The Turin Shroud Secret

106

Since he was a child, Mario Sacconi has slept with the window open. There’s something about being shut in that disturbs him and keeps him awake. He feels stifled. Claustrophobic. It’s a habit that’s led to countless girlfriends complaining about the freezing cold in his bedroom — but that’s never been a problem the handsome geneticist hasn’t been able to solve.

He went to bed last night with the elegant sash window open and a beautiful Brazilian intern grateful for his body heat. Dawn is breaking now over the lush forest surrounding his home. As he opens his eyes in the pink light he realises what a terrible mistake he’s made.

‘Buongiorno,’ says a man dressed head to toe in black at the foot of his bed.

‘Vaffanculo!’ Sacconi tries to sit up. A slipknot tightens around his left wrist and then his right. He looks frantically for his lover. ‘Benedetta?’

‘In the bathroom,’ Ephrem nods behind him. ‘You’ll see her in a moment.’

Sacconi has read about intruders, how they sometimes get violent or sexual when confronted. Best stay calm and not rile them. Don’t turn a simple housebreaking into something much uglier. ‘Look, I don’t want any trouble. Take whatever you want. The keys to my Mercedes are in my trousers on the chair over there. I have a safe, jewellery and money. I’ll give you anything.’

The monk laughs. ‘Roberto Craxi.’

The name silences him.

‘Craxi is why I am here.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Dark eyes stare through his balaclava. ‘Yes, you do. You are Mario Sacconi. Craxi paid you money to do something you shouldn’t have done. You abused your power, the gifts God and science gave you.’

‘No. No — you’re wrong.’

The look in the monk’s eyes says he’s sure he isn’t. He strides away from the bed and enters the bathroom. He returns seconds later with the naked girl in his arms and drops her on the bed next to Sacconi. Her hands and feet are tied together behind her back. Thick parcel tape is wrapped around her mouth. Her eyes are wide with terror.

‘Roberto Craxi paid you to test samples he stole from the holy shroud. I want the results of that test and any samples you have left.’

‘You’re mistaken. I swear to God, I don’t know what you mean.’

A punch explodes in Sacconi’s face. He wails. His nose is broken. Blood is smeared across his mouth and cheeks.

‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain.’ The monk reaches into black cargo pants and produces what looks like a thin, oblong case beautifully covered in mother-of-pearl. The snap of a seven-inch stiletto blade ends any ambiguity about its contents. He holds the steel in front of the geneticist’s eyes, makes sure Sacconi sees its sharpness, then grabs Benedetta around the neck and hauls her body across her lover’s. Ephrem pulls her hair back so her eyes stare into Sacconi’s. So her fear connects with his. ‘Now. Will you tell me about the tests you carried out?’

Still Sacconi hesitates.

The monk puts the tip of the blade into the soft skin below the girl’s right eye. He studies the scientist’s face. Sees instantly that she doesn’t mean anything to him. There is no hero in the man, no bond of love between them. He pushes her away. Hears her roll off the bed and hit the hard wooden floor.

Ephrem puts a hand over Sacconi’s mouth then calmly runs the point of the stiletto through his left cheek.

The scientist’s muffled screams last almost a minute.

Ephrem withdraws the blade slowly. Lets a curled droplet of blood drip from the tip of the steel into Sacconi’s eyes. ‘I am going to ask you one final time to tell me about the tests you did for Craxi.’

107

‘Wake up, my friend.’

Nic hears the voice but isn’t together enough to answer.

‘We need to get moving. Come on.’ Fabio Goria places a hand on the detective’s shoulder.

Karakandez raises himself on his elbows. Blinks at the daylight as the private investigator draws back the curtains. ‘I’m awake, just give me a minute to get my shit together.’

‘I am making coffee and eggs, then we run.’ Goria wanders out of the room. ‘We don’t have long.’

Nic staggers to the bathroom, feeling half-drunk as he steps into the shower. Afterwards, he towels dry and dresses in a clean, soft cotton, baggy blue plaid shirt, plain blue fleece hoodie and blue Gap jeans. He grabs his BlackBerry from the bedside cabinet and types out a mail to Luogotenente Cappelini.

He hits send and then enters the open-plan kitchen where Goria is sliding scrambled eggs and fatty bacon out of a pan. ‘Help yourself to coffee.’ He waves a hand towards a glass jug of freshly ground brewing on its own hot plate. ‘There’s milk and cream in the fridge.’

‘You want some?’

‘Si. Just black.’

Nic takes two white mugs off a shelf and pours coffee. They sit on leather-topped benches at a long junk wood table, looking out on a functional garden. It’s a single man’s yard. No flowers, no neat areas, mainly decking and a barbecue area should there ever be opportunity for such a thing.

They didn’t find time to eat last night and now Nic is hungrier than he thought. ‘The eggs are good.’

‘Grazie. Italian boys are taught to cook well.’

‘One day you’ll make someone an excellent wife.’

‘You are very funny. Eat quickly. We need to go before we end up regretting even the short sleep.’

Both men are exhausted but they know they are in a race against time. If whoever took Craxi has obtained the same information that his wife Erica gave them, then it is only a matter of time before they get to the scientist Craxi used to analyse DNA from the Shroud.

By six forty-five Nic and Fabio are in the Fiat heading south-east down Via Antonio Sciesa and Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi. Just after seven they join the eastern stretch of the Tangenziale Nord and make decent progress until they hit the tolls on the road to Milan where a huge truck has blown a tyre. Strips of shredded black rubber cover the autostrada.

It’s seven-fifteen when they come off at the Chivasso exit and twenty-five past when they quietly shut the doors of the Fiat and walk to the small detached home on the outskirts of a giant estate.

‘The castle behind there,’ Fabio points over hedges to a distant palace of pinkish brick and green shuttered windows. ‘This is Castagneto Po, the family home of Carla Bruni.’

Nic glances into the lavish grounds. ‘I guess after living somewhere like that, you have to marry a president to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed.’

‘But Sarkozy?’ Goria shrugs as they walk. ‘It is a mystery why a beautiful Italian should choose a French dwarf.’ He swings open a black metal gate and they walk a gravelled drive of honey-coloured chips to a fine three-storey house with spectacular views across the rolling Turin hills and surrounding vineyards.

The Italian nods to the black Mercedes SLK parked to one side. ‘The car is his. He is in.’

Nic reaches across his waistband and checks the gun he’d been given last night.

Goria lifts the giant brass ring hanging in the middle of the glossy black door and hammers it hard. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a false ID. ‘Carabinieri! Signore Sacconi, open up!’

Nic heads round the back of the house. He peers closely through the ground-floor windows as he goes quickly round and then circles back to the front. ‘There’s no sign of life but there is an open window on the second floor.’

Goria pockets the ID. He looks up at the drainpipes and trellis-work. He knows what’s expected of him.

108

Luogotenente Carlotta Cappelini feels like death warmed up. She’s been awake most of the night — not finally turning in until she’d seen the car registered to the company of private investigator Fabio Goria pick Nic Karakandez up outside the American’s hotel and enter the grounds of Goria’s home.

Now she’s back at work. Driving her desk. Reading reports from her surveillance team and discovering the American and his new Italian friend have just rolled out of their gated retreat and made their way to a house out near Chivasso. She looks at her computer and rereads the mail he sent her full of nonsense about a night on the town and a promise to call her later. She taps his cell number into her desk phone and dials him for a second time.

‘Buongiorno, Nic — this is Carlotta again. Please call me as soon as you can, I have some important information I want to share with you.’

She doesn’t. But she knows she has to establish contact quickly or risk losing him completely. And that mustn’t happen. Not now. Not after last night’s events.

Captain Giorgio Fusco beckons her through the window of his office opposite her desk. It’s one of the perils of sitting within his sight line. She drops what she’s doing and plods wearily his way. Pokes her head around his door. ‘Capitano?’

‘Come in.’ He gestures to a grey-suited man with cropped black hair sitting in the shadows of the room. ‘This is Paolo. He is an ROS administrator, and a close friend.’

The man from the Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale nods and manages a polite ‘Ciao.’ His unblinking brown eyes show no interest in her.

Fusco walks over to the door and makes sure it’s tightly shut. ‘Roberto Craxi was seen in the centre of Turin.’

‘That’s not news, sir. We know he and his wife recently returned to their lodge.’

Paolo dips into his jacket pocket and produces a pack of colour stills that he fans out like a hand of cards. ‘We picked him up on CCTV, using facial recognition software.’

She looks at the pictures. ‘What was he doing?’

‘Drawing money from a bank account we didn’t know he had and probably much more.’ Paolo peels off several shots. ‘By the time we got operatives into the area, he’d gone.’

‘Back to the lodge?’

Paolo shrugs. ‘Maybe. We were short on men yesterday.’

‘The Prime Minister was in court,’ explains the captain with a smile. ‘More sex and corruption charges.’

‘We checked Craxi’s lodge an hour ago,’ says Paolo. ‘It was empty but he and his wife had been there in the last twenty-four hours.’

‘He’ll come back onto our radar,’ Carlotta tries to sound confident.

‘I’m not so sure.’ Paolo puts a finger on one of the stills in the Luogotenente’s hand. ‘Do you recognise this person?’

She stares at an athletic-looking dark-skinned man in a black coat.

‘Here he is twenty minutes later, in a green coat.’ Paolo hands over another print.

She holds them side by side and shakes her head. ‘I have never seen him before.’

‘He did not come with the American that you are handling?’

‘Not to my knowledge. The LAPD officer travelled alone.’

The captain interjects, ‘Though he is working here with a local private eye whom you do know — Fabio Goria.’

Paolo raises an eyebrow. ‘Good officer. We were sorry to lose him.’

Carlotta hands the photograph back. ‘So who do you think this foreigner is?’

‘Trouble. That’s who he is. Had he not got so close to Craxi we wouldn’t have even noticed him. He was following him — of that we have no doubt.’

Her cell rings. She doesn’t wait for permission to answer it. ‘Si.’

The two men study her face and try to decipher what’s happening. She covers the mouthpiece and tells her boss, ‘Goria and the American are at the home of Mario Sacconi, a scientist in the Sezioni Investigazioni Scientifiche. It looks like they’re breaking in.’

109

The black metal drainpipe proves as good as a ladder. It was fitted in an era when builders worried about downpour not security and its position is close enough for Goria to climb and then stretch out a leg to the stone lintel of the upstairs window.

As he shuffles across onto the ledge he can see a man and a woman in bed. For a second he thinks they’re asleep. Then he sees the river of red separating them. He turns sideways on, leans against the frame and drops to one knee. Palms to glass he slides up the partially opened sash window and climbs through the gap into the room.

The man is closest to him. On his back. Head twisted to the left. Hands tied to the bedposts and his throat cut. The woman is to his right. Curled up on her side. Hands and feet tied behind her back. Long black hair barely masking a fatal neck wound.

Goria makes the sign of the cross. He steps over the piled quilt on the floor and looks more closely at the corpse of Mario Sacconi. There’s blood all over the face. It looks like his nose has been broken but there’s a more curious injury — a deep puncture wound through the left cheek. He’s experienced enough to know it’s been made by a stiletto blade, probably the one responsible for a single stab wound in the windpipe. The cut is clinical. Professional.

Sacconi’s legs are drawn up to his side and blood has pooled between his knees and chest. Goria moves a little. It’s a bloody mess but he’s pretty sure he can see that the scientist has been stabbed through the heart. He steps back and makes his way around the bed to the woman. She’s young — mid-twenties at best — and pretty. Or at least she was.

Two wounds are all her beautiful body bares — one through the throat and one through the heart. Goria takes a moment to imagine how it was done. The killer would have had to pull her long hair back and look her straight in the eyes as he pushed the blade through her thorax. Then, as she gasped for air, he would have needed to steady her desperate body, position the knife and force it through her heart.

He looks between the young woman’s thighs and dips low to see beneath her breasts. She doesn’t seem to have been sexually interfered with in any way. Professional kills. Nothing more. Nothing less. He heads downstairs and opens the front door.

Nic is stood back, looking edgy. ‘What took you so long?’

‘Sacconi is dead. So too is the woman he was with. We were too late.’

Nic steps towards the doorway.

‘No. You can’t go inside.’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to have to call the police. We can’t walk away from two bodies and we can’t disturb the scene any more than I already have.’

‘Then call them. I’m still going inside. Whoever killed these people may well have killed Tamara Jacobs.’

Reluctantly, Goria lets him pass. Nic takes the stairs two at a time. There’s only one bedroom door open and he can sense death before he even steps inside. The white base sheet is soaked with blood and the girl is facing him as he enters. He pulls up short, takes out his BlackBerry and thumbs through to the camera function. Quickly and professionally he circles the room and fires off as many shots as he can. He stands on a dressing table chair and gets a range of high angles and then goes in close and captures all the wounds.

He can hear Goria downstairs talking on his cell. The polizia will soon be on the way. He pockets the BlackBerry, rushes to the en-suite bathroom and pulls the toilet roll from its holder.

The dead couple are close together on the bed — the killer must have manhandled them, probably rubbed his clothes or body hair against their bodies. On the ropes binding Sacconi he finds two short dark hairs, possibly from the killer’s hands when he tied the knots. Nic rips off several sheets of toilet roll, places them carefully in the middle and then folds them protectively around his sample.

His attention falls again on the dead girl. The tape. There’s an outside chance the killer’s fingerprints will be on the sticky tape plastered across her mouth. Nic knows that if he removes it, a pathologist will be able to tell. He also knows that the Carabinieri will go wild if he tampers with the body.

But he does it anyway. He reaches over the girl, finds the tape’s edge and peels it off. He doesn’t want it to double back on itself — it could ruin the print. Quickly but carefully he attaches the tape to a make-up mirror and smoothes it out.

‘Nic, come on!’

‘One minute.’

He lifts a dressing table stool and smashes the mirror. As he picks up the pieces he hears footsteps on the stairs. He quickly salvages the long sliver of broken glass bearing his sample.

Goria stands aghast in the doorway, cell phone dangling from his left hand. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Never mind. Give me your car keys.’

110

The zombified computer is still playing on Amy Chang’s mind as she finishes her morning jog along the white California sands.

Hours of labour lost. Dozens of files messed up. She hopes to God some of the documents can be rescued.

She showers, then dresses in jeans and a pink hoodie. The day is shaping up fine and she pours a glass of OJ, slides open the patio window and sits down in the ribbon of sunshine warming her balcony. Someone infected her Mac with a virus, and the last person who sent her anything was the English professor, Hasting-Smith. That just doesn’t seem right. Cambridge dons don’t send infected mail. Surely their own firewall would pick that kind of thing up? But there’s no denying the fact that her programs all got fried after he sent her his reports. Come Monday she’ll tell security and see what they make of it.

She drains her juice and remembers she still owes Mitzi the report on the Shroud. She ducks out of the sunshine and fires up her own laptop. Amy spends an hour trying to recall everything she wrote at work before the Mac crashed, then turns her attention to assembling an account of the Shroud’s movements across the later centuries — history and geography always help pathologists know their victims and samples better:

She reviews the list. In policing terms the chain of custody is dubious, to say the least. The evidence — the Shroud itself — could have been tampered with and contaminated tens of thousands of times. More than anything, the huge absence of details about it before the thirteenth century rings investigative alarm bells with her. No court in the world — except perhaps one inside Vatican City — would rule it to be that of Jesus Christ.

From her workbag she pulls out a brown Moleskine notebook. Pasted in it is a small photograph of the Shroud. Under it are notes she made based on the assumptions that the marks showing up on the cloth were caused by blood:

Amy looks up and down the bullet points. In her mind there’s no doubt what the marks are saying to her. The victim was whipped horrendously, had some multi-pointed device pressed to his skull that caused numerous wounds and he was crucified. But none of her notes answer the big question.

Who exactly was he?

111

Jenny Harrison feels the pain of the hangover before she even opens her eyes. Only when she squints up at the cracked and cobwebbed ceiling do some of last night’s events come rolling back to her. This isn’t her place. She isn’t in bed alone. There’s a naked man next to her. She shifts onto her side and gradually recognises the slab of hairy-backed blubber as a guy in the bar she drank with. They shared a couple of joints, he bought drinks, then she ended up at his place drinking bad white wine and smoking crack.

Now she’s wondering what price she paid for his generosity and companionship. One look on the floor by the side of the bed tells her. Her clothes are scattered everywhere. She heaves herself off the saggy mattress and just makes it to the bathroom before she’s sick. From the vomit-splattered sink she can see that her strange bedfellow is still out for the count. She runs water and thinks about showering. She’d like to but it will only risk waking the whale and she can’t be doing with talking to him. She puts her mouth to the tap and swills out strange chunks of food, splashes her face and rubs the remains of make-up on his towel.

Five minutes later she’s outside the apartment block wondering where the hell she is. At first she doesn’t recognise the place, then she remembers. She’d gone round to Kim’s to beat on the door. Feeling depressed and annoyed she’d stopped in a bar close to Hollenbeck Park, a dive she and some of the girls go to when business is slow and they need to round up a bit of cash.

Jenny starts walking. Takes a different route. One that means she can rap on Kim’s door one last time. She’s feeling exhausted by the time she climbs the stairs at her friend’s place. Knocking seems a waste of time so she gets down on her knees, holds the mail slot open and shouts through it at the top of her voice. Then she slumps with her back against the wall. All kinds of possibilities are flying through her head. The girl might have overdosed. Got pissed and choked on her own vomit. Fallen and whacked her head. Anything could have happened.

She turns round and screams through the slot again. Two of the three other doors around Bass’s apartment now open.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ bawls Holly Caniffe, a compact woman in a slip and nothing else.

Jenny collapses into a heap again. ‘She’s in there, I know she is — and something’s wrong.’

‘That whore friend of yours is probably sleeping off whatever you got wasted on,’ says Caniffe. ‘Why don’t you vanish and let us all get some rest? I’ve been working nights.’

‘Screw you.’ Jenny gives her the bird.

Caniffe’s husband Keegan appears in the doorway of their apartment, in time-greyed vest and boxers. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

‘It’s my friend. I’m worried about her.’

‘Whadafuck?’

‘I think she’s in there and has hurt herself.’

‘Move out the way.’ Keegan Caniffe sizes up the door. ‘Gimme some room.’

Jenny bum-shuffles out of his way. He fixes his attention on the lock and takes a running kick at it. It holds firm and he bounces off, almost ends up on his ass.

‘Shit.’

‘Leave it, doll. She’s probably in a bar somewhere.’ Caniffe motions to Jenny. ‘This crazy bitch has probably got it all wrong.’

But Keegan isn’t for leaving it. His pride is hurt and it’s not every day you get to smash someone’s front door down without the cops busting you. This time he runs harder and faster. He drives his left shoulder into the door and it bangs open. Keegan tumbles inside. Falls face down on the filthy carpet. His wife races in after him, followed by Jenny and old man Dobbs who’s come out to see what all the noise is about.

‘Freakin’ stinks in here.’ Holly Caniffe holds her nose as she helps her husband to his feet.

Jenny sidesteps them and heads for the lounge. There’s no sign of Kim. She checks the small kitchen and eating area, dumb bitch might be on the floor sleeping off some drug or other. Nothing. She’s starting to feel embarrassed. That smart-assed cow Holly is probably right, Kim has been out clubbing somewhere and is with some guy.

She pushes open the bedroom door. On the floor is a body. A corpse. Wrapped head to toe in a white sheet from Kim’s bed.

112

Two of the Carabinieri’s finest show Fabio Goria through to the interview room and leave him there to stew.

He’s not under arrest but he knows he so easily could be. Breaking and entering, carrying an unauthorised weapon, withholding evidence, interfering with a crime scene — they’re going to throw the book at him.

It’s almost thirty minutes before Carlotta Cappelini breaks the room’s suffocating silence with a clunk of iron locks and a steely gaze. She doesn’t speak until she settles in the black, moulded plastic chair opposite him and places a notebook and pen on the bolted down table. ‘Nic Karakandez, where is he?’

Goria rests on his elbows and stares at her as he sucks up the question. It’s interesting she should start with that. Not what were you doing at Mario Sacconi’s house? Not even what do you know about the two dead bodies upstairs?

Nic.

The Arma dei Carabinieri is more interested in the whereabouts of the LAPD cop.

Why? What are they afraid the American will do or say?

Goria leans back. ‘I don’t know. He asked for my car keys, I gave them to him and he left.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

Her face shows her annoyance. ‘Why did you give them to him and why did he leave so quickly?’

‘I gave them to him because he is a friend of a friend. And he left, I presume, because he did not want to stay.’

‘If you continue like this you’re going to make me—’

‘What?’ His eyes laugh at her. ‘Charge me?’ He shrugs. ‘We both know you are either going to do that or you’re not. Nothing I say now can alter that.’

Captain Fusco’s voice comes from the doorway. ‘How about we take away your private investigator’s licence, Fabio?’

The PI stays poker faced. ‘The people who hire me do not care whether I have a licence or not, Giorgio.’ He smiles. ‘In fact, maybe I get paid more if they know that even when persecuted by the Carabinieri I stay loyal to them.’

‘You have a point.’ Fusco sits on the edge of the table and smiles down on the PI. ‘But if we charge you with murder — double murder — then that’s a different thing.’

‘It is. That’s a very wrong thing. I didn’t kill Sacconi or the girl and you know the forensics will confirm that. There was rigor in both bodies — I can prove I was at home when they died.’

‘How?’ Fusco shrugs. ‘By the time-coded security tapes from your home surveillance system, showing you entering and leaving? I think not. We have already taken those from your house.’

Goria smiles. He has to remember not to underestimate these people — they’re good operators — among the best in the world. ‘So what now? Where are we going with this?’

‘I have a proposition.’ Fusco gets up and paces. ‘The American will contact you. I have no doubt about it. When he does, we will have tapped your phone.’

‘He will expect that.’

‘Perhaps. No matter. You can even warn him that it is possible. What is important is that from that moment onwards, you take instructions from us. You send him where we want, when we want. There’s a chance that if you do exactly as we tell you then we may forget you were even in Mario Sacconi’s house.’

