by Aidan Conway
“Recently divorced. A daughter in who knows what sort of trouble. His own life in danger. I don’t think you need to have studied the Stanislavsky method to come across as convincing with all that baggage.”
“And too many coincidences?”
“Too many things that didn’t fit or allowed room for another possibility, bizarre though it might have seemed. What’s more, when we were talking, I thought he might have used the present tense to refer to her. It was ambiguous, fleeting but I felt he noticed it himself then covered it up. It can happen with the recently bereaved. He may even have done it on purpose. He’s a subtle operator. He knows how and where to leave clues. At the time I didn’t give it so much thought. But put it all together and it makes three. Three pretty significant coincidences.”
“So why did she arrange the secret meeting with us? Why not just send a note? Why come and then escape dressed as a nun?”
“I think she wanted to be found. I think they wanted to be found. Or maybe it was to put some distance between us and them in case we were being trailed, which we were, as I’m guessing she probably knew. The chances are that someone’s tapping my phone and tracking my e-mails. And she’d know what they are capable of.”
“So the judge was in on it all along?”
“Yes, pretty much. Once she involved him he had no choice; what would a father do? He identified her, and he was on the scene that evening, albeit as soon as he had let a decent interval elapse. But he would have known the body was clean, unidentifiable, and left far enough from her car for anyone to make a connection. Then they waited for the dust to settle. There was the cremation. Slightly unusual that, too, for Italy. Certainly ruled out any exhumation.”
“So what now?” said Carrara.
“Let’s go back and ask them. We’ve done the hard work and maybe I might be getting a few ideas of my own too.”
Forty-One
“So,” said Rossi, “let me get this clear. What you are saying is that you want to join Inspector Carrara and myself, on our case?”
“I can help you find the killer but we can’t come out into the open. If you bring us in, it’s finished for us. My cover will be blown. It’s the one big advantage we have. We can’t bring Kristina back. It was either her or me, don’t you see? Somebody would have been killed anyway.”
“And I’m supposed to keep all this to myself? To operate in this highly irregular manner. Do you realize what could happen to me?”
“I know,” replied Maria, pacing back and forth now, a panther in a cage, “I know.”
“So, tell me why I shouldn’t follow the rules and bring you both in and go home and get a good night’s sleep?”
“Because you are a good man,” she said, stopping and confronting Rossi, her hands gripping the edge of the table between them, “one of the few. And one of the best. Everyone knows that. And besides, we have the upper hand now. They think I am dead. They have Spinelli in custody. They think you’re chasing shadows and they’re probably sitting back and congratulating themselves and waiting for the next murder. The next move will be to pin it on the foreigners, you wait and see. It’s a numbers game. They sit down and plan it all out. It’s a plot. I am sure of it. The guy who tried to kill me is one of us, for God’s sake! I know the way things work.”
Rossi had turned towards the window. He wheeled round to face Maria and her father.
“We’d better get to work on that description then,” he said, knowing once again he was being drawn into the labyrinth. Another labyrinth. And what beast lurked at the centre of this one? “And see if it matches with what Marta from the health club has to say about the weirdo. But tracking him down is going to be needle in a haystack stuff, with or without a face. We can’t operate in the open or he’ll know we’re on to him. I can’t let my superiors know any of this either. And if he twigs, he’ll discover there’s been a tip-off and they’ll all close ranks. He’ll vanish. Then they just bring in a clean skin to do the job and we’re back to square one. So, everybody, it looks like we’re well and truly on our own on this one.”
He turned to Carrara.
“Did we get any decent forensics from any of the murders?”
“Fibres. On Yana’s coat. Some hair, possibly. No prints.”
“Well, if we do bring him in and we can match them up, we’ve got a chance. Or if we can get our hands on the murder weapon, all the better. But we have to find him first. Where do you propose we start looking?”
“I thought you might have an idea about that,” said Carrara.
