‘Nothing else will come out,’ Faulks said slowly, his voice suddenly hard. ‘Not unless someone’s planning to talk. And nobody’s planning to talk, are they, Verity?’
It was phrased as a question, but there was no doubting that he was giving her a very clear instruction. Maybe even a warning.
‘Why would I risk everything we’ve achieved together?’ she said quickly.
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, his eyes locked unblinkingly with hers. ‘But others…well. I don’t like to be disappointed.’
There was an icy edge to his voice and she gulped down a few more pills, wishing that she’d packed some Valium as well. Almost immediately, however, Faulks’s face thawed into a warm smile.
‘Anyway, let’s not worry about that now. I understand that you’re upset. And I want to make it up to you. What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’ She frowned. ‘Tomorrow I’ll be in Madrid. The US ambassador is hosting a two-day cultural exchange. We fly out this afternoon. Why?’
‘There’s something I want to show you.’ He reached inside his jacket and handed her a Polaroid. ‘I was hoping you might come to Geneva.’
‘Do you really think that, after what happened yesterday, the director is going to let me buy anything from you again?’ she asked, taking the photo from him with an indifferent shrug.
‘You won’t have to. It’ll come to you as a donation.’
She glanced down at the photo, then heard herself gasp.
‘Is it…?’ she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry, her hands trembling, her chest tight.
‘Genuine? Absolutely,’ he reassured her. ‘I’ve seen it myself. There’s no question.’
‘But no one has ever found…’
‘I know.’ He gave her a schoolboy’s wide grin. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘Who’s it by?’
‘Come now, Verity – 450 BC? Can’t you guess?’
There was a pause, her eyes still not having lifted from the photograph.
‘Where is it now?’
‘On its way to me.’
‘Provenance?’
‘Private Lebanese collection since the 1890s. I have all the documentation.’
Another pause as she carefully placed the photograph on the table, sipped some water and then looked up hungrily.
‘I have to see it.’
TWENTY-TWO
Headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza, Viale XXI Aprile, Rome
18th March – 4.25 p.m.
The headquarters of the Guarda di Finanza was located to the north-east of the city centre, just beyond the Porta Pia. It occupied a Spanish-looking building, with shutters at every window and its walls painted a dusty yellow and rich ochre colour. The main entrance was surmounted by the Italian and European Union flags, but these were sagging limply, the light breeze that was chasing the rain clouds away registering only in the rustling fronds of the palm tree that stood to the left of the door.
In a way, Allegra reflected as she stepped out of her taxi, it was perhaps better for her to catch up with Gallo here, rather than at the mortuary. This, after all, was where the physical evidence from the two murders was being kept, giving her the opportunity to have another look at the lead discs in the light of what Aurelio had told her and to get her story straight before seeing him.
Not that the decision to house the evidence here would have been a simple one, given all the different law enforcement agencies with a potential stake in this case. The Guarda di Finanza, for one, was a sprawling empire, covering not only Gallo’s organised crime unit but a variety of money-related crimes such as tax evasion, Customs and border checks, money laundering, smuggling, international drugs trafficking and counterfeiting. A military corps, it even had its own naval fleet and air force.
Allegra’s art and antiques unit, meanwhile, was part of the Arma dei Carabinieri, a paramilitary force with police duties that also oversaw counterterrorism operations, the forensic bureau, the military police, undercover investigations and, bizarrely, sanitary enforcement.
Then, of course, there was the state police, a civilian force that, as well as having responsibility for routine patrolling, investigative and law enforcement duties, also oversaw the armed, postal, highway and transport police forces. And this was not to forget the various layers of provincial, municipal and local police, prison officers, park rangers and the coast guard who further crowded the picture.
In fact, Allegra seemed to remember from one of the induction lectures she had had to endure upon first joining up, any one area in Italy could theoretically be under the jurisdiction of up to thirty-one different police or police-type forces. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a sea-fog of overlapping responsibilities, unclear accountabilities and red tape that more often than not led to the different agencies competing against each other when they should have been collaborating.
Allegra’s temporary secondment from the Carabinieri to their fierce rivals at the Guarda di Finanza was, therefore, a relatively unusual request on Gallo’s part, as proved by the raised eyebrows of the duty officer who buzzed her in and directed her towards the basement.
Following the signs, she found the evidence store next to the armoury. It was secured by a steel door with a lock but no handle, suggesting that it could only be opened from the inside. Next to it, a low counter had been chopped out of the reinforced concrete wall. An elderly officer in a neatly pressed grey uniform with gold buttons and a green beret was sitting on the other side behind a screen of bullet-proof glass. Allegra knocked on the window and then placed her ID flat against it.
‘You’re a long way from home, Lieutenant.’ The man gave her a quizzical look over the top of his glasses, his feet up and the newspaper resting across his knee. His badge identified him as Enrico Gambetta.
‘I’ve been seconded on to the Argento case,’ she explained.
‘You’re working with Colonel Gallo!’ Gambetta struggled to his feet, anxiously peering out into the corridor as if he half expected Gallo to jump out of the shadows.
‘Until he decides he doesn’t need me any more,’ she said, unable to stop herself wondering what strange gravitational anomaly was securing Gambetta’s trousers around his enormous waist.
‘So he got my message?’ he asked excitedly. ‘He sent you to see me.’
‘Your message?’ She frowned.
‘About the other murder.’
‘I haven’t spoken to him all afternoon,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I was just hoping to take another look at the lead discs from the Argento and Ricci killings before I see him.’
‘The lead disc – exactly!’ He beamed, looking like he might break into a lumbering jig. ‘Like the ones you found in their mouths, right?’
‘How do you know that?’ Allegra asked sharply.
‘When you’ve been around as long as I have, you get to hear about most things.’ He winked. ‘Now, I can’t really let you sign it out, but…’ He paused, clearly trying to decide what to do. ‘Wait there.’
A few moments later there was the sound of bolts being thrown back and the steel door opened. Gambetta stuck his head out into the corridor and, having checked that it was empty, ushered her inside.
‘Are you sure I’m allowed to…?’ she began, frowning.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ he whispered, as if afraid of being overheard. ‘But I need to show somebody. Are you carrying?’
‘Yes.’ She swept her jacket back to reveal the gun holstered to her waist.
‘Pick it up on your way out.’ He tapped his desk, the determined look on his face telling her that this was one rule he clearly wasn’t prepared to turn a blind-eye to.
‘Of course.’
The room was divided into five narrow aisles by a series of floor-to-ceiling metal shelving units. Waddling unsteadily, Gambetta led her down the second aisle. Allegra blinked as she followed him, her eyes adjusting to the anaemic glow of the overhead strip lighting that was competing for ceiling space with a snaking mass of heavily lagged water pipes and colour-coded electrical cabling. Even so, she could see that the shelves were crammed with hundreds, if not thousands, of cardboard boxes and plastic evidence bags, each one sealed and diligently identified by a white tag.