Close Range (3 page)

‘That’s not surprising,’ his mum replied. ‘It’s quite a new company. He used to be in marketing at De Beers diamonds,
but he’s gone his own way. Found new mines on the border with Botswana. No one thought there were any diamonds there at all …’

‘But they were wrong?’ Jake asked. This, at least, sounded vaguely interesting.

‘Wrong in a big way. Apparently, Granble’s rocks are flawless, which is rare. It makes them extra-prized and much more valuable.’

‘So this is about showing them off,’ Jake said.

‘The main photo shoot is tomorrow, at the church we’re heading to now. Then there’ll be a flashier show at the last football game of the tournament.’

‘England–Italy. At the San Siro?’ Jake asked.

His mum nodded. ‘I don’t know if Granble is a big football fan, but he’s an astute businessman. He knows the money in football. There’s going to be a catwalk set up at halftime. Models will wear designer clothes as well as Granble’s diamonds. He hopes to get some of the players’ partners involved too.’

‘Oh, please!’ said Jake. ‘WAGs strutting their stuff? It sounds like a nightmare.’

‘Watch it, mister,’ said his mother, laughing. ‘You’re talking to an ex-WAG, right here.’ She turned into a cobbled square with a fountain in the centre. One side was dominated by
a beautiful old church. She pulled up outside.

The stone of the church façade was pale, with a hint of ancient redness, blushed like a peach. The gable was cracked, with a fissure running diagonally through the bell-tower.

‘Why here?’ Jake asked, getting out. ‘There must be a thousand actual studios in Milan.’

His mum started unpacking things from the boot of the car.

‘Mr Granble’s team wants to base the campaign around the idea of worshipping the perfect diamond. It’s hard to get permission to photograph in a normal church, but this one’s not used.’

‘It looks like it’s about to fall down,’ Jake said.

‘This place has been here for two hundred years,’ his mum said, passing Jake a tripod. ‘It’s survived two earthquakes. I think it’ll take more than a photo shoot to finish it off.’

The side door to the church was already open, and a man in a boiler suit stood at the side smoking. When he saw Jake and his mum approach, his flicked the butt to the ground and crushed it with his heel.

‘Buongiorno,
Signorina Maguire.’

‘Ciao,
Hector,’ replied his mum. ‘The lighting up and running?’

‘Sì,’
he replied.

Jake’s mum him into the dark interior, where the air was
much cooler. The church smelled musty and abandoned, and a bird of some sort fluttered across the beamed roof. Rows of pews and small chapels were arranged on both sides. The only light came from the slightly grubby stained-glass windows at the far end and along both sides. Most had bars covering the lower half inside. Choir stalls backed a large altar, and beside that was an enclosed lectern reached by a short set of steps. A mezzanine level loomed over the rear of the church.

Several people milled around the altar end, and from the assorted wires Jake guessed they were technicians. His ears picked up the chatter of female voices from a room off at one side, and his eyes caught the flash of flesh through a crack in a door. That must be where the models were getting changed.

He glanced away quickly, feeling his face redden. He didn’t want to look like a pervert.

‘So what do you think?’ his mum asked.

‘Uh … it’s creepy,’ said Jake, his voice echoing. ‘You sure you want to do the shoot here?’

His mum laughed. ‘Just wait,’ she said. ‘Hector, can you give us some light?’

‘Sì,’
said the Italian.

He barked an instruction, and one by one the lights flicked on. Jake squinted for a second while his eyes adjusted.
Spotlights on the floor sent shafts of light into the roof space, picking out the spinning columns of dust. Rigged on scaffolds around the walls, lamps blazed.

His mum clapped her hands together. ‘Good, huh?’

Jake nodded slowly. The interior still looked neglected, but goth and cool.

‘It certainly is,’ said a voice from behind them.

Jake turned and saw two men. One, the taller, wore an expensive suit, and had fair hair and a reddish complexion. His companion was dressed all in black, with what looked like military trousers and, despite the weather outside, a thick turtle-neck sweater. He was carrying a silver briefcase, which Jake noticed was cuffed to his wrist.

Jake’s mum walked right up to the first man and they kissed cheeks.

‘Mr Granble, what an … unexpected pleasure,’ she said.

