The Rome Prophecy

40

Professor Enrico Ferrari sits at his desk in the crime lab, facing his biggest problem of the morning.

It’s one of those dilemmas where you have to eliminate something but you’re really torn between what to keep and what to lose.

In his case, it’s a big decision.

Raspberry doughnuts or chopped fresh fruit.

Despite going into the coffee shop to buy only an espresso, he ended up also buying the fruit tub and the boxed treats.

It wasn’t really his fault.

Temptation mugged him close to the checkout. A little voice whispered in his ear that he was a big guy and that he wouldn’t function properly on just chopped fruit. It was his duty to make sure he was on the ball.

So he left with the doughnuts as well.

Now it’s a case of diet or no diet. He should eat the fruit and show his willpower by tossing away the box of fun.

But that’s not going to happen.

He licks sugar from his fingers.

Wow!

The jammy centre explodes in his mouth. Warm and sweet, crunchy and sugary, and then magnificently chewy deep-fried pastry.

Wow! Wow! Wow!

He knows it’s a million calories a swallow and he fully realises he’ll be internally imprisoned in fatdom for his sins, but for the next three minutes he doesn’t care.

There are no tissues close at hand and he’s still in search of a box when Valentina arrives unannounced.

She’s the only thing he can imagine tasting better than a second doughnut.

God, for her he would even have missed the fruit and made do with only coffee.

‘ Buongiorno,’ he says cheerily. He scans for Federico, but there’s no sign of him. ‘Are you alone?’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that okay? My momma said I was allowed out if I was careful crossing the road.’

He spreads his palms apologetically. ‘ Scusi. I just expected Federico.’

She doesn’t explain why he’s not with her. ‘A few hours ago a body was found down near Tiber Island. It’s at the morgue now, but last night I asked for a rush blood job on the clothing.’

‘Aah, the great quest for ketsueki-gata.’

Valentina is completely thrown. ‘Ket what?’

‘ Ketsueki-gata. The Japanese believe that blood types are indications of personalities. I’m type A. That means I am earnest, creative and sensible, perhaps with the failing of being a little fastidious.’

‘Fascinating, but unfortunately not my type. The type I’m interested in was swabbed off a gutted corpse in the early hours of this morning.’

His hopes of flirtation disappear. ‘I’ve only just come in, so I don’t know if it’s been done yet.’ He brushes his sugary hands together as he walks past her into the corridor. ‘Follow me. I’ll hunt down the paperwork and we’ll see.’

Valentina trails him down one grey corridor after another.

‘Do you have a name for the victim?’ he calls over his shoulder.

‘No. It was male. The samples will have come into the labs around four a.m., so hopefully you don’t have too many cases of murdered unknown men at exactly the same time.’

‘Let’s hope not.’ He tilts his wrist and sees it’s only just gone nine. ‘That shift will have gone home. You’ll be lucky if the report’s been done.’

‘I am.’

He stops walking and turns around. ‘You are what?’

‘Lucky. I’m one of those people. Lucky in love, lucky in life.’ She half corrects herself. ‘Well, mostly.’

Ferrari believes her. She’s made captain, is super-smart, and when it comes to looks, well, he’d crawl naked through broken glass just to lick dirt from the soles of her feet.

‘What?’ Valentina frowns at him.

‘What what?’

She laughs. ‘You’re staring at me. Freakishly. What’s wrong?’

He shakes himself out of his trance. ‘ Mi dispiace. I’m just dazed by your beauty.’

‘Oooh, good line!’ she says, her face bright with mischief. She steps tantalisingly close to him and raises a long, slender finger close to his mouth. ‘If I didn’t already have a man whom I adore, and if you didn’t have jam and sugar spread all over your chin like a two-year-old’ – she rubs it away with two fingertips – ‘then I might just fall for a line like that.’

The open-jawed scientist is horrified. Fat fingers fly frantically to his chin and he rubs so hard his flesh burns. ‘Breakfast!’ he blurts. ‘ Scusi. I was having my breakfast when you came in.’ An open door saves him further embarrassment. He lurches into an office that is already alive with the sound of printers and telephones. Several administrators and secretaries look up as he buries his head in a stack of in-trays on top of a cabinet near the entrance.

Valentina patiently watches him rifling the documents, aware that half the office is watching her watching him. Young secretaries are admiring her clothes and how she has a senior scientist scrabbling around like a puppy on a lead.

‘Here!’ shouts Ferrari, like he’s recovered a ball and brought it back to his owner. ‘Blood tests from the clothes of an unidentified male victim found in the early hours, and it has your name as the officer in charge.’

‘Grazie.’ She nods over-graciously to the papers in his hand. ‘A little more information, perhaps?’

Ferrari is now actually ahead of her. He knows she’s looking for a connection between this new body and the tests on the woman and her sword that his labs have been running. He silently scans columns and paragraphs, then looks up. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. The body last night was covered in only one type of blood, O positive. That’s currently the most common type in Italy and actually in most of the world.’ He wobbles his hand like it was an unbalanced seesaw. ‘At some times, and in some countries, A positive is most popular. But not right here and not right now. Either way, I’m afraid the blood on your new victim does not match that of any of the samples we took for you the other day.’

Valentina feels drained. ‘Not any of them?’

‘No.’ His eyes show sympathy. ‘Let me recap for you. The new sample is O positive. The blood on the prisoner’s gown we tested was AB. The blood on the sword taken from your prisoner is Rhesus positive and the blood on the severed hand is Rhesus negative. You’ve got quite an impressive spread of blood types there.’

Valentina shakes her head. She’s not impressed at all. She feels like she just lost on the lottery. A full set of unlucky statistics.

She came to the lab hoping for answers, and all she’s got is more questions.

Lots more questions.