A Season for the Dead

by David Hewson

  ‘Where you from, friend?’ he asked.

  The man shone a torch in his face. He wasn’t big but he looked powerful in a way, not the sort to mess with.

  ‘Time magazine,’ the man said.

  Denis Renard rolled over onto his front and swore into the dry grass. It was the ones who lied that you had to watch. Time. As if this was their kind of story. He knew a chancer when he saw one. This was a rival, maybe, with a little digital snap camera in his pocket, looking to fix something. He was trouble, to be watched.

  The paparazzo set the alarm on his watch to 6.22: sunrise.

  When it rang the man was gone. Denis Renard cursed himself. He was going to be first to get a picture of the woman. No one would stop him. Not even some faker from ‘Time magazine’.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Nic Costa rose at daybreak knowing he had to run. It was an addiction. When he ran he felt in control of himself. There was a stillness that came with the constant effort and the onset of exhaustion, a solitude which sometimes produced the most extraordinary insights. He had solved a case once, an awkward and violent domestic tragedy, one morning at six when he raced along the bank of the Tiber near his apartment, beneath the shadow of the Castel Sant’Angelo. It was a source of satisfaction, of consolation. Whatever Falcone might think of him leaving Sara briefly, he needed it now more than ever.

  The house was still. The sun peeked above the eastern horizon intent on searing another August day. He wore shorts, a white T-shirt and the battered trainers that had survived the last two months, a record. Nic Costa quietly let himself out of the front door and walked down the drive to where the police cars were parked. The shift should have changed at midnight. He might not know the men who had now come to guard them. He steeled himself for an argument, then halted. Luca Rossi was in the first Fiat saloon glaring at him through the window. Only one other cop in the adjoining cars was awake and he showed little interest in what was going on.

  The big man got out, stretched, yawned and then said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, Nic. Today of all days.’

  ‘You should be home. Time for bed.’

  ‘Yeah. And what’s for me there? Too late to start drinking. I can sleep in cars. I’ve done it before.’

  It was all a lie. Nic Costa understood what the big man was doing: staying there to look after him. He was touched and a little ashamed Rossi felt he needed the attention.

  ‘Let me repeat myself,’ Rossi said. ‘You’re not even thinking about this.’

  ‘Team motto, Uncle Luca. Run or die.’

  ‘You mean run and die? We’re setting you up as a target here, kid. Don’t make it too easy for him.’

  Costa spread his arms wide, pointing down both sides of the narrow dirt track that led to the farm entrance. ‘Oh, come on. Just up and down the track. Where’s the harm? What’s going to bite me? Mosquitoes?’

  ‘Don’t do it,’ the big man pleaded. ‘Just go back inside. Drink some coffee. Be patient.’

  ‘Uncle Luca …’

  The big man felt his heart sink. He knew it was pointless to argue. ‘I am not your fu— Oh, hell, what’s the point? Why do you do this to me?’

  ‘I’ve got to run. I’ve got to get some space inside me.’

  ‘Shit,’ Luca Rossi sighed. ‘How far? How long?’

  ‘Just a little way. I won’t even make it to the public road. I’ll stick to the drive, that’s all.’

  ‘OK,’ Rossi grunted. ‘But I’ve got no one who can keep up with you. And if you’re not back here in ten minutes I start screaming. Understood?’

  Nic Costa grinned and opened his arms wide.

  ‘No hugging, no funny stuff,’ the big man said forcefully. ‘You got your own way, didn’t you? Now let’s have it done with.’

  Costa laughed and was gone, down the track, kicking up dust, glad to feel the cool morning air in his face, glad that, for a few minutes at least, he could put the complex mix of problems in the farm into some kind of perspective. He thought of his father and how much the old man had enjoyed the previous night. He thought, too, of Sara Farnese. It had given her pleasure to be such good company. That seemed a rarity in her life. He could only speculate what she would be like if it happened more regularly.

