The Burial Hour

Chapter 35

At 8 a.m. Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were once again displaying passports to the US Marine guards at the well-fortified entrance to the US consulate and were shown inside, to the lobby.

Rhyme was rested and had only a slight hangover — grappa seemed to be kinder in this regard than single-malt whisky.

Five minutes later they were in the office of the consulate general himself, a handsome, well-built man in his mid-fifties. He wore a gray suit, a white shirt and a tie as rich and blue as the water sparkling outside. Henry Musgrave had the studied manners and perceptive eyes of a lifer in the diplomatic corps. Unlike Charlotte McKenzie, he had no problem striding up to Rhyme and shaking hands.

‘I’ve heard of you, of course, Mr Rhyme. I get to New York and Washington. You make the news, even in the nation’s capital. Some of your cases — that fellow, the Skin Collector, he was called. That was quite something.’

‘Yes. Well.’ Rhyme was never averse to praise but wasn’t inclined to tell war stories at the moment; he was sure that the Composer was planning another attack — because the one at the reception center had failed or because he was indeed slipping further into madness.

Musgrave greeted Sachs and Thom with an enthusiastic grip. He sat down and his attention drifted to his computer screen. ‘Ah, it’s confirmed.’ He read for a moment and looked up. ‘Just got a National Security briefing report. Not classified — it’s going to the media now. You’ll be interested. The CIA and the Austrian counterterrorism department, the BVT, stopped a terrorist plot in Vienna. They scored a half kilo of C4, a cell phone detonator and a map of a mall in a suburb. No actors yet but they’re on it.’

Rhyme recalled that there’d been a flurry of reports of suspected terrorist activity — both in Europe and in the United States. That was why the Police of State had fewer officers to help investigate the Composer case than they otherwise might.

Okay, got it. Happy news for all. Let’s move on.

Musgrave turned from the screen. ‘So, a serial killer from America.’

Rhyme glanced toward Sachs, a reminder that they didn’t have time to correct the diplomat about the Composer’s technical criminal profile.

The consulate general mused, ‘The Italians have had a few — the Monster of Florence. Then, Donato Bilancia. He killed about seventeen. There’s a nurse currently suspected of killing nearly forty patients. And there were the Beasts of Satan. They were convicted of killing only three, though they’re suspected of more. I imagine the Americans win the serial killer prize in terms of body count. At least if you believe cable TV.’

Rhyme said in a clipped voice, ‘Colombia, China, Russia, Afghanistan and India beat the US. Now, as to our request? We’re still good?’

‘Yep. I just double-checked.’

Last night, Rhyme had called Charlotte McKenzie, asking if she had access to a government jet to shepherd Sachs to Milan. She didn’t but would check with the consulate general. Musgrave’s assistant called Rhyme to report that an American businessman, in Naples for trade promotion meetings, had a private jet that was flying to Switzerland this morning. The plane could easily stop in Milan on the way. He’d meet them this morning to discuss the trip.

And now Musgrave’s assistant appeared in the doorway, followed by a lanky man, topped with a shock of strawberry-blond hair. He grinned to all and stepped forward. ‘Mike Hill.’ He shook hands with everyone, Rhyme included, paying no attention to the wheelchair.

Rhyme was not surprised when the consulate general told him that Hill — nerdy and boyish, a younger Bill Gates — was here to hawk high-tech products to the Italians; his company exported broadband and fiber-optic equipment, built in his Midwest factory.

‘Henry was telling me what you need, and I’m happy to help.’ He then frowned and now glanced at the wheelchair. ‘But have to say, the plane’s not, you know, accessible.’

Sachs said, ‘I’ll be going alone.’

‘What’s the timing?’

‘If possible, I need to get up there this morning and back tonight.’

‘Definitely we can get you there in a few hours. The only issue is returning. The crew’s got other flights after Milan. If they time out, they’ll have to spend the night in Lausanne or Geneva.’

‘That’s fine,’ Rhyme said. ‘The important thing is to get there as soon as possible.’

Hill said, ‘Now, where do you want to go? There’re two airports in Milan. Malpensa, the bigger one, is about twenty miles northwest of the city and depending on the time of day, the traffic can be pretty bad. Linate’s the downtown airport. It’s much more convenient if you’ve got to be in the city itself. Which would be better?’

Rossi had said the warehouse was in town, not in the suburbs. ‘Linate.’

‘Okay. Easy-peasy. I’ll tell the crew. They’ll need to file a flight plan. Coupla hours should do it. And I’ll have my driver take you to the airport.’

Sachs began, ‘Mr Hill—’

‘Mike, per favore.’ Spoken with the worst Italian accent Rhyme had ever heard. ‘And if you’re gonna bring up money, forget it. Won’t cost much to make a stop in Milano. So consider this gratis.’

‘We appreciate it.’

‘Never had a chance to help catch a psycho and probably never will again. Glad to do my duty.’ Hill rose, pulled his phone from his pocket and stepped to the corner of the office, where, Rhyme could hear, he had conversations with the pilot and his chauffeur, coordinating the trip.

‘Lincoln, Amelia.’ A woman’s voice from the doorway. Rhyme looked up to see Charlotte McKenzie walk into the office, looking rumpled. Her short blond hair was a bit spiky and her copper-colored blouse a bit wrinkled. Maybe her cold was taking its toll. ‘Henry.’ She nodded to Thom too.

‘So, hitching a ride to Milan,’ she said to Rhyme. ‘That worked out?’

Musgrave nodded toward Mike Hill, still on the phone, and said to McKenzie, ‘Mike’s plane’ll get Detective Sachs up there this morning.’

‘Good. You think this guy, the Composer, he’s left Naples? He’s up there?’

Sachs said, ‘We don’t know the connection. Just an address on a note from the crime scene at the refugee camp.’ She then said to Musgrave, ‘One thing I’m hoping. Is there someone at the consulate in Milan who could drive me, translate for me?’

Charlotte McKenzie said, ‘I have a colleague there. He does what I do, legal liaison. Pete Prescott. Good man. I can see if he’s free.’

‘That’d be great.’

She texted and a moment later her phone chimed with an incoming message. ‘Yes, he is. I’ll text you his number, Amelia.’

‘Thanks.’

Mike Hill joined them, slipping his phone away. Musgrave introduced him to McKenzie and then the businessman said to Sachs, ‘All set. You’re good to go. My driver’ll pick you up at eleven... where’s good?’

She gave him the hotel address.

‘Know it. Great old place. Makes me feel like I’m part of the Rat Pack when I stay there.’

Another figure appeared in the doorway, the slim, very pale man of indeterminate age Rhyme remembered from the other day. Ah, yes, the public relations officer. What was the name again?

He nodded to those present and introduced himself to Hill. ‘Daryl Mulbry.’

The slight man sat and said to Rhyme, ‘We’re getting inundated with requests from the press — about both Garry and the Composer. Would you be willing to sit down for an interview?’ Mulbry stopped short and blinked — undoubtedly at the awkward choice of a verb, considering Rhyme’s condition.

As if he cared. ‘No,’ Rhyme said shortly. ‘I don’t have anything to say at this point, other than that we’ve got a composite rendering of the Composer and that’s gone to the press anyway.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it. Intimidating-looking guy. Big. But what about Garry? Any statement?’

Rhyme could just imagine Dante Spiro’s reaction when he read in the press that an unnamed ‘American consultant’ was commenting on the case.

‘Not now.’

McKenzie added, ‘I should tell you: Garry’s been getting threats. Like I mentioned, those accused of sexual assault are at particular risk. Add that he’s an American... Well, it’s a problem. The authorities keep an eye on him but there are no guarantees.’

‘No press,’ Rhyme said insistently. But he added, ‘While Amelia’s away I’ll be following up with his case, though.’

McKenzie said, ‘Ah. Good.’ The uncertainty told Rhyme she’d be wondering how exactly he could follow up when his ass was parked in a wheelchair, in a country that did not seem to have the equivalent of the American With Disabilities Act in force.

He didn’t tell her that he had a secret weapon.

Two, in fact.

Chapter 36

The Black Screams had begun.

But the failure at the camp and the sight of the redheaded policewoman had conspired to shake him awake early and fill his head with the screams, shrilling like a dentist’s drill.

Yes, he had a plan for Artemis. Yes, Euterpe had whispered calming sentiments from on high. But, as he well knew, very little could stop determined Black Screams. He’d hoped to control them himself, but ultimately, he knew, he’d lose. It was the same as when you wake with that first twist in your gut, small, nothing really. Still, you understand without any doubt you’ll be on your knees over the toilet in an hour with the flu or food poisoning.

Whispering screams, soon to become the Black Screams.

And soon they were.

Shaky-hand, sweaty-skin — these were nothing compared with a Black Scream.

Pacing the farmhouse, then outside in the wet dawn. Stop, stop, stop!

But they hadn’t stopped. So he’d popped extra meds (that didn’t work, never did) and, in the 4MATIC, sped to where he stood now: to chaotic downtown Naples where he prayed the ricocheting cacophony would drown out the screams. (That sometimes worked. Ironically, noise was his salvation against Black Screams — as much and as loud and as chaotic as possible.)

He plunged into the jostling crowds filling the sidewalks. He passed food vendors, bars, restaurants, laundries, souvenir stores. He paused outside a café. Imagined he could hear the forks on china, the teeth biting, the jaws grinding, the lips sipping...

The knives cutting.

Like knives slashing throats...

He was sucking up the noise, inhaling the noise, to cover the screams.

Make them stop, make them stop...

Thinking of his teenage years, the girls looking away, the boys never looking away but staring and, sometimes, laughing as Stefan walked into the classrooms. He was thin then, passable in sports, could tell a joke or two, talk about TV shows, talk about music.

