Before I could do anything more, the door to my office opened and Delia walked in. She looked at me, eyes reproachful, and gently shook her head. “Running out on Cliff Jackson I could understand,” she said. “But running out on a promise you made to me? Kate, you checked your brains in with your bags at Milan and forgot to pick them up at the other end.”

She didn’t need to say any more. I could beat myself up. She was right. When I start letting my friends down, I know my life’s starting to spin out of control. I got to my feet. “I’m sorry,” I said inadequately. “You’re right. You deserve better.”

“Shall we go?”

I nodded. On the way out, Shelley said, “Sorry, Kate. I can lie to most people, but not to the rest of the team.”

“No need to apologize,” I said. “I’m the one in the wrong. You better phone Ruth and tell her to meet me at… where, Delia?”

“Bootle Street,” Delia said.

“Oh, and Shelley? I think I might be awhile. Better ring Michael Haroun at Fortissimus and tell him I need a rain check tonight.”

I followed Delia out to the waiting police car. I knew I was damn lucky not to be under arrest. I just didn’t feel like I could risk walking under ladders.

24

IT SEEMED TO TAKE LONGER TO RECOUNT RICHARD AND KATE’S excellent adventure than it had taken to experience it. Asking the questions were Inspector Mellor from the Art Squad, who remembered me from our earlier encounter at Henry’s, and Geoff Turnbull from the Drugs Squad, who thankfully owed me one on account of information received in a previous investigation that had provided him with a substantial feather in his cap. Delia sat in on the interview, probably to make sure my brief didn’t change my mind and persuade me to opt for the Trappist approach.

Even so, by the time I’d answered everyone’s questions, it was past midnight. I’d come clean about all of my nefarious activities, on the advice of Ruth Hunter, my nonpareil criminal solicitor and, incidentally, one of the tight-knit group of my female friends which Richard refers to as The Coven-ment- witches who run the world. “After all,” she pointed out dryly, “all your lawbreaking took place outside their jurisdiction, and I rather think the Italian police are going to have enough to worry about without bothering you with such trivial charges as assault, kidnap, false imprisonment, burglary, data theft, concealing a body and failing to report a murder.”

Ruth, Delia and I ended up eating steak in one of the city’s half dozen casinos. The great advantage with them is that they stay open late and the food’s cheap. It’s supposed to act as an incentive to make people gamble. I don’t know how effective it is; most of the gamblers that night were Chinese, and none of them looked like a juicy steak was on their agenda. Not as long as the roulette wheels were still spinning. “Cliff Jackson’s still going to want to talk to you,” Delia pointed out after we ordered.

“I know. His goons were sitting on my doorstep this morn-ing.”

Ruth groaned. “What now, Kate? Haven’t you broken enough laws for one week?”

“That’s not why Cliff Jackson’s after me,” I said stiffly. “It’s just that I’ve been doing his job for him, and now I’ve tracked down his saboteurs, he probably wants to know who the real murderer is.”

Delia and Ruth both choked on their drinks. “0 ye of little faith,” I complained. “Anyway, I want to stay out of his way until I’ve got the whole thing done and dusted. If I leave the job half done, he’ll only mess it up and arrest the wrong person. He’s got form for it.”

“Isn’t it about time you went back to white-collar crime and left the police to deal with these dangerous criminal types?” Ruth demanded. “It’s not that I think you’re incapable of looking after yourself. It’s just that you keep involving Richard, and he’s really far too accident-prone to expose him to these kinds of people.”

“I don’t want to discuss Richard,” I said. “Anyway, Delia, what have Mellor and Turnbull been doing for the last forty-eight hours with the info I handed them on a plate?”

“Luckily, Geoff’s already had dealings with his opposite numbers in Europe about organized drug trafficking, so he was able to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic red tape. It turns out his Italian oppos have been taking a long hard look at Gruppo Leopardi and its offshoots, so the info you brought out of there has slotted in very nicely. You were right, by the way. They’ve been organizing art robberies all over Europe, not just in the U.K., and using the artworks as payment for drug shipments,” Delia said. “With the data you stole, it looks like they’ll be able to set up a sting that will pull in some of the big boys, for a change.”

“What about Nicholas Turner?” I asked.

Delia fussed with a cigarette and her Zippo. “They found his body in the van, where you left it. A couple of the lads went over to Leeds this morning and spoke to his wife. She’s denying all knowledge of anything shady, of course. She’s going for the Oscar as the grieving wife of a legitimate art and antiques dealer. Grieving she may well be, but nobody believes for a minute she’s as innocent as she wants us to think. Apart from anything else, there’s evidence that she’s accompanied him on several of his trips to the Villa Sari Pietro.”

“He still didn’t deserve to die,” I said.

Ruth shrugged. “You take the money, you take the risks that go with it. How many lives have been destroyed by the drugs Turner was involved in supplying? Half the people I defend owe not a little of their trouble to the drug scene. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over Turner, Kate.”

I didn’t.

Jackson’s goons were on my doorstep again the following morning. I figured that by now he’d probably be staking out the office as well. I rang Shelley. “Have you got company of the piggy variety too?”

“Of course, sir. Did you want to talk to one of our operatives?”

That told me all I needed to know. “Is it Jackson himself or one of his gofers?”

“I’m afraid our principal isn’t in the office at present.”

I’ll say this for Shelley, nothing fazes her. “There should have been an overnight fax for me,” I said. “Can you stick it in an envelope and have it couriered round to Josh’s office? I’ll pick it up there.”

“That’s no problem, sir. I’ll have Ms. Brannigan call you when she comes back to the office. Good-bye, now.”

Whoever said blondes have more fun obviously didn’t garner the experience wearing a wig. I went through the disguise-for-beginners rigmarole again and made my exit through Richard’s bungalow, pausing long enough to do a quick inventory of his wardrobe. If he’d been back, he hadn’t taken any significant amount of clothing with him. His laptop was gone, though, which meant he was planning to be away long enough to get some work done.

I arrived at Josh’s office ten minutes after the fax, and settled down at an empty desk to plow through the phone numbers. It was a long, tedious process of cross-checking, made worse by the fact that Alexis’s contact had come up with a more detailed breakdown of calls than the customer received. The fax she’d sent listed every call from all three numbers, even the quickies that don’t cost enough to make it onto the customer’s account. But at the end of it, I’d established that there were calls virtually every day between Desmond Halloran’s office number and the private number of the Cob and Pen. There were also a couple of long calls from the Halloran’s home number to the pub.

There was one other curious thing. A Warrington number cropped up on both bills. I checked the dates. Every Monday, a call a few minutes long was logged on one bill or another. It appeared most often on Desmond’s office bill, but it was there half a dozen times on the Cob and Pen’s account too. Of course, I had to ring it, didn’t I?