A Season for the Dead (16 page)

He closed his eyes briefly. Nic wondered if he was in pain. “I haven’t told you this before,” Marco said. “But that was why I bought this plot of land. Because it was so close to that chapel. I thought it would serve as a reminder in the hard times, and it did. You know something else? If I’d been alive then, I would have joined them. I would have been a Christian too. Maybe things will change sometime and people like me will take to it again. I don’t know, but I do know we all need some kind of faith.”

“What’s yours now?” Sara asked carefully. “The same you always believed?”

“That’s a dead faith,” Marco answered. “It killed itself before any of us ever had the chance to understand if it would work. My faith rests in my children.” He looked at his son. “This one in particular. One day Nic will find his calling. Perhaps in the police, where he’ll cast out all those crooked bastards who give this country a bad name. Perhaps elsewhere. I don’t know, but I have faith it will happen even if he doesn’t believe it himself.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Nic said. “There’ve been too many confessions for me tonight.”

They watched him go to the front of the house, take his police pistol out of the shoulder holster that lay on his carefully folded jacket, and gingerly open the door latch. There was an exchange of low, male voices.

Returning, he said, “Someone needs to see me. Outside. He doesn’t want to come into the house. There’s a guard by the door. Keep it locked. I’ll let myself in. You don’t have to wait up.”

Marco Costa nodded at the dog. “Don’t worry. We’ve got protection.”

Sara laughed. Nic looked at the two of them and the animal, its graying head cocked to one side, peering up at him. He tried to understand why they should be so comfortable in each other’s company and failed. Then he mumbled an excuse, picked up a flashlight and was gone.

“Did I make him feel awkward?” the old man asked, feeding the rest of his plate to the dog.

“A little, I think,” Sara replied. “There’s a conversation he needs to have with you. He can’t do it with me around.”

Marco Costa’s shoulders rose. A dry laugh emerged from his throat. “Sara. Without you around we would never have spoken like that at all. That was the frankest talk we’ve had in years. You were the catalyst. We’re both grateful.”

She was flattered by his compliment. “I did nothing, but if that nothing helped, I’m glad.”

He nodded at the bottle. “Now I’ll have some wine.”

She snatched it away from his grasping hand. “No.”

“Whose house is this, girl? For pity’s sake. You can’t refuse a dying man a glass.”

“Convince your son of that, not me.” She started to clear the table of the plates, the glasses and the wine. “If Nic doesn’t want you drinking, he’s got a reason.”

“I suppose a cigarette’s out of the question then? It’s medicinal.”

“Medicinal cigarettes?”

“These are. All the way from Morocco. Or Afghanistan, if you prefer.”

She tut-tutted and loaded the dishwasher. “Are you serious? Your son’s a policeman.”

“It eases the pain. Really it does.”

“No!”

“Jesus,” Marco Costa moaned. “Relax. There are no medicinal cigarettes. You know you’re the first woman he’s brought here that I can’t wind around my little finger. What irony.”

Sara returned with a bottle of mineral water and poured some for both of them. “I don’t believe I quite fit that picture. I’m not here under the same circumstance as the others, am I?”

“So, there’s something wrong with my son, is there? Not intellectual enough for the likes of you? You should hear him talk about painting. About Caravaggio. That’s one legacy I left him. My son knows a rebel when he sees one, and he knows a hell of a lot about him.” The old man’s face had hardened in mock anger.

“I’m not rising to the bait, Marco.”

“Ah. You’re thinking he looks down on you because of all this publicity.”

She sighed. “And why shouldn’t he? I thought I led a normal life. Now I’m painted like some . . . creature.”

“Pah! The press. If you listen to what they say you’ll go crazy. You know what you are. He knows too.”

“Quite. And it still shocks him. I see it on his face from time to time. Perhaps he’s right.” She toyed with her glass. “I like being on my own. I don’t feel the need to be close to anyone. I can take men, I can leave them. It doesn’t bother me.”