But the normal didn’t outshine the strange.

How often he would lose himself in the sound of a teacher’s voice, the melody of her words, not the content, which he didn’t even hear.

‘Stefan, the sum is?’

Ah, such a beautiful modulation! A triplet in the last of the sentence. Syncopated. G, G, then B flat as her voice rose in tone because of the question. Beautiful.

‘Stefan, you’ve ignored me for the last time. You’re going to the principal. Now.’

And ‘principal,’ an even better triplet!

Only then did he realize: Oh, messed up again.

And the other students either looking away or staring (equally cruel).

Strange. Stefan is strange.

Well, he was. He knew that as well as anybody. His reaction: Make me unstrange or shut the hell up.

Now, on this busy corner in a busy city, Stefan pressed his head against an old stone wall and let a thousand sounds pass over him, through him, bathing him in warm water, circling and soothing his rampaging heart.

Hearing, in his head, his fiery imagination, the tolling of the red bell on the dirt, spreading outward from the man’s neck last night.

Hearing the sound of blood roaring in his ears, loud as a blood bell ringing, ringing, ringing.

Hearing the refugee’s screams.

Hearing the Black Screams.

From the time of adolescence, when the Black Screams started, it had been a battle to keep them at bay. Sound was the lifeblood for Stefan, comforting, explaining, enlightening. The creak of boards, the stutter of branches, the clicking of tiny animal feet in the Pennsylvania garden and yard, the slither of a snake in the woods. But the same way that healthy germs can become sepsis, sounds could turn on him.

Voices became sounds and sounds voices.

Roadside construction equipment, driving piles was really a voice: ‘Cellar, cellar, cellar, cellar.’

A bird’s call was not a bird’s call. ‘Look swinging, look swinging, look swinging.’

The wind was not the wind. ‘Ahhhhhh gone, ahhhhhh gone, ahhhhhh gone.’

The creak of a branch: ‘Drip, drip, drip, drip...’

And a voice from a closed throat that might have been whispering, ‘Goodbye, I loved you,’ became merely a rattle of pebbles on wood.

Now a Black Scream, a bad one, the whining drill. It was starting in his groin — yes, you could hear them down there — and zipping up through his spine, through his jaw, through his eyes, into his brain.

Nooooooooo...

He opened his eyes and blinked. People stared uneasily as they passed. In this part of town, fortunately, there were homeless men, also damaged, so he did not stand out sufficiently for them to call the police.

That would not be good at all.

Euterpe would not forgive him.

He managed to control himself enough to move along. A block away he stopped. Wiping sweat, pressing his face against a wall, he struggled to breathe. He looked around. Stefan was near the famed Santa Chiara church, on Via Benedetto Croce — the mile-long street that bisected the ancient Roman part of town and was known to everyone as Spaccanapoli, or the Naples Splitter.

It was a chaotic avenue, narrow, throbbing with tourists and pedestrians and bicycles and scooters and punchy cars. Here were vendors and shops offering souvenirs, religious icons, furniture, commedia dell’arte figurines, cured meats, buffalo mozzarella, limoncello bottles in the shape of the country, and the local dessert, sfogliatelle, crispy pastry that Stefan adored — not for the taste but for the sound of the crackly crust between teeth.

The morning was hot already and he took off his cap and wiped his shaved head with a paper towel he carried with him.

A Black Scream began but desperately he turned his attention back to the street sounds around him. The putter of scooters, shouts, a horn, the sound of something heavy being dragged along stones, a cheerful child’s tune chugging from a boom box next to a street performer — a middle-aged man folded into a box that resembled a cradle. Only his head, covered with an infant’s bonnet and positioned above a doll’s body, was visible. The eerie sight and his bizarre singing captivated passersby.

The wind, snapping laundry overhead.

Mommy silent, Mommy silent.

He was then aware of another sound, growing louder.

Tap... tap... tap.

The rhythm caught him immediately. The resonant tone. He closed his eyes. He didn’t turn toward the sound, which was behind him. He savored it.

‘Scusati,’ the woman’s voice said. ‘No, uhm, I mean: Scusami.’

He opened his eyes and turned. She was perhaps nineteen or twenty. Slim, braided hair framing a long, pretty face. She was in jeans and wore two tank tops, white under dark blue, and a pale-green bra, he could see from the third set of straps. A camera hung from one shoulder, a backpack from the other. On her feet were, of all things, cowboy boots with wooden heels. They were what had made the distinctive tap as she approached.

She hesitated, blinked. Then: ‘Dov’è un taxi?’

Stefan said, ‘You’re American.’

‘Oh, you are too.’ She laughed.

It was obvious to him that she’d known this.

Obvious too that she was flirting. She’d liked what she’d seen and, college girl on her own, had moved in. The sort who had no problem making the first — or second or third — move. And if the boy, or maybe, for a lark, the girl, said no, she’d offer a good-natured smile, no worries, and move on, buoyed by the unbreakable union of youth and beauty.

He was round, he was sweaty. But handsome enough. And not a player. Safe, cuddly.

‘I don’t know where you’d get a taxi, sorry.’ He wiped his face again.

She said, ‘Hot, isn’t it? Weird for September.’

Yes, though the humid southwestern Italian air was not the source of his perspiration, of course.

A group of schoolchildren, in uniform, streamed past, guided by a protective Mother Hen of a teacher. Stefan and the girl stepped aside. They then shifted again the other way as a Piaggio motor scooter bore down on them. A grizzled deliveryman in a dusty fisherman’s cap drove them yet another direction as he staggered under the weight of a carton-filled pushcart, glaring and muttering, as if the sidewalk were his own personal avenue.

‘Crazy here! Don’t you just love it?’ Her freckled face was infinitely amused, and her voice was light but not high. If the sound had been flower petals, they would have been those from pink roses, plucked but still moist. He could feel the tones falling on his skin like those petals.

None of the crackly rasp of vocal fry that the music-hater refugee, Fatima, had.

As she spoke, the Black Screams grew quieter.

‘Don’t know anyplace back home like it, that I can think of,’ he said, because that was what somebody from back home would say. He thought New York City was like this actually but, given his recent adventures there, he didn’t volunteer that observation.

She rambled, charmingly, about being in the south of France most recently, had he ever been? No? Too bad. Oh, Cap d’Antibes. Oh, Nice!

The screams abated some more as he listened. He looked too: such a beautiful young woman.

Such a lovely voice.

And those tapping boots! Like a rosewood drum.

Stefan had had lovers, of course. But in the old days. Before what the doctors would call — though never to his face — the Break, at around age twenty-two. It was then that he had simply given up fighting to be normal and stepped, comforted, into the world of sounds. Around the time Mommy went all quiet in the cellar, quiet and cold, in the quiet and hot cellar, the washing machine spinning the last load of towels ever washed in the house.

Around the time Father decided he wasn’t going to be aproned to a troubled son anymore.

Before then, though, before the Break, sure, there’d been the occasional pretty girl, those who didn’t mind the strange.

He rather enjoyed them — the occasional nights — though the sensation grew less interesting than the sounds of joining. Flesh made subtle noises, hair might, tongues did, moisture did.

Nails did.

Throats and lungs and hearts, of course.

Then, though, the strange got stranger and the girls started to look away more and more. They started to mind. Which was fine with him because he was losing interest himself. Sherry or Linda would whisper about taking her bra off and he’d be wondering about the sound of Thomas Jefferson’s voice, or what the groans of the Titanic had been like as she went down.

Now the young woman in the cowboy boots said, ‘So, I’m here for a few days is all. My girlfriend, the one I was traveling with? She broke up with her boyfriend before she left, but then he called and they got back together so she just went home, pout, pout. And abandoned me! How about that? But here I am in Italy! I mean, like, I’m going back to Cleveland early? Don’t think so. So here I am. Talking and talking and talking. Sorry. People say I do that. Talk too much.’

Yes, she did.

But Stefan was smiling. He could affect a good smile. ‘No, it’s all good.’

She wasn’t put off by his silence. She asked, ‘What’re you doing here? You in school?’

‘No, I’m working.’

‘Oh, what do you do?’

Presently slipping nooses around people’s necks.

‘Sound engineer.’

‘No way! Concerts, you mean?’

With the Black Screams now at bay he was able to act normal, as he knew he had to. He ran through his arsenal of blandly normal tones and words and launched a few. ‘I wish. Testing for noise pollution.’

‘Hm. Interesting. Noise pollution. Like traffic?’

He didn’t know. He’d just made the career up. ‘Yep, exactly.’

‘I’m Lilly.’

‘Jonathan,’ he said. Because he’d always liked the name.

Triplet. Jon-a-than.

A name in waltz time.

‘You must get lots of data, or whatever it is you do, here in Naples.’

‘It’s noisy. Yes.’

A pause. ‘So, no idea where to get a cab?’

He looked around because that was what a blandly normal person would do. He shrugged. ‘Where do you need to go?’

‘Oh, a touristy thing. A guy at the hostel I’m staying at recommended this place. He said it’s awesome.’

Stefan was considering.

Not a good idea... He should be following up on his plan regarding Artemis (it was quite a good one). But, then, she wasn’t here, and Lilly was.

‘Well, I’ve got a car.’

‘No way! You drive? Here?’

‘Yeah, it’s crazy. The trick is you just forget there’re traffic laws, and you do okay. And don’t be polite and let people go ahead of you. You just go. Everybody does.’

Blandly normal. Stefan was in good form.

Lilly said, ‘So you want to come with? I mean, if you’re not doing anything.’

A Black Scream began. He forced it to silence.

‘What is this place?’

‘The guy said it’s totally spooky.’

‘Spooky?’

‘Totally deserted.’

