He thought again about the day ahead, tried to go through all the possibilities, all the ways in which he might fail again. Then he walked around the perimeter of the squat mausoleum, beached like a whale on a winter plain, found the side entrance, went inside and climbed the ramp all the long winding way up to the roof.

Emily Deacon was locked inside the women’s toilet belonging to the closed cafe. Kaspar liked to think of himself as a gentleman, in spite of appearances. He opened the door, stood back, gun in hand. It was damn cold up there and windy too. She came out, teeth chattering, skinny arms wrapped around herself, blinking at the brittle sunlight, staring up at the gleaming bronze statue of Michael, sword in hand, poised to strike, a fearsome, vengeful figure that dominated the skyline of this quarter of Rome.

Kaspar nodded at the winged giant. “Scary bastard, huh?”

She put a hand up to her eyes to shield out the sun, long blonde hair blowing around her face.

“Depends how you look at it,” she said. “He’s supposed to be sheathing his sword. It’s a symbol. The end of the plague or something. I forget.”

She was a smart kid. Not a bad kid at all. He used to be able to see that in people. Maybe a gift like that could come back.

“You listened a lot when you lived here. Was it your dad who did all the talking?”

“What’s it to you?”

He took hold of her arm, propelled her forcefully to the edge of the parapet, with its dizzying view down to the footbridge crossing the Tiber to the centro storico and beyond. The wind was more blustery here, so cold it hurt.

“Did your father teach you opera, Little Em?”

She was struggling. Her attempts to free herself were futile against his strength. “Don’t call me that.”

“O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!” he yelled, half sang, over the parapet in a loud, theatrical voice.

“Opera’s not my thing,” she said quietly.

“Really?” He felt he had the demeanour of a college professor just then. Maybe it was Steely Dan Deacon himself, those WASP New England genes bouncing up and down. “Informative, Emily. Do you mean to tell me you’ve never wanted to leap off the edge like that yourself? Never wanted to know what happens?”

“Not for one second. I’ve got too much to do.”

Kaspar shook Steely Dan’s voice out of his head. He didn’t believe Emily Deacon. There was something in her eyes-he’d seen it two nights before in the Campo. She hadn’t really given a damn then whether she lived or died. She was much more interested in seeing the thieving little kid, the light-fingered bitch who’d walked off with what memories he still possessed, get away scot-free. Emily Deacon didn’t get that from her dad.

“Like see me in hell?”

“That, among other things. Besides, it wasn’t about curiosity. Tosca knew what happened, didn’t she?” Emily Deacon asked. “I thought that was the point.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, relaxing his grip a little. “I guess that’s true. I used to like opera myself. A lot. But if you don’t hear it for years and years it kind of loses its touch.”

“It’s easy to lose touch, Kaspar.” She spoke with a quiet, blunt certainty. “Don’t you think it’s time to call it a day? I can do it for you. We could go straight to the Italians. You don’t need to say a word to the FBI at all. There’s enough for the Italians to hold you here for years, whatever Washington tries in the courts.”

She wasn’t going to back down, act timid, play the little kid. In a way he was pleased. She was Steely Dan’s daughter, with a twist.

“We’ve talked this through. No going back now.”

“What if you’re wrong?” she pressed. “What if you’ve screwed this up, too? And it really was just my dad and those other people all along?”

“Then they need to give me a little proof.”

Emily Deacon peered into his face. “Tell me, Kaspar. Was it something my dad told you? What do these people say?”

“Nothing,” he grunted. “How do you talk to a ghost?”

“I don’t believe it’s nothing.”

He didn’t like remembering. Dan Deacon had uttered those few words at the end, after Kaspar had tried so hard, with such vicious, constant brutality, to squeeze it out of him some other way. Yet sharing the words diminished their power somehow. So he told her instead about the Piazza Mattei, how Steely Dan Deacon had mentioned it twice, how he nearly thought the answer might lie there after all, but when he’d gone round there, tried to pound some truth out of the man who was living in the house, it turned out to be just an illusion.

This was important. Emily Deacon understood that too.

“What if it’s all an illusion?” she insisted. “Just some crazy voices in your head?”

The line between what was real and what was imaginary was tough to decipher sometimes. Kaspar could hang on to some truths, though. An ugly black Marine with half his face shot away. A brutal Ba’ath party torturer reaching for his sticks, taunting Kaspar for his stupidity. They were real. Too real.

The dark side of him, the part that had killed Monica Sawyer, wondered about throwing Emily Deacon over the wall there and then. The girl had Steely Dan in her veins all right. The incisive part that could look right through you.

“You thought the voices would go away when you killed that woman in the Pantheon. What did they call her? Laura Lee? She was the last, wasn’t she?”

“Names,” he murmured. “Don’t mean a damn thing in this business.”

“But then you murdered that other woman. You never meant to. And still you’re hearing the voices. What do they say, Kaspar? Shake it? Are they ever going to stop?”

“Kids,” he said quietly and looked out over the river, nailing the pattern inside his head again, because in those lines existed order, sanity, a kind of peace. Trinità dei Monti hung high in the distance, the Piazza del Popolo lay to the left and somewhere behind the bulk of the Palatine hill was the Colosseum, perfect in its place, a monument to martyrs everywhere. Something else too. When Kaspar stared ahead, squinted, remembered, he could see a tiny cabin set on the roof of a block across the river. A part of him changed there. He’d taken a life for no good reason. The journey had veered down a turning he’d never expected.

He grabbed Emily’s arm firmly again, pushed her down the stairs, over to the office, and kicked the door open.

The gear was on the floor. What lay in front of them was all he had left now, proof of his diminishing options.

“Did you listen to what I said to you last night?” he barked. “Or was that dope I gave you still messing with your head?”

“I listened,” she answered quietly. “Did you listen to me?”

“Every last word.” He hesitated. “So, Agent Deacon, do you want to stay alive or not?”

She laughed right in his face. “They won’t play, Kaspar. Joel Leapman doesn’t give a damn about me. Any more than he gave a damn about Laura Lee and the others. All he wants is you. He isn’t going to hand over anything in return for my hide.”

“You’re wrong.” He looked at her. She seemed very young all of a sudden. And a part of her was really scared, he was certain of it.

He took one of the parkas out of the bag and threw it at her. “This is as warm as I could find. You’re going to need it. And those…”

He pointed to the two waistcoats, green military vests bought the week before when the idea first came to him, now all prepared, a couple of lines of little yellow canisters running up and down the front.

“I made them myself, Little Em. And I am, as always, a master of these dark arts.”

The Lizard King, the Holy Owl, Grand Master of the Universe… All the names came back to mock him.

He smiled. She was the right about the voices. That insidious WASP intuition of hers made it easier. He didn’t give a fuck how she felt now.

“You think they’re gonna fit?” he asked.