David Hewson - The Villa of Mysteries

“No,” Costa objected. “What about—?”

“Mr. Vercillo? Miranda Julius, or whoever she is, did him. There’s forensic on that costume we found, and we got some bloodstains on a shirt in the apartment too. So you see the dilemma? Do we really waste public money—big public money in all probability—chasing all over the world for a woman who, let’s be honest here, probably did the Italian public at large some very big favours?”

Costa scowled and said nothing.

Peroni sniffed a young rose on the bush next to them, just coming into bloom. “Summer’s on the way, Nic. Let’s put all this behind us.”

“I’m trying,” he murmured.

Peroni’s hand went to Nic’s shoulder and that big ugly face now stared up at his. “OK. I know. I checked the records. It’s the first time you shot a man. And it bugs you. I don’t blame you. I never shot anyone in my life.”

Costa looked Peroni straight in the eye. “Did you ever want to?”

A touch of colour rose in Peroni’s face. “Nic. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. As luck would have it I am going to be by your side somewhat longer than I expected. And I do not intend to sit back and watch you choke trying to swallow this. Do you think either of them, Neri or Wallis, was going to let you walk out of there? You’re damn lucky the woman did. Still not sure I get that. What I do know is she filled you up with dope before this happened. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame her.”

Costa carefully removed his partner’s arm from his shoulder. “Don’t worry. What bothers me is I’m not that bothered. It wasn’t the dope, either. Not all of it anyway. I wanted that man dead. He was a monster.”

Gianni Peroni looked at him and Costa was unsure of his expression. It just may have been shock.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Nic,” he said eventually. “In a way. A part of me wants to say, ”Welcome to the real world, Mr. Costa. Where most of us go round having some such thoughts on a daily basis.“ A part of me hopes you don’t catch the same bug everyone else gets. Let’s not make a habit of it, huh? It’s such an easy way out. Is that a deal?”

“Yeah,” Costa replied, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Good.” His partner was grinning now. It made him look younger and a little scary.

“What do you mean you’re sticking around with me?” Costa asked. “I thought you were going back to pushing a desk in vice.”

Peroni took another look at the single rosebud struggling into bloom on the bush next to them then snipped off the stem with his forefinger and thumb and placed the flower in his jacket pocket. “You wouldn’t believe it. That Bucci bastard, the hood I knocked around good in Cerchi, laid in a complaint about me. Amazing. He may even sue too. Police brutality. First time I ever truly hit a man on the job, and he’s a murdering goon. What with all the hooker stuff that went down before, they wanted to kick me out altogether. But old Leo waded in and started screaming at everyone high and low. At least so I gather. He’s not even said so much as a word either way to me.”

Costa tried to decode the expression on Peroni’s face. “Is that good or bad? You staying with me?”

“It’s good for me,” Peroni yelled. “I got a job still, and a partner I can live with. How about you?”

Costa shrugged. “I may need to think about it for a while.”

“Jesus,” Peroni gasped. “Will you analyse every last fucking event on the face of this planet until it rolls over and dies? It is how it is . Nothing I can do will change things. So why sweat over it?”

Costa chuckled.

“Your sense of humour could do with some improving,” Peroni moaned. “Country boys like me don’t get these finer points.”

“I’m sorry, Gianni. Really I am. What about your wife? How are things going there?”

Peroni looked shifty. “We met at the weekend. I had to go to a funeral back home. She wanted a reconciliation but… You know the one thing I have learned from you people? To recognize that dead means dead. And that marriage is dead. I’ll see the kids don’t get damaged though, as much as I can.”

His battered face was unreadable. “A funeral?”

“Yeah. That old cop. The Tuscan amateur plastic surgeon.”

Peroni pointed to his scars. Costa was surprised to discover he was now very used to them. This was Gianni Peroni. “The nice guy who did this to me.”

“You went all the way home for that?” Costa asked, astonished.

Peroni laughed and shook his head. “Christ, Nic. What a pair of lousy detectives we make. You can’t see it any better than I could, not that you had as much time, of course. He was my old man. He begat me. Half my genes are his. He… oh shit, even now I find it hard to use the f-word. He was my father . There. I think my mamma must have thought keeping him sweet was part of the terms and conditions of working behind that bar. Who knows?”

Costa looked at his partner. When he was getting to know Gianni Peroni he’d always thought of him as a rock, impervious to the mundane tragedies of the world. It was, he now realized, such a superficial view.

“When did you find out?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

“Just after Christmas. When they worked out his liver was finally throwing up its hands and surrendering. He wanted to see me one last time. So I went and guess what? It was all about him really, not me. He wanted to explain that when he was remaking my face it was nothing personal. It was just himself he was beating up all along because of how guilty he felt about having fathered a bastard at all . So we shed a few tears together, me being the utter fool I am, and yes, maybe twenty-four hours later I break the habit of a lifetime and fall into bed with a Czech hooker because, well, why not, why the fuck not ?”

Peroni put a big hand over his crooked mouth, thinking. “You’re wrong about Teresa, by the way. I just know it.”

“But—” Costa wanted to ask so many questions.

“Ssshhh,” Peroni interrupted, watching a tall figure stride down the arcade opposite. Then he glanced at Costa. “What I just said is between the two of us, Nic. No one outside my family knows that little secret. No one else will. You share a little of my private burden. I’ll share a little of yours if you want me to, before I go back to my true vocation in life and you become my driver. At which point I doubt I’ll talk to you at all, the class war being what it is.”

Costa laughed. “I can’t wait for that day.”

“Good. What’s more, now we’re back on duty, we both get to share a whole load of old Leo’s burden. And that is one big load to bear.”

Falcone was beckoning for them to join him. He looked spruced up and dressed in his Sunday best. In his hands was a fine bouquet of roses and carnations.

“Hospital visits,” Peroni said, getting to his feet and patting the tiny rose in his jacket pocket. “Don’t you love ”em?“

RACHELE D’AMATO SAT upright in her bed in a private room. She wore a white silk shirt, torn up to the right elbow to make room for the cast on her arm, with sheets up to her waist. The fading remains of a livid bruise stained her forehead close to the scalp. Leo Falcone, watched by Costa and Peroni from the door, kissed her gently on the left cheek, presented a small golden box of chocolates then removed some old flowers from the vase by her bed and replaced them with his own.

“Here.” He passed the dead lilies and gladioli to Peroni who grimaced at the things then dumped them in a wastebasket in the corner of the room.

“Flowers,” she said, smiling. “Chocolates. Oh, Leo. How… quaint.”

The three men looked at her and understood the position. Nothing had really changed. She wielded the same control over her emotions. Even a bomb couldn’t change Rachele D’Amato.