So it would be quiet.

Quiet was never wise. Even the best intentions went away when there was quiet.

Still, Stefan looked Lilly over, head to toe, and said, ‘Sure. Let’s go.’

Chapter 37

Skulls.

Ten thousand.

Twenty thousand.

A hundred thousand skulls.

No. Even more than that.

Skulls arranged in orderly rows, eye sockets staring outward, triangles of darkness where noses had once been, rows of yellow teeth, many missing.

This was the place to which Lilly had directed Stefan. The Fontanelle Cemetery in Naples.

Spooky...

Oh, you bet.

It wasn’t a burial ground in the traditional sense; it was a huge, forbidding cavern that, Lilly’s guidebook explained, had been used as a mass grave site when half the population of Naples had died from plague in the 1600s.

‘And there are rumors that underneath here’re more, going back to Roman days. There could be a million skulls under our feet.’

They stood at the entrance, a massive nature-made archway that led into the darkened expanse. This was no longer prime tourist season and the place had few visitors.

And those who were here seemed to be on missions of devotion, rather than sightseeing. They lit votives, they prayed.

Spooky... and quiet. Almost silent.

Well, he’d have to deal with it. Stefan wiped sweat, put the tissue away.

‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’

They walked farther inside, her boots tapping and echoing. Lovely!

Reading from her guidebook, she whispered — here was a place to inspire whispers — that Naples was savagely bombed during the Second World War, and this was one of the few places where the citizens could be safe from the Allied planes.

The lighting was subdued and flames from the candles cast eerie, unsteady shadows of bones and skulls — reanimations of victims dead hundreds, or thousands, of years.

‘Creepy, hm?’

‘Sure is.’ Though not because it looked creepy. Because of the quiet. The cavern was like a petri dish for Black Screams. A couple of them started to moan. Started to rise. Started to swell within.

Until he had a thought. A new mission. Good, good.

The Black Screams faded.

A new mission.

Which involved Lilly. And suddenly he was wildly grateful they had met. It was as if his muse had sensed his distress and sent her to him.

Thank you, Euterpe...

Of course, he realized, as he’d thought downtown, this was definitely not a good idea. But he also thought: As if I have any choice.

The failure last night... The swish, swish of the knife at the refugee camp. The spreading blood in the shape of a bell. The nightmares, the sound waves of approaching Black Screams.

Oh, he needed this.

He was looking Lilly over carefully. Probably hungrily. Before she caught him, he gazed off.

Lilly was acting girlish now. Smiling, despite the wall of skulls, the dark eye sockets turned their way. ‘Hello!’ she called.

The echo danced back and forth.

Stefan heard it long after she’d turned her attention elsewhere.

They walked farther into the dim, cool space.

‘Your face,’ she said.

Stefan turned, cocking his head.

‘Your eyes were closed. What’re you thinking about? Who all these people were?’ She nodded to the skulls.

‘No, just listening to things.’

‘Listening? I don’t hear anything.’

‘Oh, there’s a thousand sounds. You hear them too but you don’t know you do.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s our blood, our heartbeat. There’s our breath. The sound of our clothing against itself and our skin. I can’t hear yours and you can’t hear mine but the sounds are there. A scooter — that one’s hard because it’s an echo of an echo. A tapping. Water, I’d guess. There! That shutter. Somebody took a picture. An old iPhone Four.’

‘Wow. You can tell that? And it was so far away. I didn’t hear a thing.’

‘You have to allow yourself to hear things. You can hear sounds everywhere.’

‘Everywhere?’

‘Well, not exactly. Not in a vacuum. Not in outer space.’ Stefan recalled a movie, Alien (not a bad flick, by any means). And the advertising line was: In space no one can hear you scream.

He told Lilly about this now. And added, ‘You know in space movies, when you hear ray guns and spaceships colliding and exploding? Well, that’s wrong. They’d be completely silent. All sounds — a gunshot, a scream, a baby’s laugh — need molecules to bump against. That’s what sound is. That’s why the speed of sound varies. At sea level it’s seven hundred sixty miles an hour. At sixty thousand feet, it’s six hundred fifty miles an hour.’

‘Wow, that’s way different! Because of the thinner molecules?’

‘Right. In space there are no molecules. There’s nothing. So if you opened your mouth and vibrated your vocal cords no one would hear you. But say you were with somebody else and he put his hand on your chest while you were screaming, he’d hear you.’

‘Because the molecules in his body would vibrate.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I like it when people’re excited about their jobs. When you first said “sound engineer,” I thought, hm, pretty dull. But you’re, you know, totally into it. That’s cool.’

True. Funny when the one thing that makes you crazy keeps you sane.

He was looking over her now, as she turned and walked closer to an inscription in Latin, carved in stone.

Tap, tap, tap.

Her boots.

This isn’t a good idea...

Stefan said to himself: Leave. Tell her goodbye. It’s been fun. Have a nice trip back home.

But Stefan felt Euterpe hovering over him now, looking out, giving him permission to do what he had to do. Anything to keep the Black Screams away. She’d understand.

To the right the cave disappeared into a dim recess.

‘Let’s go in the back there.’ He pointed that way.

‘There? It’s pretty dark.’

Yes, it was. Pretty dark but completely deserted.

Stefan wondered for a moment if he’d have to convince her but apparently Lilly believed she was in no danger. He was a little quirky maybe, he sweated a bit much, he was pudgy, but he was a sound engineer who didn’t mind conversation and who said interesting things.

Women always fell for men who talked.

Oh, and he was an American. How much danger could he be?

‘Okay, sure.’ A sparkle in her eyes.

They started in the direction he’d indicated.

On the pretense of looking around, he fell slightly behind her.

Hearing her boot soles and heels snapping:

Tap, tap, tap...

He looked around. They were completely alone.

Stefan reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the cool metal.

Tap, tap, taptaptaptaptap...

Chapter 38

Carl Sandburg.

‘Carl... The poet, right?’ Amelia Sachs asked the balding man driving a small, gray Renault.

The associate of Charlotte McKenzie’s, he’d picked her up at Linate Airport, the smaller of the two aerodromes in Milan, closer to the city center. They were in thick traffic.

‘That’s right,’ Pete Prescott told her. ‘He wrote “Chicago.”’ The legal liaison dropped his voice a bit, to sound poetic, Sachs guessed, and recited the opening lines, about the Hog Butcher.

‘You from there, Chicago?’ Sachs didn’t know where this was going.

‘No, Portland. My point is the poem might’ve been about Milan. Milan is the Chicago of Italy.’

Ah. Got it. She’d been wondering.

‘Working, busy, not the prettiest city in the country, not by a long shot. But it has energy and a certain charm. Not to mention The Last Supper. The fashion world. And La Scala. Do you like opera?’

‘Not really.’

A pause. Its meaning: How could someone with a pulse not like opera?

‘Too bad. I could get tickets to La Traviata tonight. Andrea Carelli is singing. It wouldn’t be a date.’ He said this as if waiting for her to blurt, ‘No, no, a date would be wonderful.’

‘Sorry. I’ve got to get back tonight, if possible.’

‘Charlotte said you’re working on the case. The kidnapper.’

‘Right.’

‘With the famous detective, Lincoln Rhyme. I’ve read some of those books.’

‘He doesn’t like them very much.’

‘At least people write about him. Nobody’s going to write novels about a legal liaison, I don’t think. Though I’ve had pretty interesting cases.’

He didn’t elaborate — she was pleased about that — but concentrated on his GPS. Traffic grew worse and Prescott swung down a side road. In contrast with this, the trip from Naples to Milan had been lightning-fast. Computer millionaire Mike Hill’s driver, a larger-than-life Italian with thick hair and an infectious smile, had met her outside the hotel, where he’d been waiting with a shiny black Audi. He’d leapt forward to take her bag. In a half hour, after an extensive history lesson on southern Italy, delivered in pretty good English and with more than a little flirt, they had arrived at the private aircraft tarmac in Naples. She’d climbed onto the plane — even nicer than the one they’d flown to Italy on — and soon the sleek aircraft was streaking into the air. She’d had a pleasant conversation with one of Hill’s executives, headed to Switzerland for meetings. Pleasant, yes, though the young man was a super geek and often lost her with his enthusiastic monologues about the state of high technology.

Prescott was now saying, ‘I prefer Milan, frankly, to other cities here. Not as many tourists. And I like the food better. Too much cheese in the south.’

Having recently been served a piece of mozzarella that must’ve weighed close to a pound, she understood, though was tempted to defend Neapolitan cuisine. An urge she declined.

He added, ‘But here? Ugh, the traffic.’ He grimaced and swung the car onto a new route, past shops and small industrial operations and wholesalers and apartments, many of whose windows were covered with curious shades, metal or mesh, hinged from the top. She tried to figure out from the signage what the many commercial operations manufactured or sold, with limited success.

And, yes, it did resemble parts of Chicago, which she’d been to a few times. Milan was a stone-colored, dusty city, now accented with fading autumn foliage, although the dun tone was tempered by ubiquitous red roofs. Naples was far more colorful — though also more chaotic.

Like Hill’s swarthy, enthusiastic driver, Prescott was happy to lecture about the nation.

‘Just like the US, there’s a north/south divide in Italy. The north’s more industrial, the south agricultural. Sound familiar? There’s never been a civil war, as such, though there was fighting to unify the different kingdoms. A famous battle was fought right here. Cinque Giornate di Milano. Five Days of Milan. Part of the first War of Independence, eighteen forties. It drove the Austrians out of the city.’

He looked ahead, saw a traffic jam, and took a sharp right. He then said, ‘That case? The Composer. Why’d he come to Italy?’

