“How do I know Matteo wants me to trust you?”
“You don’t,” I replied. “But I can take you to police headquarters if you want to ask him yourself.”
She pondered the situation and reached a decision.
“Filippo Lombardi,” she said. “He was a Rome prosecutor who died in a car crash a couple of months ago. Matteo and I were working the investigation together. I thought Lombardi had been driven off the road, but Matteo said it was an accident. He said he’d been visited by a man who’d convinced him there was no need to investigate Lombardi’s death. A priest.”
“A priest?” I asked, sensing a connection. “Brambilla?”
“I don’t know,” Luna replied. “Perhaps.”
“And?” I asked.
“And?” she repeated. “That’s all I know.”
I studied her, trying to gauge if she was being truthful.
“I know that look,” she said. “Why would I tell half the story? Filippo Lombardi died out near Poli, in the hills. I thought there was another vehicle involved. Matteo convinced me I was wrong.”
“So someone might have killed Brambilla to cover up the earlier murder?” I suggested.
“Or else Matteo silenced him?” she responded.
“You think your former partner is capable of murder? And even if it was him, why are you running? He’s in custody.”
“I’ve been a police officer long enough to know we can all kill. Given a strong motive,” she replied. “And you’re the only one in this car who thinks I was running.”
I couldn’t disagree, but I also couldn’t believe her former partner, my country manager, was a murderer. But detective work was about evidence not belief, and so far the evidence against Matteo was overwhelming.
“Have I earnt my freedom?” Luna asked. “Or do you intend to keep me hostage?”
“You’re free,” I replied. “But if you think this has something to do with your earlier investigation, you should inform your colleagues.”
I pressed the brake pedal as we approached the intersection with Via Amaretta.
“Welcome to Rome, Mr. Morgan,” Luna said. “Spend enough time here and you will learn how the city works.”
Was she alluding to corruption? Almost certainly.
“Show me where Lombardi died,” I said.
She sighed and nodded. “Meet me at La Rustica Mall at two tomorrow afternoon. The west entrance. I’ll take you where you want to go.” She opened her door.“Ciao,”she said, stepping onto the sidewalk.
She swung the door closed, and I watched her head east along Via Amaretta, past the graffiti-scrawled shutters of a shop in the ground floor of an abandoned apartment block.
The toot of a horn focused my attention on the road. I noticed the traffic had moved on. I stepped on the accelerator and caught up to the slow line ahead, wondering why Matteo would have subverted an investigation into the death of a city prosecutor.
CHAPTER11
LUNA WAS RIGHT, of course. I was a newcomer, an outsider, with no idea how Rome worked, but it was clear there were complex, deep networks here linking law with crime, politics with corruption, and the street with the corridors of ultimate power. Such networks could be found in every city, but Rome was so old I could easily imagine some of the links here going back hundreds of years.
And then there was the Church, standing in the very center of the city with such power it was its own state. The Holy Roman Church, the beating heart of Catholicism, preyed on my mind, not just because Father Brambilla was a priest or because I had been approached by a senior member of the Vatican Bank, but because my current proximity to the Holy See had reminded me how far I had strayed from the faith of my childhood.
I don’t think I felt guilt, more disappointment that somewherealong the way my belief in something greater had faltered; that I had not only lost faith in my Church, but in the goodness of the world around me as I’d been exposed to more of its cruelties and evil.
My mind churning, I returned the Fiat Coupé to the parking lot outside the Pleasure Hall. There was a gang of men gathered around the crashed BMW who eyed me coldly while I parked the Fiat at the edge of the lot, but they made no attempt to approach me. Had Luna spoken to them? What was her connection to this place? And why did she have more faith in the criminal underworld than in her fellow cops? I regretted letting her go without getting answers to those questions, but our best thoughts often come to us after the opportunity to implement them has passed.
I walked along Via Giovanni Battista Cigola and finally reached Via di Tor Bella Monaca, where there was a steady flow of traffic heading for the highway to the south. I finally managed to hail a cab and told the driver to take me to the Hassler.
