The Sacred Cut

Emily Deacon worked her way around each canvas, peeking under the coverings.

“She’s good.”

“I know. She’s also dedicated, which means she’s broke most of the time and chasing commissions from ad agencies in Milan the other half. The artist’s life.”

“That was one reason I studied architecture. The good old Deacon upbringing. Make sure you’ve got a career. Even if it’s one we’ll never let you pursue.”

That morning, when she had arrived at the house, he hadn’t asked her about the meeting she’d had at the embassy the day before. All she said was that she’d spent the whole of Christmas Eve being debriefed by a security team and had then been shunted into human resources. He knew what that meant. Disciplinary procedures. Or worse.

It was impossible to avoid the question forever.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

Her bright eyes locked on his face. “You mean do I quit before they fire me?”

“If it comes to that.”

“It already has, Nic. I’ve handed in my resignation. I’m done. I don’t even have to clear my desk. They’ll send the stuff to me. They hate me that much. Great, huh?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” she laughed. “I’m delighted. I may not know exactly who or what I am but I’m damn sure I know what I’m not. That job was for someone else. Besides…”

A hint of inward anger crossed her face.

“Think about it,” she said with a shrug. “I just did what my dad did thirteen years ago. I got to the point where I wasn’t prepared to take any more of their bullshit and I snapped. I threw out all the rules. I acted as if rules didn’t matter. I knew better.”

“Emily…” He came close and grasped her shoulders lightly. She didn’t move away. “You did what was right. We all did.”

“I know that! But if I carry that badge I do what I’m supposed to. I don’t make the rules up just to suit me. To match my own personal hang-ups. That’s selfish, and they deserve someone better. Someone who’s more professional than me. More professional than Joel Leapman too. Even if I stayed I’d screw up again before long. It’s just not me. I have a renegade gene, Nic. Got it handed down to me. Should have known as much all along. And so have you. And Gia

There was something in what she said. Costa recognized it, feared it a little too.

“Nic,” she asked, “would you really have tried to arrest them all? If you hadn’t managed to find out about Thornton Fielding? And Kaspar had simply walked in there?”

“Would he have walked in?” Costa had been asking himself that a lot.

“If he’d got that folder instead of Thornton Fielding? I think so. He was tired. He was sick of being broke and on the street. He was scared, too, of himself, and for a man like that I doubt there’s anything scarier. The fact he couldn’t control what he was doing anymore. That was the last roll of the dice. All the same”-she glanced at him-“the idea of you taking those guys on. You didn’t have the numbers. They had the authority.”

“Authority’s not the same as being right.”

“True,” she agreed. “And being right’s not the same as being the one who wins.”

Costa had avoided thinking about the alternative too much. The odds would have been stacked against them. Even so, Falcone had been adamant. Whatever the consequences, there would have been no way they would have allowed Leapman and Viale a free hand.

“So what happens to you guys?” she asked. “Are they throwing the book at you?”

“Maybe,” he said quietly. “Emily, I wish I’d known. That it was all some kind of game. That you had soda cans round your neck, not real bombs. You scared the life out of me, out of all of us.”

She waved a finger at him, an expression so Italian he had to remind himself she was a foreigner. “Oh no. I’m not taking flak on that. I guess you don’t do Gilbert and Sullivan in Italy. ”Corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.“ As long as you guys thought they were real bombs, your minds stayed focused. You didn’t go near the detail, trying to pick holes in it. This was a one-shot deal. I couldn’t take any risks.”

“We were ru

She wanted to clear the air too. “You were ru

He didn’t have a ready answer there.

“I know,” she went on. “You feel deceived. With some justification. I’m sorry. But I’d do the same thing again. Convincing you everything was for real was the only way. All anyone had to do was look at your face and they knew they had to go along with you. Besides, it was real. Just not in the way you all expected.”

He laughed a little. She looked relieved this wasn’t going to turn into an inquisition.

“Also,” she added, “Kaspar was going to use me one way or another. I had a choice. Be a reluctant hostage. Or go along with him, try to steer things a little and see where they led.”

“Legally…” He didn’t want to push the point. They could have picked her up themselves if they wanted. Wasting police time. Ru

“I don’t think anyone would dare throw the law at me,” she answered. “Or at any of us. That would be too embarrassing all round, surely. I’m sorry, Nic. I imagine you thought you knew me. But how could you? We only met a few days ago.”

“True.”

She lifted the lid on a box folder that stood on a table, the only thing in the room that didn’t seem covered in dust. It was new. Without asking, she lifted the lid and stared at the prints inside.

“What’s this?” she asked. “It’s recent.”

He stood by her and flicked through the professional-sized black-and-white photographs.

“I picked them up in the office when I went in yesterday. There’s a filing cabinet for photos in here somewhere. I wanted to keep them.”

“What are they?”

No one wanted Mauro Sandri’s last few rolls of film. Not his parents, who didn’t even want to see them, scared of the associations they had. Or forensic, who’d closed the case.

“This was the night it all began. The photographer we had with us. The one who died.”

“Oh.” She stopped on a single print. Costa hadn’t had time to go through them all. This one surprised him.

“I don’t remember him taking that one,” he said.

It was in the briefing room before they’d gone out that evening. Sandri must have taken it from the door. Costa was there, showing some report, probably on the weather, to Gia

“He must have been a good photographer,” Emily said. “To take a candid shot like that and you never even knew.”

What was it Mauro said that night in the deserted cafe? If you asked, people would just say no.

“It’s about stealing moments,” Costa reflected.

“Sorry?”

“That’s what Mauro said. About the kind of photography he did.”

She studied the picture, thinking. “Smart man. And you know what makes him extra smart?” Emily held the photo in front of him. “He’s just recording something there everyone else but you three sees. You’re a gang, really, aren’t you? A close one too, which is dangerous. If you were in the FBI and someone saw this they’d be breaking you three up tomorrow. Can I keep this?”