Bronson was still crouching behind the stack of furniture when he heard the sound of footsteps above him. Moments later, the hall lights flared on. Bronson knew he had to stop his friend from walking into a gunfight, so he risked a quick glance toward the open window, then jumped up and ran across to the door, wrenched it open and stepped out into the hall.
“What the hell’s going on, Chris?” Mark demanded, rubbing his eyes. “Those noises sounded like gunshots.”
“Spot on. We’ve just had visitors.”
“What?”
“Just give me a minute. Stay here in the hall—don’t go into the living room. Where’s the switch for the security lights?”
Mark pointed at a group of switches at the end of the hall, next to the corridor leading to the kitchen. “Bottom right.”
Bronson stepped over to the panel and flicked the switch.
“Don’t go into the living room, Mark,” he warned again, then ran up the stairs. On the first floor, he opened each window in turn and peered outside, checking the area around the house. The security lights the Hamptons had installed were fitted directly below the bedroom windows, mainly to make changing the high-power halogen bulbs as easy as possible. This had the accidental benefit of permitting anyone on the first floor to observe the perimeter of the property without being visible from below.
Bronson checked twice but the men, whoever they were, had gone. The only sound he could hear—apart from the animals of the night—was the noise of a car engine receding rapidly, probably the two burglars making their getaway. He checked all the windows once more, then walked back down the staircase to the hall, where Mark was obediently waiting.
“I think those guys were probably the same ones who broke in here before,” Bronson explained. “They decided to come in through the window because I’d jammed the back door with a chair.”
“And they shot at you?”
“At least three shots, maybe four. Wait here while I close the shutters in the living room.”
Bronson opened the door carefully and peered inside, then strode into the room. He walked across to the open window, looked out to check that there was nobody in sight and reached out to pull the shutters closed. He shut and locked the window itself, then switched on the main lights. As Mark followed him into the room, Bronson noticed something lying on the floor close to the broken window, and in a moment realized it was a semiautomatic pistol.
Bronson picked it up, removed the magazine and ejected the cartridge from the breech. The pistol was a well-used nine-millimeter Browning Hi-Power, one of the commonest and most reliable semiautomatics. He replaced the ejected cartridge in the magazine, reloaded the weapon but didn’t chamber a round, and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers.
“Is that yours?” Mark asked.
Bronson shook his head. “The only people in Britain who own handguns these days are criminals, thanks to the coterie of idiots and spin doctors who allegedly govern the country. No, this was dropped by the guy who tried to climb in through the window. These people are serious, Mark.”
“We’d better call the police.”
“I am the police, remember? Plus, there’s nothing they would be able to do.”
“But these men tried to break in and they’ve shot at you, for God’s sake.”
“I know,” Bronson said patiently, “but the reality is that we have no clue who they are, and the only physical evidence we’ve got—assuming they weren’t stupid enough to drop their wallets or something outside the house—is a forced door, a broken window and a couple of bullet holes.”
“But you’ve got that pistol. Can’t the police trace . . . ?” Mark’s voice died away as he realized the futility of what he was suggesting.
The kind of people who break into houses never carry weapons that can be traced. They may be criminals, but they’re not stupid.
“But we’ve got to do something,” Mark protested.
“We will,” Bronson assured him. “In fact, we are already.” He pointed to the exposed stone above the fireplace. “Once we’ve found out what that means, we’ll probably know why a couple of bad guys were prepared to break in here waving pistols. More important, we might be able to work out who sent them.”
“What do you mean?”
“My guess is those two men were just a couple of thugs, employed for the job. Even if we’d caught them, they probably wouldn’t know anything, more than the specific orders they’d been given. There’s a plan behind whatever’s going on here, and that’s what we need to understand if we’re going to make any sense of this. But that inscription’s at the very heart of it.”
IV
Just outside Rome, Rogan pulled the car to a halt in the parking area and switched off the engine. Alberti was huddled in the passenger seat next to him, moaning and clutching his shattered arm. Rogan had driven as quickly as he could—stopping only once, to call Mandino and explain what had happened—but it had taken them the better part of an hour to reach their destination. Alberti’s pain was obvious, but still Rogan wished he’d shut up.
“Give it a rest, will you? We’re here. In a couple of minutes they’ll slide a needle into your arm and when you wake up it’ll all be over.”
He got out of the car, walked around and pulled open the passenger door.
“Don’t touch me,” Alberti said, his voice hoarse and distorted, as he struggled out of his seat, levering himself up using only his left arm.
“Stand still,” Rogan ordered. “I’ll take off your holster. You can’t go in wearing that.”
Rogan eased his companion’s jacket off his shoulders, unbuckled the strap and removed the holster.
“Where’s your pistol?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your Browning. Where is it? In the car?”
“Hell, no,” Alberti gasped. “I was holding it when I went in through the window. It’s probably inside the house somewhere.”
“Oh, shit,” Rogan said. “That’s all we need.”
“What’s the problem? The weapon’s clean.”
“I know that. I also know it’s got a full magazine, which means the son of a bitch who did this to you is now armed, and I’ve still got to go back there and finish the job.”
Rogan turned away and pointed toward the lowlying building, ablaze with lights, on the opposite side of the parking lot.
“There you go,” he said. “The emergency admissions section is on the right-hand side. Tell them you had a bad fall or something.”
“OK.” Alberti stumbled away from the car, still gripping his right arm.
“Sorry about this,” Rogan murmured quietly. He drew his own pistol and with a single fluid movement released the safety catch, pointed the weapon at the back of Alberti’s head and pulled the trigger.
The other man fell lifeless to the ground as the sound of the shot echoed off the surrounding buildings. Rogan stepped forward, turned over the body, avoiding looking at the shattered red mess that was all that was left of his companion’s head, and removed his wallet. Then he got back in his car and drove away.
A couple of miles down the road, Rogan stopped the car in a turnout and rang Mandino.
“It’s done,” Rogan said, as soon as Mandino answered.
“Good. That’s the first thing you’ve got right today. Now, get back to the house and finish the job. I need you to find that missing stone.”
10
I
“I think we need help.”
Bronson and Mark were sitting over breakfast in the kitchen the following morning.
“You mean the police?” Mark asked.
Bronson shook his head. “I mean specialist help. This house has been standing for about six hundred years, but I think that stone’s a hell of a lot older, maybe a couple of thousand years, otherwise why use Latin for the inscription? If it was contemporary with the house, I’d have expected it to be written in Italian. We need someone who can tell us what the Latin means, and why it’s so important.”