jarring chorus of car alarms kicked in, each singing in a different key and to a different tempo, roused by the force of the crash.
‘Where did you learn to drive like that?’ Tom asked with an approving nod.
‘Rush hour in Rome.’ She smiled, breathing hard.
‘Do you think Johnny will notice the damage?’
She glanced in the mirror and saw the boot lid flapping around behind them like a loose sail, then looked along the crumpled bonnet at the cloud of steam rising from the cracked radiator.
‘It’ll polish out.’ She grinned.
Reversing out, the steering pulling heavily to the right, she nursed the car down the exit ramp and then made her way out on to the street.
FORTY
Desposito Eroli, Via Erulo Eroli, Rome 19th March-9.23 a.m.
‘I thought you told these idiots to hold off until we got here when they called?’ Gallo said in an accusing tone as Salvatore hurried towards him, his notebook clutched to his chest.
Misfortune was snapping at his heels like one of those annoying handbag dogs, it seemed. First the triangulation of Allegra’s mobile phone signal, only for her to have vanished by the time they got there. Then a sighting reported by the officers here, only for her to slip through his fingers a second time, it now seemed.
‘I did,’ Salvatore sighed wearily. ‘Apparently they were trying to lock down the area in case they drove off.’
‘Lock down the area? The stupid bastards have been watching too much TV,’ Gallo glowered at the two men in neck braces being stretchered past him into a waiting ambulance. ‘It’s just as well she’s put them in hospital. She’s saved me the trouble.’ Cursing under his breath, he lit a cigarette.
‘You mean
‘She wasn’t alone?’ Gallo glanced up, surprised, brushing his long silvery hair back behind each ear.
‘There was a man.’
‘What man?’
‘Not sure yet.’
A pause, as Gallo let this sink in. He’d not banked on her teaming up with someone. Certainly not this soon.
‘What were they doing here?’
‘They were seen opening up a black Maserati. Registration number…JT149VT,’ Salvatore read from his notebook.
‘Presumably not hers? Not on a lieutenant’s salary.’
‘Cavalli’s.’
Gallo span round to face him.
‘Cavalli’s?’ he spat. ‘What the hell was she looking for?’ He glared at the building behind him as if it was somehow at fault and owed him an answer. To his surprise, it gave him one.
‘There must be a camera up there!’ He pointed at the lens fixed above the entrance. ‘Get me the disc.’
A few minutes later they were seated around a small monitor in the sentry post, Salvatore forwarding to the time of the last entry in the log. For ten, maybe twenty seconds, the grainy black-and-white footage showed nothing but parked cars and the wet concrete floor, but then, just as Gallo was about to hit the fast forward button again, two people appeared in the shot.
‘That’s not her,’ Salvatore said with a shake of his head.
‘Yes it is,’ Gallo breathed, reluctantly putting his glasses on so he could see properly. ‘She’s cut her hair. Dyed it, too. Clever girl.’ His face broke into a grudging smile. ‘And who are you?’ He leaned forward and hit the pause button, squinting to try and make out the face of the man walking next to her.
‘Never seen him before,’ Salvatore shrugged.
‘Get a print of this off to the lab when we’ve finished,’ Gallo ordered, starting the disc again. ‘Get them to run it through the system. Interpol too.’
‘Where did she get his car keys?’ Salvatore asked with a frown as they watched Allegra beep the car open and then step round to the boot.
‘Evidence room, they were probably on the same set as…’ Gallo broke off with a frown as he saw Allegra retrieve something from the boot. He paused the footage again. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Christ knows.’ Salvatore shrugged. ‘The picture’s too dark. I’ll ask the lab to see what they can do with it.’
‘I thought you said that car had been searched?’ Gallo barked angrily.
‘I…I thought it had,’ Salvatore stammered. Coughing nervously, he restarted the film only to pause it himself a few moments later.
‘He’s got something too,’ he said, squinting as he tried to make out the image. ‘Looks like…a piece of paper. Or maybe a photo?’
‘I want the names of whoever searched that car,’ Gallo said through gritted teeth. ‘Their names and their fucking badges.’
A squad car suddenly appeared at the top edge of the screen and one of the guards Gallo had just seen being loaded into the ambulance stepped out. He ejected the disc, lip curled in disgust.
‘Put out a revised description of Damico and get something worked up for this guy, whoever he is,’ he ordered. ‘Then-’
‘Colonel, we’ve found the car!’ A young officer had appeared at the door, breathing hard. ‘Abandoned in the Borghese Gardens.’
‘And Lieutenant Damico?’
‘No sign of her, I’m afraid.’
Salvatore stood up, giving Gallo an expectant look.
‘Go.’ He nodded. ‘Take whoever you need. Find her. She can’t have got far if she’s on foot.’
Gallo waited until the room was empty and then dug his phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.
‘It’s me.’ He lit another cigarette and took a long drag. ‘We just missed her again.’
He listened, making a face.
‘She came looking for Cavalli’s car…I don’t know why, but she found something he’d hidden in it…If I had to guess, a photograph.’
Another pause as he listened, his expression hardening.
‘How should I know what was on it?’ he said angrily. ‘I was rather hoping you could tell me.’
FORTY-ONE
Spagna Metropolitana station, Rome 19th March-9.27 a.m.
The train galloped into the station, its metal flanks elaborately embroidered with graffiti-the angry poetry of Rome’s disenfranchised youth delivered at the point of an aerosol can. In a few places, the authorities had scrubbed the carriages clean, no doubt in the hope of protecting the wider population from these dangerously subversive voices. Their efforts, however, had largely been in vain, the ghostly outline of the censored thoughts still clearly visible where the chemicals had bleached them, like a scar that refused to heal.
The doors hissed open and a muscular human wave swept Tom and Allegra through the tunnels and up the escalators, until it broke as it reached the street above, beaching them in the shadow of the Spanish Steps.
‘Let’s head into the centre,’ Tom said, shaking off the street hawkers tugging at his sleeve and pointing himself towards the seductive windows of the Via Condotti. ‘Stick with the crowds.’
‘I know a good place for a coffee,’ Allegra suggested with a nod.
