The Third Shadow

Twelve

~~~~~

As with so many other things here in Italy, policing structure is ludicrously complicated. Though the carabinieri is the most prevalent agency, larger towns are also patrolled by the polizia di stato, the state police. Both boast respective forensic divisions, both have jurisdiction over serious crime. Theoretically - and Italians go big on all things theoretical - the carabinieri is a military force, the state police a civil force. In practical terms however, it's difficult to understand what the difference between them really is or why both are deemed necessary. It seems that in the case of murder, for example, the resulting investigation goes to whichever of the two forces arrive first at the scene.

Then there's the guardia di finanza, the financial guard - another completely separate agency roughly equivalent to a UK constabulary's fraud squad. Populated areas also feature a fourth, less important force known variously as vigili urbani, polizia locale, or polizia municipale. These, it seems, deal principally with traffic and public order matters. Officers of all types bear elegant and elaborate uniforms. All, it goes almost without saying, carry firearms as routine.

It was an officer of the final of the above listed forces, a one Rocco Accettulli of the Brindisi polizia municipale, who was the hero of the day. A thorough and methodical sort it seems, he'd taken the trouble to memorise the licence number pinned up on the station bulletin board, the first half of it at least. Called out to appease the ire of a civil servant unable to set off for work due to an all-too-frequent case of double parking, he'd spotted the Peugot a little further down the street, neatly parked outside a horse meat vendor's.

Towed immediately to provincial command, forensic officers were pulled from existing duties. The resulting report, released the following day, contained no surprises.

The clearest and therefore the most recent of the prints taken from the steering wheel belonged to Lee Bracewell. Ditto those found on the handle of the spade tossed diagonally across the back seat - a spade precisely matching the description provided by signor Caputo of the one missing from his garden chest. On the floor space between back and passenger seat lay a Glenfiddich bottle smashed roughly two-thirds of the way up. The concentration of glass slivers embedded into dashboard suggested this was where the breakage had taken place. Various splash stains meanwhile took one of two forms: scotch, or blood. This latter matched the traces taken from the glass inside the rubbish bag in the holiday home the evening before. Particularly thick was the blood dried onto the spade handle and the jagged edges of the broken bottle. Blood which DNA tests would soon confirm belonged to Sean Bracewell.

Oh yes, things had gone beyond circumstantial now all right.

*

Once analysis of cctv footage of the nearest motorway entrance had quickly drawn a blank, Brindisi had always seemed a likely scenario. For a start, it was the same journey in reverse that Lee had made the previous Thursday. Not only that, it was near enough for him to arrive still under the cover of darkness. Indeed, cctv footage from a nearby council building would show the passage of a baseball-capped figure at the wheel of a Peugot 206 at 05.13 of that fateful Monday morning. Another hour or so therefore before the city would start to wake itself up. A chance for him to catch his breath, consider his options.

As the region's second largest port, these included daily trans-Adriatic crossings to a variety of destinations in Greece and the former Yugoslavia. Then there's the airport too; though small, it offers connection to several major Italian cities as well as international flights to Germany, France and, of course, London Stansted.

As Nuzzo had explained to Olivia the afternoon before, he and his men had hardly spent the previous few days twiddling their thumbs. Passenger lists and flight manifests had already been checked and double-checked. They would be checked and double-checked again, time frames extended. All to no avail.

The street in which the Peugot was found is situated in what Italians term the 'semi centro; that is, the intermediary zone between CBD and residential suburbia. As such, the railway station wasn't far, within a fifteen-minute walk in fact. Though not part of any major, high-speed line, it provides regular services to the regional capital, Bari. From here, a passenger can board a freccia rossa - a red arrow train - and within surprisingly few hours find themselves in Verona, Milan, Turin - the whole of Europe in easy reach.

The train, yes. For someone in Bracewell's situation, it wasn't such a bad option perhaps. Unlike planes or ferries, a man can board a train anonymously, the ticket bought at a machine, his destination known only to himself.

For the forty-eight hour period following the Peugot's discovery, this represented the main line of enquiry. Hours of cctv footage would be trawled through - the station concourse, the various platforms. All available wall space became festooned with Bracewell's frowning image. An army of officers milled around, button-holed staff, regular commuters, roused the homeless from their slumbers.

Still nothing.

An onward journey from the town's main bus station would also quickly be crossed off the list, cctv footage once again drawing a blank. In any case, tickets for long distance journeys can be bought only at the counter: one of the staff would surely have remembered him, his Englishness at least.

All of which led to the logical conclusion that he'd simply hopped on a provincial bus at any ordinary stop. Tickets are available at most of the town's tobacconists, and although a team of officers would be sent out to talk to shopkeepers, it was clear that it was a wasted exercise.

Given his crimes earlier that morning, jumping the bus was hardly likely to trouble his conscience.

*

The Naples to London Gatwick flight arrived on schedule that Thursday morning. Other than the gaggle of family and close friends who'd made their way down from the Midlands, Sarah and Olivia would also find two officers of the Sussex constabulary waiting for them on the other side of the arrivals' gate. Their colleagues in Nottinghamshire, they informed Olivia, had successfully obtained search warrants for all properties belonging to Lee Bracewell.

The investigative brief was to compile a list of all known contacts. It was whilst examining the hard drive of Bracewell's computer that officers came across a short email exchange dating back to the previous November. The correspondent was lacking in the finer points of the English tense system or use of prepositions, his address ending with the albanian web suffix .al. The 'goods' often referred to by both parties had nothing to do with chic street fashion.

Amongst the various boxes of material samples and unsold stock which cluttered Bracewell's 'lock up' - a double garage in the Mapperly area of Nottingham - officers would also unearth almost a score of converted Russian 8mm Baikals, a dozen Glocks, five 9mm automatics and even a pair of self-loading MAC-10's.

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