“We get the picture,” Peroni interrupted.
“I’m glad you do,” Zecchini told the big cop. “This may be everyday stuff for you. For me . . .” Without thinking, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then, under Costa’s steely gaze, took one look around the gloomy cathedral interior, laughed, and put it away. “And in a church, too. So, people? What do we have? Can we charge this man with anything? Can we even put him under arrest?”
“I don’t know,” Costa said frankly. “What about the smuggling? You tell me . . .”
Zecchini scowled. “Not a chance. Not with what we have.” He smiled at Emily Deacon. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I’ve no idea how you got that material. From what I know of Massiter it was a very brave thing to do. Our computer people are taking a look at it right now. They say that, without a password, it could take months to try to decode anything. Someone would have to sign off those resources too. I really don’t see that happening. They’re looking. But . . .”
“It’s not just the computer files,” Peroni objected. “There’s Randazzo. Massiter’s relationship with him. That material in Randazzo’s house.”
“Where’s the proven link?” Zecchini demanded.
“It’s got to be there! Bring Massiter in and ask him.”
“On what grounds? I’ve no evidence that says Randazzo got his illicit goods from Massiter. We’ve nothing that proves the relationship between them was anything other than proper. Or to suggest Massiter was behind the shooting of this Bracci character . . .”
“We know,” Costa insisted.
Zecchini wasn’t going to be moved. “From what I’ve heard I don’t doubt you’re right. Otherwise why would I be here? All the same . . . In terms of hard fact, I can’t see I’ve anything to help you. If we had a couple of weeks to run up an inventory of what’s in Randazzo’s house, check it off against a known list, perhaps then we’d have something, though a direct link to Massiter could still be hard to prove. But we’re talking about lots of time and lots of manpower, and we don’t have the luxury of either. If I’m wrong, just tell me. I can’t see it any other way.”
“So that’s my contribution out the window,” Emily remarked. “Is there anything left?”
“There’s what we had to begin with,” Teresa suggested. “Bella and Uriel Arcangelo. And now this . . .”
She reached into her large black leather bag and took out the digital camera she always carried these days. On the bright screen was a photo of the monogrammed cotton shirt they’d found in Ca’ degli Arcangeli. “It’s safe in a private lab in Mestre. Silvio’s there working on it.”
“What does it tell us so far?” Costa asked.
“The blood’s Bella’s. And that piece of cloth belongs to Massiter, surely. Who we also know slept with Bella on more than one occasion on his yacht in order to get closer to her family. Incontrovertible proof, solid DNA. All the stuff you people love these days. Perhaps . . .”
She stopped, seeing the disappointment on their faces.
“What about the apron?” Peroni asked. “I thought you’d got evidence it had been messed with somehow?”
“It’s been contaminated by Tosi’s lab in Mestre. It could be weeks before we get a proper report.”
“We can’t make an arrest out of that,” Zecchini said with a grimace.
“Why not?” she demanded. “Think it through. Bella’s pregnant. She’s screaming at Massiter to own up to being the father. Perhaps she wants to ditch Uriel and move in with the Englishman. He could have set out to kill her in the house, then murdered Uriel and made it look like he was responsible. Does anyone have a problem with that?”
“In principle, no,” Costa said. What they knew of the facts seemed to support the idea. Just as importantly, it seemed to fit with what Costa understood of Hugo Massiter’s personality. Greed, sexual avarice, ruthlessness . . . and an agile facility for escaping the blame, pushing it onto others, just as he’d done with Laura Conti and Daniel Forster. “But it’s supposition. There’s not enough hard evidence.”
“What?” she screeched. “To hell with deduction, let’s rely on good old-fashioned chemistry. Bella’s blood is on Massiter’s shirt. If that’s not evidence, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s a shirt that seems to have belonged to Massiter,” Emily pointed out evenly. “Bella could have taken it herself from his yacht. We know she went there. He keeps that apartment in the palazzo too. Even though he only uses it during the day at the moment, he must have clothes there. If you stood up in court and tried to use the shirt as evidence of Massiter’s involvement, you’d get torn to shreds. With good reason. It proves nothing.”
“It’s going to prove everything!” Teresa yelled. “Just wait.”
“What do you mean?” Costa asked.
“I didn’t tell you this. I can’t fit it into the time frame you have, so it seemed irrelevant. But Silvio’s found other evidence on the shirt too. We think there’s DNA from the perpetrator. Sweat, by the looks of it.”
Emily brightened suddenly. “And it’s Massiter’s?”
Teresa didn’t look any of them in the eyes at that moment. “Things aren’t as simple as that. Blood’s really easy to extract. This is a lot harder. Even so, I’m pushing to get some results.”
“When?” Peroni demanded.
She swore quietly, then walked over into a dark corner, leaving the four of them staring at each other in silence, listening to Teresa alternately bullying and wheedling on the phone.
When she came back she looked distinctly downcast. “Even if Silvio pulls out all the stops, the soonest we could get confirmation would be around seven this evening. Chemistry’s like that. It doesn’t lend itself to shortcuts. Sorry . . .”
“Seven’s too late.” Zecchini stared at the two cops. “Massiter’s safe by then.”
“Then perhaps we just have to accept that he’s won,” Emily said with a marked reluctance. “That this is as good as we’re going to get. Leo will live. We can quietly pass this evidence to the right people at the right time. A few months down the line they could do something with it. Or hand the information on to the media and let them start working.”
“This is a job for us,” Costa said firmly. “Or the Carabinieri. No one else. And either it happens now or it doesn’t happen at all. We all know that.”
Emily smiled. “There. You see? He’s got you too. That’s the way Hugo works. It’s what makes him tick. Not the money. Not the property. It’s the fact that he has a hold over people. He owns them. More people than ever. Us too, now. And we’ll get a call one day. A little favour from him. A little something in return.”
Peroni looked baffled. “Why the hell would any of us go along with it?”
“Because he’d be offering something we wanted!” Emily insisted. “For you two, maybe a lead. For me, some work. Who knows? That’s how it begins. We mustn’t let this man get any further into our lives, Nic. If he knew we were here . . . trying to come up with some conspiracy to bring him down, and failing, do you know what he’d feel? It would make him happy. He’d feel validated. He’d know he was inside us.”
Costa caught her eye then, wished there were more you could say with a glance. Hugo Massiter was inside her life already. Costa had invited him there.
“So he signs at six,” he said. “And an hour later we get a report that puts him at the murder scene, one no one in their right mind will want to read. Teresa, there has to be a way . . .”
“No! No! No!” she screeched. “I know what you’re going to say and it’s not possible. I can’t change the laws of physics. Silvio’s stretching everything to the limit as it is.”