Viper

by Unknown

  ‘Beyond a shadow of a doubt.’

  ‘But someone else was also at the car. Someone who stood exactly where the profiler said the killer must have stood, precisely at the point from where the fatal gunshot was fired?’

  Marianna nodded. ‘Spot on. Exactly the same point. I’d say whoever left the geno is your man.’

  ‘And that DNA doesn’t match any convicted felons?’

  ‘Not one.’

  ‘Not even Bruno Valsi – you’re sure of that?’

  Marianna pressed her lips into a thin smile. ‘We’re sure of it. Lorenzo Pisano asked the same question. We’ve double-checked. It’s not a match.’

  Sylvia sat in silence and tried to unpick the tangle of clues and knockbacks. Forensics didn’t seem to be able to put any of her prime suspects at the right scene with the right evidence. Franco Castellani had one gun – his grandfather’s Glock – but not two. She’d have to check whether the old man had forgotten there had been two. Franco was undoubtedly connected to all the murders at the pit, but not to Sorrentino. Two killers? Could there really be two killers? Franco and Valsi? An impossible pairing? Nothing was impossible, but this was very close. Then again, there seemed absolutely no forensic evidence to link Valsi to anything. ‘Can we get a cross-check between all our DNA samples and the Tortoricci woman?’

  Marianna shook her head. ‘Again, already done.’

  ‘Lorenzo?’ That man always seemed to be a step ahead of her.

  ‘Aha. There’s no match there either. To be truthful, the trace evidence from the Tortoricci kill was incredibly poor quality and seemed to come from dozens of different sources, no doubt going back years. We found some hair and flaked skin particles, but it’s going to take us centuries to clean it up, replicate it and check the databases.’

  Sylvia needed space and time to work it all out. A cold, impossible thought hit her.

  Creed.

  They had no DNA sample on Creed. He had been their only other suspect. Had they been wrong to write him off?

  She rubbed her tired face with both hands. She was grasping at straws and she knew it. ‘God, Marianna, I really need a break here. You think I’m hunting one killer with two guns? Or two killers with two separate but similar guns who work together? Or two completely separate killers with almost identical weapons? Or – most likely option of all – do you think I’m just going stark raving mad?’

  Marianna laughed. ‘No doubt about it – last on your list – you are going mad.’ She tapped a big stack of files in front of her. ‘Now, I need you to take your madness away. I’ve got my own piling up in front of me.’

  85

  Fuorigrotta, Napoli

  Gina Valsi’s friend Tatiana had been right – the answer to all her problems was to find another man. Not an affair, though. What she wanted was a permanent new man in her life. She prayed to God that her father would kill her vicious bastard of a husband as quickly as possible. She’d grieve for a while. Be supportive towards Enzo. But then she’d start again. Slim down, shape up. Find herself someone who was sensitive. The kind of guy who couldn’t kill a spider in a bathtub, but would pick it up and put it out of the window. A guy like that could change your life.

  Her love for Bruno was dead. Finally gone. It was a relief.

  She felt as if someone she knew were suffering from a fatal cancer. It would be merciful for them to die quickly. Get it over with.

  Gina was still mentally rebuilding as she parked her silver BMW X5 outside her factory. She employed more than a hundred macchiniste who ran up counterfeit designer garments and made more than a million euros a year for the Family. Some of the clothing even got exported to her father’s friends in Russia, Spain and France. The rest went straight into the shops her Family owned in Naples, Milan and Rome.

  ‘Signora Valsi,’ shouted a voice from a pace or two behind her.

  Gina turned and saw two men. One was small and thin with geeky glasses, the other tall and clearly not Italian. His clothes, his face, everything about him told her straight away that he was a foreigner – probably British or American.

  ‘Signora, I’m Lorenzo Pisano from the carabinieri. This is Jack King, an American colleague of mine.’ Lorenzo held out his wallet ID. ‘We’d like to talk to you about your husband.’

  Gina was no stranger to men with badges or warrants in their hands and she knew immediately that something wasn’t right. Why hadn’t they called at her home, her father’s home or contacted her through Mazerelli?

