Sacred Cut

by David Hewson

  William F. Kaspar took out the radio earpiece, looked at the three of them, nodded to Emily and said, “As I always say, improvisation is the key to everything, Agent Deacon. Nice job. I’m proud of you.”

  He waved the book at them. “Mind if I keep this? I found it in here and, to be honest, I don’t think it’s one of his.”

  He pointed to a figure bundled into the corner, gagged, hands tied behind his back, wearing a grubby vest and underpants. Peroni recognized the florid-faced caretaker and stifled a laugh.

  “Let me tell you,” Kaspar continued, “this guy is a world-class shirker. Plus he has potty mouth you wouldn’t believe. Beats me how they let him look after a place like this.”

  Falcone pushed open the door of the side entrance. There were no Carabinieri there. Only a fresh, light scattering of snow coming down through the growing darkness.

  Costa waved a pair of handcuffs in the air. Emily Deacon forced her way in front of him and peered at Kaspar.

  “How are things?” she asked him.

  He stared through the open interior door, back into the great circular hall, looking as if he were saying good-bye. Then he peered closely at the objects on the table. The book. The radio. The phone. All set in a line.

  “Quiet,” Bill Kaspar said, and shuffled the items in front of him, making a random pattern, like three dominoes rattling aimlessly around a board. “Quieter than they’ve been in a long time.”

  Natale

  TERESA LUPO STOOD AT THE KITCHEN WINDOW, WORKING her way through the mountain of dishes Peroni had left in his wake. He’d now retreated to the living room with Nic and Emily, clutching a bottle of grappa, and begun to talk in that low, concerned way she’d come to recognize. Leo Falcone was outside with Laila, working to put a little life back into the disintegrating snowman before better weather came along and melted it into the hard earth.

  Teresa had been astonished when Falcone accepted the invitation to Christmas lunch. She was a little surprised she’d gone along with the idea too, but the expression on Peroni’s face when Nic Costa floated the idea meant there really was no other option. Peroni wanted to cook a holiday meal. He wanted to sit down at a table with other people. With a kid, more than anything.

  And Falcone … He was a lonely man. He had nothing else to do. So it made sense for him to be outside now, parading around the diminishing white figure, wondering where best to place an old, limp carrot. Laila, who’d been ferried to the farm from the social worker that morning and would be ferried back in the evening, watched with an equal amount of seriousness. The two of them were driving Teresa crazy.

  “Lighten up, for God’s sake,” she muttered. Falcone drove her crazy a lot. She’d always known he was an intense, solitary man. But she’d never realized this was as much a puzzle to him as it was to everyone else. Watching him walk slowly around the snowman, carrot in hand, looking as if he were about to enter into the most important decision he’d faced in his entire life, made Teresa Lupo feel uncomfortably sympathetic towards a man she didn’t, in truth, much like.

  Unable to contain herself any longer, she threw open the window and yelled, “The face, Leo. Try putting it on the face.”

  Falcone gazed back at her in despair, sighed, then nodded at Laila.

  “The carrot’s not the problem,” the girl said. “The face is.”

  Teresa looked at the blasted thing. The face was wrong.

  “Well, just do something,” she snapped.

  “But …” Falcone protested.

  She slammed the window shut, not wanting to hear any more or see it either. There were people on this planet for whom time was a stranger. People who took no notice of the passing years, never stopped once to add them up and work out the sums: what was now possible, what would soon disappear from your grasp once that hand ticked past midnight on another New Year’s Eve.

  Peroni claimed he’d found the last turkey in town. She stared at its carcass, a bundle of fleshy bones that resembled a small, stripped dinosaur. God, they could eat. The girl in particular. Peroni’s cousin outside Verona, who’d offered to take Laila in, just for a few months to see if it could work, was going to have to buy a new freezer. Even Nic Costa had tried a tiny taste of the turkey, which Peroni had cooked to perfection, slathered in oil and garlic and rosemary. Costa eating meat. That was something she’d never thought she would see.

