by David Hewson
‘The TV pictures I saw weren’t wonderful,’ Falcone moaned. ‘Maybe they’ll have something better on a different station. You could have got in a bit closer. You could have made it look more obvious.’
‘Whatever. We can kill two birds with one stone. Let her stay at my father’s place for a while. I can be there. If he’s coming for her, he’ll find out too. If you want to whet his appetite, what better way could there be? He could take his pick.’
‘This is Red Marco, right?’ Falcone said sourly. ‘The commie with the big farm out in the country?’
‘Most of which he rebuilt with his own hands if you want to know. Sir …’ Costa was not taking that. He knew the real story behind the farm and it was nothing like the scurrilous gossip that the papers had made up.
Falcone smiled. It didn’t make anyone in the room feel any happier. ‘Oh, that could work. We can pump up the press with it. We can put you right in his sights. There’s still time for the evening news. Is this place easy to cover? My guess is we’ll get one chance with this lunatic and I don’t want it thrown away.’
Costa thought of the untidy sprawl of farmland, enclosed by rickety fences. It wasn’t ideal but it was manageable. ‘We’ll need plenty of people on the ground.’
‘My, my,’ Falcone said. ‘I hope it’s worth the expense.’
They waited.
‘Do it,’ he said. ‘And you go break the news that she’s going to be your house guest. If you’re right, maybe she really will talk to one person and one person alone when she feels like it. Make sure it’s you.’
‘Sir,’ he said.
‘And Furillo?’
The detective nodded.
‘Use this time productively. Go through that apartment of hers again. Go through it until you find something else. On with it!’
The team rose. Falcone looked at Costa and Rossi getting ready to leave. ‘You two. We’ll drop into my office on the way. There’s one more thing.’
They walked down the corridor into the small, neat room where Falcone worked, Nic Costa wondering all the time how he would manage to sell this idea to her. Falcone closed the door and went to the desk. There he opened a drawer and took out a video cassette.
‘This came in marked for your attention this morning, Costa. I took the liberty of opening it. Save you the trouble.’
Costa looked at the video. There was no label on it, nothing to indicate where it came from. Falcone handed it to him and nodded at the VCR in the corner. Then they watched the tape: three minutes of it, every second so gripping Costa couldn’t took his eyes off the screen. When it was done he looked at Luca Rossi. The big man’s face was deathly white. These were images the big man did not want to recall.
It was a composite of several scenes, culled from at least four different cameras, and covered Stefano Rinaldi’s time in the Vatican Library from the moment he walked through the main doors to the time of his bloody death, with the skin of Hugh Fairchild spread out on the desk before him. Sara had been right. He hadn’t intended to kill her. The gun he held was going towards his own head. Rinaldi was trying to commit suicide on someone else’s orders, someone he felt could see him through the security system and would, perhaps, let his own wife live in return. His eyes, dark, haunted eyes, caught the lens in every scene; in one, as he entered the Reading Room, he even nodded at the camera.
‘So?’ Falcone asked. ‘What does that tell us?’
‘That it was the video system he was trying to convince,’ Costa said immediately. ‘Not the people in the room. He checked the position of the video all the time. When he whispered to Sara he didn’t even seem to notice them. He turned his back to the camera. It was deliberate.’
Falcone agreed. ‘Exactly. So, rightly or wrongly, he believed someone who had access to that system would know whether he was doing the right thing or not. And?’
Costa’s head was a blur. He couldn’t think this through and Rossi wasn’t helping. The big man was looking at him, horrified.
‘Tell him,’ Falcone barked at Rossi.
‘Jesus, kid,’ the big man moaned. ‘Think about it. You’ve been stirring things in places we never want to go. Someone in the Vatican knows something. Furthermore, someone in the Vatican likes you. Likes you enough to send you this tape. Are they the same person? Or is it two different people working in opposite directions? What did you do after I left you yesterday?’
‘I went and talked to Hanrahan,’ Costa admitted. ‘Why not? He knows stuff.’
