The Burial Hour

Chapter 13

The Questura, the Police of State’s main headquarters in Naples, at Via Medina, 75, is an impressive pale stone building in the fascist style. The letters of the word ‘Questura’ are in a font any Latin student would recognize (the ‘U’s harshly carved as ‘V’s), and the building’s architectural elements include nods to Rome (eagles, for instance).

Squinting up at the imposing structure, Ercole Benelli paused on the doorstep and straightened his gray uniform, brushing at dust. Heart thudding with a curious mixture of joy and trepidation, he stepped inside.

He approached an administrative officer, who said, ‘You are Benelli?’

‘I... Well, yes.’ Surprised to have been recognized. Surprised too that Rossi was apparently still desirous of his presence.

Her unsmiling face regarded him and, upon examining his ID cards — national and Forestry — she handed him a pass, then told him a room number.

Five minutes later he entered what might be called a situation room for the kidnapping operation. It was a cramped space, the sun sliced into strips by dusty Venetian blinds. The floor was scuffed, the walls too, and a bulletin board was decorated with curling notices of new police procedures replacing old police procedures, and forthcoming assemblies... or, when he read closely, assemblies that had occurred months, or years, ago. Not so very different, Ercole thought, from the Forestry Corps facilities, the large conference room where the officers would meet before a joint raid on an olive oil adulterer, before a mountain rescue, before an assault on a forest fire.

An easel held a large white tablet with photos and notes in black marker. Another — a joke certainly — held a ‘Wanted’ picture of a square-headed Minecraft character, which Ercole was aware of because he played the game with his older brother’s ten-year-old son. The boy had promptly and delightedly slaughtered Ercole in a recent game; young Andrea had switched to Survival — combat — mode, without telling Uncle Ercole.

Two people were in the room. Massimo Rossi was talking to a round young woman with thick wavy black hair, shiny, and loud green-framed eyeglasses. She wore a white jacket that said Scientific Police on the ample breast.

Rossi looked up. ‘Ah, Ercole. Come in, come in. You found us all right.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This is Beatrice Renza. She is the forensic officer assigned to the Composer case. Ercole Benelli of the Forestry Corps. He was helpful last night. He will be joining us on a temporary basis.’

The woman, in her early thirties, nodded in a distracted way.

‘Sir, I have my report.’ Ercole handed him two yellow sheets of notes.

Beatrice looked at them, frowning. ‘You have no computer?’

‘I do, yes. Why do you ask?’

‘You have a printer?’

‘Not at my home.’ He felt on the defensive.

‘This is hard to read. You might have emailed the information to us.’

He was flustered. ‘I could have, I suppose. But I didn’t have an email address.’

‘The Questura website would have worked, of course.’ She turned back to Rossi and handed him a sheet of paper — nicely printed out — and a half-dozen photographs then said goodbye to Rossi. The woman left the situation room, without acknowledging Ercole. Fine with him; he had no time for the self-important, the smug.

Though he wished he had thought of typing out the report and sending it as an email attachment. Or getting a new cartridge for his printer at home.

Rossi said, ‘Beatrice has analyzed the evidence recovered last night at the bus stop. Could you write this onto one of those easels there? Along with your notes and mine. And tape up the crime scene photographs as well. This is how we keep track of the progress of investigations, and make connections between clues and people. Graphical analysis. Very important.’

‘Yes, Inspector.’

He took the sheets of paper from Rossi and began to transcribe the information. Blushing, he noted that Rossi, whom one would have taken to be an old-time investigator, had printed out his notes via computer.

‘I have heard nothing from the Americans,’ Rossi said. ‘You?’

‘No. But when I contacted them, they promised to get back to us as soon as possible with full details and evidence reports. The woman I spoke with, a detective who ran the case for the New York Police Department, was quite relieved we had found the man. They were very upset he escaped their jurisdiction.’

‘Did she have any thoughts as to why he came here?’

‘No, sir.’

Rossi said, in a musing tone, ‘I read the other day that the Americans are worried about their exports. The economy, jobs, you understand. But exporting serial killers? They should stick with pop musicians, soft drinks and computer-generated Hollywood movies.’

Ercole didn’t know whether to laugh or not. He smiled. Rossi did, as well, and read texts. The young officer moved slowly in front of the easel as he transcribed the notes and pinned up photos. A gangly man, he was far more comfortable in the woods and on rock faces than in restaurants, shops and living rooms (hence, his favorite ‘perch’ in the city: the table and chair outside his pigeon coop on the apartment building’s roof). His parts — arms, legs, elbows, knees, all of which hummed like a tuned machine out of doors — grew awkward and rebellious in places like this.

He now backed up to examine the chart and bumped into Silvio De Carlo, Rossi’s assistant, who had stepped unseen into the room to hand a file to Rossi. The handsome, perfectly assembled young officer didn’t glare but — this was worse — offered a patient smile as if Ercole were a child who had accidentally left a blackberry gelato stain on someone’s laundered sleeve.

De Carlo, he was sure, would resent this awkward interloper, taking some shine away from his role as Rossi’s favored protégé.

‘The Postal Police are monitoring YouVid?’ Ercole asked Rossi after De Carlo had walked, smoothly and with supreme self-confidence, from the room.

‘Yes, yes. But it’s a chore. Thousands of videos uploaded every hour. People would rather watch such time-wasting things than read or converse.’

Someone else entered the room. Ercole was pleased to see it was the woman Flying Squad officer from last night: Daniela Canton, the stunning blonde. Such a beautiful face, he thought again, elfin. Her eye shadow was that appealing cerulean tint he remembered from last night, a color you didn’t see much in fashion nowadays. It told him that she would be the sort to go her own way, make her own style. He noted too that this was the extent of her makeup. No lipstick or mascara. Her blue blouse fit tightly over her voluptuous figure. The slacks were taut too.

‘Inspector.’ She looked up, with a friendly expression, at Ercole. Apparently the brash offering of his hands last night had not put her off.

‘Officer Canton. What have you learned?’ Rossi asked.

‘Though the case had the earmark of a Camorra snatch, it seems unlikely they were involved. Not according to my contacts.’

Her contacts? Ercole wondered. Daniela was a member of the Flying Squad. One would think Camorra cases were handled by those higher up.

Rossi said, ‘I appreciate your looking. But it didn’t seem likely our gamers were involved.’

Gamers...

The word was a slang reference to the gang, whose name was a blend of Capo, as in ‘head,’ and morra, a street game played in old Naples.

She added, ‘But I cannot say for certain. You know how they operate. So quiet, so secretive.’

‘Of course.’

The Camorra was composed of a number of individual cells, with one group not necessarily knowing what the others were up to.

Then she said, ‘But for what it’s worth, sir, there are rumors of some particularly troublesome ’Ndràngheta gang member who’s come to the Naples area recently. Nothing specific but I thought you should know.’

This caught Rossi’s attention.

Italy was known for several organized crime operations: the Mafia in Sicily, the Camorra in and around Naples, the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia, the southeast of Italy. But perhaps the most dangerous, and the one with the broadest reach — including such places as Scotland and New York — was the ’Ndràngheta, based in Calabria, a region south of Naples.

‘Curious for one of them to come here.’ The group was a rival to the Camorra.

‘It is, yes, sir.’

‘Can you follow up on that too?’

Daniela said, ‘I’ll try.’ She turned to Ercole and seemed suddenly to remember him, eyeing his gray Forestry Corps uniform. ‘Yes, from last night.’

‘Ercole.’ So her smile a moment ago was not one of recognition.

‘Daniela.’

He didn’t dare offer his hand again. Just a cool-guy nod. A nod worthy of Silvio De Carlo.

Silence for a moment.

Ercole blurted, ‘You would like a water?’

And as if she didn’t know what mineral water might be, he gestured toward the inspector’s San Pellegrino, which stood open on the edge of the table.

And struck it, sending the liter bottle cartwheeling to the floor. Being carbonated, it spurted most of the contents across the pale tile in seconds.

‘Oh, no, oh, I’m so sorry...’

Rossi gave a chuckle. Daniela tilted a perplexed look toward Ercole, who crouched and began mopping furiously with paper towels he pulled from a roll in the corner of the room.

‘I...’ the blushing man stammered. ‘What have I done? I’m sorry, Inspector. Did I get any on you, Officer Canton?’

Daniela said, ‘It’s no harm.’

Ercole continued to mop.

Daniela left the situation room.

As Ercole’s eyes followed her, from his kneeling position on the floor, he noted someone else appear in the doorway. It was Dante Spiro, the prosecutor.

The man was looking past Ercole, as if the young officer were not even present. He greeted Rossi and examined the board. He absently slipped into his side pocket the leather book Ercole recognized from last night. He put away a pen too. He’d been jotting something in the volume.

Today Spiro wore black slacks and a tight brown jacket with a yellow pocket square, a white shirt. No tie. He set a briefcase on a desk in the corner, which apparently he had commandeered as his own, and Ercole guessed he would be a frequent visitor. The man’s office — Procura della Repubblica Presso il Tribunale di Napoli — was on the Via Costantino Grimaldi, across the street from the criminal courts. It was not far from the Questura here, a ten-minute drive.

‘Prosecutor Spiro,’ he said, still mopping.

A glance at Ercole, then a frown, wondering, clearly, who he was.

‘Anything more, Massimo?’ Spiro asked Rossi.

‘Beatrice’s run the evidence. Ercole has written it up, along with his and my notes.’ A nod at the paper on the easel.

‘Who?’

Rossi gestured toward Ercole, who was dropping a soaked paper towel into the trash bin.

‘The Forestry officer from last night.’

‘Oh.’ It was clear that Spiro had mistaken him for a janitor.

‘Sir, I am pleased to see you again.’ Ercole smiled but lost the grin when Spiro ignored him once more.

‘What of the phone card?’ Spiro asked.

‘Postal said they should have information within the hour. And they are still monitoring the websites for video uploads. There has been nothing yet. And Ercole anticipates we should hear more from the Americans soon.’

‘Does he now?’ Spiro asked wryly. He took a cheroot from his pocket and slipped the end into his mouth. He did not light the stick. He gazed at the board.

‘Beatrice has done her typically solid job,’ Spiro said.

‘Yes. She’s good.’

The prosecutor seemed to sway slightly as he stared at the writing. ‘What is that word?’

‘Bacteria, sir.’

‘I can hardly make it out. Write more carefully.’ Then he scanned the photographs. Spiro mused, ‘So we have this American psycho who has come here on vacation to prey outside his usual hunting grounds. What patterns can we see?’

‘Patterns?’ Ercole said, smiling. He mopped a bit more water and rose.

The lean man, with the most intense black eyes that Ercole had ever seen, turned slowly. ‘I’m sorry?’ Though Spiro was shorter, Ercole felt he was looking up into the prosecutor’s eyes.

‘Well, sir, I am not sure about that.’

‘“Not sure, not sure.” Tell me what you mean.’ His voice boomed. ‘I’m quite curious. You’re not sure about something? What might you not be sure about?’

Ercole was no longer smiling. Blushing, he swallowed. ‘Well, sir, with respect, how can there be any patterns? He’s picking his victims at random.’

‘Explain.’

‘Well, it’s obvious. He finds a victim in New York City, a businessman apparently, according to the Europol report. Then he flees to Italy and selects, it seems, a foreigner of limited means at a rural bus stop.’ He gave a laugh. ‘I see no pattern there.’

‘“See no pattern, see no pattern.”’ Spiro tasted the words as if trying a suspect wine. He paced slowly, studying the chart.

Ercole gulped once more and looked to Rossi, who tossed an amused glance toward both men.

‘What do you do with the fact, Forestry Officer—’

‘Benelli.’

‘— that the kidnapper’s car was parked by the desolate roadside and the kidnapper was waiting in the bushes? Does that not suggest design?’

‘It’s not clear when the kidnapper arrived. It might have been before or after the victim did. I would suggest, at best, there’s a design to kidnap a victim, but not necessarily this victim. So, pattern? I’m not sure I see one.’

Spiro glanced at his watch, a large gold model. Ercole could not detect the brand. He said to Rossi, ‘I have a meeting upstairs, with another inspector. Let me know about any videos. Oh, and Forestry Officer?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your name is Ercole, right?’

‘It is.’

At last, he recognizes me. And he is going to concede my observation about patterns. Ercole felt victorious.

‘From mythology.’

His name was the Italian version of ‘Hercules,’ the Roman god.

‘My father enjoyed ancient lore and—’

‘You are familiar with the twelve labors that Hercules was required to complete?’

‘Yes, yes!’ Ercole laughed. ‘As an act of penance, in the service of King Eurystheus.’

‘You’re falling behind in yours.’

‘My...’

‘Your labors.’

Silence.

Looking away from the man’s fierce eyes, Ercole said, ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

Spiro pointed. ‘You missed some water there. You wouldn’t want it to seep under the tile, now, would you? The gods would not be pleased.’

Ercole glanced down. Tight-lipped for a moment, and furious that he could not control the reddening of his face. ‘I will get right to it, sir.’

As Spiro left, Ercole dropped to his knees. He happened to glance up and see just outside the doorway Rossi’s protégé Silvio De Carlo, looking in. The handsome officer would have witnessed the entire dressing-down — and the order to complete mopping, the implication being that Ercole was not even a competent janitor, let alone investigator. His face a blank mask, De Carlo moved on.

Ercole said to Rossi, ‘What have I done, Inspector? I was merely stating what seemed logical from the facts. I could see no pattern. A crime in New York, a crime in the hills of Campania.’

‘Ah, you committed the crime of blinders.’

‘Blinders. What is that?’

‘It’s a subtle psychological condition that inexperienced investigators fall victim to. You had already — on the basis of very preliminary evidence — reached the conclusion that this was a random crime. But by embracing that theory you will be disinclined to expand your investigative horizons and consider that the Composer might have acted out of design to target these particular people and that we can discover a pattern to his acts that will help us apprehend him.

‘Is it possible to see a pattern at this point? Of course not. Does Prosecutor Spiro think it likely? Of course not. But there is no one I know with a mind that is more expansive than his. He will take in all the facts, making no judgment, long after others have drawn conclusions. Often, he is right and the others are not.’

‘Open mind.’

‘Yes. Open mind. The most important asset an investigator can have. So, we will not vote on patterns or no patterns at this point.’

