I set down my empty glass, pulled out my notebook – I never go anywhere without it – and listened attentively. What he had to say was fascinating.
‘There’s a Penelope Green among the names you gave me. I just happened to mention her name to one of my older colleagues, and he told me that he was at the British embassy in Amman, Jordan, at the time when the head of the consular section was none other than her father, Lawrence Green, now British Consul General in Toronto, Canada. His wife and twodaughters, Penelope and Violet, lived in Amman for a total of twelve years until Lawrence Green was transferred to Canada. Nothing unusual there. Diplomatic staff do tend to get moved around quite a bit, but what was interesting was that Lawrence Green’s transfer was unexpected and very sudden, and the word around the embassy was that the hasty move had been to avert a scandal. I called in a couple of favours and spoke to a few people in the know, and it turns out that the scandal involved the elder daughter, Penelope, at that time age just turned eighteen.’
‘What sort of scandal? Did they tell you?’
‘It appears that young Penelope had decided to fall madly in love. What might be of interest is that the object of her affections was none other than a wanted jihadi of Iraqi origin, named Ibrahim Hassan. The tip-off came from the CIA, who had been monitoring Hassan for some months, and the powers-that-be must have decided that the best course of action was for the budding relationship to be knocked on the head. Hence the family’s sudden move to Canada.’
My mind was racing. The mysterious Shabah character who had contacted Angel with an order for weapons had been Iraqi – or at least believed to be Iraqi – so could it be…?
Billy was way ahead of me. ‘I’ve been sitting here trying to put two and two together without making five, and I’m just wondering whether maybe, just maybe, Ibrahim Hassan and Shabah might turn out to be one and the same.’ There was a note of excitement in his voice now. ‘I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it’s a possibility.’
‘What about Hassan? You mentioned that the CIA had been keeping an eye on him. Where is he now?’
‘Nobody knows.’ The excitement in his voice had been replaced with something more subdued. ‘They lost him.’ He must have heard my grunt of annoyance because he went on toclarify. ‘From what I’ve heard, it wasn’t their fault. Hassan was tracked to a terrorist training camp in the wilds of eastern Iraq that was carpet bombed by the US Air Force shortly after he got there. The destruction was almost total, and numerous jihadis were killed, among them Ibrahim Hassan – or so it’s been thought up till now.’
I added the obvious conclusion. ‘So, are you saying that Shabah might be the reincarnation of Hassan?’
‘Exactly. And if he is, we at least have a physical description of him from the CIA, even though he’s bound to be travelling on a false passport now.’ The excitement was back in his voice. ‘This could be big, Dan, very big.’
‘But the only link at the moment is Penelope Green. Do your people know if she remained in contact with him? Was she under any kind of surveillance after she and the family were moved away from Jordan?’
‘None at all. The belief was that this had just been a teenage romance, and splitting the two of them up would end the matter – and that would appear to be what happened. From the little I can find of her background since then, there’s no indication that she had any further contact with him, but it strikes me as quite a coincidence that she pops up in the same place and at the same time as a terrorist who might or might not be a big cog in the jihadi machine.’
I sat there and thought about it for a few seconds. I spotted Tommaso standing by the fly curtain, glanced at Shaun and held up two fingers, nodding towards our empty beer glasses. Tommaso disappeared back into the bar without hesitation. As for Penelope Green and her teenage crush, I found myself wondering whether Billy might really be onto something, or whether it was wishful thinking. I did a bit more thinking of my own – out loud.
‘Penelope told me that she was fluent in Arabic because she used to live in Jordan. She gave me that information quite spontaneously, so if she had been involved in some sort of plot with Hassan, I’m surprised she would have divulged that. Then there’s the fact that she contacted me to ask if I would get involved in the investigation. Surely, if she was one of the perpetrators, that’s the last thing she would do. The other thing I can’t get my head around is what interest there might have been in it for her, or indeed for Hassan, to murder Tristan Angel or Donald Hicks. After all, Angel was the guy who was going to provide them with enough weapons to start a small war. Kill himaftergetting the weapons, quite possibly, but why kill himbefore?’
