David Hewson (16 page)

"Come
on," Rajacic wheedled. "They don't all stay in hostels. They
don't all have pimps looking after them. What if she's on her own?
Where'd she go? What kind of choices have these kids got?"

"Not
many," she murmured, thinking all the same. "What's in this
for me?"

Rajacic
leaned over, prodded her in the arm, hard. At that instant he looked the pimp
he was.

"You
make an old man very happy," he murmured. "Now get out of here. Before
I think of something else."

THEY'D
BORROWED A JEEP from traffic. Costa sat behind the wheel, feeling out of
practice, unused to the four-wheel drive which was the only way the treacherous
roads were manageable at speed. Most of the narrow through routes in the centro
storico had been closed. What little movement there was now funnelled down the
main thoroughfares and the broad avenues which ran either side of the river. Alexa
knew where to go. They'd checked out a series of sites--a derelict
building north of the Pantheon, a squat in Testaccio, a grimy, freezing hostel
in San Giovanni--and got the same result in each one, trying to talk to a
bunch of surly adolescents shivering in cheap black clothes that couldn't
keep out the cold. They'd look at the girl's picture and shake
their heads. Then Alexa would yell at them in their own language, and still
they'd say nothing.

Now
the four of them were driving along the Lungotevere on the Trastevere side of
the river, slowly checking the huddled bunches of people sheltering by the
Tiber. The sluggish current was out of sight from the road here. The flat,
broad shelf by its banks, reached by steps from street level, was a popular
shelter for the homeless.

Alexa
was in the front passenger seat blowing cigarette smoke out of the crack
she'd opened the window, not minding the freezing air it brought into the
car, looking for where she wanted them to stop. The atmosphere in the car was
bad. They all sensed failure.

"These
kids won't talk to cops," she said. "Why should they?"

"Because
this girl needs our help," Emily muttered icily.

Alexa
shook her head. "They don't know that. They don't believe a
word you say. They think cops spell trouble. With good reason."

"What
do you suggest?" Costa asked.

"Leave
it to me. Stay out of the way. I'll tell them you're family, looking
for her. You got any money?"

Peroni
reached over from the backseat and handed her some notes. She looked at them
and whistled. "Wow. You could buy a couple of tricks for that. Supply and
demand. Lots of the former, none of the latter."

"We
need to find this kid," Peroni insisted.

She
stuffed the cash into the pocket of her bright red nylon anorak and pointed
across the river. "There. I know a couple of places. Besides, thinking
about it, the wind's coming from the wrong direction for this side. These
kids are destitute. They're not stupid. Not most of them anyway."

The
jeep moved into the right-hand lane and waited at the traffic lights at the
next bridge.

"You're
not his niece," Emily stated with some certainty.

The
woman turned and stared at her. "Says who?"

"I
just thought... It was a turn of speech."

"You
mean like "sex worker"?"

"N-n-o,"
she stuttered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend
you."

"I'm
his niece. My mother is Stefan's sister. My old man was a gypsy who
climbed in the window one night." She paused for effect. "
That
was a turn of speech. They got married. Eventually. Then..."

The
jeep moved forward onto the bridge. Alexa looked down towards the river. "Then
things fell apart. Not just personal things, you understand. Life. The country.
Everything. Pull in somewhere. I can see lights down there."

Costa
parked the vehicle on the deserted pavement. They got out of the car and stood
in the snow, shivering. The night was bitterly cold, with a stiff wind whipping
through the open channel cut through the city by the Tiber. They were close
enough now to see the black, silky surface of the river and a silver moon
reflecting back at them, a perfect shining circle. It was dark down there, but
there were people around, huddled in the shelter beneath the bridge. Costa
could see the tiny firefly embers of cigarettes and smell the bitter smoke of a
makeshift brazier.

"Stay
here," Alexa said, "until I call."

She
hesitated before heading for the steps. "There's something you
ought to know. Stefan is my uncle. When we lost the farm--his farm, our
farm, everyone's--I just ran away here. I thought I could make
everything right. I thought the streets were paved with gold. You know the
funny thing?"

She
stared at them, with those black, gypsy eyes, and didn't bother to hide
her bitterness.

"Compared
to what it's like back home now, they are. I sometimes have to remind
myself of that when I've got some fat businessman wheezing into my face
wondering if he's ever going to get there. I came here... and did
what was easy. Stefan used what little money he had to find me, to try to get
me to go back. We argued. I won. Which is as it should be because, in the
circumstances, I was right. If you've got to have a pimp, best it's
your uncle. Best it's an honest man, and Stefan is. Ask any of his
girls."

Emily
looked her in the face and said quietly, "I'm sorry."

The
three of them waited while Alexa walked down the steps shuffling their feet in
the snow in a vain effort to keep warm. The night had the crisp, biting smell
of a hard winter, one that wanted to hang around. The snow would surely resume
soon. Peroni glanced down at the sound of voices below.

"What
do we do when this doesn't work?" he asked.

"Keep
looking," Costa replied, "until she runs out of places." He
turned to Emily Deacon. "You don't need to stick with us.
We're on night duty anyway. You're not."

"I'm
fine," she answered.

"You
could--"

"I'm
fine."

Peroni
caught Costa's eye and shrugged. "How many people has Leapman got
working for him here?" he asked.

She
scowled. "I don't know."

"Two?
Three? Fifty?" Peroni insisted.

