See Naples and Die (19 page)

“Are you the detective?” barked the
surgeon. “You look more like a second-hand car salesman.”

“And you look more like a beer-bellied
darts player,” Dave wanted to say, but bit his tongue, and simply nodded.

“Get your notebook out, then. I’m only
saying this once. My name is Mr McBride and I’m the consultant who performed
emergency surgery at 1.45 last night. The patient had suffered a single puncture
through the chest. The trajectory of the implement unfortunately caused severe
damage to the airways, and there was internal bleeding and haemorrhaging of a
major pulmonary vessel. We also have a traumatic pneumothorax due to the trauma
to the chest wall.”

Dave looked blank. “Please, doc,” he
said. “I’m only a second-hand car salesman.”

The surgeon sighed. “My name isn’t ‘doc’.
It’s Mr McBride – and, to simplify, the patient suffered a single stab wound
through the chest. The weapon was long and round – a sharpened screwdriver
would be my guess. There was severe internal damage to the airways and to the
heart itself, so we had to operate quickly. There’s also a collapsed lung, but
that’s the least of our problems. The patient is still critical, and we won’t
know for sure how things have gone until tomorrow at the earliest.”

“So I can’t talk to him?” asked Dave.

The surgeon looked to the ceiling. “Yes,
you can talk to him. You can also talk to that wall, and the response will be
the same. My advice to you is to telephone in tomorrow, and if he’s not dead
then chances are he’ll make a full recovery. But, as for interviewing him,
that’s not going to happen for at least another two days.”

“Do you have his clothes and
belongings?”

“They will be in A & E. Ask the
receptionist on your way out.”

Dave took the less than subtle hint and
turned to leave, but didn’t shake the surgeon’s hand or thank him. He just
muttered “Arsehole” under his breath. Then he spun back round.

“Oh, one more thing … Has he had any
visitors?”

“Yes, just the one. Another Italian.”
The surgeon shuddered, his bold exterior not looking so formidable. “He was a
huge fierce-looking man with a decidedly evil presence. He only stayed a few
minutes – just long enough to ascertain the damage – and then he left.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said, ‘
Mio caro amico, ti
prometto
’, which is ‘My dear friend, I promise you’. And then he said, ‘
Per
questo atto il Sadorian morira
’.”

“And what the hell is that?”

“Ah, well, I had to google that one,”
said the surgeon, “and in English it means, ‘For this deed the Sadorian will
die’.”

“And what is the Sadorian?”

“That I must leave for you to discover,
inspector,” said Mr McBride, who then turned and hurried to his next meeting.

Dave Hyman stood deep in thought and
tugged at his earlobe.

At precisely high noon the girls were
shown into the interview room and faced Elliott Chan.

“Hello,” he smiled. “Please sit,” and
pointed for Megan to take the middle chair.

Chrissie sat on the end and immediately
moved her chair closer to Megan. Brenda did the same.

“You are not supposed to move the
chairs,” said the annoyed DCI.

“Oh, sorry. How many years do we get for
that?” said an equally annoyed Brenda.

“He’s pissed off because we’ve spoiled
his seating plan,” said Chrissie. “He didn’t want us too close together. Isn’t
that right, inspector?”

Elliott was angry at their impudence,
and a little embarrassed that Chrissie could see through him so easily. “You
can sit how you wish,” he said, hiding his frustration.

“And shouldn’t you be questioning us
individually? Having three people in here is surely against protocol,” Chrissie
persisted.

“I could do that if you like. Is that
what you want? I’m trying to be nice here.”

Megan intervened. Being confrontational
wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “Why have we been brought here, Mr Chan?”

Elliott took the olive branch and
relaxed. “Do you know a man called Angelo Tardelli?”

They all shook their heads.

“Well, he knows you.”

“Then ask
him
how he knows us,”
said Brenda.

“I can’t do that because he’s in
intensive care,” said Elliott, scanning their faces for signs of panic or
concern.

“We’ve never heard of this Angelo guy,”
said Megan. “But we have come across quite a few Italians recently, and he
could easily be a friend of a friend.”

“Or an enemy of an enemy,” said Elliott.
“Last night, as he left his favourite restaurant, someone stuck an eight-inch
screwdriver through his chest. He had these with him at the time,” and he
emptied the envelope of photos and details on to the table.

“That’s us,” said Megan.

“It most certainly is,” agreed Elliott.

“Look, inspector,” said Chrissie. “You
know the Mafia have a contract out on us. This Angelo must be one of their hit men,
and I’m sure there are plenty other gunmen roaming around London with our
photos in their pockets.”

