Never Coming Home (9 page)

‘Not necessarily.’ Devlin might have been frowning, but it was hard to tell with the wraparound shades. ‘We knew it was a long shot.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘What do we have? A brief sighting at a stall in the San Lorenzo market? He could have been staying on the other side of the city, even outside it.’ Devlin was scanning the street. ‘Or he could have moved on by now.’

‘Thanks.
That
I really needed to hear.’ Kaz glowered at him. ‘Look, we have to keep doing this. This is all we have
 
–
 
’ She could hear the edge of desperation in her voice. The week Devlin had promised was oozing away. The high she’d felt when they boarded the plane was long gone. They’d begun at the market, at the stall that most closely resembled the one where Gwen said she had met and spoken to Jeff, and worked outwards. In the evenings they toured hotels and restaurants. The snapshot of Jeff that she’d had enlarged was dog-eared and curling at the edges. Her feet were sore and her temper short. If Devlin
 
–

‘I didn’t say we should stop.’ He swung round to look at her. ‘I just think we should chill for a while. Have lunch, make like tourists for a few hours.’ He gestured down the cramped street at the tranquil, ever-looming presence of the Duomo, the huge, red-domed Cathedral, glimpsed at the end of it. ‘This is a beautiful city. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take a look at it.’

‘I
 
…’ Kaz opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. The tight ball of frustration in her stomach was winding tighter with every shrugged shoulder and shaken head she received. Some people didn’t even glance at the damn picture before they were brushing her off. She wanted to grab them, shove it in their faces, scream at them to
look
. She let out a shaky breath. ‘It would be wasted time.’

Devlin was still scanning the street, this time in the other direction. ‘You know, what we’ve been doing might have more effect than you think.’

Kaz squinted up at him. ‘How so?’

‘Ripples in a pool.’
He turned towards her. ‘Think about it. We’ve been showing the picture all over the city. People talk. A guy in a bar says something to another guy, who has this friend
 
–’

‘
 
– who knows something.’ Kaz examined the idea. ‘And then they come to us?’

Devlin nodded. ‘Sometimes it works that way.’

Kaz chewed her lip. ‘What if
 
… what if all this simply does the opposite, drives Jeff deeper underground?’

‘Chance we have to take. We talked about this before.’ Devlin looked bored. ‘Subtle wasn’t an option here. Sometimes you have to shake the tree.’

‘Pools, trees. You turning into an environmentalist on me, Devlin?’ She gave a shaky laugh.

‘Nope, a poet.’ He grinned suddenly. Kaz felt the knot in her stomach unclench and regroup in a different way. ‘Must be something in the air.’ He gestured towards the restaurant behind them. ‘Let’s eat.’

They took the last vacant table outside. Kaz gave her order, barely looking at the menu, and sat back in the shade of the umbrella. Devlin was watching her.

‘What?’ Irritated, she leaned forward and pushed the wraparound shades up onto the top of his head, so that she could see his eyes. The dusty blond hair was springy under her fingers. She withdrew her hand, fast. ‘I can’t see what you’re thinking when you have those things on.’

‘Maybe you don’t want to know what I’m thinking.’ The predatory smile rolled over her skin like a touch. Kaz swallowed. He was tormenting her, for invading his space.
When he glanced away though, at the waiter who’d just placed
a bottle of mineral water on the table, the relief was tinged with something else, something that shivered along her skin. Downtime, in a city like Florence, with a man like Devlin
 
…

He was attracted to her, but he had his professional code. She had to respect that. She’d thrown herself at a man once before, and got burned. She mustn’t do it again.

He was pouring the water, pushing a glass in her direction. He leaned back, lazily, nursing his own glass. Kaz inhaled shakily, sensing the threat withdrawn.

Devlin buried a smile in his glass. The move with the shades had surprised both of them. Then she’d reacted as if she’d been burned, setting irritation and awareness buzzing in his gut. He’d flicked out that barbed response on a reflex, then
regretted it when he saw her face. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. He didn’t need her vulnerability to make him feel like an asshole. She was too tightly wound and too tightly wrapped a package for him to unpick. However much he wanted to.

The shock of that one rocked him. Kaz Elmore didn’t just make his groin ache. She had layers, and he wanted to explore them.
Shit
.

Now she was looking at
him
as if she was peeling skin. With deliberation he let his limbs relax, easing back in the chair. He saw her ease back too, both of them stepping down from code red.
She’s a Client. Out of bounds. Remember that, buddy. This is lunch, not combat.

Conversation; that was the thing. She was looking expectantly at him. What the hell had he been about to say? Oh, yeah.

‘The way you speak Italian. You didn’t learn that in an evening class.’

‘No.’ She swirled the water in her glass, then thanked the waiter as he put a plate of antipasti on the table. Devlin helped himself to salami and olives and waited. Looked like she was sorting through memories. For him, or for herself? ‘I lived here, and in France, until I was twelve,’ she said finally. ‘Oliver rented a palazzo in Venice, before he bought the château in Provence. I grew up in both places.’ He could see one kind of wariness being replaced by another.

‘Not exactly your average childhood,’ he offered casually.

‘Not at all. Oliver was the centre of – what? A commune? An entourage?’ She picked out a black olive. ‘You know the rock stars in the ’60s and ’70s – Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones – the way they had this whole group of people around them, agents and managers, gofers, backing groups, stunningly beautiful girlfriends – even wives? That’s how it was with Oliver. Wherever we lived, the house was always full. Twenty, thirty people, sometimes. Mum was his favourite model for over twenty years.’ Devlin heard the defensiveness and the pride.

‘So – what happened when you were twelve?’ he prompted.

