box, albeit one with a view of 9th Street and a nameplate denoting the identity of its rightful owner – Phil Tucker. Unlike the rooms which flanked it, however, its door was shut and all the blinds drawn in what Tom assumed was a subtle and yet deliberately symbolic mark of respect. Less clear was whether this was a spontaneous reaction to Jennifer’s death or part of some well-defined and yet unwritten mourning ritual that was observed whenever a colleague fell in the line of duty. Either way, it suited him well, concealing him from view once he had satisfied himself that no one was watching him and slipped inside.
Almost immediately, Tom’s heart sank. Perhaps without realising it until now, he had secretly been hoping to find a bit more of Jennifer here, even though he knew that this had only ever been a very recent and temporary home for her. Instead it boasted a sterile anonymity that was only partly lifted by Tucker’s scattered photographs and random personal trinkets. Then again, he couldn’t help but wonder if Jennifer’s hand wasn’t perhaps present in the clinical symmetry of the pens laid out on the desktop and the ordered stack of files and papers on the bookshelf, that he suspected had probably been littering the floor when she had first taken ownership of the room. And there was no debating who was responsible for the lipstick-smeared rim of the polystyrene cup that was still nestling in the trash. He gave a rueful smile. She had been here, after all. He was a guest, not an intruder.
The safe was in a cupboard under the bookshelf. With a weary sigh, he saw that it was protected by both a password and voicerecognition software, two red lights glowing ominously over the small input screen. Tricky. Very tricky, unless…He glanced up at her desk hopefully. The light on her phone was glowing red to indicate that somebody had left her a voicemail. With any luck, that also meant that she’d recorded a greeting.
He picked the phone up and dialled Jennifer’s extension, the second line beeping furiously until it tripped over into the voicemail system.
‘You’ve reached Special Agent Jennifer Browne in the FBI’s Art Crime Team…’ Tom’s stomach flipped over at the sound of her voice, as if he’d just gone over a sharp hump in the road. She sounded so close, so real that for a moment it was almost as if…It was no use, he knew. This was an illusion that would dissolve the moment he tried to warp his arms around it. He needed to stay focused. ‘Please leave a message…’
He replaced the handset. That would do. Now for the password. He bent down and opened each of the desk drawers, guessing that the lipstick on the cup was a sign that Jennifer, for all her refusal to play conventional sexual politics at work, had still occasionally worn make-up. He was right. The third drawer down yielded a small make-up bag and within that, a powder brush.
Kneeling next to the safe, he gently dusted the brush over the keys and then carefully blew away the excess. The result certainly wasn’t good enough to lift prints from, but it did allow him to see which keys had been most recently and heavily used, the powder sticking more thickly to the sweat left there.
Reading from left to right, this highlighted the letters A, C, R, V, G, I and O. Tom jotted them down in a circle on a piece of paper, knowing that they formed an anagram of some other word, although there was no way of telling how many times each letter had been used. The key was to try and get inside Jennifer’s head. She would have chosen something current, something relevant to what she had been working on. A name, a place, a person…Tom smiled, seeing that the last three letters had given him an obvious clue. G, I, O – Caravaggio, perhaps? He typed the word in and one of the two lights flashed green.
Reaching the phone down from the desk, he listened to Jennifer’s greeting a few more times to get a feel for the timing of exactly when she said her name. Then, just at the right moment, he placed the handset against the microphone before quickly snatching it away again. The second light flashed green. With a whir, the door sprang open.
He reached inside and pulled out a handful of files and a stack of surveillance DVDs. Returning the discs to the safe, he flicked through the files, discarding them all apart from one that Jennifer had initialled in her characteristically slanting hand.
Sitting at the desk, he unsealed the file and scanned through it, quickly recognising in the typed pages and photographs the details of the case that Jennifer had laid out for him on their way to Vegas. The anonymous Customs tip-off. The discovery of the Eileen Gray furniture hidden in the container. The tracing of the container to a warehouse in Queen’s. The raid on the warehouse and the discovery of an Aladdin’s cave of illegally exported antiquities. The panic-stricken dealer’s stumbling confession. A copy of his doodled sketch of the two snakes wrapped around a clenched fist, the symbol of the so-called Delian League that the forensic lab had reconstituted from strips of yellow paper recovered from his shredding bin. Bank statements. An auction catalogue. And, of course, the name provided by the dealer which Jennifer had passed on to the Italian authorities who had rewarded her with an address in Rome and a promise to follow-up: Luca Cavalli, Vicolo de Panieri, Travestere. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Closing the file with a satisfied smile he stood up, only to brush against the mouse as he turned to leave. The log-on screen immediately flickered on, the cursor flashing tauntingly at him. He stared at it for a few moments and then, shrugging, sat down again. It was worth a try.
TWENTY-SIX
Headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza, Viale XXI Aprile, Rome
18th March – 4.41 p.m.
Allegra snatched her head back, heart thudding, fist clenched, the teeth of Cavalli’s keys biting into her palm. Gambetta shot. No, executed. Executed here, right in front of her, in the basement of the Guarda di Finanza headquarters. It was ridiculous. It was impossible. And yet she’d seen it. She’d seen it and she only had to close her eyes to see it all over again.
Now wasn’t the time to panic, she knew. She needed to stay calm, think through her options. Not that she had many, beyond staying exactly where she was. Not with her gun stranded on the edge of Gambetta’s desk and only the length of the room separating her from the killer. Perhaps if she was quiet, she reasoned, he wouldn’t even realise…
The sudden hiss of polyester on concrete interrupted her skittering thoughts. She frowned, at first unable to place the noise, until with a sickening lurch of her stomach she realised that it was the sound of Gambetta’s corpse being dragged towards her.
She knew immediately what she had to do. Move. Move now while she still could; while the killer was still far enough away not to see or hear her. In a way, he’d made things easier for her. Now all she had to do was figure out which aisle he was coming down. As soon as she knew that, she’d be able to creep back to the entrance up one of the other ones. At least, that was the idea.
She shut her eyes and concentrated on the noise of the fabric of Gambetta’s uniform catching on the tiny imperfections in the concrete, fighting her instinct to run as the ticktock of the killer’s breathing got closer and closer, knowing that she had to be absolutely sure. Then, when it seemed that he must be almost on top of her, she opened them again. The second aisle. She was sure of it. The one she’d been standing in a few moments before when looking through Cavalli’s evidence box.
Taking a deep breath, she edged her head around the pier and peeked along the first aisle. It was empty. Her eyes briefly fluttered shut with relief. Then, crouching down, she slipped her shoes off and began to creep towards the exit, her stockinged feet sliding silkily across the cold floor. But she’d scarcely gone ten yards before suddenly, almost involuntarily, she paused.
She could see the killer.
Not his face, of course, but his back; through a narrow gap between the shelves as he dragged Gambetta towards her. Maybe if she…? No, she dismissed the thought almost as soon as it had occurred to her. It was stupid; she needed to get out of here while she still could. But then again, she couldn’t help herself thinking, what if someone here was working with him? It would certainly explain how he had got in. What if they now helped him escape in the confusion once she raised the alarm? She couldn’t risk that, not after what he’d done. A glimpse of his face, that was all she needed. Just enough to be able to give a description, if it came to that. If she was careful and stayed out of the light, he wouldn’t even know she was there.
Her mind made up, she edged carefully forward, trying to find a place where she could stand up without being seen, occasionally seeing the blur of the killer’s leg and his black shoes through cracks in the shelving as he backed towards her. Then, without warning, when he was almost parallel to her, Gambetta’s feet fell to the floor with an
