seeing you all then.”
Alberto shook hands with them all again and then went to a Fiat 500 and drove away.
“What a thoroughly interesting man,” Hutchinson said.
De Luca signalled to his men by the mini-bus. They jumped into action and soon brought the mini-bus over.
“Now lady and gentlemen if you are ready it’s time to show you to your hotel.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Carlo Bonomi was good at his job. No not good but excellent. He had been a property agent for four years. He felt that he, at only age twenty eight, was probably the best in Rome. He certainly worked for the best agency in Rome. The ‘Centauro’ letting agency.
“That’s me,” Bonomi said to himself, “Half man half horse.”
He had shoulder length black hair which he always gelled back so that it was tight to his scalp. He also liked to dress well, always in Italian designer suits and shirts and he always wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He believed himself to resemble Tom Cruise in the movie ’Top Gun’
He glanced at himself in the rear view mirror of his metallic red sporty Alfa Romeo Giuletta. He liked what he saw. He had a swarthy complexion, his skin olive and easily tanned. He also had a string of girlfriends, loved partying, champagne and fine food. He was also, when the need arose to impress a young lady, a lover of horses, the arts, fine art, in fact anything that would help him achieve his gains.
He also loved God and wore a large gold crucifix on a chain under his shirt. Carlo, once upon a time, had intended to become a priest and had started training at the age of eighteen. He had soon found however that he loved girls more than his deity and after numerous jobs and narrowly missing Italian national military service which was abolished in 2004 he had settled on his current occupation, real estate.
This morning he was en-route to a potential buyer for an old abandoned airfield forty five miles north of Rome. The folder containing the details of the purchase was on the passenger seat next to him. Whoever it was they had left no name. Bonomi just had a date and time to be at the airfield. He was hoping it would be a cash sale. With cash there was always scope for a little, personal, profit.
He turned up the music on the CD player and put his foot down as he left the outskirts of Rome and his little Alfa began climbing inland.
The roads were not busy. The rush hour traffic long since abated. It was a warm Wednesday moning but as the Alfa got up to the national speed limit he found himself pushing the buttons for the electric windows to go up against the chill of the wind. Carlo drove everywhere he could, weather permitting, with the top on his car down.
He glanced across at the display panel as the CD he was playing stopped and the panel lit up as the Bluetooth indicated an incoming call. The display showed the caller’s name. It was Claudia. A regular girlfriend. He smiled as he heard her voice and he down shifted a gear to take a tight turn.
Forty minutes later and Bonomi was still smiling as he said goodbye to her and pulled up at the small layby at the gates to the abandoned airfield. First inspection told him that he was alone. There was no sign of another vehicle. He glanced at his Gucci watch. He was fifteen minutes early. His favourite track on the CD he had been playing came on and he turned the engine off and the volume up, put his head back against the head rest, closed his eyes and began drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat. The track ended and he opened his eyes and reached for the off button. He looked around. Still no-one. Still ten minutes. He yawned, stretched, then slowly got out of the car.
‘May as well open the gate ready’ he said to himself.
There was a large heavy chain looped through the tall chain-link gates held together by a large rusty padlock but to his surprise it clicked open easily as soon as the key entered. He closed the padlock and let it dangle from the chain and without clicking it shut he let the chain drop and pushed the gate inward as far as it would go. He did the same with the other gate and then returned