‘You leave this alone,’ Falcone insisted. ‘I talk to Mr Hanrahan. In my time. On my conditions. I don’t want any more secret visits, you hear?’
Costa nodded and wondered how Falcone seemed to know, with such certainty, that he had returned to see Hanrahan again even before he admitted it.
Falcone walked to him and patted his arm. It was an oddly unfamiliar gesture. ‘One step at a time, Nic,’ he said. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate with that woman. Talk to her. Make her feel at home. Make her feel you’re her friend. She knows someone inside that place. Understand?’
‘Yes,’ Nic Costa grunted. But Falcone wasn’t listening. He had turned the TV onto another news channel. It was coverage of Costa and Sara Farnese leaving the church that morning, with a voice-over story that was grossly lurid even for one of the Rome channels. The camera lingered on Sara, trying to catch her face as she ducked and turned from the pack. Then the picture turned shakily to him. Nic Costa was unable to place this moment. It must have happened accidentally. He had his arm around her, affectionately it seemed. She was clinging to his body. They looked like lovers.
In a moment that was quite foreign to him he smiled at the camera. A smile that was not his, an actor’s smile, one that left little doubt as to its meaning. It was knowing, proprietorial. It said: I own this troubled, dangerous woman, and I can do with her what I want.
He watched himself on the TV and hated what he saw, wondering what she would make of it, and how he could apologize sufficiently.
‘Now that,’ Falcone said, ‘is good. That can change things.’
TWENTY-FOUR
He had given her some water and a piece of bread, allowed her to go to the bathroom, though strictly under his supervision, and he had watched, a little too closely she thought. Then he had led her back, kicked the chair across the room until it stood next to a black, upright beam, and tethered her tightly to the arms. Her hands remained bound throughout, with a loose rope around her ankles to prevent her trying to run. This was, in any case, not an option. They were in some strange medieval room, an upstairs octagonal chamber littered with rubbish: books and video tapes, CDs, clothes and, on the walls, photographs, everywhere, some of a woman she vaguely recognized.
The pictures continued to alarm her. Alicia Vaccarini refused to look too closely.
In the corner a narrow, circling staircase led to the room below, to the outside world and freedom. Some way distant, it had to be. As soon as he took off the gag she had screamed until her lungs hurt, bellowing for help, yelling murder, murder, murder. He just stood there, watching, not smiling, not angry. Waiting for the fury to subside. When she was done, when there was no more breath left in her body, he shook his head and said, ‘No one can hear, Alicia.’
She had screamed again at that, until her voice went hoarse. He had hardly paid any attention, half watching the movie on the TV somewhere behind her head. She recognized the film from the soundtrack. It was Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the arrival of the three wise men to the accompaniment of the old Negro spiritual ‘Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child’. He seemed affected by it somehow; she wondered how to turn this to her advantage. How she might get out of the stuffy, airless tower alive.
Then he switched channels, over to one of the mainstream stations which was showing a soccer match. It was a deliberate act, one with a point. It said there was something to be done.
Gino Fosse picked up a low wooden stool, brought it in front of her,
sat down and took her head in his strong, pale hands.
‘You thought I was a priest, Alicia.’
She was too frightened to say anything, too confused to second-guess what he wanted.
‘Well?’ he insisted.
He waited. Perhaps her silence would make him angry.
‘You looked like one,’ she said. ‘For a little while.’
‘Then confess to me,’ he said. ‘Confess everything.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘The truth.’
He was crazy, she knew that. But there was some strong, linear logic in what he sought. If she found what that was, perhaps there could be some hope of survival.
‘I have sinned, Father,’ she said.
‘Don’t call me “Father”!’ Gino Fosse’s bellows echoed off the walls of the tiny, octagonal chamber. His face contorted with fury. She was silent. She waited, watching him make some purposeful effort to control his emotions.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly.
‘Not your fault. My anger wasn’t directed at you. Just talk to me, Alicia. Confess.’
