by Sam Christer
He just hopes his Italian is good enough to charm someone into giving it to him.
111
Lorenzo Silvestri sits in his office, staring at Federico Assante and Louisa Verdetti.
His chair creaks under his two hundred pounds of battle-trained muscle, as he rocks on the back two legs and sizes the pair of them up.
They don’t seem hysterical and they don’t seem jerk-offs. But the story they’ve been telling is incredible.
His number two, Captain Pasquale Conti, has a reputation for double-checking everything, and so he’s far from done with them. ‘Doctor Verdetti, please tell me again, are you sure that the place these people held you was further below ground than just a basement or old wine cellar?’
Louisa’s hands are still trembling, but that doesn’t stop her being annoyed. ‘They scared me, not turned me stupid. I know where they held me. I took as much notice as I could, and it was way below ground level. They had some kind of cells there.’
‘And they did this because they wanted to kidnap this patient of yours, Anna?’
‘Anna Fratelli.’
‘And Anna’s now dead, but they don’t know it?’
Her temper is close to snapping. ‘Correct.’
‘And you have no rough idea of the location of the place where they held you?’
Louisa knows this is the biggest clue she can give them, but she has nothing. ‘I’m afraid not. I was drugged going into my apartment and the next thing I remember was waking up in the cell they kept me in. It was small and made me panic, I have some claustrophobia problems from my childhood.’
Lorenzo can see she’s distressed. ‘Are you okay, Doctor? Would you like to take a short break?’
Louisa shakes her head. ‘No. I want to get on with it.’ She just wishes this nightmare was over and she could start trying to make her life normal again.
She shuts her eyes and pictures the dark hole they held her in. ‘The place had iron bars, like you’d expect a police cell to have, but they were very old and rusty. There were no windows. No daylight. In fact, no light at all.’ She feels her heart start to race. ‘Everything was pitch black until they came along with their torches. Not the battery kind; rag torches like you see in those old cave-man movies.’
‘Primitive torches?’ queries Lorenzo.
Louisa sees them clearly. ‘Yes. I could smell the stuff, flaming rags soaked in oil or paraffin.’
Lorenzo takes it all in. These days it’s so easy to run miles of electric cable to almost anywhere you want, so there has to be a more sinister reason behind the use of old-fashioned torches.
Then there’s the location.
Either someone has made use of some old and now disused jail facility, or else they’ve gone to great lengths to create one because they regularly hold people against their will.
Pasquale resumes his questioning. ‘Doctor, do you think you were the only one who had been held there?’
Louisa hasn’t thought about that. ‘I don’t know. At one point I thought I heard voices, maybe a young woman, but I never saw her or anyone else.’ She looks flustered and is struggling to breathe normally. ‘I’m sorry, just talking about it is making me edgy. I really don’t know. It all seems like one big unbelievable nightmare to me.’
‘It’s fine. Don’t stress yourself.’ The major gives the nod to his number two to carry on with the questioning.
Pasquale continues as carefully as he can. ‘Doctor, when they moved you, you said the place you woke up in looked like it had just been decorated. Can you explain what you mean?’
Louisa takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. ‘It was more like it was in the process of being decorated. The walls had only just been plastered and smelled wet. There were dust sheets on the floor, cans of paint, and I think some kind of small machine in the middle of the room.’
Pasquale turns to Lorenzo. ‘Maybe a generator or a heater to dry out the plaster?’
‘Could be. Have someone check tool-hire shops.’
The captain presses on. ‘That’s good, that’s helpful. Did you see anything else?’
‘No. They covered my eyes and walked me out of there to a car park.’
‘How far? How far from the newly plastered place to the car?’
Louisa’s hands start to shake again. ‘Not far. They took me up a staircase, a spiral one, I think. I seemed to be doubling back on myself and I was dizzy when it levelled out. Then they walked me a few paces … to the left.’ She swallows her fear and tries hard to get the sequence right in her head. ‘I remember that as we came out into the cold, someone pulled me over to one side. We were standing on a gravel surface, or something like gravel. We didn’t go far, maybe eight, ten steps, and then they pushed me into a car.’ She corrects herself. ‘No, not a car, one of those big things. A Land Rover. I saw it when I jumped out near the church.’
Lorenzo’s impressed. ‘You’ve got good recall. A good memory.’
She smiles for the first time for a long while. ‘Grazie. It’s the medical training. If you forget little details, you end up killing someone.’
Lorenzo has to stop himself from adding that it’s the same in his job. He looks towards his colleague. ‘Get the analysts to identify all possible sites in Rome with private drive-in areas that have applied for major building permits. Have the list cross-checked with recent tool-hire sales, deliveries of plasterboard and rental of other building equipment. Check particularly to see if any of them are linked to excavation sites, old ruins, converted churches, any structures that may be attached to public buildings.’
Pasquale finishes jotting down his exhaustive list and leaves.
Lorenzo turns back to Louisa. ‘We’re going to need to ask you some more questions, but not for a while. I’ll arrange for a protection team to take you home and watch your apartment while you get changed and get some rest.’
Louisa looks drained. ‘Grazie. I’d also like to call some people, if that’s okay?’