‘We’re not sure. Since he’s picked two immigrants, refugees, so far, he might be thinking it’s harder for the police to solve the cases with undocumenteds as victims. And they’re less motivated to run the investigation.’

‘You think he’s that smart?’

‘Every bit.’

‘Ah, look at this!’

The traffic had come to a halt. From the plane, she’d called Prescott and given him the address on the Post-it note found at the scene where the Composer had slashed Malek Dadi to death. Prescott assured her that it would take only a half hour to get there from the airport but already they’d been fighting through traffic for twice that.

‘Welcome to Milano,’ he muttered, backing up, over the sidewalk, turning around and finding another route. She recalled that Mike Hill had warned about the traffic from the larger airport in Milan, thinking: Imagine how long it would take to fight twenty-some miles of congestion like this.

Nearly an hour and a half after she’d landed, Prescott turned along a wide, shallow canal. The area was a mix of the well-worn, the quirky chic and the tawdry. Residences, restaurants and shops.

‘This is the Navigli,’ Prescott announced. He pointed to the soupy waterway. ‘This and a few others are all that’re left of a hundred miles of canals that connected Milan to rivers for transport of goods and passengers. A lot of Italian cities have rivers nearby or running right through town. Milan doesn’t. This was the attempt to create artificial waterways to solve that problem. Da Vinci himself helped design locks and sluices.’

He turned and drove along a quiet street to an intersection of commercial buildings. Deserted here. He parked under what was clearly a no-parking sign, with the attitude of someone who knew beyond doubt he wouldn’t be ticketed, much less towed.

‘That’s the place right there: Filippo Argelati, Twenty Thirty-Two.’

A sign, pink paint — faded from red: Fratelli Guida. Magazzino.

Prescott said, ‘The Guida Brothers. Warehouse.’

The sign was very old and she guessed that the siblings were long gone. Massimo Rossi had texted her that the building was owned by a commercial real estate company in Milan. It was leased to a company based in Rome but calls to the office had not been returned.

She climbed out of the car and walked to the sidewalk in front of the building. It was a two-story stucco structure, light brown, and covered with audacious graffiti. The windows were painted dark brown on the inside. She crouched down and touched some pieces of green broken glass in front of the large double doors.

She returned and Prescott got out of his vehicle too. She asked, ‘Could you stay here and keep an eye on the neighborhood. If anyone shows up text me.’

‘I...’ He was flustered. ‘I will. But why would anyone show up? I mean, it looks like nobody’s been there for months, years.’

‘No, somebody was here within the past hour. A vehicle. It ran over a bottle that was in front. See it? That glass?’

‘Oh, there. Yes.’

‘There’s still wet beer inside.’

‘If there’s something illegal going on, we should call the Carabinieri or the Police of State.’ Prescott had grown uncomfortable.

‘It’ll be fine. Just text.’

‘I will. Sure. I’ll definitely text. What should I text?’

‘A smiley emoji’s fine. I just need to feel the vibration.’

‘Feel... Oh, you’ll have the ringer off. So nobody can hear? In case anybody’s inside?’

No confirmation needed.

Sachs returned to the building. She stood to the side of the door, her hand near the Beretta grip in her side pocket. There was no reason to think the Composer had tooled up to Milan in his dark sedan, crunched the bottle pulling into the warehouse and was now waiting inside with his razor or knife or a noose handy.

But no compelling reason not to think that.

She pounded on the door with a fist, calling out a reasonable, ‘Polizia!’

Proud of herself, getting the Italian okay, she thought. And ignoring that she was undoubtedly guilty of a serious infraction.

No response, though.

Another pounding. Nothing.

Then she circled the building. In the back was a smaller door but that too was barred, with an impressive chain and padlock. She knocked again.

Still no response.

She returned to Prescott. ‘So?’ he asked.

‘Locked up nice and tight.’

He was relieved. ‘We find the police? Get a warrant? You head back to Naples?’

‘Could you pop the trunk?

‘The... oh.’ He did.

She fished around and extracted the tire iron.

‘You mind?’ Sachs asked.

‘Uhm, no.’ He seemed to be thinking fast and, perhaps, recalled that he’d never used the accessory, so it wouldn’t be his prints on the burglar tool.

Sachs had decided that the front door — the one for humans, not the big vehicle doors — was more vulnerable than the chain on the back. She looked around — not a witness in sight — and worked the tire iron into the jamb. She pulled hard and the door shifted far enough so that the male portion of the lock slipped from the female and the door swung open.

She set the tire iron down, away from the door, where it couldn’t be grabbed as a weapon. Then she drew the Beretta and stepped inside fast, squinting to acclimate her eyes to the darkness inside.

Chapter 39

How curious what life has in store for us.

Only a day or two ago he was a tree cop, a badger cop... a fungus cop.

Now he was a criminal investigator. Working on quite the case. Tracking down the Composer.

Officers — Police of State and Carabinieri — labored for years solving petty thefts, car hijackings, a mugging, a chain snatching... and never had the chance to be involved in an investigation like this.

Driving through the pleasant neighborhood near Federico II, the university, Ercole Benelli was reflecting, with amusement, that this actually was the second multiple killer case he had worked (yes, Amelia, I remember: The Composer is not a serial killer). The first crime, however, had involved as victims a dozen head of stolen cattle in the hills east of here. Kidnapping it was too, even if the unfortunates had wandered amiably and without protest into the back of the truck that spirited them away to become entrées and luncheon meat.

But now he was a true investigator, about to search a crime scene on his own.

Even more exciting: Ercole was Lincoln Rhyme’s ‘secret weapon,’ as the famed officer had told him.

Well, one of the secret weapons. The other was sitting beside him. Thom Reston, the man’s aide.

Unlike the first assignment on the furtive Soames investigation — to Natalia Garelli’s apartment — this mission didn’t bother Ercole at all. He had, he supposed, caught the bug, so to speak. Thinking that there might in fact be another perpetrator who’d committed the heinous crime and was blaming innocent Garry Soames, he was inspired to do all he could to get the facts. Earlier, he’d cornered an expert. This specialist came in the luscious form of Daniela Canton. The beautiful — and musically savvy — officer was a basic Flying Squad cop but much of what she did, as the first person on the scene, was to isolate and preserve evidence for the Scientific Police, later to come. Naturally, she was the perfect person to ask. They’d sat in the cafeteria of the Questura, over cappuccinos, as the woman had lectured him matter-of-factly about what to look for, how to approach the scene and, most important, how not to contaminate or alter evidence in any way. Or allow others to do so.

Much of this, it turned out, he’d already learned from Amelia Sachs, but it was pleasant to sit across from Daniela and watch her heavenly blue eyes gazing toward the dusky ceiling as she lectured.

Watch her lengthy, elegant fingers encircle the cup.

A cheetah with azure-blue claws.

He had decided, though, that perhaps she was less creature of the wild than movie star, albeit one from a different era: the sort appearing in the films of the great Italian directors — Fellini, De Sica, Rossellini, Visconti.

Accordingly, he resisted the sudden urge to show her a picture of Isabella. Proud though he was, there seemed no possible excuse to bring up the topic of a pregnant pigeon to this stellar woman. He simply took notes.

So, armed with her insights, and a fast review of the Scientific Police guidelines, Ercole Benelli had plunged into his mission. And now he eased the poor boxy car onto a sidewalk (parking Neapolitan-style) and climbed out — as did his co-conspirator.

Thom looked around the neighborhood. ‘What part of town is this?’

‘Near the university, so there are many students. Writers. Artists. Yes, yes, it looks tough but it’s rather pleasant.’

The street was typical of this portion of Naples. Narrow apartment buildings painted yellow or gray or red — and most in need of more painting. Some walls were decorated with graffiti and the air was ‘fragrant’; it had been several days since the trash had been picked up — a condition not unusual, or entirely Naples’s fault, as the Camorra largely controlled the trash collection and the dump sites. Waste removal could be fitful, depending on who was late in paying off whom.

Clothing hung from lines. Children played in the alleyways and the yards behind the stand-alone structures. At least four football games were in progress, the age of the players ranging from six or seven up to early twenties. The latter players, Ercole noted, were strapping and intense and skillful; some of them seemed of professional quality.

He himself had never played seriously — too tall, too gangly. Ercole’s hobby as a boy had been bird-watching and board games.

‘Did you play football? I mean soccer,’ he asked Thom.

‘No. I fenced in college.’

‘Fencing! Very exciting. You were serious about it?’ He regarded the man’s thin, muscular frame.

‘I won some awards.’ The words were modestly spoken.

Ercole managed to get the man to admit he’d nearly made it to the Olympics.

‘That’s the building there.’ Ercole strode toward the structure. It was a two-story affair and had apparently been modified for rental: A second door to the ground floor had been installed, clumsily. This, the lower-level living space, was the one that Garry Soames lived in. An easy deduction, since the cheap wooden panel was mounted with a bold placard warning that the space was closed by order of the police and one must not trespass. Was this typical? Closing a whole floor for merely a connection to a crime, rather than the site where an assault had occurred?

Perhaps for such a terrible wrongdoing as rape, yes.

Thom smiled. ‘That says we’re not supposed to be here, right?’

‘No trespassing, yes. Let us go to the back. We’re easily seen here in front.’ They circled through a weed-filled alley to the back of the place.

As he did, his phone dinged with a text. It was the response to one he had sent not long before — while driving here.

A thump, low in his belly. Well, look at this. Convinced she wouldn’t say yes to his proposal for a drink or dinner, he’d resigned himself to a rejection.

Badger cop. Fungus cop...

But she had agreed! He had a date!

He typed: Good!

Debated. Ercole removed the exclamation point and sent the text.

All right. Back to work, Inspector Benelli.