‘I’ll remember that, Inspector. Thank you.’

Ercole glanced down at the puddle on the tile floor once more. He’d used all the paper towels. He stepped outside and strode past De Carlo, who was texting on his mobile. My God, the man is completely in vogue, from hair coiffure to polished shoes. Ercole ignored his glance and continued down the hall to the men’s room to fetch more towels.

As he was returning, he noted Daniela Canton up the hall, finishing a conversation with her fellow officer, the blond, Giacomo Schiller. After he had walked away Ercole hid the paper towels behind his back and, after a hesitation, approached. ‘Excuse me. May I ask a question?’

‘Yes, of course, Officer...’

‘Call me Ercole, please.’

She nodded.

He asked, ‘Prosecutor Spiro.’ A whisper. ‘Is he always so stern?’

‘No, no, no,’ she said.

‘Ah.’

‘Usually he is far less polite than he was in there.’

Ercole lifted an eyebrow. ‘You heard him?’

‘We all did.’

Ercole closed his eyes momentarily. Oh, my. ‘And he can be worse? Is that true?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s formidable. A smart man, there’s no doubt. But he tolerates no errors — in fact or in judgment — by others. Be careful not to anger him.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Did you see that book in his pocket? The leather one.’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s never without it. People say it’s a notebook in which he writes down the names of people who have crossed him or are incompetent and will damage his future.’

Ercole recalled seeing the prosecutor on RAI television not long ago, smoothly fielding questions about his plans for a career in politics.

‘He wrote down something just now, as he was leaving!’

She was uncomfortable. ‘Perhaps it was just a coincidence.’ Her beautiful blue eyes scanned his face. ‘In any event, be careful, Officer.’

‘I will. Thank you. You are very kind and I—’

‘Ercole!’ a voice shouted from up the hall.

Gasping, he turned to see Inspector Massimo Rossi storming from the situation room. It was odd, and unnerving, to see the otherwise placid man so agitated.

Had the Postal Police reported that the Composer uploaded a video?

Had someone found the body of the Libyan?

‘Excuse me.’ He turned from Daniela.

‘Ercole,’ she said.

He paused and looked back.

She pointed at the floor. He had dropped the paper towels.

‘Oh.’ He bent and retrieved them then ran up the hall to Rossi.

The inspector said, ‘It seems the information you requested from America about the kidnapping has arrived.’

Ercole was confused; the expression on Rossi’s face was even more troubled than a moment ago. ‘And isn’t that good for us, sir?’

‘It most certainly is not. Come with me.’

Chapter 14

Lincoln Rhyme looked around the well-worn lobby of Naples police headquarters.

Though he’d never been here, the building was infinitely familiar; law enforcement doesn’t need translation.

People came and went, officers in several, no, many, different styles of uniforms — most of which were spiffier and more regal than the US equivalent. Some plainclothes officers, wearing badges on hips or lanyards. And civilians too. Victims, witnesses, attorneys.

Busy. Like Naples outside, Naples inside was hectic.

He studied the architecture once more.

Thom said to Rhyme and Sachs, ‘Prewar.’

It occurred to Rhyme that in Italy the phrase would, in most people’s minds, refer to the Second World War. Unlike America for the past eighty years, Italy had not regularly dotted the globe with tanks and infantry and drones.

Thom followed his boss’s eyes and said, ‘Fascist era. You know that Italy was the birthplace of fascism? World War One. Then Mussolini took up the standard.’

Rhyme had not known that. But, then, by his own admission, he knew very little that was not related to criminalistics. If a fact didn’t help him solve a case, it was a nonfact. He did, however, know the origin of the word. He shared this now. ‘The word “fascist” comes from “fasces.” The ceremonial bundle of sticks carried by bodyguards to signify power in Roman officials.’

‘As in speak softly, and carry a big one?’ Sachs asked.

Clever. But Lincoln Rhyme was not in the mood for clever. He was in the mood to get on with the unusual, and infuriating, case against the Composer.

Ah, at last.

Two men, focusing on the Americans, appeared in the hallway, one in his fifties, rumpled and solidly built, sporting a mustache. He wore a dark suit, white shirt and tie. With him was a tall younger man, around thirty, in a gray uniform with insignia on the breast and shoulder. They shared a glance and moved quickly toward the trio.

‘You are Lincoln Rhyme,’ said the older. His English was heavily accented but clear.

‘And this is Detective Amelia Sachs. And Thom Reston.’

As planned, she proffered her gold badge. Not as imposing as fasces, it was nonetheless some indicia of authority.

Even in the short period he’d been in Italy — about three hours — Rhyme had noted a great deal of hugging and cheek kissing. Man-woman, woman-woman, man-man. Now, not even a hand was offered — at least not by the older cop, the one in charge, of course. He merely nodded, his face stiff with wariness. The younger stepped forward, palm out, but, seeing his superior’s reticence, eased back quickly.

‘I am Inspector Massimo Rossi. The Police of State. You are coming from New York here, all the way?’

‘Yes.’

The young man’s eyes radiated awe, as if he were seeing a living unicorn. ‘I am Ercole Benelli.’

Curious name, pronounced AIR-colay.

He continued. ‘I am honored to meet such an esteemed figure as you. And to meet you in person, Signorina Sachs.’ His English was better and less accented than Rossi’s. Generational, probably. Rhyme suspected YouTube and American TV occupied more of the younger officer’s time.

Rossi said, ‘Let us go upstairs.’ He added, as if he needed to, ‘For the moment.’

They rose in silence to the third floor — it would be the fourth in America; Rhyme had read in the guidebook on the way here that in Europe the ground floor was counted as zero, not one.

Out of the elevator, as they made their way down a well-lit corridor, Ercole asked, ‘You flew on a commercial flight?’

‘No. I had access to a private jet.’

‘A private jet? From America!’ Ercole whistled.

Thom chuckled. ‘It’s not ours. A lawyer Lincoln helped in a case recently lent it to us. The crew is flying clients of his to depositions around Europe for the next ten days. We were going to use it for other plans but then this arose.’

Greenland, Rhyme thought. Or some other suitable honeymoon site. He didn’t, however, share this with the police officer.

At the reference to the duration of their visit — ten days, as opposed to one, or a portion of one — Rossi cocked his head and didn’t seem pleased. Rhyme had known from the moment he and Sachs had looked at each other, following Ercole’s email about the Composer’s presence in Italy, and decided to come here, they would not be welcome. So he was pleased that Thom had fired off the ten-day line; nothing wrong with getting the Italians used to the idea that they were not to be scooted away too fast.

Sachs said to Ercole, ‘You speak English well.’

‘Thank you. I have studied from the time I was a ragazzo, a boy. You speak Italian?’

‘No.’

‘But you do! That is Italian for “no.”’

No one smiled and he fell silent, blushing.

Rhyme looked around him, noting again how familiar the place seemed, little different from the Big Building — One Police Plaza, in New York. Harried detectives and uniforms, some joking, some scowling, some bored. Directives from on high posted on bulletin boards and taped directly to the walls. Computers, a year or so past state-of-the-art. Phones ringing — more mobiles in use than landlines.

Only the language was different.

Well, that and another distinction: There were no paper coffee cups, as you’d find littering the desks of American cops. No fast-food bags either. Apparently the Italians avoided this sloppy practice. All to the good. When he’d been head of NYPD forensics, Rhyme had once fired a technician who was examining slides of evidence while he chomped on a Big Mac. ‘Contamination!’ he’d shouted. ‘Get out.’

Rossi led them into a conference room of about ten by twenty feet. It contained a battered table, four chairs, a filing cabinet and a laptop. Against the wall easels held pads of newsprint, covered with handwritten notes and photos. These were just like his own evidence charts, though paper, rather than whiteboards. While there were words he couldn’t make out, many items on the list of physical evidence were understandable.

‘Mr Rhyme,’ Rossi began.

‘Captain,’ Ercole said quickly. ‘He retired as captain from the NYPD.’ Then seemed to decide he should not be correcting his superior. A blush.

Rhyme gave a dismissing gesture with his working arm. ‘No matter.’

‘Forgive me,’ Rossi continued, apparently genuinely troubled by this lapse. ‘Captain Rhyme.’

‘He is now a consultant,’ Ercole added, ‘I have read about him. He often works with Detective Sachs here. That is correct too?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

A cheerleader, like this Ercole, was not a bad idea, Rhyme thought. He was curious about the man. He had both a confidence and a rookie’s air about him. And Rhyme had seen throughout the building no gray uniforms like his. There’s a story here.

Sachs tapped her shoulder bag. ‘We have the results of the evidence analysis at the two crime scenes involving the Composer in New York. Crime scene photos, footprints and so on.’

Rossi said, ‘Yes. We were looking forward to receiving it. Have you gathered any more information since you spoke to Officer Benelli?’

‘Nothing definitive,’ Sachs said. ‘We could find nothing about the source of the musical strings he used for the nooses. His keyboard was purchased with cash from a large retailer. There are no fingerprints anywhere. Or, at best, small fragments that aren’t helpful.’

Rhyme added, ‘Our FBI is looking at manifests for flights here.’

‘We have done so too, with no success. But flight manifests would be, what do you say, a long shot. With no picture, no passport number? And your Composer could have flown into a dozen airports in the EU and moved over borders without any record. Rented or stolen a car in Amsterdam or Geneva and driven. I assume you considered he might not have left from a New York-area airport. Perhaps Washington, Philadelphia... even Atlanta on Delta. Hartsfield is the busiest airport in the world, I have learned.’

Well, Rossi was at the top of his game.

‘Yes, we considered that,’ Rhyme said.

Rossi asked, ‘He’s American, you think?’

‘It’s our assumption but we aren’t sure.’

Ercole asked, ‘Why would a serial killer leave the country and come here to kill?’

Sachs said, ‘The Composer isn’t a serial killer.’

Ercole nodded. ‘No, he hasn’t killed, that’s true. You saved the victim. And we have not found the abducted man’s body here.’

Rossi: ‘Detective Sachs doesn’t mean that, Ercole.’

‘No, Inspector, you’re right. A serial killer is a rare and specific criminal profile. In males the motives’re sexual in nature usually, or nonsexual sadism. And while there’s ritualistic behavior, that’s limited in most cases to binding or arranging the victims in certain ways or leaving fetishes at the scene or taking trophies, postmortem. The behavior doesn’t rise to the Composer’s level of elaborate staging — the videos, the noose, the music. He’s a multiple perpetrator.’

Silence flowed into the room. Then Rossi spoke. ‘We thank you for your insights and assistance.’

‘In whatever humble way we can,’ Rhyme said. Not very humbly.

‘And in coming all this way to deliver to us that file.’ Not very subtly.

Then Rossi looked him over. ‘You, Captain Rhyme, I think, are not used to perpetrators, come si dice? Absconsioning?’

‘Absconding,’ Ercole corrected his boss. Then froze, blushing once more.

‘No, I am not,’ Rhyme said. Dramatically, perhaps overly so. Though he believed the delivery was appropriate since his impression was that Rossi, too, was a cop who would not do well with absconsioning perpetrators.

‘You are hoping for extradition,’ Rossi said. ‘After we catch him.’

‘I hadn’t thought that far,’ Rhyme lied.

‘No?’ Rossi brushed at his mustache. ‘Whether the trial is here or in America, that is a decision for the court, not for me or for you. Allora, I appreciate what you’ve done, Captain Rhyme. The effort. It must be taxing.’ He avoided a glance at the wheelchair. ‘But now you have delivered your report I cannot see how you can be of further help. You are a crime scene expert but we have crime scene experts here.’

‘Your Scientific Police.’

‘Ah, you know of them?’

‘I lectured at the main facility in Rome years ago.’

‘I do hate to disappoint you, and you, as well, Signorina Sachs. But, once again, I see little you can offer other than that.’ He nodded to her bag. ‘And there are practical issues. Officer Benelli and I speak serviceable English but most others involved in the case do not. I must add too that Naples is not a very...’ He sought a word. ‘... accessible city. For someone like you.’

‘I’ve noticed.’ Rhyme shrugged, a gesture he was fully capable of.

Silence, again.

Broken at last by Rhyme: ‘Translation is easy, thanks to Google. And regarding mobility: In New York, I don’t get out to crime scenes much. No need. I leave that to my Sachs and other officers. They return like bees with nectar. And we concoct the honey together. Forgive the metaphor. But what can it possibly hurt, Inspector, for us to hang around? We’ll be sounding boards for ideas.’

‘Sounding board’ seemed to confuse him.

Ercole translated.

Rossi paused then said, ‘This that you are proposing, it is irregular and we are not people who are well with irregularness.’

At that moment Rhyme was aware of a person striding into the room. He swiveled the chair around to see a lean man of slight build in a stylish jacket and slacks, pointy boots, thinning hair and salt-and-pepper goatee. His eyes were narrow and tiny. The word ‘demonic’ came to mind. He looked over Sachs and Rhyme and said, ‘No. No sounding boards. There will be no consulting, no assistance at all. That is out of the question.’ His accent was thicker than Rossi’s and Ercole’s but his grammar and syntax were perfect. This told Rhyme he read English frequently but probably had not been to America or the UK often and watched little English-language media.

The man turned to Ercole and fired off a question in Italian.

Flustered, blushing, the young officer muttered defensively, obviously a denial. Rhyme guessed the question was: ‘Did you ask them to come?’

Rossi said, ‘Captain Rhyme, Detective Sachs, and Signor Reston, this is Prosecutor Spiro. He is investigating the case with us.’

‘Investigating?’

Rossi was silent for a moment, considering Rhyme’s question, it seemed. ‘Ah, yes. From what I know, it is different in America. Here, in Italy, prosecutors function as policemen, in some ways. Procuratore Spiro and I are the lead investigators in the Composer case. Working together.’

Spiro’s dark eyes lasered into Rhyme’s. ‘Our tasks are to identify this man, to ascertain where he is hiding in Italy and where he is keeping the victim, and to marshal evidence to be used at the trial when we capture him. As to the first, you clearly cannot help because you have failed to identify him in your country. The second? You know nothing of Italy so even your expertise in evidence would offer little help. And as to the third, it is not in your interest to assist in a trial here, as you wish to extradite the suspect back to America for trial there. So, you see, your involvement would at best be unhelpful and at worst a conflict of interest. I thank you for the courtesy of providing us with your files. But now you must leave, Mr Rhyme.’

