A Season for the Dead nc-1

by David Hewson

  Neri laughed, a big deep sound, and clapped Denney on the shoulder.

  “You mean this, Michael? We’re back in business. What a salesman. What a guy.”

  “We’re back in business,” Denney repeated.

  Hanrahan’s phone rang. He answered it. His face went dark. Then he made an excuse and left the room.

  “What do you think?” Denney asked the three men, unable to stop himself stealing a glance out of the window, thinking of the world beyond.

  Twelve

  There were two possibilities, Nic Costa decided. Falcone would either love the idea, or he would just go plain crazy—unless there were results. Given results, the severe, overdressed man he called inspector would, Nic thought, forgive almost anything.

  The queue to the museum was still about fifty yards long though the place would close in an hour. Costa used his police card to work his way to the front, then put it discreetly away and paid for a ticket at the desk. He walked to the library, waved the police card at the bored attendant on the door and entered the Reading Room without waiting to be stopped.

  The hard yellow light of the late afternoon streamed in from the courtyard onto a sea of empty desks. The place had a sharp antiseptic smell. Someone had been cleaning up. Costa went first to the old desk where, the day before, Hugh Fairchild’s skin had sat like the involuntary castoff from some giant lizard. He was aware that the attendant was on the phone already. The man’s low voice echoed across the spotless, vacant interior. Only one book remained out. It sat on a desk three along from the one Sara Farnese had occupied. He looked at it: something incomprehensible in medieval script. This was a place for a certain kind of human being and it was closing now, going to rest for the weekend.

  Costa walked through the aisles, examining everything. Sure enough, the library was littered with security cameras: tiny dull eyes glinting back at him from discreet metal housings on the ceiling, in corners, attached to windows. He was no academic but he understood why they were there. The library was priceless. The only way to get access was by obtaining special permission, something even a longterm lecturer like Stefano Rinaldi had seemed to find difficult. This was a priceless store of irreplaceable treasures and one that loaned them to a grateful, privileged few to hold in their hands, to touch, admire and then return.

  The risks required great care. Every entrance into the room, every loan, every moment a work was in the hands of a reader, all these occurrences would be recorded, day in, day out. Whoever kept the tapes these cameras made would know what Stefano Rinaldi looked like, how he’d behaved, probably from the moment he’d entered the library itself on the floor above.

  Was this why the man whispered? Or was there someone he feared in the room?

  Either way, the cameras surely held the key. Still, Falcone’s question kept coming back: Why?

  Logically, because Rinaldi wanted to set Sara the task of saving his wife, and feared this would be impossible if someone, either in the room or with access to the tape, witnessed what he was attempting. Could he have left his wife, Mary, standing on the chair in the tower, knowing that if she stumbled she would hang herself? Was it possible that somewhere between Tiber Island and the Vatican he changed his mind and decided to beg Sara to rescue her?

  This was extending the craziness theory too far. Nor did it provide a link between Rinaldi’s supposed actions and his whispered instructions to Sara. Had he changed his mind, Rinaldi could have returned himself and removed Mary from the noose.

  Costa began to understand Falcone’s doubts. The rudimentary logic which reduced these events to some simple act of bloody revenge began to unravel when one thought about the details. There was only a single possibility that could explain everything, and it was one Costa found deeply disturbing.

  What if Rinaldi was not the lone murderer but an accomplice in concert with another? Or even a victim himself? What if he had come to the Vatican desperate because someone else was in the tower, someone who had entrapped him, his wife and the unfortunate Fairchild? Someone who had used Rinaldi’s debts to arrange that initial meeting, murdered the Englishman in front of their eyes, strung up Mary Rinaldi and told her husband that she would be dead unless he sent Sara Farnese back there immediately? Someone who sent the man out on this mission with Hugh Fairchild’s skin in a supermarket bag, demanding he spread it out on the desk, say these crazy words, knowing, surely, that the armed guards would think they had some homicidal madman in their midst?