Granble looked past her at Jake, and smiled. ‘Well, you know how it is, Ms Maguire. I wanted to make sure my advertising dollars are being put to good use.’

His mum laughed, but Jake thought she sounded nervous.

‘Today’s just about getting the lighting right and setting up a few shots with the girls,’ his mum explained. ‘You really didn’t have to come.’

Granble patted Jake’s mother on the arm. ‘Hayley, you
know me. I’m putting a lot of faith into this campaign. Into
you.
Everything has to go to plan.’ Jake could feel the threat that lingered beneath the words, and bristled. Granble added with a smile, ‘And I wanted to make sure Jaap here doesn’t lose my diamonds.’

So
that
was what was in the case.

Again, his mother laughed nervously. Jaap, Jake noticed, didn’t crack a smile.

‘And who’s this young man?’ Granble asked, gesturing to Jake. His eyes travelled up and down his frame as though wondering what to make of him. There was nothing friendly in the look.

Hayley beckoned Jake to come over. ‘Mr Granble, this is my son, Jake. He’s staying with me for a few days. I brought him along to help out.’

Jake walked forwards and held out his hand. Granble tipped his chin, and looked down his nose. He didn’t offer his hand in return. ‘As long as he doesn’t get in the way …’

His mum’s brow creased a little, but she managed to keep the cheer in her voice.

‘Right then, I best get on,’ she said.

Jake held Granble’s stare until the South African looked away. He wasn’t going to let anyone push his mother around, even if he owned all the diamonds in South Africa.

*

Over the next half-hour more people arrived: two make–up artists, a florist, a hair-stylist and several assistants. Jake tried helping position things for the shoot, but with his shoddy Italian it was hard work. He felt he was just getting in the way. In the end, he settled for shifting unwanted pews to the back of the church.

The stylists all went through to where the models were sorting themselves out. Jake wondered what priests would think of the world’s hottest women getting changed in their little dressing room.

Granble had brought staff with him too, two women in sharp suits with faces like hatchets. It soon became clear that their role was to act as the liaisons between their boss and whomever he wanted to bother. Mostly Jake’s mum, it seemed. Jake had never seen her so anxious about work before. He realised for the first time what a big deal this was for her.

‘Mum,’ he said, after she’d spoken to Hector about moving some of the lights near the altar, ‘can I help with anything?’

She twirled a loose ringlet of hair round her finger, and looked at something over his head. Jake saw out of the corner of his eye one of Granble’s pit bulls heading their way.

‘Sure, Jake,’ she said, biting her bottom lip nervously.
She bent down and reached into her camera bag, and took out the battered camera that had been damaged in the airport attack. ‘Could you have a look at this for me? I’ve got three days’ worth of pictures on here that I can’t afford to lose. It didn’t work when I tried it at home, but you’re better with technology than I am.’

Granble’s raven-haired assistant arrived at their side ready with another question.
Better to get out of the way for a while.

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look.’

‘How can I help you, Marissa?’ he heard his mum say, her cheerfulness clearly fake.

Jake retreated to one of the side chapels. It was dominated by a stone tomb containing the bones of some saint or other. Ragged prayer cushions were stacked in one corner, so Jake took a couple and sat on the floor. He switched on the camera. The cracked screen lit up.

He scrolled through the pictures, but for some reason they weren’t resolving properly on screen. Patches came up from each picture, but not the whole thing. One showed just the left side of Jake’s body in the airport, but other parts were concealed in a haze of pixels. Was the problem with the digital file itself, or just the camera’s display? The only way to find out would be to get the pictures on to a laptop and check them
out. But Jake’s computer was at his mum’s apartment.

Outside, he heard his mother directing someone – a model. ‘That’s right – on one knee … Close your eyes …’

Jake wondered what his dad was doing at the stadium. If that’s where he was. His mission in Milan might not even have anything to do with the Brotherhood Tournament. But why else would MI6 send an
ex-footballer
on the mission? It was the perfect cover. It had fooled Christian Truman in St Petersburg, and Igor Popov.

A bolt of excitement sparked through Jake’s frustration. Had Popov resurfaced in Milan? Perhaps he was fixing matches, or something worse? No … Jake guessed Popov would be lying low for a while. He’d been cocky when they last saw him in Russia, but he wasn’t stupid.

