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to build over the last few weeks.

      Peroni’s damaged face wrinkled some more in puzzlement at his silence. ‘Oh. I get it. You’re thinking, “Who does this hideous bastard think he is? Casanova?”’

      ‘You don’t look like the great Latin Lover. That’s all. If you don’t mind me saying so.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really.’ Costa knew what was going on here. He wondered if he dared ask.

      ‘Are you calling me ugly? That happens from time to time, Nic. I have to tell you I don’t like it.’

      ‘No …’ Costa stuttered. He took a good look at that battered face. ‘I was just wondering.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘What the hell happened?’

      Gianni Peroni burst out laughing. ‘You kill me. You really do. In all the time I’ve worked here you are the first person who’s come out and asked that question direct. Can you believe that?’

      ‘Yes,’ Costa said hesitantly. ‘I mean, it’s a personal question. And most people wouldn’t like the idea that you could take it the wrong way.’

      He waved a huge friendly hand in Costa’s face. ‘What the hell do you mean a personal question? You guys have to look at this ugly mug every day you come to work. I got to live with it. This …’ he pointed a fat index finger at his face, ‘… is just a fact of life.’

      Costa felt he’d made progress of a kind anyway. ‘So …?’

      Peroni chuckled again and shook his head. ‘Unbelievable. Just between the two of us, OK? This goes no further? No one knows this. Most of the guys out there think I look like this through getting into a fight with a hood or something. They wonder what the other guy looks like too. I’m happy with things that way.’

      Costa nodded his agreement.

      ‘A cop did this to me,’ Peroni said. ‘I was twelve years old. He was the village cop. I was the village bastard. I mean that literally. My mamma worked for the couple who owned the lone bar in town and got knocked up after the fair some time. She always was a little naïve. So I spend twelve years being the village bastard, getting the village bastard treatment all those years. Spat on. Beaten up. Laughed at in school. Then one day the moronic kid in the same class who was my principal tormentor went just a touch too far. Said something about my mamma. And I kicked the living shit out of him. First time I ever did that. You want the truth? It’s the only time I ever did that. Don’t need to now. I just look at people and go, Boo …’

      Costa thought about it. ‘I can believe that.’

      ‘Good. The stupid thing was, I forgot the moron I was beating up was the village cop’s kid. So Daddy comes along, and Daddy’s been drinking. One thing leads to another. He gets done with the strap and he’s still not happy. So he goes and gets these metal things he carries, just for protection you understand, and he puts them on his fists.’

      Peroni watched the cars go by out of the window. ‘I woke up in hospital two days later, face like a pumpkin, Mamma by my side. I couldn’t see a thing. The first thing she says is, don’t even think of telling anyone. He’s the village cop. Second thing she says is, don’t look in the mirror for a while.’

      Costa sighed. ‘You could have told someone.’

      Peroni gave him a frank look. ‘You’re a city kid, aren’t you?’

      ‘I guess so.’

      ‘It shows. Anyway, a couple of weeks later I come out of hospital and I notice things are different. People look at me and suddenly their eyes are on their shoes. A couple cross the road when they see me walking down the street. You know the worst thing of all? I was helping my uncle Fredo sell those pigs at weekends then. I went back to it. What else could you do? After a while he comes to me, tears in his eyes, and fires me. No one buys food from someone with a face like this. That was the worst thing of all at the time. I didn’t want to do anything else when I grew up except raise those pigs and sell them every weekend. Those guys … they all look so happy. But—’

      He folded his arms, leaned back in the passenger seat, and glanced at Costa to make sure this point went in. ‘That was not to be. I became a cop instead. What else do you do? Partly to spite that old bastard who beat me up. But mainly, if you want to know, to even things up a little. I’ve never laid a finger on anyone in this job. Never would, not unless there was a very good reason and in more than twenty years I never found one. It’s a question of balance.’

      Costa didn’t know how to respond. ‘I’m sorry, Gianni.’

      ‘Why? I got over it years ago. You, on the other hand, have spent the last six months going loopy inside a bottle of booze. I’m sorry for you, kid.’

      Maybe he deserved that. ‘Fine. We’re even now.’

      Peroni was peering at him with those sharp, all-seeing eyes. ‘I will say this once, Nic. I am starting to like you. A part of me says that I will miss this time we’re spending together. Not that I wish to prolong it you understand. But let me offer some sincere advice. Stop trying to fool yourself you’re something special. You’re not. There are millions of people out there trying to cope with fucked-up lives. We’re just two in the crowd. And after that little lecture …’ he said, stretching up in his seat as Costa parked the car in a tiny space off the road by the ghetto, ‘… let me make a request.’

      Peroni looked into his face, hopefully. ‘Cover for me. I got something important to do. I’ll meet you back here at two.’

      Costa didn’t know what to say. Bunking off for a couple of hours wasn’t unknown. He just didn’t think Peroni was the kind of cop to do it.

      ‘Anything I should know about?’ he asked.

      ‘Just personal. It’s my daughter’s birthday tomorrow. I wanted to send her something that might make her think her father is not quite the jerk she’s come to believe. You can cope with the Campo on your own. Just don’t pick on any big bastards, OK?’

      Leo Falcone was reading the file on his desk, trying to focus on the case. He didn’t want to rush anything. Going public too quickly only alerted those he would wish to interview, though given how leaky the Questura had proved of late they probably knew by now anyway. The pause would also give him time to turn his mind back towards work after a solitary two weeks spent at a luxury beachside hotel in Sri Lanka. He had met no one of interest, and had scarcely sought the company of others. It was an unsatisfactory, tedious respite from routine that left him mildly disturbed. He was glad to be back at his desk and with a challenging case to tackle.

      Even so, a rare note of self-doubt lurked at the back of his mind. Falcone had, to his surprise, been aware of his own loneliness during the long, drab holiday. It was now five years since his divorce. There had been women in that time, attractive, interesting women. Yet none had stimulated him sufficiently to take the relationship beyond the routine round of meals, the cinema, and the physical necessity of the bedroom. He’d come to realize the previous night – when, completely out of character, he’d consumed an entire bottle of a wonderful, deeply perfumed and expensive Brunello – that there had been only two real lovers in his life: his English wife Mary, who was now back in London, pursuing a legal career; and the woman who was the reason Mary left, Rachele D’Amato.

      Here, in the light of day, obscured only slightly by the remains of a hangover, lay a curious coincidence. In Sri Lanka he had thought consciously about these two women for the first time in several years. When he returned to Italy, it was to find them ready to re-enter his life. Mary had written to invite him to her marriage, to another rich English lawyer, at a country house in Kent. He would find an excuse and decline. She would, he thought, expect this. The invitation came out of politeness, nothing more. His infidelity had wounded her deeply, and her abrupt departure, without the slightest attempt at reconciliation, hurt him more than he realized at the time. Or perhaps the pain came from Rachele D’Amato, who had abandoned

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