Chapter Forty-One
Tony Spinelli sipped a glass of grappa with his morning omelette. As a rule he didn’t drink much but what else was there to do? Besides, it set him up for the day ahead. He would watch television, he had a passion for gameshows, and then after lunch have a quick siesta. He would usually join his wife, the third Mrs Spinelli, for an afternoon drink by the pool and then Carl would drive them down to Valetta for an evening meal. There they would walk along the waterfront and catch up with people who needed to be seen, or who needed to see you. Tony’s days of overt threats were behind him but it was good to be seen and remembered, besides which, he liked the respect he received. He also liked watching the attention that his young wife received. Unlike the second Mrs Spinelli, this one seemed to be smart about not returning those hungry gazes.
He watched now as she finished her morning exercises, her tight polo top and short shorts showing off her limbs to their best advantage. As she said goodbye to her female coach, she walked over to join him. All of Angel’s coaches were female, that had been her decision not his, but he approved.
When he had first moved from Italy to Malta, his first wife had complained long and loudly. She couldn’t bear to leave the old country, and eventually he could no longer cope with her carping and agreed to the terms of her divorce. He owed her that much; after all, she had kept quiet for him for so many years. She literally knew where all the bodies were buried. He had briefly considered her joining them but he knew it would make his sons furious.
When he got married the second time, he had sent his first wife his new wedding photos. He wanted her to see how well he had done, his glamorous young bride hanging off his arm. Marie had sent back a card with a monkey laughing on the front. Inside, she wished him good luck and gave him short odds of it lasting two years. It was only Marie’s mockery that kept the second marriage together into its second year, and in the first month of the third year, Tony divorced number two.
Now Angel made her way over. He knew she was approaching forty and he was wondering about a fourth wife, but in truth she was still very easy on the eye and worked hard on her figure. Plus, she was never an effort, and her eye never wandered. Maybe it was better to let things stand. Giving him a quick kiss, she poured him an orange juice and picked up the copy of Vanity Fair she had been reading yesterday.
‘Would you be okay if I changed my flights next month? There’s an extra show I want to see at the London Fashion Week.’
Tony raised his eyes and pressed his hands together in prayer; Angel’s biggest flaw was shopping.
‘You are already there for three days. Let it go, yes?’
Angel nodded, disappointed, and placed the magazine back on the table and nibbled on her melon slices.
‘Of course. When you’re right, you’re right.’
Tony grunted, happy that she hadn’t persisted. He hated women who whined.
‘I doubt I’d have been able to get tickets for this show anyway. It’s terribly exclusive.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Oh it has all the air of an “Invitation Only” event. A new British designer called Clementine Byrne.’
‘Now Angel, you know there’s not an invitation in the land that I can’t get you. But still, you’ll have been there three days already. Won’t you be terribly bored by then?’
She laughed. ‘You know me so well. Still, this show did look like fun. Look at this.’
Angel passed the magazine over to Tony. Under the headline ‘Something is Stirring in Scotland’, was a full-page photo of a scene of chaos. The photo showed a large, ornate ballroom with a dark oak floor, crystal chandeliers above and a large pair of glass doors to the right, blown open. This seemed to have caused the havoc. In the middle of the room a group of women were caught in the act of running around, trying to grab at sheets of paper and pieces of cloth. In the foreground, a striking young woman with long red hair was roaring in fury at the older women, a length of blue fabric billowing up behind her. One woman was in the act of trying to grab at a mannequin that in turn, was in the act of falling, two others had grabbed at what looked to be a wedding dress, its white sails tangling in some red brocade. The scene was one of utter bedlam. Tony stared at it.
‘It sounds interesting, doesn’t it?’ asked Angel, surprised by his silence. She didn’t expect him to actually read the article. But Tony wasn’t reading. He was looking at a figure to the left that had just entered the room. It was an old woman, dressed all in black. She was slim and held herself erect, and whilst time had played its mean joke on youth, Tony would still recognise Ottoline Farano, infamous thief and forger, anywhere. The way she was looking at the scene was the same look he recognised so well, superior disdain. So, she ended up in Scotland, did she?
‘Tell you what, darling, you are right. That does look very interesting indeed. Add the extra day and secure two tickets. I think I’ll join you.’
Angel clapped her hands in delight and jumped up to kiss Tony before she rushed off to make the arrangements.