  And one more thing too. Someone who, as far as Stefano Rinaldi was concerned, would know whether all these conditions had been met.

  Either because he had an accomplice there, or access somehow to the tapes even before Rinaldi could return. Costa rejected this last thought. It could only be practical if someone in the Vatican was in direct contact with the man in the tower. This was surely a conspiracy too far. No, the conditions that were set—the gun, the bag with Fairchild’s skin inside, the repeated and crazy declamations—were invitations to the armed guards of the Vatican to intervene with all possible force because of the nature of the threat they perceived. That must have been the intention—to ensure Rinaldi, and perhaps Sara Farnese too, died here in the library.

  It was a hypothesis Nic Costa was reluctant to embrace. His years in the police force had taught him that simple solutions were usually the correct ones. The tapes were the key, Costa repeated to himself, then felt a firm hand grip his shoulder. He turned and, as he had expected all along, found himself looking into the cold, rheumy eyes of the man called Hanrahan, still dressed in the same black suit, still with a crucifix in his lapel.

  Costa smiled pleasantly. These were different circumstances. He could think more about this curious man who now stood in front of him, blocking his way to the door, not angry, more jaded, even curious perhaps.

  “This is tiresome,” Hanrahan said. “Don’t you know anything of the protocols that govern how we’re supposed to work?” The voice was thick, rough-edged and familiar somehow. Then Nic Costa remembered. Nic had briefly played for the force rugby team, before deciding that the more solitary sport of running suited him better. There had been an Irishman who coached the team for a while. He spoke like this. He even had the same kind of coarse features.

  “I realized I forgot to give you my details,” Costa said. He took out his wallet and handed Hanrahan the official police card. Then he pointed at his face and the broken nose. “You’re a player, right? On the field. Rugby.”

  Hanrahan read the card, then put it in his pocket. “When I was young. When I thought there was nothing in the world that could harm me.”

  “I used to play a little too.”

  Hanrahan eyed him, skeptical.

  “Fly half,” Costa said. “Pretty good, even if I say so myself.”

  “Falcone told me you ran. He said it was one of your talents.”

  Costa nodded.

  “In fact,” the Irishman continued, “I think he said it was your only talent.”

  “Sounds like Falcone.”

  “I can imagine you running, Mr. Costa. I imagine you excel. But at some stage you have to turn and fight too. How good are you at that?”

  Costa laughed. “Probably not so hot, to be honest. It’s a question of size.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Hanrahan said it firmly. “What do you want?”

  “A look at the tape.” Costa nodded at the ceiling. “You must have our dead professor covered from the moment he walked into the library. I’d like to see.”

  Hanrahan shook his head as if amazed. “Who do you think you are?”

  “Just a cop trying to understand why three people are dead. Who do you think you are?”

  Hanrahan thought about this, then pulled out his own card. “I’m a consultant here, Mr. Costa. I advise on security matters. I have no power to give you your tape—”

  “Then introduce me to someone who has.”

  “Why?”

  Costa was starting to feel exasperated. “Don’t you th
ink you’re under any obligation to help us crack this thing? Three people dead, Hanrahan. I know none of them are Vatican citizens, but even so…”

  The Irishman waved a half angry hand at him. “Don’t give me that crap, son. When you deal with us, you deal with another country. This isn’t police work, it’s diplomacy.” The sharp, liquid eyes narrowed. “If I talk to the person who can give you that tape, what do you have to offer in return?”

  Costa knew what Luca Rossi would say if he were here. Never do deals with these people. Never even think you can broker some kind of covenant because there’s always a caveat, a get-out you never know about until it’s too late. But Rossi was somewhere else, contemplating his dinner with Crazy Teresa. All the information he needed was here, locked inside this tiny country that just happened to live behind its own high walls in the heart of Rome. If he didn’t cut some kind of deal it might never see the light of day.

