Sacred Cut

by David Hewson

  “You’d be as fat as a pig, Kaspar.” It was another voice inside him. They just kept getting noisier all the time, all the more so since this last, unexpected misadventure. This was the guy from Alabama, whose name was lost to him now through the mist.

  “You’d be wearing pinstripes, working in a bank, screwing your wife once a week just to keep her happy.” Uptight New England WASP, speaking through the back of the nose. There’d been many an officer like that, Kaspar thought. Or maybe it was just a movie. Or Steely Dan Deacon himself. He’d got it. That was his New England whine, brought back from the dead by seeing his girl the night before. And letting her live …

  “I’d be me,” he murmured, and that was a voice he only distantly recognized, one that had no accent at all because it was him. As close as it got these days.

  “I’d be me, Monica,” he said again, stroking the side of her dead cheek with a single finger. “And you know something? You wouldn’t like me. Because I’m not like Peter O’Malley. Or Harvey. Or anyone you know. I’m just a piece of dry shit blowing on the wind. A part of the elements, like rain or snow, looking for the right place to fall.”

  He straddled her buttocks, took the back of her scalp and turned her dead head around.

  “You hear me, bitch?”

  It was the guy from Alabama again. Maybe this one would hang around a lot today. He’d been a vicious bastard. He could be useful too. Black as hell, muscles like steel, a vocabulary that rarely strayed from A-class obscene.

  Monroe. That was the name. Monroe had been the first to catch a bullet when they’d run from the Humvee, got pinned down with no option but to try to make a break to the most obvious place of safety. The shard of burning metal had come clean through the man’s head, tore off most of his lower jaw, left him running round with half his face off till a second shell came and finished the job. The guy was a moron too. Thought he was immortal, could just bark his way through anything, catch a piece of red-hot iron with his fist and fling it to the ground.

  Sometimes, when the memories came back, Kaspar wanted to cry, to hold his face in his hands and bawl like a baby. Mostly, though, he could keep that away these days. He’d done enough bawling for one lifetime. He could keep it at bay by thinking of the pattern, the magic pattern in his little black bag, carved into the living, waiting to be complete.

  “See, Monica,” he said, back in the old voice, the real one. “They never read Shelley, my dear. Can you believe that?”

  My name is Ozymandias, king of kings

  He did a good Englishman—posh if you please.

  Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

  He laid the scalpel on her back, got comfy on her plump ass and called into his head the sacred cut and its magical subset, that shape burned on his consciousness, so set there now he could carve it out of anything without the pattern he had needed to begin with.

  Shapes made sense of things, shapes told you there was sanity and truth somewhere in the universe. So he carved the first line, quickly, easily, and it didn’t feel right.

  “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” he whispered, but it was still the old voice. He couldn’t quite find the tone.

  Because it didn’t work this time. There were tears in his eyes. He couldn’t just run through the same procedure again. She wasn’t right. She was like Little Emily Deacon, only not so lucky. She didn’t belong there, not at all.

  Screeching quietly to himself, the way he’d done when the guards used to come through the door and drag him back to the room with the electric poles and whips, he rocked from side to side, wildly slashing the scalpel across her waxy flesh, back and forth, back and forth, making marks that looked like the talons of a giant, crazy bird.

  This went on for a while. How long he didn’t know. He was looking for those voices in him: Dan Deacon, Monroe, the big black sergeant with half a jaw, one of the women even. Anyone, anyone—it didn’t matter who, so long as it didn’t sound like him, the old him.

  The voices wouldn’t come and he knew why. He’d offended them. They kept whispering something in his ear, Dan Deacon loudest of all. He’d been a fool. The list was incomplete. One final set of skin remained to be added to the pattern, the most important one, from someone he couldn’t begin to guess. And what did he do when he was supposed to be looking? Get distracted by some horny California gal who couldn’t keep her hands out of his private belongings.

  Thinking of rutting when you shoulda been cutting, forgetting who you truly are.

  “Bitch,” he murmured, and found the scalpel flying in his hand again.

  Also, he thought, she stood in the way. He could be here for days if he wanted. She could start to stink and he hated that stink. It carried so many black memories with it.

  Haul her onto the terrace, boy! It’s like an icehouse out there. You won’t smell a thing.

  Smart, Alabama boy. They had helicopters hovering overhead all the time, cameras on rooftops, mikes in the walls, people spying everywhere these days, listening to the words you whispered in your sleep. They had to do that because they knew he was among them, knew he was close to finishing the job.

  Then KISS my ass, remember?

  Keep It Simple, Stupid. The black guy said that all the time. Sometimes he had a point.

  This was a place with a kitchen you could film a cookery show in: big knives, little knives, meat saws, cleavers. Monica Sawyer had brought two large, expensive-looking suitcases with her. They still sat in the living room with Delta’s business class stickers on the side. It would be a crime to let them go to waste.

  THE VIA DEL BABUINO ran from the Spanish Steps to the Piazza del Popolo, a narrow, cobbled medieval lane in permanent shadow from the high buildings on either side. The shutters were still on the designer stores and the newspaper vendor next to the Greek church had only just opened his bundles that bright sunny morning as the three-car team rolled past.