‘That’s what I’ve been asking myself and I don’t have an answer. Listen, Dan, I can’t put this in a report to London yet; there’s just too much conjecture. I’d be very grateful if you could have a quiet word with your friend, Inspector Pisano, about it, and ask him to bring up the name Ibrahim Hassan in conversation with her and see how she reacts. Go ahead and tell him everything I’ve told you, but ask him, for God’s sake, not to go spreading it about. It may turn out to be perfectly innocent and lead nowhere, and the last thing I want is to raise expectations, only to then dash them again. My superiors wouldn’t like that one bit. If she reacts positively, give me a call, and I’ll come straight back up and interview her myself.’
I promised him I would pass the message on straight away and thanked him warmly for his efforts. I told him I felt sure that Virgilio would sit down first thing in the morning and have an in-depth conversation with Penelope about this, and I hoped very much that I would be included in it.
As the call ended, our beers arrived and I took a big mouthful before turning to Shaun. Although there was still the very faint possibility that he might have had some involvement in the firstmurder, I couldn’t see how anything he had heard me say – obviously, he hadn’t been able to hear Billy’s side of the conversation – could help him, but I thought I had better warn him off all the same.
‘Shaun, I need to ask you to forget anything you may have heard me say over the last couple of minutes. It may come to nothing, but it might help solve the murder in the duomo.’
He picked up his glass and gave me a blank look. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear a thing. Maybe I should get my hearing checked.’ He shot me a little grin. ‘Good luck.’
18
THURSDAY MORNING
‘Porca miseria!’
There was real exasperation in Virgilio’s voice when he mouthed the Italian expletive that translates literally as ‘pig misery’ – it’s the kind of thing you say when you smash an expensive bottle of wine or miss your train – and I didn’t blame him. We were sitting in his office at a quarter to eight in the morning, and he was digesting Billy’s message about Penelope that I had just relayed to him. Marco Innocenti was sitting alongside me, and he looked equally bamboozled. Virgilio glanced down at the pad on his desk and started counting off the suspects.
‘So, what have we got? It’s possible that Penelope Green might somehow still be involved with this Islamist character and responsible, directly or indirectly, for both murders. Alternatively, Donald Hicks might have murdered his boss, either to get the top spot in the company or to conceal some misdeed, and then been murdered in revenge by Angel’s faithful servant, Eddie Smith, or one of the others. At the same time, Vincent Archer, aided and abetted by Angel’s ex-wife and boyfriend, might alsobe responsible for both murders, so as to stop the company from moving into illegal waters. The fact that by removing Angel and Hicks, they would also get bigger shares of the company for themselves would be an added bonus.’ He looked across at the two of us. ‘All right so far?’
We both nodded and he continued. ‘But, of course, it doesn’t stop there. Maybe Vincent Archer committed murder to conceal the fact that he’d been syphoning money from the company and was about to be uncovered. Exactly the same argument could apply to Donald Hicks, Liam O’Connell, or Alex Murray, but, without a forensic investigation of the company’s accounts, there’s no way of proving that. Then there’s always the question of sex. Was Angel having an affair with Penelope Green? Did Emilia Cortez kill him out of jealousy?’ He ran a weary hand across his shaved head in frustration. ‘The next thing we know, it’ll turn out that Rosina the housekeeper is a Mafia hitwoman.’ He looked across his desk at us. ‘Any guesses?’
I saw Marco shake his head and I had to agree that I was equally stumped – and I certainly wasn’t going to mention my suspicions about Shaun.
‘You’re right, we have a lot of suspects and a lot of possible motives, and virtually everybody had the opportunity and the means. For what it’s worth, I’m still convinced that we’re looking for a single killer, rather than two completely different people with completely different motives, but I’m no closer than you are to knowing who that might be.’
Virgilio got to his feet. ‘Right, let’s head up to the villa and interview Penelope Green again. I want all phones and computers belonging to the residents checked for suspicious emails – particularly if any of them reference Shabah. Let’s hope there hasn’t been another murder in the meantime.’
It was something of a relief when we got to the villa to find that everybody was still alive. Virgilio had very sensibly stationed a couple of officers inside the house overnight with strict instructions not to close their eyes even for a minute. Whether this deterrent had been responsible or not, the fact that there had not been a third murder was to be applauded.
Rosina showed us into the small lounge and kindly brought us coffees and the news that all of the occupants of the villa were already on their feet, and most had already had their breakfast. A constable was sent to summon Penelope for interview, and she was looking understandably uneasy when she came in and sat down. Virgilio didn’t waste time.
