“Good, then,” my employer said. “Who is in charge of the investigation at Scotland Yard? Please tell me it is not Munro.”
Inspector James Munro was one of the few men at Scotland Yard with whom Barker did not get along. It might be closer to the mark to say they despised each other.
“No. I understand the C.I.D. is handling the case. I believe an Inspector Poole is coordinating the effort.”
“Poole?” Barker murmured.
“You know him?”
“I know him well. You said it is permissible to coordinate with Scotland Yard at some point?”
“It would be in your best interests not to tell Poole you’re working for the Home Office, politics being what they are, but I suppose you are bound to run into the C.I.D. eventually. If you succeed, those to whom it matters will know whose operation it was. You have permission to work with the Yard if you find it necessary. Have you got a plan in mind?”
“Not yet,” Barker admitted. “I’ll come up with one in a few days. If you receive any pertinent information, send it directly to my office.”
“Very well,” Anderson said. “I suppose there’ll be no going undercover on this one.”
He was referring to our Irish case, in which we’d posed as a German bomb maker and his protege.
“No,” he said. “The best plan when facing the Mafia is to be as mobile as possible and to gather about one men as vicious and cunning as any they can produce. To beat a Sicilian, one must think like a Sicilian.”
“And can you?”
“I believe I can. It’s necessary in my work to know my adversaries.”
Anderson nodded. “Good. I’ll leave you to your plans. I need to get back to Whitehall. I’ll await word from you.”
He stepped out into the downpour as his cab came up the street to meet him. His driver was now sodden and looked in need of a restorative cup of tea, if nothing stronger. Barker put away his pipe and we stepped out from under the awning, the rain drumming on the brims of our bowlers, not an unpleasant sound.
“Are you sure you can find enough men to take on the Mafia, sir?” I asked, struggling to keep up with his long strides while skipping around puddles.
“We shall see, lad.”
“You seemed very accommodating,” I continued. “I rather thought you might turn him down.”
“Someone has to get involved, Thomas, and if the Home Office’s hands are tied at the moment, I’d rather it was me. Scotland Yard is excellent at what it does, but this sort of thing is beyond its scope.”
“Anderson must trust you implicitly to ask you to take over what the Home Office can’t do itself.”
“Perhaps,” Barker admitted, raising his stick to hail a cab while the rain poured off the brims of our bowlers, “but on the other hand, I’ve put him into my debt, which is a very important thing if we are going into debt ourselves.”
“Debt?” I asked, thinking of his account at the Bank of England.
“Aye. Oh, not money, lad. Favors. Don’t think anyone is going to help us merely out of the goodness of his heart.”
4
For once I had some idea where we were going as we clattered along Aldgate High Street, heading toward the West End. Our destination was the Neapolitan, a restaurant in Westminster run by Serafini’s former employer, Victor Gigliotti, leader of the English branch of the Camorra. Gigliotti’s bodyguard and his wife were now dead, leaving me to assume Gigliotti must have done something to warrant the attack on his people.
In Marsham Street, we pulled up to the curb and alighted. Passing beneath the metal red, white, and green flags of unified Italy that adorned the exterior of the restaurant, we stepped inside. A large portrait of Giuseppi Garibaldi, the Italian patriot, hung on one wall. Not as welcoming perhaps were the steely stares of several hard-looking men in the room, including the owner, who sat at a table near the back. The bodyguards moved their hands nearer to where their guns were secreted as we entered, but Gigliotti held up a hand to them.
“Victor,” my employer said, coming to a stop in front of his table and offering a slight bow of respect as he removed his bowler.
“Cyrus,” the man replied with a smile, revealing a wide mouth with sharp canines. He was about thirty, thin but well built, with pomaded black hair. His jawline was so dark it looked as if gunpowder had been discharged into it. He spoke with only a slight accent. “How have I offended you that you have not honored my establishment with your presence in over a year? Rafael! A bottle of Gallo Nero and some antipasto.”
Barker pulled out a chair and sat close to him, speaking in a low voice. Gigliotti looked around, as if he did not even trust his own employees, and waved Barker even closer. The Guv spoke for almost a minute in his ear. As he listened, the Camorran smoothed a hand across his hair, though it was as flawless as if it had been shellacked. Eventually he nodded and sighed.
“Forgive my manners in not coming sooner, Victor,” Barker said, sitting back. “My only excuse is that I go where my work takes me, and there is no crime in Westminster to speak of, largely due to your presence.”
The table was suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of mustached waiters in long white aprons, setting down bottles and glasses and plates. A basket of fragrant, hot bread wrapped in linen appeared and then a cold platter of rolled meats and cheeses with olives. We helped ourselves. Perhaps it seems strange dining after the morning’s tragedy, but it is the Italian habit to punctuate everything, especially death, with food.
Gigliotti unstopped the basket-covered bottle of Chianti and poured three glasses with polished ease. He gave us each one and then raised his own.
“To Giorgio and Isabella, may they rest in such peace as God will allow them. They were cold-blooded killers and mad as hatters, but they celebrated life better than any Englishman.”
We drank. The Chianti was strong and sour, but it went well with the food. Gigliotti allowed us to eat for another minute or two, though I knew he must have questions about the fate of the Serafinis. An unwritten protocol demanded that everything occur in precise order, a play in which I alone seemed to be without a script.
“Barreled,” the Camorran finally said. “You know what that means.”
Barker nodded. “Sicilians, unless you have internal troubles of your own.”
“We don’t,” Gigliotti insisted, “and if we did, we would not be so ignorant as to float them in barrels. One might as well paint an Italian flag upon the lid for all London to see. Our community will be blamed for this. Giorgio, Giorgio! Who would have thought you’d be caught out in this manner?”
“It appeared to be the work of two men,” the Guv went on. “Serafini and his wife were gunned down together.”
“No one ever thought Isabella would die in bed.”
“There was another murder yesterday.”
Gigliotti gave him a sharp stare. “Who was killed?”
“Sir Alan Bledsoe, director of the East and West India Docks.”
“Bledsoe, is it?” Gigliotti asked. “My supplies for this restaurant, the ice warehouse, and my other businesses all arrive at those docks.”
“Bledsoe was stabbed in the ear with a sharp instrument, perhaps an ice pick. His death was made to look like heart failure, but something was driven into his brain.”
“Ice pick? I own the largest ice warehouse in London. It looks as if the Sicilians are trying to implicate me in Bled-soe’s murder. It is an old Sicilian murder method, used to get rid of judges and witnesses.” He snorted in anger. “I liked Sir Alan. We had a good working relationship. Now the position shall probably fall to Dalton Green, who is a martinet and far less willing to listen to reason.”
“Has there been any friction on the docks between the Italians and Sicilians?” Barker asked.
“Several of my people have approached me about the Sicilian riffraff. There have been fights, robberies, and men demanding money from merchants for protection. The English don’t know the difference between an Italian and a Sicilian, and we all get blamed. I have never interfered in Sir Alan’s work, though the docks are a necessary part of my business, because I felt he ran a tight ship; but recently, I spoke to him myself and expressed my concerns. He told me he would consider excluding the Sicilians from the docks permanently.”