  She turned back to the window again. The girl was remaking the face, shifting the stark gaze of the creature’s coal eyes straight at the house. Falcone was watching her, finger to his cheek, thinking. About more than a snowman too, Teresa guessed. There’d been a storm hanging over all of them since the events in the Pantheon two days before. The media hadn’t gone to town on the story beyond the plain details: that a killer had been apprehended by the state police. Then the headlines seemed to wane. The papers and the TV people liked stories with beginnings, middles and ends. Bill Kaspar didn’t really fit that profile, not without the blue file of SISDE documents, which Falcone had now taken into his care. And done what with? She half knew. She’d asked him straight out when they were alone together briefly and got that mute, secret stare in return. Falcone had presumably put them in a safe place known only to him, in case any of them needed insurance in the future. All the same, some kind of internal investigation was going on in the Questura at that very moment. Falcone knew a damn sight more about it than he’d let on over lunch. The same was probably happening round at the SISDE offices. And the Americans? She didn’t have the heart to ask Emily Deacon whether she still had a job or not. It didn’t seem right. She and Nic were, if not yet an item, sure to be one soon, Teresa thought. They had that glint in their eyes.

  Great, she thought. Nic finally gets a girl and she lives in America, a different world, across a distant ocean. Probably jobless too, though with that beautiful blonde hair and a pretty, magnetic face that went from cool to angry to childlike in the space of a couple of seconds it wouldn’t take long. God, she thought. Can’t men pick them?

  After all, Gianni Peroni had picked her and that made no sense at all.

  “Who am I kidding?” she murmured, suddenly furious with herself. “I’m the catch of a lifetime.”

  She watched Laila place the carrot in the centre of the snowman’s face, turn to Falcone and smile. Such an open, untainted smile, one she’d not managed to get out of the girl however hard she tried. One that, to her alarm, Falcone returned with just as much sudden, unbridled warmth. Then his phone bleated and the old Leo resurfaced. An urgent desire for a glass of grappa rose in Teresa. She walked into the living room, saw Gianni Peroni there, alone on the sofa, head back on a cushion, mouth open.

  “Move over, you big lunk,” she grumbled, then shuffled down beside him and poured herself a big glass of the clear stuff.

  Those smart, piggy eyes opened and looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Yes what?”

  “You look like you want to get something off your chest.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  He shrugged. She was going to have her say anyway and he knew it.

  “I wish you were right, Gianni. I wish you could talk someone out of being ill. And Laila is ill, you know. All that stealing. It’s just a part of something else. Being sick. Not quite able to work out what’s real and what’s not.”

  “I know.”

  He was being infuriating. It was deliberate.

  “This cousin of yours. They’re farmers or something? It’s not enough. You can’t just explain the situation and watch the child’s eyes light up listening and then suddenly she goes, ‘Aahhh.’ ”

  He thought about it. “This is true. But I think she’s a country girl, really. You can see the city harms her. A move might help. Just a step in the right direction. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s Christmas. Can’t we leave all the worrying to one side for a day?”

  He was right. It was another of his infuriating habits. No one could cure Laila in a day. But getting her out of Rome, with its vicious ro
und of traps waiting to ensnare even the most street-smart of kids, was surely a good idea.

  “OK,” she conceded. “But will you kindly disagree with me when I want an argument? I hate punching thin air.”

  She wanted to pummel her fists on his big chest. She wanted to take him home, throw him in her bed, ignore all the precautions and see what happened when you stopped thinking about the future for once.

  “No,” Gianni Peroni replied and kissed her a couple of times on each cheek.

  “What’s going to happen?” she demanded quietly.

  “Why ask me?” He shrugged. “I’m the last person to know about anything around here.”