It was unlikely one could have broken into the front door to plant the date-rape trace without being seen. The back? There was one door here, on the first-floor deck. There were windows, but those large enough for someone to climb through were high — three meters up, not easily reachable. At the ground level were slits of windows on the sides of the structure, but only about twenty centimeters high, too small for entry. In any event, they were painted shut and clearly had not been opened in decades, if ever.

Thom pointed out two pudgy workmen painting the building next door. Ercole and he approached. The men regarded the officer’s uniform and climbed from the scaffolding. Ercole asked if they’d seen anyone at the back yard in the past few days. They replied they’d noticed only some boys playing football yesterday or the day before.

Thom had Ercole ask if they kept ladders here overnight, one that an intruder might borrow. But they did not. They took all their equipment with them. A person wishing to break in might have brought his own ladder, of course. Ercole now borrowed one of the workmen’s and used it to climb to each of the windows. They were locked or painted shut. He returned the ladder and stepped into the backyard.

Standing with hands on hips, he gazed at the rear of Garry’s building. There was trash in the yard, and not much else. Under the deck were two large plastic flower pots, empty. There was no rear entrance on this level — only one tiny window to the right of the deck. Like the others, on the sides, it was painted shut.

He pulled on latex gloves and wrapped his feet with rubber bands. Thom did the same. They climbed to the deck, jutting from the first floor. On it was a lawn chair, faded and torn, and three more large flower pots, filled with dry, cracked dirt but empty of plants, living or dead. A windowed door led into the upper apartment. He tried it. Locked, as were these windows. Through the dust-and mud-spattered glass he could see a kitchen but no utensils or furniture. The counters were covered with undisturbed dust.

Thom squinted too. ‘Unoccupied. So, no witnesses in the form of Garry’s upstairs neighbors.’

‘No. That is too bad.’

Climbing down from the deck into the backyard once more, Ercole followed Daniela’s advice and stepped away from the building, a good ten yards. He turned and surveyed the structure in its entirety. She’d explained that this gave you context.

Where were the doors, the windows, for entrance and exit? Where were alcoves and alleys — places where one could lie in wait and plan a break-in?

Where were the vantage points from which people inside could look out and where, from outside, could people peer in?

Were there trash bins that might contain evidence?

Were there hiding places for weapons?

The questions piled up. But there were no helpful answers. He shook his head.

Which was when Thom said in a soft voice, ‘You become him.’

‘Him?’

‘The perp.’ The aide was looking his way and had apparently noted Ercole’s stymied expression. ‘You know the word?’

‘Yes, yes, certainly. “Perp.” But become him?’

‘It’s why Lincoln was the king of crime scenes when he ran forensics at NYPD. And why he picked Amelia as his protégée years ago. I don’t understand it myself.’ The aide added after a moment, ‘But the process is getting into the mind of the killer. You’re not a cop anymore. You’re the killer, the burglar, the rapist, the molester. You’re like a Method actor: you know, getting into the minds of the characters they play. It can be pretty tough. You go to dark places. And it can take some time to climb back out. But the best crime scene investigators can do it. Lincoln says that it’s a fine line between good and bad, that the best forensic cops could easily become the worst perps. So. Your goal isn’t to find clues. It’s to commit the crime all over again.’

Ercole’s eyes went back to the building. ‘So I am a criminal.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Allora, my crime is putting the evidence in the apartment to make Garry Soames seem guilty.’

‘That’s right,’ Thom said.

‘But the front door is open to a busy street and many neighbors. I can’t break in that way. Maybe I could pretend to be interested in letting the apartment upstairs and, when the real estate agent lets me in, I sneak down to Garry’s flat and leave the evidence.’

‘But would you, as the criminal, do that?’ Thom asked.

‘No. Of course not. Because I would leave a record of my presence. So, I have to break in through the side or the back. But the doors and windows are locked or painted shut. And there are no signs of—’

‘Ah, Ercole, you’re thinking as an investigator. After the fact of the crime. You have to think like the criminal. You have to be the criminal. You’re the real rapist who has to blame Garry. Or you’re the girlfriend that he treated badly and who wants to get even. You’re desperate. You need to make this work.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Ercole whispered.

So I am the perp.

I’m desperate or furious. I must get inside, and plant drugs in Garry’s bedroom.

Ercole began to pace through the backyard. Thom followed. The officer stopped quickly. ‘I have to plant the drugs but that’s only part of my crime. The other part is being certain that no one knows I’ve done it. Otherwise, the police will instantly conclude Garry is innocent and begin looking for me.’

‘Yes. Good. You said, “me,” not “him.”’

‘How would I do this? I can’t be a supervillain and abseil down the chimney. I can’t tunnel up into the basement apartment...’

Ercole’s eyes scanned the back of the building, actually feeling a twist of desperation in his belly. I have little time because I can’t be seen. I have no fancy tools because I’m not a professional thief. Yet I have to break in and make sure there are no signs of jimmied doors or windows. He muttered, ‘No signs at all... How do I do that? How?’

Thom was silent.

Ercole, staring at the building he needed to breach. Staring, staring.

And then understood. He gave a laugh.

‘What?’ Thom asked.

‘I think I have the answer,’ the officer said softly. ‘Flower pots. The answer is flower pots.’

Chapter 40

Now was the time for blood.

Alberto Allegro Pronti moved silently from the shadows of an alleyway behind the Guida Brothers warehouse at Filippo Argelati, 20–32, in Milan.

While sitting at an unsteady table, sipping a Valpolicella, red of course, he had heard a noise from half a block away. A rapping. Perhaps a voice.

He’d stood immediately and hurried to where he believed that sound had come from: the warehouse.

He was now behind the old structure and could see what he believed was a flicker of shadow on one of the painted-over windows.

Someone was inside.

And that was good for Pronti, and quite bad for whoever that person might be.

The fifty-eight-year-old, wiry and strong, returned to where he’d been sipping and collected a weapon. An iron rod, about three feet long. At the threaded end was a square nut, rusted permanently onto the staff.

It was very efficient and very dangerous and very lethal.

He called to Mario that he would be handling this himself, to stay back. He then returned to the warehouse, easing quietly to the rear. He peered through a spot on the pane where he had scraped the paint away, when he’d been inside recently, so that he could do just this — spy on whoever might be there and deal with them as he wished.

Pronti glanced through the peephole fast, his pulse racing, half believing that he would see an eye looking directly back at him. But no. He noted, however, that there was a shadow in the entryway, where stairs led from here to the first floor. Yes, a target was inside.

He moved on the balls of his running shoes to the back door and withdrew a key from his pocket. He undid the lock and carefully threaded the chain out of the rings screwed into the frame and door, setting the links down — in a line on the dirt so they would not clink together.

The lock too he set down carefully, away from other metal. He spat quietly on the hinges to lubricate them.

Pronti had been well trained.

Then, gripping the deadly club in a firm hand, he pushed inside.

Silently.

It took a moment for his eyes to get used to the darkness, though Pronti knew the layout well: The warehouse was built like a huge horse stable, with six-foot-high dividers separating the ground floor into storage areas. All but one were filled with trash and piles of old, rotting building materials. The remaining one contained a tall stack of cartons and pallets, a recent delivery from a company letting out space here. The floor here was clean, dust-free, and he could walk to the cartons and hide behind them without fear of his target seeing footsteps. He now did so, and he waited, listening to the creaks from overhead, closing his eyes from time to time to concentrate more clearly.

Blood...

His target returned to the top of the stairs, and Pronti could hear him walking down them carefully. As soon as he stepped out of the stairway, he’d return to the front door or walk through the center aisle. Either way he would present his back to Pronti and the wicked club.

His tactically trained ears — like a bat’s — would sense exactly where the son of a bitch was, and Pronti would step out, swinging his murderous weapon. He cocked his head and listened. Oh, yes, just like the old days... in the army. Fond memories, troubled ones too. He would bore Mario with his exploits in the service as they sat together over meals or wine.

He thought now of that time on the Po River...

Then Pronti grew stern with himself. Be serious here.

This is battle.

The footsteps descended the stairs and stopped. The victim was debating which direction to turn.

Left to the door, straight?

Either way, you’re about to feel my fury...

Pronti took the club in both hands. He smelled the iron nut, close to his nose. Blood and rust smell similar and his weapon was about to reek of both.

But then... What’s happening?

There was a thud — a footstep — followed by another, then another. In the back of the warehouse! The intruder had not taken the direct route — past him through the clear center aisle — but had picked one of the areas filled with construction trash, along the side wall. Pronti had assumed it impassable.

Well, no, my friend, you’re not escaping me.

Pronti stepped from his hiding space and, holding the rod in two hands, stalked silently toward the rear of the structure, where his victim would be making for the back door, Pronti assumed. This would work just fine. The man would go to the door... and Pronti would crush his skull.

Quiet... quiet...

When he was nearly there, another footfall — close — made him jump.

Yet no foot was to be seen.

What is this?

Another thud.

And the bit of brick rolled to a stop in front of him.

No, no! His soldierly training had failed him.

The footsteps, the thuds, were not that at all. They were a distraction. Of course!

Behind him, the voice barked a command.

The order, delivered by, of all things, a woman, was in English, of which he spoke very little. But it was not much of a challenge to deduce the meaning and so Pronti quickly dropped the rod and shot his hands into the air.

Amelia Sachs slipped her gun away.

She stood over the skinny, unshaven man, who sat defiantly on the floor of the warehouse. He wore filthy clothing. Pete Prescott was beside her, examining the metal bar he’d carried. ‘Quite a weapon.’

She glanced at the rod. Yes, it was.

‘Il tuo nome?’ Prescott asked.

The man was silent, eyes darting from one to the other.

Prescott repeated the question.