  The Fiats squirmed on the slippery cobblestones, scattering a flock of black-coated nuns like fleeing crows, hurrying across the snow towards the outline of the familiar twin staircase winding down from Trinità dei Monti. Leo Falcone sat in the back of the first car with Joel Leapman by his side, and wished the sound of the sirens could drown out his growing misgivings. What Teresa Lupo had revealed the previous night continued to bug him, all the more because he’d decided to keep the information to himself and to defy Filippo Viale, at least for the moment. It was hard enough dealing with his own grey men without a bunch of FBI agents thrown into the mix. Falcone had tried to discuss this with Moretti earlier that morning, only to find the grim-faced commissario already sharing his office with Leapman and Viale. The spooks had the smug look of people in charge. It was a pointless meeting, relieved only by Costa’s phone call with a possible address for them to search. Not that they were under any illusions. The idea that the man would stick around at the apartment seemed ludicrous in the circumstances.

  Leapman wriggled in his black winter coat as the car approached the address Costa had given them. He shook his scalped head, shot Falcone a disapproving glance, and laughed.

  “Something wrong?” Falcone wondered.

  “You guys kill me. It’s all so damn casual. What if he didn’t wise up? What if he’s still in there? You gonna knock on the door and ask him to come out for a talk?”

  “Maybe.” Falcone knew this area well. The houses were identical: terraced properties that fetched a fortune in spite of the constant roar of traffic from Spagna to Popolo. They were apartments now, all with a single shared door at the front. There was just one way out. At this time of day it was easy, too, to gain entrance to any place like this in the city.

  The car pulled over. Falcone got out, walked to the intercom, pressed a couple of buttons simultaneously and waited for the electronic lock to buzz. When it did, he held open the green wooden door and let his team of six walk into the narrow communal passage.

  Leapman couldn’t believe his eyes.

  “It’s what
we do to let the trash man in,” Falcone explained, nodding at the pile of black plastic bags behind the front door.

  “Jesus,” Leapman groaned. He pulled out a black revolver, checked it, then, under Falcone’s fierce gaze, slid the weapon back in its leather shoulder holster.

  “No guns,” Falcone ordered. “Not unless I say so.”

  One of the detectives was grilling a woman who’d come out of the first ground-floor apartment.

  “Third floor, Number Nine,” he said. “Foreigner, rented apartment. Been here two weeks or so. She hasn’t seen him since the night before last. She’s got a key.”

  Falcone sent the entry team ahead. Leapman stayed with him downstairs. The American seemed bored. Falcone took a look at his own pistol, just in case, then quickly put it away.

  “You ever used that?” Leapman asked.

  “Lots of times,” Falcone answered. “Just never had to fire it, that’s all.”

  Leapman was laughing again. “This is the European thing, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “The idea that there’s some kind of middle way we could take if only we were civilized enough to see it. The idea you can just walk down the centre of the road and then everything will be just fine, all the crap will never come and touch you.”

  “Perhaps it’s best not to judge situations too quickly. I don’t believe that’s a European thing or any other kind of thing either. It’s just how some of us work.”

  Leapman grimaced. “Until you wise up. That’s what separates us. See, we don’t wait for the nasty surprises to prove what we know already. This guy’s a lunatic, right? You treat him like one or you get hurt.”

  “Possibly.” Falcone wondered how many men Leapman had in Rome, where they were, what they were doing. “I thought you might have asked Agent Deacon along,” he said. “Or someone.”

  “Why? Is she supposed to give an art lesson here, too?”

  “She got us this far. With my men, of course.”

  Peroni had called in at one a.m. with a brief report after the incident in the Campo. It had been shared with Leapman, at Moretti’s insistence. Falcone had then called Viale, partly because he liked the idea of getting him out of bed. The SISDE man had listened, grunted, then put down the phone.

  “She did,” Leapman murmured sourly. “She saw the guy too and look what happened. He walks. She blacks out. It’s a crying shame. That kid just can’t cut it.”

  Falcon didn’t argue. Emily Deacon looked all wrong in the job Leapman had given her, though Leo had no intention of saying so. “In that case, why did you bring her here?”

  Leapman resented the question. Falcone would have felt the same way in his position. These were operational decisions. You left them to the officer in charge, until they went wrong.

  “It seemed a good idea at the time,” the American said after a while. “She speaks Italian like one of you. She knows this place. And like I said yesterday, she’s got one hell of an incentive to see this guy go down. Is that good enough? Can we get on with taking a look around now?”

  Falcone went up the stone steps and walked into the room, where his team were making a slow and professional job of checking out what was there. It was a typical short-term rented place: a large studio with an old sofa, a tiny table with grubby chairs, a small, cheap colour TV. There was an uncomfortable-looking single bed in the corner, unmade, with the sheets strewn on the floor. Falcone walked into the cramped bathroom. At first glance there was nothing there he could work with for DNA: no toothbrush, no used tissues. The main room looked just as bare.

  “The guy came back and cleared everything,” Leapman said. “Smart. He was probably in and out of here before you people finished dealing with the medics.”

  But medics were important, Falcone thought. You had to work out your priorities.

