The Fallen Angel

THREE

Around the time Costa and the girl were walking up the grand winding staircase of the Palazzo Barberini, Gianni Peroni was gazing mournfully at a more modest and grubby set of steps, those inside the grey shell of the building in the Via Beatrice Cenci, wondering how many more times he was going to have to climb them before the questions surrounding the death of Malise Gabriel were resolved. He and Falcone were in their fifties. They needed modern conveniences like lifts, particularly on a hot, airless Roman day.

‘You mean there’s no one else living here?’ Falcone asked as they began to march up the first set of stairs. Some floors were empty, stripped bare and midway through the process of renovation, full of timber, copper piping, sinks and WCs waiting to be installed.

‘Not a soul, apparently. The American architect who owns the place is trying to gut it and turn the place into some fancy-price apartment block.’

The woman had buzzed them in from the front door. He’d expected to hear the sound of construction: machines, men’s voices, hammers. It was silent behind the block’s thick grey walls.

Falcone shook his head.

‘A fancy apartment block here? It’s not exactly the Via Giulia, is it?’

The ghetto was an unfashionable part of the centre. The streets and alleys around the Piazza delle Cinque Scole were still modest in nature, with a busy and occasionally insular Jewish community. Outsiders, particularly foreign ones, would not be welcomed as warmly as they would elsewhere, in Trastevere or the busy expatriate streets around the Spanish Steps and the Piazza Navona, where the tourist dollar was the primary source of income. The ghetto lived to its own rhythm, a distinct and separate little community tucked into the heart of Rome, almost invisible behind the high walls of bleak, imposing palaces such as the one through which they now trudged.

‘I told you she was American,’ Peroni said. ‘Probably got sold a pup by some local property crook who knew a soft touch when he saw one. She was in quite a state.’ Almost as if she’d been bereaved herself, he thought. ‘Money problems. She as good as told us she was about to go bust. The Gabriels were paying a pittance to live here and now the widow says she’s going to sue over the accident. This whole place feels. .’ He hated instinct. But sometimes it was impossible to ignore. ‘. . bad.’

The tall, lean figure ahead kept on marching upwards. On the third floor Peroni was forced to halt for breath. Falcone folded his arms, waiting.

‘It’s a long way, Leo,’ Peroni grumbled. ‘We’re not young men any more. Also. .’ This had concerned him from the moment Falcone had outlined his thinking. ‘Why’s it just the two of us? Either this is a case or it isn’t, and if it is. .’

‘It isn’t a case. If it turns into one I’ll let you know.’

‘So we’re just snooping?’

Falcone smiled and tapped the side of his nose.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ He glanced up the stairs. ‘This whole business. . It doesn’t fit somehow, does it? Why would someone like Malise Gabriel, a man who once had a little fame and notoriety, wind up scratching a living in some oddball academy in Rome, without two cents to rub together?’

‘Because the notoriety beat the fame in the end? He was a troublesome bastard who kept on getting fired from every job he had,’ Peroni suggested.

‘Quite. And he had an eye for young girls.’

‘A long time ago. And only the one girl we know of. The woman he married and stuck with.’

‘What about the bookmark you found?’

‘It’s just an arty glamour picture. You can buy that kind of thing in a shop. We don’t know it’s the daughter. We don’t know anything.’

‘It wasn’t bought in a shop. It was printed at home. Forensic are taking a closer look. Now come on, old man.’

Three months separated them. That last comment seemed unnecessary. Determined to disprove the slight, Peroni did manage to keep up though, which was probably the point.

The door to the Gabriel apartment was open. Falcone stood there, a look of blank fury growing on his face. Peroni went ahead and walked through.

The entire floor seemed empty save for a single chair on which Joanne Van Doren sat, head down, fingers tapping at the keyboard of a tiny laptop computer. Every chair, every table, every book and personal effect, every last shred of possible evidence had disappeared. What had been the Gabriels’ home a few days before now resembled the gutted, empty spaces in the storeys below.

Peroni went over to the woman and, when she kept on typing, coughed loudly.

She looked up at him and said, ‘Yes?’

‘Where’s the bedroom?’ Falcone asked.

‘Which bedroom?’ Joanne Van Doren wondered, eyes wide open with apparent innocence.

They were still pink. Peroni thought she looked even more miserable than the day before. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

They walked into Mina’s room, the one at the corner, with the double French windows opening onto the shattered terrace. Everything was gone: the books, the shelves, the curtains, the compact desk and chair. The bed and all the sheets.

‘Is there a problem?’ she asked, joining them.

‘You didn’t mention you were going to clear the apartment,’ Peroni said, trying to quell his own anger.

‘You didn’t ask. Cecilia Gabriel’s taken what she wanted. This is the only part of the building with working heat, power and water. I can lease it. Maybe I can even sell it if I’m lucky. The bank keep saying they need money straight away.’

‘Signora,’ Falcone interrupted. ‘A man died here in the early hours of Saturday night. There’s an investigation into the circumstances.’

‘I told Di Lauro I was clearing the place. He didn’t say a thing.’

‘Di Lauro?’ Falcone asked.

‘The city building inspector,’ Peroni murmured.

‘A building inspector?’ Falcone looked livid. ‘We’re police officers.’

The skinny American looked close to the edge, ready to burst into tears.

‘Will you get off my back!’ she screeched. ‘The only people who stuck around here yesterday were Di Lauro’s. I told them what I was doing. They didn’t look interested. Why should they be? The accident happened outside. I haven’t touched anything there.’

The inspector glanced unpleasantly at Peroni.