  He’d lied to Luca Rossi. The track wasn’t long enough. He needed to pound the public road for a while too, as fast as his powerful legs could take him. The hard basalt stone that paved the surface of the ancient highway was part of his childhood. Once, when he was thirteen, after a row with his father, he had half jogged, half sprinted all day until he was ready to drop. Some fifty kilometres from home, exhausted, he had called the farm from a village bar. The old man had come cheerfully to fetch him and laughed off the whole thing as a grand adventure. They’d been closer after that. His efforts had somehow marked him out for the old man. Giulia was too scared to argue with him, Marco, being the eldest, too smart. Neither would have countenanced that kind of escape and Nic knew, from the moment the car arrived and his father had stepped out grinning from ear to ear, that this denoted some change in the nature of their relationship. It didn’t become easier, just closer in some unspoken, mysterious way, as if they shared part of the same mind.

  He spotted the press pack down the road, put his head down and sprinted past them. They scarcely gave him a second glance. It was early. All the associations were wrong too. They were looking for a beautiful woman and a smartly dressed cop, not a sweating runner in a tattered T-shirt and grubby trainers beating his way down the road. He allowed himself one look back to make sure no one was coming, then kicked hard and headed into the scrub. There was a narrow path of rock and dust that led behind the farm. He could take that, double-back around the house and surprise Luca Rossi by appearing out of nowhere.

  The morning was turning out to be glorious, full of light and beauty. He put on some speed, dodged beneath a couple of olive trees, writhing and gnarled like old men, sprinted hard then stopped. The back of the farm was less than fifty metres away from this position. He could see into the windows. In the guest bedroom he could just about make out Sara moving around. She wore a scarlet shirt, nothing else. He felt guilty watching her like this but it was hard to stop. Every time they met, her actions had been shaped by the presence of others. Seen like this, she was, perhaps, the person that lived inside the hard, fragile shell she showed to the outside world. It worried him. He was becoming obsessed and not just by her beauty. There was something beneath the surface of Sara Farnese he wanted to see, to touch, and to know.

  He breathed deeply, getting back his strength, leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. It had been a good idea, whatever Uncle Luca thought.

  A voice behind him, a hard voice, with a foreign accent, said suddenly, ‘Smile.’

  The sweat went cold on Nic Costa’s skin. He turned. The man was skeletally thin and entirely bald, with a black shirt and trousers and staring blue eyes. He had a large SLR camera in his hands and was about to bring it up to his face.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Press.’ He fired off a couple of shots then moved to improve the angle.

  ‘This is private property. I want that film right now.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ the photographer hissed from behind the lens.

  Nic Costa sighed. It was so obvious. He’d seen the trick many times. They’d try to make you mad just to get a better shot. A fist raised to the lens made the picture. Passive people didn’t sell.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Fire away.’

  He stood upright, folding his arms in front of him and smiled, a big, cheesy smile, like that of a teenager out for the day.

  The photographer grunted. This wasn’t what he wanted.

  ‘Do I get paid?’ Costa asked, then stopped. Someone else was coming. One of the team, he guessed, and about time too. They were supposed to be watching the perimeter. They should never have let the photographer get this far.

  He peered at the figure walking rapidly up the track. He was a
bout thirty, powerfully built, with a striking face and dark, straight hair. The check shirt and loose jeans didn’t fit properly. The black spectacles he wore seemed out of place. Costa didn’t recognize him. But the photographer did.

  ‘Not you?’ the paparazzo yelled. ‘Hey. This is my find. You fuck off back where you belong. Back to …’ He made a sarcastic quote mark gesture with his fingers. ‘Time magazine.’

  The man in the checked shirt said nothing. He was staring beyond both of them, staring at the house. Costa said, ‘You’ve both got to get out of here. Before there’s trouble.’

  Then he followed the gaze of the one in the checked shirt. His eyes were fixed on the window. Sara Farnese was there, watching this odd confrontation, as if she were trying to make sense of it.

