David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

He read the last page of the report and, knowing the volatile and untrustworthy Neri as he did, understood every word. It said that Wallis and Neri had, initially, proved the best of friends. Their families had dined with each other. Six weeks before Eleanor Jamieson died, she and Wallis had spent some time on holiday with the Neri family on one of their vast estates in Sicily. Some undisclosed form of business had been done. The Americans were happy. So were the mob.

Then, around the time of the girl’s disappearance, a coldness had entered the relationship. There had been reports that, while in Sicily, Wallis had gone over Neri’s head to talk to some of the senior bosses there, something Neri would soon learn about. There was rumour of a drug deal that had gone wrong, leaving the Americans out of pocket and angry. Neri never could resist taking people to the limit. He skimmed every last dollar that went through his hands, even after his “legitimate” cut.

Some huge row took place between the two men. One informer even said they came to blows. After that, they were both in trouble with their bosses. Neri was told bluntly he was losing the job of linkman with the Americans. Wallis got a dressing-down too, though he continued to live in Rome for half of the year, with precious little to do except save face. It was an uneasy truce. One of Wallis’s lieutenants was murdered two months later, his throat cut in a car close to a Testaccio brothel. Not long after, a cop on Neri’s payroll was found dead in what had been made to look like suicide. Now Falcone wondered, was there a link here? Would the semimummified body of a sixteen-year-old girl raise these old ghosts from their graves? And if it did, how different would the world be now, with the DIA peering inquisitively over his shoulder every step of the way?

Leo Falcone looked at his watch. It was just after twelve. He thought of all the careful protocols which surrounded cases involving known mobsters. Then he took out his diary and placed the call.

“Yes?”

Rachele D’Amato’s cool, distanced voice still had the power to move him. Falcone wondered briefly whether he was phoning her for the sake of the job or for more personal reasons. Both, he thought. Both were legitimate too.

“I wondered whether you’d be there. Everyone else I call right now seems to be at home, sick in bed.”

She paused. “I don’t get to bed as much as I used to, Leo. Sick or not.”

There was a deliberate, slow certainty to her voice. Falcone understood what she was saying, or thought he did. No one else had filled her life after the affair ended. He knew that already. He’d checked from time to time.

“I was wondering if you had time for lunch,” he said. “It’s been too long.”

“Lunch!” She sounded pleased. “What a surprise. When?”

“Today. The wine bar we used to go to. I was there the other evening. They have a new white from Tuscany. You should try it.”

“I don’t take wine at lunchtimes. That’s for cops. Besides, I have an appointment. I have to run. We’ve got people sick everywhere too.”

“Tonight then. After work.”

“Work stops for you in the evenings these days, Leo?” she sighed. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just thought…”

He felt tongue-tied, embarrassed. She’d always said it was the work that drove them apart after Mary left. It wasn’t. It was him. His possessiveness. His passion for her, which was never quite returned.

“Don’t apologize,” she said wryly. “It doesn’t stop for me either. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need,” she said, and there was a new note in her voice. A serious, professional one. “You have a body. Is it Wallis’s girl?”

“Yes,” he sighed, inwardly livid, wondering immediately who had talked.

“Don’t sound so cross, Leo. I have a job to do too.”

The corpse had been lying in the morgue for two weeks. Anyone could have seen the tattoo and put two and two together. It would be impossible to find out who had blabbed.

“Of course. You’re very good these days, Rachele.”

“Thank you.”

He wondered why fate had made him fall in love with two lawyers. Why not women who were a little less curious? A little more forgiving?

“Then we’ll meet,” she announced. “I’ll call you. I have to go now.”

She didn’t even ask if it was convenient for him. Rachele never changed.

“Leo?”

He knew what she’d say. “Yes.”

“This is professional. Nothing more. You do understand that?”

Leo Falcone understood, though it didn’t stop him hoping.

COSTA CROSSED THE BUSY ROAD and headed for the Campo dei Fiori, reminding himself he used to live here and there were memories, important ones, pieces of his personality stamped on the place. He missed the Campo from time to time. He was an innocent when he lived here, young and unbruised by the world. There’d been fleeting relationships, brief flings which Gianni Peroni probably wouldn’t count as love affairs at all. There was the place too. The cobbled piazza was grubby at the best of times. The market attracted too many tourists. The prices were higher than elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was a genuine part of Rome, a living, human community that had never been dislodged from its natural home. As always, he got a small rush of pleasure when he walked along the Via dei Giubbonari and came out onto the square. The stalls were still doing good business, selling spring greens, chicory, calabrese and cavolo nero alongside vibrant oranges from Sicily, stored over the cold months and now fit for little more than juice. The mushroom stand was piled high with all kinds of funghi, fresh chiodini, dried porcini. The handful of fishmongers tucked into one corner had scallops and giant prawns, turbot and sacks of fresh mussels. He worked his way through, picking up an etto of wild rocket and the same of agretti for later. Then he added a chunk of parmesan from the lone alimentari van.

“We got good prosciutto, Mr. Policeman,” the woman said, recognizing him. “Here…”

She held out a pink strand, waving it in front of his face. If he ate meat, Nic Costa thought he’d be hard pressed to find much better in Rome. “I’ll pass.”

“Vegetarianism is an unnatural fad,” the woman declared. “You come back here one day when you’ve got time and we’ll go through this in some detail. You worry me.”

“Please,” Costa said. “I have enough people worrying about me just now.”

“Means there’s something wrong.”

He took the prosciutto anyway. When she was out of sight he gave it to the scruffy young boy belonging to the Kosovan who was always begging in the square, playing an ancient violin badly. Then he handed the father a ten-euro note. It was a ritual he’d forgotten somewhere along the line too: twice a day, every day, as his late father had always told him. Being back in the Campo reminded him why it was necessary. He’d been spending too much time on his own, closeted inside the farmhouse on the outskirts of the city, thinking. Sometimes you had to get out and let life happen to you.

He’d just pushed his way through the crowd at Il Forno and was taking a bite of pizzetta bianca, salty and straight from the oven, when he saw what was happening. Leo Falcone was right. The Campo attracted tourists, and with the tourists came trouble. Pickpockets. Conmen. Worse sometimes. The police always had people on duty there, in uniform and out. The carabinieri liked the place too, parking their bright shiny Alfas in the most awkward of places and then lounging on the bonnet, eyeing the crowds through expensive sunglasses, trying to look cool in their dark, well-pressed uniforms.

Costa made a point of avoiding the carabinieri as much as possible. There was enough rivalry inside the Questura itself without extending it to these soldiers masquerading as cops. The demarcation lines were dimly drawn between this branch of the army and the civilian police. They could arrest the same people he did, and in the same places. Most of the time it was simply a matter of who got there first. There was an old joke: the good-looking ones joined the carabinieri for the uniform and the women, the smart and the ugly ones went into the state police because that was all they could get. It wasn’t all exaggeration either.