David Hewson - A Season for the Dead

“How’s the back?” she asked him. “I heard he cut you up pretty badly.”

“You heard wrong,” he snapped.

“Look,” she said, unmoved by his aggression. “It’s just a job. You’re doing yours. I’m doing mine.”

“They don’t match.”

“Really? How many hacks have you seen up on corruption charges recently? Nothing personal, but we’re just looking for some socially acceptable reasons to justify felling a few trees. We tend to hunt as a pack and it’s not a pretty sight, I know. To be honest, it’s a little like attending a meeting of Gargoyles Anonymous most days. We’re not crooked. Neither are you from what I hear but you’re not exactly standard issue. “Greta Ricci,” she said, extending a hand. He shook it.

“I’m sorry,” she went on, “mornings are not my time. This is the big one, isn’t it? Arturo Valena. What a way to go. And those two poor cops last night.”

“There’s no point in asking me. You probably know more anyway.”

She lit a cigarette. “No problem. I wasn’t after anything. It’s all running away from me anyway. One of those TV bastards has got something up his sleeve. I can tell from the smug look on his face. One more fuckup and they’ll have me off crime altogether and writing makeup advice or some such shit. I have this anarchical idea that somehow reporting’s all about digging stuff up. Whereas what you’re really supposed to do is suck up to the big people, your people, the politicians, then take down notes when they feel like leaking something. If I’d wanted to be someone’s secretary I’d have worn a shorter skirt and learned how to type properly.”

Costa was interested. “What do you think he might have?”

“Search me. The way this story’s been running it could be anything. Craziest job I’ve ever worked on. But I’ll tell you this. There’s something up with the Vatican. I heard him calling the media people there, all quietly so he thought none of us could hear. He’s asking for something from them. God knows what. I mean, this Fosse guy was a priest, sure. All the same, you can’t blame them for what he’s done, can you?”

He shrugged. “I can’t imagine the connection.”

She sucked on the cigarette, stared at him, knowing he was lying, then handed over a card. “Listen. If you ever feel like leaking something…”

He put it in his pocket. “I thought you were against that.”

The woman looked him up and down. “From you I think it would be different.”

He nodded and said, “I have to go. Ciao.”

Then he crossed the piazza, pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring their questions, showed his ID to the uniformed men on the gate and walked into the church.

There was a stink there, an odd mixture of burnt wood and meat. The forensic team was clustered around a low metallic object upturned on the floor, next to a pile of ashes. A thin wisp of gray smoke still worked its way upward from the embers in the middle of the nave. The corpse was gone. He was glad of that, after Falcone’s warning. In the far corner of the church, penned in by two uniformed cops, stood a straggle of dogs undergoing slow and careful examination by another of the forensic team.

Teresa Lupo sat on a bench not far from the metal grill, her back to him, hunched, miserable. Nic Costa walked over and sat by her side. She’d been weeping.

He took her hand. “I’m sorry, Teresa. I should have been there.”

Her damp eyes turned on him, full of grief. “Why? So you could die too? What’s the point of that?”

“Maybe… I don’t know.”

Her mood changed from grief to fury in a second. “Maybe it would have been different? Is that what you mean? Don’t fool yourself. I talked to people who were there. This… monster just popped them, as if he were putting down an animal. He’d have killed you. He’d have killed anyone who stood in his way. Killing doesn’t mean anything to him. None of this does. It’s as if it’s all a game. Or as if he’s in Hell already and thinks this is the way he’s supposed to behave, like he’s handing out punishment to anyone who deserves it.”

“Luca didn’t deserve it. He was a good man. He was…” His own eyes began to sting. “I could have learned a lot from him.”

She pummeled at her nose with a handkerchief, then squeezed his hand.

“He’s in the morgue right now. I’ve got to go back for the autopsy after this.”

“You don’t have to do that.” This sudden practical turn shocked him. “Get someone else.”

“What?” She looked surprised. “Nic, this is my job. In any case, what’s on that slab isn’t him. Not anymore. I’ve dealt with enough bodies over the years to know that. When they’re gone they live just one place. Here…” She tapped her lank, dark hair with a strong finger. “He’ll be there a long time. I liked the stubborn old bastard.”

“He felt the same about you.”

“Yeah,” she said, with the hint of a smile. “I think he did too. He didn’t call me Crazy Teresa, did he? Not behind my back.”

“Never.”

“Liar.”

He grimaced. It was hard to shrink from the truth when she turned on the heat.

“It was just that you scared him sometimes. Not because of who you are but because of him. Because he didn’t like…” He fell silent.

“What?”

“He didn’t like having those feelings. They disturbed him.”

“Seems to go with the job,” she replied, staring at him. “Tell me. Is that why you all do this? To get the excuse you want?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Oh, I think you do. You tell yourself you’re like this because of what you do. But is it just faintly possible there’s another reason? That you picked this stupid profession because it allows you to be what you are and never have to take the blame?”

“Yeah,” he replied, thinking that she could have been talking of herself. Teresa was a quasicop. That much had become obvious over the past few days. What turned them on, turned her on too. “That’s right. You see through us all.”

Her hand touched his knee. The tears stood big in her eyes now. “I’m sorry, Nic. I’m so sorry. I’m just lashing out because it feels good, except it doesn’t. I didn’t mean it.”

He folded his arms around her, felt her overlarge body press against his. “Don’t apologize,” he said. “Anyway, you’re right.”

She wiped her streaming nose with her sleeve. “Maybe for Luca. You… I don’t know. You want to do something, don’t you?”

“Do I?” he asked mournfully, not wanting an answer. He nodded at the activity across the nave. “What happened here?”

“Someone had a barbecue. Let the dogs in to clean up afterward.”

“Jesus.”

“It was that TV creep, Valena. Falcone’s livid, which I guess ought to impress me, except that it’s weird. You’d almost think this was about him, not two dead cops and God knows who else. Seems to think he knows all the answers too. When this is over, Nic, I’m taking a break. Maybe I’ll go back to the university, teach for a while. I don’t mind the work. Truth is, it’s the best there is. It’s just the people. Falcone in particular. He’s… I don’t know. Luca loathed the man and I trust his judgment. Let’s leave it at that.”

He said nothing. It was unwise to respond.

“How’s she doing?” Teresa asked.

“Who?”

“Sara Farnese. She’s still staying with you, isn’t she?”

“She’s fine,” he said automatically.

“Fine?”

He wilted under the ferocity of her gaze.

“Nic. Whatever she is, and I sometimes wonder if you’re even mildly qualified to judge, she is not ”fine.“Look at what’s happening here. Look at what someone’s doing because of her.”