113

The fleeting warmth of the November day has passed by the time Amy Chang crosses town and joins the crime-scene personnel at Kim Bass’s apartment.

She’d hoped for a death-free weekend, her first in three months, but plainly it’s not to be. She parks at the kerb in front of the rundown entrance block, pulls on her whites and slides her case out of the back. Her breath freezes in the air as she locks up and walks the pathway.

‘Chang. Doctor Amy Chang,’ she announces as she shows her ID to a rookie logging people in and out of the scene.

‘Afternoon, Doc.’ He already sounds like an old-timer as he lets her pass. ‘It’s up on the second floor. The lead officer is Lieutenant Carter, he’s already in there.’

‘Thanks.’

The stairs are full of other uniforms coming and going. Taking statements from neighbours and probably hanging around a while too long so they don’t catch for another job late on a Saturday afternoon. At the apartment door a photographer is firing off approach shots of the landing and stairs. Two CSIs are dusting walls, a handrail and light switch.

The seldom-cleaned entrance to the apartment has already been exhaustively printed and photographed and dozens of male and female footprints lifted. More shoe and boot impressions have been taken from the carpet and floor tiles in every room. As usual, the whole interior of the place is bleached white by harsh forensic lights casting monstrously large shadows everywhere. Tyler Carter turns as soon as Amy’s elegant silhouette joins the magic lantern show on the lounge walls. ‘Dr Chang — my apologies for dragging you out at the weekend.’

‘Accepted. Where’s the body?’

‘In the bedroom. It’s tight in there so I sealed it off until you came.’

‘That’s a help. Thanks.’

Most cops can’t help but tell the ME what they think. Right from the start they fire off their theories on how the victim died, what they might have been doing, what the cause of death could have been and how long the vic had been lying there. Not Carter. Tyler Carter doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t offer a single personal thought on a case until the examiner asks.

One step into the bedroom is enough to tell Amy what she’s dealing with. Six times now she’s witnessed the same scene. A sheet or quilt drawn over the head and toes of a victim. The work of the Creeper.

114

Nic is cursing himself.

Those couple of hours sleep that he and Goria grabbed have cost a man his life. If they’d gone straight to Mario Sacconi’s house after ensuring Erica Craxi was safe, he’d still be alive and the Tamara Jacobs case might be much closer to being solved. Now all he has to go on is one final name, one last shred of information that Erica gave him: Sacconi’s best friend, Édouard Broussard, a scientist who used to be his boss but is now in private practice. Roberto Craxi made some sizeable payments directly to him at Sacconi’s request. He has to be involved.

As the detective drives, his eyes scan every lane and road for police cars. It won’t be long before they issue widespread alerts for him. His first stop is a strange one. Certainly not what you’d expect from a man on the run. From the browser on his BlackBerry he’s found a parcel firm out near the airport that will ship overnight to LA. He grabs packaging from them, bubble-wraps the broken mirror from Sacconi’s bedroom and separately, the locket that Erica gave him. He fully understood the importance of it when she handed it over. Even though he said nothing to Goria, he knew it was more than just a good luck image of Saint Christopher.

He scribbles out a note, adds the envelope with the crime-scene photographs that he believes may have been gone through in his hotel room, seals the box and pays with his credit card. For good measure he gives the guy behind the desk an extra twenty euros in return for a promise his stuff will be on the next plane out of Turin.

Before he leaves he visits the restroom and cleans up. The journey ahead is long and dangerous. He looks at himself in the sink mirror as he pats the water off with paper towels. If things go wrong, this could be the last time he ever sees his own reflection.

115

The old green school bus is heading off and Mitzi is on the sidewalk waving an embarrassing goodbye to its tail lights and her disappearing daughters, when she gets the call from Carter telling her they have a fresh body.

The guy must be psychic. He said the Creeper was overdue and lo and behold, within twenty-four hours he’s proved right. No wonder they call him the wizard. She fires up the old car and tries to keep Alfie and the girls out of her head as she drives out to Boyle Heights. Worries about the girls and the emotional blow-up in the Italian restaurant are still haunting her. She just hopes Jade forgets it all for a while when she gets out on the slopes. The kid’s filled with so much anger and pain it’s heartbreaking to even think about it. She was always Daddy’s girl — always will be — and that’s going to be hard for everyone to deal with.

Mitzi wonders if she should let her visit him. Until now it’s something she’d completely ruled out. Just the thought of her daughter passing through prison gates almost makes her heave. But maybe she has to stomach it. If it’s what Jade really wants — and if Alfie consents — then she’ll have to be supportive and see the girl through it.

Eventually, the lieutenant shrugs off the ghosts of personal horrors and thinks about her work. Carter doesn’t seem as bad as his press makes out. Not a lot of fun, granted, but there can be no doubt about his professionalism. One thing for certain, she’s glad she’s not the lead on the Creeper case. From what she’s read in the files, this guy is grade-A sicko. A 100 per cent sociopath without a care in the world.

Mitzi spots Amy’s van parked by the old stucco apartment block. It’ll be good to see her friend — even though the circumstances are so wrong. She shows her ID and gets logged through. In the stairwell she suits up in Tyvek overalls and foot covers, then pads upstairs.

‘Mitzi Fallon,’ she announces, holding her badge as she walks in. ‘Anyone know where Carter is?’

A young female CSI looks up from the couch where she’s tweezing off hair strands. ‘Back bedroom with the ME.’

‘Gotcha.’

Carter and Amy are in the far corner of the room near the head of the body when Mitzi walks in. ‘You buy a ticket for Mega Millions this week, Detective? I sure hope so, given your ability to predict the future.’

He almost smiles. ‘Female, thirty-two, by the name of Kim Bass. Tenant of the house from pictures and paperwork we’ve found. Lived here near on two years. Been dead a couple of days. Dr Chang’s about to get more specific.’

‘Hi Mitz.’ Amy gives her a look of genuine warmth. ‘Your lady died from strangulation with a ligature. Pick your way over and see.’

Mitzi squeezes around the bed and follows her friend’s pointing fingers to the bloated face of the corpse.

‘Look at the marks on the neck. You can make out four lines less than two inches wide. I’d say it’s a leather trouser belt rather than the kind of thick strap you’d normally associate with jeans.’ Amy lifts her hands as though holding the ends of the belt in separate fists. ‘The killer was stood behind her, looped the ligature around her neck like this and crossed his hands for extra leverage as he choked her.’ She stops gesticulating. ‘Now look back at Kim’s neck.’

Mitzi leans over.

‘You see these additional marks on and around the windpipe? These are made by fingers and knuckles.’

‘I’m willing to bet he flipped her and finished her by hand,’ says Carter. ‘Flesh to flesh.’

Mitzi gets the picture. ‘He wanted to see her die.’

‘Not just that. He wanted to feel her die.’ Carter points at the corpse. ‘At first I wasn’t sure it was our boy, but this face-to-face finale is definitely his work.’

‘Any shroud?’ asks Mitzi.

Carter nods. ‘Covered her head to toe. No mistake about it, the Creeper’s back.’

116

Ephrem is driving when his cell phone rings. He’s been expecting the call. Knows it’s going to be unpleasant.

‘You’ve left a mess.’ Carlotta Cappelini sounds calm but irritated.

His mind is filled with flashbacks. The blood on the bed, endless crimson pooling out of the still pumping heart of the scientist. The girlfriend pulling her knees up to protect herself. ‘I had no time to clean up.’

‘I understand, but it is not good. Now more people than necessary are interested.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘Apologise to God not me. Did you obtain the information you came for?’

‘I did.’

‘Va bene. The detective I told you about, he has gone missing.’

Ephrem remembers the image she sent to him, the voice on the phone he picked up in Craxi’s lodge, the belongings he searched through at the hotel.

‘Si. We arrested his partner but Karakandez escaped from the house. He has a car, a blue Fiat Bravo. I will text you the plate. Do not underestimate this American. He is not stupid and he has come a long way.’

‘So have I.’

‘Then make sure you are not the one who ends up disappointed. Finish the job and finish it quickly. Arrivederci.’

He’ll do as she wants, but not yet. First, he has another matter to take care of.

117

Nic gets back in the car and makes sure the guy behind the desk sees him heading off towards the airport terminal. He knows the Italian border police will have his description and passport number and there is no chance he will be able to catch a flight out of Turin.

Five minutes later he pulls into the fly-drive area of a cheap hotel near the airport and pays to leave Goria’s car there for two weeks. The Carabinieri will find it. Maybe even within a couple of hours. That’s long enough not to be a problem. He catches a transit bus to the airport terminal and follows the signs to the rental car returns. He walks quickly to the busiest area, the one where families are losing their tempers because staff are lazy or slow and they’re scared of missing flights. Nic watches the comings and goings and is soon able to identify the worst of companies and even pick out the nationalities of the returning drivers. Italians weave their way back to the bays at speed, confidently navigating lanes and honking horns for people to hurry up. Foreigners make nervous approaches, staring upwards at signs hoping they’ve made the right choice and are not about to be sent on a hugely time-wasting trip outside the airport roads.

He walks the longest of the backed-up lines and knocks on several drivers’ windows until he finds an American. He shows a bald man in his late fifties his LAPD shield and makes sure his leather jacket is open enough for the kids in the back and Mom in the front to see the Beretta. ‘Could you please step out of the car, sir, and show me your ID?’

‘Sure, Officer.’ The good citizen climbs out of his Renault people carrier and is a foot shorter and twenty pounds heavier than the out-of-town cop.

Nic looks carefully through the documentation of John Henry Watkins then adds, ‘Sir, could you please come around the back of the vehicle with me.’ En route Nic puts his finger in his ear and talks as though he were on a hands-free police radio. He turns his back on the driver, who is by now nervous, until he’s done. Finally, he swings slowly round to give him the bad news. ‘Mr Watkins, I am assigned to an international anti-terrorist unit working with the Carabinieri. We have information that an attack may take place at this airport and we’ve been asked to look out for a vehicle identical to the one you’re driving.’

‘Mine?’

‘Yes sir, yours. I’m afraid I’m going to have to confiscate it, move you and your family from the scene and have you questioned.’

‘But I have to take it back. We’ve got to get home, we’re going to miss our flight.’

‘Not my problem, sir. I’m sure the Italian police will be sympathetic and deal with your case as quickly as they can.’ He looks down the long line of vehicles. ‘Though you may have quite a wait for the senior officer in charge to come over. Things go a little slower over here.’

Watkins is mortified. Already he is sensing the difficulties of coping with tired children at a foreign airport, not to mention his short-fused wife. ‘Aw c’mon, Officer, can’t you cut us a break? We’re American citizens, I’ve got to return to Chicago, get my family home and get to work.’

Nic rubs thoughtfully at his chin and looks around. ‘Okay. Listen, I just ran a check on you and I know you’re a law-abiding, family man but I’ve still got to do my job and take this vehicle to the pound for checks. You know how formalities go. You say your flight is leaving soon?’ Watkins nods. ‘I guess I might be able to do something for you. If you give me your documentation, I can drop you, your wife and kids at the main terminal and when we’ve swept the car I’ll take it back to the car pool. But you’d have to agree to keep this between us. It’s the kind of thing that could get my ass fired.’

‘I understand completely. And if we do that, we go straight home?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What about our deposit?’

Nic puts on a suitable grimace. ‘You paid with a card?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll have someone do the paperwork and get it refunded.’

Watkins looks relieved. ‘That would be great.’

Nic glances at his watch. ‘So shall we get moving?’

John Henry Watkins grins broadly, extends his sweaty hand and gratefully passes the detective the keys.

118

Carlotta Cappelini sits back from the computer screen that takes up most of her desk. In front of her, in full shocking HD detail is Ephrem’s handiwork. She’s gone through every still frame, examining — or pretending to examine — the fatal crime scene at Mario Sacconi’s home. The monk is an animal.

A young female officer turns up at the edge of her desk. ‘For you, ma’am.’ She hands over a single sheet of paper.

Cappelini sees the young brunette’s eyes snag on the screen, a shot of the knife wound straight through Sacconi’s heart. The Luogotenente uses her mouse to shrink the image out of sight. ‘Grazie. That will be all.’

The girl gets herself together and walks away.

Cappelini looks at the document. It’s a trace report on the American’s phone. Turns out he used it several times after fleeing the murder scene. Carried out searches from the Yahoo! browser, located a logistical services parcel delivery company out near the airport and then called it.

He’s shipping something.

Something so important it has to cross a border even if he can’t.

No. Cappelini picks up the untraceable phone she uses to call the monk and dials his number. ‘Listen carefully, I’m going to text you the address of a parcel company near the aeroporto. You need to go there, quickly. Find whatever Nic Karakandez left to be shipped and stop it — at all costs. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

The line goes dead and she sends the SMS. Through the window of her boss’s office she sees Fusco with the Major and the Commander. She knows exactly what they’re saying. And it’s not going to be good news for the LAPD cop.

119

The Watkins family wave gratefully from beside their suitcases and Nic waves guiltily back from the driver’s seat of the people carrier as he leaves them at the revolving doors of the terminal.

He drives away from the drop-off zone and joins the main traffic flow. Once he clears the airport grounds he pulls over on a quiet dirt road to set the satnav for the long journey ahead. The touch screen is tiny and it takes several goes to finger in the address Erica Craxi gave him of Mario Sacconi’s former boss, Édouard Broussard.

The little computer does its work and automatically announces that the journey is 366 kilometres long, will take just under four hours, involve two major motorways with toll charges and will cost forty euros in fuel.

He starts up the engine again and hopes the trip doesn’t prove to be a lot costlier than the computer’s promised.

120

Mitzi parks outside Jenny Harrison’s place and wishes she was anywhere else other than here. Given her own personal problems, the last thing she needs professionally is to be interviewing a young woman about how she discovered the corpse of her best friend.

She knocks on the busted front door and a uniformed cop jerks it open from the other side. He’s dark-haired, mid-thirties and already carrying too much weight and attitude.

‘Lieutenant Fallon.’ Mitzi badges him. ‘You got one Jenny Harrison in here?’

‘Unfortunately,’ He swings the door open. ‘She’s quite a lady.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She’s got a real mouth on her.’

‘Good. A mouth is what she needs to be able to answer my questions.’ Mitzi rolls her eyes as she walks past him. ‘What happened to the door?’

He pushes it closed. ‘Says she’s been burglarised. The neighbourhood’s full of junkies and pimps.’

Mitzi enters a room filled with smoke and struggles not to cough. Her eyes settle on a bleached blonde wreck of a woman chain-smoking on an old brown Dralon two-seater. ‘Jenny, I’m Mitzi Fallon. I’ve just come from your friend’s house. I need to ask you some questions. You want to do it here or downtown?’

Harrison looks up, ash from her cigarette falling on the arm of the couch. ‘What happened to Kim?’ She sounds doped. ‘What did they do to her?’

‘That’s what we need to find out, Jenny.’ She moves closer and sees the girl’s eyes. She’s high as a kite. Probably been burning joints right from the moment she saw her girlfriend’s corpse. Who could blame her? ‘Go have a shower. Get yourself a change of clothes and I’ll take you for some food.’

‘Don’t want no shower and I ain’t freakin’ hungry.’

Mitzi drops down so they’re eye to eye. ‘It’s not an offer, honey. It’s an instruction. I’ve got a murder to clear up and you’re no use to me wasted.’

Harrison swears under her breath. She heaves herself up from the couch and disappears into the bathroom with a slam of the door. The uniform sidles up to Mitzi. ‘The great unwashed has a temper. This’ll be the first shower she’s taken this year.’

‘She might be dirty but you’re an asshole. Ten minutes from now she’ll be clean and you’ll still be an asshole.’

‘I was just sayin’.’

‘Then don’t. Your first step towards not being an A-hole is shutting the hell up.’

The uniform drifts off and pretends to inspect the damaged front door.

Mitzi walks around. There are no framed photographs, no landline, no cooker, just a small old TV, a microwave oven and a kettle. She’s seen jail cells better furnished than this.

A once-white bed quilt is chequered with coffee stains and cigarette burns. The base sheets look like they’ve never been changed. She lifts the mattress and finds a strange stash — dozens of condoms, a vicious-looking vegetable knife and an ultrasound picture of an unborn baby. It’s a sixteen-week scan, date-stamped two years ago. She guesses Harrison caught pregnant and either lost the child or aborted it. The fact she kept the photo means she harbours thoughts of being a mom.

Mitzi drops the mattress, brushes her hands clean and checks the kitchen area. On the front of the small fridge are a couple of snaps pinned by fruit-shaped magnets. There’s one of Harrison and the dead girl in a nightclub, both laughing and holding big cocktails complete with straws and lots of greenery. There’s another of them at the beach in bikinis, blowing kisses off their palms at the camera. Harrison looks pretty much as she does now. Mitzi guesses the beach shot was probably summer and the cocktail shot maybe New Year.

Inside the fridge is a four-stack of TV dinners, a tub of cheap spread, a stack of mouldy cheese slices, four cans of tuna and a quarter bottle of vodka. Two cupboards next to a single-drainer sink are empty bar a few non-matching cups, three bowls and two plates.

Harrison comes back in the room looking tired but a little less wasted. She’s naked except for a faded green towel that barely covers her modesty. Her bleached hair has turned into brown rats’ tails. Mitzi walks to the front door and opens it for the uniformed cop. ‘Give us five.’

He’s glad to. Harrison slides open a built-in wardrobe and pulls on a faded pink T-shirt and black jeans. She either doesn’t have clean underwear or doesn’t want to wear any. She pushes bare feet into filthy sneakers then uses the towel to rub her wet head. ‘Dryer’s screwed. I got hair like one of them wiry dogs.’

‘You look fine. The cop out there says you were burgled. What they take?’

‘Nothing. There wasn’t nothing to take.’ She downs the towel and then realises she’s been too honest for her own good. ‘Shit, that’s not true. They stole some cash I’d been savin’ — vacation money, maybe five hundred dollars, and some jewellery and stuff and my cell phone, a new one.’

‘Sure they did. By the time we get downtown I bet you’ll have remembered that fifty-inch 3D plasma they took as well, along with the Valentino dresses and enough Jimmy Choos to fit out a centipede.’

121

The noise wakes Roberto Craxi.

A dull thump. Then another. He has no idea how long he’s been asleep. The air is hot and stale — and he’s weak from lack of water. The ground beneath him shakes. Something heavy has been dropped nearby. There’s another dull thud.

And another.

He works out what it is. Someone is moving heavy stones off the slab. In the next few moments he’ll be free — or dead.

The noise is clearer now. Stone on stone. Boulders of some kind must have been heaped on the slab to secure it. Those at the top have been moved; now the last of them are being slid away. He summons all his physical and mental strength in preparation for the grand opening of the tomb. Silence.

He guesses his captor is thinking about how to oslide the lid off the tomb. The man won’t want to lean over it and push it away because that would leave him off-balance and exposed. Nor will he try to pull it towards him and risk it falling on him. No, he’ll probably slide it off from one end — the end above Craxi’s head. It’s the only way to remain positioned directly above him.

Craxi is right. Ephrem hauls the slab to his left in one powerful movement. The former soldier makes his move. Springs up as fast as he can.

The monk is knocked back. He’d expected resistance but nothing as swift and powerful as this.

Craxi’s ankles buckle as soon as his feet hit the ground.

The monk’s right hand twitches. A split-second movement — but a decisive one. Craxi sees the flash too late. He grabs his abdomen.

Ephrem watches Craxi struggle with the pointed iron railing he’s impaled him on.

Craxi holds it with both hands and tries not to fall. He goes dizzy and drops to his knees.

Ephrem walks towards him. Looks indifferently at the blood blotting into his captive’s shirt and makes a cold calculation.

It will take a long time for him to die like that. A very long time.

He circles Roberto. Stands behind him. Takes his head in the crook of his arm and with one violent twist breaks his neck.

122

Nic hits crawling traffic as soon as he picks up signs for the Tangenziale Ovest-Sud/Savona/Piacenza. So much for the confident predictions of the satnav. It takes more than an hour to get from the A55 to the A6. He thinks about calling Mitzi and Amy. There are things he has to tell them. Actions that must be carried out. But he has no intention of using the cell phone in his pocket. Save the brief bit of web surfing to find the parcel company, it’s been turned off since he left Fabio and it’s going to stay that way. Sooner or later he’ll find a pay phone. From now on, the cell is for emergencies only.

Thirty miles and forty minutes further on, he struggles through another jam at a toll road rolling out to Savona. He tries to drown out blaring horns by switching on the radio. As he finally picks up speed, he realises his attention has been so focused on looking for the dark-blue cruisers of the Carabinieri or the paler blue and white ones of the Polizia that he has barely noticed the strange mix of urban and agricultural areas flashing past the Bravo’s windows. The thin winter light is already fading as the satnav interrupts his thoughts to announce his estimated arrival time — he’s still more than two hours away from his chosen destination.

The delay might actually be a good thing. With any luck he’ll catch Broussard relaxing safely in his own home. Nic doesn’t have a picture of the scientist, just Erica’s description — tall and thin, elegant with silver-grey hair and an immaculately trimmed grey beard. Easy to spot. There’s a Madame Broussard too — Ursula. Small and round. Dark haired with small hands like a hamster. He thought it funny how Erica described her like that.

Nic faithfully follows the navigation system’s emotionless commands and comes off at the Savona toll exit. He must be about halfway there. The main question playing on his mind is whether he’s ahead of or behind the man who killed Mario Sacconi and his lover — the man he believes also murdered Tamara Jacobs.

And if he is behind him — by how much? Nic glances at the upcoming signs illuminated by the stream of headlights. He’s just entering France. He’ll have the answers to his questions soon enough.

123

The factory runs only a skeleton staff on a Saturday. Partly because of the recession but mainly because few of the women will work weekends. Times are tough but the lure of being poor in the Californian sunshine beats being a few bucks richer inside a sweatshop any day of the week — especially Saturday.

