Silva and Itchy did nothing for the rest of the afternoon except chill out, and in the evening Silva retired early. Her room had an antique four-poster bed and a large en suite bathroom. A glazed door led to a small balcony. She stepped out. The heat of the day had subsided now the sun was behind the mountains. She breathed in the scent of the hillsides: pine needles, earth, wild flowers. Sean, she thought, would have loved to come to Italy. He’d often talked about how they should take a tour of Europe. She wondered whether she’d ever see him again. The ways things were she doubted it, but then she couldn’t see beyond the fifteenth of August. How life was going to pan out afterwards was anyone’s guess. Sean, as a CIA agent, was almost certainly going to be involved in the hunt for Karen Hope’s killer, and that wasn’t going to be conducive to whatever was left of their relationship.

Silva shivered. A breeze had sprung up, cool air flowing down from the mountains. The sky above the distant peaks now wore a corona of burnt ochre, while way down the valley the street lights of a distant town started to flicker on. One by one, dots of white in the dark shadows of the night. She turned and went back into her room.

Chapter Eighteen

The next morning they carted a dozen cardboard boxes in from one of the outbuildings and set about unpacking and checklisting everything. Itchy gawped at the quality of some of the pieces.

‘Swarovski, nice,’ he said examining the pair of spotting scopes. ‘Easily a couple of grand each.’

‘Any good though?’ Silva said.

‘Are you kidding me? You could make out the hairs on my backside at five hundred metres if you wanted to.’

‘I’ll pass, thanks.’ Silva nodded at the rest of the kit Itchy had requested. ‘What about the other stuff?’

‘Top notch. Your Mr Fairchild doesn’t mind splashing the cash, does he? Three grand for the video camera and lens, a survey-quality GPS, Zeiss binos. All I can say is me likey verily muchly.’ Itchy replaced the scope in its case and glanced at Silva. ‘Is this legit, Silvi? You said Fairchild owed your father but this is a hell of a way to pay him back.’

The thought had crossed Silva’s mind too. Fairchild had plenty of money but that wasn’t the point. He was risking much more than his bank balance by sponsoring the operation.

‘If it’s not because he owes my dad then I guess it must be ideological,’ Silva said. It was the truth and Itchy appeared to accept her answer. She pointed to the far side of the room where a long aluminium flight case sat apart from everything else. ‘We’d better take a look at that. The rifle.’