by James Green
Another odd couple.
EIGHT
The Campo del Fiori wasn’t the Piazza Navona. There were no film stars, Serie A footballers, or big-time celebrities. It was a square almost hidden away from the main tourist routes and today it was crowded with brightly covered market stalls selling fresh produce to Roman housewives. Around the sides of the square were the sun umbrellas and awnings under which the customers of the bars and restaurants could sit at their tables and sip their cocktails. These bars and restaurants were where locals with plenty of money hung out. The matrons at market stalls haggling over vegetables and fruit were separated from this serious money by flimsy, decorative fences. This was where Roman style put on a display, but only for its own amusement. In one corner, gazing out at the scene, was a bronze statue of a man with a tonsure wearing a long cloak. Some long-ago Dominican friar who had been burned to death for the unforgivable sin of being right at the wrong time. Eventually giving him a statue on the spot where he went up in flames was the Catholic Church’s way of making amends.
Ricci was welcomed as a valued customer when they went inside his bar. Jimmy looked around. It obviously wasn’t the sort of spot that got crowded during the day so it must be more of a night-time place. Or maybe it was the sun. Drink inside on a sunny day and you missed all the action of the market, you saw no one and, more importantly, no one saw you. Ricci went to a quiet table and ordered a campari and soda. Jimmy asked for a beer.
The waiter named a few foreign brands.
‘Any beer, whatever the locals drink.’
The waiter gave him a look, the sort of look he might give to a bag-snatcher who’d come in to chance his arm. The idea of beer-drinking locals at these tables obviously wounded his deepest feelings but, for Ricci’s sake, he managed to force politeness into his voice.
‘Certainly, sir.’
He left and the two men sat in silence until the drinks arrived. When they came Jimmy noticed the beer was imported, Tuborg. Ricci picked up his glass.
‘I’m going tell you a mystery story, Jimmy, then you’re going make sense of it all for me. Cheers.’ He took a small drink. ‘When I met you last time I didn’t like you; you were not what I had been led to expect. I was told I’d meet an ex-London CID sergeant, someone who had taken early retirement due to stress. Someone who had come to Rome to train to be a priest. What I got was you, and like I said, the you I got I didn’t like. I really didn’t want you to work with me so I went to the minister’s aide and told him you were not suitable, that you were not what I had been expecting and not what the investigation wanted or needed, that I thought you might be seriously unstable in moments of stress or pressure. I also told him I strongly suspected you were not what you seemed, that your background would almost certainly bear further looking into. Everything seemed fine. The aide agreed that this investigation was too sensitive for any chances to be taken. I could drop you and the minister would arrange that we find a new man. So I got on with things. Then, one week later, I get pulled in by the minister himself and slapped on the wrist very hard and told that you’re as pure as the driven snow and that you’re on this case whether I liked it or not. All that was required of me was to follow orders and do the job I had been given and under no circumstances was I ever to mention to anyone my concerns over you or your past.’ He took another sip. ‘OK, so far?’ Jimmy took a drink and nodded. The beer was good. ‘Now comes the interesting part. Remember I told you I did a year at Leicester University on the Erasmus programme? Well, while I was there I met a student called Billy Campbell from Glasgow, like me. It turned out that Billy had lived quite near to where I grew up. I never knew him as a kid because he wasn’t a Catholic, so we went to different schools. But both coming from the same place we started to meet and talked quite a lot. He was doing Art History. He was a good artist, could have gone to art school, but he knew he wasn’t good enough to be a professional so he chose university. We became real friends, in fact I went to more Art History lectures than I went to English ones. Something else we had in common was that we were both interested in going into the police when we graduated. As it turned out we both did. We’ve kept in touch ever since, even visited each other, and he’s been as successful in the Met. as I have here. I phoned him after I’d been hauled over the coals by the minister. I didn’t like what had happened. Someone wanted to put you next to me even if that was the last place I wanted you to be. Why was that? What was so special about Jimmy Costello? So I asked my mate Billy to nose about the Met. records and maybe ask around and see what he could find out about you. But I told him to keep it very off the record and very low key.’ He took another tiny sip of his Campari. He liked to make a drink last, thought Jimmy. Was that being mean or being careful, or both?
‘And he found out what?’
‘Not much, nothing in fact. He told me your file was thin, too thin for a DS working north London for the years you did. He spoke to a couple of blokes who said they remembered you but that’s all they’d say, they remembered you. Billy said it looked like you must have been a pretty anonymous copper who didn’t do very much work.’
‘We can’t all be high-flying young crime busters. Somebody has to be Mr Plod and do the routine stuff.’
‘Now that may be true, but I doubt it in your case because of two things. One, Billy said your record wasn’t just thin, it had been filleted, and two, he suddenly got told he was being sent to the US. A special request had been made by a university for someone to give a short series of seminars on forgeries and frauds involving nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists. That was his speciality, modern art.’
‘So?’
‘So he lost interest in you, forgot all about you. All he could think of was that he’d been chosen to go to America and show them how good he was at his job.’
‘And all this means what?’
‘That someone made sure he stopped nosing about doing favours for an old friend.’
