The Fallen Angel

more important to him than anything else in the world. That’s what his book’s all about, isn’t it?’

He wished he had more time. More insight too. There was something here, an elusive idea he couldn’t quite grasp.

Agata Graziano stood in front of him, her fierce intellect working as it always did, and asked, ‘Why would Mina look for inspiration in a fantasy? A fairy-tale concocted out of a squalid little domestic murder, embroidered over the centuries by storytellers and artists? Why? Shelley said the story of Beatrice was about the most dark and secret caverns of the human heart.’ She took his arms. ‘But it wasn’t, was it? Poetic licence, nothing more. Mina Gabriel must know that better than anyone.’

There was something there he did understand, perhaps better than the inquisitive yet unworldly young woman in front of him.

‘Maybe we’re just looking in the wrong cavern,’ he said.

‘Or there are places you’re not supposed to look at all,’ she told him. ‘However much a man like Malise Gabriel might have hated the idea.’

He didn’t understand what any of this meant, any more than Agata did. But there was something here, something hidden inside these twin tragedies that linked them, even if it was not the obvious.

‘I don’t think she’s guilty,’ Costa said. ‘Whatever Leo and the media say. The mother, brother, I don’t. .’

Agata’s voice shrank almost to nothing.

‘Please God, I hope you’re right. What kind of place. .’

Her small, dark hand went to her mouth. Her eyes were lustrous and damp. She was close to tears. For whom, he wondered? An English girl she didn’t know? Or herself, stranded in the harsh reality of everyday life, a world she didn’t recognize and perhaps could not begin to face?

They stood close to one another and he remembered that awkward moment on the bridge, with the screams rising from the ghetto as the two of them hesitantly closed towards a kiss.

‘Tomorrow,’ Costa said, seizing her by the shoulders, ‘you will go into work and think of nothing but delivering the most astonishing lecture on Caravaggio you’ve ever given. Later, some time, I don’t know when, this will all be behind us and we’ll go to Baffetto. I will buy you the best pizza in Rome. Who knows? Maybe I can even entice you onto my battered little Vespa. It’s not an Alfa Romeo, I know. .’

‘Don’t joke about that,’ she said sullenly.

He wondered what to say, whether to pry further.

Then his phone rang. Costa found a mild curse slipping his lips and immediately apologized.

It was Rosa. He had to go.

THREE

The Coyote Bar was in a side street between the Campo dei Fiori and the Via Giulia, a grubby little dive that scarcely seemed to be in Italy at all. The drinks were two-for-one until nine, the music deafening rock and reggae, the clientele almost entirely foreign, pushing and shoving to get the free pizza and couscous that had just been placed on the bar.

Rosa sat on a high stool sipping what looked like a mojito and picking at a slice of flabby dough covered in bright red tomato sauce. She didn’t see Costa at first so he was able to watch her for a minute or two as she alternately smiled at and insulted a couple of young men trying to talk to her, all the while wearing the jaded and arrogant expression that seemed de rigeur for women in places like this. She’d always been a good cop, one who could shrug off the uniform and become someone else without so much as a second thought. It was a talent and a curse too sometimes.

A persistent American kid, tall and strong, like a football player, was standing over her, getting pushy and mouthy when Costa finally walked over.

‘Nic,’ Rosa said brightly, glad to see him arrive. ‘Meet my new friend, Jimmy.’

Costa looked at the gigantic youth towering above him. Jimmy had a crew cut and a blank, unmemorable face. He was wearing some kind of sports shirt with huge numbers on the chest and a baseball cap on backwards.

‘What are you doing in Rome, Jimmy?’ Costa asked, briefly shaking his hand.

‘History.’

Costa looked more closely at the shirt. The logo made out that it was from the Raffaello College football team, the academy for foreign kids in the Via Corso where Agata taught.

‘Is it fun?’

‘My old man made me do it. History sucks.’

‘That’s an interesting point of view. A friend of mine just started work at the Raffaello. Agata Graziano. She teaches art.’

His small, piggy eyes lit up.

‘Oh wow. The new one? Black-haired chick? She’s a babe. You gotta introduce me.’

Costa frowned and said, ‘I think you should tell her she’s a babe yourself. Now. .’ Costa picked up a slimy, limp slice of pizza, placed it in Jimmy’s paw-like hand and waved at the far corner where a bunch of similarly attired kids were standing slack-jawed beneath a TV set showing American football. ‘Go over there. Eat that. And don’t come back.’

The American kid looked as if he might be trouble for a moment. Then he thought better of it and slunk off.

Rosa was shaking her head.

‘You’ve absolutely no idea how to handle them, have you?’

‘Really?’ he wondered. ‘He’s gone, isn’t he? Where did I go wrong?’

‘We find things out by talking to them. Not scaring them away.’

He took her by the arm and led her to a dark and empty corner where the music was just a little less loud, though still of sufficient volume to afford a curiously noisy form of privacy.

‘We find things out by talking to Robert Gabriel.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Or Gino Riggi. Isn’t that right?’

‘If only,’ she grumbled.

Costa didn’t have much patience left. He asked her for the background to her assignment: watching the cop from narcotics. Slowly, carefully, Rosa outlined what she knew, with the rigorous precision he’d come to associate with her.

It wasn’t a pretty story, or a rare one. Riggi was one more cop who’d spent a little too long beneath the surface, so much that he’d failed to remember where the lines were drawn. Internal investigations suspected him of taking money from the Turkish gang, the Vadisi, playing both sides.

‘We think his contact there is called Cakici,’ Rosa said. ‘Robert Gabriel’s some kind of intermediary who runs between the two. If I could lay my hands on the English kid I’d offer him a deal. Immunity from prosecution in return for what he knows. If I could get close to him.’

She raised her slight shoulders in desperation.

‘Of course that was before Leo decided he was wanted for murder. Now, I just don’t know. He doesn’t sound a lot like his sister, does he? Not from what I read in the papers? She’s all sweetness and light.’

‘Adoptive sister,’ Costa said. ‘Robert was adopted. Apparently he never quite fitted in.’

‘Ah.’ Rosa nodded.

As if that explained everything, Costa thought. He glanced around the room.

‘You think we might find Robert Gabriel here? Or Riggi?’

‘The centro storico is the Vadisi’s territory. They like dealing with the foreign kids. Here one minute, gone the next. It’s easy. The profits are reasonable. They don’t get involved in long-term deals with suppliers or addicts. The Campo, Trastevere, that’s theirs. The places Romans go for their drugs — San Giovanni, out in the suburbs — they’re still pretty much Italian. Though I have to say our own people are getting muscled out over time. The Turks, the Balkan gangs, they’re a lot tougher, a lot meaner. They’ll contemplate things that your average Italian hood would baulk at. No need to go to confession afterwards, is there?’