Disappeared

by Colin Falconer

  “If you can't tell me anything, then why the hell did you want to talk to me?”

  She snatched her hand away. “I don't know.”

  She ran away across the piazza, leaving him staring after her, utterly bewildered.

  ***

  There was a scream somewhere off stage.

  Don Giovanni jumped up from the supper table, holding a candle. For a few moments he disappeared out of view of the audience. Then he reappeared, backing away from the graveyard statue of a man he had once killed, now come to life to haunt him.

  Angeli felt a droplet of sweat squeeze from his forehead and make its long progress down his cheek.

  “Think on your sins, Don Giovanni,” the statue demanded. “Do you repent them?”

  “No,” Angeli murmured under his breath. “Never.”

  The demons rushed from the darkness, dragging him down to the sulphuric world of damnation. As the last dismal notes of Mozart's score faded and the lights went up, Angeli put his palms together, and joined in the acclamation for the performance. But it wasn’t his idea of entertainment. It had been Francesca’s choice, not his.

  He had always hated Mozart.

  ***

  “Who is he?” Reuben asked, peering through the curtains. The young man was still standing in the courtyard, staring up at the window, his hands deep in the pockets of his black motorcycle jacket.

  “His name's Riccardo. He works in the bar on the corner.”

  “It's freezing out there. He must be in love with you.”

  “He thinks he is.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I think he is, too.”

  She was curled on the sofa, her body hunched over, arms folded protectively across her breasts.

  “Where were you tonight?”

  “I went to see my papito,” she said, the last word barely audible.

  “Did you tell him about me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “But you confronted him.”

  “I shouldn't have gone. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Something that would have redeemed him, I suppose.”

  “And what would that have been?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. There isn’t anything, I suppose.”

  Reuben turned from the window. Impossible to imagine her as the tiny creature he had held in his arms two decades ago. Now it was a connection made on faith. They were two strangers trapped inside the same dilemma, that was all.

  “What am I supposed to feel?” she said, echoing his thoughts. “You say you're my father but my father was the man who raised me and I'm ... ashamed of him.”

  “Aren't you ashamed of me as well?”

  “You want me to be, don't you?”

  He could not meet her eyes.

  “I feel sorry for you, sorry for all the years you have suffered over this. What else can I feel? I don't know you.” Her eyes shone with hurt and rage. “Tonight, as I was walking home, I stopped on the bridge and stared into the water. I thought about throwing myself into the river. I just wanted all this to end.”

  He stared at her, stricken.

  “Why not? Knowing what I know? This is a nightmare and I can't wake up!'

  “I didn't mean to hurt you.”

  “Oh, for God's sake, stop it! You're not responsible for all the suffering in the whole world! It's not you! It's him! It's what he did, not you! You know why I didn’t jump? This.” She picked up Eva’s photograph from the coffee table. “My whole world has gone. I've lost my mother and father, I've lost my memories. But I keep telling myself there's one person who will understand what I'm feeling, exactly. Just one.”

  Reuben went back to the window.

  “Will you stay here tonight?”

  “Are you afraid of him?”

  “He would never hurt me. I just don't want to be on my own.”

  He nodded. “I'll have to go back and get some things from my hotel.”

  After he had gone she sat staring at the telephone for a long time. But the decision was already made. She knew what she had to do.

  Chapter 100

  THE PALAZZO DI SAN CALISTO had been built by Pius XI to house curial offices. It was in Trastevere, a long way from San Pietro and the papal palazzo, and was only used by minor officials of the Church. Salvatore had been given rooms here when he first came to Rome and though he could now afford better he had grown to like living there.

  It was his habit to walk across the Ponte Cestio each morning and catch the number 23 bus to the Piazza del Risorgimento.

  As he came out that morning, a few minutes after seven o'clock, a man got out of a Fiat on the other side of the street, holding a 9mm Beretta pistol inside his jacket. He fired four shots, three of them hitting Salvatore in the chest.

  Almost immediately, three men from SID, the Italian secret service, jumped from a van parked twenty metres along the street. They were all wearing bullet armour.

  They shouted at the gunman to surrender. He turned and aimed his pistol in their direction and was immediately hit by a hail of fire from their machine pistols. His accomplice drove off but found the narrow street blocked by the dark blue Fiats of the carabinieri. In the brief gun battle that followed he was wounded in the arm and chest and arrested.

  ***

  Angeli rubbed at his temples, frowning. No matter what you did, people were never satisfied. It seemed he was always to be disappointed in human nature. Turturro's betrayal he understood. Turturro was an ingrate and a peasant.

  But this ...

  A man sat on the other side of the desk, dressed in a silver grey Brioni double breasted suit and a silk tie. He had a pleasant face. His spectacles reflected the fading light from the window. He could have been a dentist or a wealthy accountant.

