The Fallen Angel (41 page)

She clutched herself and rocked backward and forward, staring into the space in front of her with damp, unfocused eyes.

‘Where’s your uncle?’ he asked.

Costa watched both of the Gabriels avidly. Mina didn’t react, didn’t say anything, but Cecilia Gabriel’s head came up and her acute eyes were clear and sharp with shock.

‘I know it was him, Mina,’ Costa continued. ‘I understand, I think, the kind of pressure he must have placed on you. Why you felt you couldn’t tell us, even
though—’

‘Even though what?’ she snapped.

‘Even though he killed your father.’

‘Mina!’ Cecilia Gabriel shrieked. The woman stood up, a tall, skinny picture of despair. The girl put her hands to her ears, closed her eyes, let her mouth droop in an expression of
teenage disdain that didn’t suit her, didn’t seem real for a moment.

Cecilia Gabriel came and knelt in front of her daughter, taking hold of her hands, trying to unwind the tight fists.

‘What’s he talking about? What . . . your
uncle
?’

The two of them were so close, they seemed to be a single person.

‘You weren’t supposed to know,’ Cecilia whispered. ‘None of that. You weren’t supposed to . . .’

‘Know what?’ the girl yelled, her eyes suddenly alive and desperate, her face full of fury. ‘That the mythical Uncle Simon in England didn’t exist? I’m seventeen,
mother. Do you not understand that?’

‘Darling . . .’

‘I wasn’t supposed to know he lived here all the time, paying to keep us alive. And in return? Fucking you and Joanne and anything else that moved and you didn’t dare say no,
did you, because then . . . then . . .’

Her features contorted until they were those of an infant gripped by agony.

‘Children shouldn’t use words like that, should they, Mummy? Not a baby like me. Bright Mina. Obedient Mina. The good daughter. The one who was never any trouble.’ She laughed
and it was a dry, dead sound. ‘You never saw me in my room with Bernard. He never got round to showing you those pictures he took. Not yet. He was going to. That was what came next. You and
me. With him. Maybe Joanne. Robert. Daddy too if he was still alive. That would have been fun, wouldn’t it?’

She leaned forward, stared into her mother’s face and asked, ‘Did he hurt you too? Not just here . . .’ She snatched away her hands and tapped her fair hair. ‘I mean
hurt
?’

‘Oh God,’ Cecilia Gabriel moaned. ‘Oh God.’

Costa watched them both, wishing he was somewhere else.

‘You could have told me,’ Cecilia Gabriel murmured. ‘You are my child. I would have done something.’

‘What?’ Mina shouted. Then, more quietly, ‘
What
?’

Her fingers went to her mother’s face.

‘He owned us. You. Me. Robert. Daddy. We were just his playthings. We didn’t have a voice. We weren’t even human beings, were we? Just things. Do this or Daddy doesn’t
get his treatment. Do this or you’re on the street.’ She fell quiet, staring at her mother, then said very quietly, ‘Things. Not people. You. Me. Robert. Joanne. Daddy. All of us.
We were just his toys. And when he did it . . .’

The girl closed her eyes. ‘He saw Daddy, didn’t he? He imagined Daddy’s pain, not ours. That was all it was about. Hurting him. Killing him.’

‘What made your uncle hate his own brother so much?’ Costa asked.

Cecilia blinked away the tears, then brushed at her hair.

‘Because Malise was the brighter one. The happier one. Because, whatever problems we had, we were a family. Simon could never have that. He’s a hateful, spiteful, avaricious man.
Everything that Malise stood for – honesty, virtue, decency – appalled him.’ She gazed at her daughter, trying to see something that wasn’t there, and said, ‘Why
didn’t you tell me?’

‘For the same reason you never told me,’ Mina replied. ‘Or Daddy. Because I was frightened. Because I was ashamed.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Because I am
ashamed.’

She shook her her head as if wishing away the memories.

‘Daddy found out in the end. About me. Bernard told him. Bernard
boasted
. He couldn’t stop himself, could he? All his conquests.’

‘Stop it!’

Falcone sat stony-faced and shocked in his chair. Grimaldi had a hand to his florid face, thinking. Costa listened to every word, every syllable, making the links.

‘Where is Bernard Santacroce now?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Cecilia Gabriel murmured, shaking her head. ‘Really I don’t.’

‘He can hear,’ the girl said. ‘
Everywhere.
He can hear us. He knows.’

‘No, Mina,’ Costa told her. ‘He can’t harm you.’

‘Really?’ The child again, scared, resentful. ‘He said he’d kill Daddy and he did. He said he’d kill Robert and he did.’ She looked at her mother. ‘Then
you. Then me. If I told . . . If I told . . .’

Gently, Costa took both her arms and tried to look into her lost, damp eyes.

‘He’s never going to harm anyone again,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

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.

The sun seemed too dazzling for September. Costa raced across the grass of the garden. The woman had disappeared beneath the grand courtyard arch, into the elegant building
ahead.

The four uniformed officers stood by the gate, bored, a couple of them smoking. Costa barked at the caretaker, demanding directions to Santacroce’s apartment.

It was on the first floor, the side of the courtyard facing back towards the river, overlooking the gardens and the tower. He ordered the men to follow him, found the broad stone staircase that
led into the building, running through the double doors, up worn grey steps, past paintings and statues, tapestries and porcelain, the treasures of an old Roman family that had fallen, somehow,
into the hands of a rogue.

An old story, Costa thought. A little like the tragedy of the Cenci after all.

He reached the first floor, found himself in a wide corridor with a polished wood floor. There was a door open at the end, light streaming through it, some elegant antique furniture just
visible.

Three steps away, no more, he heard the first scream and he’d no idea at that moment whether it was a man or a woman, there was something so violent, so animal in that high, guttural
shriek of pain.

‘Sir,’ said one of the uniforms, a fit man, faster than Costa, pushing in front of him, gun out, the way they’d been taught.

‘You don’t need that,’ Costa told him, and elbowed his way back in front then got through the door. He found himself in a long, airy studio filled with light that danced off
polished chairs and tables, tall walnut cabinets and gilt-frame paintings. A high rack of books ran one length of the room. At the end Bernard Santacroce sat at an ornate desk, his heavy body
twisted round in a captain’s chair, his face bloodied and racked with agony.

Cecilia Gabriel was over him, half on the desk, half on his knees, her right arm arcing backward and forward.

The only sound was that of the man’s racked breathing and the repetitive slash of knife against flesh.

The uniform had his gun out again.

Costa glared at him and snapped out an order to put it away.

By the time he got to the desk it was over. Bernard Santacroce, Simon Gabriel . . . There was no saving him. The woman’s fierce torrent of hatred had taken his life just as surely as the
cobblestones of the Via Beatrice Cenci stole away that of his elder brother. Now Cecilia Gabriel sat over him, the bloodied blade still in her right hand, gasping, from effort, from emotion, her
blue eyes icy with fury.

‘Signora,’ said a voice from behind.

He turned. It was Falcone. Himself again, though his lean face looked a little more bloodless than usual. He was holding out his hand, staring at the woman locked above the dead Santacroce as if
she were a partner in some bloody tableau, one disturbed before it had reached its final scene.