Fault Line - Retail (36 page)

‘This call was … anonymous?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Then someone else did know. Because I didn’t call.’ He pulled his shirt off the bedpost and struggled into it. ‘When’s this supposed to have happened?’

‘Yesterday. And there’s no “supposed” about it. The police have been on to us. You sabotaged the delivery of the ransom. An officer’s been killed and—’

‘
Killed?
’ That seemed to worry him more than anything else. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The kidnappers shot him and made off with the ransom money. They didn’t release Muriel Lashley. Chances are they aren’t going to now. Thanks to you.’

‘A policeman
shot
?’

‘
Yes
. Commissario Gandolfi.’

‘Bloody hell.’ He abandoned fiddling with his shirt buttons. ‘That’ll have put the cat among the pigeons.’

‘More than you bargained on, is it? The police won’t thank you for leading Gandolfi on with your crazy allegations about Strake’s murder, you know.’

‘Strake? What’s he got to …’ He stopped in mid-question, silenced by the realization that he’d just admitted he knew the name.

‘How did you find out about him?’

Thompson tried to look puzzled. ‘Who?’

‘Gordon Strake.’ I stepped closer. ‘All in here, is it?’

I grabbed the wallet-file a split-second before he did and carried it towards the window. He lurched off the bed and came after me with a growled, ‘Give that here’. But all I gave him was an elbow in the stomach.

It doubled him up. His face turned a deep red and, with a groan, he sank back down on to the bed, clinging to the post for support. ‘You bugger, you,’ he gasped. ‘I’m getting over … a hernia operation.’

‘It’s a pity you didn’t stay home to recuperate, then, isn’t it?’

I opened the file. Inside were pages of scrawled notes, photocopied newspaper articles and a sheaf of black-and-white photographs. The topmost picture was of Vivien … and me. We were standing next to her Mini in Walworth the day in 1969 she’d travelled down from Cambridge to ask for my help in exposing the truth that lay behind Oliver’s death. We were smiling at each other, blithely unaware that somewhere, not far off, Thompson was training his camera on us.

The other pictures were all of Vivien. They looked to have been taken in Cambridge. The Honourable Roger featured in a couple of them. I held them up for Thompson to see. ‘You took these?’

‘To show Mrs Lashley.’ He winced. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘And these newspaper articles?’ I glanced through them. They were from the
Cornish Guardian
and the
Western Morning News
: inquest verdicts on Oliver and his father, reports of Wren’s merger with Cornish China Clays, an interview with Greville Lashley. Thompson had been a busy boy.

‘Background information,’ he said defensively. ‘I was just doing my job.’

‘Did you follow us here fifteen years ago?’

‘No. Mrs Lashley called me off when I told her Vivien had contacted you again.’

‘Why?’

‘Who knows? Maybe she didn’t need proof positive that you were porking her daughter.’

I took a stride towards the bed with the fleeting intention of punching Thompson in his foul mouth. Then I stopped. I half
suspected
he wanted me to hit him, so he’d have a bruise to show off later to the police.

‘Beating up an old man is all you’re good for, isn’t it, Kellaway?’ he sneered.

‘How did you find out about Strake?’

‘All I know is what Mrs Lashley told me fifteen years ago. An ex-employee of her family firm, name of Strake, had supposedly been harassing her son before his suicide. She asked me to keep an eye out for him while I was checking on Vivien in case he was doing the same to her. But I never saw hide nor hair of him. Why would he be of any interest to the Italian police?’

It was a good act. He sounded almost innocently curious. But I was sure he’d made the anonymous call alleging a connection between Muriel’s disappearance and Strake’s murder. He couldn’t fool me. ‘You know why he’d be of interest, Thompson. You told them why.’

‘You’ve got the wrong man. I didn’t make that call.’

‘Of course you did. No one else could have. As you can be certain I’ll tell them.’

‘Don’t do that.’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Listen …’ He licked his lips nervously. ‘Policemen cut up rough when one of their own gets it. I’ve seen it happen. I wouldn’t trust I-tie rozzers to be too … particular. I’m not as young as I was. I need you to keep my name out of this. And I can do you a favour in return.’

‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Whatever happens – I mean,
whatever
– I’ll keep my mouth shut. The police’ll hear nothing from me. You’ve got my word on it.’

