by David Hewson
Costa shook his head and said, ‘She won’t do that. Not now. Why would she? She isn’t making a complaint.’
‘I’m going to have to ask for one, aren’t I? If she’s innocent, where’s the problem?’
Peroni caught Costa’s eye and said, ‘The problem is she’d have to go into a room with a complete stranger and let herself be prodded and poked as if she were a rape victim. Allowing you to do that is as good as an admission that something untoward happened, isn’t it? Nic’s right. She won’t agree.’
‘It could clear her!’ Falcone pointed out. ‘And her father.’
Costa thought of the words she’d used outside the Palazzetto Santacroce.
‘Mina identifies with Beatrice Cenci. If you ask her to go through an examination she’ll equate that with some kind of torture, of duress. Understandably, perhaps. Beatrice never confessed to a thing, even when she was hung up from the ceiling until her shoulders were dislocated. If Mina sees herself as a modern-day Beatrice she’ll ignore every question you throw at her as a matter of principle.’
Falcone scowled.
‘Why? Her father appears to have been murdered. He had sex before he died. There were scratch marks on his back. If we could examine her nails. .’ Costa and Peroni were shaking their heads in unison. ‘There was blood on the radiator by the wall. A sign of violence, possibly. Perhaps the brother chanced on them and lost his temper. Perhaps it was planned in advance.’
He put his glass on the table and murmured a low curse. Then he glanced at Costa, as if seeking support.
‘If I pull in Mina Gabriel tomorrow, with or without her mother, and put her through an aggressive interrogation — no physical examination, just questioning — do you think she might break?’
‘No,’ Costa said immediately. ‘She’s very smart and very cool. When she wants to talk, she’ll talk. Not before. Nothing’s going to change that. Not unless you can break her story somehow. You’re also forgetting that she spent most of that Friday night in the room she used for music. Practising, wearing a set of headphones. She only saw her father briefly, later in the evening. That was how she knew he was there.’
Falcone looked interested and said, ‘So?’
‘So if you’re practising music, very intricate and difficult music, with headphones on. . surely anything could have happened outside the door of her room. Someone else could have walked in and gone to bed with Malise Gabriel, then left without Mina noticing.’
‘Please,’ Falcone told him. ‘You know nothing of affairs. No one would do such a thing if there was a family member in the next room. Headphones or no headphones. It’s ridiculous.’
‘They would if the girl knew the affair was going on,’ Peroni said slyly. ‘If it was their secret. Daddy’s friend’s coming round. Best not disturb us.’
‘Well, there’s one more reason to bring her in.’ Falcone glanced at his watch then drained his glass. ‘Unless the girl tells us something I see only two ways forward. Forensic can come up with something concrete from outside the house. Or we can find the brother. I’m sick of waiting on narcotics. We can at least try to locate Robert Gabriel ourselves. Agreed?’
Costa shrugged.
‘It’s not for me to agree or disagree. It’s your case.’
Falcone’s acute grey eyes flashed with displeasure.
‘Oh no. You’re involved already. You spent the whole day with Mina Gabriel. She trusts you. We can use that. It may be one of the few advantages we have.’
‘I’m on holiday, Leo.’
‘I know. But you can do what you’re doing now. Hanging around. Talking to her. If she trusts you that could help us.’
Peroni grabbed some more cold meat with a wordless grumble.
‘Is that wise?’ Costa asked. ‘Doesn’t the question of entrapment bother you?’
‘Not in the slightest. She needs a friend. It seems to me she has one.’
He half-expected this. Costa knew the direction the man’s mind took when opportunities were scarce.
Falcone tapped Peroni on the knee.
‘Also I like your idea. Let’s wait until we’ve something solid. Then, when we’re ready, we’ll bring in the girl and her mother. Who knows? Maybe the son too.’
Peroni blinked and said, ‘You liked my idea? You’re following my advice?’
‘I always listen. Give me credit for that. Besides.’ Falcone’s face fell serious for a moment. ‘If we go nowhere near them for a day or two perhaps they’ll think they’ve got away with it.’
