by David Hewson
‘DNA doesn’t lie. Sara Farnese is Denney’s daughter. Gino Fosse’s sister. Non-identical twins. I checked their birthdays through the driving licence records. Same day. Him supposedly in Palermo, her in Paris. God knows where in reality, but they’re twins. There’s no other explanation.’
He remembered what she told him about growing up in a convent in Paris. While she was surrounded by nuns, Gino Fosse must have been fostered on two Sicilian peasants, then shipped off to Church school as soon as he was old enough, perhaps because his true nature was already apparent. All the while Michael Denney had kept tabs on them both. Somehow he had managed to bring both close to his side, never telling one about the other. Perhaps he judged Fosse was too unstable to handle that knowledge. Perhaps the old man just liked playing these games. Whatever. He wanted his family near. Nic Costa could only guess at the reasons.
‘She’s doing this because he’s her father,’ he said, seeing the pieces fall into place. ‘She knows the trouble he’s in. She knows he’s frantic for a way out. So she’s sleeping with anyone he tells her to, letting Fosse take the pictures, just to give him some hope, a chance maybe. And none of it works. In fact it just makes things worse because someone’s been watching the games Gino Fosse has been playing. Someone with a reason to get Denney out of there. So this someone tells Gino who she really is, knowing this is the trigger. Gino realizes Denney’s been … pimping his own sister and using him to make the delivery. Getting him to take pictures of her. Christ …’
‘That would piss me off,’ she said. ‘And I’m halfway normal. Nic?’
She watched him, worried. Costa seemed lost in his own world of startled shock.
‘Nic?’
‘I can’t just sit back and let this happen.’
He picked up the phone and dialled the farm. Marco answered. He sounded happy, almost young.
‘Is Sara there?’
There was a pause on the line.
‘What do you mean?’ Marco asked. ‘She said she called you and checked it was OK.’
‘Checked what?’
‘She wanted some things from her apartment. Bea drove her there half an hour ago. She said she’d make her own way back.’
He swore, then snatched the gun back from the table.
FIFTY-EIGHT
It was an hour before noon and the weather was starting to change. Clouds of tiny flies hung in the humid air, as if held there by some electrical charge from the angry grey sky. The pressure was rising. It gave Teresa Lupo a headache. Looking at the tense, absorbed faces on the street she knew she wasn’t alone. She had pumped a couple of plain clothes men on the street. They disclosed that an unmarked police car with two detectives inside would draw up at a small rear gate of the Vatican, some way north of the public library entrance, and pick up Michael Denney at midday. The media had been thrown off the scent by one more carefully placed leak. They had stationed themselves in the Via di Porta Angelica, a ragged mass of reporters, photographers and TV cameramen, squabbling in the baking heat. Teresa Lupo had seen them as her car took her to Falcone’s lair, a long, plain khaki van sprouting antennae which was now parked just off the large square of the Piazza del Risorgimento, close to the bus stops. From here, she guessed, Falcone could jump into a car and follow Denney all the way to the private jet at Ciampino, waiting for Fosse to emerge from the shadows and do what was expected of him.
She wondered where they would let the lunatic loose. Not at the gates of the Vatican, surely. If Denney died there, the outcry against the State and the Rome police would outweigh the gain from his death. Nor was the airport an obvious option. They could hardly ask a man who had once dined with presidents to walk alone across the runway, bag in hand, waiting for his fate to overtake him. Some other eventuality was in hand and she was determined to find it.
Falcone looked up from the row of radio operators stationed at the communications desk and asked, sourly, ‘What the hell are you doing here? We’ve got no corpses for you. No customers at all.’
She held out the folder with the reports inside. ‘I have the DNA results from the Fosse place. I thought you’d like to see them.’
He was watching a computer screen with a digital map of the city on it. A red marker winked from a street round the corner. It was, she guessed, some tag on the car that Denney would take.
‘We know all we need to know.’
‘No you don’t.’
He glared at her, annoyed. ‘You’ve something to tell me?’
‘I’m just a lackey. I deliver messages.’
He looked at the offered papers, refusing to touch them. ‘Well?’
‘Gino Fosse is Denney’s son all right. But Sara Farnese isn’t Denney’s lover. She’s his daughter. She and Fosse are non-identical twins.’
He was astonished. ‘That’s impossible!’
‘It was all there on the DNA from Fosse’s place. They found menstrual residue on that underwear. Hers. We could match it with the photographs.’
The tanned face wrinkled in disbelief. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Look at the reports. Look at the dates on the birth certificates. There’s no other possibility.’
‘Jesus.’ He seemed genuinely shocked. ‘That place is just full of secrets. Hanrahan should have told me. We will have words. On that and other matters.’ His face was lined, his eyes dead. Falcone looked terrible, damaged by events.
‘Does it make a difference?’ she asked.
‘Not that I can see,’ he replied, shrugging. ‘So Denney’s an even bigger bastard than we thought. Whoring his own daughter to try to get himself out of that place. Imagine sending your own flesh and blood round to sleep with that fat creep Valena. And the rest of them …’
‘Imagine being the kind of woman who’d agree to that.’