The tears were starting to burn in her eyes. She racked her head trying to think of something that would satisfy him.
‘I’ve committed unnatural acts.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And you’ll be forgiven. But these are small things.’
It was impossible to know, she thought. No one was free of private vices, no one lacked a history he or she would not care to share with the world. ‘Help me. Please.’
He nodded his head, understanding what she required. ‘Four months ago,’ he said, ‘you sat on a judicial committee looking into the question of diplomatic immunity for certain people. You recall this?’
‘Yes.’
‘There were decisions made, votes taken. Were all of them based on fairness? Or did you seek, and get, some reward for some of your actions?’
‘Denney,’ she said, feeling cold.
‘No names!’
‘I didn’t know the rest of them would vote against me. I thought … I was given to understand they’d received the same favours. They’d go the same way.’
His dark eyes regarded her coldly. ‘Judges and deputies. Lawyers and “public servants”.’ Spittle flecked his lips when he said the last. Some deep, inner hatred surfaced within Gino Fosse and she knew, at that moment, this was hopeless. He would do whatever he planned to do because his mind was made up. The rest was an act, a show for his conscience, not hers.
‘I did what I promised,’ she insisted. ‘I can’t be held responsible for other people.’
‘There was a price, Alicia. For you. And for those involved. What was that price?’
‘Money,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask how much. I can’t remember. Not a lot, I don’t think.’
‘And?’
He knew. He had to have some prior knowledge. It was a wonder to her. She had believed this had been so private. She thought of the photographs on the wall. It was possible …
‘I was provided with some personal entertainment.’
His dark eyebrows rose. ‘“Personal entertainment”? Specify, please.’
‘They sent me a woman for the night. She didn’t mind. What’s it to you?’
His hand came out from his side and slapped her hard across the cheek.
‘What’s it to me?’ he demanded. ‘I drove her there, Alicia. I was a party to that act. I thought I understood what was happening. I didn’t. Just as you understand nothing, regret nothing, feel no sense of anguish for what you’ve done. This man you talk about. I still can’t see him walking down the street. I still can’t touch him, Alicia. There was such a great cost for your favours. You took so much and gave back nothing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m truly sorry. If there’s some way I can make amends. If it’s a question of paying back the money.’
‘Money.’ He stared at her, his face full of pity. ‘You think it’s so important. You have no idea of how pathetic you are. Or how grateful you will be to me. And soon.’
Gino Fosse stood up and walked over to the bookshelf in the corner of the room, taking out two thick photographic volumes. He came back and placed them in front of her, opening the first at a double-page spread depicting a church courtyard.
‘Santa Cecilia in Trastevere,’ he said. ‘Do you know it?’
She tried to catch his eye, pleading. ‘Gino. Let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I promise.’
He frowned. He had, she thought, an actor’s face. It was so mobile, able to go from passivity to deep concentration in a second, able to change shape, from plainness to a kind of warped beauty with just the shift of an eyelid, a turn of the mouth.
‘You must listen. This is important. Cecilia was a family woman. The wife of a nobleman who was converted to Christianity during the persecutions of Diocletian. Her house lay beneath this church. It was here …’
He glowered at her. ‘You’re not listening. I do all this for your benefit and you’re not listening.’
Alicia Vaccarini was beginning to sob, was unable to stop the choking noise that kept rising in her throat.
He leaned forward to make his point plain. ‘She was a martyr, Alicia. She will help wash your sins clean.’ He pointed at the book. ‘Here in the very place she died, in the very way she went to glory.’
His finger stabbed at the image there: a virginal woman, staring peacefully out from the page.
