The Fallen Angel (7 page)

‘I was at home drinking a glass of wine in front of the TV,’ she said with a wan smile. ‘That would seem a little cruel.’

‘The last case of this kind took three years to come to court. It got thrown out after four months.’ Di Lauro shook his head. ‘None of this is easy.’

‘More lawyers,’ the American woman grumbled.

‘Thanks,’ Costa said, and led the way back downstairs. He was glad to be inside again. Joanne Van Doren was starting to look impatient with their presence.

‘What are you going to do with this building now?’ Costa asked.

‘Try to sell something,’ she said, as if the question were idiotic. ‘Get this damned apartment finished so I can put it on the market. I need the money. Otherwise everything
goes to the bank and I’ll be as broke as my old man back home. These aren’t good times for the private sector, gentlemen. Haven’t you noticed?’

She looked briefly ashamed and for a moment seemed on the verge of tears. It struck Costa that this woman appeared genuinely affected by the death of her tenant, though she did not, perhaps,
want this to show.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. This is nothing next to what Mina and her mom are having to deal with. Malise loved them. I
can’t imagine what life’s like without him. You know . . . instead of poking around here you might be better off trying to help them get through the next few days.’

Costa nodded, then watched as some new men arrived at the door.

‘I’ll pass that on to the appropriate authorities,’ he murmured as she walked away to greet them.

Peroni was poking around in the living room, going through the newspapers and magazines that were piled in a jumble on the glass table in front of the sofa.

‘This is where he must have been drinking last night before he stepped outside,’ the big man said. ‘There’s a ring from a glass here. Just one.’ He bent down and
sniffed it. ‘Whisky. Got spilled too. Good point you made back there.’

‘Which one?’

Peroni stared at him, surprised.

‘If that kid was wearing headphones in that music room a small army could have walked through here and she’d never have noticed. Also, there’s this. I don’t get
it.’

He stood up, a thick book in his hands. It was an old edition, a fat, tall paperback. The title was
All the Gods are Dead
. The author’s name was Malise Gabriel. Bells were ringing
in Costa’s head again.

Joanne Van Doren saw what they were doing and came over.

‘I put that under the table myself,’ she said. ‘We had to sit down and use it when the council people turned up. They wanted to see some plans. I should have told Cecilia when
she came round. She was looking for all the little personal things she could find. The conversation got a little . . . tense. I kind of forgot.’

Peroni flicked open the book and glanced at Costa.

‘So this is what he was reading,’ Peroni said. ‘His own book? And it’s . . .’ He turned to the front and checked the date. ‘. . . twenty years old. Why would
someone read a book they wrote themselves? An old one?’

‘Maybe to remember the good times?’ the American woman suggested. ‘Who knows? Excuse me. I really need to talk to these guys.’

She crossed the room and began addressing the newcomers in overalls. Costa couldn’t hear a word she was saying.

Peroni was flicking through Gabriel’s book.

‘You know something, Nic? I doubt I’d understand a word of this even if my English were better. It’s all jargon and academic-speak. Almost makes
me
want to step outside
for a cigarette. Do you have the faintest clue what “non-overlapping magisteria” means? Or why it should be a bad thing?’

‘I’d have to say no on both fronts. How do you know he was reading that chapter?’

‘Bookmark,’ Peroni replied, and showed him the page.

There was what looked like a postcard in it with a line in Italian, the script in a cursive, elegant hand, ‘
E pur si muove
.’

Peroni stared at the words in front of him.

‘Now I’m an uncultured oaf. But the way I’d spell that is “
eppure si muove
”. Maybe these foreign academics aren’t as clever as they think. Funny thing
to write on a bookmark, though. “And yet it moves”. What moves?’

‘No idea,’ Costa said. He picked up the bookmark, stared at it, thinking about the words. Then he turned it over, saw what was on the back, and felt his heart sink.

‘That’s unusual,’ Peroni said, his broad, pale face wrinkling with puzzlement.