“Oh, please,” Marco groaned. “The young. They think they invented everything. My dear, I grew up in the sixties. Can you begin to imagine what our lives were like then? What you think of as promiscuity? Nic’s mother and I, we went through that in the first five years of our marriage. Talk to Bea about it if you like. She was there. I’m amazed the kids don’t remember some of the things that went on.”

“Perhaps they do and they’re scared to show it.”

“Perhaps,” he acknowledged.

“Bea still loves you nevertheless. You do realize this?”

His face contorted in astonishment. “What? You can see this? You, who has never met either of us until today? And saw her for what, just a few minutes?”

“Yes, I could see it. Bea loves you and regrets it was just a fleeting thing. And there you have the proof. The legacy of your infidelity. And that’s nothing?”

“Defeated by your own argument,” he declared. “I said Bea was there. I never said we were lovers. By the time Bea’s feelings for me became apparent—men are deeply stupid on these matters, as you doubtless appreciate—Nic’s mother and I had realized that way of life was a waste. We were married, we were lovers but we were friends, allies too. All the others were a distraction for us. We became monogamous because we wanted to, not through a need for propriety. Who’s to say the same won’t happen for you?”

“It won’t.” She said it with some certainty.

“If it does, it’s in the future and none of us can see there, Sara. Not even a clever university professor. Mind you, I meant what I said about Nic. He has something in him if only he’d let it out. He has that anger, the same anger I felt, even if he keeps it well hidden.”

“He’s afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing you.”

“All men fear their father’s death. It’s the moment you see your own mortality face-to-face. You witness a part of yourself dying with them.”

She went back to the counter and poured a glass of wine for herself, then one very small one for him.

“There’s more to it than that, Marco.”

“Again? You know this?” he asked, a little angry. “You, the convent girl who never had a family?”

“I can see what he feels. Nic’s transparent in some ways. There’s some part of him that’s wounded already, in preparation, waiting for the real hurt.”

He grasped the glass of wine, took a tiny sip, then pushed it away. “Then it’s time he grew up. We try to be their rock, you know, but even the rock goes in the end. You have to find your own.”

She listened. There were voices a long way off. One was Nic’s. He sounded angry.

“You know what I thought he would be?” Marco Costa asked. “What I really feared him becoming when he grew up?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“A priest. It used to keep me awake at night. Not that he ever expressed any interest. There was just something in his manner. I was a politician. I tried to change big things, not help little people, individuals. You can’t do both. And frankly I was no good at it—helping others. Nic has that gift. When he talks to you he sees you, no one else. He looks right into you, hears things you daren’t even say to yourself. And here’s another thing. You have that too. So I guess it’s not a question of upbringing. Maybe you’re both psychic. I don’t know.”

Sara understood immediately what he meant. Nic seemed to possess the same internal emotional bruises; it was what had drawn her to him from the first.

“You’re not drinking your wine,” she told Marco.

His old eyes sparkled and she saw a glimpse of a different Marco Costa then, a younger man, who was surely handsome in his prime, with a sharp, mischievous sense of humor. “I didn’t want the wine. I just wanted to see you pour it.”

A tea towel flew across the room and landed on his lap.

“Bea warned me. You’re a wicked old man,” Sara Farnese declared.

Marco Costa roared with laughter. They looked at each other, wary of the intimacy that had grown in a single night, an intimacy based on some unspoken mutual need.

“Will you stay long?” he asked, trying not to sound as if he were pleading. She was a warm and human presence in the house, not least because she behaved as if there were nothing wrong with him at all. “Bea is a friend, and a better one than I deserve. But the old require young people around them. We need to suck the vitality out of you like vampires.”

“As long as I’m welcome.” She had turned away from him so Marco Costa could not see her face. The old man watched this solitary woman and remembered what his son had said earlier: There was a part of Sara Farnese that was beyond reach, a secret part that defined her. Nic believed it was in that secret part that the riddle of these bizarre deaths lay. Marco had no way of knowing whether this was true. All he understood was that he did not envy the young anymore, not Nic, not Sara Farnese. They had yet to place their hands into life’s flames. They had yet to acknowledge their existence. Perhaps Sara Farnese was different, though, the old man thought. Perhaps this woman had been burned already, and in ways he could not begin to comprehend.