John James finds himself in his office, unable to concentrate. He’s thinking about Kim Bass. It was a clumsy kill. Maybe even an unnecessary one — a taking of life for the wrong reasons. Normally things are clear. Those needing to be helped to the other side are complete strangers. God guides him to them. Picks them out as surely as lighting a beacon over their heads.

Bass was different. She was known to him. A blatant enemy of the woman he loved. Still loves. He’s tormented by the thought that anger and hatred were why he killed her.

Not God’s will, just payback for all her bullying of Em.

Then there is Em herself. God had brought them together. Shown him that another person could stir him in ways he had never imagined. But had he misunderstood? Were those yearnings good or bad? He had certainly felt different with Em. His emotions were churned up. His affection for her had made him feel different about everything — about life, and even death.

He has begun to question himself. Was it all a test of his faith? Like when Jesus fasted in the desert and Satan tempted him to turn stones into bread? Yes. That’s what Em had been. A test of faith. And he failed. He’d read about how weak men had been diverted from their holy missions by the wiles of women. Now he understands. Satan has been at work.

He puts a hand under his shirt and feels the scabs forming over the last razor cuts. He hasn’t hurt himself enough. Not paid sufficient penance for the pain he caused God. He scratches his nails repeatedly across his stomach until he sees blood on his fingertips. JJ bows his head and prays for forgiveness. Prays not only for the soul of the woman he loved, but also for that of Kim Bass, the woman he never should have killed.

124

A hundred miles along the A10, Nic joins the A8, then takes the exit marked Nice-Nord.

Even in the dark he can see that this is a place he’d like to spend some time. Time getting lost in the little villages spread out across the winding hillside roads. Lingering in a seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean. Time on anything other than chasing a killer.

He’s more tired than he thought. The realisation comes as he takes the boat-like people carrier too quickly into a roundabout and he hears the squeal of rubber when he straightens her up. Not good. Very not good, given the kind of enemy who waits in the dark for him. He sharpens up his act as he loops around again to make the exit into Boulevard Paul Rémond.

The twists and turns come quickly now. Right at Boulevard Comte de Falicon, right at Avenue du Ray, left at Boulevard Cessole, onto Gambetta, left into Rue du Maréchal Joffre, right into Rue de Rivoli and out onto the Promenade des Anglais. The computerised voice announces that in three hundred metres he will arrive at his destination.

Destiny.

He parks a hundred metres from the grand house of Édouard Broussard and turns off the engine. He checks the gun Goria gave him, leaves the vehicle and makes the last part of the journey on foot.

125

Joe’s Steak and Surf is painted fairground reds and racing greens and looks like a poor man’s Frankie and Benny’s. The place is buzzing because Joe does a three-course meal deal with a glass of wine for $10 a head.

Mitzi and Jenny Harrison sit at a red plastic banquette near the kitchen. Harrison finds her appetite and has a starter of refried potato skins, then an eight-ounce steak, skinny fries and a pile of garden peas as hard as buckshot.

‘You want dessert?’ The question comes from their middle-aged waitress, whose badge declares her to be Suzie. ‘Pecan pie, chocolate brownie or ice cream assortment is included in the set price menu.’

Mitzi fishes a wad of single dollars out of her purse and hunts for some rare fives or tens. ‘We’ll skip it, thanks.’

Suzie’s not used to people passing on free dessert. ‘You sure? I can pack pie for you to go.’

She’s about to say no again, when Jenny jumps in. ‘Okay, we’ll take the pie.’

Suzie cracks a thin smile and disappears.

Mitzi finishes counting out the cash. ‘I saw the pictures of you and Kim on your fridge. Seems you were good friends.’

‘We went to school together. She was like a sister to me. We hung out all the time.’

‘You and her turn tricks together?’

For a second she thinks about lying. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Piss off anyone recently?’

‘A john you mean?’

‘Aha.’

She thinks a minute. ‘Not that I can recall. Most go away more than satisfied.’

‘You seen a lot of guys together over say the past two to three months?’

Now Harrison looks worried.

‘This is between you and me, not the IRS or anyone else. I’m only interested in who Kim was seeing.’

‘There are some regulars.’ She takes a beat but doesn’t have the energy to censor things like she normally does. ‘We got this guy who looks after us too. Sometimes — you know — he expects us both to do him.’

Mitzi gives her a maternal look. ‘Life’s a shit and most times the guys in it are the reasons why. They’re just shit-making machines.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

‘We get to the station house, I need names and numbers — the pimp, the johns, boyfriends, ex-lovers, okay?’

Jenny’s in too deep to do anything other than nod in agreement.

Mitzi holds off the questions as Suzie the waitress returns. ‘Here you go. I put pie and brownie in there. I hope you enjoy.’

‘Sure someone will.’ Mitzi gets to her feet and hands over a white saucer with the money for the meal and a $5 tip. ‘Thanks for looking after us.’

‘My pleasure.’

Harrison stands and takes the dessert box as the waitress drifts away. Her stomach grumbles from the shock of being fed after so long. ‘Hey, will that cop leave my busted front door open when he goes?’

‘No, don’t worry. We’ll get a new lock fitted and you can collect the key when we’re at the station house.’ Mitzi holds the restaurant door for her. ‘Have you been broken into before?’

‘Yeah. Couple of times. Most people have. Probably one of the bitches next door.’

They take the short walk up the block to the car. Mitzi zaps the central locking and goes round the driver’s side. ‘You lose anything?’ She gives her a stern look over the roof, ‘You really lose anything?’

She shakes her head. ‘Don’t think so. Maybe my phone. I’m not sure, though. I got pretty wasted last night and could have left it or dropped it somewhere.’

Mitzi climbs in the car and waits until Harrison’s inside and buckling up. ‘The phone, was it contract or pay-as-you-go?’

‘Contract. I got a deal — cheaper in the end than running burners. It’s due an update. I thought I might get one of those adenoids.’

Mitzi laughs as she starts the engine. ‘Android. You mean android.’ She puts a finger to her face. ‘Adenoids are glands at the back of your nose, near your throat.’

‘Damn!’ Harrison laughs. ‘I’ve been saying adenoid for months.’

126

Two steps from the car, Nic smells salt and hears the roar of the Med churning foamy breakers in the darkness off to his left. The fact that his case started on the dunes of Manhattan Beach and may end on the sandy shores of the Côte d’Azur is not lost on him.

There’s an uncomfortable tension in the air. One he’s not felt since the day he put down the phone in his apartment and realised his wife and child had gone for a walk without him.

Death is in the air.

He’s close to Tamara’s killer. Close to a force that can end an innocent life without remorse.

Édouard Broussard’s 1920s villa is ostentatiously lit by the golden glow of security lights and is clearly visible from the historic Promenade des Anglais. Set back on a rising corner plot behind elegant stone walls, it’s a prime piece of real estate, with long, thin windows and a grand double-staircase of white steps leading to a giant mahogany entrance door.

Nic’s way is blocked by black wrought-iron gates. He presses a button on a brass nameplate and waits.

A French voice — female, refined and mature — crackles out from a recessed speaker. ‘Bonsoir.’ It’s more a question than a greeting. ‘Qui est la?’

‘Hello, I need to speak to Monsieur Broussard.’

She replies in English. ‘Who is there?’

A faint light blinks high above Nic’s head. He sees there’s a video camera linked to the intercom. ‘Ma’am, I’m Nic Karakandez from the Los Angeles Police Department.’ He digs out his shield and holds it up to the lens. ‘This is my identification. I’m happy to give you the phone number of my supervisor at the LAPD.’

The crackle stops and now there is only silence. Nic watches the side street and main road as he waits. Thankfully, there’s no sign he’s been followed. An electronic buzz releases the gates and they swing open. He walks through and hears them stop and then start to shut behind him.

By the time he reaches the bottom of the stone steps, the large entrance door has opened and a tall, distinguished man with silver-grey hair and beard is studying his approach.

He’s sure it’s Édouard Broussard. He allows himself a smile. He’d feared he’d be too late. Convinced himself he’d be walking in to find another butchered body — or two.

‘Monsieur Broussard?’

‘Oui. Bonsoir.’ He deftly pulls the door behind him, anxious his wife doesn’t hear anything she shouldn’t. ‘What is it you want?’

The detective shows his badge again. ‘I really need to come inside and talk to you. I believe your life — and that of your wife — are in danger.’

Broussard looks sceptical.

Nic reads the doubt in his eyes. ‘I’ve just come from Turin. Mario Sacconi has been murdered. I think both you and I know why.’

Fear falls like a shadow on the scientist’s face. He swings his front door open. ‘Please.’

Nic walks past him into a closed lobby floored in thick coir matting. An antique coat stand dominates one corner, like a thin, brown sentry.

Broussard locks and bolts the front door, then leads the way across a gleaming, marble-floored reception lit by a giant teardrop chandelier and lined with large, gold-framed mirrors. He twists the polished brass handle of a glossy white-panelled door and steps into a spacious windowless study. ‘We can talk in here. I use this as my home office, it is secure.’

Nic glances at the oak-clad walls and imagines that behind them there are safes, cupboards and drawers filled with secrets of paternity and criminal defence cases. ‘I’d really like you to ask your wife to join us.’

Broussard frowns. ‘Why?’

The detective pulls open the right side of his jacket and reveals the Beretta. ‘So I can protect you. If Mario’s killer comes here and you’re in separate rooms, at least one of you is going to die.’

127

The interview room is a whole lot less friendly than Joe’s Steak and Surf but with a cigarette and a cup of coffee Harrison’s still talking and writing down names of the johns. Truth be known, she quite likes this female cop. She’s not as much of a ball-breaking bitch as most of them are. Probably because she’s murder police and not vice or drugs. ‘That’s about it.’ She pushes the sheet with six names on it across the melamine tabletop to Mitzi.

‘You think any of these would have wanted to hurt Kim?’

Harrison rubs her fingers in her hair like she’s scratching for bugs. Just thinking about Kim lying dead on the floor makes it pound. ‘Marlon maybe.’

‘The pimp?’

She nods and draws hard on the last inch of her cigarette.

‘He beat you both up?’

‘No more than most do.’

‘How bad?’

‘Me? Nothing — a slap here or there when I got mouthy. But one time he let loose and broke two of Kim’s teeth.’

The comment makes Mitzi think of Alfie and maybe for the first time she feels truly glad to be free of him.

‘He paid for the caps, though.’ Harrison smiles. ‘Nice set. Guess he thought he’d lose money if he didn’t. I mean, no one wants to be blown by a vampire, do they?’

Mitzi thinks she’d like to blow Marlon — blow his scumbag head clean off his shoulders with a .45. ‘Pimp aside, what about boyfriends or ex-boyfriends?’ She pushes a clean sheet of paper across the table. ‘Names and addresses of any significant others in the past two years.’

‘Significant?’ Harrison laughs. ‘Kim should have been so lucky. Guys saw her as a dime piece.’

‘Okay to toss from one friend to another.’

‘You got it.’

‘Was there ever anyone who meant anything to her?’

She thinks on it. ‘There was one guy. She hung out with him for about six months, till his wife found out.’

Mitzi taps the paper. ‘Name.’

‘D’rick Watts.’ She starts to write it out. ‘Fell out the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.’

‘Why she like him?’

‘Dunno. He was kind to her. Bought her stuff sometimes. Not many guys do that. Lives over the tile shop at the Pomona Freeway end of East 6th. I can’t remember the name of it. Watch for his old lady, she got a temper.’

‘What about Kim’s family, any beef there?’

‘Like I told the uniform, she got no folks. Never knew her old man and her mom ran out when she was a kid in Vegas. She was brought up in care homes and some fostering.’

The interview room door squeaks open and the big moonface of Deke Matthews rises through the gap. ‘Fallon, step out here a minute.’

Mitzi looks towards Jenny. ‘How could a girl refuse?’

The captain holds the door, then shuts it behind her once Mitzi’s walked through. ‘Have you heard from Karakandez?’

‘Not had the pleasure.’

‘Then you better call the son of a bitch and find out what the hell he’s been playing at.’

‘Captain?’

‘I’ve just had a call from the Carabinieri in Turin. Nicky boy and a private investigator broke into a house today — one where two adults were subsequently found dead.’

‘Dead?’

He glares at her. ‘You want me to explain dead?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Karakandez then fled, having first interfered with the scene and removed forensic evidence.’

‘This can’t be as it seems, Captain.’

‘You’re right, Detective — it can’t be.’ He looks past her into the interview room. ‘Sort out that low-life in there, get hold of your boy and clear this mess up before I have the Commissioner coming down here with a bat for my balls.’

Matthews storms off. Mitzi takes a beat before re-entering the interview room. She has to force herself to stop thinking about Nic and focus again on the murder. She pins on a smile for Harrison and picks up the questioning. ‘Was Kim working over the last few weeks?’

Harrison gives her a sideward look.

‘Day job — not night work.’

Now she understands. ‘Yeah. We work the same place. Pull in minimum wage at a sweat shop in the fashion district.’

‘Where?’

‘Fahed Fabrics, West Olympic Boulevard. I got her the job.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Sewing. Cutting. Piecing trash together. Mainly bed sheets, curtains, stuff like that.’

LA’s fashion district covers a hundred blocks. Mitzi knows it inside out. Running a home on short purse strings means frequenting reject shops and warehouse sales. ‘A lot of she cats thrown together. I guess that can lead to some fights.’

‘Yeah, sometimes. Mostly we all get on.’ Jenny peers into her coffee cup. ‘Any chance of a refill?’

‘Sure. We’ll take a break in a minute. Just finish telling me about your co-workers. Did Kim pick fights with any of them?’

‘No one messed with her — or me. We had some fun, you know. There was always a bit of bitching going on but no one disrespected us.’

Mitzi comes at it from another angle. ‘Is there a chance you went too far with anyone — crossed the line at all?’

‘What d’ya mean?’

‘Gave someone reason to carry a grudge?’

Harrison scratches at an eyebrow. ‘Not now. There was a girl, but she quit. Emma, Emma Varley. Teacher’s pet — you know the type, worked so freakin’ hard we all looked like slackers next to her. We used to roast her a bit.’ Harrison puts two fingers to her left cheek. ‘She’s got a birthmark here and was always tryin’ to hide it, so the harder she worked the cover the more we gave her.’

‘She ever turn violent?’

‘You’re jerking me, right?’ Harrison laughs. ‘She wouldn’t know how. Girl’s a mouse.’

‘Mice can be dangerous — go ask an elephant. This place, Fahed Fabrics, who runs it — a Mister Fahed, or his wife?’

‘It’s a mister but we don’t see him much, maybe once a month. He’s got a couple of places downtown, all rag shops. Factory’s run by a supervisor named James. We call him Fish Face.’

‘First name or last?’

Harrison frowns.

‘James, not Fish or Face.’

‘Last. I don’t know his first name. He can’t tell shit from Shinola.’ She thinks for a second. ‘To be fair, he’s been okay the last few days. He rang you guys for me, tried to find out if Kim was in trouble and needed bail.’ She touches her cup again. ‘I really need that caffeine now. Either that or you let me have some weed.’

‘Coffee’s all you’re getting.’ Mitzi waves the bunch of papers that Harrison has written on. ‘I’ll have a pot sent through while I get people working on these names and see if Robbery have had your door fixed.’

‘Pot would be cool.’

‘Pot of coffee.’ Mitzi heads out of the room.

‘Hey, can I ask you something?’

‘Sure?’

‘Why are you being nice to me? I mean, most people think I’m a clownbitch and they treat me like shit. So why?’

‘Maybe because you’re not shit. Maybe it’s your life that’s shit and you just smell of life.’ Mitzi walks back to the table. ‘Get through all this and start again, Jenny. Help me catch who killed your friend and you’ll have done something good. Wiped the slate clean. Then you’ll be able to tell yourself you deserve a new beginning.’

Harrison nods and for a second Mitzi thinks she almost made a connection. If she’d caught this kid a few years back, maybe she could have turned her life around.

128

Ursula Broussard is dressed modestly in a white silk blouse and ankle-length blue pleated skirt. The only real clues to her wealth are the rows of pearls around her neck, the thick gold wedding band and huge engagement diamond on her finger.

‘I know this is going to sound strange,’ says Nic, as they stand in the study, ‘but I need you both to leave this house and I need you to do it as quickly as possible.’ He locks his attention first on Édouard. ‘Earlier today I saw the body of your former colleague, Monsieur Broussard. He had been tortured and killed in his bed in Turin. Murdered by a man who took his life without a second thought.’ He switches his focus to Ursula. ‘The young woman Sacconi had been sleeping with had also been killed — after she had been tied up and gagged.’

Madame Broussard covers her mouth and presses against her husband. He puts on a brave face for the sake of his wife. ‘Do you know why?’

‘We both know why.’ Nic gives him a look that says it’s time to cut the crap. ‘You analysed DNA taken — correction, stolen — from the Shroud of Turin. Now someone is prepared to kill you because of what you found.’

Ursula speaks before her husband can answer. ‘How did you get our address, Monsieur?’

‘Erica Craxi gave it to me.’

She nods then asks, hesitantly, ‘Are they all right? Erica and Roberto?’

Nic doesn’t want to lie. ‘Not exactly. Roberto is missing — still alive, we think. Erica, though, is safe. I made sure of it myself.’

Ursula cups her hand and says something quietly in French that Nic can neither properly hear nor understand.

But Édouard does. Édouard has done many foolish things in life, mostly for money, but he seldom if ever ignores the advice of his wife of thirty years. Without speaking he walks to a wooden wall panel behind the detective and presses it hard with the palm of his right hand. A door pops open. He swings it wide, revealing a squat black safe half a metre by half a metre, with a twist dial combination. It takes the urbane scientist almost thirty seconds to twirl in a complicated sequence of numbers. Finally he pulls down on a heavy steel bar and swings the door open.

Nic checks his watch. He’s been in the house almost ten minutes. Six hundred seconds for Mario Sacconi’s killer to close in on them.

The Frenchman lifts out the only thing in the safe — an A4-sized envelope, sealed and taped. ‘This is it.’ He holds it out. ‘Everything. The full results. The original transparency. The data file and the last remains of the sample.’

Nic takes it from him and rips open the top. Inside is a glossy A4 of what looks like a giant barcode. It’s a genetic fingerprint. Maybe the most important one in the world. Maybe God’s DNA? Or it could be just that of an unknown stranger? There’s a small plastic envelope containing dark scrapings and a tiny, eight-gigabyte microchip for a USB port. There are notes and letters too. Typed and handwritten documents in Italian and French. Another in English. From Tamara Jacobs to Robert Craxi.

Nic looks up. Not at Édouard. It’s clear to him now who makes the major decisions in the Broussard household. ‘Madame, we need to leave here — straight away.’

‘Then we leave.’ Ursula Broussard opens the office door. ‘Our lives are in your hands, Monsieur.’

129

Édouard Broussard presses the zapper on his key ring and the electronic iron gates at the rear of the villa swing open. He drives the black BMW 7 almost silently from the driveway out into the side street.

Nic is in the back, head down, gun levelled just below the window line. Ursula uses the in-car phone to make several calls as her husband takes them west along the Promenade. The ocean crashes white and noisy on their left. Grand hotels flash past on their right. Nic scans traffic on all sides. He uses the driver’s rear-view and side mirrors to aid his surveillance of the front and anything that comes up alongside. ‘How long will it take us to get there?’ he asks.

‘Ten minutes, no more,’ says Ursula, leaning between the front seats.

‘Don’t look at me,’ snaps Nic. ‘Turn around. It’s just you and your husband in the car, remember.’

‘Pardon,’ she says, startled by his lack of manners.

Nic doesn’t care. Whoever snatched Roberto Craxi — a former special operative — needs no advantage against a middle-class married couple and a jet-lagged cop.

The car slows into a rolling jam as a large truck crosses both carriageways. Traffic around them struggles to get through and horns blaze.

Nic grows tense. A jam is a bad place to be. They’re going to be sitting ducks. The car in front comes to a standstill and Édouard is forced to halt the big BMW. Nic sees a motorbike coming up in the rear-view — slaloming the stranded cars behind them — searching for openings. The rider is clad in black leathers and a full face helmet. Perfect cover for an assassin. Nic slides across the back seat, braces himself against a door pillar and grips the gun with both hands.

The bike weaves around the cars. Pulls level with the window of the passenger side rear door. Nic levels the Beretta at the helmeted head. The car’s windows are heavily tinted and he presumes the rider can’t see him. The bike edges forward. Its engine growls. Nic’s finger tightens on the trigger. The rider edges level with Ursula Broussard.

Nic repositions and sizes up a shot over her shoulder. No point going for the Kevlar-protected head, it’ll have to be either the neck or body. Suddenly, there’s a roar. The bike dips to the right. Nic leans left. He swings his arms across. It’s gone. The motorbike races off. Just the noise remains. A throaty roar to confirm an explosion of gasoline and exhaust fumes trailing through a narrow gap in traffic. Nothing more.

The guy was just being nosy. He simply wanted a gawp inside the top of the range sedan to see what it was like and what kind of person can afford a vehicle worth more than a hundred thousand euros. Nic breathes more easily as the jam frees up and they spot signs for the Côte D’Azur airport.

130

The cell phone on the passenger seat rings.

Ephrem picks it up. ‘Yes.’

‘Where are you?’ Carlotta Cappelini asks in a brusque manner.

‘I am outside the villa. Their lights are on. I can see the vehicle the American was driving.’

She knows he means Fabio Goria’s Fiat. ‘They’re not there. Neither is the American.’

He scans the grounds. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly what I just said. Our communications unit picked up a GPS lock on Édouard Broussard’s phone. As it was moving west at a speed of fifty kilometres an hour, it is reasonable to think it is in his car and they are heading to the airport.’

He starts the engine. ‘Do you still have the signal?’

‘Si.’ She looks at the map on her computer monitor and the flashing orange dot. ‘Get moving and I will direct you.’

He slips off the handbrake and pulls out into the main road along the Promenade.

‘Did you stop the parcel being shipped?’

He was afraid she’d ask that question. ‘I was too late. It had gone.’

‘Too late?’

