‘Perhaps witnesses on a bus?’ Rossi asked.
‘No, sir. There have been none. I called the transit office. A bus is not due for another half hour. Oh, and I checked with the closest hospitals. No one has been admitted.’
‘So, maybe,’ Rossi said slowly, ‘we have a kidnapping. Though that seems curious.’
A horn honked and Rossi looked up, toward a queue of cars. In the front, a sinewy, sixtyish balding man in an ancient Opel was gesturing angrily, sneering, wishing to pass. His way was blocked by Ercole’s SUV. There was another car behind his, filled with a family, and this driver too began to honk. A third joined in.
Rossi asked, ‘Is that your Ford blocking the road?’
Ercole blushed. ‘Yes. I’m sorry, sir. I thought it best to protect the scene. But I’ll move it now.’
‘No,’ Rossi muttered. He walked to the Opel, bent down and calmly whispered something to the driver. Even in the dark, Ercole could see that he blanched. A similar word with the driver behind him and both cars turned about quickly. The third did too, without the need for a personal visit. Ercole knew the lay of the land well here; to pick up the route on the other side of the scene would require a detour of nearly twenty kilometers.
Rossi returned to him.
Ercole added, ‘And, Inspector, as I was laying the rope, to preserve the scene, I found this.’ He walked to a spot beside the bus shelter — little more than a sheet-metal roof supported by two poles, over a scabby bench. He pointed down at some money.
‘The scuffle was here, correct?’
Crovi confirmed it was.
Ercole said, ‘There are eleven euros in coins and thirty Libyan dinars, in bills.’
‘Libyan? Hm. You said he was dark?’ Rossi asked Crovi.
‘Yes, sir. He could well have been North African. I would say most certainly.’
Daniela Canton approached and glanced down at the money. ‘The Scientific Police are on their way.’
The crime scene unit would lay number cards at the money and at any signs of the scuffle, take pictures of shoe prints and auto tread marks. They would then search more expertly than Ercole had.
Slowly, as if figuring out the scenario, Rossi said, ‘The victim was perhaps fishing for money in anticipation of the bus when the kidnapper took him and he dropped it. How else would it be scattered? Which means he didn’t have a ticket. Perhaps this was an unexpected trip.’
Daniela, nearby, had heard and she said, ‘Or, if he was illegal — a Libyan refugee — he might not have wanted to go to a ticket office.’
‘True.’ Rossi’s glance rose and he broadened his examination. ‘The coins are here. The dinar there, a bit farther away and scattered. Let us assume he had dug out the contents of his pockets and withdrawn the money to count it out. He’s attacked, the coins fall directly to the ground. The lighter dinars are carried in this breeze and float over there. Was there anything lighter yet in his hand that the wind carried?’ Rossi said to Daniela and Giacomo, ‘Search in that direction. We should preserve it now, even before the Scientific Police arrive.’
Ercole watched them pull booties and latex gloves from their pockets, don them and walk through the bushes, both playing Maglite flashlights over the ground.
Another car approached.
This was not a Police of State Flying Squad patrol car or an unmarked but a personal vehicle, a Volvo, black. The driver was a lean, unsmiling man, a dusting of short gray hair on his head. His salt-and-pepper goatee was expertly crafted and ended in a sharp point.
The car nosed to a stop and he climbed out.
Ercole Benelli recognized him too. He’d had no personal contact with the man but he owned a TV.
Dante Spiro, the senior prosecutor in Naples, wore a navy-blue sports coat and blue jeans, both close fitting. A yellow handkerchief blossomed from the breast pocket.
Fashionista...
He was not a tall man, and his deep-brown ankle boots had thick heels that boosted his height a solid inch or two. He had a dour expression and Ercole wondered if that was because he resented being interrupted at dinner, surely with a beautiful woman. Spiro, like Rossi, had had considerable success in prosecuting cases against and winning convictions of high-profile criminals. Once, two associates of a Camorra kingpin he’d put in jail had tried to kill him. He’d personally disarmed one, and had shot the other dead with his thug’s own weapon.
Ercole also recalled some gossip reporter’s comment that Spiro was intent on a career in politics, his eyes ultimately on Rome, though a judgeship at the World Court in The Hague might not be a bad goal either. Belgium, capital of the EU, was another destination perhaps.
Ercole noted a small book in the prosecutor’s right jacket pocket. It appeared to be leather-bound, with gold-edged pages.
A diary? he wondered. He suspected it was not a Bible.
Slipping an unlit cheroot between thin lips, Spiro approached and nodded to Rossi. ‘Massimo.’
The inspector nodded back.
‘Sir,’ Ercole began.
Spiro ignored him and asked Rossi what had happened.
Rossi gave him the details.
‘Kidnapping out here? Curious.’
‘I thought so too.’
‘Sir—’ Ercole began.
Spiro waved a hand to silence him and said to the cyclist, Crovi, ‘The victim? You said North African. Not sub-Saharan?’
Before the man could answer, Ercole said, with a laugh, ‘He would have to be from the north. He had dinars.’
Spiro, eyes on the ground where the struggle occurred, said in a soft voice, ‘Would not an Eskimo visiting Tripoli pay for his supper with Libyan dinars, Forestry Officer? Not in Eskimo money?’
‘Eskimo? Well. I suppose. Yes, true, Prosecutor.’
‘And would not someone from Mali or Congo be more likely to find a meal in Libya by paying with dinars, rather than francs?’
‘I’m sorry. Yes.’
To Crovi: ‘Now. My question. Did the appearance of the victim suggest what part of Africa he was from?’
‘It was not so dark, sir. I would say the features were Arab or tribal. Libyan, Tunisian, Moroccan. North African, I would say that with certainty.’
‘Thank you, Mr Crovi.’ Then Spiro asked, ‘Scientific Police?’
Rossi replied, ‘On the way. Our office.’
‘Yes, probably no need to bother Rome.’
Ercole knew the Naples headquarters of the Police of State had a laboratory on the ground floor. The main crime scene operation was in Rome and the trickier evidentiary analysis was performed there. He had never sent anything to either facility. Fake olive oil and misrepresented truffles were easy to spot.
Yet another vehicle arrived, a dark-blue marked police car with the word Carabinieri on the side.
‘Ah, our friends,’ Rossi said wryly.
Spiro watched, chewing his cheroot. His face was devoid of any emotion.
A tall man in a pristine uniform climbed out of the passenger’s seat. He wore a dark-blue jacket, and black trousers with red stripes down the sides. He surveyed the scene with a military bearing — as was appropriate, of course, since the Carabinieri, though it has jurisdiction over civilian crimes, is part of the Italian army.
Ercole marveled at the uniform and the man’s posture. At his perfect hat, his insignias, his boots. He had always dreamed of being in their ranks, which he considered the elite of Italy’s many police forces. Forestry Corps had been a compromise. Helping his father tend his ill mother, Ercole would not have been able to pursue the rigorous Carabinieri training — even if he’d been accepted into the corps.
A second officer, who’d been driving, lower ranking than the first, joined them.
‘Evening, Captain,’ Rossi called. ‘And Lieutenant.’