I picked it up and stared at the readout. The buckle was moving steadily toward me. I leapt to my feet and jumped into the car, gunning the engine into life. Still the buckle was drawing nearer. There was a sudden change of direction, which I guessed was the turn from the drive on to the main road. I edged forward, ready to pull out after the target vehicle had passed, one eye on the screen. Seconds later, a stretch Mercedes limo cruised past me, followed in short order by Richard in the BMW.
I slotted into place behind him, and our little cavalcade made its way back down the valley and into Sestri Levante. The outskirts of the town were typical of Northern Italy- dusty, slightly shabby, somehow old-fashioned. The center was much smarter, a trim holiday resort all stucco in assorted pastel shades, green-shuttered windows on big hotels and small pensiones, expensive shops, grass and palm trees. We skirted the wide crescent of the main beach and headed along the isthmus to the harbor. As the limo turned onto a quay, I dumped the car in an illegal parking space and watched Richard do the same. I ran up to join him, linked arms and together we strolled up the quay, our faces pointing toward the sea and the floating gin palaces lined up at the pontoons. The great thing about wrap-round sunglasses is the way you can look in one direction while your head is pointing in the other.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the stretch limo glide to a halt at the foot of a gangway. The boat at the end of it was bigger than my house, and probably worth as much as Henry’s Monet. The driver’s door opened and a gorilla in uniform got out. Even from that distance, I could see muscles so developed they made him look round-shouldered. He wore sunglasses and a heavy mustache and looked round him with the economical watchfulness of a good bodyguard. Martin Scorsese would have swooned.
Satisfied that there was no one on the quay more dangerous than a couple of goggling tourists, he opened the back door. By now, we were close enough for me to get a good look at the presumed owner of the Villa San Pietro. He wasn’t much more than my own five feet and three inches, but he looked a hell of a lot harder than me. He was handsome in the way that birds of prey are handsome, all hooked nose and hooded eyes. His perfectly groomed black hair had a wing of silver over each temple. He was wearing immaculately pressed cream yachting ducks, a full-cut canary yellow silk shirt with a navy guernsey thrown over his shoulders. He carried a slim briefcase. He stood for a moment on the quayside, shaking the crease straight on his trouser legs, then headed up the gangplank without waiting for Turner, who scrambled out of the car behind him.
I pulled Richard into a tight embrace as Turner and the bodyguard went on board, just in case Turner was looking. When they’d disappeared below, we carried on strolling past the Petronella Azura III. I can’t say I was surprised to see that the expensive motor cruiser was registered out of Palermo.
“Fucking hell,” Richard murmured as we passed the boat. “It’s the Mafia. Brannigan, this is no place for us to be,” he said, casting a nervous look back over his shoulder.
“They don’t know we’re here,” I pointed out. “Let’s keep it that way, huh?” At the end of the quay, we stared out to sea for a few minutes.
“We’re going to pull out now, aren’t we?” Richard demanded. “I mean, it’s time to bring in the big battalions, isn’t it?”
“Who did you have in mind?” I asked pointedly. “This isn’t Manchester. I don’t know the good cops from the bad cops. From what I’ve heard of Italian corruption, I could walk into the nearest police station and find myself talking to this mob’s tame copper. Can you think of a better short cut to a concrete bathing suit?”
Richard looked hurt. “I was only trying to be helpful,” he said.
“Well, don’t. When I want help, I’ll ask for it.” I can’t help myself. The more scared I get, the more I bite lumps out of the nearest body. Besides, I didn’t figure I was obliged to feel guilty. As far as I was concerned, Richard had drawn the short straw from choice.
I got to my feet and started to stroll back down the quay. After a moment, Richard caught up with me. We were just in time to see the chauffeur and a young lad in shorts and a striped T-shirt trot down the gangplank and start unloading suitcases from the boot of the limo. They ferried half a dozen bags on board, not even giving us a second glance. We walked back to my car and stared at the receiver in a moody silence neither of us felt like breaking.
After about half an hour, Turner and the bodyguard came off the yacht and got in the car. “You want to follow them?” I asked Richard. “I’ll stay here and watch the boat.”
“No heroics,” he bargained.
“No heroics,” I agreed.
He just caught the lights at the end of the road where the limo had turned right. It looked like the chauffeur was taking Turner back to the villa. And judging by the screen, the buckle was now aboard the yacht. One of two things was going to happen now. Either the yacht was going to take off, complete with buckle, or some third party was going to come to the yacht and get the buckle. My money was on the former, but I felt duty bound to sit it out. The phone rang about twenty minutes later. “They’re back at the villa,” Richard reported. “Do you want me to wait and see if Turner takes off?”
“Please,” I said. “Thanks, Richard. Sorry I bit your head off earlier.”
“So you should be. You’re lucky to have me.” He ended the call before I could find a retort.
Suddenly the receiver screen went blank. I sat bolt upright. I pulled the connector out of the cigarette lighter socket where I’d been recharging the batteries and slid the power compartment cover off. I broke one of my nails getting the batteries out in a hurry, and stuffed replacements in. But when I switched on again, the screen was still blank. Given that it wasn’t the batteries and the yacht hadn’t moved out of range, there was only one possible reason why my screen was blank. Someone had discovered the bug and put it out of action. I took a deep breath and thanked my lucky stars that my name wasn’t Nicholas Turner.
Ten minutes later, the lad in the shorts was back on the quayside, casting off. Within twenty minutes, the Petronella Azura III had disappeared round the point. Pondering my next step, I drove back up the valley and found Richard sitting in the BMW a couple of hundred yards up the road from the turnoff to the drive. I parked my Merc at Casa Nico and walked up to join him. I filled him in on the latest turn of events. It didn’t take long.
“So, do we go home now?” he asked plaintively.
“I suppose so,” I said reluctantly. “I’d like to get inside that villa, though.”
“You said yourself it was impregnable,” he pointed out.
“I know, but I never could resist a challenge.”
Richard took a deep breath. “Brannigan, you know I never try to come between you and your job. But this time, you’ve got to back off. Go home, tell the police what you’ve got so far. They can pick up Turner and they can talk to the good cops over here and get them to look at the villa and the boat. There’s nothing more you can do here. Besides, you’ve got another case you’re supposed to be working on, in case you’d forgotten.”
Part of me knew he was right. But there is another part of me that responds to being told what to do by doing just the opposite. It overrides all my common sense, and it’s one of the reasons why I prefer to work alone. Besides, I knew that all we had was an address and the name of a boat. That wouldn’t necessarily take the authorities anywhere at all. I wanted more.