The attachment was a large pdf file, an image or a document or something. He tried opening it on the phone but it was too slow and the file was too big to be practical on the little screen, even if his eyesight would allow him to see. So he wandered over to the nearest laptop and beamed the file over. Maria was behind him following every move, purring all the time.
The thing was so large it took almost a minute to transfer. When it finally arrived in its entirety Di Capua hit the enter key. The pdf opened straight away: a big technical document, the kind companies posted on the web for their customers. Line drawings of wheels and pulleys and stays, and how they had to be joined together in order to be safe.
‘What,’ Maria asked, sounding a little disappointed, ‘is that?’
He knew at once, could feel the excitement that came from seeing two seemingly unrelated circumstances finally joined together by some ridiculously serendipitous connection.
‘It’s a set of instructions on how to erect the brand of suspension scaffolding used on the roof of the Gabriels’ apartment. Or, if you like, how not to erect it. How to remove the right pieces to ensure it’ll come toppling down if you throw a body out onto the platform.’
‘Oooh.’
Her eyes were wider than ever. Her fleshy hands performed one little clap then fell still under the gravity of his gaze.
‘Are you going to call the boss?’ the girl asked.
They were all out for dinner. He didn’t want to spoil that. Teresa deserved a break as much as any of them. Besides, she was off duty, unlike him. His first point of reporting was clear. Falcone never really rested.
Di Capua checked his watch, told them what to do with the evidence, and what tasks to prepare for the following day. Then he bade them good-bye and walked outside. The night was still sultry and stifling. Usually he loved this time of year. September was when Rome began to wake after the hazy stupor of August. Life returned. They hadn’t got there yet.
He didn’t feel elated by Maria’s discovery and he wondered why. Perhaps because a part of him had always hoped that everything they suspected about the Gabriel girl would turn out to be wrong. From what he’d read, from looking at her pretty, intelligent face in the papers, she seemed a nice enough kid, one who’d suffered under the nightmare of an abusive and terrible father. She deserved a few more hours of freedom before the storm cloud that had been gathering around her bright young head broke with a vengeance.
All the same, he knew he had to make the call. Not now, though. Now there was time for a beer and some solitary thinking. A Baladin. A cigarette. Some respite from the sea of questions, doubts and possibilities that refused to stop running through his overactive mind.
THIRTEEN
They left the restaurant just after ten, happy, well-fed, a little drowsy from the long day. Costa offered to walk Agata home but she declined, making an excuse he didn’t believe. Something was wrong in this new life of hers. It was obvious, just as it was clear she didn’t want to discuss it.
He watched her go. Teresa and Gianni Peroni stood, arms linked, at the edge of the Piazza delle Cinque Scole, laughing and joking with one another. The night had brought an unexpected revelation. Leo Falcone really had abandoned a difficult case, one they all suspected was more complex than it seemed. This had never happened in all the time Costa had known the man. There were failures, plenty of them. Cases that fell down in court or, more often, investigations that simply went nowhere. But he couldn’t recall a single instance where Falcone had decided that he would accept the obvious, the status quo, and no longer pursue an inquiry that, in all probability, still had some way to run. Even the matter of the brother’s death and the murder of Gino Riggi would now be handled by some other officer. A part, the private, personal part, of Costa wanted to welcome this decision. The professional side of him was quietly appalled.
They said their farewells. Teresa and Peroni wandered off looking for a cab. Costa picked up his helmet. He’d had just a single glass of wine. It was fine to ride home. He wanted to. The city became too close, too constrictive at times, particularly in the narrow lanes of the ghetto. He’d parked the scooter near to the tiny arch beneath the Palazzo Cenci, a grim, dark alley with a small shrine supposedly marking the location of an ancient murder.
‘Safe journey,’ Falcone said, emerging from the dark and still amused by the idea of the Vespa. ‘I never had one of those things, you know. Straight from a bicycle to a car. Nothing in between.’
Costa hesitated.
‘Is everything all right, Leo?’
‘Of course it is. Did Agata enjoy herself? Shouldn’t we be worrying about her?’
‘A little, I imagine. But she’s like you. She’ll never tell you when something’s wrong. You have to learn the signs. Then pluck up the courage to say something.’
He left it at that. Falcone didn’t.
‘And you think that came from me?’ he asked.
‘You were the only outside figure in her life when she was in the orphanage, weren’t you?’
The older man leaned against the restaurant wall and stared back into the piazza.
‘I was a kind of father, I suppose. A very poor and distant one. I remember realizing, when she was seven or eight, that she saw me that way. I retreated a little after that. Frightened. Yes, I was frightened by it. The dependence. The closeness.’ He shrugged, amused at his own frailty. ‘Some of us aren’t cut out to be family men.’
‘I think you did more than you realize. More than you accept.’
‘Perhaps.’ His face had grown long and gloomy again. He was tired. They all were. ‘How could a man like Malise Gabriel do something like that? To his own daughter?
These questions troubled Costa from time to time. There were crimes that sprang from comprehensible sources. Greed. Jealousy. Hatred. Despair. But not this one.
‘We can’t see inside the minds of everyone we deal with.’
‘We see inside the minds of their victims though, don’t we?’ He began to walk towards the square, and the place where Costa had left the scooter. ‘You know. .’
The night was beautiful when they reached the open space of the piazza. There were lights in the apartments of the Palazzo Cenci, faces at the glass, some blank, a few happy, staring out at the sea of cars parked on the cobblestones.
‘I stood in the Questura today and did everything I could to try to force Mina Gabriel to talk. To get that young girl, woman, I don’t know, to tell me the truth. Or rather confirm the truth. That her father abused her. And somehow everything we’ve seen — the deaths, the agony — followed from that terrible, disgraceful act. Why did I do that? Who benefits? If she, and perhaps her mother, were accomplices, what will happen? A lengthy and expensive trial. A few months in jail at the most. Probably not even that. And. .’ He shook his head, as if scarcely able to believe he’d left the most important point till last. ‘More than anything, the pain. The agony I put them through. Why? Because it’s my job. Because, as I so pompously told Teresa, we’re all equal under the law. Are we?’
Costa could see the scooter now, against the wall by the low, dark arch. Malise Gabriel had died on the cobblestones beyond. ‘We can’t afford to make choices.’
Falcone stopped, put an arm on his and said, ‘We can, Nic. We do. All the time. It’s pointless pretending otherwise. I chose to pursue this case because their reticence offended me. Almost as much as the idea that a father could do such a thing to his own child. I felt there was something here that deserved punishment, and it was my job to deliver that. But there’s no one left to punish, is there?’ He looked into Costa’s eyes. ‘God knows, haven’t they suffered enough already?’
‘They have,’ he agreed. ‘I’m still not sure. .’
‘Well, I’ve thought about this long and hard and I am.’ He pointed at Costa in the dark. ‘When you become an inspector remember this case. We need to be conscious of our humanity too. That’s more important than the law
