by David Hewson
He wondered about Robert Gabriel, the brother they sought, the one they assumed had murdered the woman not far from where they now worked. Was he like that too, a kid who’d slipped through the cracks? And if he was, how might he have turned out a decade before? If there’d been work and hope to keep him engaged, too busy and too involved to waste his life in the dive bars of the Campo and Trastevere, where the drink and the dope led nowhere?
‘I’m getting old,’ Di Capua murmured. Worse than that, he thought, he was starting to think old.
‘No, you’re not,’ Maria said with touching, sweet enthusiasm.
He felt the briefest twinge of interest and fought to stifle it. Then he swilled the developing tank once more. The timer sounded and he embarked upon the once-familiar round of processes that would first reveal then fix the silver halide on the negative stock inside the plastic barrel. He didn’t think about Maria, didn’t think about anything else. Her inexcusable clumsiness out in the studio, beneath the floodlights, had wiped at least a couple of frames from the film. That was certain and, as they waited, he told her so again.
She stared at him in the eerie red light of the darkroom lamp.
‘You mean there’s no way of going back?’
‘What? Like some kind of undelete?’
His words shocked him, mostly because he sounded so like Teresa Lupo. Yet, to this young woman, the question was utterly logical. In the digital world there was always a way back, even if it was one that only lasted for a few steps. The notion of permanent loss, of something precious becoming irretrievable, was a ridiculous anachronism. Like polio and fax machines and last year’s fashions.
‘If it’s gone, it’s gone,’ he said, and then the second buzzer went off and he was able to unscrew the tank and take out the film.
Silvio Di Capua pinned the strip to the line, let it dangle over the sink to drain and asked Maria to turn on the light, the real one. She hesitated, double-checked she understood, scared there’d be another accident. Di Capua reassured her and then, when the fluorescent tube came on, looked up and down the strip, reaching for the hairdryer next to the nearby socket, getting ready to play a careful stream of hot air onto the surface to hurry up the process of making this fragile, damp film stock turn into something solid.
The portion that had been exposed to the light was gone forever, two, perhaps three frames turned into nothing but black mush by Maria’s ignorance. But there was a half-frame of something left as the exposed film rolled into the hidden part of the camera back. And five more frames beyond that, each perfect, each depicting close up in negative the kind of physical act he associated with places like this.
Porn palace had turned out to be the right phrase, he thought, scanning the negatives, trying to imagine what they’d look like when he ran them through the enlarger at the end of the table and turned them into prints.
There was something else he’d forgotten too. How it was always impossible to recognize faces in negative, even people you knew very well, members of your own family. This inverse image was like a code, locking up the truth, scrambling it until you switched black to white and vice versa and finally got back to the image that the camera lens had seen some time before.
The individuals there were unidentifiable. The subject matter was easy to see.
‘Maria,’ he asked. ‘Are you . . . er, religious? I mean when it comes to sex?’
There was an alarming sparkle in her keen brown eyes.
‘No. Not at all. Not one little bit.’
He still wasn’t sure. And this part of the process would be quick too. In a matter of minutes he’d have a result. He’d know who was in these photographs, would put faces to the entwined bodies that were anonymous in negative. Falcone had refused to return to the Questura. He was outside, poking around the building, annoying Teresa’s army of forensic officers in bunny suits. In half an hour or less the inquisitive inspector could have a set of prints in his hands.
Di Capua scratched his bald head and didn’t look at her when he said, ‘It’s just that . . .’
‘Silvio,’ she interrupted, standing so close he felt her bunny suit rustle against his. ‘I just watched a dead woman, a murdered woman, get cut down from the ceiling. I know why I want to do this job. Honestly.’
She touched his arm. He wasn’t sure what he felt at that moment.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, in that case, turn out the lights again. Let’s find out what we’ve got.’
FOUR
There was a crowd outside the Questura. Women mainly, five, six deep. They were shouting and waving banners from one of the left-wing groups that campaigned against sexual violence. The day promised to be the hottest, most humid yet. The black shapes of a few wannabe storm clouds were beginning to dot a brilliant sky that seemed to weigh down on the city as if ready to fall. Rome could turn bad-tempered on mornings like this, though these people were there already.
Costa looked at the sea of faces blocking the Questura entrance and the gates to the car pound, turned to Prinzivalli, the old uniform sergeant who was monitoring the demonstration, and asked, ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘You haven’t turned on the TV recently, have you?’
‘We’ve all been a touch busy,’ Peroni said.
Prinzivalli glanced at his watch then led them back into the entrance hall and gestured at the TV in the side office with the words, ‘Just in time for the midday news.’
They listened in silence. The lead story concerned the deaths of Malise Gabriel and Joanne Van Doren. But the picture on the screen was a snatched shot of Mina, head down, tears in her eyes, striding into the Santacroce palazzetto, turning briefly to face the photographer’s lens. Costa felt his blood run cold. She looked so innocent, so damaged. Everything he’d come to feel about this young woman was captured in that single image: the mix of strength and vulnerability and, most of all, the impression that somewhere beneath her simple, beautiful features there lay a secret waiting to be uncovered. It was the kind of shot the media would seize upon, the kind of story too, one that mixed death and sex and mystery. And something unique.
