The Turin Shroud Secret (20 page)

‘Signore Llorente, do you rent the properties furnished or unfurnished?’

The former gondolier leans on a worktop to take the weight off his strained legs. ‘Unfurnished, but if a tenant asks for beds
and things, then I buy.’ He grins again. ‘I buy and put a little extra on top.’

‘So the Craxis took everything with them when they went?’

‘Si.’

‘They didn’t leave
anything
behind at all?’

The old man shakes his head. ‘No, nothing.’

‘Did you see them go?’ Nic gestures to the empty rooms. ‘I mean, it looks like they cleared the whole place out, so they must
have hired a van and I guess workmen to carry furniture downstairs.’

‘This I did not see.’ Llorente touches a discreet hearing aid, a small transparent curl of plastic tucked behind his left
ear. ‘I am old and sleep a lot. At night I would not hear a bomb.’

‘What about the rent?’

‘They pay in advance. By the bank.’

‘And they didn’t default? They paid the last payment okay?’

‘Si,
they pay. They were good couple.’

Nic smells something. Something sharp and clean. White spirits? Paint? His eyes roam over the walls and woodwork. He gets
it now. The place has been redecorated, ceiling to floor. Not a doorframe or window ledge isn’t freshly glossed.

‘How long have your other tenants on this floor been here, Mr Llorente?’

The landlord needs time to think. ‘The Tombolini family three years. Then the Mancinis, only six months, I think. Luca Balotelli
moved in five years ago – he divorced from his wife, and—’

Nic cuts him off. ‘Could I trouble you to look at the Mancini place? Is it like this one?’

The old man frowns.
‘Si.
It is just the same as this.’ He
realises that’s not exactly true. ‘Except their living room faces the opposite side.’

‘I understand.’ Nic follows him out of the Craxi place.

Llorente rings Mancini’s bell and knocks on the door. When he’s sure the family isn’t in, he opens up and stands to one side
to let the detective in.

Nic opens every door and scans the place from top to bottom. It’s exactly as he thought it would be. Feared it would be. It
bears all the wear and tear of a place the landlord should have decorated two years back. ‘Thanks,’ he says, stepping back
outside. ‘I’m done in there.’

The tram journey is unexpected.

Ephrem berates himself for not being more alert. He knew Turin had more than a hundred miles of overground network and should
have anticipated the target would use it at some point. The man he’s following has jumped on board and he’s been forced to
slip onto the tram at the last moment.

Just a carriage away.

In a confined space like this it’s too close for comfort. Much too close. The monk consoles himself with the fact that three
other people climbed on when he did. There’s a reasonable chance they masked his movements. Ephrem doesn’t look up from his
seat and doesn’t stare intently
towards the target’s carriage as he is itching to do. He’s made a mistake and what happens next is going to be a gamble. At
the next stop he has to be first off. He has to disembark like he’s late for a meeting and then walk confidently in one direction.
If he hangs back, his cover will be blown.

The bell rings and the old tram hisses to a halt. Ephrem jumps off and walks slowly away. Doesn’t look back. Doesn’t even
think about it. It could be that the target is still on board and he lost him, but he doesn’t think so. Crowds of people block
his way. They’re squeezing into the biggest open-air market in Europe in the Piazza della Repubblica. Ephrem sees the signs
to a metro station.

His heart thumps. If the target goes down there, he could easily lose him.

The Porta Palazzo Market or the metro?

He gambles on the metro. It’s where he would head. Maximum distance in minimum time. It makes perfect sense. To the best of
his knowledge there are more than twenty stations but only one main line, running east to west between Turin and Collegno.

He trots quickly down the stone steps. He doesn’t have a ticket and the target might well have. At the cashier’s window he
asks for a
biglietto.
As he pushes the money through the slit he turns and sees his man descending into the darkness below.

‘Rapidamente per favore!’

The old man doling out change and tickets isn’t bothered by the cry of urgency.

By the time the monk reaches the bottom of the escalator he can hear a train thundering away, eastbound.

The platform is empty.

SANTA MONICA, LOS ANGELES

Mitzi takes a long shower, more painkillers, fresh coffee and a short walk before a queasy cab ride to collect her car. It’ll
be a while before she hits the bottle like that again. It was worth it, though. Six hours of glorious sleep and for a brief
passage of time no thought of Alfie, the girls or what a mess her life was becoming.

