David Hewson (17 page)

It
was a minute before he reached the next set of steps. He raced up them,
following her footprints in the snow, thinking all along it had been a mistake
to loose off those shots, not quite knowing why.

Then
he climbed back to the road level, checked Peroni and Emily waiting for his
lead a couple of hundred metres down the Lungotevere, Alexa by their side, her
cigarette sending a thin plume of smoke up into the icy night air.

Costa
glanced across the street and saw the slim, young figure of the girl slip into
the snarl of alleys adjoining Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

Watching
her disappear, in the dun security lights of a grocery store, was a tall,
upright man dressed in black.

THE
HERETICAL MONK Giordano Bruno died at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori on a
cold February day in 1600. Now his black, hooded statue stood on a pedestal in
the centre of the square, dispassionately surveying the twenty-first century. The
trash from the daily market--wooden boxes, limp vegetables, plastic
bags--lay in the filthy slush, uncollected by market workers who'd
pleaded the weather as an excuse for skipping work. Only a handful of late-night
drinkers braved the snow to make the customary round of bars, the Americans
heading for the Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sam's, the locals to the Vineria
and the Taverna del Campo. And around the statue, huddling against the wind,
wondering how to make money, a bunch of down-and-outs, permanent hangers-on in
a part of the city that was never short of tourists to work.

Of
the hundred or so people milling around the Campo that night Emily Deacon was
one of the few who knew who Giordano Bruno was. She could, if she wanted,
recall the reasons why an eccentric recluse, one who brought about his own
death through sheer stubbornness towards a vengeful authority, became a
founding father of modern humanist philosophy. She'd visited the square
often as a teenager and, as her family gradually fell apart, come to wonder
what Bruno, a man convinced the world of the future would be immeasurably
better than the one he inhabited, would make of modern-day Rome. These ideas
rolled around her consciousness now. She knew the city so well, the place
brimmed with so many memories, good and bad, that it was hard to focus on what
mattered. Leapman had brought her to Rome, surely, for her specialist
knowledge. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he'd be better off with someone who
was fresh, untouched by the scars and connections of the past. And these
thoughts themselves touched a raw nerve. They were unwanted, unnecessary. Emily
knew she had a job to do, an important one. A job that could close this case
for good because, when she'd left Peroni gasping for breath in the back
streets near the bridge, when she'd realized Nic Costa had taken his own
path and was now lost to her in the night, she'd found the girl herself,
tracked her doggedly through the labyrinth of medieval alleys, over the broad
main road of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, then past the Palazzo della Cancelleria,
towards the Campo, noting, too, that they were not alone. Emily Deacon could
run. She was as fast as the girl, faster probably. Whoever was following them
was also fit, but older, a black figure flitting through the shadows, with one
clear intent as he struggled to keep up with them.

She
turned the corner into the Campo and knew what she'd see. The kid was
predictable. She headed for crowds, particularly those she thought of as hers. Sure
enough, the slight young figure was slowing now, strolling into the knot of
bodies by the statue, hoping to be anonymous again. Emily cast a worried glance
behind her and saw nothing. Not a soul was moving down the narrow medieval
thoroughfare of the Via del Pellegrino, and she tried to convince herself
she'd lost the man.

"But
he's good," she muttered, and took out her issue revolver, put it
snugly in the right-hand pocket of her jacket, then placed the pair of
regulation handcuffs she carried in her left, wishing all the time she'd
paid more attention during the repetitive, noisy tedium of the firearms classes
back in Virginia.

She
put her head down, stared at the grubby snow and began to cut a diagonal path
across the square, marking out a decent distance from the statue, looking, she
hoped, like any passerby moving through the night.

Laila
was cowering there, hiding herself in a crowd of youths. Emily didn't
like what she saw. The girl looked odd.

Emily
locked one cuff around her own left wrist, keeping the metal hidden from view. They
could spend all night running around Rome after this girl. It was important to
bring her to a halt here.

Then
she doubled back to the statue quickly, silently slipped between two youths
sharing a joint, stood beside the girl and placed a hand on her arm.

"Laila,"
she said quietly, firmly, "there's nothing to worry about. We're
here to help."

The
kid turned, her pale face shining with pure terror.

"It's
all right," Emily said.

But
Laila was ready to run again and there was no option. Emily reached out, took
Laila's slender right wrist, and locked the right handcuff around it,
tight to the soft skin. The girl leapt away from her, as if touched by an
electric shock. The others were beginning to mill round the two of them, not
taking any notice when she kept on yelling, "Police, police."

Laila
almost dragged her off the steps. Someone's hand tried to separate them,
jerking hard on the cuff chain. It was the scene by the river all over again,
and Emily thought of the options in front of her, thought about how carrying a
knife was, in circles like these, just part of everyday life. Finally, she
remembered what Nic Costa had done in similar circumstances. She needed help.
She needed to make a point.

Emily
Deacon took the gun out of her right-hand pocket, held it high in the air and,
for the second time that night, two shots burst towards the luminous disc of
the moon.

"Nic!"
she yelled. "Peroni!"

The
youths got the message. They were moving back, looking scared, ready to run, to
get as far away from trouble as possible. There were faces at the windows of
the Campo bars but no sign of movement. The shot had bought her time. Now she
needed assistance.

"Nic!"
she screamed again and pushed the girl hard into the stone pedestal of the
statue to stop her trying to drag herself away.

"Wait..."
she was saying, until something got in the way. A fist, hard as stone, coming
from somewhere behind her right shoulder, catching her on the jaw, making her
shaky grip on the gun loosen so much that it slipped, with a steady, inevitable
momentum, right out of her fingers and flew rattling across the ancient, slushy
cobblestones.