He chooses not to explain what had delayed him. He couldn’t leave Craxi to die a slow death in that tomb, nor could he afford the risk that the man might escape.

Cappelini is furious. ‘What if someone in the parcel office recognised you or gives your description to anyone?’

‘They will not.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘I am sure. All that is left of them are ashes. Ashes cannot speak.’

131

Édouard Broussard hands his car keys to a uniformed valet at the Sheraton Hotel, directly opposite the airport.

Too late to get flights out of the country, Nic and the Broussards have booked rooms and will leave first thing in the morning. Ursula will head to a friend’s home in Switzerland — a senior diplomat with twenty-four-hour security. Nic and Édouard will fly to Paris and catch a connection to LA where full statements will be taken by the homicide squad. Or at least that’s Nic’s plan to keep everyone safe and get himself off the inquiry.

They collect their keys and haul the small bags they hurriedly packed to adjoining rooms on the third floor. Nic bolts and chains Ursula’s and jams a chair beneath the handle for good measure. He and Édouard retreat to the other room and Nic secures the door in the same way.

Édouard opens the mini-bar, ‘I need a drink. You?’

Nic does. He wants several cold beers and then a tumbler of Jack Daniels but a restrained voice overrules his desire to unwind. ‘Just some water please.’

‘As you wish.’ Édouard picks a couple of brandy miniatures and tosses a plastic bottle of still water to Nic. ‘The man who killed Mario, I think I know something about him, where he came from.’ He empties the brandy into a glass. ‘Your writer, Madame Jacobs, I met her in Italy with Roberto. We saw her together when I verified the results of the DNA tests. She had been worried about the accuracy of tests carried out on something so old.’

‘I can understand that. A viable sample from centuries long gone — I wouldn’t have thought it was even possible.’

‘No, it was very possible.’ Édouard is dismissive even of the thought that he couldn’t carry out such a thing. ‘Mario used standard PCR processing, you know what that is?’

Nic’s blooded enough rapists to have a basic understanding of the process. ‘I think so — Polymerase Chain Reaction — the lab use it to build up a sample when there isn’t enough of the genetic code to do a full profile.’

He smiles. ‘A crude analysis of a scientific breakthrough that won its inventor the Nobel Prize in Chemistry more than twenty-five years ago, but it is accurate enough. PCR can amplify a single piece of DNA thousands or millions of times, certainly until we have enough genetic information to form a reliable profile.’

‘But that wasn’t sufficient in the case of the Shroud?’

‘It was but we wanted verification by two techniques and two different testers. So I decided to use a new technology, something more cutting edge than standard PCR.’

‘Being what?’

‘Amplification of MicroRNA.’

Nic looks nonplussed.

‘I don’t have time to explain. Think of RNA as being like DNA, like a genetic code. But single-stranded rather than double-stranded, with a much shorter chain of nucleotides than DNA.’ He stops, as if deciding something. ‘Let us just say that MicroRNA, coupled with newer commercial kits like MiniFiler and Identifiler Plus, gave us a more trustworthy result, something we were certain the scientific community would feel more secure with.’

‘What did Tamara Jacobs expect to prove with the results?’

‘The identity of the man beneath the Shroud of Turin. She thought she could use it to prove — or disprove — that it was Jesus Christ.’

‘But how?’ Nic frowns deeply. ‘To do that she would already have to have a DNA sample of Christ to match it to.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Nic’s confused. ‘Yes, she would. It’s a problem we face all the time. You get DNA from a crime scene, but you’ve got to match it to a suspect. The Shroud is essentially her crime-scene sample, but she had no subject.’

‘No, but she knew there was one.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Tamara believed there was another sample. Not taken from the Shroud. Taken from the cross on which Christ died.’

132

It’s almost midnight by the time Mitzi has checked in with Tyler Carter and finished processing Jenny Harrison’s statement. She’s tried Nic’s phone several times and not managed to get through. Matthews is going to go ape again tomorrow.

Even though she could get the girl a cab or have a uniform drop her, she chooses to drive her back to Boyle.

The Robbery squad has been as good as its word and Harrison gratefully slides the new key into the lock fitted to her busted-up door. ‘We should have a ribbon or somethin’ to cut. This place ain’t never had anything new before.’ She turns to Mitzi. ‘You want to come in for a drink? I’ve got vodka.’

‘No thanks, I’m kinda beat. You have my number — find a pay phone and call me Monday. Earlier if you think of anything or you’re just messed up and need to talk.’

‘Thanks.’

She watches the door close and listens for the lock to turn before she goes. The world is full of Jenny Harrisons — single women born on the wrong side of the tracks and stuck there. On the drive back she thinks of the scan picture she found under the mattress and wonders if one day Jenny will get her act together and be lucky enough to get married and have children. Despite all her trouble with Alfie, she’d go through it all again if that’s what she had to do to have Jade and Amber.

Mitzi parks up and lets herself into the house. It feels horribly empty. No Alfie. No kids. Just her on her lonesome. Makes her wonder what life will be like when the girls finally fly the nest. She glances at her watch. It’s kicking on for 1 a.m. but she’s not going to be able to sleep. Her mind wanders. They’ll all be locked down now out at California State. A prison built for two thousand inmates and jammed tight with more than twice that number. What the cops call cosy. Lights will be out. Strange noises banging and bumping in the labyrinth of stinking blackness. Thousands of guys — including the father of her girls — staring up in the dark above their bunks trying to figure out how in God’s name they messed up so badly.

‘Keep staring,’ she says with no shake in her voice. She opens the refrigerator and realises she should have gone shopping. ‘Think hard about what you’ve thrown away, Alfie Fallon.’

Her cell goes and she snatches it off the table where she dropped her bag. ‘Hello.’

‘Mitzi, it’s Nic.’

Her eyes widen. ‘Thank God. What the hell have you been doing? Matthews is going to tear you a new asshole.’

133

Mellow light filters through the reception windows of the Sheraton Hotel. It’s 7 a.m. on the kind of morning that promises to be warmer than it should be for the time of year.

Édouard and Ursula pay the bill while Nic sits in a chair watching the hotel grind into life. This is his last week at work. The thought is uppermost in his mind. It is the beginning of an end. The drawing to a close of his life as a detective and the personal horrors that have accompanied it.

Late last night he gave Mitzi chapter and verse on everything that had happened in Turin and she promised to go straight to Matthews today and explain things, including why he had to take evidence from the Sacconi crime scene. Soon, he and Broussard will be on a flight into LAX and Ursula will be safe in Geneva. Tomorrow he’ll take Broussard’s statement and hand him over to someone to run the case after he’s left the force. Come Tuesday, with a little luck, all the forensic will have been processed and verified. It’s hard to imagine the crap that’s going to fly as and when news gets out that there’s a DNA profile of Christ going around. Adam Geagea and the other dorks in the Press Office are going to shit in their pants.

Nic thinks ahead to Thursday — by then the LAPD should have secured assurances from the French police that they’ll protect Édouard and Ursula Broussard and the scientist could be heading back home. Friday night he’ll be lifting a cold beer in a noisy bar and bidding a fond farewell to the LAPD.

The Broussards come into sight and shake him from his thoughts. They look like something’s wrong.

‘There is a strike.’ Édouard gives a resigned shrug. ‘French air traffic controllers.’

‘Lightning action,’ explains Ursula. ‘All planes are grounded for twenty-four hours.’

Nic buries his head in his hands. ‘We can’t stay here. We can’t just sit and wait for a day — that’s inviting trouble.’

‘I agree,’ says Édouard, turning to his wife. ‘We will drive you to Geneva and fly from there.’

Nic has no idea how far away Switzerland is. ‘How long will that take?’

Édouard shrugs. ‘It is Sunday, so traffic will be light. I would guess six, maybe seven hours depending upon whether we stop.’

‘I will have to stop,’ insists Ursula. ‘Such a journey is unthinkable without stopping.’

Nic gets to his feet. ‘Then let’s do it. The sooner we get going the better.’

‘I’ll get the car brought round.’ Édouard starts across the reception floor. ‘We can wait outside for it.’

‘No.’ Nic shakes his head. ‘Inside. We wait inside until the very last moment.’

Édouard looks shocked. ‘As you wish.’

Ursula Broussard moves closer to Nic as her husband heads to the valet stand. ‘He is not a well man. He will not want to speak of it, but it is true.’

‘What’s wrong?’

She puts her hand to her chest. ‘Last year he had a heart scare. Arrhythmia.’

‘That’s an irregular beat, right?’

‘Oui. He has PVC — premature ventricular contractions. His doctor says it is stress-related, maybe also a little too much caffeine and cigarettes. I have made him quit the smoking but the coffee he cannot give up.’

‘I’d be the same.’ He tries to give her a reassuring smile. ‘Madame Broussard, I’m not going to lie to you, you’re not out of danger yet. I’ll do everything I can to protect you and your husband, but I’m not sure I can take the stress out of things.’

‘I understand. I just wanted you to be aware of his condition.’

Édouard is heading back their way.

‘Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out for him.’

‘Merci.’

‘The car is here,’ announces the scientist with a calm smile. ‘We can go.’

134

John James stands naked in his candlelit bedroom. A thin razor blade is pinched between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. His mind is aching from the inner storm of emotion and doubt still raging.

His eyes fix on the long thin wardrobe mirror. Without flinching he cuts from his left shoulder straight down three inches. Before the blood flows he slices horizontally across the cut, an incision of two inches. He watches as a perfect cruciform of red appears.

Normally, from the first cut he can feel the pain. Outer pain matching inner pain. The perfect balance. It is a sign God is forgiving him, a signal his soul is being cleansed by the letting of blood. Just as Jesus suffered, just as the Lord bled for mankind, he must bleed for Jesus.

But in the early hours of this Sabbath day, he feels nothing. He cuts again. Still nothing. Tears fill his eyes. He is being forsaken. The rush of adrenalin that comes from the cuts, the sacrifice, the focus — they all help him to control himself, to direct himself. They subdue him. But not tonight. There is only emptiness. As though God has deserted him. He must try harder. Must prove himself more worthy.

JJ covers his entire breast in razored crosses. As the blood streams down, he works on his ribcage and abdomen. In the mirror he sees not a reflection of himself but a fleshy canvas — a portrait of his love for God. Thin rivers of red now surge from collarbone to hipbone.

It is not enough. Not nearly enough. He switches hands. He repeats the cruciform cuts across his right breast. Not as accurate with his left hand, he clumsily slices into the tender bumpy area around the nipple — the areola. At last there is a rush of endorphins, a sign of God’s pleasure. The Lord expects more of him. Jesus is asking he step up and prove himself.

He cuts deeper into the pink circle with its proud fleshy monument and steps closer to the mirror. His eyes fix on those gazing back at him from the candlelit glass. He feels like he’s outside his own body. Disembodied. Separated from reality.

The razor slashes back and forth until the pain hits him. Rushes him like a shock of electricity. God is pleased. JJ tilts his head back in proud delirium. His eyes are closed but his fingers and blade find his hanging nipple and slice off the last hinge of flesh.

135

They head north from the airport then after a mile join the fast-flowing river of traffic moving west. Through the BMW’s tinted glass Nic sees signs to places he’s only ever heard about: the ancient port of Antibes, a place dating back five centuries before Christ; Cannes, the home of the international film festival; Saint-Tropez, the jet-set playground of the world’s richest people.

Édouard passes time by adding colour to the towns they’re skirting. ‘Do you know how Saint-Tropez got its name?’

Nic takes an educated guess. ‘Some saint founded the place or took shelter there?’

‘Trés bon. A martyr named Saint Torpes was beheaded in Pisa during the reign of Nero. His body was placed in a rotten boat — along with a rooster and a dog — and it washed up here.’

Nic pulls a face. ‘A rooster and a dog? I’d hoped for something a little more romantic than that.’

‘Saint-Tropez has romance,’ insists Ursula. ‘Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli — much glamour has made its home here. And, of course, Brigitte Bardot.’

Édouard’s face lights up. ‘Ah, Brigitte. Proof that God created Woman.’

Nic watches husband and wife reach across the seats and hold each other’s hands. For a second he thinks of Carolina. It was the kind of thing she’d do when he was driving, then they’d both peek over the seats and look at Max in his tilted-back baby seat and they’d say how beautiful he was and they’d imagine what he was going to grow up and do. ‘How did you guys meet?’ He asks the question more to break his own chain of thought than anything.

‘Us?’ Édouard laughs and whispers something in French.

Nic watches their hands tighten.

‘Okay,’ Édouard says with a smile. ‘My wife consents that I tell you. I saw her breasts and then I fell in love with her.’

‘Sorry?’ Nic’s eyes widen.

‘My father ran a cosmetic clinic in Nice and Ursula was a patient. I saw the photographs of her and I knew I wanted that beautiful woman to be part of my life.’

‘So medicine runs in the family.’

‘Only from my father. He ran the practice in Nice and even though my mother divorced him, he always looked after us and I stayed in touch. He was my inspiration.’

‘But your mother brought you up?’

‘Oui. We were very close. Papa was at work all the time, I barely saw him. She was Italian. Unfortunately, she is dead now, God bless her soul. So when they split she took me back to Rome where she was born and had family. I lived there from seven years old.’

Nic finds himself warming to the scientist. ‘Do you consider yourself more French or Italian?’

Broussard laughs. ‘French, of course, though I have a deep love for Italy. I had wonderful years at La Sapienza University in Rome and I won a place in the training school of the Arma dei Carabinieri, quite an achievement for a French boy — though by then I had dual citizenship. Back in those days speaking French and Italian made you very popular with the girls.’

‘I imagine it still does.’

‘I think so too.’ They both laugh. ‘I mastered in biological sciences and then won a scholarship to Oxford.’

‘Oxford, England?’

‘Oui. Though the English girls were not so impressed with me. Young men studying genome mapping were not nearly as interesting to them as those studying arts.’

Ursula interjects. ‘You know that the English and French are not easy bedfellows?’

‘I thought Europe was one big happy family.’

‘Not at all. The French hate the English — we think they are vulgar. The English hate the French — they think we are arrogant. The Dutch hate the Belgians because they believe they should own their country; the Belgians loathe the Dutch because they are so blunt and make such bad food — and everyone hates the Germans.’

They all laugh now.

Édouard picks up his story. ‘Most of my life was in the scientific investigations wing of the Carabinieri but I would come home and spend time with my father. It was on a visit that I met Ursula and I knew then I should spend the rest of my life with her.’

‘We lived in Italy for a while,’ she explains, ‘but I am French and Nice is always home.’

‘For me too. When my father died he left his house and business to me and we moved back.’

‘So you now do cosmetic surgery?’

He looks aghast. ‘No. I would be disastrous. We employ many good surgeons to do that. I just expanded the clinic to include DNA profiling for French celebrities and VIPS — the ones who are looking to avoid costly paternity cases.’

The car slows as they approach another toll.

‘And you?’ Ursula asks. ‘What made you the man you are?’

‘Death,’ says Nic. ‘Death of my parents. Death of my wife and child. Death shaped me more than anything else in life.’

136

It’s 3.45 a.m. and insomniac Tyler Carter is watching crap on the box, a rerun of the latest Conan show. The guy’s nowhere near as funny as he was.

He’s actually pleased when his cell phone rings. Anything to break the dullness of the dead hours between midnight and sunrise. ‘Carter.’

The call takes less than a minute but by the time he hangs up he knows it’s going to change every second of his life for the foreseeable future.

It’s the call he’s been dreaming about. He scribbles notes on a pad he keeps next to the bed and then rushes for the shower. Ten minutes later he’s dressed, in his car and breaking the speed limit to get to the precinct.

137

It’s mid-morning when Luogotenente Cappelini gets called to Giorgio Fusco’s office. The forty-five-year-old is facing the wall, his hands clasped, his thoughts troubling him.

‘Capitano?’

He turns and looks stern-faced. ‘Sit down.’

She takes a chair on the other side of his desk.

‘The body of Roberto Craxi has just been found.’

‘Where?’ Her voice is flat.

‘In an old church on the east of the city. A couple of kids found it. It is being brought in to patologia.’ He looks away, his eyes catching on the Carabinieri crest hung on the wall behind his desk. ‘I’m told he had an iron railing sticking out of his stomach and his neck had been broken.’ He looks back to her. ‘This man, whatever you think of him, was once one of Italy’s bravest and most trusted soldiers.’

She flinches. ‘Si, Capitano, I understand. What of his wife?’

‘No news.’ Fusco starts pacing. ‘Tell Fabio Goria about Craxi and see if that silent mouth of his can now find words for us.’

She nods.

‘The officer at the church says an old tomb had been opened and the remains removed. Craxi’s clothing was covered in dirt and mould that matches debris from inside the tomb. Someone kept him in there. Held him in that place, then let him out to kill him.’

She says nothing.

‘Luogotenente, is there something about this case that I don’t know? Something you should be telling me?’

‘No, Capitano.’

He’s not sure he believes her. ‘You asked for resources some time ago, because you thought Craxi was involved in an international fraud — selling secret information, perhaps about illegal DNA samples taken from the Shroud of Turin — but now we have a murder in America and three murders here in Italy.’ He moves around the desk so he is close to her. ‘Carlotta, I respect that you want to protect the good name of the Arma — that is why I sanctioned your case — but I will not respect you holding back information that could prevent people from being murdered.’

She shrugs innocently. ‘Capitano, I know nothing more than I have told you. There may be much more behind Craxi’s activities than I have discovered, but so far my inquiries have not revealed anything beyond his links to Mario Sacconi.’

He stares at her. Cappelini is a flyer. One of the few female lieutenants in the Carabinieri and tipped for great things. He has to give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘Any news of the American detective?’

She shakes her head. ‘Not yet. He will surface.’

‘The Commandante spoke to his superior officer about the interference in the murder scene — do you know what he said?’

She stays silent.

‘He said Karakandez would have had good reason. Said he was an excellent detective — one of his best.’ Fusco tilts his head inquisitively. ‘So why would he do that, Carlotta? Why would one of Los Angeles’s most excellent detectives take evidence from a crime scene in Turin? Could it be because he didn’t trust the local officer he was working with?’

‘I hope not, sir.’

‘Me also. Me also.’ He waves her out of the office. ‘Go back to work and don’t end the day without bringing me good news.’

138

The monk has the luxurious black limousine in sight. He’s five cars back. The optimal distance for surveillance. He’s able to see any deviation from the main freeway in plenty of time but not easily be seen.

Ephrem has been behind the big car ever since it slipped out of the Sheraton Hotel valet line two hours ago. Édouard Broussard is the perfect driver to follow. He keeps an even speed — ninety — with the odd burst over a hundred when he needs to overtake.

The monk imagines how they’re all sitting. Madame Broussard will be in the passenger seat, the American in the rear — jumpy and edgy like all cops are. And armed most probably. A small pistol. A gift from the Italian PI. Americans like guns. No doubt he will know how to use it.

Thoughts of the weapon make him decide against ambushing them on the open road. He’s sure he could kill the cop — easily — but the scientist and his wife might make a run for it and out in public that could end up messy.

No, he’ll be patient. They’ll stop. They’ll rest. They’ll make mistakes. People like them always do.

139

‘Where is he?’ The wolf-like glare in Tyler Carter’s eyes conveys his anxiety.

The desk sergeant looks up and sees a detective who seems to have forgotten his manners. ‘Good morning to you too, Officer. And how are you? It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.’

‘Don’t mess with me, Jim, you know how much I want this guy.’

‘He’s in a single, down in lock-up. I’ll take you through.’ Jimmy Berg lifts the gate separating his desk from the thoroughfare where cops book in prisoners. ‘Doctor Jenkins is with him right now.’

‘Jim, I said no one was to go near him.’

‘I know you did, but my dear hot-shot friend, it’s my pension on the line if the guy dies in here, and believe me, this fruitcake needed to be looked over by the doc.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ll see for yourself.’ They walk the line of cells until they reach the one Berg wants. He opens the metal door and stands back. A broad smile breaks across his face as Carter pushes past him.

Carl Jenkins, the duty police surgeon, is bent over a man lying flat out on a low bunk.

‘I’m Detective Carter, the principal investigating officer.’

‘I’m sure you are.’ The middle-aged medic holds up a suture needle. ‘But unless you also have a degree in medicine or your hobby is needlecraft, step outside for a while and let me finish my job.’

Carter gets his first clear look at the patient. ‘Holy shit, what happened to him?’

Berg shakes his head. ‘Outside, Detective.’

Carter is rooted to the spot. The guy on the bed is covered in wounds. His chest is a sticky mass of clotted blood. The cuts form crucifixes and they’re all over his body, his head, his face, eyelids and cheeks — even down the bridge of his nose. Carter can’t believe what he sees. The crazy son of a bitch has cut off his own nipples and ear lobes.

140

Five hours after leaving Nice, Édouard Broussard flicks down the indicator and guides the BMW off the A7. His wife is sleeping so he speaks quietly to Nic. ‘This is Malataverne. We’ll stop for a quick break in Montelimar.’

‘How far have we come?’

‘About three hundred and fifty kilometres.’

‘What’s that — halfway?’

‘A little further, but it is taking longer than I hoped. The road works around Aix-en-Provence delayed us badly.’

Ursula stirs. Her face is stuck to the leather seat where she cosied down. ‘Are we there?’

‘No, my love. We are going into Montelimar. We’ll take a break for lunch.’

‘Oh good.’

Nic nearly protests. He’d rather they just used a restroom in a service station and got going again.

‘I know a perfect little restaurant there.’ Édouard’s hand comes off the wheel and finds his wife’s. ‘By the Palais des Bonbons et du Nougat. For ten years it has held a Michelin star.’

Nic lodges his objection. ‘We really don’t have time to linger. We need to get to Geneva and then to the airport.’

‘Nonsense,’ says Édouard, dismissively. ‘We have to eat.’

‘And drink,’ adds Ursula, now fully awake. ‘Sunday lunch is not lunch without a glass of wine or two.’

141

Carter calls Mitzi and tells her to come straight in, then heads down to the bookings desk where Jimmy Berg’s waiting to show him surveillance footage from the main reception area.

