The car came to a halt in the traffic in Vittorio Emanuele. He didn’t understand why they were taking this route. There were quicker ways through the tangle of alleys behind the Campo dei Fiori. A good police driver should have known about them.
The woman at the wheel turned and smiled at them. “The U.S. authorities are involved already,” she said. “So don’t worry about that. Captain Catherine Bianchi. San Francisco Police Department. Is there a better route than this? I don’t drive much in Rome usually. I lack the balls.”
She was about forty, slim, with a pleasant, bright face, Italian-looking, he would have said until he looked at her hair. That was straight and coal-coloured, with a henna sheen, tied back behind her head in a severe way that would have been rare on a Roman woman. She spoke good Italian, though with an American inflection. This was the woman he’d heard about, the one who’d caught Falcone’s eye.
The inspector outlined a faster route to the Via Giulia, with a degree of patience he would never have used on one of his officers.
“Can I hit the siren?” Captain Catherine Bianchi asked.
“No,” Falcone replied. “That will just give them warning.”
“Give who warning?” Maggie Flavier asked.
“The Carabinieri, of course,” he answered.
Costa looked out the window, at the swarming people and the tangled cars, the familiar crush of humanity in his native city.
He understood why Maggie Flavier was in the car. A man had died in the gardens of the Villa Borghese. Some strange, gruesome caricature of a human head had been substituted for the precious death mask of Dante which they were supposed to be guarding. A world-famous actor was missing, and his co-star had been the victim of an attack that seemed to be some kind of prank.
There were crimes here, perhaps serious, perhaps less so. Leo Falcone had clearly had no desire to try to go near the shooting. It would have been pointless. The man who attacked them had been killed by the Carabinieri. Only they could investigate themselves. What Falcone was quietly attempting to do was position himself to steal any broader case concerning the death mask and, more important, the fate of Allan Prime. The two principal national law-enforcement agencies in Italy usually managed to avoid turf wars over who handled what. In theory they were equals, one civilian, one military, both capable of handling serious crimes. Often the decision about which organisation handled a case came down to the simplest of questions: Who got there first?
“We will have to offer them a statement,” Costa insisted. “Miss Flavier and I. We were witnesses.”
“There’s no hurry,” the inspector observed. “Neither of you knows this man, do you? Nor did you see how he died. It’s better that Miss Flavier remains in our company. For her own sake.”
“Absolutely,” the American policewoman insisted from the front seat. “No question about it.”
Maggie Flavier leaned back in the deep leather of Falcone’s Lancia, flung her arms behind her head, and sighed, “I love Italy.”
She gazed at Costa, smiling wanly, resigned. He found himself briefly mesmerised by her actor’s skill, the ability she possessed to turn her gaze upon someone, seize his attention, to look at him with her bright green eyes and hold his interest, make him wonder what came next. This was the way she stared into the camera lens. For reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, he found that thought vaguely disturbing.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“Here I am being kidnapped by two charming Roman cops. And why? So you can steal some case you don’t understand right from under the noses of the opposition.”
At the wheel of the Lancia as they negotiated the narrow, choked lanes of the centro storico, Catherine Bianchi chuckled and said, “You got it.”
Costa didn’t laugh, however. Nor did Leo Falcone. The inspector was on his mobile phone, engaged in a long, low discussion he clearly didn’t want anyone else to hear.
They rounded one more corner, past a house, Costa recalled, that was once supposed to have belonged to the mistress of a Borgia pope, Alexander VI. An image flashed through his head: Bartolomeo Veneziano’s subtly erotic portrait of Alexander’s bewitching daughter Lucrezia, ginger hair braided, a single breast bared, catching the artist’s eye with an unsmiling sideways glance, just exactly as Maggie Flavier regarded Roberto Tonti’s camera, and through it the prurient world at large. It was a strange memory, yet apposite. Lucrezia, like Beatrice, the character Maggie played in Tonti’s movie, was an enigma, never quite fully understood.
The Lancia turned into the Via Giulia, one of the smartest streets in Rome, a place of palatial apartments and expensive antiques stores. A sea of blue state police cars stood motionless ahead of them. There were dark blue vans of the Carabinieri in among them. Traffic was backed up on the Lungotevere by the river which ran above the street. A battle was looming.
Maggie nodded at a house in the centre of the tangle of the vehicles. “It’s that one there.”
“You know it well?” Costa asked.
“Allan threw parties,” she said with a shrug. “A lot.” She looked at him, her smile gone. “Everyone likes a party from time to time, don’t they?” She paused and looked, for a moment, very vulnerable.
“You don’t want me to come in, do you?” she said, and the question was asked of Falcone.
The inspector seemed puzzled. “Would you rather stay here?”
“If that’s OK.” She put a hand to her close-cropped hair, tousled it nervously, the way a child did. “You’ll think I’m crazy but I get a feeling for things sometimes. I’ve got one now. It’s not good. Don’t make me go in there. Not unless you know it’s all right. I need the bathroom. I need a drink.”
“Soverintendente Costa,” Falcone ordered.
“Sir.”
“Find two women officers who can take Miss Flavier to the wine bar round the corner. Then you come with me.”
2
Gianni Peroni had enjoyed standoffs with the Carabinieri before. Just never over a dummy’s head with an apparently genuine death mask attached to it. He had four plainclothes state police officers with him to form a physical barrier between the evidence and the grumbling crowd of smart uniforms and surly faces getting angrier by the moment. The small police forensic crew had, meanwhile, gathered what passed for some of the strangest evidence Peroni had ever seen.
What really took his breath away were the movie people. Roberto Tonti, storming at anyone within earshot, grey hair flying as his gaunt frame hobbled around the stage. The producer Dino Bonetti, who’d pass for a mob boss any day, stabbing his finger at anyone who’d listen, demanding that the evening proceed. And, more subtly, some quiet American publicity man backing the two of them up during the rare moments either paused for breath. Even the Carabinieri balked at the idea everything could go off as planned. While the arguments ensued, Teresa and her small team worked quietly and swiftly, placing items very quickly into evidence bags and containers, trying to stay out of the melee. Peroni hadn’t told her they didn’t have long. He hadn’t needed to.
“There’s been a death,” Peroni pointed out when Tonti began threatening to call some politicians he knew. “And …” He gestured at the bloodied fake head. “… this. The entertainment is over, sir. Surely you appreciate what I’m talking about?”
The publicist took him by the arm and requested a private word. Glad to have an excuse to escape the director’s furious bellows, Peroni ordered the plainclothesmen not to move an inch and went with the man to the back of the stage.