“She’s a smart woman, Nic. Maybe she’s just out there looking for some more.”
“So why doesn’t she answer her phone? Why did she leave her computer at my place?”
“Ah. The arrogance of men. Could it be because she doesn’t want to hear from you? After all, the Leapman guy isn’t interested. And if you’re being honest, do you really want some rookie FBI agent hanging around all day long?”
He didn’t answer that.
“Oh,” Teresa said with a heavy sigh which indicated, Costa thought, that she perceived some personal interest on his part. “In that case let me simply say this: Emily Deacon strikes me as a very intelligent, very honest woman. Which, given the situation she’s in, may be part of her problem.” She paused, surprised, perhaps, by the thought that followed, and what prompted it. “Honesty’s a risky trait in this business, don’t you think?”
That was about Gianni Peroni. He couldn’t miss it.
“No,” he said with some conviction. “Honesty’s all we’ve got. And Gianni’s OK, if that’s what you mean. He saved that kid’s life last night.”
“I know. He was brave as hell. What else do you expect? But is that what saved them? I’m not so sure. Gianni said something about a message. Busy, busy, busy. Not one he understood, though.”
“All the same-”
She interrupted him. “All the same he’s doing fine because he’s kind of adopted that Kurdish kid. I know what’s in his head. He thinks some cousin of his will take her on full-time or something. Then she can get regular visits from Uncle Gianni. But he needs to break that habit, Nic. This is a tough world. You can’t hope to cure it with just love and honesty and putting away bad guys from time to time.”
“Why the hell not?” This was the kind of sentiment he got too often from Falcone.
“Because it breaks you in the end. It weakens you. I can see that happening with Gianni already. He’s guilty over his family. He’s… vulnerable. More than you think. He’s got to learn to bury some of this deep down inside, otherwise it’s just going to mess him up. I know. I love the man.”
From the sudden blush on her face it was obvious this had just slipped out. “By which I mean,” she corrected herself, “I think he’s a wonderful human being. All that caring. All that compassion. I wonder what the hell he’s doing in a job like this. Whether he can keep it up.”
She frowned. “I used to wonder that about you once upon a time. Now… You’ll make it. That’s good.”
“And Emily Deacon?” Costa asked. “What about her?”
“A part of me says she’d love to walk straight out of that job and sit in the corner of an old building somewhere, sketching away. Have you talked painting with her yet?”
“No,” he replied, a little offended.
“You will. A part of me says Emily is deeply, deeply pissed off about what happened to her father. So hung up over what happened, maybe, that she’d do anything to put it straight. Regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the pain it might cause her or anyone who gets in the way. Do you understand what I mean?”
Costa did. He’d known it all along. He just needed her to confirm it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Get a coffee. Wait for Falcone to call.”
She looked at her watch. “To hell with budgets. I hate numbers. Also I’m supposed to be off duty. Let’s make that two coffees.”
They walked out of the gloomy morgue building, then round the corner to the little cafe Teresa Lupo used. It wasn’t popular with cops. That was one reason why she liked the place. The ponytailed teenager behind the counter looked a little scared when she walked in. He usually did. That meant the coffee came quickly and was, as usual, wonderful.
As good as the Tazza d’Oro. Nic recalled Emily Deacon talking about her favourite cafe, then glanced at his cup and wondered whether he wouldn’t be better off going round there and checking it out.
Teresa Lupo’s hand fell on his arm. “Relax for a moment, Nic. You and Gianni aren’t the only cops in Rome.”
But it felt that way just then. Falcone had pulled them aside for some reason of his own, one he had yet to explain.
“Talk to me about Christmas,” Teresa said. “Tell me what it was like in a pagan household.”
Was that really what the house on the Appian Way was? Nic Costa knew he suffered from the same misapprehension as every kid. The childhood you got was the normal one. It was everyone else’s that was weird.
And a few memories did come back. Of food and laughter and singing. Of his father drinking too much wine and behaving, for once, as if there was no tomorrow, no great battle to be fought, nothing to do in the world except enjoy the company of the people around you, people who loved you and were loved in return.
“It was happy,” he answered.
She was already ordering her second macchiato. Teresa drank coffee as if it were water. “What more can anyone ask?” she wondered.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
His phone was ringing. Falcone had promised to call.
“Nic,” Emily Deacon said. She sounded distant, tired and scared.
“Emily. I’ve been looking-”
She interrupted him briskly. “Not now. I don’t have the time. You must listen really carefully. It’s important. You have to trust me. Please.”
“Of course.”
There was a pause on the line. He wondered how convinced she was.
“I’m with Kaspar,” she said finally. “I can bring him in, Nic. No more killings. No more bloodshed. But you’ve got to do what I say, however crazy it sounds. Otherwise-”
There was a noise at the other end of the line. Something physical, something like a scuffle.
“Otherwise, Nic,” barked a cold American voice, “you and Little Em don’t ever get to have fun.”
Costa listened. When the call was over, he found Teresa Lupo staring at him with that familiar look of tough, deliberate concern he’d come to recognize and appreciate.
She pushed back the empty coffee cup, looked around the empty cafe. “Like I said, Nic, I’m off duty. If there’s anything…”
PERONI LOOKED AT the men behind the desk, ran through the short yet precise brief Falcone had given him in the lift and wondered what a new career would be like. Maybe he could go back home and see if there was an opening for a pig farmer near Siena. Or ask the girl in Trastevere for a job doling out ice-cream cones. Anything would be better than facing more time with these three: Filippo Viale, smug as hell, with an expression on his face that said you could sit there forever and still not get the time of day; Joel Leapman, sullen and resentful; and Commissario Moretti, neat in his immaculate uniform, pen poised over a notepad, like a secretary hanging on someone else’s orders.
“You sure had a good argument there,” Leapman observed. “Don’t you think it’s time you worked on your personal skills?”
Peroni glanced at Falcone, thought what the hell, and said quite calmly, “I am tired. My head hurts. I’d rather be anywhere else in the world than this place right now. Can I just announce that if I hear one more smart-ass piece of bullshit the perpetrator goes straight”-he nodded at the grimy office window-“out there.”
Moretti sighed and glowered at Falcone.
“Sir?” the inspector asked cheerily.
“Keep your ape on a leash, Leo.” Moretti sighed again. “You asked for this meeting. Would you care to tell us why?”
“To clear the air.”
“And Emily Deacon,” Peroni said. “We’d like to know some more about her.”
The American grimaced. “I’ve already told you. I have no idea where she is.”
“Do you think Kaspar’s got her?” Peroni asked.
The three men opposite looked at each other.
“Who?” Leapman asked eventually.
“William F. Kaspar,” Falcone answered.
Peroni watched the expressions on their faces. Viale looked impassive. Moretti was baffled. Leapman looked as if that rare creature, someone he loved, had just died.