What an optimist! Only one more? Somehow Sylvia didn't think so.
Necropolis.
She retrieved her coffee from the foot of the tree and warmed her hands around the cup.
A serial killer's secret graveyard.
The rain stopped and the sun's warmth created an eerie mist around the soldiers as they dug. A much larger area had now been measured out in a grid. One team was still deployed on the inner squares of the old excavation zone – the area that had yielded the remains of Francesca Di Lauro. Another group worked intensely on the neighbouring site – the one that, according to Sorrentino, had produced the second victim. Four other groups, one for each point of the compass, dug outwards into new ground. It was hit and miss whether they would find anything. Sylvia hoped they wouldn't.
Sorrentino was back in the thick of the action, his hands darting this way and that, as expressive as an orchestra conductor. His staff bobbed from dig to dig and checked when the topsoil had been removed and lower layers of earth had been sieved. Meanwhile, a pace back from them all, a crime-scene photographer alternated between snapping away with a digital camera and filming video footage with a hand-held recorder. It was hard, laborious work, and it had to be done meticulously.
'Do you think we'll read about all this in the newspapers tomorrow?' asked Pietro.
Sylvia threw the dregs of her coffee on the ground. 'I hope not.' She crumpled the empty plastic coffee cup and shoved it in the pocket of her blue wool coat. 'I really hope Sorrentino now understands that this kind of exercise is best done without the public knowing.' Her thoughts turned to the families of the missing women. She knew they'd be reading every column inch of every paper, praying every day for news that would end their doubts and suffering.
The sun was soon high enough to show the brooding outline of Vesuvius and to start casting shadows on the hard ground near where the teams toiled. Armed carabinieri ringed the excavation area and brusquely turned away a few early morning dog walkers and an old, breathless jogger. Sylvia had seen enough. 'Come on, let's go back to the office. This place has all the atmosphere of a funeral. We can't do anything more here.'
Pietro nodded and fell in behind her. She was right, the depressive solemnity of the dig was tangible, no one even talked as they dug.
And amid the silence, no one noticed him.
Watching.
Silently cursing.
Damning them all for the sacrilege they were carrying out on his hallowed ground.
His eyes bored into Sylvia. She was nothing much. He was good at first impressions. Not a threat. Not nearly intelligent enough to worry him.
His gaze slipped across to Sorrentino.
The anthropologist's face was easy to recognize. It was plastered all over the press. Il Grande Leone. Now he could be a threat. A serious one.
Why was he here again? What had he found now?
Another victim. That would be it. That would explain all the activity.
The so-called genius was about to make more discoveries. He was pointing and people were running. He was creating excitement. Not the kind of excitement that was wanted. Not the kind that was helpful.
Kill him and you stop the inquiry in its tracks. Slow them down. Screw them up. Burn them out.
Sylvia caught his eye again as she walked back to her car.
Come to think of it, there was something about her. Not drop-dead beautiful – he liked that phrase, drop-dead – but she had a certain style. A certain way about her. She was – he struggled to describe her – challenging.
Yes, that's it. She was challenging. Well, he was always up for a challenge.
Sylvia Tomms walked out of his view, but not out of his mind.
She'd look good naked. The stupid policewoman heading the inquiry would look great dressed in flames.
But first, there was some lion-taming to be done.
56
Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna Back at her desk, Sylvia mainlined on more coffee and nicotine. Creed's picture stared up at her from an open file and begged a bunch of questions. Was he the type to kill because he felt inadequate? The type to crash a press conference to flaunt his power? Or, was he the proverbial fly in the ointment? One of those weird interlopers who bog you down and bleed you of resources?
The last thing she needed right now was another twist in the already tangled tale of murder and missing women. But that's exactly what she got. It came in the form of the man hastily ushered in to see her. A fresh-faced detective from the local homicide division of the polizia. He'd arrived unannounced and had insisted on seeing her straight away.
'Capitano, my name is Mario Dal Santo.' He was in his early thirties, maybe even late twenties. Sylvia noticed the trousers of his smart grey suit were splashed with mud, as were the soles and heels of his highly polished shoes. 'Please, sit down.'
'I saw you on the news yesterday – the Di Lauro killing. Everyone at the station house is talking about that press conference.'
Great, a surprise dose of public humiliation. Get used to it, girl, you're going to hear that a lot. 'And that's why you're here?'
He managed a sympathetic look. 'No. Not at all. We're investigating the shooting of a young courting couple, not far from here – teenagers…'
'Wait a second,' Sylvia cut him off. She picked up the overnight area crime report from her in-tray. 'This must be really fresh. I've no cross-force intel.'
'We're still at the scene. The ME isn't even there yet. My boss sent me because he remembered a confidential you'd circulated, asking to be alerted if anyone came across a homicide in which a woman was killed by fire.'
Sylvia frowned. 'But you said two shootings, didn't you?'
'I did,' he smiled. Perfect teeth and puppy-dog eyes. 'But I hadn't finished telling you the full story. Two teenagers were killed in the car belonging to one of their parents. A third body was also discovered, a woman's, and this one was burned as well as shot.'
'How? Where?'
'In a pit near where the kids were killed. It's some kind of garbage dump for a campsite. Maybe local rubbish is torched there as well.'
'You said burned – how was she burned? Completely burned, partly burned? I mean, forensically is there anything left of her?'
'There's almost nothing left. Well, there didn't seem much to me. Like I said, the scene is still active. You want to come and see for yourself?'
'Mister, the last thing I want to do is go and see another burned body, but I think I'd better.' She grabbed her lighter and cigarettes and slugged back the now cold coffee, knowing it might be her last for a while. 'Give me a second to update my team. If this incident is connected, I want jurisdiction, understood? No disrespect, but I think we're better equipped to deal with this incident. Agreed?'
'Agreed. I'll have to double-check with my boss but we've got so much on, I reckon he'll be glad to dump the paperwork on your desk.' Dal Santo glanced down at the mess. 'Providing you promise not to lose it in there.'
57
Crime scene 1, Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii A carabinieri driver sped Jack to the new crime scene. From what Sylvia had told him on the phone, the fresh killings might provide a breakthrough. The scene was rich in forensic evidence that hadn't been corrupted by five years of burial, and – Jack guessed – probably just as rich in psychological evidence as well. The new deaths were only a few kilometres from where the graves of Francesca Di Lauro and the second victim had just been found. Given the burning of the bodies, it seemed probable they were connected. This might – just might – be the scene where both women had been killed.
The driver flicked on an indicator. 'We're here. I just have to turn in about a hundred metres,' said the driver, looking at a satnav screen. The car veered right into the campsite. There was so much crime-scene tape fluttering in the wind that it looked as though the area had been marked off for marathon runners. Soldiers swarmed around the vehicle and chatted to the driver in Italian. Then they waved them on; down the driveway, past static caravans, a run-down children's play area, some decrepit wooden chalets that needed refurbishing, a shabby shower block, a screen that hid overflowing waste bins and then more static vans. They stopped alongside a parking area on soft ground. As he got out, Jack recognized the big shape of Lieutenant Pietro Raimondi.