‘When I came home from school, Mum was in the hall, with our bags packed. She wouldn’t tell me why, just that we were leaving. I heard later that Oliver had brought another woman home, to the château. As his fiancée. She was supposed to be the daughter of an exiled Russian count, but I never found out whether that was true. He married her shortly after, in New York. They were going to found this incredibly talented artistic dynasty. We left that night.’

‘I can see how your mother might want to do that.’ Devlin nodded. ‘But Oliver didn’t get what he wanted. No dynasty,’ he elaborated, as he met her eyes.

‘No Russian countess either. She left him after six months, for a racing driver. The divorce was messy and expensive. He’s steered clear of marriage ever since.’ Kaz smiled in acknowledgement as the waiter put a plate of risotto in front of her.

‘But you’re not his only child.’ Devlin picked up his fork.

‘Not now.’ Kaz shook her head. ‘My half-sister, Chiara, was born a couple of weeks before I discovered I was carrying Jamie. So Oliver has another chance at his artistic dynasty.’ Devlin watched, interested, as the smile got a little crooked. She skewered a shrimp and held it up. ‘This is delicious. How is your tagliatelle?’

Chapter Seven

Philip Saint ambled down the corridor, sipping coffee from a takeaway mug. Nothing in the nondescript passageway gave any clue as to what the building was. It could be any office block, in any city.

At this time of day Scotland Yard was as quiet as it ever got. Behind a closed door someone was yelling into a phone. In the room next to Phil’s three officers were crowded around a screen, intent on some grainy CCTV footage. Phil raised a hand as one of them looked up, but kept on walking.

In his own office he slumped down heavily behind his desk. There was no one else about. He’d been out for – what? An hour? The pile in the in-tray was stacked and toppling. Again. Sometimes he was sure that all that paper bred, right there in the tray, while he wasn’t watching it. Was that the answer? Sit and watch it?

It couldn’t be more useless than spending half the day interviewing witnesses who’d suddenly been taken blind or deaf. Those that weren’t suffering from total amnesia, that is. He swilled down the last of the coffee. The current case had reached a brick wall. Frustration was mounting, shortening tempers within the team. Sodding CPS. In the old days
 
–

Phil crushed the carton, pitching it into the bin. He needed a break in the case, and he really needed to make time to see Kaz, to find out how she was doing. That bloody Yank, stirring up trouble, just when she’d begun to come to terms
 
–

He shifted restlessly, slumping further into his chair.

The row of post-it notes, next to the phone, had to be more interesting than the admin crap in his in-tray. He peeled off the top one, frowning at the number scrawled on it. Underneath, the message-taker had scribbled
Lyon
.

Abruptly something clicked in the back of Philip’s mind. He hauled the phone towards him and began stabbing in numbers.

Fifteen minutes later he replaced the receiver with a low whistle. He hadn’t known what to make of Devlin – except that he was disturbing things that were best left alone, but he’d never imagined Jeff – what the hell did he do now? Kaz
 
–

His hand was still on the receiver when the phone rang again.

‘Hello?’

‘I want a meet.’

‘Who is this?’

‘You don’t know me. I know you. I was in the pub, lunchtime. You weren’t asking the right questions, or the right people. You’re looking for the shotgun, right? I know where you can find it.’

Phil sat up, heart accelerating. ‘If you have information
 
–’ he began carefully.

‘Not over the phone. I know other stuff. You want it, you come and talk. In the Park, bench in Birdcage Walk, Queen Anne’s Gate entrance. Twenty minutes.’

The line went dead.

Phil looked around, checking that he had the right spot. There were any number of benches in St James’s Park, but this one, set a little apart, in front of a stand of bushes, had to be the one. He sat down, wiping away the film of sweat from his forehead with the palm of his hand. He’d jogged over to get here on time, but it wasn’t just that which had made him sweat – if he could get one piece of hard evidence, it would be enough to lever this bloody case open.

His heart was pounding. He forced himself to breathe slowly. The whole thing might still be a windup.

He patted his pocket, where kept his cigarettes. Always a good opener – gave the snout the chance to ask for a light.

Head down, fumbling with the wrapper, the first inkling he had that he was no longer alone was the cold touch of metal on the back of his neck.

Chapter Eight

‘C’mon.’ Devlin urged Kaz towards the entrance of the Academia Gallery. ‘We can’t visit Florence and not look at Michelangelo’s
David
. Think of it as part of my artistic education.’

Kaz narrowed her eyes. She suspected that Devlin knew more about art than she did.

‘We can spare a couple of hours,’ he persisted. ‘And when did you last see a museum in Florence without a mile-long queue outside? It’s fate.’

He was right. There were only a handful of people standing in line before the ticket office. Kaz gave in.

They ambled around the bright, air-conditioned space, discussing what they saw. Kaz found the half-realised statues of the slaves, or prisoners, that had never made it to Julius II’s tomb, more exciting than the massive
David
, and said so. Devlin naturally disagreed.

Kaz stood in front of a Botticelli Madonna, letting the beauty of the picture wash over her. Devlin was behind her, on the other side of the room, talking to one of the attendants. He’d been right about taking time out. She could feel the tension slipping out of her, except for the ever-present buzz of sexual attraction, and she was learning to cope with that.

Devlin was easy to be with, she found, with surprise. And she couldn’t help that little lift of her heart when she turned and saw him walking towards her. What woman could? The way he moved, the way he looked, the way the jeans clung to narrow hips. The way his eyes sought hers.

She turned quickly back to the painting.

She really hadn’t meant it to happen. She was almost certain of that, because she wasn’t quite sure how it
did
happen.

They were half a block away from the hotel, walking single file around a car slewed, Florentine style, with two wheels on the pavement. Abruptly the bell in the church tower above began to toll. Startled, Kaz hesitated. Devlin stopped within a hair’s breadth of her back. She could feel his warmth.