“And it’s only a matter of time before
they find you.”

“Thanks for that,” sighed Chrissie.

“There is another hypothesis,” said
Elliott. “And that is that you aren’t the innocent-looking threesome you like
to portray. It could be that you have a vendetta against Roberto Vialli – he
did try to kidnap you. It could be that you screwdrivered Tardelli. It could be
that you are the assassins responsible for a spate of deaths …”

The girls were visibly shocked.

“Do you really believe that?” asked
Megan.

Elliott looked as serious as he could,
and let them sweat. “Not really,” he eventually said. “But it is another way of
looking at it, and at the end of the day somebody did try to kill Tardelli.”

“If he’s Mafia then he must have loads
of enemies,” said Chrissie. “Other Mafia, for a start. Let’s face it: they’re
not big on working as a team, are they?”

“No, they’re not,” agreed Elliott. “And
that’s where we can beat them, if we work as a team … Don’t you think it’s time
you told me everything?”

Elliott knew he had them. They were
scared and exhausted, and they wanted to unburden.

Megan was first to speak, and the others
didn’t try to stop her. She told him the whole story without any exclusions or
embellishments … Fabio and the data stick, crazy Luigi and their extortion
racket, and Bruno and Roberto Vialli … and the fact the USB was in a locker at
Victoria station. When she’d finished Elliott sat deep in thought. He knew all
the answers and evidence he needed were on that memory stick.

“Do you have the locker key with you?”
he asked.

Megan and Chrissie looked at Brenda. “No,
sorry. Your officers took us by surprise. It’s in my bedside cabinet at Mrs
Grimshaw’s.”

“Okay,” said Elliott. “Then we need to
go and get it. You stay here while I organise a car and leave a few messages. I
promise this all ends for you today.”

Elliott rushed from the room, and
Chrissie turned to Brenda. “You have the key around your neck, so why the lie?”

Brenda leant closer. “I think we made a
terrible mistake in confiding in him. We were vulnerable, and we’ve broken the
rules. Once he has that USB we have nothing to protect us.”

“He’ll protect us,” said Megan.

“Will he?” asked Brenda. “I’m not so
sure. And I didn’t like the way he said, ‘This all ends for you today’.”

Chrissie was on the same wavelength as
Brenda. “God, she’s right.”

They looked at the open door. “Let’s get
out of here,” said Megan.

This time they didn’t run. They walked
casually along the corridor and down the stairs. They smiled at two uniformed
officers at the front door and stepped out on to the Strand. They fell into
step with the crowds crossing the road towards Covent Garden, and only when
they turned the corner did they look back … and then ran like the wind.

Trouble was, this time they couldn’t run
back to Wimbledon. This time there was no safe house. The ran until they
couldn’t run any more and then, concluding that anywhere was better than being
out on the streets, they slipped into a small pub on a relatively quiet side
street. They only had a few pounds between them, and so bought three halves of
lager and sat in the corner to catch their breath and contemplate how bad this
current situation was. They needed help, but who could they call on? They
couldn’t involve family or friends – that would be placing them in the same
danger as they were. They had money at Mrs Grimshaw’s: maybe they could
telephone her before the police arrived and ask her to hide it somewhere until
it was safe to go back, but even as they said it they knew it would never be
safe to return there.

Chrissie reached into the inside pocket
of her biker jacket and pulled out the mobile phone Luigi had given them. She
held it out like it was a ticket for the last bus home. “We have no other
choice,” she said.

“Okay. Call him.”

“We don’t need to call him. We know
where he lives,” said Chrissie. “And I prefer not to prewarn anyone of our
movements. We’ll surprise him.”

They glanced around the pub and noticed
a side door that led into a service yard.

“Let’s go out that way,” said Brenda.

They pushed the door and stepped out
into a dark, smelly alleyway. The street was twenty yards ahead and no one was
passing by, so they slowly edged towards the opening. After only a few paces
they heard the slamming of the side door behind them and turned to see a face
that sent their hearts into free fall. It was the man from the Barbican – the
man Bruno had saved them from, and who they always knew they would have to
confront again. He walked towards them, and they could see a gun by his side.

He smiled. “New rules. I don’t need the
data stick any more, so the game is much easier to play.” He raised the gun.
“All I have to do is kill you.”

Three small thuds sounded as bullets
passed through a silencer and they stood rigid, waiting for the sky to part and
arms to embrace them as they ascended towards the light. Chrissie was thinking
there should be music – a golden choir, or Elvis Presley: something to welcome
them into the kingdom of heaven. Then she lowered her head and saw the man with
the gun lying on the floor.

