The Garden of Evil

by David Hewson

  He didn’t seem much interested in helping a stray sister whose ancient motorbike had developed a flat tire. The way the woman was talking at him, she plainly meant to ensure he didn’t have much choice. At one point she took hold of the collar of his white cotton servant’s jacket and dragged him out onto the steps. Peroni watched, impressed. He could almost hear the conversation.

  Sir, I am in a hurry for mass. I am only a nun. You must help.

  Yes, but . . .

  SIR!

  Reluctantly, with a very Roman shrug of his hunched shoulders, the servant gave in and walked down the broad steps, followed her to the rusty machine, bent down, and started looking at the flat. Naturally, he left the door ajar. This was a rich man’s residence. No one expected opportunistic thieves. Nor could the servant see what the woman was doing as she stood over him—namely, beckoning to someone around the corner, half hidden at the top of the street.

  The five police officers in the drain-clearing van watched what happened next in total silence. Peroni couldn’t even find the space in his head to raise a laugh. It was so . . . extraordinary. And also so obvious. What the police needed, they clearly knew, was an excuse to enter the Palazzo Malaspina. They had spent weeks trying to find that through myriad means: forensic and scientific investigation, detective work, and an exploration of Franco Malaspina’s ancestry.

  They hadn’t counted on the cunning of a bunch of scheming nuns who, doubtless under Agata Graziano’s tuition, had spent the night preparing to penetrate Malaspina’s fortress in a way no law enforcement officer could possibly have imagined, let alone entertained. They would bring in the police by the very simplest of expedients: committing the small crime of trespass themselves.

  They flooded round the corner, an entire flock, black wings flapping, running with the short, straitened gait their robes forced on them. Perhaps twenty. Perhaps more. A giggling, excited mass of sisterhood raced down the street and poured onto the steps of the Palazzo Malaspina, scampering upwards, to the door, not stopping to heed the cries of the servant, who was no longer staring at the flat tire on the crippled motorbike because its owner had swiftly departed to join her fellows, leading them exactly where Peroni expected.

  Through both doors, now the intruders had thrown the second one open, the black tide flooded happily into the interior of the Palazzo Malaspina, as if this were some schoolgirl jape, the most amusing event to have occurred in their quiet, enclosed lives for years.

  Peroni gave each of the men a look that said Stay here.

  Then he slid out of the passenger door and strode down the street.

  The servant was starting to flap and squawk, his pasty face red with outrage, lost for words, unsure what to do. He looked scared too. Peroni didn’t need much imagination to guess that Franco Malaspina wasn’t the nicest of bosses.

  The man didn’t take a single step towards the black mass of figures pushing into the palace on the steps above either. Peroni understood why. They seemed a little scary too.

  “Sir,” Peroni said, pulling out his police ID card, “I’m from the Questura. Is there a problem?”

  “A problem?” the man squawked. “What the hell do you think?”

  Peroni glanced at the pool of women. It was diminishing. Most of them were in the palace by now. He could see their silhouettes moving alongside the windows on both sides of the entrance as they ran in all directions.

  “You know,” Peroni observed, “this has been a bad day for nuns. It’s shocking.”

  “What the . . . ?”

  “This is why you pay for a police force. To create order from chaos. To save ordinary citizens from. . .” He glanced at the steps. The last black-clad figure was struggling through the doors. “. . . the unexpected.”

  “Oh, crap,” the man moaned. “Malaspina will go crazy.”

  Peroni leaned down and put on his most sympathetic face.

  “Would you like me to go inside and deal with this for you?” he asked in a noncommittal fashion. “Discreetly of course.”

  “Yes . . . but . . . but . . .”

  Peroni wasn’t listening. He had what he wanted: a legitimate invitation to enter the Palazzo Malaspina, one prompted by a bunch of nuns and sisters who would surely impress any court.

  He turned and beckoned to the men in the van. Four burly police officers jumped out, looking ready and eager for action.