“Well,” said Rossi, “judging by what we’ve got – a description, and the notes—”
“The notes?” interrupted Maria.
“Ah, yes,” said Rossi, “our killer likes to leave a paper trail, in English. I suggest we go all out on them, for now.”
Forty-Two
“So, what the hell were you two doing at San Giovanni! Don’t you know it’s extra-territorial?”
Rossi was in Maroni’s office. Again.
“Keeping tabs on me, then?”
“I like to know what my people are up to, Rossi, especially when they’re going about things in a somewhat irregular fashion. So, what was going on?”
“I was at a funeral.”
“The truth, Rossi, not games!”
“Confession. I was confessing my sins.”
Look Rossi, I told you I don’t have time to mess around here. Carrying your weapon inside a papal basilica. And then that ridiculous car chase routine. Do you want to get someone killed? Haven’t we got enough trouble as it is?”
“Well, if I wasn’t being tailed …” Rossi began.
Maroni appeared to soften for a moment.
“Look, Rossi, I didn’t put anyone on your tail, if that’s what you’re saying, but word gets back to me. Everything, pretty much, gets back to me, and I have to come up with answers. That’s the way it is. Do you follow or do I need to translate it into your foreign language of choice?”
Chance would be a fine thing, Rossi thought to himself.
“They’re in a huff because I left without offering lunch, is that it?”
“Well you certainly pissed somebody off,” said Maroni, “that’s why they’re coming down on me like the proverbial with this story about Starsky and bloody Hutch in the middle of tourist Rome. Good bit of driving though it was, by all accounts.”
“Carrara,” said Rossi. “Missed his vocation if you ask me.”
Maroni was drumming his fingers on the desk.
“All right,” said Rossi, “some information came our way. I thought it was probably nothing but in the absence of anything else, we went along with it.”
“A tip-off? Of what nature?”
“Somebody with an identikit on the killer, the killer who is still out there and not that unfortunate sap Spinelli in the cells.”
Maroni seemed to stiffen in his chair at the mention of the detained politician.
“And you didn’t think of sharing this big breakthrough with me?”
“Like I said, I didn’t really think it would be a breakthrough, just a crank, probably, but as it turns out, maybe we’ve got something.”
“Go on. What? And from who?”
“We have a description. Pretty generic but she, it was a she, claims to have been a witness at the car park but can’t come forward in person for the usual reasons – shouldn’t have been there, married woman seeing someone she shouldn’t have been seeing. At least that’s the story.”
“And you just let her go?”
“She disappeared.”
“Bloody magician now, is she?”
“Didn’t they tell you what was going on that day?” said Rossi, with well-disguised feigned incredulity, “Your grasses, I mean.”
“They’re not grasses, Rossi,” Maroni retorted, “and I wasn’t told. It was brought to my attention. There’s quite a difference, you know. And I don’t have direct contact with all branches of the intelligence community and, to be quite ho
nest, I wouldn’t want to. But in this case I’d like to know how you could let someone with that kind of information slip through your fingers!” he concluded, jabbing one of his own at Rossi.
“It was very well-planned,” said Rossi, “there were only the two of us and the place was crawling with nuns. She slipped into the crowd. I could hardly put them all up against the wall, could I? There would have been a diplomatic incident.”
“It probably already is a diplomatic incident,” said Maroni with an air of exasperation, “at least as far as us lot are concerned.”
“You know,” said Rossi, “it would be nice to know who my guardian angel is. I might want to pray to him from time to time.”
“We all have guardian angels, Rossi, and sometimes we should be thankful for small mercies. There are times when we all need protection.”
Rossi appeared to reflect for a moment on his superior’s words.
“Are you saying I should be watching my back?”
Maroni had loosened his tie and was scratching around looking for something in his desk debris, between stacks of dog-eared folders and stray papers.
“Need to take this damned pill,” he blurted, opening a drawer and extracting a small bottle, managing as he did so to knock over the one plastic cup among the many on his desk that was full of water. Rossi stood up and filled him another from the machine. Maroni tossed back the pill and grumbled something like thanks before continuing.
