David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

“If you want to look at it that way, yeah,” Peroni conceded. “That’s a part of it. But mainly I’m thinking about you. Honest. I got to know you a little these last couple of weeks. Sometimes you take things on yourself. Someone else’s problem becomes yours.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“It’s a backhanded one. The flip side is that’s a great way to get screwed. Or screw yourself.”

“I won’t screw up, Gianni. Forget about me. What about the missing girl? What if these two are connected? All that stuff about the rituals—”

Peroni sighed and shook his head. “A piece of vegetable and some seeds? Look, they don’t call her Crazy Teresa for nothing. I love her as much as anyone, but you got to admit this is stretching things. Even if she has it half right about the corpse, there’s no way it can have anything to do with the Julius girl. They’re sixteen years apart. They have absolutely nothing in common except the looks. What are you saying? Someone’s still doing all this mumbo-jumbo? How come we heard nothing all this time? You think Rome hasn’t seen a pretty teenage blonde since the girl in the peat?”

It was a good question. He’d thought about it too. “Maybe it went all right before. Maybe someone only gets killed if there’s a foul-up. If the girl suddenly doesn’t want to play ball. I don’t know.”

Peroni nodded. “So all the Julius girl has to do is let this creep have his way with her? Then she gets free?”

More than that, Costa thought. He recalled what Teresa had said about the book. The girl gets rewarded . She gets a taste of paradise. She becomes an initiate, part of the club. And the next time round she sees the ritual from the inside. She watches someone else become .

“Maybe,” he said.

“Doesn’t seem a big deal. Women have been getting on that way since we all crawled out of the slime.”

Gianni Peroni came from a different generation. Costa reminded himself to keep that in mind. “In this century it’s a big deal.”

Peroni gave him a sharp look. “Sorry. Just the dinosaur in me talking. Let’s forget it, huh? My advice is: we just keep our heads down and do as we’re told. That is the way of progress in the modern police force.”

There was the rumble of a sports car. A black Alfa Romeo coupe drove up and parked close to Falcone’s vehicle. Costa watched as an elegant woman in a serious dark jacket and tight skirt, cut to just above the knee, climbed out and, very gingerly, embraced Falcone, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

Peroni closed his eyes. “Oh shit. There goes my nap. There really is no God after all. Or if there is he’s a bastard. Behold, one more reason to listen to what the dinosaur’s saying. Know who that is?”

Costa shook his head.

“The ice maiden from the DIA. Rachele D’Amato. Big number there these days too. Does things like setting up stings in brothels and you wouldn’t tell anyone in vice first if you did that, would you? Listen. Never, ever do you mess with her, understand? Not until you make inspector class and even then I’d wear gloves. She’s the woman Falcone was porking way back until his wife found out. What the hell is she doing here? Come to that, what the hell are we doing here? I am living in darkness with you people.”

Falcone and the woman were talking animatedly outside the gates. It was a professional conversation, from the woman’s side anyway.

“Anything else I need to know about her?”

“Oh yes,” Peroni added. “She hates cops. At least… let me be more precise. She has a thing about us. Maybe it comes from her experience with Falcone. We’re all assholes. Crooked assholes too in all probability. Before stiffing me she took down two men from narcotics last year for receiving backhanders.”

“More fool them,” Costa scowled. He hated bent cops. He couldn’t work out why anyone had any sympathy for them in the Questura.

“Oh, I forgot,” Peroni groaned. “You’re the one with a conscience. Let me tell you something, kid. These were good guys. They put a lot of people in jail who deserved to be there. Until you’ve worked that beat yourself I suggest you don’t prejudge people. In that line of work it’s sometimes hard to be black and white, because if you are, no one talks to you at all.”

Costa stared at his partner. He wished he could understand Peroni better. Sometimes the man said things that disturbed him.

“Whatever,” Peroni continued. “The bitch has balls, I’ll say that for her. Word was someone put out a contract on her a year back. When she found out she drove round to his house, walked in on him and his old woman over breakfast and… reached an understanding.”

The DIA people did walk a dangerous line. Costa knew one who’d been badly injured in a bomb blast in Sicily. There weren’t just cops in the force either. Some lawyers were in there too. Somehow that seemed to make them easier targets in the eyes of the mob.

“Is she still on the list?”

“She’s alive, isn’t she?”

Peroni climbed out of the car and walked to the gates, Costa dogging his footsteps. Rachele D’Amato was slim, in her thirties, a type Costa recognized: businesslike, serious, but not above turning on the attraction to get her way. She had plenty to work with. She was just a touch taller than Nic Costa, with the kind of figure other women hated to see. The suit emphasized her slender waist. Her jacket hung open to reveal a tight, cream silk shirt, cut revealingly low. She had a hard, beautiful face, with a phoney smile accented by deep-red lipstick, and immaculate, long brown hair, pulled back from her forehead and tied behind. Costa could imagine Falcone with her. They’d make a convincing couple. He just wondered how much mutual trust they’d ever manage to share.

“Not that I’m complaining but why’s a civilian here?” Peroni wondered.

Rachele D’Amato turned and smiled. “Oh. Let me remember the name. It’s Detective Peroni. Right?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “And there was me thinking you wouldn’t recognize me with my clothes on. You know, I don’t recall you looking at my face for one moment that memorable evening. Ah well. Meet the DIA lady, Nic. Rachele D’Amato. She’s just so cute, isn’t she? Why don’t we get them that pretty in the police?”

Costa smiled and said nothing.

“So,” Peroni continued. “You just passing or something? No need to answer. Nice that you should stop by and say hello. This, by the way, is what we call police work. You’re currently looking at the only three cops in Rome with clear nasal passages, though I cannot guarantee how long that will stay true for my veggie-eating partner here. Best you run along in case something nasty happens.”

Falcone gave him a filthy look then pressed the button on the videophone. “Miss D’Amato is here because I asked for her help.”

Peroni wasn’t about to give up. “You mean this is a brothel too? Jeez. They show up in the strangest places these days. Oh, oh. Icy stare time. I got it wrong. This guy’s some kind of hood? No! Don’t recall any of them living in this part of town. Place looks like it ought to belong to some playboy or something.”

It was a shrewd observation. The main house lay a good hundred metres beyond the big secure gates. It resembled a reproduction imperial villa, a single-storey palace built around an open patio. An avenue of classical statues lined the pathway up to the house. At the end there was what looked like a fishpond and a fountain.

Rachele D’Amato looked Costa up and down while Peroni stood there, grinning. “I don’t know you. Leo made you his partner. You must have done something very bad.”

“Nic Costa,” he replied, and held out his hand. “I like challenges.”