‘Disk just came down from the video unit,’ says the sergeant. ‘I’ve cued it at the point your guy comes up the front steps.’

‘Okay. Let it play.’

Berg sets it going and points a finger to the screen and a black officer manning the front desk. ‘Look at Howie out for the count, sleeping his ass off.’ He snorts out a laugh. ‘Damn near soils his pants when your fruitcake leans on the buzzer.’

Carter watches the big old officer jerk awake. It’s just like Jimmy said and it makes him smile for a second. The shot is wide-angled and covers the desk right of frame and the public door on the left. There’s an electronic clunk and the door opens. A man walks in. He’s barefoot and wearing what looks like a cream cape and underpants. A ridiculous sight. A kind of kick-ass superhero. Carter suddenly realises what he’s got on. It’s not a cape, it’s a sheet. A bed sheet, like the ones the victims were covered with. He turns to the custody sergeant.

Berg answers the question before it’s even asked. ‘Already bagged and tagged with his other stuff.’

‘We got a name for this fool?’

He nods to the footage and smiles. ‘He’s just about to tell you.’

Carter’s attention swings back to the monitor. The man has his arms spread wide as he approaches an astonished Howie. ‘I am God’s helper, I am Deliverance, the carrier of souls.’

Deliverance.

The detective’s spirits sink. The guy is a shrink’s wet dream. A good lawyer is going to dust off a big medico-legal casebook lying on a shelf in his rich private practice law firm and whip up an insanity plea. He just knows it.

‘I am a vessel of the Lord, a messenger of the Almighty. God has sent me.’

Howie eases his sleepy ass up and out of the chair. ‘Sure he has, brother, but right now the good Lord wants you to go straight home and sleep off whatever’s got you buzzed.’ Howie spots the cuts as the guy closes on the desk. ‘Man, what you done to yourself?’

‘My work is over. His work is done. Dominus vobiscum.’

‘Shit, are you okay?’ Howie presses a button under the desk to summon back-up.

‘I praise the souls I have delivered.’ The man falls to his knees. ‘The holy souls of Kathleen Higgins, Stephanie Hayes, Lisa Griffin, Lucy Bryant, Shelly Hughes, Louise Perry, Krissy Patterson, Kylie Gray, Sally-Ann Ward, Maria Gonzales, Kim Bass and—’

Carter leans closer to the screen. He missed the last few words. Another name. ‘Rewind Jimmy, does he say something there.’

‘Don’t think so.’ The sergeant spools back.

They watch the footage again. Carter still can’t hear anything. It’s like the guy stops himself naming someone.

Why?

Right now it doesn’t matter. The crazeball in a cape just listed all eleven victims in the serial killer case Carter’s spent years working. Including the newest kill — Kim Bass.

142

Ephrem follows them off the A7.

He wonders for a moment if there’s an airport nearby, whether they’ve booked a private plane. He’d be left stranded. His fears are abated as he watches the BMW cruise down the Route de Marseille and pick up signs marked Montelimar-Centre.

Within fifteen minutes the open countryside of southeastern France has gone and they’re enfolded in the concrete arms of a big city. The Broussards’ limousine cruises gracefully to a roundabout and takes the first exit onto Rue Saint-Gaucher. It’s a tight narrow street with tourist shops and shuttered homes leaning over a line of asphalt barely wide enough for cars to pass.

Ephrem is closer than he would like to be — just three cars away. Traffic stops while a courier pushes a tall sack trolley loaded high with bottled water from one pavement to the other. Once he’s gone the BMW veers right and Ephrem follows into Place du Marche. It’s a modern, paved square with cafés and shops set around a slightly recessed and pedestrianised area. There’s no place to park.

To his surprise the limo pulls up outside a red-canopied restaurant and blocks the road. Édouard Broussard steps from the driver’s seat and opens the door for his wife. She holds his hand as he helps her out. He closes the door, then they both enter the restaurant, leaving the car there. The two drivers in front of the monk palm their horns in objection.

The restaurant door reopens and a black-suited waiter hurries to the BMW and slides into the driver’s seat. The rear door opens almost instantly and a tall, dark-haired man in black leather jacket and jeans steps out.

Karakandez.

The cop’s eyes sweep the street as he stretches off several hundred miles of rear seat travelling. Ephrem wants to study him, wants to take in his size, his weight, how he walks, how he holds himself — wants to see a visible weakness in his adversary. But he knows better than to be caught staring. He looks down at the radio and plays with the tuner dial. Through his open driver’s window he can hear the motorists shouting their disbelief that the rich man and his wife just left their car at the restaurant door for a waiter to park. Most Lebanese have good French and the warrior monk is no exception. He hears the sound of engines accelerating and looks up.

Karakandez has gone. A fleeting glimpse, that’s all he got of the man he suspects he’ll have to kill.

143

Tyler Carter is pacing impatiently when at last the cell door opens and Doctor Jenkins emerges with a worried look on his face. ‘He’s all yours but you’ll need to tread carefully.’

‘Is he going to need surgery?’

‘No. It’s not the physical wounds I’m worried about — they stitched up fine. It’s his mental condition.’

Carter nods. ‘Did he give you any details about himself — his name and address?’

‘I asked but he didn’t make sense. Didn’t seem to be listening to me. He just kept praying, asking God for forgiveness.’ Jenkins tries to remember some of the words. ‘“Oh my God, I am sorry for having offended you” — something like that.’

‘It’s the Catholic Act of Contrition.’

‘You’re a Catholic?’

‘Lapsed. I learned it at school.’

The doctor starts to leave.

‘You want to sit in on the interview? I’ve no trouble with that. At the moment he’s here of his own volition and can walk any time he likes.’

Jenkins shakes his head. ‘You do your stuff, I’ll do mine. I’m going to wash up and grab some coffee. I’ll be back in half an hour or so to look in on him.’

‘Okay.’

‘Oh, and given the mess he’s made of himself, you best treat him as at-risk.’ The medic nods towards the bookings desk. ‘I already told the sergeant back there, this is a suicide waiting to happen.’

‘Understood.’

Carter stands for a moment and looks in through the cell eyepiece. The guy’s just as he’d imagined the Creeper would be. Slight. Insignificant. Cowardly-looking. Anyone who would kill someone in their sleep was bound to lack strength — both physically and mentally.

The door behind him bangs open and he turns around. Mitzi Fallon walks in, hair looking like badly spun cotton candy. No make-up. Pupils as small and dark as rabbit droppings.

‘Don’t say anything. No smart cracks. I know I look like Joan Rivers on a bad day. I’m here, that should be enough for you.’

‘It is. Thanks.’

She leans forward, looks through the peephole, then turns to Carter. ‘This scrap of nothing did all that killing?’

‘Seems that way. He turned up in reception, recited all the victims in chronological order, including Kim Bass.’

‘Bastard. He got a name?’

‘Deliverance.’

‘Oh shit. A fruitcake. You got me out of bed and publicly humiliated me for someone who’s been banging his head on an idiot-stick?’

‘I haven’t yet met a serial killer I’d call sane.’

‘Sure, but not many call themselves Deliverance and turn themselves in during the middle of the night.’

Carter grows quiet. Mitzi sees a strange look on his face, like he’s just remembered something important he should have done. Then she realises the enormity of the moment. Carter is stepping off a ledge. One he’s been standing on for two years. He makes the right step and the guy on the other side of the metal door goes to death row and his career resumes an unstoppable upward trajectory. He makes the wrong step and the nutjob known as Deliverance gets plead down to a psych case while Tyler Carter’s chance of glory is unceremonially flushed down the pan.

‘You want to grab some coffee? Maybe an early breakfast?’

Mitzi looks startled. ‘Say what?’

Carter smiles. ‘I just decided I’m not ready to interview him.’ He waves a hand at the cell. ‘He’s shown himself now. What’s he going to do, ask to go home and pretend this never happened? At least if he does, we’ll get to know where Deliverance lives. No, before we go in there and start laying down charges, I want to know who he is, what he’s made of and what made him like he is. Now shall we get that coffee?’

144

Édouard and the stout old restaurant owner clearly go back some.

After the hugging, smiling and handshaking is over, the proprietor settles his guests at a table and has the maitre d’ bring over the menus. But the feeling in Nic’s gut is one more of worry than hunger. Stopping for lunch is insane. He can’t believe that he agreed to it. At least the scientist and his wife look relaxed. Maybe an hour spent eating is better than a cardiac arrest later today.

‘I told Jean-Paul that we are in a hurry,’ says Édouard. ‘He has promised us two of his finest dishes in less than the hour.’

The owner is as good as his word. Saumon d’Ecosse Tériyaki is the best fish the cop has ever tasted. The Ravioles de Roman et son émulsion de Foie-Gras Maison would convert even the most hardened vegetarian.

Édouard Broussard leaves a generous tip and after more embraces they step into a glint of sunshine. The owner hands Édouard the keys and tells him his car is parked five metres away, just around the corner in Rue Bouverie. He walks them to the corner and more embraces follow.

Nic’s eyes don’t leave the street and his hand doesn’t stray more than an inch from Goria’s Beretta.

‘Would you mind?’ The Frenchman offers Nic the keys. ‘Could you drive for an hour?’ He pats his stomach. ‘I have had maybe a little too much food and wine.’

Nic’s cop instincts say no. One hand on the wheel and the other on a gun is no way to fight a battle. Then again it might be safer than being driven by a drunk. ‘Sure, but you’ll need to direct me.’

‘There is a navigation system in the dash. It is set for our destination.’

Nic takes the keys and the Broussards slip in the back looking more than pleased to be together and chauffeured. The car is an automatic and after gliding the seat back, Nic gets comfortable behind the wheel. A rear-view parking camera and over-sensitive front and back sensors usher him out from between two other parked cars. The satnav guides him out through a maze of tight streets onto the Route de Valence, where the computer diligently pings out a warning that speed cameras are coming up in three kilometres.

The big car’s V12 six-litre engine is begging to be opened up but he keeps faithfully to the limit. Édouard has to help out with loose change as they join the A7 and hit a quick succession of tolls, then the Frenchman sits back and takes his wife’s hand on his lap. Through the rear-view mirror Nic sees them dozing. No harm in that, they’ve still got two hours and around two hundred kilometres to go. Sleep well, sleep long — he just wishes he could do the same

The miles flash past and after more than an hour it’s clear the Broussards look like they’re going to snooze most of the way.

The traffic is light and Nic gets round to enjoying the big limousine. Unless he someday gets a job as a driver this is probably the last time he’ll be in charge of such an expensive car.

As the first signs for Switzerland appear he starts to feel seriously tired. A tweak of the climate control directs a stream of cool air into his face and it seems to do the trick. The passing scenery is subtly altering behind the thin leafless trees that line the highways. Tantalising glimpses of forests, lakes and mountains give a feeling more of the cool ruggedness of Switzerland than the lush, green countryside of France.

Red tail lights suddenly blink on ahead. The traffic bunches for some reason. Probably Sunday drivers not used to the open road. Nic eases his foot off the accelerator and touches the brake. It goes soft. Nothing happens. He pumps it hard. There’s a hiss of air then it flattens to the floor. The car isn’t slowing. The brakes aren’t working.

145

Mitzi watches the recording of Deliverance while she sits at her desk and drinks canteen coffee. ‘He could just be a hoaxer. You thought about that?’

‘He’s not.’

‘Wait a minute. Forget that he’s weird and looks like a blind guy who tried to shave with a switchblade. All he’s done is reel off the names of the Creeper’s victims. Names that have all been printed.’

‘Not Bass. That’s not in the papers yet.’

‘It’s on the local radio, though. I heard it this morning.’

‘Trust me, he’s our guy.’

‘Why? Because he’s a religious nut? Let’s do a sweep of LA churches and temples — I bet I can raise you a dozen by lunch.’

‘Okay, listen — we have DNA from the Creeper case. Next step is we take swabs from Deliverance and see if they match. No match and he walks.’

‘Logical.’ Mitzi picks up the phone.

Carter stops her. ‘Remember, this fruitcake came wrapped in a sheet. A bed sheet. As in the kind he covered his corpses with. We’ll get that tested as well and I know we’re going to find more than our boy’s traces all over it. You make the Lab and Records calls. I’ll get us some more manpower — and more coffee?’

‘Just the manpower,’ Mitzi hits a pre-dial. ‘My tooth enamel won’t survive a refill.’

Carter heads back to his office and pounds the phone. He manages to persuade a secretary, an admin guy and two old hands — Libowicz and Amis — to give up their Sunday lie-ins. He’ll use the detectives to carry out any secondary actions that he and Fallon produce.

Mitzi finally gets through to Hix, the one forensic scientist she knows will drop whatever he’s doing to help her. ‘Tom, we might have a break on the Creeper case. We got a guy in central holding came in wrapped in a cloth that needs a rush job. We also need his DNA and a quick blood match.’

‘Elimination screen?’

‘Yep, though Carter’s sure he has his man.’

Tom Hix has seen a dozen detectives assert they have their man only to be reduced to drink at the end of the day. ‘I’ll come right in.’

‘Thanks.’ She remembers Nic’s call last night. ‘Oh, if you check your in-tray you might find a parcel from Nic Karakandez in Italy.’

‘Italy?’

‘The Tamara Jacobs case. I sent him there to chase some leads. He’s rushed samples to you from a crime scene in Turin, wants to know if there’s a match to anything from the writer’s house.’

‘Sounds like I have a busy day. Actually, I was going to call you about the Jacobs case. We’ve completed the analysis on the cat and the carpets. You remember we had them both vacuumed?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, we got a human DNA profile from the cat’s paw — but that’s not the good news.’ He sounds animated. ‘On the carpet pile we found particles of Glyptobothrus lebanicus and Pogonocherus ehdenensis.’

His enthusiasm is lost on her. ‘Tom, it’s early on a Sunday and I don’t speak alien. What did you just say?’

He lets out a sigh of disappointment. If only she understood the rarity of his discovery. ‘The Glypto is a grasshopper and the Pogo is a longhorned beetle. What they have in common is they don’t come from America. The species is endemic to Mount Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.’

‘Lebanon?’

‘As in the Middle East. The vacuuming also produced traces of Lithosols — rocky, skeletal soils that you would certainly find on steep mountain landscapes.’

‘I’m not sure where that takes us. I guess you’re saying the killer must have been there recently or comes from there?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Okay. Will you send the genetic fingerprints over when you come in?’

‘Sure. I’m on my way now.’

Mitzi puts down the phone and sees a red light flashing on the base. Missed calls. Her heart jumps a beat. Maybe her girls. She picks up again and triggers the answerphone. The automated voice says the message was left at five o’clock yesterday. She was dealing with Jenny Harrison at the time. She hopes Amber and Jade are all right, crosses her fingers that they haven’t had an accident out on the slopes.

‘Hi Lieutenant Fallon, it’s Sarah Kenny from Anteronus Films. You said to call if I found anything new of Tamara’s. Well, I don’t know if this is important but I might have something. You’ve got my numbers, ring any time. Have a good day.’

It’s only 8 a.m. but Mitzi takes her at her word and rings.

She gets a pre-recorded message. ‘This is Sarah — I can’t take your call, leave your message and if I’m not out filming with Scorsese or the Coen brothers I’ll get back to you. Ciao, darlings.’

‘Sarah, it’s Mitzi Fallon. You left a message on my work phone. It’s Sunday morning and if—’

‘Hello.’ The real Sarah answers sleepily.

‘Oh, hi. I just got your message.’

‘Sorry, I was dozing.’ It takes her a beat or two to sit up and get herself together.

‘No problem.’

‘I got a bill at work for a cloud.’

Mitzi’s not sure she heard her right. ‘A what?’

‘A cloud. I didn’t know Tamara had one but it seems she did. A storage cloud. It’s a digital database — Apple, Google, Amazon all have them. You upload content — documents, videos, pictures, music, whatever you like. The cloud keeps it safe, so if you have your laptop stolen or your home burglarised, you can always download your content again.’

‘Wow. They can really do that?’

‘Yeah. You want me to mail you the details of her account?’

‘That would be good.’

‘Okay.’ Sarah looks over her slim, suntanned shoulder at the handsome, naked actor stirring in his sleep. ‘I can’t do it right now — I’m going to have my hands full — but it’ll be with you in about an hour.’

146

Nic’s brain is working at warp speed as he frantically pumps the brake pedal. The V12 is doing seventy and he’s only thirty feet from the car in front.

He tugs the automatic’s stick down a gear and swerves into the outside lane. It makes little difference. He pulls the eight-speed transmission down another gear and zigzags violently to try to build tyre friction on the blacktop. The sudden jerking wakes Édouard and his wife. They look shocked and frightened.

Up ahead, the traffic is pulling to a sharp stop. The BMW’s down to fifty but Nic’s running out of road. He daren’t turn off the engine, he’ll lose all hydraulic power to the steering. He swerves across the lanes. Dust kicks up as he breaks out onto a thin strip of hard shoulder. There’s a sickening screech like fingernails over a chalkboard as the BMW clips the side of someone’s car.

Nic tugs down another gear. He’s still doing forty and isn’t losing speed fast enough. To make matters worse, the carriageway is sloping and curving downhill.

Édouard starts to panic. ‘Slow down! Slow down!’

‘I’m trying.’ He tries to sound calm. ‘The brakes have gone.’

There’s a police traffic van up ahead, crawling along the dusty shoulder, blocking the only safe route he has. He hammers the horn and tugs down another gear. It won’t be enough. He knows it won’t. The giant police slug is barely moving. No way is he going to miss it.

He pulls the handbrake. The Broussards lurch forward. Rubber burns. The limousine twitches. Nic braces himself. Two policemen spill from opposite sides of their big Renault. Metal hits metal. There’s a loud bang. Then another. And another.

Nic feels a punch in his shoulder. Then his face. Breath whooshes out of his lungs as the airbags pop. He loses his white-knuckled grip on the wheel. Loses all feeling in his hands. Blackness floods his brain. He can taste blood. The pain, fear and adrenalin slip away as he loses consciousness.

147

Carter gathers his hurriedly assembled team in the Creeper Incident Room to brief them. He’s lessened the pain of working Sunday morning by getting secretary Alice Hooper to pick up coffees and muffins on her way in.

As the lieutenant goes through the latest news, it becomes apparent to Mitzi that Kris Libowicz and Dan Amis are case vets. They’re peas in a pod. Both early forties with that softened look that comes from too much fast food on too many stakeouts. The big differences between the two are that Libowicz has grey-black, razored-short hair, while Amis has a mass of jet-black curly springs, courtesy of his mother’s African-American parentage. Both come with good reps — stand-up cops who have seen it all, done it all.

Tom Hix arrives and smiles at Mitzi — a little too much for her liking. Carter saves her further embarrassment by showing him the bed sheet that needs to be swabbed for DNA. Once the scientist goes about his business, the cops settle down to view the footage that ruined all their weekends.

‘The sheet thing,’ Libowicz points at the freeze frame on the screen, ‘Why’s he wearing that? Why’d the fool bring that thing in with him?’

‘Emotional attachment,’ answers Amis. ‘He’s like Linus.’

‘Linus?’

‘Charlie Brown. You know, the dopey kid with the blanket.’

Carter takes a spare coffee from the centre of the table. ‘He chose the sheet rather than pick up a coat. There has to be a reason for that. You jokers might not remember this but Linus van Pelt was both weak and smart. Charles Schultz cast him as the strip’s philosopher and theologian — he even went around quoting gospels.’

Libowicz breaks a bran muffin in half. ‘Guess “Thou shalt not kill” wasn’t one of his regular sayings.’

Mitzi can’t take her eyes off the monitor. ‘What’s Deliverance holding in his left hand?’ She points at the screen. ‘Right there, look, he’s got something hooked around his thumb and dangling.’

They all lean closer to the monitor.

Carter sees it now. ‘Keys. Damn it. Car keys. Why didn’t we see them before?’ He knows the answer. They’re all dog-tired and you miss things like that when you’re running on empty. ‘Mitzi, contact the desk sergeant, he’ll still have them. Send a uniform to try the vehicles in the street. There can’t be too many around on a Sunday morning.’

She grabs the remains of her coffee and leaves them to it. On the way down to the front desk she turns her cell phone off mute and replays a message she missed during the briefing.

‘Mom, this is Jade. I’m sorry we rowed. I love you. See you soon.’

‘Love you too,’ shouts Amber from somewhere noisy. ‘We’re having a good time. Love you.’

That’s all there is. But it’s all there needs to be. Mitzi stops on the stairs and feels a rush of emotion. Thank God she’s in the middle of a murder case — two murder cases — otherwise she might just have a soppy mom moment and cry her eyes out.

148

Through the blackness Nic feels something covering his mouth. Choking him.

He opens his eyes in panic. A paramedic is bent over him, pressing an oxygen mask to his face. The young man confers with a colleague in what sounds like an odd French accent. He listens, then turns back to Nic and speaks English. ‘You are all right. Don’t move, you’ll be fine.’

The detective realises he’s no longer in the car. He’s outside. Lying down on damp, winter-greyed grass at the side of the road. In his peripheral vision he sees flashing lights and hears voices — but not traffic noise. Either the crash has blocked the freeway or the emergency services have shut it down. He tries to move but it feels like an anvil’s on his chest.

‘Stay still.’ The paramedic has one hand on the mask and another on Nic’s wrist.

He forces himself to sit up, and palms the guy away. Pain roars through his chest. It feels like he’s cracked a rib. He pulls off the mask. ‘The old couple — are they okay?’

The medic tries to ease him back down. ‘They are being checked, as you should be. Now please, stay still.’

Nic tries to get to his feet.

‘Whoa. Sit down. I’m not finished.’

‘Thanks, but you are.’ Nic tries again. This time he makes it. He staggers over to the Broussards, who are sat on the back steps of an ambulance.

Édouard forces a smile. ‘I never let you drive again, mon amis.’

‘I may never want to. The brakes completely failed. I put my foot down and there was nothing there.’