Jimmy shook his head.
‘No, you’ve got your wires crossed.’
‘I don’t think so. What I do think is that I’m in trouble. You see, I didn’t do as I was told and keep my nose out of your past and I think I got caught looking. So now somebody may have my balls in a vice and could be about to turn the screw and if I’m right I’m going to need help, your help.’
‘Even if you are right what makes you think I can help?’
‘Because your record had been doctored, officially doctored, a thorough job, not just a few sheets pulled. That’s not something anyone low level could do or get done. Also, instead of pulling in Billy and giving him a bollocking for nosing about into Detective Sergeant James Costello, he got neatly taken out of the frame and it was done by someone who could get big favours and get them quick.’ Ricci let things sink in for a minute. ‘Look, I’m good at what I do. I’m a good copper. Don’t let all the trinkets and Armani crap fool you, that’s just window dressing.’
‘Like the accent?’
‘Just like the accent. I’ve been around and I know the score, maybe I know it better than most. I think you are or were a dangerous man with people in London who still make sure you get left alone. What sort of people are they, Jimmy? Powerful enough to do a first-class cover-up job on the file, certainly, but with enough pull to get favours from across the pond? That’s pretty special. Are they doing it for love, for old times’ sake?’
‘Nobody loves me in London.’
‘No, that’s what I thought. Then what we’re left with is you paid them or they’re afraid of you, of what you know or what you might do.’
Jimmy took a sip of his beer.
‘And which do you think, money or the frighteners?’
‘Why not both? You’re a Duns student. Nobody would break my legs for looking into what that means so I checked and found they only take men who are financially independent now and will be for the foreseeable future. A detective sergeant’s pension doesn’t come close so where did all the money come from?’
‘I sold my house.’
‘Do you seriously want me to believe that out of the proceeds of a house sale you were able to buy the kind of protection you’re getting and still have enough left to be self-financing for the rest of your life? I know London house prices are bloody silly but no house sale would stretch round all of that, unless you lived in Mayfair? You didn’t live in Mayfair, did you, Jimmy?’
Jimmy managed a genuine smile at the idea.
‘No, not Mayfair.’
‘And even if you did, someone who pays big money to buy a clean past and your kind of protection doesn’t come to Rome and sign up for the priesthood. They go and live the high-life on the Costas or wherever. What else is loot for, if not the good life? So, that leaves it with either you know enough to make some very important people feel very worried or you’re such a dangerous bastard they don’t want you coming after them. Maybe both. Remember, Jimmy, I’m a copper, I know that people don’t have to look dangerous to be dangerous, so the quiet, scruffy look cuts nothing with me.’
Jimmy could feel the old times seeping back into his life and he didn’t know how he could stop them; worse than that, he knew there was a part of him that didn’t want to stop them.
‘OK, for the sake of argument, I’ve got friends in London. What would you want a man with friends in London to do?’
Ricci pushed his glass away and leaned closer to Jimmy.
‘If God Almighty wants to punish me then I want the Prince of Darkness looking after me. Tell me the truth the way you see it. Am I right or wrong? Am I in deep shit here, do I need your help?’
He sat back and waited.
Christ, thought Jimmy, what’s going on? Why is this happening to me? I came here to bury the London copper, to do the right thing. I want to change, be the man I should be, the man Bernie and Eileen’s kids deserve. And here I am being asked to help this bloke, who may very well be in the deep shit he thinks he is, and the only way to do that is to go back to what I was. That can’t fucking well be right.
He made an effort. He wasn’t going to slide back without a fight.
‘Look, you got a slap on the wrist, your mate got sent across to the States and I’ve got a thin record. It’s nothing, a few coincidences.’
‘If you say so. But would you call it a coincidence that my uncle’s ice-cream factory just outside Glasgow suffered a fire four days ago and he got a call telling him it wouldn’t be just a fire next time.’
‘Who told you?’
‘My cousin, he phoned me. I’m the only policeman in the family. He wanted to ask me what they should do.’
‘And you said?’
‘Not much, that they should go to the local police.’
‘Did they?’
‘He said my uncle didn’t want to do that. He was treating it like it was nothing, just yobs, and he wanted it left that way, said that he could take care of himself.’
‘Glasgow can be a rough town.’
‘Maybe so, but wouldn’t you say there’s a possibility someone’s decided to put pressure on me through my uncle? Or is it another coincidence?’
They both sat in silence. The waiter came over and asked if they wanted more drinks. Ricci looked at Jimmy who nodded so he ordered two more.
‘So what help am I supposed to give you?’
‘Use your contacts from the old days to see that my uncle is left alone and tell me why I should be frightened of you. If we’re going to work together I need to know who I’m working with.’
‘What’s in it for me?’ The new Jimmy wouldn’t have asked, but for the old Jimmy it was always the first question. So it got asked.
‘You get the chance to do the right thing, to help me and my uncle.’ Ricci finally finished his drink. If another was coming there was no point in making it last. ‘And then you get to try and find out if a genuinely holy old man was murdered. If it turns out he was, maybe we find out why, and who was responsible. There’s no money in this that I can see, just doing the job and doing it right.’
