20th March—10.37 p.m.
The steps led down to a brick-lined corridor set on a shallow incline. It was dimly lit, the sodium lighting suspended from the vaulted ceiling at irregular intervals forming pallid pools of orange light that barely penetrated the cloying darkness. In places the water had forced its way in, the ceiling flowering with calcite rings that dripped on to the glistening concrete floor.
Treading carefully, their guns aiming towards the darkness into which the three armed men who had preceded them down here had presumably disappeared, they crept down the tunnel. Tom had the vague sense that they were following the contour of the Aventine as it rose steeply to their right, although it was hard to be sure, the passage tracing a bewildering course as it zigzagged violently between the graveyard’s scattered
crypts and burial chambers. Eventually, after about two hundred yards, it ended, opening up into a subterranean network of interlinking rooms supported by steel props.
‘It’s Roman,’ Dominique whispered, stooping to look at a small section of the frescoed wall which hadn’t crumbled away. ‘Probably a private villa. Someone rich, because this looks like it might have been part of a bath complex.’ She pointed at a small section of the tessellated floor which had given way, revealing a four-foot cavity underneath, supported by columns of terracotta tiles. ‘They used to circulate hot air through the
hypercaust
to heat the floors and walls of the
caldarium
,’ she explained.
They tiptoed through into the next room, their path now lit by spotlights strung along a black flex and angled up at the ceiling, the amber glow suffusing the stone walls. Dominique identified this as the
balneum
, a semicircular sunken bath dominating the space.
Picking their way through the thicket of metal supports propping the roof up, they arrived at the main part of the buried villa, the tiled floor giving way to intricate mosaics featuring animals, plants, laurel-crowned gods and a dizzying array of boldly coloured geometric patterns. Here, some restoration work appeared to have been done: the delicate frescoes of robed Roman figures and
carefully rendered animals showed signs of having been pieced back together from surviving fragments, the missing sections filled in and then plastered white so that the fissures between the pieces resembled cracks in the varnish on an old painting.
An angry shout echoed towards them through the empty rooms.
‘You think Santos is already here?’ Dominique whispered.
‘Allegra first,’ Tom insisted. ‘We worry about Santos and the painting when she’s safe.’
They tiptoed carefully to the doorway of a small vaulted chamber. The walls here had been painted to mimic blood-red and ochre marble panels, while the ceiling had been covered in geometric shapes filled with delicately rendered birds and mischievous-looking satyrs. And crouching on the floor with their backs to them, checking their weapons and speaking in low, urgent voices, were the three men they’d seen earlier.
Tom locked eyes with Archie and Dominique; both of them nodded back. On a silent count of three, they leapt inside and caught the three men completely cold.
‘
Tu
?’ one of the men hissed as, one by one, Archie taped their hands behind their backs and then gagged them.
It was Orlando—the priest from the Amalfi. Tom returned his hateful glare unblinkingly.
Strangely, the murderous rage that had enveloped him in Monte Carlo had vanished; he felt almost nothing for him now. Not compared to Santos. Not with Allegra’s life at stake.
‘I’ll watch them,’ Dominique reassured him, waving the men back into the corner of the room with her gun.
‘You sure?’
‘Go.’
With a nod, Tom and Archie continued on, a bright light and the low rumble of voices drawing them across an adjacent chamber decorated with yellow columns, to the next room where they crouched on either side of the doorway.
Edging his head inside, Tom could see that they were on the threshold of the most richly decorated space of all, the floor covered in an elaborate series of interlocking mosaic medallions, each one decorated with a different mythological creature. The frescoes, meanwhile, looked almost entirely intact and mimicked the interior of a theatre, the left-hand wall painted to look like a stage complete with narrow side doors that stood ajar as if opening on to the wings. To either side, comic and tragic masks peered through small windows that revealed a painted garden vista.
‘Look,’ Archie whispered excitedly. Tom followed his gaze and saw that a large recess, perhaps nine feet high, six across and three deep,
had been hacked out of the far wall. And, hanging within this, behind three inches of blast-proof glass, was the Caravaggio. It was unframed, although its lack of adornment seemed only to confirm its raw, natural power.
‘That’s Faulks,’ Archie whispered.
At the centre of the room, over a large mosaic of a serpent-headed Medusa, was a circular table inlaid with small squares of multicoloured marble. The man Archie had pointed out was clutching an umbrella and standing in front of three other men who were seated around the table as if they were interviewing him.
