Kennedy’s Ghost. Gordon Stevens

three he took a cab to Via Ventura, even though the meeting was not till six-thirty.

      Via Ventura sloped slightly east to west, the apartment block towards the lower end and set back on the left. At the top of the street, on the right, was a café, the Figaro; the waiters were smartly dressed and there was an awning over the tables and chairs on the pavement. Below it was a line of shops and boutiques, all expensive yet all busy, and all with apartments above them. The pavement was wide and lined with lime trees, an occasional bench beneath them. Down the right side of the road, though not the left, were parking spaces, cut into the pavement rather than on the road itself.

      Sixteen bays – he divided the area into units and counted them. The apartment block and the parking area at its front visible from bays eight to thirteen, counting from the top; the line of vision from numbers one to eight obstructed by trees on the left side of the road, and from numbers fourteen to sixteen by trees on the right.

      From just below the parking area a side road cut right, again lined with shops and apartments. On the opposite side of the road was a small garden, a fountain in the middle and an apartment block behind. Most of the accommodation seemed private, except for a small hotel overlooking the fountain and a block of service flats near the Beninis’ apartment, both expensive.

      The Saab and BMW were parked in front of the apartment, and the same two men were sitting in the Mercedes. He gave his name at the security grille and took the lift to the fifth floor. The family, plus the banker, were already at their places round the table. He shook hands with each of them and accepted a coffee.

      ‘No contact from the kidnappers?’ he asked.

      ‘No.’

      ‘What about the crisis management team?’

      ‘We’ve agreed.’ Umberto Benini told him. ‘Myself as chairman and Francesca as negotiator. I would have liked Signore Rossi to play a more prominent role, but the bank really should keep a low profile, so Marco’s the courier.’

      Haslam nodded and took the meeting on.

      ‘There are certain things to discuss: how we ask the kidnappers to prove that Paolo is alive, the details of the ransom, and the ways of communicating with the kidnappers. Plus something else, something basic.’

      It was better to confront them with it and make them confront it now.

      ‘Kidnapping is a business. They have something you want – Paolo. And you have something they want – money. You have to think of it like that, nothing more. It sounds harsh, but it’s the best way, perhaps the only way, of getting Paolo back.’

      She knew what Haslam would tell her, Francesca thought, and now he had.

      ‘Their first demand will be a starting point; what they expect will be substantially below that. The amount they accept depends on a number of factors, things like how much the research and preparation has already cost, plus their other expenses, past and present. The longer the kidnap lasts the more the man controlling it is paying out. What the kidnappers ask, and what they will accept, also depends on the going rates.’

      Francesca could not believe what he was telling her, how he was telling her.

      ‘The major kidnappings in Italy at the moment are breaking down into two distinct groups, depending on the size of the first demand. Where the first demand is ten miliardi, the amount agreed is averaging 500 million lire.’

      Which, at an exchange rate of £400 to a million lire, was a start price of £4 million and a settlement of £200,000.

      ‘Where the first demand is in the region of five miliardi, the average final payment is 450 million.’

      Thus a starting price of £2 million and a final figure of £180,000.

      How can you put a price on my husband’s life? Francesca’s eyes bored into him. How can you say on average this, on average that?

      ‘When the starting demand is ten miliardi, the victim is being released after an average of one hundred days; when it’s five miliardi the victim is released after an average of sixty-six.’

      Christ, thought Rossi. The chairman would kill him if it took half, even a quarter, that time.

      ‘The obvious temptation is to pay as much as you can as quickly as you can. This is wrong. The kidnapper starts high and we start low, so that we encourage him to lower his expectations. When we raise our offer we don’t add too much too quickly.’

      ‘Why not?’ Francesca heard her own voice.

      Because the bank was insured, she thought; therefore the company paying the ransom would want to keep it to a minimum, therefore Haslam was on a bonus if he came in with a low settlement.

      ‘If we pay too much we run the risk of the kidnappers thinking there might be a lot more. If we pay too quickly he might say thanks for the deposit, now for the real money. He might even demand a second or even a third ransom.’

      How do you know? She was still staring at him. How can you say such things?

      Because I’ve been here before – he stared back at her. Because long after Paolo’s home I’ll be in a room like this with someone like you staring at me and accusing me the way you are now.

      ‘I’m not saying it will come to this,’ he told them. ‘All I’m doing is telling you the structure. Which is why I’m here.’

      ‘What else?’ The question was from both Umberto and Francesca, the disgust in his voice and the fear and the hate in hers.

      ‘We have to decide the proof question Francesca asks to make sure that Paolo is alive.’

      ‘Something to do with the bank.’ Rossi’s intervention was short and sharp. ‘That way I can verify it.’

      That way I not only control the situation, but prove to the chairman that I do.

      ‘It’s normally personal.’ Haslam looked at the banker then at the others in turn. ‘Something only Paolo would know, nothing the kidnappers could find out from their research.’

      ‘We’ll think on it.’ Umberto again.

      Haslam focused on Marco. ‘The last point is communication. After the first calls they might tell you to collect a letter or package, and specify the place. It’ll be close to the clean phone, probably two or three minutes away. That gives them time to place it after they’ve given Francesca the message, but it gives you time to get there in case the police are tapping the phone and try to get there before you. It will also be a place where they can keep you under observation.’

      The younger son began to speak but Haslam stopped him.

      ‘There’s something else you should keep in mind. Just as they’ll try to put pressure on Francesca in the phone calls, so they’ll use the dead letter drops to apply a similar pressure on all of you.’

      How … no one asked.

      ‘If it’s a letter, it might simply contain instructions, or it might contain a note from Paolo. What you have to remember is that whatever he writes will have been dictated to him.’

      And if it’s a package … Francesca had heard the stories and read the newspaper articles.

      ‘If it’s a package it might contain an audio or video tape of Paolo. Either way he’ll probably sound or look bad. You don’t worry about that. They’ll have made him sound or look that way.’

      ‘What about other packages?’ Francesca allowed the fear to grow.

      ‘The key thing to remember is that packages are also part of the bargaining process,’ Haslam told them all, but talked to her in particular. ‘Packages are one of the ways the kidnappers will put pressure on you. Therefore they might contain something which is blood-stained, they might even contain a part of a body. In ninety-nine per cent of cases the blood is fake and the body part didn’t come from the victim.’

      How