Carvalho pulls translucent gloves from a box. 'What have we got, Professore?'
Montesano lifts his shoulders and takes the kind of long, slow breath that means good news is not about to cross his lips. 'We have mush.'
'Mush? What type of mush?'
'Male mush. The putrefying mush of a mature male. That's about all I can say for now. We've opened several sacks and there's a wide assortment of body parts. For obvious reasons I don't want to unpack everything here and risk losing evidence.'
Valentina points at the collection of bags squashed together, seeping water. 'I talked with the head of the underwater team just before he went home. There are more sacks, but he can't have them brought to the surface until around ten in the morning.'
'Ten? What's he running – a campus coffee shop? How about they start again at first light? Maybe put some urgency into things.'
Valentina can see he's tensing up. 'They don't need the light, Major. They've been working in the dark down there all day. Apparently it's zero viz in most places – like working blindfold in a water-filled skip. Anything they've recovered has solely been from hand-touch.'
'I know that!' he snaps, then wishes he hadn't.
Valentina whips back, 'They can't start any earlier because they've got too few men and too much work.'
Carvalho feels as though he's going to explode. 'Budget restrictions! Cutbacks! Don't politicians understand that criminals don't slacken off simply because people aren't quite as rich these days. Cazzo!' He turns again to the ME. 'Scusi. Please forgive my outburst, Sylvio. I know you resent these things too. Can you tell me approximately how long this body has been in the water? A rough guess at how old he is? Something – anything – that I can get an investigation rolling on?'
Montesano knows better than to speak too soon: speculation could throw the whole enquiry off course. But he also knows his friend wouldn't ask if he wasn't under pressure. 'Most of the skin-' he corrects himself: 'most of the skin I have seen so far, has separated from the underlying fat and soft tissue. We're talking advanced decomposition.' He turns towards the stack of sacks. 'Without working out water temperatures and weather conditions over the last few weeks, I can't be more accurate.'
Carvalho sees his opening: 'Days, weeks or months?'
'Months. Not years.'
'Age of victim?'
'No, Vito! I am sorry. Until I have processed everything that's been recovered, that's all you're getting.'
The major surrenders. 'Va bene. Molte grazie. Valentina, walk with me outside. Let's leave our good friend to his work. His most unpleasant work.'
Valentina is wrapped in a red quilted jacket over a grey jumper with jeans and short boots, but she is shivering as she joins him outside.
'It's not that cold,' says Carvalho. 'You're exhausted and shouldn't even be here. But I suppose you know that.'
She does her best not to look like a scolded daughter. 'I want to work. When Nuncio told me there was another body near where Antonio's accident had taken place, I had to come. You understand, don't you?'
Carvalho understands. He feels the same way. Even his turning out at this god-awful hour has achieved nothing that couldn't have waited until later in the morning. 'You want to grab some coffee before you go home? One of my friends has a restaurant nearby and he never finishes up until at least three.'
She forces a smile. 'Grazie. I'd like that.'
They have gone only a few paces when a shout from Montesano stops them in their tracks. The ME stands in the entrance of the tent and calls: 'Vito, there are two – two bodies, not one. I have found another skull.'
PART THREE
CHAPTER 31
Present Day The Morgue, Ospedale San Lazzaro, Venice In a large, heavily guarded room off the main morgue extra refrigeration and air purifiers have been plugged in and the area cleared of all unnecessary equipment.
Body parts are now unwrapped. Meticulous records drawn up of which part came from which sack and which sack came from which section of the lagoon. Details are computerised but also plotted on maps pinned to the walls.
Sylvio Montesano and his team are diligently ensuring that body-fluid samples are taken from each separate sack. Similarly, any traces of plankton or other debris are collected, tagged and rushed to the Carabinieri labs for analysis. Internal tissue, especially the scrappy remains of lungs and stomach, will be processed separately. Fingernails – assuming they ever find any – will be scraped for debris. What remains of the victims' clothing has been hung, dried and matched to the bodies before being sent off for analysis. None of Montesano's team is unclear about what his or her tasks are, or how precisely they're expected to perform them. If the professore had a middle name, it would be Precision.
The dual post-mortem examination is a gruelling job. Herculean efforts are needed to identify the two victims, and then find trace evidence that might link them to the locations where they were killed and the person – or persons – who killed them.
For anyone other than an ME it would be an unimaginable horror, but for the sixty-two-year-old it's one of the most exciting and challenging moments of his career.
Two separate bodies, both dumped in the same place, both bagged in the same way. He has no doubts about what he's involved in.
Something he's never experienced before.
Not once in his long and distinguished career as a forensic pathologist has the professore pitted his wits against the deadliest creature known to man and mortuary.
A serial killer.
His three assistants work slavishly on preparing and laying out all the severed limbs. Alongside them is Isabella Lombardelli, an investigator from RaCIS – the Raggruppamento Carabinieri Investigazioni Scientifiche, the specialist scientific unit – acting as a liaison officer between the labs, the mortuary and the murder incident room.
Montesano stands back and takes satisfaction in seeing everything in full swing. A well-oiled scientific machine. One that will miss nothing.
Soon it will get interesting.
Soon he will clean all the bones with good old domestic washing powder and look closely at how they were cut and brutalised, what was used to sever limb from limb. But even now, the corpses are telling him stories.
Both victims are male – one somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. The other is at least double that age, most likely in his late sixties, early seventies.
The older body is in a greater state of decomposition, many months more advanced than the other.
And there are clear commonalities between the murders. Bones on both bodies have been sawn. Not carelessly chopped or bluntly bludgeoned. In his experience, it's unusual for a body to be dismembered. Most murderers he's come across simply dump and run, wisely choosing not to spend much time with their prey after death for fear it will increase their chances of getting caught. When dismemberment does occur, there's generally a pattern to it. Cuts are almost always made in the same places – the neck, armpits and tops of the legs. Five classic chop points.
Gang killings see the hands being severed too. Very often there are also more cuts at the back of the knees and elbows to reduce the victim's limbs to a size that can be easily wrapped, shifted and disposed of without attracting too much attention. Eleven cuts, in all. Sometimes thirteen or fifteen, if they go for the mid-arms and thighs, but that's much more unusual.
Here, however, with these bodies from the lagoon, there's something else going on.
Something strange.
In the first victim – the older man – all his fingers and toes have been separately severed: twenty cuts.
Then the torso has been sliced between many of the ribs, making at least another six.
In addition to this there is the gangland-style dismemberment of hands and feet. Another eleven cuts.