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Troubador Publishing Ltd - Sean Heary

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142 pages

English

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Returning from Moscow, Lorenzo Rossi finds himself forced to quit his job as head of the Vatican police. And to make matters worse, his fiancee, CIA Agent Cathy Doherty, calls off their wedding. Just as Rossi is settling into his new life as a visiting academic at Cambridge University, the CIA persuades him to rejoin Cathy in catching the killer of three American billionaires. Barely on speaking terms, the two devise a plan to befriend the CIA's main suspect.As they get closer to the suspect and his coterie of friends, Rossi and Cathy realise that they're being played for fools. But why? Everything points to an international conspiracy. As friends and foes drop dead around them, they arrive at the truth. But to prove it they need to set a trap. A trap that turns them from hunter to prey. Will they survive to tell their tale? Praise forTheConcordat:'A great crime story... that whisks the reader away.'- Lovereading.co.uk'An enjoyable, fast-moving, suspenseful story.' -Mystery People'[Heary] brings a sense of excitement and authenticity to his writing that pulls the readers along for the ride.' -Good Reading Magazine

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	28 juin 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838598457
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Copyright © 2020 Sean Heary

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Contents
Prologue

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Epilogue
Prologue
Even before Prince Siegfried and Odette ascended to Heaven, billionaire financier Charles Edge was on his feet in his grand tier box at Covent Garden holding out his wife’s sable stole. The opening night of Swan Lake had been awe-inspiring, but Edge had no time to express his appreciation. He needed to get back to the Ritz.
“Slow down, Charles,” his Texas trophy wife pleaded, as they hurried along the empty Opera House corridor. Dressed in a tight black beaded gown and six-inch heels, Samantha was not dressed for speed.
Edge eased up. “Wear something more sensible next time.”
“ You picked the dress, Charles.”
“But not the shoes.” Edge was never at fault.
“Besides, what’s the hurry? They can’t start without you.”
“Damn right they can’t,” Edge said, helping his wife through the door onto Bow Street.
There was a nip in the air courtesy of the clear winter night sky. “Is that our limo?” Samantha asked, hugging her stole around her bare shoulders.
Parked in front of the theatre was a silver Rolls-Royce Phantom. Donning his cap, the Ritz Hotel’s chauffeur climbed out and with a beckoning smile opened the back door.
Sensing he was being rushed, Edge planted his feet on the swept pavement and lit an Al Capone cigarillo.
“What now , Charles?”
“I decide when I’m ready. Not a bum in a rented suit.”
Samantha tutted. “For Christ’s sake. I’m freezing my tits off and he’s parked in a no-standing zone.”
“That’s his problem.”
“Goodness gracious, Charles. Why are you always so small-minded?”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“What? Because you’re the nineteenth richest man on the planet you think—”
“Sixteenth.”
“And that makes you a better person than our driver, who didn’t start life with a Yale education and a red sports car, paid for by his industrialist father?”
Edge scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding. That bozo wouldn’t have a job if it wasn’t for me. And you’d still be working at Hooters.”
Tears swelling in her eyes, Samantha climbed into the Rolls.
Unrepentant, Edge refused to move. Puffing on his cigarillo, he gazed absently across Bow Street at the former magistrates’ court, famous for prosecuting Oscar Wilde.
“Driver. Take me back to the hotel, please.”
“Yes, Mrs Edge.” The chauffeur nodded from the pavement, but stayed put.
“Now,” Samantha said, slamming the door.
The chauffeur, a serious-faced man in his early sixties, knew who signed the cheques. Ignoring the big-breasted blonde in the back seat, he coughed into his hand to attract the financier’s attention. But Edge was frozen in place, his cigarillo held motionless short of his open mouth.
Curious, the driver traced Edge’s gaze to the building across the street. Nothing. Then without warning a thunderous crack. The chauffeur’s head shot back to his fare, who was lying in a pool of blood on the pavement.
Keeping an eye on the old magistrates’ court, the driver scrambled toward Edge and checked his pulse. None. “Get back inside,” he yelled to the theatregoers percolating out of the Opera House exit onto the forecourt. “There’s a shooter on the roof.”