  There was a noise from the photographer, a gasp of surprise and hurt. The checked shirt had pulled a flick knife from somewhere and had stuck it into his ribs. The wounded man was stumbling to the ground, his hand clutching his chest as if he were trying to stop his life running out onto the dry, rocky ground.

  Nic Costa watched him, watched the check shirt change his focus, away from the paparazzo, first to the distant figure of Sara and then to him.

  Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you run.

  ‘The blood of the martyrs …’ the man said and took a swift step towards him.

  Costa didn’t move, finishing the sentence for him, ‘Is the seed of the Church.’

  The man stopped a couple of metres away, puzzled, watching. His eyes narrowed behind the ill-fitting glasses. This was not part of the plan.

  ‘None of it’s true,’ Costa said. ‘I never touched her. It was all a game. To get you here. And it worked.’ He opened his hands, a calm, conciliatory gesture. ‘Let’s call it a day, huh? This place is crawling with police.’

  The man looked around him, amused, as if to say: really? Something was wrong. They should have been here already. They should never have let him get this far.

  He roared, coming forward with an unexpected turn of speed, the knife, now red, held firm in his right hand. Nic Costa feinted to one side, dodging the power of the attack, and began to sprint. There was no way he could reason with this man any more. He needed to get out of there, to distract him away from the wounded photographer, to bring in the rest of the team.

  He dashed through the thorny scrub, feeling it rip his thighs, then breathed deeply, thought of nothing but the speed in his legs and leaned into the light morning wind. He’d taken no more than four long strides when something fiery and painful bit into his shoulder.

  Nic Costa’s foot struck a hard, solid object. He fell onto the dry, brown ground, slamming his head onto a rock, dragging at the thing in his back. The blade was lodged deep. He grasped the handle and felt like screaming, in pain and anger. He should have been able to pull it out and get back to running away from this deadly lunatic who seemed to have risen from the rocks of the parched scrubland.

  He stumbled drowsily to his feet, anxiously scanning the dead farmland.

  There was a figure on the shimmering horizon, approaching fast.

  Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you run.

  And sometimes, Nic Costa thought, his head reeling into concussion, you had no choice at all.

  The dark shape grew larger. He wondered what else the man carried in his armoury, wondered where the rest of the team were. A cop didn’t deserve to die like a saint. It seemed inappropriate, somehow, almost profane.

  Nic Costa slumped to his knees, feeling his consciousness begin to fade.

  Then there were voices. Loud voices. Shouting. Two people only, and one of them familiar. One of them – the word came easily in his present state; he felt no shame in thinking it – cherished.

  He lay prone on the hard, arid earth, feeling the darkness begin to swamp his mind, listening to Sara Farnese. It sounded as if she was begging for his life.

  THIRTY

  Alicia Vaccarini spent the night tethered to the chair against the upright wooden beam in the curious octagonal chamber where Gino Fosse had left her. There had been a sound outside only once; the noise of a drunk going home, singing. She was gagged. She was tied. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could hope to achieve. He would return soon, she knew, and then there would be no more delays. This madman believed, in some strange way, that he was doing her a favour. The manner of his ‘apology’ left her full of dread. There was no avenue for persuasion, no prospect of clemency. He was set upon this path, and was distraught that something – something on the television – had disturbed his well-planned sequence of events.

  She had slept, for how long she could only guess, and woke when daylight began to filter into the room through the narrow, slitted windows. There had to be people nearby. There had to be someone who would come, she believed. Even in August, when the heat had depleted the streets, this was still Rome. The city was alive beyond these crumbling medieval walls. The guards would soon be opening up offices in the parliament building. Secretaries would be delivering mail. Staff at the small neighbourhood café where she normally drank her morning macchiato would be wondering why she was absent. Alicia Vaccarini was a woman of habit. There would be those who noticed her absence. By lunchtime, she believed, someone would question it. She had been due to attend a reception for a visiting party of Brussels bureaucrats at ten. It was unknown for her to miss such events. She was diligent. She had nothing else to do.

