A Season for the Dead

by David Hewson

  ‘So you’re saying that if you met her it was because she was a hooker.’

  ‘Your words not mine. If I met her. And that’s an end to it.’

  ‘OK,’ Costa said. ‘Do you mind? I need to go.’

  He walked into the small bathroom and turned both taps on full. Falcone had suggested the toothbrush or a comb if there was no alternative, though it could have alerted Denney to what was going on. Instead, Costa rifled through the waste bin. There, beneath a spent shaving foam canister, was what he wanted: a paper tissue with a tiny blood stain, doubtless from shaving, on the edge. He picked it up and placed it inside a plastic bag, then hid the thing in his pocket.

  The two men weren’t even looking each other in the eye when he returned.

  He picked up the folder, waved it at Denney and said, ‘Thank you. I’ll pass on what you said.’

  Denney nodded. Then he and Hanrahan watched the young cop walk out of the door.

  When they heard his footsteps die away on the stone staircase below, Denney turned to the Irishman. ‘Well?’

  ‘A good job, Michael,’ Hanrahan said. ‘I couldn’t have done better myself. I’ll have you safely out of here. And that I promise.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  By seven that Monday evening the case of Gino Fosse occupied most of the resources of the Rome state police. More than thirty officers were on duty guarding the men Sara Farnese had named as former lovers, all of whom had now been swabbed for DNA and the samples passed, along with that illicitly taken from Michael Denney, to the big police lab near the river. A team of four had been assigned to go through the personnel file from the Vatican which Nic Costa had brought back to the station.

  Nothing looked promising. Fosse was raised in Sicily by peasant farmer parents. At six he had gone to board at a local Church school. His parents rarely visited. His record there was one of promising academic achievement and persistent, violent misbehaviour. Falcone pointed out a significant event: when Fosse was nine he’d been found torturing a young cat in a wood by the school playground. The inspector got one of the detectives to track down a retired teacher who knew the boy. The details were revealing: Fosse had skinned the animal alive then nailed the corpse to a tree. A year later there was another case. A stray dog was tethered to a set of railings, doused in petrol and set on fire. Fosse denied all knowledge. No one believed him but, if they had proof, none came forward with it. He had, said the former teacher, an intense curiosity in one particular field of study: the lives and, most of all, the deaths of the early martyrs.

  He grew older and discovered new interests. At the age of thirteen he was reported for a serious sexual assault on a schoolgirl. Two years later he was reported for an almost identical offence. Both cases were dropped, for no obvious reasons.

  Five years later he entered the seminary. From that point on he had occupied a series of junior positions in Palermo, Naples, Turin and finally Rome until joining the administrative staff of the Vatican five years before. Falcone set men calling the cities where Fosse had worked before, talking to the local cops and any priests they could persuade to come to the phone. They soon picked up a picture, as much from what was not said as the details they gleaned from the reluctant parties on the other end of the line. Gino Fosse was constant trouble. In each job he’d been moved on for some misdemeanour. In Naples he had been accused of sleeping with prostitutes in his own parish. In Turin money had gone missing and he had become involved in a fist fight with the senior detective who had been assigned to investigate the loss. There were darker rumours too, all unproven, of sadistic sexual encounters. Yet he was never charged, never dismissed from his position. Fosse floated from post to post, falling apart after a few months, often with disastrous consequences. Still he made steady progress towards Rome, towards the Vatican and the pinnacle of Church bureaucracy. Finally he found himself in the job he had occupied until only a few weeks before, working on the clerical staff for Denney, typing, phoning, driving.

  ‘So why does he keep on going up and up like this?’ Falcone asked Costa.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe they try to keep people in the fold.’

  ‘Bullshit. Look …’

  It was a single-page report someone had gleaned from the anti-Mafia squad: six years old and scarcely the stuff of scandal. It said that a young trainee priest, named as Gino Fosse, with the details of his parents’ farm attached in parentheses, had stayed at the home of one of the city’s most notorious Mafia bosses for three months while attending studies in a nearby college.

