Viper

SIX

December 22nd

3.45 a.m. Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna They'd drawn straws – literally drawn straws from the carabinieri canteen – and Claudio Mancini had picked the short one. He dialled the emergency number on the Incident Room wall and waited for Capitano Sylvia Tomms to answer the phone.

It was the dead of night and she was going to kill him.

Most of the Murder Squad's graveyard shift watched with amusement as he braced himself for a nuclear blast to the ear.

'What? What is it?' slurred Sylvia. She was coming out of a deep sleep. Brain grinding to find first gear.

'Capitano, it's Mancini from the Murder Squad. I am sorry but it is urgent, that's why I'm calling you.'

'What? What's urgent?' She frowned at the bedside clock. Eyes too blurry to read. The digits just red snakes.

'Capitano, you left instructions that whatever time it was you wanted to be informed as soon as we had an ID on the Jane Doe in the pit.'

'Yes, I did. Is that what you're calling with?'

Mancini thought he detected a sense of understanding in her voice. Maybe he would be okay. 'Yes. We got DNA back from the lab very late last night and we've been working on an ID ever since. Missing Persons didn't come up with anything but we checked the blood banks and hospitals and…'

'Mancini, cut the how, just tell me the who.' Sylvia dragged herself upright and propped pillows behind her back.

'Kristen Petrov, twenty-four years old, born in Prague, emigrated when she was nineteen, has been in Naples for three years.'

She was awake now. Wide awake. 'Who the hell is she? Does she have any connections to our suspects?'

Mancini glanced across at a whiteboard. 'She worked as a call handler in a sex centre that the Finelli clan has run for the past decade. You know, they advertise on late-night TV, you can telephone and…'

'I know what phone sex is, Mancini. Un momento…' Sylvia used her phone-free hand to rub an itch from her eyes. 'Get this information to Lorenzo Pisano's office – you know who he is?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Mark it urgent. I'll call him as soon as he gets in. Get round to this woman's apartment and strip the place bare. I want calendars off walls, diaries out of drawers, unwashed underwear, receipts; absolutely everything that can tell us anything about who she is, who she knows and who she's ever slept with. Got it?'

'Got it,' said Mancini.

The phone went dead and the young officer realized just how short the straw was. His night shift was about to go on for a whole lot longer than he'd expected. 6.30 a.m. Casa di famiglia dei Valsi, Camaldoli The angel-faced lap dancer from Luca's Bar was proving a much better fuck than Bruno Valsi had dared imagine she would be. In his mind, beautiful women usually turned out to be a big disappointment between the sheets. The plain ones usually tried harder. But this babe, well she was an exception. Just how exceptional, Valsi would never know.

Stephanie Muller was a lesbian. She'd slept with him several times and worked hard to pleasure him all night because she needed the money. Especially the big money he was offering for the job she'd do for him later today.

Most of Stephanie's recent life had been a fake. She just switched off and sailed through whatever shit life had thrown at her. The first dollop of brown stuff came her way when she was a stripper in Hamburg. While working the city's Sinful Mile, the infamous Reeperbahn, she fell head-over-heels in love with an Italian businesswoman. She trusted her heart rather than her brain and moved to Naples. Predictably her new Latin lover turned out to have several other Latin lovers and Steph got dumped within the month. Life was a bitch. Penniless and hungry she'd done anything she had to in order to feed herself. And the latest offer that Valsi had made her would keep her fed for a long time.

'I gotta go,' said the twenty-six-year-old, wriggling out from beneath his muscled arm.

'Not yet. I'm not finished with you.'

Steph glanced at the plastic Swatch on her wrist. 'It's six thirty; you know everything I have to do today.' She sat up on the edge of the bed and felt raw and sore. The sheets were marked with blood from the rough anal sex that he'd made her endure. She felt too dizzy to stand. In a second she'd be okay. She looked across the room to find where her clothes had been thrown.

Valsi grabbed a clump of the thick black hair that hung in little-girl curls down her slim pale back and pulled her towards him.

'Ow! Hey!'

'You got time.' He forced her head towards his groin.

There was no point complaining. No point inviting a beating. Steph switched off. Let her attention drift as she did his bidding. The room was pink and green with the kind of carpets, bedding and curtains that she knew she could never afford. The furniture looked antique. Chairs with curved backs and big dark wood wardrobes with matching chests of drawers. A dressing table full of perfumes and a matching full-length mirror. She had no idea what it was worth but she'd love to have stuff like that.

