The Villa of Mysteries

by David Hewson

  “He does look different,” she conceded. She stared at the picture. “Is that his wife?”

  Costa nodded.

  “She looks very young for him. He’s that kind of man?” Costa didn’t answer.

  “Nic? The kind who likes young girls?”

  “She’s not as young as she looks. Not Suzi’s age anyway. He likes lots of things. Maybe he was involved in Kirk’s games. Maybe it’s more complicated than that.”

  She peered at the picture again. “She doesn’t look happy. She looks like a possession or something. Someone he owns.

  “You read a lot into pictures.”

  She nodded in agreement. “You forget. I take pictures for a living. It’s like trying to tell a story. You want people to see it and get some sense of what’s happening. What the people there are like. Otherwise it’s just a snapshot. There’s no meaning. No drama. No humanity. Just shapes on a sheet of paper. It’s the back story that makes it work.”

  She flicked through the set of photos from the opera. “These are quite good. Whoever he is, whoever his wife is, they make interesting subjects. There’s a lot going on there between them and I don’t think it’s nice. I could imagine photographing them myself. I could—”

  Miranda Julius stopped at one picture. She separated the photo from the rest and stared at it in silence, thinking.

  “You remember something about him?” Costa asked when he couldn’t wait any longer.

  “No. I don’t know him from Adam. But him—”

  She turned the photo round and stabbed at a figure at the edge of the photo. Younger, dressed in an evening suit, looking bored.

  “I have seen him somewhere.” She stopped, trying to order her thoughts. “It was just after we arrived. We were in the Campo, having coffee outside. He was at the next table. I went to the loo. When I came back he’d been pestering Suzi. Asking for her phone number. Trying to chat her up.”

  Costa looked at the photo and felt a sharp stab of excitement.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I think. He wasn’t . . . very nice. He was so persistent. His English wasn’t that great either. I didn’t like him, Nic. I really didn’t like him now I come to think of it. He was creepy. Just the kind of pushy young jerk I thought we’d be dealing with in Rome all the time.”

  “But he could have given Suzi his number?”

  “I’m trying to think—”

  There was something here. Costa could feel it.

  Miranda Julius looked into his face, her eyes wide open, worried. “Oh my God. I do remember. Suzi was odd afterwards for a while. Almost shifty. We nearly had an argument. It wasn’t like her.”

  “So he could have passed her something? A phone number? She might have taken it.”

  “Possibly. I don’t know, Nic. I don’t . . . It was days ago.”

  “And she wouldn’t have told you?”

  He didn’t like seeing the pain when she answered. “I suppose not. Kids of that age do stupid things and don’t want to admit it. I know I did. She was shifty about something. I should have known—”

  Her eyes became misty.

  “. . . Jesus, what an idiot I am. Thinking a girl of her age would be happy spending an entire holiday with her mother, never seeing anyone else. As if I’m good enough company for her. For Christ’s sake. I haven’t even been around for most of her life. Why should she want to be with me? How arrogant can you get?”

  Then firmly, with absolute conviction, she said, “I remember I told her what an utter creep I thought he was. Exactly the sort of Italian man you get warned about. And she looked at me as if I was talking crap. As if I was old. Then we just didn’t talk about anything for a while. We just let it blow over.”

  He was anxiously gathering up the pictures, keen to end this.

  “Except it didn’t, did it?” she asked.

  “This could really help us.”

  “How? You know who this man is?”

  Costa wondered how much to reveal. He reached over the table and took her arm. “Miranda,” he said. “We have rules about how much we can say in the middle of an investigation.”

  “To hell with the rules. I’m her mother. I’m the reason she’s in this mess.”

  His voice rose. “You’re not the reason. Suzi’s sixteen years old. She’s not a child you can care for twenty-four hours a day.”

  She was shaking her head. “You don’t know her. You don’t know me. Don’t make these judgements.”

  It wasn’t self-pity, he thought. More self-hate. “I know enough. You’re doing everything anyone could in the circumstances. Don’t start blaming yourself before—”

  The word just slipped out. She stared at the bright dusty window, blinking back sudden tears. “Before what? Before there’s a reason?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.”