  Falcone tapped the page. ‘Friends. Look at that. He knows the people of old. He’s a house guest of the biggest hood in Palermo.’

  ‘And they could ease his way in the Church? They could get him off the hook when he walks into trouble?’

  ‘Are you serious? How long have you been a cop, kid? These people can call the Quirinale Palace direct and ask if the president’s at home. That’s not the issue. The real question is, why? Why keep some farmer’s punk out of jail? Why keep him groping up the slippery ladder like this? Do they really think he’s cut out for better things?’

  That was surely impossible. Fosse looked like a dangerous loser, a liability for anyone to have around.

  Falcone dashed the folder on the desk. ‘And I’m supposed to let that bastard in the Vatican go for this? Hanrahan honestly thinks he can trade for Denney’s freedom with a bunch of personnel records?’

  Costa had been thinking of Denney ever since he left the apartment. The man seemed desperate but defeated too, as if he were waiting for some unknown fate to overtake him. He wanted to escape the gloomy prison the authorities had made for him. Costa doubted there was much joy in the prospect either, or much hope of redemption. Even when he talked about home, about Boston, he seemed downcast, as if he knew it was a pipedream.

  ‘Perhaps that’s all they have. They’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘Now that,’ Falcone replied, ‘I do doubt. You must never take them at their word. Hanrahan least of all.’

  ‘So you’ll tell him there’s no deal.’

  ‘He can sweat until tomorrow. Then we’ll see.’

  Tomorrow, he nearly said, there could be another corpse. And Michael Denney still screaming to get out of that dismal apartment.

  He tried to think straight and found his eyes closing, the drowsiness taking over. Falcone’s hand on his good shoulder jolted him awake.

  ‘It’s been a long day for all of us, specially for you. Go home, Nic. Talk to that woman. Try to make more sense of this than I can. Come back in the morning and tell me how it all fits.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ The inspector’s sudden amiable mood took him by surprise. He was dog-tired. All the same, there was so much happening. He hated being anywhere else.

  Falcone looked him up and down, something not far from sympathy on his face. ‘I’m sure you’re no use to me here. And I don’t want to be bawling you out for anything else today. It may just make me feel guilty. It was your own damn fault Fosse nearly killed you yesterday, no one else’s. That doesn’t stop me feeling bad about it. So no solitary running, mind. That partner of yours is pissed off enough as it is. As am I. Hey …’ Falcone patted him on his good shoulder. ‘On your way. You earned a break.’

  Nic Costa looked outside the office door. Beyond the glass Luca Rossi was bent over the computer, stabbing awkwardly at the keyboard with a big index finger.

  ‘Rossi wants out,’ he said without thinking, then cursed himself. It was the big man’s prerogative to break this news.

  Falcone seemed unmoved by the idea. ‘I know. He told me. People get like this in the middle of a bad case. Don’t think anything of it. Don’t take it personally.’

  ‘But it is personal. There’s something about me that bugs him.’

  ‘Age. You’re getting older. You’re starting to want to be on top. He’s just feeling everything winding down. His life’s a pile of shit. He’s got no future. He’s looking for someone else to blame.’


  Costa was incensed. ‘That’s unfair. Luca’s a good cop. An honest cop. He’d do anything, for you, for me, anyone on the force.’

  ‘Yeah. But he’s spent, kid. Just a burnt-out case and I’ve got no room here for people like that. When this is done he can ship out and lick envelopes or something. Or take the pension and go drink himself to death in Rimini. Who’s to care?’

  ‘Me.’

  Falcone’s face turned sour again and creased with disgust. ‘Then you’re an idiot. One of these days you’ve got to decide whose side you’re on. The winners or the losers.’

  ‘You’re going to say that when some young buck comes in and thinks you’re a loser? Sir?’

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Falcone said emphatically. ‘I go when I choose to go. Look at him. Four years older than me. That’s all. Do you think anyone could believe it? He’s just run to seed. No use to anyone. He’s no power over himself. A man has to possess that. If he doesn’t, somebody else will take it from him or, worse, he just gives up on everything and blows with the wind. That’s what your friend’s doing and he doesn’t even care much where it takes him.’

