“No.” He wasn’t even going to countenance this. “We’ve been here before and I still won’t accept it. I can’t believe any father would put his child through pain — or worse — just because of some ancient ritual. A stupid student, maybe. Torchia, maybe. Not a man like Bramante.”
“I told you!” Her voice rose. It worried him. “Maybe something went wrong. He probably never thought for a moment that Alessio would be harmed. He just wanted to initiate his son into the mysteries or something. Or to take part in his own sacrament. Who’s to say Torchia wasn’t part of that game, unwittingly, maybe? Who’s to say that’s why Giorgio Bramante beat him to death? Out of revenge. And to make sure none of us ever got to know what really happened down there?”
He was silent. It was a good point, even if he felt, in his bones, it needed to be challenged.
“Perhaps the reason you never found Alessio,” she persisted, “is because he just didn’t want to face his father after whatever happened. Because he couldn’t bear the sight of him for one more minute.”
“So a seven-year-old child walks out into the streets of Rome and just disappears?”
“It’s happened before. You know that as well as I do. He could be alive. He could have fallen prey to some genuine maniac out there, somewhere else, say in that peace camp. Nic…” That pained intake of breath again, as she steeled herself to say something he didn’t want to hear. “…At some stage of your life you’re just going to have to face up to the fact that there are some mad, bad people out there and it doesn’t actually matter why they’re like that. What matters is stopping them from harming the rest of us.”
Others said that kind of thing to Falcone all the time. Costa could imagine the very same words coming from Bruno Messina.
“We all want it stopped, Emily,” he replied, trying not to sound censorious. “Understanding them makes it easier.”
“Not always. When it’s all this close, understanding makes you start to put yourself in his shoes. Trying to think like a father who’s lost a son. And I don’t think it’s that simple, do you?”
“No,” he admitted. Something about the entire case continued to elude them all, he thought, and it wasn’t straightforward, simply a question of motive or action or opportunity. It was in the grey area that existed between people who knew each other, people who once upon a time loved each other. “We shouldn’t be talking like this. Get some rest. Just give me a day or two. And then we’ll get back to normal.”
“If I wanted ‘normal,’ I wouldn’t be about to get married to a police officer. I just don’t want you hurt, Nic. And I want to go home.”
Home.
It was astonishing how such a short, simple word could carry so much warmth and hope and trepidation inside it. Home was the place everyone was seeking in the end. Even the lost souls who’d supposedly touched all those ageing exhibits that wound up on the walls of that odd little museum in Prati. Perhaps that was what Giorgio Bramante ultimately wanted too: to help the child who lived in his head find some kind of peace through the elimination of those Bramante held responsible for his fate. All of whom were dead now, except for a single police officer whose only crime had been to intervene in a vicious beating deep in the heart of his own Questura, to do his duty.
Something didn’t add up.
Costa looked at his watch and, without quite thinking, or knowing why, asked one last question.
“Why would a woman, a mother and wife, someone with an apparently idyllic family life, cut herself? Deliberately, regularly? Because it wasn’t idyllic, obviously. But, beyond that, why? And why still today?”
He waited and when she spoke she was calm again.
“Mrs. Bramante did that?” Emily asked.
“The blood on the T-shirt in that church. The first blood, when she took it there. It’s hers. She admitted it to Leo. And he said there were fresh scars on her wrists when he saw her.”
“Oh…”
Emily was considering his question, in that measured, rational way which was one of the last parts of her personality that hadn’t turned Italian.
“Self-harm is complicated, Nic. It’s usually a form of self-loathing. The woman places no value on her own existence for some reason. Perhaps she is clinically depressed, or perhaps she’s expressing guilt. Perhaps other reasons. A husband who’s having an affair… I don’t know. Aren’t there psychologists on the force who can tell you this?”
“Of course,” he confessed. “It’s just so much easier talking it through with you. For one thing, I understand what you say.”
“I will,” she said severely, “start charging for these services soon.”
Something caught Costa’s attention. Leo Falcone was crossing the half-empty office in his direction, with that serious, engaged expression on his face, the one that meant something was happening.
“You’re out of our league,” he told Emily hastily. “We could never afford you. Now promise me you’ll see a doctor tomorrow. Then on Thursday I’ll be around. Whether it’s here, Orvieto, or the moon. I don’t care. I will be there.”
“It’s a promise,” she answered.
Falcone watched as Costa put down the phone. The old inspector looked as if something was wrong.
“Sir?”
“I want you to find Peroni. I want you two to look up everything you can find on Giorgio Bramante that’s been back-filed. Anything and everything, however apparently trivial.”
“Isn’t that all in the reports from the original case?” Costa was puzzled.
“No!” Falcone replied, exasperated. “Bramante was already in custody, ready to plead guilty. It was regarded as wasted effort.”
“I see… I’ll do it straightaway.”
“Tomorrow morning, first thing, talk to the mother again. Find out exactly what her relations with him were. Don’t pull any punches. Perhaps I was a little restrained.” He looked worried.
“Agente Prabakaran…”
“Never mind Agente Prabakaran!” Falcone snapped. “Just do it, Nic!”
Costa already had the following day mapped out. It would consist of ticking off potential lairs for Bramante until they found him. Or at least some evidence that they were on his trail. But there was something in Falcone’s tone, a tense, distanced note, that reminded him of the old Leo, the one no one ever liked. There was no colour in the inspector’s cheeks, no blood in Leo Falcone’s face at all.
Then something happened Costa had never witnessed before. Falcone leaned forward, just a little, and patted him gently on the back, a gesture that was familiar, almost paternal.
“I’m sorry,” he said apologetically. “It’s been a long day. I find it hard sometimes. The truth is…” Falcone’s eyes focused on something across the office, or perhaps on nothing at all. “…I’ve always found it hard, if I’m being honest with you. I simply made a point of never showing it.”
He seemed embarrassed by this sudden show of emotion.
“I’ve put you down for that sovrintendente exam,” he went on briskly. “I want you to take it. This summer. Before you get married. You’ll breeze through it, you know. It’s time you started making progress around here.”
Costa nodded, lost for words, unable to protest.
“And… Gianni,” Falcone asked. “Where is he?”
“With the maps and the worm people.”
“Tell him I’m grateful for all the work he’s put in these past couple of days. It wasn’t needed. Not from either of you—”
“Leo—”
“This is work, Agente,” Falcone interrupted him. “Don’t ever forget that. It’s friendship, too. But this profession comes first. Always. The work. The duty. They never go away.”