The Third Shadow

Nine

When I stepped back inside from the garden after Diane's call, Olivia announced she was going to have a shower. At the sound of running water from the bathroom a couple of minutes later I could sense Sarah's eyes on me as I tried to make sense of the sports pages of the Corriere Della Sera there in the solitary armchair.

"I hope she's not fooling you."

Laying the newspaper onto my lap, I looked quizzically across at her at the table.

"You know, the way she carries herself. That nice refined accent like butter wouldn't melt." Her face was pinched, sour-looking. "She didn't have two pennies to rub together before she met Lee. Was living in some grimy bedsit in Forest Fields . One of those middle class dope-head drop-outs. Cut herself off from her family." The tears bulging against her eyes added to their emerald intensity. "Ask me, she wouldn't be so upset if something..." Her voice rose a couple of octaves. "If something had happened to 'em." Rubbing her face, Sarah tried to compose herself a little. "Would all pass to her, wouldn't it? The shops. Everything Lee had built up."

And in that moment it all came crashing down on top of her - the sleeplessness, the endless wearying tension. A tidalwave rising up, sweeping her away.

One of the first things that male police officers are taught is that never, not under any circumstances other than necessary restraint, must he during the course of duty engage in physical contact with a female. And this is entirely correct, as much a form of legal self-defence as anything else.

I was no longer a police officer however, and so was free to lower myself onto the settee beside her, drape an arm around her shoulder as she cried herself dry.

*

Nuzzo's call came as Sarah was still drying her tears.

"I don't have time to waste, ispettore, so I will arrive immediately at the point."

He sounded harried, on edge. The voice of a man compelled by circumstance to rush and canter when his natural instinct was to take his time over things. High-profile cases can do that a chief investigating officer. They can leave him or her reeling, gasping for breath.

"Lee's telephone records have arrived," he explained. "There is something I need you to ask Olivia."

Sean's phone logs had been checked the previous day of course - a relatively straightforward matter, his mobile having been left on the dining table. No incoming calls had been recorded since the previous Wednesday back in England. The last outgoing call was meanwhile registered at 12.47 Central European Time on the Sunday, this to the brothers' mother. It was something of a tradition, Sarah had told me. No matter where he was or what he was doing, Sean would always call his mum around Sunday lunchtime. The Nottinghamshire CID had paid a brief, informal visit, I would later learn, the no doubt shaken Mrs Bracewell outlining the content of the call: the weather, what he was going to have for lunch, the well-being of the two girls staying with their other gran. The usual mother-and-grown-up son banalities, no pricking up of any maternal antennae that something was wrong. Lee had been passed the phone too - a quick hi, little more than that, but again nothing had seemed untoward. Both brothers had promised to pop by one evening when they got back.

Lee's number had been tried of course, countless times - both by Olivia and an English-speaking carabinieri officer based in Bari - but the result was always the same: the number you have called is currently unavailable. One of those vague, automated messages delivered by a soothing female voice which could in fact mean a variety of different things: either the phone is dead, out of signal range or the SIM card has been removed. It would have been interesting to know which exactly.

According to the tabulations Nuzzo had a little earlier received, the last call made from Lee's phone was timed at 22.04 on the Sunday. Around five hours therefore before he and his brother had left the holiday home for their presumed, mystery-shrouded trip to the cigarette machine.

It is standard practice that investigating authorities should first seek to ascertain the identity of unknown but potentially significant telephone numbers rather than just cold calling the said person. Thus it was that I found myself rapping a knuckle to Olivia's bedroom door a minute or two after hearing her step back out of the bathroom post-shower.

"You decent Olivia?"

"Not quite," came the returned call. "Just a sec... Okay, you can come in now."

She was seated on the bed wrapped in a towel, her hands running another through her shower-damp hair.
"Mister Caputo really needs to get a hairdryer for this place," she grimaced.

The number I'd scribbled down belonged to Danny, she concluded, upon giving it a careful inspection. "Danny Loacke," she then clarified, registering my blank expression. "Runs the Nottingham centre boutique. To all intents and purposes Lee's right hand man. Pretty sure that's his number." Discarding the hair towel for a moment, she stepped over towards her phone on top of the chest of drawers. "Should have him in my phone book. Can double check if you like."

As she did so, I took the opportunity to glance around, this my first time inside either of bungalow's two bedrooms. It was generous enough in size, the slanted lines of sunlight which filtered through the angled-up venetians providing adequate illumination. As with the rest of the place, the furnishings were low-end but functional. Given the circumstances, everything seemed strangely tidy; beneath my sandals, I couldn't even feel the scrape of a single grain of sand against the floor parquet. The only incongruous note was the tangle of bikinis and summer dresses spilling out of the electric pink cabin bag over in the corner. Beside it stood a second cabin bag, more sober in colour. Lee's, clearly. A case which was neatly zipped closed.

"Yeah, it's Danny alright." She held her phone up to my eyes so I could check too. "Told you Lee can never quite pull the plug."

A business-related call, yes. It had slipped Lee's mind to mention that he'd pencilled in a mid-morning meeting on Tuesday, Loacke would later recount to the quickly dispatched detective constable. The commercial manager of a Coventry-based textile factory, a possible supply contract. Loacke had had to see to it himself.

But the exact details were unimportant. It was one of those moments - everything adding up, a subsconscious doubt breaking the surface into conscious near-certainty. The sort of thing that seems so obvious you wonder why on earth you hadn't realised it before.

"Is there something else I can help you with?"

Though her face was horizontal and gently vibrating as she pummeled the towel through her hair, Olivia's perplexity at my continued presence was evident nevertheless.

Hope she's not fooling you.

Nearly she had, yes.

"Lee. He came back that night, Olivia, didn't he?"

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