The Memory Man

by Steven Savile

  ‘Do you own any other properties?’

  ‘Three buildings on this street, all of them divided into eight to twelve apartments. I turned two of them over to the social to house asylum seekers. They rent well, but the building is basically destroyed in the process. It isn’t worth it. Still, I’ve been lucky. Not like the poor bastards who’ve seen their places burned down.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m a good man, officer. I swear. I don’t charge inflated rents. I look after my people. I have another building around the corner. We’re changing the pipes. New bathrooms. New kitchens. If I was a bastard, do you think I’d do that?’

  ‘I saw it,’ she said. ‘Expensive business?’

  Galanos shrugged. ‘The rent covers the mortgage as long as the apartments are occupied. This country isn’t set up for property tycoons.’ He offered a bitter laugh. ‘But in twenty years I sell up, move out to the islands, get older, get fatter, and die happy. It’s not so bad.’

  Frankie suspected that it paid a lot more than he was letting on, but that was between him and the tax man. She didn’t care who he screwed to make a buck. ‘So, what can you tell me about the man who rented the apartments?’

  Galanos fidgeted in his seat, still sweating, but his breathing had at least moved out of the danger zone. He smiled up at the barista when their coffee arrived. He added a lot more sugar than was good for anyone, and stirred slowly, watching the granules dissolve into the black.

  Frankie maintained her silence. The best way to get someone to talk was simply to allow them to fill the silence.

  ‘The thing is …’ he started.

  ‘I’m not going to arrest you, Mr Galanos, and I’m not going to turn you over to the tax man for whatever scheme you’ve got going on with those apartments. I’m not interested in any of that. You understand that, don’t you? I’m only interested in the man who died in that room and finding the person who killed him. I need to know everything you can tell me about the man who rented the property.’

  He nodded. ‘I want to. Honestly. I just don’t know what I can tell you.’

  ‘How about you start with what he looks like?’

  This time Galanos shook his head and looked miserable doing so. ‘I never met him. He paid by first and last month, told me he would be out of town a lot, needed to move in at night, late, so I left a key for him. The place is basically unfurnished, so it’s not like there’s anything to steal.’

  ‘What about the lease agreement?’

  ‘Didn’t sign one.’

  ‘And your books show that the place was empty the whole time he was there, I assume?’

  He nodded, clearly guilty, but more embarrassed by the fact that he had been caught than the fact he’d done anything wrong.

  ‘So how was all this arranged if you didn’t meet him?’

  ‘It was all over the phone.’

  ‘Any sort of accent?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not good with that sort of thing. Eastern European. Maybe. I can’t be certain. I know it sounds terrible, but they all sound the same to me.’

  And their money is as good as anyone’s, she guessed. ‘OK, can I take a look at your phone?’

  He hesitated for a moment, but fished it out of his pocket, used his thumbprint to unlock it and handed it over.

  ‘When did he call you?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago. It was on a Sunday I think, but it was a blocked number.’

  Of course it was.

  She didn’t look up as she continued to scroll through his call history.

  Blocking the number didn’t mean there was no record of it on the mobile provider’s servers, only that the caller ID didn’t screen it immediately.

  She found dozens of calls from blocked and unknown numbers, but only one on the day. She made a note of the time, intending to get the source number from the phone company. Galanos tried to read what she’d written even though it was upside down. She showed him the time stamp and the blocked number on the display.

  She gave him the phone back.

  ‘What name did he give?’

  ‘Yashin.’

  ‘Sounds Russian.’

  The man shrugged again. ‘It sounded familiar to me. A footballer or something. Before my time though.’

  ‘Then it’s almost certainly not his real name,’ Frankie said, but she would pass it on to Ash in case the name appeared in his investigation.

  ‘I had no reason to doubt him. He only wanted a short stay. It was easy money. Plus he paid up front.’

  ‘How did he pay?’ She half-expected the fat man to tell her he’d left an envelope full of used banknotes into a dead drop.

  She was pleasantly surprised when he said, ‘Bank transfer.’

  ‘You have BankID on your phone?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘About the app or about letting me see your account?’ He made an uncomfortable face. ‘I told you, I don’t give a shit who you are ripping off. I can call someone to run your financials, we don’t need a warrant in an active investigation. They’ll dig through everything. All I want is to see the details of one transaction. I’d say the smart thing to do was just let me do it, Belen. I’m not after your secrets.’

  His fingers trembled and twice he input the wrong number, but eventually he turned the phone around to show her.

  Frankie reached out for it, but he pulled back a fraction. There was obviously something on there he didn’t want her to see.

  Instead of trying to take it off him, she just copied down the details of the transaction.

  The amount surprised her. It was considerably more than she’d have guessed the place rented at. No doubt the black-market contracts Galanos ran changed hands for substantially above what should have been market value. But that was part of the no questions asked aspect of it.

  The transfer listed the sender as Lev Yashin. There was a routing number and series of reference numbers that meant nothing to Frankie but would help locate the sender’s bank through the IBAN system.