Valsi finished grunting and rolled away from her. 'Okay, get the fuck out of here.'

Steph struggled painfully to her feet. She walked naked to the bathroom and spat his semen in the sink. He'd told her not to use his toothbrush, or his wife's or child's. Both still stood unashamedly in a glass on a shelf, like two abandoned soldiers. She squirted toothpaste on her finger and scrubbed as best she could.

'There's money on the dresser,' Valsi shouted from the bed as she appeared from the shower, recovered her clothes and dressed.

Steph took the five hundred euros he'd placed next to a photograph of two people she guessed were the owners of the untouchable toothbrushes. With any luck this would be the last time she'd be brutalized by him. He'd promised her ten thousand euros for the job she'd do in two hours' time. Ten grand for a morning's work. Not a fortune, but enough to change your life. Rome, Milan or even Florence were good places to start over if you had that kind of cushion in your purse.

She let herself out without saying goodbye. Lit a cigarette as she walked along the driveway to the iron gates that protected Valsi's house. Usually a man emerged from a wooden security hut to flirt with her and let her through, but today no one came.

'Hello!' she shouted, craning her neck around some large laurels that hid the small hut. 'Hello, could someone let me out, please?'

Steph was about to knock on the window but stopped with her hand in mid-air. 'Madonna Santa! Oh, my sweet God!'

The guard had been shot dead. His blood and brains were sprayed up the wooden back panel of the shed. The man was still seated, his automatic rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm.

Steph froze with fright.

Should she run back to the house and tell Bruno? Or should she just get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible?

She chose the latter.

Shaking. Close to tears. Careful not to look again at the near headless body, she slowly snaked her hand inside the wooden hut and pressed the button that electronically opened the iron gates.

They clanked into life.

She was through them just as soon as the gap was wide enough.

Gone long before they'd finished opening. 7.30 a.m. Casa di famiglia dei Valsi, Camaldoli Bruno Valsi was still in bed when two armed men crept cautiously into his house.

He'd heard them at the front door.

Listened to their hushed voices and creaking feet on the staircase.

Known what to expect.

He grabbed the gun from beneath his pillow, rolled off the far side of the mattress and opened fire.

'Boss, boss! It's us!' The shout came from one of two men who'd just turned up for security duty and found their colleague dead in his hut. 'It's Alfonso and Gerardo.'

Valsi had blasted holes in the bedroom door. 'What the fuck are you doing?' he shouted as they cowered outside the room. 'Get the fuck in here!'

Alfonso, thirty-two years old, entered first; he was white-faced from shock. Gerardo, a young man of just twenty, followed, even more afraid.

Valsi was naked. Kneeling behind the bed. His arms were stretched across the mattress and he gripped a pistol in a shooting stance. 'Put your hands up. Let me see them.'

Their hands went up.

'Walk to the centre of the room.'

They knew the drill. Knew they should never have entered the house without permission.

'So, what the fuck is this about?' he demanded.

'Beppe's dead,' explained Alfonso. 'Someone shot him in his hut and the house intercom is dead as well.'

'What?'

'Bullet in the face. His head is spread everywhere.'

Alfonso looked towards Gerardo. 'Tell Signor Valsi what you found.'

Gerardo was so scared he had trouble speaking. 'L-like Alfonso said, he was dead. He is d-d-dead, Signor Valsi.'

'Calm down.' Valsi waved his gun at the other man. 'Alfonso, throw me those trousers, by the chair.' They looked away as he pulled them on. 'Let's go.' Valsi whipped a used white shirt off the back of the chair, walked barefoot downstairs, through the house and out to the guard hut.

He didn't even blink when he saw Beppe Basso's bloody body. Beppe the Short – that was his nickname – now he really was short.

To be precise, he was about four inches shorter than he used to be.

Valsi bent down inside the hut and found the missing inches, spread across the inside of the roof and the back panel of the guard shelter. 'Fuck and damn!' He banged his fist against the door frame.

He jammed the pistol into the waistband of his pants and turned to Alfonso. 'Call Pennestri and Farina for me. I want them here as soon as possible.'

Valsi headed back to the house. The war was on. This was just the start of it.

He avoided the landline and used an untraceable cellphone to call the Family consigliere.

Ricardo Mazerelli picked up after two rings. 'Pronto.'

