Viper

87

Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna Jack and Sylvia sat in her office updating each other. He recounted his meeting with Gina and his growing suspicions about Bruno Valsi and the Finelli clan. She painstakingly laid out the latest forensic evidence and how it heavily implicated Franco Castellani in all the deaths near the campsite, but not in the Sorrentino murder. And how it didn't put Valsi into any of the murder frames. It seemed they had taken one step forward and two steps back.

'I think Franco's a red herring,' said Jack.

'What exactly does that mean?' queried Sylvia. 'I mean, I know what it means – a sort of false clue – but why the mention of fish, red or otherwise?'

Jack laughed. 'It's an old expression. It means something that's drawing our attention away from what we should be looking at. Herrings are not naturally red but they turn red when they're smoked.'

Sylvia cocked her head in acknowledgement of his explanation.

'I think DNA has smoked Franco Castellani guilty of murder, but he isn't.'

'I'm not so sure. What about his trace evidence being all over the pit, all over the car, and Rosa's underwear being in his bunk?'

'Exactly,' stressed Jack.

'Exactly? '

'The panties are the real clue. Franco's a sick kid. His disease has alienated him from society, and especially from women. Like all young men he has urges – probably very strong ones – for female contact…'

'And maybe huge hatred and resentment towards those women for rejecting him and his urges?'

'Maybe. But let me finish. You and I probably both resent a lot of people for a lot of things, but we don't go around killing them.'

Sylvia jumped in again. 'But – and these are your own words – the two most crucial pieces of evidence we have are the panties, and the DNA on the car door at the spot where the killer stood when he talked to Rosa before he shot her.'

'They are crucial. But I'm starting to believe they're not connected.'

'Meaning?'

'They're contra-indicators. Stolen panties point to a different kind of individual than someone who taunts a victim seconds before he blows her head off with a nine millimetre.'

Sylvia still wasn't done. 'But you're guessing that the killer did that. You don't know that for sure.'

Jack's head fizzed with images. Gun raised, girl cowering in the back, boyfriend already dead. 'Believe me, Sylvia, I'm not guessing. I'm sure. Our killer spoke to Rosa before he shot her. That DNA is our killer's and that killer's not Franco Castellani.'

She knew where he was heading. 'And it's not Bruno Valsi's either. The labs say that. They've run comparisons on all known offenders and it's not your boy. I specifically asked about Valsi, and his profile is different.'

Jack stared off into space. Could he be wrong? Could the DNA comparison be wrong? Then he remembered his conversation with Pisano. 'What if it's not Valsi's DNA on file?'

Sylvia frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Lorenzo said the Camorra once sprang Valsi from a gun rap by having the weapon disappear from the evidence store. What if they got to his DNA profile and switched it?'

Sylvia's stomach flipped. 'You mean the Camorra paid off someone in the Records Office?'

Jack raised a brow. 'Maybe not only Valsi's. Could be that the Camorra do a routine switch on all their top boys. Once their DNA is on file, they pay a mole to switch it. Would be a nice earner for someone.'

Sylvia couldn't bear thinking about it. And if the Camorra had done that with DNA, then they'd have done it with fingerprints too. And blood samples. If the whole of the Records Office had been corrupted, then law and order in Naples was about to fall apart.

Jack moved on. 'You have to get a fresh sample from Valsi and see if it matches what's on file. And if they're not the same, then see if the new sample matches the DNA on the car door at the crime scene.'

Sylvia felt exasperated. 'We can't just ask Valsi for a sample. He'd laugh in our faces.'

'Sure he would. But maybe his wife would help. Him going back to prison would be a blessing for her.'

'Worth a shot.' Sylvia glanced at her watch. 'Cazzo! We're late for the briefing.'

They hurried to the Incident Room. The air was already buzzing with voices, the smell of wet clothing and freshly made coffee. Sorrentino's number two, Luella Grazzioli, was standing at the front, fastening diagrams and photographs to a giant whiteboard with coloured magnets. She had long, layered, shaggy brown hair that had once been blonde but now was dark at the roots and full of dried earth and frizzy ends. When all this was over she'd treat herself to a good cut, a fabulous manicure and enough mellow Pinot Grigio to make her lose the power of speech. But, as she put the last of the pictures on the board, she knew those moments of indulgence were still a long way off. She pointed to a grainy aerial shot marked with red crosses, showing opened graves and the spots the radar had pinpointed as most likely to contain more bones.

'Here you can see the five distinct female recovery sites that we've already opened up, including those of the first victim we discovered, Francesca Di Lauro, and the second female, recently identified as Gloria Pirandello.'

Luella paused to let everyone scan the pictures and get their bearings. 'As you can see, these female graves radiate in a semi-circle. I have teams working with your crews to complete the other half of the circle, and if you're right,' looking at Jack, 'then we're likely to find more burial sites.' Her phraseology made Jack uncomfortable but he didn't interrupt and hoped his instincts were wrong.

'If you look down from the arc – that clock face, as I know some of you now call it – you can see two more graves. These are roughly twenty metres away from those of Francesca and Gloria. On the way over I got a call from the lab and I can now confirm that these are, in fact, male graves.'

It was like a bomb had gone off. First silence as the news stunned everyone. Then an eruption of murmurings.

'Quiet!' shouted Sylvia. 'Male? You're sure they're male?'

The look on Luella's face said she was sure. 'The sex is confirmed. One hundred per cent certain.'

'And not in the circle,' said Jack, more as an observation than a question.

'No. As I said, they're about twenty metres further away.'

And the photographs on the board spelled it out. Two dark radar blobs, nowhere near the female graves, and not that near to each other either.

'What made you dig there, out of pattern?' asked Sylvia.

There was a blink of sadness in Luella's eyes. 'Sorrentino had made notes saying where he thought there could be other bodies – outside the circle. I guess he was looking at the lie of the land and working on his own instincts rather than yours. Anyway, when I swept the GPRS over it, these sites looked hot.'

'How long have the males been buried?' pressed Sylvia.

'Can't yet tell you that. Years, not months. At least as old as the females. The lab says most likely older.'

'Any ages?' asked Jack.

'Again, they're working on it. The bones were those of fully grown, fully nourished adults. We can say at least mid twenties. Probably older.'

Jack stared at the markings of where the two male graves were. They made no sense. Didn't fit his clock-face pattern at all. They weren't side by side, not aligned – just dumped, sort of randomly south of where the women had been found.

Luella continued with the lecture but Jack didn't really hear any more of it. He kept studying the seven sites, trying to work out their chronology and their relationships. As soon as the briefing finished he strode over to where Sylvia and Luella were standing.

'I know,' said Sylvia, 'you want to go straight back to the site. Me too.'

'Somehow I thought you might,' said Luella, realizing instantly that her date with that Pinot Grigio had been put back even further.