The Abomination (31 page)

That was when she noticed a bent toothpick lying on the carpet, just inside the door.

She retraced her steps. In the bathroom she found another toothpick, similarly bent, also just inside the door.

“Shit,” she said under her breath, recalling the “Do Not Disturb” sign. Not knowing exactly where in the door jamb he'd placed the toothpicks, there was no way she could now disguise from Bob Findlater the fact that his room had been searched.

Back at Campo San Zaccaria, she met up with a gloomy Piola.

“His emails checked out,” he said. “That is, he
appears
to have sent about a dozen messages to Barbara Holton, and she
appears
to have replied with updates on the progress she and Jelena were making in tracking down his darling daughter. How did you get on?”

She told him about the toothpicks.

“It's not illegal to want to know if your room's been searched,” he pointed out. “After all, it was us who told him to be extra careful. Nothing else?”

“Actually, there was one thing,” she said slowly.

“What?”

“It's a tiny detail – in fact, I didn't think anything of it at the time. But I found a pile of receipts in his room.”

“And?”

“Don't you think that's curious? If a man goes looking for his long-lost daughter, why would he keep the receipts – who would he claim the money back from? In fact, Findlater specifically said that he
didn't
keep Barbara Holton's receipt for the three thousand US he gave her. So why's he keeping a record of his expenses for this trip, unless someone's paying him?” She looked at him. “Findlater's not looking for his daughter at all, Aldo. Or if he is, it's only because someone's told him to.”

“Or,” he said gently, “he's just a man of habit. Was the bedroom very neat?”

“Extremely,” she admitted.

“So he makes a tidy pile of his credit card slips, too. I'm not disagreeing with you, Kat. But it's hardly a smoking gun.”

“It's all we've got.”

“It's all we've got,” he agreed. “So. Time to face Marcello.”

The meeting with the prosecutor was short and to the point. He was not prepared to listen to any more crazy speculation, whether about Americans, Croatians, priests or anyone else. They were to write up their reports and close down the investigation.

“I don't get it, Colonnello,” he said sarcastically. “What is it with this case? Murders are committed in this city all the time. Most are wrapped up within a few days, a few weeks at the most. Why do you want to waste so much time on this particular investigation?” He paused, still looking at Piola, and then, quite deliberately, let his gaze travel across to Kat.

“There must be
something
about this case that's affecting your judgement and causing you to prolong the investigation, Colonel,” he continued. “I'm just wondering what it can be.”

Kat forced herself not to react, not to flinch or blush under the prosecutor's gaze as he looked from her to Piola and back, one eyebrow raised interrogatively.

After a few moments he nodded, satisfied he'd teased the two of them enough. “Very well. I'll expect your final report in the next few days.”

“He doesn't know anything,” she said as they left the prosecutor's offices. “He's just trying to rile you.”

“I know,” Piola said. “Don't worry. I can't be put off so easily.”

They walked back to Campo San Zaccaria. It was almost as quick as waiting for a
vaporetto
, so long as one made a detour north of Piazza San Marco, crowded with tourists even at this time of year

“When I went to see Daniele Barbo,” she said hesitantly, “he suggested he might be able to get the data off Barbara Holton's laptop. He's done something similar before, apparently.”

“Yes?”

“I said no, of course. But he said the offer would remain open. It strikes me that we've actually got something concrete for him to look for now – we could ask him to establish whether Barbara Holton really sent those emails, or if Findlater was fabricating them.”

“Yes, except that giving her machine to a convicted hacker who's awaiting sentencing for breaking internet privacy laws would be an insane thing to do.”

“Granted. But it might help. . .”

“We need evidence we can
use
, Kat. Evidence that will convince people like Marcello. Nothing else is going to get him off our back.”

The two of them were the only ones based in the operations room now. It had the feel, Kat admitted to herself, of a case that had long since come to an end.

Her mobile rang. “
Pronto
?”

“Kat, it's Francesco. There's a case Allocation need to assign quickly – a big one. A politician who's strangled a rent boy, says it was an accident but there's evidence the
feno
was blackmailing him. Your name's been suggested.”

“Who's in charge?”

“You, if you want it. Your own investigation. The prosecutor asked for you personally.”

“Which prosecutor?” she said, although she'd already guessed the answer.

“Avvocato Marcello.”

Through the glass wall of Piola's office she watched him pick up a brown envelope that was lying on his desk. He pulled out the contents and looked at them. For a moment he froze. Then his eyes turned towards her.

She knew she would never forget the expression in those eyes – something far worse than horror or despair. “I've got to go,” she said into the phone.

“Allocation need an answer—”

“Tell them I'm too busy.” She hung up. “What is it?” she called across to Piola.

He didn't reply. She hurried into his office and took the photograph from his hand. The print was grainy – it had been taken at night, with a long lens – but the subject was clear enough.

Piola. And Kat. Entering her apartment, his arm around her. His head was turned towards her. She was laughing.

Just in case there was any doubt, there was a second photo as well. It showed the window of her apartment. She was lowering the blinds. Aldo was also in the shot, behind her, his hand reaching out for her. She was wearing a bathrobe.

There was a note, a sheet of A4 printer paper on which someone had typed the words:

These have been sent to your wife.

“THEY MAY NOT
have gone through with it,” she said. “Perhaps it's just a threat.”

He shook his head. “I have to go home. She'll have opened it by now.” Carefully he gathered his coat and hung it over his arm.

“What are you going to say to her?”

“I don't know.” He sounded dazed.

“Aldo, we have to talk.”

“Yes. Later. First I need to go home and talk to my wife.”

He left the room like a sleepwalker. “Will you phone me?” she called after him.

