David Hewson (21 page)

"I've
been busy," Costa protested.

"Of
course you have," Teresa said in a deeply patronizing fashion. "How
long, Gianni?"

"Come
back in five."

"Done,"
Costa said and ushered the two women back into the main room, out of earshot.

Emily
Deacon sat down and came right to the point. "OK. What happened with the
girl? What did she tell you?"

"Don't
worry," Costa replied. "We've passed it all on to Leapman. She
gave us an address. The place she first saw him. Probably where he lived. The
chances of him being there now--"

"That's
it? You didn't get any more?"

The
two Italians exchanged glances. "Emily," the woman said,
"this is one seriously screwed-up kid. Even before what happened last
night. The charities gave up on her, she was so unreliable, so disruptive. She's
not--if you will excuse a non-medical phrase--right in the head. You
can't just sit down, ask her questions and take notes. Try if you
want."

"Maybe
I will. She doesn't look that way now."

"She
met the man," Costa said. "This is Peroni's patch. Give him a
starving kid and a couple of pans. Don't ask me how he does it. I doubt
I'll ever understand. He knew she was hungry, I guess. No, it's
more than that."

Teresa
Lupo cast a backwards glance at the kitchen and sighed. Emily Deacon understood
then: there was something going on between her and Costa's partner.

"He's
being like a parent, for God's sake," Teresa sighed. "Nic and
I did all the cop things. Threw questions at her. Kept on and on. Gianni waited
awhile, sat not saying much, then started listening. Like Nic said. Don't
ask. It's a gift."

Emily
thought about Gianni Peroni and realized she understood that last point. There
was something extraordinarily warm behind that pugilistic facade. All the
same...

"We
need to know what happened in the Pantheon," she insisted. "What
she saw."

"Now
that
," Costa answered, "is a place even Gianni can't
go just yet. The shutters come straight down. Give him some time. We've
got that, you know. This man is on the run now. Maybe on the street himself. He
knows we're looking for him. He's not leaving Rome in a hurry. There's
not a train going out of Termini. No buses. No planes. Not much traffic."

She
thought about the way the man had looked at her the previous night, the
conscious decision he'd had to make. "He doesn't want to
leave Rome. He's got unfinished business here."

"Then
we'll work on finding out what it is," Costa insisted.

"This
is crazy. Why am I here? Why are you keeping a material witness in a private
house? The
only
murder witness we've got?"

"Why
not?" Costa asked. "Where else would she go? She doesn't have
a home. She doesn't have parents, not here anyway. None of the charities
want her because all she does is steal stuff in front of their eyes."

"I
don't care!" Emily yelled, hearing her voice rise a couple of
decibels. "This is all so
wrong
. You can't run a criminal
investigation like this."

The
pathologist rolled her eyes up at the ceiling and said nothing.

"So
what do you think we should do?" Costa asked.

"Talk
to her some more.
Now
. Get Leapman down here."

"She'd
like Agent Leapman," Teresa said quietly. "She'd just love a
man like that. I bet she wouldn't stop talking." She looked Emily
directly in the face, daring her to argue. "Well?"

"OK,"
Emily agreed. "Maybe that's not such a great idea."

"So
what do you think we should do?" Costa repeated.

The
girl put her head round the door of the kitchen. Emily could see the doubt in
her face. The kid had heard her yelling, could sense the tension in the room.

Emily
Deacon made herself smile.

"Let's
eat," she said under her breath, then added more loudly. "Laila.
You made us breakfast. That's nice."

"Ready!"
The girl gestured into the kitchen.

They
sat around an ancient wooden table. Peroni and Laila handed out dinner plates
of food: potatoes, onions and peppers, with a couple of fried eggs perched on
top of each, everything swimming in olive oil, with bread on the side. Emily
Deacon looked at hers and wondered when she'd ever eaten anything like
this before for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

"Good
country food," Peroni said, stabbing a finger at the plate. "In a
normal house"--he cast a deprecatory glance at his
partner--"there'd have been some ham or sausage or
something."

