There are no tissues close at hand and he’s still in search of a box when Valentina arrives unannounced.
She’s the only thing he can imagine tasting better than a second doughnut.
God, for her he would even have missed the fruit and made do with only coffee.
‘ Buongiorno,’ he says cheerily. He scans for Federico, but there’s no sign of him. ‘Are you alone?’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that okay? My momma said I was allowed out if I was careful crossing the road.’
He spreads his palms apologetically. ‘ Scusi. I just expected Federico.’
She doesn’t explain why he’s not with her. ‘A few hours ago a body was found down near Tiber Island. It’s at the morgue now, but last night I asked for a rush blood job on the clothing.’
‘Aah, the great quest for ketsueki-gata.’
Valentina is completely thrown. ‘Ket what?’
‘ Ketsueki-gata. The Japanese believe that blood types are indications of personalities. I’m type A. That means I am earnest, creative and sensible, perhaps with the failing of being a little fastidious.’
‘Fascinating, but unfortunately not my type. The type I’m interested in was swabbed off a gutted corpse in the early hours of this morning.’
His hopes of flirtation disappear. ‘I’ve only just come in, so I don’t know if it’s been done yet.’ He brushes his sugary hands together as he walks past her into the corridor. ‘Follow me. I’ll hunt down the paperwork and we’ll see.’
Valentina trails him down one grey corridor after another.
‘Do you have a name for the victim?’ he calls over his shoulder.
‘No. It was male. The samples will have come into the labs around four a.m., so hopefully you don’t have too many cases of murdered unknown men at exactly the same time.’
‘Let’s hope not.’ He tilts his wrist and sees it’s only just gone nine. ‘That shift will have gone home. You’ll be lucky if the report’s been done.’
‘I am.’
He stops walking and turns around. ‘You are what?’
‘Lucky. I’m one of those people. Lucky in love, lucky in life.’ She half corrects herself. ‘Well, mostly.’
Ferrari believes her. She’s made captain, is super-smart, and when it comes to looks, well, he’d crawl naked through broken glass just to lick dirt from the soles of her feet.
‘What?’ Valentina frowns at him.
‘What what?’
She laughs. ‘You’re staring at me. Freakishly. What’s wrong?’
He shakes himself out of his trance. ‘ Mi dispiace. I’m just dazed by your beauty.’
‘Oooh, good line!’ she says, her face bright with mischief. She steps tantalisingly close to him and raises a long, slender finger close to his mouth. ‘If I didn’t already have a man whom I adore, and if you didn’t have jam and sugar spread all over your chin like a two-year-old’ – she rubs it away with two fingertips – ‘then I might just fall for a line like that.’
The open-jawed scientist is horrified. Fat fingers fly frantically to his chin and he rubs so hard his flesh burns. ‘Breakfast!’ he blurts. ‘ Scusi. I was having my breakfast when you came in.’ An open door saves him further embarrassment. He lurches into an office that is already alive with the sound of printers and telephones. Several administrators and secretaries look up as he buries his head in a stack of in-trays on top of a cabinet near the entrance.
Valentina patiently watches him rifling the documents, aware that half the office is watching her watching him. Young secretaries are admiring her clothes and how she has a senior scientist scrabbling around like a puppy on a lead.
‘Here!’ shouts Ferrari, like he’s recovered a ball and brought it back to his owner. ‘Blood tests from the clothes of an unidentified male victim found in the early hours, and it has your name as the officer in charge.’
‘Grazie.’ She nods over-graciously to the papers in his hand. ‘A little more information, perhaps?’
Ferrari is now actually ahead of her. He knows she’s looking for a connection between this new body and the tests on the woman and her sword that his labs have been running. He silently scans columns and paragraphs, then looks up. ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. The body last night was covered in only one type of blood, O positive. That’s currently the most common type in Italy and actually in most of the world.’ He wobbles his hand like it was an unbalanced seesaw. ‘At some times, and in some countries, A positive is most popular. But not right here and not right now. Either way, I’m afraid the blood on your new victim does not match that of any of the samples we took for you the other day.’
Valentina feels drained. ‘Not any of them?’
‘No.’ His eyes show sympathy. ‘Let me recap for you. The new sample is O positive. The blood on the prisoner’s gown we tested was AB. The blood on the sword taken from your prisoner is Rhesus positive and the blood on the severed hand is Rhesus negative. You’ve got quite an impressive spread of blood types there.’
Valentina shakes her head. She’s not impressed at all. She feels like she just lost on the lottery. A full set of unlucky statistics.
She came to the lab hoping for answers, and all she’s got is more questions.
Lots more questions.
41
La Rambla is a Spanish bar, slung like an abandoned Vespa on the corner of a busy street between Piazza San Pietro and Ospedale Generale Santo Spirito. Alfie Giordano has been coming here and eating bad tapas and big breakfasts since he was first posted to Rome.
He and Tom sit on tall chrome and leather stools in the traffic-dusted window, remembering old times, while the owner, Josep, treats them to colazioni large enough to feed most of the city.
‘Valentina has this case linked to a church in Cosmedin.’
‘The Santa Maria?’
‘That’s it.’
Alfie knows it well. ‘Dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Also known as Santa Maria in Schola Graeca – Our Lady of the Greek Community.’ He passes Tom a tiny espresso cup and saucer.
‘But it’s famous for this giant mouth?’
‘Home to the Bocca della Verita.’ Alfie grasps his left wrist in his right hand. ‘And to thousands of stories about liars and deceivers having their hands cut off.’
‘Well, it has another story now. Valentina’s case involves a hand being found in the portico near the Bocca.’
Alfie plops a cube of brown sugar into his coffee. ‘I haven’t read anything about it.’
‘Good. I think that’s how she wants it. They arrested this woman, Suzanna Grecoraci, but she seems mentally ill.’
‘People who cut other people’s hands off usually are.’
‘Valentina doesn’t think she did it. Even though she wrote some strange first-person story about being a noblewoman in ancient times called Cassandra who was having her hand chopped off at the church.’
Alfie stirs his coffee. ‘That seems an unbelievable coincidence.’
‘I agree.’ Tom thinks about it as he stares out into the street. People have their collars up as they walk by. A scarf is flying from the back of a kid’s neck like the flag of a ship in a storm.
Alfie sips his espresso and clinks the cup down on its saucer. ‘The Santa Maria is also the resting place of the remains of St Valentine.’
‘Really? I should have known that.’
‘I’ve seen the skull. Quite impressive. Though not at all romantic, of course.’
‘I guess they do a good trade around St Valentine’s Day.’
‘Absolutely packed.’ Alfie gives him a thoughtful look, ‘Talking about love, is it serious between you and Valentina?’
Tom almost splutters espresso. ‘In what way serious?’
‘In the way that one day I might be called upon to give my services.’ He makes an elaborate blessing with his hand.
His friend looks horrified. ‘You’re very premature with that one.’
‘Ah, premature. That’s an interesting choice of word. It means not only that you wouldn’t rule it out, but also that you don’t want to rule it out. Interesting. You could therefore interpret the word to mean “hopefully one day”.’