Viper

68

Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio Jack felt he was getting to know the park's 130 square kilometres better than most locals. As well as his visits, he'd studied maps and websites in every spare moment he'd had. He'd memorized its nine main footpaths and how they lifted people to more than 1,200 metres above sea level. He'd studied its flora, fauna and geology. Soon – very soon – he hoped he'd know the area as well as the man he was hunting.

'Buon giorno! ' shouted Sylvia, as he completed the last bit of the climb after the carabinieri car had dropped him. 'Sorrentino, the big guy over there, was called by his team. They've found more fragments of bone. As I said on the phone, they're sure it's another body.'

Jack looked across the site as they walked together. The unearthed graves of Francesca Di Lauro, the still unidentified second victim and now the third and newest victim were all so close together that there was a danger of the scenes being cross-contaminated. Access planks and grid lines only went so far in protecting multiple-victim scenes, and Jack could see workers struggling not to step into each other's territory. Sorrentino was now on his knees in the third site, sifting soil, shouting and pointing at people.

'Let me introduce you to him.' Sylvia wiped strands of wind-blown hair from off her face. 'His English is good and lately he's been behaving himself.'

'No leaks to the press?'

'None. Maybe the Great Lion is tamed.'

'Good.' Jack noticed she was missing her trusted sidekick. 'Where's Pietro?'

'He's still interviewing Antonio Castellani. He might join us out here if he finishes in time.'

'Any news on the grandson – Franco?'

'No. We've still got cars out searching. He has no wheels, so he can't be far.'

'And his cousin?'

'Paolo. There's news on him. Forensics don't put him at the pit. Or near the car in which Rosa and Filippo were killed, or in contact with the underwear or trophies we found. We'll take DNA for further comparison tests, hold him until nightfall, then have someone re-interview him before we let him go.'

They gingerly made their way along the last narrow plank to the newest site.

'Bernardo, this is Jack King, an American psychological profiler who is helping us with our case.'

Jack held out his hand but Sorrentino didn't take it immediately. His brain had to absorb the fact that there was someone around who might, just might, be more interesting than himself. 'Bernardo Sorrentino, Professore Sorrentino.' He stressed his title as he finally took the profiler's hand.

Jack nodded at the hunched figures toiling in the dirt. 'Looks like a major job. You got any pattern yet?'

Sorrentino unveiled his most patronizing of looks. 'Aah, I wish it was that easy. This is not a structural burial. There are no rooms, no underground chambers, and no buildings of any kind that can provide us with the type of design that would make discovery easy.'

'Rough time frame?'

'Francesca we dated around five years. The second is more like six. And I'd say the third is the same – maybe even a little older.'

Jack's mind wandered to the killer. How had he carried the victims' remains here? Sacks, bags, buckets? What had he used to get his bearings? A compass or just strong memories? Why had he buried them apart – was it by accident, or out of respect? Did he have some twisted, fractured but still prevailing sense of decency deep inside him? Or did he want them to have separate graves for other reasons?

Sylvia and Sorrentino were talking Italian now. She was asking whether the new bones would yield DNA and Sorrentino was hopeful. She was pushing him for dates on when it would be done – when she could expect results. As he wandered away, Jack smiled at the hard time she was giving Sorrentino. He liked women with ambition, dedication and determination. Liked them professionally, liked them personally.

The profiler stopped and banged a heel into the ground. The earth was as stony as hell. The killer wouldn't have been able to dig exactly where he liked, so he would have had to have chosen softer ground. He eyed the bushes, the brambles, the patches of overgrown grass and the trees, the circle of pines and cypresses that stretched out their roots like tentacles. Jack had soon walked a full twenty metres away from the others and was now entering a copse of trees south of where Sylvia and Sorrentino stood. From here he looked back on the steel poles that had been driven into the ground. They were labelled UNO, DUO and TRE – like the numbers of a clock.

Like a clock face.

Of course. It all seemed so obvious now.

So simple.

Jack hurried back and interrupted Sylvia and Sorrentino. 'I think our killer's been burying the bodies in a circle. Look back at the poles on the graves of what you've called Victims One, Two and Three. You can see the start of an arc, like the circumference of a clock.'

Soft rain fell as their gaze moved over the site. The curve soon became apparent. Sylvia was the first to grasp the full significance. 'If you're right – if he has buried them following the numbers on a clock face – then it would be logical that his first victim was buried as due north as he could guess at.'

