The two men inspected the room thoroughly, looking for pictures or drawings that might show the now-invisible inscription, but found nothing.
“I think that’s it,” Rogan said. “We’ve done everything the capo wanted. Let’s get out of here.”
They were twenty-five minutes and nearly thirty kilometers away from the house when Rogan suddenly realized that he’d forgotten to open the curtains in the study. He eased his foot off the accelerator pedal while he debated whether or not they should go back, but eventually decided it didn’t matter. After all, what could anyone possibly deduce from a set of drawn curtains?
6
It was almost midnight when the taxi turned into the gravel drive, the car’s headlights washing over the old stone walls of the Villa Rosa and startling a fox that was making its solitary way through the garden. Mark looked wrecked, staring at the house with a kind of horrified fascination as the car pulled to a halt. They lifted their bags out of the trunk and watched as the taxi drove away.
“Wait here, Mark. I’ll go in first.”
Hampton nodded, but didn’t respond. He pulled a bunch of keys from his jacket pocket and passed it over. Bronson left his bag on the drive, walked over to the front door of the property and undid the lock. The door swung open and he stepped inside, turning on the hall lights as he did so.
Inevitably, the first place he looked was the stone floor at the foot of the wide oak staircase. It wasn’t anything like as bad as he’d feared: the mark where Jackie’s head wound had bled was still just visible as an almost circular discoloration, but somebody—probably the cleaning woman, Maria Palomo—had cleaned off the blood. There was an oblong rug beside the hall table, and Bronson dragged it over the floor until it completely covered the mark on the flagstones.
Waves of sadness rolled over him. He imagined Jackie, her body crumpled on the floor, unable to call out for help and probably knowing that she was dying. What a terrible, lonely, appalling way to die. He felt the tears welling up, and angrily brushed them away. He had to be strong. For himself, for Jackie and especially for Mark.
The stairs and hall had obviously been cleaned, and every attempt made to conceal the fact that a fatal accident had occurred in that part of the house. There was even a vase of fresh flowers on the table. Bronson made a note to give the cleaner some extra money.
He quickly walked around the rest of the property, upstairs and down, checking that the Italian police and forensic people hadn’t left any debris or equipment, then went back outside.
“OK, Mark?”
Mark nodded, quite obviously anything but “OK,” and followed Bronson to the door of the house.
“Go through to the kitchen,” Bronson suggested. “We’ll have a drink and then get to bed. I’ll sort out the bags.”
Mark didn’t respond, just stared at the staircase and the hall floor for a few seconds, then walked down the short passage that led to the rear of the property. Bronson stepped back outside, collected their two bags and returned to the house.
He left the bags in the hall and walked through to the kitchen. Mark was sitting in an upright chair, staring at the wall. Bronson opened cupboards, finding tea and coffee, then a tin of drinking chocolate and a half-full jar of Horlicks. That wasn’t what he wanted, but in a floor-level cupboard he found a selection of bottles of spirits and pulled out two of them.
“Whiskey or brandy?” Bronson asked. “Or do you want something else?”
Mark looked up at him, almost as if he was surprised to see him there. “What?”
Bronson repeated the question, holding up the bottles for emphasis.
“Oh, brandy, please. I can’t bear that other stuff.”
Bronson sat opposite his friend and slid a half-full tumbler across the table.
“Drink that, then get up to bed. It’s been a long day and you must be exhausted.”
Mark took a sip. “You should be exhausted as well.”
“I am,” Bronson said with a slight smile, “but I’m more concerned about you. Which bedroom do you want to use?”
“Not the master suite, Chris,” Mark said, a distinct tremor in his voice. “I can’t face that.”
Bronson had already checked the master bedroom. Someone had tidied it—probably the cleaner—because the bed was made and Jackie’s clothes neatly folded on a chair.
“No problem. I’ll take your bag up to one of the guest rooms.” Bronson put down his tumbler and left the kitchen, but was back in a few minutes, a small brown tablet bottle in his hand. “Here,” he said, “take one of these. They’ll help you sleep.”
“What are they?”
“Melatonin. I found them in the bathroom. They’re good for jet lag because they relax you and help you get to sleep. And they’re nonaddictive, not like normal sleeping pills.”
Mark nodded, and washed down the tablets with the rest of his brandy.
Bronson rinsed their glasses and put them in the sink. “Go on up. I’m just going to check the house, make sure all the doors and windows are locked, then I’ll follow you.”
Mark nodded and left the room. In the hall, Bronson bolted the main door, then walked around the ground floor, room by room, checking that all the windows were locked and the outside shutters bolted.
He finished his security check back in the kitchen and, as he made sure the key was turned in the back-door lock, he glanced down at the floor. There was something on it, some small brown particles. He bent down to look more closely, picked up a couple of the larger fragments and rolled them between his forefinger and thumb. They were obviously small pieces of wood, and Bronson glanced up at the ceiling above him, wondering if the old house had a woodworm or termite problem. But the beams and floorboards were blackened with age and looked absolutely solid. The fragments weren’t residue from insects either. Boring insects reduce wood almost to dust, and what he was holding in his hand were more like small wooden splinters.
Bronson unlocked the door to check the outside of it and immediately noticed on the doorframe, and level with the lock itself, a small section of compressed wood about one inch square. He knew immediately what had caused it—he’d been to enough burglaries in his short career as a police officer to recognize the marks made by a jimmy or crowbar. Obviously someone had forced the door, and fairly recently. The fragments of wood had almost certainly been ripped out when the lock was torn off.
He examined the lock carefully. Even with his bare hands, he could move it very slightly—all the original screws were there, but had barely enough purchase to keep the lock in position on the door. Somebody had broken into the house—that much was obvious—then replaced the lock and presumably left the property by the front door, which would self-lock because of the Yale. He guessed that the burglars had done this—if the cleaning woman had found the lock ripped off, she would presumably have left a message or told the police, and if the police had found it, they would hopefully have done more than just shove the screws back in the holes.
What puzzled Bronson was why any burglar would waste his time replacing the lock. In his experience, most people who broke into houses chose the easiest point of entry, picked up every item of value they could carry, and then left by the simplest route. Fast in, fast out. But in the Hamptons’ property they must have taken several minutes to refit the lock. The only possible reason he could come up with was that the burglars hadn’t wanted anyone to know they’d been inside the house, and that really didn’t make any sense. Why should they care? The homeowner would know immediately that he’d been robbed. Unless, of course, the burglars didn’t take anything, but if that were the case what was the point of them breaking in?