  Besides, some small, quiet voice told him, there was an opportunity here. A moment when you could throw a stone in a pool and wait to see the patterns the ripple would make once the stone hit the surface. Sometimes you had to take chances.

  Nic Costa pulled out his notebook and copied the phone number he’d found on Stefano Rinaldi’s computer that morning. He gave it to Hanrahan, who stared at the page with a stony expression. “Someone from here, someone in the office of a person called Cardinal Denney, was in contact with Rinaldi by phone.”

  Hanrahan seemed genuinely surprised. “Do you know why?”

  “Maybe I should ask Cardinal Denney.”

  Hanrahan laughed, a big, hearty laugh, one that, had it lasted, might have brought tears to his eyes.

  The Irishman’s hand slapped his shoulder, hard. “You’re a funny man, Mr. Costa,” he said. “I just haven’t the heart to call Falcone again. Not this time. Now just do me a favor, will you?”

  “What?”

  “Get the fuck out of here. And go sign this thing off whatever way you want. We both know what happened. Some crazy, personal tragedy to do with a rather fine-looking young woman with lax personal morals. Don’t turn over stones for the sake of it. Sometimes those little creatures underneath can bite.”

  Thirteen

  What do I think? Michael, Michael."

  Neri couldn’t stop laughing, couldn’t stop slapping Denney on the shoulder.

  “You make a good cardinal. Why’d you ever think you could make a good banker too?”

  “It was what was asked of me,” Denney replied sharply. “I know my duty.”

  Neri’s big face became serious. “And I know mine. You truly believe this money, this hidden crock of gold, is news to me.”

  Denney turned to Crespi, astonished. The little man’s face flushed.

  “I said nothing,” he complained. “He’s making this up.”

  “I don’t lie,” Neri grunted. “I’m too rich to have to lie these days. I told you: This place leaks like a sieve. I’ve known your little secret for weeks, Michael. I’ve had time to consider it. Carefully. To talk about it with my associates too. What I have to say to you now is painful, but say it I must.”

  The door opened. Hanrahan walked in, making his excuses. Denney looked at him in despair. This was all going wrong. Neri had advance knowledge. Denney couldn’t begin to guess how, or what this might mean.

  “The choice before me,” Neri continued, “is simple. Do I lose a friend? Or do I lose a fortune? Do I throw good money after bad for old times’ sake? Or do I take what I can and be grateful for that?”

  “This is a pittance,” Denney complained. “It’s a fraction of what we could earn if we go back in business. And you need a bank, Emilio. You can’t live without that.”

  “Banks, banks,” Neri snarled, waving a dismissive hand at Denney.

  “You live in the past, Michael. It’s the secret, small corporations that attract the interest of those cold-blooded lawyers in the first place. Why waste all our time and money on them when it’s simpler just to go to someone more established and pay him for a mutual relationship? It’s in the nature of the world we live in now that men like us may hide more easily in the light of day. Scurrying around in dark corners merely calls attention to ourselves. Sadly”—Neri seemed genuinely surprised by this insight—“that’s what seems to come naturally to a man like you. Perhaps it’s in your background. Perhaps it comes from this place. If the latter, then more fool you, because they’ve abandoned you, Michael. Even if you don’t know that yourself.”

  “What?” Denney knew he was out of favor. But a renewal of his business interests, some clearing of debts, these were actions that would surely begin to clear his name…

  “I want my cut of this money,” Aitcheson said. “I want it now and I want it based on what we invested in the first place.”

  “You’ll walk away with pennies,” Denney repeated.

  Aitcheson stabbed an angry finger at him. “I’ll walk away with something. Listen to me well, Michael. I was on the phone to someone in the Justice Department only yesterday. This present state of limbo isn’t going to last. They’re closing Lombardia for good soon, not just suspending us. They’re preparing the warrants. Your name’s on the top. No one else’s right now, and as far as the rest of us are concerned that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  Denney glared at them. “You knew this? All of you? You didn’t think to tell me?”

  Crespi stared at the table. Neri looked bored.

