A Cold Flame: A gripping crime thriller that will keep you hooked

For some the dream of making something with their lives was still fresh and real, and their vigour and optimism could be uplifting, especially on mornings when the weight of her own existence sometimes dragged her down. Even when you liked what you did and couldn’t imagine doing anything else, getting up every morning, criss-crossing the city and juggling work commitments was draining.

For others it was not so easy. She saw the hope dwindling in their eyes as the obstacles they encountered day after day began to sap their energy and their belief. Work with anything like a decent contract was not easy to come by. For those who worked in agriculture, the gangmaster was king. A call could come in at the last minute and they would be expected at an often ungodly hour to get to the appointed meeting place on the outskirts of the city from where they would be picked up and driven to a remote destination. If they didn’t want to accept the going rate it was too late then to turn back. Take it or leave it – there’s a queue of workers outside the door. Add to that the back-breaking work under a searing sun for twelve hours or more, and maybe the promise of more of the same the next day. Maybe.

When they weren’t working, they were killing time, getting by, and other exploitative figures sought to draw them into criminal and other informal money-making ventures. Drugs, prostitution, the running of prostitution. Protection. Punishments. Contracts. There was always an outlet in a city with a hunger for sex and chemical oblivion that never wavered, and weed and coke were the best earners.

In front of her, in the cramped and stuffy improvised classroom, her adult pupils were either still grappling with, or else putting the finishing touches to, a grammar test. She was ready to go but knew she would probably end up hanging around outside to chat. In fact, today she wanted to chat.

One of the brightest of her students deposited his paper on the mounting pile of completed tests on her desk. As he did so, she raised her hands to indicate to the others that there were ten minutes left and she followed him outside. She knew a little of his story – that he was Nigerian, a Muslim, had come up from Sicily, like so many, that he was without papers but that he had plans.

“So, Jibril,” she said, once they were out of earshot, “are you coming to the intercultural picnic on Saturday?”

Jibril shook his head and smiled. A short distance away, Olivia glimpsed the various groups of non-students and occasional or former students who also chose to congregate outside the centre. It was handily near the centre but the police didn’t bother them much here.

“I am sorry, Olivia,” he continued, placing his hand on his heart, “but on Saturday I must attend to other matters in my community.”

“All work and no play,” Olivia quipped, “makes Jibril a dull boy!”

He smiled again. “Next time. Next time, I promise. Farò del mio meglio.”

“Bravissimo! You see? You will soon be fluent! And I will do my best,” she replied, echoing the promise he had made in near-perfect Italian, “to convince you. And why don’t you bring some of your friends?” she added, indicating the tight-knit group itching now for Jibril to terminate his extracurricular discussion.

“If you change your mind, let me know. You have my number, don’t you?”

He nodded.

“I will try,” he said. “Arrivederci, Olivia.”

“Arrivederci, Jibril.”

She watched him walk away and glanced back through the window at the rest of the class as they continued to do battle with their past perfects, subjunctives, and indirect object pronouns. As friends, she and Jibril had already shared enjoyable chats over coffee, but whether there might be more, as yet remained to be seen. She watched too as one of his companions put an arm around his shoulder and squeezed it tightly as the group walked away; the direction, if not the actual destination, known to Olivia and always the same. She picked up his test paper and toyed with the idea of making an early start on the corrections. This one would be easy. The neat, clear hand. Scarcely an error. Even the accents were in place. Jibril was good. No. He was very good. And why did he have to be so charming? He was definitely going to be one to watch.

Eight

Paola walked away from Trastevere Station towards the tram stop. A number 8 was already approaching from the direction of the San Camillo Hospital, descending the curve of the long road skirting round the base of the Gianicolo Hill. It had been ages since she’d been there, and she reasoned that she could get home just as quickly going this way and then taking the 3 to San Lorenzo rather than changing trains. Besides it would be nice to have a wander. Easy come, easy go, she always said, when she had time on her hands.

Her fingers toyed with her phone. Francesco would be in there now, with the commission, or maybe still waiting. He would call when it was all over, so there was no point hassling him anymore. She would send a message later just to let him know they had cancelled and that she’d be home early. Perhaps they could do something together, now that the studying was over, regardless of what happened with the damned interview. She took out her phone to write a message.

Hi Mom. OK if I swing by in half an hour? I’m in Trastevere.

The response was almost immediate.

Great. Will be waiting.

She got off at Piazza Mastai, where office couples and homeless alike had taken up their appointed spots on benches around the hexagonal fountain. To the left she could wander away into the winding streets of Trastevere. It was easy to lose yourself there, but you’d soon pop out somewhere recognizable. She passed a shop front and checked her reflection. Early lunchers were filling the outside tables of the pizzerie and trattorie. Tourists mainly. As they waited, some of their eyes strayed towards her. So, she was looking good. Well, she was a part of the city they had come to see. Better live up to their expectations then and she put an added spritz of elegance into her step.