  “The police had been warned,” the man said. “They were waiting for Massini outside the church. Salvatore had been given a bullet proof vest, he was wearing it under his soutane. He has three broken ribs but that's all. He's in Gemmelli Hospital under twenty four hour guard.”

  “Massini's dead?”

  The man nodded.

  “And his driver?”

  “He is in a critical condition in the Policlinico Umberto.”

  “Will he talk?”

  The man in the grey suit shook his head. He lit another cigarette and his head was wreathed in a cloud of blue grey smoke. “My sources tell me the informant was a woman.”

  Angeli closed his eyes. Not Simone. No! And yet who else knew about it? She could have been standing right outside the door when he had told Tomaszcewski his plans. And the way she had been behaving lately ... everything pointed to her.

  “Does your source have any other clues about the informant?”

  “That’s all. But they are well placed inside the SID itself.”

  “Not that well placed, or they could provide us with a name.”

  “Do you have a mistress?”

  Angeli stared at him. The other man looked away first.

  “This affair has caused a great deal of consternation in many quarters. Massini had a lot of friends. These friends are most unhappy. People are saying rash things.”

  “Such as what?”

  “They blame you. What do you expect?”

  “I shall take care of it.”

  “You know who it is, then?”

  “I will take care of it.”

  There was a long silence. “Is it Simone?”

  “I said I will take care of it.”

  The other man dropped his conversational tone. “I'm afraid that is not got good enough.”

  Angeli stared him. He was not accustomed to having his decisions questioned. “Then what would you have me do?”

  ' Massini had powerful friends. I cannot control them, César. You know what these men are like. They are not civilised people like ourselves.”

  “You're not serious?”

  “This does not come from me. I can merely advise you. What you decide to do about it is up to
you.”

  Lights flickered on over the city, the hills. An early twilight. Spatters of rain hit the window. Bells tolled the angelus.

  “César, I am sorry. You have done good work for us in the past. I would like to help you. But my hands are tied.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get to the airport. I am flying back to Buenos Aires tonight. Perhaps I will see you in the New Year?” He put a hand on his shoulder. “This must be hard for you. God knows it is not a decision I would like to make. Let me talk to them for you.”

  “Thank you,” Angeli heard himself say.

  He watched from the window as the limousine pulled away from the kerb. He understood perfectly. Someone had named his daughter as the informant. The choice was clear. He could save himself or he could save his daughter.

  But he couldn't save both.

  Chapter 101

  ANGELI LOOKED AT the bronze cherubs on the desk, the spines of the quarto volumes of Roman history gleaming like gold in the lamp lit room. He picked up a silver-framed photograph of Simone, taken five years ago at a gymkhana just outside Rome. She had won that day, he remembered. Her mother had never wanted her to ride, she had said it was too dangerous. But she had wanted her own pony and in the end she had got what she wanted. It was the first time she had gone against their will.

  Mia prinsipessa, he whispered.

  He stared at the photograph, had a vision of her alone in the apartment that day he had come back here with the Archbishop and he knew. It was her.

  ***

  Reuben sat in his room in the Hassler, fighting another wave of pain. It took more of the pills to relieve each episode and they didn’t work as well or for as long anymore. Time was running out.

  He picked up the pistol and weighed it in his hand. It was a police regulation Colt .45. He cocked it, held back the hammer, pumped the barrel back and slid it into position, catching the unspent bullet in his other hand. He removed the magazine from the butt, popped the bullet back in with the other five and snapped the magazine home. He did it a dozen more times, getting accustomed to the action and feel until he could perform the process without thought.

  It had taken almost three days to get it; three days and almost a million lire. Expensive. He slipped the magazine from the butt, put the pistol in his right jacket pocket, the magazine in his left.

  Fragments of conversations came back to him.

  You don't have the stomach for it.

  You don't look much like the fist of god to me, but you're all I've got.

  I shall pray for you, Reuben.

  He wondered if Domingo and Mercedes were right about him. He supposed he would soon find out.

  He thought about Simone. I keep telling myself there's one person who will understand what I'm feeling, exactly how I'm feeling. Just one.

  She thought the nightmare couldn't get any worse. But it would and she would need someone to help her through it. He picked up the telephone and asked for an outside line. He dialled the number Eva had given him in Cambridge. He would put the twins together again to heal each other. This time he guessed it would be Eva who healed Simone.

  ***

  He was framed in the doorway, in a tan David Cenci overcoat, a Hermès silk scarf draped around his neck. They stared at each other for a long time. “Can I come in?” he said finally.

  He stood in the middle of the living room with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat while she busied herself in the kitchen with the coffee. He was wearing his favourite cologne. As a child she liked to watch him shave, remembered him splashing the cologne onto his cheeks from the small green bottle he kept on the bathroom vanity.

  “What is this all about?”

  “You know what it’s about, papito.”

  “That’s it? Some complete stranger tells you lies about me and you believe everything he says?”

  She poured coffee into cups from the pot on the stove.

  “Why do you hurt me this way?”

