Viper - Michael Morley [26]
‘Early next week. Just to talk to the local cops, brief them on Creed, share the documents he gave me, that sort of thing. It could all be important.’
Nancy did little to hide her exasperation. ‘Is there any point me pleading that we’re supposed to be on holiday? That this is our one break together? That it’s almost Christmas and I still have to help Mom and Dad prepare?’
Jack put his arm around his wife so she had to lean on his chest. ‘Listen, honey. I feel bad about this guy Creed going AWOL. I feel even worse about things I found at his hotel and comments he made to me. I have to do this.’
‘Like what?’ she snapped. ‘What did he say?’
Jack recalled Creed’s comment… more will die and both you and I will feel like we have blood on our hands. ‘Stuff, Nancy; just stuff.’
She screwed up her face.
‘Listen, he might be a killer. If he is, then I don’t want to think that I could have done something to prevent someone dying, but didn’t.’
‘And if he’s not? What if he’s just a weirdo, like you said?’
‘Then there’s no harm done, and I’ll be back before the weekend.’
Nancy pulled herself from under his arm and headed for the bathroom. Sometimes her husband drove her crazy. Why didn’t he just come straight out and say he wanted to be involved, admit that he ached to be out there in the thick of the action, racking his brains and testing himself? ‘You’d better come home soon, even if he turns out to be Charlie Manson’s murderous twin brother.’
Jack swung out of bed, smiled and told his first lie of the day. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back on time, I promise.’
19
Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii
Antonio Castellani’s eighty-three-year-old face looked like it had been shaped out of saddle-leather. Skin sagged around a once broken and now entirely toothless jaw and fell in wrinkly folds down his scrawny neck.
Alone since his wife had died a decade ago, he spent most of his time in the old, rusting caravan that was both home and office. From here he ran the family holiday camp business and from the leaky window that let in the winter wind he watched what remained of his family go about their chores.
Outside, hauling garbage, were his grandsons Franco Castellani and Paolo Falconi. Both twenty-four, they’d been best friends since they crawled on a rug together. That was back in the days before Franco’s father went to prison and his mother ran away to Milan with Paolo’s father. Paolo’s mother had looked after Franco for two years before she’d then upped and left as well.
Antonio gazed sadly at his grandsons heaving sacks out of an old van, straining to earn extra money by burning trash that gathered on the streets. Was that what his life had amounted to? Garbage. Was this the best he could provide for his family? It certainly hadn’t been what he’d planned half a century ago as he’d fought his way out of the slums and worked two jobs a day so he could start his own business. And years ago – more than fifty to be precise – well, he’d even hit the big time, for a while. He used the cash he’d saved to buy land and move in a fleet of shiny, new caravans. Then, by targeting those not rich enough to stay in hotels, he’d made money, good money, from tourists bound for Pompeii and Herculaneum.
It had all gone well.
Until he’d met Luigi Finelli.
Antonio had been full of bravado, ambition and cash. He’d cut quite a dash in the city’s most popular ballrooms, bars and clubs. But such success didn’t just catch the eyes of the ladies. It also turned the heads of the city’s predators.
Camorra kingpin Luigi Finelli had been born with an instinct to spot easy prey. One long spring night, when Antonio fell into a game of high-stakes poker with fickle friends and ruthlessly rich strangers, Luigi scented blood. With a wave of his hand the strangers gave up their places to his Camorra soldiers. A day later, Antonio left at dawn, a broken man. All of his savings and a third of his business had been surrendered to settle his debt.
If you looked closely into Antonio’s face, you could still see the lines of shock that had been seared