by LJ Ross
Then, eased his foot off the accelerator and brought the car to a complete stop.
Up ahead, there was a sudden crash and a cloud of smoke, like a bag of flour exploding as the motorcycle and its driver collided headlong with the front-end of a lorry on the crossroads in front of him.
Ryan sat there for long minutes, registering the long wail of police vehicles as they swarmed in from several directions. A moment later, his door flew open and another gun was pointed at his face; this time it belonged to the Carabinieri, the military police who kept order in the city.
Ryan raised his hands slowly and stepped out of the car.
CHAPTER 45
“You are a hero, Sergeant Phillips.”
Phillips turned a deep shade of puce as several sets of police eyes turned on him, then he waved away the compliment with a broad hand.
“Ah, get away. I only did what anyone else would have done.”
“I think not,” Ricci said, nodding towards the television screen in his office at the Gruppo’s headquarters, where a recording of Phillips’ bravery had been taken by one of the tourists in the Piazza Duomo and was now being replayed on the local and national news. “You are to be congratulated.”
“Why, I’ve seen worse than that on a frisky night out in the Bigg Market,” Phillips said.
“The Bigg Market?” Ricci enquired.
“Don’t ask,” MacKenzie said, and Ricci gave one of his shrugs.
“Nico Bellucci died instantly,” he said. “But you tell me that was not his real name?”
“No, it was—”
Phillips cut off when as the door opened again and his friend stepped inside.
“You are like a cat with nine lives,” Ricci declared, and then gave Ryan a very continental embrace which left him taken aback. “We are glad to see you.”
Ryan gave the inspector an awkward pat and then, uncaring of who might see, walked straight across to Phillips.
“Frank, I don’t know how to—”
“Howay man, don’t you start n’all.”
Ryan held out his hand to shake his friend’s and then did some embracing of his own, pulling Phillips in for a manly hug.
“You’re the best there is,” he said gruffly. “I’m in your debt.”
“There’s no debt,” Phillips muttered, clearing his throat.
Ryan nodded, then stepped away again to face the room.
“The gunman has been taken to hospital,” he said. “It’s not looking good.”
“Banotti is there,” Ricci said. “She’ll keep us informed of any change on that front, but she says he’s already been identified as an associate of the Spatuzzi family.”
They had suspected as much.
“There’s only one person who could have told them about Nico Bellucci’s real identity,” Ryan said. “Armstrong is the only other person who could possibly have known.”
“There is no way to prove that,” Ricci said, though it gave him little pleasure. “Nobody in the Spatuzzi family will talk; nor will the gunman, if he survives to talk at all. We are at another dead end.”
“Before he died, Nico—real name, Tony Manetti—confessed to killing several people in a wider campaign of vengeance against Nathan Armstrong. Unfortunately, he died before telling me the full list of those he murdered. But he did tell me all about Armstrong.”
Ryan spent the next few minutes briefing the assembled police staff on all that Manetti had shared, during their brief acquaintance.
“Merda,” Ricci said, sinking into his desk chair. “The most we could do is charge Armstrong with the illegal disposal of a body…except, there is still no proof that he is the one to have disposed of the people Manetti left waiting for him. If we were to ask him about it, Armstrong would surely deny all knowledge.”
“What about the DNA sampling in Armstrong’s apartment, after my attack?” Ryan asked. “Did you find any unusual samples?”
“There were dozens,” Ricci said. “Some belonging to Armstrong—others belonging to Manetti, we may now find. There were also several blood samples belonging to Martina Calari but Armstrong is sure to say it was all Manetti’s work.”
“And we still don’t have anything to pin on Armstrong and take to the Crown Prosecution Service, back home,” MacKenzie pointed out. “He’ll walk, again.”
Just then, Ryan’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket.
Anna, the display read.
“Give me a minute,” he said, and stepped outside into the corridor.
* * *
“Ryan, are you alright? I saw the news—”
Anna clutched one of the telephones at the Villa Lucia, telling herself to stay calm.
“I’m fine,” he said, and it was true. He felt instantly better, simply hearing her voice.
“I had a meeting with Manetti and he told me his story but, as I was about to bring him in, the mafia hit him. We think they were tipped off by Armstrong.”
“He was shot?”
“Right in front of me,” Ryan murmured. He still had blood spattered down the front of his shirt, although he’d stopped by the gents to rinse off his face and hands.
“That’s awful,” she muttered. “What happens now?”
Ryan rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
“I don’t know,” he said, struggling to see a way forward. “Manetti said that Armstrong has things in his possession—or at least he had them—belonging to Andrew Wharton, Manetti’s boyfriend who was killed back in 1998. He told me Wharton wrote Il Mostro and took a deal Armstrong offered him to sell all his rights and to keep schtum about the fact he’d been the one to write it.”
There was a short silence.
“That explains it,” Anna said. “The quality of his writing in Il Mostro is significantly better than in some of his other books. It seems obvious now that someone else must have written it.”