‘Alberto Allegro Pronti,’ he said. He said something more to Prescott, who fished a card from the man’s pocket.

This confirmed his identity.

A string of strident and defiant Italian followed. Sachs caught a few words. ‘He’s a Communist?’

His eyes shone. ‘Partito Comunista Italiano!’

Prescott said, ‘It was dissolved in ’ninety-one.’

‘No!’ Pronti barked. More Italian followed. A lengthy, fervent monologue. Sachs guessed he was a holdout from the old movement, which had lost relevance to all but a few.

The man rambled on for a moment, now grimacing.

Prescott seemed amused. ‘He said you are very good to have fooled him. He’s a trained soldier.’

‘He is?’

‘Well, I don’t know about the training but he probably served. In Italy all men used to have to serve a year.’ Prescott asked him a question.

Looking down, Pronti answered.

‘It seems he was a cook. But he points out that he did take basic training.’

‘What’s his story? And tell him no politics please.’

It seemed that he was homeless and lived in an alley about a half block away.

‘Why was he going to attack me?’

Prescott listened to the man’s response with a cocked head. Then explained: ‘Until a few weeks ago he was living in this warehouse, which had been abandoned for at least a year. He’d even put a chain and lock on the back door, so he could have access whenever he wanted and feel safe from street thugs. He had it fixed up nicely. Then the owner or somebody leasing it came back to store things and a man threatened him and threw him out. Beat him up. And he kicked Mario.’

‘Who’s Mario?’

‘Il mio gatto.’

‘His—

‘Cat.’

Pronti: ‘Era scontroso.’

Prescott said, ‘The man who threw him out was... unpleasant.’

As most cat-kickers would be.

‘Today he heard someone and assumed that the man had come back. Pronti wanted to get revenge.’

‘Was someone here earlier?’ She mentioned the broken bottle.

Pronti’s response, Prescott said, was that, yes, some workers either dropped off a shipment for storage or picked something up. ‘About two hours ago. He was asleep and missed them. But then he heard you.’

Sachs dug into her pocket and handed the homeless man a twenty-euro note. His eyes grew wide as he calculated, she was sure, how much cheap wine it might buy. She displayed the composite picture of the Composer and the passport photo of Malek Dadi.

‘Have you seen them?’

Pronti understood but shook his head in the negative.

So, the most logical explanation for the Post-it was that it had been given to Dadi by someone in the camp, maybe as a possible lead for a job when he was granted asylum.

On the slim chance, though, that there was a connection to the Composer, she said, ‘You see him.’ Pointing to her phone. ‘You call me?’ Mimicking making a phone call like a stand-up comic and pointing to herself.

‘Nessun cellulare.’ He offered her a disappointed pout. As if he’d have to give back the euros.

‘Is there a place near here where I could get him a prepaid?’

‘There’s a tabaccaio a block or so away.’

The three of them walked to the tiny quick-mart and Prescott used Sachs’s cash to purchase a phone and some minutes for text and voice.

She entered her number into the phone. ‘Text me if you see him.’ She handed him the Nokia and another twenty.

‘Grazie tante, Signorina!’

‘Prego. Ask him how his cat, Mario, is? After getting kicked.’

Prescott posed the question.

With a dark face, Pronti answered.

‘He says Mario wasn’t badly hurt. The greatest injury was to his pride.’ Prescott shrugged. ‘But, then, isn’t that often the case?’

Chapter 41

‘Capitano Rhyme. Signor Reston and I have made discoveries.’

Rhyme glanced up as he was finishing a call to Amelia Sachs.

Ercole fell silent, noticing the phone.

Sachs, still in Milan, was reporting no success; it was almost certain that the clue they’d found — the Post-it note — was from Malek Dadi, not the Composer. For completeness’s sake, she was taking soil samples in the warehouse, and photographing footprints. As for fingerprints, she’d found nearly three hundred latents, too many for a practical analysis. But the effort was surely futile; it was unlikely the Composer had any connection to the place.

Rhyme was disappointed, though not surprised. He was disappointed too that Sachs wouldn’t be able to return to Naples until tomorrow. The crew of Mike Hill’s private plane would stay in Switzerland that night and would collect Sachs in the morning, early.

She reported, though, that she’d found a great hotel, the Manin, across the street from what had been the famed Milan zoo. It was also within walking distance of La Scala, the opera house, and the Duomo, the Milan cathedral. She was lukewarm about tourist sites but would probably hit them, since there wasn’t time to do what she really wanted: head out to Maranello — the home of Ferrari — and take an F1 out on the track for a joyride.

Rhyme now looked up at the Forestry officer. ‘Yes, yes, Ercole. Tell me.’ He nodded too to Thom, indicia of his thanks.

‘Beatrice Renza has finished her analysis of the evidence.’ Ercole lowered his voice, unnecessarily, for they were alone. ‘In the Soames case. I will report to you now. First, about the apartment where the attack occurred.’

Ercole walked to the desk and found the yellow pad that the unauthorized investigative team was using for the renegade assignment — the mini chart. He wrote carefully, apparently recalling his bad marks for penmanship:

‘As you can see,’ Ercole said excitedly, ‘there are similarities, common elements of the two. So it’s likely that the same person at the smoking station, who left that trace, also was the attacker.’

Not necessarily likely but certainly possible, Rhyme thought. Scanning the listings, considering possibilities, plugging in theories, unplugging others.

‘Beatrice is working to tell us what the chemicals might mean.’

‘Fine, fine, fine, though I think we might not need her to.’

The Forestry officer paused. Then he said, ‘But alone, they’re just substances. How can we tell what they might be from? We need to see what they combine to become.’

Rhyme muttered, ‘Which is what I’ve done. The chemicals at the smoking station — for instance, the acetic acid, acetone, ammonia, benzene, butane and cadmium — are, no shock here, from cigarettes.’

‘But they’re poisons, aren’t they?’

Thom laughed. ‘Don’t smoke, Ercole.’

‘No, I don’t. I won’t.’

Rhyme frowned at the interruption. ‘So, I was saying. At the smoking station, cigarette smoke residue. But, the other ingredients: I see laundry detergent. The spices, of course, are obvious. Curry. Indian food. Now, at the site of the assault? Laundry detergent and spices only. Now, think back, Ercole. On the roof, was there laundry hanging anywhere nearby? I’ve seen that everywhere in Naples.’

‘No, I’m sure there was not. Because I, as a matter of fact, looked for that very thing myself. I was thinking that someone reeling in laundry might have seen the attack.’

‘Hm,’ Rhyme offered, and refrained from yet another lecture about the unreliability of witnesses. ‘The couple whose apartment this was, do you have their number?’

‘The woman of the pair, yes. Natalia. She’s a fellow student. And most beautiful.’

‘Do I care?’

‘You would if you saw her.’

‘Call her. Now. Find out if she did laundry before the party. And if the food served at the party was Indian. Curry.’

Ercole searched his phone then placed a call and, Rhyme was pleased to hear, got through immediately. A conversation in Italian ensued; like most, it sounded passionate, more expressive than a similar English exchange.

When Ercole disconnected, he said, ‘Yes, to the laundry question, I am sorry to report. She had just washed the clothing for the beds that afternoon, thinking some guests might wish to stay over, rather than drive back home late. The clue did not come from the rapist.

‘And, unfortunately, as to food, the same. There was, at the party, nothing other than chips — you know, potato chips and the like — and nuts and dolce, sweets. But at dinner before the party she and her boyfriend ate curry. I remember a picture of him. He’s Indian. So, that too is bad news for us.’

‘Yes, it is.’

The spices and detergent at the smoking station would have come from Natalia when she was either mixing with guests or cleaning up afterward. And she would have left those bits of trace at the site of the attack when she went to the woman’s aid.

Ercole asked, ‘You had mentioned, I believe, that Garry thought perhaps a former lover of his was blaming him to get revenge.’

Rhyme said, ‘His lawyer told us that. Someone, Valentina Morelli. She is apparently in Florence or nearby there. She’s still not returning calls.’

At that moment Ercole’s phone chimed and he glanced at the screen. He seemed to be blushing. And smiling. He typed a response.

Rhyme and Thom looked at each other. Rhyme suspected they were thinking the same: a woman.

Probably that attractive blonde, Daniela, whom he’d been fawning over.

Well, the young man could do worse than date a beautiful, intense policewoman.

Lincoln Rhyme knew this for a fact.

Ercole put his phone away. ‘I have saved the best for the last.’

‘Which means what?’ Rhyme groused. Sachs was not present to temper his delivery.

‘Now, at Garry’s flat, Signor Reston was very helpful in instructing me. He counseled that I should become the perp. And I did that and we found something quite interesting.’

Impatient eyebrows.

‘The building was typical construction, symmetrical. For every window on the right, there was one on the left. For every gable in the front, there was one in the back. For every—’

‘Ercole?’

‘Ah, yes. But in the back, there was only one low window — about twenty centimeters high — for allowing light into the cellar apartment. To the right as you faced the rear of the building. Only the one. Why was there no window to the left? Symmetry everywhere but there. The yard itself was not higher on the left than to the right, except in the very place where the window would have been. There was a small hill. Now, beneath the porch were empty flower pots. They matched flower pots on the deck above — but those were full of earth.’

Rhyme was intrigued. ‘So the perp broke into the window on the left. It was Garry’s bedroom?’

‘Yes. And he, or she, scattered the drugs inside and used the dirt in a couple of the pots to cover up the window.’

‘But the crime scene people didn’t find glass or dirt on the floor?’

‘Ah,’ Ercole said. ‘He — or she — was clever. They used a glass cutter. Here, look.’ He extracted from a folder some eight-by-ten glossy shots and displayed them. ‘Beatrice has printed these out.’