'It's Bruno. I have a dead guard here. Shot in his hut. The cops are going to be all over the joint in minutes.'

Valsi listened closely to Mazerelli's reply. Tried to judge from the tone of his voice how shocked he was. 'Okay, I'll get people round. Have you touched anything?' The lawyer sounded unfazed.

'Not the body, but the hut. Alfonso and some kid were here too. They've trampled the fuck out of the place, probably got their prints and hairs all over the stiff.'

Mazerelli noted that Valsi hadn't even had the decency to give the dead guard a name. The guy was a monster. Nobody mattered but himself. 'Have you called the police, or had anyone ring them?'

'No. Not yet. You want that I do that?'

'No. I'll do it. Put the phone down now and get in a taxi and come straight over to my apartment. Bring with you any clothes you were wearing when you went near the guard. Don't speak to anyone else.'

'Okay.' Valsi clicked off his phone and smiled. He knew Mazerelli would call the cops and make sure there were no loose ends when they came asking questions. Cleaning up was part of his job. After that, he would call his father-in-law and the old man would presume the hit had come from a Cicerone triggerman. The last thing he would suspect was that in the dead of night Valsi had sat laughing and joking with one of his own guards and had then shot him dead. What a turn-on that kill had been. No wonder the little lap dancer could barely walk this morning.

The game had begun. And like he'd told Mazerelli, he wouldn't be playing by any rules. 7.58 a.m. San Giorgio a Cremano, La Baia di Napoli After the call from Mancini, Sylvia Tomms had fallen into a heavy sleep and missed the alarm. Once more she found herself being woken by the bedside phone.

'Pronto.' She was alert within a second. It was Pietro Raimondi. Had he not talked so fast, she would have torn him off a strip for taking to his sick bed when so much was happening. Instead, she listened intently as he filled her in on the call he'd just received. There'd been a shooting at Bruno Valsi's home. A security guard had been killed in his gate hut. His lawyer had phoned to report the murder.

'Where's Valsi now?' she asked.

'On his way to the station house, with his lawyer, Mazerelli.'

'Cazzo! ' Sylvia scrambled to the bathroom. 'I'll be there as soon as I can. Maybe half an hour, forty minutes. Depends on the traffic.'

'Don't worry. I'm only five minutes away. I'm told Major Pisano is en route as well.'

She dropped the phone and ran the shower. Thank God Pietro was back. One thing annoyed her, though. How had he known about Valsi before she had? And how come he knew that Pisano was already on his way? 8.15 a.m. Centro citta, Napoli Thunder boomed and rolled. Forked lightning cracked the grey sky and darted across the darkened bay. It looked more like late evening than early morning as Mazerelli's Lexus emerged from a maze of cobbled backstreets and parked at a nightclub the Family owned near the carabinieri's central HQ.

At the front desk, Mazerelli introduced himself in a very deliberate manner. 'I am Ricardo Mazerelli, legal representative of Bruno Valsi. A short time ago I telephoned this station and reported a murder at Signor Valsi's home in Camaldoli. It is now a little after eight fifteen a.m. and, as promised during my call, my client and I are here to assist you in any way we can.'

'Who did you talk to?' asked the male desk officer, sounding bored as he ran a chubby finger down a ledger for times and notes.

'Lieutenant Pietro Raimondi.'

The desk jockey scanned a list of extensions pinned to the top of his desk. 'Raimondi is not stationed here.'

'I know,' snapped Mazerelli. 'I called your switchboard and they put me through to him. He'll be arriving here shortly.'

'Then take a seat, over there.'

'First, please make a note of the time of our arrival.' Mazerelli turned his wrist and ostentatiously tapped his watch. 'Eight eighteen.'

The officer glared at the lawyer. 'Your time of arrival is noted. Now, please take a seat.'

'In a moment.' Mazerelli leaned forward over the desk to check the time had been entered in the ledger. 'Fine. Thank you.' He touched Valsi on the shoulder and they settled in some black plastic chairs by a window. Valsi grabbed a magazine from a wobbly-legged table piled high with old reads.

'Raimondi will be here shortly,' said the lawyer. 'With a little luck we'll have all the formalities done within the hour. Then we'll be out of here.'

'No rush,' said Valsi. 'They can take as long as they like.' And for once, he meant it.

