Chapter 15
WEDNESDAY LUNCHTIME
The original plan had been to sit down with Vincent Archer before lunch, but Billy Nelson’s interview with him only ended at a quarter to one and Rosina told us she was cooking soufflés for the TXA people and made it clear that she intended to serve them at one o’clock and not a minute later.
In consequence, the interview with Archer was deferred until two o’clock.
I offered to give Billy a lift back down to the station for his train to Rome, and on the way, we stopped off at a little restaurant I knew for a quick lunch.
This was a traditional old Tuscan eatery some way outside the centro storico, and it was mostly frequented by locals, rather than tourists.
In particular, it had car parking and tables outside in a fine open courtyard where Oscar could join us.
I had got to know Bobo, the owner, pretty well after helping him eighteen months earlier when thieves had broken into his store one afternoon and stolen a load of food and wine.
Fortunately for me, the thieves had been singularly incompetent and had not only left their fingerprints but been stupid enough to park directly across the street, right outside a house with a video doorbell.
Half an hour of my time, a phone call to Marco at the questura, and the thieves had been arrested and the restaurateur reunited with his produce in time for the evening rush.
In consequence, when Billy and I walked in, I got a bear hug from Bobo, and when I asked if he could sort us out with something quick so Billy could catch his train and I could get back to the villa, he leapt into action.
We had hardly sat down when Carla, the waitress, arrived with a half-litre of Chianti, a carafe of water and two plates bearing slices of succulent orange melon and cured ham.
Seconds later, she returned with a bowl of water for Oscar and half a dozen not so little chunks of grilled meat, left over by previous customers, so he didn’t feel hard done by.
While he wagged his tail appreciatively, I thanked her and received a broad smile in return.
‘Bobo asks if pappardelle alla lepre would be all right? The pasta will be ready in no more than ten minutes, so eat up.’
I assured her that some of my favourite pasta in a rich gamey sauce would be perfect.
While we ate our antipasti, Billy and I chatted about old friends, past experiences and what had happened in our lives over the last quarter of a century.
He told me about his marriage, his three children and his time living in Brockley, near Lewisham.
I told him about my new venture as a private investigator, but I didn’t ask him about his work, and he didn’t offer any information – further cementing my conviction that he was now in the security services.
Once we had exhausted the subject of wives – and in my case, my fiancée – children, hobbies and interests, the conversation inevitably returned to the two recent murders.
What he had to say about his interview of Vincent Archer was potentially very interesting.
‘According to Archer, TXA Supplies had four directors: Angel, Archer, Hicks and Angel’s ex-wife, Jane. He told me that Angel has spent the last four years since his divorce trying to remove his ex-wife from the board of directors, but without success.’
I looked up from the last of my ham and melon. ‘That’s interesting. There’s no mention of her in Angel’s will, but I imagine she now stands to do very well after his death after all and, of course, Hicks’s death will probably enrich her even further as well.’
No sooner had I put my fork down than Carla swooped in and removed our plates.
A minute later, Bobo himself appeared carrying two more plates, piled high with steaming pasta.
He reached over and refilled our glasses for us, patted me paternally on the shoulder, and withdrew. Billy was most impressed.
‘Looks like you’ve really settled here, Dan. Tell me, how come you’re involved in a murder investigation with the local police? After all, you’re just a civilian nowadays, and a foreigner to boot. Back in our day, that sort of thing was frowned upon.’
‘It would be here as well, except that I’m really only called in as an interpreter.
’ Reading scepticism in his eyes, I went on.
‘Virgilio and I have worked well together in the past. He sometimes sends me business that he can’t or doesn’t want to get involved with, and I’m only too happy to help out if there’s an English-speaking connection.
Inevitably, I get involved with what’s going on, but it’s most definitely his investigation, not mine. Go on, eat up. Don’t let it get cold.’
He dropped his eyes to his plate and started eating, making appreciative sounds as he did so. I did the same but was soon interrupted as he started speaking again.
‘Something else that emerged in my conversation with Vincent Archer this morning might be of interest to you. Go ahead and pass the information on to the Italian police, by all means. Reading between the lines, it’s quite clear that there’s been a lot of conflict inside the company of late, mainly because of Angel and Hicks’s decision to sell arms to a number of entities that are under United Nations sanction for war crimes, and in one case genocide.
I get the feeling that Archer, a former colonel in the British army, would strongly object to that.
We’ve been doing a bit of checking up on him and his colleagues – that investigation has been under way for a while now, long before either of these murders happened – and it’s become increasingly clear that there’s been a rift at the top.
Now, whether this rift has been serious enough for Archer or somebody like him to take the law into their own hands is something the Italian police will have to work out for themselves, but you might like to tell them that it’s a possibility. ’
I thanked him for the information and promised to pass it on.
As I tore up a slice of the wonderful Tuscan unsalted bread and wiped the last of the sauce off my plate, I thought about what he had just said.
Could it be that this was the reason why the two most senior men in the company had been killed?
We had been flailing around looking for a motive, and this certainly appeared a viable possibility.
At the same time, the knowledge that Tristan Angel’s ex-wife did in fact have a lot to gain by his death brought her bouncing back into consideration as far as the first murder was concerned and made it less likely that Hicks might have done it.
