David Hewson - The Lizard's Bite

LEO FALCONE STOOD WITH RAFFAELLA ARCANGELO IN the glass gallery. Both watched the scene developing below, two brothers, two cops, talking underneath the sputtering torch of the iron angel on the bridge, not that far from the pair of carpenters who were still slowly putting the front of the fornace back together.

“I told you there’d be no problem in the end,” Raffaella said. “They’re not unhelpful. Just preoccupied. And they’ve nothing new to say. You do understand that, Leo, don’t you?”

She was wearing better clothes today, he thought. A smartly pressed white silk shirt and black trousers. A little makeup and two small, delicate earrings, crystal naturally.

Falcone had taken the call from Teresa Lupo just after he’d left Costa and Peroni grumbling their way to the men downstairs, chastened by his reprimand for the way the younger detective had stepped out of line with Piero Scacchi. He was heartened to hear the interest and determination in Teresa’s voice, however. Something would, he thought, get resolved as a result. Even so, the nature of Uriel’s death remained puzzling. He was unable, too, to decide whether the news of Bella’s pregnancy clarified matters or simply made them more opaque. The answers to these problems lay in small details, snatches of conversation, tentative, private relationships. Falcone preferred dealing with crooks. He knew he was somewhat out of his territory in these waters, though he was determined the locals, and Randazzo in particular, wouldn’t notice.

“You promised to tell me what you know,” Raffaella reminded him.

He sipped the weak Earl Grey tea she’d brought. It was an affectation, a pleasant one. There were many in this overlarge, slightly pretentious home of which the Arcangeli filled barely a quarter.

“I said there would be limits,” he replied.

“I understand that, Leo. So tell me something within those limits.”

“Within those limits there’s precious little to say. What possible motive could Uriel have? What happened to Bella’s keys? You’ve still not found them?”

She hesitated, a fleeting look of reserve on her face. “No. I’ve looked again. Everywhere.”

In another case, one properly resourced, with strong backing from above, Falcone knew he’d be doing all the searching himself. Under Randazzo’s curious restrictions this was, if not impossible, quite difficult. Besides, he trusted Raffaella Arcangelo. She knew this rambling mansion better than they did. If there was anything to be uncovered here, she would surely find it. All the same . . .

“I ought to look.”

“Certainly.”

She led him to Uriel and Bella’s apartment, on the floor above. There was nothing to see. Nothing to take away except the ambience, which was a little tawdry: old furniture, the smell of musty damp.

“This is better than it normally was,” Raffaella said, seeing the expression on his face. “I wouldn’t clean for them. Even I have limits.”

“Where do the rest of you live?”

The answer didn’t surprise him. As far apart as possible. Michele’s apartment was on the ground floor. Gabriele occupied a sprawling hovel behind the dining room. Raffaella’s own room, about the same size but immaculate, though still with dated furniture and little in the way of modern conveniences, was a little way along from Uriel and Bella’s, almost within earshot. The rest of the mansion was empty: dusty, bare rooms, cleared of anything valuable they might once have contained. The short tour depressed him. He was glad to return to the dining room, the one place in the house, it seemed to him, that retained some memories of what the Arcangeli once were.

“Why did Bella have that phone, Leo?” Raffaella asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”

He frowned. “There would be one obvious reason. If she kept it hidden from all of you, how many possibilities are there?”

She didn’t look convinced.

“Affairs . . . happen,” he pointed out. “Even in Murano. There must have been others. Before Uriel, surely.”

“I wasn’t Bella’s keeper,” she replied quietly, evading his unspoken question.

“But you were Uriel’s, weren’t you?”

The dead man was two years older than she, but something in Raffaella’s attitude told Falcone the relationship between the two siblings was, in an odd way, reversed. That Uriel was under Raffaella’s care, somehow, the weakest of the three brothers. Perhaps that was why she chose to live so close to Uriel and his wife, when there were so many other rooms she could have used.

“What do you mean?” she wondered, not offended by the question, more puzzled.

“I was simply being presumptuous,” Falcone replied with a shrug. “This job makes you think you can read people. Sometimes I can. Sometimes . . .”

She was watching him, intrigued. “And how do you read me?” she asked.

“I think you cared for Uriel more than for the other two. Perhaps because he was the youngest. The least happy . . .”

“Uriel wasn’t unhappy! Not in the way you mean.”

“How then?”

“He was . . . unfinished,” she answered carefully. “Even I got out of here for a while. Studying, in Paris, when we still had money. Uriel never escaped. He never really knew what the world was like beyond Murano. And this place can be so cold, so claustrophobic. You won’t understand that. Most people don’t even notice. Michele, Gabriele—they never did. Uriel knew there was more to life, but he didn’t get the chance. And now . . .”

She paused, a sudden mist in her eyes. “You read people well, Leo. I’m not sure that’s a compliment. It must be a difficult talent to possess. Do you know when to turn it off?”

His former wife had once said something very similar, not long before she’d left him. At the time, he’d rejected the accusation. The talent she despised was a necessary part of his job. Now, after several solitary years of single life, he wondered whether it didn’t, in truth, carry a heavy personal cost.

“I’m trying to learn,” he said with a smile. “You will still accompany me this evening, won’t you?”

A faint rush of pink appeared on Raffaella’s cheeks. “Of course. I said I would.”

“Good. I understand you want to get to the bottom of this. I hope it helps.”

“I would have gone anyway,” she answered, not looking directly at him. “We were invited, apparently. Not that I knew of it. Michele had thoughtfully rejected Mr. Massiter’s offer without telling me. Now I’m going, it appears he will be too. Separately . . .”

She added the last part quickly, anxiously.

Falcone wondered why Michele Arcangelo would have rejected a social invitation from a man with whom he wished to conclude important business. At an event that was on his own doorstep, on property that was, technically, still their own. Then he checked himself. There were dangers in an excess of suspicion. The Arcangeli were pursuing the arrangement with Massiter out of financial necessity. It was, perhaps, only understandable if they found elements of it unpleasant.

“I have to ask something,” he declared abruptly. “It’s a personal matter, for which I apologise, but it can’t be avoided. I need to know about Uriel’s marriage. Is it true that it was more a family decision than his alone?”

There was a sudden, unexpected flicker of anger across Raffaella Arcangelo’s face. It made her look rather beautiful. “Who told you that? It’s nonsense!”

“Aldo Bracci. He said the marriage was more than just a personal liaison. It was meant to be some kind of alliance. That Bella brought knowledge with her, as part of her dowry perhaps. Knowledge that could help the business.”

She laughed. The anger disappeared in an instant. Falcone watched her sudden, flashing smile and wondered why a woman of Raffaella’s looks had stayed single throughout her life.