She
half stumbled against the plinth, tasting blood in her mouth, struggling to
think straight. Then a figure bent over her, the face hidden in the shadows,
and he was laughing, a normal, natural laugh, calm, controlled, one that made
her spine go stiff.

"You
ask for men," he murmured in a flat, North American voice. Something black
and cold and familiar pressed against her cheek, sending the stink of gun oil
straight into her head. "They send you children."

Her
eyes dodged the weapon, raking the square anxiously, wondering where the hell
Costa and Peroni were. They'd surely heard the shots. Then he dragged her
upright, stared into her eyes. He was about fifty, with a chiselled anonymous
face and lifeless grey eyes. A stupid thought came to her:
I know this man
somehow
.

He
yanked the chain of the cuffs high in the air, dragging the two of them
together. With her left hand, unseen, she fumbled in her pocket, searching
desperately for a solution.

"You
cuffed her well," he said. "I watched. But you have to think about
consequences. Always. Was it the right thing to do? What happens next?"

The
gun moved from the girl's terrified head to hers.

"Decisions,"
he said wearily. "Sometimes there's no avoiding them. You American?
Or Italian?"

"Guess,"
Emily hissed at him.

She
pushed in front of the kid, tugging against his powerful grip on the chain, and
covered Laila's slight body, wondering all the time if it were really
possible to escape from such a situation, to try to find a refuge in the
scattering handful of people retreating from the violence of this scene.

Then
some clarity entered her mind and it said:
Best not to fool yourself
.

She
drew back and spat full into the pale, emotionless face, then said, in a quiet,
controlled voice, "You murdered my father, you bastard. I hope you rot in
hell."

The
grey eyes blinked. Something went through his head at that moment and in a
strange, unexpected way it changed things. Not that there was time to consider
what he might be thinking just then. Her fingers had found what she wanted: the
key.

This
man recognized her. There could be no mistake. He was staring at her, partly
bemused, partly lost, troubled, struggling to come to terms with something she
couldn't fathom.

His
hand reached out, jerked her blonde hair close to his mouth.

"Emily
Deacon," he murmured. "Little Em. Following in Daddy's
footsteps. Such a waste..."

He
relaxed his grip a little, let her head move back from his face. The gun
brushed her lips. She twisted the key in the lock on her wrist and, with one
deft twist, released the clasp, squeezing Laila's hand to let her know
she was free, then held on to her gently, waiting for the moment.

"Civilians,"
he whispered and there was doubt in his voice now, something holding him back. "Don't
you hate it when they get in the way? Little Em..."

"Don't
call me that, you murdering bastard," she hissed at him and lunged hard
with her free hand, punching straight into the throat with the side of her
hand, the way they'd taught her.

"Go,
go, go!" she yelled at Laila as he fell back into the snow, pushing the
kid out from under Giordano Bruno's shadow, out into the square, beneath
a sky that was beautiful with stars but starting to cloud over with the filmy
promise of snow.

Someone
was shouting. A familiar voice. Nic Costa's.

The
figure on the ground pulled himself upright. She mustn't run. This man was
good. He could bring her down anytime he wanted.

He
still held the gun loosely at his side, like a professional.

"Do
it, asshole," she snarled at him. "No time for your scalpel,
though, is there? No chance to leave your mark."

"Steely
Dan Deacon's girl," he said quietly, casting a cautious eye at the
two figures racing across the square now. "Didn't she grow up smart
and pretty? And don't the Deacons fuck you up just when you least expect
it?"

He
was on her in an instant, strong hand at the neck of her jacket, index finger
and thumb pushing into her sinews, forcing his face into hers, looking cold
again, deliberate.

"Don't
get in my way again, Little Em," the monotone whispered. "I
don't have time for distractions."

He
was so close she saw his breath clouding in front of her eyes. A kind of tic
occupied one of his cheeks, marred the fake handsomeness of his features.

"Who
are you?" she demanded, trying to focus her attention on the angular face
and the voice, to work out what part of him was familiar, locked hidden
somewhere in her brain.

"Kaspar
the unfriendly ghost," he answered, distracted for a moment, as if an
idea was coming to him. "Figure it out, Little Em. We've both got
work to do."

Then
he relaxed his grip, took one last look at her and started running, away from
the shadow of the hooded monk, fleeing into the darkness of a side street, gone
for now, she thought, not forever.

She
leaned back against the pedestal and found her mind racing. She'd touched
the beast. She knew him, even if he didn't at that moment have a name
that was anything but a riddle. And it came to her that what she'd felt
instinctively about the error of Leapman's approach was true. The killer
wasn't born this way. Something had created him, and he was acutely aware
of that fact himself, probably resented it with all his soul. Like the
philosopher turned to stone above her, he didn't fear judgement. Perhaps,
in a sense, he sought it.

Little Em
.

No
one had called her that since she'd turned twelve. It was a name used by
her family, and those close to them, during those warm, sunny days in Rome,
back when the world was whole and human and new, back when a string of strange
men came through their apartment in Aventino, leaving her presents, making her
feel special, dancing with her in the bright white living room to any damn
music they felt like.

Little Em
.

Someone
approached. It was Nic Costa. The young Italian cop walked up, his interesting,
intelligent face full of concern. He retrieved her gun from the slush, looked
at her, then pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket.

"Here,"
he said.

She
remembered the pain now, and ran her tongue over her bruised lower lip,
grateful it didn't feel too bad.