Right now, there was nowhere else he'd rather be than in the company of the carabinieri. 8.20 a.m. Capo di Posillipo, La Baia di Napoli Gina Valsi's hair was still a little wet. She and her son Enzo had been swimming in her father's indoor pool when Don Fredo had been told of the guard's murder. Not surprisingly, the Don had chosen not to say anything to his daughter as he breakfasted with her and his grandson in the conservatory.

'You look tense, Papa,' observed Gina. 'Work is giving you problems already?'

He laughed dismissively. 'Work is always giving me problems.' He poured coffee from a silver pot. 'You want some more?'

'No, grazie. I have to get Enzo ready for the child-minder.' She ruffled the boy's hair as he dabbed a jammy fingertip into a plate full of croissant crumbs. 'Go scrub your teeth. And make sure you do them properly.' She bared her gums and waggled a finger up and down as he escaped to the bathroom. Gina turned back to her father. The top of his head was now all that was visible above a wall of newspaper. 'I'm going to have Leonardo bring my car round. Papa, do you want me to call your driver too?'

Finelli didn't hear his daughter; his mind was elsewhere, and not on the newspaper. Cicerone had some balls whacking his son-in-law's guard. If they'd waited twenty-four hours then they'd have got their money in full. A generous amount as well. A pre-emptive strike like this was meant as a warning. Or a challenge. When Mazerelli was finished with Valsi, then he'd call him in. After that he'd ring Cicerone himself and see where they stood. He doubted Carmine the Dog wanted a war. But if he did, then he'd certainly give him one. A war to end all wars. Perhaps the killing was a way of hiking the settlement price up and showing his own clan that he wouldn't be publicly disrespected. If that was the case, he could live with it.

'Papa, do you want your car? You're supposed to be at the doctor's in thirty minutes.'

The paper wall crumbled. 'Merda! I'd forgotten.' Finelli sprang to his feet. 'Grazie. I'll be there in a minute. God, the traffic will be awful now. I should have left ten minutes ago.'

Gina smiled. Her father was growing increasingly forgetful. She and Enzo had lived with him for only a short time, but already it felt as if she were looking after two children. Yesterday he'd forgotten she was cooking dinner and he'd eaten before coming home. And now today he'd almost missed his monthly check-up and blood tests. His cholesterol had shot up over the past year and the doctor said he was now borderline for type 2 diabetes, hence the checks.

Enzo reappeared, toothpaste all around his mouth. Gina couldn't help but laugh. 'Come here. At least I can see you scrubbed.' She picked up a napkin from the table and he wriggled while she wiped away his white moustache. 'My sweet baby, you're growing up just fine, aren't you?' She straightened his jumper, tucked in his shirt and kissed his head.

Then he hit her with it.

Straight out of the blue.

'Mamma, why doesn't Papa live with us any more? I miss Papa being with us.'

Gina caught her breath. What could she say to her beautiful baby-faced child? How could she explain that when his father wasn't playing soccer with him in the garden he was torturing people and raping his mother? 'He's busy, Enzo. You'll see him again, soon.'

Busy – what a great word to cover his father's multitude of sins. The boy took it at face value and looked disappointed. For a second Gina felt sad that the next time Enzo would see his father would be in a box at a funeral parlour.

But only for a second. 8.30 a.m. Pompeii The Visitors' Centre opened daily at eight thirty, but in winter the coach parties seldom arrived before ten. Franco had been sitting for hours with his back against a wall of the ancient amphitheatre. Cradled in his hands was his grandfather's Glock. Simmering in his mind was the thought of how he'd use it.

After Paolo had gone he'd roamed the ruins. Imagined he was the sole survivor of the eruption of Vesuvius. The strongest of them all. The ruler of all he surveyed. Now the darkness was gone and so was his dream.

The grey light of another drizzly morning brought with it the harsh reality of the impending crowds. Those who would come to stop and stare. Well, today he'd give them something to gawp at.

Franco got to his feet. His bones ached. Blood rushed to his head and pounded hard in his temples. He was short of breath and it took him several minutes of walking before he felt okay.

He could hear voices from a long way off. Workers moving down Via dell'Abbondanza, the long cobbled road that stretches past the Stabian Baths. They were heading into the Forum and then the Basilica and Temple of Apollo.

Soon they would be around him. Their eyes on him. Scorching his skin with scowls and prejudice.

For a moment the December sun dodged a rain cloud and painted the cobbled streets and stone walls in shimmering gold.

