Villa Rosa was one of the houses she cleaned, though Maria wasn’t sure how long the arrangement was likely to last. She was fond of the young Englishwoman, who used Maria’s visits to polish her Italian, but her customer had voiced some dissatisfaction recently. On her last two visits, in particular, she’d pointed out several areas where the cleanliness could have been much improved, to which Maria had responded as she always did, with a smile and a shrug. It wasn’t easy, she’d explained, to keep everything clean when the house was full of builders and their tools and equipment. And dust, of course.
That clearly hadn’t pleased Signora Hampton, who’d urged her to try a little harder, but Maria was beyond the stage where she took very much notice of what people asked her to do. She’d go to the house every week, do as little as she thought she could get away with and see what happened. If the Englishwoman sacked her, she’d find work somewhere else. It really wasn’t much of a problem.
A little after nine that morning, Maria pottered up the drive to Villa Rosa on the elderly Vespa she’d used to get around the area for the last fifteen years. The scooter didn’t belong to her, and she’d been lent it so long ago that she barely remembered who did own it. This confusion extended to the Vespa’s documentation—it wasn’t licensed and hadn’t been tested for roadworthiness in a number of years, but that didn’t concern Maria, who’d never bothered applying for a driving license. She just took care to avoid the
She stopped the scooter in front of the house and pulled it onto its stand. Her helmet—she complied with the law to that extent—went onto the seat, and she strode across to the front door. Maria knew Jackie was at home, so she left the keys in her bag and rang the bell.
Two minutes later she rang it again, with the same lack of response. That puzzled her, so she walked over to the double garage that stood to one side of the house and peered behind the partially open door. The Hamptons’ car—an Alfa Romeo sedan—was there, just as she had expected. The house was too far from Ponticelli for her employer to go there on foot, and in any case she knew Jackie wasn’t much of a walker. So where was she?
The garden perhaps, she thought, and walked around the side of the house to the rear lawn, studded with shrubs and half a dozen small flower beds, that rose gently away from the old building. But the back garden was deserted.
Maria shrugged and returned to the main door of the house, fishing in her bag for her bunch of keys. She located the Yale, slid it into the lock and turned it, ringing the bell again as she did so. “Signora Hampton?” she called, as the door swung wide open. “Signora . . .”
The word died in her throat as she saw the sprawled figure lying motionless on the stone floor, a pool of blood surrounding the woman’s head like a dark red halo.
Maria Palomo had buried two husbands and five other relatives, but there was a world of difference between the anticipation of seeing a sheet-draped figure in a mortuary chapel and what she was looking at. A scream burst from her throat and she turned and ran out of the house and across the gravel drive.
Then she stopped and turned to face the building. The door was fully open and, despite the brightness of the early-morning sun, she could still see the shape on the floor. For a few seconds she stood unmoving, working out what she should do.
She had to call the police, obviously, but she also knew that once the
Twenty minutes later Maria stepped out of the front passenger seat of her nephew’s old Lancia and led the way over to the still-open front door of the property. They walked into the hall and looked at the body. Her nephew bent down and felt one of Jackie’s wrists, then crossed himself and took a couple of steps backward. Maria had known what to expect, and barely reacted at all.
2
I
“You’ve really screwed up this time, Death Wish,” Harrison began.
Right, Bronson thought. That’s it. He was standing in front of the D.I.’s cluttered desk, a swivel chair beside him that Harrison had pointedly not invited him to sit in.
Bronson glanced over his shoulder, a puzzled expression on his face, then looked back.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked quietly.
“You, you little shit,” Harrison snapped. This was laughable, as Bronson stood three inches taller than his superior, though he weighed substantially less.
“ ‘My name’s Christopher Bronson, and I’m a detective sergeant. You can call me Chris. You can call me D.S. Bronson, or you can just call me Bronson. But, you fat, ugly bastard, you can’t call me ‘Death Wish.’ ”
Harrison’s face was a picture. “What did you call me?”
“You heard,” Bronson said, and sat down in the swivel chair.
“You’ll bloody well stand when you’re in my office.”
“I’ll sit, thanks. What did you want to see me about?”
“Stand up!” Harrison shouted. Outside the glass-walled cubicle, the few officers who had arrived early were starting to take an interest in the interview.
“I’ve had it with you, Harrison,” Bronson said, stretching out his legs comfortably in front of him. “Ever since I joined this station you’ve complained about pretty much everything I’ve done, and I’ve gone along with it because I actually like being in the force, even if it means working with incompetent arseholes like you. But today, I’ve changed my mind.”
Small gobbets of spittle had gathered around Harrison’s mouth. “You insubordinate bastard. I’ll have your warrant card for this.”
“You can certainly try. I suppose you’ve worked out some scheme to charge me with assaulting a prisoner or using excessive force during an arrest?”
Harrison nodded. “And I’ve got witnesses,” he growled.
Bronson smiled at him. “I’m sure you have. I just hope you’re paying them enough.
And do you realize that’s almost the first sentence you’ve spoken since I walked in here that didn’t have a swearword in it, you foulmouthed, illiterate idiot?”
For a few moments Harrison said nothing, just stared at Bronson, his eyes smoldering with hate.
“It’s been lovely, having this little chat,” Bronson said, standing up. “I’m going to take a day or two off work now. That’ll give you time to decide whether you’re going to carry on with this charade or start acting as if you really were a senior police officer.”
“You can consider yourself suspended, Bronson.”
“That’s better—you actually got my name right that time.”
“You’re bloody well suspended. Give me your warrant card and get the hell out of here.” Harrison held out his hand.
Bronson shook his head. “I think I’ll hang on to it for the moment, thanks. And while you decide what you’re going to do you might like to take a look at this.” Bronson fished in his jacket pocket and pulled out a slim black object. “To save you asking, it’s a tape recorder. I’ll send you a copy of our conversation, such as it was. If you want an inquiry, I’ll let the investigating officers listen to it.
“And this,” Bronson extracted a buff envelope from another pocket and tossed it on the desk, “is a formal request for a transfer. Do let me know what you decide to do.
You’ve got my numbers, I think.”
Bronson clicked off the recorder and walked out of the office.
II
The telephone in the apartment in Rome rang just after eleven thirty that morning, but Gregori Mandino was in the shower, so the answering machine cut in after half a dozen rings.
Fifteen minutes later, shaved and dressed in his usual attire of white shirt, dark tie and light gray suit, Mandino prepared a large