  She paused, trying to let the temperature fall a little.

  “Who is he?” she asked. “You can at least tell me that.”

  “He’s the old man’s son. His name is Neri. Mickey Neri.”

  Nic Costa got up, thinking about the possibilities, what Falcone could do when he got the news. Outside the afternoon was dying. It would soon be dark. These operations were never easy at night. They had to move. There was so little time.

  She was by his side, a shadow of hope in her face. “What kind of man is he? Mickey?”

  “The best kind,” Costa said, smiling. “For us anyway. Not a university professor. Not some anonymous figure in a suit. Mickey Neri’s a crook, from a family of crooks, not a smart one either. We know him. We know where he lives. We know how to get what we want from him. Miranda—”

  They just needed the warrants, and her ID of Mickey in the photo would surely put that straight in Falcone’s hands. Then they could storm the big house in the Via Giulia, take Mickey in for questioning, and start to tear apart the whole Neri empire along the way.

  Costa rested his hand on her shoulders and wished he could make her feel the same rising sense of anticipation he was beginning to recognize within himself. “We’ll find her. I promise.”

  She stepped back from him, doubt still in her eyes.

  “Promises,” she said.

  The day was dying. Emilio Neri stood on the terrace, leaning on the handrail, looking down into the street, breathing in the smog from the Lungotevere. When he was a kid Rome was cleaner. More whole somehow. It had gone wrong, like most of the world, over the years. Back when he was young, people would walk around the centro storico on a night like this, arm in arm, just looking in the shops, stopping for a drink before supper. Now they rushed everywhere, or tried to if the traffic would let them. They stood around whispering into mobile phones instead of talking to people directly. Rome wasn’t the worst place either. When he went to Milan or London it seemed they spent their entire lives locked in solitary conversations with lumps of plastic. At least his native city maintained a stubborn streak of humanity at its heart. He could still walk across the Ponte Sisto and feel a kick of sentiment.

  Except there wasn’t time. There never would be time. That part of his life was past. Now he had to consolidate the future, and the reputation he’d leave behind.

  He turned to see Mickey clamber up the stairs. The kid stood by the pots of anaemic palms that were still suffering from the winter. He was now wearing a different set of stupid clothes, too young for him as usual: flared jeans, a thin black sweater one size too small. He was thirty-two. He ought to stop trying to look like a teenager. He was shivering too.

  Neri waved him over. They stood together by the iron balcony. He put an arm around his son’s shoulder and looked over the edge. “You never liked heights, Mickey. Why’s that?”

  Mickey shot a fleeting glance down at the street and tried to take one step back. His father’s huge arm stopped him. “Dunno.”

  “You remember what happened to Wallis’s wife? When she couldn’t handle it anymore—at least I guess that’s what happened—she walked str
aight out of some apartment block in New York, fifty floors up. One minute she’s weeping at the window. Next they’re scraping her off the street. You wonder what could make someone do that. Guilt maybe? Or just plain stupidity?”

  Neri’s arm propelled Mickey straight onto the iron railing. Hard. The kid tried to push back but Neri had him trapped.

  “You know,” Neri said, “sometimes just one simple thing clears up so many problems. The cops get a body. They look at that mess down there on the pavement and come up with a story to fit. It can work out for everyone.”

  “Pop—” Mickey gasped, struggling in vain to get free.

  “Shut up. You want to know why you hate heights? I’ll tell you. One day when you were real young you and your mamma were pissing me off no end. It was summer. We were up here on the terrace. I didn’t allow no servants in the house in those days. That was all Adele’s idea. Adele gets lots of ideas but I guess you know that. So there’s you and your mamma, and you no more than three or four and you’re shouting and screaming at her ’cos she ain’t got the right toy or something. And I’m lying there on the old wicker sofa we used to have before all this fancy stuff got bought. And I’m thinking: fuck this. I work all day. I keep you parasites alive. And all you can do in return is shout and scream and moan.”

