Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-Six
After lunch and before heading into work, Nikki visited a secondhand bookshop near Piazza Dante.
“We only have it in English,” the bookseller told her apologetically as he retrieved the fat hardbound text: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
She brought the book to a nearby café, ordered an espresso, and scanned the pages.
Izzy’s description of her childhood, and about Beatrice’s interest in the Russian language, had jostled Nikki’s memory.
She recalled a copy of The Brothers Karamazov on her mother’s bedside table, and other Russian language books on the family bookshelves—an afterimage of Beatrice’s navy career.
Nikki had spent most of her life adamantly incurious about her mother’s passions, and so never read Russian literature.
But Sandro’s comment about the book made her wonder if some secret was buried here.
She’d probed the idea throughout the night, working it like her tongue on a sore tooth.
Now, flipping through the pages, she hunted for the name Zosima.
It appeared in the fifth chapter. He was a spiritual leader called an “Elder.”
“What exactly is an elder?” Dostoevsky wrote. “An elder is someone who takes your whole soul and your will into his soul and his will. Having chosen an elder, you renounce your individual will and surrender it to him in complete obedience and full self-abnegation.”
She continued reading and found more references to Zosima, but these shone no new light on her mother.
—
Before leaving the café, Nikki checked her phone, hoping for more information from Sonia. Nothing.
She pinged Valerio, who had apparently read but not responded to her text about the identity of the Ghost, Yasen Lazarov.
He didn’t answer.
Glancing at her other messages, she noted with relief and a small pang that Audrey’s usual barrage of emojis and pictures was absent today.
—
Nikki arrived on shift at 15:30 sharp.
Angelo was on the phone, his office door open, bombastic voice filling the room.
“Sì. Sì. Ambassador, I understand. Believe me when I say we are doing everything in our power…Sì.”
Crossing to her desk, Nikki was mortified to find an enormous bouquet of flowers, the vase so large her keyboard and files had been shoved aside to accommodate it.
“It’s unprofessional,” came a voice at her back.
Romano stood at his desk, peering over the grey cubicle wall.
“Excuse me?”
“Having flowers delivered is unprofessional.”
“I didn’t order them.”
She walked the vase away from the cubicles and set it beside the office door, before spotting the handwritten card nestled among the pink and orange blooms.
In gratitude for your care of Audrey. Do let me know if you change your mind and decide to come with us.—Jayston.
—
“Get those out of here,” ordered Angelo. He strode towards her, aiming his finger.
Nikki started to speak: “Where do you want—”
“Out of here,” he barked. “You will keep your personal life out of this office!”
The last thing she needed was another fight with Angelo.
Hefting the unwieldy bouquet, she left. The flowers were utterly impractical—so huge she could barely carry them, let alone bring them on her bike.
The only reasonable destination was the dumpster.
She hesitated briefly at the exit, then turned and walked rapidly down the service road.
—
Two blocks away, someone called her name.
She turned to see the stout figure of Mac van den Berg jogging towards her. He was in uniform: a dark blue jumpsuit and black beret, rank displayed on his gold-stitched shoulder shields. His shirtsleeves were rolled, showing hairy forearms.
“I tried to call—I couldn’t get through!” he panted, drawing alongside.
“That’s because I blocked your number.”
He grinned.
“Oh ouch. You hurt my feelings! Gianni said you liked to play hard to get.”
Fuck you, Gianni.
“This isn’t a game,” she said. “I’m not playing. You may be Gianni’s friend, but you aren’t mine. You aren’t welcome in my home or my life.”
He chuckled. “Okay, okay…I get it. You’re pissed off.”
They’d reached the dumpster. Nikki hoisted the vase over the edge. The glass shattered as she turned and strode back the way she’d come.
Keeping pace, he said, “Hey…I think you should give me a chance. I have a professional question. It’s about your ex, Calandra…super high-level top-secret shit…hey…slow down.”
He grabbed her forearm.
She responded instinctively, years of training giving speed and direction to her anger—stepping towards him, raising her elbow above his wrist, then swinging her arm rapidly down. He grunted in pain and surprise as he released her, and she danced away, hand up in warning.
“Back off,” she growled through gritted teeth. “I told you to leave me alone.”
“Shit!” he shouted, rubbing his arm. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
—
Angelo was gone when she returned to the office.
“Did they release the ambassador’s daughter?” she asked Romano.
He shrugged. “What do you care? You’re leaving anyway.”
