“It’s the Carabinieri’s job,” Falcone answered. “Nic can take care of himself.”
“To hell with the Carabinieri! I’m—”
Peroni fell silent. The dark blue uniforms of their rivals seemed to be everywhere. Officers were shouting, yelling into radios, looking panicked.
On the podium Roberto Tonti, with a gaggle of puzzled, half-frightened politicians and minor actors around him, was droning on about the movie and its importance, about Dante and a poet’s vision of Hell, all as if he’d never noticed a thing. The tall, stooped director looked every inch of his seventy years. His head of grey swept-back hair seemed the creation of a makeup department. His skin was bloodless and pale, his cheeks hollow, his entire demeanour gaunt. Peroni knew the rumours; that the man was desperately sick. Perhaps this explained Tonti’s obsessive need to continue with the seemingly interminable speech as the commotion swirled around them.
“… for nine is the angelic number,” Tonti droned on, echoing the words of the strange Carabiniere they’d met earlier. “This you shall see in the work, in its structure, in its division of the episodes of life. I give you …”
The movie director tugged on the braided rope by the side of the curtain. The velvet opened.
“… the creator. The source. The fountainhead.”
The casket came into full view. Peroni blinked to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Someone in the crowd released a short, pained cry. The woman next to him, some half-familiar Roman model from the magazines, elegant in a silk gown and jewels, raised her gloved fingers to her lips, her mouth open, her eyes wide with shock.
The Carabinieri became frantic. They didn’t know where to look—towards the children’s cinema and the sound of shooting, or at the platform, where Tonti was now walking stiffly away from the thing he had revealed, an expression of utter distaste on his cold, sallow face, as if he resented the obvious fact that it had somehow stolen his thunder.
Falcone was pushing his way through the crowd, elbowing past black-suited men with pale faces and shrieking female guests.
Teresa, predictably, was right on his heels.
“Oh well,” Peroni grumbled, and followed right behind, forcing his big, bulky body through the sea of silk and fine dark jackets, apologising as he went.
By the time he reached the small stage outside the entrance to the Casa del Cinema, the area around the exhibit case was empty save for Falcone and the pathologist who stood on either side of the cabinet staring at what lay within, bloody and shocking behind the smeared glass. Peroni felt somewhat proud of himself. There’d been a time when all this would have made him feel a little sick.
He studied the object. It appeared to be a severed head covered in some kind of thin blue plastic, which had been slashed to allow the eyes and mouth to be visible. The material enclosing most of what stood in place of Dante’s death mask was pulled painfully tight—so much so that it was easy to see the features of the face that lay beneath. It was an image that had been everywhere in Rome for weeks, that of Allan Prime. This was the face of the new Dante, visible on all the posters, all the promotional material that had appeared on walls and billboards, subway trains and buses. Now it had replaced the death mask of the poet himself. Sealed inside the case by reams of ugly black duct tape, it was some kind of cruel, ironic statement, Peroni guessed. Close up, it also looked not quite real—if the word could be applied to such a situation.
Two senior Carabinieri officers materialised at Falcone’s side. He ignored them.
“This is ours,” the older one declared. “We’re responsible for the safety of the cast.”
Falcone’s grey eyebrows rose in surprise. He didn’t say a thing.
“Don’t get fresh with me,” the officer went on, instantly irate. “You were supposed to be looking after the mask.”
Peroni shrugged and observed, “One lost piece of clay. One dead famous actor. Do you want to swap?”
“It’s ours!”
“What’s yours?” Teresa asked. “A practical joke?”
Slyly, without any of the men noticing, she had stolen the short black truncheon from the junior Carabiniere’s belt. She now held it in her right hand and was quietly aiming a blow at the blood-smeared glass.
“Touch the evidence and I will have your job,” the senior Carabiniere said, more than a little fearful.
“And I’ll have yours,” Falcone added.
“This is evidence, gentlemen,” Teresa replied. “But not of the kind you think.” She