He didn't reply.

She looked at the top photo again. It had obviously been taken some time ago, since it showed Piola before he'd been beaten up. So whoever employed the photographer had known about the two of them almost from their first night together – had probably used the knowledge, in fact, to plan Piola's beating and the mock execution.

Her blood ran cold.

And now . . . she tried to imagine the conversation Piola would be having when he got home. But she couldn't. It was completely outside her experience, never having been in that kind of relationship herself.

She felt like a schoolgirl caught doing something terrible, something so bad that you were simply left alone while the grown-ups went to talk about it amongst themselves.

The wife will blame me
, she thought.
Of course she will. Because, after all, I am to blame
.

Without even meaning to, she found herself logging onto Carnivia. Under her name it said “fourteen entries”.

She clicked on the most recent.

S
O IT'S TRUE
! T
HE ICE
C
APTAIN AND
T
HE
T
ERRIBLY
S
ERIOUS
C
OLONEL HAVE BEEN INVESTIGATING EACH OTHER
! C
AN
'
T IMAGINE WHAT THEY TALK ABOUT IN BED
!

“Oh, for God's sake,” she said, disgusted. She logged out. Then, to take her mind off what Piola and his wife might be saying to each other, she started on some paperwork.

The desk phone rang, the caller's number not one she recognised. She grabbed it, thinking it must be him.

“Is that Colonel Piola?” a man's voice said, clearly distressed.

“He's not here. Who is this?”

“I came to see you. I'm Lucio the fisherman – the one from Chioggia, remember?”

“Yes, I remember. How can I help you?”

“It's Ricci's widow, Mareta. She's in hospital. She was beaten up last night. The doctors say she nearly died.”

“Who did it?”

“She's not saying – she can't, she's got a broken jaw. They say she may never talk properly again.” The young man sounded hysterical. “You couldn't keep it to yourself, could you? You had to let it leak.”

“I'll come over.”

“No! Stay away from her! Stay away from all of us! Why should we bother with you lot? We might as well just shoot ourselves, and save them the bother.”

It was three hours before Piola came back. He couldn't meet her eye. She followed him into his office.

“Is she OK?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“What about you?”

“That's not really the point, is it?”

“What did you say to each other?”

“That's . . . private,” he said quietly, and she flinched. “Kat, look . . . Obviously I've promised her that it's all over between you and me.”

Foolishly, in her hurt she tried to make a joke of it. “Well, I've been dumped many times, and that probably wins the prize for the most direct.”

“‘Dumped'? You make it sound as if we were teenagers, dating,” he muttered.

“Well, what was it, then?” She was desperate for him to talk to her, but he seemed to have retreated from her. It was as if a barrier had been abruptly brought down on his feelings.

“It was a stupid, wrong, inconsiderate affair,” he said coldly. “I was an idiot to let myself get tangled up in it.”

Tangled
. She heard in his words an echo of the conversations he'd already had that afternoon: the ones that really mattered, with the woman he was married to.

What about me?
she wanted to shout.
What about my feelings? Who got me tangled up in this?
But of course she couldn't. Because she wasn't married to him. She was the wrong-doer, not the wronged.

“Mareta Castiglione's in hospital,” she said.

Piola swore. “What happened?”

“A punishment beating, from the sound of it. They broke her jaw.”

“I'd better get over there.”

“Lucio said not to. But if you're going, I'll come too.”

“Kat. . .” He shook his head. “Perhaps I'm not being clear enough. I promised Gilda that it's over.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“I mean, I can't go on working with you.”

She stared at him.

“It would be impossible,” he said gently. “You do see that, don't you?”

“What are you saying?”

“I'll ask for one of the male captains to assist me for the remainder of the investigation.”

“What!”

“Anything else wouldn't be fair.”

“How exactly is
this
fair?” she demanded.

“I meant, fair on my wife. You can hardly expect her to be happy about the situation if I go on sharing an office with you.”

She couldn't believe she was hearing this. “This morning I turned down a murder investigation of my own to stay on this case.”

“I'm sorry. But there'll be others.”

“That's not really the point, is it? We should be able to work alongside each other as professionals, whatever our personal feelings.”

He sighed, and rubbed his head with both hands. She could read, only too clearly, what was going through his mind.
First a furious wife, now an angry mistress
.

“If you'd said to me, before we went to bed, that once it was over between us you'd be kicking me off the case,” she added, “do you imagine for one moment that I'd have gone ahead?”

“I'm just trying to find a solution that works,” he said wearily. “The present situation has clearly become impossible, for reasons which I accept are entirely my fault. The only answer, so far as I can see, is for you to be transferred to another investigation. That case you mentioned – I happen to know it's gone to Zito. I spoke to him on the way in. He'd be happy to have you on his team.”

“Oh, great.” She could imagine it already – the sniggers, the glances, the whispers behind her back.
That's the captain who screwed Aldo Piola, and had to be shunted off the case when the wife found out!

“Let me make one thing clear,” she said. “I'm really, really sorry about your wife. I realise now that sleeping with you was a stupid, irresponsible thing to do. But I'm not moving. I was put on this investigation, and I'm staying on it until we either find the killer, or Marcello drags us out of here and turns off the lights himself.”

“And what do I tell my wife?” he said hopelessly.

“That's your problem. But you could start by telling her that you don't actually have the right to get rid of me, just because I was foolish enough to go to bed with you.”

DANIELE PUSHED BACK
his chair and looked at the clock. It was 4 a.m.

He'd been investigating MCI relentlessly, unable to sleep or eat until he'd finished. Their official website had told him very little, but from within the reams of bland corporate jargon he'd filleted the names of half a dozen senior employees.