He looked ruefully at his own crumpled dark blue suit, bought from the usual discount store in Vittorio Emanuele, near the bridge to the Castel Sant’Angelo. Costa tightened his tie into a half-passable knot, which was as good as it got. When no one was looking, he stepped into a nearby flower bed, stole a red rose from one of the bushes there, and placed it in his lapel. Then he took out his Roman police ID card and, after the uniform on the gate checked with Gerald Kelly, made his way into the world premiere for Roberto Tonti’s Inferno.
After a brief search he found Falcone, Peroni, and Teresa in the tent that housed the main historical exhibits from Florence. The three of them looked bored and out of sorts, yawning next to a set of glass cabinets displaying illuminated medieval manuscripts. Only a handful of visitors had wandered into the place. The rest were outside, with the stars and the free drinks. Compared to those, some old documents seemed insufficient to warrant anyone’s attention.
Falcone cleared his throat and said, though with precious little in the way of displeasure, “I was under the impression, Soverintendente, that you were off-duty today.”
“I am.” He flashed the envelope Maggie had sent to the house on Greenwich Street. “Someone sent me a ticket for the main event.”
“Lucky you,” Peroni observed.
“Thanks.”
“I meant,” the big man went on, “lucky you getting away, after all that nonsense last night. It would be nice if we knew where you were sometimes, Nic.”
Costa shrugged and apologised. “I hadn’t really expected things to turn out the way they did. Also …” He wondered how much to tell them. “… I was hoping for a little gratitude from Gerald Kelly when I brought him Tom Black. It wasn’t the fault of the SFPD that things went wrong.”
Not at all, he thought, remembering the hunting weapon, and its link to the crossbow that had killed Allan Prime.
Teresa reached up and did some more work on his tie. “If you’re on a date, and I suspect you are, Nic, you really ought to take a little more time with your appearance.”
“Been busy,” he said, fighting shy of her hands.
They caught the unintentional note of satisfaction in his voice.
“Good busy or idle busy?” Peroni asked suspiciously.
“Good.”
He left it at that.
Falcone looked at him and asked, “How good?”
There was no way to say it except simply.
“Possibly as good as we’re likely to get. When the show’s over, Simon Harvey wants to make a statement. He’ll confess to being a part of a financial conspiracy to hype Inferno by making bogus threats to those involved, with their knowledge usually. They needed the money. They needed the movie to be a success. Also …”
“No details, not now,” Falcone said, suppressing a wry grin.
Teresa smiled. “Will he name anyone else, perchance?”
“Allan Prime. Josh Jonah. Tom Black. Dino Bonetti.” He paused. “And Roberto Tonti.”
“A tontine?” she asked.
“Effectively. Harvey says that Tonti made his illness one of the lures. It was obvious he wouldn’t survive to pick up his share, so all the others believed that would give them an instant profit. In return, he was allowed to make his final movie.”
Falcone pointed a finger at him. “What did I say about details?” He glanced around. “Harvey’s told you all this already? And you say he’s willing to repeat it all?”
“After the premiere. He feels they’re all owed their moment of glory. After that, though, he’s had enough. He’s a decent man.”
Peroni huffed and puffed and grumbled. “Now he’s decent! And if he changes his mind?”
Costa pulled out the tiny MP3 player he’d bought from Walgreens on Chestnut on his way to Harvey’s apartment. It had been tucked into his jacket pocket, set to record, throughout their conversation. The histrionics with the gun had been intended, in part, to make Harvey so nervous he might not notice its presence. For twenty dollars the thing did a good job; Nic had checked through the little earphones on the walk back to the Palace of Fine Arts. He still didn’t quite recognise his own voice, particularly in those moments when he had the gun in his hands.
“If he changes his mind, then I just give this to Gerald Kelly and let nature take its course. The entire conversation is recorded, from beginning to end. I’m not sure how much of it will pass the evidence rules in America …”
They were grinning like Cheshire cats, all three of them.
“I mean that about the evidence, Leo. It would be best all round if the man confesses …”
“Let me worry about that.” The inspector hesitated, then asked, “No more names to give me?”
“Maggie Flavier was defrauded of her fee. She never knew a thing about what was going on. Harvey’s admitted that. At the very least Kelly can charge them over that.”
“At the very least,” Falcone agreed, then took the audio player from Costa’s fingers. “Thank you very much.”
Costa stood his ground. “And you intend to do what with it, sir?”
Leo Falcone stiffened, straightened his own tie, and looked outside the door at the swirling mist.
“I intend to find Captain Kelly and tell him what you’ve just told me. I want to leave this place feeling we did our job as well as could be expected in the circumstances. Not in the middle of some argument over who deserves the credit.”
“And me?” Costa asked.
Falcone frowned, as if the question were ridiculous. “You’re off-duty and you’ve got a date. Make the most of it. As for you two …” He glanced at Peroni and Teresa, then waved at the glass cabinets and their ancient manuscripts. “… watch this stuff, will you?”
10
Falcone found Gerald Kelly alone a little way from the mob of photographers and reporters jostling one another by the red carpet runway to the premiere. The tent was now a ghostly grey shape in the fog. Through the open flaps, he could just make out the brightly lit stage with mikes clustered thickly in front of the screen, like the podium for some cut-rate copy of the Oscar ceremonies. A half-familiar face from the TV was scheduled to start a warm-up for the evening. Then there would be the movie, and, some three hours later, a closing speech from Roberto Tonti.
The Roman inspector wished to see none of it. He knew his own force could take no part in what followed, even if the crucial information were to come from them in the first instance. This was Gerald Kelly’s case, one that would, if it came to court, be prosecuted through the American authorities, not those in Italy. If Falcone could return home with the missing mask of Dante Alighieri, then he would be content, though he did not expect this happy conclusion to be reached.
“Are you planning to watch the movie?” Falcone asked as the American police officer arrived.
“Not if I can help it,” Kelly said.
“I understand.” The American had a very piercing gaze. “Are you pleased with the arrangements, Captain?”
Kelly frowned. “As much as anyone could be. The glitterati don’t like going through metal detectors, but they can learn to live with it. We’re doing what we can.”
Falcone thought of how Maggie Flavier had been poisoned by someone working in a catering truck, an individual with a fake name and no ID. There were limits to how much security one could put in place for events of this nature. Without months of preparation and the vetting of everyone concerned — neither of which had been practicable — some loopholes had to remain.
He didn’t mention this because he knew Gerald Kelly understood the problem just as well as he did. Instead, he told Kelly briefly what he had learned from Costa. He passed on the audio player, then requested that he attend any interview with Simon Harvey to ask the necessary questions about the missing death mask of Dante Alighieri. After that — barring any new discoveries — the work of the Roman state police in San Francisco would be done. They could return home on the weekend with some sense of achievement, even if the public prize would doubtless fall to others.