  Costa stood up and walked out of the room not wishing to hear another word. He passed the big man at the desk and patted his huge shoulder gently. ‘Goodnight, Uncle Luca.’

  Two puzzled watery eyes looked up at him. ‘What’s wrong with you, junior?’

  ‘I’m tired and I want to go to bed.’

  He snorted. The sound was like a walrus choking on something. Costa was pleased. It was good to see he could still raise a laugh in the man.

  Then Luca Rossi’s face turned serious. ‘Don’t let her tuck you in, Nic. Not just yet, eh?’

  He walked down two flights of steps, out into the open air. The night was humid and oppressive. There was scarcely anyone on the street. The usual bum was occupying his usual position by the café the cops used round the corner next to the station car park. He was hunched on the street, head between legs. He stank to high heaven.

  The familiar, bearded face looked up as he walked by. Costa stopped and reached into his pocket.

  ‘Why do you do this?’ the bum snapped, half drunk already. ‘Why the hell’s it always you.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ he asked, surprised. ‘It’s just money.’

  He had an ageless face. He could have been thirty or twice that age. He was, Costa understood this, lost already. The money made no difference. It went on drink straight away, only hastening the inevitable. ‘Not for you it isn’t. For everyone else it’s just small change. They don’t notice me. I like that. Not you. With you I have to earn it. I have to talk. I have to act grateful. You know what I think?’

  He felt dog-tired. His head hurt. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘This is for you. Not me at all. This is just a little ointment for your conscience, huh? A little something to help you sleep at night.’

  Costa looked at the miserable figure on the ground. He held out a hundred-euro note: ten times the usual amount. The bum’s eyes glinted in the gloom. ‘Want it?’

  The tramp held out his hand.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Nic Costa said, then put the money in his pocket and walked into the car park, only half hearing the slurred stream of curses directed at his back.

  It was the first time in years he’d never made that second gift. Falcone had made his point.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Thirty minutes after an exhausted Nic Costa left the station Falcone looked up from his desk to see the familiar figure of Arturo Valena waddling towards him across the office. This was only the second time he had seen Valena in the flesh. The first was when the television presenter had been paid to MC a police awards ceremony, a job he had undertaken with a swift, efficient professionalism that almost merited the huge fee he pocketed with little grace afterwards.

  Falcone had found the appearance of the man fascinating. He was one of the most familiar figures on Italian television. He interviewed everyone: politicians, film stars, entertainers. He had a big, handsome face and a gruff, booming voice that had a permanent question mark inside it, as if asking, perpetually, ‘Really?’ Officially he was forty-nine, though rumours suggested this was one of many myths surrounding the man. Valena had been born into dire poverty in Naples, probably at least fifty-five years before, working his way up through minor jobs in government and public relations until he was given his chance to try his hand at broadcasting. It was, Falcone now thought, the same kind of relentless progress Gino Fosse had made from his peasant farm in Sicily, perhaps aided by the same kind of friends. Once Valena had established his position as the leading commentator for one of the most successful private channels, he never hesitated to criticize government policy and, on occasion, question whether the fight against ‘crime’ did not infringe the rights of the individual. He had dabbled with politics himself, sitting on a variety of committees, and made no secret of his right-wing views. The one-time Naples gutter kid had become a mover and shaker in the higher echelons of social life in Rome, and had married a minor countess too, a severe-faced woman rolling in money who preferred to spend most of her time on the family estate in Perugia.

