by LJ Ross
“Ryan? I thought I made myself clear—”
Ricci eyed him with frank suspicion.
“Just listen,” Ryan said, and dodged a man cycling at speed along the pavement. The road was entirely clear of traffic but that didn’t seem to make any difference, so he counted himself lucky not to have sustained a broken ankle and focused on the task in hand.
“I’ve come to apologise.”
Ricci gave him a searching look.
“For flouting procedure or for embarrassing my department?”
“Both,” Ryan answered, without hesitation. “I was frustrated because things were moving more slowly than I’d like and, instead of waiting for your approval, I took matters into my own hands. It was presumptuous, and I apologise unreservedly.”
Ricci scratched a thumbnail against his freshly-shaven jaw and then reached for his sunglasses to ease the early-morning glare of sunlight as it streamed through the streets and alleyways.
“I am not so stupid as to believe what you have just told me,” he drawled. “You forget, my friend; you and I are the same. Do you imagine I have never made a similar speech?”
Ryan said nothing and fell into step beside Ricci as he began to walk slowly in the direction of the gardens and the centre of the city.
“You’re hoping to remain a part of our investigation.”
“Yes,” Ryan said, deciding honesty was best.
Ricci sighed.
“You must understand that things are different here—”
“Murder is the same the world over,” Ryan said, softly.
They were silent for a minute or two as they continued to walk along one of the long Florentine streets shielded from the sun by the tall buildings on either side, passing tiny shops that were little more than hatches out onto the street, selling coffee and pastries to early-morning commuters. As they came to the southern side of the Ponte Vecchio, Ryan realised that Ricci had steered them in the general direction of the Uffizi Gallery, which spread out along the northern bank of the River Arno, directly on the other side of the bridge. Ryan turned to look at him with a question in his eyes.
Ricci gave one of his little shrugs.
“Don’t make me regret this decision,” he said, and the two men crossed the bridge to go in search of CCTV footage.
* * *
While Ryan digested a generous portion of humble pie, Anna swallowed the last of a delicious breakfast served up by Magda on the terrace at the Villa Lucia.
“Have you ever considered emigrating to England?” she asked, hopefully.
The other woman laughed richly.
“You need feeding up,” she said, in a motherly tone. “Too skinny.”
After the meal she’d just enjoyed, Anna thought she may never be able to eat again.
“Do you have children, Magda?”
The housekeeper’s hands stilled as she helped Anna to collect the plates, then busied themselves again.
“I did.”
Anna looked up sharply, but Magda was already turning away and walking back inside. She followed her at a slower pace, wondering whether she should say anything further. She found Magda clattering around the sparkling marble kitchen loading a dishwasher with an assortment of crockery and leaned down to help.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I asked the wrong question.”
Magda only shook her head, but turned away to look out of the window and across the gardens.
“My son died a long time ago.”
With that, she turned and walked back outside to retrieve the remaining tableware and Anna left her to it, unwilling to press an already open wound. Perhaps, once they knew one another better, Magda would choose to confide in her.
Until that time, there was work to be done.
Anna made her way into one of the living rooms where she had already laid out a series of books about the history of Florence and several true-crime volumes about the so-called Mostro that had inspired Armstrong’s book of the same name. She might not be a detective, she thought, but she knew how to research. While Ryan focused on gathering evidential facts, she would focus on learning about the terrain and its history, its people and the tunnels and passageways that made up the city, with particular reference to the area around the Uffizi Gallery.
Things were seldom as they appeared on the surface.
CHAPTER 23
The Uffizi Gallery was one of the largest and most famous art museums in the world, located in the historic centre of the city of Florence. It consisted of two enormous wings separated by a narrow courtyard looking out towards the River Arno through a screen of Doric columns, and had begun life as an office complex commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici in 1560. Now, it drew in over two million visitors each year to view its extensive collection and, as he stepped inside the courtyard, it seemed to Ryan that half of that annual number had turned up already, judging by the heaving mass of tourists waiting outside its front doors.
“There is a booking system to regulate the numbers who enter,” Ricci said, catching sight of Ryan’s expression. “You grow used to it.”
Ryan thought of the quiet of Northumberland with its hills and seascapes, and felt a sharp pang of homesickness. He missed the mellow, misty fields and rugged coastline where he and Anna had been married the year before, and which suited his temperament so well. Florence was beautiful, undoubtedly, but it was not home.
“Which way?” was all he said.
“Follow me,” Ricci replied. “Sergeant Banotti is speaking with the local authorities to gather footage from the street cameras to see where Martina went, after leaving her work at the museum. Let’s see if we can find out what happened while she was here.”
He led Ryan up a set of stairs towards the entrance. The route took them past a group of wide-eyed teenagers wearing identical green backpacks who, catching sight of the tall, good-looking stranger, proceeded to giggle uproariously.