“What’s he doing?” she thought, and was
then startled out of shock by another man’s voice speaking quietly but with
great authority. They all turned, and were facing the man with the jagged scar.

Megan and Chrissie dropped their heads
and Brenda looked again at the sky and pleaded, “Will this nightmare never
end?”

The man with the scar was deliberately
blocking any escape to the street. “Please do not try to run,” he said. But
they couldn’t run any more. They were done. They had no more fight; no more
desire other than the wish for it all to end.

“I know you are afraid of me,” he said,
“but I am your protector. The man on the floor is a Scarpone assassin, and he
is dead because I am here.”

“But what about in the hotel?” asked
Megan half-heartedly.

“Another assassin. He was waiting for
you in the corridor, and I took care of him.”

He gave them time to collate this
information. Their minds went back to Earls Court. The man in the corridor
appeared from the shadows, and he was walking towards them when out of nowhere
the man with the scar was firing his gun. They hadn’t hung around to see what
actually happened, but it did seem they were extremely fortunate that at such
close range a professional hit man had missed … unless he hadn’t missed at all.
They looked again at the assassin on the floor.

“We must go,” said their saviour, and
beckoned to a car that had pulled up on the street. He opened the rear door and
they leapt in. The car sped away from the scene, and the driver spoke to them
in good English but with a hint of a Neapolitan accent.

“Nice to see you again,” he said.

In the driver’s rear-view mirror they
could see the smouldering eyes of a man they knew well.

“Hello, Armando,” they said.

It was a beautiful day in Naples. The
gardener had just finished his morning watering routine, and the flower beds
around the Scarpone villa were a kaleidoscope of colour. Zico was taking coffee
in the grounds and he walked, cup in hand, among the tiled pathways and smelt
the sweet perfume of honeysuckle.

Zico was a happy man. His last reports
from England had gone well. Tigran had subdued the London gangsters, the gold
was safe, and best of all he’d heard from his police informer that the elusive
girls were being taken to a police station. He knew they wouldn’t be held in
custody – they hadn’t committed any crimes. It was simply a matter of waiting,
and his man was doing just that. Once they left the safety of the authorities’
building they would be followed and, when the time was right, eliminated.

To hell with finding the data. He just
wanted them dead. Zico had made up his mind that it didn’t matter about
searching for the memory stick. If the girls die the data dies with them: that
was his decision. Also his sources told him that Roberto Vialli hadn’t left his
hotel in four days, so whatever he was up to it wasn’t going to plan.

The Scarpone villa was on a hill with
views of the Bay of Naples ahead, and the sprawling city to the right. Although
the sight of the bay and Vesuvius were spectacular – almost beyond belief –
Zico favoured overlooking the city. He held out his hand as if emphasising the
grip he held over the buildings and their inhabitants, and as he brought the
hand closer to his face it covered the entire city like a malevolent cloud.
Along with Vialli and the Capecchis Zico controlled Naples, and soon he would
have it all. The massacre of the families would be a famous day, and he
couldn’t wait.

The stillness of the scented air was
shaken by the piercing tones of the telephone, and Zico’s manservant carried
the handset out to him. It was Caesar Capriani, and he was spitting venom.
Angelo was at death’s door, and Caesar was convinced it was the doing of Tigran
Sadorian and his Armenians. He wanted the don to grant a vendetta, and then to leave
the rest to him. He would kill them all. Zico liked Angelo and it would be a
massive inconvenience if he died, but no point cutting off a Roman nose to
spite your face. Two years had gone into setting up the Armenians, and now they
were established it would be folly to destroy them. Caesar was ordered to sit
tight: wait until Angelo recovers, and then find out the truth. If retribution
is called for then Zico promised him his vendetta.

Caesar grunted his acceptance, but Zico
knew he would brood and needed to be watched. He had never been to England, but
maybe it was time to inspect the troops and personally take whatever action was
required – and perhaps pick up a little gold bullion on the way back.

He was balancing the pros and cons when
the phone rang again. The manservant returned with the handset and Zico took
the call. He listened in silence as he was informed of the girls’ escape and
that Roberto Vialli had left his hotel – and that all of them had now
disappeared. He clenched his fist as if about to strike the servant, but then
calmly asked him to fetch his brother Luca. Zico could be a volatile maniac,
capable of the most reckless acts, but this time he was cold and calculated. Luca
appeared, and without turning to look at him Zico said, “We need to make
arrangements to go to England.”