Peroni leaned forward and found himself wishing he could rewind the clock to enter a simpler, more straightforward universe. Each postage-stamp video represented a TV channel, usually news, seemingly issuing some kind of bulletin about the Prime story. The BBC in London. CBS in New York. A channel in Russia. Somewhere in Japan, Australia, the Philippines … “This can’t all be live …”
Harvey nodded. “Pretty much. With Lukatmi, if it’s going out real time, it’s being relayed by them that way. With maybe a few seconds’ delay, that’s all.”
Peroni felt he could soon start to lose his temper. “This is of no use to me whatsoever. How many channels are there, for pity’s sake?”
Di Capua hammered some keys and said, “More than four hundred sources have run a story on Prime in the last hour.”
Peroni watched as the monitor cleared again, then very slowly came back to life, painting a set of new tiny videos on the screen at a snail’s pace.
When the images returned, they were all the ones Peroni expected. Local and national news channels, familiar presenters reading from their scripts, all with images of the missing actor and shots from the park and the production of Inferno. A counter by the side of the screen was some kind of popularity meter. The audience seemed to be running at seven figures and rising, most of them for a single video channel, one that was blacked out at that moment.
“Why can’t we watch the one that’s top of the list?”
“It won’t load for some reason,” Di Capua said, trying something with the keyboard. “Too many people watching it, I imagine. Or maybe their fancy computer system can’t cope.”
“I want to see it …” Peroni began, and then fell quiet. Teresa’s deputy had made the black window occupy the full screen of the path lab monitor. As he watched, the empty space filled, line by line, with a real moving image.
They all crowded round to see. It was a man in fear for his life, trapped inside some cruel and ancient cast-iron head restraint. The digital stopwatch imprinted by his neckline turned from 28:31 to 28:30, and the seconds kept on ticking. Allan Prime’s eyes were as large as any man’s Peroni had ever seen. He looked ready to die of fright even before the bright, shining spear with the blood-soaked tip reached his head, which surely would happen soon. Within less than thirty minutes or so, this strangely hypnotic little movie, the most personal Prime had ever made surely, seemed to be saying.
Teresa leaned over Di Capua and said, “Get me more detail.”
Harvey’s eyes were glazed, filling with tears. Peroni looked at him and said, “You don’t have to watch this. Why not go and sit somewhere else? I’ll come for you when there’s news.”
“I’ve got to watch it,” the movie man croaked, then dragged up a chair.
There was no caption. Only the image of the terrified actor, the time ticking away, and, by the side of the video, the digital thermometer that was the popularity counter. It was now flashing red. Peroni stared at it. Allan Prime’s dying moments seemed to be the most sought-after thing in the world at that instant. A real-life drama being watched by a global audience that was growing into the tens of millions and swelling by the second.
He pressed a finger against the screen and indicated the area behind Prime’s quaking head. “There’s something there, Silvio. Can you bring it up?”
The pathologist’s hands raced across the keyboard. Prime’s features began to bleach out. From the dark background it was now possible to make out some kind of shape. Di Capua tweaked the machine. It was a painting, strange and old and, Peroni thought, possibly familiar.
“Get that to the art people straightaway,” he ordered.
Teresa was staring at him. He knew what she was thinking.
“Has Nic got one of those new video phones?” he asked.
“You all have them,” she said, and folded her arms. “Even you if you bothered to look.”
“I deal in people, not gadgets,” Peroni replied, then called Costa on the fancy new handset the department had issued to everyone only a few months earlier.
“Silvio,” he said, listening to the ring tone.
“Yeah?” the young pathologist answered absentmindedly, still punching away at the keyboard, trying to improve any recognisable detail in the swimming sea of pixelated murk that now filled the screen.
“Best give me the URL, please.”
6
They went back to the Lancia in the Via Giulia. The forensic team would go through the clay dust and any other evidence they might find in the apartment Adele Neri had rented Allan Prime. It felt better to be outside. Something about the information they had gleaned from Neri’s widow depressed Costa. The movie world was not all glitter. Allan Prime, along with the producer Dino Bonetti, kept the company of mobsters and thieves. Costa wondered why he was surprised. There had been plenty of scandals in Italian show business over the years. It shouldn’t have come as a shock to discover they spilled over into something as important and lucrative as the comeback blockbuster for one of the country’s most reclusive directors.
Maggie Flavier came and stood next to him by the wall beneath the Lungotevere. The traffic made a dull, physical sound through the stone that separated them from the busy road and the river beyond. She was smoking and had the sweet smell of Campari on her breath, a lightness that might have been the onset of drink in her eyes.
She smiled at him and said, “We all lead different lives. What’s yours?”
“Being a police officer. It’s enough.”
She drew hard on the cigarette, then tossed it to the ground and stamped out the embers with her shiny, expensive-looking evening shoe.
“In my line of work you become more conscious of words,” she said quietly. “You used the past tense when you talked about your wife …”
He nodded. He liked her directness. Perhaps it was an actor’s trick. Perhaps not.
“She died six months ago.” He thought of the mausoleum of Augustus, less than ten minutes away on foot, and the terrible events of the previous December.
“I’m sorry. Was it unexpected?”
“You could say that.”
She breathed in deeply, quickly. “I don’t know what to say. I felt something, that’s all.”
“ ‘Sorry’ is just fine.” There isn’t a lot else, he thought. People died all the time. Those who survived got on with their lives.
She turned to look at the building housing Prime’s apartment, now surrounded by blue police cars, with only a handful of Carabinieri vehicles in the street.
“Do you know where Allan is yet? Is he OK?” she asked.
“He was fine when he left here this morning.” His eyes rested on Falcone, serious and intent by the door, busy on the phone. “Perhaps he’s just gone walkabout.”
She shook her head. “When he’s due to open the premiere for the biggest movie of the summer? I don’t think so …”
The thought wouldn’t leave Costa’s head. “Could this all be some publicity stunt?”
She stared at him in disbelief. He caught the bittersweet aroma of Campari again.
“Someone died, Nic. The premiere’s been cancelled. A publicity stunt?”
“The man who attacked you was an actor. His name was Peter Jamieson. He was an extra on the set of Inferno. Did you know him?”
Maggie Flavier didn’t blink. “A movie set’s like a football crowd. The only people I see are the ones I’m playing a scene with. I don’t even notice Tonti. Just hear him. You couldn’t miss that.” She gazed directly into his eyes, to make the point. “I didn’t recognise that poor man. I’ve never heard of someone named Jamieson. If I had, I would tell you. I may be an actor, but I’m a very bad liar.”