by David Hewson
Rosa Prabakaran.
There were only three Prabakarans in the book. He’d hit lucky first time. It was the girl’s father. Bramante posed as a senior officer from the Questura, concerned that he’d been unable to get through to Rosa on her private mobile number, worried that he hadn’t heard from her, and that perhaps they had the wrong number.
Giorgio Bramante knew, by now, how to work on the emotions of a parent. Fear unlocked any door.
He rubbed his hands together to give his fingers life, then took out the number her father had given him. Then he looked up to make sure he was beneath the air vent, checking the signal on his phone. One bar. Enough to get through, though probably with a lot of distortion, which was not, of itself, a bad thing.
She picked it up on the third ring. Her uncertain voice crackled and hissed through the ether.
“Agente,” Bramante said with an easy authority. “This is Commissario Messina. Where are you exactly? And what are you doing?”
* * *
It took Falcone a good five minutes to negotiate the stone steps down to the river. Teresa Lupo and her team were there already. On the far bank, photographers and TV cameras were setting up positions. The morgue team was busily erecting grey canvas barriers around the mouth to the drain. Everything seemed to be in place.
Costa and Peroni were sitting under a temporary awning by the waterside, escaping the constant drizzle. They were with a woman Falcone recognised. It took a moment to place the name: Judith Turnhouse, who had been cursorily interviewed during the inquiry fourteen years before.
He beckoned the men over, remaining out in the rain, which, with its constant cold, seemed to keep him alert.
“Well done,” he said. “You’ve achieved more than fifty officers plodding along in Bruno Messina’s footsteps.” He paused. “But are you sure?”
“It looked like a child to me,” Costa replied, nodding towards the canvas by the drain. “Teresa and her people are in there now.”
“Is this possible?” Falcone asked. “It’s a long way from the Orange Garden.”
“Definitely,” Peroni answered. “She…” He nodded towards Judith Turnhouse, who remained motionless under the awning, eyes pink from tears. “…showed us.”
Costa shuffled, uncomfortable with something. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” he said. “The boy could have been looking for a way out. It’s not a pretty thought. If he was in there. Alive.”
“We had search parties!” Falcone objected.
“Would they have looked in there? Why? Who would have guessed he could have got that far?” Peroni nodded at the drain, built into the underside of the road, reachable only by wading through mud and filthy water.
Falcone scowled. “None of the archaeologists gave us an ounce of cooperation. If they had, perhaps we would have found this place. When we know for sure, let’s get the media in. I want a full statement broadcast as soon as possible. Perhaps if Bramante hears it, if he understands we’ve tried to give him some answers…”
The two detectives looked at him, puzzled.
“It might be enough to persuade him to come in,” Falcone suggested, aware of the cool reception he was already getting. “He can’t hate me that much. Lord knows he’s had two chances to kill me already and not taken them. If it’s the boy, what else can he want? Bramante can’t stay hidden forever.”
Costa didn’t say anything. But there was an expression in his eyes Falcone recognised. A look of doubt. The kind of look, Falcone suspected, he himself had once used on Arturo Messina.
“I want to go in there,” Falcone said.
Costa and Peroni glanced at each other.
“It’s difficult,” Costa explained. “Even for us. You need to wade through mud. There’s very little room. Teresa has hardly any space to work in.”
“I am,” the old inspector said, voice rising, “the chief investigative officer in this case. I will see what I want. I—”
Costa didn’t budge. Friendship and work didn’t mix, Falcone reflected, and had to acknowledge that the younger men were right. He wasn’t up to this kind of physical effort. He sighed and hobbled to sit on the wall, out in the gentle rain, watching the slow-moving ripples of the Tiber.
Costa and Peroni joined him, one on each side.
“You don’t want me to carry you, Leo,” Peroni said. “I will if you want. But…”
“No.” Falcone touched Peroni lightly on the arm. They were out of earshot of the rest of the team. Falcone didn’t mind the familiarity anymore. “I don’t want you to carry me. I’m sorry. It’s this damned…” He stared at his feeble legs. “It’s feeling I’m not pulling my weight.”