This wasn’t a real postcard but a black and white photo from a domestic printer. It showed a naked girl writhing on an off-white crumpled sheet, her slight frame posed artfully, the way a
sculptor might have placed it. There was a visible stain next to her thigh. Her willowy body was that of a teenager, with pale, perfect skin, thin legs crossed and turned, so that the lens saw only
her thighs and a side view of her navel, nothing else. It was if she was struggling to hide. As if some inner sense of shame or shyness wished to protest, to say that what was happening felt
wrong.

The picture was cut off at her neck – decapitated, he thought for a moment. In the topmost portion of the image two taut sinews stretched up towards the smooth white skin of her throat, as
if extended by pain or guilt. There was a tantalizing lock of hair in shadow cast by a light or an object out of view. It was light hair, fair or blonde perhaps.

‘Is that the daughter?’ Peroni asked.

‘It could be.’

‘Could be?’

‘Yes,’ he said with audible impatience. ‘Could be.’

The American woman had stopped talking to her workmen. She was watching them and Costa didn’t like the curiosity in her face.

‘Let’s talk about this outside,’ he suggested.

It was a brief conversation. The narrow street was empty, with barricades at both ends and pedestrians allowed through only down a narrow route on the far side. Costa looked up
at the scaffolding and the broken balcony, understanding the form of the building better than he had before. The place looked different in the bright light of day. More ordinary. More
unremarkable.

They talked briefly about what they’d seen and the options.

‘I’ll call Leo and get things started,’ Costa said, reaching for his phone.

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. We didn’t agree to that.’

He bridled.

‘May I remind you I’m the senior officer here?’

Peroni beamed, placed a huge hand round Costa’s shoulders and squeezed.

‘By all means. When you’re on duty. But you’re not, are you? Right now you’re nothing more or less than my dear friend, Nic, casting around for something to do. If this
is going to turn formal it’s best it’s kicked off by a working police officer, not someone who’s just got nosy all of a sudden. And if it turns out to be a wild goose chase and we
find ourselves accused of picking on some unfortunate grieving family . . .’

‘I don’t need protecting, thank you,’ Costa protested, though he found himself talking to the big cop’s retreating back.

There was nothing to do but wait. Wait and look at the building, grey and grim, like some empty shell of a fortress. He couldn’t shake from his head the photo Peroni had found, the
bookmark for the chapter Malise Gabriel was reading before he tumbled to his death just a few steps away, to a street now swept and washed clean by the city workers struggling to reopen it to the
public.

Costa wondered what bothered him most. The evidence that was already being lost under the feet of the building inspectors. Or the pale, thin body in the photo.

Peroni came back, his face devoid of expression.

‘Something has to happen,’ Costa said, assuming the worst.

‘Tomorrow we’ll talk to the mother and the girl. Teresa will look at the body. We’ll quietly examine what we’ve got to see if a more formal investigation is justified.
Leo doesn’t want to rush into anything and I agree with him.’

‘And today?’

‘Today we’re going to have dinner together.’ Peroni brightened. ‘I get to choose the place.’

‘Dinner? We’re going to discuss a potential investigation in a restaurant?’

‘No. We’re going to discuss . . . what was the phrase in that book? “Non-overlapping magisteria”. Or rather Malise Gabriel, who’s rather more interesting than I
assumed. Sora Margherita in the Piazza delle Cinque Scole at eight o’clock.’ He pointed up the street. ‘It’s just round the corner.’

‘I know where Cinque Scole is.’

‘Good. It’ll be Leo, me and Teresa, who may still be a little bad-tempered what with this heat and our non-existent air conditioning. I’ve warned you so don’t get snappy
with her.’ Peroni glanced at his watch. ‘I’d best be off. Got to check something at the Questura.’

He peered at Costa then pulled two plastic evidence bags out of his jacket.

‘The book and the postcard please.’

Costa handed them over without protest.

After a few steps he turned, remembering something.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, walking slowly backwards. ‘Agata’s going to be there this evening too. Best go home and change into something decent. You look as if you slept in that
suit. In a garage.’