She
hugged herself tight inside her jacket. "Listen, until a couple of months
ago I was a lowly intelligence officer working nine to five in a systems office
in Washington. Then I got plucked out to come here. Why? Maybe because I know
Rome. Or I speak good Italian. Maybe Leapman thinks I'm owed it because
of my dad. But believe me when I say this.
I do not know
. He
doesn't tell me. He doesn't listen to a damn word I say. As far as
he's concerned we're just chasing some lunatic serial killer with a
lot of air miles."

"Maybe
we are," Peroni wondered.

"No!"
she insisted angrily. "There's a logic here. A crazy, distorted
logic but it's rational somehow too. We just have to see it."

"I
agree," Costa said, and wondered how much that was worth. Leapman's
focus might be awry but the American had a point. They all knew the way these
cases went. Intelligence, forensics, careful investigation... all of these
things were important. But the final act of closure usually came by accident. A
mistake, a chance encounter. The killer was active. With activity came risks. The
point was to have people there, on the ground, when he slipped up. Falcone knew
that as well as anyone. Both he and Leapman would surely have men on the street
steadily building up a picture of the man from what little information they
had, hoping that one day soon they would turn a corner and find him staring
into their faces.

The
reason they were chasing the girl was to save her and not, in all honesty,
because they thought she'd lead them to his lair.

The
voices from under the bridge began to grow in volume. They were heated, too,
and it wasn't just Alexa shouting. Costa cast Peroni a concerned glance.
They'd let the woman walk straight into the unknown, assuming she could
handle herself. Then, to Costa's relief, they heard careful footsteps on
the snow-covered stone steps. Alexa reappeared. She looked puzzled, a little
scared maybe.

"We
were getting worried," Peroni said. "They didn't sound too
friendly down there."

"They're
just doped up to hell, most of them. I've got a name for you. Laila.
Kurdish. She was here tonight, apparently. They don't know where
she's gone. Or so they say."

"And?"
Costa pressed.

"I
don't know," she answered hesitantly. "They just took the
money and came up with the story. It could be complete bullshit. Tell me, are
you the only people looking for her?"

"As
far as we know."

"It's
just that someone else has been asking. He didn't have a picture, but he
knew what she looked like."

"What
did he say?" Costa demanded.

"He
was a priest. He said she'd been staying at the hostel where he worked. There'd
been an argument. He wanted to patch it up. Except..." She looked
down at the faces by the river, from where some angry rumbles were coming. "This
girl. Laila. They say she doesn't stay in hostels much. She's a
street kid, likes to be on her own. Kind of weird. Not dope. Just funny in the
head. If they're telling the truth, this man's lying."

"To
hell with this," Peroni grunted, heading for the steps. "We've
got to talk to them."

Alexa
put a hand on his jacket. "Be careful. There are some real assholes down
there."

"Yeah,
right," Peroni grumbled, and brushed past her.

He
was there so quickly that Costa and the two women missed what he said. Then
Costa found himself remembering why he stuck with Peroni as a partner, why he
never even thought of moving somewhere else. Peroni was speaking to a huddle of
kids, perhaps fifteen of them, peering out of the darkness, young faces full of
fear and resentment lit by a stinking brazier burning cardboard and damp wood. They
knew they were talking to cops. They were waiting for all the trouble that
meant. And Gianni Peroni was speaking to them in exactly the opposite way to
the manner they expected: carefully, with conviction, and a quiet, forceful
respect.

"You
have to believe me," he was saying. "We know you want to protect
this girl. We understand why you don't want to help the likes of us. But
she's in trouble. We
have
to find her."

Alexa
barked something incomprehensible and pulled out some more of Peroni's
money. The gang of youths stood there, immobile, but restless too. Finally a
skeletal kid as tall as Costa came out of the darkness and took the money.

"I
show you," he said, pointing upriver, towards the Vatican. "You
come with me. Over there. Now. You come. You come."

He
was dragging Peroni's sleeve. It was all a game, Costa thought. Just a
runaround for a few euros. He watched Peroni start to shuffle off, wondering at
what stage they had to admit defeat. Then a sound made him turn his head. The
huddle of bodies in the shadow of the bridge had changed. They were moving,
making space for someone. Emily Deacon was walking straight into the middle of
them, talking, in an accent which through fear betrayed her origins, asking,
asking.

Seeing
something too. A slim slight figure hiding at the back.

"Laila,"
she yelled. "Laila!"

Somebody
murmured, "
Amerikane
..."

They
were crowding round the FBI agent, pushing, hustling. Alexa was nowhere to be
seen.

"Gianni!"
Costa yelled, then saw something metallic flash in the light of the brazier.

Emily
saw it too. She dodged the halfhearted lunge with the knife and kicked the
youth behind it hard in the crotch. He went down, screaming, but there were a dozen
more of them now, crowding round her, starting to yell.

And
the slight figure was moving too. Edging out at the back, seizing her
opportunity.

Costa
swiftly thought about the options, came to the conclusion there was just one. He
fired off two shots into the empty sky, watching carefully to see that they
understood what the deadly racket meant for them.

The
girl was breaking into a sprint, moving quickly towards the next set of steps. She
was on her own now, clear in a retreating sea of dark, furious bodies.

"Oh
great," Emily Deacon barked at him. "And I thought we were the ones
who were supposed to be gun-happy?"

"Just
making sure I take you back to Mr. Leapman in one piece like he asked,"
Costa said. "How good are you at running?"

"Damn
good," she replied.

He
nodded at the bridge. "Take these steps. See where she goes when she
emerges. I'll go after her. Gianni, you stay with Emily."

Peroni
was heading for the stone stairway already.

A
good twenty metres ahead of him, Nic Costa saw the girl tumble, slipping on the
slushy pathway, then scramble up and continue to flee. He took a deep breath,
broke out from under the bridge and set off in her tracks.