‘First, since she was a high-born woman, they tried to suffocate her in the baths beneath the house, a noble death. When that failed, they were allowed three strokes of the axe. These still did not kill her. There’s the miracle. There’s the proof. The senators and the patricians came to see her lying in bed, wounded, singing hymns, turning to Christ as she died before them. Afterwards they made her the patron saint of musicians in recognition of her courage. Alicia …’
He opened the second book and thrust it in front of her face. She did not wish to look. His strong hand gripped her hair and turned her head to the page. It depicted a beautiful white statue of the prone corpse of a young woman wrapped in a shroud, face half turned away from the beholder.
‘In the sixteenth century they opened her casket,’ he said. ‘Cecilia was incorrupt, perfect, still beautiful in her golden robe thirteen hundred years after her death. The marks of the axe were on her neck. An artist painted her, Alicia. A sculptor made this statue which still sits beneath the altar in her church, above her house.’
‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘Gino …’
He took her hand. ‘Don’t fear. You’ll be there tonight. You’ll lie in front of her, give homage to her martyrdom. And in doing so you’ll make amends, you’ll help me put right these wrongs that you’re a part of.’
‘No …’
His face changed again, becoming hard and determined.
‘It’s time,’ he said and went over to one of the windows, retrieved a large pillow from a storage box, returned with it and, very carefully, placed it over her mouth.
Alicia Vaccarini breathed in through the white fabric. It stank of damp and mould. She coughed, retching. He took it away, waiting until she recovered her breath.
‘This is the first part.’
The pillow came back, covering her face. She felt something wind around it, something like a rope which fastened the thing behind her head, tightly, but not so hard she couldn’t inhale. Not quite.
‘Good,’ said a voice from behind.
The fabric grew damp and sticky with her saliva. The passage of air seemed to diminish with every snatched effort of her lungs. She gagged, gasping, and felt him tighten the pillow further around her face.
There was one last push. The thing entered her mouth, its fibres stuck to the back of her throat. She threw up bitter bile into the fetid cotton, coughing. Then the rope relaxed, the smothering stopped. Gino Fosse withdrew the stinking, vile object from her face. She fought to get clean air into her lungs, hyperventilating rhythmically as s
he did so.
‘Good,’ he said. He now held a long sword in his hand. It was well polished, with a glittering silver blade, like something out of a military museum. With no perceptible effort, holding it in one hand, he raised it to her neck and cut the flesh there in a single, sweeping movement.
Alicia Vaccarini shrieked in agony. She could feel the blood starting to run down her neck, down onto the good, cotton shirt she had chosen to wear for the lunch at Martelli’s. It was a painful wound, but a light one. He was testing himself. He stood over her now, wondering about the second blow: how hard, how deep it might be.
‘I beg you,’ she bawled. ‘I’ll do anything. Just don’t kill me.’
She looked into his eyes. There was confusion there. Perhaps there was some hope. He was no longer focused on her, no longer wondering how deeply he might hack into her neck with the sharp, shiny weapon held in his hand.
Gino Fosse’s attention now lay on the television set on the far side of the room, behind her. There was a newscast. She could hear it. There was talk of a murder and a woman, a scarlet woman who, the reporter said, seemed to bring death, a shocking death, to everyone she knew.
He was unable to take his eyes off the set. She heard him catch his breath when he saw whatever was on the screen. He put down the sword. Then he took out a clean, white handkerchief and wiped the blood off her neck.
‘I apologize, Alicia,’ he said. ‘I’m distracted.’
‘Untie me,’ she pleaded. ‘Let me go. I won’t tell a soul.’
He looked at her and there was pity in his eyes. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘I’ll do you justice.’
Then he was gone from the room, leaving Alicia Vaccarini to her thoughts and the image from the book: a pale white corpse, wrapped in a delicate shroud, head obscured, waiting for resurrection.
TWENTY-FIVE
Sara had swiftly agreed to stay at the house once Falcone had outlined the alternative: protective custody in some safe house in one of the city’s grimmer suburbs. At Nic Costa’s insistence they had watched the TV news in the station before leaving. He didn’t want her to find out accidentally. He also wanted her to understand that the media would follow them to the farm, where they would be carefully herded into a well-controlled position by Falcone’s men.