Jack was still answering the question as he, Sylvia and two of her team made their way across the city to the briefing with anti-Camorra supremo, Major Lorenzo Pisano. Maybe he could answer the most worrying question of all. How do you hunt down a serial killer when he's surrounded by a mob of other killers?
75
Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio Flies buzzed hungrily around the remains of the slain fawn, their grey wings tipped with blood. Franco Castellani watched with fascination as they disappeared into its wounds and gorged themselves on meat and plasma.
He'd hacked off chunks of the animal, cooked them on a camp fire and eaten them. Now he felt sick. He guessed the flames hadn't been hot enough to roast the meat properly.
Worse than anything, his throat felt as though he'd swallowed a ball of fibreglass. His head ached and pounded. He was desperately thirsty and was out of water. The big irony was that it was now raining again. Absolutely pouring down.
There were shops a few kilometres from where he was hiding. He knew them well. He'd stolen from them as a kid – biscuits and sweets – and he was fully prepared to steal from them again.
His feet squished in mud as he trudged through the sodden undergrowth. He soon felt drained and faint. He settled on a rock beneath the shelter of a cluster of pines and giant old maples. His stomach growled and then twisted itself in painful knots. Franco got to his feet and threw up. He felt better for a second and then hurled again. For the next ten minutes he retched continuously. Afterwards, he slumped in the undergrowth near the piles of vomit and passed out.
Visions came in his state of delirium. Images of Rosa, lying naked in the back of the car. Her eyes as big as saucers. Her mouth open in a perfect O. He wished he'd touched her mouth; put his fingers on those lips – plump and red against her china-white skin. He reached out in his mind and it was his mother, not Rosa, who reached back. He was a toddler now, waking in bed. Mother's hand brushed his perfect baby face and she told him how beautiful he was. His father called – a deep voice full of gravel and grit – and mother's hand vanished. A flash of blue jeans and an open white shirt. The smell of cigarettes and cologne. Then everything went dark. Too dark. No touch – no contact. A child's cry filled the darkness. Voices faded. Franco strained to remember their faces – their eyes, hair colour, the shape of their mouths – but he couldn't. He had nothing. He was alone again.
The rain touched his lips and reminded him of his thirst. He got to his knees and felt the sodden earth soaking through his jeans. He was covered in vomit and mud. He stood and the world swirled. His heart drummed a deep bass warning through his chest. Slowly he weaved his way across the parkland, Vesuvius boiling silently behind him, rain clouds stretching their grey spectral arms from above him.
There were voices nearby, he could hear them clearly. Police voices, carabinieri. He'd heard them several times, even seen the troops on a couple of occasions. They were working in the taped-off area where the bodies had been found. They looked stupid, digging – like they were planting potatoes.
Franco put his hand to the back of his jeans and pulled out the old Glock.
It was fully loaded and the safeties off.
He'd kill them if he had to.
In fact, it'd be his pleasure.
76
Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (ROS) Quartiere Generale (Anti-Camorra Unit), Napoli Major Lorenzo Pisano had headed the carabinieri's Anti-Camorra Unit for close on half a decade. A small, slim, bespectacled man in his early forties, he had floppy greying hair that was combed back with a centre parting. Unless you knew that he wore a Kevlar vest, doubly reinforced over his heart, you could easily mistake him for a sociology lecturer rather than a gang-buster.
He shook hands with a surprisingly firm grip and, after brief introductions, showed Jack, Sylvia and two junior members of her team through to a small briefing room. It was dimly lit, a white projector screen was already rolled down, and a machine hummed somewhere at the back of the room.
'Please, sit down.' He motioned to black plastic chairs facing the screen. 'What's the latest on the Sorrentino murder? I only just heard about it.'
Sylvia filled him in. 'Professional hit. Bullet through the head. Killer dumped him on his own waterbed and then disappeared.' She glanced at her watch, 'Ballistics are digging the slug out, right about now.'
Lorenzo picked up a remote clicker for the projector. 'You think your serial killer might have done this as well?'
'You mind if I smoke?'
Lorenzo shook his head.
Sylvia dug out her cigarettes while she answered him. 'It's possible. Sorrentino was the public face of the inquiry. He was all over the press – certainly much more visible than me. Any breakthroughs we had were credited to him.'
'We talked a bit about this on the way over,' added Jack. 'While it's very unusual for a serial killer to attack a member of an inquiry team, it's not unheard of. Normally, they like to watch from a safe distance and be ready to flee. If it is the same guy, then he really has some balls.'
'There are a lot of those kind of guys in the slide show I'm about to give you.' Lorenzo hit the clicker. 'This is Alberta Tortoricci – killed in Scampia. Sylvia and I have spoken about her.' A colour shot of the corpse filled the wall. It looked like a half-blackened candle. Flesh was melted, blackened and dotted with tufts and strands of the old carpet that she'd been wrapped in. 'Alberta was the main witness in the trial that sent local Camorra gang member Bruno Valsi down for a big five. Now he's got balls. Coglioni bigger than cantaloupes.' The slide changed to a close-up of her face. 'Our brave lady turned up dead. I saw the body myself. She'd been electrocuted, had her tongue cut out. I guess you know the rest.'
'Heading over here, I picked up a message from the labs,' interrupted Sylvia. 'Seems the accelerant used on your victim was gasoline not paraffin. We were hoping it matched the fuel used on our victim over at the Castellani site.'
Lorenzo shrugged; he wasn't deep enough into their case to offer a valid comment.
'The type of accelerant used isn't nearly as import ant as the fact that he used one,' explained Jack. 'Given this crime wasn't in the same location as the Castellani killing, it's reasonable to think he used petrol from a can in his vehicle.' He turned to Lorenzo, 'In the Tortoricci case, you have no doubt about the order of events? You're sure the burning came after the electrocution?'
'No doubt. The ME said the brain had hardened and shrunk, almost like it had been baked. Apparently, that's consistent with sustained electrocution.'
Jack pictured toasted walnuts – a treat his grandmother made. 'How'd they do it?'
'They fixed something around her neck. The doc said there was blistering of the skin on both sides – like electrodes had been placed there.'
'Joule burns,' explained Jack, 'the entry and exit points of the electricity. I've come across them before. They usually leave some burning and bruising that gives away the shape of whatever was used to electrocute the victim.'
Lorenzo nodded. 'Sounds right. Faggiani – that's the Medical Examiner – said the marks looked like some metal collar had been clamped to her neck.'
Jack tried to imagine what had gone down. Payback time. A wise guy cashing his revenge cheque. And he sure as hell got his money's worth. 'The body was set on fire afterwards. Is that also part of Camorra rituals?'
Pisano screwed up his face. 'No. The severing of the tongue and gouging of a cross on to her lips were ritualistic – they are done to show people what happens if you don't have the sense to look the other way and, instead, you speak about things you shouldn't. But the burning wasn't. That was just tidying up.'