Ursula has her hand to her shoulder, nursing a bruise where the seatbelt snapped tight on impact. ‘We are lucky to be alive,’ she says.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Nic, inexplicably feeling compelled to say so because he was at the wheel at the time. ‘I hope you’re not badly hurt.’

‘We are fine,’ says Édouard. ‘Bumps and bruises, that is all. It’s good that others stopped to help and got the ambulance people here so quickly.’

‘I think that other driver called them,’ adds Ursula, gingerly rotating her arm.

‘What driver?’

‘He helped us out of the car,’ she explains. ‘Said we should move because it could catch fire.’

‘He even got our luggage out,’ Édouard nods to the banking where their small Louis Vuitton cases are standing.

Nic sees his bag isn’t among them. The one with the DNA profile and documents the scientist gave him is missing.

149

There’s a point in every investigation where all you can do is wait. Wait for tests. Wait for results. Wait for a break.

But waiting is something Tyler Carter is not good at. He drums his fingers on his desk and once more goes through all the actions in his head. Mitzi has uniforms out on the street trying to find which car fits the keys recovered from the suspect. Tom Hix has taken a swab from Deliverance and is running rush blood and DNA tests on both him and the sheet he brought in. Libowicz is chasing up fingerprints, though no one is expecting AFIS to come back with a match. Amis is running mugshots lifted from the surveillance footage through LAPD facial recognition software to see if Deliverance is flagged as a known offender. Uniforms have been sent to pick up Kim Bass’s friend Jenny Harrison so she can try to ID the guy and Doc Jenkins has just completed his second review and is about to submit an official report on the subject’s condition.

Mitzi’s every bit as impatient as Carter. It’s already gone midday and she feels they’re still stuck in first gear. If she were calling the shots, they’d be in there giving the fruitcake hell. She forces herself to sit at her desk and fire up the computer.

There are a dozen new mails in her inbox, including the information that Sarah Kenny promised to send.

A cloud? Who would have thought such a thing existed?

She pastes a link in her browser and then enters the username and password Kenny’s given her. There isn’t much to look at — a dashboard of icons for Music, Videos, Photographs and Documents. She clicks the last one and it produces a spread of files: PDF, Excel, Word, Keynote, Pages, PowerPoint, Numbers, Contacts and something called Scriptmaster. She clicks on it and a new span of documents fans out on the desktop: ‘The Age of the Rothschilds’, ‘The Duke and the Showgirl’, and ‘The Shroud (Final Draft)’.

Mitzi wonders if it really is the final draft. Any other day, she’d be excited as hell to be finding out. She opens it.

She flicks through the first pages. It all seems similar to what she’s already read. Boringly so. This really isn’t her kind of movie. She pulls up a wordsearch function and tries the new location that Hix added to the puzzle — LEBANON. A fresh page comes up. One she’s not seen before.

150

Two miles from the crash site, Ephrem pulls over and puts on his rental’s hazard lights. He descends the steep banking and in a thicket at the bottom busts open Nic’s cheap case. On top of the crushed clothes he sees what he wants.

What he crossed continents for.

What he killed for.

He holds the glossy, black-and-white DNA print in his hand and marvels at it. Ten rows of dark and light columns, dozens of blocks of magic stacked on each other, the ultimate historic tracer, a unique treasure.

He takes out his phone and dials a number long ago memorised and seldom called. The tone blips out into cyberspace. It crosses countries and comes to rest in the handset of Nabih Hayek. The Lebanese cleric answers on the second ring.

‘It is Ephrem. I have the profile, the original transparency and the data file it came from.’

Hayek heaves a sigh of relief. ‘You are sure?’

‘I am. I have just taken them from the scientist who conducted the tests and the American who was trying to protect him.’

Hayek doesn’t ask if they are still alive. He wants to avoid explicit knowledge, wants to be able to talk to Andreas Pathykos truthfully and in return have him speak openly to the Pontiff. ‘You have done well, my brother.

‘You wish me to destroy them?’

Hayek hesitates. Destroying something so historically important is still hard to sanction. ‘Yes.’ He swallows hard.

‘Very well.’

The cleric thinks a moment, then adds pointedly, ‘We would all sleep better knowing this never happened — knowing such a thing could never be repeated, and could never be spoken of.’

‘I understand, Father.’

And Ephrem does. He fully understands what is expected of him. His mission is not yet complete.

151

Mitzi scans another page of the script. Searches every scene, every sentence of dialogue for clues that might help her solve the Tamara Jacobs murder.

The movie’s action has moved to Damascus, the ancient city sited in the shadows of the Eastern Lebanon mountain range. The year is 1187, soon after Salahuddin recaptured the city of Jerusalem.

152

Neither of the Broussards can give a good description of the man who took Nic’s suitcase. Thin not fat. Olive-skinned — no beard. Short hair — very short. That’s the best the detective can get out of them. It could match millions of males in France and tens of millions across the Med region.

The scientist looks crestfallen. ‘If he has taken your case, then both my work and your time have been wasted.’

‘No, not completely. Erica Craxi gave me a Saint Christopher — a locket on a chain. Inside it, behind a picture of the saint, were fragments of the Shroud — I guess Craxi wanted back-up in the event something went wrong. I have sent them to Los Angeles for our lab to examine.’

Édouard sees a problem. ‘But still — you have nothing to compare them with. It is impossible for me to remember all the sequencing.’

Nic produces his BlackBerry. ‘This isn’t the best camera in the world, but I think its imaging is good enough for you to recognise the Shroud’s DNA profile.’ He opens up the media files and plays a saved video. ‘I made this footage of your profile when I was in my room at the Sheraton. I’ve already mailed it as a digital file to my own AOL account.’

The scientist squints at the tiny screen. ‘Yes, I can confirm that it is the profile I produced.’

‘Good.’ Nic shuts down the file. ‘It’s not as powerful as having the original prints but if you come back with me, you’ll be able to examine the LAPD tests and compare the results with those you produced.’

Édouard thinks it through. ‘It is possible. Yes, I am willing to do this.’

Nic thumbs through the BlackBerry’s contacts. ‘I’ll call the lab in LA and set the wheels in motion.’

153

Mitzi’s desk phone rings. Reluctantly, she looks away from the script and hits the hands-free button.

‘Fallon.’

‘Detective, it’s Officer Fisher — Andy Fisher. I found your suspect’s car around the corner. There was a licence inside and he matches the photo ID. We have a name and address for your guy. You want me to give it you over the phone?’

‘No. Great job, Andy. I’m coming straight down.’

154

Nic’s badge is enough to swing a ride in a Swiss police car to the airport and another to take Ursula safely to the home of her diplomat friend in Geneva.

After collecting tickets from the Lufthansa desk, the detective goes straight to the restroom. He locks himself in a cubicle, lifts the ceramic toilet lid and reluctantly drops the emptied Beretta into the tank. As much as he’d like to hang on to the weapon there’s no way he can get it through the scanners. He adjusts the floating ball, checks the toilet still flushes, then heads out to the concourse.

He and Edouard barely have time to speak as they rush through check-in and then get processed in the security, customs and passport areas. They reach the departure gate and join the hundreds of passengers on the thirteen-hour flight to LA, via a connection at JFK in New York. Eventually, the 747 lumbers down the runway and levers itself into the evening sky. Once the flight has levelled out and the seatbelt signs go off, Nic will find the chief steward and get a copy of the passenger list. He wants to walk the plane and check names against faces. Only then will he feel safe and be able to think about going home and the new life awaiting him. He’s going to sail north first, up to San Francisco, then past Fort Bragg and skirt along the forest edges of Crescent City, Gold Beach and Florence. Maybe he’ll scoot across to Neah Bay and do Victoria, Richmond and Vancouver. He’ll pick up work along the way. Lose himself. Reinvent himself. Who knows?

Broussard touches his arm and brings him back to the present. ‘Do you think you will ever catch the man who murdered your writer and tried to kill us?’

Normally, Nic would be upbeat and positive. He’d toe the standard detective line and say in the end the bad guys always fall. But those days are almost all behind him. ‘Probably not. This guy kills in both the US and Europe — he’s a professional assassin. Pros vanish in the way that street gangsters don’t. You cross borders, you throw police off your trail — you cross continents, the trail itself gets lost.’

‘But you have clues, forensic evidence, days and dates of movement. These things all help, no?’

‘They do, but they mean a whole lot more if you have a really good description of the guy — and we don’t. He’s a ghost.’

155

Mitzi collects the driver’s licence from Andy the traffic cop and heads back upstairs knowing they’ve got a break.

There’s a hot crackle of electricity jumping in her head, lighting up all kinds of possibilities, making connections. She also knows this is the time to keep cool and go slow. You have to treasure a breakthrough, position it right and build on it carefully. If you don’t, it turns to sand in your hand.

‘We got something,’ she says, throwing open the door to Tyler Carter’s office and slapping the ID on his desk. ‘Deliverance is John James and unless I’m mistaken he’s Jenny Harrison’s boss — Kim Bass’s former employer.’

Carter’s eyes drift from his spread of case papers to the licence. ‘John James. The name of a nobody.’

‘I know, but I got bells going off on this guy.’ She flips open her notebook. ‘When I interviewed Jenny, she mentioned the factory being run by a supervisor called James. She said he even rang a local precinct to find out if Kim was in trouble and needed bail.’ She flips the book closed. ‘What do you think about that?’

Carter muses on it. ‘Could be he was trying to divert Harrison from calling in the local cops — then again, he might just have genuinely been helping out.’

‘Sure he was.’

‘Get someone to pull his home and cell numbers and see if any of the stations received a call.’

She nods.

‘Harrison’s on her way in, isn’t she?’

‘We couldn’t raise her. I’ve got uniforms trawling the neighbourhood, won’t be long before they find her.’

‘Okay. Let me know when you’ve spoken to her and had her ID James.’

‘Will do.’

‘Meantime, I’m gonna send Libowicz to check out his home.’

‘You got a warrant?’

Carter gives her a don’t ask look.

She heads for the door. ‘I need an hour of personal time — I’ll be back ASAP to interview Harrison.’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘I’m on my cell if you need me.’

156

Matthias Svenson rushes down the stairs of his rented mansion. Some idiot’s been pressing the bell for the past five minutes and he’s going to tear their head off. He fastens the belt of the short white towelling robe that does little to hide his tanned body and yanks open the door.

‘Detective Fallon?’ The Swede looks startled.

Mitzi slaps the final draft of The Shroud in the middle of the director’s broad chest. ‘I’m coming in. We need to talk about this.’

‘I’m not sure I—’

‘Believe me, you’re sure.’ Mitzi pushes her way into a cool reception area of dazzling white and grey veined marble. Sunlight pours into an airy reception room to her right and she wanders in and looks around. ‘Nice place. Much snazzier than the cell I’ve got on hold for you.’

‘What’s this about, Lieutenant? I’ve told you everything I know.’

‘Just so you know, I don’t have the time or patience for you to lie to me.’ She sits on a plush white sofa and slaps her hands on the rich cushions. ‘I should get one of these. Wouldn’t cost more than my year’s pay, I guess.’

Svenson picks a phone off a glass table. ‘I’m calling my lawyer.’

‘Feel free. Only, have him meet us downtown. Tell him you’ve been arrested in connection with perverting the course of justice in a homicide.’

The director slots the phone back into its base station and takes the seat opposite her.

‘Good decision. That script I gave you, it shows you’ve been holding out on me. You never mentioned the DNA samples taken of the Shroud, the Muslim links, the storyline about Saladin or the Maronite monks. Now why would you forget all that, Mr Svenson?’

‘Why is this relevant?’

‘Because it’s why Tamara got killed. But you’ve known that all along, haven’t you?’ She points at the script he put on the arm of the chair. ‘Tell me the end of the movie. The scenes that are not in there.’

He picks up the draft and looks thoughtfully at it. ‘Tamara was a remarkable writer. Her passion for the written or spoken word was only matched by her love of history and its mysteries. Before The Shroud she’d been researching an ancient group of warrior monks, crusaders who fought the Muslims in the Holy Land.’

‘Hang on — I feel complicated coming along and I’m not good with complicated. I’m going to need to write this down.’ Mitzi pulls a notebook and pen from her bag. ‘Okay. Fire away.’

‘You have heard of the Knights Templar?’

‘Sure. An ancient order of fighting monks, right?’

‘Right. Well, the Knights of the Mountain are the same, but more secretive and ruthless. They began back in Lebanon in the fifth century, disciples of Saint Maroun, the hermit monk who founded the Maronite Church.’

She remembers Hix’s forensic report and his insistence that Tamara’s killer had been in the Lebanon. ‘What’s the Maronite Church?’

‘Catholicism by another name. It operates parallel to the Church of Rome. The Knights of the Mountain are its ultimate protectors. Suicide warriors. A bloodline of highly trained soldiers who fought secret crusades.’

‘Black ops assassins in the Holy Wars?’

‘If you like. But they were also devout monks. When they weren’t killing, they fasted and prayed on a saintly scale.’

‘And these are the knights in The Shroud, the ones responsible for killing Saladin?’

‘The same.’ He puts a hand on the script. ‘We printed off scenes only as far as the cover-up of Saladin’s death. What happened next was that the assassin — a monk called Ephrem, wounded by Saladin’s guards — fell from his horse crossing the mountains and died. As a result, for many years the Maronites didn’t know that the assassination had been successful.’

Mitzi is intrigued. ‘Then how did they ever find out?’

‘Rumours spread around the Muslim camps. Somehow their great leader just didn’t seem the same. He was less decisive. Different. Unusually uncertain. Spies picked up on this and when Muslim soldiers were captured some even volunteered the information in attempts to stop the Christians executing them.’

‘So just hearsay?’

‘Isn’t most of history? I mean, what proof is there of Jesus Christ’s miracles outside of any religious writings?’

‘I’m not a historian, but I get your drift. How’s all this connected to Christ’s shroud?’

‘Saladin’s shroud.’ He lets the words sink in. ‘The imprint on the linen is that of Christianity’s nemesis.’

157

Force press officer Adam Geagea sits at Mitzi Fallon’s empty desk and writes a polite note asking her to call him when she gets a chance.

He knows she’ll ignore it, all the cops do. He casually swings her swivel chair left and right, then takes advantage of the fact that there’s no one else nearby. He opens the bottom drawers first and works his way up. There’s not much of interest. A faxed contract from a lawyer engaging the firm to handle her divorce. Good luck to him, he’ll earn every dime representing a ballbreaker like Fallon. There are pictures of her daughters, a hidden stash of candy, hand cream, spare tampons, a celebrity gossip magazine, cup of loose change and a couple of stacks of old notebooks.

The top drawer has the good stuff. A copy of The Shroud and a more recently filled notepad. Geagea turns to the back of the pad and examines the final entry. It seems to be some kind of forensic checklist:

Geagea feels his heart quicken. He looks around the room. There are voices in the corridor. No time to write down everything he’s seen. He stares at the page and tries hard to commit it all to memory. The press officer shuts the drawer and stands, just as a couple of sergeants roll in. They glare at him as he beats a hasty retreat to the corridor. He takes the stairs two at a time and locks himself in the safety of his office.

From the bottom drawer of his own desk he gets out an untraceable cell phone. Geagea’s fingers are trembling as he dials the number of his Maronite contact. The monk was supposed to be good. The best. Undetectable. Well, it doesn’t seem like that to him.

158

Mitzi stares across the spacious lounge of the millionaire movie director and weighs up what he just said. ‘You’re saying the Shroud of Turin bears the outline of the Muslim warlord Saladin, not Jesus Christ?’

‘That was one of Tamara’s shock points in the movie. Plus, of course, the revelation that the Catholic and Maronite churches have been trying to cover up the fact for centuries.’

‘Sounds like BS to me.’

Svenson looks amused. ‘Tamara’s version is actually more credible than the one we’ve been led to believe by centuries of propaganda from historians.’

‘How so?’

‘Surely, if Christ’s followers had found the Shroud in his empty tomb, they would have shown this miraculous image all around the ancient world in order to convert people and spread his word?’ Svenson ticks off more key questions on his fingers. ‘Why wasn’t the discovery independently documented back then? Why does the Shroud disappear for hundreds of years and then pop up in the hands of rich Western dynasties like the Savoys?’

‘Good questions, but I still don’t get how the Catholics came to possess and venerate the Muslim shroud.’

‘They stole it.’

‘What?’

‘Simple as that. Back in those days, both Christian and Muslim armies sacked each other’s cities and temples. When they came across a protected case containing a shroud of a bearded man, they had the arrogance to assume it was that of Christ. They took it thinking they were actually reclaiming one of their own religious artefacts.’

‘And of course the Muslims wouldn’t be too keen to admit Saladin had been assassinated and generations of people deceived by his replacement.’

‘Exactly. Historians even reported Saladin as though he were two separate people. Some chronicled him as blood-curdlingly vicious. Others said he was a great statesman.’

Mitzi’s cell phone buzzes. She glances down at a text message from Carter: Hix has forensics. Harrison’s here — where are you? She pulls herself out of the comfy chair and addresses Svenson. ‘I gotta go, but we’re not done.’

He gets up and walks her to the door. ‘Please keep the lawyers and press off my back. I’ll cooperate any way you want.’

She steps out onto the driveway. ‘I’ll try.’ She glances down at his short robe. ‘By the way, you either need a longer robe or lessons in how to sit in it without showing all you’ve got.’

159

Crime Scene Investigator Tom Hix lives for moments like this. The point in the grand play of homicide when science takes centre stage and cops are rightfully reduced to mere supporting acts.

He hurries across the squad room floor as soon as he sees Mitzi heading to her desk. ‘Hi there. I’ve got some reports—’

‘Jeez, Tom. I ain’t even put my bag down yet.’ She picks up the note left by Geagea. ‘Little prick.’ She balls it and tosses it in the waste bin.

Hix looks offended.

‘Not you. Our freakin’ press officer. Now what you got?’

He lays a manila file on her desk ‘I’m flat-out running samples on the Creeper case, but I thought you’d want to see this.’

She flips open the front of the folder. ‘This being what?’ Then she remembers her call to him. ‘The Tamara Jacobs case?’

‘Let me talk you through it.’ He pulls two transparent sheets out and puts them side by side on the desk. ‘I’ve got a DNA match.’

‘Which samples are these?’

‘The first is hair we took from the headrest on the Lexus traced out to the rental at LAX. The second is from skin we recovered on the claw of the dead cat at the writer’s house.’

‘Kitty’s revenge.’ She overlays the transparencies. ‘One and the same. You’re right, you’ve got a matching pair, but to win the game you have to also have the name of a perp to pin to the samples.’

His face says he hasn’t. ‘Ran Profiler, no hit. Didn’t expect there to be. I already told you, your guy is an out-of-towner.’

‘Way out. You said Lebanon.’

‘Mount Lebanon to be precise.’

Mitzi looks across at the photograph of Tamara Jacobs pinned to a board, the one reproduced every time Variety or Hollywood Reporter ran a story on her. ‘Her script contains whole scenes set in the Middle East. Historic scenes not modern. Svenson told me a tale about Maronite—’

The phone on her desk rings.

She snatches it. ‘Fallon.’ After a slight pause she adds, ‘Okay, tell her I’ll be right down.’ She drops the receiver back on the cradle and looks pissed at the distraction. ‘Sorry. My other case calls. Jenny Harrison is acting up downstairs. The uniform minding her says she’s going to walk if I don’t get my ass down there quick.’

‘I understand.’ He shuffles the transparencies back in his file. ‘You know where to find me when you want to come back to this.’

160

An hour out from Geneva the seatbelt lights are still on. Storms and high winds are blowing in from the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. France and Spain are getting a savage whipping and the turbulence is tossing the plane as it heads west.

‘I hate flying.’ Broussard pulls down the window blind, hoping to shut out the misery. ‘As a young man I had phobias. Now I can cope, but I still do not like it.’

‘Unnatural, isn’t it?’ Nic agrees. ‘So much heavy metal and so many people, floating through the air, defying science. But you know, statistically—’

Broussard holds up a hand. ‘Science it does not defy. It only flies because of the science.’ His tension makes him sound curt. ‘And I know all the statistics, merci. It is safer than crossing a road, smoking a cigarette, etc. but I still do not like it.’

‘The storm will pass,’ says Nic, reassuringly. ‘And when it does, I’m going to walk the plane. It’s routine, that’s all. I just want to make sure the only people we’re up here with are friends.’

‘Surely, you can’t think the man who attacked us is on this flight?’

‘I have to think that. It’s incredibly unlikely. But I have to think it. Don’t worry. Let me do my job. Everything will be fine.’

Broussard distracts himself by pulling out dreary magazines from the seat pocket in front of him. He wishes none of this was happening, that he’d never met Roberto Craxi and wasn’t leaving his wife thousands of miles behind.

Finally, the turbulence passes and Nic hits the call button above his head. A heavy-hipped brunette is soon bending over him. She introduces herself as Glenda and asks how she can help. Conscious of others watching, Nic unfolds his ID wallet on his lap and answers in hushed tones. ‘Miss, I’m a Los Angeles police officer and I need to see both the chief steward and the air marshal. Can you fix that for me?’

Glenda’s experienced enough to take it all in her stride. A ten-year transatlantic veteran, she’s dealt with everything from heart attacks to terrorist alerts. ‘Certainly, Officer. If you come with me to my station, I’ll call them both.’

He follows her to the curtains and glances back at the scientist as he goes. Broussard has his head in some magazine article and looks happy enough. Nic stands in the galley kitchen while Glenda calls the steward, then makes a discreet announcement only the air marshal would understand. ‘Could any passengers who forgot to pick up duty-free when boarding the plane in Geneva please identify themselves to a member of the cabin crew. We have a bottle of very nice brandy here that doesn’t yet have an owner. Thank you.’

A prim middle-aged steward with dyed black hair appears through the curtains, eyes wide as he addresses Glenda. ‘What’s wrong?’

She nods to Nic. ‘This is Detective Karakandez from the LAPD. He wanted to see you and the marshal.’

The steward pulls his tie straight. ‘My name is Brian. May I see your identification, please?’

‘Sure.’ Nic pulls it from his back pocket and hands it over.