He stopped. Two figures had appeared from behind the grey screen masking the mouth of the drain: Teresa Lupo and her assistant. Silvio Di Capua was holding a small notebook computer in his arms, tapping with one hand, staring at the screen. The pair were conversing intently.
“I believe we have news,” Falcone said softly, and felt a strange emotion in his heart: dread, accompanied by relief.
Teresa said one last thing to Di Capua, who returned behind the canvas. Then she walked to Judith Turnhouse, spoke to her briefly, and finally joined them, sitting down next to Peroni, looking a little wary.
“I wish I still smoked,” the pathologist announced. “Don’t the rest of you have that craving from time to time? You excluded, of course, Nic, since we all know you’ve never had a real vice in your entire life.”
“News, Doctor,” Falcone insisted.
“News?” She tried to smile. “We have a positive ID. Absolutely certain.”
“I knew it!” Falcone said, excited.
“Hear me out,” Teresa interrupted. “We have an ID. Unfortunately…”
She stopped and screwed up her large, pale face.
“Do I really mean that? How can I even think that way?”
“Teresa!” Peroni cried in exasperation.
“Unfortunately — or fortunately, whichever way you wish to look at it — it isn’t Alessio Bramante.”
* * *
She was young — a rookie, it said in the paper. That didn’t mean she was stupid. There had to be rules about the use of private calls.
“I’m where Inspector Falcone sent me, sir,” she replied hesitantly. “Testaccio. To watch the boy’s mother.”
“With whom?”
“On my own. Inspector Falcone said—”
“I wasn’t told that.” He gripped the cell phone and let a little impatience drift into his voice. “I don’t understand why you’re not with the rest of the team. Do you think Inspector Falcone has some kind of… bias against you?”
“No, sir.”
But it took her a second to say it.
“So what do you have to report?”
“She went shopping in the market.”
“And?”
“She met a man. At the horse butcher’s, where Giorgio worked.”
“You’ve told Falcone this?”
“Not yet…” Over the phone line, she sounded less than convincing. “I was about to report in when you called.”
“Leave that to me. Tell me about this man she met. Young or old?”
“Perhaps thirty-five. I believe he was a fellow prisoner of Bramante’s. I don’t know if this means anything…”
“Tell me.”
“It looked as if he and Signora Bramante had a relationship. He kissed her.”
Giorgio Bramante breathed deeply and stared at the motionless skeleton in the corner.
“Did Signora Bramante look pleased by this?” he asked the rookie.
“She looked… guilty. I think she hoped no one would see.”
He wanted to scream again. He wanted to shout so loud these ancient walls would shake.
“Did she go home with him?”
“No. She left alone. He went back to his apartment when the market closed.”
“Men take advantage sometimes. You know this, surely?”
“S
ir, I think…”
“Men take advantage in all kinds of ways. I feel Falcone has taken advantage of you, Agente. Would you agree?”
Silence again, but a brief one. She said, “I don’t feel it would be appropriate for me to comment.”
“You’re very loyal. I like that. Has she seen you?”
“No… No one’s seen me.”
He thought about this.
“Listen to me, Agente. This case is far more complicated than it appears. Between ourselves, far more complicated than Leo Falcone can begin to appreciate. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m not sure…”
“I need to discuss this with you, in confidence. What you’ve been asked to do. How you feel about it.”
“Sir…”
“Where are you now?”
“In a café near the old slaughterhouse in Testaccio. The horse butcher lives close by. I followed him home.”
“Good. Stay where you are. I’ll send someone to replace you in an hour. Until then, Agente, if Falcone calls and orders you to do otherwise, listen, but ignore him.”
“I…”
Human beings were motivated by what mattered to them.
“You do want to rise in the force, don’t you, Prabakaran?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do as I say.”