‘Whatever it is,’ Costa added. ‘Anything else?’
Falcone smiled and held up his wine glass. He looked satisfied finally, if not exactly happy.
‘One more round of drinks, Nic. Then I’m going home. Best make it quick. The price goes up at seven.’
TWO
Costa bought them another glass and stuck to water. Then, when they left, he picked up the Vespa from outside the Palazzetto Santacroce and rode round to the narrow lane of Governo Vecchio. It ran from the old talking statue of Pasquino near the Piazza Navona towards the river, a cramped, cobbled route that was once one of the pilgrim streets to the Vatican. Falcone had owned an apartment here, close to the famous wine bar Cul de Sac, before moving to a quieter place in Monti. Near Navona it was busy with tourists and Romans alike. As it progressed towards the Ponte Sant’Angelo, where Beatrice Cenci had been executed, it became quieter and more local, one more shady, constricted alley among many. Governo Vecchio was a convenient place to live, and pricey too. Agata’s new private college seemed very generous.
Her address turned out to be a single bright red door on the corner that led to one of his favourite churches in Rome, the baroque little temple of Santa Maria della Pace, a classical jewel in the midst of the area’s sprawl of palaces and apartment buildings. There was a florist’s opposite. Costa caught the woman as she was locking up and managed to buy her last few flowers: a rather limp-looking selection of tulips. He stood on Agata’s doorstep, bouquet in one hand, crash helmet in the other, ruffling his hair to try to look a little more presentable after the long, eventful day.
It took a good minute for her to answer and when she did he’d no idea what to say. So he just stood there, extending the flowers, smiling awkwardly. Agata was wearing a short and sleeveless black cocktail dress. Her hair was newly fashioned in a way that, to his eyes, looked a little too serious and old. She was struggling to fasten a rather heavy pearl necklace round her dusky throat and there was a look in her intelligent eyes that he couldn’t quite interpret except, perhaps, as embarrassment. The apartment, from what he could see through the half-open door, looked beautiful: modern furniture, large art prints on the wall, an airy individual residence hidden behind the thick walls of a building that probably went back to the seventeenth century or earlier. She didn’t make a move to let him in.
Costa thrust the flowers out a little more, and realized as he did so how sorry some of them looked.
‘I asked you to call first,’ she said.
‘Busy day.’
‘Busy? Doing what? You’re on holiday, aren’t you?’
There was something in the way she spoke, a tone that was almost accusing. He didn’t understand.
‘All sorts.’
Her attention had gone beyond the flowers to the tatty Vespa on its stand on the cobblestones.
‘That’s your scooter, is it? The one Leo told me about?’
‘That’s her,’ he said proudly. ‘Look. You’re living just up the street from one of the best pizza places in Rome. Da Baffetto. We don’t need the scooter. You have to queue usually but. .’ He pulled out his police ID card. ‘Sometimes I have ways.’
She sighed then turned round. He got the message, tucked the bad bouquet under his arm, then gripped the clasp of the pearl necklace and closed it against the warm dark skin of her neck. It was the first time he’d performed this simple act since his wife had died and the closeness of it, the pointless intimacy, made him feel wistful and a
little sad.
A tall, muscular man, bald, intellectual-looking, with fashionably heavy black plastic glasses and a haughty pale face, came into view from behind her.
‘Agata won’t be eating pizza tonight,’ he announced in a clipped Milanese accent.
Costa looked at him, trying to understand. The newcomer was about forty-five, handsome in an arrogant, patrician way. He wore a silvery grey suit, silk perhaps, very expensive, and eyed the little Vespa as if it were poisonous. Still looking at the scooter he pulled out a set of car keys and pushed a button. There was a grey Alfa Romeo saloon parked thoughtlessly along the road. It made a loud beep then the lights flashed and the doors clicked.
‘I’ll drive us to Testaccio,’ he announced, then placed a proprietorial arm around Agata’s shoulder. ‘The table is booked for eight thirty at Checchino’s. We shouldn’t be late.’