"It's
lovely as it is." Emily sighed, watching Teresa Lupo retrieve an old
bottle of ketchup from a cupboard, stare at the use-by date, shrug her
shoulders and set the container on the table. The girl grabbed it straightaway,
deposited a pool on her food and started to eat manically, as if she'd
been starving for half her life. Which, Emily reflected, just might be the
case.

Then
Laila looked up at them, amazed they weren't touching their food.

"Eat!"
she ordered. "
Eat
!"

Emily
Deacon tried a corner of crisp, almost burnt egg, and, suddenly, out of nowhere,
found herself laughing, a self-conscious, half-hysterical laugh, one that
stemmed in part, she decided, from her amazement at being among these odd
strangers, being touched by the intimate ordinariness of the scene.

Somewhere
out there a man was carving magical shapes on of the backs of dead people. He
was waiting in the frozen city. And he had a name. Kaspar. It came to her now.
A distant, returning memory from childhood, ten, twelve years ago, maybe more. She'd
been in the study of their old apartment on the Aventine hill, stopping her
practice on the upright piano for a moment, overhearing a remark from one of
her father's rare discussions of his work with her mother.

Bill Kaspar. What a guy
.

"What
a guy..." she murmured.

Peroni
was peering at her. "Who, me?"

She
smiled at the crude, makeshift feast on the table, and Laila, who'd just
about cleared her plate and was eyeing Peroni, probably wondering if, like
Oliver Twist, she could really ask for more.

"Sure,
Gianni," Emily agreed. "You."

IT
WAS JUST A CAR. Some lunatic with an ancient Renault, probably stolen, who
didn't give a shit what happened once he'd had his fun. Falcone
quickly picked up the story from the two uniformed men on the scene. The moron
had torched the vehicle outside the church at the top of the steps then,
watched by a couple of goggle-eyed street hawkers, pushed it over the edge. The
vehicle had rolled and tumbled down the hill, settling in front of the fountain
in the Piazza di Spagna, where the fuel tank had exploded with the soft roar
Falcone had heard from down the road. Now a puzzled-looking fire crew were
hosing down the damn thing in front of a small crowd of puzzled onlookers.

It
was an odd and disturbing scene in a part of the city that never quite worked
for Leo Falcone. The mix of tourists and McDonald's rubbing shoulders in
the shadow of the house where Keats died puzzled him at the best of times.

Falcone
strolled back down the Via del Babuino and ordered the uniformed men to return
to the Questura, then he called intelligence to check the name on the passport.
After they had run a swift search he set off on the drive out to Costa's
house, taking the time alone to think about that morning's meeting with
Joel Leapman, Bruno Moretti and Filippo Viale, the grey man from SISDE, and the
way they all just sat there, silent, as if this were some kind of game.

The
streets were treacherous: half snow, half slush. Even in the abnormally light
traffic he had to be on his guard every moment. The average Roman had never
driven on snow. What passed as the normal rules of the road in Rome were gone. Cars
were careering around crazily, from right to left and back again. Drivers were
arguing with each other over minor collisions. The city was, briefly, beyond
control, beyond order. He thought about the old Renault tumbling down the
Spanish Steps, bursting into flames at the foot of the staircase, and how
amazing it was no one had got hurt. Rome, like any big city, had its share of
vandalism. Still, there were always places that were somehow exempt, almost
sacrosanct. People didn't mess with sights like that. It would be like
spray-painting graffiti on St. Peter's.

Until now
.

Falcone
turned the car into the narrow lane that was the Via Appia Antica and
couldn't stop himself from laughing. The city streets were a mess. The
authorities just didn't have the right equipment to clear up after the
constant blizzards. Here, at the municipal boundary, the Via Appia became clear
and safe, still showing cobblestones that were, in places, a good two thousand
years old.

