David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

“Cat got your tongue? Did I ask the wrong question or something?”

“I’d like to help, boss,” Bucci said eventually. “You know that. If there’s ever anything I can do… you’ve just got to ask.”

“That you can do!” Neri laughed, still struggling to work out Bucci’s reaction. “What are you talking about, Bruno? I was asking your opinion. This is my problem. A son I love. A wife I love. And the two of them can’t stand the sight of each other. You think I’m going to ask you to fix it. Jesus—”

“I don’t have an opinion.”

He slapped Bucci’s shoulder. “Yeah. Right. You northern guys. You think you’ve got the answers to everything. Just don’t want to say it, that’s all.”

“Got me there,” Bruno Bucci replied, brown eyes staring into Neri’s face with no visible emotion in them at all.

“Here.” Neri flashed him some big notes. “You’re right. It’s my business. I never should have put you in that position. You go have fun. Whatever. I don’t care. ”You’ve just got to ask…“ You guys kill me sometimes.”

Bruno Bucci pushed himself up and came off the wall, counting the notes.

“Thanks,” he said.

Neri watched his broad back disappear down the street. “Humility,” he said to himself. “That is what the world is lacking today.”

Then he walked round the corner into the square, wondering how long it was since he sat on a bus, trying to remember what it felt like to be young, trying to separate several conflicting strands of thought in his head.

The benign mood didn’t last. There was a queue. There were foreigners, pushing and shoving and asking stupid questions. It took ten minutes for him to work his way inside the doors. By the time Emilio Neri was on the 64 his mind was back where he had left it an hour before, stuck inside a foul mood, thinking about his stupid family.

There were no seats either. Not until a man not far short of his own age, smartly dressed, constantly smiling, stood up and offered his own.

Neri looked into the stranger’s face, wondering why he’d been stupid enough to refuse Bucci’s offer of a cab and climb on board this thing in the first place. Because you’re an old fool, he thought to himself. And maybe they’re starting to know it.

The man couldn’t stop smiling. It was beyond Neri why anyone would smile on a stinking, overcrowded bus. He couldn’t wait for the thing to lurch across the bridge and into the Via Arenula so he could waddle home along the Via Giulia.

“Use the seat yourself,” Neri growled. “I don’t need it. What makes you think I do?”

“Nothing,” the man said, still smiling. He looked like a confidence trickster or some two-bit actor in the Fellini films “I just thought—”

“You thought wrong,” Neri snarled.

And so he clung to the strap, wishing all the way that he’d fallen into the seat and taken the weight off his sweating feet. There was some black teenager in it now, headphones clamped to his skull, a hissing noise emerging from them.

He got off at the Via Arenula, in a big jostling crowd. He had to wait almost five minutes to cross the busy road. When he got home he was out of breath and stank of sweat, Mickey and Adele’s fighting still in his head, jostling for attention with the call from inside the Questura.

The house was empty. He wanted them there. When the phone rang he knew an ancient corpse really was rising, in a way he’d have to anticipate, couldn’t hope to avoid.

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER LEAVING the Teatro di Marcello Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni followed Falcone’s car into a narrow private lane off the Janiculum Hill, the sprawling piece of parkland that rose up from behind Trastevere and overlooked the river.

Peroni downed the remains of his second porchetta panino of the day, brushed the crumbs off his jacket into the floorpan of the Fiat and said, “You know, I like the way you drive, Nic. It’s careful without being over-cautious, sensitive to circumstances and a little rash if required. When I’m restored to my true position I will offer you a job, my boy. You can drive me anywhere. Most of the guys I have spend their time bouncing off other vehicles which is a little unsettling for a sensitive man like me.”

Then he unwrapped a chocolate bar and took a single bite before sticking it in his pocket, half-eaten.

“You’re going to put on weight eating like that,” Costa observed. “It’s not natural.”

“Been the same weight for fifteen years. I burn it up inside, what with my nervous tension and all. You just see the exterior me. Calm, unflustered, ever-vigilant, ugly as a horse’s ass, just what I want you to see. But inside I’m a tortured cauldron of torn emotions. I’ve got traumas that can burn off any amount of carbohydrate and cholesterol I throw at it. You watch. You seen so much as an extra gram on me since we started this relationship?”

“No.”

“Also, you should be aware that meat—even the shit they sell under that name in Rome—and bread, they’re the best antidote there is against this flu thing. Forget all that crap about fruit and vegetables. You ever seen a chimpanzee? Fucking things never stop sneezing. Or doing the other thing. Sometimes simultaneously.”

Costa thought about this. “I’ve never seen a chimpanzee sneeze.”

“You need to develop your powers of observation. Now do you want me to come in and hold hands with you for this or can I just stay in the car and nap awhile? What with mummified bodies and Roman history lessons this has been a tiring day for a nocturnal animal like me.”

Peroni took the cigarette packet out, saw Costa’s face and thought better of it. “OK. OK. One concession a day is all you get. About the English kid, Nic. Falcone’s doing all he can in the circumstances. Putting the picture around. Getting the CCTV. I mean, I’m no detective but what this mother says seems so vague .”

“Things often are. Isn’t it that way in vice?”

He shook his head. “Not really. We’re law enforcement, not detection. We just try to keep a lid on everything, make sure no one truly innocent gets hurt and the dope stays out of the equation as much as possible. I’m not like you. I’m a kind of social worker if you want the honest truth. You got to remember. If it comes down to violence and worse it all falls out of our hands anyway. We’re just licensed informers who hand on some gossip you people can use. A popular job, you’ll agree.”

“And when you want some information?”

“I ask,” Peroni replied. “Straight out front. I’m a good asker. No messing. It’s the only way. So let me say this again: What’s the problem? You want to spend a little more time around the mother? A man should always consider his sex life, but I told you. Ask Barbara out. She’s a nice girl.”

“Meaning?” Peroni could be too direct for his own good. Too observant too.

“Meaning I saw the way you looked at the English woman. Don’t get me wrong. She’s great-looking in a kind of second-hand way. Older than you, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Not my type. Too much of something—booze maybe, and bad dreams—been through her head.”

“I just think there’s more to it,” Costa replied. Peroni hadn’t heard as much as he had. Or maybe he was uncharacteristically slow off the mark.

The older man put his hand on Costa’s arm. “Nic. You heard Falcone. He said you could be right. But think this through. You just got back on the job. There are people in the Questura who happen to believe Falcone’s crazy to give you a second chance at all. You’re on probation . Just like me.”

“And you think that if I push this I can ruin your chances along with my own?”