‘Get onto the Questura. Get a warrant for this place. All of it. I want a court order barring any further construction work anywhere in this entire block until I say so. Nor do I want anyone allowed in.’

‘You can’t do that!’ she shrieked. ‘I have a buyer coming.’

His sharp eyes scanned the bedroom.

‘Your buyer can wait. The things from here. Where are they now? With the Gabriels?’

‘Some of them. What they wanted. Cecilia’s still got a key. I told her to come in last night when we were gone and take whatever she liked before the men dumped it. Probably best we didn’t meet, what with everything. Look, seriously. You can’t. .’

Peroni found this interesting.

‘You paid people to clear this building on a Sunday evening? Isn’t that expensive? Why not wait until today?’

Her pale face coloured for a moment.

‘This is my place. For now, anyway. I can do what I want. Please. I might have someone coming round who’s going to buy.’

‘The bedclothes?’ Falcone said. ‘The furniture? The personal items? Cecilia Gabriel has them now?’

‘Some, I guess. I told you. I wasn’t here when she came round. She took what she wanted and the workmen got the rest.’

‘Where did they take it?’

‘Wherever trash goes in this city. You tell me.’

Falcone demanded the name and phone number of the contractors and told Peroni to get someone to try to track down the material.

‘Talk to forensic and get a team in here to see if there’s anything they can find in this mess. We can go and see the Gabriel woman ourselves.’

‘What?’ the American barked. ‘Did you hear a word I said? I’m desperate.’

‘Why did you let the Gabriels stay here for next to nothing?’ Peroni asked, trying to bring the temperature down a little. ‘I don’t understand. You could have got someone in paying a proper rent, couldn’t you?’

‘With all this construction work going on?’

‘It’s going on now and you think you can sell it.’

The question discomfited her.

‘It was a favour. OK? Bernard Santacroce, Malise’s boss, asked me. They’d lodged with him at the Casina when they first came here. It didn’t work out. Bernard and Malise were. . on opposite sides of some philosophical fence I didn’t begin to understand.’

Falcone was interested.

‘Why should you do this Santacroce a favour?’

‘Because. .’

‘Because what?’

She placed her thin hands together and pleaded with him, ‘Why are you doing this to me? I need the money.’

Falcone scanned the room.

‘I’m not happy with Malise Gabriel’s death, Signora. You’ve removed what may be material evidence from these premises in circumstances I still do not understand. As long as I remain unhappy I will keep the keys to this building. Why did you do these people a favour?’

She looked angry. And worried too, Peroni thought. Close to the edge. Falcone could have tackled this with a little less aggression, even if it wasn’t his usual style.

‘Because I felt sorry for them! OK?’ The blood had drained from her face. ‘I felt sorry for Mina most of all. It wasn’t her fault her father couldn’t walk down the street without picking a fight with someone. They were all going nuts in that crazy little place of Bernard’s. They had to leave.’ She got a little closer. ‘Look. I’m sorry if I’ve done something wrong here. I didn’t mean to. I can help you out. Tell me what you want. It can be fixed. But I’ve got to let these people in to view. If I don’t. .’

Falcone dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

‘I want this entire apartment closed except to my people and a forensic team until further notice. No one is coming in without my permission. Including you.’

‘Are you trying to bankrupt me?’

He wasn’t interested.

‘You may stay here until the forensic team arrive. After that you’ll have to leave. We will tell you when we’re finished.’

‘This is going to a lawyer right now,’ she said and stormed off.

Falcone walked over to the window and looked at the broken scaffolding. Then he leaned out and peered down to the street below. Peroni joined him. The Via Beatrice Cenci was open again now. This part of Rome looked the way it usually did, quiet, residential, a little run-down.

‘Why would she clear this place so quickly?’ the inspector asked. ‘On a Sunday night? Without giving you a clue it was on the cards when you came here yesterday afternoon?’

‘It’s annoying. I wouldn’t read into it any more than that. Go easy on that woman, will you? She looks in a bad way. Worse than yesterday I think.’

Falcone raised his eyebrows and said nothing.

‘OK,’ Peroni sighed, thinking about it. ‘I agree. Something here stinks. I’ll get Teresa’s people in straight away and see if they can find something in all this muck and dust. One of the juniors can start hunting the dumps to see where all that stuff has gone. That may not be easy. If they’ve used some illegal site. .’

Falcone closed his eyes for a moment and muttered, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t come round myself.’

‘Don’t blame yourself, sir,’ Peroni said and didn’t regret the note of acid in his voice. He wasn’t taking the blame. They had all thought this was the accident it appeared.

‘I want to see Cecilia Gabriel,’ Falcone said, barely noticing. ‘And this girl, Mina. I want that brother found too.’

‘Narcotics are looking.’

Peroni thought of the way Nic had talked about the daughter, about how bright and sincere she was, and the pain he’d seen on her pretty young face. He wondered how Nic would feel when he realized it was his insistence on examining events more closely that would bring Mina Gabriel into a police interview room before long.

‘We’ve got a case, haven’t we?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

Falcone moved his foot through the grime and rubble on the floorboards. Joanne Van Doren’s voice was rising to a scream in the big room beyond. Some Roman lawyer was beginning to feel her anger. It sounded as if the man wasn’t giving her the news she wanted.

The inspector’s mournful grey eyes scanned the bare room, and the larger space outside, then came to rest on Peroni.

‘I honestly don’t know. I hate this sort of thing. It’s starting to feel grubby already. I wish Nic were on duty. Perhaps if I-’

‘He needs a break,’ Peroni cut in. ‘He needs to learn there’s more to life than work. There’s Agata too. We agreed on this, Leo. Remember?’

‘I remember,’ Falcone muttered and threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender.