by David Hewson
And you know the good news, Steely? For the next few months, neither do you.
We are the Babylon Sisters. Shake it.
“I AM CALM,” Peroni protested, storming towards Falcone and the American, his face a dangerous shade of red.
The big man stopped and Costa felt the full force of his frank and intelligent stare.
“Nic,” Peroni raged, “Falcone has half the Questura here. He doesn’t need me. That runaway kid does. I know what I’m doing. Trust me. Leo will love this one.”
“Oh great,” Costa replied ruefully. He knew it was no damn good arguing anyway. In this mood Peroni was unstoppable.
They marched over to the big black car where Falcone and Leapman stood smoking, watching the SOCOs and Teresa Lupo’s team at work, not exchanging a word.
“Sir,” Peroni said briskly.
The inspector cast him a puzzled glance. “Officer?” Leapman looked him up and down.
“I came to hear the theory,” Peroni demanded.
“The theory?” Falcone repeated.
“Yeah. There’s some lunatic out there with a scalpel. This dead woman’s been cut with one, too. Seems obvious to me what’s going on, but I gather our friend here’s got a theory. I was wondering what it was.”
Falcone nodded at the American. “Agent Leapman seems to think it’s coincidence. And we’re not absolutely sure about the scalpel, Peroni. Let’s not jump to conclusions.”
Peroni pulled a face at Falcone. The two men exchanged a brief knowing look that made Costa think something interesting was in the cards. Then Peroni gave his partner that “Can you believe this?” expression and glowered at the FBI agent. “Coincidence? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Leapman blinked slowly, as if to show he was dealing with very stupid people. “No, it’s not coincidence. It’s just sloppy police work. You guys have been so goddamn lax with your news management, half of Rome knows what this guy does to get his kicks. It’s in all the papers. Everyone in Rome is sitting around the breakfast table out there reading every last detail and guess what? Someone’s starting to think maybe he’d like to get in on the act too. This is just copycat stuff, that’s all. Maybe some guy was going to kill the woman anyway and thought he’d mess around with a scalpel just so’s we’d think it was our man all along. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure.”
Costa couldn’t believe his ears. “Copycat? What the hell does that mean?”
“Read the stuff I send you,” Leapman barked. “Think about it. This guy’s a perfectionist. He kills these people in a specific way. He lays them out in a specific place, cuts pieces into their backs like he’s a surgeon or something. He doesn’t slash them around, then chop ‘em into pieces and stuff them into suitcases. This is just run-of-the-mill stuff. It’s out of his class. Beneath him. Besides…”
Leapman stopped himself, as if he were about to go too far.
“Besides what, Agent Leapman?” the inspector asked.
“Besides… nothing. This is not our man. I’ve been working on this longer than you. I’ve got a feel for this guy.”
Falcone was quiet for a moment, thinking, watching the path team work at the car. “I didn’t think that was the way you people worked. Feelings.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Leapman grumbled. “Come up with the smart stuff. Get it off your chest.”
“Perhaps something went wrong,” Costa suggested. “Maybe he’s losing his self-control. Maybe this wasn’t someone he intended to kill.”
Leapman screwed up his face in disbelief. “Don’t you people understand a criminal profile when you see it? Don’t you have a word for ”modus operandi‘ in Italian?“
Falcone’s eyebrows rose in amusement.
“I’ll check,” he said dryly. “Where’s the girl, Peroni? I thought she was in your care.”
The big man grimaced. “I don’t know. I thought I’d got her trust. I didn’t realize we needed to keep her under lock and key. I’ll happily go looking if you want.”
“What’s the point?” Leapman snarled. “Immigrant brat like that. She can run rings round you guys. Not that it seems hard. I mean… letting a material witness go—”
The expression on Peroni’s face cut him short. Nic Costa had to hand it to his partner sometimes. The big cop surely knew how to scare the daylights out of people.
Peroni prodded Leapman in the chest and muttered, “I wasn’t aware I was talking to you. Sir.”
Leapman bridled and eyed Falcone. “You got a discipline problem here too, Leo?”
Peroni breathed deeply, gave the American a stony stare, then turned and walked inside the empty McDonald’s. The three of them watched as he marched to the deserted counter, jabbed a finger at something on the rack, then returned with a burger, which he unwrapped steadily on the way, tossing the paper into the street with the casual nonchalance that drove Nic Costa crazy.
Peroni rejoined them, with the burger now steaming in his hand.
Costa knew what was coming next.