Ricci glanced back at the look of confused horror on his new friend’s face.
“Come quickly, before you’re mobbed,” he said, with a chuckle.
Ricci spoke with the museum’s Head of Security and they found themselves ushered inside the Uffizi’s hallowed walls fifteen minutes before its official opening time. The small, square-shouldered man introduced himself as Matteo Alfonsi and led them through a discreet doorway to the left of the main entrance and along a corridor to the security office. Although Ryan could have followed the conversation in Italian, he was impressed when Ricci indicated that they should speak in English.
It was a small enough gesture, but he noted it all the same.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Ricci said, as they entered an impressive, high-tech facility. Banks of gleaming screens were stacked three or four rows high and he counted five security guards manning them, presumably divided up into different zones of the museum.
“Martina is my daughter’s age,” Matteo replied, and didn’t bother to elaborate. The hard look in his eye told them, more than words ever could, how he might act if somebody had taken his child. “What do you need from me?”
If only it were always this easy, Ryan thought.
“Martina was reported missing after six last night,” Ricci said. “According to our contact at the publishing house who are hosting a party at the gallery tonight, two of their team were here with Martina until five-fifteen yesterday evening, discussing the final arrangements. They say that, when they left, she stayed on to lock up the event space and speak to suppliers. There’s a gap in time, then her fiancé called to file a Missing Persons Report after she failed to pick up their toddler from the crèche after finishing work at six.”
“What time did he call?”
Ricci looked uncomfortable.
“At around seven o’clock,” he admitted. “He was told to wait a while longer by the Control Room, but he was adamant Martina would never have left their daughter that way.”
And yet, Ricci hadn’t told him the woman had been reported missi
ng until just before the anonymous tip-off had come through, Ryan thought.
A full three hours later.
“It’s a bad business,” Matteo remarked, as if he’d heard Ryan’s thoughts. “There must be something on the cameras. Let me see what I can do.”
“The party is taking place in the Western Corridor on the second floor,” Ryan pointed out. “It would make sense to check the cameras immediately around there, first.”
Matteo nodded, then turned to the other security personnel in the room and clapped his hands.
“I need to see the footage from last night between, let’s say, five o’clock and six-thirty. All sectors, starting with the Western Corridor, as quick as you can.”
While Matteo moved off to walk along the line of screens, Ryan turned to Ricci and spoke in an undertone.
“What about the telephone companies? What efforts have been made to trace her mobile phone? Is it still transmitting?”
Ricci held up a hand to fend off further questions.
“I spoke to Martina’s fiancé late last night and, before you ask, he was at work surrounded by dozens of people, until he received a call from his daughter’s crèche to ask why nobody had collected her. He gave me Martina’s number and we will be contacting the telephone company this morning,” he paused to check his watch.
Eight-fifty.
“It may be too early in the day, but we are moving as quickly as we can on that score.”
Ryan stuck his hands in the pockets of his lightweight trousers and told himself to stay calm. He knew from long experience it could be a tedious, bureaucratic task eliciting data from outside organisations; it was the same problem where he came from.
“I don’t understand it!”
Both men turned at the sound of Matteo’s anxious voice and the exchange of fast-flowing Italian that followed as several guards began to speak at once.
Ryan strode across the room and put a steadying hand on the older man’s arm.
“La questione? What’s the matter?”
“The recordings…the files, they are corrupted. There is nothing from last night, at all.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” Ricci asked.
“Nothing! Nothing!” The man made a gesture like sand falling through his fingers. “The recording is fine again after midnight and throughout this morning but there is nothing at all left of yesterday. It is a major incident.”
Matteo looked as though he might keel over, so Ryan urged him into one of the chairs nearby and pulled up one for himself, so he could lean in and speak closely to the Head of Security.
“Tell us, Matteo, who was on shift yesterday?”
The man held a hand to his forehead.
“Ah—myself, Gabriella, Marco…I can get the full list for you, signore, but first we need to check the museum, in case anything has been taken. This happened before, many years ago, and valuable paintings were stolen…”
“I understand,” Ryan told him. “Do what you have to do to make the area safe, then come back and speak to us. Alright?”
He looked up at Ricci, who nodded his agreement.
“Grazie,” Matteo muttered, and heaved himself up again to instigate a room-by-room check of the premises.
While the others in the room talked animatedly about past security breaches and the possibility of foreign sabotage, Ryan and Ricci stood at the back of it all, surveying the empty screens.
“This is a breakthrough,” Ryan decided.
“You can’t be serious,” Ricci scoffed. “This is a disaster. The artworks, the integrity of the museum…it will all come under public scrutiny, now. There are many private benefactors as well as the pieces donated by the Medici in perpetuity.”
“I like art as much as the next person,” Ryan snapped. “But I like people a lot more. I couldn’t give a shit about the paintings, Alessandro. I’m talking about the fact that whoever took Martina Calari has shown themselves, now.”
