Nighthawks

by Lambert Nagle

  Elisabetta glanced at the labels.

  ‘We need those. There’ll be enough evidence left in there for forensics to test them.’ They gathered as many boxes as they could and moved into the chemistry lab area. Elisabetta put her hand over her mouth and nose as she moved from room to room. She pushed open a door. It was another storeroom. Inside were brushes and paints, chemicals and plastic tubs with warning triangle signs on them.

  ‘There’s another door here,’ Stephen said. He crouched down and looked through the keyhole. ‘There’s a set of concrete steps. Let’s see where they go.’

  Stephen tried the door handle. It wouldn’t budge. ‘Did you see anything in the storeroom we could use?’

  Elisabetta shook her head. ‘I’ll give it a go,’ she said, taking a run at it. Stephen jumped out of the way before a swift kick sent the door clattering down the stairs. They followed it down, covering their mouths and noses as they were hit by a wave of acrid chlorine. It led to a basement where they found a small swimming pool, roughly ten by eleven metres and approximately one metre five deep. At the bottom of the pool were more pottery fragments.

  ‘It certainly hasn’t been used as a swimming pool in recent times,’ Stephen said.

  ‘It’s restoration on an industrial scale. We need to bring that restorer in for questioning, ’ Elisabetta said.

  Just at the moment Stephen’s phone rang. When he saw the caller ID he jumped. Ginny.

  ‘I’m at the airport. Didn’t you get my messages?’ Stephen was speechless.

  Elisabetta turned to go up the stairs to be met by the homicide team coming down. He heard them arguing.

  ‘I’m still at work,’ he said. ‘Give me an hour. Get a cab and I’ll meet you in the cafe across the road from where I live. Here’s the address.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you soon,’ she said, sounding tired.

  ‘Bad news. Pasquale just called. Aniello di Lauro’s car was caught on CCTV last night in a convoy of vehicles headed to an address in suburban Geneva,’ Elisabetta said.

  ‘Where we can’t touch him? Stephen said.

  ‘For now,’ Elisabetta said. ‘He could say what was going on here was legal, but he’s going to have to come up with some good reasons for the sudden midnight flit to Switzerland. I think we’re done here.’

  ‘My girlfriend just turned up and I’d completely forgotten she was coming.’

  Elisabetta looked at her watch. It was gone seven. ‘Long day, huh?’

  Stephen nodded.

  ‘I suppose I’d better go and check on that kid, before he discharges himself,’ Elisabetta said. ‘Come on, I’ll drop you off home.’

  As they made their way back across the Tiber, Elisabetta turned to Stephen, her smile wide.

  ‘We did okay.’

  ’We sure did.’ Stephen, said, elated, feeling for the first time since he’d arrived in Rome, that he was, at last holding his own. Which was more than he could say about his private life. At least, he consoled himself, Ginny had come in person to say her piece and hadn’t sacked him by text.

  Chapter 13

  As soon as Stephen walked into the cafe, he could tell Ginny was out of sorts. She gave him a cursory hug and turned away. He wanted to hold her, tell her how much he loved her, but he’d come straight from the chemical lab and probably still smelled of chlorine.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ Stephen said as he picked up Ginny’s bag.

  ‘You’ve got blood on your shirt,’ Ginny said.

  He caught sight of himself in the cafe mirror. So there was. No wonder she recoiled at the sight of him.

  ’No, don’t explain,’ she said.

  ‘Okay I won’t. The apartment’s just across the street. It’s not as tidy as I’d like it to be.’

  ‘I’ve had a hell of a week. And a stinking headache to go with it.’ Ginny managed a weak smile.

  She’d had a hard week? Quite possibly, but it probably didn't include dealing with homicide victims and epileptic junkies.

  Their conversation was stilted and superficial. He didn’t know which was worse, inane chat or stony silence.

  At the apartment, Stephen’s suggestion of drinks and dinner out was rebuffed. All Ginny wanted was a shower and an early night.

  ‘But you first. You look like you could do with it more than me,’ Ginny said.