“Whoa!” the FBI man yelled as loud as he could manage, so loud even Teresa Lupo turned to listen from the wrecked Renault. “Do you people own some weird work practices or what? I mean, you’ve got a dead woman here carved up in suitcases. You got uniforms wandering round throwing up like punks at a prom. And the best this guy can do is go feed his ugly face. I mean what the fu—”
Peroni stepped forward, seized Leapman by the collar of his winter coat, then crammed the burger full into the American’s gaping mouth, pushing damn hard so that the bun, the mayo, the vegetables and the grey, greasy meat splattered all over his face, down to his bright white cotton shirt and expensive black wool coat.
Leapman reeled back, spluttering, hands waving, food falling down his front, eyes fixed on Peroni, scared of what the big man would do next.
“Ah, ah,” Peroni warned, waggling a finger in his face. “The next burger goes up your ass and that won’t be pretty.”
“Morons!” Leapman yelled, beside himself with fury. “Utter fucking morons! They’ll hear about this, Falcone. I’m warning you!”
“About what?” Falcone wondered placidly.
“About him!” Leapman screamed, stabbing a finger at Peroni.
Falcone folded his arms over his camel-hair coat. “Oh, him.”
He exchanged a single, sly glance with Peroni.
“Officer,” Falcone said in a flat monotone, “that was quite unacceptable behaviour. Do you have an explanation for it?”
Peroni pulled Teresa’s report out of his pocket. “Yeah. This.”
Leapman stared at the sheet of paper, puzzled, suddenly a little worried. “What the hell’s that? I don’t read Italian too well.”
“Forensic report,” Costa answered. “When we looked at the cord he used to kill the woman in the Pantheon we found it wasn’t a cord at all. It was a piece of material, cut into those shapes he likes, then rolled up tight like rope.”
Leapman blinked. He couldn’t decide whether to be defensive or furious.
“You were supposed to hand over everything you had to us,” he snapped. “I gave you that goddamn order.”
Falcone sniffed and stared at Leapman. “Your men left the item behind when they came to collect the body. What were we supposed to do? Chase after them? You can send someone round for it whenever you like.”
“Dammit, Falcone…” Leapman muttered, then went abruptly quiet, probably realizing the three Italians surrounded him now.
Peroni began to read the report. “The fabric in question is all one-inch by three-quarter-inch textile webbing. Desert brown and green 483, mildew resistant, type X, class 2B, made in accordance with MIL-W-5665K, whatever the hell that is. Maybe the shape it’s got. The shape all American military webbing’s got. You know that shape, Agent Leapman?”
“It’s just how it is,” the American replied.
“Is that the best you can do?” Peroni demanded. “This is the shape of US military webbing. He’s killing them with it. He’s cutting it
into their backs when they’re dead. And this is US Army issue. No one else uses it. It never gets near to being sold to the public in any way.”
“Hey!” Leapman yelled. “What the fuck do you guys know about the US military? Stuff leaks out of the army like candy from a store. Everything’s for sale if you want it.”
“I’ll take your word on that,” Falcone intervened, before Peroni could reply. “The problem we have, Joel, is this. The forensic evidence is quite clear. It’s not just that the only people who use this material are your military. It’s a new fabric too. It was produced for desert warfare. It only went into production a year ago. From what we can gather, the only place it’s been deployed in the field is covert operations in Iraq.”
Leapman glowered at him. “You knew about this all along, Falcone. This is just some stupid setup.”
Costa pulled out Teresa’s evidence bag, with the latest cord noose inside it. “This came from the car here. We never knew about the cord until a few hours ago. It certainly never found its way into the press. So you see, Agent Leapman, this isn’t a copycat at work. This is the same man. It has to be. So we were wondering, is this what you found with the others, too? And, if it is, why didn’t you tell us? Because surely this man’s been near some US military facility. Recently, too.”
The FBI man was lost, shaking his head.
“Maybe,” he murmured. “But who the hell is the woman here? It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t…”
He clammed up, as if he’d said too much already.
“You know, I’m sorry about that,” Peroni said, brushing some of the burger off the lapels of Leapman’s coat. “I sort of lost my temper. It’s a shame, Leapman. We could all get along really well.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. If it weren’t for one thing.”
Leapman waited.
Peroni bent forward and removed a slice of pickle off the American’s collar.
“You’ve got to start telling us the truth,” he said. “Maybe not me. Maybe not even my partner. But Inspector Falcone here. He’s a good guy. A reliable guy. He deserves your trust, don’t you think?”
Leapman just glared back at him, glassy-eyed.
“You need to trust us,” Peroni continued, “because if you don’t we’re just going to keep going round and round in circles, not getting anywhere at all. With this person of yours—of yours—still out there.”
The FBI man sniffed, then looked down the street and signalled for his driver.
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about,” he said and pushed his way between Costa and Falcone, taking the easy route, the one that didn’t go near Gianni Peroni, stomping off down the street towards his car, not bothering to look back.