‘Family,’ he muttered. ‘There’s no comprehending those ties sometimes.’
Falcone seemed pensive for a moment. She felt like pushing it. ‘Or imagine being Gino Fosse,’ she continued. ‘Discovering the woman you’ve been driving around on these engagements, the woman you’ve been photographing, staring at on your wall, this woman’s your sister. Who told him that? Who pulled that trigger?’
The dead eyes held her. Falcone really didn’t know, she realized. He’d been fooled as much as everyone. ‘Search me. I don’t care any more. It’s irrelevant.’
‘Irrelevant?’ she asked, exasperated. ‘Whoever did this is as culpable as Fosse himself.’
‘Stick to forensics. Why are we having this conversation?’
‘Prurience.’
‘That’s my job. Not yours. And as for this …’ He picked up the folder and waved it at her. ‘I don’t want to see a word of this in the media. Not for as long as you can stop it leaking out of the station. I don’t want anyone seen in some kind of sympathetic light. They’re all losers. Understand? The story that the Farnese woman is his mistress stands.’
‘But it’s untrue. It paints her to be something she isn’t.’
‘Fine! So she just whores herself around to a handful of influential jerks who might be able to do her father a favour. That puts her in a more favourable light? Here …’
He snatched the report off the desk, glowered at the type on the page then tore the thing to shreds in front of her eyes, walked to an open window of the van and dumped the pieces out into the hard light beyond the glass.
She folded her arms and shook her head at him. ‘My. I am so impressed.’
‘Enough. I want no more of this. And no more of you.’
‘I’d like to stay. I’d like to observe. That’s an official request.’
‘Refused. You …’ He nodded at one of the plainclothes men working the radio desk. ‘Show Crazy Teresa to the door.’
She was just a little shorter than Falcone but she had some bulk on him. Teresa Lupo took one step towards him, leaned in, close to his face, and noted the way he drew back. Then she jabbed a finger into his chest.
‘You should never piss off a
pathologist,’ she said carefully. ‘You know why?’
He said nothing.
Because in your line of work, Falcone, being someone with your manners, your warped sense of integrity, and your kind of friends, it is just possible I will one day find you on my table. And for that …’ she ran a finger down the side of his tanned cheek, pressing it like a scalpel into his flesh, ‘I would be delighted to set aside a great deal of time indeed.’
The dark face turned a touch paler.
‘Out,’ he snapped.
She turned and left, stopping by the short metal external staircase, exchanging glances with the uniformed man there. He seemed vaguely familiar. They all did. Over the years she must have met almost every cop in Rome. She offered him a cigarette. He shook his head. He was bored. He was like all the uniforms, she guessed, just manpower for the day, a bunch of innocents who could be persuaded to check how shiny their shoes were when the time came.
‘So you’re going all the way to Ciampino?’ she asked.
‘Right,’ he grunted. ‘The long way round.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You didn’t hear? The big man wants to make one final stop in the city. A sentimental journey. We go there. Then we take him to the plane.’
‘Sentimental journey,’ she repeated, and then they talked a little more.
Three minutes later she began to walk towards the river, back towards the hulking shape of the Castel Sant’Angelo, frantically punching the buttons on her phone, wondering if she could get there before the sky broke and brought with it the mother of all storms.
FIFTY-NINE
Michael Denney packed his belongings into a small, expensive flight case covered in airline stickers: three shirts, three sets of trousers, a couple of jackets, some underclothes. Then all the money he could persuade the Vatican Finance Department to release from his bank account in cash: $50,000, another £30,000 in sterling and €5,000. It was interesting, he thought, to see how easily they relented once he started to make the right points. Though he’d hardly touched it these past two years, Denney remained a man of considerable wealth. A good half was inherited from family in New England. The rest came from more unusual sources: gifts, commissions, fees. Bribes, if he were being honest with himself. The people with their hands on the purse strings knew that as well as he did. When he pointed out the problems that could ensue were his money to remain inside the Vatican – awkward questions about hidden accounts, calls from the left for the sequestration of funds – they were quick to sign the release. The balance of his wealth, close to $12 million spread around various institutions, would be remitted to a variety of banks across the Atlantic according to his mandates. Redemption and comfort were not, he thought, incompatible. He was only reclaiming what was rightfully his and he felt happier looking into the misty times ahead with some hard cash in his pocket.
There were two passports in the case: one from the Vatican which would, they said, be confiscated once he arrived in Boston. The second had an old photograph, from the days when his hair was sleek and black, one which made him look like someone completely different. The battered dark-blue jacket wore the familiar silver eagle. It had been a long time since Michael Denney had felt like an American citizen. The passport was, technically, out of date but, as a precaution some months back, he had let a contact he knew work on it, changing a few details. Now it looked valid, which meant he would not have to throw himself on the mercy of the consular service, pleading like an illegal immigrant. It would take him a while to get used to the idea of being American again. There was much to be learned in the months and years to come. But with money, and a US passport, there would be opportunity.