‘The guy on the left is De Luca,’ Tom breathed, recognising the badger streak running through his hair and the garish slash of a Versace tie. ‘And the one in the middle who’s speaking now…’ He broke off, his chest tightening as he realised that this was the face of the man he’d overheard on the yacht in Monaco. The same man who’d ordered Jennifer’s death. ‘That’s Santos.’
‘Which must make the other bloke Moretti,’ Archie guessed, nodding towards a short man wearing glasses who was seated on the other side of Santos. Completely bald across the top, his scalp gleaming under the lights, he had a bristling wirewool moustache that matched the hair clinging stubbornly to the back and sides of his head. He was wearing a grey cardigan and brown corduroy
trousers, looking more like someone’s grandfather than the head of one of the mafia’s most powerful families.
Tom nodded but looked past him, distracted by the gagged and bound figure he could see slumped in a chair to Faulks’s left. It was Allegra. Still alive, thank God, although there was no telling what they might have done to her. Or what they might still be planning.
‘She wants to speak to us,’ Faulks protested. ‘She said she had a message.’
‘Of course she does,’ Santos shot back in English, his tone at once angry and mocking. ‘She’s working on the Ricci and Argento cases.’ He glanced across at De Luca. ‘I thought you said you’d taken care of her?’
De Luca shrugged, gazing at Allegra with a slightly dazed look.
‘I thought I had.’
‘She managed to locate and break into my warehouse,’ Faulks retorted. ‘Who knows what else she’s found out.’
‘She broke in and, from what you’ve told us, took nothing apart from your pride,’ Santos reminded him. ‘You should have taken care of her in Geneva. You have no business here.’
‘In case you’ve forgotten, I have two seats on this council.’ Faulks spoke in a cold, deliberate tone. ‘I have as much right to be here as anyone. If not more.’
‘An accident of history that you delight in reminding us of,’ De Luca said dryly.
Santos took a deep breath, attempting what Tom assumed was intended to be a more conciliatory tone.
‘This meeting was called by the Moretti and De Luca families—’ he nodded at the two men either side of him in turn—‘as representatives of the founding members of the Delian League, to resolve their recent …disagreements. Disagreements that, as we all know, have led to two former members of this council not being here with us tonight.’
‘We had nothing to do with D’Arcy’s death,’ Moretti insisted angrily.
‘Cavalli was a traitor who deserved what he got,’ De Luca retorted, both men standing up and squaring off.
‘Enough!’ Santos called out. Muttering, they both sat down. Santos turned back to face Faulks. ‘They asked me here to help mediate a settlement. I let you know we were meeting as a courtesy. But, as I told you when we spoke, there was no need for you to come.’
Faulks looked at them, then nodded sullenly towards Allegra.
‘Then what am I meant to do with her?’
‘What you should have done already.’
‘I dig bodies up, not bury them,’ Faulks said through gritted teeth.
‘Then I’ll finish what you are too weak to begin,’ Santos snapped, taking his gun out from under his jacket and aiming it at Allegra’s head.
20th March—10.54 p.m.
A shot rang out. Santos fell back with a cry, clutching his arm.
‘Sit the fuck down. Don’t nobody move,’ Archie bellowed.
Tom pushed past him to Allegra, pulling the gag out of her mouth, then slicing her wrists free.
‘Are you okay?’ he breathed as she fell gratefully into his arms.
She nodded, gave him a weak smile. Turning, Tom scooped Santos’s weapon off the floor and quickly searched the others.
‘I’m bleeding,’ Santos shrieked.
‘It’s a graze. You’ll live,’ Tom snapped.
‘Pity,’ Archie intoned behind him. Looking up, Faulks’s eyes widened in shocked recognition, although the others didn’t seem to notice his expression.
‘You have no idea what you’ve done,’ Santos
hissed though clenched teeth, holding his arm to his chest. ‘You’re both dead men.’ He snatched a glance towards the entrance.
‘Who are you?’ Moretti demanded.
‘He’s Tom Kirk,’ De Luca said slowly, greeting Tom with a half-smile. ‘Also risen from the dead, it seems.’
‘Kirk?’ Moretti gasped.
‘Tom Kirk?’ Faulks gave a disbelieving smile, his face turning grey.
