David Hewson - The Fallen Angel

‘Don’t joke about that,’ she said sullenly.

He wondered what to say, whether to pry further.

Then his phone rang. Costa found a mild curse slipping his lips and immediately apologized.

It was Rosa. He had to go.

The Coyote Bar was in a side street between the Campo dei Fiori and the Via Giulia, a grubby little dive that scarcely seemed to be in Italy at all. The drinks were two-for-one until nine, the music deafening rock and reggae, the clientele almost entirely foreign, pushing and shoving to get the free pizza and couscous that had just been placed on the bar.

Rosa sat on a high stool sipping what looked like a mojito and picking at a slice of flabby dough covered in bright red tomato sauce. She didn’t see Costa at first so he was able to watch her for a minute or two as she alternately smiled at and insulted a couple of young men trying to talk to her, all the while wearing the jaded and arrogant expression that seemed de rigeur for women in places like this. She’d always been a good cop, one who could shrug off the uniform and become someone else without so much as a second thought. It was a talent and a curse too sometimes.

A persistent American kid, tall and strong, like a football player, was standing over her, getting pushy and mouthy when Costa finally walked over.

‘Nic,’ Rosa said brightly, glad to see him arrive. ‘Meet my new friend, Jimmy.’

Costa looked at the gigantic youth towering above him. Jimmy had a crew cut and a blank, unmemorable face. He was wearing some kind of sports shirt with huge numbers on the chest and a baseball cap on backwards.

‘What are you doing in Rome, Jimmy?’ Costa asked, briefly shaking his hand.

‘History.’

Costa looked more closely at the shirt. The logo made out that it was from the Raffaello College football team, the academy for foreign kids in the Via Corso where Agata taught.

‘Is it fun?’

‘My old man made me do it. History sucks.’

‘That’s an interesting point of view. A friend of mine just started work at the Raffaello. Agata Graziano. She teaches art.’

His small, piggy eyes lit up.

‘Oh wow. The new one? Black-haired chick? She’s a babe. You gotta introduce me.’

Costa frowned and said, ‘I think you should tell her she’s a babe yourself. Now. .’ Costa picked up a slimy, limp slice of pizza, placed it in Jimmy’s paw-like hand and waved at the far corner where a bunch of similarly attired kids were standing slack-jawed beneath a TV set showing American football. ‘Go over there. Eat that. And don’t come back.’

The American kid looked as if he might be trouble for a moment. Then he thought better of it and slunk off.

Rosa was shaking her head.

‘You’ve absolutely no idea how to handle them, have you?’

‘Really?’ he wondered. ‘He’s gone, isn’t he? Where did I go wrong?’

‘We find things out by talking to them. Not scaring them away.’

He took her by the arm and led her to a dark and empty corner where the music was just a little less loud, though still of sufficient volume to afford a curiously noisy form of privacy.

‘We find things out by talking to Robert Gabriel.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Or Gino Riggi. Isn’t that right?’

‘If only,’ she grumbled.

Costa didn’t have much patience left. He asked her for the background to her assignment: watching the cop from narcotics. Slowly, carefully, Rosa outlined what she knew, with the rigorous precision he’d come to associate with her.

It wasn’t a pretty story, or a rare one. Riggi was one more cop who’d spent a little too long beneath the surface, so much that he’d failed to remember where the lines were drawn. Internal investigations suspected him of taking money from the Turkish gang, the Vadisi, playing both sides.

‘We think his contact there is called Cakici,’ Rosa said. ‘Robert Gabriel’s some kind of intermediary who runs between the two. If I could lay my hands on the English kid I’d offer him a deal. Immunity from prosecution in return for what he knows. If I could get close to him.’

She raised her slight shoulders in desperation.

‘Of course that was before Leo decided he was wanted for murder. Now, I just don’t know. He doesn’t sound a lot like his sister, does he? Not from what I read in the papers? She’s all sweetness and light.’

‘Adoptive sister,’ Costa said. ‘Robert was adopted. Apparently he never quite fitted in.’

‘Ah.’ Rosa nodded.

As if that explained everything, Costa thought. He glanced around the room.

‘You think we might find Robert Gabriel here? Or Riggi?’

‘The centro storico is the Vadisi’s territory. They like dealing with the foreign kids. Here one minute, gone the next. It’s easy. The profits are reasonable. They don’t get involved in long-term deals with suppliers or addicts. The Campo, Trastevere, that’s theirs. The places Romans go for their drugs — San Giovanni, out in the suburbs — they’re still pretty much Italian. Though I have to say our own people are getting muscled out over time. The Turks, the Balkan gangs, they’re a lot tougher, a lot meaner. They’ll contemplate things that your average Italian hood would baulk at. No need to go to confession afterwards, is there?’

He’d heard that story in so many places. It was part of the changing face of Italian organized crime.

‘You don’t know what Robert Gabriel looks like?’

‘Just Riggi’s description,’ she said. ‘Lanky, muscular kid around twenty with black hair, lots of it. If he’s got something to sell around here. .’ Her finger ran across the crowd in the bar. ‘. . they’ll know him. The way it works is you walk around, look interested, talk to people. Don’t do anything obvious like asking where you can score.’

‘Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.’

‘I’m trying to help! If we bump into Riggi then you and I are out on a date.’ Her big brown eyes focused on him. ‘Is that OK with you?’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve played that game, would it?’

‘No.’ She didn’t take her eyes off him. ‘Comes naturally.’

‘How many bars are there? Like this? The places the Gabriel kid would have worked?’

She looked at the ceiling, counting the answer off on her fingers.

‘Around here, seven. Near Navona, another five or so. Couple by the Pantheon. Six, eight, maybe more, in Trastevere.’

So many? Costa was surprised. This was a side to Rome he, like most citizens, rarely saw. It happened off camera, in places they never visited, a hidden undercurrent in the city’s busy tide of daily life.

Rosa raised her glass.

‘Soda water and fresh mint. Long evening ahead. Are you ready for it?’

‘Until midnight. Maybe not even that.’

She turned serious for a moment and her made-up face suddenly seemed a lot older.

‘I need you to understand this, Nic. We’ve got a case against Riggi already but it’s fragile. I have to find a little more. Or to put it another way, I need to make sure we don’t lose anything we already have.’

He got the message. Her news about Riggi wasn’t an accidental revelation, some personal favour Rosa had idly slipped to him as he sat on his Vespa outside the Questura. It was her way of warning him off any action that might impact upon her own case.

‘We’d better split up and start talking, I suppose,’ Costa said.

Rosa Prabakaran smiled. Then, as he watched, she changed again, found a sultry smile from somewhere, a walk, a posture that seemed to fit this loud, overheated temple to a form of twenty-first century hedonism he found deeply tedious.

She ambled over to the counter and started chatting to the barista shaking cocktails. Costa wandered outside, said hello to a couple of pretty girls enjoying the fading sun, then slipped round the corner and called back to forensic. Di Capua was still on duty. Costa was glad of that. Teresa’s deputy seemed to understand these things better than most.