  ‘Gina, this is an off-the-record chat,’ said Jack, reading her silence. ‘It’ll take twenty minutes of your time and then we’ll be gone.’

  Gina bagged her car keys and high-heeled past them. ‘Guys, if you don’t have any paperwork that says I have to see you, then I don’t see you.’ They were pushing their luck and she knew it.

  ‘Your husband, Bruno, I’m betting that you’re sorry he ever came out of prison?’ Jack knew he had to hook her quickly. ‘We don’t want you to testify or give evidence against him in any way. I just need you to tell me what he’s like as a person, what he’s capable of.’

  Gina screwed up her face in disgust. ‘My husband’s an animal – a pig – but at least he’s not a filthy carabinieri pig like you two.’

  Jack could see beyond the words. They barely hid her fear. He stepped forward a pace and blocked her. ‘I’m not carabinieri. And neither of us is a pig. We’re trying to protect people. Just doing our best to stop women like you getting hurt.’ He’d touched a sensitive point. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you, Gina? He’s hurt you in the past – hurt others – hasn’t he?’

  She moved away from him. He made her edgy. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Where did you meet him, Gina? What was your first date?’

  ‘What?’ The question threw her. But it did everything it was designed to. It stopped her panicking, stopped her walking away. ‘You want to know what? Where I first dated him?’

  Jack smiled at her. ‘Yep, that’s all. Where and when did he ask you out?’

  She relaxed a little. Hands on hips, Gucci bag over shoulder. She slipped back in time. ‘He worked for my father. Drove me home from a nightclub after the birthday party of a friend. Asked me if I’d like to go out sometime, and I said yes. Simple as that.’

  ‘Why did you agree to the date?’

  ‘You kidding? Take a look at Bruno, there’s not a woman in Naples who would say no to him. What is this? The carabinieri runs some marriage guidance service now?’

  ‘Please, Signora Valsi,’ pleaded Lorenzo.

  She jerked her shoulders. ‘He was a good-looking guy, I was a young girl and wanted a boyfriend. Goes on all the time. You guys should get out more; this kind of thing wouldn’t be such a mystery to you.’

  Jack took the cheek out of her voice. ‘He once stabbed the father of a girl he was dating in the testicles, did you know that?’

  Gina didn’t answer. Nor, noted Jack, did she look shocked or repulsed.

  Lorenzo finished off the story. ‘And when the girl dumped him, he and his gang attacked her. They held her down and mutilated her.’ He put a hand between his legs. ‘Just to teach her a lesson.’

  ‘These are sick lies you’re making up. If they were true then Bruno would have been arrested. Listen, I’m very busy and have to go.’ Gina turned away from them and headed towards the factory entrance.

  Jack walked alongside her. ‘One last question – I saw you at your father’s house the other night. We were in the downstairs lounge and you and your son had just come in.’

  ‘Lucky you. Must have been a treat for you.’ She had thirty metres to go, then she’d be rid of these guys.

  ‘What made you leave your husband? Was it because he was violent towards you? What did he do, Gina? ’

  She tried to look away from him. But in her mind Bruno was up against her again. Holding her back. Hand to throat. Eyes wide and dark. Ramming himself inside her. Hurting her. Laughing at her. Degradin
g her.

  The door was five metres away.

  Jack stepped in front of her again. ‘What did he do to you that still frightens you so much?’

  Three metres to go.

  Jack touched her shoulder. He just let his fingers rest there to stop her moving and to see if he’d get the reaction he expected.

  Gina jerked her body away. She stood her ground. Face blazing defiance. She looked ready to fight. Ready to kick and scratch and scream the sky down. ‘Don’t you dare touch me. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again!’

  Now Jack could see it. The full story. As clear as if she’d given a written statement that he had brutalized and raped her. Her own husband scared her so much that she’d fight him. Fight anyone. Fight to the death to protect herself and her child. It was a chilling and, for the profiler, an invaluable insight into what Valsi was capable of.