  It was a direct line between her and Anglemark’s killer.

  Galanos’s account number and sort code were at the top of the screen.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said as soon as she had written everything down, then flipped the notebook closed.

  ‘So, do you know who was killed there?’ Galanos asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It just seems so … weird. That’s my place. Someone died in one of my houses. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.’

  ‘They didn’t just die,’ she corrected him. ‘They were murdered. That’s different.’

  ‘Yes. Of course it is. I just meant … who wants to live in a place where someone was murdered?’

  ‘There’s always someone,’ she assured him.

  FORTY-SIX

  Ash saw the Renault in the driveway before the satnav tried to seduce him with the promise he’d hit the spot.

  The house was by no means a mansion, but it was far too big for an old man living alone. He didn’t have any sort of point of reference in terms of value, but it looked more than the manager of an orphanage ought to have been able to afford. Of course, in Italy that meant little because family homes were handed down from generation to generation, and there was no telling how old the money was that was used to buy the place. But the upkeep couldn’t be cheap.

  He pulled the Fiat up across the drive, making sure the old man couldn’t easily flee before he’d the chance to talk to him. Not that he could force him to cooperate.

  Despite the cloying heat inside, Ash waited for a moment before getting out. He saw shadows move across the windows. He imagined Danilo frantically packing his life into a bag, desperate to run, but not sure what he needed to survive. It wasn’t easy, running for your life. Not if you didn’t want to get caught at the first road block, either metaphorical or literal.

  He wai
ted five full minutes.

  There was no guard this time, and the gate was wide open. Ash walked down the driveway, straight to the front door. He rang the bell and waited. Not that he expected Danilo to answer. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where the old guy opened the door and welcomed him in. He was expecting things to get physical; a chase as Danilo bolted from the back door. The alternative was that the old man would simply hunker down and hope he went away. But running was the more likely option, especially given the fact he was spooked.

  Ash tried the bell again. No answer.

  He tried the handle.

  Locked.

  He glanced back towards the road and noticed a woman at the bottom of the drive, a small dog on a lead, tugging at her. Despite the heat, or perhaps because of it, she wore a headscarf and big shades. She stared at him. He knew she was memorizing both him and his car. She was being a good neighbour without actually putting herself in harm’s way.

  He heard movement around the side of the house. A scuff of feet across the small stones that surfaced the drive.

  Ash stepped out from under the shade of the porch roof, and into the man’s path.

  Danilo struggled with a heavy bag.

  He dropped it the moment he saw Ash.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Pietro Danilo,’ he said. It was a statement, not a question. Danilo couldn’t mask his fear. His eyes darted from Ash to the Renault to the crappy rust-bucket of a Fiat blocking his escape.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Ash reached inside his pocket for his identification. The man took a step backwards. ‘My name is Peter Ash,’ Ash said. ‘I’m here to help you. I’m with Eurocrimes Division, a joint European Union initiative.’

  ‘Police?’

  He nodded. ‘Close enough.’

  ‘You’re English. You can’t help me. This is Italy. You have no jurisdiction here.’

  Ash took another step forward, closing the gap between them. ‘Call the judge. He can confirm who I am.’

  ‘Judge?’ He was a terrible liar. In that one-word question he was trying to buy time and work out a second way out of the mess he was in, but nothing was going to move that Fiat, and there wasn’t a hope in Hell of the old man outrunning him in this heat, so his feigned ignorance wasn’t buying him anything.

  ‘Maffrici. You can lie all you want, but I saw you together earlier, so you might as well be straight with me.’

  ‘You followed me?’

  ‘I did. And I know you’re afraid.’ Ash looked pointedly at the old man’s go-bag. ‘And now you’re running for your life.’

  Danilo didn’t follow the direction of his gaze. He knew what was in that bag, and he knew Ash was right, but that didn’t stop him from saying, ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. Now I would appreciate it if you could move your car.’

  ‘No,’ Ash said.

  ‘You have no right to detain me.’

  ‘Who said I’m detaining you? I might have broken down there, you have no way of proving otherwise. Unless you’d like me to call the police? I’m sure they could help us out. It’d be what, an hour for them to respond? Something like that. It’d slow your escape down a lot. Or you can give me five minutes of your time. If you don’t like what I have to say then I’ll leave you in peace.’

  The man hesitated. Ash knew that he had won the first battle at least.

  Danilo hefted his bag and carried it across to the Renault, triggering the boot lock with a key press, and bundled the bag inside.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said, and headed back towards the rear of the house.

  Ash followed him to a door that led into the kitchen.

  ‘Five minutes, then I would like you to leave.’

  ‘That’s all I want. I’m not here to hurt you. You have my word.’

  Ash waited for the man to invite him to sit, but the invitation never came. He pulled out a chair from under the oak refectory table. Danilo sighed and scraped the opposite chair out and sat down.

  ‘Did Maffrici tell you to get out of town?’

  He shook his head. ‘It was just two old friends catching up.’

  ‘You’re a terrible liar, Pietro, which is a good thing in life, but a terrible thing when you’re trying to con a man who deals with liars every day of his life.