Franco hoped Paolo and his grandfather would forgive him. Not only for what he'd done – but, most of all, for what he was about to do.

He put his hand in his pocket. One more shot of heroin. Two more magazines of bullets.

It was enough.

He set off on his walk. His final walk around Pompeii. 8.45 a.m. Capo di Posillipo, La Baia di Napoli The Mercedes Maybach wound its way down the spiralling hillside. The interior temperature, as always, was twenty degrees. Outside it was down to four. And it was foggy too. Fredo Finelli sat in the back reading La Gazzetta, trying not to think of the doctor's appointment and how late he was going to be. This was the crunch meeting. If his blood sugar levels hadn't normalized, then they were going to start treating him for diabetes. That's what they'd warned, and he was damned sure that was what was going to happen.

He'd ignored symptoms of raging thirst, dizziness, tiredness and headaches for as long as possible. Now he simply hoped that whatever they decided to do, it wouldn't involve needles. He'd heard somewhere that these days there were tablets that could be taken instead. If a clean bill of health wasn't in the offing, then that's what he wanted.

The 62S was itching to go, keen to get on the auto-strada and ignite its V12 engine. Instead, the traffic was getting worse. Soon it was forced to a halt.

'What's wrong?' Fredo called from the back.

Armando Lopapa, a fifty-year-old no-nonsense Neapolitan who'd been his driver for more than a decade, slid down the dividing glass. 'I'm not sure. It's not the car in front. Must be something ahead of that. Looks like a kind of accident.'

'Probably the damned fog. People seem to have forgotten how to drive properly these days.'

The driver behind them honked his horn.

'Go see what it is,' insisted the Don. 'Get them out of the damned way.'

Armando did as he was told. The horn behind him blared again. 'Hey, fuckhole, shut the fuck up,' he shouted, slipping on his chauffeur's cap.

A racing bike lay on the misty blacktop. A teenage boy in yellow cycling Lycra was struggling to sit up. He was holding his face and had badly cut legs. A thirty-something businessman in a blue suit leaned over him. 'He fell. I didn't hit him,' he protested weakly. 'It was an accident, I did nothing.'

Armando wanted to backhand him. He was clearly the kind of asshole who wouldn't slow down for a kid on a bike. Naples was full of them. Maybe later he would slap him. 'You okay?' he asked the boy. The youngster was about fourteen, could easily have been his own son. 'Can you stand up?'

The driver behind them blasted his horn once more, got out, banged shut his door and joined them. 'What the fuck's happening? I'm really late for a meeting. Can't we get things going here?'

'Kid fell off his bike,' repeated the coward in the suit.

Armando ignored them both and checked his watch. The Don would be furious if this wasn't sorted quickly.

'My head hurts, I feel really sick,' groaned the kid. He looked shaken, maybe concussed.

'Come on,' said Armando. 'Let's get him to the side of the road. Someone call an ambulance.' He moved round the boy and carefully put his arms under his body. He knew he should really leave him until medical help arrived but there wasn't the time, so he tried his best to keep the kid's head and spine straight.

Traffic was backing up badly. Inside the Merc, Fredo Finelli was growing impatient. He'd give it another five minutes and then call the doctor and rearrange his appointment.

The jerk in the blue suit picked the boy's bike up and wheeled it about twenty metres down the road and rested it against a tree. Meanwhile, horn blaster called for help on his mobile, then muttered more about being late for something and headed back to his car.

Armando quickly settled the kid on the grass verge and checked him again. 'It'll be all right, we'll have a doctor here pronto.' The kid rolled over on to his side and clutched his head, then pulled up his legs. 'You okay? Try to stay still. Don't move about, you might do yourself some more damage.' Maybe that bastard in the car had hit him after all.

But the kid wasn't in pain.

The blood on his legs and face was fake.

He was curled up because he was taking cover.

The car at the front of the Mercedes, and the one at the back, blew up simultaneously.

The Merc's custom-made bulletproof glass and reinforced metalwork could only do so much. The explosion flipped the Maybach like a pancake. It flopped and tumbled over the crash barriers. Slid down the hillside, taking out trees and rolling over boulders.

The noise ruptured Armando's eardrum and the blast threw him to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the edge. The car had fallen nearly twenty metres on to rocks. The windows were blown out and the roof was mangled. It had dropped on to the road below, broken through the next set of barriers, then careered down another part of the hillside.

