She paced up and down, not because this ever helped her think much, a process always done better horizontally, but because it provided some vague illusion of doing something. There would be a handover. Obviously a cautious one, or it would have already taken place. Mary Verney had driven past Charanis, then accelerated away so fast Paolo had lost her. She didn’t trust him; that was obvious. He saw she had the picture, and presumably had to do something before she would hand it over.
So where would the handover take place? She walked next door to find Giulia, who had come back to the office and was waiting to be given something to do.
“Your notes,” she said. “Reports. Of when you were following Mrs Verney.”
The girl opened her desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of paper.
“Where did she go? I know she went shopping, went to museums, and so on. Where else did she go?”
Giulia shrugged. “Dealers. We went round almost every dealer on the via dei Coronari. Then she took me for a long walk. She said she always likes to walk four or five kilometres a day.”
“Where did you go?”
“Down the Corso, across the Campo dei Fiori and across the ponte Sisto. We stopped for a coffee opposite Santa Maria in Trastevere. Then we walked up to see the Bramante chapel in San Pietro, then we ended up watching the sun go down from the Gianicolo. Then we took a taxi back to her hotel. I was exhausted. It didn’t seem to bother her at all.”
“She didn’t do anything unusual? Didn’t seem particularly alert at any moment? Wasn’t checking anything out? What did she say?”
“We talked all the time. She’s a very nice person. But she didn’t say anything which struck me particularly.”
“Try a bit harder. She’s going to hand this picture over to Charanis soon. She must have a handover spot. Somewhere quiet, where there won’t be any witnesses, somewhere where she can put it down and leave very fast. She doesn’t trust him, and I don’t blame her. She’s frightened of him. Where can she leave it which is quiet and with good transport?”
“In Rome?” the girl said. “Nowhere. Besides, if she wants to put a safe distance between herself and this man, why not give it to an intermediary?”
“Like who?”
“Like one of the dealers.”
Flavia looked solidly at her. Maybe she had a future in the police after all. “Who did she visit?”
Giulia handed over her list. Flavia went through them. “She introduced me as her niece at all of them.”
“She knew them?”
“Oh, yes. They all greeted her very fondly. Some with a bit of caution, but they all put on a show for her.”
“Including this one?” She pointed at one name, halfway down the list.
“Including that one, yes.”
Flavia all but kissed the girl with delight. “Yes,” she said triumphantly. “Yes, yes. That’s the one. It must be.”
“Why?”
“Because you say she knew him and when I met him the same afternoon he denied ever having heard of her. Giuseppe Bartolo, old friend, I’ve got the both of you. At long last. Come on. Let’s go. There’s not much time.”
Flavia did her best to summon reinforcements, but knew as she and Giulia ran through the streets, across the Piazza Navona and down the via dei Coronari that the chances of anyone getting there quickly was slim. The rush hour was beginning, and none of her comrades were in walking, or running, distance. She was on her own, with Giulia. Nor did she have any idea of what she was going to do when she arrived. Hang around outside and wait? Then what, even assuming they were right? She hated guns herself and was a terrible shot. She assumed Giulia had received the standard training, but also remembered that trainees weren’t allowed to carry weapons. What, exactly, was she meant to do if Charanis turned up before her support, and refused to stand there and be arrested?
Running and dodging the crowds and concentrating on arriving as swiftly as possible gave her little time to dwell on this problem. She had one chance to catch this man with the icon and link the entire case together, and she wasn’t going to miss it again. She only hoped that her guess about Mary Verney was right. What if, at this moment, she was standing on top of the Gianicolo handing the thing over?
If she was, she was. Too late to do anything about it. Besides, there was the gallery. She slowed down, waited for Giulia to catch up, and stood uncertainly, getting her breath back.
“What do we do now?”
“Wait. And hope.”
Flavia looked around. “Might as well sit down and look inconspicuous, I guess.”
She led the way over to a cafe, and commandeered a table which gave a good view of the gallery and its approaches.
“What about a back entrance?” Giulia asked.
“There isn’t one. I know this place.”
She ordered a bottle of water and drank, opened her bag and peered anxiously at her gun. Then she scrabbled around in the depths to find the bullets she kept in a little purse. As a matter of principle she always refused to go around with a loaded gun in her pocket. Rules now said she had to have one. They never said anything about it being ready to go off at any moment.
Giulia looked nervously at the unpractised way she loaded it.
“Quite right,” Flavia said grimly. “The only time I ever tried to fire one of these things in the past, I nearly killed Jonathan.”
The trainee smiled wanly.
“How do we know he’s not already been and gone?”
A good question. Flavia looked up as she considered an answer, then frowned. “Because he’s coming down the street now, that’s why.”
She nodded in the direction of the Piazza Navona, and Giulia peered round to see in the flesh the man she’d only seen before in a grainy photograph. He was tall, quite handsome, apart from an incipient paunchiness, and very, very businesslike. The sort of person who was not going to frighten easily and might well not come quietly.
“I think,” Flavia said, “the best thing to do would be to leap on him from behind as he comes out of the shop. He’ll be holding the icon, so will have one arm occupied, and two of us should be able to get him on the ground. Once he’s collected the picture he should relax a little as well.”
Giulia nodded stiffly.
“Nervous?”
Another tight-lipped little nod.
“Join the club. Come on,” she said as Mikis vanished into the shop. “Stations. You take that side of the door, I’ll take the other.”
She dropped a note on the table to pay for the water and the two women walked across the street, desperately trying to look like a pair of shoppers concerned with nothing more than buying a small memento for a beloved aunt’s birthday.
Flavia was sweating with nervousness, and she noticed that Giulia was trembling with simple fright. She hoped the girl wouldn’t make a mess of things. If both of them did what they should, they stood a decent chance. But if Giulia froze, then she would leave Flavia in deep trouble.
They took up positions on either side of the shop door, Flavia consulting her watch and trying to look like a girlfriend on the verge of being stood up, Giulia concentrating her attention on a red open-topped car with two men in their twenties in it, playing their stereo at an unsociable volume, glancing around to make sure everyone else was looking at them, deliberately doing their best to incite hostility by their noisiness. Don’t go over and ask them to turn it down, Flavia thought. Please. All around, the street was full of people, coming and going, walking arm-in-arm, enjoying the sunlight and warmth. Peaceful and normal people leading a peaceful and normal life. And not a sign of Paolo, nor of anyone else. Where was everyone?
And then it was too late to hope for reinforcements. The door of the gallery opened, and Charanis, with a parcel under his arm, walked out. He paused in the little entrance way before stepping out into the street. Flavia made sure she could grab her gun, the youths in the car turned up the volume still further, and drummed a beat on the side of the door, bobbing their head in time to the music. Giulia looked desperately at her, waiting for a sign, a look of grim determination on her face.