The Sacred Spoils by Will Adams

Author:Will Adams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788637138
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2019-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

I

Carmen poured herself a large glass of white wine then knocked half of it straight back. She felt so restless and alone that she turned on the local news purely for the company of voices. There was only one story, of course, though it had different strands. An inset screen showed a line of empty chairs behind a table covered by microphones waiting for Baldassare’s announcement of charges against the Critelli brothers and their ’ndrine, while the rolling caption at the foot of the screen advised that it was running late because Baldassare was passing on the duty to a deputy, who needed to be briefed. In the meantime, a panel of studio guests breathlessly discussed the emerging details of the kidnapping and rescue of Baldassare’s wife and daughter.

Carmen already knew much of the story. She’d heard it first-hand from Alessandra in snatched whispers whenever their guards had left them. How death threats had persuaded her and Bettina to move to Sweden until the Critellis affair was finished. How they’d all missed each other so much that they’d rented a villa on the coast for the weekend and flown home, only for masked men to burst in on them and inject them with some anaesthetic drug. The two of them had then awoken in that dreadful dungeon, the slow passage of days since marked only by meals and newspapers brought for proof-of-life videos.

It explained, of course, why Baldassare had pressed her so hard that morning in the hospital. He’d realised the deeper significance of the ketamine. The thought that he might despise her for her earlier silence was too uncomfortable to bear. She could hardly call him, not with everything going on, so she put her apology into an email instead, and attached a copy of her statement to the police.

A flurry of activity in the press conference hall. It went full screen. A blaze of camera flashes and an excited buzz of chatter announced Baldassare himself. He looked so rumpled and drained that it was no surprise that he began the press conference by announcing – as best Carmen could follow – that he’d be taking an indefinite break directly after this was over for himself and his family to recuperate from their ordeal, passing the case on to the able deputies on either side of him, whom he proceeded to introduce. Then he began reading out the charges. His delivery was so dry and matter of fact that the TV station spiced it up with footage of the Critellis and their acolytes at the moments of their arrest – a strangely interchangeable procession of paunchy middle-aged men in leather jackets and with the same contemptuous stares as they were bundled into the back of police cars – as if they all knew they were being filmed, and wanted to look their best.

The charges continued. She grew bored. She checked the fridge for food. Pasta, butter, eggs, pancetta, Parmesan and garlic. Plenty for a carbonara. She filled a large saucepan with water, added oil and salt, put it on a burner.

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