Was
– past tense.

In the future – starting right now – it’s going to be fine. She’s going to finish this case, book a holiday for her, Jade
and Amber, sell the house and start anew. Somewhere with no memories. Everything will be just fine.

Mitzi is parking in the station house when her cell phone rings. ‘Fallon,’ she answers, closing the car door and walking away.

‘Logan Connor, Lieutenant.’ There is a pause on the end of the line, then he adds, ‘Sergeant Sheen gave me your number, said
I had to call.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’ve just come from the courthouse, ma’am. They processed your husband’s file.’

The comment stops her in her tracks. She had no idea his case was being heard so quickly. Someone must have pulled strings
for her. ‘Appreciate you reaching out. Tell me.’

‘He plead to battery and his attorney cut a deal with the DA to avoid a full trial. He got thirty days.’

Mitzi feels numb. She can’t work out whether it’s good news or bad. Most cases land the minimum thirty. For what he did, he
should go to the pokey for a year or more. Despite the lenient sentence, she also knows the die has been cast now. He’s a
jailbird. You can never get that particular tattoo lasered off. He’s a convict. ‘So he’s being processed now, already in the
system?’ It’s a rhetorical question, she knows what’s going down.

‘Yes, ma’am. Judge also set release conditions, prohibiting him from coming within a hundred yards of you, the family home
or any family member without supervision and spousal consent.’ Connor clears his throat. ‘If you ask me, I think the court
should have—’

‘I didn’t, Officer, and I really don’t want to know what you think.’ She’s about to cut him off when she remembers her manners.
‘I appreciate your call and how you’ve handled all this. Your discretion is duly noted. You ever need a favour in Homicide,
one’s waiting on my desk.’

‘No need, ma’am. I’m just glad to have helped.’

She shuts down the phone. Thirty days. How the hell is she going to tell the girls?

DOWNTOWN, LOS ANGELES

JJ spends most of the day closeted in his office. But his mind is elsewhere.

It’s with Em. She’s all he can think about. He wants to be with her for ever. Even wishes she was still alive. But that was
never going to be possible. He’d been sworn to secrecy. And he’s obeyed. Always has. Always will.

He knows he has to move her. Let her go. But where should she rest? He’s never disposed of a body before. Never done anything
so unkind in his life. All those he has helped into the next world he has left in their homes.

Home.
That’s it. He must return Em to her home. It is where she will be at rest. It is the right thing to do. Unconsciously he
puts a hand to his stomach and rubs an itch, one caused by the fresh cuts he made before coming to work. He undoes the buttons
of his white shirt and looks at the livid criss-cross wounds opened by the razor blade. He lowers his chin to his chest and
blows on the skin to soothe it.

A knock lifts his head. The sound of the door opening makes him close his shirt quickly. Jenny Harrison stares at him. Only
she doesn’t look as bold as usual. Hasn’t done since her friend disappeared.

‘Can I have a minute?’

‘It’s not convenient.’ He finishes straightening his clothes.

She comes in anyway. ‘It’s Kim. Did she call you today? To say she was sick or anything?’

He wishes now he’d dealt with them both. If he’d gone back for Harrison after he’d finished Bass, this wouldn’t be happening.
‘I haven’t heard from her. If she’s not in by Monday, I’m giving her job to someone else.’

Harrison flinches. ‘I think I know what’s happened to her.’

JJ doubts it. ‘What?’

She hesitates. What she’s about to say could cost her friend her job. ‘A year back Kim got pulled by the cops for making out
in a car with a guy. They got it all wrong and charged her with prostitution. She did five days in prison, with a warning
that if she got caught again, she’d go down for longer.’

‘Prostitution?’ He tries to sound shocked.

‘Yeah. Like I say, it was a mistake. A
misunderstanding.
But Kim’s always got lots of admirers and I figure there might have been another misunderstanding – do you know what I mean?’

‘You think she’s been arrested?’

‘Yeah.’ Harrison moves to the edge of the desk and puts on a helpless look. ‘Mr James, could you ring the cops and find out
if they’ve got her somewhere? I called the local station and they said check with Hollenbeck but they’d never heard of her.
Maybe they’d do more if you called.’