‘And your word’s worth precisely what?’

‘As much as yours or Lashley’s, the way things are.’

He had me there, as he must have realized. I had no way of gauging how much he knew about Strake’s murder and he was too clever to tell me, but I was technically party to a perversion of the course of justice, something I wasn’t eager to discuss with
Gandolfi’s
grieving colleagues in the Naples police. Arguably, the same applied to Lashley. Just how much trouble Thompson could land us in was unclear. But in that lack of clarity lay his bargaining power.

‘Does that ugly look on your face mean you’ll get down off your high horse and put my offer to your boss?’ he asked with a smirk. ‘If you think you’d choke on a “yes”, I’ll settle for a nod.’

Lashley agreed with me that, galling though it was, we’d be wise to say nothing to the police about Thompson. As far as they were to know, we had no idea who’d phoned them, nor why the caller should have alleged Muriel’s kidnapping was somehow connected with Strake’s murder.

Jacqueline, as supportive as ever, assured us she’d be equally circumspect in what she said. ‘It won’t be difficult,’ she predicted. ‘They won’t think I know anything useful.’

But she knew a great deal now, of course. Enough to prompt her to ask me, as we faced a blank and anxious evening together at the villa, ‘Do you wish you’d gone to the police back in ’sixty-nine and told them everything, Jonathan?’

I didn’t have to ponder the question for long. ‘Absolutely.’ But … ‘At the time, though, there seemed to be so many good reasons not to. I never imagined Strake would come back to haunt us.’

‘Nor that anything like this would ever happen, I guess.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘Greville sounded awful low when we spoke. Do you think there’s any hope for Muriel?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

It might have been more accurate to say I didn’t want to know. But that was a luxury I wasn’t to be allowed to enjoy for long. We were about to set off for Marina Grande the following morning, in time for the ten o’clock ferry to Naples, when the telephone rang.

It was Lashley. ‘The police have just called, Jonathan,’ he announced, with sombre lack of preamble. ‘A body’s been washed
ashore
near Ercolano. They think it may be Muriel. I’m leaving straight away. You and Jacqueline … should prepare yourselves for the worst.’

THIRTY-TWO

THE BODY WASHED
ashore near Ercolano that morning was Muriel Lashley, of course. She’d drowned, presumably after being thrown overboard the previous night from a boat somewhere in the Bay of Naples. Technically, according to Cremonesi, the suave and softly spoken lawyer put our way by the British Consulate, there was some question as to whether this could be regarded as murder, especially since there was no hard evidence she’d been kidnapped in the first place beyond the photograph Lashley had been sent. There were no recordings of the phone calls her kidnappers had made and no eyewitnesses to her abduction.

It was not, Cremonesi explained, that the investigating magistrate doubted what had occurred, simply that he had so very little to investigate. Commissioner Gandolfi had certainly been murdered, of course, but rumour had it he habitually played his cards so close to his chest that his colleagues seldom knew what lines of inquiry he was following.

We might have been able to assist the magistrate by naming Thompson as the source of the anonymous phone call to the police or suggesting that Paolo Verdelli had been party to the kidnap plot, but both courses of action threatened to cause us more trouble than they would Thompson or Verdelli. Strake’s scrawny shadow stretched a long way.

‘If we’re to take this further, Jonathan,’ Lashley said to me in a reflective moment, ‘it must be on our own initiative, without
recourse
to the authorities.’ He had his suspicions, I knew, that the Camorra wielded enough influence in the upper echelons of the Naples police to ensure Gandolfi’s murder and Muriel’s death (however it was defined) would remain officially unexplained.

Adam, released without charge after twenty-four hours in custody, was a seething bundle of grief, rage, resentment and reproachfulness. I said barely a word while he launched a series of red-faced accusations of stupidity and worse at me in Lashley’s suite at the Excelsior. I remember looking past him through the window at the broad expanse of the bay and imagining Muriel’s last choking moments of life somewhere out there, near the far blue horizon. It had all gone wrong, for a host of reasons, most of which no longer mattered. It had ended as it wasn’t meant to.