I got back to the villa at two minutes to two and found Virgilio, Marco and Diana Dini in a huddle in the small lounge. Virgilio looked up as I came in and beckoned to me to join them.
I wasted no time before telling them what Billy had told me about Archer and Angel’s ex-wife and the in-fighting in the company over the move towards selling to less desirable and downright illegal organisations.
All three officers received the information with interest, and Virgilio told me what had happened here in my absence.
‘Tech have finally managed to get into Angel’s laptop.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that all of the files on there are in some kind of unbelievable encrypted security set-up that they’re struggling to crack.
However, they have been able to get into his email, and that makes very interesting reading.
’ He handed me over several sheets of paper on which somebody had printed off a series of emails to Mr Tristan, TXA, from an anonymous-looking email address that looked as though the sender had simply run his fingers randomly across the keyboard.
I settled down in an armchair and read my way through the messages.
The first was dated April of this year, and the last had arrived as recently as this Monday night.
It was clear to see that the writer of the emails was not a native English speaker as there were numerous errors in both grammar and spelling, but the content was perfectly comprehensible – or at least it would have been comprehensible if I had known what on earth half of the items mentioned in what was clearly a long and detailed wish list really were.
As far as I could work out, the sender of the emails, who signed himself simply as Shabah, was interested in acquiring several thousand automatic weapons and a load of ammunition, along with numerous ancillary items ranging from steel helmets and body armour to other more sinister-sounding items that could have been anything from poison gas to nuclear warheads as far as I was concerned, but whose names meant nothing to me.
This looked very much like somebody trying to raise and equip a private army.
In response, Tristan Angel had provided detailed costing for different makes and models of weapon and assorted materiel.
After considerable to-ing and fro-ing, Shabah had placed an initial order for a total cost of just under ten million US dollars, with delivery details to be confirmed in due course.
For his part, Angel had insisted upon payment of 20 per cent of the total in advance, with the balance payable prior to delivery.
Apart from the nature of the items and the astronomical costs involved, these looked like pretty standard commercial dealings.
What was certainly not standard commercial practice was the agreement that the two-million-dollar deposit was to have been handed over in Florence on Tuesday morning – in cash.
The most recent email, received at ten-seventeen on Monday night, was the most interesting of all, quite comprehensible in spite of its grammatical and spelling mistakes.
You go the Doumo in Florence at 10.00 tomorow, 17 August. Halfway on left side, you find wood conffessing box with Not on Service sign. Go in. Close door. I come to you with money. You not see my face. Nobody don’t see my face. No tricks. Shabah
I let the papers drop onto my lap and looked up at the three officers.
‘Well, that answers one question. Now we know why Angel went into the confessional. However, if this is what happened, it looks very much as though Angel wasn’t killed by somebody from within the company after all, but by this Shabah character.
’ I stopped to reflect that this had broader implications beyond a simple murder investigation.
‘Billy Nelson is secret service, I’m sure of it, even if he wasn’t prepared to confirm or deny.
I’m sure he would be very interested in this information and he might be able to help.
He gave me his phone number. If it’s all right with you, I can give him a call and ask him if he knows anything about this guy Shabah? ’
Virgilio nodded and I dialled the number Billy had given me.
He answered almost immediately, and I explained why I was calling but, before I could read him a selection of the messages including the last, he murmured, ‘Give me a moment.’ I heard him moving through the train to somewhere away from prying ears.
‘Dan, are you still there? The train’s pretty crowded, but I’m okay to talk now. Let’s hear the messages.’
I read them out to him and when he responded, he sounded intrigued.
‘Those emails are fascinating. We know Shabah – or at least we know of him. That isn’t his real name, by the way.
Shabah in Arabic means “ghost” and that’s all he ever calls himself.
We think he might originally be Iraqi, but he operates across several countries in that part of the world.
He’s a dyed-in-the-wool jihadi with links to any number of Islamist organisations, and the militia he heads up has an appalling reputation for atrocities.
’ I heard him give a little sigh of frustration.
‘To think that he might even have been there in Florence only yesterday is infuriating. He’s one of the most wanted men in the world. ’
‘If he’s on the most-wanted list, that means he’s considered a terrorist, and so, by selling him arms, Angel would have been breaking international law.’
‘And how! If the deal had gone through, and if it had ever become public knowledge, TXA would have been closed down overnight, and Angel and his cronies would have ended up spending the rest of their years in a high-security jail.’ There was silence for a couple of seconds before he went on.
‘It’s probably safe to assume that Hicks was in on the deal as well, so if you’re looking for a motive for their murders, look no further.
Vincent Archer, to name just one, was probably faced with a three-way choice of either leaving the company and everything he’s worked for, committing murder to stop the deal going through or risking spending the rest of his life behind bars.
I didn’t speak to the others, but you can bet Archer wasn’t the only one to feel that way. ’
I thanked him warmly, and he repeated his promise to see what dirt he could dig up on any of the residents of the villa.
When the call ended, I repeated what he’d told me to the others and Virgilio rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
‘Right, Dini, please ask Mr Archer to join us, will you?’