“OK,” she conceded. “But will you kindly disagree with me when I want an argument? I hate punching thin air.”
She wanted to pummel her fists on his big chest. She wanted to take him home, throw him in her bed, ignore all the precautions and see what happened when you stopped thinking about the future for once.
“No,” Gianni Peroni replied and kissed her a couple of times on each cheek.
“What’s going to happen?” she demanded quietly.
“Why ask me?” He shrugged. “I’m the last person to know about anything around here.”
To her amazement, Peroni hadn’t sulked-not seriously-when he discovered what she, Nic and, to an extent, Falcone had cooked up between them to try to persuade Thornton Fielding to give himself away. Peroni was, she now understood very clearly, as straight a cop as anyone could find in Rome. The idea of trusting someone like Kaspar-even for what seemed to be the best of reasons-that there simply was no choice-was one he’d found deeply uncomfortable.
“I said I was sorry, Gianni. There really wasn’t time. Or an alternative.”
And also, she thought, you’re just too damn honest to get away with deceptions.
“I just felt awkward that you put your job on the line. Going into the embassy. Calling the Carabinieri, for God’s sake. I mean… That’s just downright rude!”
“Sorry,” she said meekly. “Won’t happen again, honest.” Then, more seriously, “So what happens to us?”
The shadow of a grimace flickered on his ugly face. “Between Leo, Nic and me we seem to have pissed off plenty of people. You should be OK, though. Leapman’s got bigger things to worry about. Besides, you’re a civilian. You can support me. That was a good meal, huh? Bet you didn’t know I could cook, too. I could have a meal waiting for you on the table when you come home. Be a househusband.”
That wasn’t funny. “Sure, sure! You can cook. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“I’m not too good at being handsome. Or… talking from time to time.”
She put a hand to his cheek, lightly, because it was still bruised from the beating Kaspar had given him, and there were black scabs hardening over the marks he’d been carrying for years.
“You’ll do just fine,” she said. “I meant what’s going to happen about you and me, actually.”
“Ah,” he said softly. “You mean will I walk away once this is over? Will I run back to my wife? Or decide it’s just better being single after all?”
“That and a few other things.”
“As everyone seems to have been saying these past few days, it’s a new world, girl. Who the hell knows what will happen tomorrow?”
“Who the hell wants to know anymore?”
Peroni put his slab of a hand on the side of her face, tousled her hair with his fat fingers, then threw his arms around her and instigated a bone-breaking, bear-like hug.
“Season’s greetings, Teresa,” he whispered. “Let’s go home soon, huh? Laila gets picked up in an hour or so anyway.”
“I’ve got that spare bedroom. If you like, she could…”
He smiled. “You don’t have to do that.”
No, she thought. It was unnecessary. But she wanted to ask. She felt the need to please him, still, and there hadn’t been many men who’d prompted that urge in her.
“It’s a deal,” she said, and watched Leo Falcone come in through the back door, Laila behind him, the tall bony inspector looking pleased as punch.
He stood there, smirking.
“Leo…?” Peroni asked hesitantly.
THE STUDIO WAS A MESS. Cobwebs hung down from the ceiling in thick, extended clumps. Canvases stood on easels, half-hidden by old sacking. There were suitcases on the floor, brimming with dust. Scarcely a soul had been in the room since his sister Giulia moved out to Milan almost five years before. The beauty of the place was obvious all the same. Floor-length French windows ran down the southern side of the house, allowing in so much light it could be dazzling in summer. For a painter, for anyone who dealt in the visual, Nic Costa thought, this would be the perfect home. Giulia even slept in this room sometimes, falling asleep on the little couch, covered in spatters of colour, exhausted.
Emily Deacon worked her way around each canvas, peeking under the coverings.
“She’s good.”
“I know. She’s also dedicated, which means she’s broke most of the time and chasing commissions from ad agencies in Milan the other half. The artist’s life.”
“That was one reason I studied architecture. The good old Deacon upbringing. Make sure you’ve got a career. Even if it’s one we’ll never let you pursue.”
That morning, when she had arrived at the house, he hadn’t asked her about the meeting she’d had at the embassy the day before. All she said was that she’d spent the whole of Christmas Eve being debriefed by a security team and had then been shunted into human resources. He knew what that meant. Disciplinary procedures. Or worse.
It was impossible to avoid the question forever.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
Her bright eyes locked on his face. “You mean do I quit before they fire me?”
“If it comes to that.”
“It already has, Nic. I’ve handed in my resignation. I’m done. I don’t even have to clear my desk. They’ll send the stuff to me. They hate me that much. Great, huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” she laughed. “I’m delighted. I may not know exactly who or what I am but I’m damn sure I know what I’m not. That job was for someone else. Besides…”
A hint of inward anger crossed her face.
“Think about it,” she said with a shrug. “I just did what my dad did thirteen years ago. I got to the point where I wasn’t prepared to take any more of their bullshit and I snapped. I threw out all the rules. I acted as if rules didn’t matter. I knew better.”
“Emily…” He came close and grasped her shoulders lightly. She didn’t move away. “You did what was right. We all did.”
“I know that! But if I carry that badge I do what I’m supposed to. I don’t make the rules up just to suit me. To match my own personal hang-ups. That’s selfish, and they deserve someone better. Someone who’s more professional than me. More professional than Joel Leapman too. Even if I stayed I’d screw up again before long. It’s just not me. I have a renegade gene, Nic. Got it handed down to me. Should have known as much all along. And so have you. And Gianni. Maybe even Falcone, I think. How you get away with what you do amazes me.”
There was something in what she said. Costa recognized it, feared it a little too.
“Nic,” she asked, “would you really have tried to arrest them all? If you hadn’t managed to find out about Thornton Fielding? And Kaspar had simply walked in there?”
“Would he have walked in?” Costa had been asking himself that a lot.
“If he’d got that folder instead of Thornton Fielding? I think so. He was tired. He was sick of being broke and on the street. He was scared, too, of himself, and for a man like that I doubt there’s anything scarier. The fact he couldn’t control what he was doing anymore. That was the last roll of the dice. All the same”-she glanced at him-“the idea of you taking those guys on. You didn’t have the numbers. They had the authority.”
“Authority’s not the same as being right.”
“True,” she agreed. “And being right’s not the same as being the one who wins.”
Costa had avoided thinking about the alternative too much. The odds would have been stacked against them. Even so, Falcone had been adamant. Whatever the consequences, there would have been no way they would have allowed Leapman and Viale a free hand.
“So what happens to you guys?” she asked. “Are they throwing the book at you?”
“Maybe,” he said quietly. “Emily, I wish I’d known. That it was all some kind of game. That you had soda cans round your neck, not real bombs. You scared the life out of me, out of all of us.”