  The servant groaned, put his hands to his head, and started to mumble a low series of obscene curses.

  “You can leave it to us now,” Peroni shouted cheerfully down the street as he walked towards the staircase, wondering what a private Roman palace looked like from the inside, and where on earth, within its many rambling corridors, he might find Nic Costa and Agata Graziano.

  He paused on the threshold. This really was not his kind of place. Then, out of politeness more than anything—since he had no intention of waiting—he placed a call to Falcone, explaining, in one sentence, what had happened.

  There was a silence, pregnant with excitement.

  “We’re in, Leo, and I am not leaving until I have them,” Peroni added, walking through the door, almost blinded by the expanse of shining marble that glittered at him from every direction. “Send me all the troops you have.”

  Eight

  IT WAS LIKE THE PANTHEON IN MINIATURE, AND THAT brought memories crashing back. Costa rolled on the hard stone floor, hurting already, worked out where Agata was, and dragged himself in front of her. They were right up against the wall of a room that formed a perfect circle marked by ribbed columns, each framing a fresco, each fronted by a plinth with a statue. The ceiling was glass held by delicate stone ribs, incandescent with dazzling sunlight. The floor seemed to be sunken, and above it, no more than the height of two men, ran a balustraded gallery, like a viewing platform for some contest that would take place on the stage below.

  It took a second or two for him to adapt. The gun was still in his hand. That was some consolation. He got to his knees, then stood up, glancing at Agata, understanding the shocked expression on her face, guarding her with his body as much as he could.

  She had reason to be silent, to be shaking with fear behind him. This was Franco Malaspina’s most private of sanctuaries, and it was dedicated to a kind of classical pornography that defied the imagination. Behind the still-confident figure of Malaspina stood a marble Pan, larger than life and so beautiful he might have been carved by Bernini, laughing as he raped a young girl, every crude physical detail of the ravishment laid bare for the beholder. To their left stood a warrior in silver armour, painted to resemble Carpaccio’s Saint George, savaging the maiden at the stake as the dragon lay bloodily at his feet. Equidistant around the circular chamber stood figures that were semi-human, beasts and men, half-real creatures and, everywhere, naked, vulnerable women, young, virginal, portrayed as if they were on the precipice of some revelation, afraid yet desperate for knowledge, too, lips open, ready to utter the primal scream of joy and release that Caravaggio had placed in the throat of Eve in the painting at the heart of the room.

  These were all plays on known works of art, paintings and statues he recognised, transformed by an obscene imagination, and they were old, as old as the Palazzo Malaspina itself, perhaps even more ancient, since Costa believed he could see some that must have preceded Caravaggio’s enticing goddess, the original Eve, in the ecstatic throes of the original sin, taunting them with a conundrum—carnal love or divine?—that was lost, surely, on most of those who saw it.

  Franco Malaspina stood next to the canvas, watching them, unconcerned, amused.

  As Costa struggled to consolidate his position—Agata behind him, protected, silent, astonished by what she saw—the count strode forward. He was unarmed but Costa could see where his eyes had drifted before he took that first step. Around the room at intervals—there surely to enforce the impression that this was a knight’s secret lair, a chamber of the Round Table, dedicated to the sexual power of men—were collections of armour an
d weapons: swords and daggers, gleaming, clean, ready for use.

  “Do you like my little temple?” Malaspina asked, stopping a short distance in front of them, smiling, bowing.

  “Consider yourself under arrest,” Costa retorted, his voice hoarse from the dust in the corridors. “The painting’s evidence enough for me.”

  The man laughed and took one more step forward.

  “You can’t arrest me here. No one can. This place belongs to me. To us. To my line. To my ancestors. You two are merely insects in the walls. Nothing. Does it not interest you, my little sister? Did you see me well enough from your little peephole?”

  “What is this, Franco?” she asked softly.

