Costa wasn’t thinking about the weather. He was examining the fresh marks on his partner’s battered face, looking concerned.
Falcone walked up and peered into Gianni Peroni’s face himself. “I’ve seen worse. Think of the up side. You weren’t that good-looking beforehand.”
“I could sue for that,” Peroni replied. “I could call you up in front of the board and out you for the bitch of a boss you are.”
“Do that,” Falcone said, almost laughing. “I’ll get there one way or another soon enough.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be at home in bed, Gianni?” Nic asked.
“Don’t nanny me, Mr. Costa,” Peroni replied curtly. “Do you think a few cuts and bruises are going to keep me away from all the fun?”
Fun? It wasn’t that, not for any of them, Falcone thought. It never had been. Even when Peroni had been an inspector in vice, before his fall from grace, he was a man known for his seriousness.
“The funny thing is,” Falcone observed, “I’ve never known anyone to get beaten up so often. What’s your secret?”
“Working with you,” Peroni responded. “Until I was bounced down to your team of misfits, I never got beaten up at all. Not once in my adult life.”
“You want a transfer?”
“You know damn well what I want. I want my old job back. I want my old rank. I want men who drive me around. I want to deal with the admirable world of dope and prostitution because I tell you, Leo-sorry, sir-it’s much saner than your world.”
“Is that so?” Falcone replied, amused. “So how are you now? Did your friendly pathologist tend your wounds after I left?”
“I’ll live,” Peroni said with a smile. “But I’m getting heartily sick of this weather. And heartily sick of this case too.” He nodded at the sky. “I know you don’t run that crap, which I hate to say doesn’t look finished to me. But do you think we can do something with the second?”
Falcone sniffed and looked at Costa. “One way or another. Emily Deacon. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” Costa shook his head. “She took the car. But her computer’s still in my house, which is odd. I’ve been calling and calling. Maybe Leapman…”
“I asked,” Falcone replied. “He sounded a little worried for once. You don’t imagine, for one moment, that she’s gone out and done something stupid, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Costa replied, though he didn’t look too sure.
Peroni cast a grizzled glance at Falcone and moaned, “Families. Leapman should never have brought her in. What kind of an asshole is he?”
“The kind who knows exactly what he’s doing,” Falcone said firmly. “Nic, perhaps it’s best if you skip this meeting. It could be a little… career-damaging. You’ve got more ahead of you than us.”
Peroni’s jaw dropped. “What? What the fu-?” He put his hands together, praying. “Why me, Leo? Why me?”
“Put out a call for Deacon’s car,” Falcone continued, ignoring him. “Try some of the obvious places. Did you get me those printouts?”
Costa passed over the manila envelope.
Peroni scowled at the grey SISDE building. “Career-damaging, Leo? I’ve been there often enough already. And I don’t like these spooky people. They’re bad company. Let me wet-nurse Nic here, hold his hand. Or I could go to the Questura and make some calls, clean your desk, press your suits. Anything-”
“Or,” Falcone suggested mildly, “Nic could drop you off at home and let you get some rest. You’re not immortal, you know, Peroni. You got clobbered last night.”
“Yeah!” the big man barked back. “All the more reason for sticking with this, don’t you think?”
Falcone shrugged. “Your funeral, then. If you’re in, you’re coming into this meeting with me. I’d appreciate a witness. Some backup. Leapman will be there, I imagine. Commissario Moretti too, since they’ll need someone to take notes. Who knows? You might even enjoy yourself.”
Peroni groaned. “Oh, sweet Jesus… enjoy?”
Falcone was smiling again. A big, warm smile.
“So what are you going to do, sir?” Costa asked. “Is there anything the two of us ought to know about in advance?”
Leo Falcone grinned. He felt good for a change. He felt he was about to let something go, kick off the shackles more firmly than ever, straight in their faces, in a way they wouldn’t ever forget.
“I thought I might see how far a man can go before he gets himself fired,” he said brightly.
COLD, COLD, COLD.
… the old black voice said: Git off that fat ass, boy, and sort yourself out.
Bill Kaspar did as he was bidden. At nine a.m. he let himself out of the empty office that sat on the roof of the Castel Sant“ Angelo, walked past the sheets and scaffolding of the restoration work that had closed the place, then sauntered down the spiral stairs and out through a side door beyond the closed ticket office. The castle had shut up shop for the holidays. The builders had abandoned work because of the weather. There would be a trickle of dumb tourists who didn’t know this. They’d turn up puzzled at the front gate of Hadrian’s mausoleum, seated majestically on the banks of the Tiber, a position so regal the place had later become a papal palace and refuge joined to the Vatican by a narrow, elevated corridor down which the pope could flee to safety in extremis.
And, Kaspar knew, because he’d checked, those rubberneckers would never see a thing. Inside, the mausoleum was a vast, prolix tangle of chambers, tunnels and hallways, largely invisible from the street, where passersby saw little but the gaunt exterior walls and the statue of the archangel Michael triumphant at the summit, sword raised towards the Tiber. Tombs had little use for windows. What mattered, what ran through the building like a central, muscular nerve, was the spiral ramp that rose past the original crypt, where the emperor’s ashes once lay, up through grand halls and collections, empty staff quarters, kitchens and galleries, out to the roof.
It was a five-minute walk across the river to a hunting and fishing shop on the Lungotevere. There Kaspar spent most of his remaining money on two of the biggest, thickest winter coats he could find: khaki parkas with furred hoods you could pull tight round your face so no one could see a thing except your eyes. He kept his old black woollen jacket and carried his acquisitions back in a bag, working to marshal his thoughts in the way a man of his nature always did before a battle.
It had been a painful night. Talking to Emily Deacon, trying to work out what to do with her, how much faith he could place in what she told him, how easy it was to fill in the gaps. That had gone on for hours. Then, when he couldn’t take any more, he’d shut her away and finally fallen asleep, only for the mother of all nightmares to come roaring up from deep inside his psyche, tormenting him with all those sounds and memories he knew only too well.
Just the recollection of it now made him sit down on one of the granite stanchions stuck deep into the snow outside the Castel, sweating feverishly inside his black coat. The human mind was a cruel, relentless mechanism. Nothing could expunge those images-the raging squall of gunfire, the screams, the blood. The slaughter as they fought on the geometrical floor of the temple deep in the heart of the ziggurat, surrounded by that magical pattern, the same one he had held in his hands as he’d dragged the webbing around him, stupidly, as if it were some kind of disguise that could fool the vengeful wall of hate and pain closing in on all of them.
Kaspar looked at his watch and checked the date-23 December. Thirteen years ago to the day. Thirteen long, long years, during which he’d prayed for release constantly to any god he could remember. Time lost itself in that place. Between the beatings and the torture, between the endless, pointless interrogations, he’d fought to contain the memories deep inside himself because they, more than anything, could keep him alive. The baleful, accusing faces of those men and women who had died because he failed spoke to him, demanding justice. Bill Kaspar had little affection for life, even when he got out of the Baghdad jail and learned the harsh reality of what it meant to be “free.” This was about justice. That was all. Of silencing those angry interior voices that rose up to taunt him anytime, anywhere.