Rhyme could see the even fracture marks, in the shape of a rough rectangle.

Ercole continued, ‘And after he was finished he put a piece of cardboard he’d found in the yard against the open window before piling the dirt up to conceal the break-in. I am sorry to tell you there were no fingerprints on the flower pots or cardboard. But I did see marks that were left by...’ He paused. ‘That were consistent with marks left by latex gloves.’

Good.

‘And I found footprints that were probably left by the breakerer-and-enterer. Is that a word?’

‘It will do.’ Rhyme reflected that the young man had quite the career ahead of him.

Ercole added to the mini evidence chart.

‘And the date-rape drug? Where was that?’

‘On the windowsill.’

Staring at the chart, Rhyme mused, ‘Who the hell’s the intruder?’

The breakerer-and-enterer...

He continued, ‘Is it the same as the person who called the police and gave them Garry’s name? That was a woman’s voice. And the shoe size could be a woman’s.’

Ercole said, ‘I looked up the tire tread information. The Continental tire. We don’t know if it was the intruder’s but it was only a day or two old. And it makes sense to park there so as not be seen from the street.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Unfortunately, many, many types of cars can use that tire. But we can—’

A voice interrupted, cutting through the room like a whip. ‘Forestry Officer. You’ll leave the room. At once.’

Rhyme wheeled about to face Dante Spiro. The lean man was wearing a black suit with a tie-less white shirt. With his goatee, bald head and enraged expression he looked particularly demonic.

‘Sir...’ Ercole’s face was white.

‘Leave. Now.’ A vicious string of Italian.

The young officer shot a glance toward Rhyme.

‘He is not your superior — I am,’ Spiro growled.

The young man walked forward, carefully navigating around Spiro.

His eyes still boring into Rhyme’s, the prosecutor muttered to Ercole, ‘Close the door as you leave.’

‘Sì, Procuratore.’

Chapter 42

‘How could you do this? You are working against a case that I am prosecuting?’

Spiro stepped toward Rhyme.

Thom moved forward.

The prosecutor said, ‘You, too. You will leave.’

The aide said calmly, ‘No.’

Spiro turned to face Thom but, looking into the American’s eyes, apparently decided not to fight this battle and demand that he leave. Which the aide would not have done, in any event.

Back to Rhyme: ‘I have never wanted you here. Never wanted your presence. Massimo Rossi felt it might be advantageous and since he is the lead investigator I — in my foolish weakness — said yes. But, as it turns out, you are just another one of them.’

A frown of curiosity from Rhyme.

‘Another meddling American. You have no sense of propriety, loyalty, of boundaries. You are part of a big, crass machine of a nation that stumbles forward wherever it wishes to go, crushing those in your path. Always without apology.’

Rhyme wasn’t inclined to point out the superficiality of the words; he hadn’t flown four thousand miles to defend US foreign policy.

‘Yes, admittedly, you have come up with helpful thoughts in the case but, if you think about the matter, it is a problem of your own making! The Composer is an American. You failed to find and stop him. Accordingly your assistance is the least you can do.

‘But to do the opposite — to undermine a case, my case, the case against a man charged of a horrific sexual assault, against an unconscious woman? Well, that is beyond the pale, Mr Rhyme. Garry Soames is not the subject of a witch trial. He has been arrested according to the laws of this nation, a democracy, on the basis of reasonable evidence and accounts, and is being afforded all of the rights due him. Inspector Laura Martelli and I are continuing to pursue the leads. If he proves to be innocent, he will be freed. But for now he appears to be guilty and he will be incarcerated until a magistrate decides he may be released pending trial.’

Rhyme began to speak.

‘No, let me finish. If you had come to me and said you wished to offer suggestions to the defense, suggest forensic advice, I would have understood. But you didn’t do that. To add insult to this travesty, you enlisted into your service our own officer, that young man, who until a few days ago investigated the condition of goat barns and issued citations for trying to sell unwashed broccolini. You used police facilities for unauthorized defense investigations. That is a serious breach of the laws here, Mr Rhyme. And, frankly, worse, in my opinion, it is an affront to the country that is acting as your host. I will be drawing up charges against you and Ercole Benelli. These charges will be lodged formally if you do not leave the country immediately. And I assure you, sir, you will not enjoy the amenities of the prison that I will recommend for your incarceration. That is all I have to say on this matter.’

He turned and walked to the door, pulling it open.

Rhyme said, ‘Truth.’

Spiro stopped. He looked back.

Rhyme said, ‘There’s only one thing that matters to me. The truth.’

A cold smile. ‘Do I suspect an excuse is about to wing my way? That’s something else Americans love: excuses. They can do anything, then excuse away their behavior. We kill thousands wrongly, but it was because we were blinded by a higher cause. How your country must feel shame. Day and night.’

‘Not an excuse, Prosecutor. A fact. There is absolutely nothing I will not do to arrive at the truth. And that includes going behind your back and anyone else’s if I need to. What we did here, I knew it was against procedure, if not against the law.’

‘Which it is,’ Spiro reminded sternly.

‘Garry Soames could very likely be guilty of raping Frieda S. I don’t care. I honestly don’t. If my line of inquiry proves him guilty, I’ll give those details to you as happily as if I found exculpatory evidence. I told Garry’s lawyer as much. But what I can’t do is allow any uncertainty to remain. Has this piece of evidence told us everything it possibly can? Is it being coy? Is it being duplicitous? Is it pretending to be something else entirely?’

‘Very clever, Mr Rhyme. Do you use that personification in your courses, to charm your students?’

He did, as a matter of fact.

‘I found your investigation into the rape case well done—’

‘Condescension! Yet another quality you Americans so excel in.’

‘No. I mean it. You and Inspector Martelli have done a fine job. But it’s also true that your case is lacking. I identified threads of investigation that I thought it was a good idea to pursue.’

‘Ach, these are just words. You have my ultimatum. Leave the country at once or face the consequences.’

Again he turned.

‘Did you know about the break-in at Garry’s apartment?’

He paused.

‘Someone wearing latex gloves broke the window of his bedroom and hid the break-in, covering the cut-out window with dirt. And it was the room where the date-rape drug traces were found on his clothing. And the window frame and sill — outside the building — contain traces of drug too.’

Rhyme nodded to Thom, who found the yellow pad, the mini chart. He handed it toward Spiro, who waved his hand dismissively.

He continued to the door.

‘Please. Just take one look.’

Sighing loudly, the prosecutor returned and snatched the pad. He read for a moment. ‘And you found evidence linking someone at the, as you say, smoking station with the scene where the victim was attacked. The trace, the detersivo per il bucato — the soap — and the spices.’

So he recognized the ingredients in the detergent. Impressive.

In a firm voice, he said, ‘But that proves nothing. The source for that trace would be the hostess, Natalia. She went to the victim’s aid. And her boyfriend, Dev, is Indian. Explaining the curry.’ The prosecutor’s face softened. He cocked his head as he said to Rhyme, ‘I myself was suspicious of him at first. I took his statement at the school and while doing so I observed that he frequently would look over women students as they passed. His eyes seemed hungry. And he was seen talking to the victim, Frieda, earlier that evening. But every minute of the party he was accounted for. And his DNA did not match that which was inside the victim.’

Rhyme added, ‘And a CCTV at a nearby hotel had malfunctioned.’

‘As they will do.’

‘Yes, you’re right: The evidence at Natalia’s isn’t helpful. But what we discovered at Garry’s is. The footprint at the scene.’

Spiro’s eyes now revealed curiosity. He read. ‘Small man size, or woman’s. And it was a woman who called to report that Garry was seen adulterating Frieda’s wine.’

‘Ercole collected soil from where the perp walked. It’s being analyzed now. By Beatrice. That might be helpful.’ Rhyme added, ‘It might have been the actual rapist. But it might have been someone just wishing to get him into trouble — the woman who called. Garry’s lawyer told us that he was quite the ladies’ man. A player, you know?’

‘I know.’

‘And maybe didn’t treat them the way they would like to have been treated. There’s a woman in Florence who might—’

Spiro said, ‘Valentina Morelli. Yes. I am trying to locate her myself.’

Silence for a moment. Then Spiro’s face took on an expression that said: Against my better judgment. ‘Allora, Capitano Rhyme. I will pursue this aspect of the investigation. And will temporarily put on hold my complaint against you and Forestry Officer Benelli for misuse of police facilities and interference with procedures. Temporarily.’

He took a cheroot from his breast pocket and lifted it to his nose, smelled the dark tube, then replaced it.

‘My reaction to your presence, you might have perceived, was perhaps out of proportion to your, if I may, crime. You came here at great risk to your personal safety — one in your condition cannot have an easy time traveling. There are dangers.’

‘That’s true for everyone.’

He continued without comment, ‘And there is no guarantee that even if the Composer is captured you would be successful in your attempt to extradite him back to America. Remember—’

‘The Wolf Tits Rule.’

‘Indeed. But here you came anyway in pursuit of your quarry.’ He tilted his head. ‘In pursuit of the truth. And I resisted at every turn.’

A pause as Spiro regarded the Composer evidence pads. Slowly he said, ‘There was a reason for my resistance. A personal reason, which is, by its very definition, unacceptable in our endeavors.’

Rhyme said nothing. He was pleased for any chance to continue to pursue the two cases — not to mention pleased to remain out of an Italian prison — so he let the man talk.

The prosecutor said, ‘The answer goes back a long time — to the days of the Second World War, when your country and mine were sworn enemies...’ Spiro’s voice softened. ‘... and yet were not.’

Chapter 43

‘You will not have heard of the Esercito Cobelligerante Italiano.’

‘No,’ Rhyme told Spiro.