Brian is reading as a stocky, blond-haired guy with gingery stubble comes into the galley. He’s mid-thirties, in a baggy grey sweat top over black Levis and, if Nic is right, is packing a standard-issue Taser.

The steward hands him the ID. ‘This is Officer Karakandez.’

The man glances at the wallet and passes it back to Nic. ‘Gerry Brookes. What’s going on?’

‘I’ve been working a case that brought me to Europe.’ Nic nods beyond the curtain. ‘Man back there in 48A is an important witness, connected to a homicide. I want to walk the plane and check there’s no threat to him. Would you babysit while I do the rounds?’

‘Sure thing. What’s his name?’

‘Édouard Broussard.’

‘When do you want to do this?’

‘Now would be good.’ Nic turns to the chief steward. ‘Do you have a copy of the passenger manifest? I need to put faces to names as I do the sweep.’

‘Certainly.’ The steward unfastens a list hanging from a clip board on the galley wall. ‘That’s everyone.’

‘Any way you can identify late bookings?’

Brian shakes his head. ‘Not from this list. We could have done it at the gate.’ He glances to Glenda. ‘Do you have any prelim sheets?’

Her face says she hasn’t.

‘Sorry,’ says the steward.

‘One thing,’ adds Glenda. ‘Even when we’re coming in to land we always find empty seats. People who’ve snuck off to the washrooms or they’ve swapped places with other passengers or just moved to a spare seat for a bit more space. You want we order everyone back to their own places?’

Nic thinks about it for a second. He doesn’t want to frighten passengers after the storm — or, if the assassin is on board, make him edgy and aware that someone is looking for him. ‘No, leave it for now. Let me do a circuit and see how many people I miss. If necessary we could make your announcement.’

161

‘You look like shit, Jenny. What the hell have you been taking?’ Mitzi holds the door of the interview room for the uniform to leave. ‘Thanks,’ she says, as he escapes into the corridor.

Harrison looks up sulky-faced from the interview room table. ‘I ain’t taken nothin’ — that’s why I look like shit.’

Mitzi pulls up a chair. ‘Where you been today?’

‘Walkin’. Tryin’ to get my head straight. I didn’t sleep none last night.’

Mitzi’s not surprised. The kid’s world is upside down and she knows how sleep is the first thing that goes out of the window when that happens. ‘I’ll get you coffee and a smoke.’

‘Coffee and cigarettes?’ she says, disparagingly. ‘Big freakin deal.’

‘Hey, watch your tongue. I’m trying to help.’

Mitzi ducks out and bums a couple of Marlboro Ultra Lites and a box of matches from a traffic cop near the vending machine. On the way back she grabs two mugs of black crap that might be coffee and returns to the interview room. ‘Here you go, best I can do.’

‘Thanks.’ Harrison’s face says she’s thought about behaving better. ‘Sorry I snapped.’

‘You should be. Today I feel almost as bad as you do.’ She slides across the matches. ‘You’re not supposed to smoke in here — then again people aren’t supposed to be in police stations on Sundays, so what the hell.’

Harrison lights up. Pulls hard and draws in a big hit of nicotine.

Mitzi watches her fingers shake. The girl’s in a bad way. She waits until she’s exhaled and taken a second drag. ‘We’ve got a guy in a holding cell down the corridor. I want you to take a look at him.’

Harrison’s eyes pulse wide. ‘You got him? Kim’s killer?’

‘Calm down. I just want you to look and tell me if you recognise him.’

Harrison bangs her fist on the table. ‘I want to kill the fucking bastard.’

‘Hey. I said calm down. Now cool it. This guy isn’t even under arrest. He came in here voluntarily.’

‘It ain’t him?’

‘I just want you to take a look, Jenny. Can you do that?’

She is close to tears. Anger. Sorrow. Rage. Grief. Her emotions are about as mixed as they can be. ‘Yeah.’ She pinches the end of the cigarette. ‘I can do it.’

‘You can bring your coffee.’

Harrison picks up the paper mug and follows the lieutenant into the grey corridor.

Mitzi leads the way into the holding area. Jimmy Berg has gone home and a new sergeant is now working the desk. ‘Witness in the Bass case,’ shouts Mitzi to the officer, who looks like a bald Tiger Woods. ‘I need her to take an unofficial squint at our guy in cell one.’

‘Be my guest.’ He waves them through.

Mitzi uses her ID pass to swipe an electronic plate. She pulls open a heavy door of iron bars, lets Harrison through and bangs it shut again. ‘Don’t say anything. Just put your eye to the peep hole. Take a long look then step away and tell me if you recognise the man in there.’ She nods to a grey door to her right.

Harrison steps forward. She rests her cheek against the cold metal and peers through the thick glass into the bright ugly light of the room. At first she doesn’t see anything. Then she spots the man in orange detention clothes lying down. It’s hard to see his face. He rolls over. Adjusts a pillow on the bunk.

Her heart thunders. She steps away from the door.

Mitzi reads the shock on her face. ‘Do you recognise him, Jenny?’

She nods but can’t speak.

Mitzi takes her by the hand and guides her from the door. ‘Who is it?’

Harrison takes a breath. ‘Fish … it’s Fish Face.’ ‘The guy from the factory, the supervisor?’ She nods. ‘Yeah. Mr James. Emma’s friend.’

162

Nic reads the passenger manifest as he walks into the first of the business-class cabins. It’s made up of nine rows of seats, configured in three sets of two. All the usual corporate suspects are hanging out. Lean and mean-looking ladder-climbers with iPads and MacBooks already open. A couple of middle-aged senior execs with grey hair and spreading waistlines have passed out through too much free champagne and fatty food. A chic, long-legged woman is in the process of dropping her seat and curling up beneath a blanket. Their eyes briefly catch. Passing ships. A moment gone.

Emergency exits divide the next two rows of three, then there are four main economy-class sections. Nic takes a long slow look down the endless aisle and then tries to match male faces to his list of those connecting to LAX. Reto Ruhr and Stefan Sauber sound Swiss. They’re both young-looking guys, slim and of average build. Nic shifts to one side and takes a closer look.

They’re holding hands. Reto puts his head on his friend’s shoulder.

Nic ticks them off his list. Not because of their homosexuality, but because hitmen don’t mix business with pleasure.

A couple of young kids break from their seats and paw their way from one side of the plane to the other. Looks like they’re swapping Mom and Dad’s laps for those of Grandpa and Grandma. Nic can’t help but think of himself, Carolina and his son doing a trip like this. Squashed up, full up, loved-up, heading home after a couple of weeks of showing Max Europe. They never got to take him on a plane. Never got further than messing in the sand at Point Dume.

He forces himself to concentrate. Give or take an empty seat or two, the plane’s carrying about three hundred men, women and children. He takes it slow. Real slow.

A guy travelling alone in 24A interests him. Thirty to forty, short dark hair, dressed in blue track pants and grey hoodie. He’s slim, fit and relaxed, with three-day stubble and a look that says he travels light and is ready for anything life throws at him. His eyes lock on Nic and for a second the two mentally interrogate each other. Nic checks the manifest. Steve Bryant. He looks down at the list and sees Kelly Bryant occupies 24B. Man and wife. Another write-off.

Painstakingly, he works his way to the back, relentlessly checking men’s looks against listed names, filtering out the fat senior citizens, the weedy teenagers and physically disabled. Midway through the return leg, he stops and sits in a spare seat next to a guy called Rico Aguero. Rico’s mixed race, broad-shouldered and somewhere in his thirties. Looks like he could handle himself in a skirmish. After five minutes of chat he discovers Rico’s a systems analyst from Manhattan and could bore a saint to death.

It takes close to forty minutes for the detective to complete his tour and make it back to his seat. ‘Anything to worry about?’ asks Brookes, the air marshal, as he gets up and swaps places with Nic.

‘Don’t think so.’

Gerry nods to Broussard. ‘Old guy’s been sleeping like a baby. Give me a shout if you need any help.’

‘I think we’re good now.’ Nic shakes his hand.

The scientist is out for the count, snoring peacefully. The poor guy must be beat. Nic opens the courtesy blanket, reclines his seat and settles down. Finally, he can relax.

163

Mitzi leaves Harrison in the interview room and heads to Carter’s office to update him.

He’s hunched over stacks of paperwork and looks like an accountant chasing year-end. ‘You ever think about knocking?’

‘Nope, nasty habit. Harrison’s ID’d your fruitcake. She’s a hundred per cent certain he is John James, her supervisor.’ She perches on the edge of his desk and frowns at all the Excel sheets. ‘On top of that, she says that very recently said fruitcake has been close with a co-worker called Emma Varley.’

‘It happens.’ He pulls the papers out from under her leg. ‘Stay open-minded, Mitzi. Many people — even fruitcakes — meet future spouses at work.’

‘Or future victims. Varley went missing last week. She just didn’t turn up one day.’

Now she has his attention. ‘No reason?’

‘None that he mentioned. James told the factory floor she simply handed in her notice.’

‘You get an address for Varley?’

‘Not exactly. Harrison didn’t know it but says she lives out Gardena way.’

‘I’ll get Dan to pin it down and take a ride out there.’ Carter’s desk phone rings. ‘Yes?’

‘Boss, it’s Kris. I’m in James’s house in Carson and I can tell you it’s seriously weird.’

‘Whatcha got?’ He switches it to speakerphone so Mitzi can hear.

‘There’s no furniture. No carpets. Newspaper sheets all over the floor. It’s like nothing human’s ever been here. Ain’t no lights in the place either.’ He works his way through with a flashlight. ‘It’s more of a squat than a home. I’m just going in the bedroom and man it stinks in here.’ The beam plays over the ceiling, down the walls and across the floor. ‘There are burned-out candles all over the place. It feels ritualistic, you know. Satanic. Scrub that, there’s a holy big Jeez-us crucifix on the wall.’ The light pools in the far corner on a stack of white cloth.

‘He’s got linen sheets here.’

‘Check them out,’ says Carter. ‘But don’t touch them.’

Libowicz bends over the stack. ‘I ain’t no bed expert — as Mrs L will testify — but this looks strange stuff.’ He runs the light up and down the cloth. ‘There are freakin’ yards of sheet here, enough to wind round a mummy.’

‘Probably took it from the factory where he works,’ says Mitzi.

Something glints in the beam of the cop’s flashlight. ‘Man, there are hundreds of blades here — the old double-edged types that you screw down.’ He leans in close. ‘Lots of blood on them too and a bottle of disinfectant and an old handkerchief by the look of it.’

‘He’s a self-cutter,’ explains Carter. ‘That’s his kit. Don’t touch the things, he may well be Positive.’

‘No intention of doing so, Boss.’ Libowicz goes quiet for a second. He stands up and shines the beam across the far wall. Dull marks appear. He steps forward and takes a closer look.

Blood.

He moves the light around, then turns and sees behind him. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘What?’ asks Carter.

‘He’s scrawled something on the wall. In blood. It says, ‘I AM THE WAR THAT WILL NEVER END. DELIVERANCE..’

164

During the changeover to the LAX plane, Nic charms the desk crew into an upgrade for him and Broussard and asks for a fresh manifest and details of any late bookings made at Geneva. No last-minuters come up on the terminal screens — not even him or Broussard. Seems data systems the world over let you down just when you need them most.

By the time the plane takes off Nic’s met the new steward and the air marshal, a tough-looking former soldier called Ike, who has settled into a seat across the aisle from him and Édouard. The scientist is more relaxed this time, as the belts-free signal pings down the aisles and Nic gets up to do another sweep.

Glenda, the attendant on the first leg, was right then and is right now — people are all over the place. At times no one seems to match the manifest. Women are sitting in men’s seats. Kids are missing. Queues trail from all the bathrooms and kitchen galleys. By the time Nic makes it back to his seat he thinks there are more than a dozen male names he’s not managed to put faces to — about twice as many as on the Geneva leg. As he muses over the missing men, Broussard eases himself into the aisle.

‘I need the toilette,’ he explains, reading the critical look on his companion’s face.

Nic doesn’t take his eyes off the Frenchman. He tells himself he’s being stupid. He should relax. They left any threat back on the freeway near Geneva. But old police habits die hard and he can’t help but watch the washroom door and wait for the scientist to reappear. His nerves twitch when a young guy in a cream T-shirt and blue jeans crosses from the other side of the plane and tries the locked cubicle. He’s lean and a shade under six feet, tanned and fit. The backs of his arms show grazes and bruises. There’s a healing cut on his jaw below the right ear.

He gives the door a second rattle. Nic doesn’t recognise the face — not from Geneva and not from his latest round of checks. The detective gets out of his seat and nods to Ike. The big air marshal drops his book and circles down the other end of the aisle. Nic scans the stranger for any sign of a gun and prays one isn’t going to be drawn up here in the sky. A flight attendant points the man to another restroom down near the far curtain.

Nic follows. He studies every inch of him as he approaches. Looks at the fall of his denims; any chance a concealed weapon — or explosives — are stuffed in a sock or shin strap. The stranger pulls up and tries the washroom door. There are raw cuts and some swelling on his right knuckles, like a punch has been thrown within the last few days. Nic checks Ike is parallel with him over the other side of the aisle and then clumsily stumbles into the guy in front of him.

The man turns around and flat-hands the detective. ‘Hey man, look where you’re going.’

‘Sorry there. I was just trying to reset my watch and didn’t see you. Did you catch how many hours the attendant said New York was behind Switzerland?’

The guy checks him over. ‘Six.’

‘Thanks.’ Nic adjusts his timepiece. ‘You heading to LA for work or fun?’

‘Fun. And right now you’re ruining it.’ He turns away.

Ike edges through the galley curtain and comes round so he is close to Nic, with the stranger caught between the two of them.

Nic turns him back again. His eyes show he’s not afraid of any repercussions. ‘I’m not finished talking to you.’

The guy glares at him. ‘What are you, a cop?’

‘Matter of fact I am.’ Nic flips out his ID. ‘What’s your name and seat number?’

The marshal leans against a wall and slips his hand round the back of his belt and feels for the Taser tucked beneath his jacket.

‘Manton. Jimmy D.’ He fishes in his pocket and pulls out a ticket stub.

Nic takes it and checks it again the manifest. It tallies. He passes it back and nods at the guy’s grazed hand. ‘You been in a fight recently?’

He touches his grazed knuckles. ‘No way. I ain’t hit anyone since high school. I knocked myself up skateboarding. It’s what I do. Fun and work. I skate and surf. Get pretty well paid for it too. Any laws against that?’

‘Not yet. I know a little about surfing, but educate me, Mr Manton, who do you think are the best boarders?’

The guy’s eyes light up. ‘For me Mick Fanning — all the way. Though I like that Hawaiian, Torrey Meister. My style’s more like his.’

Nic looks again at the manifest. He’s convinced the guy’s who he says he is — another cocksure idiot who can earn a living getting sponsorship deals out in Malibu.

Down the aisle, Édouard appears from the restroom and returns to his seat. Ike catches the cop’s eye and drifts away to cover the scientist.

Nic’s done asking questions. ‘Enjoy yourself in California, Jimmy D. and stay safe.’ He playfully punches him on the arm and wanders back to Broussard.

165

Dan Amis still has a handkerchief to his mouth as he walks out of the shadows and stench of the old clapboard house. He takes a long, clear breath of early evening air and calls in what he just saw. ‘We need the ME, boss. Body of a white female laid out Creeper-style in the bedroom of Emma Varley’s house. Our guy’s been here.’

Carter is listening on the speakerphone with Mitzi. He covers his head with his hands. Another death — another killing he failed to prevent. ‘You think it’s her?’

‘Yeah. Decomp has already made a mess but there’s a picture of her in the living room — looks enough like her.’

‘Okay. Stay there. Act as primary on that scene. I’ll turn out forensics as well.’

‘You got it.’

Carter calls Amy Chang’s cell. She’s worked all the previous Creeper bodies, so he wants her on this one too.

She picks up after a couple of rings. ‘Dr Chang.’

‘Hi, this is Tyler Carter. Sorry to screw up your Sunday night but we’ve got another Creeper killing. Might even have the perp as well.’

‘I’ll get my kit.’

‘Vic is a woman by the name of Emma Varley. Twenty-something. Found in her home over in Gardena. I’ll have Mitzi email you details. Amis is out there — says she’s already started to ripen.’

‘Tell Mitzi not to mail me — my desk computer fried the other night and I’m having trouble logging on through the external VPN link. Text me the address.’

‘I’ll do it myself. Thanks.’ He puts down the desk phone, picks up his own cell, thumbs in the crime scene’s address and hits send. ‘Mitzi, will you get Tom to send the CSIs out there?’

‘Sure. Can I share something with you?’

‘Shoot.’

‘A couple things been playing on my mind.’

‘Like?’

‘Jenny Harrison’s break-in and her missing phone.’

‘You’re thinking what?’

‘Maybe the Creeper killed Kim Bass and was planning to kill Jenny too. Only luckily for Jenny, she wasn’t there that night. She was out getting high and ended up in a strange man’s bed.’

‘A moment of sexual promiscuity that for once bettered her life?’

‘Maybe even the Harrisons of this world get a break some time.’

‘A search team is going out to meet Kris at James’s house. I’ll have him look for the phone.’

Mitzi’s still thinking things through. ‘If James did go to Harrison’s house, then he might have left prints and DNA. There’s so much soil and dog shit over the path, you might even still be able to get boot prints.’

‘Matthews said your legendary right hook was merely a distraction from a brilliant brain.’

‘Matthews should shut the hell up and pay me more.’

‘What else?’

‘I checked the local precincts. They have no records of anyone but Harrison calling about Kim Bass. James told Jenny he’d called the police — he clearly hadn’t.’

‘Or they missed his number on their logs. We’ll have all his home, work and cell-phone call details in the next hour. Get one of the clerks to cross check them with station house numbers.’

‘Will do.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I’m done.’

‘Then make those follow-up calls and come meet me downstairs. I’m going to check with the doctor, then we’re going to interview Mr James and see what he’s got to say for himself.’

Mitzi glances at her watch. She’s been on shift more than twelve hours and it feels like the day is never going to stop. ‘Let’s hope it begins with “I confess” and ends with his signature.’

166

The police doctor gives Tyler Carter news he doesn’t want to hear. ‘My medical opinion is that he’s not fit for you to interview.’

‘What?’ Carter spits the word out. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve bought into that faked lunacy act.’

‘I’m not sure it is faked. But that’s not why you can’t have your pound of flesh.’

‘Then why?’

‘He’s opened up his wounds.’ Carl Jenkins illustrates with his hand. ‘He just dug his thumbnails into the razor cuts and pulled apart the stitches. It’s a painful mess. He should have been in a straitjacket.’

‘No way. He’s prepping an insanity plea.’

‘As maybe. But I’ve still got to send him to the hospital.’

‘Not happening.’ Carter paces away. ‘I let him inside a public hospital, hundreds of people are going to be at risk. Get him treatment here.’

‘You mean your case is at risk.’

‘Oh pardon me — yes, I do mean that too. My serial murder case is at risk. There’s a chance a man who we are pretty damned sure has killed a lot of women will be slipping through our hands.’

‘Tyler, I don’t have a choice, and neither do you. Self-harming on this scale means I’ve got to refer him to hospital, and to fully qualified mental health practitioners. And you have to fully support that or someone’s going to take your badge away.’

‘God give me strength.’

‘I hope he does. Meanwhile, it’s been a long day and I have to effect this man’s transfer as quickly as possible.’

Carter points to Mitzi. ‘We charge him first and Lieutenant Fallon goes with him.’

‘Not my call,’ says Jenkins. ‘She can ride with him, unless he objects — which I guess he won’t. Let’s face it, he could have walked out on you any time in the last twelve hours. But you maybe want to think twice about charging a man you have reason to believe is mentally ill.’

Carter wants to punch the wall.

‘We can charge him later,’ says Mitzi, in a tone of conciliation. ‘The guy’s cut to ribbons. I’ll ride with him, maybe he’ll give something up in the ambulance. Like you said, there’s no need to rush this one.’

‘Fine,’ says Carter. ‘But you don’t take a single chance with this jerk-off. I’m putting a uniform with you. Despite what he looks like, not for one minute do you forget he’s a killer — a serial killer.’

167

John James — aka Deliverance — aka Fish Face — is all parcelled up when Mitzi steps on the backboard and climbs into the rear of the paramedic’s wagon. A footstep behind her is the giant frame of Joey di Matteo, a tough young uniform, one of a rare breed who grew up in Compton and Paramount without a rap sheet. He blocks most of the light as the medic bangs the door shut.

Mitzi shuffles along the bench opposite the gurney where James is laid out. A bag drips blood into his left arm. There are red safety belts around his waist to stop him falling off. ‘I’m Lieutenant Fallon,’ she says, gently. ‘I’m going to ride with you and stay with you. You okay with that?’

He opens his eyes and manages only a dazed look.

She knows that whatever she says now is going to set the tone. It’ll either open him up or shut him down like a clam. ‘You been to hospital before?’

His head rocks from the motion of the ambulance but he still doesn’t speak.

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’ll clean you up proper, sort out those cuts.’ She puts on an understanding face. ‘A friend of mine hurts herself. She’s got it in her head that she has to be punished. That what you think?’

He licks his dry lips and whispers, ‘I have sinned.’

‘Sure you have. Me too. None of us are perfect, right?’

He mumbles something: ‘… mawaz …’

‘Sorry? Say that again.’

‘Emma was.’

The name blows a hole in Mitzi’s calm front. ‘Emma? You mean Emma Varley?’

‘My Emma.’ His voice is still only a decibel above a whisper.

‘You said was. Was not is.’

‘She is with the Lord now.’ He tries to sit up. ‘No more pain. She is in Paradise.’

A paramedic leans over and puts a restraining hand across him. ‘Lie back, take things easy.’

‘How?’ Mitzi presses. ‘How did your Emma get to Paradise?’

He looks content. ‘I helped her.’

‘And the others — did you help them too?’

‘My mission is to help.’ He reflects on what he’s said, then adds, ‘I am a soldier of the Lord.’