Peroni frowned and looked at Falcone. Costa knew what the gesture said: I tried.
“Am I helping around here?” Peroni enquired.
Falcone scowled, not at them, at the chaos around all of them. “Ask me later.”
“I’d like to go after the girl, sir,” Peroni said quietly. “Just me. You can spare one man. This isn’t a personal thing. I still think she’s got something to tell us.”
“Do it,” Falcone murmured. “And, Peroni—it was a nice try.”
“Thanks,” the big man murmured.
Costa followed his partner back to the jeep and handed over the keys.
“Where are you going to look, Gianni?”
“Same places as we did before.”
He had to ask—Peroni got wrapped up in himself sometimes. “What if this guy’s still after her, too?”
“Then I guess we might meet. If it happens I’ll call. Besides, I don’t think you’re going to bump into him with Agent Leapman around. Do you?”
“Not really.” All the same, the difficult relationship with the FBI agent had surely been fractured beyond repair now. Was that what they wanted? “When did Leo put you up to this little act?”
Peroni’s face registered mock shock. “Put me up to what?”
“You know damn well.”
He laughed. It was a good sound, one Costa had missed of late. “Look, Leo and I know each other of old. Sometimes you don’t have to put things in words. You just improvise a little. He’s as sick of that asshole as we are. And what I said was true. It’s time for the guy to level with us. Sooner or later he’s going to realize that himself. We’re supposed to be on the same side, aren’t we?”
Leapman had been shaken by the evidence they’d got on the cord, Costa thought. But there was something else bugging the American too: the latest death. For some reason, he still found it difficult to believe it really was the same killer.
Peroni’s face was serious again. “Forget Agent Leapman for a moment, Nic. Tell me this. Why did Laila run away? I don’t get it. I thought we were doing really well and normally I don’t read those situations the wrong way.”
Costa shrugged. “Who knows with a kid like that? Maybe it’s because you were doing so well. Maybe the idea of closeness terrifies her.”
“Nah,” Peroni murmured and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “I don’t buy that any more than I buy Leapman playing innocent. You don’t know the first thing about kids, do you, Nic?”
“As you constantly remind me.”
He watched Peroni fit his big bulk behind the wheel.
“Call me if you need me, Gianni,” he said.
“Yeah,” the big man laughed and gently eased the jeep out into the street.
Nic Costa hated instincts. They played tricks with your imagination. They lied constantly. He reminded himself of that as Gianni Peroni disappeared down what was once a narrow, medieval lane, now a line of upscale fashion shops running all the way down to the Corso. Some stupid, pointless instinct was nagging at him, raking over the dregs of his memory to find the long-dead face of another partner, Luca Rossi, one who’d wandered off without him in much the same way and never come back.
Instincts intruded into real life, disturbed what really mattered. Besides, something was happening now. Falcone was listening to the squawk of a voice coming out of the car radio. The tall inspector had a look of intense concentration on his face, one Costa recognized. One he liked.
Falcone finished the conversation and scanned the square. Then he caught Costa’s eye, clicked his fingers and pointed, with some urgency, to the car.
JOEL LEAPMAN CAME BACK to the embassy looking uncharacteristically dishevelled, shambling through the door like a bull looking for somewhere to pick a fight. He was in a foul, unpredictable mood.
“Sir?” Emily asked.
“What have you been doing all day? Don’t I get the courtesy of a call from you, girl?”
“I thought…”
She glanced at the computer screen, now back to her customary log-on with its round of low-level information. The camera was still in her purse. That was dumb. She should have taken it back to the apartment, got the evidence out of the building.
“You thought what?”
“I thought you wanted me to wait until you had something for me to do.”
“Jesus…”
Leapman seemed seriously out of sorts. Food spattered his coat.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
“Is there something right?” he complained.
Leapman looked like someone with doubts and that wasn’t a position he liked or understood very much at all.
“These cops,” he said. “Falcone. The other guys. Why’d they hate us so much?”
“I don’t think they do,” she answered promptly. “Not for one moment.”
“Really? I just had that big ugly bastard stuff a burger into my mouth. What was that all about?”
She thought about Gianni Peroni. It didn’t add up. “You tell me.”
“None of your business,” Leapman barked back at her.
Emily Deacon was getting deeply sick of this man. Maybe Thornton Fielding was right. She should just file a complaint and get out of his presence.
“Then why ask?”
“Because, because…” he grumbled. “You don’t need to know the reasons. Sometimes events just run away with you, Agent Deacon, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“If that’s an apology, you should direct it at them.”
Leapman had pissed everyone off. He’d been working on it from the moment they walked into the Pantheon. It had been deliberate, determined.
“So now they’re the good guys, huh? I should go running to them?”