Ercole started to blurt, ‘It is Capitano—’

Spiro shut him off with a glare. ‘Che cosa?’

‘Nothing, Procuratore. Forgive me.’

‘So, you must leave.’

Apparently prosecutors — or this prosecutor, at least — carried more authority than police inspectors when it came to investigations. Rhyme sensed no disagreement on the part of Rossi. He nodded to Sachs. She dug into the shoulder bag and handed the inspector a thick file. Rossi flipped through it. On the top were photos of the evidence and profile charts.

He nodded and handed them to Ercole. ‘Put this information on the board, Officer.’

Spiro said, ‘Do you need assistance getting to the airport?’

Rhyme said, ‘We’ll handle our departure arrangements, thank you.’

‘He has a private jet,’ Ercole said, still awestruck.

Spiro’s mouth tightened, approaching a sneer.

The three Americans turned and headed to the door, Ercole escorting them — as Rossi’s nod had instructed.

Just before they left, though, Rhyme stopped and pivoted back. ‘If I can offer an observation or two?’

Spiro was stone-faced but Rossi nodded. ‘Please.’

‘Does fette di metallo mean “bits of metal”?’ Rhyme’s eyes were on the chart.

Spiro’s and Rossi’s eyes swiveled to one another’s. ‘“Slices,” yes.’

‘Fibre di carta is “paper fibers”?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Hm. All right. The Composer has changed his appearance. He’s shaved his beard and I am fairly certain his head as well. He has the victim hidden in a very old location, and it’s deep underground. It’s most likely urban, rather than rural. The building is not now accessible to the public and hasn’t been for some time but it once was. It’s in a neighborhood where prostitutes used to work. They still might. That I couldn’t tell you.’

Ercole, he noted, was staring at him as if mesmerized.

Rhyme continued, ‘And one more thing: He won’t use YouVid again. He uses proxies to hide his IP address but he’s not good at it and I’m sure he’s smart enough to know that. So he’ll expect your computer people, and YouVid security, to be onto him. You should start monitoring other upload sites. And tell your tactical people to be ready to move quickly. The victim doesn’t have much time at all.’ As he turned his chair toward the door he said, ‘Goodbye now. I mean, arrivederci.’

Chapter 15

Am I dead?

And in Jannah?

Ali Maziq could honestly not say. He believed he had been a good man and a good Muslim all his life, and he thought that he had earned a place in Paradise. Perhaps not the highest place, Firdaws, reserved for prophets and martyrs and the most devout, but certainly in a respectable locale.

Yet... yet...

How could Heaven be so cold, so damp, so shadowy?

Alarm coursed through his body and he shivered, only partly from the chill. Was he in al-Nar?

Perhaps he had gotten everything wrong, and had been dispatched straight to Hell. He tried to think back to his most recent memory. Someone appearing fast, someone strong and large. Then something was pulled over his head, muffling the screams.

After that? Flashes of light. Some strange words. Some music.

And now this... Cold, damp, dark, only faint illumination from above.

Yes, yes, it could be. Not Jannah but al-Nar.

He had a vague sense that perhaps this was Hell, yes. Because perhaps he had not lived such a fine life, after all. He had not been so good. He’d done evil. He couldn’t recall what specifically but something.

Perhaps that was what Hell was: an eternity of discomfort spent in a state of believing you had sinned but not knowing exactly how.

Then his mind kicked in, his rational, educated mind. No, he couldn’t be dead. He was in pain. And he knew that if Allah, praise be to Him, had sent him to al-Nar, he would be feeling pain far worse than this. If he were in Jannah, he would be feeling no pain at all but merely the glory of God, praise be to Him.

So, the answer was that he wasn’t dead.

Which led to: So, then, where?

Vague memories tumbled through his thoughts. Memories, or maybe constructions of his own imagination. Why can’t I think more clearly? Why can I remember so little?

Images. Lying on the ground, smelling grass. The taste of food. The satisfaction of water in his mouth. Good cold water and bad tea. Olives. A man’s hands on his shoulders.

Strong. The big man. Everything going dark.

Music. Western music.

He coughed and his throat hurt. It stung badly. He’d been choked perhaps. The lack of air had hurt his memory. His head ached too. Maybe a fall had jumbled his thoughts.

Ali Maziq gave up trying to figure out what had happened.

He focused on where he was and how to escape.

Squinting, he could discern that he was sitting in a chair — bound into a chair — in a cylindrical room that measured about six or seven meters across, stone walls, no ceiling. Above was merely a dim emptiness, from which the very faint illumination came. The floor, also stone, was pitted and scarred.

And what exactly did this room remind him of?

What? What?

Ah, a memory trickled from a dim recess in his mind, and he was picturing a class trip to a museum in Tripoli: the burial chamber for a Carthaginian holy man.

A brief recent memory flickered again: sipping cold water, eating olives, drinking tea that was sour, made from water shot out of a cappuccino machine steamer, residue of milk in the brew.

With somebody?

Then the bus stop. Something had happened at a bus stop.

What country am I in? Libya?

No, he didn’t think so.

But I am certainly in a burial chamber...

The room was silent except for the drip of water somewhere in the chamber.

He was gagged, a piece of cloth in his mouth, which was covered with tape. Still, he tried calling for help — in Arabic. Even if he were elsewhere and a different language was spoken, he hoped the tone of his voice would draw rescuers.

But the gag was efficient and he made hardly any sound whatsoever.

Ali now gasped in shock as there was sudden pressure against his windpipe. What could this be? He couldn’t see clearly and he had no use of his hands but by twisting his head from side to side and analyzing the sensation, he realized that his head was in a hoop of what seemed to be thin twine. It had just grown slightly tauter.

He looked up and to the right.

And then he saw it — the device meant to kill him!

The cord around his neck traveled upward, to a rod stuck into the wall, then over another rod and down to a bucket. The pail was under an old rusted pipe, from which water dripped.

Oh, no, no! God protect me, praise be to Him!

He now understood the source of the sounds. Slowly the drops of water were filling the bucket. As it grew heavier, it tugged the noose tighter.

The size of the bucket suggested that it would hold easily a half-dozen liters. Ali didn’t know how many kilos that represented. But he suspected that the person who had created this horrible machine did. And that his calculation was accurate enough to make certain that — for reasons only God knew, praise be to Him — the bucket would soon be more than heavy enough to choke him to death.

Ah, wait! Are those footsteps?

When his breathing slowed, he listened carefully.

Had someone heard him?

But, no, the sound was only the slow plick, plick, plick of water leaching from the ancient pipe and dropping into the bucket.

The noose tugged upward once more, and Ali Maziq’s muffled pleas for help echoed softly throughout his burial chamber.

Chapter 16

‘Hm, was sure I’d get a ticket.’ Thom’s handsome face was perplexed.

The three Americans were outside the police station and the aide was staring at the disabled-accessible van he’d leased online and picked up at Naples airport a few hours ago. The battered, dusty vehicle, a modified Mercedes Sprinter, sat more on the sidewalk than in a parking place. It had been the only spot he’d been able to find near the Questura.

Sachs surveyed the chaotic traffic zipping past and said, ‘Naples doesn’t seem like a place that bothers much with parking tickets. Wish we saw that more in Manhattan.’

‘Wait here. I’ll bring the van over.’

‘No, I’d like something to drink.’

‘Too much alcohol isn’t good when you’ve been flying. The pressurization.’

This concern, Rhyme was convinced, was a complete fiction. True, a quadriplegic’s system is more sensitive than that of a person who isn’t disabled, and stress on the body can be a problem. The confused nervous system, conspiring with an equally perplexed cardiovascular network, can sometimes send the blood pressure through the roof, which could result in stroke, additional neuro damage and death, if not treated quickly. Rhyme supposed the cabin pressure might in rare cases lead to this condition — autonomic dysreflexia — but blaming alcohol consumption for increased risk was, he was convinced, a shabby ploy to get him to cut down.

He said as much now.

Thom fired back, ‘I read about it in a study.’

‘Anyway, I was referring to coffee. Besides, what’s the hurry? The pilots’ve gone on to London to ferry those witnesses to Amsterdam. They can’t just turn around and fly us back to America. We’re spending the night in Naples.’

‘We’ll go to the hotel. Maybe later. A glass of wine. Small.’

They had a reservation for a two-bedroom suite at a place Thom had found near the water. ‘Accessible and romantic,’ the aide had said, drawing an eye roll from Rhyme.

Then, looking around him, Rhyme said, ‘Coffee then? I am tired. Look. There’s a café.’ He nodded across the street, Via Medina.

Sachs was watching a low, glistening sports car growl past. Of its make, model and horsepower, Rhyme had no clue. But to catch her attention it must have been quite a machine. Her eyes turned back to Rhyme. She said in an edgy voice, ‘Jurisdictional pissing contests.’

Rhyme smiled. Her mind was still on the case.

She continued, ‘Feds versus state in the US. Here, Italy versus America. It happens everywhere, looks like. This is bullshit, Rhyme.’

‘Is, yes.’

‘You don’t look that upset.’

‘Hm.’

She glanced back at the building. ‘We need to stop this guy. Damn it. Well, we can still help them from New York. I’ll call Rossi when we get back home. He seemed reasonable. More reasonable, at least, than the other one. The prosecutor.’

Rhyme said, ‘I like the name: Dante Spiro. Coffee?’ he repeated.

As they headed for the place, which seemed to specialize in pastry and gelato, Thom said to Rhyme, ‘You’re tired, you should have tiramisu. The dessert, you know. It means “pick me up” in Italian. Like tea in England — gives you energy in the afternoon. Remember, “coffee” here is what we call espresso. Then there’s cappuccino and latte and Americano, which is espresso with hot water, served in a larger cup.’

The hostess found a space for them outside, near a metal divider, separating the tables from the rest of the sidewalk. It was covered with a painted banner, probably red when it was installed, now faded pink. It bore the word Cinzano.

The server, a laconic woman, mid-twenties, in a dark skirt and white blouse, approached and asked for their order in broken English.

Sachs and Thom ordered cappuccino and the aide a vanilla gelato as well. She turned to Rhyme, who said, ‘Per favore, una grappa grande.’

‘Sì.’

She vanished before Thom could protest. Sachs laughed. The aide muttered, ‘You tricked me. It’s an ice cream parlor. Who knew they had a liquor license?’

Rhyme said, ‘I like Italy.’

‘And where did you learn the Italian? How do you even know what grappa is?’

‘Frommer’s guide to Italy,’ Rhyme said. ‘I put my time on the plane to good use. You were sleeping, I noticed.’

‘Which you should have been doing too.’

The beverages came and, with his right hand, Rhyme lifted the glass and sipped. ‘It’s... refreshing. I would say an acquired taste.’

Thom reached for it. ‘If you don’t like it...’

Rhyme moved his hand away. ‘I need a chance to complete my acquisition.’

The server was nearby and had overheard. She said, ‘Ah, we are not having the best grappa here.’ Her tone was apologetic. ‘But go to a bigger restaurant and they will offer more and betterer grappa. Distillato too. It is like grappa. You must have them both. The best are from Barolo, in Piemonte, and Veneto. The north. But that is my opinion. Where is it are you visiting from?’

‘New York.’

‘Ah, New York!’ Eyes shining. ‘The Manhattan?’

‘Yes,’ Sachs said.

‘I will go someday. I have been to Disney with my family. In Florida. Someday I will go to New York. I want to skate on the ice at Rockefeller Center. It is possible doing that all the time?’

‘Only the winter,’ Thom said.

‘Allora, thank you!’

Rhyme took another sip of grappa. This taste was mellower now but he was now determined to try one of the better varieties. His eyes remained where they had largely been, on the front of police headquarters. He finished the sip and had another.

Thom, clearly enjoying his dessert and coffee, said, with a suspicious look in his eyes, ‘You seem a lot better now. Less tired.’

‘Yes. Miraculous.’

‘Though impatient about something.’

True, he was.

‘About—?’

‘About that,’ Rhyme said as Sachs’s phone hummed.

She frowned. ‘No caller ID.’

‘Answer. We know who it is.’

‘We do?’

‘And on speaker.’

She pressed the screen and said, ‘Hello?’

‘Detective Sachs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, yes. I am Massimo Rossi.’

‘Pay,’ Rhyme said to Thom, finishing the grappa.

‘And, Captain Rhyme?’ Rossi asked.

‘Inspector.’

‘I hoped I might catch you nearby.’

‘A café, across the street. Having some grappa.’

A pause. ‘Well, I must tell you that the Composer’s video has been uploaded. You were correct. Not on YouVid. It was on NowChat.’

‘When?’ Rhyme asked.

‘The time stamp was twenty minutes ago.’

‘Ah.’

Rossi said, ‘Please, Captain Rhyme. I think you are not the sort of man to play games. Clearly not. I have discussed the matter with Prosecutor Spiro and we were, to say the least, impressed at your observations.’

‘Deductions, not observations.’

‘Yes, of course. Allora, we decided we might ask you, changing our ideas, if you would in fact be willing to—’

‘We’ll be in your offices in five minutes.’

Chapter 17

At Rhyme’s suggestion — insistent suggestion — the situation room was moved from upstairs to a larger conference room in the basement, near the Scientific Police laboratory.

The lab was efficiently constructed. There was a sterile area, where trace was extracted and analyzed, and a larger section for fingerprints, tread and shoe prints and other work where contamination would not be a risk. The conference room opened onto this latter part of the lab.

Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were here with Rossi and the tall, rangy Ercole Benelli.

Two others were present, uniformed officers, though in blue outfits, different from Ercole’s — the light gray. They were a young patrolman, Giacomo Schiller, and his apparent partner, Daniela Canton. Both blond — she darker than he — they were serious of expression and attentive to Rossi, who spoke to them like a grandfather, kindly but one you made sure to obey. They were, Rossi explained, with the Flying Squad — which corresponded, Rhyme deduced, to the patrol officers assigned to squad cars, Remote Mobile Patrols in NYPD jargon.

Rhyme asked, ‘And Dante Spiro?’

‘Procuratore Spiro had other matters to attend to.’

