by Aidan Conway
Seventy-Five
“… and how is our ‘Lucrezia’?” she asked.
“Safe and sound. Under lock and key. As for my trinkets?”
“Safe and sound too. ‘The Courier’ did his job to the letter. So, when shall we arrange the handover?”
“At a moment of your convenience,” he replied. “When things have settled down.”
“Settled down for the time being,” she replied in a tone of mild, subservient rebuke.
“Quite. Yet, you know I feel quite lost without my cardinal’s ring. Even if I cannot flaunt it any longer.”
“Well, it was crucial, for our gambit.”
“As was the diary. And the letter. Strokes of genius and a great Victory, one might say,” and to underline his irony he almost laughed.
“It was enough that all the props we planted were noticed then withdrawn from the scene,” she said. “Out of the way of other prying eyes.”
“It’s as well they were not subtracted by the spy in question. They were wise enough not to raise suspicions.”
“Well-drilled, yes. But not wise enough to know that we were tracking their every move.”
“And yet they came quite close.”
“They managed to cause us some inconvenience.”
“One cannot stage-manage everything, my dear. No doubt you had the now-deceased African on a short leash.”
“As soon as he began courting the journalist, Iannelli,” she confirmed, “we never let him out of our sight. That’s secret service training for you. Don’t give them an inch. We’re good at that in Italy. It’s why terror attacks are usually on our terms.”
“Yet one cannot know their every move, their every thought.”
“A more decisive outcome might have served our interests, in terms of a body count. But we shan’t complain.”
“One lives and learns,” he said. “The best laid plans … I see you spared the inspector, however, to fight another day.”
“For now,” she said. “He’s become something of a hero, so one must tread a little more carefully and our sometimes friend the President would have been a witness. I hardly need to tell you about honour among thieves. Besides, Rossi is in many ways more useful alive.”
“Well, tell me Agente Marini! Do tell me this. How does it feel to be immortal once again?”
There was a pause as a cloud of exhaled cigarette smoke enveloped the receiver and her lips moved just a little closer.
“I believe, Eccellenza, I could put that very same question to you.”
Epilogue
Olivia stood for a moment on the pavement outside the organization’s offices. The day was fine, infinite in its way, with a blue sky that seemed to have no limits. She looked at the names on the intercom. A couple of weeks had passed. She had kept as low a profile as she could have expected to. Of course, her name had come out in the press, she had been questioned, earmarked as a witness in forthcoming enquiries, a trial. They had caught one of the others. He had talked, Rossi had told her, and the police were hunting for Karim, the only other fugitive.
She pressed the button for The List of Shame and waited.
“Yes?” came the reply.
“It’s Olivia.”
“OK. I’ll be down in a minute. Coffee?”
“Yes,” Olivia replied.
She had left her teaching job and decided to take up the offer of working for the NGO. Ginika had been very kind to her but also practical and optimistic about her future. They had agreed first to work together to find Jibril’s family and to bring his body back to Nigeria. Then they had set about seeing what they could do to set up a side project to discover the identities of the other men killed in the blaze that had engulfed the Prenestina flat. They were also working to secure an identification for Victor, tracing his family, sending for DNA. Only that morning, the bodies of a mother and her child – immigrants lost overboard – had been washed up on the shore, some miles down the coast from Rome. They were still holding onto each other, locked in a last embrace.
She thought again about Jibril. Had she really known him? She had met with the psychologist, Doctor Fusca, to speak about such things. Had Jibril cared about her, loved her even? It had felt good at the time, it had felt natural and real until his disappearance. Or had she only ever been a pawn in his game, some greater strategy being played out around her and over which she had no control? She knew things could never be the same but change would always come, in one way or another. Accepting change would help her move on, the doctor said. But who could she trust now? She trusted Inspector Rossi, Carrara, and Ginika. They had been kind to her but then Jibril had been kind too. She had thought it through time and time again and had come to her own conclusion: she did not believe that he had been evil. He, like so many, like she herself now was, had been a victim, with every right to feel bitter and cheated, damaged by this world and its weary ways.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my family, in particular Graziella, Denis, and Liam for finding the time to read an earlier version of A Cold Flame and providing some invaluable suggestions. Sincere thanks also to my agent Ger Nichol and my editor Finn Cotton for their continuing dedication.
If you enjoyed A Cold Flame, try the first book in the series…
A city on lockdown.
In the depths of a freakish winter, Rome is being torn apart by a serial killer dubbed The Carpenter intent on spreading fear and violence. Soon another woman is murdered – hammered to death and left with a cryptic message nailed to her chest.
A detective in danger.
Maverick Detective Inspectors Rossi and Carrara are assigned to the investigation. But when Rossi’s girlfriend is attacked – left in a coma in hospital – he becomes the killer’s new obsession and his own past hurtles back to haunt him.
A killer out of control.
As the body count rises, with one perfect murder on the heels of another, the case begins to spiral out of control. In a city wracked by corruption and paranoia, the question is: how much is Rossi willing to sacrifice to get to the truth?
Order your copy here
About the Author
Aidan Conway was born in Birmingham to Irish Parents and has been living in Italy since 2001. He holds an MA in Irish Writing from Queen’s University Belfast and has been a bookseller, a proofreader, a language consultant, as well as a freelance teacher, translator, and editor for the United Nations FAO. He is currently an assistant university lecturer in Rome, where he lives with his family. A Cold Flame is his second novel.
@ConwayRome
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