‘And Kim Bass — did you help her?’

His face changes. The calmness goes. Tension ripples across his brow. ‘A mistake. She was evil — but it was a mistake to take her. She needed time to redeem herself. It was wrong of me to take her before she’d done that.’

‘Take her?’

‘I thought the Lord had chosen her but I was mistaken. Her soul is burning in hell and it is my fault.’

The paramedic takes JJ’s wrist and checks his pulse. ‘I think he’s done enough talking now, Detective. His heartbeat’s racing and he’s still in trauma.’

Mitzi backs off. She needs to absorb what he said. Needs to get out of the ambulance and tell Carter that James has confessed in front of witnesses to at least one of the murders.

JJ closes his eyes. Shuts them tight and begins to pray softly. ‘Deus meus, ex toto corde paenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor…’

‘It’s Latin,’ interjects di Matteo. ‘He’s saying an act of contrition.’

‘You know an act of contrition?’ Mitzi floats him a look of surprise.

‘I was an altar boy. The Catholic Church kept me off the corners.’

‘What does it mean in English?’

‘It means “God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”’

‘Impressive.’

‘We had to learn it off by heart.’

Mitzi looks across at Deliverance. He’s certainly going to sin no more. With a little luck, an execution team at San Quentin is going to make damned sure of it.

168

It’s late evening and hospital staff looked stretched to breaking point as Deliverance is wheeled into the secure side ward administrators keep for LAPD cases.

More than an hour passes before a doctor sees him and a further forty minutes before he gets stitched up.

Joey di Matteo fetches coffee and sandwiches, while Mitzi approaches the blue-uniformed ward sister, a slim woman with well-cut, shoulder-length auburn hair.

‘Any idea how long before I get my prisoner back?’

Stephanie Dawson produces a well-practised, professional smile. ‘You mean our patient. From what Doctor Jenkins told us, he’s not technically a prisoner. And in answer to your question, some time.’

‘We’re paying the bill, lady. That means he’s ours. And for the record, he will be charged just as soon as we haul his murdering ass out of here.’

Dawson gets the point. ‘His surgical care is all but done. However, the psychiatrist won’t be round to assess him for another hour or so.’

‘You’re kidding me, right?’

‘That’s not the kind of thing we do.’

Mitzi looks at her watch. ‘It’s nearly nine now. You’re saying you can’t get a shrink here until ten, maybe eleven?’

‘It’s Sunday night. Doctors have lives, normal lives.’

‘I’ve seen their pay slips — that’s not what I call a normal life.’

The sister almost smiles. ‘Money’s got nothing to do with it. Truth is, if this wasn’t a special case, we’d just keep him under observation tonight and have him seen in the morning.’

‘Can I at least go talk to him?’

‘Afraid not. He’s been given a sedative and is asleep. I suggest you just take a break. We’ll tell you as soon as the psychiatrist arrives.’

To ward off boredom and the onset of madness, Mitzi calls Carter and updates him. ‘It’s going to be gone ten, maybe even later, when we get James seen by the shrink.’

‘Not James,’ says Carter. ‘He was born Jibril Walud Saleh walud Khalid Al-Fulan.’

‘Man, that’s a lot of Waluds. I can see why he changed it.’

‘Probably not for the reason you think. His ail-American, Delaware mom Madison changed it first. Right after his all-Muslim father Saleh tried to blow himself up in a New York subway.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Kid grew up under her maiden name of Moore and would probably have stayed Moore, had the papers not got hold of the story when he was six. Madison overdosed and the boy found her dead in bed the next morning.’

‘Died in bed in her sleep. There’s something awful familiar about that.’

‘Shrinks will see it as causal to his crimes. As a kid he got told Mom had gone to heaven. God had apparently called her name.’

‘Taken before her time.’

‘Defence lawyers are going to go to town with our boy. I’m going to bet he never sees the inside of a jail in his life.’

169

The A340 tips its wings and starts a gradual descent into the sixth busiest airport in the world. Through the window Nic sees the grid of lights sparkling beneath him like he’s flying over a giant computer motherboard.

Broussard stirs from his slumber as the cabin crew do their rounds and the captain announces that thanks to good flying weather they’re twenty minutes ahead of schedule at the end of a fine Californian day.

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Comme ci comme ca.’ He puts his hand to his neck and shifts his head gently to the left and right. ‘I am a little stiff and still tired.’

Nic checks his watch. ‘Coming up to midnight, you’ve got a whole night’s rest still ahead.’

The pilot brings the big bus in for a textbook landing. Smooth as silk. No jolt. A cheer goes up from back in coach. Nic guesses it’s the school athletes — probably the only ones with that much life left in them at this time of day.

The crew stand by the doors to thank them for travelling Lufthansa and wish them a good stay. Nic nods to Ike the marshal as the officer stays behind to make sure everyone’s off and the aircraft is safe.

As they walk the air bridge to the terminal he turns to Broussard. ‘I called our admin desk from JFK and they’ve booked you into a hotel, but if you like you can stay at my place tonight. There’s a spare room, nothing as grand as your villa, but you’re very welcome.’

Édouard understands that Nic is still being cautious. ‘That’s very kind of you, I appreciate it.’

‘Not at all. One day I’ll come sailing to the south of France and maybe you and Ursula can show me Nice?’

‘That would be our extreme pleasure.’

Ten minutes later they’re approaching the roped-off pits where Homeland Security carry out their checks. They drop a flight of stairs into the security zone and prepare to briefly go their separate ways briefly — Nic to the fast-flowing US residents line and Édouard to the heavily congested visitors section.

‘See you on the other side,’ he tells the scientist. ‘I’ll be waiting for you just behind the line.’

Nic’s queue moves quickly and he’s soon called forward by a sour-faced official in a glass booth. The guy scans his documents and processes him without a hint of warmth.

As promised, he wanders along the back of the booths and waits for Édouard. The Frenchman looked pretty white coming down the steps and he hopes his heart condition isn’t slowing him up and giving him problems.

Familiar faces filter through the check lines — Steve Bryant through the US gate, Rico Aguero and the Swiss guys Stefan and Reto through the non-residents route. Nic walks up and down behind the booths. He can see the full length of the visitors lines from here.

Surfer Jimmy Manton drifts through the checkpoint, his eyes briefly catching Nic’s as he passes into the baggage area. The cop looks back to the lines on the other side of the booths. He still can’t see Broussard.

There’s no sign of him anywhere. And by now there really should be.

170

Sister Dawson is as good as her word. Ten minutes past eleven she stirs Mitzi from her daydreaming. ‘Mr Weinstock is here. He’s just coming up.’

Forty-year-old Robert Weinstock rounds the corner and heads straight to the ward desk. Stephanie flits away like a navy-coloured butterfly, drawn to the two thousand dollar suit and the small, immaculately groomed, dark-haired man wearing it.

Mitzi watches them and wonders whether to mention that Deliverance, aka John James, aka George Moore, actually started life as Jibril Walud Saleh walud Khalid Al-Fulan? That he is the son of a terrorist, a fanatical ‘sleeper’ who was ready to murder as many innocent people as a vest of explosives can manage. She decides not to. Then feels guilty. She knows she’s holding back solely because she doesn’t want the smart-suited shrink to say the Creeper’s insane and therefore entitled to spend the rest of his days in hospital watching TV or eyeing up nurses.

Weinstock drifts towards where the cops are sitting. Mitzi creaks her way up from the hard chair that’s rendered most of her body numb.

‘Robert Weinstock.’ He offers a well-manicured hand and smells of fresh cologne. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I was at a charity dinner with the Mayor.’

‘Lieutenant Fallon. Do you know why my friend and I are here?’ She nods to di Matteo. ‘Have you any idea what this guy has done?’

‘I know enough.’ He treats her to a smile as rich as his suit. ‘And I promise I will be as prompt as professionalism will allow.’

‘Doctor.’ Mitzi can’t help herself. Despite all her instincts, she can’t hold back. ‘I have to tell you something. We just found out details, facts about his childhood that you really should know.’

171

Ephrem makes a final check.

He puts two fingers to the scientist’s neck and searches patiently for a pulse. There is nothing. Broussard is dead. His job is done. He repositions the corpse on the seat in the cubicle where he dragged him and pulls the garrotte wire from a deep cut around the target’s neck. He wipes it free of flesh and blood, threads it back into a soft leather braceletlike holder and refastens it around his wrist.

The monk stands on the toilet and looks over the stalls. They’re empty. He pulls himself up and over the partition, slips down the other side, opens the cubicle door and walks out of the restroom.

The hall is still full of tired passengers standing impatiently in lines. He walks slowly and confidently to the short US residents line. It had been amusing to him to see Karakandez working the plane, checking names against the manifest, not noticing him as he disappeared down one aisle while the cop went up the other.

There are only five people ahead of him. The guard is methodical and efficient, moving people swiftly on but taking long, hard looks at their faces.

Ephrem reaches the head of the line. He takes the passport from his pocket and waits to be called forward. Five minutes from now, he knows he’ll be free.

172

Nic shows his badge to the guard working the last Homeland booth and the official calls airport security.

Across the glass cubicles word spreads quickly. One by one the border officers shut their windows and walk from the gates. No one’s getting through until the cop’s reunited with his travelling companion. Passengers in the queues start to complain. It’s late. They’re tired. A delay of any kind, let alone a big security sweep, is the last thing they want.

Nic and the guard walk the lines. Broussard isn’t in them.

Where the hell is the guy?

He sees a restroom to the left and remembers how pale the Frenchman had looked. He doubles his pace and strides over there, towing the border guard behind him. As they go inside the guard unholsters his gun. Nic shows his badge to a couple of guys stood at the latrines. ‘LAPD, finish up and stand back against the far wall.’

‘Do as he says.’ The guard raises the gun.

‘Keep them there while I check the stalls.’ Nic looks down the line of doors and pushes the first. It swings wide and reveals an empty cubicle. He does the same with door two. Empty.

So are the next three.

Door six is locked. He steps inside the fifth cubicle and climbs on the toilet. Over the panel he sees a body slumped forward, head against the partition.

‘Édouard …’

Nic vaults the partition and drops into the stall.

He pulls the scientist upright.

Broussard’s shirt is soaked in blood. There’s a gaping wound in his neck.

Nic lets the body slump and steps out of the cubicle feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. Édouard’s murderer is gone.

The only question is — how far has he got?

173

Ephrem stands at the front of the line.

The whole area is in lockdown and he’s only a step from getting away with murder. He looks at the empty space beckoning to him from beyond the booths. Freedom. He knows his false passport will survive extra scrutiny. Knows he can tough out any questions the border police throw at him. But Karakandez is different. A wild card. He looks for him. There are two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty people, still standing in the roped lines. More coming from the arrival gates. And it’s hot. The aircon must be out. He watches the cops and guards slowly working the lines, inspecting passports, visas and asking questions.

Way over at the back, he sees paramedics pushing a blanket-covered emergency trolley out of the restrooms.

The scientist.

Now he sees Karakandez. He’s walking away from the rest, moving quickly, scanning every face. Running on instinct not logic. Ephrem turns away. A border guard is at the front of his line, asking questions. ‘Can I see your documents, sir?’

He hands over the passport without speaking.

‘Where you from, Mr Blake?’

‘New York.’

The official’s eyes flick from the photo to Alvin Corri Blake. ‘Which part?’

‘Brooklyn. Out near the Navy Yard.’ He looks the official straight in the eyes. The jerk is trying to guess his ethnicity — struggling to pigeonhole him as Hispanic, African-American — maybe Arabic and therefore by default a Muslim terrorist. ‘Case you’re wondering, I get my perma-tan from my Christian Lebanese mom and my youthful good looks from my Catholic longshoreman dad.’

‘Is that so?’ The guard shakes his head and hands the passport back. There’s always a smart-ass in the lines. ‘Enjoy your stay in LA.’

‘Thanks.’ Ephrem returns the passport to his jacket and the guard moves on. He notices Karakandez with another cop. He’s close now, just a few yards away. For a split second their eyes catch. He looks away. The face of a fat woman to his right is beaded with sweat and she looks ready to faint. He pretends to help her. So does a female cop.

Nic peels away and discreetly shows his shield to the guard who checked Ephrem’s credentials. ‘Where was that last guy from?’

‘New York, out Brooklyn. Caught me eyeballing his skin colour, says his old man is American but mom is Lebanese or something.’

‘Lebanese, that’s what I thought he said.’

The fat lady falls like a big round pine tree and brings gasps from the passenger lines. She goes down face first. A lady cop stoops to see if she’s all right.

Ephrem goes to help too. Help himself to the gun on the officer’s belt.

174

Just before midnight Robert Weinstock emerges from the secure side ward and Mitzi tries unsuccessfully to read his face as he steps toward her and di Matteo. Sister Dawson predictably flutters from her station to his side.

‘Hello, Lieutenant. Again my apologies for keeping you waiting.’ He turns to the sister. ‘Do you have somewhere more private that I may talk to the officers?’

‘My office. Please follow me.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll stay here.’ Di Matteo gestures at the Creeper’s room.

The three of them make the brief trek from the open area around the corner into a small ten by ten office.

‘Thank you, Sister. That will be all.’ Weinstock shuts the door after her. ‘Okay, please sit down.’

Mitzi looks depressed. ‘Am I going to need to?’

‘I think you are.’

Mitzi takes another bum-numbing plastic chair and he pulls up one opposite her.

‘You know what the M’Naghten Rules are?’

Her heart sinks. ‘Not guilty by reason of insanity, right? Gift from the good old British to our wonderful mess of a judicial system.’

‘You’re right. And according to those rules, the man I just saw is mentally ill. There is no question about that. He is lucid enough to know his own name, address, age and job, but his spontaneous lapses into Latin, his intermittent dialogue with God and his profound and persistent self-mutilation are clear signs of extreme mental instability. I have little option but to begin the process that will admit him into institutionalised medical care.’

Mitzi covers her face with her hands. Carter is going to be suicidal when he hears this.

‘I have only done a preliminary examination tonight, but it’s already sufficient to determine that he is delusional and would easily meet the M’Naghten criteria of temporary mental impairment. Put simply, at moments when he kills, Mr James doesn’t believe it is wrong to do it. He is a danger to both society and himself.’

‘What about the “Policeman at the Elbow” test? This guy crept into women’s houses and killed them in their sleep. Would he have taken their lives if there’d been a police officer in the room?’

Weinstock forces out a thin sympathetic smile. ‘Maybe. But Mr James’s case isn’t as simple as I’ve made out.’

Mitzi flinches. ‘Nothing I’ve heard sounds simple. So something in his brain, in his genes, in his upbringing drove him to do it — anything except the fact that he just wanted to.’

‘Lieutenant, please. I understand your frustration, but this won’t help.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Mr James is completely aware of what he has done. He understands why you are here and that I intend to have him admitted into psychiatric care. Nevertheless, he has asked to see you.’

175

Nic isn’t distracted by the woman’s fall. His eyes never leave the lithe-looking guy at her side, bundling into the cop and going for her gun.

Ephrem turns and lets off a shot into the roof of the hall before anyone closes on him.

Screams break out and people hit the ground. He scoops up a young girl in a yellow dress, wraps his left arm tight around her. The kid’s no more than four and for now she’s going to be his shield.

‘Stay away!’ His shout is aimed at two guards with drawn weapons ten metres away. ‘Drop the guns and stay back or I’ll shoot her.’

Pistols clatter to the ground and Ephrem edges back between the glass booths. They’ll come after him, he knows that. He has to slow them down. He snakes the gun around the terrified girl and fires two shots into the huddle of petrified passengers. The first hits a teenager in the back. The second spurts blood from the head of an old man in a wheelchair.

The monk bolts into the luggage area, still carrying the kid.

Nic is first after him; most of the cops and guards are sorting out the wounded and the mayhem. Someone will be on a radio calling for back-up but it might be too late. Up ahead are unsuspecting customs guys. They’re lazily waiting to do final card checks before passengers wriggle free of all the border bureaucracy and disappear into the main terminal.

‘He’s got a gun!’ shouts Nic. ‘The guy’s got a gun and a hostage!’

Too late. Shots bark. The guard to Nic’s left goes down. Then his buddy on the right.

More screams erupt from passengers. Nic grabs a Smith and Wesson from an injured guard and unclips the safety. He clears the automatic doors. The arrivals hall is packed.

A wave of people crashes into him. The shooter is gone. Nic can’t see beyond the flotsam of white name cards held aloft by waiting drivers. He spots a flash of black jacket slipping through one of the exits. It has to be the guy.

He pushes his way to the exit. Outside he turns right. The shooter is facing him.

In a blink Nic checks for the little girl. She’s not there. He sights his gun.

Too late.

A bullet tears into his left shoulder. Rocks him. Sends his senses racing.

Years of training kick in. He keeps focus. Breathes slow. Squeezes the trigger. Blood spurts in the distance. There’s a bang. Like a clap of applause. He sees a hazy figure stagger. A second bullet rips into Nic. He never saw it coming. Never expected this.

His legs buckle. No pain. Not yet — it’s still being trucked in, lorry loads of the stuff. He can’t breathe. Shock freezes his lungs. He can’t get a whisper of air into his body. A wave of cold trauma drowns his nerves and brain. Nic sees his hands but he can’t move them. Can’t feel them. Blood puddles through his fingers.

He’s hit in the stomach. It’s a bad one. That much he knows. He’s caught a real bleeder.

176

Mitzi can’t believe how peaceful James looks. Despite the mass of crusting red crucifixes on his face and chest, there even seems to be a smile lying smugly on the soft hammock of his lips as he rests against a pile of pillows.

Anyone who’s done what he’s done should never be allowed to rest. Goddamn animal should be kept awake until his dying day and Mitzi hopes that’s sooner rather than later.

Weinstock closes the door behind them and the Creeper’s lids shutter.

Mitzi swallows hard. She doesn’t want her rage to show. Not yet. Not until the evil-crazy-psycho-nutjob has said whatever it is he wants to say.

John James looks sleepily from the lieutenant to the psychiatrist as he fights the effect of the sedatives.

Mitzi pulls up a chair alongside the bed. ‘Mr Weinstock here says you want to talk to me.’

He nods slowly. ‘I do.’

She tries to take the hate out of her eyes, tries not to think of all the crime scene pictures she’s seen of women covered in sheets, of holes left in people’s lives.

‘I know what I did, Detective.’ His voice is weak. He reaches for a glass of water on a bedside cabinet. ‘I took the lives of other human beings. I need you to understand that they wanted to be taken.’

‘Sure they did.’

‘They did. All but Bass and Emma — my Emma.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He takes a sip of water. ‘I killed Bass because she and Harrison made Emma’s life hell. God didn’t tell me to. I just wanted to. I would have killed Harrison too had she been there when I broke into her home.’

Seems to Mitzi that she was right about Jenny’s phone. ‘To be clear,’ she glances at Weinstock, making it understood that he’s a witness to what’s being said, ‘you admit to the premeditated murder of Kim Bass and attempted murder of Jennifer Harrison?’

‘And the murder of Em — Emma Varley.’ He looks away.

He’s crying. Unbelievably, the man who slaughtered a dozen or more women is actually weeping.

He uses the edge of the pillow to wipe away tears. ‘I thought that God had chosen her, had wanted me to help her go to him. But I was mistaken.’

‘Mistaken?’

‘My feelings for her confused me. I’ve never felt like that before.’

‘You loved her.’

‘Still do. That’s why I know it’s wrong. It felt wrong when I did it. But I still did it.’

‘And you’re telling me this now, why? Presumably, only because you know you’re safe from prosecution, and the death penalty.’ She looks toward Weinstock. ‘You’re rock-solid certain that the good doctor here is going to insist on you being hospitalised so there’s no risk of you ever going to trial.’

‘No — you’re wrong! I’m telling you, because God wants me to stand trial.’ He takes a slow breath and calms himself. ‘The Lord wants me to face up to what I’ve done. He’s not ashamed of how He guided me, nor I of how I was guided. The world must know the errors made were mortal not divine.’

Weinstock bends close to his patient and whispers, ‘May I explain a little more to the officer?’

The Creeper nods.

‘With respect, Lieutenant, I don’t think you understand the enormity of what is being said to you. A landmark case some years back ruled that an insanity defence cannot be imposed upon an intelligent defendant who wishes to forgo such a defence. Mr James is just such a person.’

‘That’s right.’ His face is filled with contentment. ‘I wish to forgo such a defence. I confess to the murders of Kim Bass and Emma Varley and I demand I be punished for them.’

177

Sirens blare. Voices fade in and out. Lights flash.

Nic Karakandez knows from the chaos around him that he’s in an ambulance and is dying. The pain comes now. Comes with a fanfare. A big brass band of agony booms out the message that his body can’t survive this level of trauma.

Strangers mop blood from his gut. They press pads with desperate hands and shout about hydrostatic shock, haem-orrhaging, BP levels and Christ knows what else.

Their tones give away that they’re in a race to save his life — and they’re losing.

A cop’s face swims into view.

‘Hang on, buddy.’ A forced smile. ‘We’re nearly there. Keep looking at me, you hear.’

Nic tries his best but his eyelids are heavy. He can’t hold out any more.

Blackness.

‘He’s going. Quick. Come on, do something.’

‘Keep him awake. For God’s sake just keep him awake.’

Distant voices. The world bumping. Sirens. Incredible heat and then waves of cold.

‘Come on, buddy, you’re going to be all right.’

Nic opens his eyes and sees the cop again.

‘Good, that’s good. Keep staring at me.’

He recognises the look. The one he’s worn often enough. Pulled it out on street corners when gangbangers, kids too young to even drink, are bleeding out. He’s knelt beside them, given them that look and lied away their last minutes.

He closes his eyes again.

‘No. No. Come on buddy!’

The darkness is restful. This is where the peace is. This is where the pain can be locked out.

He thinks of Carolina and Max. The three of them flying off for the holiday they never took. Running in the sand and sea together, holding hands, splashing and laughing as they jump waves.

‘We’re losing him.’

The brass band stops now.

The pain rages no more.