I’m wasting my time here! There’s something big going on, and I’m sitting in an abandoned church fiddling with a broken camera.

Maybe this mission was something completely different. Terrorists? The Brotherhood tournament would be the perfect place to stage an attack, with the world watching. He wondered how tight security was at the San Siro.

Or an assassination! Italy’s sports minister, Ignacio Lauda, had been a lawyer before, and brought down several Mafia families. Now he was tipped to be the next prime minister.
What if there was a hit man on his tail? Jake’s dad would need help, another pair of eyes …

Jake forced himself to focus on the task at hand – skimming the photos, just to check they were all suffering from the same problem. It was as though water had been spilled across a traditional negative, blurring the pictures. As he continued to scan backwards, he found older images. Judging by the date-stamp, they were taken earlier in the day when Hayley had picked them up from the airport, and showed people in some candid Italian street scenes.

Jake paused when he recognised a face.

Abri
…

Holy shit. Abri Kuertzen was the hottest model on the planet. South African, still under twenty, her face had already graced the covers of
Vogue, Elle
and
Cosmopolitan.
Not the kind of magazines Jake bought, but even
he
knew who she was. In fact, she’d presented an award for MTV a couple of months before.

‘Found a quiet corner,’ said a female voice.

Jake looked up, and did a double take at the face that looked down at him. Blue eyes, blonde hair cut short above perfect cheekbones. Lips that …

‘Cat got your tongue?’ said Abri Kuertzen.

J
ake stood up quickly as Abri glided into the chapel. A supermodel –
the
supermodel – in the flesh. She was tall, only a few centimetres shorter than him, but her feet were bare. In heels she’d be taller. She was wearing a flowing white dress that came to her knees. Nothing special, but she looked, frankly, awesome.

‘I’m Jake,’ he said. ‘My mum’s the photographer.’

Duh! Make yourself sound like a kid, why don’t you!

‘I’m Abri,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m a professional coat-hanger.’

She said it with a straight face, and it took Jake a second to realise she was joking. He laughed, and her face split into a wide grin. Jake shook hands, hoping his palm wasn’t clammy, and that he wasn’t laughing at her joke too hard.

‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘I recognise your face … I mean …’

Don’t sound like a stalker. Don’t sound like a stalker.

‘I get it,’ said Abri, still grinning. Jake realised that he’d never seen that expression on her face before – in all the posters she was pouting, looking half asleep.

‘So,’ she said. ‘You haven’t answered my question. What are you doing in here?’

Jake shrugged, trying not to blush and thinking he’d got it about right. ‘I think Mum wanted me out of the way.’

Abri pointed at the camera. ‘Are you a photographer too?’

‘Oh, no, I’m just trying to fix it for her. I’m a …’
Don’t say you’re at school!
‘I’m in Italy helping my dad out. He’s a footballer. Steve Bastin.’

Abri’s blank face suggested she had absolutely no idea who Steve Bastin was.

Typical! thought Jake. The one time I actually want someone to have heard of my dad!

‘Do you play football?’

‘Sure,’ Jake said. ‘Though not professionally. Yet.’ Suddenly he felt stupid, and added by way of excuse, ‘I’m only sixteen.’

Nice one, Jake. You may as well have said you’re still in nappies!

‘Hm,’ said Abri. ‘You look older. Bigger, y’know. I’m only seventeen.’

She bit her bottom lip. Was Abri Kuertzen checking him
out? Jake knew he was blushing now. An image flashed in his mind of Abri’s latest campaign for Calvin Klein underwear.

Stop it, Jake!

‘So, you having any luck fixing it?’ she asked.

She reached over and placed her hand over the camera, bringing herself within centimetres of Jake. Her fingers slid under his and lifted the camera to look closer. His stomach lurched.

Was she flirting with him?

‘I … I need to get it plugged into a computer,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look good. You can hardly tell what most of the pictures even show.’ He released the camera, but stayed close to her.

‘That’s a shame. You seem to know your stuff.’

Jake was about to say that wasn’t really the case, when one of the Granble reps, that raven-haired thirty-something with too much make-up and a too-tight skirt Marissa, poked her head round the wall. She pursed her lips when she saw Jake.