On the ledge where a number card sat was a piece of meat.
Sachs understood.
Ercole asked, ‘Ratti?’
‘Sì. Exactly. Il Compositore set the meat up as a block to prevent the weight from rolling, and then rats sensed it and began to eat. So the victim had time, perhaps much time, to contemplate his impending death.’
‘Did anyone see the Composer arrive or leave?’ Ercole asked.
‘No. There is a pushcart outside. We think he covered the unconscious victim in blankets and wheeled him here from the square nearby. He would look like any other merchant. We are conducting a canvass but even though the Quartieri Spagnoli is a small area, there are so many people, so many businesses and shops that nobody would pay him any mind.’ Rossi’s shrug translated into the hopelessness of the efforts.
Then he brightened. ‘But now, let us go upstairs. You might wish to meet the man whose life you saved. For his part, I know he wishes a word or two with you.’
Khaled Jabril sat in an ambulance. He appeared groggy and had a bandage on his neck but otherwise he seemed unharmed.
The medics spoke to Rossi and Ercole in Italian, and Ercole paraphrased to Sachs. ‘Mostly he is disoriented. From the chloroform or other drugs used to keep him submissive.’
Khaled gazed at Sachs. ‘You are the one who saved me?’ His Libyan accent was pronounced but she understood him.
‘And Officer Benelli here,’ Sachs said. ‘Your English is good.’
‘I have some, yes,’ the man said. ‘I studied in Tripoli. University. My Italian is not good. I believe I was told my wife is all right. They told me she was struck by the man who did this. I have no memory of that.’
‘She’s fine. I’ve spoken to her since the attack.’
‘And my daughter? Muna?’
‘She’s good. They’re together.’
The medic spoke to Ercole and he translated. ‘They will meet you at the hospital. A car is bringing them from the camp.’
‘Thank you.’ Then Khaled was crying. ‘I would have died if not for you. May God bless you forever, praise be to Him. You are the most brilliant police ever on earth!’
Sachs and Ercole shared a brief glance. She didn’t tell Khaled that the deduction as to his location was not so profound. The paper she had stumbled upon on the Composer’s desk in the farmhouse near the fertilizer farm was a list of names of his victims — Maziq, Dadi and Khaled Jabril — and the places where they were to be stashed for the video. Sachs didn’t quite believe it could be so obvious.
It’s far-fetched, Rhyme, but it’s the only chance we’ve got...
After she’d given Rossi the address, the inspector had sent Michelangelo and his tactical force here.
And, in the basement, they’d found Khaled.
Sachs was relieved that she could conduct an interview in English... though the results were far from satisfying. The unsteady Khaled Jabril had no memory of the kidnapping itself. In fact, he could remember very little of their days in the refugee camp. He’d woken and found the noose around his neck. He’d screamed himself hoarse through his gag, trying to scare the rats away as much as plead for help (neither worked).
Ten minutes of questioning led to nothing. No description of the kidnapper, no words he’d uttered, no memories of any car Khaled had been transported in. He supposed he’d been blindfolded for much of the time but couldn’t say that for certain.
A medic spoke and Sachs understood that they wanted to get him to the hospital for a more thorough examination. ‘Sì,’ she said.
As the vehicle nosed through the crowd, she, Ercole and Rossi stood in a clutch, watching it leave.
‘Dov’è il nostro amico?’ Rossi muttered, his eyes sweeping over this chaotic part of the city.
Where is our friend? Sachs believed was the translation.
‘Maybe the evidence will tell us,’ she said. She and Ercole turned back to the torture chamber.
Chapter 52
Rhyme watched Dante Spiro as he disconnected the phone. Yes, as Ercole Benelli had suggested, his face’s waiting state was a scowl, his eyes probing, as if they could stun like a Taser. But following the conversation, it seemed to Rhyme that his mood was particularly searing.
‘Ach. There is no sign that the Composer is returning to the farmhouse in the country.’
Rhyme and Spiro were alone in the situation room in the Questura. Rhyme, with no need to be anywhere but here, and bodily functions taken care of, had given Thom time off again to see the sights. The aide — irritatingly — kept checking in. Rhyme had finally said, ‘Hang up! Have some fun! I’ll call if there’s a problem. Phone reception’s better here than some places in Manhattan.’ Which it was.
He now digested Spiro’s news. Unlike at the aqueduct scene, with Ali Maziq, the Composer had no warning system at the farmhouse to alert him that his hidey-hole had been breached. Rossi had set up surveillance at the house and around the organic fertilizer company, hoping he might return. They’d held off running the crime scene. But two hours had passed and Rossi now yielded to Rhyme’s — and Beatrice Renza’s — pressure to walk the grid.
Rhyme called Sachs and told her to go ahead with the farmhouse search. She, Ercole and the Scientific Police had finished with the factory in the Spanish Quarters, where Khaled Jabril had nearly been strangled.
Beatrice, in the doorway of the situation room, nodded approvingly when she heard the scene would be searched. ‘Bene.’ She cocked her head, crowned with a Tyvek bonnet. ‘“Even seconds can mean the difference between the successful preservation of evidence and its destruction. Scenes must be searched, evidence collected and protected, as quickly as possible.”’
The grammar and syntax were perfect, even if the delivery was mired in her thick accent.
Spiro shot her one of his glances. ‘And you are lecturing me for what reason, Officer Renza?’
Rhyme had to chuckle. ‘She’s quoting, Dante. Not lecturing. And she is quoting me. My textbook. And I believe that’s verbatim.’
She said, ‘It is used here but only in English. It should be translated.’
‘That may very well happen.’ He explained that just this morning Thom had received a call from one of the best literary agents in Italy, a man named Roberto Santachiara, who had read the press account that Rhyme was in Naples and wanted to talk to him about an Italian translation of his book.
‘It will be on the bestseller list. Among us, the Scientific Polices, at the least.’ Beatrice then lifted a file folder. ‘Now. I have made a discovery that is pertains to something else. This is relating to the Garry Soames case. The wine bottle Ercole wished me to run an analysis.’
The bottle at the smoking station on the deck the night of the attack.
She handed the lengthy report to Dante Spiro, who scanned the text and said to Rhyme, ‘I will translate. There were the same results as in the first analysis, the friction ridges, the DNA, the Pinot Nero wine, which showed no traces of the date-rape drug. But there was new trace found on the surface of the bottle.’
‘And?’
‘Beatrice found present cyclomethicone, polydimethylsiloxane, silicone, and dimethicone copolyol.’
‘Ah,’ Rhyme said.
Spiro looked his way. ‘Is this significant?’
‘Oh, yes, it is, Dante. Significant indeed.’
She was stunningly beautiful.
Though in a different way from Amelia Sachs, Rhyme reflected. Sachs radiated a hometown, neighborhood-girl attractiveness. The sort you could approach and talk to, without intimidation.