So the temperamental man had reluctantly agreed to let the Americans return but wanted nothing to do with them. Fine with Rhyme. He was not quite sure about this Italian arrangement of the district attorney’s active involvement in the investigation. It probably wasn’t a conflict of interest — and Spiro seemed sharp enough. No, Rhyme’s objection could be summed up in a dreaded cliché: too many cooks.

Ercole was setting up the easels and charts, and translating from Italian to English. In the doorway, advising him, was round, no-nonsense Beatrice Renza, a senior analyst in the lab.

Her name, Rhyme learned, was pronounced Bee-a-TREE-chay. Italian took some getting used to, certainly, but was far more melodic than blunt English.

She spoke to Ercole in clipped, rapid Italian and he grimaced and responded testily, apparently to some objection about a translation or characterization of something he was writing. She rolled her eyes, behind elaborate glasses, then stepped forward to take the marker from him and make a correction.

Schoolmarm, Rhyme thought, but then, so’m I. He was admiring her professional style. And her skill in extracting the evidence. The breakdown of the trace was excellent.

Daniela and Giacomo finished setting up a large laptop. She nodded to Rossi, who said, ‘Here is the video.’

Giacomo tapped keys and the screen came to life.

In lightly accented English, Daniela said, ‘The site had taken down the video. It’s against their policy to show graphic violence. In Italy that can be a crime. But at our request they sent a copy to us.’

‘Were there comments by viewers on the page where it was posted?’ Sachs asked. ‘About the video?’

Rossi explained, ‘We hoped too what you are suggesting, yes. That the Composer might respond to a comment and we might learn more. But that has not been the case. The video site has left the page up — again at our request — without the video. And Giacomo here is monitoring comments. But he has remained silent, the Composer.’

The young man gave a sour laugh. ‘It is a sad state. The comments mostly are people angry that the video is down. The audience wants to see a man die.’ He nodded toward the computer. ‘Ecco.’

They all stared at the screen.

The video showed a dimly lit room, walls apparently damp, dotted with mold. The gagged victim — a slim man, dark-complexioned, with a beard — sat in a chair, a thin noose around his neck. The cord — another musical-instrument string — disappeared up out of the scene. It was not very tight. The man was unconscious, breathing slowly. The video, like the one in New York, included only music, played on a keyboard, presumably a new Casio or something similar.

This tune too was in three-four waltz time. And, as in the earlier video, the downbeat was a man’s gasp and, as the visual grew darker, the music and inhalations grew slower.

‘Cristo,’ Ercole whispered, though he had presumably seen it at least once before. He looked toward Daniela, who regarded the video impassively. Ercole cleared his throat and put on a stoic face.

The music was familiar but Rhyme couldn’t place it. He mentioned this.

The others seemed surprised. It was Thom who said, ‘“The Waltz of the Flowers.” Nutcracker.’

‘Oh.’ Rhyme listened to jazz occasionally; there was something intriguing about how improvisation could find a home in the mathematical absolute of a musical composition (it was how he approached crime scene work). But in general, music, like most arts, was largely a waste of time to Lincoln Rhyme.

The victim stirred as dirt or stones trickled onto his shoulder, from the wall or ceiling, but did not come to. The screen grew dimmer, the music slower. Finally, it went black and the soundtrack ended.

The perverse copyright notice came up on the screen.

Rhyme asked, ‘Metadata?’ Information embedded in pictures and videos about the work itself: type of camera, focal length, date and time, speed and aperture settings, sometimes even the GPS location. This had been removed from the New York video, but perhaps the Composer failed to do so here.

Rossi said, ‘None. The Postal Police said it was re-encoded and all the data stripped out.’

‘Postal Police?’

‘It is our telecommunications arm.’

Rossi stared at the black screen for a moment. ‘How much time do you think we have?’

Rhyme shook his head. Any suggestion would be simply a guess, a waste of effort.

Sachs mused, ‘How does the gallows work? Something off camera will pull the noose up, a weight or something.’

They looked at the video for any clue but saw nothing.

‘Well, let us move now. See if we can solve this puzzle. Captain Rhyme—’

‘How did I draw my conclusions I told you about?’

‘Yes. That’s where we should start.’

Nodding toward the now-translated chart, Rhyme said, ‘The trace, of course. Now, the substances paired with the propylene glycol is shaving cream. With the blood, it’s a reasonable conclusion that he cut himself shaving. To change his appearance as much as he can, he’d lose the hair and beard. The shaved-head look seems popular here in Italy.

‘Now, the indole, skatole and thiol are excrement.’ A glance toward the chart once more. ‘Those’re shit. With the paper fiber? Human shit, of course. No other creatures I know wipe. It’s old shit, quite old, desiccated. You can see in the picture — and of several different types. See the color and texture variations? I would speculate there is a sewer nearby, one that might not have been used for some time.

‘The animal hairs are from a rat. It’s shedding because it’s scratching; it has a skin irritation — the bartonella bacteria are causing that. The particular strain is the one that most commonly infects rats. Rats and sewers, well, you find them everywhere but more often in cities than smaller towns. So, urban setting.’

‘Bene,’ said Beatrice Renza.

‘The iron shavings tell me the Composer cut a lock or chain to get access to the place. Iron isn’t used much anymore — most locks are steel — so it’s old. With the rust on only one side — you can see it there, that photo — it was recently cut.’

Rossi said, ‘You suggested it used to have public access, in the past.’

‘Yes, because of the rubber.’

‘The rubber?’ Ercole asked. He seemed to be memorizing all that Rhyme said.

‘What else would be vulcanized? Translucent, decomposing shreds. Vulcanized rubber.’

It was Beatrice who nodded. ‘They are the old condoms, might it not be?’

‘Exactly. Hardly a romantic trysting place, with the rat neighbors, and sewers, but perfect for streetwalkers.’ Rhyme shrugged. ‘They’re bold deductions. But we have a man who’s about to be strangled to death. I don’t think we have time to be timid. So, what does this tell you about where the victim might be? Underground in Naples? Of course, a deserted area.’

Rossi said, ‘Not many of those here. We are a very crowded city.’

Beatrice said, ‘And Naples has more underground passages and walkways than any other city in Italy. Perhaps than Europe. Kilometers after kilometers.’

Ercole disagreed. ‘But not so many where access is in deserted places.’

The lab analyst muttered to him, ‘No. I think many. We must find other ways to narrow these concerns down.’

Rhyme said, ‘A map. There has to be a map of underground locations.’

‘Historical documents,’ Daniela offered.

With a smile, Ercole said to her, ‘Yes, of course. From a library or a college or a historical society.’

Rhyme turned to him and his eyebrow rose.

Ercole hesitated and said, ‘Is that wrong? It was just a suggestion.’

Rossi said, ‘I think, Ercole, that Captain Rhyme is not questioning your thought — which is a good, if obvious, one — but your delay in providing such maps.’

‘Oh, yes, yes, of course.’

Sachs told him, ‘Go online. We don’t have time for you to prowl though libraries like The Da Vinci Code.’

Must have been a book, Rhyme supposed. Or movie.

Sachs asked Beatrice, ‘You mentioned the underground passages here. Are there walking tours?’

‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘My sister’s children, we are going on such tours. Several, three times.’

‘Ercole,’ Rhyme called, ‘download all those tour routes too.’

‘Yes, I will. You mean so that we can eliminate those areas from our underground search. Of course he would avoid places with tourists.’

‘I want to orient myself. A map of the city. We need a map.’

Rossi spoke to Daniela, who vanished then returned a moment later with a large foldout map. She taped it to the wall.

‘How are we coming, Ercole?’

‘I... There are quite a few underground areas of the city. I didn’t realize how — come si dice — how extensive the passages are.’

‘As I was saying,’ Beatrice offered to Ercole.

‘Some are contradictory. Indicated on one map but not another.’

‘I would think certain underground areas will have been filled in, construction,’ Rossi said. To Rhyme, Sachs and Thom he said, ‘This is a problem in Italy. A real estate man wishes to build an office or apartments and as soon as the excavation is started, a Roman or — here often — a Greek ruin is discovered, and all construction comes to a stopping.’

‘Give me something to work with, Ercole. We need to get on this.’

‘I have some, a few passageways, old buildings, grain storage warehouses, even some caves that are promising.’ He looked up. ‘How do I print?’ he asked Daniela.

‘Here.’ She leaned over him. She typed and a moment later, the Hewlett-Packard in the corner came to life. Rhyme didn’t know why he was surprised — perhaps because he was in an ancient city, looking at ancient maps; wireless printing routers seemed out of place.

Sachs fished the pages from the tray and handed them to Daniela. Rhyme instructed, ‘Draw the passages on the map.’

‘Tutti? All of them?’

‘Except the ones that seem to be bricked off.’

In her firm, swift strokes, she outlined the networks.

Rhyme said, ‘Now add public works. Sewers. But just the older ones, from historical maps. Old shit, remember? And open, not enclosed, pipes. The Composer stepped in the trace.’

The young officer began a new search. The maps Ercole found were obviously incomplete but they showed some sewage sluices that had been in operation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Daniela put these on the map.

‘Okay, now, eliminate the walking-tour routes,’ Rhyme instructed.

Ercole printed out the website information from ‘Underground Naples, See History Up Close!’ and a half-dozen others. Daniela noted the routes and marked off any that coincided with the passageways and sewers they’d found.

Still, miles and miles of places to stash the victim remained.

Rossi said, ‘And an area where prostitutes worked, you were suggesting?’ He looked at Giacomo, who gazed at the map and said, ‘I have patrolled — you would say in vice squad — many of the areas where working women and men are found, the Spanish Quarters, Piazza Garibaldi, Corso Umberto, Gianturco, Piazzale Tecchio — the San Paolo stadium, Via Terracina, Fuorigrotta, Agnano and Corso Lucci. These are active now. The Domiziana — or now Domitiana — area, north and west of Naples, was known historically for prostitution, and still is. But it’s very congested and the population is mostly immigrant. It would be hard for the Composer to get his victim there. And no underground passages are nearby.’

Rhyme said, ‘Circle the first areas you have mentioned, Officer.’

Giacomo took the marker from Daniela and did so.

This narrowed down the number of passageways and chambers to about two dozen.

‘What are they exactly,’ Sachs asked.

Rossi said, ‘Roman roads and alleyways and sidewalks before they were built over. Tunnels for delivery of merchandise to avoid the congested streets. Water reservoirs and aqueducts. Grain warehouses.’

‘Water?’

‘Yes. The Romans built the best water delivery infrastruttura in the world.’

Then Rhyme called, ‘Beatrice, you found limestone and lead?’

She didn’t understand, and Ercole translated.

‘Sì. Yes, we did. There it is, you can see.’

‘Were the old Roman aqueducts limestone?’

‘Yes, they were and, as you are suggesting, I believe, the pipes... shifting the water, transporting the water to the fountains and the homes and the buildings, were lead. Now replaced, of course, for healthy reasons.’

‘Ercole, maps of Roman water supplies?’

This document was readily available in the historical archives.

Ercole handed the printout to Daniela. He pointed to the document and said, ‘Here I have ten Roman water-holding chambers in the areas we have marked. They are like large wells or silos, round. These were connected to aqueducts coming into the city from the north and west. Some of them are large municipal reservoirs, twenty by twenty meters, and some are those serving smaller areas or individual homes, much smaller. When the supply of water became more modern, and pumping stations were created, many of these reservoirs were converted to warehouses and store rooms. Doors and windows were carved into the walls.’

Daniela marked them.

Rhyme: ‘I want to see the video again.’

The image came onto the screen once more. ‘Look at the wall, the stone. Is it a water reservoir?’

‘It might be.’ Ercole shrugged. ‘Carved stone. Stained with what might be water marks. And if converted, it could have had a doorway cut for access. There, that shadow suggests there is a doorway.’

Sachs said, ‘We’ve narrowed it to nine or ten locations. Can we do a search of them all? Get a hundred officers?’

Rossi seemed uncomfortable. ‘We do not have the resources I would like.’ He explained that there’d just been reports of potential terror attacks in Italy and other parts of Europe recently and many officers had been pulled off non-terror crimes.

Rhyme had the video played once more: the stone, the noose, the unconscious victim, his chest rising slowly, the trickle of dust, the—

‘Ah. Look at that.’ His voice was a whisper. But everyone in the room turned to him immediately. He grimaced, ‘I saw it before but didn’t think a damn thing of it.’

‘What, Rhyme?’

‘The dust and pebbles, falling from the wall.’

Sachs and Ercole spoke simultaneously. She: ‘Subway!’ He: ‘Rete Metropolitana!’

‘A train’s shaking the walls. Ercole, quick, what lines run through the areas we’ve marked?’

He called up a subway system schematic on the laptop. Looking it over, Daniela drew the transit lines on their working map.

‘There!’ Rossi called. ‘That water reservoir, the small one.’

It was a room about twenty by twenty feet, at the end of an aqueduct. It was accessed by a passageway that ran to a street by a square on Viale Margherita.

Giacomo added, ‘I know that area. That reservoir would be in the basement of an old building, now abandoned. Prostitutes could have used the passages years ago, yes.’

‘Abandoned,’ Rhyme said. ‘So the doors might be sealed with the lock and chain the Composer cut though; that’s the rust and the slices of metal.’

‘I’ll call the SCO,’ Rossi said.

Daniela offered: ‘Servizio Centrale Operativo. Our SWAT force.’

Rossi spoke for several minutes, giving firm orders then hung up. ‘The central office is assembling a team.’

Sachs met Rhyme’s eyes. He nodded.

She asked, ‘How far away is that?’ She stabbed the map, the entrance around which Daniela had drawn a red circle.

‘No more than a few kilometers from us.’

‘I’m going,’ Sachs announced.

After a brief hesitation Rossi said, ‘Yes, certainly.’ He looked to Giacomo and Daniela, and the three had a brief conversation in Italian.

Rossi translated, ‘Their vehicle is with other officers. Ercole, you drive Detective Sachs.’

‘Me?’

‘You.’

As they started for the door, Rhyme said, ‘Give her a weapon.’

‘What?’ Rossi asked.

‘I don’t want her in the field without a weapon.’

‘That’s irregular.’

We are not people who are well with irregularness...

‘She’s an NYPD detective and a competitive shooter.’