  Aitcheson sighed. “You’ve been living in la-la land these last six months, Michael. Thinking you can bribe your way out of this mess. It isn’t going to happen. Even if it were possible, Emilio’s right. Letting you back into the game would just mean we open up a black hole again. You’re finished. Face it. We have nothing left to discuss. I wash my hands of you.”

  Neri glanced at Hanrahan, then nodded at the ceiling. “They do too. He doesn’t know?”

  Denney felt hot, confused. He looked into Hanrahan’s eyes and saw the future begin to fall apart.

  “You don’t have a deal?” Hanrahan asked. “After all this work? All this time?”

  Neri shook his head. “My dear Irish friend. Please don’t act so surprised. Do we look like fools?” He paused, enjoying this. “Well. Tell him…”

  Hanrahan grimaced, then pulled out his phone. Denney heard him calling the janitorial staff, asking them to send a couple of men around. “If there’s no deal,” he said, “things are very different.”

  “What are you doing?” Denney demanded. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Neri smiled at the apartment, appreciating the Murano glass, the mirrors, the paintings. “Nice place,” he said. “They’ll be scratching each other’s eyes out to see who gets it next.”

  Fourteen

  Teresa Lupo, Crazy Teresa to the Rome police department, sat in front of a varied collection of animal body parts: veal hearts, cartilage, pig thymus glands and a tangle of cow intestines with milk still inside. She was ecstatic and was joined in her joy by Luca Rossi, who wore, for the occasion, a Lazio baseball cap, placed backward on his balding head, and ate with a noisy, open-mouthed enthusiasm. This was, it transpired, Rossi’s favorite food, cucina romana, the traditional working-class fare of the city: the offal which, by tradition, the proletariat had been left after the clergy of the Vatican had picked from the best cuts of meat.

  The restaurant was a cheaper clone of the flashy, expensive Checchino dal 1887 around the corner, the city temple to the eating of guts and glands. Its sixteen simple tables were fully booked and heaving with cooked organs which Nic Costa could not begin to identify even if he so wished. This was the big man’s joke: to bring a vegetarian to a place where the consumption of arcane flesh was a religion. Or perhaps he didn’t even think about it.

  Costa watched the way Rossi looked at Crazy Teresa as they prodded and poked at some tripe and hoof jelly and wondered if there was the prospect of love in the air. They made an odd pair. Rossi, with his big, sad face and sprawling body, looke
d like a man who would stay single all his life and had probably forgotten when he last slept with a woman. Crazy Teresa had run through endless affairs in the department, all of them brief, all of them encounters which tended to leave the male party wan and glassy-eyed afterward. A little taller than Nic Costa, powerfully built, with a handsome face that smiled constantly as it examined every last thing that fell under its gaze, she was an astonishingly skilled pathologist who had worked as a successful hospital surgeon before something—the craving for excitement was her excuse—drove her into the morgue.

  Costa never really swallowed that line. Her work wasn’t exciting. She was so painstaking and exact she found herself working long, tiring hours just to extract every last shred of evidence. The bodies Teresa Lupo called her “customers” were, in spite of her easy way with them, still the remains of human beings. Her relationship with them went beyond the forensic. At times she was able to offer the kinds of insight that failed the best of cops and that, he thought, was what drove her. She liked playing detective, and often was very good at it.

  Rossi and the woman sat together opposite him, picking at the plates, guzzling the cheap house red and sucking at cigarettes when a gap between the delivery of the flesh and the booze allowed. Costa had arrived late, on purpose. He waited until the waitress, a surly-looking girl with rings in her nose and ears, came up with a pad, then ordered salad and a glass of Cala Viola, a young Sardinian white which was the only wine he recognized on the list.

  “Chicken salad?” the girl demanded.

  “Just salad.”

  “We don’t do ”just salad,“ ” she snarled. “You can take the chicken off if you like.”

  Costa sighed, digging in his heels. “Why don’t you take the chicken off?”