“Will you sit with me?” he asked. “And listen to some music?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling warily.

Marco Costa pushed his wheelchair over to the hi-fi unit and found the CD he sought. He put on Dylan, played loud, singing “The Idiot Wind,” and was amazed that thirty years earlier, when he’d first heard this scream of rage and pain, he’d wondered what the hell it was all about.

26

In the moonlight, Luca Rossi’s white face was miserable. The visitor he had brought along was refusing to come to the house. He wanted to meet Nic outside the farm, under the eye of the police team stationed there but out of earshot. Rossi explained this in a low, mournful voice as he and Nic walked.

“You should be asking yourself what a man like this is doing here,” Rossi said firmly. “Why don’t they leave us alone?”

“What harm does it do to talk?” Nic asked.

Rossi grimaced as if to say:
You never learn. The harm is you just don’t know who you’re talking to.

Hanrahan stood beyond the almond tree by the rickety wall that formed the perimeter of what once was a sheep field. He was half illuminated by the headlights of a black Mercedes of city license parked some twenty yards away. Costa ran the flashlight over the license plate and recognized it as one of the Vatican’s staff cars, familiar symbols of authority. An anonymous driver sat behind the wheel, the light of the radio reflecting on his wan face. Hanrahan wore a dark overcoat in spite of the heat and was smoking a cigar. The stocky Irishman stared at the cops around him until they dispersed, Rossi with them. Costa walked over and took the hand that was offered.

“Nice place,” Hanrahan commented. “All yours one day, I guess. A big house for a cop.”

“What do you want?”

“A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss. I took risks sending you that security tape, Nic. There are people who’d be less than pleased if they knew what I’d done.”

“Thanks,” he replied curtly. “Is that good enough? But you sent it too late. We had another body by then. We knew Stefano Rinaldi wasn’t the one.”

Hanrahan shrugged. “I was just offering a little something. I wasn’t to know what would happen in the meantime.” He pulled out a pack of cigars, took out a half-smoked stub, and offered him one. Costa shook his head.

“Clean-living boy,” the Irishman said cheerfully. “That’s what they all say about you. And now you’ve got that woman living in your house. How’s that going? I saw her on TV. She’s an attractive piece of work. Quite a private life too. I saw that trick you played, pretending there was something special between the two of you. Do you really think anyone would fall for that? With all these cops around?”

“Who knows?” Costa didn’t like Hanrahan. Talking to him was like juggling with eels.

“Perhaps you could take a shine to her. Anyone could, I imagine. Though I can’t help wondering what would make an intelligent, attractive woman behave like that. I’m a single man by choice. Young people. It’s just laziness. All these empty lives. Why does it happen?”

Costa waved the stinking cigar smoke out of his face. “I’m asking one more time before I go back in. What do you want?”

Hanrahan frowned. “You don’t like small talk, do you? It’s a shame. You’ll never make a diplomat. It’s important to learn how to deal with people. Going straight to the point is not necessarily the best way, Nic. You have to learn about nuances. You have to be patient.”

Costa looked at his watch, then glanced back at the house. Hanrahan waited, knowing he wouldn’t walk away. He said, “I gave you something. It was a gift. The next one doesn’t come for free.”

“The next one being what?”

Hanrahan threw his cigar on the ground and stubbed it out with his toe. “A name. Maybe the name you’re looking for.”

Costa blinked back the fury rising in him. “Let me make sure I understand,” he said slowly. “This man has killed four people and you know who he is? You think you can bargain for that? I could arrest you right now for withholding information and throw you in jail until you talk. I could tell those reporters around the corner and let them sweat your ass off.”

“But why would you do that?” Hanrahan asked, bemused. “I wouldn’t say anything. To you. Or to the press. Where’s the gain for any of us? And besides, it’s just a name. I don’t know if it’s useful or not. I just think it would be . . . productive if you talked to him.”

“Jesus, Hanrahan. What if someone else is killed?”

“It could be the wrong man. Who’s to know?”

“You make me sick. Haggling over something like this.”

“You’re so young. I thought I was doing the right thing going to you, not to Falcone. Perhaps I made a mistake.”