Rossi considered the request. Then he said, ‘I am not aware of the agreement we have with the United States but I authorized gendarmes in pursuit of a criminal from France to enter Campania armed. I will do the same now.’ He vanished and returned a few minutes later with a plastic pistol container. He jotted the number from the case onto a form and opened it. ‘This is a—’

‘Beretta ninety-six,’ she said. ‘The A-one. Forty caliber.’ She took it and pointed it downward, moving the slide slightly to verify it was empty. She took two black magazines and the box of ammunition that Rossi had also brought.

‘Sign here. And where it says “Rank,” and “Affiliation” — those words there — write something illegible. But please, Detective Sachs, do not shoot anyone if you can avoid it.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

She scrawled where he’d indicated, slipped in a mag and worked the slide to chamber a round. Then, making sure it was on safe, she tucked the weapon into her back waistband. She hurried to the door.

Ercole looked from Daniela to Rossi. ‘Should I—?’

Rhyme said, ‘Go! You should go.’

Chapter 18

‘That’s it?’ Amelia Sachs asked, as they ran from the Questura. ‘That’s your car?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Ercole was beside a small, boxy vehicle called a Mégane, soft blue, dusty and dinged. He began to walk to her side and open the door for her.

‘I’m fine.’ She waved him off. ‘Let’s go.’

The young officer climbed into the driver’s seat and she dropped into the passenger’s.

‘It’s not much, I’m sorry to say.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘The Flying Squad actually had two Lamborghinis. One was in an accident a few years ago so I’m not sure if they still have both of them. It’s a marked police car. What a—’

‘We should move.’

‘Of course.’

He started the engine. He put the shifter in first, signaled to the left and looked over his shoulder, waiting for a gap in traffic.

Sachs said, ‘I’ll drive.’

‘What?’

She slipped the shifter into neutral and yanked up on the brake, then leapt out.

Ercole said, ‘I should ask, do you have a license? There are probably forms to be filled out. I suppose—’

Then she was at the left-hand door, pulling it open. He climbed out. She said, ‘You can navigate.’ Ercole scurried around the car and dropped into the other seat and she settled into the right, not needing to adjust the seat’s position; he was taller and it was as far back as it might go.

She glanced at him. ‘Seat belt.’

‘Oh. Here, no one cares.’ A chuckle. ‘And they never give you a ticket.’

‘Put it on.’

‘All right. I will—’

Just as it clicked, she slammed the gears into first, fed the engine a slug of gas and popped the clutch, darting into a minuscule gap in traffic. One car swerved and another braked. Both honked. She didn’t bother to look back.

‘Mamma mia,’ Ercole whispered.

‘Where do I go?’

‘Straight on this road for a kilometer.’

‘Where’re your lights?’

‘There.’ He pointed to a switch. The headlights.

‘No, I mean the flashers. You have blue here, in Italy?’

‘Blue? Oh, police lights? I don’t have them—’ He gasped as she zipped into a space between a truck and a trio of motorcyclists. ‘This is my personal car.’

‘Ah. And how much horsepower? Eighty?’

Ercole said, ‘No, no, it’s closer to a hundred, one ten, in fact.’

Be still my heart, she thought, but said nothing. Amelia Sachs would never tarnish anyone’s image of his own wheels.

‘You don’t have flashers in your personal cars?’

‘The Police of State might. Inspector Rossi and Daniela. I am, as you know, with the Forestry Corps. We do not. At least none of the officers I work with do. Oh, we are to turn soon.’

‘Which street and which way?’

‘Left. That one up there. But I didn’t prepare. I am sorry. I don’t think we can get over in time.’

They got over in time.

And took the ninety degrees in a screaming second gear. He gasped.

‘Next turn?’

‘Half a kilometer, to the right. Via Letizia.’

He inhaled harshly as she accelerated to eighty kph, weaving into and out of all four lanes.

‘Will they reimburse you, the Police of State?’

‘It’s only a few euros for the mileage, hardly worth the effort of the forms.’

She’d been referring to repairing the transmission but decided not to bring that up. Anyway, how much damage could a hundred horses do to a tranny?

‘Here is the turn.’

Via Letizia...

The road grew congested. Rear ends and brake lights loomed.

She was skidding to a stop, using both brakes, inches from the jam.

A blast of horn. Nobody moved.

‘Hold your badge up,’ she told him.

His smile said the gesture would do no good.

She hit the horn again and guided the car over the curb and along the sidewalk. Furious faces turned toward her, though the expressions of some of the younger men switched from indignant anger to amusement and even admiration when they noted the insane driver was a beautiful redhead.

She breached the intersection and turned as Ercole had instructed. Then roared forward.

‘Call,’ she instructed. ‘See if the — what’s the name of your tac outfit again?’

‘Tac?’

‘Sorry. Tactical. See where they are.’

‘Oh, SCO.’ He pulled out his phone and placed a call. Like most of the conversations she’d heard so far, this one unfolded lightning-fast. It ended with a clipped, ‘Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao...’ He gripped the dash as she shot between two trucks and said, ‘They’re assembled and on the way. It should be fifteen minutes.’

‘How far are we?’

‘Cinque. I mean—’

‘Five.’ Sachs was grimacing. ‘Can’t somebody be there any faster? We’ll need a breaching team. The Composer would have locked the doorway or gate again. He did that in New York.’

‘They’ll probably think of that.’

‘Tell them anyway.’

Another call. And she could tell from the tone, if not the words, that there was nothing to do to expedite the arrival of the tactical force.

‘They have hammers and cutters and a torch.’

A fast shift, fourth to second. She punched the accelerator. The engine howled.

A phrase of her father’s came to mind. A bylaw of her life.

When you move they can’t getcha...

But just then: A blond teenager, his long curls flying in the breeze, steered a peppy orange scooter through a stoplight, oblivious to any traffic.

‘Shit.’

In a blur of appendages, Sachs used the gears, the foot brake and the hand brake to decelerate and then skid around the Honda, missing the kid by inches. He didn’t even notice. Sachs saw he wore earbuds.

Then first gear, and they were on their way once more.

‘Left here.’ Ercole was shouting over the screams of his laboring engine.

It was a narrow street they were speeding along. Residential — no stores. Pale laundry hung above them like flags. Then into a square around a tiny anemic park, on whose scarred benches sat a half-dozen older men and women, a younger woman with a baby carriage and two children playing with scruffy dogs. It was a deserted area and the Composer could easily have slipped the victim out of his car and underground without anyone’s seeing.

‘There, that’s it,’ he announced, pointing to a shabby wooden doorway in the abandoned building Giacomo Schiller had referred to. This, like all the building façades nearby, was covered with graffiti. You could just make out the faded sign: Non Entrare.

Sachs brought the Mégane to a stop twenty feet from the door, leaving room for the tactical officers and ambulance. She hurried out. Ercole was close behind her.

Jogging again. But carefully. Sachs kept a close monitor on her legs — she suffered from arthritis, which had become so severe she’d nearly been sidelined from her beloved profession. Surgery had removed much, if not all, of the pain. Still, she always stayed mindful. The body can betray at any moment. But now, all functioned smoothly.

‘You’re new to this, right? To entry.’

‘Entry?’

That answered the question.

She’d learned enough. ‘First, we secure the site, make it safe from hostiles. It doesn’t help the victim, even if he’s seconds away from dying, if we die too. Okay?’

‘Sì.’

‘When it’s clear, we try to save him, CPR, open airways if we can, apply pressure to stop bleeding, though I don’t think blood loss is going to be a problem. After that we secure the crime scene to preserve evidence.’

‘All right... Ah, no!’

‘What?’

‘I forgot the booties. For our shoes. You are supposed to—’

‘We don’t wear those now. They’re too slippery. Here.’

She dug into her pocket and handed him rubber bands. ‘On the ball of your feet.’

‘You carry those with you?’

They both donned the elastic.

‘Gloves?’ he asked. ‘Latex gloves.’

Sachs smiled. ‘No. Not in tactical situations.’

The door, she was surprised to see, was barred with the cheapest of locks and a hasp that was affixed to the wooden door and frame with small screws.

She dug into her pocket and the switchblade was in her hand. Ercole’s eyes went wide. Sachs smiled to herself, as the thought occurred that the weapon was Italian — a Frank Beltrame stiletto, a four-inch blade, staghorn handle. She flicked it open and in one deft move pulled the bracket away from the wood, then tucked the knife away.

Holding her finger to her lips, she studied Ercole’s nervous, sweaty face. Some of the consternation was from the harrowing drive; the source of the remainder was clear. He was willing, but he was not battle-tested. ‘Stay behind me,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, yes.’ Which came out more as a breath than words.

She pulled a halogen flashlight from her pocket, a tiny but powerful thousand-lumen model. A Fenix PD35.

Ercole squinting, surely thinking: Rubber bands, flashlight, flick-blade knife? These Americans certainly came prepared.

A nod toward the door.

His Adam’s apple bobbed.

She pushed inside, raising the light and the gun.

There was a startling crash; the door had struck a table, spilling a large bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water.

‘He’s here!’ Ercole whispered.

‘Not necessarily. But assume he is. He may have set up the table to warn him somebody breached. We have to go fast.’

The entryway atmosphere was pungent, the walls covered with graffiti. It resembled a cave in some wilderness, rather than a man-made structure. A stairway led down two flights. They went slowly. The halogen would give them away but it was their only source of illumination. A fall down these steep stones could be fatal.

‘Listen,’ she said, pausing at the bottom. She believed she’d heard a moan or grunt. But then nothing.

They found themselves in an old brick tunnel about eight feet wide. The aqueduct, a square-bottomed trough about two feet across, ran through the middle. It was largely dry, though old iron pipes overhead — the ceiling was six feet above them — dripped water.

Ercole pointed to their left. ‘The reservoir would be there, if the map is correct.’

A rumbling began in the distance and grew in volume. The floor shook. Sachs supposed that it was the subway, nearby, she recalled from the map, but it also occurred to her that Naples was not so very far from Mount Vesuvius, whose volcano she’d read might erupt at any time. Volcanoes equal earthquakes, even the smallest of which might pin her under rubble — leaving her to die the worst death imaginable. Claustrophobia was her big fear.

But the roaring rose to a crescendo, then faded.

Subway. Okay.

They arrived at a fork, the tunnel splitting into three branches, each with its own aqueduct.

‘Where?’

‘I am sorry. I do not know. This part was not on the map.’

Pick one, she thought.

And then she saw that the left branch of the tunnel contained not only an aqueduct but a terracotta pipe, largely broken. Probably an old sewer drain. She was recalling the scatological trace from the Composer’s shoes. ‘This way.’ She began along the damp floor, the smell of mold tickling her throat and reminding of the uranium-processing factory in Brooklyn, site of the Composer’s first murder attempt.

Where are you? She thought to the victim? Where?

They pressed on, walking carefully in the aqueduct until the tunnel ended — in a large, dingy basement, lit dimly from airshafts and from fissures in the ceiling. The aqueduct continued on arched columns to a round stone cylindrical structure, twenty feet across, twenty high. There was no ceiling. A door had been cut into the side.

‘That’s it,’ Ercole whispered. ‘The reservoir.’

They climbed off the aqueduct and down stone stairs to the floor, about ten feet below.

Yes, she could hear a gasping sound from inside. Sachs motioned Ercole to cover the aqueduct they’d come down and the other doorways that opened off the basement. He understood and drew his pistol. His awkward grip told her he rarely shot. But he checked that a round was chambered and the safety catch off. And he was aware of where the muzzle was pointed. Good enough.

A deep breath, another.

Then she spun around the corner, keeping low, and played the light through the room.

The victim was fifteen feet from her, sitting taped in a rickety chair, straining to keep his head raised against the upward tension of the noose. She saw clearly now the mechanism the Composer had rigged — the deadly bass strings running up to a wooden rod hammered into a crack in the wall above the victim’s head, then to another rod and finally down to a bucket filling with water. The weight in the pail would eventually tug the noose tight enough to strangle him.

He squinted his eyes closed against the brilliance of the flashlight.

The room had no other doors and it was clear that the Composer wasn’t present.

‘Come inside, cover the door!’ she barked.

‘Sì!’

She holstered her weapon and ran to the man, who was sobbing. She pulled the gag out of his mouth.

‘Saedumi, saedumi!’

‘You’ll be okay.’ Wondering how much English he spoke.

She had gloves with her but didn’t bother now. Beatrice could print her later to eliminate her friction ridges. She gripped the noose and pulled down, which lifted the bucket, and then she slipped the noose over his head. Slowly she lowered the bucket. Before it reached the floor, though, the stick wedged into a gap between the stones gave way and the pail fell to the floor.

Hell. The water would contaminate any trace on the stone.

But nothing to do now. She turned to the poor man and examined him. His panicked eyes stared from her to the tape binding his arms up to the ceiling and back to her.

‘You’ll be okay. An ambulance is coming. You understand? English?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, yes.’

He didn’t look badly hurt. Now that he was okay, Sachs pulled on latex gloves. She removed her switchblade once more, hit the button. It sprang open. The man recoiled.

‘It’s all right.’ She cut the tape and freed his hands, then feet.

The victim’s eyes were wide and unfocused. He rambled in Arabic.

‘What’s your name?’ Sachs asked. She repeated the question in Arabic. All NYPD officers in Major Cases who had occasion to work counterterrorism knew a half-dozen words and phrases.

‘Ali. Ali Maziq.’

‘Are you injured anywhere, Mr Maziq?’

‘My throat. It is my throat.’ He took to rambling again and his eyes darted once more.

Ercole said, ‘He doesn’t seem too injured.’

‘No.’

‘He is, it seems, quite disoriented, though.’

Tied up by a madman and nearly hanged in an old Roman ruin? No surprises there.

‘Let’s get him upstairs.’

Chapter 19

The tactical team arrived.

A dozen SCO officers. They appeared in deadly earnest and were fully confident as they scanned the area and gripped their weapons like true craftsmen.

Sachs stopped them at the entrance. She was wearing the NYPD shield on her belt, gold for detective, which gave her some authority, ambiguous though it might be. The commander asked, ‘FBI?’ A thick accent.

‘Like that,’ she said. Which seemed to satisfy him.

The man was large of body and large of head, which was covered with a fringe of curly red hair, about the same shade as hers. He nodded to her and said, ‘Michelangelo Frasca.’