  Gina was crimson by the time she reached the factory entrance. She tried to hide the shake in her voice. ‘Leave me alone, or I’ll call my lawyer.’

  Jack and Lorenzo saw the flash of pure hatred on her face. The door banged and Gina was gone.

  FIVE

  86

  Il Giardino di Zeus, Napoli

  Mazerelli met Pietro Raimondi twice more within twenty-four hours of their first get-together. But not at his home. Instead, it was in the one place that he was sure would be safe – his private health spa, the Garden of Zeus.

  Stripped to their Speedos, sitting in the bubbling water and watched only by marble statues of Greek gods, the consigliere had made certain the officer hadn’t been taping anything. They’d spoken openly. And, on Finelli’s instructions, Mazerelli had demanded proof of Raimondi’s claims. Proof the officer had promised to supply.

  Now, Raimondi was literally in hot water. It was delivery time. After tonight there’d be no more talking. He was sure he’d either get his money, or get a bullet in the back.

  Between the meetings, Mazerelli had run checks on the lieutenant with other carabinieri on the Family payroll. He was clean as a whistle. No hint of scandal or corruption. But that meant nothing. In Hollywood movies, cops only go bad when they’re blackmailed; maybe a member of their family is threatened with violence or faced with ruin. In real life, the truth is simpler. Cops go bad because it’s a short cut to easy money. Double money. Pay from the police and tax-free pay from the other side.

  Mazerelli and Raimondi stepped out of the hot tub and dripped water through to the pine-benched changing room.

  ‘So, I will be hearing from you?’ The lieutenant changed, then ran a comb through his still-wet, slicked-back hair while bending slightly in front of the mirror on a locker door.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said the lawyer. ‘Ciao.’

  Raimondi left. Empty-handed. The way it was supposed to be.

  Mazerelli, still with only a towel around his waist, waited a full five minutes on the slatted bench and wondered how all this was going to end. Not good. He had that feeling. And he was seldom wrong.

  Red-faced and sweating, Salvatore Giacomo entered from the sauna.

  ‘Buona sera,’ he said, as though they’d never met before. He took a yellow band off his ankle and used the key to open a stainless-steel locker next to Mazerelli’s. The consigliere dressed and left without saying another word.

  Five minutes later, Sal the Snake swung open the long, thin metal door of the locker that Pietro Raimondi had just used. He pulled out the blue and white Adidas holdall that had been left in there and didn’t even bother to look inside.

  If Raimondi was telling the truth, it contained the gun Finelli had used almost twenty years ago to murder a prominent gang member. Proof beyond doubt that the cop really was on the take and had enough ammunition to bring down the whole of the Finelli Family.

  87

  Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna

  Jack and Sylvia sat in her office updating each other. He recounted his meeting with Gina and his growing suspicions about Bruno Valsi and the Finelli clan. She painstakingly laid out the latest forensic evidence and how it heavily implicated Franco Castellani in all the deaths near the campsite, but not in the Sorrentino murder. And how it didn’t put Valsi into any of the murder frames. It seemed they had taken one step forward and two steps back.

  ‘I think Franco’s a red herring,’ said Jack.

  ‘What exactly does that mean?’ queried Sylvia. ‘I mean, I know what it means – a sort of false clue – but why the mention of fish, red or otherwise?’

  Jack laughed. ‘It’s an old expression. It means something that’s drawing our attention away from what we should be looking at. Herrings are not naturally red but they turn red when they’re smoked.’

  Sylvia cocked her head in acknowledgement of his explanation.

  ‘I think DNA has smoked Franco Castellani guilty of murder, but he isn’t.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. What about his trace evidence being all over the pit, all over the car, and Rosa’s underwear being in his bunk?’

  ‘Exactly,’ stressed Jack.

  ‘Exactly? ’

  ‘The panties are the real clue. Franco’s a sick kid. His disease has alienated him from society, and especially from women. Like all young men he has urges – probably very strong ones – for female contact…’

  ‘And maybe huge hatred and resentment towards those women for rejecting him and his urges?’

  ‘Maybe. But let me finish. You and I probably both resent a lot of people for a lot of things, but we don’t go around killing them.’