Jack looked again at the steel poles jutting out of the ground. 'Which is nowhere near where you found Francesca, the area you've marked as Victim One.'

'That fits with our science,' added Sorrentino. 'Timewise she looks like at least the third victim in the sequence that we've already identified. If we discover more bodies – earlier victims – then chronologically she moves further down.'

Jack nodded. He could already tell that Francesca's burial site wasn't due north, nor was Victim Three.

Sylvia screwed up her face. Paced restlessly between the poles. 'If we're to hit on any other graves we have to get the curve right, follow exactly the same arc that our killer had in his mind when he returned to the scene and buried each victim. Bernardo, what about a radar sweep?'

The Great Lion flicked a paw dismissively through the air. 'I hate radar. With electronics you find only what you think you are looking for. As a consequence you miss so much more. Let's think of it as a last resort.'

Sylvia let it slide. Sorrentino was in charge of the excavation and his record spoke for itself. 'Let me get this right,' she said. 'Victims Two and Three are found to the left of Victim One, and they were both buried earlier. So if we keep going west, then we should keep finding earlier victims until we hit north?'

'That's if my theory is right,' said Jack. 'And it presumes that he buried his first victim as due north as he could guess at.'

Sorrentino nodded. 'Due north representing twelve o'clock?'

'Exactly.'

They looked across the land. There was a lot of west to go. Lots of room for more bodies.

'We need a compass.' Sylvia looked to Sorrentino. He huffed and strode away from them. Walked the planks between the victims. 'I admire precision, but sometimes you should also go with instinct.' He moved almost two metres north-west of the third victim, lifted a spade and sliced it into the muddy ground. 'We've already photographed the hell out of this site, so we should get on with it and see if your theory holds up.'

Jack and Sylvia watched as Sorrentino worked away.

She produced a small, telescopic umbrella from her coat and held it over them as the anthropologist slowly toiled in the freshly falling rain. 'I forgot to ask, any news from your friend Howie? He come up with anything on Creed?'

'A little,' said Jack. 'I left a message on Pietro's phone. Howie showed Creed's mug around some diners and bars. Seems he kept pretty much to himself, but it appears he may have visited a street girl.'

'Any ID on her?'

'Afraid not. It also seems he was logged on to our Virtual Academy. He named someone in the carabinieri for accreditation.'

Sylvia frowned. She knew enough about the VA to understand it had restricted access. 'You know the name of who vouched for him?'

'Nope, but it was probably faked.'

'The more things develop, the less I like Creed.' Sylvia fought more hair from her face and vowed to get it cut. 'Still not sure he stands up as a serious suspect for serial murder, though.'

'You're right to feel that way. But I think Creed is partly a monster of your own making.'

'How do you mean?' She sounded surprised.

'Given all the details on these missing girls, and what we've recently discovered, then maybe someone should get a roasting for ignoring Creed's earlier claims that the cases warranted looking at.'

'I've asked about that. It's not quite the way Creed told you. Seems he did inform several people about the links, but he refused to share all his data unless he was given a full-time job. He was holding info back in order to serve his own ends.'

'That would figure.'

Despite Sorrentino's remark about enough photographs and records having been done, Sylvia still called a crime-scene snapper to take more shots. He arrived wet and cold. She directed him to the new dig. Kristoff Sibilski, a soil analysis expert from the carabinieri's science labs, and Luella Grazzioli, Sorrentino's new Number Two, had rolled up and were now at work as well. Their expert fingers dug in the wet mud and grit. They pulled out stones, filled buckets, sifted soil through metal meshes and removed twigs and glass. Finally, they tagged and bagged samples that meant nothing to either Jack or Sylvia but seemed attractive to Sorrentino. 'Trowel!' he shouted to Luella, akin to the way a surgeon calls for a scalpel.

She slapped it into the palm of Sorrentino's rubber-gloved hand and within seconds he was back on his knees, operating at close quarters, making incisive cuts at precision speed.

Jack watched the rain pour over his long, matted black hair and found himself admiring the man's passion and skill.

Without speaking, Sorrentino delicately lifted something from the earth. He rose slowly to his feet, one hand cupped beneath the trowel, and turned to face them.

Everyone stared at what he held.

'Bone,' he said decisively. 'Human bone.'

In a patch two metres west of the last grave, in a near perfect arc, they'd found Victim Number Four.