  Neri squeezed Mickey’s shoulder. The old man stared his son straight in the eye. “You don’t remember, do you?”

  “N-n-no—” Mickey stuttered.

  “Except you do. A part of you does anyway. It’s just stuck deep . . .” He took his arm away for a moment and prodded Mickey in the right temple with a finger, “. . . in there, along with all the other shit you’ve got.”

  “I don’t—” Mickey was saying, and then the old man moved. Two big strong hands took Mickey by the scruff of his neck, bounced him painfully against the railing, propelling him half over the edge, balanced over the tiny cobblestones that, from this height, looked like the pattern on a dead butterfly’s wing.

  Emilio Neri upended Mickey’s legs with a brutal jerk of the knee, dangling his son over the street, letting the kid cling to his arm just as he’d done more than a quarter of a century before. The old man felt just as strong as he had back then, more so maybe. And just as in control. His face was up close to Mickey’s this time round though and both of them were starting to sweat like pigs.

  “You remember now?” the old man demanded.

  Tears were starting to fill Mickey’s eyes, his feet kept scrambling against nothing, looking for some kind of hold. Neri could smell fresh piss coming from the crotch of the flared jeans. “Please—” he croaked.

  “I heard a story, Mickey. Just a little fairy tale running up and down the stairs, in and out of the bedrooms of this stinking place. I heard you’ve been fucking Adele behind my back. People have seen you. People have heard you. Plus there’s all manner of other stuff you think I don’t know about. Don’t you see this from my point of view? Don’t you see how nice and easy it would be for me to let you go wipe your face on the cobblestones down there and bite down the blame with your broken teeth?”

  Mickey made an unintelligible squeak. Nothing more.

  “You’re not saying anything, son. You’re not telling me I got it wrong.”

  The kid scrunched his eyes shut then opened them again, blinking as if he hoped this were all some dream. “You got—”

  Neri pushed down with his arm just for a second. Mickey’s head bobbed down on the wrong side of the railing. The kid let out a terrified screech and went quiet: his father was holding him again.

  “You mustn’t lie to me, Mickey. If I think you’re doing that I just let go. What use is a son I can’t trust?”

  Mickey sobbed and said nothing.

  “So tell me,” Neri said calmly. “Think about what you’re going to say. This story about you and Adele. Is it true?”

  The kid’s head went from side to side.

  “Say something,” Neri ordered.

  “It’s a lie. It’s a lie.”

  Neri gazed into his son’s terrified face, thinking. Then heaved him back over the railing. Mickey sent a couple of plant pots tumbling down to the street as he scrambled back to safety. Neri watched them shatter on the cobblestones. Down the road a man in a dark suit jumped at the noise and looked up at the rooftops.

  “You should be more careful,” Neri said and offered his son a handkerchief. “People could get hurt that way.”

  Tears were streaming down Mickey’s face. His breath was coming in short sobs. He looked at his father and asked, “Why? Why’d you do that?”

  Neri shrugged. “A father deserves the truth. If you’d told me different you’d be down there now. You do know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he whispered, and Emilio Neri had to fight to stop himself laughing. The kid really did think he’d got away with it.

  “I’ve been a bad father,” he said. “I tried to protect you instead of letting you get tough from all the shit that people like us have to deal with. I hear you want in on the action.”

  “Yeah,” Mickey mumbled uncertainly. Even through the tears he still had the teenage pout. Got that straight from his mother, Neri thought.

  “Good. It’s time.” Neri opened his jacket and took out a gun. It was a small, black Beretta. Mickey just looked at it, wide-eyed, speechless. Neri pushed it into his hands.

  “Take it. The thing won’t bite. It’s one of mine. I know it works.”

  “W-w-what—?” Mickey asked.

  “You know the rules. You only go so far in these circles without whacking someone. You never did that, son. You just beat up a few people from time to time. It’s not the same, is it? Be honest with me.”

  “No,” Mickey moaned.

  Neri patted him on the back. “So look happy. It’s whacking time. Nothing complicated. All nice and simple. You walk in, you don’t say nothing, you put the gun to his head and you pull the trigger. You can manage that?”