Nikki texted Sonia, asking about the status of the case.
Sonia wrote: The Brits are still looking for Sexton. Without Walker, we can’t drop the charges against the women.
Nikki texted: What happened to Walker?
Sonia replied: Died at the hospital.
—
It was a slow afternoon in the office. Nikki answered emails, finished paperwork, and checked the jobs website to see if Angelo had posted the vacancy notice for her position. He had.
Nikki looked on her social media accounts, and messaged Sally Tate: Do you know where Teddy is?
Sally responded: What’s it to you?
The police need to talk to him. Do you know where he is?
You set the POLICE on him? Sally wrote. He told everyone you’re a psycho stalker bitch—and he’s right. LEAVE HIM ALONE!
With those words, the intimacy and viciousness of Teddy’s attack seemed to surge through afresh. Nikki gently touched the bruises on her neck. Then, shoving down the discomfort, she invited anger to take its place.
She wrote: He has information to help find Claire’s killer. If you know where he is, tell the police.
Sally didn’t answer, but she didn’t block Nikki either—a good sign.
—
The phone on her desk rang. It was the guard at the front gate.
“There’s someone here asking for you: Orlanda Alfieri.”
—
Nikki had met Valerio’s younger sister a few times: twice for drinks with Valerio, and she’d once come sailing on Calypso. Nikki didn’t know much about her, except that she’d recently ended a bad marriage.
Nikki spotted her as she exited the base. Orlanda looked a lot like her brother—the same bright eyes and playful mouth. But these were contorted with anxiety.
Orlanda apologized. “Sorry to come in person, but I didn’t have your number, and I didn’t know how else to reach you. Have you heard from Valerio today?”
Nikki checked her phone. Valerio still hadn’t responded to her texts about the white-haired Yasen Lazarov.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“Oh!” Orlanda gestured forcefully. “My brother’s an idiot.
He came by last night and—I don’t know…I had a really bad feeling about it.
I just knew he was going to do something stupid and dangerous.
I can’t stop worrying about him, and he won’t answer his phone.
I called his ex-wife, Giorgia. She says he gave her money and told her to get away with the kids. He didn’t tell her why.”
“Have you reached out to his partner, Maurizio?” Nikki suggested.
“I called the station. They wouldn’t put me through.”
Nikki thought about the bruise on Valerio’s head, and what he’d told her yesterday about Luca Errichiello and Paride Silvestri. I fucked up, he’d said.
“I’ll get my bike,” she told Orlanda. “We’ll go to the station together.”
—
It had been months since Nikki had visited the public reporting entrance of the police station.
The last time she was here, she’d come to report the attack carried out by the thug Enzo had hired.
Then, the place had been chaotic, crowded after the riots.
Today, the room was subdued and orderly.
A handful of uniformed cops filling out forms or taking statements.
Orlanda didn’t seem able to stand still as they waited for Maurizio. She fidgeted, picking at the skin on her arms, and rocking backwards on her heels. Her anxiety seemed to seep into Nikki, whose own body tensed and thoughts raced, an ill-formed worry latching onto her mind.
“Where are Giorgia and the kids now?” Nikki asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me.” Orlanda shrugged. “Good for her. Giorgia may be a bitch, but she knows how to survive.”
—
When Maurizio arrived, he listened attentively to Orlanda’s concerns.
“Valerio called me this morning,” he said in a low voice when she was finished. “It was zero six thirty, and my ringer was off—so it went to voicemail.”
He played the recording. Nikki and Orlanda leaned in to listen to the confused and noisy exchange—somebody shouting, a dog barking, scuffling, then a clatter before the recording stopped.
“What’s he saying?” Orlanda asked.
“I can’t make it out,” said Maurizio. “His phone’s been switched off ever since. I had the techs work out where he was—that call came from Sorrento.”
Nikki couldn’t get the image out of her mind: Valerio’s face as he told her, I’m really fucked.
Her mind replayed everything he’d said—the favor he’d agreed to with Errichiello, the death of the boy Gaetano, and Paride Silvestri’s abuse of underage girls.
“Paride Silvestri has a home in Sorrento,” she told him. “Valerio surveilled him before. He might have gone there again.”
Maurizio glanced uncomfortably around the room and nodded towards the door.
“Let’s discuss it over coffee,” he said.
—
He led them from the station onto the noisy throughway of Via Medina. In a piazza on the back side of the station, they found outdoor seating at a café.