“All I am saying is that, despite appearances, sometimes, we are all in this together and yes, there are dangers. You know the dangers, Rossi, you don’t need me to hold your hand, do you? What I’m saying is don’t go in over your depth, not on your own, not on this one.”
“‘On this road’,” began Rossi, “‘man is threatened by many dangers, both from within and without.’”
Maroni gave a puzzled look.
“Aquinas,” said Rossi, “Summa Theologica.”
“Ah,” Maroni replied. “Well, can you just keep me in the loop on all this?”
Rossi shrugged.
“What exactly can I do?”
“Normal police work?”
“‘Normal police work’?”
“Like normal bloody poliziotti.”
“I will promise to do my best,” said Rossi, “and to be as normal as the circumstances require.”
The two men looked at each other for some time.
“Please go now, Rossi,” said a more wearied-looking Maroni, “just go, please.”
Rossi wandered out of the Questura. Maroni was torn, he could see that, between helping and hindering him. He wasn’t a bad man but he had got to where he was by playing the game and, when necessary, turning blind eyes, maintaining the status quo. He was already old enough to put in for early retirement if he wanted. Why hadn’t he then? Even so, there was no way he was going to risk all that going up in smoke. His travel projects, his plans for the boat he kept in the marina at Ostia and which he tended every available weekend, repairing and painting it in the spring ready for the summer season and the fishing trips. At least that was the story he kept hearing. Rossi knew all about that and had to admit he envied him just a little. Maroni had “looked after his own garden”, as the saying went. Nobody else was going to do it for him, that was clear. Regardless of what went on in the outside world, his little corner of sanity and decorum and comfort would be well-tended. It wasn’t quite the “I’m all right, Jack” mentality but it was something close. He had his family, his daughters about to move on to university; why would he want to risk all that?
He wasn’t so badly off himself but if he wanted to go higher in this game he’d have to make compromises and he still wasn’t the compromising type. He couldn’t get his head down and play by the rules, their rules, day in, day out. He’d been tempted on more than one occasion by offers from the private sector, security firms, consultancies, multinationals. He had friends, ex-colleagues more than friends, lured away to take up dull but lucrative positions and who were now enjoying the fruits of their minimal labours.
But was he ready to jump ship? If everyone did that, where would the force end up? It would become just another tool in the hands of the powerful, a toothless lion, a paper tiger. And they would have won. Not like they weren’t winning already anyway, but for as long as he could be a thorn in the side of the criminal establishment, within and without, he would keep going. No. He wasn’t going to lie down and roll over. His thoughts turned then to Yana and to his own loneliness, but a twinge of guilt went through him too. Here he was, the lucky one. He owed it to Yana to stick with it. He owed it to his colleagues too, men like Carrara, who had the spirit intact and their vision unclouded by cynicism. He owed it to the people trying to eke out an honest living in the face of the menace and the temptations of organized crime. And he owed it to his own father, to his memory. That was always the bottom line. That was where this conversation always came to a dead end.
He gave out a sigh. He had dug himself into a pretty deep hole, again, hadn’t he? Let’s see. What was he now? An accessory? No, but as a public official his failure to report a crime was an offence punishable by at least a year inside. More fuel for their fire if it all went pear-shaped. But why did it have to happen on his shift? Why did he have to get the bizarre, mistaken identity, bungled, political murder in the midst of the first serial-killer hunt the city had perhaps ever seen? Why him? Or was it more than a coincidence?
He took out his phone and called Carrara.
“Busy?”
“At home,” said Carrara. There were distinct family-type percussive noises and shrieks in the background.
“Can I come round, just for half an hour? Need to pick your brains.”
There was silence as Carrara appeared to be dealing with a family-type emergency.
“Sorry, about that,” he said. “Ah, look, Mick, I’d promised a bit of the old quality time tonight, you know? Could it wait?”
