by David Hewson
“As he sees it… I should have put it that way,” Falcone said, in the closest to an apology his pride would allow. “Who do you know in the Vatican?” He threw the question at her idly, as if it were unimportant. Costa cursed himself. He had told Falcone of his concerns about what had happened in the library that morning. He had no idea his vague doubts would translate into direct questions so quickly.
“What?”
“There were phone calls, between Rinaldi and someone in the Vatican. There were indications that Rinaldi believed he was under some kind of surveillance when he entered the Reading Room, either electronically or from some person in the room. In your line of work you must know many people. It’s important we have their names.”
“I’ve no special relationship with anyone in the Vatican.” Her face was pale and hard, a mask.
“Without some honesty…” Falcone shrugged. “I fear this will go on. I can’t see any reason why the killer should stop here. We need names. All of them.” He looked intently into her eyes. “We need to know everything about your life.”
“Go to hell,” she whispered sharply.
Falcone smiled. Costa recognized the moment. Falcone enjoyed breaking people. He believed this was the point of victory. “Ms. Farnese. I can insist on your cooperation. I can take steps if it is not forthcoming. I can call you into protective custody—”
“Sir,” Costa interrupted, gaining the full blast of Falcone’s furious gaze. “This is happening too quickly. If we give Ms. Farnese time. If I get one of the women detectives to help us back at the station.”
“If…” Falcone said sourly.
Costa took him to one side so she couldn’t hear. “Please. If you push her she’ll say nothing. Let me talk to her somewhere else. Somewhere she can think it through.”
Falcone’s hard features froze for a moment. Then he nodded at Costa.
“Maybe she needs one person she can trust. Maybe… There’s a lot of reporters out there now. Take her out on your own. Go have a coffee somewhere and think about this. Bring her in by the back door in an hour.”
“Okay.” Costa was puzzled. There was something else and Falcone was uncharacteristically reluctant to say it.
“Sir?”
“You’re right,” the inspector said, smiling. “I’ve an idea. Act a little, kid. Those reporters think they’ve got some scarlet woman in their sights here. Let’s play them along. When you go outside stay close to her. Make it look like… there’s perhaps something between you.”
“You’re asking me to…” Costa began to say, furious.
“I’m telling you to send out a message. I want this lunatic to see you and think he knows who’s chasing her tail now. We could spend months following him around like this. It would make it a lot easier if he comes to us. Comes to you, to be precise.”
“Sir…”
“Don’t worry, kid.” Falcone was beaming. “We’ll be waiting. You do have faith in your own police force now, don’t you?”
Costa walked off without answering. He beckoned her to follow to the door.
Outside, the media had arrived in force. A mob five yards deep thronged the gateway into the courtyard, held back by uniformed men trying to keep the line intact. The moment they saw her the questions came: screamed out of the heaving mass, unintelligible in the babble of frantic voices. Costa threw an arm around her and they braved the mob, moving through the cameras and the thrusting microphones, pushing forward.
She kept her eyes down. He held his arm tight around her shoulders and stared, unbending at the cameras, finding time to smile once or twice, time too to look at her, fondly, with an affection he didn’t find hard to feign.
He remembered her story. About the female pope being torn to pieces not far from here, and how it was all untrue, and maybe that wasn’t the point anyway. Costa stomped his way through the pack with all the finesse he once used in a bad-tempered rugby match, holding her safe, feeling her slender, fragile body and, after a while, an arm clinging to his waist.
Then they reached the car, he made space with a few deftly aimed jabs of his elbow, and they were free.
He looked at her, pale and frightened in the passenger seat, and thought of the faces he had made into that sea of cameras, the way he had acquiesced so easily, so willingly, to Falcone’s idea.
She turned to him, puzzled, hurt. “What’s happening, Nic? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll fix this. Somehow.”
She stared out of the window, out into the hot, airless day. Nic Costa watched and felt he was swimming in a sea of lies.
Nineteen
Gino Fosse lived in a three-story tower which belonged, he felt, in the pages of a Gothic fairy tale. The structure was built of honeycolored bricks and situated on the Caelian Hill midway along the imperial thoroughfare of the Clivus Scauri. Opposite stood the sprawling hulk of the basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, to which Fosse was now loosely attached as one of the parish priests, although almost all his professional time was spent at the hospital of San Giovanni, a ten-minute walk away. It was not the same as working in the Vatican but the Church knew best.
Fosse felt obliged to know some history of his surroundings. The tower which had been his home this past month was embedded in the Aurelian Wall, built in the third century A.D. and still, for the most part, an intact circle around the center of the city. A pleasant run, one he sometimes made in a tracksuit which disguised his calling, was to follow the wall’s line unimpeded straight to the great gate of San Sebastian and on to the Appian Way.
Initially the structure had been a small Roman sentry point along the brick expanse of the defenses. In the Middle Ages it had been enlarged to provide accommodation for the expanding ecclesiastical entourage of the large and powerful basilica across the square.