He picked up the photos in his left hand and took a second look at her. She was an interesting young woman. Different. For some reason she sought to hide the truth of her appearance while working.
“My man won’t know you, Agente. Describe to me what you’re wearing.”
He listened carefully, relishing the meek embarrassment in her soft-toned voice as she explained the nature of her disguise, and the reasoning behind it.
“Wait for him,” he ordered, then ended the call. Once again he glanced at the bones in the alcove. He felt renewed, excited.
“They come from all four quarters of the known earth, Valeria,” he said quietly. “They come not knowing what they might find.”
* * *
The rain ceased. Sunlight broke briefly over the Tiber. This gave Falcone the excuse he needed. Planks were placed on the mud, and with great care Costa and Peroni lowered him down to the water level, and accompanied him behind the screen, slowly making their way to the mouth of the old drain. When he reached the end of the temporary wooden structure, he clambered onto the platform to reach the newer, larger arch in the ground beneath the busy road above. He was so exhausted by that stage he needed a break. Teresa Lupo seized her chance immediately.
“You” — she prodded Peroni in the chest — “are not going any further. We’ve enough to deal with in there already without having someone throw up all over the place. In fact, I would strongly advise all three of you to take one short peek down that big black hole, breathe in the stench, then grab a few of those little collapsible picnic seats we brought along for the occasion and listen to me.”
“I am the officer in charge,” Falcone protested. “I need to see for myself.”
“It’s slippery and dark and treacherous in there.” She folded her arms and stood directly in his way. “I don’t even want to think of what might happen if you fell over, Leo.”
“I am the officer in charge,” Falcone repeated, outraged.
“True,” she replied cheerfully, then pulled up one of the metal chairs, opened it with a quick, hard flick of the wrist, and sat down.
“So you can find your own way in and I won’t talk to you. Not a word. Or you can stay out here and I will. What’s it to be?”
Peroni was the first to take a chair for himself. The others followed, with Falcone still grumbling.
“I thought it was a child,” Costa said. “It looked like a child.”
Teresa sighed. She called Silvio Di Capua over with the notebook computer, found something, and turned the screen round to face them. It was a collection of photographs of a teenager with his family. The young man was a good head shorter than his father, who was a rotund, smiling, ordinary man, and the two older figures, whom Costa took to be his brothers. The picture was taken on a beach somewhere: five people at an ice cream stand, happy on holiday, faces trapped in time, looking as if nothing would ever come along to disturb their contentment.
She hit the keyboard. The next image was of dental records: upper and lower teeth, and a name in the right-hand corner.
“We had all this on file from Missing Persons,” she explained. “Sandro Vignola was a very short kid. No, a very short person. He was twenty-two when he went missing. It’s an understandable mistake, Nic. You wanted to find Alessio Bramante.”
“We all want to find him,” Falcone interjected.
“Yes,” she agreed. “We all do. Unfortunately, I can’t help you there. But if you’d like to hear about the body I do have…”
They said nothing. She smiled.
“Good. Let’s make this quick.”
She shielded her eyes against the sudden harsh spring sun and stared at the sky.
“For one thing, I don’t think this weather’s going to last. The heavens are going to open sometime soon, and when that happens everyone here is going to be swimming in mud. For that very reason I’ve told Silvio that sometime in the next twenty minutes we will be putting this poor soul into a body bag and taking what’s left of him out of here. I seriously suggest you three, and any other of your colleagues who are of a gentle disposition, do not witness this event. Any objections?”
The three of them sat hunched on their little chairs, saying nothing.
“Good,” she declared, clapping her hands. “Now listen carefully, please…”
* * *
Rosa Prabakaran didn’t know the man. He wore a dark, somewhat shabby winter jacket, pulled tight against the rain that was now slashing down from a black, churning sky. His hood, sodden from the downpour, revealed only a snatch of face and two bright glittering eyes. Intelligent eyes. Interested.