  ‘Have a look around, it won’t take long,‘ Stephen said as he headed off for the shower. Ginny would have plenty to say about his one-bedroom apartment, painted in two tones of drab, a desultory attempt to make the space more appealing. As he was towelling off, there was a knock on the door. He opened it and Ginny was holding a bottle of red wine in one hand and pouring him a glass.

  ‘Thought you could do with one,’ she said. ‘For every feature wall, there’s got to be a bathroom that has glass bricks. Am I right?’

  ‘Correct. Come on in, let me show you,’ Stephen said.

  Ginny at least was able to raise a smile and for a moment there it felt as though they were still the same people they’d been two years ago when they’d first met. He walked out, towel wrapped round his waist, holding the glass of wine and sat on the sofa. He grabbed the takeaway menu sitting on the coffee table.

  ‘Everyone’s got to eat, don’t they? We can order in.’

  ‘Sounds good. Now where do you keep the towels?’

  ‘Hall cupboard. Sorry, housekeeping is a bit slack.’

  ‘I did spring it on you,’ Ginny said and walked off to the bathroom.

  While she was showering, Stephen ordered pizza and then texted Elisabetta:

  Any advice on where we can go on a day trip?

  Elisabetta shot back: Lunch at Antico Ristorante Pagnanelli, Lago Albano. How’s it going?

  He couldn’t lie. So-so.

  Sorry to hear that.

  It was an act of disloyalty, he supposed, to confide in a colleague about your home life, but that was what work mates did, wasn’t it? When the pizza arrived, Stephen tore into it. Ginny ate the middle and left the crusts. She talked a little about people he’d met once and didn’t care for. Then she pleaded her headache and went off to sleep. He spent the rest of the evening fretting while watching Lazio play AC Milan, falling asleep on the sofa.

  He woke at about six and crawled into bed. Ginny pretended to be asleep. He slept until eight when he was woken up by the hissing of freshly made coffee from the stovetop espresso machine.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ Ginny called out. She was up and already dressed, in what he would call beige jeans and a black tank top, which showed off her taut arms. God, he wanted her but pushed the thought away. He’d play it her way.

  ‘Shall I go and get pastries?’ Stephen stumbled out of bed, grabbing the nearest towel he could find, wrapping it around his torso.

  ‘I’ll go. You get yourself ready for the day,’ Ginny said.

  She was in a better mood. Perhaps the weekend wouldn’t turn out to be a disaster after all. Just then his phone buzzed. It was Elisabetta.

  ‘We’re interviewing the junkie kid this morning. You’ll be done by midday, I promise. Still time for a late lunch out in the country.’

  Stephen groaned. ‘What time?’

  ‘Ten.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better get my skates on.’

  ‘And by the way, after you left, Pasquale came back with a positive ID on Tie Pin Man,’ Elisabetta said.

  ‘He did what? Why didn’t he tell me himself? Who is he?’ Stephen was indignant.

  ‘An American art and antiquities dealer called Robert Hurst. He was arrested in Cyprus in 2000 at the airport with a suitcase full of priceless icons. They were seized, Hurst was thrown in jail. Twenty-four hours later the charges were dropped and they deported him.’

  ‘Jesus. We’re getting somewhere at last,’ Stephen said.

  ‘That’s what I thought. Pasquale was embarrassed that he screwed up in front of you.’

  ‘So he should be. What was he thinking?’

  ‘I
’d cut him some slack. You certainly haven’t made a friend there.’

  Just then the key turned in the lock.

  ‘Ain’t that the truth.’ He sighed. ‘Better go, I’ll get there as soon as I can,’ he said, ending the conversation.

  Ginny was standing there smiling, holding out the pastries as a peace offering.

  He took one of the pastries and began to nibble it.

  ‘I’ve got to shoot back into work for an hour, tops.’

  Ginny rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever.’

  Michael McCarthy was out of the door by first light. He hurried across the square next to his apartment. The dome of St Peter’s refracted the celestial light of the rising sun. If ever there was a moment for regret at his fall from grace at the Vatican, this was it. He pushed thoughts of that aside. He had lost his status, but he still had his pride and his desire to help those less fortunate than himself. As he looked around his familiar streets, he saw there were plenty of those.