The last people in the world that JJ wants to ring are the police. ‘Leave it with me, Jenny. I’ll see what I can find out.’

TURIN

What disturbs Nic almost as much as the fact that Roberto Craxi and his wife have disappeared is that Carlotta and Fredo don’t
seem that bothered. Policing in Italy is a whole different ballgame to that in the States. Too laid back and far too sloppy
for his liking.

He’s still biting his tongue as Fredo drives them to Craxi’s bank at the south-eastern end of Via Po, near the giant Piazza
Vittorio Veneto. While it’s not that unusual for people to change homes five or ten times in a lifetime, they seldom switch
banks on more than a couple of occasions. The manager should be able to give them a new address.

Carlotta is sat in the back with Nic and can tell that he’s churning things over in his mind. ‘Something is troubling you?’

‘Yeah, it is. Don’t you think it strange that none of the neighbours back there saw the Craxis leave and none of them were
friendly enough to have a forwarding address?’

She shrugs. ‘It happens. In apartment blocks like that, you come, you go, you don’t see many people. I live in one very like
it.’

He’s looking out the window as he talks. ‘Those stairs were tight. You couldn’t get furniture out without making a noise,
scraping walls, being noticed.’

‘The landlord, Signore Llorente, did you ask him about the relocation? Maybe he knows?’

‘I asked. He doesn’t.’ He turns to face her. ‘Something is wrong, and I get the impression that because this is an out-of-town
case, you and the Carabinieri don’t really care that much.’

‘Scusi?’
She reddens a little. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Come on. We get the brush-off from that verger friend of yours, then the Craxis have vanished and their apartment – well,
their apartment is the only one to have been freshly painted – and you don’t seem to be the least bit interested in that.’

She’s offended by his tone. ‘Maybe it was painted to attract new renters.’

‘Maybe you’re not trying hard enough. I bet if you sent a forensic team into that apartment back there, you wouldn’t find
so much as a fingerprint from Craxi or his wife.’

‘He has left,’ she throws up her hands in annoyance, a flash of Latin temper. ‘The landlord says he has paid his rent, so
for us there is no crime here in Italy to investigate.’

‘Maybe not for you, but in LA we have a mutilated dead woman and she’s directly linked to your missing Italian.’

‘He’s not missing. He just left. He just moved house.’

‘We are here.’ Fredo pulls the Alfa to the kerb.

‘Thanks,’ snaps Nic, pushing open the back door and getting out.

Carlotta stomps past him and into the bank. She walks by a queue of customers and shows her ID at a window. A senior
clerk eventually materialises and lets them through an electronically locked door into a passageway and then upstairs to the
first floor to an office at the back in the corner. Seems big guys the world over always want the corner space, the one with
double windows and the best street views.

Fabrizio Gatusso comes out and shakes Carlotta’s hand. The silver-haired fifty-year-old looks every inch a bank manager –
blue pin-stripe suit, white shirt and tightly knotted blue tie.

‘He says to come in,’ explains Carlotta, her voice showing she’s still mad with Nic. ‘He does not speak English but I will
translate.’

Nic takes a seat beside her on the brown corner sofa, the kind that comes in movable sections. Gatusso settles on another
square piece of it opposite them, behind a glass table stacked with paper and leaflets. The banker hands a file to Carlotta
and she in turn passes it to Nic with an explanation. ‘These are copies of Craxi’s accounts for all the time he was a customer.
Also his wife’s.’

‘Was?
Was
his customer.’

‘Si.
They closed their accounts a month ago.’

Nic feels his anger bubbling up again. Precious time is being wasted. ‘So who do they bank with now?’ His tone becomes almost
derisory. ‘Usually when customers move banks, the old bank and the new one work together to switch standing orders and exchange
debit orders and things. Please don’t tell me it doesn’t work like that in Italy or that I need special permission from the
President or the Pope or someone.’

She stares angrily at him. ‘I ask for you.’

As she does, Nic opens the file and scans the statements. They show the sequence of payments from Tamara Jacobs – sums of
€3600, the equivalent at the time of $5000. He flicks through and sees the bigger amounts as well – two deposits via international
bank transfer of €18,179 – twenty-five grand.