David Hewson (40 page)

The Scarlet Beast--where do they get these names, Danboy? This one
of yours or what?... We possess a God-given duty to deliver and it is a
mighty relief to old Bill K this faceless bastard has volunteered you already. Though
I cannot help but wonder, dear friend, whether you didn't understand that
all along. NTK, huh
?

"No,
no, no, no, no!" she said with conviction. "My dad was lots of
things but he wasn't a traitor. That just isn't a
possibility."

"Kaspar
could be wrong." Costa suggested it without much enthusiasm.

"So
what are you saying?" she asked brusquely. "Kaspar thought my dad
was taking part in his own escapade? Funding it and playing along, too?"

"Can
you rule that out?"

She
shook her head. "I don't know." Emily was going to stick up
for her old man, but not in face of the facts. "Theoretically I guess so.
The way these operations were funded was pretty secretive. Someone just dropped
a bag of money out of nowhere and let the team get on with it. You had to have
someone running finance, logistics. Dad was big time here in Rome. But..."

She
leaned back on the sofa and, for a full minute, covered her face with her
hands. When she took her fingers away from her cheeks there were tearstains
there and naked fury in her eyes.

"I
still don't get it. I'm awful at this crap. I can't believe
my dad was too, and that's not just family talking. He was so damned
organized, Nic. If you knew him you'd know he couldn't just screw
it all up in the desert, get away with his own hide, then leave that poor
bastard to go crazy in some Iraqi cell putting one and one together all the
time over the years, working out who to blame. My father was a good man. He
wouldn't..."

She
couldn't go on. Costa wondered whether he could bring himself to say it,
then realized he'd be selling her short if he didn't.

"They
thought Kaspar was a good man at the time, Emily. Now look... You said it
yourself. Something changed."

"No,"
she insisted. "You didn't know him. Maybe you can believe
that's a possible answer. But listen to me, it isn't. Not for one
moment."

"I
can't think straight this late," he sighed. "Let's open
this out a little in the morning."

Her
eyes scanned his face, searching for the doubts and prevarication. "What
do you mean by that? You call your boss, I call mine? We tell them what we
think, then walk away and hope it'll turn out right?"

"No.
I don't think it's that simple. Also, I don't walk away from
things, not until they're done. It's a family flaw."

She
let out a low, spontaneous burst of laughter. "You are so
not
the Roman cop I thought I'd meet."

"I'll
take that as a compliment."

"It's
meant that way."

"Good.
And you..." He had to say this because it was true. "It's
odd. You don't know it but you could pass for Italian. Most of the time
anyway. When you're not around Agent Leapman. I never did believe that
line about people spitting at you on buses."

"It
happened once," she confessed with a shrug. "People like
preconceptions. They're compartments you can use so that everyone feels
safe and comfortable for a while. They mean you don't have to think too
hard."

"One
more reason to avoid them."

"Well,
I'm certainly getting lots of preconceptions shaken straight out of me
right now," she said, smiling, looking around the old, airy room, with
its dusty corners and faded paintings. "This is a beautiful place. If I
lived here I don't think I'd ever go beyond that front gate. You
could just stay here and never get touched by the crap."

"Or
anything," Costa said quietly. "I've been there."

"Really."
Americans had an astonishing, unnerving frankness sometimes. She'd turned
to stare straight into his face, trying to work out what to make of that last
statement. "I guess we all get there sometime. When I was a kid I thought
we'd never leave Rome, you know. It was how life was supposed to be.
Safe. Happy. Secure from all those big, black surprises you never learn about
till you're older."

"You'd
rather not know about the surprises?"

"No."
Her smile dropped. "But I can try to understand why it all fell apart. I
can... Oh shit."

Her
hands were covering her face again. He wondered if she was crying. But it was
exhaustion probably, nothing more.

Emily
Deacon slowly rolled herself sideways, over towards his shoulder, let her head
fall softly onto him, didn't move as his fingers took on a life of their
own, reaching automatically for her long, soft hair.

Eyes
closed, in the shy way strangers use when they kiss for the first time, he
tasted her damp, supple mouth, felt her lips close on his, slowly working,
until that moment of self-realization came and they both broke off, wondering,
embarrassed.

She
kept her head on his shoulder. He stared at the dying embers of the fire.

"I'm
making a hell of a mess of this professional relationship, Mr. Costa,"
Emily Deacon murmured into his ear. "Are you OK with that?"

He
closed his eyes and wished to God he didn't feel so exhausted. "I'll
think about it."

She
brushed his cheek briefly with her lips once more, then said, "Give me a
moment."

Nic
Costa watched her walk upstairs to the bathroom and wished he wasn't so
gauche with women. He'd no idea what the hell she expected of him next. To
follow her into one of the big, airy bedrooms? To wait so they could talk some
more, not that he felt there were many words left in him after this long, long
day?

He
hadn't planned any of this. He hadn't wanted it, not now, in the
middle of a sprawling black case that involved her more than was safe. Sometimes
life just refused to do what it was told. Sometimes...

"WHAT'S
HIS NAME? This guy from the embassy who tells you nothing?"

Peroni's
thoughts were wandering. The nausea wouldn't go away. Still, this
wasn't a time to lose focus. He glowered at the gun, not saying a word.
There was a point to be made here, a kind of relationship to be established.

"Joel
Leapman," he said, once the guy got the message and lowered the barrel. "You
know him?"

The
American grimaced. "If he's in the business, I think names
don't mean a lot. Besides, I've been away for a while. What does he
say he is? CIA? FBI? Something else?"