‘Of course it is, but you mustn’t talk about what’s happened to you. This is an active operation, and our best chance of catching your kidnappers is in the next twenty-four hours. They’ll be panicking right now, covering their tracks and making mistakes, but they’ll get over that within a day or so and go back to being professional, so we have to take our chance. Do you understand?’
Louisa nods.
As she gets up to go, she catches herself looking at his hand for a wedding ring.
There’s a thick gold band around his finger.
Why is it the best ones are always taken?
112
Valentina twists her ankle for the second time and curses the never-ending stairs.
If there wasn’t a gun at her head, she’d have a tantrum that no one would ever forget.
She tries to ignore the pain and calculate how far below ground she is.
It’s harder than it sounds.
After every twenty steps, the stairs level out for a couple of paces.
Then they begin again.
The first two descents were extraordinarily steep and straight, the next five more spiral, but the steps were still stone and not metal, the kind of tight circular steps, thin in the middle and wide on the outside, that you find in an ancient bell tower.
Valentina does some maths.
So far, she’s come down more than a hundred steps.
That’s useful information.
As a cop, she’s walked the floors of many hotels during surveillance operations, and a hundred and fifty regular steps equals about five floors of the average hotel.
That’s deep.
And they’re still descending.
She just hopes there’s a big bed, flat-screen TV and heavily stocked minibar at the end of it all.
Fat chance.
Twenty steps later, the journey ends.
She can hear people around her sighing in relief.
‘Can I take that thing off her head now?’ asks the kind one. ‘She must be dying fr
om the heat.’
Someone must okay it, because Valentina feels hands working on the coat belt pulled around her neck.
It’s off.
Valentina feels good. She inhales the cool air and does her best not to look frightened or flustered. If she appears relaxed, then it will make them relax, and relaxed criminals often make mistakes.
By the look of it, they’re in some kind of wine cellar.
A large open space with little gated alcoves.
Valentina realises her first impression is wrong.
Very wrong.
The place is lit by old-fashioned torches, burning in special metal holders on the walls, and the gated alcoves aren’t gated alcoves at all.
They’re cells.
Off to her left, she spots a child in what looks like a white nightdress, curled up on the floor near the bars of one of the cells.
For the first time, she starts to panic.
There’s no way that they’re going to let her see this and then allow her to go free.
No way on earth.
113
Once Louisa is out of his office, Lorenzo Silvestri speaks more openly to Federico. ‘We’ve issued alerts for your captain, but so far there’s no trace of her. Are you sure she went into the church after she left you at the car?’
‘Pretty certain. I waited as she asked me to, and I watched her go through the courtyard and head to the fountain. I couldn’t see beyond there.’
‘Then you drove off?’
‘Yes. That’s what she wanted me to do. I guess she thought the rain would be a good excuse for me to be in the car and not at the fountain. She probably figured that would buy her and Tom time to get to Louisa.’
‘From all accounts it seems this Tom put on a good show,’ observes Lorenzo. ‘You said he is her partner?’
Federico feels awkward. ‘Yes, sir, they go back to when Captain Morassi was based in Venice. I think they’ve been friends for a long time.’
The major is more interested in the logistics of what happened than in their social lives. ‘Just a shame they didn’t stay together outside Santa Cecilia instead of Morassi compromising herself by going into the church alone.’
Federico feels guilty that he was stranded in the car as the decoy while all hell was breaking loose. ‘Sir, if they’re still holding her, do you think it’s likely to be in the same place they kept Louisa?’
‘That’s logical. Let’s hope they only have one underground playpen, or else we’re in trouble. Rome is a big city.’
Federico can’t help but ask the question: ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’
‘There’s a good chance. She was no doubt taken because they think she can help them get to Anna, but we have to be realistic. Once they realise they’ve been tricked, your captain becomes a real problem. A problem they will have to get rid of.’
Federico’s phone rings.
‘Take it,’ says Lorenzo.
He fishes his cell out of his pocket. ‘Pronto.’
‘Federico, this is Tom, Tom Shaman.’
‘Tom, hang on, let me put you on speakerphone.’ He fiddles with the function and holds the phone between himself and Lorenzo. ‘This is Valentina’s partner.’ He places the phone in the middle of the major’s desk. ‘Tom, I’m in a room with Major Silvestri from the Carabinieri’s special operations unit. They were called in to take control of the operation at Santa Cecilia.’
Tom’s a little thrown that Federico is not on his own. ‘Okay.’
‘Have you heard from Valentina?’ asks Federico.
His spirits fall. ‘That’s what I was calling you about. Is she not with you?’
‘No.’
‘Tom, this is Lorenzo Silvestri. We’re searching for her. Where are you at the moment? Can you come and talk to us?’
Tom is reluctant to do that. The Carabinieri suspended Valentina, so he’s not entirely sure he can trust them. There’s also the fact that the man next to him left his knife sticking in the heart of one of Louisa’s kidnappers. ‘I’m across town; I’m not quite sure where, to be honest.’
‘That’s not a problem. We’re on Via di Ponte Salario, a little north of Villa Borghese. We’d like you to come over here as quickly as possible to help us find Valentina.’
