Sachs said, ‘If I can borrow a suit, I’ll search with them. I can show them exactly where—’
A man’s voice interrupted her. ‘That is not necessary.’
Sachs turned to see the prosecutor, Dante Spiro. He was approaching from behind a clutch of uniformed officers and cars. One officer leapt forward and lifted the yellow tape for him, high so that Spiro did not have to bow down.
‘Procuratore,’ Ercole began.
The man cut him off with a stream of Italian.
The young officer said nothing but looked down and nodded every few seconds as Spiro continued to speak to him.
Ercole said something, nodding to Maziq, sitting in the back of the ambulance now, looking much better.
Again, Spiro shot words his way, clearly unhappy.
‘Sì, Procuratore.’
Then the young officer turned to her. ‘He says we can leave now.’
‘I’d like to search with the team.’
‘No, that is not possible,’ Spiro said.
‘I’m a crime scene officer by profession.’
Michelangelo appeared in the dim doorway. He spotted Spiro and approached. He spoke to him for a moment.
Ercole translated. ‘They have finished the search. No sign of the Composer. They’ve gone down all the aqueducts and searched all the rooms in the basement. There is a supply tunnel that leads to the subway station. No sign he was anywhere there.’
‘The building above the basement.’ She nodded to the structure behind them.
Michelangelo said, ‘Is sealed off with concretes. No entrance is possible from sotto terra.’
As the woman forensic officer walked past her she said, with a smile, ‘We’re going to step the grid.’
Sachs blinked.
‘Yes, we know who you are. We use Ispettore Lincoln Rhyme’s book in our lessons. It is not in Italian but we took turns translating. You are both an inspiration. Welcome to Italy!’
They vanished through the doorway.
Spiro fired another dozen sentences to Ercole, then walked off toward the ancient doorway, pulling on his own blue latex gloves.
Ercole translated, ‘Procuratore Spiro appreciates your assistance and your offer to help with the scene but he thinks it would be best, for continuity’s sake, if the investigation is conducted by Italian law enforcement.’
Sachs decided that to push the matter further would merely embarrass Ercole. He looked desperately to the Mégane and lifted a hand to her shoulder, as if to direct her toward it. Her glance at him had the effect of lowering the limb as if it were in free fall, and she knew he would never try to usher her anywhere again.
As they approached the car he looked tentatively at the driver’s seat.
Sachs said, ‘You drive.’
To Ercole’s great relief.
She handed him the keys.
Once she and Ercole were settled and the engine running, she asked, ‘That line you gave me about continuity? Is that what Spiro really said?’
Ercole was blushing and concentrating on getting the car in first gear. ‘It was a rough translation.’
‘Ercole?’
He swallowed. ‘He said I was to get the woman — that is, you — out of the scene immediately, and if I let her — that is, again, you — talk to any officers again, much less the press, without his express permission, he would have my job. Here, and in my own unit of Forestry.’
Sachs nodded. Then asked, ‘Was “woman” the word he really used?’
After a pause: ‘No, it was not.’ He signaled, let up on the clutch, then pulled gingerly into the street surrounding the square, as if his frail grandmother were sitting in the backseat.
Chapter 20
Stunned.
That was Rhyme’s impression of Ali Maziq.
In the situation room at police headquarters Rhyme was watching the kidnap victim through open doorways, across the hall, an empty ground-floor office.
The scrawny man sat in a chair, clutching a bottle of Aranciata San Pellegrino soda. He’d already drunk one of the orange beverages, and several small drops dotted his beard. His face was gaunt — though this would be his natural state, Rhyme supposed, since his ordeal had been only a day or so in length. Dark circles under his eyes. Prominent ears and nose... and that impressive mass of wiry black hair that wholly enveloped his scalp and lower face.
Rossi, Ercole and Sachs were with Rhyme. There was little for Thom to do at the moment, so he’d left to check into the hotel and make sure the disabled accessibility was as the place claimed.
For a half hour, Maziq had been interviewed by a Police of State officer, who was fluent in Arabic and English.
Sachs had wanted to be present, or to conduct her own interview, but Rossi had declined her request. Dante Spiro would have been behind that.
Finally, the officer concluded the interview and joined the others. He handed Rossi his notes, then returned to the office across the hall. He spoke to Maziq, who still seemed bewildered. He slowly rose and followed the officer down the corridor. He clutched his orange soda as if it were a lucky charm.
Rossi said, ‘He will stay here in protective custody for the time being. He is remaining in a, how do you say, a state? Confused state. Better that we keep an eye on him. And, with the Composer still out in the world, we do not know for certain that Maziq is safe. There is, of course, no motive that we can see.’
‘Who is he?’ Sachs asked.
‘He is an asylum-seeker from Libya. One of so many. He came here on a ship that crashed.’ He frowned and spoke to Ercole, who said, ‘Beached.’
‘Sì. Beached in Baia a week ago, a resort area northwest of Naples. He and forty others arrived there and were arrested. They had good fortune. The weather was good. They survived, all of them. That very day a ship sank off Lampedusa and a dozen died.’
Sachs said, ‘If he’d been arrested why was he out in the countryside?’
‘A very good question,’ Rossi said. ‘Perhaps it is helpful to explain our situation in Italy with regard to refugees. You are aware of the immigrants coming out of Syria, inundating Turkey and Greece and Macedonia?’
Current events held little interest for Rhyme, but the plight of refugees in the Middle East was everywhere in the news. He’d actually just read an article about the subject on the long flight from the United States.
‘We have a similar problem here. It’s a long, dangerous journey to Italy from Syria but a less long trip from Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Libya is an utterly failed state; after the Arab Spring it became a land of civil war, with extremists on the rise. ISIS and other groups. There is terrible poverty too, in addition to the political turmoil. Adding to the problem, the drought and famine in sub-Saharan Africa are driving refugees from the south into Libya, which can hardly accommodate them. So human smugglers — who are also rapists and thieves — charge huge sums to ferry people to Lampedusa, which I mentioned. It is Italy’s closest island to Africa.’ He sighed. ‘I used to vacation with my family in there, when I was a boy. Now I would never take my own children. So, the smugglers bring the poorer asylum-seekers there. Others, if they pay a premium, will be taken to the mainland — like Maziq — in hopes they can avoid arrest.