He watched as the newsreader handed over to a reporter standing outside the Gabriels’ former home in the ghetto and listened to a phrase he knew would come to signify the investigation from this point on.
‘They are calling her,’ the female journalist said briskly, ‘the English Beatrice Cenci. How much did she know of her father’s suspicious death? What was her relationship with him? Did someone consciously copy the murderous plot of Beatrice, the young Roman girl who lived across the road from here, five hundred years ago? And if so, is her family also involved, as was Beatrice’s? These are the questions we understand the police are beginning to ask. For the people of Rome? Another reason, I think.’ A theatrical pause for the camera. ‘Four hundred years ago we executed a young woman for taking vengeance against the man who abused her. What would we do today? This is . . .’
‘Turn it off,’ Costa ordered.
The uniformed agente in front of the set looked at him, puzzled.
‘Turn it off!’
‘Nic,’ Prinzivalli said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘We have to watch the news. It’s the rule. Besides . . .’ The grey-haired uniformed officer, a calm and sensible man, a rock inside the Questura at times, looked at him. ‘This is out there now. You have to deal with it. We all do.’
‘Where the hell did they get all that nonsense from?’ Peroni demanded. ‘I mean . . .’
His words trailed off. The Questura was always leaky when there was a controversial case around. Cops, forensic people, civilians working the offices and the phones . . . If the death of the Englishman did come to look like homicide it was always going to be difficult to keep the investigation quiet. The murder of Joanne Van Doren had perhaps simply accelerated a process that was inevitable.
The officer at the TV switched channels and got another long and detailed report, one that had taken up the selfsame line.
‘The English Beatrice!’ Peroni was outraged.
Yet it seemed logical to Costa, not that he liked to admit it. The media was an imitative beast, one that fed on itself. Mina Gabriel lived opposite the Cenci palace, a short walk from the private church at which the family had worshipped. She was a little younger but possessed the same air of youthful innocence. Somehow the media had picked up the gist of her response to the police too. They knew that she was refusing to discuss any sexual relationship with her father on the grounds, the reporter said, that this was an insult both to her and to him. Then there were the circumstances of Malise Gabriel’s death, which were remarkably similar to those of the dreadful Francesco Cenci.
‘Who the hell put this story out there?’ Peroni wondered. ‘Is this the mother getting her defence in first?’
‘What makes you say that?’ Costa replied. ‘It could be anyone. Someone here. Forensic. Those building inspectors, even. They must know something’s going on. We’ve been pressing them hard enough.’
‘You haven’t met her yet,’ Peroni muttered. He glanced at Costa. ‘There’s something . . . calculating about her. Scared the life out of me. As hard as nails.’
Costa thought of the shouting when Mina called the previous night, and what sounded like a slap.
‘But why, Gianni? What possible advantage can she get from having an appalling accusation like that out in public?’
There was a moment of silence.
‘We’re on the defensive now, aren’t we?’ the old cop grumbled. ‘Let’s go ask her.’
‘You’ll need to walk,’ Prinzivalli said. ‘Since that story broke those nice people out front have been blocking the vehicle exit. I’m trying to reason with them. It would be best to avoid any arrests. If I can . . .’
‘We don’t need a car,’ Costa said, as he walked across the corridor and took a spare police motorbike helmet from the cloakroom, then retrieved his own from the storage area. ‘Here.’
He threw the spare helmet at Peroni, who stared at the thing in horror.
Prinzivalli followed them outside, chatting with some of the women protesters in a friendly, almost supportive fashion. Costa listened for a while, then, when they were distracted, wandered over to the corner of the square where the Vespa was parked.
He climbed on, took great care to start it properly this time, then sat there with the little two-stroke engine rumbling happily as Peroni gripped his blue police crash helmet, standing to one side, staring at the machine, thinking.
‘The tyres are barely legal,’ he complained. ‘Does the horn work?’
Costa pressed it.
‘Sounds like an asthmatic duck. I could drown you in tickets right now.’
‘Only if you were a traffic cop. Which you’re not. Now get on, agente. And don’t squirm about back there. It may upset my balance.’
The scooter felt quite different with Peroni on the back. Costa navigated the piazza very carefully then headed for the ghetto. He couldn’t help notice Prinzivalli watching them leave, and that the man in uniform seemed to be shaking with laughter.
FIVE
Teresa Lupo walked out of the house in the Via Beatrice Cenci, glad of an excuse to get away from Falcone’s beady eyes, pushed her way through the barriers and the hordes of newspaper and TV reporters, then headed round to the little cafe in Portico d’Ottavia that Peroni had told her about. The search of the building was in good hands. Silvio Di Capua had his photographs. Slowly, steadily she was beginning to assemble some basic shreds of evidence. And one hour earlier she’d had the report from an outside specialist she’d brought in to take a look at the corpse of Malise Gabriel. It confirmed what she’d begun to suspect the day before. So she’d called Adriano Negri, the oncologist who’d brushed off Di Capua’s inquiries, and made it clear she wanted to see him, immediately.
