festooned with delicate antennae like a radio aerial. With a careless swipe of his hand he crushed the creature, which fell like limp ashen paper into the chlorinated water of the pool.
The sound which had interrupted him continued without interruption, a series of high nagging whines. He strode over to the side of the pool, thrusting the water aside with his powerful thighs, placed his hands in the trough at the edge, then leapt up on to the tiles and strode briskly over to pick up the phone.
No sooner had he grasped it than it stopped ringing. He was about to close the cover again when he noticed the text message light blinking. It must have been Irene. Damn. If he’d told her once, he’d told her a hundred times never to contact him at the weekend. Presumably the temptation to send him birthday greetings had proved too strong. ‘We’ll celebrate my twentieth on Monday,’ he’d said when they parted. She’d frowned. ‘Your twentieth?’ ‘ Certo, amore . Whenever I’m with you I feel thirty years younger.’ Which was true. Dark, short and skinny, Irene was no one’s idea of a pin-up, but she had a dirty, driven quality that he found extremely sexy. Just the same, that wouldn’t stop him doubling the usual ration of precoital welts to her buttocks as punishment for this indiscretion. Gli ordini vanno rispettati . Rules were rules. Andreina’s astounding inability to learn Italian had got him off the hook on several occasions, but if she had happened to see this particular message, he’d have had the hell of a time trying to talk his way out of it.
But the message wasn’t from Irene. Water crawled coldly down the man’s back as he read it. 348 393 9028: MEDUSA . After the heated pool, the air was distinctly cool, even down here in the sheltered terraces above Lake Lugano. He keyed in the number, then turned to face the hillside behind the villa. The land rose precipitously, the contours marked by the looping line of Via Totone and its accompanying homes and gardens. There was no one in sight.
The distant phone answered. Nestore remembered those curt, peremptory tones all too well.
‘We need to talk. Drive to Capolago and take the little train up Monte Generoso. Get off at Bellavista. Tell no one. Come immediately and alone.’
He was suddenly furious.
‘Don’t give me orders, Alberto! I’m not in the army any more.’
‘You still are when it comes to this. We all are, all three of us.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘They’ve found Leonardo.’
The only upside to the whole business was that Andreina was predictably furious. ‘But what about lunch? I’ve got a table for fifteen booked at Da Candida! Everyone’s coming! You can’t just change your plans at the last moment like this!’
In his wife’s domestic theology, changing one’s plans at the last moment was a mortal sin on a par with not noticing when she’d had her hair done or forgetting their wedding anniversary. Nestore used his invariable formula for dealing with these outbursts.
‘It’s a matter of business, cara .’
The none-too-subtle implication being, ‘Where the hell do you think the money for all this comes from?’
Once dressed, he went to his study. It was a blatantly masculine room, the tone immediately given by the odour of leather and cigar smoke, the rosewood cabinet filled with shotguns and the two mounted ibex heads on the wall above the fireplace. He removed the one to the left and tapped an eight-digit code into the keypad of the metal door inside. From the recess behind he removed a Glock 32 pistol, checked it carefully, then placed it in his coat pocket.
‘I only have to go to Capolago,’ he told Andreina after pecking her on the cheek. ‘I should be back in plenty of time, but if for some reason I’m delayed just go on down without me and I’ll meet you and the others there. Tell Bernard I’m having the controfiletto di cervo and let him pick the wine.’
He climbed into
The sound which had interrupted him continued without interruption, a series of high nagging whines. He strode over to the side of the pool, thrusting the water aside with his powerful thighs, placed his hands in the trough at the edge, then leapt up on to the tiles and strode briskly over to pick up the phone.
No sooner had he grasped it than it stopped ringing. He was about to close the cover again when he noticed the text message light blinking. It must have been Irene. Damn. If he’d told her once, he’d told her a hundred times never to contact him at the weekend. Presumably the temptation to send him birthday greetings had proved too strong. ‘We’ll celebrate my twentieth on Monday,’ he’d said when they parted. She’d frowned. ‘Your twentieth?’ ‘ Certo, amore . Whenever I’m with you I feel thirty years younger.’ Which was true. Dark, short and skinny, Irene was no one’s idea of a pin-up, but she had a dirty, driven quality that he found extremely sexy. Just the same, that wouldn’t stop him doubling the usual ration of precoital welts to her buttocks as punishment for this indiscretion. Gli ordini vanno rispettati . Rules were rules. Andreina’s astounding inability to learn Italian had got him off the hook on several occasions, but if she had happened to see this particular message, he’d have had the hell of a time trying to talk his way out of it.
But the message wasn’t from Irene. Water crawled coldly down the man’s back as he read it. 348 393 9028: MEDUSA . After the heated pool, the air was distinctly cool, even down here in the sheltered terraces above Lake Lugano. He keyed in the number, then turned to face the hillside behind the villa. The land rose precipitously, the contours marked by the looping line of Via Totone and its accompanying homes and gardens. There was no one in sight.
The distant phone answered. Nestore remembered those curt, peremptory tones all too well.
‘We need to talk. Drive to Capolago and take the little train up Monte Generoso. Get off at Bellavista. Tell no one. Come immediately and alone.’
He was suddenly furious.
‘Don’t give me orders, Alberto! I’m not in the army any more.’
‘You still are when it comes to this. We all are, all three of us.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘They’ve found Leonardo.’
The only upside to the whole business was that Andreina was predictably furious. ‘But what about lunch? I’ve got a table for fifteen booked at Da Candida! Everyone’s coming! You can’t just change your plans at the last moment like this!’
In his wife’s domestic theology, changing one’s plans at the last moment was a mortal sin on a par with not noticing when she’d had her hair done or forgetting their wedding anniversary. Nestore used his invariable formula for dealing with these outbursts.
‘It’s a matter of business, cara .’
The none-too-subtle implication being, ‘Where the hell do you think the money for all this comes from?’
Once dressed, he went to his study. It was a blatantly masculine room, the tone immediately given by the odour of leather and cigar smoke, the rosewood cabinet filled with shotguns and the two mounted ibex heads on the wall above the fireplace. He removed the one to the left and tapped an eight-digit code into the keypad of the metal door inside. From the recess behind he removed a Glock 32 pistol, checked it carefully, then placed it in his coat pocket.
‘I only have to go to Capolago,’ he told Andreina after pecking her on the cheek. ‘I should be back in plenty of time, but if for some reason I’m delayed just go on down without me and I’ll meet you and the others there. Tell Bernard I’m having the controfiletto di cervo and let him pick the wine.’
He climbed into
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