  To her amazement, Peroni hadn’t sulked—not seriously—when he discovered what she, Nic and, to an extent, Falcone had cooked up between them to try to persuade Thornton Fielding to give himself away. Peroni was, she now understood very clearly, as straight a cop as anyone could find in Rome. The idea of trusting someone like Kaspar—even for what seemed to be the best of reasons—that there simply was no choice—was one he’d found deeply uncomfortable.

  “I said I was sorry, Gianni. There really wasn’t time. Or an alternative.”

  And also, she thought, you’re just too damn honest to get away with deceptions.

  “I just felt awkward that you put your job on the line. Going into the embassy. Calling the Carabinieri, for God’s sake. I mean … That’s just downright rude!”

  “Sorry,” she said meekly. “Won’t happen again, honest.” Then, more seriously, “So what happens to us?”

  The shadow of a grimace flickered on his ugly face. “Between Leo, Nic and me we seem to have pissed off plenty of people. You should be OK, though. Leapman’s got bigger things to worry about. Besides, you’re a civilian. You can support me. That was a good meal, huh? Bet you didn’t know I could cook, too. I could have a meal waiting for you on the table when you come home. Be a househusband.”

  That wasn’t funny. “Sure, sure! You can cook. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “I’m not too good at being handsome. Or … talking from time to time.”

  She put a hand to his cheek, lightly, because it was still bruised from the beating Kaspar had given him, and there were black scabs hardening over the marks he’d been carrying for years.

  “You’ll do just fine,” she said. “I meant what’s going to happen about you and me, actually.”

  “Ah,” he said softly. “You mean will I walk away once this is over? Will I run back to my wife? Or decide it’s just better being single after all?”

  “That and a few other things.”

  “As everyone seems to have been saying these past few days, it’s a new world, girl. Who the hell knows what will happen tomorrow?”

  “Who the hell wants to know anymore?”

  Peroni put his slab of a hand on the side of her face, tousled her hair with his fat fingers, then threw his arms around her and instigated a bone-breaking, bear-like hug.

  “Season’s greetings, Teresa,” he whispered. “Let’s go home soon, huh? Laila gets picked up in an hour or so anyway.”

  “I’ve got that spare bedroom. If you like, she could …”

  He smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”

  No, she thought. It was unnecessary. But she wanted to ask. She felt the need to please him, still, and there hadn’t been many men who’d prompted that urge in her.

  “It’s a deal,” she said, and watched Leo Falcone come in through the back door, Laila behind him, the tall bony inspector looking pleased as punch.

  He stood there, smirking.

  “Leo …?” Peroni asked hesitantly.

  THE STUDIO WAS A MESS. Cobwebs hung down from the ceiling in thick, extended clumps. Canvases stood on easels, half-hidden by old sacking. There were suitcases on the floor, brimming with dust. Scarcely a soul had been in the room since his sister Giulia moved out to Milan almost five years before. The beauty of the place was obvious all the same. Floor-length French windows ran down the southern side of the house, allowing in so much light it could be dazzling in summer. For a painter, for anyone who dealt in the visual, Nic Costa thought, this would be the perfect home. Giulia even slept in this room sometimes, falling asleep on the little couch, covered in spatters of colour, exhausted.

  Emily Deacon worked her way around each canvas, peeking under the coverings.

  “She’s good.”

  “I know. She’s also dedicated, which means she’s broke most of the time and chasing commissions from ad agencies in Milan the other half. The artist’s life.”

  “That was one reason I studied architecture. The good old Deacon upbringing. Make sure you’ve got a career. Even if it’s one we’ll never let you pursue.”

  That morning, when she had arrived at the house, he hadn’t asked her about the meeting she’d had at the embassy the day before. All she said was that she’d spent the whole of Christmas Eve being debriefed by a security team and had then been shunted into human resources. He knew what that meant. Disciplinary procedures. Or worse.

  It was impossible to avoid the question forever.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  Her bright eyes locked on his face. “You mean do I quit before they fire me?”

  “If it comes to that.”

