It was so easy to read Leo Falcone, Bramante thought. The old man’s smiles were so rare they had to mean something. At that moment, captured in the distance, across the road, behind the yellow police tape, Falcone was looking at someone with — not affection, Bramante decided — but a kind of respect. The sort of respect he seemed to reserve for the young these days, judging by the way he kept close to the short, clever agente with the beautiful girlfriend.
He stared at the picture, once again felt certain of its use to him, but surprised, almost shocked, all the same. The police had changed in a decade and a half. That made things so much easier. Before he put on the office cleaner’s uniform the night before, he’d walked into a café and sat in front of a computer for half an hour, preparing his options. It had been so easy to track down the name of the only recent female Indian recruit to the Rome police. They liked to make a big deal of ethnic recruitment these days. The woman had been in most of the city papers three months earlier, with a photo. And her name.
Rosa Prabakaran.
There were only three Prabakarans in the book. He’d hit lucky first time. It was the girl’s father. Bramante posed as a senior officer from the Questura, concerned that he’d been unable to get through to Rosa on her private mobile number, worried that he hadn’t heard from her, and that perhaps they had the wrong number.
Giorgio Bramante knew, by now, how to work on the emotions of a parent. Fear unlocked any door.
He rubbed his hands together to give his fingers life, then took out the number her father had given him. Then he looked up to make sure he was beneath the air vent, checking the signal on his phone. One bar. Enough to get through, though probably with a lot of distortion, which was not, of itself, a bad thing.
She picked it up on the third ring. Her uncertain voice crackled and hissed through the ether.
“Agente,” Bramante said with an easy authority. “This is Commissario Messina. Where are you exactly? And what are you doing?”
It took Falcone a good five minutes to negotiate the stone steps down to the river. Teresa Lupo and her team were there already. On the far bank, photographers and TV cameras were setting up positions. The morgue team was busily erecting grey canvas barriers around the mouth to the drain. Everything seemed to be in place.
Costa and Peroni were sitting under a temporary awning by the waterside, escaping the constant drizzle. They were with a woman Falcone recognised. It took a moment to place the name: Judith Turnhouse, who had been cursorily interviewed during the inquiry fourteen years before.
He beckoned the men over, remaining out in the rain, which, with its constant cold, seemed to keep him alert.
“Well done,” he said. “You’ve achieved more than fifty officers plodding along in Bruno Messina’s footsteps.” He paused. “But are you sure?”
“It looked like a child to me,” Costa replied, nodding towards the canvas by the drain. “Teresa and her people are in there now.”
“Is this possible?” Falcone asked. “It’s a long way from the Orange Garden.”
“Definitely,” Peroni answered. “She…” He nodded towards Judith Turnhouse, who remained motionless under the awning, eyes pink from tears. “…showed us.”
Costa shuffled, uncomfortable with something. “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” he said. “The boy could have been looking for a way out. It’s not a pretty thought. If he was in there. Alive.”
“We had search parties!” Falcone objected.
“Would they have looked in there? Why? Who would have guessed he could have got that far?” Peroni nodded at the drain, built into the underside of the road, reachable only by wading through mud and filthy water.
Falcone scowled. “None of the archaeologists gave us an ounce of cooperation. If they had, perhaps we would have found this place. When we know for sure, let’s get the media in. I want a full statement broadcast as soon as possible. Perhaps if Bramante hears it, if he understands we’ve tried to give him some answers…”
The two detectives looked at him, puzzled.
“It might be enough to persuade him to come in,” Falcone suggested, aware of the cool reception he was already getting. “He can’t hate me that much. Lord knows he’s had two chances to kill me already and not taken them. If it’s the boy, what else can he want? Bramante can’t stay hidden forever.”
Costa didn’t say anything. But there was an expression in his eyes Falcone recognised. A look of doubt. The kind of look, Falcone suspected, he himself had once used on Arturo Messina.
“I want to go in there,” Falcone said.
Costa and Peroni glanced at each other.
“It’s difficult,” Costa explained. “Even for us. You need to wade through mud. There’s very little room. Teresa has hardly any space to work in.”
“I am,” the old inspector said, voice rising, “the chief investigative officer in this case. I will see what I want. I—”
Costa didn’t budge. Friendship and work didn’t mix, Falcone reflected, and had to acknowledge that the younger men were right. He wasn’t up to this kind of physical effort. He sighed and hobbled to sit on the wall, out in the gentle rain, watching the slow-moving ripples of the Tiber.
Costa and Peroni joined him, one on each side.
“You don’t want me to carry you, Leo,” Peroni said. “I will if you want. But…”
“No.” Falcone touched Peroni lightly on the arm. They were out of earshot of the rest of the team. Falcone didn’t mind the familiarity anymore. “I don’t want you to carry me. I’m sorry. It’s this damned…” He stared at his feeble legs. “It’s feeling I’m not pulling my weight.”
He stopped. Two figures had appeared from behind the grey screen masking the mouth of the drain: Teresa Lupo and her assistant. Silvio Di Capua was holding a small notebook computer in his arms, tapping with one hand, staring at the screen. The pair were conversing intently.
“I believe we have news,” Falcone said softly, and felt a strange emotion in his heart: dread, accompanied by relief.
Teresa said one last thing to Di Capua, who returned behind the canvas. Then she walked to Judith Turnhouse, spoke to her briefly, and finally joined them, sitting down next to Peroni, looking a little wary.
“I wish I still smoked,” the pathologist announced. “Don’t the rest of you have that craving from time to time? You excluded, of course, Nic, since we all know you’ve never had a real vice in your entire life.”
“News, Doctor,” Falcone insisted.
“News?” She tried to smile. “We have a positive ID. Absolutely certain.”
“I knew it!” Falcone said, excited.
“Hear me out,” Teresa interrupted. “We have an ID. Unfortunately…”
She stopped and screwed up her large, pale face.
“Do I really mean that? How can I even think that way?”
“Teresa!” Peroni cried in exasperation.
“Unfortunately — or fortunately, whichever way you wish to look at it — it isn’t Alessio Bramante.”
She was young — a rookie, it said in the paper. That didn’t mean she was stupid. There had to be rules about the use of private calls.
“I’m where Inspector Falcone sent me, sir,” she replied hesitantly. “Testaccio. To watch the boy’s mother.”
“With whom?”
“On my own. Inspector Falcone said—”
“I wasn’t told that.” He gripped the cell phone and let a little impatience drift into his voice. “I don’t understand why you’re not with the rest of the team. Do you think Inspector Falcone has some kind of… bias against you?”
“No, sir.”