Giovanni e Paolo, though little known to the average tourist, was, for Fosse, one of the most interesting churches in Rome. The visible shell was unremarkable, save for the Romanesque campanile which cast an afternoon shadow across his second-floor window. Beneath the church lay centuries of rich history, however, and a story which had bemused him from the moment he first encountered it.
The tale of the martyrs John and Paul was, for centuries, thought to be apocryphal by those who dared say as much. It concerned two Christian officers at the court of Constantine who, after the accession of Julian the Apostate in 360 A.D., refused to sacrifice to pagan gods. The two were, as a consequence, beheaded, along with a woman who came to comfort them, in their own house on the Caelian Hill which later became the site of the basilica.
Myth begat myth, church begat church. Centuries of building and rebuilding ensued, resulting in the formidable pile which now dominated the view from Fosse’s tower. Yet, when the archaeologists—doubtless atheists to a man—came to explore the foundations of the present church they found, deep beneath it, the well-preserved remains of an ancient Roman house. And three Christian graves, with clear signs that they were the scene of much reverence from as early as the end of the fourth century A.D.
Sometimes Fosse would take privileged visitors into the subterranean houses and show them the paintings on the wall. It was always a humbling experience, an unspoken sermon on the mystery that underpinned all human life, and the relentless unreliability of what the clever people in universities like to call “facts.”
The former guard post had, since the fifteenth century, been given over to the more humble employees of the parish. The modest living quarters afforded Fosse a sitting room, a bedroom and a tiny bathroom, all built into the second floor of the circular tower, with the ground floor used for storage. At the top was the small, octagonal room which Fosse regarded as his private place.
The composer di Cambio, who wrote a choral work described by the “bad pope” Alexander VI as “the sound that angels now make in Heaven,” had lived and died in these quarters in the late fifteenth century. This obscure historical connection—which Fosse
found baffling on the occasion he listened to the boring drone of the work when it was performed, on the anniversary of di Cambio’s death, in Santi Giovanni e Paolo—meant the tower was on the list of ancient monuments for which permission to view could be gained by applying to the relevant office in the Vatican. Accordingly, every few weeks since his arrival he had been forced to allow some curious gaggle of sightseers, usually American, into his home, where they would bill and coo at the “cuteness” of the place. They would then stare out of the four slitted medieval windows that gave onto the Clivus Scauri and begin, surreptitiously, to peek at their watches.
None had the wit to ask what was in the tiny space at the summit. Nor would they have gained admittance in any case; Fosse had established that this tower room had no public right of view. This was part of the price of what he saw as his exile. The resulting privacy made it perfect for the purpose required when his new and urgent calling had become apparent.
It was now seven on a blazing Sunday morning. His collection of more than three hundred jazz CDs was scattered on the floor in the small, octagonal tower. It was difficult sometimes to know what to play.
Soon he would go to the hospital, to talk to the sick and the dying, to sit in on operations, gowned and gloved, and offer his support to the surgeons and nurses. Soon too he would be forced to think of other matters, of the names he had gathered, and how these lives might be taken.
While Gino Fosse sat, listening to John Coltrane racing through “Giant Steps,” he felt a sense of wonder. On the walls were the photographs, the constant, nagging reminder of his duty. Here too were the tools of his new trade: the ropes; the drugs he had carefully smuggled out of the hospital for when his own considerable strength was insufficient; the nine-millimeter M9 Beretta automatic pistol he had stolen on a visit to the army hospital next to San Giovanni—he enjoyed the idea it should have virtually the same name as the cardinal’s three-pointed hat; and the knives—large and small, slender and broad, all sharpened so delicately that he was able to believe there existed but a single atom at the edge of the blade, one that would slice through anything it encountered.
The hospital had need of him for the rest of the morning. But from lunchtime onward he was free, and there was much to do.
Twenty
Publicity mattered. Alicia Vaccarini learned that two months after she’d won the parliamentary deputy’s seat for the Northern Alliance in Bologna. It took that long for one of the local rags to uncover the truth about Alicia’s private life: that the former university professor was a lesbian with a string of lovers, some of whom were only too willing to talk in return for a little money. The Northern Alliance had a firm position about “aberrant behavior.” It did not approve. In a few brief, heady weeks Alicia Vaccarini had gone from being fêted victor in a marginal seat to an outcast inside her own party.
When the central committee organizer had marched into her office to say she would not be chosen for reelection at the end of her term three years hence, she’d complained, bitterly, “Why didn’t you ask?”
The cold, hard man had stared and said, simply, “Why didn’t you tell?”
She now had only a year left, a year before unemployment, obscurity, poverty perhaps, at the age of forty-eight. Yet Alicia Vaccarini was a clever woman, a lecturer in economics, a worker of the system. She knew how to get grants out of Brussels. She knew how to sit on committees and wait until the right moment to intervene.
She had worked hard to ensure her future, accepting seats on a variety of bodies, judicial, municipal and even one which had overseen some preliminary discussions about the merging of the carabinieri with the state police. There had been opportunities, compromises, particularly when she found her decisions had some sway with people of influence, interested parties seeking a certain resolution.
