It was a five-minute walk across the river to a hunting and fishing shop on the Lungotevere. There Kaspar spent most of his remaining money on two of the biggest, thickest winter coats he could find: khaki parkas with furred hoods you could pull tight round your face so no one could see a thing except your eyes. He kept his old black woollen jacket and carried his acquisitions back in a bag, working to marshal his thoughts in the way a man of his nature always did before a battle.
It had been a painful night. Talking to Emily Deacon, trying to work out what to do with her, how much faith he could place in what she told him, how easy it was to fill in the gaps. That had gone on for hours. Then, when he couldn’t take any more, he’d shut her away and finally fallen asleep, only for the mother of all nightmares to come roaring up from deep inside his psyche, tormenting him with all those sounds and memories he knew only too well.
Just the recollection of it now made him sit down on one of the granite stanchions stuck deep into the snow outside the Castel, sweating feverishly inside his black coat. The human mind was a cruel, relentless mechanism. Nothing could expunge those images-the raging squall of gunfire, the screams, the blood. The slaughter as they fought on the geometrical floor of the temple deep in the heart of the ziggurat, surrounded by that magical pattern, the same one he had held in his hands as he’d dragged the webbing around him, stupidly, as if it were some kind of disguise that could fool the vengeful wall of hate and pain closing in on all of them.
Kaspar looked at his watch and checked the date-23 December. Thirteen years ago to the day. Thirteen long, long years, during which he’d prayed for release constantly to any god he could remember. Time lost itself in that place. Between the beatings and the torture, between the endless, pointless interrogations, he’d fought to contain the memories deep inside himself because they, more than anything, could keep him alive. The baleful, accusing faces of those men and women who had died because he failed spoke to him, demanding justice. Bill Kaspar had little affection for life, even when he got out of the Baghdad jail and learned the harsh reality of what it meant to be “free.” This was about justice. That was all. Of silencing those angry interior voices that rose up to taunt him anytime, anywhere.
He thought again about the day ahead, tried to go through all the possibilities, all the ways in which he might fail again. Then he walked around the perimeter of the squat mausoleum, beached like a whale on a winter plain, found the side entrance, went inside and climbed the ramp all the long winding way up to the roof.
Emily Deacon was locked inside the women’s toilet belonging to the closed cafe. Kaspar liked to think of himself as a gentleman, in spite of appearances. He opened the door, stood back, gun in hand. It was damn cold up there and windy too. She came out, teeth chattering, skinny arms wrapped around herself, blinking at the brittle sunlight, staring up at the gleaming bronze statue of Michael, sword in hand, poised to strike, a fearsome, vengeful figure that dominated the skyline of this quarter of Rome.
Kaspar nodded at the winged giant. “Scary bastard, huh?”
She put a hand up to her eyes to shield out the sun, long blonde hair blowing around her face.
“Depends how you look at it,” she said. “He’s supposed to be sheathing his sword. It’s a symbol. The end of the plague or something. I forget.”
She was a smart kid. Not a bad kid at all. He used to be able to see that in people. Maybe a gift like that could come back.
“You listened a lot when you lived here. Was it your dad who did all the talking?”
“What’s it to you?”
He took hold of her arm, propelled her forcefully to the edge of the parapet, with its dizzying view down to the footbridge crossing the Tiber to the centro storico and beyond. The wind was more blustery here, so cold it hurt.
“Did your father teach you opera, Little Em?”
She was struggling. Her attempts to free herself were futile against his strength. “Don’t call me that.”
“O Scarpia, avanti a Dio!” he yelled, half sang, over the parapet in a loud, theatrical voice.
“Opera’s not my thing,” she said quietly.
“Really?” He felt he had the demeanour of a college professor just then. Maybe it was Steely Dan Deacon himself, those WASP New England genes bouncing up and down. “Informative, Emily. Do you mean to tell me you’ve never wanted to leap off the edge like that yourself? Never wanted to know what happens?”
“Not for one second. I’ve got too much to do.”
Kaspar shook Steely Dan’s voice out of his head. He didn’t believe Emily Deacon. There was something in her eyes-he’d seen it two nights before in the Campo. She hadn’t really given a damn then whether she lived or died. She was much more interested in seeing the thieving little kid, the light-fingered bitch who’d walked off with what memories he still possessed, get away scot-free. Emily Deacon didn’t get that from her dad.
“Like see me in hell?”
“That, among other things. Besides, it wasn’t about curiosity. Tosca knew what happened, didn’t she?” Emily Deacon asked. “I thought that was the point.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, relaxing his grip a little. “I guess that’s true. I used to like opera myself. A lot. But if you don’t hear it for years and years it kind of loses its touch.”
“It’s easy to lose touch, Kaspar.” She spoke with a quiet, blunt certainty. “Don’t you think it’s time to call it a day? I can do it for you. We could go straight to the Italians. You don’t need to say a word to the FBI at all. There’s enough for the Italians to hold you here for years, whatever Washington tries in the courts.”
She wasn’t going to back down, act timid, play the little kid. In a way he was pleased. She was Steely Dan’s daughter, with a twist.
“We’ve talked this through. No going back now.”
“What if you’re wrong?” she pressed. “What if you’ve screwed this up, too? And it really was just my dad and those other people all along?”
“Then they need to give me a little proof.”
Emily Deacon peered into his face. “Tell me, Kaspar. Was it something my dad told you? What do these people say?”
“Nothing,” he grunted. “How do you talk to a ghost?”
“I don’t believe it’s nothing.”
He didn’t like remembering. Dan Deacon had uttered those few words at the end, after Kaspar had tried so hard, with such vicious, constant brutality, to squeeze it out of him some other way. Yet sharing the words diminished their power somehow. So he told her instead about the Piazza Mattei, how Steely Dan Deacon had mentioned it twice, how he nearly thought the answer might lie there after all, but when he’d gone round there, tried to pound some truth out of the man who was living in the house, it turned out to be just an illusion.
This was important. Emily Deacon understood that too.
“What if it’s all an illusion?” she insisted. “Just some crazy voices in your head?”
The line between what was real and what was imaginary was tough to decipher sometimes. Kaspar could hang on to some truths, though. An ugly black Marine with half his face shot away. A brutal Ba’ath party torturer reaching for his sticks, taunting Kaspar for his stupidity. They were real. Too real.
The dark side of him, the part that had killed Monica Sawyer, wondered about throwing Emily Deacon over the wall there and then. The girl had Steely Dan in her veins all right. The incisive part that could look right through you.
“You thought the voices would go away when you killed that woman in the Pantheon. What did they call her? Laura Lee? She was the last, wasn’t she?”