He looked around the apartment, imprinting the picture of it on his mind. It was memories like these that could keep you alive in the black days, knowing that some of the humiliation lay behind. Then he checked his watch. He was due at the rear entrance in thirty-five minutes. It would take a good ten minutes to walk there, through the private gardens, praying that everything he had been told about security inside the walled state was true. Denney was inclined to believe them. It would be too embarrassing to have a mishap on their own territory. The real dangers lay outside.
Denney looked at the painting that dominated the cramped main room. That was one belonging he hoped to see again. There were memories behind the original which he did not wish to lose. For a moment he was lost in the precise and savage detail, held by the monstrous, lunatic assassin raising his sword high, ready to deliver the final blow to the saint who lay dying on the floor, hand reaching upwards for the palm branch of martyrdom offered by the angel. And there, in the background, Caravaggio’s concerned face. Denney had always fancied himself as a spectator, one who looked on, caring yet detached, though never ignorant of one’s responsibilities. Both murderer and martyr were victims in this painting, he thought, and he had no great wish to fulfil either role in his life. Matthew had been chosen, had offered himself willingly. And his killer? He remembered the conversation that began it all thirty years ago. How he had talked with the pretty young nun when they met in the church. She had railed against the man’s cruelty, the savage anger in his face, asking how he could commit such a deed. He had asked the question which came into his head from nowhere: how could Matthew be what he was without his nemesis? Didn’t the murderer deserve some of the credit too for delivering to him his apostle’s fate? Wasn’t he just as much a part of God’s will as Matthew? Wasn’t Caravaggio’s stricken face in the background there to implicate us all in the act, and the artist in particular for his brutal imagining of it? Just as the young cop had said …
This was a cruel world, one in which breath could be stripped from the living in an instant.
Recalling that moment now, he remained unable to define what prompted the thought. Yet the consequences were so profound. Everything that followed, public and personal, stemmed from that moment. It was to prove the instant the young Michael Denney was touched by the world beyond the Vatican. It was a turning point, a step along the great journey, towards sin and worldliness.
He accepted now that he could never return to what he was. He knew too he could never leave the city without seeing the original once more, touching those memories that meant so much.
The bell rang. Denney was dismayed to find the sound made him jump. He walked to the door and squinted through the spyhole. Hanrahan stood there alone.
‘Come to say goodbye?’ Denney said, with a degree of cheerfulness, as he let the dour Irishman into the room.
‘If you like, Michael. I want to make sure you’re gone, to be honest.’
Denney nodded at the canvas on the wall. ‘When I’m settled, Brendan, I’ll be on the phone to you. There are things of mine here. You’ll send them on. I’ll pay for storage. You’ll put that in good care.’
Hanrahan looked at it and sniffed. ‘You think it’s worth it?’
‘I believe so.’
‘It’s in this church of yours, Michael. Is that correct?’
‘The first church I ever worked in in Rome. I never told that young policeman, but it’s true. The place is full of memories.’
‘And now you expect us to leave you there for a few minutes, on your way to the airport?’
Denney stared into Hanrahan’s grey face. He would not be cowed by this man. ‘I won’t run, Brendan. You’ll make sure of that.’
‘Oh yes. But why?’
There was a light in Denney’s eyes. Something Hanrahan hadn’t seen in a long time. ‘For my own sake.’
‘It’s the woman, I imagine,’ Hanrahan answered. ‘The nun from Paris, Sister Annette. I read the files. You followed her there for a little while. Just for some bedtime games. All for a nun at that?’
Denney hesitated before replying. Just the thought of her painted such pictures in his head. ‘She was the most beautiful woman I ever met. We opened each other’s eyes for a little while. Life requires a few mysteries. Otherwise why would we need a God at all?’
The Irishman scowled. ‘Abelard and Héloïse is a pretty story, but what a price they paid.’
‘Still, they were alive, Brendan. You can’t begin to imagine how these things happen, can you? I pity you for that. It makes you a small man.’
Denney closed his eyes. The memories were so vivid he felt he could touch her still. ‘I made love to her for the first time in that place. First time I made love to a woman at all. I was a late starter. It was in a small ante-room off the nave. You could lock the door, do whatever you wanted. No one ever knew. We’d go there five, six times a week, take off the clothes they made us wear, become something else. What we were meant to be.’
Hanrahan’s chill stare said it all.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Brendan. This is something you can’t understand, something you’ve never experienced. When we were in each other’s arms there I swear we thought we were in Paradise. I felt closer to God than I’ve ever been in my life and there’s no blasphemy in saying it. I never wanted that to end. Then …’
‘Then you followed her to Paris and she fell pregnant. You could have left the Church, Michael. You could have been with her. The coward in you always comes out in the end.’
Denney refused to rise to the bait. ‘I was a coward, but not in the way you think. I wanted to do just that. She couldn’t face the ordeal we both knew that would entail. The wrath of our families. Being cast out as sinners. I was a coward because, when the Church found out, as they were bound to, I acceded to them without a fight. I let them rule us both.’ A picture entered his head, of Annette naked, lying back on the old cushions of a battered sofa, removing the crucifix from her neck, a shaft of light cutting through stained glass into the dusty hot air of the storeroom, her lovely face full of anticipation and joy. ‘What happened in that room was no sin, Brendan. It was a holy thing. It was what was supposed to happen. If only you could understand it.’