She continued to walk until she came to Piazza Trilussa. By day, its steps hosted workmen on their breaks and sightseers taking in the scene. The traffic tearing along the Lungotevere, the road running parallel with the course of the river below, was as noisy as a race track. She too was completing a circuit of sorts but at a human pace as the road would bring her first past the Israeli university and then to Ponte Garibaldi.

The narrow footpath along the river was crowded with parked cars randomly slicing the pavement and bullying for space wherever it could be found. She moved into the road to avoid an oncoming mob of students. Her own student days were long gone but she still remembered them fondly.

Back then, she had sent out hundreds of CVs to companies; she too had done concorsi, and she had taken whatever work she could find to get a foot on the ladder, to get away from home and eke out an independent existence. Now she sold textbooks for a publishing house, a job nominally related to her literary studies, but she may as well have been selling cars or insurance for all it was worth. Her own literary efforts were gathering dust in boxes or on a hard drive of an ageing computer.

As she approached the university, armed military personnel stood cradling their automatic rifles and scanning the passersby near the entrance. There were bikes outside, chained to the waist-high railings providing an unobtrusive security cordon of sorts. A soldier began waving in an agitated manner at a white jeep that had pulled up.

“No, no, signora. Via! Via! No parking here. No parking.

At least someone was doing his job. Paola glanced at the selection of new and innovative bicycles she presumed must have reflected the considerable spending power of the students. One had a sophisticated-looking kilometre counter and all of its expensive-looking lights still attached. Lights, at this time of the year? And risky that, in Rome. If it wasn’t nailed down it was a goner.

Her thoughts moved again between the present and the past. This place where they would come on Friday nights and where they used to meet foreigners and students from all over the globe. It was a window on the world, and it had been a time of fun. But that was gone. People were settling down. She thought of the melancholy and so true line from a Joyce story: “Everything changes”.

But does it? thought Paola as she passed. Does it?

Then, unseen to her and the smoking, chatting students, the seconds on the digital, liquid crystal display flipped from 58 to 59 to 00 and, as the detonator nestled deep in the explosive charge packed into the bicycle frame did its brief job, everything did.

Nine

“… which, over time, would radically reduce our dependence on oil and be a real step forward in reducing levels of atmospheric pollution linked to cancer in our cities and beyond. Besides that, the initial cost would soon be offset both by savings for the consumer and the provider. I have some figures here, if you don’t mind.”

Francesco began to reach for his briefcase leaning against the leg of his chair.

“That won’t be necessary, Dottor Anselmi,” the president of the commission said before Francesco had managed to extract the relevant file. “Really, time is against us, as always, but it was, I think we all agree, a most interesting presentation. Even if I’m not sure it’s what our friends in ItalOil would want to hear,” he added, leaning back and laughing out loud. The three other members gave knowing smiles and also nodded their approval as the president craned his neck slightly to make eye contact with each in turn.

The clerk too, who had been hunched over his papers recording the candidates’ names and cross-checking documentation and identity cards all morning, would now have his small increment of institutional glory.

“The results of the concorso,” he announced, “will be published at the end of the week on the university’s website.”

“Ah, yes, just one thing.” The sole female interviewer was scanning the first page of Francesco’s CV through her bifocals. “If I may, it says here you are fluent in English.”

“Yes,” Francesco replied.

“I was wondering, could you envisage overseeing a course, or courses, for the faculty in the medium of English? How would you go about organizing, for example, training the stuff?”

“I’m sorry?” Francesco replied.

“How would you train the stuff,” she repeated.

“The staff,” the president said with careful emphasis and exhibiting only minor irritation.

“Oh, sorry,” said Francesco.

It was the one he hadn’t prepared for.

“Well,” he began, buying time. A helicopter’s unmistakable whop-whop overhead and a swirling emergency siren beyond the drawn blinds took everyone’s attention hostage for a moment.

“Do go on, please,” the president enjoined Francesco.

“Well, I would first assess their competences and then put out a call for the most suitable candidates to fill the vacant positions.”

“And the staff not ‘up to the job’?” said the bespectacled interviewer.

Francesco knew he had to answer, but he was fumbling.

“They could be moved to positions better-suited to their competences, and then offered training, in the long term, to get them up to speed.”

“Ah. I see.” She turned to the president of the commission. “I think that really is all now.”

“Very well,” he replied. “And unless there are any other questions.”

But something told Francesco it probably wasn’t what they had wanted to hear. And then maybe none of it had been. And his English was better than hers by a country-fucking-mile. Yet she was sitting there.

There was a knock at the door. A minor office flunkey clutching a piece of paper popped his head round. He looked, apart from his general obsequiousness, more than a little shaken.

“Presidente Bonucci, Dottori, scusate. C’è una communicazione.”

