The Fallen Angel

TEN

It was like opening the floodgates on a dam that had been waiting to burst. When Mina Gabriel began to speak it seemed she couldn’t stop. They sat and listened. Not making notes. It seemed unnecessary. Impertinent.

‘I told you. I’m not bad,’ the girl said. ‘Robert wasn’t either. He just wanted money. We all did. Bernard had so much. He seemed so generous.’

‘When did you know he was your uncle?’ Costa asked.

‘The first time it happened,’ she said straight away. ‘It was his way of introducing the idea I suppose. His way of telling me how. . why he wanted to. .’ Her voice changed, became sarcastic. ‘. . help. I knew about Robert and the drugs. I never understood that, not till then. Bernard’s generosity always came with a price. For Robert it was doing what he did down the Campo. Bernard said he had all the money in the world. Daddy could have as much as he needed so long as we offered a little something in return.’

She stared at Grimaldi and Falcone, both of them rapt, silent, horrified.

‘Love, he called it. Love. That’s what families are about, isn’t it? For some reason, he and Daddy. . it had never happened. So the rest of us made amends.’

Costa had fetched her a glass of water. She took a sip before continuing.

‘It was supposed to be a game at first.’ She shrugged. ‘A touch. A silly little thing, nothing really. Horseplay. That didn’t last long.’

Her eyes went to the window and the palm trees swaying idly outside.

‘One day he took me to that room in the basement in Joanne’s place and I realized it wasn’t a game at all. He said he went there with Joanne too. That way he could keep helping her with all the debts on the building.’

She continued to stare at the bright blue day outside, as if she didn’t want to see them as she said this.

‘Then he told me.’ She turned abruptly and looked at her mother. There was the briefest of smiles. ‘That I wasn’t the only one in the family. It wasn’t just Joanne and me.’

‘Oh God, Mina,’ Cecilia Gabriel gasped.

‘What was I supposed to tell you?’ Mina asked. ‘That I knew he was making you have sex with him? Just because he could?’

‘You could have said!’

‘No,’ she said simply. ‘I couldn’t. Any more than you.’

She turned to Costa, steeling herself as if this was meant to be matter-of-fact.

‘Daddy didn’t know until the end. I wasn’t enough for Bernard, you see. Nothing ever was. He hated Daddy. Wanted to grind him into the dust, make him crawl, make him miserable. A worm, he said. That’s what your father is. Bernard would tell me all the things he made Daddy do.’ Her mouth fell into a bitter, hard line. ‘Things with Joanne. Cruel, hurtful things. It was either that or he lost his job, what money we had. Everything.’ The briefest of sighs, a shake of her head. ‘I don’t know why he despised him so much. His own brother. He said it was like that from the beginning. From when they were little. Daddy was always the brighter one, the charming one, the child everyone loved most. Then when he had a little fame and notoriety for a while. .’

She took a deep breath and the expression in her eyes was that of the girl in the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, exactly.

‘That was years ago but Bernard still loathed him for it. This. .’ She looked around the room. ‘. . was his revenge. Daddy dying. Penniless. Every day becoming more dependent on Bernard’s charity, if you could call it that.’

Costa nodded and asked, ‘And he told your father?’

‘That was Bernard’s final trick. He came straight out with it one day.’ She glanced at the ceiling above them. ‘In here. When Daddy pointed out some ridiculous error in that stupid paper. Bernard thought it was. . funny. One more way of adding to his big brother’s misery. “Listen, Malise. I’m screwing your wife. I’m screwing your daughter. And what can you do about it? Nothing, because you’re a sick old man and soon you’ll be dead. Can you guess what’s going to happen then?”’

She glanced at her mother and said, softly, ‘I’m sorry. Honestly.’

Cecilia Gabriel got up and stood at the window behind, a tall, thin figure staring out at the grounds.

Mina waited for an answer. When it didn’t come she turned back to Costa.

‘The evening before he died Daddy came to me and said he’d had enough. He said he’d told Bernard he would go to the police if it didn’t stop immediately. I thought. . I assumed that’s what would happen. That night, while I was practising, I heard the two of them. Arguing.’ Her eyes wandered. ‘Bernard came to the building during the day. Joanne said he’d been on the roof for some reason. It puzzled her. I thought the two of them were just having a row. And then. .’

Her lips trembled, she began to stutter, to struggle with the words.

‘It all got louder. Shouting. Screaming. Something like bricks falling, I don’t know. Bernard came to me in the music room. He said there’d been an accident. Daddy had fallen out of the window. I had to keep quiet, tell no one what had been going on. Because if I did it would be bad for all of us. We’d be the ones who’d get the blame. It would be like Beatrice Cenci all over again. We’d never escape, never be a family again. Never recover. It could kill us.’

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

‘He told the truth there, didn’t he? I think. .’

The girl fell silent, unable to go on.

‘He was determined to make sure the blame would come your way,’ Costa said. ‘The photographs. The way they were carefully doctored. The so-called evidence.’

He found himself looking at Falcone. The man looked horrified, perhaps as much by the gullibility they’d all shown in this case as anything.

Then something came back. The old Falcone perhaps. He got up and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mina. We all owe you an apology. This man, Santacroce. Gabriel. Whatever his name is. I don’t want. .’

‘I’ve got men on the gate,’ Costa cut in. ‘If he’s here, he won’t be leaving.’

Falcone had stopped and was staring at the palm trees outside. Cecilia Gabriel was no longer at the window. She seemed to have slipped out of the room, unseen, unheard, while they were engrossed in the final details of Mina’s story.

Costa walked to the window.

He could see her in the garden, striding back towards the palazzetto where Santacroce kept his private apartment. Something silver glittered in her hand.