Sylvia had seen enough. 'Excuse me for a moment, Professore. I just need to go outside for a while. I'll leave you to get on with your work.'
He smiled knowingly at her. 'See you shortly.'
Sylvia was keen to escape from the charred corpse and get to the other side of the crime scene. She was desperate for a smoke. Jack and Pietro caught Sylvia as she ducked out of the forensic tent. A packet of cigarettes was already in her hand. Before the two men had reached her a voice stopped her in her tracks.
'Capitano!'
Sylvia turned to see a young male Exhibits Officer beside her. 'You need to come to the other side of the pit.'
'Why? What is it?'
'We've found some things in the far corner, in an old chest of drawers.'
'Things?'
Jack and Pietro followed, a pace behind.
'Underwear. Tissues used by women, smeared with make-up, old lipstick – those kinds of things.'
When they reached the corner of the pit, Jack stepped back and tuned out the fast-spoken Italian comments being exchanged. Old planks and plastic sheeting had been arranged to form a sort of shelter and forensic teams were now erecting their own protection around this area as well. A rusty oil drum lay on its side in the treacly mud and there were footprints everywhere. It looked like investigators had rushed into the scene and probably compromised it. There were some forensic walkways, but not enough. He was saddened to think of what might have been lost. A crime-scene photographer flashed his camera at something being shown to Sylvia. Jack was in no hurry to see it. He was still trying to decode the importance of what was in front of him.
The pit was at its deepest at this point. The place with the planks and the oil drum was most sheltered from the elements. It had been carefully chosen. This was his place to linger. He sat here to savour the blaze. Wanted to be alone with his thoughts. The drum was his seat. The drawers now being rifled by Forensics were his treasure chest. He was a regular – no, more than that, he was a routine visitor. Jack looked again at the makeshift shelter. It really wasn't very big, and certainly not sophisticated. Some old wooden doors – one a front door of a house with splintered panels that looked as though it had been staved in during a drugs raid – formed the sides of the shelter. A small trench, about six or eight inches deep, had been dug in the ground so the doors would slot in. Planks of wood – rough flooring timbers and pieces of cheap plywood – had been crudely layered on top and nailed down. Old plastic sheeting had been fed and trapped beneath them to form some kind of waterproof membrane. Whoever had done this wasn't tall; the height and poor design of the roof showed he'd struggled to arrange things with any real neatness or competence. More than anything there was a real sense, though, that he'd spent a lot of time here – he'd come with a spade and tools and had collected the right combination of wood and sheeting to make the shelter. This undoubtedly was his place.
'Jack. Look at these.'
He responded slowly to Sylvia's voice, carefully stepping on to a short walkway that had just been put down. It took him to the heart of the group.
The young Exhibits Officer held a long drawer across his arms and a camera whirred and flashed from somewhere to the side.
In the left side of the drawer were maybe six or seven pairs of panties. From their size and style they looked as though they'd been worn by slim – probably young – women. Next to them was a pile of used cosmetics. Lipsticks, eyeliners, blusher, powder, even some hairspray aerosols. In the right side of the drawer was a strange mix of papers – tissues that had yellowed but still bore marks of lipstick or make-up, old letters that had been crumpled up and then straightened out, torn photographs of girls' faces that had been Sellotaped together again.
'You recognize any of these girls?' asked Jack.
'Not yet,' answered Sylvia, 'but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of them turn out to be our missing women.'
'These are trophies?' said Pietro. He pointed to the tent that covered the place where the last woman had been burned. 'He kills his women there, then he collects here what he wants to keep from them.'
'Maybe,' said Jack, his attention caught by two forensic officers struggling to move heavy cans in an adjacent corner. 'What have they got there?'
Pietro interrupted the search. He lifted one of the cans, his face beaming with an ear-to-ear smile. 'Paraffina! Looks like we've found your paraffin.'
59
Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Antonio Castellani was on the toilet cursing his haemorrhoids when the carabinieri rushed his caravan. By the time he'd come out, frightened and still hurting, his grandson Paolo was flat on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back.
They were both read their rights and told they were being taken to the carabinieri barracks for questioning in connection with three murders. The arresting officers noted they looked genuinely shocked. They also noted that another Castellani – Franco – was missing. His grandfather made frantic protests about needing to stay to run his business but his words fell on deaf ears. Confused campers crushed around the two separate police cars that flashed their blue lights and sped away.
Search teams poured into the old man's van and the one that Paolo and Franco shared. They found nothing in Antonio's office, except accounts, scrap-books of his younger years, old clothes, a cupboard full of cans and dried foods, some letters from his wife and enough medicines to stock a farmacia.
Things were different in the other caravan.
Forensics were having a ball.
Mud from the pit was all over the place, but especially close to one of the stinking bunks. There were specks of heroin all over the floor. They stripped the bed sheets and sent them off to be tested for other substances – specifically gunshot residue. The pillow cover was pulled off and bagged. Something soft tumbled lightly on to the floor.
Alberto Morani, a veteran forensic investigator, felt his heart thump. 'Stop! Don't touch it until you've photographed it.'
His assistant, newcomer Giulietta Sielli, pulled back her hand. She flicked round the camera she was holding and took several pictures of what even she knew could be hugely significant.
Lying on the floor by Franco Castellani's bed was a pair of tiny yellow panties. The type that undoubtedly matched the yellow bra that had been worn by Rosa Novello.
60
Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna Within seconds of seeing Antonio Castellani being interviewed in the holding cell, Jack knew he had nothing to do with the triple murder on his land. The old man's body language showed he was completely confused by the whole affair. His brow was furrowed, his eyes startled, but there was no indicator of guilt, only genuine bewilderment.
Sylvia was gentle but firm with him. First she explored his relationship with his grandchildren and the absence of their parents. Then she moved on to his business and the kind of activities that happened at the site. From the viewing window in the adjoining room Jack listened to the man's strange Neapolitan dialect. It was nothing like the Italian he'd learned. What was clear, though, was how arthritis had stiffened the old guy's joints, how old age had bent his spine and slowed his responses. Antonio Castellani would have trouble swatting a fly in his filthy caravan, let alone hunting and killing humans.
On the other side of the viewing room, Pietro Raimondi was in another interview area using completely different tactics on Paolo Falconi. He was leaning half across the thin grey table that separated them; his broad neck bulged with bloated veins and stretched muscles, his eyes piercing and provocative. 'Don't mess with us, Paolo. You know something about what went down, now tell us.'
'I told you. I don't know a thing.'
'Rosa Novello. You had the hots for her, right? You've been sniffing around her like a big bad street dog just waiting for the chance to grind up against her leg.'