The Fallen Angel

‘I’ll tell you what I told Nic,’ she said briskly. ‘I loved my father. And he loved me. Read that how you will, you grubby little man.’

She shook her head, dashed forward and kissed Costa briefly on the cheek, the way any young Roman girl might have done with a friend at the end of the day. Then she whispered in his ear, ‘I’m sorry. Thanks for listening to me.’

The girl half-walked, half-ran into the building. Costa wondered whether he’d done the right thing, and not just because Falcone seemed beside himself with anger.

‘I could get a warrant right now,’ the inspector stormed. ‘We could go through every last thing they own. I can take her into custody this instant. Her and the mother.’

Costa waited for a little of the heat to abate.

‘If you do that,’ he said quietly, ‘she’ll never tell you a thing. I can’t believe what I just saw here. How could you do that? How?’

‘What choice did I have?’ Falcone roared.

‘Some,’ Costa replied quietly. ‘Why the rush, Leo?’

‘I thought that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You’re the one who brought us into this case.’

‘If it is a case,’ Costa said. ‘And if it is you’re going to have to take this very carefully indeed. You’re dealing with a family here. Not some street crook who’s thrown a brick through a jeweller’s window.’

Peroni added mildly, ‘I tried to explain that to him. Also, to be perfectly frank, I’m not sure you could do any of those things you suggest, Leo. Not on the little we have.’

Falcone shook his fists, exasperated, and Costa realized he understood this last point too.

‘So what do we do?’ the inspector asked.

‘How about that beer?’ the big man suggested cheerily. He caught Costa’s eye. ‘And some explanations.’

PART SIX ONE

Falcone loathed the idea of an ordinary cafe or bar so they found themselves in an enoteca he knew called Angolo Divino on a corner near the Campo dei Fiori. It was early. They were the only customers. The inspector lost a little of his fury as the three of them walked there from the Palazzetto Santacroce, Peroni making discreet and inconclusive calls back to the Questura and Teresa Lupo along the way. The position was not improving. Robert Gabriel, Mina’s elusive brother, remained missing. The magistrate approached for a search warrant for the apartment in the Via Beatrice Cenci had thrown out the request on the grounds of insufficient cause, and maintained her refusal even when forensic added the evidence of Malise Gabriel’s recent sexual activity. It was, accordingly, clear that, without fresh evidence, any bid to seize the Gabriels’ belongings in the Casina delle Civette would be refused too.

Costa recognized this mood in the man who was both his superior and his friend. Insular reflection did not come naturally. He preferred to act inside the moment, to work with the rhythm of the case. In the absence of such motion he felt lost, powerless. Whatever had occurred during this difficult day had left him stranded with few options. This was never a position likely to generate harmony.

There was also something personal here. Families made Falcone nervous. No one knew much about the man’s own. The inspector’s past was not so much secret as invisible. Even his ill-fated marriage, which had ended years before Costa came to know him, remained a topic to be avoided. The prospect of dealing with the intimate intricacies of the Gabriel clan perhaps amplified this sense of isolation. Falcone’s one attempt at some kind of familial bond had occurred years ago when, as a newly divorced officer determined never to commit himself to a direct relationship again, he had sponsored Agata Graziano through school and college, which was how she had come to be involved in the earlier police investigation that introduced her to Costa. Now even that tie, fond and awkward in the same breath, seemed a little tenuous as his former ward struggled to make a life of her own outside the enclosed world of the Church.

‘Explanations,’ Falcone said again as they sat down.

Three glasses of beefy primitivo from Puglia and a plate of cheese and cold meat appeared then Costa told them about his day. When he was done Falcone looked at him and said, ‘You might have mentioned last night that you’d arranged to meet Mina Gabriel.’

‘Last night it was difficult to get a word in edgeways. Also I was rather more concerned with Agata’s state of mind, to be honest. She didn’t appreciate being dragged into things like that. Besides, I’m on holiday. I can do what I like. There didn’t appear to be a case. Mina looked like a sad and lonely kid in need of company. She asked me to provide it. How could I say no?’

‘Funny way to spend the day,’ Peroni noted. ‘Following in the footsteps of that poor Cenci girl.’

‘She said she planned to earn some money taking Joanne Van Doren’s customers on a history trip. Softening them up for the purchase. I was her guinea pig for when that happens.’

‘Don’t you mean if?’ Falcone asked. ‘That place is months away from being saleable. Years even. The way the woman kept going on about the bank. .’

‘I thought that was genuine,’ Peroni intervened. ‘She looked very upset.’

Falcone scowled.

‘Or guilty. She’d just cleared out the last trace of any possible evidence of a crime. Do you think the Gabriel girl was genuine, Nic? That’s all this Cenci connection is? A hobby?’

Costa thought back on the day, and the deep discomfort he’d felt at times.

‘Up to a point. Perhaps she believes that herself. But I’d say its clear she’s obsessed with Beatrice for some reason. The detail she knows. .’ He remembered her standing stiffly in front of the sad, accusing face on the wall in the Barberini, the tantrum at Montorio, the way she stared avidly at the sword in the museum, drawn to its ancient, stained blade. ‘It’s. . morbid. Abnormal. She must have spent weeks, months researching it.’

‘Why?’ Falcone interrupted.

Peroni played with a slice of the fatty Florentine salami called finocchiona. Costa could smell the fennel in it from across the table. His own father had adored the stuff.

‘Teenagers get obsessions,’ Peroni said. ‘That is one obsessive story. Someone like you wouldn’t. .’

He stopped, aware of the sudden chill.

‘I wouldn’t understand, naturally,’ Falcone replied with an acid smile. ‘I don’t have feelings, do I?’

‘Gianni wasn’t saying that,’ Costa cut in quickly. ‘Besides, I don’t understand Mina Gabriel either. Sometimes she’s astonishingly bright and confident. Then, at others, quite unworldly and unsure of herself. Mature one moment, juvenile the next. And. .’

He remembered the fond way Joanne Van Doren had talked about her. There was no easy way to explain this. It had to be seen, in the caring, worried expressions of the women at the cat sanctuary, in the faces of the church wardens in Aracoeli, watching from the shadows as she bent over the organ there, trapped in the mechanisms of the gigantic instrument, eyes streaming, intent on playing the piece her father had loved, one that was both haunting and resonant.

‘She has this. . aura. I don’t know how to put it. There’s a personal magnetism you don’t expect to see in someone of that age. Or anyone really. She’s special. People love her.’

‘She’s an attractive teenager, Nic,’ Peroni said. ‘Intelligent, likeable, considerate. You don’t get that so often. It doesn’t mean she’s not trying to work out who she is, just like any other kid. There’s nothing unusual there, not really.’

Costa shook his head.

‘I disagree. She’s worried. Frightened, maybe. Hiding something. I thought that when I saw her in the street the night her father died. It’s as if she wants to talk but can’t. Whether it’s because she’s afraid, ashamed, or maybe just hasn’t found the right person to tell. .’

The three men fell silent over their food and drink. Costa wondered what the finocchiona tasted like. The smell. . He grabbed a slice of pungent seasoned pecorino and