The Lizard's Bite

SCACCHI’S BOAT WAS STILL ABSENT WHEN THEY’D CIRCLED the island. Apart from the woman, anxiously scanning the sky, looking for the source of the noise, Costa knew he had nothing to go on. Nothing except an illicit little shack, erected somewhere at the back of Piero Scacchi’s property, and recently, from what he’d seen from the passenger seat of Andrea Correr’s plane. It was a shot in the dark. Just the kind of trick Leo Falcone would have pulled when things were getting difficult. Costa hoped a little of the old bastard’s luck had rubbed off.

He walked up from the beach, climbed over a low rickety fence and found himself in a field. Immaculate rows of pepper plants, dotted with red fruit, stretched in front of him, verdant on raised beds. Beyond a fence to the left lay similar ranks of purple artichokes, and to the right a field of equally proper spinach beet, a vivid sheet of green. Scacchi, or whoever tended these crops, was careful. Not a plant was out of place, not a leaf showed a sign of disease or insect damage. Nic recalled the way his own father had worked the vegetable garden outside the family house back in Rome, on the outskirts of the city, close to the old Appian Way. There had been the same peasant skill, the same monotonous, backbreaking care there, and it showed in the crops, in every shining leaf.

He looked ahead, towards the shack, now no more than a hundred metres away. The woman was gone. Back inside perhaps. Or fleeing to find help, suspecting what was on the way. Costa thought about what he knew of the background of the case, took out his service pistol, looked at it, checked the magazine, then put it back in the holster hidden beneath his dark jacket.

Guns depressed him. They always had, and, he suspected, always would.

Then he took out his mobile phone and checked for messages. There were none. Not a word from Teresa or Peroni. Or Emily either, and he wondered why he’d thought of her last.

Casting these misgivings to one side, or trying to, he walked on to the little house, found the door open, went in, and said, quietly, calmly, with not a hint of threat in his voice, “Signora Conti?”

The place wasn’t what he expected. From the outside it seemed a run-down rural hovel, plain white walls, poorly built, with a single small window giving out onto the tiny patch of garden, nasturtiums and roses, that sat in front of the cheap green single door. But from within, it looked like a home, and not that of a peasant farmer either. There were paintings on the walls, only dimly visible in the poor light, a hi-fi system playing classical music at low volume, and shelves of books. The smell of food drifted in from an adjoining open door. The place was spotless, tidy and organised in a way which seemed, to him, more urban than rural.

“Signora Conti?” he called again. “I wish to talk with you. There’s nothing to fear.”

The woman came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands with a cloth, glowering at him. She had short light brown hair, an attractive, intelligent face, and eyes that kept darting around the room, in any direction but his.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What right do you have to walk in here? Flying your plane over my house . . . ?”

“Signora Conti—”

“Stop saying this name!” she insisted, voice rising. “There’s no such person here. Go, please. Before I call the police.”

He took out the photo from his pocket. They had just one in the files in the Questura. It was old. She’d changed her appearance. Dyed her hair, cut it short.

He held it up in front of her. “You’re Laura Conti. I know why you’re here. I know why you’re hiding. Piero’s done a good job keeping you safe. The postcards. Putting you so close to him, so close to the city. It’s clever. He’s a smart man.”

“Piero?” she asked. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”

“I haven’t done anything with him. He’s not here. I thought perhaps you knew . . .”

“He’s the landlord. Nothing else. I don’t understand what you’re saying. It’s nonsense.”

“Laura . . .”

“Not that name!”

He took one step towards her. She shivered at his closeness.

“I need your help,” he said. “I need it desperately. And I can’t allow this to go on. It’s wrong. There’s a time to run away, and a time to face up to your past. This is that time. You and Daniel—”

“Daniel, Daniel, Daniel . . .” she whispered, holding her head in her hands. “What are you talking about? My name is Paola Soranzo. I live here with my husband, Carlo. We are simple farmers. Now leave us alone.”

Costa tossed the photo on the table. She didn’t even look at it. “I can’t do that,” he said. “Not for your sake. Not for mine. I have to . . .”

He was reaching into his jacket, looking for the badge, when the man crept up behind him, quiet as a church mouse, unseen until the moment the long, ugly double barrel of a shotgun emerged round Nic Costa’s right shoulder and angled up towards his face.

A hand came round the left side of his chest, found the gun in its holster, removed it, threw the weapon to the floor. Then he came slowly into view. Daniel Forster could pass easily as a Sant’ Erasmo farmer now. His hair was dyed almost black, long beneath a grubby beret. He wore a heavy moustache and stubble. And he had the farmer’s hunch too, the turned shoulders that came from working the fields. Costa was impressed. He raised his hands and kept them high all the same.

“Signor Forster . . .” he began to say.

“Shut up!” the man yelled, then cracked the side of Nic’s head painfully with the barrel of the shotgun.

The woman was screaming, in fright or anger. Costa didn’t know which. Then the hard wooden stock of the gun fell again, and he tumbled to the floor, not caring.