he had been given as his prime contact Emilio Neri, a brutal thug who had worked his way from the public housing slums of Testaccio to the pinnacle of the Rome mob through the vicious and heartless disposal of anyone who stood in his way. Neri now sat on the boards of opera houses in Italy and America. He lived in an elegant house in the Via Giulia, behind an army of servants and bodyguards. It was a place Falcone knew only too well from his many futile visits there. The old crook had a carefully cultivated outward appearance of elegance, a mask of deceit worn for the public. It only fooled those who were too stupid or too scared to realize the truth. Almost from the moment Falcone had joined the force he had followed Neri’s career, and with good reason. The man habitually bribed any cop who would take his money, simply to put him on side. Falcone himself had turned down a thinly disguised offer of money from one of Neri’s hoods in the middle of an investigation into a protection racket involving some of the smaller shops off the Corso, an assignment Filippo Mosca had closed down just when it was making progress. Three cops who were known to be on Neri’s payroll had been jailed for corruption in the past decade. Not one named him as the source of the largesse found in their bank accounts. They preferred prison to the consequences of his fury.
What set Neri apart from his fellow hoods was the obsessive system of personal control he wielded over his own family. Most bosses of his stature had long since ceased to dirty their hands with the day-to-day business of running a crime organization. Neri never stepped back from the front line. It was in his blood from the old days in Testaccio. He liked it too much. Word had it he still enforced his rule in person from time to time, with the same harsh violence he’d employed as a young hood. Maybe he got one of his junior thugs to hold the poor bastard down while Neri went about his work. Falcone had looked into the old crook’s dead, grey eyes often enough to understand the pleasure it would give him.
He read the last page of the report and, knowing the volatile and untrustworthy Neri as he did, understood every word. It said that Wallis and Neri had, initially, proved the best of friends. Their families had dined with each other. Six weeks before Eleanor Jamieson died, she and Wallis had spent some time on holiday with the Neri family on one of their vast estates in Sicily. Some undisclosed form of business had been done. The Americans were happy. So were the mob.
Then, around the time of the girl’s disappearance, a coldness had entered the relationship. There had been reports that, while in Sicily, Wallis had gone over Neri’s head to talk to some of the senior bosses there, something Neri would soon learn about. There was rumour of a drug deal that had gone wrong, leaving the Americans out of pocket and angry. Neri never could resist taking people to the limit. He skimmed every last dollar that went through his hands, even after his ‘legitimate’ cut.
Some huge row took place between the two men. One informer even said they came to blows. After that, they were both in trouble with their bosses. Neri was told bluntly he was losing the job of linkman with the Americans. Wallis got a dressing-down too, though he continued to live in Rome for half of the year, with precious little to do except save face. It was an uneasy truce. One of Wallis’s lieutenants was murdered two months later, his throat cut in a car close to a Testaccio brothel. Not long after, a cop on Neri’s payroll was found dead in what had been made to look like suicide. Falcone wondered, was there a link here? Would the semi-mummified body of a sixteen-year-old girl raise these old ghosts from their graves? And if it did, how different would the world be now, with the DIA peering inquisitively over his shoulder every step of the way?
Leo Falcone looked at his watch. It was just after twelve. He thought of all the careful protocols which surrounded cases involving known mobsters. Then he took out his diary and placed the call.
‘Yes?’
Rachele D’Amato’s cool, distanced voice still had the power to move him. Falcone wondered briefly whether he was phoning her for the sake of the job or for more personal reasons. Both, he thought. Both were legitimate too.
‘I wondered whether you’d be there. Everyone else I call right now seems to be at home, sick in bed.’
She paused. ‘I don’t get to bed as much as I used to, Leo. Sick or not.’
There was a deliberate, slow certainty to her voice. Falcone understood what she was saying, or thought he did. No one else had filled her life after the affair ended. He knew that already. He’d checked from time to time.
‘I was wondering if you had time for lunch,’ he said. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘Lunch!’ She sounded pleased. ‘What a surprise. When?’
‘Today. The wine bar we used to go to. I was there the other evening. They have a new white from Tuscany. You should try it.’
‘I don’t take wine at lunchtimes. That’s for cops. Besides, I have an appointment. I have to run. We’ve got people sick everywhere too.’
‘Tonight then. After work.’
‘Work stops for you in the evenings these days, Leo?’ she sighed. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I just thought …’
He felt tongue-tied, embarrassed. She’d always said it was the work that drove them apart after Mary left. It wasn’t. It was him. His possessiveness. His passion for her, which was never quite returned.
‘Don’t apologize,’ she said wryly. ‘It doesn’t stop for me either. Not any more.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need,’ she said, and there was a new note in her voice. A serious, professional one. ‘You have a body. Is it Wallis’s girl?’
‘Yes,’ he sighed, inwardly livid, wondering immediately who had talked.
‘Don’t sound so cross, Leo. I have a job to do too.’
The corpse had been lying in the morgue for two weeks. Anyone could have seen the tattoo and put two and two together. It would be impossible to find out who had blabbed.
‘Of course. You’re very good these days, Rachele.’
‘Thank you.’
He wondered why fate had made him fall in love with two lawyers. Why not women who were a little less curious? A little more forgiving?
‘Then we’ll meet,’ she announced. ‘I’ll call you. I have to go now.’
She didn’t even ask if it was convenient for him. Rachele never changed.
‘Leo?’
He knew what she’d say. ‘Yes.’
‘This is professional. Nothing more. You do understand that?’
Leo Falcone understood, though it didn’t stop him hoping.
Costa crossed the busy road and headed for the Campo dei Fiori, reminding himself he used to live here and there were memories, important ones, pieces of his personality stamped on the place. He missed the Campo from time to time. He was an innocent when he lived here, young and unbruised by the world. There’d been fleeting relationships, brief flings which Gianni Peroni probably wouldn’t count as love affairs at all. There was the place too. The cobbled piazza was grubby at the best of times. The market attracted too many tourists. The prices were higher than elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was a genuine part of Rome, a living, human community that had never been dislodged from its natural home.