Now, suddenly, I was redundant, an unwelcome reminder of the failure to save Muriel. Vivien was on her way, though her departure had been delayed following news of her mother’s death. She was waiting in London for the Honourable Roger to join her and for Harriet to travel up from Cornwall so they could fly out together. The problems my presence would cause didn’t need spelling out. I believe Lashley would have sent me back to Sandersville straight away if he could have, but the investigating magistrate required us to stay within his jurisdiction until he’d decided whether we should be charged with anything, a possibility Cremonesi assured us was extremely remote.

I booked into the next hotel along the seafront from the Excelsior, the Vesuvio, and tried to reconcile myself to sitting it out there, while Lashley awaited the family’s arrival, before he returned to Capri, where Muriel was to be buried. Jacqueline would go with them and doubtless attend the funeral. Only I was
persona non grata
. Lashley apologized to me for this, though I well understood the reasons. I’d been called in to help deal with an emergency. And the emergency was over. It was time for me to go. Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

‘I’d ask you to keep yourself busy trying to track down Verdelli if I wasn’t so sure he’ll be lying low till all this blows over,’ Lashley
said
to me before we parted. ‘It’ll never blow over as far as I’m concerned, of course. I’ll use local expertise to trace him once the magistrate’s signed off the case.’

‘What then, sir?’

‘Then, Jonathan, I’ll decide what to do. But he’s not going to get away with widowing
and
robbing me. I can assure you of that.’

I didn’t doubt Lashley meant what he said. But I wasn’t sure he’d have to wait as long as he thought to set in motion whatever retribution he had in mind for Paolo. I phoned Countess Covelli to find out if Salvenini had told her anything useful. She’d been horrified to hear how Muriel had died and had sent a letter of condolence to her family. She’d also tried to contact me at the villa, without success.

‘I asked Valerio Salvenini about Paolo for you, Jonathan, and he said he would let me know. But I have not heard from him. Would you like me to … remind him?’

‘Well, thanks, yes, if you could.’

‘It is important?’ Her tone implied she suspected it was and wouldn’t be fooled by any denials.

‘It might be.’

‘And you are staying at the Vesuvio … for now?’

‘Yes. I don’t want to get in the family’s way at the villa.’

‘That is very considerate of you.’ And not just considerate, she clearly realized. ‘Will I see you again before you leave?’

‘I … hope so.’

‘I will be in Naples on Friday to see my
notaio
. Perhaps we could meet then.’

‘Yes. By all means.’

So, Countess Covelli at least hadn’t ostracized me.

I phoned the Gabbiano as well and was given the unsurprising news that Frederick Thompson had checked out. He’d gone while the going was good, as I probably would have done myself if I’d had the option.

I wondered if I’d hear from Vivien. She was at the Villa Orchis
by
now, with her husband, her stepfather, her great-aunt and her half-brother: Muriel Lashley’s closest surviving relatives, gathered in mourning. Perhaps that would be enough for her to cope with. Perhaps, in the shock of losing her mother, there’d be no space to think of me.

I thought of her, though – a lot. Solitude and idleness made sure of that. On Wednesday, having nothing better to do, I took the train along the coast to Pompeii and followed the hordes of camera-toting tourists round the ruin-lined streets. Vivien and I had planned to go there in 1969, but never had. It was where she’d invented a chance meeting with some friends from Cambridge that was supposed to explain her trip to Rome. She hadn’t actually gone to Pompeii at all, I assumed, though she probably had since.

I was in no state to appreciate what I saw. I wandered the stony thoroughfares in a daze and spent a full hour sitting in the amphitheatre, staring into space.

That was where, by a supreme irony, my old Walworth housemate Terry almost literally stumbled upon me. I hardly recognized him at first. The concavely thin, bushy-bearded student had become a thick-waisted, short-haired auditor, husband and father of two. What kind of impression I made on his wife in my distracted state I dread to think. Terry took it for a signal that I was still enjoying the free and easy lifestyle he’d somehow allowed to slip through his fingers, though he dutifully assured me his sons (at that moment shooting hostile glares in my direction) were an undiluted joy to him.

They were staying on a camp site near the beach at Pozzuoli before heading on down the coast. Terry eagerly suggested I go out there that evening. We could reminisce and compare post-university career paths over a beer or six. I agreed, rather less eagerly. I was in no condition for a boozy reunion, but I didn’t exactly have any other plans. It was settled that he’d meet me off the Metro at Pozzuoli station at eight o’clock.