Authors: The Sacred Cut
"Show
the good people," Leapman ordered.
She
pulled up another shot. The man was on his back, naked, face contorted in
death, a noose of cord biting cruelly into his neck.
"Excuse
me," she said and walked briskly out of the door.
Leapman
sighed and picked up the remote, keying up the next picture: the victim turned
facedown, with the now-familiar horned shape carved into his skin.
"After
this," he continued, "we had some intelligence. It pointed us to
Rome."
"Intelligence?"
Falcone asked.
"Intelligence.
Don't ask because I couldn't tell you even if I wanted. Just take
my word for it. We had some idea that he was on his way here. So"--Leapman
closed his eyes for a moment as if this were boring him--"here I am,
eating shit food, living in a service apartment, biding my time. Because my
masters in Washington decide we should set up an office over here, wait around
a little while and see what happens. Why didn't we tell you? Well, what
do you think, Inspector? We didn't have any proof he was here. We
didn't have a single clue when or where he might do anything if he did
turn up. What, exactly, would you have said if I'd walked in and dumped
this bunch of half-guesses and supposition on your desk?"
Leapman
waited for an answer. It didn't come. "I'll take that as a
sign you see my point. We had to come. We had to wait. Now we know this
animal's loose we've got to track him down once and for all. He's
fucked around with us too much already. Besides..."
He
keyed up shots of the corpse on the floor of the temple in Beijing.
"It
wasn't some poor stupid tourist he killed this time. This guy was someone
important. The military attache at the US embassy in Beijing. Career
diplomat. Talented guy. Came from one of those old New England families that
put their offspring into public service just to prove what wonderful citizens
they are, never once asking themselves whether it's the right job for the
spoiled little brats in the first place."
Leapman
looked at the picture of the dead diplomat again and sighed. "That's
what class is about, don't you think? Being able to make choices?"
Then
he pulled up another photo. It was the same man at a formal occasion, wearing a
dinner jacket, shaking the hands of a smiling Chinese official. He was staring
sourly at the camera, clutching at a full glass of booze as if it were a
lifeline.
"His
name was Dan Deacon," Leapman explained. "I don't see a
family resemblance myself, but I guess it's there. Good old Dan fixed up
his daughter with a fine career, huh? Not that I reckon he asked her once if it
was what she wanted. One minute she's sitting in Florence congratulating
herself on getting an architectural degree. Next she's doing push-ups in
boot camp because Daddy says so and, my, doesn't Daddy know how to
glad-hand some of the people on the interview panels too. Still, it gives me an
opportunity."
He
switched off the projector and rolled up the lights so they could see his face
all the more clearly.
"You
know what it's all about, folks?" Agent Leapman asked.
"Motivation. I'm giving you one motivated girl here. I picked her
myself for that very reason. Use her well, won't you? And try to bring
her back in one piece."
MONICA
SAWYER'S APARTMENT was in a dark side street near the Palazzo Borghese,
some way north of the Pantheon. The place was a square modern cabin built
directly on top of the roof of a solid grey nineteenth-century block. It sat
unnaturally on the summit of the building like a child's construction
made of toy bricks. The estate agent boasted she had the best view in Rome. It
was bullshit, but Monica had quite a view all the same, one so astonishing that
she'd already booked another month at $3,500 a week, for May, when she
and Harvey would be able to use to the full the terrace that stretched out on
three sides of the ugly modern structure.
A
perfect layer of snow, marked only by bird prints, now hid the warm terra-cotta
tiles she'd seen when she arrived three days before. Monica walked
carefully across the snow, which was close to ankle deep, listening to Peter
O'Malley talk with wonder about what they could see. He had a soft,
musical voice like that of an actor, one whose slightly metallic Irish tint
reminded her how much the Hibernian accent had influenced American. The night
was clear now, with a scattering of dark stratus high in a sky bright with a
full moon. They had checked the TV when they arrived. Peter wanted to know what
the weather would do and when he could return to Orvieto. She poured herself a
Scotch while he listened to the impenetrable Italian on the box. There were
pictures of cop cars around the Pantheon, shots of a police press conference
with a tall, goatee-bearded inspector facing down the cameras and looking as if
he wouldn't say a damn thing.
That
wasn't what interested Peter, though. He wanted to know what the sky
would bring. When the bulletin was done he told her. There would be more snow
after midnight.
Now,
on the terrace, still in her fur coat, she clutched the glass of Scotch and
followed him round, listening. He'd stopped drinking. In truth, she
thought, he hadn't consumed much at all in the
enoteca
. It was
hard to tell.
Peter
O'Malley was laughing now. They were standing on the northern side of the
terrace, looking away from the river, up towards the rising lights of some
hill.
His
arm slipped through hers and squeezed gently.
"Symmetry,"
he said. "Can you see it?"
"Where?"
she replied, feeling stupid.
"Everywhere.
You just have to look." He pointed to the twinkling street lamps on the
distant hill. "You know where that is?"
"No
idea."
"Trinita
dei Monti. The church at the top of the Spanish Steps."
She
nodded. She'd walked there before the snow came and had been surprised to
find there was a McDonald's near the foot of the twin staircases and an
American-style Santa ringing a bell and yelling for money in Italian.
"Been
there. So what?"
He
led her round to the opposite wall of the apartment. The bright, white,
wedding-cake building in the Piazza Venezia stood out like a sore thumb: in
front of it the jumble of Renaissance rooftops, with the huge half sphere of
the dome she had come to recognize.
"That
I do know," she said, a little proud of herself. "I went inside
yesterday. It's beautiful. The Pantheon."
