‘What about him?’
‘Can you describe him? You said he was tall.’
‘Not just tall. He was enormous. Broad shouldered. He looked like a giant.’
‘Age?’
Ella shrugged. ‘Early thirties? I’m not sure. He was dark skinned. I’m guessing Arabic. He had dark hair but I didn’t get a good look at his face. I was too focused on her.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Gabriel, lapsing into a thoughtful silence.
It sounded like him. Like the man Redmayne had warned Gabriel about, and had already, privately, asked him to track down urgently. But he mustn’t jump to conclusions. Nor could he allow himself to sidetrack Ella.
‘I can’t go back to New York.’ Ella’s voice broke his reverie quietly but with intent. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t let Athena go, although that was certainly a part of it. She couldn’t go back to the person she had been before. To the frightened misfit with a head full of jumbled noise. The lonely observer who saw the world only in black in white. Now, for the first time, Ella’s world was in glorious color, and she was in it, a part of it, doing something meaningful, not standing on the sidelines. Maybe one day she could go back, but not yet. Not until her transformation was complete.
‘I hope you understand. And I’m sorry if it gets you in trouble. But I can’t go back until Athena is dead. For my mother. For Nikkos. For myself. I have to see this through.’
To Ella’s surprise, Gabriel made no protest. ‘OK. You can stay. I’ll handle Redmayne.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he said gruffly. If he was going to track down Redmayne’s target, he would need Ella to keep the hunt for Athena alive while he was gone. ‘But from now on, the two of us work as a team. No going rogue. No disappearing into the night on your own, unarmed, to have sex with psychopaths.’
‘OK. But that has to work both ways,’ Ella countered. ‘No more half-truths and withholding information. No more, “You’ll be told when the time is right”.’
Gabriel nodded grudgingly. Then, opening up a large file of pictures on his iPhone, he handed it over to Ella.
‘These are all known and active members of the Petridis organization. Most work for Makis, but one or two go way back and are fanatical Athena loyalists. Do you recognize anyone?’
Ella began scrolling through the images. There were a lot of them, over a hundred faces. None leaped out at her.
‘Right now, officially at least, they’re still all one big happy family,’ said Gabriel. ‘Big Mak is “delighted” about Athena’s return to the fray, and excited about the two of them wreaking havoc together. But behind the scenes it’s daggers drawn, and these guys are starting to choose sides. Once they—’
‘Him!’
Excited, Ella passed the phone back to Gabriel.
‘This guy?’ He zoomed in on the face of a bland, nondescript-looking gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, with a neatly clipped mustache.
‘He was at the convent.’
‘This guy?’ Gabriel asked. ‘You’re sure?’
Ella’s expression darkened. ‘Again with the sure? Yes, I am sure. That’s the priest. Father Benjamin. He felt my ankle, when I was hurt.’
Leaning down, Gabriel took Ella’s face in both his hands and kissed her on the top of the head, unable to conceal his delight.
‘Well Father Benjamin also goes by the name of Antonio Lovato. Believe it or not, he used to be Athena’s personal trainer back in the day. Rumor had it their training sessions got to be mighty personal, but Spyros turned a blind eye. Athena set him up in business, bought him a chain of gyms all across Italy that Spyros used to launder money through. Lovato made out like a bandit.’
‘I remember thinking he didn’t look especially holy,’ Ella mused. ‘His robes didn’t seem to suit him.’
Gabriel smiled wryly. ‘I guess you could say that about a lot of priests these days.’
‘So he’s a lead, then?’ asked Ella.
‘Oh he’s a lead, all right,’ said Gabriel. ‘Even better, he’s a lead that Mak knows nothing about. And it just so happens …’ he made a few more taps on his phone, his long fingers rapid-firing like pistons, ‘that I also have …’ tap, tap, tap. He handed the phone back to Ella with a look of triumph. ‘An address. How would you feel about a trip to London?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE