way watering the flower beds outside. Marshall was an expert snoop, and he knew exactly where to look for what he wanted. A quick scan of Brooke’s desk yielded no clues as to where she might have gone, so he fired up her Mac and went into her emails.

‘France my arse,’ he muttered as he found the ticket booking confirmation. She’d gone to Portugal.

And Marshall knew precisely where in Portugal. He thought back to the terrible week last May he and Phoebe had spent at Brooke’s rundown rustic getaway. The worst holiday of his life. No pool, no nothing, not even a mobile signal that he could use to keep in touch with the office. Phoebe had loved it, but he couldn’t leave the place fast enough. For some reason Brooke thought it was just heaven. That was where he’d find her, for sure.

Marshall quickly powered down the computer, snatched a book at random from her shelf to back up his cover story with Amal, and left the apartment.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Rome

‘Where are we going?’ Buitoni asked as Darcey led him down to the police car pool. She was clutching the keys to one of the unmarked Carabinieri pursuit Alfa Romeo GTs.

‘To the airport,’ she said, glancing at her watch. It was 2.47 p.m.

He gave her a blank look.

‘Because Ben Hope called his business partner from there just over an hour before the Tassoni shooting,’ she explained. ‘The question is, what was he doing there?’

Buitoni thought about it as they approached the car. ‘He could have been going there to meet someone. The weapon might have been in a luggage locker there.’

‘Hope called from the departure lounge. He was waiting for a flight.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I checked it out. The 16:03 to Heathrow. Take-off was delayed for nearly an hour. Hope was on the passenger list. Business class. You want to know the seat number?’

Buitoni looked baffled. ‘He was heading for London?’

‘Certainly looks that way.’

‘But he didn’t get on the plane.’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Buitoni said. ‘Was he just going through the motions to throw us off?’

‘You think he’d be that stupid? Nobody walks in and out of an airport without being filmed on a million cameras. That’s why I want to go there. The security footage might tell us something.’ Darcey tossed the Alfa keys in the air, and Buitoni caught them. ‘You drive,’ she said.

After a stuttering journey through the snarled Rome traffic, they blasted the 30 kilometres of open road to Fiumicino. At the airport security section, a couple of surly guys in uniform led them into a control room where banks of screens fed back constant live footage from the hundreds of cameras throughout the complex. Everything was backed up on a massive hard drive that was hooked up to yet more screens, so that live and recorded footage could be viewed simultaneously. Darcey had Buitoni request to view playback from the previous afternoon, from around the time Ben Hope might have turned up in the departure lounge.

Things did not move fast. By the time the technicians had eventually dug out the right section of recordings, Darcey had paced miles up and down the corridor outside the control room. She and Buitoni sat on plastic chairs to view the screens while a technician worked the computer.

Actually spotting Hope among the thousands of tiny figures that came and went, moving comically in speeded-up motion, was a painfully slow task. After an eternity of staring hard at the screens and sipping a Coke, Darcey’s eyes felt as raw as steaks. But then, finally, her searching gaze found its mark. The blond hair, the leather jacket, the easy way he moved. He was carrying a green canvas bag with a lot of miles on it.

‘Got you,’ she said with a smile.

‘You see him?’

Darcey pointed. ‘There.’

She and Buitoni watched as Hope walked calmly over to a seat on the far side of the lounge and sat quietly. He had that capacity she’d only ever seen in Special Forces soldiers, to sit completely immobile for long periods. In a sea of fast-moving bodies he was the only one frozen still. Unnoticed by the crowds that came and went – but watching everything around him.

Then, at a certain point, something seemed to catch his eye and his position shifted.

‘What’s he looking at?’ Buitoni said.

‘Those.’ She pointed at another screen, which showed a different angle on the departure lounge and a boutique window filled with televisions. ‘Can we get a close up?’ she asked, and Buitoni relayed the request to the technician. The image swelled on the screen, pixellated momentarily and then sharpened.

‘I know what that is,’ Buitoni said. ‘It’s the report on the arrest of Tito Palazzo, the guy who assaulted Tassoni.’

‘Keep watching.’

The screens displayed the time 16:51 as Hope suddenly rose from his seat and headed out of the lounge with a crowd of other passengers.