From time to time, there had been arrangements which, under a strict reading of the law, were illegal. But these, she reasoned, were the price of political practicality. Whatever the Northern Alliance felt about her now, she had been elected with a duty, to serve those who voted for her in Bologna, and to further her own career. These were not necessarily contradictory.
Vaccarini had been careful. None of the current corruption investigations came close to her nor was it likely they would. When she had intervened she had been careful to ensure that the reward was never obvious: a favor here, a simple, valuable gift or service, or a payment abroad. She had cultivated new and unexpected friends, people who would never have come close to her had she stayed inside the cold, rigid embrace of the Alliance.
And there was the irony: Some of them were from quarters she would never have done business with before. On the right. On the left. In the higher echelons of the police and the security services. Even in the Vatican.
The world was full of people needing a little help, and willing to offer something in return. It was merely pragmatic to accept these visible flaws in the façade of society and, when appropriate, to use them to one’s own ends.
Still, unemployment beckoned. She had hoped for a position in Brussels: perhaps even the job of minor commissioner. Nothing had happened and the PR people she employed on a tiny retainer thought they knew why. It was her profile that was wrong. Alicia remained, in the public eye, that lesbian from Bologna who had lied to get herself elected. True, she was bright, she knew how to navigate the system. She was, in many ways, a hardworking, dedicated Italian politician.
Nevertheless the stain of her sexuality, and the way she had hidden her true self for personal gain, continued to taint perceptions. Without some more favorable press, her hopes of a continued political career were unrealistic.
This was the reason, the only reason, why Alicia Vaccarini now sat at a table in a deserted Martelli’s, the restaurant in the narrow alley around the corner from the parliament building which, during the week, was the workers’ dining hall for deputies, journalists and political hangers-on.
“I didn’t even know this place opened on Sundays,” she said, lighting a cigarette.
The journalist said he was from Time magazine.
Now that she was here, Vaccarini realized she should have checked. There were some jokers out there. People with hidden tape recorders who tried to embarrass you into making stupid comments, then selling them to the TV and radio stations. This had been an oversight on her part but an understandable one. The pranksters had low horizons; they always claimed to come from minor, regional papers, not the bigger ones in Rome and Milan where their false identities would be immediately transparent.
To say one was from Time was different; it was too bold a claim, surely, to be anything other than genuine. And now that she was here Alicia Vaccarini could believe it too. The journalist was about thirty, well dressed in a casual, Sunday fashion, with a pale rose shirt and blue trousers. He had an anonymous face, handsome in a vapid if somewhat exaggerated way, with dark, intelligent eyes and a quick, slightly nervous smile.
Only one thing stood out: He seemed too big for his clothes. His muscles bulged against his shirtsleeves; he held himself in an awkward, stiff fashion. He looked like someone who endured workouts in spite of himself, endowing a body that was meant to be more slight with a physicality that didn’t quite fit. And there was a smell too. Like some kind of liniment or a chemical that belonged in a hospital.
“It doesn’t open normally,” he replied in a measured, educated voice. “You’re witnessing the power of the American media, Deputy.”
She laughed and looked around. There was only one other couple dining on the far side of the room. “I could almost believe that.”
“I thought you’d prefer privacy,” he said.
“Why?” she asked, her heart sinking. “I told you on the phone. If you’re looking for some kind of dyke confession piece, if you think I’m going to pour my pink heart out in public, you’ve got the wrong person. That part of my story has been done to death and I’m happy to leave it in the grave.”
He raised a glass of red
wine. “Me too.”
She joined him in the drink. It tasted good. Alicia Vaccarini realized she felt like some wine. There was nothing else to do that afternoon. It was too hot to think straight. The parliament was closed. The private work which had kept her in the city was finished.
She could afford to be lazy.
“What I want is to talk about you. The real you. What you believe. What you want to achieve. Where you see your life going after your term as deputy is over.”
“And this is going to make a story for Time?” she wondered.
He frowned and poured some more wine from the carafe. The waiter came and placed two plates of pasta on the table. “You’ve got me there, Alicia. I’m a fraud. But only up to a point. Every story needs a tag. They want to do some piece about how being gay is no longer a bar to public office in Europe. I need some examples that show the real story. I need to ask the question: What would have happened to you if you’d been heterosexual? If you’d been married, with children, and put in the same kind of work you’re doing now?”
“I see.”
He pulled out a small tape recorder and set it on the table. Then he leaned over and placed his hand on hers. It was, she thought, a very powerful hand.
“Alicia. People like us have to stick together.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re telling me you’re gay?”
“You’re telling me you didn’t know the moment you set eyes on me?”
“No. I mean yes.” She didn’t know what she meant at that moment.
He seemed a disconcerting person. When she thought about it she was able to think of him as gay. But it required effort and she couldn’t help wondering whether this was not some trick on his part; whether he was, in truth, some kind of chameleon who could change his shape, alter his appearance at will.
He pressed the button on the tape recorder. She watched the little wheels whirl.
“Tell me about yourself. Only the things you want to talk about. Tell me how you became who you are. What you believe in. About your religion.”