  An outreach worker he didn’t recognise was bending down to speak to the homeless in their sleeping bags, while her colleague was dishing out toothbrushes, biscuits and leaflets on shelters and the needle exchange. Staff from a nearby cafe bustled about with coffee and pastries.

  A sex worker dragging on a cigarette nearly tripped over a comatose junkie lying in front of her apartment.

  ‘Vaffanculo,’ she said, with contempt, stubbing out the butt on the pavement with her heel. ‘People like me do an honest day’s work so that people like you can lie around all day,’ she muttered under her breath as she made her way inside and slammed the door.

  A chorus of disapproval rang out from the homeless.

  ‘Puttana.’

  McCarthy looked around, peering at the ones still sleeping or who were so out of it they were barely breathing.

  ‘Anyone seen the young lad, Bruno? He missed our weekly outreach meeting yesterday.’

  ‘Nah. Not for a while. Last time I saw him that kid had so many holes in his arms you could strain pasta through them. I worry about him.’

  McCarthy recognised the grizzled looking grey-haired man, who was sitting up in his sleeping bag. He sat down next to him.

  ‘And I worry about you as well. It’s too cold to be out here at night, Ernesto. I know you hate the shelter, but at least it’s warm.’ Ernesto sat up in his sleeping bag.

  ‘Father, I know you mean well. But I’m past saving. It’s the young kid you need to help. Before he wrecks his life the way, I did.’ Ernesto looked round as the street began to fill with commuters. ‘I’d better get out the way before this lot walk over me,’ he said, standing up in his sleeping bag, shuffling off to the nearest park bench.

  ‘Try the hospital, in case he’s overdosed again, or ask the cops,’ Ernesto called out as McCarthy walked back inside his apartment.

  In the interview room, the gaunt, drug-addled teenager was trembling. Stephen wondered if he was going into withdrawal. As he sat down the kid’s phone rang. Before he could switch it off, Stephen put it on speaker.

  A softly spoken voice said, ‘Bruno, are you alright?’ The speaker struggled for breath. It wasn’t so much a breath, as an asthmatic wheeze. 'It’s Michael.’

  As in McCarthy. What the hell was going on? Stephen scribbled a note and passed it over.

  Talk to him.

  ‘Are you with somebody?’ McCarthy said.

  The boy sobbed.

  ‘I’ve been arrested.’

  ‘That can’t be right. You’re too young. Put me on to the arresting officer.’ There was an awkward silence.

  Stephen mouthed to Elisabetta, ‘you speak to him.’ Elisabetta looked back.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she muttered. Stephen shook his head.

  ‘Not now,’ he whispered.

  ‘Lieutenant di Mascio here.’

  ‘You do realise it’s illegal to arrest a minor, don’t you?’ McCarthy said.

  ‘We haven’t arrested him. He’s helping us with our enquiries. A man died today,’ Elisabetta said.

  ‘I’m his outreach worker. I’ll be right over. Where are you holding him?’ As Elisabetta gave him the address, Stephen turned to the boy.

  ‘I’m going to ask you again. How old are you, kid?’ Stephen whispered gently.

  ‘Thirteen.’ Stephen, Elisabetta and their colleague from crime gave a collective sigh of disappointment.

  ‘Interview terminated at 10.35 a.m.’

  Michael McCarthy sat in the waiting room while Stephen and Elisabetta had a furious exchange in her office.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘I recognised his voice. It’s McCarthy. He doesn’t know I’m a cop, remember? And I want to keep it that way.’

  Elisabetta hit her forehead with the heel of her palm. ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’ll have to do it. I’ll watch from the observation room.’

  ‘Okay.’

  As soon as McCarthy sat down in the custody suite where Bruno was being kept, he looked straight up through the one-way mirror to the surveillance room. Even though Stephen knew he couldn’t be seen, it still unnerved him when suspects and their representatives did this, despite all the years he’d been doing the job.

  ‘I want to talk to the boy alone, in a room that isn’t bugged,’ McCarthy said to Elisabetta. ‘And I’ll wait with him until the officer from juvenile crimes arrives. I don’t care how long it takes.’