  The man betrayed no reaction.

  ‘Did you reach out to him, or did he contact you?’

  ‘We just bumped into each other. It wasn’t planned. Four minutes.’

  ‘See, I think you’re lying. I think you contacted him because you received a package urging you to remember Bonn?’

  This time the man’s eyes twitched, tiny micro-emotions there if you knew what you were looking for. They were as obvious as beads of perspiration.

  Ash leaned back in his chair. ‘Why don’t we cut the bullshit, Pietro, and talk one Peter to another. I think you contacted the judge because someone sent you human flesh in the mail. I don’t know what because every victim has been sent something different. That’s what I think. Of course, the judge might have reached out to warn you because you were meant to get a piece of him. But one way or the other you’re on a list, and everyone else on that list has managed to turn up dead.’

  Danilo was doing his damnedest not to show it, but he was rattled. Silence seemed to be his only defence.

  ‘Then there’s the note that came along with the meat. “Remember Bonn,” and a summons, a time and a place. So far everyone we know of who went to that meeting has turned up dead, or gone missing.’

  ‘Jonas Anglemark and Jacques Tournard.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Maffrici told me.’

  ‘Did you know them?’

  ‘I’ve heard of Anglemark. Not the Frenchman.’

  Ash knew that the man was lying.

  ‘Have you heard what happened to them?’

  ‘I heard Jonas washed up dead.’

  ‘He had his tongue cut out.’

  The man blanched. ‘I wasn’t sent a tongue.’

  ‘I never said you were. That was sent to Tournard. What did you get?’

  ‘A toe.’

  ‘Does that mean anything to you? Anything specific about Bonn and a toe?’

  Danilo got to his feet and retrieved a bottle of water from the refrigerator. His had betrayed the slightest tremor as he emptied it into a glass. He was still shaking while he drank.

  He didn’t answer the question directly, instead he said, ‘What happened to Tournard?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. I think he’s lying dead somewhere just waiting for some poor bastard to stumble across his body. Maffrici was smart enough not to go to the meeting. But that doesn’t mean he’s safe. Our killer is determined. He’s killed others, a guy called Ramirez in Seville. I think you and the judge are next.’

  ‘Then you’d better stop him.’

  ‘Where are you supposed to meet him?’

  He didn’t deny it this time, simply confessed, ‘There’s a bar, Caligula’s, I’m supposed to meet him at eleven tonight. Feel free to take my place.’

  ‘That won’t help. He knows who you are. He follows his victims to the meet. If we send a body double he’ll walk and we’ll have lost him.’

  ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’

  ‘I’d like you to go.’

  That stopped him cold. He put the glass down on the table. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You just said that Maffrici was smart enough not to go. You said that was why he was still alive. Why do you think I would be stupid enough to go?’

  ‘Because whoever is doing this knows you and knows something that you need to stay secret. He won’t stop until he’s made you all remember Bonn. I can help you. If you trust me. I can keep you alive.’

  Ash gave Danilo a moment to fill in the gaps if he wanted to, but the old man wasn’t about to spill his guts. What he couldn’t do was push too hard.

  ‘He doesn’t know me. I’ll go in be
fore you. I’ll be in place. I’ll draft in my Italian counterparts, we’ll stake out Caligula’s. We’ll have eyes on you inside and out. We won’t let you get hurt.’

  ‘No police. If we do this, and right now it’s a big if, it’s you and me. The moment he shows up, I’m out of there. That’s the only way I’m doing this.’

  Ash was quite happy to let Danilo feel like he was dictating the terms, but the reality was if it didn’t work for him, he wasn’t doing it. He’d seen what doing it half-arsed had done for Mitch Greer. He’d gone into a set-up and hadn’t walked out again. Fool us once. ‘OK.’

  Danilo shook his head. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s suicide. I should be getting as far away from here as I possibly can. I could be out of the country even before he even knows I’m gone.’

  ‘But you know he’d just come looking for you, and eventually he’d find you, because like the old line goes: you can run, but you can’t hide. And you can’t. You’re not some criminal mastermind. You used to run a kids’ home. You don’t have the skill set to survive a life on the run with a man like this looking for you.’

  ‘Just me and you,’ the man said again, like he was trying to convince himself it wasn’t suicide. ‘I’ll park near the club, it’s already got my bags in it. There’s a full tank. Once he sets foot inside, you take him and I’m out of there.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you there.’

  ‘I’ll get there early. At least an hour,’ Ash said. ‘Don’t look around for me. Chances are he’ll be watching you. I’ll be there, you have my word.’

  The man nodded.

  Ash wasn’t even half-convinced that Danilo would show. The man was a flight risk. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t babysit him all the way to Caligula’s. Not with the killer watching.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Ash had time to kill.

  He went back to his hotel room for the three S’s – shit, shower, and shave – and changed into a non-sweat-soaked shirt. He ordered a meal on room service and thought about dipping into the minibar but decided against it, given he’d need to buy a beer in the club to not stand out.