The Faces of Angels (62 page)

‘You told me,' Beretti's saying. ‘I tailed you as far as Signora Lucchese's. I was waiting to pick you up as you came out, then we got a signal from the cell you were carrying. You left it on long enough so we could triangulate it.' Of course. I turned it on when I tried to hand it to Isabella, and never turned it off. ‘When we saw that the signal came from here, and not Signora Lucchese's, we put two and two together.'

‘I'm glad you came up with four.'

Beretti shrugs. ‘I got here first, that's all. The rest of the cavalry took a little longer.'

‘But you'd been following me before. For weeks.'

He inclines his head. ‘I prefer to think of it as being—what did you say? Angel? You've had a few guardian angels, actually. We usually work in teams.'

I think about this for a second. ‘The electricity van?'

He laughs, and I don't need more of an answer. Then he says, ‘I'm sorry if I frightened you. You weren't supposed to notice me quite as much as you did. My fault.'

‘No.' I shake my head. ‘No, you couldn't know. You—' I shrug, wondering how I can possibly explain. Finally I just settle for: ‘You look a lot like someone I used to know.'

‘Well,' Lorenzo Beretti says, ‘I hope he was nice. The someone you used to know.'

‘Yeah. He was.' Lorenzo smiles at me and turns away.

Pallioti's standing in the gallery. I don't know how long he's been there, but he snaps his cell phone closed. Without being aware of it, I stand up. Something's going on. There's a palpable buzz in the hall below.

‘Signora.' Pallioti takes my arm. ‘I'm sorry,' he says, ‘but I'm going to have to ask you to come with me.'

He hustles me down the stairway, through the crowd, and out into the night. Vans, police cars, unmarked cars and another ambulance are pulled up on the gravel in front of the villa. People turn, looking at us as we hurry by, but when I ask Pallioti again what's going on all he will do is shake his head and say, ‘I am afraid we have a situation.'

Pierangelo, I think. I stop, feeling like Niobe, turned to stone. But Pallioti takes my arm again. He's putting me into the back seat of a car.

‘Please,' he says. ‘I'll explain on the way. We have to hurry.'

He gets in the other side, and his driver spins us round and down the drive. The carnival-like lights that wash the House of the Birds recede, and soon all I can see is Pallioti's profile against the window as Viale Galileo flies past. We dive through Porta Romana, the driver switches the siren on, making people part, cars move over, and Pallioti turns to me.

‘We were following him,' he says. ‘Our most important goal was Signora Sassinelli's life, so we hoped he'd lead us to her. You got there about the same time. Beretti was going to let him get inside and trap him, separate him from his car. But the dog startled him.' Pallioti's face goes still. He looks out of the window past me, as if he's seeing something on the street. ‘Beretti got off a couple of shots. We found the car.'

‘Is he dead?' My head feels hollow, like an echo chamber. The words ring back and forth, but Pallioti doesn't seem to hear them.

‘He must have known the game was over,' Pallioti says softly. ‘Maybe Babinellio was right, and he wants it to be finished. Anyways, we have him.'

‘You have him?'

Pallioti nods. ‘But he wants to talk to you.'

I stare at him, my tongue as thick and dry as cotton wool. ‘You don't have to do anything you don't want to, signora,' Pallioti says. ‘But I promised the cardinal I would try.'

‘The cardinal?'

Pallioti nods. ‘The cardinal has been following this case closely,' he says. ‘He's been very distressed by it.'

The car swings sideways, jumps over a kerb, and as I look out of the window, I realize we've turned up past the Uffizi, and are nosing our way into the Piazza della Signoria. Ahead of us, the Palazzo Vecchio is bathed in floodlights. Neptune and David are bright, icy white. Banners fly off the battlements, but no one is sitting at the cafés or buying ice cream. The carriages are gone. There are police cars, and a crowd mills around looking up towards the high-arched windows on the upper floors of the palazzo. We stop, and Pallioti gets out and opens the door for me.

‘Please,' he says. ‘He's waiting for you.'

He escorts me past barriers that have been thrown up around the building, and through the courtyard tourists usually come out of, past frescoes and under the little arches where the fountain plays. A
carabiniere
officer pulls aside a red velvet rope, and Pallioti leads me up the stairs, going faster and faster until finally I take two at a time to keep up with him. Even if I wanted to think, I don't know if I could. My brain's closed down, and I see myself from far away, running after Pallioti like a wind-up toy, following him through room after room of the Palazzo Vecchio, as if we're working our way to the centre of a maze.

Pallioti leads me through the Queen's apartments, past the entrance to the loggia, through the chapel. People are standing in clumps, whispering. Finally doors swing open, and we come into the anteroom of the Sala dei Gigli.

A knot of men in dark suits stands by the door. One of them is Cardinal D'Erreti.

He's forsaken his crimson, and is wearing just a suit and dog collar, like he was the last time I saw him, at the restaurant in Santa Croce. This time, though, he doesn't bless me. Instead, he takes both my hands in his.

‘Signora,' he says, ‘thank you. I know how difficult this is for you, but you must remember that every human life, every soul, is God's, and precious. You are the only person he has asked for.'

The cardinal looks at Pallioti, and the doors to the room of the lilies swing open.

The windows are big, and arched, and very high off the floor, the sills themselves shoulder height, as if it's a room made for giants. Iron grilles run halfway up the glass, so getting up there can't have been easy. The building's open late for civic work. He must have got in and run up here before anyone realized what he was doing, then grabbed the chair he's kicked away, and climbed up to where he's perched now—balancing on the railing, and holding on to the moulding to keep himself from falling two storeys to the piazza below.