‘The Italian Co-Belligerent Army. A complex name for a simple concept. Another fact most Americans do not know: Italy and the Allies were antagonists only at the start of the war. Both sides signed an armistice in nineteen forty-three, ending their hostilities long before Germany fell. True, some fascist soldiers fought on, in league with the Nazis, but our king and prime minister joined with the Americans and British and fought against the Germans. The Co-Belligerent Army was the Italian wing of the Allies.

‘But, as you might guess, war is complicated. War is sciatta. Messy. After September ’forty-three, although the armistice was in full force and we were supposed to be fighting together, many of the American soldiers did not trust the Italians. My grandfather was a brave and decorated infantry commander who was in charge of, you would say, a company of men to assist the US Fifth Army and break through the Bernhardt Line, halfway between Rome and Naples. A very stubborn defense on the part of the Nazis.

‘My grandfather led his men behind the line, near San Pietro. They attacked from the rear and achieved a gorgeous victory, though suffered heavy losses. But when the US troops moved forward, they found my grandfather’s unit behind the lines. They hadn’t heard about his operation. They disarmed the thirty or so survivors of my grandfather’s company and rounded them up. But they did not bother to talk to their headquarters. They didn’t listen to my grandfather’s pleas. And threw them all together in a PoW camp, populated with three hundred Nazis.’ He gave a chill laugh. ‘Do you want to imagine how long the Italians lived, at the hands of their “colleagues”? About ten hours, the story goes. And the report was that most died very unpleasant deaths, my grandfather among them. The Americans merely listened to the screams. When the truth came out, a major with the Fifth Army issued an apology to the six survivors. A major issued the apology. Not a general, not a colonel. A major. He was twenty-eight years old.

‘I will add this: War is not only messy but it has consequences we cannot foresee. Now, my mother was a little girl when her father died in that camp. She barely knew him. But something about his loss affected her mind. This, my grandmother believed, in any case. She was never quite right. She married and gave birth to me and to my brother but began to have episodes just after I was born. They grew worse. Depression then mania, depression then mania. Disrobing in public, sometimes when she had arrived to collect my brother and me from school. Sometimes in church. Screaming. She received treatments, extreme treatments.’

It’s rare that someone knows the raw ingredients of electroconductive gel.

‘Those did nothing more than destroy her short-term memory. The sadness remained.’

‘And her condition now?’

‘She is in a home. My brother and I visit. She sometimes knows us. New medications, they have stabilized her. It is, they say, about the best we can hope for.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Can I blame your country for this, too, in addition to her father’s death? But I have chosen to, and for some very unfair reason that relieves the burden. Allora, that is what I have to say. All I have to say.’

Rhyme nodded, acknowledging the oblique apology, which, he knew, was heartfelt nonetheless.

Spiro slapped his thigh, signaling that the discussion on this topic was at an end. ‘Now, we are agreed that our goal is the truth behind the Garry Soames case. What approach do we take now?’

‘The results of the date-rape drug analysis in Rome should be expedited. We must find out if the samples in his apartment are the same as what was in Frieda’s system.’

‘Yes, I will look into that.’

‘And Beatrice is completing an analysis of the soil outside Garry’s window.’

‘Bene.’

‘But I have another idea. I’d like to run one more analysis. Ercole can talk to Beatrice about that.’

‘Ah, the Forestry officer. I had forgotten about him.’ Spiro walked to the door. Stuck his head out and barked a command.

Ercole stepped inside, looking consummately awkward.

‘You are not being dismissed, not yet, Ercole.’ Spiro glowered. ‘Captain Rhyme here has saved your bacon. An American expression, well suited for a Forestry officer.’

Ercole was smiling, albeit without a splinter of humor.

Spiro’s face turned even colder. ‘But if you ever try to run an end—’

End run, Rhyme nearly corrected, though he decided not to.

‘— your career will be over.’

‘But what are you speaking of?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? And I don’t mean that nonsense of enlisting Detective Sachs to translate Arabic, though the transparency of that ploy was laughable. What I am speaking of is the reporter at the Capodichino Reception Center: Nunzio Parada. The man pelting me with questions the night Dadi was killed. He is a friend of yours, is he not?’

‘I... well, I am somewhat familiar with him, yes.’

‘And did you not, after you saw me arrive, slip away and coach him to ask me about my brilliance in inviting the Americans here?’

The officer’s cheeks glowed bright red. ‘I am so very sorry, Procuratore, but I thought we could benefit if Detective Sachs assisted, and you, with all respect, did not seem willing to allow her to do so.’

‘La truffa, your scam, served a purpose, Ercole, and so I played along, even though I saw it as such. It was a chance for the investigation to save face, while allowing the talented Detective Sachs to work on the case directly. But your plan was, in English, cheap. And most embarrassing for you, it was pathetically inept.’

‘Why do you say that, Procuratore?’

‘Did it not occur to you that rather than being lauded for my choice, I might be ridiculed for inviting to Italy detectives whom the serial killer managed to elude in New York?’

Rhyme and Thom smiled.

‘Thank the Lord that the press are sufficient idiots that they missed that contradiction too. But in the future you will be straightforward with me. Do I not have the persona of a purring kitten?’

‘Allora, Procuratore, the fact is...’

‘You behave as if you are afraid of me!’

‘I think many people are afraid of you, sir. With all respect.’

‘Why is that?’

‘You are stern. You are known to bark, even scream at people.’

‘As do generals and artists and explorers. Of necessity.’

‘Your book...’

‘My book?’

Ercole looked down at the man’s pocket; the gilt-edged, leather-bound volume was just visible.

‘What of it?’

‘Allora, you understand.’

He snapped, ‘How can you assert I understand something if I have just asked you to explain?’

‘Sir. You write down in it the names of people who offend you. Who you wish to get even with.’

‘Do I now?’

‘I have heard people say that. Yes, I have.’

‘Well, Forestry Officer, tell me how many names you see, names destined for the pillory.’ Spiro handed the book to Ercole, who took it timidly.

‘I—’

‘Read, Forestry Officer. Read.’

He cracked open the pages and Rhyme could catch a glimpse of dense and very precise Italian script. The lettering was minuscule.

Ercole frowned.

Spiro said, ‘The title. Read what is at the top of the first page. Aloud.’

Ercole read: ‘La Ragazza da Cheyenne.’ He looked toward Rhyme and Thom. ‘It means The Girl from Cheyenne.’

‘And below?’

‘Capitolo Uno. First Chapter.’

‘And below that, please continue. Translate for Capitano Rhyme.’

Ercole puzzled for a moment. He cocked his head and read in a halting voice, as he translated, ‘“If the four twenty-five train to Tucson had not been attacked, Belle Walker would have married her fiancé and her life would have settled into the same dull, predictable routine as that of her sisters, and their mother before them.”’

Ercole looked up.

Spiro said, ‘It is a hobby of mine. I like very much American cowboy stories and I read many of them. I have from the time I was a boy. You know Italy and American Westerns are inextricably linked. Sergio Leone. The Clint Eastwood movies. A Fistful of Dollars. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Then there is the masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West. Sergio Corbucci’s Django, which starred Franco Nero. And of course there are the scores for so many of those films by Ennio Morricone. He even scored a most recent movie by Quentin Tarantino.

‘I particularly enjoy Western novels written by women in the nineteenth century. Did you know some of the best were written by them?’

Didn’t have a clue, Rhyme reflected. And don’t much care. But he nodded agreeably.

Ercole, perhaps relieved not to be inscribed in the prosecutor’s book of doom, said, ‘Fascinating, Procuratore.’

‘I believe so too. Mary Foote wrote a clever novel about mining in 1883. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona, quite famous, the next year. And one of the most interesting is by Marah Ellis Ryan, Told in the Hills. It is as much about race relations as it is an adventure story. I find that remarkable. Well more than one hundred years ago.’

Spiro nodded at the book, which Ercole continued to read and said, ‘I too try my hand at Westerns and have created that character, Belle Walker. A society woman from the East who becomes a hunter of outlaws. And, ultimately, in future books, a prosecutor. So, as you can see, Forestry Officer, you do not need to worry about ending up in the pages of my book. Though, this is not to say that the least failing on your part will not result in catastrophic consequences.’

‘Yes, yes.’ The young officer’s eyes then dropped once more to the pages.

Spiro lifted the book out of his hands.

‘But, please, who were the train attackers, Procuratore? Savages? Bandits?’

Spiro waved his hand with a grimace, and Ercole instantly fell silent.

‘Now, we have two cases to work on. And at the moment Captain Rhyme wants you to arrange for Beatrice to run a further analysis regarding the Garry Soames case... What would this be?’

Rhyme answered, ‘I was reading the charts and the accounts of the crime. And I would like a full analysis of the wine bottle found at the smoking station.’

‘The contents were checked for the date-rape drug and the outside for fingerprints and DNA.’

‘I understand but I would like an examination of trace on the surface of the bottle and the label.’

Spiro said to Ercole, ‘Do that now.’

‘Yes, I will see Beatrice about this. Where would the bottle be?’

‘The evidence facility is up the hall. She will know. Is there anything else, Captain Rhyme?’

‘Lincoln, please. No, I think that will be enough for now.’

Spiro looked him over. ‘You have a question about the wine served at the party. I myself find another question equally intriguing.’

‘And what is that?’

‘This third person, who broke into Garry Soames’s apartment, might have planted the evidence to shift guilt to an innocent man either to protect the actual rapist or to visit revenge on Soames.’

‘Yes. That’s one theory.’

‘There is another, you know: The intruder might also be a friend of Soames who committed the break-in in hopes that we would come to the very conclusion we just have: that he is being framed... when in fact he’s guilty as — what do you Americans say? — guilty as sin.’