Pesna snaps. He grabs the seer by the front of his tunic. 'In the name of all the deities, just do your job, man! Do I have to think for you? Sacrifice women and children – I don't care, provided it works.' He pushes him away. 'Don't fail in this. I warn you, if you fail me, then next time I send Larth for you, it will be to have him vent my dissatisfaction upon your body.'
CHAPTER 7
Present Day Rio di San Giacomo Dell'Orio, Venice The Carabinieri arrive by boat, silent and solemn beneath a dawn sky the colour of beef Carpaccio.
Smart young officers pull on peaked caps and adjust white-holstered Berettas as they climb from the craft.
Tom watches them rolling out crime-scene tapes, taking notes, doing the same things that cops do all over the world. Back in Compton he regularly saw the LAPD mopping up after the latest drive-by, the detritus of drug warfare and social failure.
It turns out that the old man who discovered the body is called Luigi. He's a retired fishmonger in his seventies who suffers from insomnia and poor English. After leaving Tom with the body, he'd almost banged the hinges off the door of a nearby house to get someone to call the cops and a water ambulance.
Tom kneels by the corpse and blesses himself. It's an automatic reaction. Although he no longer has the power to administer Extreme Unction, the words still come.
'Through this holy anointing may the Lord in his love and mercy help you with the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.'
He kisses his closed thumb and forefinger and gently crosses the victim's forehead.
By the look of it she's about seventeen. It's hard to be more specific. Someone's really gone to town on her with a knife. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of stab marks all over her body. Chunks of flesh are missing. Her face ravaged by death. The multiplicity of wounds is strange. So many. Seemingly random – yet no doubt all part of some pattern in the killer's mind.
'Signor, could you come with us, please?'
The voice is firm – an instruction, not a request – made in good English by a young officer, radio in hand. Tom hears him through an echoing tunnel – his focus still on the work of evil in front of him.
'Signor, please!'
Tom feels a hand under his elbow. Helping him up. Or is it to prevent him running? The thought startles him. 'Where are we going?'
'To the Carabinieri offices. Not far from here. Near the Rialto. We need to get a full statement.'
'We can't do it here?' Tom does a one-eighty turn to see if there are more senior officers to appeal to.
'Signor, please. It will not take long.' The hand on the elbow is firmer now. Expert pressure. Persuasive. Unyielding.
'Hey!' Tom shakes off the white-gloved fingers. 'You needn't get a hold of me.' He brushes his arm as though rubbing dirt from a best suit. 'I'm fine to come, I want to help.'
All eyes are on them. A slightly older officer moves their way, unbuttoning his holster as he does. Someone lifts the fluttering crime-scene tape.
Tom Shaman suddenly wishes he'd stayed in bed that morning. In fact, right now, he wishes he'd never come to Venice in the first place.
CHAPTER 8
Major Vito Carvalho watches his men lead Tom away.
Another murder is the last thing the fifty-year-old wanted. He'd transferred to Venice to avoid this kind of thing. Moved here to unwind and relax, not be a hotshot with a desk stacked high with files and riddles.
'What have we got?' he calls to two young lieutenants by the canal edge.
Valentina Morassi and Antonio Pavarotti are cousins, the kind that come from big families and have been close ever since they reached the age where it was okay to say all girls didn't stink and all boys aren't pigs. He has a vacancy for a captain in his unit and they are both good candidates.
Vito claps his hands to get their attention. 'Come on, cut the family gossip! Tell me quickly so my entire day isn't ruined.'
They turn towards him and move aside. The victim is laid out on black sheeting. A mass of mutilated flesh, oozing canal water and clusters of insects from every wound and orifice.
'Female, fifteen to twenty, stabbed too many times to count,' Antonio reads from a notebook. He's late twenties, small, slim and unshaven. Doesn't look anything like a cop. Tries hard not to. He usually works undercover and was only a day away from a new job before this call caught him on the hop.
Vito glances at the dead girl, then puts his hand reassuringly on the shoulder of the female lieutenant. 'You okay, Valentina?'
'Si. Grazie, Major.' The twenty-six-year-old covers her mouth and prays she won't hurl. 'Scusi. It's just' – she looks at the young girl's eyes, part-digested by crustacean and fish – 'I've never seen anything like this before.'
Vito feels her pain. Remembers his own first floater. Stomach churning. Head and heart full of mixed-up emotions. 'None of us has ever seen anything like this. Go back to the station, Valentina. Write things up. See if you can figure out who this dead girl is.'
Antonio touches her arm comfortingly as she turns away from them. She feels a little ashamed that she isn't yet experienced enough to swallow her shock and just get on with the job. 'Grazie,' she calls. She exits in style. Strong strides. Head high. Shoulders straight. Just in case her boss is watching. And she knows he will be.
'She has a sister of about the same age,' explains Antonio, defensively. 'It kind of made it personal.'
Vito pulls on latex gloves and crouches by the body. 'It is personal, Antonio. You don't get any more personal than the taking of someone's life.'
'Si.'
Vito's eyes trace the wounds. Dozens upon dozens of them. 'Cazzo! What in God's name went on here?'
'The ME is on his way. I counted more than three hundred stab marks, then you arrived and I stopped.' He looks worried. 'To be honest, I'm not sure where I stopped. Not really certain where to pick up from.'
Vito smiles. 'Don't worry. We'll describe them as multiple wounds.' Antonio says something but the major doesn't hear him. The girl was pretty before some lunatic took a blade to her. The kind of daughter he and his wife would have loved to have had, if only God had chosen to bless them with children. 'Wait five minutes then call Valentina and make sure the squad is doing the basic work. Check last-minute bookings for flights out of Venice. Put teams on the train and bus stations. Look out for lone, male travellers, anyone seeming edgy. Have someone ring around hotels for early check-outs.'
Antonio scribbles in his notebook. 'We've already got search teams looking for bloodstained clothing and the knife.' He nods towards the canal. 'What do you want to do about the water?'
Vito stands up. 'Get dive teams in there and examine every drop of it. Like I said, murder is personal.'
CHAPTER 9
When Valentina Morassi gets back to headquarters the dead girl's father is waiting in the cold reception area. He's reported her missing and still doesn't know the awful truth.
Valentina quickly learns that the victim is fifteen-year-old Monica Vidic. A Croatian schoolgirl, visiting Venice with her dad as something of a bonding trip. An ugly divorce had ripped the family apart and forty-two-year-old Goran had thought the trip would help his daughter deal with it.
They'd gone to St Mark's together, and then she'd stormed off after dinner while arguing about where she wants to spend her weekends. The father thought he'd find her back at the hotel but she never turned up. Soon after midnight he and the concierge had searched the bars, clubs and train station. The paperwork on Valentina's desk shows they even reported her missing to the Polizia, but her body was found before an alert made it into the morning briefing sessions.
Valentina gets both a male and female officer to accompany Goran to the morgue, though from the photograph he's given her, there's no doubt the butchered girl in the canal and the smiling kid doing a thumbs-up on a funfair ride are one and the same. When they're finished, they'll take him back to his hotel. Sit with him while he phones his ex-wife, then see if he needs a doctor and help in dealing with all the bureaucracy that comes with death in a foreign country.