Viper

53

San Giorgio a Cremano, La Baia di Napoli That night, Creed came to Sylvia in her nightmares. In the fitful two hours that she slept, his yellow-toothed mouth spat out the question again: 'Would you say that this killing is connected to the disappearances of Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi and Gloria Pirandello?'

Well? Would you, Sylvia? Would you?

Calm – he'd been so damn calm – and arrogant. Creed was still on her mind when she woke. And he stayed there as she showered, dressed, skipped breakfast and drove to work. She was so preoccupied she didn't notice her lieutenant walking in behind her.

'Buon giorno. Are you okay, boss?' asked Raimondi.

'Yes, yes I'm fine, Pietro. I've been thinking of what Jack said about Creed. What do you think? Is he innocent or guilty?'

'Well…'

'No wells! No painfully long answers! This man is driving me mad. Just tell me; what do you think? Innocent or guilty?'

'I don't know,' he shrugged. 'I really don't know.' And neither did Sylvia. There was no real evidence – certainly no forensic evidence – but his behaviour was so odd, his character so unpleasant, that it made it hard to even connect the word innocent to him. 'I know we've run checks on him having any links or relationships with these women, but please run them again. Shake the whole thing down once more. See if we can sieve something out.'

Pietro's reply was halted by a knock on her office door. A woman clerk stuck her head round it, 'Scusi, Capitano, but your phone, it is off the hook.'

Sylvia peered through the rubbish on her desk, found the receiver and slapped it back on its cradle. 'Grazie.'

'Downstairs there is a Professore Sorrentino, asking to see you. May I bring him up?'

Pietro laughed. Sylvia dropped her head into her hands. 'No, you may not! God save me from this. Sorrentino is the last person I want to see.'

'Shall I send him away, Capitano?' The clerk seemed confused.

Sylvia turned to Pietro and looked flirtatiously at him. The look was a little jaded, but still did the trick.

'Okay. I will see him.' He followed the clerk to reception.

The door banged shut behind them and Sylvia stared down at the mass of paperwork, growing like bacteria on her desk. If the Francesca Di Lauro case had been the only one she was overseeing then things might not have been too bad. But to her left were witness statements, forensic evidence and psychiatric evaluations on a teenager from Portici who had raped five elderly women. And to her right was a reminder from her chief that a week ago he'd requested her Quarterly Crime Analysis Reports. She settled down in the middle of the paper maze and tried to find her way out.

Minutes later, the door reopened and Pietro entered with Sorrentino.

Sylvia's heart sank. She'd hoped Pietro would have got rid of him.

'I thought you had better hear this yourself,' he explained.

Sorrentino flashed his perfect white teeth. She could see that he'd dyed his hair again. This was a man who would go to his grave denying he'd ever had a grey hair on his head.

'Professore, good to see you,' she pretended. 'To what do we owe the enormous pleasure of your company?'

Sorrentino killed her sarcasm in mid-air, swatted it like a pesky fly.

'There are more bodies.' He tossed a file on to her desk. 'Some of the human bones recovered from the park don't belong to Francesca Di Lauro. They belong to someone else.'

Sylvia was open-mouthed. 'You're sure? You're certain they are not Francesca's?'

Sorrentino enjoyed his moment. 'I wouldn't be here if I wasn't certain.' He reached across her desk and flipped open the file he'd dropped in front of her.

'Here in this picture you see the skeleton of Francesca Di Lauro. Okay, maybe we've missed some bones, here and there, but it is a good reconstruction.'

Horrible, not good – that was the word Sylvia would have chosen. She looked at the photograph and couldn't suppress a shiver of sisterly sympathy.

Sorrentino slid the black and white blow-up to one side. 'This photograph shows sixteen separate fragments of bone, also burned and blackened, and as you can seen I have assembled them. They're clearly from the left tibia and right femur of another woman.' He paused and went back on himself to make sure Sylvia fully understood. 'Bones not from Francesca, but from another woman. This one is aged somewhere between nineteen and thirty, probably about one-and-a-half metres tall.'

'O porca puttana!' Sylvia looked across at Pietro. He seemed as shocked as she was.

What a setback. One murder like this was a drain on resources, two sucked you dry.

'How do you know it's a woman?' Pietro gestured towards the photograph. 'And all that about age and size? How do you know her age?'

Sorrentino was glad to explain. 'Generally, female bones are thinner and shorter than male ones. The biggest clue, though, is in the femur.'

'The thigh bone?' checked Pietro.

'Yes. Femur is Latin for thigh.' He looked at Pietro as though he were a stupid child. 'It is the largest and strongest bone in the body. After reassembling the whole of the femur, it's a simple calculation to project the size of the individual.'

'And the sex and age?'

Sorrentino sighed wearily. 'Size and shape of the bone. To determine sex we look at the length and diameter plus the way it joins the hip bone. Age – well, we know the head of the femur is fully developed when a woman is about eighteen or nineteen – and in this case, it was.'

Sylvia stared at the photographs and felt as drained as a dead car battery. She handled the scattered images on her desk and absorbed the reality of what she now accepted was probably another murdered woman. Were these broken and burned bones really all that were left of some lost soul like Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi or Gloria Pirandello? The thought angered her. It dropped like a match into a pool of gasoline and sparked her into action.

'Pietro, I want search teams, exhibit officers, scientists, photographers and every other goddamned overworked person we can find back out in the fields. Dig the whole fucking park up if necessary. We have to see exactly what's there.'

Sorrentino smirked at her. 'I'll tell you exactly what's there.' His tone was sotto voce; he waited a beat, then dropped the bomb. 'A necropolis. That's what's there, Capitano. You have stumbled into a serial killer's secret graveyard and you are about to open up your very own necropolis.'