‘Checchino’s?’ Costa knew the place, a little. One of Rome’s most pricey restaurants, not that its speciality — offal — was something he’d touch. ‘Nice if you like that kind of thing.’
‘She will,’ the man interjected with a sardonic smile before almost pushing her out of the apartment.
‘Bruno’s my new boss,’ Agata said as she turned and locked the door, embarrassed in a way that made Costa feel deeply guilty. ‘We’ve got to talk about work. I’m sorry. If you’d called. . If I’d guessed you were at a loose end. I never knew. From seeing you today. .’
‘No problem,’ he cut in with a smile, then wondered what she was about to say. ‘You saw me?’
She didn’t answer and the man had got her out of the apartment so quickly there was no chance to ask again.
As Bruno bustled her off she turned and made the gesture of a phone, surreptitiously as if she didn’t want him to notice. Costa clung to the bunch of flowers and nodded, still smiling.
‘Of course,’ he said to himself as she climbed into the shiny Alfa. Its powerful engine roared with rather more noise and vigour than was necessary. Then Bruno drove briskly away along the narrow, congested street.
An elderly woman in a cotton dress, an ancient checked apron and saggy stockings was sweeping up outside the tiny pasta shop next to the florist’s. Costa walked over and said, ‘Signora?’
She looked at him in a knowing way that suggested she’d followed every moment of this little encounter.
‘Some flowers,’ Costa said, offering her the bouquet.
Her lined face brightened.
‘You’re a kind young man. A lady appreciates that. Grazie.’
‘Prego.’
‘One word of advice,’ she added, waving a finger.
His heart fell. Romans, even complete strangers, had a way of telling you frankly what they thought, however unwelcome the message.
‘Yes?’
‘Kindness is all well and good. But remember that saying? All’s fair in love and war?’
‘I never really understood it,’ Costa admitted.
She patted his arm as she took the bouquet and said, ‘It shows.’
He shrugged then went and sat on the Vespa, watching the people come and go down the Via Governo Vecchio. Young and old. Couples and families. Queuing patiently for Baffetto’s cheap and excellent pizzas as they did every night, even in the rain. Ordinary men and women, the kind he liked, the kind he wanted to work for, to protect, wandering around on a lazy late-August evening, seemingly without a care in the world. Very few of them, he noticed, were alone.
It was stupid to turn up like that. Selfish to think she would be waiting there, for him alone. Agata Graziano was a beautiful, intelligent young woman discovering a new life in a city where she’d grown up behind the enclosing walls of a convent. An attachment to a solitary cop fumbling through the years, one so lacking in direction that he thought rebuilding an ancient Vespa was a worthwhile venture for a man turned thirty — this was surely the last thing she needed.
Costa looked at his watch. He’d be home in twenty-five minutes, back behind the walls of the farmhouse where he grew up. Somewhere that wasn’t a part of the city, didn’t belong to its ungainly mass of awkward humanity. The place was a kind of escape. A sanctuary. Somewhere to hide. He didn’t mind that at times.
‘Home,’ he said to himself, and, without thinking, popped the scooter kick-start four times in a row then, to compound matters, absent-mindedly jerked on the throttle.
The two-stroke engine coughed once, sputtered, choked and died.
Flooded. That meant waiting an hour or so. Or taking out the spark plug and fiddling with the carburettor, which involved tools he hadn’t brought along.
The old woman was still watching him, holding the bouquet, shaking her head.
At that moment his phone buzzed; he felt grateful and stared at the screen. He’d given his number to Mina Gabriel in case she needed it. Now she’d sent a message. It read, ‘Do you believe what that horrid man said? Do you think I’m guilty of something?’
He sighed, gave up entirely on the Vespa and phoned her back. From the sound of her voice she’d been crying.
‘Mina? It’s Nic. Are you all right?’
She mumbled a simple, tetchy ‘Yes.’ Then nothing.
‘Listen to me. Don’t read too much into what happened this afternoon. Leo’s a good man. He’s my friend. He wants to help. We all do.’
‘Help?’
He tried to imagine her, alone in the tower Peroni had told him about.