Tom covers the mouthpiece so his answer is muffled. ‘I’m sorry, Major, I’m having trouble hearing you. I’ll call back.’
The line goes dead.
Lorenzo leans across the table and flicks the phone towards Federico. ‘Call him back straight away.’
Federico picks it up, searches the call log for the last received number and dials it.
‘Straight to voicemail,’ he says.
Lorenzo looks annoyed. ‘We have to talk to this guy, urgently.’ He shoots Federico a stern look. ‘We’ve got a dead body on the ground near the church. Could he have done that?’
‘I’m not sure. He’s a big guy and he’s handy enough, but he doesn’t strike me as the violent type.’
Lorenzo’s not so sure. ‘Paramedics pulled a knife out of the dead guy’s heart. Did you ever see Tom carry a weapon?’
Federico shakes his head. ‘I’m sure he didn’t. Listen, I really don’t think you can look at Tom for that. It’s just not his style. Valentina told me he used to be a priest.’
‘Some priest.’
Federico doesn’t see any point arguing, They’re searching for suspects and he’d be saying the same things if he was on the other side of the table. For now, though, he has a question of his own. ‘Major, are you going to inform the serious crime unit about this? I mean, isn’t this something that Major Caesario and his team have to be apprised of and involved in?’
Lorenzo gives him a relaxed smile. ‘Is that what you want, Lieutenant? ROS has the authority to run this as a contained operation; do you really want me to wake Caesario from his slumber in the officers’ club and have him slow things down? Or would you prefer to help me clean up his shit and then us take the credit with the Commandante Generale?’
114
Tom stares at the phone he’s just turned off.
If Valentina is missing and not traceable by the Carabinieri, then she’s either dead or she’s been abducted by the same people who took Louisa.
She’s smart and tough.
If she’s alive, she’ll buy time for herself, but not much. Guilio is the only one who knows anything about the sect and has any chance of leading him to Valentina, but he’s not going to want to cooperate with the cops, and he’s certainly not going to be helpful if he learns that Anna is dead.
The young eunuch is staring at Tom and gets bored of waiting. ‘What is it? Is Anna all right?’
‘No, no, she’s not. I’m afraid I can’t take you to her.’
Guilio looks shaken. ‘What?’
‘That was Federico Assante, the lieutenant who interviewed you. He’s sitting with members of the Carabinieri’s special operations group and he wants me to go over there and help them find the place you mentioned. The place where Anna and Louisa were held and where they now think Valentina, Captain Morassi, is also being held.’
‘They’ve got her as well? I don’t understand.’
Tom can see he’s confused. Good. He needs him to stay that way for a while. ‘As you know, everything went wrong back there at the church. What matters now is that we tell the Carabinieri how to get inside the place you called “the womb” so they can clean up and save lives.’
Guilio falls silent. His anguish is visible as he tries to work out the consequences. ‘I can’t. If I go anywhere near them, the Carabinieri will arrest me again. My prints are all over that knife.’ He pauses. ‘Whoever it was attacking you, I’m sure I killed him.’
Tom can see that the thought distresses him. ‘They’ll understand. It was self-defence. You were doing what you thought was right and saving me from being killed.’
Guilio paces nervously. ‘I can’t. I can’t go to the cops. I have a long record; they’ll throw the book at me an
d lock me up for ever. You don’t know what they’re like.’
‘What’s the alternative?’ asks Tom. ‘We can’t just sit here doing nothing. This thing has to end, and we have to end it.’
‘We can do that. I know how we can end things, but you’ll have to help me and you’ll have to promise not to call the cops in. No cops, absolutely no cops. Right?’
Tom nods.
‘Va bene.’ He bites anxiously at his thumbnail and becomes lost in a fresh worry. ‘What we’re going to have to do is dangerous. You may have to kill to get Valentina back. Kill or be killed. Are you prepared to do that? Because if you’re not, if this woman doesn’t matter that much to you, then you’d best tell me now.’
Tom’s mind flashes back to his life in Compton. To the time he stepped into a late-night street fight and took the lives of two gangbangers who were raping a young woman. Their deaths still haunt him.
He sees the men’s faces in his sleep and often imagines whether they might have straightened out their lives if only he’d used a little less force and managed to get them jailed instead of buried.
‘Yes,’ he says reluctantly. ‘If it’s really necessary, then I’m prepared to take the life of a bad person in order to save that of a good one.’
115
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Shooter has a cocky smile on his face. ‘And you’re right.’ He gestures towards the other cells. ‘We can’t let you go after you’ve seen this.’
He’s a few paces away from Valentina, almost at the back of the three women who’ve come down with them.
As he walks towards her, she wonders what’s happened to Trench Coat, the man someone called Attis. He must have stayed above ground for medical treatment.
‘Life down here is not so bad.’ Shooter is now so close to Valentina that all she can see of him is his piercing blue eyes. ‘Let’s put it this way, it’s much better than death down here.’
Behind her, Valentina hears the sound of someone unlocking one of the cells.
Her cell.
‘How we treat you is entirely dependent upon you.’ He takes her arm and pushes her towards the dark opening.