  Sylvia jumped in again. ‘But – and these are your own words – the two most crucial pieces of evidence we have are the panties, and the DNA on the car door at the spot where the killer stood when he talked to Rosa before he shot her.’

  ‘They are crucial. But I’m starting to believe they’re not connected.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘They’re contra-indicators. Stolen panties point to a different kind of individual than someone who taunts a victim seconds before he blows her head off with a nine millimetre.’

  Sylvia still wasn’t done. ‘But you’re guessing that the killer did that. You don’t know that for sure.’

  Jack’s head fizzed with images. Gun raised, girl cowering in the back, boyfriend already dead. ‘Believe me, Sylvia, I’m not guessing. I’m sure. Our killer spoke to Rosa before he shot her. That DNA is our killer’s and that killer’s not Franco Castellani.’

  She knew where he was heading. ‘And it’s not Bruno Valsi’s either. The labs say that. They’ve run comparisons on all known offenders and it’s not your boy. I specifically asked about Valsi, and his profile is different.’

  Jack stared off into space. Could he be wrong? Could the DNA comparison be wrong? Then he remembered his conversation with Pisano. ‘What if it’s not Valsi’s DNA on file?’

  Sylvia frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Lorenzo said the Camorra once sprang Valsi from a gun rap by having the weapon disappear from the evidence store. What if they got to his DNA profile and switched it?’

  Sylvia’s stomach flipped. ‘You mean the Camorra paid off someone in the Records Office?’

  Jack raised a brow. ‘Maybe not only Valsi’s. Could be that the Camorra do a routine switch on all their top boys. Once their DNA is on file, they pay a mole to switch it. Would be a nice earner for someone.’

  Sylvia couldn’t bear thinking about it. And if the Camorra had done that with DNA, then they’d have done it with fingerprints too. And blood samples. If the whole of the Records Office had been corrupted, then law and order in Naples was about to fall apart.

  Jack moved on. ‘You have to get a fresh sample from Valsi and see if it matches what’s on file. And if they’re not the same, then see if the new sample matches the DNA on the car door at the crime scene.’

  Sylvia felt exasperated. ‘We can’t just ask Valsi for a sample. He’d laugh in our faces.’

  ‘Sure he would. But maybe his wife would help. Him goin
g back to prison would be a blessing for her.’

  ‘Worth a shot.’ Sylvia glanced at her watch. ‘Cazzo! We’re late for the briefing.’

  They hurried to the Incident Room. The air was already buzzing with voices, the smell of wet clothing and freshly made coffee. Sorrentino’s number two, Luella Grazzioli, was standing at the front, fastening diagrams and photographs to a giant whiteboard with coloured magnets. She had long, layered, shaggy brown hair that had once been blonde but now was dark at the roots and full of dried earth and frizzy ends. When all this was over she’d treat herself to a good cut, a fabulous manicure and enough mellow Pinot Grigio to make her lose the power of speech. But, as she put the last of the pictures on the board, she knew those moments of indulgence were still a long way off. She pointed to a grainy aerial shot marked with red crosses, showing opened graves and the spots the radar had pinpointed as most likely to contain more bones.

  ‘Here you can see the five distinct female recovery sites that we’ve already opened up, including those of the first victim we discovered, Francesca Di Lauro, and the second female, recently identified as Gloria Pirandello.’

  Luella paused to let everyone scan the pictures and get their bearings. ‘As you can see, these female graves radiate in a semi-circle. I have teams working with your crews to complete the other half of the circle, and if you’re right,’ looking at Jack, ‘then we’re likely to find more burial sites.’ Her phraseology made Jack uncomfortable but he didn’t interrupt and hoped his instincts were wrong.

  ‘If you look down from the arc – that clock face, as I know some of you now call it – you can see two more graves. These are roughly twenty metres away from those of Francesca and Gloria. On the way over I got a call from the lab and I can now confirm that these are, in fact, male graves.’

  It was like a bomb had gone off. First silence as the news stunned everyone. Then an eruption of murmurings.