Ruben let out a deep and telling sigh. He was bored rigid with being the Great Lion's not-so-great gofer and was planning to quit and return to his native Barcelona. He and Sorrentino had had sex once. 'Purely an experiment in bisexuality,' his boss had called it. It had left Ruben feeling cheap and worthless. Before getting the camera he opened the recently arrived lab reports. He and Sorrentino had managed to unearth not only bone, but also dried organs and semi-fried muscle. These had been testable, they'd both been certain of that. It was a common mistake to presume that fire was the best means of destroying a body – far from it. The flames never destroyed everything of evidential value. Nothing did.
Ruben flipped open the paperwork. The results lifted his mood. He'd correctly identified pieces of liver, kidney and lower intestine.
But what he saw next almost brought him to his knees.
The young assistant slumped over the documentation and double-checked the summary. His stomach turned. At times like this, he was sure he should be doing something else.
Ruben was still catching his breath when his boss returned. Sorrentino was buttoning up his newly starched and pressed lab coat, watching his own reflection in the window as he walked past. 'What is it? What's wrong?' he asked, almost sensitively.
Ruben moved back from the worktop and pointed towards his discovery. 'You were right. The material you picked out was from a uterus. The extra DNA profiling confirms that Francesca Di Lauro was pregnant.'
27
Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii The black waterproof anorak and trousers that Franco Castellani wore for garbage collection helped him disappear into the rainy darkness of the night. He slid from shadow to shadow around the campsite, checking on the safety of the guests. Or, at least, that's what he told his grandfather he did. For years he'd been prowling. Feeding on any flash of naked female flesh that he could find. Summer was best. Many young couples came to the site to be alone and he'd often see them lost in their lovemaking. He longed for the same. Ached for the sensation of sex. The mysterious closeness he'd witnessed.
In the past, Paolo had brought him hookers. The first had been his age, maybe even younger. She'd fled as soon as she'd got a good look at him. The second had been in her forties. As old and cold as his runaway mother. She was drunk and ridiculed him. Laughed at his withered face, his buck teeth and birdlike body. Asked if Bird Boy had got a worm for a cock? He'd have killed her if Paolo hadn't stopped him. At times like that – times like now – he felt more dead than alive.
Franco was poor and he was ill, but he wasn't stupid. He understood much of what the doctors had told him. Werner Syndrome was a rare and cruel disorder caused by missing proteins and damaged genes. It made him look old – very old – long before he should. It was responsible for him being smaller than most kids at school, but it hadn't really kicked in and done its terrible damage until he'd reached puberty. Then it had turned his body to Plasticine. Reshaped him in its own terrible way. His hair was already greying and thinning. His hands were becoming clawlike and mottled. The sickness would only get worse with age and would soon make him vulnerable to a range of cancers, heart disease and diabetes. Doctors wanted to carry out regular checks and tests on him, but he shunned them. The worse it got, the less care he took of himself. The more he needed to stay warm and infection free, the more he desired to wander in the freezing rain.
Tonight the downpour was so cold it made his face burn. Through the gap in the curtain of a caravan that people had just moved into, he saw the most beautiful woman in the world. Her hair was damp from the shower and she wore a white towelling robe. Franco slid back and felt his heart pound. From inside the van he heard someone shout her name. 'Rosa. Rosa, your dinner is ready.'
Rosa.
Franco spoke her name in the dark, cold wetness of the night. Rosa. His breath smoked white in the light from her window. Rosa. Even saying her name excited him.
His thoughts ran wild.
Rosa.
He knew exactly what he wanted to do to her. And he could barely wait for the chance to do it.
28
Grand Hotel Parker's, Napoli Jack kicked off his shoes and slumped on to the hotel bed. It needed new springs or a better base. He'd barely slept last night. Before he'd left New York he'd filled Howie in on Creed and why he was heading to Naples. As he dialled his number he hoped his old partner wasn't too juiced to remember.
'Hi there, H. You sober?'
Howie Baumguard croaked a laugh back down the line. 'You joking? I left sober 'bout the same time you left charm school.'
Jack checked his watch, it would be just after seven p.m. in New York. 'What wild evening are you cranking up for yourself?'
'A couple of trays of Chinese slop. A few Buds. And I'm twenty minutes into Apocalypse Now.'
'Terrific. "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning."'
'"Smells like victory,"' returned Howie.
'Man, that's a grim movie.'
'Grim, but brilliant. You wait two friggin' hours for Marlon Brando to come on screen and, when the thing's over, all you can remember is him.'
Jack recalled the classic Coppola epic and Brando's chilling Colonel Kurtz. 'Wouldn't you be better with something lighter?'
'Only other thing I've got is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,' said the big guy. 'My son left it on top of the TV after his last sleepover.'
'You up to helping me with something?'
'Sure, what d'you want?'
'Remember the creepy Italian guy I met at the conference – Luciano Creed?'
'Kind of.'
'He stayed at the Lester. You know the place?'
'Yeah, I know it. Not exactly Trump Towers.' Howie found a pen down the side of the settee and used the cardboard lid from the Chinese food tray to write on.
'And that's a bad thing?' Jack would rather sleep on the street than at Trump. 'Would you take a ride out there and have a look around the nearby bars, clubs, check out the hotel again? See if he had any friends, visitors, such like while he was there?'
'You mean friends that get paid by the hour and never stay for coffee?'
'Yep, those are the ones I mean.'
'Okay. What's he look like?'
'Shit. He looks like shit. Small, thin, bony, five-five maybe, a hundred and ten to a hundred and twenty pounds, really dark beard line -'
'Designer stubble?'
'No, more Bluto black. Like this guy could never shave clean. I've got a picture from the cops over here; I'll email it to you.'
'Fine. I'll hit the street tomorrow. That okay?'
'That's great.' Jack's voice grew serious. 'Howie, I need a break here. Girls have been going missing. Maybe even getting murdered. It would be good if you gave up the sauce – good for you too.'
His friend let out an exasperated sigh, the kind he used to reserve for his nagging wife – now his nagging ex-wife. 'Don't worry, I won't screw up on you. My fat ass will be on the case and will do good.'
29
Secondigliano, Napoli Luciano Creed stood by a window in a slum apartment he'd rented in an area that the locals call Terzo Mondo, the Third World. It bore no relation to the false address he'd listed at the Lester in New York. For the moment he wanted to stay away from the cops. Soon he'd be ready to show himself again. But not yet.
His mind drifted as he watched neighbours in the street below. They were all dressed in their best clothes, heading off to church for a wedding.
Secondigliano was a poor, drug-infested neighbour-hood in a north-eastern suburb where unemployment and crime were high and cops never came unless their sirens were wailing, their guns cocked and they had a big supply of body bags. This was a neighbour-hood where drive-by shootings weren't uncommon. Where any attempted arrest could result in officers facing a mob of hundreds of violent protesters. Put simply, for many cops, this area was out of bounds. A strict no-go zone. Creed had grown up here. He knew its alleyways and escape routes better than any cops, even the carabinieri. Naples was an obligatory posting for most of the military, a rust-belt city that they were sent to for a year or two while they clawed their way up the promotional ladder towards the big jobs back in Rome as Colonello, Generale or even Comandante Generale.