David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

IT WAS A COLD, CLEAR NIGHT, bright with stars and the silver disc of a waxing moon. The police convoy, a marked car at its head, blue light flashing, siren screaming, cut straight through the evening rush hour. Falcone rode with Costa and Peroni just ahead of the heavily manned riot van that was the last in the line. The radio was hot with chatter and none of it sounded good. The plainclothes men stationed outside Neri’s had reported the sudden departure of his car just fifteen minutes before. One team had detached itself to give chase but lost the vehicle somewhere over the river. The second saw two more vehicles scream away from a rear alley and were left standing in the street, with no chance of pursuit.

“What are we going to do?” Costa wondered. “Go after him?”

Falcone shook his head. “Go after what? We only have a number for Neri’s own car, and what’s the money on him being in that? Let’s see who’s still in the house. It’s the son I want to talk to first. Wherever he is. Jesus, the timing. How the hell did Neri know?”

Costa and Peroni looked at each other. Falcone had ordered a big operation: ten vehicles, half of them marked. The DIA had two other cars along for the ride, with Rachele D’Amato at the head. It wasn’t going to be easy keeping something of this size quiet.

They turned into the narrow lane of the Via Giulia, rattling across the cobblestones, and saw the flash of cameras, the lights of the TV men, a full-scale media mob waiting on Neri’s doorstep.

Falcone went rigid with fury at the sight of them. He recalled Rachele D’Amato’s promise to Neri that morning. One way or another, she said, his fall from grace would be a very public event. He swore under his breath, peered ahead and saw her car, saw her slim figure getting out and slipping through the pack of hacks, towards the house.

“Stop here,” he ordered. “We don’t want that mob on our backs. And I’d rather not have her getting into the place before us.”

Costa pulled into the side of the road, next to a medieval fountain, and all three of them watched, with rising trepidation, the melee happening in the street. Broadcast crew fought with press journalists, jostling to be close to the action. The first marked police car had arrived and men were leaping out. D’Amato and some of her team stood by as a bunch of burly uniformed officers went through the motions of waiting to be let in then, in the space of a couple of seconds, began attacking the expensive polished wood door with sledgehammers. There wasn’t much room. A small van marked with the logo of one of the minor cable channels was parked directly outside, its back end almost up against the building. The hammer men had to squeeze behind it to tackle their target. The vehicle cramped their action, made it impossible to get the swing they needed.

Then one of them climbed onto the bonnet and took a hefty lunge at the woodwork. The door crumpled. Hands shot through to tackle the locks inside. Rachele D’Amato was over the door first, a couple of DIA men on her heels as the cops stood back, open-mouthed, wondering.

“Shit,” Falcone hissed and started running towards the mob followed closely by Costa and Peroni. When they got there the uniforms were stuck outside the shattered door, looking for direction.

“Next time wait for me,” Falcone barked at them. “Don’t let anyone else in. Don’t let anyone out without my permission.”

Falcone in the lead, they went up the stairs. The DIA crew had a good start on them. The first-floor room, where they’d seen Neri’s hoods that morning, was empty. The butt of a cigarette still smoked in an ashtray. There was a half-full coffee cup on the low table.

Peroni picked it up. “Still warm. They really did cut this fine.”

“They knew what they were doing,” Falcone murmured then stopped. The DIA team were clattering downstairs, arguing among each other until a female voice told them to clam up. Rachele D’Amato walked into the room with her team, stood in front of Falcone and his men, and folded her arms, furious.

“There’s not a soul in the house, Leo. Is the Questura leaking again or what?”

“Don’t start,” Falcone snapped back at her. “Who the hell do you think you are, jumping in ahead of us? And this joke out on the street? You had the nerve to call the media? This is a police investigation. Not yours. The DIA don’t even have warrants—”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “You want to read them?”

He glowered at the documents. “You said—”

“I changed my mind. The information we got from the accountant’s office this morning is like gold dust. We can lock this fat creep away for years, and scores of others too.”

“If you can find him… What do you think the media will make of that?”

“Leo!” she screeched. “I didn’t call the media. No one inside the DIA did. This was as secret as we get. Don’t look to me.”

Falcone stared at her. “No. You people are all so clean, aren’t you?”

“ Leo— ?”

Costa was on the phone, talking to the ops room. He finished the call. “They’ve found Neri’s car. It just had a couple of his hoods in it. They were riding around, no destination in particular, down in Testaccio. It was just a blind.”

“Where the hell are they?” Falcone demanded. “The son? The wife? He didn’t pack for a family holiday. What’s he doing?”

“Getting ready for a war maybe,” D’Amato suggested. “We still have the house. We’ve got free run of it. We can tear the place apart. It’s a gift.”

Peroni gingerly placed a hand on her slender shoulder. “We appear to have a conflict of interest, lady. We’re looking for a missing girl, in case you forgot. Right now we don’t care about finding Mr. Neri’s cooked books. They can wait for another day.”

“We need the son,” Falcone said, then walked over to the long window and gazed down into the street. The hubbub was dying. The media crews were starting to pack their bags. They’d been cheated too. There was a story for them. A failed raid on a city hoodlum. But there was no real action, nothing to splash over the front pages and the newscasts. A bunch of cops hammering down a door in the Via Giulia was second division news. Whoever tipped them off surely knew they would be disappointed, which pointed the finger at Neri himself, though Falcone couldn’t begin to fathom the reason.

He looked at Rachele D’Amato. “You can do what you like here. If you find something that has a material bearing on the Julius case, call me. That isn’t a request. If you delay what we’re doing by a single second I’ll be talking to the media about why we’ve been hampered unnecessarily. We’ve got to look for Mickey Neri and that girl. We’ve got to find someone to talk to.”

She wagged a long, elegant finger at him. “No, no, no, Leo. Don’t try and pass that responsibility on to me. We do DIA business, not yours. Leave some men if you want that.”

“ I don’t have the damned men ,” Falcone yelled at her, so loud even the cops outside stopped talking for a moment. “Don’t you get it? We’ve a day to find that girl. Maybe less. We haven’t a clue where she might be. We don’t even know where to begin looking. But it isn’t here. It’s not in your damned books. It’s wherever Mickey Neri is.”

Maybe, he thought. Leo Falcone didn’t know anymore. All he understood was that it was important to cling to the human side of the investigation. You only got results by finding the right people and making them talk.

“Leo? Leo !”

Her voice dogged them halfway down the stairs, arguing all the way. Then she turned back to join her team, to get on with the job. Her job. Falcone didn’t get it. Rachele D’Amato had won what she wanted. Neri was on the run. She had carte blanche to investigate every last aspect of the old crook’s empire. What was it to her to repay a little of the debt? Why was this vendetta the DIA had with Neri more important than the life of a teenage girl?