Tom frowned, confused. Some people, criminals especially, knew who he was, or at least who he had been. But that didn’t usually warrant this sort of reaction.
‘What do you want?’ Santos demanded.
‘The same as you,’ Tom said simply. ‘The Caravaggio.’
‘You’re robbing us?’ De Luca seemed to find this almost amusing.
‘I’m borrowing it,’ Tom corrected him.
‘You’ll never get it out of there,’ Faulks scoffed. ‘Not without destroying it.’
‘Even with these?’ Tom asked, holding up the monogrammed case he’d taken from Faulks’s safe. The dealer went pale, his eyes bulging. ‘Here, you might as well collect them all up,’ said Tom, tossing Allegra the box. ‘Although it is only the three watches I need, isn’t it?’
Moretti and De Luca swapped a dumbfounded look.
‘How did you know?’ De Luca asked as Allegra loosened his watch and then Moretti’s, before finding the sixth in Santos’s top pocket. ‘Did your…’
‘Santos has struck a deal to sell your painting,’ Tom explained. ‘We overheard him negotiating the terms yesterday in Monte Carlo. He let slip about the watches.’
Santos rose from his seat.
‘
Stronzata
,’ he spat, his face stiff with anger.
‘Bullshit. Really?’ Tom smiled. ‘Dom?’ he called out.
A few moments later Dominique appeared, ushering Santos’s three sullen-faced men ahead of her. Eyes narrowing, Santos slumped back into his seat as she forced them on to the ground and made them sit with their hands on their heads.
‘These men work for Santos. We found them next door. You were the only people standing between him and the fifteen million dollars his Serbian buyers have promised him for the painting.’
‘He’s lying,’ Santos seethed, his eyes fixed on Tom. ‘It’s a trick. We all know to come to this place alone. I would never break our laws.’
‘Can you open it?’ Tom called across to Allegra, who was crouching in front of the case.
‘There are six plates,’ she said, pointing at the brass roundels set into the wall under the painting. ‘Each one’s engraved with a different Greek letter.’
Opening the box, she took out the first watch and carefully matched it to the corresponding
plate, the case sinking into the crafted recess with a click. Then she repeated the exercise with another two watches and stood back, glancing across at Tom with a hopeful shrug. For a moment nothing happened. But then, with a low hum, the thick glass slid three feet to the right, leaving an opening that she could step through.
‘I’ll give her a hand,’ Archie volunteered, handing Tom his gun. He followed her through the gap into the narrow space behind the glass, and then helped her lift the unframed painting down. Carrying it back through with small, shuffling steps, they leaned it gently against the wall.
Tom stepped closer. He recognised the scene. It was exactly as he remembered it from the Polaroid Jennifer had shown him in her car. But there was no comparing that flat, lifeless image to the dramatic energy and dynamism of the original. The angel swooping down from heaven like an avenging harpy, the boy’s taunting face creased with a cruel laughter, Mary’s exhaustion and exultation, the fear and anticipation of the onlooking saints. Light and darkness. Divine perfection and human fallibility. Life and death. It was all there.
‘Let’s take it off the stretchers so we can roll it up,’ Archie suggested.
‘Be careful with it,’ Moretti warned him.
Tom fixed him with a questioning look, detecting a proprietary tone.
‘Is it yours?’
‘Not any more,’ he admitted. ‘We donated it as a gesture of good faith when the League was founded. The De Luca family contributed this villa.’
‘I’ll return it,’ Tom reassured him. ‘You have my word.’
‘Then why take it?’ De Luca demanded.
Tom paused before answering, not wanting to give Santos the pleasure of hearing him stumble over his words.
‘You know the FBI officer I asked you about, the one who was shot in Vegas three nights ago?’ De Luca nodded with a puzzled frown. ‘A few weeks back she got a tip-off about one of your US-based distributors. An antiquities dealer based in New York. Under questioning, he volunteered Luca Cavalli’s name.’
‘I knew Luca,’ Moretti frowned. ‘He was careful. He would never have revealed his name to someone that far down the organisation.’
‘He didn’t,’ Tom agreed. ‘Faulks did.’
‘What?’ Faulks gave a disbelieving laugh.
‘Remember that photo of the ivory mask we came across in Cavalli’s car?’ Allegra glanced up at De Luca from where she was helping free the painting from the wooden stretchers. ‘We found it in Faulks’s safe. It’s worth millions. Tens of millions.’