He was waiting in the cafe already. Teresa kissed him on both cheeks then got a couple of slices of Jewish pizza for them both.
‘Is this healthy?’ asked Negri, a handsome man in his late thirties, tall with a distinguished academic face and long, dark hair.
‘How many sick Jews have you seen lately?’
‘Quite a few.’
‘Not through eating this stuff.’ She smiled at him from across the table. ‘You look well.’
‘Thanks. You too. I hear you’re . . . settled.’
‘Settled?’
‘With a cop. An old cop.’
She took a bite of the pastry and wondered why they’d never discovered this stuff before.
‘The man I love,’ Teresa said. ‘That’s how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?’
‘You could have been choosy.’ He hesitated. She could still picture him twenty years before, at La Sapienza, the university where they first met. He had long hair then, money and a wonderful if unconvincing smile. ‘Maybe even me.’
‘You know, it was the constant presence of that “maybe” that was the problem, I think. Also, I am choosy.’
He shrugged, in that exaggerated way, with the downturned mouth, that had always annoyed her.
‘But a cop. An old cop . . .’
‘Malise Gabriel,’ she interrupted.
‘Can’t talk patients.’
‘He’s a dead patient. Probably a dead murdered patient.’
‘That doesn’t . . .’
‘Actually, it does make a difference. Legally, ethically, morally. If you withhold valuable information from us it would be inexcusable. Possibly rather difficult too, were I to make it so.’
‘Don’t threaten . . .’
‘Malise Gabriel was suffering from pancreatic cancer. I know he saw you several times. I need to understand his condition. If there’s anything else you can tell me . . .’
The consultant drained his coffee and tried a little of the pastry. He was a decent-enough man. Arrogant, self-obsessed, destined to be single probably. But a talented doctor, one who wanted to help people.
‘Am I to be quoted?’ he asked.
‘This is just a private conversation between the two of us, Adriano. If it came to a court case I can bring in an expert witness instead. Save me some time now, please. I will be grateful.’
He didn’t look happy. But she watched the way he squirmed and knew she’d won.
‘It was diagnosed when he was living in America,’ Negri said. ‘The insurance wouldn’t cover him over there. I suspect that’s one reason he came to Rome. He thought because he had a UK passport—’
‘That he was covered? He was, surely?’
Negri shrugged and said, ‘If only it were that simple. There are rules about residency. Malise hadn’t lived in Europe for two decades or more. He was effectively stateless, at least as far as medical insurance was concerned. I did what I could for a while. He found money from somewhere. At first, I assumed paying for treatment wasn’t a problem. He had a manner about him. Aristocratic. A little overbearing. One didn’t wish to ask. But . . .’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘Treating a disease like that is extraordinarily expensive if you have to pay yourself. A few weeks ago he told me he had no more money left. Or rather no way of finding more. It didn’t come from him. He always paid cash, very large sums sometimes. I didn’t pry.’
This puzzled her.
‘Do many private patients pay cash?’
He was squirming again.
‘No. Generally speaking only the ones from Naples or Sicily, if you know what I mean.’
Crooks, she thought, not that he wanted to say it.
‘I tried to find funds for him,’ Negri went on. ‘I suggested he approach his academic colleagues for support, but that was beneath him. I’m sorry.’
‘Are you telling me a dying man was refused treatment because he had no money?’
‘You sound surprised. Why? Oh yes. Now I remember. You haven’t worked in medicine for years, have you? That’s the regime we have now. Every last thing costed, justified, analysed. Ten years ago I would have treated Malise Gabriel to the best of my ability withou
t a second thought, knowing that someone, somewhere would have picked up the bill. Not today. We live in mean times. Mean in spirit. Mean in other ways too. I’m sorry. I couldn’t treat him any longer. Even if I waived my charges, someone would have to pay for the rest of the treatment and there was no one. So I had to tell him it was at an end. Not that I could have made much difference to his condition anyway.’
‘How long did he have?’ she asked.
‘I would guess six months. A year at most. Possibly less. Untreated, it’s difficult to tell.’ He laughed, without mirth or feeling. ‘You know the ridiculous thing? I’d arranged for him to enter a hospice for palliative care close to the end. Getting money to keep him alive was impossible. Finding some altruistic sisters of mercy who would ease his suffering – I had a dozen to choose from.’
He looked so mournful she felt guilty.
‘You know who he was?’ she asked.
‘You mean the books? Of course.’
‘He’d have gone into a church hospice?’
‘You’d be amazed how many rediscover God at the end,’ Adriano Negri said. ‘The pain, the fear.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Not that I saw much of that in Malise. He was a remarkably easy patient, if I’m honest. A strong man. Opinionated. Angry, not about himself, I think, but about others. A terminal disease can manifest itself this way sometimes. The sick take it out on the healthy, as if they’re to blame somehow. I can’t imagine Malise would have been easy to deal with at home.’
‘You’ve seen the news?’
‘I’d rather not think about it.’
‘Did you meet his wife?’
‘No. The girl came with him once or twice. Sat in the waiting room. Pretty kid.’
His eyes didn’t leave her.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘They seemed very close. Not like father and daughter.’