"Farmers,"
Falcone said to himself. The tractors had been out, unbidden, without payment
in all probability, ploughing aside the drifts. This was where the city ended
and a different kind of Italy started. He made a note to remind himself of that
the next time he wondered why Nic Costa lived where he did.

The
drive to Costa's farmhouse was different, though: deep in snow so thick
that Falcone kept his foot lightly on the pedal all the way, and was grateful
the car didn't grind to a halt. He made one call back to the Questura,
then stood on the doorstep, stamping his shoes to get rid of the packed ice,
sniffing the air, trying to work out if the smell of the countryside, fresh and
wholesome, really suited him.

Costa
looked him up and down when he opened the door. "Problems?"

"A
few," Falcone replied. "Is she still here?"

"The
girl? Of course."

"No.
I meant Emily Deacon."

Costa
nodded. "Sure. I'm going to drive her to the embassy soon."

"Has
she told you anything?"

"About
what? I wasn't aware we were interrogating her."

"Maybe
we should be." Falcone stayed by the door, not wanting this conversation
to go inside. "About this Leapman character, for a start. What the
hell's he up to?"

Costa
shuffled on his feet, uncomfortable. "I'm not sure she's got
anything to tell, to be honest. She's just as much in the dark as we
are."

"Maybe.
Maybe not," Falcone murmured, then stamped his smart city shoes on the
doorstep one last time and walked inside, throwing his coat onto a chair and
following Costa into the kitchen.

Peroni
was clearing away a huge dinner plate still bearing a few eggs and fried
potatoes. "Hey, Leo. Want some?"

"I
think I'll pass," Falcone replied, staring at the group around the
table: Emily Deacon, Teresa Lupo, the Kurdish girl. "Am I interrupting
something?"

Peroni
shrugged. "Just breakfast. Out here in the big wide world people tend to
take it together, you know."

"Cut
the lecture," Falcone snapped. "You do have coffee?"

Teresa
Lupo pushed the filter pot over to him. He stared mutely at the thing.

"This
is a home, Leo," she insisted. "A bachelor's at that. Not a
cafe. This is how coffee comes."

Falcone
looked at the girl and held out a hand. "I gather you're Laila. My
name's Leo Falcone. I have the"--this was for their benefit,
not hers--"dubious distinction of being their boss."

The
girl took his hand for a brief moment and stiffened. She didn't like
authority. No one could miss that.

"How
old are you?"

"Th-thirteen,"
she stuttered.

"I'm
sure they've asked you this, but let me ask again to make sure. Is there
anyone
in Rome you want us to contact? Your mother. Your father. Do you know where
they are?"

"My
father's dead. My mother's in Iraq. Somewhere."

She
said it in that flat, neutral tone of acceptance Falcone knew only too well. The
kid really did have no one.

He
took a ten-euro note out of his wallet. "Fine. You know what I liked to
do when I was thirteen and the weather was like this?"

Teresa
Lupo gasped. "You were thirteen once, Leo? Now that's a hard one to
swallow."

"When
I was thirteen," Falcone continued, ignoring her, "I just
loved
to build snowmen."

"Snowmen?"
the girl asked, wide-eyed.

"Absolutely."
He waved the note. "This is for you."

Her
hand reached out gingerly for the money. Falcone placed the note under a spare
dinner plate.

"Once
you've built me the best snowman I've ever seen. And here's
the best part." He smiled briefly at Teresa Lupo. "Our friendly
doctor here is going to help you."

"
I
am
?" the pathologist snarled.

Falcone
leaned over and whispered to the kid, loud enough so they all could hear,
"She's good. I promise."

Then
he waited until the two of them had left the room, Teresa Lupo grumbling under
her breath, waited until he heard their voices outside in the snow, ringing in
that odd way they do in the extreme cold. Only then did he turn to Emily
Deacon, take out a sheet of paper from his jacket and unfold it in front of her
on the table.