  So by two, three at the latest, there would be someone checking her apartment, discovering she had never returned home the previous day. The police would be involved. Questions would be asked, with no ready answers.

  She tried to convince herself there was hope in this slow, muddled series of small discoveries. It was impossible. He would be back and when he did he would achieve what he wished. He would be anxious to be done with her and move on to whatever came next.

  The book was still open on the floor. She refused to look at it. The patron saint of musicians deserved to be a brighter, happier figure, she thought. Not a white marble corpse lying in a shroud, with three visible wounds on her neck. Alicia Vaccarini had only one, and it was shallow and ceased to bleed soon after Fosse had raced from the room. One wound was enough, she believed, and closed her eyes, wondering if there was somewhere, within her, the ability to pray. It was a time for desperate measures.

  Then there was a sound from downstairs. Her heart leapt in hope. She heard footsteps rising. Familiar ones: determined and heavy. She closed her eyes and wept.

  When she opened them Gino Fosse was standing in front of her looking confused. He was wearing a checked shirt covered in dirt and torn at the front. His mouth hung open as he gasped for breath. She didn’t know what to make of him, was unable to decide whether his odd appearance was good or bad. Then he started to speak, a rapid-fire babble of insane nonsense about the Church and the perfidy of women. The phone rang. It was on a sideboard next to the window opposite her. He walked over and picked it up. She listened intently. There was a shade of subservience in his voice. It was the first time she had ever noticed it. He seemed so confident, so capable of acting individually, most of the time.

  He went quiet, his head fell down. This was bad news. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed someone would come, that soon there would be the sound of the police beating down the doors to this odd monastic prison.

  ‘No,’ he said insistently down the phone. ‘It’s impossible. You can’t ask that. Where will I go?’

  He went quiet, listening. His shoulders hunched over and his face contorted with grief and fury. But he would do as he was told, she thought, and there, perhaps, lay salvation.

  ‘Shit!’ he yelled.

  He threw the phone on the floor. He kicked it across the carpet. She watched as he dashed around the tiny, airless room, snatching at curtains, ornaments, anything he could lay his hands on, smashing these objects to the ground, screaming obscene nonsense.

  They’ll hear, she thought. Someone knows. Someone
is coming. And they will hear.

  He went behind her. She felt cold. Two clammy hands came around her neck and clasped her cheeks. He turned her head to look up at the disgusting, frightening photographs on the ceiling, photographs she had avoided up to that point. They were black and white. The women in them looked back, their faces immobile, as if they didn’t care or wanted to wish themselves out of the frame.

  ‘See what happens,’ he murmured into her ear, half crying. ‘See what’s done and can’t be undone.’

  Her bladder failed and a warm stinging stream ran down her legs. The hands moved again. The gag relaxed. He untied the knot at the back of her head and let the gag fall from her. Alicia Vaccarini moaned, pleased she could breathe easily again.

  Then he came back around her once more and she looked into his eyes. He’d changed again. This was a different person, one full of conviction and determination. His hand came up suddenly and slapped her across the face. She yelped. The hand swept backwards, his knuckles hard against her lips. She could taste blood. She could sense something new: an intense, personal hatred for her.

  ‘Whore,’ he hissed. ‘You’re all the same. The doorway of the devil. You know that?’

  ‘Please …’

  ‘Shut up!’ His fist came up again, hesitated. She got the message. She was quiet.

  He wiped his mouth with his hand, thinking. She watched him, silent. It was beyond protest, beyond pleading. The decision now was his, and he was crazy, violent one moment, repentant, or at least uncertain, the next.

  ‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘Here! To my home. My home.’

  She spoke very quietly, very calmly. ‘Don’t make it any worse than it is.’

  He stared at her, wondering. ‘It could be worse? How?’