David Hewson - The Fallen Angel

‘Anyone, mother. Everyone,’ she whispered.

Then she strode through the sea of red and yellow cannas, found the door, unlocked it with her illicit key, and let herself out into the street.

He had sunglasses too, the same cheap kind. A black T-shirt that was tight over his muscled torso. The familiar old faded denim jacket. Fake Adidas sneakers going to ruin. It was poverty that drew this family together more than anything, she thought, and as they slipped further into penury and uncertainty the bonds grew ever closer, so tight they had long felt ready to snap.

The tourists had gone to eat, to drink. The Ponte Sant’Angelo was almost deserted: two men selling postcards and souvenirs, a tramp with a German shepherd on a piece of rope, slumped with his dog beneath the statue of a grieving angel. But there was always a steady stream of traffic thundering over the worn patch of asphalt that stole its way into her imagination every time she passed this place.

Robert Gabriel took hold of her skinny shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. She responded. Not too much. That was never a good idea.

They walked up and down the bridge, beneath the gaze of the angels, talking, thinking, exploring. She told him about Costa and the visit of the police. She listened to his stories, his fears. He said little of any moment. Robert never changed. Still, it was good to speak.

Finally she made him stand by the angel with the cruel flail and said, ‘I wish Joanne was still alive.’

‘Me too,’ he answered, and didn’t look her in the eye. ‘I liked her. We both did.’

‘I try to like everyone,’ Mina told him. ‘Even when it’s not easy. Especially when it’s not easy.’

‘St Mina of Rome,’ he said, a sarcastic smile on his strong, handsome face. ‘They’ll make you that, when it all begins. That thing. The process. What’s it called?’

‘What?’

‘All that mumbo jumbo about making a saint. I used to laugh about it with Malise.’

He would never call him ‘father’, even when he was young.

‘I think they call the first step beatification. It means someone has reached a state of bliss. I don’t see that happening soon, do you?’

‘When you’re dead, St Mina, they’ll light candles. Put your T-shirt in a glass case by the altar.’

‘Don’t be so stupid!’

‘I’m not. You deserve it. You’ve got the looks. That pale, pained innocent face. The sacrificial maiden.’

‘Shut up, Robert,’ she said, cross, beginning to regret this.

He persisted. He never knew when to stop.

‘No. I mean it. Look at the papers. That photograph.’ He burst out laughing, clutching his stomach like a bad actor. ‘The one where they put your head on her portrait. .’

‘I’d nothing to do with that.’

‘You’d everything to do with it. You painted yourself as her, didn’t you? What did you expect? What did we expect?’

That was a question she could answer.

‘Freedom,’ she said softly. ‘The chance to live. To breathe. Security, I don’t know.’

The very things Beatrice Cenci had sought too, only to finish her days beneath the flash of an executioner’s sword a few short steps from where they now stood.

‘So it’s all worth it, then?’ he asked, and stood closer to her, backing Mina’s willowy body against the stone parapet of the bridge across the Tiber.

‘Worth what?’

He leaned against her, leering, nudged his lips against her ear and whispered something coarse and common. His fingers fell to the belt of her jeans, slipped below, stroking the tender skin beneath her navel.

Mina Gabriel pushed him back and said, ‘Cut that out.’

‘Sorry. I forgot. You’re a saint.’

‘And you’re an animal.’

‘Animals are useful too, aren’t they? A bit more than saints, I’d say.’

She walked away from him, back towards the lost place of execution and the endless stream of cars. This hadn’t been a good idea. It wasn’t worth the risk. He was, she realized, beyond hope, beyond advice.

Robert followed her, struggling to voice some pathetic excuses.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked as they reached the shops and houses that led into the centro storico . ‘Where are you going to stay?’

‘Best you don’t know.’

Mina Gabriel wished more than anything she could make him take off those opaque sunglasses, could do the same herself. That they could look straight into each other’s eyes, just this once.

‘Robert,’ she said. ‘Be serious, please. They’re going to come for us. Just like the papers are saying. You act as if it’s all some kind of a joke. Everything.’

‘A joke,’ he repeated. ‘Not even a very funny one either. You as Beatrice. Me as Pangloss. Watch and wait. And remember. .’

He slapped her backside, hard.

‘All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. See you, sister. Take care.’

The blow hurt. She felt her eyes begin to sting, heard some tiny little voice start to chant inside, the vicious, pained refrain that had been absent for a little while, along with all those familiar words she never dared utter out loud.

Don’t touch me, don’t hurt me, don’t, don’t, don’t you dare. .

Costa wasn’t ready to listen to Falcone’s orders. There were too many questions buzzing around his head. So he went back to the Questura for a few hours, checking to see if forensic had picked up anything new, and whether there was any more information about the missing brother. It was early evening by the time he’d finished, none the wiser. Falcone’s determination to pin everything on searches and formal interviews with Cecilia and Mina Gabriel the following day was starting to make sense. There seemed no other way forward.

Around six thirty he went outside and perched on the scooter, checking the messages on his personal phone, looking forward to some time at home. Someone prodded him on the shoulder. It was Rosa Prabakaran, looking glamorous in her evening uniform: short dress, skimpy T-shirt, gaudy jewellery. She sashayed in front of him and said, ‘Oh my, Nic. A Vespa. You need me on the back, don’t you? Complete the look.’

‘I’m a little old for that,’ he replied.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She was smiling in a way she hadn’t when they’d met earlier, with Gino Riggi. Costa had always liked this smart, difficult woman, and was aware his feelings had, on occasion, been reciprocated, perhaps more than he wanted. ‘We’d make a good pair together down the Campo. You’ve never worked that beat, have you?’

He had, back when he was a young agente , and said so.

‘Ten years ago? It’s different now.’ The smile disappeared and she looked like the pretty young Indian woman he first got to know a few years before. ‘Lots of things are different. It’s important to notice.’

He still didn’t understand why she’d wound up in narcotics. Rosa was back studying for her legal degree in her spare time. She had all the makings of an ambitious officer, one who’d rise swiftly up the ranks. The drugs squad was an important unit in the Questura, but a career in itself, one that usually excluded other areas. It seemed a sideways move.

‘Have a nice night with your friend,’ he said.

‘Gino Riggi is not my friend,’ she replied straight away.

Costa became aware that there was a side to this conversation.

‘Colleague, then.’

She didn’t reply. There was an awkward look in her deep brown eyes, one he thought he recognized. Costa tried to remember the circumstances of Rosa’s departure from Falcone’s unit. It had happened quickly, with no fuss, no recriminations. And she didn’t turn up in narcotics straight away either.