‘Amelia Sachs.’

He vigorously shook her hand.

She gestured past him to the arriving medical team, a burly man and a woman nearly as imposing — they might have been siblings — and they sat Maziq on a gurney and took his vitals. The medic spent a moment examining the red ligature mark and said something in Italian to his partner and then to Sachs: ‘Is okay, is good. In physicalness. His mind, very groggy. Drunk I would say if he was not Muslim. Maybe it is being drugs the assaulted used.’ They assisted Maziq into the back of the ambulance and had a conversation with Ercole.

The young officer spoke at length to Michelangelo, presumably about what had happened. He gestured toward the entrance.

‘I have told them where to search and that the killer may still be nearby.’

Sachs noted that the men wore black gloves, so she wasn’t worried about fingerprints, and hoods, which would prevent hair contamination. She dug into her pocket and handed Michelangelo a dozen rubber bands.

He looked at her quizzically.

‘Fai così,’ Ercole said, pointing to his feet.

The commander nodded and his eyes seemed impressed. ‘Per le nostre impronte.’

‘Sì.’

‘Buono!’ A laugh. ‘Americana.’

‘Tell them to walk quickly through the entrance room, where we found the table and water bottle, and to avoid the chamber where we got the victim. That’s where most of the evidence will be and we don’t want it contaminated any more.’

Ercole relayed the information, and the big man nodded. He then quickly deployed his troops.

She heard voices behind them. A large crowd had gathered — among them reporters, calling questions. The police ignored the journalists. Uniformed officers strung yellow tape, as in America, and kept back the crowd.

Another van arrived, large and white. The words Polizia Scientifica were on the side. Two men and a woman climbed out and walked to the double doors in the back, opened them. They dressed in white Tyvek jumpsuits, the name of the unit on the right breast and the words Spray Guard over the left. They approached a uniformed officer, who pointed to Sachs and Ercole. The three approached and spoke with Ercole, who, she could tell from his gestures, told them about the scene. The woman glanced at Sachs once or twice during the lengthy explanation.

Sachs said, ‘If I can borrow a suit, I’ll search with them. I can show them exactly where—’

A man’s voice interrupted her. ‘That is not necessary.’

Sachs turned to see the prosecutor, Dante Spiro. He was approaching from behind a clutch of uniformed officers and cars. One officer leapt forward and lifted the yellow tape for him, high so that Spiro did not have to bow down.

‘Procuratore,’ Ercole began.

The man cut him off with a stream of Italian.

The young officer said nothing but looked down and nodded every few seconds as Spiro continued to speak to him.

Ercole said something, nodding to Maziq, sitting in the back of the ambulance now, looking much better.

Again, Spiro shot words his way, clearly unhappy.

‘Sì, Procuratore.’

Then the young officer turned to her. ‘He says we can leave now.’

‘I’d like to search with the team.’

‘No, that is not possible,’ Spiro said.

‘I’m a crime scene officer by profession.’

Michelangelo appeared in the dim doorway. He spotted Spiro and approached. He spoke to him for a moment.

Ercole translated. ‘They have finished the search. No sign of the Composer. They’ve gone down all the aqueducts and searched all the rooms in the basement. There is a supply tunnel that leads to the subway station. No sign he was anywhere there.’

‘The building above the basement.’ She nodded to the structure behind them.

Michelangelo said, ‘Is sealed off with concretes. No entrance is possible from sotto terra.’

As the woman forensic officer walked past her she said, with a smile, ‘We’re going to step the grid.’

Sachs blinked.

‘Yes, we know who you are. We use Ispettore Lincoln Rhyme’s book in our lessons. It is not in Italian but we took turns translating. You are both an inspiration. Welcome to Italy!’

They vanished through the doorway.

Spiro fired another dozen sentences to Ercole, then walked off toward the ancient doorway, pulling on his own blue latex gloves.

Ercole translated, ‘Procuratore Spiro appreciates your assistance and your offer to help with the scene but he thinks it would be best, for continuity’s sake, if the investigation is conducted by Italian law enforcement.’

Sachs decided that to push the matter further would merely embarrass Ercole. He looked desperately to the Mégane and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if to direct her toward it. Her glance at him had the effect of lowering the limb as if it were in free fall, and she knew he would never try to usher her anywhere again.

As they approached the car he looked tentatively at the driver’s seat.

Sachs said, ‘You drive.’

To Ercole’s great relief.

She handed him the keys.

Once she and Ercole were settled and the engine running, she asked, ‘That line you gave me about continuity? Is that what Spiro really said?’

Ercole was blushing and concentrating on getting the car in first gear. ‘It was a rough translation.’

‘Ercole?’

He swallowed. ‘He said I was to get the woman — that is, you — out of the scene immediately, and if I let her — that is, again, you — talk to any officers again, much less the press, without his express permission, he would have my job. Here, and in my own unit of Forestry.’

Sachs nodded. Then asked, ‘Was “woman” the word he really used?’

After a pause: ‘No, it was not.’ He signaled, let up on the clutch, then pulled gingerly into the street surrounding the square, as if his frail grandmother were sitting in the backseat.

Chapter 20

Stunned.

That was Rhyme’s impression of Ali Maziq.

In the situation room at police headquarters Rhyme was watching the kidnap victim through open doorways, across the hall, an empty ground-floor office.

The scrawny man sat in a chair, clutching a bottle of Aranciata San Pellegrino soda. He’d already drunk one of the orange beverages, and several small drops dotted his beard. His face was gaunt — though this would be his natural state, Rhyme supposed, since his ordeal had been only a day or so in length. Dark circles under his eyes. Prominent ears and nose... and that impressive mass of wiry black hair that wholly enveloped his scalp and lower face.

Rossi, Ercole and Sachs were with Rhyme. There was little for Thom to do at the moment, so he’d left to check into the hotel and make sure the disabled accessibility was as the place claimed.

For a half hour, Maziq had been interviewed by a Police of State officer, who was fluent in Arabic and English.

Sachs had wanted to be present, or to conduct her own interview, but Rossi had declined her request. Dante Spiro would have been behind that.

Finally, the officer concluded the interview and joined the others. He handed Rossi his notes, then returned to the office across the hall. He spoke to Maziq, who still seemed bewildered. He slowly rose and followed the officer down the corridor. He clutched his orange soda as if it were a lucky charm.

Rossi said, ‘He will stay here in protective custody for the time being. He is remaining in a, how do you say, a state? Confused state. Better that we keep an eye on him. And, with the Composer still out in the world, we do not know for certain that Maziq is safe. There is, of course, no motive that we can see.’

‘Who is he?’ Sachs asked.

‘He is an asylum-seeker from Libya. One of so many. He came here on a ship that crashed.’ He frowned and spoke to Ercole, who said, ‘Beached.’

‘Sì. Beached in Baia a week ago, a resort area northwest of Naples. He and forty others arrived there and were arrested. They had good fortune. The weather was good. They survived, all of them. That very day a ship sank off Lampedusa and a dozen died.’

Sachs said, ‘If he’d been arrested why was he out in the countryside?’

‘A very good question,’ Rossi said. ‘Perhaps it is helpful to explain our situation in Italy with regard to refugees. You are aware of the immigrants coming out of Syria, inundating Turkey and Greece and Macedonia?’

Current events held little interest for Rhyme, but the plight of refugees in the Middle East was everywhere in the news. He’d actually just read an article about the subject on the long flight from the United States.

‘We have a similar problem here. It’s a long, dangerous journey to Italy from Syria but a less long trip from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Libya is an utterly failed state; after the Arab Spring it became a land of civil war, with extremists on the rise. ISIS and other groups. There is terrible poverty too, in addition to the political turmoil. Adding to the problem, the drought and famine in sub-Saharan Africa are driving refugees from the south into Libya, which can hardly accommodate them. So human smugglers — who are also rapists and thieves — charge huge sums to ferry people to Lampedusa, which I mentioned. It is Italy’s closest island to Africa.’ He sighed. ‘I used to vacation with my family in there, when I was a boy. Now I would never take my own children. So, the smugglers bring the poorer asylum-seekers there. Others, if they pay a premium, will be taken to the mainland — like Maziq — in hopes they can avoid arrest.

‘But, like him, most are caught, though it is an overwhelming challenge for the army, navy and the police.’ He looked toward Rhyme. ‘It has not touched your country as much. But here it is a crisis of great proportions.’

The article Rhyme had read on the plane was about a conference presently under way in Rome, on the refugee situation. The attendees, from all over the world, were looking for ways to balance the humanitarian need to help the unfortunates, on the one hand, and the concerns about economic hardship and security in the destination countries, on the other. Among the emergency measures under consideration, the story said, the US Congress was considering a bill to allow 150,000 immigrants into the country, and Italy itself was soon to vote on a measure to relax deportation laws, though both proposals were controversial and were being met with strong opposition.

‘Ali Maziq is typical of these people. Under the Dublin Regulation on asylum seeking, he was required to apply for asylum in the country of entry — Italy. He was run through Eurodac, and—’

‘Dactyloscopy?’ Rhyme asked. The technical term for fingerprinting.

It was Ercole who answered, ‘Yes, that is correct. Refugees are fingerprinted and undergo a background check.’

Rossi continued, ‘So, this is Maziq’s situation. He passed the initial review — no criminal or terrorist connections. If so, he would have been deported immediately. But he was cleared so he was removed from the intake camp and placed in a secondary site. These are hotels or old military barracks. They can slip out, as many do, but if they don’t return they will be deported to their home country when caught.

‘Maziq was staying in a residence hotel in Naples. Not a very pleasant place but serviceable. As for the events leading up to the kidnapping, he himself has no memory of what happened. The interviewer was inclined to believe him, because of the trauma of the kidnapping — the drugs and the lack of oxygen. But Daniela canvassed the hotel and a fellow refugee said Maziq told him he was planning on taking a bus to meet someone for dinner near D’Abruzzo. It’s a small town in the countryside.’

Sachs said, ‘We should find that guy he ate with and talk to him. He might have seen the Composer. Maybe tailing Maziq.’

Rossi said, ‘There is a possibility about that. The Postal Police have analyzed the data from the phone card found where he was kidnapped. It is surely his, rather than the Composer’s. He used a prepaid mobile, as all refugees do. Just before he was kidnapped he made calls to other prepaids — in Naples, in Libya and to an Italian town in the north, Bolzano, not far from the border. The Postal Police believe they can correlate the pings. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ Rhyme said. ‘To find out where he was when he was at dinner.’

‘Precisely. They will let me know soon.’

Sachs asked, ‘What does he have to say?’

‘He remembers very little. He believes he was blindfolded much of the time. He awoke in the reservoir and his kidnapper was gone.’

Unsmiling Beatrice — as womanly round as a Botticelli model — walked from the laboratory to the situation room.

‘Ecco.’ She held up a few printouts.

Ercole picked up a Sharpie and stepped to the board. She shook her head, adamantly, and took the marker from his hand. She glanced at Rossi and spoke.

Ercole frowned, while Rossi laughed. He explained, ‘She has said the Forestry officer’s handwriting is not the best. He will read the results of the Scientific Police’s analysis in English and she will write it on our chart. He will assist her in translation.’

As the man read from the sheets, the woman’s stubby fingers skittered over the pad on the easel in, yes, it was true, quite elegant handwriting.

Beatrice then taped up a dozen crime scene photographs of the water reservoir where Maziq had been held, as well as the entryway to the old building, the aqueduct and the musty brick basement.

Ercole stared at the pictures of the reservoir, which seemed to depict a medieval torture chamber. ‘A grim place.’

Rhyme said nothing to the Forestry officer but scanned the chart. ‘Well, I mentioned crazy. I didn’t see how right I was.’

‘What is that you mean, Captain Rhyme?’

‘You see the sodium chloride, propylene glycol and so on?’

‘Yes. What is that?’

‘Electroconductive jelly. It’s applied to the skin for electroconvulsive shock treatments for psychotics. Rare nowadays.’

‘Could the Composer be seeing a mental doctor here?’ Ercole asked. ‘For those treatments?’

‘No, no,’ Rhyme said. ‘The procedure takes time in the hospital. It’s probably from the same place where the Composer got the antipsychotic drug: a US hospital. He’s functioning well enough, so I’d guess he had the treatment a few days before the New York attack. And what’s amobarbital? Another antipsychotic?’

Sachs said, ‘I’ll check the NYPD database.’ A moment later she reported, ‘It’s a fast-acting sedative to combat panic attacks. It was developed a hundred years ago in Germany as a truth serum — it didn’t work for that but doctors found it had a side effect of quickly calming agitated or aggressive subjects.’

Many bipolar and schizophrenic patients, Rhyme knew from past cases, were often racked with anxiety.

Another figure stepped slowly into the doorway. It was Dante Spiro, who scanned everyone with an expressionless face.

‘Procuratore,’ Ercole said.

The prosecutor cocked his head and wrote something in his leather-bound book.

For some reason, Ercole Benelli witnessed this with concern, Rhyme noted.

Spiro slipped the book away and reviewed the evidence chart. He said only, ‘English. Ah.’

Then he turned to Sachs and Rhyme. ‘Now. Your involvement in this case is to be limited to these four walls. Are you in agreement, Inspector?’ A nod toward Rossi.

‘Of course. Yes.’

‘Mr Rhyme, you are here by our grace. You have no authority to investigate a crime in this country. Your contributions to analyzing the evidence will be appreciated, if they prove helpful. As they have, and I acknowledge that. And any thoughts you might have about the Composer’s frame of mind will be taken into account too. But beyond that, no. Am I understood?’

‘Perfectly,’ Rhyme muttered.

‘Now one more thing I wish to say. On a subject that has been raised before. Extradition. You have lost jurisdiction over the Composer and his crimes in America, while we have gained it. You will wish to try for extradition but I will fight it most strenuously.’ He eyed them for a moment. ‘Let me please give you a lesson in the law, Mr Rhyme and Detective Sachs. Imagine a town in Italy called Cioccie del Lupo. The name is a joke, you see. It’s not a real place. It means Wolf Tits.’

‘Romulus and Remus, the founding of Rome myth,’ Rhyme said. His voice was bored because he was bored. He stared at the newsprint pads on the easel.

Ercole said, ‘The twins, suckling on a wolf.’