  “This?” Malaspina replied, still moving slowly forward. “This is the world. The real world. As they created it. Those who came before. My ancestors and their friends. Artists. Poets. And lords to rule over them all.” His face turned dark. “The world has need of lords, Agata. Even your Popes understood that.”

  “Raping black women from the streets is scarcely a sign of class,” Costa observed, casting a nervous glance at the curtain to the hidden corridor, wondering what had happened to their pursuer, praying that one of his shots—how many remained in the magazine he’d no idea—had hit home.

  Malaspina stopped and looked at them, his cruel, dark, aristocratic face full of contempt.

  “Be honest with yourself, Costa. Given half the chance, you would have stayed and watched, too, then said nothing. That small, dark demon is in us all. Only the few have courage to embrace it. The Ekstasists have been here always, in this place, in this city. My father was one. His before him. When I have a son . . .”

  It was clear. Costa understood the truth implicitly, and it horrified him, the idea that such a cruel and vicious decadence might be passed on through generations, though surely not with such savagery.

  “Your father didn’t kill people, did he?” he asked, trying to work out a safe way to reach the door by which the woman had left earlier. “He didn’t murder some penniless immigrant on a whim.” He nodded towards the canvas on the easel in front of the couch, its cushions still indented with the weight of Malaspina’s body and that of the woman they had seen. “He didn’t need to place that painting in some squalid little room to hide the blood and the bones.”

  “Black blood, black bones,” Agata murmured behind him.

  “It was just a sick game before,” Costa went on. “A rite of passage for rich, bored thugs. Then Nino showed you that painting. And it became something worse.” He clutched the gun more tightly. There was a noise from near the curtain. “Why was that?”

  He backed her more tightly against the wall. The thunder in Malaspina’s face scared him. The man didn’t care.

  “I will kill you first,” he said without emotion, then nodded towards Agata, who was still cowering behind Costa’s shoulder. “Then I will have her. This is my domain, little policeman. I own everything. I control everything. When I am done, what is left of you will disappear forever, just like those black whores. This . . .”

  He strode over to the wall and took a long, slender sword, a warrior’s weapon, real and deadly, from one of the displays there, tucking a short stiletto into his belt for good measure.

  “. . . is why I exist.”

  Costa held the gun straight out in front of him. He didn’t care about the consequences anymore, or whether some bent lawyer or magistrate would one day accuse him of murder. He had the man’s cold, angular face on the bead and that was all that counted.

  Then Agata was screaming again, slipping from beneath him. Costa’s attention shifted abruptly to the drape and a figure crawling through it, bloodied, wounded, dying maybe.

  It was Malaspina’s man and in his gory hands he clutched a gun, clinging to the cold black metal as if it were the most precious object in his life.

  The ’Ndrangheta never gave up, never stopped till the job was done.

  One brief rake of fire ran low against the circular boundary wall. Costa could feel Agata’s small body quaking behind him. Before the man could find energy for a second run, Costa directed his gun away from Malaspina and released a single shot straight at the bloodied figure wrapped in the curtain, struggling to get upright. The shock of the impact jerked the stricken figure back into the drape, back into the dark chasm at the corridor’s mouth. He didn’t move again.

  Grinning, Malaspina took two steps forward, slashing the blade through the air in an easy, practised fashion.

  “This is for my wife, you bastard,” Costa murmured, and drew the short black barrel of the Beretta level with the arrogant face in front of him, keeping it as straight and level as any weapon he had ever held, with a steady hand and not the slightest doubt or hesitation.

  He pulled the trigger. The weapon clicked on empty.

  Nine

  GIANNI PERONI HAD NEVER BEEN IN A BUILDING LIKE IT before. There were women in black robes, nuns and sisters, wandering everywhere, lost once they had gained entrance, puzzled about what to do. And there were so many rooms: chamber after chamber, some grand, some small and functional, many looking little used in this sprawling palace that was home to a single human being detached from the reality beyond his domain.

