Chapter Thirty

Somewhere in the Italian countryside

They waited until the flames were pouring from the windows of the truck, paintwork blistering on the doors and black smoke rising through the trees. Then they turned and walked away from the forest clearing.

It was getting dark, and the air was cold and damp. Ben’s bandaged arm was beginning to hurt badly, but the bullet had only creased the flesh. He’d been lucky.

They walked in silence for some distance along the empty country road. Below them in a valley were some lights from a building. A little way along the road they came to a gate and a sign on a post.

It was low season at the Rossi pony-trekking centre. Gino Rossi and his wife had five empty cabins that were rented out in summer to horse riders exploring the local countryside. It was a pleasant surprise to be offered cash from the two strangers in return for accommodation for the night. Rosalba Rossi prepared a big dish of tagliatelle with tomato sauce that filled the farmhouse with the scent of basil and fresh garlic, while her husband dusted out the cabin and fired up the heating system.

After dinner Ben bought two bottles of Sangiovese from Gino, and he and Leigh said goodnight and retreated to their cabin. The accommodation was rustic, but warm and comfortable. There were two single wooden beds with patchwork quilts, and a crucifix hung on the whitewashed wall between them.

Ben had noticed that Leigh had only picked at her food. She slumped down on one of the beds, looking pale and exhausted. Ben sat with her and poured some wine. They sat in silence for a while, letting the wine relax them.

‘I can’t take much more of this,’ she said. Her voice sounded strained.

He gently put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. Their closeness felt a little strange. She rested her head against him and moved closer. He could feel her body heat, her thigh pressed against his and her heart beating against his arm. Then he realized that he was tenderly stroking her hair, enjoying the soft silky feel of it, letting his hand run down her neck and the curve of her shoulder without even thinking about it.

Suddenly self-conscious, he shifted away from her. He reached for the bottle and poured himself more wine. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said.

‘How did they know we were there?’ she asked softly.

He didn’t reply.

She seemed to read his thoughts. ‘It was my fault, wasn’t it? They were tapping his phone.’

‘It wasn’t your fault. I tried to call him too. Don’t think about it. You need to rest.’

‘But I gave my name,’ she went on. ‘You told me to keep it quiet, but I used it. I didn’t listen to you, and now because of me that poor old man is dead.’

‘You didn’t pull the trigger,’ he said.

‘I might as well have.’ She sighed. ‘Who are these people? They’re everywhere.’ She looked up at him with frightened eyes. ‘They’re going to kill us, too. I know it.’

He reassured her and his voice was calm, but his mind was working hard and fast. They’d come about twenty kilometres from Arno’s place. There was no way anyone could have followed them, and they were safe for the moment. But they wouldn’t be safe for long, and he had no idea where to go next. They still didn’t know where the letter was. Oliver’s trail seemed to have gone cold.

Arno’s words echoed in his mind. It has gone home. He’d put the letter somewhere safe-but where? Where could be home to the Mozart letter? Maybe the place it had been written. Austria?

Leigh slept eventually, her fingers still curled around the base of her empty wine glass as her body rose and fell gently. Ben took the glass away, covered her with a blanket and watched over her for a while as he sat on the other bed and finished the second bottle of wine with the last of his cigarettes. His mind was a swirl. All questions. No answers.

It was after eleven thirty when he stepped outside to clear his head in the cold night air. The frost was hard under his feet, making the grass crunch. He looked up into the night sky, orientating himself with the North Star out of long habit.

Across from the row of cabins, on the far side of the moonlit yard, was a range of stone outbuildings, stables and ramshackle corrugated-iron sheds. A dog barked in the distance. One of the sheds had a light on in its dusty window, and Ben could hear the metallic sounds of someone working with tools inside. He approached and peered through a gap in the rust-streaked corrugated sheets. The shed was a rough workshop filled with battered farm equipment and racks of tools. A young curly-haired man was working on an old Fiat Strada, clattering around under the bonnet.

Ben walked round to the open doorway. ‘Ciao,’ he said. ‘I’m Steve.’

The young man turned. He was a younger version of Gino Rossi, about nineteen or twenty.

Ben pointed at the car. ‘Problems?’ he asked in Italian.

‘Ciao, Steve. Sandro.’ Sandro grinned and waggled a spark-plug wrench to show the foreigner. ‘Changing the plugs, that’s all. I’m selling her, and I want her to go well.’ He finished tightening up the plugs, replaced the caps and slammed the rusty bonnet shut, then walked around to the open door and fired up the engine. Ben listened. There were no unhealthy rattles and the exhaust note was clean. No gaskets gone, not sucking air. No blue smoke.

‘How much are you asking?’ he said.

Sandro wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘She’s old, but good. Say a thousand and a half.’

Ben took cash from his pocket. ‘Is she ready for a run right now?’ he asked.

He drove quietly out of the farmyard and up the rutted drive, then turned right to follow the winding country road back the way they’d come. The yellowed reflectors of the old Strada picked out the lopsided road-signs and the landmarks he remembered from earlier. He passed the forest where they’d dumped the farm truck, and wished he had a weapon.

He hated going back to Arno’s place. It was tactically sloppy and possibly dangerous. But it was the only way. He bitterly regretted not having pressed the old man to say more about where he’d hidden the letter. He was making too many mistakes. Was the damn thing even worth finding? Maybe not, he thought, but clutching at straws was his only option right now. He had to hope he was clutching at the right one.

It was half past midnight by the time he found Arno’s villa. The front gates were set back from the road, across a neat border. He slowed. The driveway and gardens were lit up with the swirling lights of police cars and two fire engines.

As he swore and accelerated past the gates he looked past the vehicles at the house.

It wasn’t there any more. Hardly a wall was still standing. The villa was a levelled mess of blackened rubble and smoking timber, the collapsed roof lying like the twisted spine of a giant carcass, tiles and charred woodwork and smashed windows scattered over a wide circle.

The fire had obviously raged a long time. The crews were calling it a night, packing up their equipment. There was nothing left worth saving.

Ben drove on, thinking about the options left open now. Either the blaze in the study had spread, or someone had made sure the place was thoroughly torched. It was more likely to be the latter. Whoever they were, these people liked their tracks to be covered. And fire was the best cleanser.

After a kilometre or so he turned into the farm entrance and followed the bumping, stony lane as far as the deserted yard where they’d stolen the truck earlier that day. Other than the shattered barn, there was no visible trace of what had happened there.

He turned off the engine and stepped out. He waited in the dark for a while. There was nobody around. He searched the buildings by the thin beam of his Mini Maglite but found nothing, not a single shell case left uncollected. They’d even cleaned the blood off the tool-shed door where he’d nailed the man to the frame. The nails had been pliered out too, leaving four neat holes in the wood.