He didn’t go home. Costa bought a bottle of mineral water and wandered the ghetto, renewing his memories of an area he’d had little reason to visit professionally
over the past few years. Then he walked into the open space of Largo Torre Argentina, a chaotic, semi-excavated pile of temples and imperial-era buildings next to a line of busy bus and tram stops.
This was one place he did know well. He recalled the day he’d taken his late wife there and pointed out the columns of Pompey’s Theatre near the tram stops where Julius Caesar was
assassinated. Nothing marked the location of this momentous murder. In the modern world the area, which was once as important as the Forum itself, was best known to many for the cat sanctuary that
resided between the pillars and shattered headstones through which emperors once walked.

He was leaning on the railing, staring down into the walled-off area of the refuge when he saw her. Mina Gabriel was there in a T-shirt and jeans, crouching down feeding three strays near the
furthest wall, close to the columns associated with Caesar. Two women in their thirties were talking to her, with grave and sympathetic faces. The girl got up, turned, smiled briefly, kissed them
both, smiling gently, and said something that looked like ‘
grazie
’. Then she came back to the entrance, picked up a leather music case and began to walk up the steps to the
street level.

Costa strode quickly over and met her.

‘Mina?’

She looked tired. Her guileless brown eyes were pink and watery, her young, intelligent face drawn. She’d tied back her hair into a simple ponytail so that she now looked much younger than
he recalled. With the music case slung over her shoulder like a satchel she could have been one more Roman schoolgirl.

Head cocked to one side, a little wary, she looked at him and said, ‘Yes?’

‘Nic Costa. I was the police officer. The other night . . . Your father. I wish I could have done more.’

She thought for a moment and asked, ‘The man in the street? You carried him across the road?’

‘The man in the street.’

The girl nodded.

‘You carried me too. When I wouldn’t get out of the way. I’m sorry if I behaved badly.’

‘You’ve nothing to apologize for.’

She looked around, as if trying to work out whether he was alone. He couldn’t help but notice there were scratches on her hands. Old ones, the blood dark red.

‘Are you here to interview me?’

‘No, no. I was just passing. I’m on holiday at the moment. I saw you. I wanted to say . . . to offer my condolences.’

‘Everyone’s so kind here,’ she said, staring at him, her eyes very steady and focused. ‘Even though they don’t know us. The women at the sanctuary. The people at
the church.’ She held up her music bag. ‘They’re going to let me play there. In front of the public. At five o’clock.’

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’

‘Why not?’ she replied with a shrug. ‘I can’t sit at home all the time, thinking about what happened, wondering if I could have changed something. My brother’s
still out there somewhere, I don’t know where. Mummy’s talking to Uncle Simon about organizing a funeral in Berkshire. Not that that’s going to be an easy conversation. He hated
Daddy.’

‘Why would your father’s brother hate him?’

She shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know. We’ve never met Simon. I just hear what goes on. He’s a banker in London. Filthy rich and materialistic. Nothing matters to him
except money. Exact opposite to us. It doesn’t matter. Mummy wants to deal with all that. I can’t sit around moping. Daddy wouldn’t. He was always doing something.’

She had forty minutes before the appointment in the nearby church of Aracoeli.

‘Would you like a coffee? We can talk if you want.’

Mina Gabriel stared at him more intently, and he was aware of being judged, perhaps by a child, perhaps by someone with an older, more informed intelligence.

‘A Coke would be nice,’ she answered. ‘It’s so hot here in August. I never expected it to be like this. None of us did.’

‘It’s hot,’ he agreed. ‘A Coke. An ice cream if you like.’

She smiled and said, ‘Just a Coke, thanks. I’m not a kid.’

They began to walk towards the piazza.

‘Your hands,’ Costa said. They were fine and slim, with long, musician’s fingers. The scratches extended from the knuckle almost to the wrist on her right. ‘You’ve
hurt yourself. Can you play?’

‘Cats,’ she replied. ‘Horrible little things, sometimes. Ungrateful. It’s nothing. I can play.’

He let her do the talking. About her father, about life in a family led by an academic gypsy, moving from post to post, in America, Canada, the UK and Australia, never staying
anywhere long. Costa didn’t ask why they never settled down. As he listened to her chatting, noting the way the conversation came round to Malise Gabriel with almost every turn, the answer
seemed to become obvious. It had to do with his obdurate, independent character, the way the man would always stand up for what he believed in, whatever the cost. Mina simply called them ‘the
arguments’.