Armando turned round.

He was alone.

The boy and everyone else had gone.

It had been a classic hit. 9.00 a.m. Santa Maria Eliana, centro citta, Napoli Morning service was a traditional Latin High Mass. As always, Carmine Cicerone settled down to what he knew would be a truly uplifting experience. A spiritual detox.

Thunder rumbled outside but there was still enough daylight to shine sharply through sections of the pristine stained-glass windows that depicted the Stations of the Cross and ran the complete length of the seventeenth-century church. A pepper cloud of dust swirled in multicoloured shafts of light and a small rainbow fell across the white marble of the altar floor. Carmine the Dog loved everything about going to church. The architectural grandeur of the building. The deeply colourful and symbolic costumes. The centuries-old script. Even the smell of frankincense swung by the broody-looking altar boy whose eyebrows met in the middle. It was wonderful. Pure theatre.

Today he placed two hundred euros in the rose-wood collection plate that passed down his pew and he thanked God for making him wise enough to have slept on things. The plan that Vito had put together and shown him just before he'd settled in his pew was crude and shabby. He really wished he could instill a more businesslike approach in the man. Put bluntly, he'd advocated the simultaneous killing of Finelli, Valsi and as many other of their Capi and soldiers as they could manage. A day of bloodshed, then a decade of peace, that's what he'd promised. No, thank you. Carmine wasn't buying. He knew it was shrewder to take compensation from Finelli and then let his clan rip itself apart. Once they were weak, then he might consider finishing them off.

The service lasted forty-five minutes. He looked around at the end and was sad to see that the grand old church was virtually empty. Never mind – Father Mario had still put on a stellar performance. Carmine had taken la sacra Comunione and, as he filed out behind half a dozen people, he felt positively rejuvenated.

As usual the back of the church was littered with homeless drifters who'd come in off the street to shelter from the weather. He dipped his hand into the holy water, made the sign of the cross facing the altar, and then turned to walk outside into the bright winter sunlight. He was right to have chosen peace, not war. He and Fredo Finelli would talk. They'd find common ground and then they'd both enjoy the rest of their lives. 9.00 a.m. Capo di Posillipo, La Baia di Napoli It took Armando Lopapa almost ten minutes to run from the first broken barrier on the bend of the winding hillside road to the second one. He was breathless by the time he reached the mangled metal and peered over the side at the crushed and crumpled Mercedes. The car had hit all manner of rocks and trees on its deadly drop. He called the emergency services, then hurdled the last barrier and began the final steep climb down the ankle-twisting terrain.

'Please God, let him be alive,' said the loyal chauffeur, his suit patched with sweat and his cap long since lost.

First glance at the $300,000 Mercedes told him that despite layers of armour plating, it was still a write-off.

He replayed the astonishing events as he descended. A double blast. Two cars parked front and back. The car flipped like pizza dough. Someone had clearly known their route. Had been aware of the strict drill that made sure the Don always stayed the other side of the anti-hijack locks and bulletproof glass until he was assured that everything was okay. Some safety drill. It all seemed pointless now. The attackers must have known about that too, and the fact that the Maybach was a tank, so strong it would have stood a chance of surviving one blast. But not two. Especially when they were coordinated and calculated so well that the car would be sent plunging down the rocky hillside. It was an inside job. About as inside as you could get.

Armando put his hand to his mouth. 'Oh, fuck!' He was close enough to see now. Fredo Finelli lay jammed up against the back headrests. Tossed there like a rolled-up umbrella thrown in the back in case of a rainy day.

'Don, Don Fredo!' He didn't expect an answer but hoped beyond hope that he might get one.

He could see blood now. Spread and spattered across the cream trim and matching leather.

The doors had locked and Armando couldn't get in. Shards of glass stuck up like stalagmites from the rubbers on the door frame. Armando took off his jacket, balled it up and knocked them out. Finally, he was in.

The left side of Don Fredo's face was smashed up. His jaw broken and out of line. Teeth had been hammered back. There was so much blood in one eye socket that it seemed the eye was missing too.

Armando felt sick. He put two fingers to the Don's neck and felt for a pulse.

Nothing.

He shuffled his hand around a little to see if he'd missed it.

Still nothing.

The Don had been good to him, always paid him well, always respected him. The sense of loss kicked in. Death is truly awful when you're the first to discover it.