  And it was all an act, one which could only be sustained on TV. The camera flattered his exaggerated features, the clever lighting hid his fast-expanding belly. The rigorous preparation for each interview, the ever-ready autocue and his cultured on-screen sensibility, which was more that of the actor than the journalist, all served to hide the real man from the public. Falcone had seen this at the awards ceremony, when Valena made the mistake to hang around long enough afterwards for people to talk to him and come away disappointed by what they found. Valena lived behind a mask and fought to keep everyone from peering round the sides. Close up, in unrehearsed conversation, he was exposed for the fraud he truly was: inarticulate, snappy, unconfident. And physically repellent. The man was a famous gourmand who had sponged his way around the city’s finest dining rooms for years. Now he was paying the price. His waistline had expanded enormously, enough for the magazines to notice. In the last few months they had nicknamed him ‘Arturo Balena’ – ‘Arthur Whale’ – and started running a series of pictures to hammer home the point. There were snatched shots showing him at the table, with foie gras and worse on the plate, alone, eating like a pig. There was a series, too, of him around the swimming pool of a hotel in Capri, with an unidentified blonde. He lounged on a sun bed slowly cooking under the sun, his over-ample flesh turning an unattractive lobster colour. The spectacle had sold many, many magazines. Valena, unwisely, had complained to the authorities and pleaded for the editor of the rag to be prosecuted under the privacy laws. The result was predictable. He was now on the paparazzi’s A-list of people to be photographed at every possible opportunity. They stalked him on scooters. They invaded the restaurants where he ate alone, in a single darkened table at the back. Arturo Valena had become fair game for a media sensing a figure on the brink of some spectacular, public downfall. The ratings for his nightly chat show were in decline. There were rumours that he might soon be dragged into an endless and messy civil court case about the misuse of state funds by bent officials who had bribed the media for favourable coverage. He was on the cusp of a cruel descent from the starry heights.

  Falcone opened his desk drawer and took out a set of copies of the photos found in Fosse’s room. There was a big, pale fat man in some of those. You never got to see his face but it could be the same man. He opened the door to the office and watched Valena collapse, sweating, into a chair.

  The TV man looked terrified. His dull brown eyes were bleary and liquid. His chest heaved hard with laboured panting.

  ‘I want protection,’ Arturo Valena said, between snatched gasps. ‘You hear me? I only just got back from doing a show in Geneva. I read on the plane what this crazy bastard did to that poor bitch Vaccarini. He’s after me next. You hear it?’

  Falcone gave him a glass of water and smiled, hoping to calm him down. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘From the begi
nning.’

  ‘To hell with the beginning,’ Valena spat back at him. ‘I’ve got to be at the Brazilian Embassy in forty-five minutes. Can’t avoid it. There’s an exhibition opening and I need to be there. I want protection, you hear me? Or do I have to ring upstairs and get someone else to make you listen?’

  Falcone pushed the phone across the desk. Valena glowered at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Call. Whoever you like. They’ll just ask me to decide anyway. In case you hadn’t heard, Mr Valena, we have every officer we’ve got on this case. Most of them are looking after people who have given us good reason to spend some time with them. You’ll have to convince me you fit that category.’

  ‘Idiot!’ Valena yelled. He was sweating profusely. A bad smell, of perspiration and fear, was starting to permeate the little office.

  He picked up the phone and started to make the calls. Falcone watched him, knowing what would happen. Arturo Valena understood he was on the slow drift downwards but had yet to appreciate how far he had already progressed. There would be no coming back. The future held only obscurity and perhaps some disgrace to fill it.

  He tried six people, five of them senior men within the police department, the last, in desperation, a government minister. Every one of them was ‘busy’.

  After the final rejection he slammed the receiver back on the hook and buried his head in his hands. Falcone wondered if he was going to start to sob. Valena spared him that. The man was simply drained, left helpless by some inner terror.

  ‘Mr Valena,’ Falcone said calmly, in a pleasant, comforting voice. ‘All you have to do is talk to me. I’m not saying we can’t help. I’m just saying I need a reason why.’

  The big, exaggerated face looked up at him. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘The Farnese woman? You’re saying you had a relationship with her?’

  ‘No,’ Valena replied grimly. ‘I wouldn’t say that. I screwed her. That’s all. And it wasn’t a lot of fun either. At least when you got a real hooker they try to fake things a little. She didn’t even make that effort. Lousy bitch. I don’t know why she bothered.’