Rhyme corrected, absently, ‘The female suckles, the baby sucks.’

‘Oh. I didn’t—’

Spiro cut Ercole short with a glare and continued to Rhyme: ‘The legal lesson is this: Lawyers from America do not win cases in Cioccie del Lupo. Lawyers from Cioccie del Lupo win cases in Cioccie de Lupo. And you are Americans firmly in the city center of Cioccie del Lupo at the moment. You will not win an extradition, so it will be better for you if that thought vanishes from your mind.’

Rhyme said, ‘Maybe we should concentrate on catching him. Don’t you think?’

Spiro said nothing but slowly withdrew his phone and sent a text or email.

Rossi stirred a bit, uneasy at the exchange.

Ercole said, ‘Procuratore, Inspector, I have a thought and I would like to pursue it.’

After a moment Spiro put his phone away and lifted an eyebrow toward the young man. ‘Sì?’

‘We should set up surveillance at the place where we found Maziq. The entrance to the aqueduct.’

‘Surveillance?’

‘Yes. Of course.’ Ercole was smiling at Spiro’s apparent inability to see what was obvious to him. ‘There has been no press announcement. The police have left the area. There is tape on the door, but you must get close to see that. He might return to the scene of the crime and when he gets within the area, slap! We can arrest him. When I was there I noted hiding places across the street where one could remain concealed.’

‘You don’t think that would be a waste of our resources — which we know are more limited than I would hope for.’

Another grin. ‘Not at all. Waste? How do you see that?’

Spiro flung his arm in the air. ‘Why do I even bother? Is that what you do in the woods, as a Forestry officer? Disguise yourself as a stag, a bear? And wait for a poacher?’

‘I just was...’ Then Italian trickled from his mouth.

Rhyme glanced at the doorway and noted that another officer stood in the hallway, watching the exchange. He was a handsome young man, dressed quite stylishly. He was studying Ercole’s blushing face with a neutral expression.

‘I simply thought it made sense, sir.’

Rhyme decided to end the mystery. ‘He will not be back.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ Spiro said. ‘Tell him why, Mr Rhyme.’

‘Because of the water that spilled when you and Sachs opened the door.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘Do you see what the water drenched?’

Ercole looked toward the pictures. ‘The phone.’

‘The Composer set up the table and the items on it very carefully. Anyone opening the door — especially quickly — would knock the bottle of water over, shorting out the phone.’

Ercole closed his eyes briefly. ‘Yes, of course. The Composer would call every fifteen minutes or so and as long as the mobile rang he knew no one was there. When he called and it was dead, he would realize that someone had breached the door. And it was unsafe to return. So simple, yet I missed it.’

Spiro cast a glance down his nose at Ercole. Then he asked, ‘Where is Maziq now?’

‘A protective cell,’ Rossi said. ‘Here.’

‘Forestry Officer,’ Spiro said.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Make yourself useful and find our Arabic-speaking officer. I am interested in that substance, the electroconductive gel.’

‘Allora...’ Ercole fell silent.

‘What do you wish to say?’

The officer cleared his throat.

Rhyme broke in again. ‘Our supposition was that it was from the Composer. He’s taking antipsychotic drugs, so we assumed he’d undergone ECS treatment.’

Spiro replied, ‘That is logical. But it’s not impossible that Maziq was being treated in Libya for a condition. And I would like to eliminate that as a possibility.’

Rhyme nodded, for it was a theory that he had not considered, and it was a valid one.

‘Sì, Procuratore.’

‘And that other substance, amobarbital?’ Spiro gazed at the chart.

Sachs told him it was a sedative the Composer took to ward off panic attacks.

‘See if Maziq has ever taken that too.’

‘I will go now,’ Ercole said.

‘Then go.’

After he’d left, Rhyme said, ‘Prosecutor Spiro. It’s rare that someone knows the raw ingredients of electroconductive gel.’ Rhyme had concluded that’s what the ingredients were, before the prosecutor had arrived.

‘Is it?’ Spiro asked absently. His eyes were on the chart. ‘We learn many things in this curious business of ours, don’t we?’

Stepping outside the situation room, Ercole Benelli nearly ran directly into Silvio De Carlo, Rossi’s favorite boy.

The Stylista, the Fashionista of the Police of State.

Mamma mia. And now I will endure the comments.

Will De Carlo snidely remark on my mopping up spilled mineral water too, or just the most recent dressing-down by Spiro?

More Forestry Corps comments?

Zucchini Cop. Pig Cop...

Ercole thought for a moment about walking past the young man, who was again dressed in clothing that Ercole not only couldn’t afford but wouldn’t have had the taste to select, even if he’d been given the run of a Ferragamo warehouse. But then he decided, No. No running. As when he was young and boys would torment him about his gangly build and clumsiness at sports he’d learned that it was best to confront them, even if you ended up with a bloody nose or split lip.

He looked De Carlo in the eye. ‘Silvio.’

‘Ercole.’

‘Your cases going well?’

But the assistant inspector wasn’t interested in small talk. He looked past Ercole and up and down the corridor. His rich brown eyes settled on the Forestry officer once more. He said, ‘You have been lucky.’

‘Lucky?’

‘With Dante Spiro. The offenses you have committed...’

Offenses?

‘... have not been so serious. He might have cut your legs out from underneath you. Stuck you like a pig.’

Ah, a reference to the Forestry Corps.

De Carlo continued, ‘Yet you received what amounted to a slap with a glove.’

Ercole said nothing but waited for the insult, the sneer, the condescension, not knowing what form it might take.

How would he respond?

It hardly mattered; whatever he said it would backfire. He would make a buffoon of himself. As always with the Silvio De Carlos of the world.

But then the officer continued, ‘If you want to survive this experience, if you want to move from Forestry into Police of State, as I suspect you do — and this might be your only opportunity — you must learn how to work with Dante Spiro. Do you swim, Ercole?’

‘I... yes.’

‘In the sea?’

‘Of course.’

They were in Naples. Every boy could swim in the sea.

De Carlo said, ‘So you know riptides. You never fight them, because you can’t win. You let them take you where they will and then, slowly, gently you swim diagonally back to shore. Dante Spiro is a riptide. With Spiro, you never fight him. That is to say, contradict him. You never question him. You agree. You suggest he is brilliant. If you have an idea that you feel must be pursued and is at odds with him then you must find a way to achieve your goal obliquely. Either in a way that he can’t learn about, or one that seems — seems, mind you — compatible with his thinking. Do you understand?’

Ercole did understand the words but he would need time to translate them to practical effect. This was a very different way of policing than he was used to.

For the moment he said, ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. Fortunately, you’re under the wing of a kinder — and equally talented — man. Massimo Rossi will protect you to the extent he can. He and Spiro are peers and respect each other. But he can’t save you if you fling yourself into the lion’s mouth. As you seem inclined to do.’

‘Thank you for this.’

‘Yes.’ De Carlo turned and started to walk away then looked back. ‘Your shirt.’

Ercole looked down at the cream-colored shirt he had pulled on this morning beneath his gray uniform jacket. He hadn’t realized the jacket was unzipped.

‘Armani? Or one of his protégés perhaps?’ De Carlo asked.

‘I dressed quickly. I don’t know the label, I’m afraid.’

‘Ah, well, it is quite fine.’

Ercole could tell that these words were not ironic and that De Carlo truly admired the shirt.

He offered his thanks. Pointedly he did not add that the shirt had been stitched together not in Milan but in a Vietnamese factory and was sold not in a boutique in the chic Vomero district of Naples but from a cart on the rough and rugged avenue known as the Spaccanapoli by an Albanian vendor. The negotiated price was four euros.

They shook hands and the assistant inspector wandered off, pulling an iPhone, in a stylish case, from a stylish back pocket.

Chapter 21

Not in Kansas anymore.

Walking down the residential portion of this Neapolitan street — dinnertime and therefore not so crowded — Garry Soames thought of this clichéd line from The Wizard of Oz. And then he whispered it aloud, glancing at a young brunette, long, long hair, long legs, conversing on a cell phone, passing by. It was a certain type of look, and she returned it in a certain way, eyes not exactly lingering, but remaining upon his sculpted Midwest American face a fraction of a second longer than a phone talker would do otherwise.

Then the woman, the epitome of southern Italian élan, and her swaying, sexy stride, were gone.

Damn. Nice.

Garry continued on. His eyes then slipped to two more young women, chatting, dressed as sharply — and as tactically — as any hot girl on the Upper East Side in Manhattan.

Unlike Woman One, a moment ago, they both ignored him but Garry didn’t care. He was in a very good mood. And what twenty-three-year-old wouldn’t be, having exchanged his home state of Missouri (sorta, kinda like Kansas) for Italy (Oz without the flying monkeys)?

The athletic young man — built like a running back — hitched his heavy backpack higher on his shoulder and turned the corner that would take him to his apartment on Corso Umberto I. His head hurt slightly — a bit too much Vermentino and (Heaven help him!) cheap grappa at his early supper a half hour ago.

But he’d earned it, finishing his class assignments early in the afternoon and then wandering the streets, practicing his Italian. Slowly, he was learning the language, which had at first seemed overwhelming, largely because of the concept of gender. Carpets were boys, tables were girls.

And accents! Just the other day he’d raised eyebrows and earned laughs when, at a restaurant, he’d ordered penises with tomato sauce; the word for male genitalia was dangerously close to penne, the pasta (and to the word for bread too).

Little by little, though, he was learning the language, learning the culture.

Poco a poco...

Feeling good, yes.

Though he would have to rein in the late-night parties. Too much drinking. Too many women. Well, no, that was an oxymoron; one could not have too many women. But one could have too many possessive and temperamental and needy women.

The kind that he, naturally, ended up bedding all too often.

Naples was far safer than parts of his hometown of St. Louis but instinct told him he probably shouldn’t sleep over in strangers’ apartments quite so much, waking to the girl, bleary-eyed, staring at him uncertainly, muttering things. Then asking him to leave.

Just control it, he told himself.

Thinking specifically of Valentina, a few weeks ago.

What was her last name?

Yes, Morelli. Valentina Morelli. Ah, such beautiful, sexy brown eyes... which had turned far less beautiful and far more chilling when he’d balked at what he’d apparently suggested as they lay in bed. It seemed he’d told her — thank you, Mr Brunello or Barolo — that she could come to the United States with him, and they could see San Diego together. Or San Jose. Or somewhere.

She’d become a raging she-wolf and flung a bottle (the expensive Super-Tuscan, but empty, thank God) into his bathroom mirror, shattering both.

She’d muttered words to him in Italian. It seemed like a curse.

So. Just be more careful.

‘Spend the year in Europe, kiddo,’ his father had told him, upon his departure from Lambert Field. ‘Enjoy, graduate at the bottom of your class. Experience life!’ The tall man — an older version of Garry, with silver in his blond hair — had then lowered his voice: ‘But. You do a single milligram of coke or pot and you’re on your own. You end up in a Naples jail, all you’ll get from us is postcards, and probably not even that.’

And Garry could truthfully tell his father that he’d never tried any coke and he’d never tried any pot.

There was plenty else to amuse him.

Like Valentina. (San Diego? Really? He’d used that as a come-on line?) Or Ariella. Or Toni.

Then he thought of Frieda.

The Dutch girl he’d met at Natalia’s party on Monday. Yes, picturing them being on the roof, her beautiful hair dipping onto his shoulder, her firm breast against his arm, her damp lips against his.

‘You are, I am saying, a pretty boy, isn’t it? You are the football player?’

‘Your football or mine?’

Which broke her up.

‘Foot... ball...’ Her mouth on his again. Above them spanned the Neapolitan evening, milky with a million stars. He and this beautiful Dutch girl, blond and tasting of mint, alone in a deserted alcove of the roof.

Her eyelids closing...

And Garry looking down at her, thinking: Sorry, sorry, sorry... It’s out of my hands. I can’t control it.

Now he shuddered and closed his eyes and didn’t want to think about Frieda again.

Garry’s mood grew dark, and he decided that, hell, he’d open up a new grappa when he got home.

Frieda...

Shit.

Approaching the doorway of the old flat. It was a shabby two-story place, on a quiet stretch of road. The building had probably been a single-family at one point but then converted into a two-unit apartment. He lived in the basement.

He paused and found his key. Then Garry was startled by two people walking up to him. He was cautious. He’d been mugged once already. An ambiguous threat; two skinny but mean-eyed men had asked to borrow money. He’d given it up, along with his watch, which they hadn’t asked for but had happily taken.

But then he saw that the two were police officers — middle-aged, stocky both of them, a man and woman, in the blue uniforms of the Police of State.

Still, of course, his guard was up.

‘Yes?’

Speaking good English, the woman asked, ‘You are Garry Soames?’

‘I am.’

‘May I see your passport?’

In Italy, everyone was required to carry — and produce upon demand — a passport or identity card. It rankled the civil libertarian within him but he complied without protest.

She read it. And slipped it into her own pocket.

‘Hey.’

‘You were at a party Monday night, in the flat of Natalia Garelli.’

His memories of just a few moments ago.

‘I... well, yes. I was.’

‘You were there all night?’

‘What’s all night?’

‘When were you there?’

‘I don’t know, from maybe ten until three or so. What’s this all about?’

‘Mr Soames,’ the man said, his accent thicker than his partner’s. ‘We are putting you under arrest for certain events that occurred at that party. I would like you to present your hands.’

‘My—’

Steel cuffs appeared.

He hesitated.

The male cop: ‘Please, sir. I would recommend you do this.’

The woman lifted the backpack off his shoulder and began to look through it.

‘You can’t do that!’

She ignored him and continued to rummage.

The man cuffed him.

The woman completed the search of his bag and said nothing. The man searched his pockets, taking his wallet and leaving everything else. He found three unopened condoms and held them up. The two officers shared a look. Everything the man took he placed in an evidence bag.

Each taking an arm, they led him up the street to an unmarked car.

‘What’s this all about?’ he repeated stridently. They were silent. ‘I haven’t done anything!’ He switched to Italian and said, in a desperate voice, ‘Non ho fatto niente di sbagliato!’

Still no response. He snapped, ‘Qual è il crimine?’

‘The charge is battery and rape. It is my duty to inform you that, as you are now under arrest, you have the right to an attorney and an interpreter. Signor, please, get into the car.’