Allowing his glasses to slide down his nose, Professor Bonucci scanned the note while conveying its salient points. “‘Major security alert in City of Rome. Possibility of further explosions. All universities, places of worship, public buildings and schools to remain on high alert until further notice. Senior management to evaluate the situation and assess the practicalities of executing evacuation or effecting security lockdown.’”

He looked up.

“Dottoresse e dottori, to use the popular contemporary lexicon, it would appear that we are ‘under attack’.”

Ten

An entire stretch of the Lungotevere – the one-way road system and footpath following the Tiber’s snaking course through the city – had been cordoned off. There were army bomb disposal units and armed personnel carriers, police vehicles with their lights flashing. Black-clad snipers crouched on the roofs of five-storey buildings and on balconies high above onlookers’ heads and at the strategic angles of Viale Trastevere overlooking Ponte Garibaldi. The municipal police had rejigged the one-way system so that nothing could pass if not with strict authorization. Even so, an animated discussion had broken out between a plump, wheezing traffic warden and a baby-faced carabiniere about the evident breakdown of communication between the various forces. Where all the diverted vehicles were going was anyone’s guess. But it was like leaving a tourniquet on the city. It stopped the bleeding but at what cost?

Rossi was standing in the middle of the road and assessing the extent of the bomb damage to the university’s facade when an old friend emerged from among a small crowd of uniforms and plain-clothes operatives.

“Well, surprise, surprise! How the hell did you get here?” said Rossi. “You’re Italy’s most wanted journalist. What happened to the security drill?”

Ever since he had escaped the assassination attempt in Sicily, Dario Iannelli had been living in hiding with a 24/7 armed guard. Collusion between politicians and organized crime in drugs and other profitable businesses had been at the root of his investigation, and it had all come to a head just as Rossi had been closing in on The Carpenter. Iannelli saw complex, sometimes wild, conspiracies everywhere but his insights gave Rossi frequent food for thought. What’s more, he trusted him. Rossi’s opportunities of seeing the journalist were infrequent now and usually involved first discovering his latest address via a strict protocol and then arranging for a rendezvous in the utmost secrecy.

Dario Iannelli lowered his dark glasses by the required number of degrees to look Rossi in the eyes before opening both arms and giving his old friend a firm embrace.

“Good to see you,” said Iannelli. “We weren’t far away, in transit, and I managed to persuade the guys here that it was about the safest place I could be in now. Given the traffic chaos, it seemed as good an idea as any other.”

He gestured to the civilian desert around them. Only uniforms and hardware to be seen. The other press guys had been forced to wait, but Iannelli had special security clearance.

“My somewhat anomalous state confers the occasional privilege on me.”

“So, surviving captivity?” said Rossi then.

“Next question,” Iannelli replied, the strain clearer in his face as he fully removed his designer shades.

“Well at least you’re getting to stretch your legs,” said Rossi, giving him a firm slap on the shoulders. “How are you bearing up?”

Iannelli gave a sigh.

“You can get used to anything, Mick. That’s what they tell me, but I have to stay alive.”

“Well, I was going to call you,” said Rossi, “to see if we might get together, but it seems events have got the better of us.”

Iannelli’s escort had maintained a discreet distance, but the journalist gestured for them to come over.

“Let me introduce you to my shadows,” he said, presenting the four plain-clothes officers of his escort, now his permanent companions. “They allow me ‘to live an ordinary life’,” he added drily. “Really looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Well, you’re still with us, aren’t you?” said Rossi.

“No comment.”

“So, who’s here?” Rossi continued. “Might save me some time if you tell me what you’ve got on all this.”

“More like who’s not here,” Iannelli replied. “Good time to do a break-in, I’d say. It’s very Italian, isn’t it? You know, the stable door after the horse has bolted and all that.”

“C’mon, Dario! Were they supposed to predict this? Is that it?”

“Intelligence? A security plan? This is a prime target in the capital and they managed to put a bomb outside? And the synagogue’s just down the road,” he added, gesturing across the river to where the four-sided dome could be glimpsed through the trees.

Rossi was looking in the other direction now to the tarpaulins shielding an area around the university entrance of some 60 to 70 square metres, while a wall of ambulances provided further cover.

“So, how bad?” said Iannelli.

“Maybe six dead, twenty plus injured,” said Rossi, who’d already had a provisional briefing. “No names yet. It wasn’t huge but it was nasty. A nail bomb. It wasn’t term time but there were summer schools going on. These places never close now, and everyone was off guard.”

“I still say you’ve got to see these things coming,” said Iannelli.

“Well, it’s not as if it’s the first time, is it? I mean Jewish, Israeli targets.”

“They shot up the synagogue a couple of times,” said Iannelli. “But this, this here can only be Islamist. Or be meant to look Islamist.”

“I see you haven’t changed your outlook on the world, Dario,” said Rossi.

