Quattrocchi turned and, to Costa’s astonishment, grinned sarcastically. Then he made a coarse and sexual street gesture not normally associated with senior military officers.
Very little in the Farnesina was as it appeared, Costa recalled, as the dark uniforms of the Carabinieri vanished through the doors. Inside, there were paintings masquerading as tapestries, a cryptic horoscope depicted as a celestial relief, artificial views of a lost Rome that may never have been quite as real as they suggested. The villa was a temple to both illusion and the sensuality of the arts.
He turned on his heel and headed for the gate. It was quieter now. Falcone was there, and for once the inspector wasn’t shouting. The game, for them, was surely lost.
10
“Make notes,” the maresciallo ordered as they entered. “Take photographs. Video. I wish a record of everything. We will release it to the media when we’re done.”
He glanced at his large gold watch, then at Morello, who already had pad and pen in his hands.
“How much time do we have left?” Quattrocchi demanded, walking on.
“Seven minutes and …” The Carabiniere held up his phone to try to see the picture there. “No. It’s gone again. Seven minutes at least. Ample time.”
“You!” Quattrocchi said to the elderly caretaker they had jerked away from the TV soccer in his tiny apartment adjoining the villa. “Take us to Galatea.”
“This is the Loggia of the Psyche,” the little man said with pride, immediately falling into a fawning tourist-guide voice. “You will note, sirs, the work of Baldassare Peruzzi and Raphael. These fruits, these flowers … once this would have opened onto the garden, hence the horticultural theme. And the so-called tapestries, which are painted, too. The Council of the Gods, Cupid and Psyche’s wedding banquet—”
“This isn’t a damned social visit,” Quattrocchi snapped. “Where’s Galatea?”
“We don’t get many visitors at night,” the caretaker replied, hurt. “Not from officers of the law.”
“Where—” Quattrocchi snarled, then stopped himself, realising the man had been leading them there all along. Now they had wandered into the loggia, which connected with that of Psyche.
He stared ahead. The painting was there, and many others, too. There was nothing else. The place was empty.
The maresciallo muttered a curse under his breath and found himself briefly wishing he hadn’t shooed away the young police officer quite so quickly. What had he said? This is a place of illusions. The images on the web had guided them — or, more accurately, the state police — to this building, and this room. But one more trick, one more sleight of hand, still stood between them and Allan Prime edging towards death.
“Someone told me,” Quattrocchi said, “that this villa was a place of tricks. What does that mean?”
The caretaker rubbed his hands with pleasure. “There are many, sir. Allusions. Illusions. Codes and cryptograms. References to the stars and alchemy, fate and the fleeting, intangible pleasures of the flesh.”
“Spare me the tourist chat. Where do I look to find them?”
“Everywhere …” The old man spread his arms.
“Where more than any?”
“Ah,” he replied, and nodded his head as if something had been suddenly revealed. “The Salone delle Prospettive. But it’s closed for restoration, and has been for many months. I’m sorry. What visitors we have … they always ask. The matter is out of my hands …”
The Salon of Perspectives. Quattrocchi knew it was the place the moment he heard the name. This was part of the cruel game. Playing with viewpoint. Changing a familiar aspect of the world through a trick of the light, a twist of the lens through which one saw the scene.
“Show me.”
“It’s closed. No one enters except the restoration people.”
“Show me!”
Morello had found a sign to the place and was pointing to it. Quattrocchi brushed the caretaker aside and led the way up a flight of marble stairs, breath rasping.
The younger officer was staring at his phone again. He had a picture back.
“Time?” Quattrocchi asked.
“Less than five minutes.”
The door was locked. They bellowed at the caretaker until he came up with the key. Then, with Quattrocchi in the lead, they went in.
It was dark and church-like. The only illumination came from a low light in the ceiling which was focused on a mass of tangled wires, mechanical contraptions, and constricting devices near the end of the room. A man — Allan Prime — was at the heart of this ganglion of metal and cable, strapped tightly into an upright frame, the open iron device around his head. A tourist print of the painting of Galatea fluttered behind him, animated by the breeze from an open window. On the floor, connected to the whole by a slender cable, sat a single notebook computer, its screen flashing a slow-moving image of something so unlikely it took Quattrocchi a moment to recognise what it was … the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
From behind, the caretaker, unaware of what lay before them, chanted, “You will note, sir, the perspectives of another Rome … Trastevere and the Borgo … the centro storico … painted as if real views from real windows. Also—”
Coming in last, he finally saw, and stopped.
Allan Prime whimpered. Pain and relief mingled with the tears on his sweat-stained face.
Quattrocchi walked forward, as close as he dared, and took a good look around the mechanical apparatus into which the actor had been strapped, checking carefully for traps or some kind of light signal device that might have been set to warn of an intruder’s approach, and perhaps trigger the mechanism early.
He saw none, but the gleaming sharp point had now edged its way to within a centimetre of the actor’s left temple.
The mechanism that held the deadly device was hidden in the deep, dark shadow outside the garish, too-bright overhead light. Carefully, barely breathing, Quattrocchi took out a penlight and shone it on the space there. A low, communal gasp of shock ran through the cluster of officers behind him. A full-size crossbow, of such power and weight it could only be designed for hunting, stood loaded, locked inside some ratchet mechanism that shifted it towards its victim with each passing minute. It was not just the spear — which he now saw to be an arrow — that was moving in the direction of Allan Prime. It was an entire weapon, ready to unleash its sharp, spiking bolt straight into the man’s skull.
“Four minutes,” Morello said, and sounded puzzled.
“We will release you immediately,” Quattrocchi said calmly. “You have nothing to fear. Four minutes is more than enough—”
“Sir …” the young Carabiniere interrupted.
Quattrocchi turned, annoyed by this intrusion.
“Something is happening,” the officer pointed out.
He walked carefully towards the maresciallo and showed him the phone.
The picture was changing. Quattrocchi grappled for the correct term. Finally it came. Zooming. The camera was zooming out of the scene. He looked at the single grey eye of the device that had been set up in front of Allan Prime. Its glassy iris was changing shape, as if trying to focus on something new.
When he returned to Morello’s phone, Quattrocchi saw himself there, looking surprised, angry, red-faced, and, to his dismay, rather old and lost as he stood next to the terrified actor strapped into the deadly frame.