“I can get Falcone here in ten minutes if that’s what you want.”

The Irishman scowled. “No. I don’t think so. You haven’t even asked the obvious question. What’s the point?”

Costa gripped the Irishman’s dark coat in his right hand and pulled the man to him. “I asked the question. It was the first thing I said.
’What do you want?’
Remember?”

Hanrahan released himself from Costa’s fist and raised a conciliatory hand. “Apologies. I forgot. You don’t do small talk. Let’s get straight to the point, then. There’s a man in the Vatican who needs his freedom, and a particular kind of freedom at that. I require you to look the other way when I ask. Nothing more.”

“Denney? You’re not serious. You think you can trade for that?”

Hanrahan looked surprised. “You can trade for anything.”

“A cardinal of the Vatican? You don’t need us. You can let Denney go yourself. There’s a helipad behind those walls, isn’t there? Get him out that way. Don’t waste my time with this.”

“Nic.” Hanrahan looked disappointed. “If it were that easy don’t you think it would be done by now? Even if the Cardinal were predisposed to leave like that, and he isn’t, we can’t have it look as if the Vatican approved his departure. There are too many . . . strings attached. All he would require is discreet free passage to the airport, say. We could organize a private plane there. You’d just turn a blind eye for fifty minutes, no more.”

“Are you asking for this on his behalf? Did Denney send you here?”

“Not exactly. His life’s going through a little turmoil too right now. People he thought were on his side are starting to desert him. The Cardinal’s an old man. Confused. A little scared. Don’t believe everything you’ve heard about him. He was a good priest once. You should know what the press are like. Do you think every word they wrote about your own father was true?”

Costa looked back at the farmhouse again. “My father isn’t a crook. From what I hear, Denney is.”

“So you know he’s guilty? You’re judge and jury in this too?”

“No. I’m a cop. I hand him over to people who make that decision.”

Hanrahan laughed. “And you the Italian? Here, where nothing’s ever black and white. Can you hear yourself talking?”

“I can. What if Denney has something to do with these murders? Maybe I’m letting go of a material witness. Or worse, someone who’s involved.”

Hanrahan’s bluff manner vanished. “Nic, I swear to you. The Cardinal has nothing to do with this. He doesn’t even know I’m here. I’m just trying to grease a few wheels for all of us. You with your problem, me with mine.”

Kill two birds with one stone.
The Irishman was so like Falcone. Costa tried to discern some unease on Hanrahan’s rugged face and failed. “So Denney doesn’t know Sara Farnese?”

“Why the hell should he?” Hanrahan answered, shrugging his stocky shoulders. “You mean the call that old boyfriend of hers made? Let me tell you. There are forty people working off that same switchboard in the Vatican for lots of different officials. So someone answered ‘Denney’s office’ by mistake. You ring again and you could get mine. It doesn’t make him part of this any more than it does me or the other people who get their messages taken that way. But I’ve been looking at some of those we’ve had working there. And maybe—I don’t promise this—but maybe there’s something there for you. Nothing to lay at Michael Denney’s door. Just a name, that’s all. Maybe there’s a little interesting history. But it doesn’t come for free, my boy. I don’t have to lift one damn finger to help you. Remember that.”

Nic Costa took a few steps away from him and looked down the dirt track. The other cops stood smoking beneath the old carob tree that marked the farm’s boundary, looking deeply bored. It was insane to think they could lure out a killer like this. Falcone was clutching at straws.

“I’m not convinced,” he told Hanrahan.

“To hell with it then. What else am I supposed to do?”

“Fix a meeting. Me and Denney. Inside the Vatican, naturally.”

“Oh! Is that all?”

“That’s all for now,” Costa said, and turned to go.

“Hey.”

He felt a powerful hand on his arm.

“You really want me to book an appointment between some junior cop and a cardinal of the Catholic Church, a man you people can’t wait to throw in jail? How do you think I’m going to sell that to him?”

“Tell him I want to talk about religion,” Costa answered. “Tell him I’m thinking of converting.”

Then he walked back to the farm without waiting for Hanrahan’s answer.