  “On my own?”

  “That a problem?”

  “No,” he stuttered. “Who?”

  Neri looked at his watch. His mind was already elsewhere. “Just some cop. Sorry. That’s the best I can do right now. Next time round I’ll try to find you a real human being.”

  Vergil Wallis wore a black suit with a crisp white shirt and black tie. He looked ready for a funeral.

  “I’d like to see Eleanor’s body.”

  “You’re in mourning,” Falcone replied. “Who for? Yesterday you seemed to think there wasn’t much point.”

  D’Amato glowered at him. Maybe it was rude to talk to retired mobsters like this. Falcone wasn’t sure he cared anymore.

  “You took me by surprise yesterday. I wasn’t thinking straight. I hope you never know what it’s like, Inspector. You spend all those years praying you’ll discover the truth. Then, when you do, you wish you’d never wanted it so badly. You wonder if you somehow brought it down on your own head.”

  “We don’t know the truth,” Falcone observed. “We’re not even halfway there. There aren’t many people helping us either.”

  Wallis nodded, conceding the point, and said nothing.

  “If we agree to let you see the body, we get to talk afterwards,” D’Amato demanded. “Both of us.” The impassive black head nodded. “Not that I think you’re in much of a position to bargain. Do you want me to call a lawyer?”

  “You don’t need a lawyer,” Falcone said. “Not yet.”

  He led the way downstairs, out to the morgue in the adjoining building. There was one assistant on duty, a short, dark man with a ponytail. Falcone had never seen him before and didn’t feel too impressed. Silvio Di Capua and the rest of the path crew were still at Vercillo’s, trying to pick up the pieces without Teresa Lupo. It wasn’t going to be easy. Too few people, too little talent.

  The morgue official nodded when he heard the name. “We’ve got a place for that one. Teresa says it needs special treatment. She’s gone loopy or something? Is that true?”<
br />
  “Just show us,” Falcone snapped.

  The ponytail headed for a corridor, moaning constantly. “Jesus, are we in trouble now. They’re not going to let Monkboy loose on the shop, are they? Don’t get me wrong. He’s a nice guy. Knows his stuff. But managerially . . . You should see his locker.”

  They entered a side room. Eleanor Jamieson’s mahogany corpse lay on a surgical table surrounded by a panoply of technical equipment that looked like a life support system arriving too late. Silver tripods sprouted from the floor, transparent plastic tubing wound around them feeding a network of tiny pipes and nozzles. These sprayed a fine mist directly onto the body, giving it a bright, leathery sheen in the harsh light of the room. The place had a chemical stink from whatever solution was being used to preserve the body. It made Falcone’s throat ache.

  “Don’t ask me what to do when the stuff runs out,” the assistant said. “Teresa fixed all this up. Says some academic in England e-mailed her the recipe. Told her it was the best way to stop the thing shrivelling up like a pair of old shoes.”

  “Out,” Falcone barked, and the ponytail disappeared back into the morgue.

  Wallis had taken a seat in the corner of the room. His eyes were fixed on the body. Eleanor still wore most of the sackcloth shift. The autopsy proper hadn’t even begun. Falcone understood too that she would remain untouched for the foreseeable future. This strange, half-mummified corpse was beyond Silvio Di Capua. They would surely have to call in help from outside or persuade Teresa Lupo to come back to work. He wasn’t sure which was preferable. The woman was a loose cannon. Only her considerable skill had kept her in the job in the first place. But it would be faster if they were spared more interruptions.

  D’Amato took a seat on one side of Wallis. Falcone fell into a chair on the other. The room overlooked the street. The sounds of everyday Roman life drifted in through the tiny window: cars and human voices, stray music and the angry honking of horns. In spite of countless murder inquiries, Falcone never felt entirely comfortable in the morgue. It wasn’t the grim presence of the cadaver that bothered him. It was the way death sat so easily, so effortlessly in the midst of life, just behind the curtain, unnoticed except by the few people it immediately affected.