‘Nine minutes to five, his flight was called,’ Darcey said.
‘He really looks like he means to get on that plane,’ Buitoni mumbled, looking more baffled than ever.
They followed his progress on another screen. But something was wrong. As their man approached the walkway to the plane, he began to slow down. His body language was strange, his head carriage low. People jostled him from behind as he finally ground to a halt and just stood there.
‘What the hell is he thinking?’ Darcey said.
Buitoni shook his head, staring in fascination as the figure on the screen turned around and started heading back in the opposite direction. ‘I think this is it. The moment where something snaps in his mind. A switch was triggered.’
Darcey glanced at him. ‘Maybe.’
‘For sure. He’d just been watching Tassoni on TV. He decides not to take the flight. He turns around and heads for the villa. It all makes sense again.’
‘He’s just gone through airport security. Where’s the .357?’
‘Stashed somewhere else. To pick up en route, maybe.’
‘Hold on. He’s already stashed a weapon
‘Does it really matter? We know he did it.’
Darcey bit her lip and went on watching as the cameras followed the fugitive through the airport. Now the un certainty in his body language had evaporated and there was purpose in his stride.
‘There,’ Buitoni said as they watched Hope going to the lockers and opening one up. ‘Just like I said. The whole thing was a feint. He’s only come here to pick up the gun. It’s in the locker.’
Darcey stared closely. ‘You’re wrong, Paolo. He’s not picking up anything. He’s leaving his bag there.’
The time readout was just seconds after 17:17 as Ben climbed into the taxi and it pulled away.
‘There he goes,’ Buitoni said with conviction. ‘Straight to Tassoni’s and bang, bang, bang.’
Darcey didn’t answer. She stood up. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’ Back in the airport parking lot, Buitoni was walking around to the driver’s side when she plucked the key from his fingers and jumped in behind the wheel. The inside of the Alfa felt like a pizza oven after a couple of hours standing in the sun. Darcey checked her watch again. It was 4.42 p.m. She fired up the engine and wound down the windows. ‘You navigate.’
‘Where to?’
‘Casa Tassoni,’ she replied.
Buitoni was thrown back in his seat as she took off and went skidding out of the car park. She used the siren to carve a path through the traffic as she headed back towards the city with the speedometer nudging the hundred and seventy kilometres an hour mark.
‘Mind telling me what this is about?’ Buitoni asked her.
‘Call it an experiment,’ she said as she zipped past a speeding BMW so fast it looked like it was standing still.
She barely slowed for the city. By then, Buitoni was rigid and pale, holding his door handle in a death grip. ‘Three guys are sitting in a bar,’ he said in a strained voice. ‘One of them is telling a Carabinieri joke. The second guy thinks it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, but the third one’s all serious. First guy asks him, “What’s wrong?” He replies, “I’m a Carabinieri.” First guy says, “Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to you later.”’
Darcey laughed as she took the racing line through a busy junction at over ninety, ignoring the chorus of horns from swerving drivers. She dived through a gap that was maybe an inch wider than the Alfa, changed down and put her foot to the floor.
‘See, you do appreciate humour,’ Buitoni said. ‘I’m laughing at
‘We also like to reach our destination in one piece. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer that I drove?’
‘And you call yourself a red-blooded male.’
He muttered something in Italian, and she grinned. ‘Just navigate, all right?’
‘You’re enjoying this too much.’
Buitoni was soaked in sweat by the time Darcey screeched the Alfa to a halt outside Tassoni’s villa. She killed the engine, did another time check. 5.36 p.m. She sighed loudly.
‘What?’
‘Do you think I could have gone any faster?’
He stared at her. ‘Are you the one making jokes now?’
‘Maybe I was wasting my time on all those high-speed pursuit driving courses I took. Maybe the taxi driver that brought Ben Hope here from the airport was just completely, insanely, reckless. Or maybe Hope’s discovered the secret of teleportation. I don’t know. All I know is that he only had between 5.18 and 5.57 to get here in time to shoot Tassoni and it’s just taken me fifty-four minutes and twenty-two seconds to cover the same distance.’
‘Perhaps the taxi driver knew a short cut.’
‘You told me you knew this city.’
‘I do,’ Buitoni said. ‘Then it’s possible we have the wrong time of death. Tassoni’s clock could have been inaccurate.’
‘Those kinds of clock mechanisms don’t go wrong, Paolo. NASA wouldn’t use them otherwise.’
‘Then Hope must have been working with someone else.’
‘Not if we apparently have video of him walking out of here with the smoking gun.’
‘Which we haven’t seen,’ Buitoni admitted. ‘Which we haven’t seen,’ she repeated.
Buitoni was about to reply, then gave up and flopped in his seat. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I. But don’t tell anyone about this, Paolo. That’s an order.’
At that moment, Darcey’s mobile went off in her pocket. It was her personal phone again.
‘I need a cigarette,’ Buitoni said, and stepped out of the car as she answered the call.
The heavy breather had called back. ‘How did you get this number?’ she said angrily. Silence on the line. Just the quick, agitated rasp of his breathing.
‘Fine. Play your little games. But hear this. You ever call me again, I’ll find out who you are and come and kick you so hard your balls’ll pop out through your nose. That’s a promise. Get it?’
She was about to flip the phone shut when the man spoke. ‘Don’t . . . don’t hang up. Please. Listen to me.’
A young-sounding voice. Maybe late twenties at the oldest. Educated accent, maybe Cambridge. This was no habituated phone pervert. The slur in his speech told her he’d needed a couple of drinks too many to pluck up the courage to make the call, but it nonetheless couldn’t hide the nervousness. He was almost breathless with it.
‘There are things you need to know,’ he said. He paused. ‘Are you still there?’
Darcey could see Buitoni pacing the pavement a few metres from Tassoni’s gates, anxiously puffing on his cigarette. There were still a few police vehicles parked up in the background, outside the house.
‘I’m still here,’ she said to her mystery caller. ‘But I won’t be for long.’
‘My name’s Borg.’
‘Borg,’ she repeated dubiously.
She heard him swallow hard on the other end. ‘Look. Christ. I don’t know where to begin . . . Operation Jericho isn’t what you think it is.’
She frowned. Operation Jericho. If he knew about that, he definitely was not a prank caller.
Alarms were whooping and red warning lights popping like flashguns in her mind. She needed to back off. Right now. Report this to Applewood. Do the right thing, before she opened up a hornet’s nest and got herself stung to pieces for it.
But it was stronger than her. She wanted to know more.
‘I don’t like this anonymous bullshit. You need to tell me who you really are or I’m hanging up.’
A long, nervous pause. She could sense he was thinking about it. Weighing up the pros and cons. He knew he needed to gain her trust. But his hesitation smelled of fear. This was a lot more dangerous for him than it was for her.
Or maybe it wasn’t. But she still had to know.
‘All right. Let’s stay with Borg for now,’ she said, talking in a low, soft, reassuring voice. Her negotiator’s voice. ‘Tell me what you know.’
He took a long, quavering breath. ‘It’s best we meet.’