“Got to keep an open mind on these things, Michael. You of all people should know that.”

“Well, perhaps we can be open-minded enough to start with the facts before we go down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. No one’s claimed it yet. Unless you know something I don’t.”

Iannelli shook his head.

“Early days. They’ll wait. See the reaction then see who wants to take it and how useful it will be.”

Carrara was approaching from the far side of the road.

“What’s the story, Gigi?” said Rossi. “Not a car bomb I take it, or a suicide?”

“It’s a mess but it was no suicide. The AT unit’s are on it and Forensics. Working hypothesis of an IED – some sort of large pipe bomb left outside the building. There’s a lot of burn and blast damage. Shrapnel wounds. It just depends where it hits you in these cases.”

“Any witnesses, CCTV?” said Rossi.

“They’re going through the recordings now.”

“Who’s they?”

“The university president’s there. He’s freaking out. I think he’s more worried about the parents wanting to pull all their kids off degree courses. He’s called his press officer back from vacation to work out a PR damage-limitation strategy. Then there’s the assorted services, if you like. ATU. Military and civil. I also have it on good authority that there were undercover guys in the building too. They won’t confirm but you can put money on it.”

“Who are we talking about?” asked Iannelli. Carrara looked at Rossi before getting the nod to go on.

“CIA, maybe Mossad. Whoever they were, they can’t have seen it coming either.”

“And who’s your good authority?” said Rossi.

“The Hare.”

The Hare was a hard-to-pin-down figure. An informer, a fixer, an elusive go-between of Boston Irish stock; he had gone native so long ago that his origins hardly mattered and were barely noticed as his information was always spot on.

Rossi gave an approving nod. He knew the way it worked. The aircraft carriers, the Nato bases, the embassies, the multinationals and then the cultural centres. From Italy to Egypt to Lebanon to Saudi Arabia, US higher education establishments were a way of maintaining a presence, keeping an ear to the ground, and a way of shaping politics, culture and business too. You could send recruits there; you could make new recruits there too.

“Any chance of us mere mortals getting to see those recordings?” he said then.

“Maybe, if you’re very quiet and sit at the back and don’t ask questions. Want to try?”

Rossi gave a nod.

“Dario, how about using strength in numbers? Can your guys create a bit of a diversion or something? I say just flash a badge and keep going. That’s my usual approach.”

“Anything for you, Michael. Come on. But I’m out of here in five. I don’t like getting snapped by the paparazzi, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, while you are here,” said Rossi. “Does the name Jibril mean anything to you? Sicily by chance?”

Rossi was watching for a reaction, but the mention of Jibril didn’t seem to stir much in Iannelli, other than his usual journalist’s suspicions as to why Rossi might be asking.

“Anything I should be interested in?”

“Just working on a lead,” said Rossi. “Or you might say we’re clutching at straws.”

Iannelli’s escort were looking keen to get them off the street, despite the cordon extending around them for a kilometre in every direction.

“Let’s go inside and see what we can get,” said Iannelli, taking the hint. Rossi followed. The name Jibril was not high on Iannelli’s agenda. He would try to jog his memory later.

Eleven

Francesco hurried down the fire escape and out of the university building with some of the other candidates and the various office workers and public servants who shared the ten-storey complex with them. For most of them, the drill provided a welcome chance for an unexpected break, and the bar across the road was already filling up. As false alarms were frequent, few seemed to be giving any credence to the idea of there actually having been a major incident, but Francesco took out his mobile and called Paola anyway. He was sure she would have done the same if she had heard the news; it was the way she was and some of her attitude had clearly rubbed off on him too. But there was no answer.

There was a temporary lockdown in place in the building but hard news was still at a premium. He ordered a coffee, and as he half listened to the gossip and looked up at the rolling news on the small TV in the corner over the fruit machine, fragmentary accounts began to emerge of an explosion with possible loss of life at or near the Israeli university in Trastevere. So they at least were safe, but they had hit somewhere else, another university. Others were watching the screen now and the jocular tone dropped an octave or two. Then he heard a rumble of talk and a few low, hissed “murdering bastards”.

When the all-clear came, Francesco darted back into the building to dot the i’s and the t’s on some outstanding administrative procedures. He exchanged a few quick words with the other candidates, most of whom knew each other in one way or another, either through work or the periodic ritual of the concorso. One of the candidates had unsettled Francesco. On his own admission, he’d only been in the university sector for some six months, was much younger than any of the other candidates, and yet seemed to exude an air of slightly embarrassed certainty about “the job” and what it would entail. All the others had CVs stretching back to the beginning of the previous decade and they exhibited the worn exteriors to prove it. But what worried Francesco more now was Paola.

As he stepped back out of the building he tried again and as he did so he noticed her text.

Going to see Mom then on my way home. Had a cancellation. Will ring later. XXX P.