Spider

57

San Quirico D'Orcia, Tuscany The sun was slowly setting in San Quirico, sponging a silky mix of vermilion and gold across the darkening blue sky.

In Terry McLeod's bathroom, the Vent-Axia panel above the toilet came off easily enough in his hands. McLeod lifted out the stuff he'd hidden inside the metal vent and carried it through to the bedroom. It contained some special photographs and some extra special equipment that he needed to keep very secret.

Paullina the waitress had been a good companion. And, when he'd given her a generous fifty-euro tip on top of the hundred euros fee he'd insisted on her taking for her 'work' as his guide, then she'd been more than helpful. Some of the things she'd told him about the Kings would soon prove extremely valuable. She'd spoken at length about how the Americans had not known a thing about catering when they'd moved into La Casa Strada, how Carlo and Paolo had effectively run the business for the first six months, but then Mrs King began slowly to take control and seemed really passionate about the cooking and treating the guests as though they were visiting friends. McLeod had listened patiently as she'd rambled on about the food and the menus, the work that she did there and her ambitions once she had finished her studies. Eventually, with only the gentlest of hints, he was able to guide the conversation to what really interested him, former FBI agent Jack King.

Paullina hadn't known everything that McLeod had hoped, but she'd known enough. She described in detail how depressed Jack had been when she'd first met him. How he would stay in the private family quarters of the hotel and seemed almost uninterested in the staff or the guests, never making any effort to meet them or chat with them if they bumped into him in the corridors or gardens. She mentioned that about two years earlier he used to go off on walks, usually on his own, sometimes pushing his son in a buggy, just doing laps of San Quirico. He went around so many times that shopkeepers and locals said he was fuori di testa – off his head. McLeod soaked it all up, the more bad things that were said about hero Jack King the better, as far as he was concerned. Paullina mentioned that at first Jack had really let himself go, that his weight had ballooned and Nancy had to get Paolo to come up with a special diet to help him shed the pounds. McLeod would have loved to have seen that. Lately though, she said he'd apparently slimmed down and instead of the long and lonely walks, he could be seen jogging two or three times a week and was now looking in buona salute.

McLeod had asked where Jack was these days and she'd hesitated before saying she thought he was a long way away, maybe on the other side of Italy. What really excited McLeod though was when Paullina revealed that she thought maybe Jack's absence had something to do with the Italian police. She recalled that a plainclothes policewoman from Rome had turned up to see him. It seems there had been some kind of row between Mrs King and the policewoman, and it had ended with the policewoman ordering Mrs King to get her husband to call her because it was 'an urgent police matter'.

The thought made McLeod smile as he looked at the photographs of Jack that he'd stolen from an album in Nancy King's bedroom. 'I've got a big surprise coming for you, Mr FBI man,' he said, putting them to one side. Then he slowly unpacked the special equipment that he'd hidden.

The equipment he now planned to use on Nancy King.