Huggins took another sip from the glass. ‘Mawhinney did all the correct things. He interviewed Salvona’s fellow officers, but learned nothing. He pulled his telephone records, but found nothing incriminating. He pulled his mother’s telephone records: nothing. He gained access to his bank account: nothing. So he returned Officer Salvona to duty, and he put him under surveillance. Three weeks later it paid off. The officer was married; he also had a girlfriend, as the investigators discovered when they tailed him to her apartment one night, and watched him leave at three in the morning.’
He drained the glass. ‘Bingo. Her name was Irene Falcone, and she was the sister of a senior figure in a rival family to that of which Tedesco was a member. Mawhinney pulled her phone records; he found regular calls to her brother, but crucially, two days before the hit, he found one to Al Tedesco. Then he checked her bank accounts: the day after Tedesco’s murder, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars was paid into a new joint account. It had two signatories, Irene Falcone and Luigi Salvona. That finished them both. They pleaded guilty to second-degree homicide and they were sentenced to ten to twenty years each. On the day he was sentenced, the judge asked Salvona if he had anything to say. He said, and I quote, “Yes, Your Honour, I would like to say the following. Sergeant Mawhinney, you are a fucking dead man.” This is not an unusual remark from a convicted felon but. .’
‘But what?’
‘Salvona and Irene Falcone were both released, on the same day, four weeks ago, and set up home together in an apartment in Queens. They had a scheduled meeting with their parole officer last Wednesday. They failed to appear: officers were sent to collect them but they were not at home. Then yesterday they walked into the parole office, apologised, and said that they had gone on vacation to Florida and had mixed up the date of their meeting.’
‘Can you prove they left the country?’
‘Not a chance. Irene’s brother is still a very large fish; they’d have used fake passports.’
‘But if we can match either of them to the hire of a Land Rover within the last week or so. .’
‘Yes, Inspector, only this is where it gets complicated. The day Salvona was arrested he was fired from the force. When he was arraigned, it was as a civilian, and his connection with NYPD was covered up. His presence at the Tedesco murder had never been revealed, nor was it announced in court, because of the guilty plea. However wrong it may have been, this was a decision taken to protect the image of the force. If it all becomes public now. .’
‘The shit flies ten-fold.’ McIlhenney looked at the American. ‘Are you asking me to fold my investigation?’
‘A colleague of yours used the word “discretion” to me this morning, Inspector. I use it now to you.’
The big Scot leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘I don’t have any,’ he said. ‘In these circumstances, discretion belongs with DCC Skinner. I think you’d better meet with him.’
72
The policeman and the soldier faced each other across a table in a corner of the big restaurant in Brussels airport’s departure area. They had barely spoken on the journey from Winters’s office, not wanting to say anything that their driver might overhear.
Adam Arrow picked up his knife and fork to attack his gammon steak, saw Skinner staring absently at his salad, and put them down again. ‘So?’
‘Do you need to ask, mate?’
‘Not really. The Belgians are throwing a fookin’ blanket over something, that’s for sure. What you said to my friend Pierre was dead right. He’s not usually such a wanker, by the way. He was reading from someone else’s script.’
‘Can you get to its author?’
Arrow shook his head gloomily. ‘I can do a lot of things, Bob, but this is the business of a sovereign state, one that happens, in addition, to be one of our European partners. I’d need a big wedge to get anywhere; first I’d have to persuade my own secretary of state, and he’d have to talk to his colleagues. Now if you were to tell me that, by withholding information, the Belgians were compromising the safety of the Pope, they’d listen to that.’
‘I can’t tell you that for sure,’ said Skinner, ‘or I’d have told Colonel Winters, straight out. This started as a murder investigation, pure and simple, and it still is, only being denied information by the Belgian military means it isn’t so simple any longer. There’s something in these men’s past that relates to all this. Maybe Malou’s acquaintance with the young John the Twenty-fifth has nothing to do with it, but maybe it has.’
‘Then why not go at it from the other side?’ Arrow could hold himself back no longer from his lunch. He picked up his cutlery and set to work, with Skinner looking at him, frowning.
‘You know,’ said the DCC, ‘you’re bloody right.’ He took out his cell phone and scrolled through his stored numbers until he found one under the name ‘Rossi’, and selected it.
The Italian answered in seconds. ‘Sì.’
‘English, please, Gio; it’s Bob Skinner. I need you to get something for me. I know the Vatican maintains an official biography of the Pope, but is it exhaustive?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sorry; is it absolutely detailed? Does it cover every step of his career in the priesthood?’
‘They have a long version, Bob, and a short version. I’ll get you the long one. When do you need it?’
‘First thing tomorrow, my office. Oh, and Gio, do you have a number for His Holiness’s private secretary?’
‘Father Collins? He’s with me now. Hold on.’ There was a silence as he handed his phone over.
‘Mr Skinner,’ said the young Scots voice, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘How often do you speak to the Pope?’
‘Every day, even when I’m away on a mission like this: I have to call him this evening.’
‘When you do, will you ask him a question for me?’
He heard Angelo Collins hesitate. ‘I’m not sure. One does not interrogate the Holy Father.’
‘I know, but it’s a simple question. Does the name Auguste Malou mean anything to him? That’s all. It’s necessary, I assure you.’
‘I think I can ask him that. Can you repeat it?’
Skinner did as he asked, then folded his phone and put it away. ‘Let’s hope I get more out of that than I did out of the bloody Belgians.’
73
Something was disturbing the happiness that had enveloped Stevie Steele like a cloud since the previous weekend. It was nothing to do with his home life; he was convinced that getting together with Maggie was the best thing he had ever done. The night before, she had told him that he had liberated her; he had replied that all he had done was pull the stopper and let the genie out of its bottle.
He could still feel her warmth beside him, and hear her laugh in the darkness. ‘In that case, you’d better put it back, so it’s stuck out here for ever.’
No, the disturbance in his karma was purely professional. There was something about the Aurelia Middlemass business that was not yet complete, a question unanswered, because it had not yet formed within him, but one that was lurking there nonetheless.
Officers of his rank had perks; one of his was a computer, with an Internet link. He switched it on and waited while it went online, then entered two words into a search engine. A minute later he had a telephone number for the Dubai Police Department. He called it and identified himself; the operator spoke English, as he had assumed would be the case. He asked for the Traffic section, and found another English speaker on its switchboard.
‘May I speak to your senior officer on duty, please?’ he asked, then waited.