“Ghost-writing is fairly common,” Ryan said. “But Armstrong has built a reputation off the back of his genius. The last thing he would ever want is word getting out that he’s a fraud. It sounds like Andrew Wharton might have written to him, maybe threatened him, and Armstrong paid him a personal visit to shut him up, once and for all.”
“If you’d told me this last year, before Kielder and before Duncan Gray, I’d never have believed it,” she said. “But now I do; I believe Armstrong is capable of that.”
“I do, too. And we have to imagine Armstrong twenty years ago. His career was really sky-rocketing, thanks to Andrew’s book. He’d been offered a film deal, all kinds of prestige, and that was only the beginning. No way a psychopath like him would give it all up, not when he’d had a taste of the Big Time.”
“This needs to be put right,” Anna said. “For the sake of the man’s memory, the world needs to know.”
“That’s how Manetti felt,” Ryan said. “But how the hell am I supposed to track down a twenty-year-old typewriter? It could be anywhere.”
“The one in Armstrong’s photograph?” Anna said, joining the dots without a pause.
“Yeah, Manetti said it has Italian keys and Wharton’s DNA might still be on it, if we’re lucky. I just don’t know where to find it.”
“Kielder,” Anna said, immediately. “Armstrong has his house at Scribe’s End locked up tight. You only do that if there’s something valuable inside, or if you have something to hide, because the crime rate is so low in that area he could practically leave his door open and nobody would think to walk inside.”
Ryan nodded, the light of battle beginning to shine once again in his eyes.
“Anna?”
“Yep?”
“What would I do without you?”
“Lord only knows,” she said. “Now, get your arse in gear and bring home the bacon.”
Ryan laughed but asked one last question.
“By the way, did you manage to get everything sorted out today?”
Her voice lowered conspiratorially.
“Everything’s on track.
”
* * *
When Ryan stepped back into Ricci’s office, he looked amongst their expectant faces and they recognised his expression as being one of total focus, signalling he had come to a decision.
“I have an idea,” he said. “It’s risky and time-sensitive, but it just might work. Ricci, what’s Armstrong’s last public engagement in the city?”
“A book signing at a shop on the Piazza della Republica,” the other man replied. “He is scheduled to appear from two o’clock this afternoon until around three-thirty, following which he will travel to his next destination.”
“Do you know where he plans to go?”
Ricci nodded.
“I looked into it,” he said. “His book tour will have finished but it seems he plans to stay in Italy—he’s due to catch the seven-thirty train to Naples.”
“I need him on UK soil,” Ryan said bluntly. “Where I can make an arrest without all the added hoopla.”
Ricci weighed things up in the seconds it took him to come to his own decision. They could argue over jurisdiction later and, ultimately, Ryan’s team had a prior claim that was much bigger than anything he might be able to pin on Armstrong.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“I need Armstrong to show his hand but, to make that happen, all I need right now is a telephone.”
CHAPTER 46
At two o’clock exactly, Nathan Armstrong took his seat at a table brimming with copies of the twentieth-anniversary edition of Il Mostro and wondered idly whether his book-to-film agent had managed to secure a decent offer for the proposed remake, starring some of the most popular names in the film industry of the day. It would top off what was already shaping up to be an excellent day, since he’d already caught the morning news reporting the mafia assassination of Nico Bellucci, a respected Florentine art dealer.
Since nothing had been mentioned of the man’s real name, he could only assume one of two things: either that the police had failed to uncover it, or that they were keeping it under wraps while they investigated further.
But what could they investigate? The man was dead and would no longer exist on the fringe of Armstrong’s otherwise perfect life. There would be no more bodies turning up to deal with, no more sneaking about or covering his tracks.
He’d get a full night’s sleep, for a change—and that would do wonders for his skin.
Armstrong continued to sign books, chatting and smiling with the queue of fans who had lined up to meet him in person. He listened to their stories and laughed along with their jokes, brushing off their compliments with as much modesty as he could muster.
An hour or more passed and the line began to dwindle. He was looking forward to leaving Florence and all its cares behind, but the practised smile he had ready for the next person in line froze on his face when he caught sight of who that person was.
Ryan.
* * *
“What the hell are you doing here?” Armstrong muttered, keeping his smile in place for the benefit of anybody who might see.
“Same as everyone else,” Ryan said, cheerfully, and picked up one of the books stacked on the table.
He flipped it over and smiled.
“Nice cover,” he remarked. “Very eye-catching.”
“Thank you,” Armstrong gritted out. “Now, if you’ve had your fun, I have a line of real fans waiting to meet me.”
“Oh, but I am a real fan of the book,” Ryan averred. “I thought it was a very good read. Quite different in style to some of your other works.”
“A literary critic now, are you?” Armstrong drawled. “You must be exhausted, Ryan, with so many strings to your bow.”
“Oh, not as exhausted as you must be,” Ryan said softly. “There must have been quite a few late nights, over the past couple of months.”
“That’s to be expected, when one is travelling on an international book tour,” Armstrong shot back.
Ryan smiled.
