Kalenin sat back at his desk. allowing himself a brief moment of satisfaction. Almost immediately he rose to his feet. Alexander Hotovy had undergone sufficient preparation. Everything was going too well to allow uncertainty, and Kalenin was anxious to satisfy himself the Czech did not represent any greater danger than he already imagined.
12
Emilio Fantani had a criminal’s ability to distinguish between true wealth and surface glitter, and as he rounded the promontory on the Ostia road to gaze down upon the Billington villa he knew this was true wealth. Unlike Charlie Muffin, who had taken the same route earlier, Fantani slowed and then stopped, using the elevation of the hill for his reconnaissance. The angle prevented his establishing a seafront approach, but there would obviously be one leading up to the grape and flower hung verandah he could just determine at the right-hand side of the house.
With a burglar’s patience he waited for thirty minutes slumped back in his seat, ensuring the information about no ground patrol was correct before releasing the handbrake to coast down under minimal power towards the entrance. He was briefly aware of the men in the gate lodge but his concentration was upon the electrical wiring thatched along the top of the walls.
The sea, he decided, reverting to his original intention. There was a layby almost at the junction of the Pratica road and as he reached it Fantani saw the parked police car. It was unmarked but identifiable from the heavy radio antennae that was always mounted in the roof; as discreet as elephants in ballet slippers, he thought. There were three men inside the yellow vehicle, lounged back with the practice of those who spend a lot of time waiting for things to happen.
Fantani didn’t slow. To his right the sun sparked off the polished water and far out to sea a clutch of fishing boats moved sedately along the skyline, like ducks in a line. The hills were ochre and bald, patched occasionally with thin grass. Hobbled goats, neck bells jangling, nuzzled hopefully and once Fantani had to brake and swerve to avoid one that started into the road to tug at a suddenly discovered tuft.
It took longer than Fantani wanted before he found a cliff break to get down to the beach. He parked and took a towel and the raffia mat from the rear seat. Descending the looped pathway, he set out through the foot-sucking sand and shingle in the direction of the villa. It took an hour and Fantani was glad he had allowed himself so much time. He stopped some way from the barrier that made the ambassador’s beach private. Fantani had come prepared, already wearing a costume beneath his clothes. He spread the mat, undressed and folded everything neatly before stretching out, apparently to sunbathe. For almost half an hour he did, before turning over onto his stomach to begin the examination. The beach fence was high and spike-topped and projected some unseen distance into the water. Fantani did not think it was insurmountable. It didn’t matter anyway, he decided, looking to the cliff face. It might have been possible to scale once, but from the artificially smooth surface of the rocks he guessed it had been blasted away to create the almost perpendicular drop.
Like a black line drawn down it, there was a smoked-glass lift linking the villa to the sea, and alongside the zigzag of emergency steps. It would only need one man at the top to protect both approaches. Fantani squinted up against the sun at the villa, locating more pillars and bourgainvillea. It was at the point where the protective estate wall abutted the cliff that Fantani stopped. The wall had been brought to the edge and from the conduit box which stuck up like a proud thumb he guessed the electrical connection stopped there. The screen was completed by a wide half-circle of meshed spikes, splayed out like a woman’s fan against the wall end and the cliff face, over a drop which Fantani estimated at four hundred metres but accepted would probably be more, because of his shortened elevation. He smiled, seeing the way, and turned over onto his back again to doze in the sun. For another hour he relaxed, then dressed and rolled up his mat, leaving his shoes and socks off for the gritty walk back to the car.
It was still only four in the afternoon so Fantani continued towards Pratica until he found the first roadside cafe. He considered a brandy but decided his nerves didn’t need any help. Instead he took coffee.
Life was good, decided Fantani. And going to get better. A lot better. It had taken long enough; nearly fifteen years of screwing and being screwed, trinket stealing from those who wouldn’t risk complaint, and then the gradual reputation as a competent craftsman. He knew it was the reputation that had prompted the approach. Only two arrests and both unimportant. It was the sort of thing the big organizers liked: style and expertise. Fantani had no doubt whom he was working for; who else but the Mafia had the organization to get the details he’d been provided with? It had been a trial period; with this the final test. When he passed he’d learn who the man was. Fantani was sure the name wasn’t Jacono. But he’d never shown any curiosity or tried to question. They respected attitudes like that. Style, thought Fantani again.
Driving back towards Ostia, Fantani saw that, because of a kink in the coastline, the sun was setting on the landward, not the seaward, side, which was an advantage: already, to his left, the darkness was merging the clifftop blackly with the water. Fantani took the Fiat up a track, so that it would be completely concealed from the road, and stood against the open boot, changing into the clothing in which he worked. Everything was black for concealment, even the canvas shoes. Before putting on the sweater, he taped to one wrist the electrical bypass leads and to the other the glass-cutter. He kept the trouser pockets free for ease of movement but carefully zipped inside the cotton windcheater the collapsible silk bag, the plans of the villa and its burglar protection, the doctor’s stethoscope with a shortened length of tubing, and the tape roll. Satisfied with his preparations, he completed the last part of the ritual, relieving himself against the wheel of the car.
He positioned himself carefully during the final approach to the villa neither too near the road, where he would be visible to passing vehicles, nor too near the cliff edge, where he might be seen against the slightly lighter skyline. Three times cars swept along the coast road but on each occasion their lights warned him long before their arrival and he was crouched low and completely hidden when they passed.
He was adjusted to the darkness when he got to the villa perimeter, conscious of the solid blackness of the wall. Near to it, Fantani squatted, settling himself for the wait, head tensed to one side for any animal or human sound to indicate a regular patrol he’d failed to detect from the overlooking hill. It was thirty minutes before he moved, sure there was none.
Near the clifltop the wind was stronger, blowing harder against him than he had expected. He hoped it wouldn’t cause difficulties. Where the wall ended he crouched again, gazing out at the fan-like half-circle, wanting to impress everything about it into his mind. There were about forty spikes, spear-shaped at their ends and patterned together by looped metal spokes radiating outwards; closer, Fantani saw it exactly like a spider’s web cut in half. He groped about his feet, discarding the first two things his hand encountered and finally locating a stick stout enough for the purpose. He edged closer, so he wouldn’t be defeated by the wind, and threw it at the metal, eyes half closed for a spark of contact if the electrification had been continued in some way he hadn’t identified. The twig hit the metal, without any flash, lodged for a few moments between one of the supporting arms and fell away into the darkness below. Fantani was able to trace its descent, because floodlights had been switched on from the villa. By leaning out slightly he could look down at the ambassador’s private beach. At the foot of the cliff a jetty nosed out into the black water and a speedboat jostled at a mooring.