At first the patrons stood and stared, unsure what the uniformed man was saying and why he was pointing to the building across the street. Then, noticing the bloodied body lying at the chauffeur’s feet, they darted back inside like field rabbits taking fright.
On the rooftop, a lone gunman, face hidden under an oversized hoodie, dissembled his Nemesis Arms Vanquish sniper rifle and shoved it into a backpack. He glanced down at his victim as he stood before the stone parapet balustrade, shaking a can of red paint. Then, with the flare of a street artist, he sprayed an anarchist’s circle-A monogram and #16 along the top railing.
From below came the sound of approaching sirens. Recent terrorist activity had London on high alert; police response times were down to a handful of minutes. But the sniper appeared unconcerned. Recovering the .308 Winchester shell, he shouldered his backpack, descended the stairs and disappeared into Covent Garden Tube station.
1
Rossi gazed admiringly at the intelligent young faces as he entered the Runcie Lecture Room. Dressed in jeans, a patterned blue shirt, a brown vest and a tawny tweed jacket, he was style personified. A shake of his head as he stepped behind the lectern. Three weeks into the Lent term and he was still unsure what he was doing in Cambridge. The day following Rossi’s triumphant return from Moscow, Cardinal Santo Capelli, the dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, invited him to his Vatican office for what Rossi assumed would be a celebratory cup of Darjeeling tea. What happened next happened quickly.
The bespectacled, white-haired cardinal ordered Rossi to take a short sabbatical, to go get his shipshape life back in order. Rossi smelt sacrificial lamb on the spit.
Within a week, the cardinal had bumped him off to Cambridge University with a stack of well-prepared notes under his arm, and a Faculty of Divinity library card in his wallet that read: Lorenzo Rossi, Visiting Academic, Vatican History.
Liam Cleary, the professor of the History of Christianity, accepted Rossi’s appointment under duress, protesting that the inspector general was not suitably qualified for such an undertaking.
Expecting Rossi to play to a half-empty house, Cleary booked his freshman into what he’d dubbed an off-West End seminar room. But, when word got out that Tatler magazine had voted Lorenzo Rossi one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors for the last four years running, the class roll filled fast. Juggling classroom schedules, Cleary moved Rossi’s production to the larger, more prestigious Runcie Room in the Faculty of Divinity’s basement. The bow-shaped, light-wood-panelled theatre with curved white laminated tables and blue fabric retractable seating was cosy with a cabaret atmosphere. This suited Rossi as he liked to put on a show.
The auditorium lights dimmed and the students leant forward, engaged. Grinning to himself, Rossi took a step to the side. In silence, he scrolled through images of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, Thomas Cranmer and John Knox.
“Hands up if you haven’t heard of the Protestant Reformation,” Rossi said, looking about.
A young Chinese man slouched in his seat at the back raised his hand.
“Then you’ve wandered into the wrong music hall. If I were you, I’d escape while there’s time – unless you’ve come for a snooze.”
Laughter.
“Whether the Reformation was right or wrong I don’t intend covering today,” Rossi continued, holding up his hand to quieten the audience. “It would take far too long and end in the police being called.” Pause. “But I am prepared, as a good Catholic, to concede the Reformation is understandable within its historical context – greed, abuse, and corruption in the Church.” Rossi paused to a sea of nodding heads then started up again. “Or were the Protestants of the day too heavy-handed? Was their solution an overkill of biblical proportions? What do you think? Right up there with the East–West Schism of 1054?”
Rossi didn’t like to lecture; it wasn’t his way. He preferred a conversation. A hot debate. As he’d expected, his provocative comments had elicited the desired response. Everybody spoke at once: a cacophony of discord.
“Or perhaps motivated by self-interest?” Rossi said, pointing to an attentive blue-eyed girl in the third row. “A touch of King Henry VIII?” he added, singling out an arty-looking young man off to the side.
The audience wasn’t having it. “Bollocks,” an angelic voice called out from the back.
Rossi turned to the next slide: a painting of the austere sixteenth-century Bishop of Rome, Pope Pius V, with the words “Counter-Reformation” splashed across his forehead.
Good-natured booing came from a third of the crowd.
“Sorry.” Rossi held up his hands. “I’m used to preaching to the converted. I keep forgetting I’m in England. All those years working inside the Vatican can twist one’s sense of humour,” he said, with a wicked grin. “The truth is