“Really. So if it’s that easy, Officer Peroni-”
“Hey, hey! Gianni. Nic. Please…”
Emily Deacon smiled. “If it’s that easy, don’t you think he might be doing it too? This girl must have seen what happened. She must know things we’d dearly love to hear. Why else would he want to kill her?”
Costa gave his partner a hard look. They should have thought of this themselves. They’d been distracted by the meeting at the embassy, and having an outsider attached to the investigation.
“I’ll drive,” Costa said.
By the time Peroni was renewing his acquaintance with the first name on his long list of East European hoods, Teresa Lupo was dictating the preliminary autopsy results on Mauro Sandri, running through all the familiar terms she’d come to learn over the years when dealing with firearms deaths, still unable to push what she’d heard in the American embassy out of her head.
Silvio Di Capua was busy cleaning the stainless-steel table, watching her out of the corner of his beady eyes with the same guarded awe she’d come to expect, wondering, perhaps, what she saw in the big old Tuscan cop who was now sharing her home. It was none of his business, even if it was a good question. Gianni Peroni was a good human being: honest, decent and kind, in spite of his tough outward appearance. She liked his company.
At least Silvio Di Capua’s crush on her had waned a little since her assistant realized she was no longer available. He was by the door now, washing his hands and looking ready to grab his too-short black leather bomber jacket and head home for the night when Leo Falcone walked in. She watched with some dismay the way Silvio flinched at the sight of the inspector, like a mouse catching sight of a bird of prey. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that the analogy was appropriate. Falcone, as his surname suggested, had the beady eyes of a raptor and a bare, birdlike skull too. The sharp jut of his goatee only enhanced further the impression of a hunter. He was the kind of person someone like Silvio Di Capua feared the most. Not just for his acerbic tongue or the sudden, direct habit he had of tackling every issue head-on. Worse, much worse sometimes, was the way he never let anything go. This irked Di Capua more than anyone because, when it came to morgue matters, he was the one Falcone chose as the weak point, the place to start poking at with a long, suspicious forefinger.
Teresa Lupo was apt not to play things by the book, if a few unorthodox methods suited her better, but she made a point of keeping those habits under her hat, most of the time, anyway. It was always Di Capua whom Falcone squeezed for proof, turning those bleak, suspicious eyes on him and asking all the questions the little man never wanted to hear. Then there’d be the recriminations and, worst of all, in the end Teresa would have to hear out Silvio’s grovelling apology for blabbing, accompanied, as always, by an invitation to dinner.
She looked up from her notes, feigned a smile and said, “Inspector. Good evening. And you’ve come alone too. Not with those nice new American friends of yours. How pleasant.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Falcone objected. “You heard, didn’t you?”
“Actually, no. I was trying to work out a few things in my head. Such as why a very odd corpse was stretched out on the floor of the Pantheon like that. Listening to cops bitch at one another is a secondary diversion at such times and I’m happy for it to stay that way.” She switched off the tape recorder. “So what can I do for you?”
As usual, Falcone came straight to the point. “You can tell me what you two found out when you had the woman to yourself. And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I won’t believe you.”
She beamed at him. “This is because of your great faith in our abilities?”
“If you like,” he conceded grudgingly. “Or maybe I just know when you’re not telling us something. There’s an air of smugness around this place right now and I’d very much like to puncture it.”
“You don’t want the report on that poor photographer?”
“I know what happened to the photographer. I was there. Remember?”
She looked into his miserable face and felt a twinge of guilt. Falcone wasn’t happy about any of this. It wasn’t fair to bitch. All the same, she did have something to bitch about.
“So you want me to offer some insights into a corpse which, with your full agreement, was snatched away from me right in front of my eyes, quite without reason, and completely contrary to Italian law, too, I might add?”
“Don’t start,” Falcone said. “I’ve just been upstairs listening to Bruno Moretti, among others, telling me how we need to keep the FBI sweat at every turn.”
Falcone went silent, thinking. It was an odd moment, Teresa thought. For once he looked as if he were racked by doubts.
Somewhere outside a car started with a sweet, certain rumble.
“Join me,” Falcone ordered and walked to the window. There he pointed to an expensive-looking Lancia travelling across the car park towards the exit, too fast for the treacherous conditions.
“Know who that is?” Falcone asked.
“What am I?” she snapped. “Superwoman, perfect night vision through a car roof or something?”
“Filippo Viale. Top-rung spook from SISDE. I thought you might have bumped into him in the past.”
She didn’t say a word. This was so unlike Falcone.
“Viale sat in on the entire conversation with Moretti. Truth is, he, not Moretti, was running things there.”
“Leo?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he grumbled. “I’m just pissed off. I’ve got the Americans telling me I report to them about what we’re doing. I’ve got Viale telling me I report to him about what the Americans are doing. And somewhere in the middle of all this I need to find out what happened to that woman and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
He was scared. No, that wasn’t right. He was lacking in confidence, and in Leo Falcone that was almost the same thing.
“I’m sorry,” she replied. It was deeply out of character for Falcone to give away details like this, particularly the part about the SISDE officer. Those people moved in and out of the building like ghosts, unremarked, almost unseen. It was standard form that no one acknowledged their presence, let alone admitted to taking orders from them.
She reached for some papers in the folder in front of her.
“Since this is for you and you alone I’ll make it short and sweet. Silvio? Get the camera.”
Silvio slunk off to the filing cabinet and came back with a large, semi-professional digital Canon.
Teresa Lupo looked at him. “Lights, Silvio. Action.”
Hands shaking slightly, he fired up the screen. She took it and started flicking through the shots there.
“Do we know who she was, this tourist?” she asked.
“Not really,” Falcone answered. “Just the name. Her hotel. Is it relevant? You heard what Leapman said. This man is supposed to select his victims at random. The only linking factor is that they’re all American tourists.”
“I know that. But what did this woman do? What was her job?”
Falcone shook his head. “I’ve no idea. I don’t hold out much hope we’re going to find out either. Leapman has put out a statement to the papers saying she was a divorcée from New York. No profession. No personal details. We’re supposed to refer all media inquiries to him from now on, which is the one part of this piece I am quite happy with.”
“Illuminating.”
She pulled up a shot of the woman’s torso and hit the magnification button. “Of course, this would be so much easier if I had a body to work with, but I’ll do my best. You see this?”