  Any servants around clearly had no desire to make themselves known. Perhaps they realised the Malaspina empire was crumbling under this strange invasion and knew what that meant. As he raced through the building, screaming out that they were police and demanding attention, Peroni became aware he was simply becoming more and more lost in some glorious Minotaur’s maze, a travertine prison in which Franco Malaspina lived as solitary ruler of an empire of stiff, frozen grandeur. It was like hunting for life in a museum, like seeking the answer to a riddle from yet another riddle, a journey that wound in on itself, circling the same vistas, the same monuments and paintings and galleries.

  The men from the Questura followed him, just as bemused. Twice they met sisters and nuns they had encountered before, and got nothing from them except a shake of the head and equal puzzlement. The women’s brief, it seemed to Peroni, was simple: find a way into the Palazzo Malaspina and breach its invisible defences, in such numbers that the police would surely be summoned. Once that had been achieved . . . Peroni tried to imagine the extent of Franco Malaspina’s home. It covered a huge area, extending by second-floor bridges beyond neighbouring streets, as far as the studio in the Vicolo del Divino Amore, where this tragedy, one that had such powerful, continuing personal dimensions for them all, had begun.

  It was impossible to guess where to start looking. Then they turned a corner, one that looked much like any other—gleaming stone, carved heads on plinths, sterile splendour everywhere—and saw her. Peroni stopped, breathless. Just one look at the woman on the floor, terrified, clutching her clothes to her, made him realise exactly what they were seeking. Somewhere within this vast private empire was Franco Malaspina’s clandestine lair, the sanctum where he felt free to do whatever he liked. This cowed and frightened woman in front of him understood where it lay. He could see that in her terrified features.

  One of the other officers got there first, dragged her roughly to her feet, and started to throw a series of loud, aggressive questions into her frightened face.

  “Shut up,” Peroni barked at the man and pushed him out of the way, found a chair—all ornate gilt and spindly legs—by the window, brought it for her, and let her sit down. Then he kneeled in front, making sure he didn’t touch her, even by accident, and said, “Please, signora. We need your help. We must find Franco Malaspina, the master of this palace, now. There are people in danger here, just as you were. We must know where he is.”

  “Yeah,” the officer who got there first butted in. “Start talking or we start asking for papers.”

  Peroni glowered at him and pointed at the broad glass panes next to them. “If you utter one more moronic word,” he said quietly, “I will, I swear, throw you straight out of that window.” He looked at the woman. In truth she wa
s little more than a girl, a slim, pretty creature, with scars on her cheeks and short hair caught and braided in beads, now dishevelled. She was terrified still, but perhaps not as much as before. “Please,” he repeated. “I am begging you. This is important. This man has hurt people in the past.” He hesitated, then thought, Why not? “He’s killed people. Women like you. Perhaps you’ve heard . . .”

  Her eyes were astonishingly white and broad, fearful but not without knowledge and some strength too. Her body, which was lithe and athletic, shook like a leaf as she clutched her cheap, skimpy hooker’s clothes more tightly as he spoke those words.

  “He’s a rich man,” she muttered in a strong African accent.

  “You heard about those women who were murdered,” Peroni replied immediately. “You must have done. We’ve had officers out on the streets telling everyone.”

  She nodded, the gesture barely perceptible.

  “Rich and powerful he may be,” Peroni continued, “but he killed those women and a good friend of mine too. Where is he?”

  Her eyes grew bright with anger. “I show you,” she told him, and led the way, down a set of stairs at the end of the hallway, down a long, dark, narrow corridor, over a footbridge, with the bright chilly December morning visible through the stone slats, like emplacements for imaginary archers, open to the air, then on into a distant sector of the palace they would never have found so quickly on their own.

  Ten

  COSTA EDGED BACK TOWARDS THE DRAPE AND THE CORPSE of the ’Ndrangheta thug, making sure Agata stayed out of range by forcing his right hand down behind and guiding her along the wall. When they were close enough—he could feel the man’s body hard against his foot, he could smell the rank odour of the wound—he turned and caught her gleaming eye.