  “How’d this kid know he was from here?” Leapman wondered. “Was she working a trick for him or something?”

  “No.” They’d got some background on the girl already. One of the charities had worked with her for a few months with little success. It was a psychological problem, one that wouldn’t go away. A form of kleptomania, constant, even when she knew she’d be caught. “She follows people she thinks are interesting. Then she steals something from them. He just came out of this place and she saw him in the street, followed him to the Pantheon. She remembered a green door and the Gucci shop.”

  Leapman looked interested. “The kid saw him meet up with the woman?”

  “No. She lost him for a little while. The couple were already inside the Pantheon when she went in. Which is interesting in itself. Perhaps they already knew each other.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Leapman stated. “I’d like to hear it from the street brat myself.”

  “No,” Falcone said firmly. “You can have the transcript of the interview but I’m not putting a child up for interrogation. We wouldn’t allow that with one of our own. It’s against the law. I’m sorry.”

  The FBI agent sighed, but at least he didn’t seem ready to argue. “The law. I won’t go to the wall over this one, Falcone. But don’t you try standing in my way when it comes to something important. I won’t tolerate it.”

  “I imagine not.” Falcone sighed, “What do you want of me, Agent Leapman?”

  “Some action might be nice.”

  “Action?” That was, it seemed to Falcone, the last thing they needed. The killer moved carefully, thought ahead. He wasn’t going to be caught by some random, blanket operation. He’d disappear the moment he heard anyone coming down the street.

  “We have almost fifty officers working on this case already. I think that counts as action.”

  Leapman picked up a sweater one of the detectives had found in a cupboard. It was the only item the man hadn’t taken. Maybe it didn’t even belong to him. Leapman didn’t look as if he cared. Falcone had to remind himself about the kind of officer he was dealing with here. Leapman wasn’t a cop. He was part of a rigid, bureaucratic apparatus that worked by the book. He was accustomed to thinking that “action”—constant investigation, the sledgehammer of detection that vast amounts of manpower allowed—brought results. It was one way of looking at things, Falcone thought, it made sense. But not always. You had to be flexible. You had to think round problems. You couldn’t just follow a set of procedures laid out on the page of some textbook.

  The American’s cell phone trilled. He walked over to the corner so that no one could hear. Falcone turned to Ciccone, one of the team he’d brought along, and asked, “Whose apartment is this? Who’d he rent from?”

  It was, as Falcone hoped, the woman who had given them the keys. Leapman finished the call and announced, “I’m gone. I want an update when you hear something, Falcone.”

  “I’ll do my very best,” the inspector replied, smiling. “Let me see you out.”

  They walked back downstairs. Falcone held open the door. There was a flurry of snow outside. Maybe it was that which made Leapman hesitate. He gave Falcone a sharp glance.

  “They think you’re something, you know. That SISDE guy told me. My, isn’t he a cryptic piece of work?”

  “I really don’t know. I work for the police, not SISDE, though I’m flattered all the same.”

  “Or maybe I’m just getting some prime Italian bullshit. ‘We got our best man on the case.’ Huh.”

  Falcone had finally reached a decision on how to handle Leapman. Gently. Politely. From a distance. Just the way the American least wanted.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” he replied.

  He walked to the door of the first apartment. It was ajar. The woman, middle-aged, frumpy in a white blouse and black skirt, peered back at him from behind the security chain. She had prematurely grey hair, too long for her. She looked worried.

  “Signora?”

  He waited for her to unhook the chain, then walked in. The room was overflowing with expensive antique furniture. The contrast with the hovel above could sca
rcely be more vivid.

  “What’s he done?” she asked.

  “Perhaps nothing. Was he known to you personally?”

  “He answered the ad. He paid a month’s rent and I never saw him again. He went out at night mainly. Don’t ask me why.”

  “And his line of work was?”

  She lit a cigarette with a shaking hand. “He was a tourist. How should I know?”

  Falcone nodded, thinking. “How much does an apartment like that cost these days?”

  “Four thousand for the month,” she answered.

  “So much money?”

  She wanted him out of there. He could feel there was something wrong.

  “By law all property owners must keep a note of a foreigner’s passport,” he told her. “You did that, of course.”

  She walked over to a small, highly polished bureau and took out a sheet of paper. “I know the rules.”

  Falcone studied the page. It was a photocopy of the main ID page of an EU passport.

  “Thank you,” he said. “And the receipt? By law you have to give a receipt and keep a copy. For the tax authorities.”

  The woman stared at the carpet. Falcone knew: this was what she was hiding.

  “You don’t have a receipt, do you? He paid in cash, I imagine.”

  “Stupid paperwork,” she hissed. “I’m a widow. Do you think I’ve got nothing better to do than keep receipts?”

  “It’s the law,” he said sternly. “Without receipts who’s to know that you’re declaring this income on your tax return? Who’s to say the money just doesn’t go straight into a shoebox under your bed?”

  Along with a lot else besides, he guessed. She probably hadn’t declared any income from the apartment for years.

  “I have a suggestion,” he said.

  She looked into his eyes, hoping. He folded the photocopy of the passport and tucked it in his jacket pocket.