David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

Teresa Lupo was apt not to play things by the book, if a few unorthodox methods suited her better, but she made a point of keeping those habits under her hat, most of the time, anyway. It was always Di Capua whom Falcone squeezed for proof, turning those bleak, suspicious eyes on him and asking all the questions the little man never wanted to hear. Then there’d be the recriminations and, worst of all, in the end Teresa would have to hear out Silvio’s grovelling apology for blabbing, accompanied, as always, by an invitation to dinner.

She looked up from her notes, feigned a smile and said, “Inspector. Good evening. And you’ve come alone too. Not with those nice new American friends of yours. How pleasant.”

“It wasn’t my idea,” Falcone objected. “You heard, didn’t you?”

“Actually, no. I was trying to work out a few things in my head. Such as why a very odd corpse was stretched out on the floor of the Pantheon like that. Listening to cops bitch at one another is a secondary diversion at such times and I’m happy for it to stay that way.” She switched off the tape recorder. “So what can I do for you?”

As usual, Falcone came straight to the point. “You can tell me what you two found out when you had the woman to yourself. And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I won’t believe you.”

She beamed at him. “This is because of your great faith in our abilities?”

“If you like,” he conceded grudgingly. “Or maybe I just know when you’re not telling us something. There’s an air of smugness around this place right now and I’d very much like to puncture it.”

“You don’t want the report on that poor photographer?”

“I know what happened to the photographer. I was there. Remember?”

She looked into his miserable face and felt a twinge of guilt. Falcone wasn’t happy about any of this. It wasn’t fair to bitch. All the same, she did have something to bitch about.

“So you want me to offer some insights into a corpse which, with your full agreement, was snatched away from me right in front of my eyes, quite without reason, and completely contrary to Italian law, too, I might add?”

“Don’t start,” Falcone said. “I’ve just been upstairs listening to Bruno Moretti, among others, telling me how we need to keep the FBI sweat at every turn.”

Falcone went silent, thinking. It was an odd moment, Teresa thought. For once he looked as if he were racked by doubts.

Somewhere outside a car started with a sweet, certain rumble.

“Join me,” Falcone ordered and walked to the window. There he pointed to an expensive-looking Lancia travelling across the car park towards the exit, too fast for the treacherous conditions.

“Know who that is?” Falcone asked.

“What am I?” she snapped. “Superwoman, perfect night vision through a car roof or something?”

“Filippo Viale. Top-rung spook from SISDE. I thought you might have bumped into him in the past.”

She didn’t say a word. This was so unlike Falcone.

“Viale sat in on the entire conversation with Moretti. Truth is, he , not Moretti, was running things there.”

“Leo?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “I’m just pissed off. I’ve got the Americans telling me I report to them about what we’re doing. I’ve got Viale telling me I report to him about what the Americans are doing. And somewhere in the middle of all this I need to find out what happened to that woman and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He was scared. No, that wasn’t right. He was lacking in confidence, and in Leo Falcone that was almost the same thing.

“I’m sorry,” she replied. It was deeply out of character for Falcone to give away details like this, particularly the part about the SISDE officer. Those people moved in and out of the building like ghosts, unremarked, almost unseen. It was standard form that no one acknowledged their presence, let alone admitted to taking orders from them.

She reached for some papers in the folder in front of her.

“Since this is for you and you alone I’ll make it short and sweet. Silvio? Get the camera.”

Silvio slunk off to the filing cabinet and came back with a large, semi-professional digital Canon.

Teresa Lupo looked at him. “Lights, Silvio. Action.”

Hands shaking slightly, he fired up the screen. She took it and started flicking through the shots there.

“Do we know who she was, this tourist?” she asked.

“Not really,” Falcone answered. “Just the name. Her hotel. Is it relevant? You heard what Leapman said. This man is supposed to select his victims at random. The only linking factor is that they’re all American tourists.”

“I know that. But what did this woman do? What was her job?”

Falcone shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I don’t hold out much hope we’re going to find out either. Leapman has put out a statement to the papers saying she was a divorcée from New York. No profession. No personal details. We’re supposed to refer all media inquiries to him from now on, which is the one part of this piece I am quite happy with.”

“Illuminating.”

She pulled up a shot of the woman’s torso and hit the magnification button. “Of course, this would be so much easier if I had a body to work with, but I’ll do my best. You see this?”

She was pointing to an obvious scar on the left-hand side of the woman’s stomach.

“Appendix?” Falcone asked.

“Are you kidding me?” she gasped. “What kind of surgeon leaves an appendix scar that size, with that much loss of flesh? If they did that in the States this poor bitch would have sued them for billions. She wouldn’t be holidaying in Rome, she’d own the place.”

Di Capua was rocking backwards and forwards on his heels now, sweating a little, distinctly uncomfortable, as if he knew where this was going.

Falcone scowled at her. “So-”

“So I don’t have a damn body. I can’t take a better look at this under proper lighting. I can’t try and see what lies underneath the scar tissue. Thank you, thank you, thank you-”

“What is it?” Falcone interrupted.

“My guess? It’s the scar from a bullet wound. Nasty one too. Judging by the size of the affected area, she got shot close up. She was probably lucky to live through it.”

Falcone’s face screwed up in puzzlement. “A bullet wound? How old?”

She traced her finger over the photo. “Can’t be exact. More than three years. It happened to her as an adult. After she’d stopped growing. Beyond that I don’t know. Of course it would be easy to clear this up if we could get the woman’s medical history. What was she called?”

“Margaret Kearney,” he replied. “We won’t get any medical records out of the Americans. You saw what they’re like.”

“This happened in Rome, Leo!” Her voice had risen a couple of decibels. “Why the hell are we being pushed around as if we’re disinterested bystanders or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because of who his last victim was. A diplomat. What’s the point in asking? We just have to learn to live with what we have. You think I should walk back into Moretti’s office and ask him to change things around? Do you really believe this kind of decision’s coming from his desk? And that’s all you’ve got?” he added. “That she had a bullet wound? Even if it’s true, so what? It doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“I guess not.”

She looked at Silvio Di Capua, who was quaking in his small, very clean Chelsea boots. “Get the cord, Silvio. And the hair.”

He went away making a soft, squeaking noise of terror, and came back with a couple of sample bags.

Teresa Lupo picked up the first. “In order to stop you screeching the place down, let me say I removed this entirely innocently from the woman’s neck. They only said they wanted the body. I didn’t think they’d miss it.”