Viper

'Ritardato! '

Jack ignored the obscenity. He slowly reversed out of the vehicle, sucking in fresh air to clear his lungs and his head. He'd have tried to calm her down. The thought stuck to him like hot tar.

'Shall we go down to the other scene now?' asked Pietro.

Made her believe she could live, then killed her. 'I think our killer may have made a critical mistake. Right here. And it may tell us exactly who he is.'

Pietro frowned. 'Where?'

Jack leaned into the car again. 'He'll have been very careful when he shoved the boy out of the way, anxious not to snag a cuff or leave fibres. The victims' bodies will be clean of any trace of him. But I bet he's missed something.'

'What?'

'Somewhere here.' Jack pointed around the back of the driver's seat and the window area. 'This is where you'll find it. Test all around here. The fabric of the roof lining, the plastic back of the seat, even the inside of the window, and you'll find it.'

Pietro was still confused. 'What? What will we find?'

'DNA,' said Jack. 'That old Gene Jeanie might just do his magic for us. Our killer will have spoken to the girl. Maybe even shouted at her to control her. When you speak, even though you can't see it, you spray saliva. Not huge amounts, just a small mist, invisible to the naked eye. But it'll be there. A microscopic dot will be there.' Jack pointed closely to the metal frame of the car door and window. 'Good scientists will find DNA, replicate it, and they'll get this guy's genetic fingerprint. And you never know, our boy just might have a criminal record to match it to.'

As Jack finished his sentence he realized it was a long shot. Many serial killers didn't have previous convictions. But if they did find DNA, at least it was a beginning, something to build on. A match waiting to be made.

Jack hung back while Pietro thanked the technician and passed on orders for the DNA testing. There was another thought that he kept to himself. One too alarming to share.

The killer had been disturbed.

He'd been forced to abandon his fire – and abandon his prize.

That meant he was dissatisfied.

Tense. Angry. Pent-up.

It also meant he'd need to kill again.

And he'd need to do it very soon.

58

Crime scene 2, Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Sylvia Tomms and Medical Examiner Boris Stern stood beside the burned corpse of the dead woman beneath a forensic tent in the centre of the pit. The sun, rarely spotted in Naples for the last week, had cruelly broken cover and was cooking the plastic ceiling above them, increasing the stench of burned flesh and decomposing rubbish.

Stern, a small, white-haired man with Einstein-like glasses and moustache, was Munich born and bred. At social gatherings Sylvia enjoyed speaking German with him and discussing places and events she'd shared with her father. Now, though, their common language was that of death and they spoke Italian for the benefit of those around them.

'She's been shot through the head.' Stern pointed at the blackened, fleshless skull. 'A very precise shot from the front, probably two metres away. The entry wound looks like a nine millimetre. That's the most likely cause of death.'

'Not the burning?' asked Sylvia.

'No, no. Absolutely not. Though she was burned – or, at least, partially burned – before she was shot.'

Sylvia grimaced. 'You're sure of that?' She glanced at the corpse. It was charred beyond recognition. Skin around the skull was missing. All her clothing destroyed. Only the fatty tissue around her thighs seemed to remain.

'No question about it. The burning is consistent with her being upright and fighting to get free from some wire around her wrists. You'll notice, as in all burnings, that the thinnest parts go first – the joints, elbows, knees. The fatty parts – the muscles and biceps – they hold out longer.'

Sylvia had seen floaters and frenzied knife killings, bullet-riddled bodies and strangulations, but never anything like this. It was grotesque.

'What chances of identification, Prof?'

'Oh, good. Very good.' He stretched out his foot in its rubber boot and carefully stepped on to a clear spot of earth. 'Look at her fingers.'

'You mean, what's left of them?' Sylvia gingerly followed his lead.

Stern put his double-gloved finger across the blackened remains of the woman's right hand. 'You can see that she's made a fist, like she's just about to punch someone. We call this Pugilistic Posture. It's happened because the fire caused contractions in her arm. But bend a little closer and look.'

Sylvia stooped so her eyes were barely six inches from the blackened hand.

'The skin around the inside of her middle two fingers on this hand is intact. The fire has blackened it and dried it considerably. We can rehydrate those areas and probably get prints. We've been lucky. The skin on the other hand is almost totally destroyed. The fire was probably hotter there.'

The Professore straightened up, put the back of his left hand against his spine and stretched. 'A touch of rheumatism, I think. Besides the fingerprints, there's plenty of bone left to get good DNA samples from. And there are enough teeth left for us to age her accurately, and maybe even identify her too.'

They stepped back and studied the burned remains. Their thoughts were in sync. Both wondered who the victim was? What awful twist of fate had led her to this dreadful end?

Sylvia put her hand on her old friend's shoulder and broke the silence. 'I need you to lie to me. Tell me that the gases from the fire will have knocked her out and she never felt a thing.'

Stern patted her hand. 'You know that's not true. I'm afraid this will have been a slow death until the moment he shot her.'

'How long?'

'I can't tell you that until I get her back to the mortuary and examine her more closely. It will certainly have taken minutes for all her skin to have burned off. After that, mercifully, she would have been pain free.'

'Why so? Because the brain blocks the agony?'

'No, not at all. Quite simply because all our nerve endings are in our skin. Once the skin has burned away, then there is no feeling.'

What an awful way to go. Sylvia wondered what kind of person would want to actually watch someone suffer like that.

Stern removed his glasses and used his arm to blot sweat from his brow. 'When your fire experts arrive they will be able to tell you much more about her last moments. But looking at the skeleton, and particularly the skull, I would say the murderer started the fire at the top of her body.'

'Why?'

Stern replaced his glasses. 'Come around this side. I'll try to explain.'

They picked their way into a position closer to the victim's head.

'See down there, around the tops of her legs?' He pointed out the area. 'While there is no skin left, there is still some tissue and burned muscle. Now look here; the upper skin that should be around her neck and skull is completely missing, front and back.'

Sylvia caught his drift. 'Fire rises; so if the blaze had been set at her feet then you'd expect most damage down there, rather than at the top of the body?'

'Absolutely right.'

'So you'd say he doused her in petrol and set her head alight?'

'That might be what you would say, my dear. I don't think so. I think your killer was a little more precise in his practices. Look at the skull. There is incredible damage around the mouth. I think he may have forced a rag, probably soaked in some accelerant, into her mouth, pushed it deep into the back of her throat, and then set it alight.'

Like a garden lamp, thought Sylvia. Her killer used a petrol-soaked rag like a wick in an outside lamp.

'There is also extensive burning on the chest. He probably threw accelerant over her once she was ablaze.' Stern lowered his mask so it was below his nose and sniffed. 'Paraffin, I think, not petrol; but I could be wrong. These days my nose is better suited to sniffing a good Barolo than anything else. Again, the fire team will know for certain.'