The Fallen Angel

EIGHT

The Turk didn’t look too good. His hooded eyes were wide open, his brown, stubbly face taut with fear. There were sweat stains beneath the arms of his linen suit and he was shaking like a sick man.

Cakici opened his mouth and began to scream a loud and wordless plea for help. Peroni batted him once with a big fist, knocked him clean off the chair and spoke a few short, serious words. The Turk’s noise dwindled to a whimper.

Costa pulled out the Beretta’s magazine, shook it: empty. He looked at the gun, scratched his head and said, ‘What happened? Did I forget to load it after the last guy we shot?’

‘I think that may be the case, sir,’ Peroni said, and plonked Cakici back in his seat.

The big man was enjoying this little game, which was going exactly as they’d planned.

Peroni patted his own pockets.

‘I didn’t bring a gun. Sorry. You got some shells of your own?’

‘No.’

Cakici started to scream again. Just the threat of Peroni’s fist stopped that.

‘This is all your fault!’ Costa yelled at him. ‘I haven’t slept a wink since you wasted Riggi and that English kid on Tuesday night.’

‘For God’s sake will you listen? It wasn’t me!’

The two cops glanced at each other and shrugged. Then they looked at Bedir Cakici and Costa said, ‘Haven’t you grasped this yet? We’re not here to decide whether you go to jail. We’re here to decide if you live or not.’

‘I didn’t kill him!’

Costa shook his head and muttered something about going out to the car.

‘I didn’t. .’

‘Sir,’ Peroni said. ‘He seems. . sincere, if I might say so.’

‘Really.’ Costa folded his arms. ‘Then who did kill him?’

‘I dunno.’

‘The car,’ he said, getting up.

‘No, no.’ The Turk looked ready to burst into tears. ‘Maybe I can help.’

‘Maybe?’ Peroni wondered.

‘Really. I can. It’s just. .’

They waited.

‘I don’t know names.’

Costa checked his watch ostentatiously. And Cakici began to talk.

It was an interesting story, and it made sense in some crazy fashion. At the end, when Cakici appeared finished, Peroni reached out and placed his gigantic arm around the cowering prisoner.

‘Let me make sure I understand this properly,’ he said. ‘You’re saying you weren’t the only one shipping dope to all those foreign teenagers hanging round the Campo of an evening, thinking how wonderful it is to be free of their parents finally, and somewhere cool too?’

‘You mean he didn’t tell you?’ Cakici asked.

‘If he’d told us. .’ Peroni began.

‘Sure, sure. Sorry. Hear me out. These last few months there’s been dope turning up in places where I never had anyone. Colleges. Cafes. Language schools. Lots of it. Big money. I’m not so stupid I’d go there. You work the bars. That way it’s all within the boundaries. You don’t start handing out pills in public, just to anyone. What’s the point? Asking for trouble. Gino knew that. He was the one who kept ringing me, asking what was going on. Like I knew.’

Costa asked, ‘There was another supplier?’

‘That’s what I’m saying. And I got to thinking that Gino was locking lips with him too. All the gear was turning up in the places his people went. It made sense. Pretty soon we were going to have to talk.’

‘Turkish?’

‘Italian!’ Cakici insisted. ‘Gino told me he didn’t know the name. But it wasn’t one of ours. The kid told him about it.’

‘The kid?’

‘The English kid. The one who got killed.’ The Turk was getting a little braver. Peroni removed his arm. ‘He was taking us all for a ride, if you ask me. Working both sides. Not a team player. Here’s something else too.’ Cakici leaned forward. ‘The kid came to us. To us.’

He shook his head as if still unable to believe it.

‘You know how we recruit these morons? Feed ’em a little dope. Wait till they owe enough money. Turn ’em round, send ’em back on the streets selling the junk. Pretty soon you’ve got an army of them. They make a little dough and steal what they want on the side. That’s fine. We take the big margin. It’s been like that for years. The system works. Why screw with it?’

‘You’re saying Robert Gabriel recruited Riggi in the first place?’ Costa asked.

‘That’s what Gino said it felt like. He loved money, that kid. That was all it was about. Gino said he never even saw him using stuff. Always straight. Didn’t even drink much. Got into a little trouble now and again. Arguments in bars. That goes with the turf. But he wasn’t like the rest. Not at all.’

Cakici leaned forward. His cuffs rattled as he pointed a finger at Costa.

‘You want to know who killed Gino Riggi and that English kid? Find this Italian guy. You do that and I’ll take care of him. That’s a promise. No footprints home. Guaranteed.’

The two cops exchanged glances.

‘You’ve nothing to worry about from my end,’ the Turk insisted. ‘Not a thing. I won’t say a word. They won’t pin Gino and the kid on me either. I got an alibi. A genuine one. My auntie was over from Istanbul. I was with her. My auntie.’

‘Then why in God’s name did you run?’ Costa asked.

Cakici shrugged.

‘I didn’t like the feel of what was going on here. Gino called me on Tuesday. He was getting jumpy. About things. About the English kid. All this publicity. That kid murdering his old man. Something about his family. Gino had good instincts. If he felt this was all about to go bad, it probably was. Time to take a holiday back home and see what happens.’

He held out his hands and smiled.

‘Now. Let me out of these then put me in a car back to the city with a couple of dummies. I can call someone. They can get me loose. You get me the name of that Italian, I’ll deal with it. Then we’re back in business. Whatever Gino passed on to you, I’ll double it. You’re the kind of guys I can work with.’ He smiled and held out a hand. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think one way or another you’re going to jail,’ Costa said and they left the room.

The immigration officer was outside on a stool, with a bottle of San Pellegrino and a sandwich.

‘Some interesting noises in there,’ he said.

‘We had a frank exchange of views,’ Peroni told him.

‘When do you want to send a van?’ he asked.

‘We don’t,’ Costa said. ‘His auntie says he’s innocent. Bust him for the passport. We’ve got nothing else.’

The immigration man’s eyebrows lifted in an expression of surprise.

‘All that shouting and screaming? And you got nothing?’

‘You heard,’ Costa murmured, wondering what was happening back in the Questura, wishing he could have been there instead.