He’d called each of them as he made his way across the lagoon. Teresa Lupo, who had now given up watching Leo Falcone sleeping in the Ospedale Civile. She felt content about Falcone. He wouldn’t stir for a while. But the surgeon she’d brought in to manage his case assured them he was out of danger, not that she’d needed his opinion. On the phone, her voice difficult to hear over the noise of the taxi battling across the lagoon, she’d told Costa how she’d seen the fire in Falcone’s eyes as the sedative fought, and won, the battle to put him to sleep. There might be difficult times ahead, but Leo would return to the fray, and keep on returning until something stopped him for good.
It was a quiet, pointed rebuke about Costa’s own position, perhaps, but one he’d little time to consider at that moment.
Gianni Peroni would, he felt sure, still be furious after a brief and ill-tempered episode at the big Questura in Piazzale Roma. In desperation, and against Costa’s advice, the big cop had made one last effort to persuade some individual above the head of Commissario Grassi that the murder of Randazzo could only be investigated properly if it was seen in the light of the Bracci case and, by implication, that of the murders of Uriel and Bella Arcangelo. It had been like screaming at the deaf. Peroni hadn’t got beyond the pen pusher at the desk, who’d made one call, to a name he didn’t recognise, then told Peroni the station was too busy to waste time on someone who no longer worked there.
Luca Zecchini had pleaded the need for some time to himself. It took a while for Costa to get through to the major directly on his mobile. Zecchini was circumspect, unwilling to talk. The Carabinieri had an office not far from the Castello Questura, in the Campo San Zaccaria. It wasn’t hard to guess what Zecchini would do next. Exactly what any safe, conventional officer would in the circumstances. Call back to base, explain the situation to a superior, await orders. Prepare to share the blame. A content, well-ordered man like Zecchini surely believed that only an idiot would stick his neck on the block without good reason. The major had gone a long way already, all on the basis of a brief personal friendship with a man from a rival force. Further than Costa had expected, in all honesty. From the short conversation they had, one in which Costa struggled to persuade him to come to the meeting on San Pietro, it was difficult to gauge how much more Zecchini, or his superiors, could accept.
And then, finally, Costa had phoned Emily, left a message, since she was on voicemail, and received a brief call a little while later, during which she promised to do little more than be at the cathedral as he asked.
There was no time to wonder about the hesitation in her voice, no time for anything but to try to devise a way ahead. It was now almost five p.m. The Isola degli Arcangeli would be signed away to its new fate in little over an hour.
COSTA LOOKED AHEAD and saw a slender figure in a dark silk suit standing half hidden by the side of the crooked white marble campanile that leaned at an odd angle, set apart from the cathedral to which it belonged.
“Where have you been?” she asked bluntly.
“Chasing ghosts.”
“Did you find them?”
This wasn’t the conversation he wanted just then.
“Not exactly. It was a stupid idea, probably. I don’t think Leo would have approved.”
Emily looked at the wound on his head. Laura Conti had bandaged it. He could feel that the dried sticky blood had made its way beyond the fabric.
“You’re hurt, Nic.” Her hand went to his hair, her eyes examined the blow. “Head wounds can be nasty. You should see a doctor.”
“Later. We don’t have time.”
“Don’t we?”
He hadn’t seen her look like this before. Her eyes no longer shone. Her face had a flat, emotionless cast that made her seem older, sadder.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’ve been trying to get you what you want.”
“I know. Thanks.”
He touched her bare arm, then kissed the softness of her cheek, aware of the way she steeled against him. “I mean it. Thanks.”
“I don’t think it worked,” she murmured. “I’m sorry . . .”
There was an expression on her face, a lost, desolate look there, he didn’t begin to recognise.
“Let’s not prejudge anything,” he urged her. “We’ve more than one way to skin this particular cat.”
“Really? Are you sure he isn’t skinning us? Along with everyone else?”
“Is that how it feels?”
“To me it does. Let’s get started, shall we?” She nodded at the cathedral door. “They’re waiting for you. I want this out of my life forever after this evening. Understand this, Nic. After tonight, I’m gone from Venice.”
Her blue eyes didn’t leave him, looking for something she didn’t seem to find. “With you or without you,” she told him.
He didn’t deserve any better. Costa had been pushing all of them ever since Falcone went into hospital. By force of circumstance, she’d been close to Hugo Massiter. Costa had been blind to what that could mean. He only really began to consider the possible cost when he saw Laura Conti and Daniel Forster cowering in that little hovel on Sant’ Erasmo, still terrified of a man they hadn’t seen for years.
“Tomorrow we leave,” he said, taking Emily’s hands. “Tuscany. Anywhere. Wherever you want. I promise.”
“People in your job make a lot of promises,” she replied, and strode through the door, into the dark, lofty belly of the cathedral, empty save for a caretaker at the door and three figures seated on a wooden bench set in the shadows of the nave: Teresa, Peroni and, to Costa’s surprise, Luca Zecchini, who sat between the two of them. The major looked cheerier than at any time since the two of them had pounced on him as he sat eating a peaceful meal in Verona only a day earlier.
Costa pulled up a couple of flimsy metal chairs, positioned them opposite this unlikely trio, and introduced Emily to the major from the Carabinieri.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come, Luca. I wasn’t sure I should have asked you, to be honest.”
“Hell,” Zecchini answered with a broad grin, “Leo always said you people were good for keeping ennui away. I decided I was getting a little bored lately.”
“And your men?” Costa asked.
“They’re too young and too junior to risk being anything other than bored. I don’t mind putting my own job on the line. But I don’t extend that privilege to my officers. I imagine Leo’s the same.”
“Sure,” Peroni said, laughing. “That’s why we’re here.”
“If we can take Massiter down, he’s yours,” Costa offered. “That should take care of any unpleasantness.”
“Mine. Yours.” The major shrugged, nonchalant. “What does it matter? I’ve talked to my people, Nic. They’ve no ties here. Remember that. They’ve also got a lot of reasons to want Hugo Massiter in jail if there’s a good chance of keeping him there.”
Costa nodded. He understood that last qualification well.
“On the other hand,” Zecchini added. “If we screw up . . .”
The way his pale, intelligent face turned suddenly glum said it all.
“He’s going to be untouchable once he pushes this deal through,” the major continued. “He’ll have people in his debt well beyond Venice. They’re frightened of Massiter as it is. Once he’s tied them up in all the loans and guarantees and whatever other backhanders go along with something like this—”