Viper - Michael Morley [25]
‘Well, Pietro, let me tell you, I stayed faithful throughout the centuries that I was married to that English dog. Now I’m free and I need some fun. And as for the dentist, well I think he probably took the Hippocratic Oath, and that means he’s sworn to secrecy.’
She relaxed a little, blew the last of her cigarette away. ‘As well as DNA profiling, let’s get CT scans on those bigger pieces of bone. And we’ll need some anthropological and archaeological experts to look in detail at what we’ve got.’
Raimondi, who at six-four was what Sylvia deemed ‘unnecessarily large for an Italian male’, reminded her of a problem. ‘We have no state forensic anthropologists available at the moment. Bossi and Bonetti are both still in Rome.’
‘Great! When are they going to be free, do you know?’
Raimondi shrugged. ‘Not for some time. I think they have other work backing up.’
Everyone had other work. Cases were backed up as far as Sicily. It seemed to Sylvia that you could double police resources and within a month they’d still be understaffed.
‘What about going private? Sorrentino or De Bellis?’ suggested Raimondi.
Sylvia thought for a moment. Sorrentino was a top anthropologist and archaeologist, meaning he wasn’t just a bone man confined to the labs, he had expert field skills and could supervise the excavations. But he was also a bag of trouble. De Bellis, on the other hand, was probably a better osteologist, his anthropology was superb, but he was older than a dinosaur and could never be rushed to a deadline. ‘Sorrentino, but stress the confidentiality. Tell him we don’t want to be reading his report in La Repubblica before it’s on our desk.’
Sylvia dropped her cigarette butt and ground it into the hard earth with the heel of her boot. She looked again at the excavation site and had a bad feeling. Something in her gut told her this wasn’t going to be routine. She shivered for a second. Sure, it was cold. But that hadn’t been what chilled her. What she’d felt wasn’t the weather. It was the presence of evil.
18
Greenwich Village, New York City
It was one of those icy nights when the sky looks sharper than a sixty-inch plasma screen and the stars shine so brightly that kids try to touch them. Jack spent most of it walking around, while the rest of the house slept. The house was cold. The heating was off. He sat in the kitchen and brewed coffee. While he waited, he looked again at the slip of paper Creed had given him. Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi, Gloria Pirandello and Francesca Di Lauro. Their deaths in his hand. It had been clever of Creed to imply that, to write them down and press them into his palm. Stigmata of responsibility. It made it hard for him just to screw up the paper and forget them. The coffee boiled and Jack drank it black, warming his hands around a Yankees mug. Five missing women, their disappearances stretching back more than half a decade, linked by a strange pervert who had crossed continents to try to get him involved. It was no wonder he couldn’t sleep. His mind was churning with thoughts about Howie too. The big fella was all beat-up. The divorce had knocked him sideways, and then the bottle he’d sought solace in had laid him out. Punch-drunk.
Jack crept back into bed sometime before five and the warmth and close comfort of his wife’s body sent him to sleep.
Less than two hours later his cellphone woke him.
He’d forgotten to mute it and by the time he found it in the dark, it had tripped to voicemail.
‘Sorry,’ he said as Nancy turned over and stared at him.
The message was from Massimo Albonetti, and it wasn’t the kind that anyone should start the day with.
‘It’s okay, put the light on,’ she said. ‘I’m awake now.’
She watched as he listened to the call, and didn’t like what she saw on his face.
He clicked off the phone. ‘Massimo.’
‘This Naples thing?’
‘Yes, this Naples thing. Massimo wants me to go out there.’
Nancy ran her hands through her hair to untangle it. ‘Oh, he does, does he? And when exactly does he want