David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

Leapman glowered at him. “Deacon?”

She blinked, hesitating, then punched the remote. Costa could feel the hatred rolling off her. A new photo came on the screen: an oriental temple, red-walled with three roofs, set behind rows of white marble steps.

“The Temple of Heaven, Beijing,” she explained. “A Chinese Pantheon, if you like. The cosmology, the proportions, are virtually identical. It was a sacrificial altar once too.”

“Still is for the man out there,” Leapman said quietly, almost to himself.

Emily Deacon was struggling to keep her composure. “This is the last we know of before Rome. In September another body was found there. It took us a little while to get on the case. We never expected to see him outside North America or Europe. And”-she flicked the remote and pulled up more tourist shots of the temple-“there were other reasons.”

“Show the good people,” Leapman ordered.

She pulled up another shot. The man was on his back, naked, face contorted in death, a noose of cord biting cruelly into his neck.

“Excuse me,” she said and walked briskly out of the door.

Leapman sighed and picked up the remote, keying up the next picture: the victim turned facedown, with the now-familiar horned shape carved into his skin.

“After this,” he continued, “we had some intelligence. It pointed us to Rome.”

“Intelligence?” Falcone asked.

“Intelligence. Don’t ask because I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted. Just take my word for it. We had some idea that he was on his way here. So”-Leapman closed his eyes for a moment as if this were boring him-“here I am, eating shit food, living in a service apartment, biding my time. Because my masters in Washington decide we should set up an office over here, wait around a little while and see what happens. Why didn’t we tell you? Well, what do you think, Inspector? We didn’t have any proof he was here. We didn’t have a single clue when or where he might do anything if he did turn up. What, exactly, would you have said if I’d walked in and dumped this bunch of half-guesses and supposition on your desk?”

Leapman waited for an answer. It didn’t come. “I’ll take that as a sign you see my point. We had to come. We had to wait. Now we know this animal’s loose we’ve got to track him down once and for all. He’s fucked around with us too much already. Besides…”

He keyed up shots of the corpse on the floor of the temple in Beijing.

“It wasn’t some poor stupid tourist he killed this time. This guy was someone important. The military attaché at the US embassy in Beijing. Career diplomat. Talented guy. Came from one of those old New England families that put their offspring into public service just to prove what wonderful citizens they are, never once asking themselves whether it’s the right job for the spoiled little brats in the first place.”

Leapman looked at the picture of the dead diplomat again and sighed. “That’s what class is about, don’t you think? Being able to make choices?”

Then he pulled up another photo. It was the same man at a formal occasion, wearing a dinner jacket, shaking the hands of a smiling Chinese official. He was staring sourly at the camera, clutching at a full glass of booze as if it were a lifeline.

“His name was Dan Deacon,” Leapman explained. “I don’t see a family resemblance myself, but I guess it’s there. Good old Dan fixed up his daughter with a fine career, huh? Not that I reckon he asked her once if it was what she wanted. One minute she’s sitting in Florence congratulating herself on getting an architectural degree. Next she’s doing push-ups in boot camp because Daddy says so and, my, doesn’t Daddy know how to glad-hand some of the people on the interview panels too. Still, it gives me an opportunity.”

He switched off the projector and rolled up the lights so they could see his face all the more clearly.

“You know what it’s all about, folks?” Agent Leapman asked. “Motivation. I’m giving you one motivated girl here. I picked her myself for that very reason. Use her well, won’t you? And try to bring her back in one piece.”

MONICA SAWYER’S APARTMENT was in a dark side street near the Palazzo Borghese, some way north of the Pantheon. The place was a square modern cabin built directly on top of the roof of a solid grey nineteenth-century block. It sat unnaturally on the summit of the building like a child’s construction made of toy bricks. The estate agent boasted she had the best view in Rome. It was bullshit, but Monica had quite a view all the same, one so astonishing that she’d already booked another month at $3,500 a week, for May, when she and Harvey would be able to use to the full the terrace that stretched out on three sides of the ugly modern structure.

A perfect layer of snow, marked only by bird prints, now hid the warm terra-cotta tiles she’d seen when she arrived three days before. Monica walked carefully across the snow, which was close to ankle deep, listening to Peter O’Malley talk with wonder about what they could see. He had a soft, musical voice like that of an actor, one whose slightly metallic Irish tint reminded her how much the Hibernian accent had influenced American. The night was clear now, with a scattering of dark stratus high in a sky bright with a full moon. They had checked the TV when they arrived. Peter wanted to know what the weather would do and when he could return to Orvieto. She poured herself a Scotch while he listened to the impenetrable Italian on the box. There were pictures of cop cars around the Pantheon, shots of a police press conference with a tall, goatee-bearded inspector facing down the cameras and looking as if he wouldn’t say a damn thing.

That wasn’t what interested Peter, though. He wanted to know what the sky would bring. When the bulletin was done he told her. There would be more snow after midnight.

Now, on the terrace, still in her fur coat, she clutched the glass of Scotch and followed him round, listening. He’d stopped drinking. In truth, she thought, he hadn’t consumed much at all in the enoteca . It was hard to tell.

Peter O’Malley was laughing now. They were standing on the northern side of the terrace, looking away from the river, up towards the rising lights of some hill.

His arm slipped through hers and squeezed gently.

“Symmetry,” he said. “Can you see it?”

“Where?” she replied, feeling stupid.

“Everywhere. You just have to look.” He pointed to the twinkling street lamps on the distant hill. “You know where that is?”

“No idea.”

“Trinità dei Monti. The church at the top of the Spanish Steps.”

She nodded. She’d walked there before the snow came and had been surprised to find there was a McDonald’s near the foot of the twin staircases and an American-style Santa ringing a bell and yelling for money in Italian.

“Been there. So what?”

He led her round to the opposite wall of the apartment. The bright, white, wedding-cake building in the Piazza Venezia stood out like a sore thumb: in front of it the jumble of Renaissance rooftops, with the huge half sphere of the dome she had come to recognize.

“That I do know,” she said, a little proud of herself. “I went inside yesterday. It’s beautiful. The Pantheon.”

“The home of all the gods,” he said. “That’s good.”

Then they went to the western wall, which had the larger part of the terrace, an expanse of open space a good ten yards deep, with flower pots, an old stone table and a permanent, brick-built barbecue with a little sink by it. An awning had been built in front of the full-length windows. The shrivelled and leathery stems of a couple of meagre grapevines wound their way around the supporting pillars. A few blackened leaves still hung on the furled, wiry whips feeling their way through the trelliswork. Two tall gas heaters whistled away, pumping out enough warmth to make it possible to sit outside, even on a night like this, to be alone in Rome, above everything, out of sight.