Chapter 22

Rhyme and Sachs examined the evidence chart that Beatrice and Ercole had assembled.

Rossi and Spiro stood behind them, also scanning, scanning, scanning.

Beatrice had done a solid job, isolating and identifying the materials.

‘Do you have a geological database?’ Rhyme asked Rossi. ‘Where we can narrow the source of that clay-based soil?’

Rossi summoned the woman from the crime lab.

When posed the question, Beatrice answered. The inspector’s translation: ‘She has compared the soil with a number of samples but it is common with those found in hundreds of areas and can’t be narrowed down more.’

Rhyme asked, ‘Can we canvass stores that would sell duct tape, wooden rods and buckets?’

Rossi and Spiro regarded each other with amusement. It was for Rossi to say, ‘That is beyond our resources.’

‘Well, at least can we see if the tobacco store where he bought the phone has a video camera?’

The inspector said, ‘Daniela and Giacomo have that assignment, yes.’

Ercole Benelli appeared in the doorway and entered cautiously, almost as if worried he’d be physically assaulted by Dante Spiro.

‘Sir, no, Ali Maziq has not had electroconvulsive treatment. He does not know what that is. And he has taken no medication. Well, I am not accurate. He takes Tylenol for his pains.’

‘That’s not relevant, Forestry Officer.’

‘No, of course, Procuratore.’

Spiro said, ‘Electroconvulsive, antipsychotic drugs, anti-anxiety drugs. So the Composer was surely a patient at some mental facility recently. Have you searched mental hospitals?’

Rhyme wondered if the question was calculated to be a barb to counter what he might perceive as Rhyme’s criticism of the Italians’ inability to search for the sources for the wooden rod, tape and bucket, which it was not.

‘There are too many hospitals and doctors to check. And the theft of a small amount of the sedative wouldn’t be reported in the national database. Our NCIC shows no similar crimes. Ever.’

Beyond our resources...

Spiro regarded the evidence chart. ‘And no clue as to where he’s holed up.’

Surprised at the old-time American expression.

‘Holed up?’ Ercole asked tentatively.

‘Where he’s staying. Where he took the victim right after the kidnapping.’

‘It wasn’t there, at the aqueduct?’

‘No,’ Spiro said and offered nothing more.

Rhyme explained, ‘He hadn’t peed. Or defecated.’ He knew this because either Sachs or the medical team would have observed and reported if he’d done so. ‘The Composer has a base of operation in or near Naples. He videoed Maziq in the aqueduct reservoir room but he assembled and uploaded the video from somewhere else. Maybe something there will tell us where. Maybe not.’ A nod toward the chart.

Rossi answered his mobile and had a conversation. After he disconnected, he said, ‘That was my colleague with the Postal Police. They have completed the analysis of Maziq’s phone card. They have significantly narrowed the area where he made calls within the hour before he was kidnapped at the bus stop. They center on a cellular phone tower about ten kilometers northeast of the town of D’Abruzzo.’

Spiro said to Rossi, ‘I know nothing about the area. Why would the Composer be hunting that far from downtown? Allora. Can your officers get out there, Massimo? Tomorrow?’

‘Possibly. Not, however, until later. Daniela and Giacomo will be canvassing here. Why don’t we send Ercole?’

‘Him?’ Spiro looked his way. ‘Have you ever canvassed before?’

‘I’ve interviewed suspects and witnesses. Many times.’

Rhyme wondered if the prosecutor would make some cruel comment about canvassing wildlife. But the man merely shrugged. ‘Yes, all right.’

‘I will do it, sì.’ Ercole paused, glancing to the room where Maziq had been interviewed. ‘Can you assign an Arabic speaker to come with me? Perhaps the officer who spoke with him earlier?’

Rossi asked, ‘Arabic, why?’

‘Because of what you said, Procuratore.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, just now. Why would he go all that distance if there was not a Muslim community there? He doesn’t speak Italian. I would guess he met with an Arabic speaker.’

Spiro considered this. ‘Perhaps.’

But Rossi said, ‘Our translators, Marco and Federica, are busy solidly.’ To Rhyme: ‘Our greatest lack, one of our greatest lacks, is Arabic interpreters, given the refugee flood.’

The young officer frowned. To Sachs he said, ‘You were speaking Arabic.’

‘Me? Oh, I—’

‘You were quite proficient,’ Ercole said quickly. Then to Rossi, ‘She was speaking to Maziq.’ To Sachs he said, ‘Perhaps you could assist.’ Then he grew stern. ‘Only for that purpose. You translate for me, and say nothing else.’

Sachs blinked.

Rhyme reflected that there was something faintly comical about the gentle young man trying to sound like a prickly, lecturing father.

Ercole said to the prosecutor, ‘I recall what you said, Procuratore. She will translate only, and if anyone were to ask, that is what I will tell them. But I think it is important, if you agree, to find this dinner companion of Maziq. Or find evidence the Composer might have left or witnesses who saw him. Perhaps this will lead to establishing the pattern you were speaking of.’

‘But under no circumstances—’

‘Will she utter a word to the press.’

‘Correct.’

Spiro looked from Ercole to Sachs. He said, ‘On that condition. Complete silence other than to interpret the Forestry officer’s words. If there is no need, you will remain in the car.’

‘Fine.’

Spiro walked to the doorway. There he paused and turned back to Sachs. ‘Hal tatahaddath alearabia?’

She eyed him evenly. ‘Nem fielaan.’

Spiro met her gaze for a moment, then pulled a lighter from his pocket and, clutching it and his cheroot together, continued into the corridor.

Rhyme suspected that with those two exchanges, the prosecutor had used up a good portion of his entire Arabic vocabulary. He knew Sachs’s numbered about two dozen words.

He swiveled to see Thom standing in the doorway.

‘And we’re going to the hotel,’ the aide said firmly.

‘I need—’

‘You need rest.’

‘There are a dozen unanswered questions.’

‘I’ll unplug the controller and push you to the van.’

The chair weighed close to a hundred pounds. But Rhyme knew Thom was fully capable of doing just what he’d threatened.

A grimace. ‘Fine, fine, fine.’ He turned the chair and headed out into the hallway, leaving it to Sachs to say good night for both of them.

Chapter 23

Close to 11 p.m.

Stefan was driving outside Naples, edgy. Anxious. He wanted to start the next composition. He needed to start the next composition.

Wiping sweat, wiping. Stuffing the tissues into his pocket. So very careful to avoid that DNA crap.

He was aware of noises, of course, always. But tonight they didn’t calm him or dull the anxiety: the car’s hum, the shush of rubber on asphalt, the two dozen tones from one dozen insects, an owl, no two. An airplane overhead, imposing its imperial growl over everything else.

Evenings are best for listening: The cool damp air lifts sounds from ground and trees, sounds you’d never otherwise hear, and carries them to you like the Wise Men’s gifts.

Stefan was careful to drive the speed limit — he had no license, and the vehicle was stolen. But there were no daughters, or sons, of Greek gods close on his trail. A Police of State car passed him. A Carabinieri car passed him. Neither driver paid him, or anyone else on the crowded road, any mind.

The meds humming through his system, and his muse, Euterpe, hovering in his heart, helped, but still he remained unsteady. Shaky-hand, sweaty-skin.

As for his most recent participant in the composer’s art, Ali Maziq, he thought nothing at all. The skinny little creature no longer existed to Stefan. He’d played his part in Stefan’s journey to Harmony — and a fine contribution he had been.

He hummed a bit of ‘The Waltz of the Flowers.’

Gasp, two, three, gasp, two, three...

The car rose to the crest of a hill and he pulled onto the weedy shoulder and stopped. He gazed over the fields of Capodichino. This district, now a suburb of Naples, had been the site of a heroic battle: the Neapolitans against the Nazi occupiers on the third day of the famed — and successful — uprising known as the Four Days of Naples in 1943.

These fields were home to Naples airport and a number of businesses, small factories and warehouses. Modest residences too.

And here you would find something else, something that insistently drew the gaze of any passerby: the Capodichino Reception Center, one of the largest refugee camps in Italy. It was many acres in size and filled with orderly rows of blue plasticized tents, Ministero dell’Interno emblazoned in stark white letters on the roofs.

The camp was surrounded by an eight-foot fence topped with barbed wire, though it was flimsy and little-patrolled, Stefan noted. Even now, so late, the place was bustling. Many, many people milled about, or sat or squatted. He had heard that all the camps in Italy were vastly overcrowded, security inadequate.

All of which was great for Stefan, of course. A chaotic hunting ground is a good hunting ground.

Having verified that there were few guards, in vehicles or on foot, patrolling the roads surrounding the camp, he now pulled back onto the road and maneuvered his old Mercedes forward. He parked not far away from the main entrance, climbed out. He walked closer, mixing with a cluster of lethargic reporters, probably backgrounding human interest pieces. Protesters too. Most placards he didn’t understand but several were in English.

Go Back Home!

Scanning the camp: It was even more crowded than when he’d first been here, just recently. But otherwise, little had changed: Men in taqiyah or kufi skullcaps. Nearly all the women were in hijabs or wearing other head coverings. A few of the arrivals had suitcases but most carried cloth or plastic bags, filled with their only remaining possessions in the world. Some clutched the thick quilted blankets they would have been given by the Italian navy, after their human smugglers’ boats had been interdicted — or after they’d been fished from the Mediterranean. A few still held orange life vests, also given out by the military and NGOs and, occasionally, the smugglers themselves (at least those worried that drowned customers were bad for business).

Many of the refugees were families. The second most populous group seemed to be single men. There were hundreds upon hundreds of children. Some playing, cheerful. Most sullen, bewildered.

And exhausted.

The soldiers and police officers were plentiful and, given the many different uniforms, must have come from a number of branches of government. They seemed weary and stern but appeared to treat the refugees well. None of them paid the least attention to Stefan, just like the other day.

Chaos.

Hunting ground...

Something caught his eye. Stefan could see a man slipping out at the far end of the fence, through a slit cut vertically in the link. Was he escaping? But, watching, he noticed the man stroll nonchalantly up to one of a dozen vendors ringing the camp, selling food, clothing and personal items. He made a purchase and then returned.

Yes, the camp security was porous.

Stefan bought food from one of these stands, a Middle Eastern dish. It was tasty but he had little appetite. He simply wanted some calories for the energy. He ate as he walked up and down the roadway along the camp. He then returned to the main gate.

Soon a large panel truck arrived, its precious cargo yet more refugees, with varying degrees of dark skin and wearing garb typical of North Africa, he supposed. Some too, he guessed, would be from Syria, though the journey over so many kilometers of rough sea — to the western shore of Italy — seemed unimaginable.

He heard, in his mind’s ear, the creak of boards of the frail ships, the thump of the Zodiac boat pontoons, the unsteady stutter of struggling motors, the cries of babies, the slap of waves, the call of birds, the hiss and flutter of wind. Eyes closed, shivering as he was momentarily overwhelmed by sounds he could not hear. He calmed and wiped the sweat, putting away the tissue. See, he thought to Her, I’m being careful.

Always, for his muse.

The thirty-odd refugees disembarked from the newly arrived truck and stood near the entrance to the camp, under the eyes of two guards. No machine guns. Just white leather holsters containing pistols on lanyards. They were directing the arrivees into a processing station — a long, low table where four aid workers sat, over clipboards and laptops.

Stefan moved closer yet. It was so crowded that no one paid him any mind. He was near to a couple who stood sullen and exhausted looking — nearly as tired as the two-year-old child asleep in the mother’s arms. They stepped to the table and the husband — they wore wedding rings — said, ‘Khaled Jabril.’ A nod to his wife. ‘Fatima.’ Then he brushed the child’s hair. ‘Muna.’

‘I’m Rania Tasso,’ said the woman they stood before. Heads nodded, but no hands were shaken.

Khaled was dressed Western — jeans and a counterfeit Hugo Boss T-shirt. Fatima was scarfed and wore a long-sleeve tunic, but was also in jeans. They both had running shoes. The little girl was in a costume, yellow. Some Disney character.

The woman reviewing their passports, Rania, had dark-red hair, done in a double braid, down to the small of her back. The radio on her hip and badge dangling from her neck meant she was an employee of the organization. After some minutes of watching her, Stefan decided she was very senior, perhaps the director of the camp. She was attractive. Her nose was Romanesque and her skin an olive shade that suggested her Italian ancestry was mixed with Greek or perhaps Tunisian.

The refugees answered questions. And, oh my, Stefan did not like Fatima’s voice one bit. ‘Vocal fry,’ the tone was called — a condition afflicting more women than men, he believed. A rasping, growling quality to the voice.

She spoke more words.

Oh, he didn’t like that sound at all.

Rania typed some data into the computer. She wrote some information — in Arabic — on a three-by-five card and handed it to Fatima, who then asked some questions. She was frowning. It was almost as if she, here by the grace of the country, were interviewing Rania about her intentions and worth.

The director answered patiently.

Fatima began to speak again, but her husband, Khaled, spoke softly to her — he had quite the pleasant baritone. Fatima fell silent and nodded. She said something else, which Stefan took to be words of apology.

Then the exchange was over and, clutching a backpack, two large plastic bags and their child, the couple vanished into the camp, directed down a long row to the back of the place.

Suddenly, and surprisingly, music swelled. Middle Eastern music. The sound came from the front of one of the tents, where a clutch of young men had set up a CD player. The music of the Arab world was curious. Not thematic, not narrative, it lacked the familiar timings and progressions of the West. This was like a tone poem, repetitious but in its own way pleasing. Seductive. Almost sensual.

If Ali Maziq’s gasps provided the beat for Stefan’s waltz, this music would be the buzz and hum of the body.

In any event, the music calmed him and stubbed out a budding Black Scream. The flow of sweat seemed to lessen.

Fatima paused in mid-step and aimed her beautiful but witchy face toward the cluster of young men. She frowned and spoke to them — in her sizzling voice.

Looking awkward, one shut the radio off.

So, not only did she cackle when she spoke, but she disliked music.

Euterpe would not like her.

And it was never wise to incur the anger of a muse. You thought they were charming, you thought they were delicate creatures who lived quietly in the sequestered world of art and culture, lounging about on Olympus. But they were, of course, the daughters of Olympus’s most powerful and ruthless god.