Then he pulled an umbrella out from under his jacket. It was bright pink, the kind of cheap junk her father sold during weather like this.
“Agente,” he said cheerfully, “you should be prepared for all eventualities.”
His eyes ran her up and down. It was the same look she’d got from men everywhere in Testaccio that day, though perhaps with a touch of amused irony. Rosa Prabakaran cursed herself for dressing like this. Her clothes made her anonymous to Beatrice Bramante. To everyone else, however, it was a sign screaming Look at me.
“Thanks,” she answered, and took the umbrella, wishing, as she did, that she could see more of his face. Commissario Bruno Messina hadn’t made himself clear on the phone. She didn’t understand why she was being dragged off surveillance like this. To start some kind of disciplinary action against Falcone? That idea concerned her. She didn’t like the old man, but she didn’t feel vindictive towards him either. In truth, she’d taken a more high-profile role in the case at the beginning than she could ever have expected. It was scarcely a surprise that Falcone had reduced her position to that which her experience actually justified.
The tiny café was deserted. The woman at the cash register was starting to stare at them.
“Aren’t you going to have a coffee? What’s the rush? By the way, what’s your name?”
“Pascale!” he replied immediately. “Didn’t Messina tell you? Jesus, things are in a mess…. I don’t know where all this is going. Do you?”
“No. The coffee.”
He pulled the hood around his head more tightly and peered at the rain, which was now a pewter sheet obscuring the old slaughterhouse. The stone figures on the portico roof were unclear. The man and the bull were one in their struggle for survival.
“I don’t want coffee,” Pascale said. “You don’t have the time for it.”
“Pascale…” she repeated thoughtfully. Rosa Prabakaran tried to remember whether she’d ever heard the name before.
“I’ve been away for a while. Sick leave. Ask Peroni about me
next time you see him. Or Costa. You know his American girlfriend? My, is he a fortunate man.”
“I’ll ask them,” Rosa replied, and unhooked the cheap clasp on the umbrella, began thinking about the long walk to Via Marmorata, where she could get a bus or a tram.
“Where’s Signora Bramante now?”
“At home, as far as I know. She doesn’t go out much.”
“And the man? This butcher you saw?”
Her eyes went to the plain public housing block across the street. “He went in there. I haven’t seen him come out.”
“Did you watch all the time?”
“Yes,” she lied, badly. Watching suspects was fine. Watching the door of some cheap little apartment block, noting the comings and goings of people who didn’t interest you was deadly boring. When the sun came out briefly, she’d disobeyed Messina, found a bench by a small grassy slope of the Monte dei Cocci, sat there, thinking of nothing, for a long time, feeling useless, unwanted. She returned to the café on the hour, when Messina said his man would turn up. Even then, she’d been daydreaming. Wondering what she’d have been doing had she taken up the offer of a junior lawyer’s post in the criminal practice near the courts in Clodio. Not looking like some hooker, waiting to be relieved of duty in order to betray an officer she scarcely knew, that was for sure.
She didn’t know where the butcher was, and a part of her didn’t care.
“You really think they’re lovers?” Pascale asked.
“Messina mentioned that?”
“I’m taking over from you, aren’t I?”
Rosa Prabakaran thought about what she’d seen. It couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds. Could you really read an entire relationship from a single, snatched glimpse into the lives of two complete strangers?
“They didn’t want anyone to see them. He kissed her. She didn’t…” The right word was important. “She didn’t seem to object. That’s all I know.”
“This happens all the time,” he said, frowning. His expression had become severe, judgemental. “A man goes to jail. His best friend comes round to sample the goods. That’s the trouble with the modern world. People have no sense of duty or propriety. A little messing around outside the nest here and there… no one minds. So long as that’s all it is. So long as it doesn’t mess with the family or get in the way of what’s important. A man needs a sense of priority. The trouble is these days people just don’t care. They live their lives through the end of their dicks and nothing else. This lacks… balance.”