The Rome Prophecy

64

Guilio Brygus Angelis is brought into the interview room with handcuffs around his wrists and chains around his ankles.

Federico Assante introduces himself, sets a voice recorder whirring, reads him his rights and sits back without saying anything.

He wants to take stock.

This is an unusual case, with unusual victims. Now he’s face to face with an unusual suspect.

Angelis looks slender and harmless.

Certainly no giant.

At a guess, he weighs in at less than eleven stone. That said, he’s not carrying any body fat, and his arms are rippling with sinewy muscles. He certainly keeps himself fit; no doubt with some form of fight training. Federico wonders if there’s even a special martial art for eunuchs, like there is for Shaolin monks.

He studies the guy’s face.

No eyebrows.

Amazing how one missing feature messes up your whole appearance.

No beard line either. It gives him a strange softness that male models have. Metrosexuality.

The goon has the skin of a ten-year-old boy. Federico runs fingers over his own stubbly beard. It would be great not to shave again.

But not at the price of having your nuts cut off.

Then there are his eyes.

Federico has seen eyes like that before.

Many times before.

Savage eyes.

Criminal eyes.

Eyes that don’t blink when a fight’s about to break out. Eyes that don’t look away when there’s blood spilling and knives flashing under the street lights.

Now Federico’s got the measure of him.

He’s ready to start the interview.

‘So, Guilio, do you feel like talking to us today? Or do we just send your silent ass for trial on charges of breaking and entering, assault and maybe even the attempted murder of Anna Fratelli?’

Angelis is using his index finger to doodle in the dust on top of the interview table.

He finishes a line, lifts his eyes and lets a cold stare settle on the detective’s face.

Smug bastard.

A hard-working cop, but not that bright.

The fool thinks he’s much cleverer than he really is.

Thinks he knows what’s going on, but he doesn’t have a clue. He certainly has no idea about how wrong he’s got it. Okay, he’s smart enough and energetic enough to take some prints and use them to pull a rap sheet.

Big deal.

Sooner or later that was always going to happen.

And by now he’s probably also traced his home address and got some other fools to pull the place apart.

No matter.

They won’t find anything. Certainly nothing that will make any sense to them.

But they know about Anna.

And that’s a shame.

Anna should be invisible.

She shouldn’t be seen by jerks like the one sitting opposite him, or that woman detective and her big thug.

It would have been good to have spent more time with them.

To have dealt with them properly.

‘What’s it to be, Guilio? We talk, maybe try to work in some mitigation to the charges, or you go straight to court and look forward to an eternity of being ass-fucked in prison?’

Angelis lets a smug smile spread across his face. ‘I’d like a lawyer. Get me a brief within the hour and maybe I’ll be good to you when I file my own charges.’

Federico laughs. ‘Of what?’

He leans back and crosses his arms. ‘False arrest. Assault. Defamation of character.’

‘That’s funny. Ha ha. We caught you right in the middle of the apartment, Guilio. Hiding in the damned dark.’

His arms stay crossed and his eyes remain fixed on the lieutenant’s face.

Federico gets a bad feeling.

‘Have you asked Anna about me?’ Angelis pauses and reads the detective’s face. ‘I thought not. When you do, you’ll find out why I was there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She wanted me there. She asked me to be there.’ He uncrosses his arms and leans across the table. ‘I was protecting her, you idiot. Not attacking her.’