"Why
ask me?"

The
barrel of the weapon touched Peroni's cheek. "Because you're
here and because you're not dumb either."

"He
says
he's FBI. He's got people with him who are FBI. One,
anyway. You met her. Last night."

"Yeah.
I know."

"Glad
you didn't hurt her, by the way. She's a nice kid."

He
was thinking. Peroni judged it best to let him reach some decisions on his own.

"No
accounting for breeding sometimes," the American said in the end. "I
need someone to deliver a message. That makes you a lucky man."

Peroni
tried to offer up an ironic smile. "You could have fooled me. Right now I
feel something just drove over my head."

"You'll
live. You"--he waved the gun at Laila--"and the thieving
little kid. I'll give you a couple of hours to figure a way out. Don't
make it sooner. I might still be around. You'll find that idiot who was
supposed to be in charge round the corner, peeing himself, I guess. Tell him
he's damn lucky. When you're paid to look after a place like
this..."

He
cast his sharp eyes around the shadows of the Pantheon.

"...
you'd best do it properly."

"And
the message?" Peroni mumbled.

The
smart, deadpan face neared his. "I was coming to that. Tell this Leapman
fellow I'm running out of patience. I'm bored looking. This time,
he delivers. Or the rules change."

"Delivers
what?" Peroni wondered.

He
got a grunt of impatience in return. "He knows."

"You're
sure
?"

That
cold, dry laugh again. "Yeah. But just in case, you tell Leapman this. Tell
him I talked to Dan Deacon before he died. He planted some doubts. I want to
know if I'm done."

It
was the last thing Peroni was expecting to hear. "Listen to me," he
urged. "You're done. Is that good enough?"

"
Don't
fuck with me
!" The American went from placid to furious instantly. The
gun was waving around crazily again.

"OK,"
Peroni agreed quietly.

"I
want
proof
. Tell Leapman that."

This
was important. "Done."

The
gun caressed his cheek again. Peroni lifted his neck to get away from the cold,
oily metal.

"I
hope so," the American murmured. "Because if Leapman's not
listening it all turns to shit around here. Tell him I'll give him a
little present real soon just as a reminder."

"Turns
to shit?" Peroni heard himself saying, without consciously forming the
thought, watching the American walk away, out towards the night, not listening
anymore, which was a shame.

Peroni
believed him. Every single word. This man had rules. He could have killed them
both. Maybe somewhere else, in different circumstances, when the pieces of the
puzzle happened to fit, he would have done so, too. All he wanted were the
right words, written on a piece of paper, all neat and geometrical, lined up in
the magical order he sought.

That
was all any of them had to do. Find the pattern, show him the runes, and then
the city could quit waking up each morning wondering whether there'd be
blood swimming around the floor somewhere, and that ancient tattoo cut into
someone's back.

Peroni
waited till he heard the door close. Then he did his best to push back the
feeling of nausea and the pain in his head, tried to concentrate, to think
straight.

"Gianni?"
the girl whispered, keeping close to him, shivering with the growing cold. "What
do we do?"

"We
wait, Laila," he answered, with as much assurance and certainty as he
could muster. "We wait a while. Just like the man said. Then we get out
of these things and go somewhere nice and warm and comfortable. My
friend's place maybe. It's not far away. Let's sit down,
huh?"

He
found his way to the floor, the girl following him. Peroni closed his eyes and
wondered how badly he was hurt, wondered too at the American's closing
words. Maybe the body in the car was just a taste of what was to come: random,
shocking acts, designed to persuade Leapman to do the right thing. Maybe the
killer had something nastier in store just to hammer home the message.

"Gianni,"
the girl whispered.

"Just
give it a minute," he groaned. His head was spinning. His face hurt like
hell.

Then
something intervened, some semblance of sleep.

When
he came to, jogged by a push from the kid, the place was different, noticeably
colder and darker too. A stream of snow still circled down through the oculus. Laila
had her head bent over their wrists, working at something.

"How
long was I out?" he asked.

"Long
time," she said and looked up at him, half smiling. "Doesn't
matter now."

Her
mouth and her right wrist were covered in blood. Peroni saw in an instant what
she'd done: spent all the time he was unconscious biting and wriggling at
the plastic of her cuffs, working the flexible material over and over until she
found a way through.

She
stood there, half guilty, half wondering whether just to flee again. That was
her natural instinct.

"That's
good," Peroni said confidently, as if he hadn't a clue what she was
thinking. "If you reach into my jacket pocket," he continued,
"you should find a penknife there. It's in a little compartment
with a zip on it. You should be able to get at it now."

There
was a moment of hesitation, then her slim hand angled its way into his coat, an
easy, familiar motion, and came out, so quickly, with the knife. And his
wallet.

"Laila."

The
kid was crying. Real tears, streaming down her cheeks, more than he'd
seen when the two of them faced the American, more than when they both knew
they were so close to losing their lives.

"Not
now," he pleaded. "I need you to help me. I need
you
."

Then
she said something that made his blood run cold. Something straight from the
American, said it with the same fervour, the same darting eyes looking
everywhere.

"Busy,
busy, busy, busy..."

A
part of Peroni wanted to believe you could heal a damaged child with nothing
but love and affection and honesty. But Teresa was surely right. It went deeper
than that. Laila suffered from an illness, a malady as real as a fever, more
damaging since it lurked inside her, unseen, unfathomable, misinterpreted by an
icy, suspicious world.