  “I know the things that happened back then.”

  “But I had nothing to do with any of that.”

  He lied so easily. His was a study of hurt and bewilderment. It was an impressive portrayal of a man wronged.

  “What about those papers that man gave me?”

  “They were forgeries. You are not so naïve to think it is hard for someone with a grudge against me to make up things like that?”

  She brought his coffee, held the cup and saucer towards him. He ignored it.

  “Simone. There's something I have to ask you. The other day in the apartment, were you eavesdropping on me and the Archbishop?”

  “I was on the roof.”

  “It was a long time to be on the roof. You could have got frostbite.”

  “I told you, I had a lot to think about.”

  His eyes were no longer gentle. They were the hard eyes of the inquisitor; they looked right into your head, searching for your secrets. Her coffee cup rattled in its saucer.

  “It was you who called the police.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just tell me. I can forgive you. But I have to know the truth.”

  She feigned a look of bewilderment, feeling like a bad actress in a television soap opera.

  “Mia prinsipessa,” he whispered. He ignored the coffee. He kissed her softly on the forehead as he stood up to leave. He stopped at the doorway and turned around. “I love you,” he said and went out.

  I love you? It sounded more like “Goodbye’.

  Chapter 102

  Market Dene

  DIANA PARKED THE Volkswagen by the stables and turned off the engine. There were no other cars in the courtyard. Stephen was not home yet.

  She got out of the car and walked over to the house. The fields were dusted with frost and the northerlies had swept the sky clean, herding the leaves in windrows against the stables. She heard a shrill cry, perhaps a bird; she also imagined a hare caught in a trap.

  The kitchen door was open. “Ma?”

  She went through to the drawing room. Mercedes was asleep at the fireside, a blanket over her knees. She looked old and withered, all the juice drained out of her.

  She woke suddenly, her eyes fogged from sleep. “Diana?”

  “Hello, Ma.”

  “Diana. What are you doing home?”

  “Reuben called me. From Rome.”

  Mercedes didn't say anything. A log sparked in the grate. Finally: “What did he say to you?”

  “He said he'd found my sister.”

  No reaction at all.

  “Ma?”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “You knew, didn’t you? You told him where to look.”

  “It must be over then,” she said, almost to herself.

  “Over? What's over?”

  Mercedes pulled the blanket over her legs. “Are you going to Rome?”

  “I came back to get my passport. I'm catching a flight tomorrow morning.”

  “We can talk about it when you get back.”

  “Why won't you tell me before I go?”

  “Remember to call and say goodbye to your father. You will be careful over there, won't you?”

  * * *

  When Stephen got home he found his wife sitting in her chair in the drawing room staring at the cold ashes in the grate. She told him about Diana, that she had been there that afternoon, and that she was flying to Rome.

  Mercedes did not tell her husband that it was she who had told Reuben about Simone and about César Angeli, as she had not told him about Jeremy Dexter's suspicions about Luke's death. What good would it have done? It changed nothing. There was no proof.

  Like there was no concrete proof that it was Angeli who had raped her on five different occasions while she was a prisoner at Ezeiza.

  But she was sure in her own mind, and that was enough. Reuben had promised her he would settle accounts for her, and for Luke. She did not want to burden Stephen with the truth. Would it help him to know that Angeli
was the reason she still could not stand being touched by a man, that it was because of him that she drew away every time he tried to make love to her?

  It’s better to pretend some things never happened. You just got on with life as best you could. Nothing would bring Luke back. But if that bastard was dead then she was glad. May he rot in hell.

  Rome

  Simone had given Reuben the spare key to her apartment. When he got there, she was asleep on the sofa. She stirred and woke; there were dark rings under her eyes. “He came here today,” she rasped.

  Reuben tested the reassuring weight of the pistol in his jacket pocket. “What did he want?”

  “He thinks I have been talking to the police. He frightened me.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I took some pills. I haven't been sleeping well.” She put her hands across her face. “I just wanted to shut everything out.”

  “You don't think he would hurt you?”

  “I don’t know. What am I going to do?”

  “It's going to be all right. I promise you.”

  “I can't think any more. I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere and hide.”

  She let him put his arms around her. He did it tentatively, as one would to a complete stranger who was in distress. “I have rung your sister,” he said. “She will be here tomorrow.”

  “Here, in Rome?”

  “I gave her your address. She will take care of you after ...” He stepped away from her. “Por Dios, look at you. Have you eaten anything today?”

  She shook her head. “I've been throwing up ever since he left.”

  He helped her into the bedroom, laid her on the bed. He threw the covers over her and turned off the lamp. “If I'm not here when you wake up, just stay where you are. Wait for Eva.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “There’s some things I have to do. I may be some time.”

  She was too tired to interrogate him further. She just wanted to sleep.

  He closed the bedroom door behind him. “Goodbye caro,” he whispered. “I'm sorry for everything.”