‘That’s not much, in fact it’s fuck-all, I never worked for …’
The words had come as if by themselves but he managed not to finish the sentence. Don’t go back, Jimmy, at least don’t go all the way back. Go only as far as they make you go. The drinks came. They both waited until the waiter was gone.
‘Being on the side of the angels never turned a profit that I know of, not in our business. The real pay-offs are always on the other side of the street, but I guess you know that. I suppose it all comes down to whether you really are taking this priest thing seriously.’
Jimmy knew he was right. He’d been asked for help, if he took being a priest seriously then he would have to help because that was the right thing to do. But that would mean resurrecting a Jimmy Costello he wanted to bury for good and that had to be the wrong thing to do.
Shit, he thought, why is it so fucking complicated, so bloody hard? Why can’t I walk away and stick to what I came to Rome to do? But that would be putting himself first, making himself the only one that mattered which would mean he hadn’t really changed at all. But if he took it on he had to go back to thinking and behaving like the old Jimmy. Christ, what a mess, you’re wrong if you do and you’re wrong if you don’t. The Catholic Church, it gets you coming and it gets you going. No wonder they said we’re the experts on guilt.
‘Well, are you in or out?’
Jimmy took a drink.
‘So what do we do? Do you go and see the minister’s aide or what?’
Ricci smiled but this time the smile reached his eyes and it didn’t look at all practised. Relief usually doesn’t.
‘I’ll see to this end. I want you to go and get the Glasgow business sorted. I can’t leave Rome and I need to be sure my family aren’t going to be any part of this. Can you do that?’
‘I can try.’
‘You must still have contacts, if it’s yobs or tearaways hired to throw a scare your friends should be able to sort it out without too much trouble.’ Ricci picked up his drink. ‘Cheers, you made the right decision.’
He took a long pull at his campari and soda; he wasn’t being careful any more. Jimmy watched him. Like hell I made the right decision. I didn’t make any bloody decision. He took a long drink of his Tuborg.
Neither of us did.
NINE
Jimmy arrived back to his apartment in the Prati, a quiet, expensive residential district to the north of the Vatican. He went to a drawer, got out a battered old notebook, and looked up the number of a pub in London. He knew he should have thrown the notebook away years ago, it was part of the past he had turned his back on. But somehow he always put it off. Now, when he needed it, there it was. Was that luck or divine intervention? He looked at his watch, in the UK it would still be lunchtime and the pub would be open. He dialled the number. A voice answered.
‘Can I still contact Bridie McDonald through this number?’
‘Bridie who?’
‘McDonald. Bridie McDonald from Glasgow. I want to talk to her. My name’s Jimmy Costello.’
‘You must have a wrong number, mate, there’s no one of that name here. What number did you dial?’
Jimmy gave his own Rome phone number.
‘No, mate, nothing like. You’re miles off.’
The phone was put down.
Two days later his apartment phone rang and when he answered it a London voice said, ‘10 o’clock Mass, Tuesday, St Peter the Apostle,’ and rang off.
Jimmy phoned Ricci.
‘I’m going to Glasgow.’
‘You made your contacts?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘But you’ve been in touch with people who can help?’
‘I told you, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Look, we need to talk …’
‘No, we don’t.’
He rang off.
He didn’t need Ricci pumping him for information he didn’t have. He’d made a contact. Whether it w
ould do him any good he had no idea but it was the best he could do. Tomorrow he would go to morning Mass and light some candles. If there was a priest available he might go to Confession. It was a big risk contacting Bridie so it was best to be prepared. There was nothing else he could think of so he went into his bedroom, pulled out an old black holdall from the wardrobe, and began to sort out his packing.
The budget flight left Ciampino in bright sunshine, it had been clear skies all the way until the flight reached the North Sea where thick clouds below the plane shone in the sunlight. The final descent to Edinburgh airport took the plane down through the cloud into a dark, wet afternoon and looking out of the rain-streaked windows the passengers’ thoughts turned to raincoats and umbrellas. They taxied to a standstill and everybody on the crowded plane got up and started opening and emptying the lockers above the seats. The doors at the front and rear opened and the slow, shuffling exit of passengers began. This was a budget flight so it didn’t include protection from the weather at either end of the journey. Going down the steps which had been wheeled to the doors, Jimmy turned up his coat collar against the wind and the squally rain. Once on the tarmac, he didn’t hurry as some passengers did. His legs felt stiff and the weather made him feel even more dispirited than he had been when he’d set off from Rome.
It was all very well for Ricci to say use your old contacts. What Ricci didn’t understand was that if he got in touch with any of the old contacts, the ones who had fixed his file and kept prying eyes away, he would be a dead man very quickly. His safety lay in staying well away from those contacts. But he needed to know who was doing what. As Ricci had said, it was one thing to fillet a file and get a petrol bomb thrown through a window, quite another thing to fix a visit to the States to lecture on art crime.
By the time he got out of the rain, his hair and coat were wet. He thought of the Rome sunshine he had left just two hours ago. He ran his fingers through his hair and began to climb the wide, carpeted staircase up to the Arrivals terminal.