‘My guess is that Cavalli had been secretly bringing you pieces for years,’ Tom said, turning
to stand in front of Faulks, whom he noticed had slid his chair a little way back from the others. ‘Pieces his men had dug up and that he had deliberately not declared to the League, so that you could sell them on and share the profits between you. But then one day he unearthed something really valuable, didn’t he? Something unique. And you just couldn’t help yourself. You got greedy.’
‘Cavalli sent me the mask, it’s true,’ Faulks blustered, looking anxiously at De Luca and Moretti. ‘A wonderful piece. But my intention was to split the proceeds with the League in the usual way after the sale. And not just the mask. I have the map showing the location of the site where he found it. Who knows what else might be down there?’
‘Can you prove any of this?’ De Luca challenged Allegra, fixing her with an unblinking, stony-faced stare.
‘Who told you that Cavalli had betrayed you?’ Tom shot back.
De Luca paused, then pointed a wavering finger towards Faulks. ‘He did.’
‘I had no choice,’ Faulks protested. ‘It’s true that Cavalli wanted me to deal with him direct. But when I refused he threatened to go public with everything he knew. What I told you was the truth. He was planning to betray you. He was planning to sell us all out. You know yourself that your informants backed me up.’
‘The FBI had Cavalli’s name,’ De Luca acknowledged, turning his gaze back to Tom. ‘They wanted the authorities here to arrest him.’
‘Cavalli was ripping you off, but I doubt he was going to go public with anything,’ Tom said with a shrug, thinking back to the moment in front of Faulks’s open safe when this had all clicked into place. ‘The simple truth is that Faulks wanted him out of the way so he could have the mask for himself. So he came up with a plan. First feed Cavalli’s name to the New York dealer. Then sell the dealer out to the FBI to make sure he would talk. Finally accuse Cavalli of betraying you, knowing your police informants would confirm that the FBI was investigating him and that you would think he was collaborating.’
‘This is crazy,’ Faulks spluttered. ‘I’ve never…’
‘The clever thing was the way he set both sides of the League against each other,’ Allegra mused, rising to her feet. ‘He knew that Don Moretti would retaliate once you’d killed Cavalli, leaving him free to sell it for himself, while you were busy fighting each other.’
‘That was never my intention,’ Faulks pleaded angrily. ‘Cavalli was a threat. I was simply acting in the best interests of the League. As I have always done.’
‘Of course, while all this was going on, Santos was busy taking out a contract on my friend,’ Tom continued, turning to face him. ‘My guess is…’
‘How much more of this do we have to listen to?’ Santos interrupted, his palms raised disbelievingly to the ceiling. ‘I’ve never—’
‘
Basta
,’ De Luca cut him off angrily. ‘You’ll have your chance.’
Santos sat back with a scowl, muttering to himself.
‘My guess is that, when she searched the dealer’s warehouse, she found something implicating the Banco Rosalia and started kicking the tyres,’ Tom continued. ‘When Santos realised that she was on to him, he had her taken out, using the prospect of recovering your Caravaggio to lure her to Las Vegas where he had a gunman waiting.’
‘She was a threat to us all,’ Santos blurted out defiantly.
‘You mean this is true? You killed an FBI agent without our permission?’ De Luca jumped to his feet, violence in his voice now.
‘I did what I had to do to protect the League,’ Santos protested. ‘I’d do the same again.’
‘At first we thought everything was connected,’ Allegra admitted. ‘It was only later that we realised that the Rome murders and the ivory mask had nothing to do with Jennifer’s assassination, or with D’Arcy, who was killed for his watch.’
‘The irony is that it was Faulks’s tip-off about the dealer in New York that unknowingly led to the FBI looking into the Banco Rosalia in the first place,’ Tom said with a rueful smile. ‘Without that,
Jennifer would probably still be alive, and Santos wouldn’t be preparing to explain to his Serbian friends why he hasn’t been able to deliver the painting.’
‘No, Kirk,’ Santos said with a cruel smile. ‘The biggest irony is that—’
A single gunshot cut him off. Tom’s head snapped towards the doorway. A uniformed policeman in a bullet-proof vest was standing there, gun pointed towards the roof, five, maybe eight armed police filtering into the room either side of him, machine guns braced against their shoulders.
Tom snatched a look at Allegra. Ashen faced, she mouthed one word.
Gallo.