The Dante Conspiracy

CHAPTER 3



A heavily-built man wearing only a pair of faded blue shorts, his shock of unruly silver hair hidden under a baseball cap, sat in a padded chair on the spacious terrace of a large and expensive villa. The property had been built into the side of a hill to take full advantage of both the sun and the views down the gentle slope towards the port city of Livorno and the Mediterranean beyond. Half a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and the remains of a plate of assorted pastries lay on the table in front of him, and he was drinking a long black coffee, an Americano. And waiting.

He wasn’t worried, but he was getting concerned. He had expected to have had some news by this time, and again his glance fell on the two mobile phones sitting side-by-side on the table beside a copy of an Italian daily newspaper. One was an expensive smartphone and the other a cheap throwaway fitted with a pay as you go Sim card. He had half a dozen such phones, some still in their boxes, tucked away in the back of his wall safe in his study. In his line of business, having a cheap and untraceable telephone was not just desirable – it was essential.

He shook his head, and reached across to pick up the paper, but as he did so the screen on the cheap mobile illuminated and a split second later it began to ring. He knew immediately who had to be calling, because he had only given the number of that telephone to one person.

‘Yes? Do you have it?’

There was a brief but distinct pause before the caller replied.

‘No, we don’t.’

‘That is not what I expected to hear. And it is not what I am paying you for. What happened?’

‘We did exactly as you instructed, Stefan.’

There was a brief pause as Marco belatedly realized he’d just used his employer’s proper name, something he was never supposed to do, though he doubted if it was really that important. Both men were using disposable mobile phones, effectively untraceable by the authorities, and Sim cards which would be dumped at the end of the job, or even earlier if necessary.

But the name reminded the Italian that he wasn’t dealing with a fellow countryman. Despite Stefan’s fluent Italian, Marco guessed he was probably from somewhere in the Balkans, and that made him somewhat unpredictable, at least in Marco’s view.

‘Get on with it,’ Stefan muttered.

‘Sorry,’ Marco said. ‘We searched the residence and we questioned the owner. We found nothing and he told us nothing. In fact, we are quite certain that he didn’t know the answers to the questions we were asking.’

The man on the terrace digested that piece of unwelcome information in silence, then replied.

‘That is impossible. He had to know.’

‘I don’t agree. Our interrogation was’ – he paused for a moment, apparently searching for the most appropriate word – ‘very forceful, as you had suggested. We’re both quite certain that if he had known the answer he would certainly have told us, simply to make us stop.’

‘And did you finish him?’

‘Yes. We had no option. He’d seen our faces, so we could hardly have just patched him up and then let him go, because he would immediately have called the police. We wouldn’t have wanted that, and neither would you.’

‘And there was nothing in his apartment either?’

‘No. We found nothing, and we looked everywhere.’

‘What about his computer?’

‘We didn’t find it. It wasn’t in the flat or in his car, so I assume it was still in his office.’

Again the man in the villa was silent for a few moments.

‘If you want,’ Marco suggested, ‘we can try and get into his office at the university to recover it. It shouldn’t be that difficult. For an additional fee, of course.’

‘You can do that, but there wouldn’t be any point, because the computer isn’t there.’

‘How do you know that? And where is it?’

‘I know because I have contacts, and by now I expect that it’s probably sitting on the desk of the senior detective appointed to investigate the murder. You were seen driving away, and somebody walked in and found the body within a few minutes of you leaving. There’s no description of you on the wires yet, and there probably won’t be, because the witness didn’t get a clear look at you.’

Now Marco was silent, considering the implications.

‘We’ve already dumped the van,’ he said, after a moment, ‘and we both wore gloves the whole time we were in it, so there’s probably no usable forensic evidence in the vehicle. And we were careful in the barn as well, so I think we’re probably fairly safe. Unless you know different,’ he added.

‘I’ve heard nothing, apart from what I’ve just told you. But we still need to find it. Keep your phone switched on all the time. As soon as I’ve worked out our next move, I’ll call you.’