Behind him, lit up like a postcard, I can see the dome of the cathedral, and it occurs to me that's probably why he chose this window. I wonder how long he's had it in mind for. He must have bought a ticket like the rest of the world, walked through here with tourists, stood and pretended to admire the Gozzoli frescoes, while really he judged the height, noticed the guards, the chairs, figured how fast he would have to be to grab one before he could be stopped. Babinellio said he was an excellent planner. But this must be at least a change of schedule. Surely he planned to clean up Eden completely, use all four of the red bags before this.

He's pale. There are bright patches on his cheeks, and his lips look red too, as if he's wearing lipstick, maybe one of mine. A breeze blows in from the river and I catch the distinct, familiar perfume of acacia.

‘Please—' I don't even know who I'm talking to, or what I'm asking for. Apart from not to be here. Not to have this happening.

The cardinal squeezes my shoulder. ‘Every life is sacred, Maria,' he whispers. And I want to say:
He didn't think that.
He didn't think that when he killed my husband, and Eleanora. When he plucked Isabella's sister out of the dark and dressed her up like a doll, or flayed the skin off Ginevra Montelleone and took Carlo Fusarno's mother away from him for ever. Did he think life was sacred then? Did he ever care? But I know the answer. No. No, he didn't. He didn't give a damn about their lives. He was way too busy saving their souls.

Marcello sways like a branch hit by a breeze, and everyone in the room gasps.

His eyes are fixed on me, and I can't stop staring at him either, although I'd like to. He's barefoot, his toes curling at the edge of the rail, his naked feet pale, the skin stretched taut as if it might split. I see him in his ridiculous red apron, winking, throwing me Baci, kisses with a fortune locked inside. Then I close my eyes and see Sophie.

I turn to the cardinal. ‘I don't think I can.'

‘Yes.' Massimo D'Erreti nods. ‘You can.' His dark eyes look into mine. ‘No one,' he says. ‘No one is beyond God's love, Mary.'

I turn round and step towards Marcello, not sure what I'm supposed to do.

‘Come closer,' he whispers. So I take another step, then another, until I have broken out of the semicircle of men standing around the window and entered a space that contains only him, and me.

‘Closer.'

I reach the stone wall. Marcello's feet are in front of me. The railing is just wide enough to stand on, and I can see the tendons in his ankles straining.

‘The chair.'

I right it, drag it over and climb up on the seat. Now I can feel night air on my face, and see the rooftops, the campanile, the top of the Baptisery, and the Duomo, Santa Maria del Fiori, lit up against the sky. Someone shifts uneasily behind us, and without looking back I know it's Pallioti. Marcello reaches down for my hand and I reach up until our fingers meet.

His eyes are wide, the whites, bright white, and under the perfume a strange smell is rising off him. Fear. Babinellio was right. He's terrified. Probably he always has been.

‘Maria,' he whispers. I can barely hear him. I stand on my toes, his fingers cupping mine. ‘I had to give them to God.'

‘I know.' I tighten my hand around his.

‘Flesh shall pay for the sins of the flesh. To live we must die,' Marcello whispers. Then he says: ‘They were lost, and I brought them back. But not you, Maria.' Marcello bends towards me, his eyes on my face. ‘I never hurt you.'

‘Marcello, please.'

‘
Serviam!
'

He shouts. His fingers leave mine and he throws his arms open.

For a split-second, Marcello balances, framed in the window, the Duomo lit up behind him. Then he's gone.

My hand is still outstretched, and I am still standing on the chair when I feel myself begin to shake. It's the cardinal who lifts me down like a doll.

Minutes later, when we drive out, my face pressed to the glass, I see Marcello for the last time. His bare feet are white in the lights, and kneeling beside him, cradling his head in his lap, his hand raised to deliver the last rites, is Father Rinaldo.

I
T'S TWO DAYS
later when Pallioti calls and asks if I would like to come to the Questura. They've found out some things about Marcello, if I'm interested, and he'd like to talk to me. I am interested. And I'd like to talk to him too. In fact, if he hadn't called me, I was going to call him.

This time, Pallioti sees me in his office. I have slept for almost eighteen hours of the last forty-eight, and am feeling distinctly more chipper than on my previous visits to this building. The first thing I say when I sit down is, ‘You had me followed. All this time.'

‘Not followed, watched.' Pallioti slides into the chair behind his desk.

‘Is there a difference?'

‘Oh indeed, signora.' He smiles. ‘If I had had you followed, I assure you, you wouldn't have known about it. I just had an officer who happened to be in the area keep an eye on you.'

‘An angel?'

He shrugs. ‘If you like.'

‘From the time I arrived?'

Pallioti nods, resting his elbows on his desk and regarding me over the top of his steepled fingers.

‘Why?' I find this outrageous. He seems to find it amusing. ‘Don't tell me you didn't have a reason! I can't believe the Italian police don't have anything better to do than follow American adult ed students around.'

Pallioti regards me for a moment, then he says, ‘Signora, the last time you were in our city, you were attacked and your husband was murdered. So, when you came back, let me just say I was concerned.'

‘What did you think I was going to do? Run around wreaking vengeance? Karel Indrizzio was dead, for God's sake.'

He stares at me without saying anything. It feels like old times. He doesn't even blink. ‘I don't understand why you'd—' I stop before I finish the sentence, the realization dawning on me. ‘You weren't sure Indrizzio did it,' I say. ‘You were never sure.'

Pallioti reaches for a cigarette, lights it and offers me one. I shake my head.

‘In your case,' he says, ‘the evidence was strong. DNA confirmed the blood samples on his hands and clothing matched yours and your husband's. He was seen in the immediate area, and he was found with your possessions. In the others, I thought the balance of probability was good, but not decisive. Until Caterina Fusarno was killed.' Smoke wreathes above his head in a nicotine halo.