“Tell me, Nathan, how did you write Il Mostro? Was it on a computer, or on something more old-fashioned, like a typewriter?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course, and Ryan had already checked whether Armstrong had answered the question before. He had, numerous times over the years—on television, radio and in the press.
Each time, he confirmed a typewriter had been used.
“I used a typewriter,” Armstrong bit out. “Now—”
“Not an Olivetti Ico Model 2, from the 1930s?”
Armstrong was silent.
“Strange that it should be an Italian brand, rather than an English one. They’re very rare,” Ryan continued. “Dealers tend to keep a record of their sale. But then, I’m sure you bought yours while you were in Italy…perhaps, even, when you were here researching.”
Ryan let that sink in and then looked down at the book he still held in his hand.
“Well, look at that,” Ryan exclaimed. “Here’s a picture of you sitting right beside it.”
Armstrong continued to stare at him, silently processing the implications of what had been, he now realised, a catastrophic oversight.
“I haven’t used it in years,” Armstrong managed. “Technology has moved on so much since the nineties. I have no idea where it is, now. Probably in a charity shop, somewhere.”
Ryan shrugged.
“Pity,” he said, then handed over the book for Armstrong to autograph. Who knew? It might be worth something, someday.
* * *
As soon as Ryan left, Armstrong leapt up from the table and scurried out of the bookshop, leaving a small crowd of disappointed readers behind him as he hurried directly to the airport, hailing a cab on the street outside.
They didn’t matter, he thought. Nothing mattered except getting back to Kielder before Ryan could.
In the back of the taxi, he put a call through to the airline. He had his passport on him at all times—force of habit, he supposed—and his wallet. He didn’t need anything else, for now; that could wait.
The first available flight from Florence to Newcastle left in two hours, with a changeover in Paris. In the meantime, he brought up the app on his smartphone and checked the CCTV cameras and security system wired to his house, which he was able to monitor remotely.
No trespassers recorded.
No break in coverage since the last time he’d checked.
There was still time.
* * *
Ryan’s flight from Pisa to Newcastle was a direct one and departed in ninety minutes. The journey from the Villa Lucia to Pisa Airport would take fifty minutes in good traffic—forty, since Ryan was driving. That left him around forty-five minutes to check in and get through security but, if he made it, Ryan would arrive in Newcastle an hour ahead of Armstrong. Inspector Ricci had already received a call from one of the airlines to say that their person of interest had just booked himself a flight to Newcastle and luck was on their side in that he hadn’t thought to try Pisa Airport instead.
“So far, so good,” Ryan muttered, shoving his passport into the small rucksack Anna had packed for him.
“Be careful,” she said.
Ryan slung the rucksack over his shoulder and simply walked across the room to take her in his arms for a breathless kiss.
“I’ll be back in time,” he promised.
“You better be,” she said. “I love you.”
“Same goes, Doctor.”
As he made for the front door, Phillips and MacKenzie joined him in the hallway, bags in hand.
“Ready,” Phillips said. “Are we getting a taxi?”
“Sorry, Frank, there was only one seat left on the flight,” Ryan lied. “Here, take these.”
He chucked a set of keys to the villa towards his friend, who caught them one-handed.
“Look after things while I’m gone,” he said.
“We could catch the next flight out,” MacKenzie offered. “We’ll only be a few hours behind.”
“No need,” Ryan told her, in the most
authoritative tone he could muster. “I’ve got the team back at CID on standby, so everything’s covered. Might as well enjoy yourselves until Morrison finds out.”
And, with the flash of a smile, he was gone.
CHAPTER 47
As soon as they’d received confirmation that Armstrong was airborne and that his phone would not be connected to the internet, a team of CSIs led by Tom Faulkner entered Armstrong’s house at Kielder, in Northumberland. Kielder Forest and Reservoir was a place they knew well, following a series of murders that had taken place a few months earlier that had been their first introduction to Nathan Armstrong.
Kielder lay to the west of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, past rolling countryside, and consisted of a vast forest—not unlike the size and scale of those found in North America—with trees towering all around an enormous man-made reservoir. Armstrong owned a house on one of its southern banks, on a secluded bluff known as ‘Scribe’s End’, in honour of its illustrious owner. The old stone hunting lodge was accessible only by a footpath from the road or by motorboat, affording total privacy from the rest of the world. It was also protected by a sophisticated alarm system and numerous CCTV cameras fixed to the tall trees which surrounded the house and were cleverly positioned to capture the entry points from every angle.
They chose to enter via one of the French windows to the rear of the property, which opened out from a large living space directly onto yards of decking with a sheer drop onto the water and the short jetty which moored Armstrong’s small rowing boat.
“Quickly now,” Faulkner said, as one of their police consultants—a former master thief turned security specialist—unlocked the door with a practised hand.
Immediately, the silent alarm was triggered and he hurried into the house to find the main control box. If all went to plan, he’d be able to reset the system and remove all trace of their intrusion so that Armstrong would never know they’d been there.