"The
home of all the gods," he said. "That's good."
Then
they went to the western wall, which had the larger part of the terrace, an
expanse of open space a good ten yards deep, with flower pots, an old stone
table and a permanent, brick-built barbecue with a little sink by it. An awning
had been built in front of the full-length windows. The shrivelled and leathery
stems of a couple of meagre grapevines wound their way around the supporting
pillars. A few blackened leaves still hung on the furled, wiry whips feeling
their way through the trelliswork. Two tall gas heaters whistled away, pumping
out enough warmth to make it possible to sit outside, even on a night like
this, to be alone in Rome, above everything, out of sight.
He
was gesturing. She looked over the river, where a snow-clad circular building
rose, brightly illuminated by a forest of spotlights.
"And
that is?"
"I
told you," she objected. "It's only my first time
here."
"Castel
Sant" Angelo. Think, Monica. Draw a line from Trinita dei Monti to
the castle. Draw another line from the Pantheon, out to the Piazza del Popolo
over there. What do you get?"
She
looked out to the north, the direction he was pointing, out into the face of
the icy breeze, then ducked beneath the trellis and fell into one of the hard,
cold summer seats. She got what he was driving at. She wasn't stupid.
"A
cross. A crucifix."
"And
we are?"
"Where
the two arms meet? But so what, Peter? Don't get scary on me. It's
just coincidence. It's just..."
She
looked out over the city, shining under the icy, bright moon, then shivered. "It's
just how things are."
He
walked under the shelter of the awning, stole her glass from the table, took a
sip of whisky from it.
"What
if there are no coincidences? What if everything has history? A reason?"
He
wasn't serious, she thought. It was just some game. "In a place
like this, you could come up with stuff like that anywhere," she
protested. "I could say, look, here's the Colosseum. Or the
Capitol. Or whatever. Look. It makes a circle. A square. An octagon. It's
Rome, for God's sake. It's all here."
"Quite,"
he replied.
"You're
sounding like a priest now," she said softly, slurring the words a
little. "I'd forgotten for a while that's what you
are." She didn't know what to do. Whether to feel stupid for
letting a stranger into her home, into her mind, like this. Or just to roll
with it and see where everything went. He was a priest. There was nothing to be
scared about.
"Must
be hard doing what you do," she said. "Having to stay apart from
other people."
"There's
nothing hard in that. It helps you think about what really matters."
"You
don't miss the comfort of another person?"
His
smart eyes clouded over. "You can't miss what you never
knew."
"I
don't believe that, Peter. Not of you."
Peter
O'Malley was not a happy man. He was looking for something, all the time.
Why? Monica wondered.
"Why
are you a priest? It doesn't seem right. Whatever would make a man like
you do this?"
"A
man like me..." He laughed lightly, breaking the fragile spell that
had begun to hover around them, something dark at its edges, and she felt
relieved, light-headed even. "A man like me is just a fool looking for
magic where none exists. And then..."
He
waved a hand at the glorious night, the city slumbering under a jewelled sky.
"Then
it just sneaks up on you and you realize it was there, in front of you, all
along."
It
wasn't the face of a priest. That was the problem. It was the face of a
man of the world, one who'd lived a full and active existence before
retreating into this dark shell, the anonymous uniform of the calling.
"Magic,"
she muttered, wondering if she would follow where she thought he was leading.
He
looked at his watch. Her heart sank. "And a city full of churches,
Monica. I'd best find one to pray in, don't you think?"
AN
HOUR AFTER THEY LEFT the embassy, Emily Deacon arrived at the Questura. She'd
dressed down for the night: black jacket, black jeans, blonde hair loose around
her slim neck. She looked younger, like a student just out of college. And
relieved too, Costa thought, to be out of the grip of Agent Leapman, even if
being reassigned so abruptly had come as a shock.
She
stood in the main office next to Costa's desk, scanning the room. The
night shift were hard at work, making calls, sifting through records on
computer screens, reading reports. Falcone had put virtually everyone he had on
the job. Some fifty men and women had now begun the task of collating
information, trawling through CCTV videos, interviewing the people who lived in
the apartments over the shops and restaurants near the Pantheon.
"Are
you getting anywhere?" she asked.
Peroni
glanced at Costa. Earlier, the two men had demanded a discussion with Falcone,
wanting to know exactly how much information they should share with the
Americans. It had been inconclusive. Falcone had made a good point: it was
ludicrous to belabour the question until they found something worth sharing and
that seemed some way off. They already knew the CCTV cameras in the Pantheon
had nothing. Those in the streets nearby had captured little but the blizzard. Falcone
had shrugged and left it at that, then closeted himself upstairs with
Commissario Moretti for a private meeting.
"Early
days," Peroni answered hesitantly. "Can I get you something? A
coffee?"
The
acute blue eyes looked him up and down. "You don't trust me.
It's understandable. I'd probably feel the same way if it was me. It's
because I'm American, I guess."
"No,"
Costa told her. "It's just... a little unusual."
"You
have difficulty dealing with the unusual?" she asked.
"Not
at all. It's just that sometimes it takes a while to adapt. Police departments
are like monasteries, really."
Peroni
snorted. A smile flickered on Emily Deacon's face.
"Monasteries?"
she asked, raising a slender fawn eyebrow.
"Really,"
Costa protested. "OK, we let in a few women for show. But these are
institutions that keep themselves to themselves, rarely share their working
practices with others and suspect all outsiders on principle. Big organizations
work that way. The FBI's the same, surely."
She
thought about that. "There
are
more women."