David Hewson - The Sacred Cut

Rajacic finished the beer and clicked his fingers for another. “Two?”

“It was on the TV,” Costa said. “A woman was killed in the Pantheon. An Italian photographer was shot too. We know this girl was there. Inside. Probably just looking for shelter or something. We know the guy who killed this woman realizes that too now. You see my point?”

The old man thought about this, then got up, went to the bar and, without saying a word to the man behind the counter, picked up the phone by the till and began talking rapidly in his native language.

“He acts like he owns the place,” Emily observed.

“He does,” Peroni said. “Even a pimp needs an office. I don’t suppose you understand any of that lingo?”

She shook her head. Rajacic was virtually yelling into the phone now.

“He doesn’t act like a pimp,” she observed. “Not really.”

Peroni watched Rajacic barking at the phone. “It’s not his chosen profession. He was a farmer in Bosnia. The Croats decided his land was theirs. He had the sense not to stay around and argue.”

“Big leap from Bosnian farmer to pimping here,” Costa commented.

“Yeah,” Peroni agreed. “Like the man said, ”A world in motion.“ I don’t get it either. But who’s asking? If every other pimp we had was like this guy-no drugs, no kids.”

Emily’s blue eyes wandered over the pair of them, some bitter judgement there. “He’s still earning a living by selling women on the street.”

“We’ve had people doing that here for the last couple of thousand years,” Peroni answered. “Doubtless will for the next couple too. Do you think we can stamp it out somehow? We’re cops. Not miracle workers.”

She stirred the empty coffee cup. “Sure. I just want to make sure we remember what he is.”

“What he is, Emily, is maybe the only chance we’ve got to find this kid. These people lead separate lives. They talk to us on their terms, when they feel like it. No amount of screaming at them, no amount of time in a cell, changes that. Trust me. I know. I’ve tried.” He nodded at Costa. “We both have.”

“True,” Costa agreed, watching how Rajacic’s attitude had changed while he was on the phone. He looked a little happier. He was getting what he wanted.

The Serb came back to the table and sat down. “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he told them.

Peroni slapped him on the big brown arm of his overcoat. “Because you’re a good guy, Stefan. Like I told my American friend here.”

“Or maybe just a damn fool. Don’t go putting this around, Peroni. I don’t want anyone getting the idea I make a habit of helping the cops. And maybe I’m not helping at all.”

A woman was coming out of the door at the back of the bar. She was about thirty, with long, black hair, a tanned gypsy face heavy with makeup and a tight red dress cut low at the neck. Boredom and resentment shone out from her tired eyes. She must have been upstairs, taking the call on an internal line.

Rajacic pushed out a chair and beckoned her to sit. “This is Alexa,” he announced. “My niece.”

Peroni looked her up and down. “You mean this is a family business?”

“When he gets some business,” she snapped.

The Serb pointed to the window. “Am I responsible for the weather now? Please. I’ve listened to enough shit for one evening. These people need your help, Alexa. You’re getting paid anyway. You can go with them. Or you can clean up in the kitchen. Which is it going to be?”

“Some choice,” she grunted and took a seat. “What do you want?”

Rajacic reached over and brushed his fingers against her fine black hair. “Hey, zingara . No tantrums. They just want a little advice.”

He looked at Peroni, who pushed the photo across the table. She picked it up.

“I don’t know who the hell this is,” she complained. “Why ask me?”

Rajacic smiled. “A little gypsy blood crept into the family a while back,” he explained. “Don’t ask how. It’s thick blood, huh, Alexa? Like this kid’s maybe. My friends here are asking themselves, ”Where would a girl like this hide out if she were scared and living off the street?“ Can you tell them?”

Her black eyes didn’t give away a thing. “On the street? In weather like this?”

“Come on,” Rajacic wheedled. “They don’t all stay in hostels. They don’t all have pimps looking after them. What if she’s on her own? Where’d she go? What kind of choices have these kids got?”

“Not many,” she murmured, thinking all the same. “What’s in this for me?”

Rajacic leaned over, prodded her in the arm, hard. At that instant he looked the pimp he was.

“You make an old man very happy,” he murmured. “Now get out of here. Before I think of something else.”

THEY’D BORROWED A JEEP from traffic. Costa sat behind the wheel, feeling out of practice, unused to the four-wheel drive which was the only way the treacherous roads were manageable at speed. Most of the narrow through routes in the centro storico had been closed. What little movement there was now funnelled down the main thoroughfares and the broad avenues which ran either side of the river. Alexa knew where to go. They’d checked out a series of sites-a derelict building north of the Pantheon, a squat in Testaccio, a grimy, freezing hostel in San Giovanni-and got the same result in each one, trying to talk to a bunch of surly adolescents shivering in cheap black clothes that couldn’t keep out the cold. They’d look at the girl’s picture and shake their heads. Then Alexa would yell at them in their own language, and still they’d say nothing.

Now the four of them were driving along the Lungotevere on the Trastevere side of the river, slowly checking the huddled bunches of people sheltering by the Tiber. The sluggish current was out of sight from the road here. The flat, broad shelf by its banks, reached by steps from street level, was a popular shelter for the homeless.

Alexa was in the front passenger seat blowing cigarette smoke out of the crack she’d opened the window, not minding the freezing air it brought into the car, looking for where she wanted them to stop. The atmosphere in the car was bad. They all sensed failure.

“These kids won’t talk to cops,” she said. “Why should they?”

“Because this girl needs our help,” Emily muttered icily.

Alexa shook her head. “They don’t know that. They don’t believe a word you say. They think cops spell trouble. With good reason.”

“What do you suggest?” Costa asked.

“Leave it to me. Stay out of the way. I’ll tell them you’re family, looking for her. You got any money?”

Peroni reached over from the backseat and handed her some notes. She looked at them and whistled. “Wow. You could buy a couple of tricks for that. Supply and demand. Lots of the former, none of the latter.”

“We need to find this kid,” Peroni insisted.

She stuffed the cash into the pocket of her bright red nylon anorak and pointed across the river. “There. I know a couple of places. Besides, thinking about it, the wind’s coming from the wrong direction for this side. These kids are destitute. They’re not stupid. Not most of them anyway.”

The jeep moved into the right-hand lane and waited at the traffic lights at the next bridge.

“You’re not his niece,” Emily stated with some certainty.

The woman turned and stared at her. “Says who?”

“I just thought… It was a turn of speech.”

“You mean like ”sex worker“?”

“N-n-o,” she stuttered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m his niece. My mother is Stefan’s sister. My old man was a gypsy who climbed in the window one night.” She paused for effect. “ That was a turn of speech. They got married. Eventually. Then…”