‘Help,’ he repeated. ‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Tell me, Mina!’
‘Can’t.’ He thought he heard a noise, then understood what it was. She was closing a door, perhaps to her bedroom. Trying to make sure she wasn’t heard. Then she whispered, ‘Don’t believe what anyone says about me, Nic. It’s not true.’
‘No one’s saying anything. .’
‘I am not some monster!’
‘I know that.’
‘No, you don’t.’
The petulant tone of a child again. There was another sound. A louder female voice. Her mother, he thought immediately. Shouting. Angry. Words he couldn’t quite understand, though he knew what they meant. Then a shriek of pain accompanied by what sounded like a physical blow, and the line went dead.
Families. He thought of Peroni and his love of everything to do with that word. Of Falcone and how the very mention of such a secret, insular closeness could place a dark cloud in the eyes of one of the most decent men he knew. These tight, sometimes cloying ties encompassed the best of humanity and, on occasion, masked the worst of it.
‘I am not some monster,’ Costa repeated to himself and wondered: who is? Who would ever admit to that fact? The most vicious and brutal criminals he’d met never saw themselves in that light either, not quite. They felt justified in their actions, possessed of some moral compass, and if the rest of the world failed to understand, then so what? Lives were made, not inherited or handed down. Usually.
The phone buzzed again.
‘Mina?’ he asked anxiously.
It was a message from a number he didn’t recognize. He stared at the words on the screen: ‘Meet me in the Campo. The Lone Star. Be alone. Robert Gabriel.’
THREE
Costa knew this place well, from work, not pleasure. It was one of the busiest bars in the Campo dei Fiori area: a grubby dive serving cheap alcohol to a predominantly international and young crowd. The Lone Star was where the students and backpackers from America and England congregated of a night. To drink, to flirt. To feel free of the restraints of home. He’d lost count of the fights he’d dealt with, the number of drug busts he’d seen recorded among its customers. All just a few short steps away from the plain, upright building that had once been home to the mistress of Alexander VI, the Borgia Pope, her presence still marked by a small crest on the wall of the house where Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia came into the world.
He wondered if any of the kids around him knew how much history lay just outside the door, and what the offspri
ng of Rodrigo Borgia, no strangers to debauchery themselves, would have made of the Campo dei Fiori five centuries on. The bar was packed. A hundred youngsters or more. The music was deafening, the voices predominantly English: drunk, elated, expectant. He scanned the faces, looking for one that might jog a memory. Costa was aware that he hadn’t got a good look at Mina’s brother that night in the Via Beatrice Cenci. All he remembered was a tall figure, a head of bushy hair and that curious remark before the gunshot: She’s safe now. Words that had set him wondering in the first place.
After fifteen futile minutes he asked the barman if he knew an English kid called Robert Gabriel. No luck. After half an hour he was ready to go home. Then the phone beeped again. Not a call, just another text message: ‘I wanted to see you were alone. Meet me in the apartment. Via Beatrice Cenci. Fifteen minutes.’
He was here. He had to be. Costa found himself gazing across the sea of bodies again. He stopped at a tall figure in the far corner, near the side door that led to the little lane connecting the Campo with the Piazza Farnese. The kid was watching him, interested, maybe a little afraid. Robert Gabriel looked different somehow. Just as tall, and the hair was long, though a little lank, unwashed. His complexion was darker than Mina’s, his expression bleak and unintelligent. He was wearing a bleached denim jacket over a black T-shirt.
Costa shrugged at him as if to say: we could just talk here.
We could even talk on the phone, he thought.
But then he was gone, out through the side door into the street.
Costa got out as quickly as he could but it was no use. The ancient square, with its hooded statue of the executed monk Giordano Bruno at its centre, had taken on its night-time identity: loose and noisy. Watching the crowds of young men and women meandering between the bars he found himself wondering why Mina Gabriel had never thought to join her brother in this perennial ritual. It seemed easy, natural for the foreigners who came to Rome to study, to spend an enjoyable year pretending to be Roman before real life, with its cares and demands, came to claim them.