  Once an advocate had been appointed to act for Bruno and McCarthy had left the custody suite, Elisabetta, joined by Stephen, went back and interviewed him again.

  ‘We’re here to talk about the broken pottery, which had your fingerprints. Tell us in your own words again what happened?’ Bruno didn’t look at Stephen but at the court-appointed representative sitting next to him. He shook his head.

  ‘He’s already told you, he found the man dead,’ the woman said in a bored tone, looking at her nails.

  Stephen held his ground.

  ‘And if you’d been listening you would have heard, we’re here about the broken vase, not the poor guy who ended up being sliced in two. That one we’ll leave to our colleagues in juvenile crime. We’ll take a short break while you confer with your client,’ Stephen said, getting up and walking out of the room. He needed fresh air badly. He walked past the reception area, ignoring the half dozen or so people who were waiting on friends or family to be released.

  Michael McCarthy had declined to go home until he’d found out what was going to happen to Bruno. Looking up, to his surprise he saw a man walking out of the custody area who was none other than art insurer Stephen Walsh. If indeed that was his name.

  Walsh must have struck up the conversation at the auction in Geneva about bronze figurines deliberately. Of all the people there, why had Walsh chosen him? Did he spot a fellow Celt from his complexion and hair colour? Or was that nothing more than a lucky coincidence? If Walsh had made the connection with the Vatican Museums, he’d know about his fall from grace. Had he believed the lies put out by Hurst via the Vatican PR machine—that he was weak and vulnerable and had helped himself to their collection? No wonder Walsh had tried to set a trap for him at that lunch meeting.

  McCarthy went up to the reception area and stood in the line for the desk, looking over his shoulder every time the lift doors opened. At last, he was at the front of the queue.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m the community support for the young lad Bruno currently being questioned by Elisabetta di Mascio. Can you tell me the name of the other officer, please?’

  ‘Stephen Connor.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I will wait at home until I hear news of the boy’s release.’

  ‘What makes you so sure he’ll be released?’

  ‘He’s a kid,’ McCarthy said and walked hurriedly towards the stairs. He was due at the art restorer’s in less than thirty minutes and he still had to get home and collect Giuseppe’s painting. As the lift doors opened Stephen Connor got out.

  Ginny had bee
n gracious about their interrupted morning and was happy to wander around the shops while he worked. They’d agreed to meet just after midday.

  Stephen kissed her on the lips. ‘I’ve arranged a little surprise.’

  ‘You know I don’t like surprises.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll make an exception for this one.’ Stephen kept his tone light, even though deep down, he felt that the day couldn’t get much worse.

  ‘I was hoping we could talk.’

  ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘Okay,’ she said as if it wasn’t okay.

  Stephen’s car had a halfway decent sound system that helped bridge the silence. He stuck his playlist of driving music on as loudly as he thought Ginny could bear, as she looked out the window, taking in the scenery. As Lake Albano swung into view, Ginny couldn’t help herself.

  ‘Wow. Some view. You’ve kept this place a secret.’

  ‘I asked a local.’

  ‘He has good taste.’

  ‘She.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that.’

  ‘What is it like then?’

  Not like this hostile bullshit.

  ‘Day or night, we’re at the office or in the car. We eat on the go; the car becomes a mobile dining room. No matter how many windows you open, it smells of takeaway. By week’s end you can’t stand the sight of each other.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.’

  ‘Is it something to do with us?’

  ‘No,’ she said, looking away. ‘It’s work. The auctions and the valuations I can deal with. Even chasing up provenance. But I’m having trouble with the office bully. All the usual stuff. Sorry, I won’t bore you.’

  ‘You’re not.’ Stephen was concerned now. But Ginny wasn’t going to elaborate and quickly changed the subject.

  ‘You said you wanted me to look at something for you.’ She had remembered after all. He hadn’t planned to talk shop today, but out of habit had slung the file with the photos from the raid on Tony Sanzio’s apartment into his briefcase.

  ‘I’d like your expert opinion on some artefacts,’ Stephen said. ‘There’s photos in the briefcase under your seat.’