Thump.

He couldn't believe it.

Thump, thump.

A slow but slight beat between his fingers. My God, the old bastard was actually alive!

He put his face close to the Don's mouth and checked for breath.

Nothing.

Thump.

Thump, thump.

Outside he could hear voices. Help was close at hand! Thank God.

'Here! In here!' he called.

Armando could see the feet and trousers of the paramedics descending the last rocks. They'd know what to do. They'd save him.

Thum- The pulse fell again.

'Quick! Please, come quick, he's dying!'

Thu- Fainter.

'Hey, we came as quick as we could,' said a calm male voice.

Armando turned to the side window. His eyes widened just before a bullet smashed into the middle of his face.

Romano Ivetta lowered his weapon and fired two more shots into the still-beating heart of Fredo Finelli. 9.00 a.m. Napoli En route to the Anti-Camorra Unit's HQ, Sylvia pulled over to the side of the road and took another call from the Murder Squad. This time it was one of the coordinators, Susanna Martinelli. 'Boss, Missing Persons have come back with a match on victims three and four.'

Sylvia held her breath. 'And – are they our women?'

'Yes. Yes, they are.'

Sylvia didn't know whether to feel elated or dejected. 'Go on.'

'Victim number three is Patricia Calvi. That's the nineteen-year-old student from Soccavo.'

Sylvia remembered her. Long brown hair, razor-thin eyebrows, pale brown eyes. She'd been missing almost six and a half years. 'And the other?'

Susanna read from her notes. 'Luisa Banotti, the secretary from Santa Lucia. She's been missing seven years and two months.'

Sylvia recalled the photographs. She'd looked much younger than her twenty years. Dark hair – like all the victims – but very fine and barely shoulder-length. Eyes pale blue and beautifully large, like a child's. 'Have we informed the families?'

'Not yet. We've got positive DNA matches, so now we can call them in. Do you want to be there?'

Sylvia wished she could. She hated this kind of news being delegated. 'I can't. Can you look after it? Make sure the parents have time to talk about it, don't rush them.'

'Sure. I'll be careful.'

'Thanks.' Sylvia started the engine and was about to ring off.

'Boss, one more thing. Bernadetta Di Lauro just rang. Can you call her back?'

Sylvia turned off the engine and took down the number. What could she want? An update? A complaint? Just someone to talk to?

Francesca's mother answered on the second ring. 'Pronto. This is Bernadetta.'

'Signora, this is Capitano Tomms. My office said you just called and asked for me.'

Francesca's mother sounded surprised. 'That's very fast. It's less than ten minutes since I rang.'

'How can I help you?'

'I hope I'm not wasting your time. You said if I remembered anything…' for a moment she struggled, 'then I should call you! Well, to be honest, there is something. Something I should have told you last time we met but I couldn't bring myself to say it.'

'Signora, whatever you say to me is in complete confidence.'

Bernadetta relaxed a little. The policewoman seemed to understand her desire not to share in public any private thoughts about her daughter.

'Grazie. It's a long time ago. And I'm not really sure if it's that important, but -'

'Please let us be the judge of the importance, Signora.'

'Okay. I think Francesca was seeing someone. A married man.'

Sylvia's investigative senses prickled. 'Do you know who he was?'

Bernadetta let out a sigh. 'No. No, I don't. Not at all. Like I told you at your office, Francesca was a very private person. She didn't talk a lot about the men in her life.'

'So why do you think she was seeing a married man?'

'There was an old film on TV, with Tony Franciosa in it. The one in which he and his wife both have a string of affairs, and I said to Francesca that she should steer clear of married men as they brought nothing but trouble. She laughed and said it was a bit too late for that. I asked her what she meant. She went shy and said she was just joking. But I don't think she was. She looked awkward that she'd said it. I tried to get her to discuss it some more but she grew quite irritated with me.'

'And the reference to too late, you now think that was because she was already pregnant?'

Bernadetta paused. 'I don't know. I torture myself by going over every word she ever said to me. Maybe I should have pushed her more. Maybe she was trying to let me in and wanted me to make her talk about it. But I couldn't. She just clammed up. I'm sorry.'

Sylvia told her not to blame herself, but she could tell her words had little effect. She thanked her for the call and drove away.

A married man and a dead, pregnant woman.

It was an interesting development. A development that at last might provide them with a motive and a link to someone.