***
A day later, and hundreds of miles away in the foothills of Carcassonne, Louis Robespierre sipped his espresso. The late August sunshine was still hot but there was a hint in the air that autumn was coming. The crops were fattening up for a good harvest, and Louis sat out on his terrace and smiled appreciatively. He could smell his neighbour’s bonfire from last night still gently scenting the air, mingled with his coffee and ceps. He sighed with delight as he finished his last mouthful of buttered mushrooms. There was a little patch of woodland at the bottom of his garden and for the last few years he had been rewarded with a crop of delicious mushrooms. It was these tiny pleasures in life that made him wake up smiling. A bit of butter, some salt. A taste of heaven.
In a moment, he would walk from his small house down to the river for a morning swim. As a young man in the police force, he believed it was an essential part of his role that he was capable of chasing criminals through the streets and arresting them. Now he acknowledged his days of running across rooftops were over, though he still believed in keeping fit. In winter, when it became too cold to swim in the river, he would drive to the nearby town and plough up and down the local municipal pool along with the other old men and women. He would also smile in delight as the younger, fitter bodies would swim past him, the vigour of their youth buoying him along.
After his swim he would walk into the village to collect his bread and make small talk with his neighbours before heading home. Madam Picamil would once again tease him as she handed over the bread that he needed a good wife to bake for him. He would laugh, demurring gallantly that all the best ones were already happily married. And Madame Picamil would smile coyly and add a little cake to the bag.
In truth, Louis had been married before but not to the girl he loved. That one act represented two of his greatest mistakes. He should never have given up on Otto, and he should never have married when his heart wasn’t in it. After a couple of years, his wife had proposed a separation and he immediately agreed. He felt ashamed that he hadn’t provided her with the happiness he had promised. The divorce was quick and painless, and when she wrote to him informing him of the birth of her son, he was delighted for her and for her new husband.
As he sipped his coffee, he frowned, realising that it had gone cold as he had reminisced. With a shrug he looked at his crossword, hoping for inspiration. ‘A blast from the past: eight letters.’ He had already completed Le Monde’s crossword, and he also liked to do an English one, to keep up his language skills.
His phone rang and he sighed with relief; saved by the bell. How was that for an English idiom? Before answering the call, he saw on the display it was Pascal, an officer in the Serious Art Crimes Department.
‘Good morning, boss.’
‘Good morning, Pascal.’ No matter how many times he had reminded Pascal that he was retired, Pascal still stuck to the old forms.
‘I thought you would like to know, Tony Spinelli is heading to London.’
Well, that woke Louis up. Over the years, he had kept tabs on certain individuals who had managed to evade the arm of the law. Men for whom racketeering, cruelty and violence were as commonplace as breathing. A few had got away with brutal thefts, some with murder. Over the years, time had often caught these gangsters out; they would become the victims of unfortunate ‘accidents’ when no one but their mothers wept. There was a truth that sometimes these villains took each other out. But some evaded any form of justice and so Louis kept tabs on their movements. Last year, when John Paul Vincent moved to a new address, Louis contacted the local law enforcement agency and suggested that they ask the new owner’s permission to dig up the rose garden. One month later, John Paul was charged with the murders of several missing teenagers from the seventies. His house parties had been notorious as had the rumours about his sex life.
It was these cold cases that Louis kept an eye on. And now Spinelli was on the move.
‘Any details?’
‘He and his wife are attending a fashion show at the London Fashion Week. She was already going for three days on her own. Yesterday, she changed plans and added a flight for Tony.’
‘And he’s going to all the shows?’
‘No, just one on the last day. Seems like it was a change of plans for Mrs Spinelli as well, as she had to pay a high price to get those tickets.’
Luis sipped his cold coffee thoughtfully. This was absolutely a change in behaviour. Angel Spinelli travelled widely; Tony never accompanied her.
‘What do we know about this show?’
‘Not much. It’s an exhibition and sampler, apparently, by a new designer called Clementine Byrne. I’ve looked her up; she appears to have led a pretty unremarkable life, although she is the sister to the Countess of Hiverton.’
Louis paused and slowly doodled ‘Hiverton’ on his paper. He had just been thinking of Otto and now the name Hiverton came up. The last time he had heard that name, Otto had been laughing that she was going to be Lady Hiverton, could he imagine it? He couldn’t and he had begged her to reconsider. When she refused, he had applied for a five-year secondment to the New York Art Crimes Department.
When he came back to France, he couldn’t resist examining the wound, but discovered that Henry de Foix had married someone else. All trace of Otto had vanished.
‘Can you dig up anything on this show?’
‘There’s not much; it was featured in this month’s Vanity Fair. I’ve already sent you the link.’
Thanking Pascal, Louis hung up. Dabbing at his lips with his handkerchief, he headed indoor to switch on his laptop. It seemed like a trip to London was on the cards.