“I’ve just been up before Maroni,” Rossi countered, upping the ante. “Not the happiest camper.”
“Ah.”
“It’ll be half an hour, I promise. Just to get some ideas on a few things that are bugging me, about the case. Then I’ll be off.”
“Righto,” said Carrara. “I’ll prepare the ground.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand,” said Rossi.
“No comment,” said a tightish-lipped Carrara.
Forty-Three
With irritation, the cardinal decided to take the call buzzing like an incensed insect on his mobile phone.
“Your Excellency!”
“What do you want now?”
“Dispensing with the niceties, are we? Not like you to forgo formality, is it?”
“I am very busy and I would appreciate it if you didn’t continue to call me.”
There was laughter on the other end of the line.
“Well, I’ll cut to the chase, shall I?”
“You can be brief, I think it’s better, and please observe the usual protocol.”
“Oh, they’re not listening to us. You are above suspicion and I am, let’s say, invisible to their radar.”
“That’s as maybe. I still think it would be better if …”
His interlocutor cut him short.
“Now, listen up, and listen good. We have some very delicate relics that need to be hand-carried into the country and we need you to come up with a reliable porter in Lausanne? A man of the cloth, naturally.”
“‘Lausanne’?” the cardinal repeated. “Lausanne?”
“Lausanne. Correct. A considerable number of relics. We’ll need a private jet, preferably with something in the way of papal insignia, just for good measure, for good luck, buona fortuna and all that. The relics just happen to be in Lausanne. Pure coincidence mind.”
The cardinal was sweating cold now. Hadn’t he done enough? When would this end? Why couldn’t they drive their filthy lucre over the border like everyone else?
“Excellency, are you there?
”
“I can’t do it.”
Silence again. Then laughter.
“Ah, you can’t do it.”
“I can’t, I tell you! It’s going too far! Haven’t I done enough? In my position,” he began again, before once more being unceremoniously put in his place.
“Haven’t you enjoyed yourself again today, Excellency, ‘in your position’? Haven’t you been quite the brazen hypocrite, in front of all those special people hanging on your every word? But you know it all comes at a price. This is business now. Nothing more and nothing less. But of course if you want the pictures to fall into less safe hands. And if anything were to happen to me, my lawyers have instructions, shall we say.”
“Pictures? What pictures?”
“Ah! There are always pictures, Excellency. Should anyone ever forget the exact details. Where they were, when and with whom.”
The pictures. How had he let himself be photographed? How had he let it all slip out of his control!
“Look,” he said beginning now to perspire, “give me time!” he almost screamed into the receiver. “Give me time! You must understand that it will take some considerable time.”
“How much time, Excellency? Not an eternity, I trust.”
*
From the wall of his Renaissance apartment rooms, his prized portrait of Lucrezia Borgia looked down on him now with tacit disapproval. He’d been lax, foolish. Yes. But could he not assert his power? It was his duty to dictate the terms, not be dictated to. The powerful could tell the hoi polloi what to believe. They were the masters of reality, this reality. Yes. Perhaps he had let things slide, had even sat back on his laurels. Much time had passed, in human terms, it was true. Even the strongest could slacken after such a long race. Saint Paul was right. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one receives the prize?”
He continued to gaze lovingly at his prize. He had obtained the painting “privately”, after a long search, and it was the jewel of his collection, much envied and much desired. As he gazed at it, something jolted him back to his senses. This was his purest pleasure not the addiction he had allowed himself to fall into. And at what cost? Was this all that he was capable of? Being blackmailed? Was he so naive as to have fallen for the oldest trick? He, of all people? Yes, his self-assurance had led to his complacency. The Banquet of Chestnuts, the honeytrap as it was known by lesser mortals, by the vile, uncultured worms now pulling all the strings? His time was limited. He knew that. But a flourish? And there was a way. There was always a way. Costi quel che costi. Whatever the cost had to be.
