“Blanks,” Costa told the man. “This was his gun. I took it from his corpse while your men danced around it like schoolgirls. They’ve just shot dead a defenceless man who was taking part in some kind of a sick prank. Why not go investigate that?”
“Th-this …” the officer stuttered.
“Enough,” Falcone interjected, and glanced at Costa. “Assemble a team, Soverintendente. Subito.”
Teresa was already on the phone, and standing guard over the objects on the podium table.
“Where does Allan Prime live?” Falcone asked.
The officer said nothing.
“I know,” Maggie Flavier said. “Do you think …?”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
“You can tell us on the way,” Falcone said, then called for a car.
PART 2
1
THEY SAT IN THE BACK OF THE LANCIA, WITH A plainclothes female driver at the wheel.
“Sir,” Costa said, as they slowly negotiated the bickering snarl of vehicles arguing for space in the Piazza Venezia. “Miss Flavier … I don’t understand why she should be here.”
The woman by his side gave him a puzzled look but for once remained silent.
Falcone sighed, then turned round from the passenger seat and extended his long tanned hand. Maggie Flavier took it. She was more composed now and had wiped away the stray makeup from her face. She looked younger, more ordinary. Prettier, Costa realized.
“My name is Leo Falcone. I’m an inspector. His inspector.”
“Nice to meet you. Why am I here?”
The inspector gave her his most gracious and charming of smiles. “For reasons that are both practical and political. You were the victim of some strange kind of attack. Perhaps a joke. But a very poor one, it seems to me. Allan Prime … Maybe it was a joke in his case, too. I don’t know and I would like to. One man is dead. Prime is missing. The Carabinieri, meanwhile, are wandering around preening themselves while trying to work out which day it is. We have no need of further complications. Would you rather they were in charge of your safety? Or us? The choice is yours, naturally.”
“My safety?”
“Just in case.”
“What’s going on here?” she demanded. “I was supposed to be at a movie premiere tonight. People shooting blanks. Fake death masks.” Her bright, animated face fell. “Someone getting killed.” She looked at Costa. “Why would they shoot him? The uniformed man on the horse?”
“Because they thought he was dangerous. They didn’t know any better. Whoever he was …”
“Not Carabinieri, that’s for sure,” Falcone intervened.
“Whoever he was,” Costa continued, “this is now a real case and it’s not ours.” He caught the dismay in the inspector’s eye. “I’m sorry. That’s a fact, sir. The Carabinieri were given the job of security tonight. Also, there’s the question of jurisdiction. Allan Prime is an American citizen. If he’s missing, someone has to inform the U.S. Embassy and allow them a role in the investigation. We all know the rules when a foreign citizen’s involved. We can’t just drive away with a key witness and hope it’s all ours. I should never have left the scene in the first place, or taken that weapon.”
The car came to a halt in the traffic in Vittorio Emanuele. He didn’t understand why they were taking this route. There were quicker ways through the tangle of alleys behind the Campo dei Fiori. A good police driver should have known about them.
The woman at the wheel turned and smiled at them. “The U.S. authorities are involved already,” she said. “So don’t worry about that. Captain Catherine Bianchi. San Francisco Police Department. Is there a better route than this? I don’t drive much in Rome usually. I lack the balls.”
She was about forty, slim, with a pleasant, bright face, Italian-looking, he would have said until he looked at her hair. That was straight and coal-coloured, with a henna sheen, tied back behind her head in a severe way that would have been rare on a Roman woman. She spoke good Italian, though with an American inflection. This was the woman he’d heard about, the one who’d caught Falcone’s eye.
The inspector outlined a faster route to the Via Giulia, with a degree of patience he would never have used on one of his officers.
“Can I hit the siren?” Captain Catherine Bianchi asked.
“No,” Falcone replied. “That will just give them warning.”
“Give who warning?” Maggie Flavier asked.
“The Carabinieri, of course,” he answered.
Costa looked out the window, at the swarming people and the tangled cars, the familiar crush of humanity in his native city.
He understood why Maggie Flavier was in the car. A man had died