  “It already has, Nic. I’ve handed in my resignation. I’m done. I don’t even have to clear my desk. They’ll send the stuff to me. They hate me that much. Great, huh?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” she laughed. “I’m delighted. I may not know exactly who or what I am but I’m damn sure I know what I’m not. That job was for someone else. Besides …”

  A hint of inward anger crossed her face.

  “Think about it,” she said with a shrug. “I just did what my dad did thirteen years ago. I got to the point where I wasn’t prepared to take any more of their bullshit and I snapped. I threw out all the rules. I acted as if rules didn’t matter. I knew better.”

  “Emily …” He came close and grasped her shoulders lightly. She didn’t move away. “You did what was right. We all did.”

  “I know that! But if I carry that badge I do what I’m supposed to. I don’t make the rules up just to suit me. To match my own personal hang-ups. That’s selfish, and they deserve someone better. Someone who’s more professional than me. More professional than Joel Leapman too. Even if I stayed I’d screw up again before long. It’s just not me. I have a renegade gene, Nic. Got it handed down to me. Should have known as much all along. And so have you. And Gianni. Maybe even Falcone, I think. How you get away with what you do amazes me.”

  There was something in what she said. Costa recognized it, feared it a little too.

  “Nic,” she asked, “would you really have tried to arrest them all? If you hadn’t managed to find out about Thornton Fielding? And Kaspar had simply walked in there?”

  “Would he have walked in?” Costa had been asking himself that a lot.

  “If he’d got that folder instead of Thornton Fielding? I think so. He was tired. He was sick of being broke and on the street. He was scared, too, of himself, and for a man like that I doubt there’s anything scarier. The fact he couldn’t control what he was doing anymore. That was the last roll of the dice. All the same”—she glanced at him—“the idea of you taking those guys on. You didn’t have the numbers. They had the authority.”

  “Authority’s not the same as being right.”

  “True,” she agreed. “And being right’s not the same as being the one who wins.”

  Costa had avoided thinking about the alternative too much. The odds would have been stacked against them. Even so, Falcone had been adamant. Whatever the consequences, there would have been no way they would have allowed Leapman and Viale a free hand.

  “So what happens to you guys?” she asked. “Are they throwing the book at you?”

  “Maybe,” he said quietly. “Emily, I wish I’d known. That it was all some kind of game. That
you had soda cans round your neck, not real bombs. You scared the life out of me, out of all of us.”

  She waved a finger at him, an expression so Italian he had to remind himself she was a foreigner. “Oh no. I’m not taking flak on that. I guess you don’t do Gilbert and Sullivan in Italy. ‘Corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.’ As long as you guys thought they were real bombs, your minds stayed focused. You didn’t go near the detail, trying to pick holes in it. This was a one-shot deal. I couldn’t take any risks.”

  “We were running errands for the man we were trying to take.” He didn’t want to push it. He didn’t want to leave it unsaid either. “That was a little unusual.”

  She wanted to clear the air too. “You were running errands for me too, Nic. I sent you running round to the Piazza Mattei, remember? Kaspar was just going along with my hunch that you’d find something there he couldn’t. Besides, do you think we could have won it on our own?”

  He didn’t have a ready answer there.

  “I know,” she went on. “You feel deceived. With some justification. I’m sorry. But I’d do the same thing again. Convincing you everything was for real was the only way. All anyone had to do was look at your face and they knew they had to go along with you. Besides, it was real. Just not in the way you all expected.”

  He laughed a little. She looked relieved this wasn’t going to turn into an inquisition.

  “Also,” she added, “Kaspar was going to use me one way or another. I had a choice. Be a reluctant hostage. Or go along with him, try to steer things a little and see where they led.”

  “Legally …” He didn’t want to push the point. They could have picked her up themselves if they wanted. Wasting police time. Running a bomb hoax. Falcone had ruled the idea out immediately. Another officer could have thought differently.