“How?” Ricci muttered. “They’ve shown us nothing.”
“Firstly,” Ryan ticked the points off on his fingers, “if there was any doubt before, it seems much more likely that Martina has been taken against her will, rather than simply going AWOL for a few hours. Secondly, tampering with a security system as sophisticated as this one tells us that whoever we’re looking for is equally sophisticated.”
He thought immediately of Armstrong’s holiday home back in Northumberland, which was brimming with gadgetry and an expensive CCTV system that must have cost many thousands of pounds to install and operate remotely from his smartphone. Home security was one thing, but the man lived as though his address was Fort Knox.
“Thirdly,” Ryan continued, “it tells us the action was premeditated. He or she had to have known about the kind of system likely to be in place before setting out to take Martina, who wasn’t any random pick, either. They must have known where she would be and what her appointments schedule looked like.”
Ricci’s eyes strayed to the huddle of security personnel chatting amongst themselves.
“Yes,” Ryan agreed. “We need to look at all of them, especially those who were on shift yesterday. That said, it’s easy enough to hack into an integrated system remotely, once you know what you’re dealing with. I’d want to know who’s seen the inside of this room, or who’s been asking questions about the level of security.”
“All of Florentine society is coming to the event later this evening,” Ricci told him. “Many have private security who will have liaised with the team here, ahead of time. It’s usual procedure.”
“Then I want their names,” Ryan said. “A list of everybody who so much as asked what was behind this door.”
Ricci nodded.
“Perhaps the street cameras will be able to give us something,” he said. “Whoever took Martina may have been able to wipe the cameras inside the museum, but it would have been impossible to do the same with every CCTV camera in the city. There must have been a car or some form of transport waiting outside—”
“We need a map of the museum,” Ryan cut in. “Showing all possible exits. It would have been dark after six but, all the same, there are people on the street to see if Martina had been taken against her will.”
Ricci made a rocking motion with his hand.
“We have no way of knowing whether the woman was drugged, in which case she might have appeared the worse for wear after one too many glasses of wine. Nobody notices that sort of thing, except in passing.”
Ryan had to admit that was true, but then thought of Armstrong’s palazzo apartment, situated virtually around the corner.
“Ask Sergeant Banotti to request the CCTV from the south and western ends of the gallery,” he said. “They’re the most likely routes he’d have taken.”
Ricci frowned.
“It may not have been Armstrong who did this. It seems fantastic to believe he would jeopardise his position in this way.”
“Let’s err on the side of history, shall we?” Ryan replied. “We’re not dealing with an ordinary man.”
“She may still be alive, my friend. It’s possible.”
Ryan remained silent and, as if he had conjured it, Ricci’s phone began to ring. He heard snatches of the conversation that followed and watched the changing expression on the inspector’s face, hardening his heart against the bad news that was to come.
Ricci ended the call with his sergeant and took his time slipping his phone back into his pocket before he looked up and into Ryan’s shuttered face.
“That was Sergeant Banotti,” he said, needlessly. “A body has been found, washed up on the riverbank near the Passerella dell’ Isolotto. It is a pedestrian bridge connecting the Isolotto district of Florence with Cascine Park,” he explained.
“Is it her?”
“There has been no formal identification yet,” Ricci started to trill out the party line, then stopped himself. There was no need for pretence between them. “It matches the description of Martina, yes. Banotti
is on her way there now and will oversee the transfer of the body to the mortuary within the hour.”
“We’ll meet her there,” Ryan said.
Ricci nodded.
“If we presume the body is Martina and it was dumped into the river, we need to see the CCTV footage. The question is, how would a killer remove her from the Uffizi without being seen?”
How did Armstrong get her to his apartment without being seen? Ryan amended, privately.
It was the multi-million-dollar question.
CHAPTER 24
“Look, son. I don’t think you understand what I mean when I say, ‘stottie cake’.”
MacKenzie walked back into CID after her meeting with Chief Constable Morrison and came to an abrupt stop beside Phillips’ desk. He appeared to be engaged in a heated debate with an unknown caller on the topic of baked goods, which had nothing whatsoever to do with murder or serious crime.
At least, she sincerely hoped not.
“No. No, it’s not a cake, it’s a bread. No, not like soda bread. Naht, it’s not a scone, either. Imagine the King of all Breads. The fluffiest, lightest, tastiest…no, man, it’s not a pitta. We’re gannin’ from bad to worse, here—”
MacKenzie tapped a finger against her watch and rolled her eyes.
“Alreet, listen. Just hold off on the stotties for now and I’ll call you back later.”
Phillips set the desk phone back into its holder with a little more force than was necessary, then made a raspberry sound with his lips.
“Trying to arrange a decent caterer for this wedding is like gannin’ on a quest for the Holy Grail,” he complained. “What kind of self-respecting chef doesn’t know what a stottie cake is?”
