Viper

by Unknown

  ‘Gina and the young boy, Enzo, have moved back in with her father. Meanwhile, Valsi fucks anything female with a pulse.’

  The Dog smirked. ‘And the men on the ground, what’s their mood?’

  ‘As you guessed, they are nervous and are starting to split.’

  Cicerone corrected him. ‘I didn’t guess. I saw it in the stars. An eclipse of Mars; the timing is perfect.’

  Ambrossio bit back the urge to tell the Dog that he was barking mad. ‘The white hairs are with Finelli, they think he is in control and knows how to play Valsi.’

  ‘And the young and hungry ones are with Valsi,’ grinned Cicerone. ‘It is always the way. Brutal ambition is forever in the blood of the young and the bold.’

  Ambrossio nodded. It was true. And no one was bolder and more brutal than he was.

  91

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

  The clay was stained and smelled like the sweat of a skunk in summer. After ninety minutes of rock shifting and another sixty of digging, Luella’s team called her over. They’d shovelled out a big trench and had found something.

  Jack and Sylvia stood way beyond the excavation, outside the crime-scene area, in the safe zone. She could see them talking intensely. Serious faces, sombre moods moulded by death. It was something she still had to get used to. She sent one of the carabinieri soldiers over to get them. They needed to see this.

  Luella clambered into the trench and stood at the end of it. Her team had cleared the ground around something bulky, bound in grey-black plastic sheeting. She tried to imagine it was anything other than what it obviously was. A body wrapped and buried in plastic sheeting. A crime-scene photographer hovered above her. He’d already snapped twenty minutes’ worth of frames. The pale light dimmed further as Sylvia and Jack appeared at the edge of the dig and peered down. Their faces were full of expectancy and sadness.

  ‘I’m just about to open it,’ she said.

  Sylvia nodded. Luella dipped her head and hands to the earthy plastic and heard the camera click. It took a while to find the edge of the sheeting. It had been wrapped several times around whatever was in it. ‘I’m going to need help. Can you call one of my assistants over?’

  Sylvia shouted to the rest of the team. A well-muscled guy called Gelsone slipped into the hole and helped Luella. She directed his hands beneath the sheeted lump and he took the weight as she carefully unfolded the wrapping. It was an awkward job, like getting a king-sized quilt into its cover, only here you couldn’t shake anything.

  Luella stopped. ‘Get a photographer down here.’

  The snapper slid into the pit.

  ‘Careful!’ shouted Sylvia.

  Luella finished pulling back the sheeting. The camera clicked again. The image of the rotted skull burned into everyone’s mind.

  Body Number One, Jack was sure of it. Numero Uno.

  But which sex?

  And then another revelation rocked them.

  The bones were dark, creamy yellow. Unburned.

  92

  Pompeii

  Paolo Falconi searched in vain. He’d been as far north as Sant’Anastasia, as far east as San Giovanni a Teduccio, as far west as Monterusciello and as far southeast as Santa Maria la Carità. He’d figured Franco would follow the train lines circling the Parco Nazionale, stealing rides in mail wagons, thieving snacks from shops and scavenging slops from restaurant bins. Everyone he’d spoken to knew his cousin was a wanted man. No one had expressed anything that would remotely pass as sympathy. In a town dependent on tourism, Franco wasn’t popular.

  Paolo drove the family’s old white van back to his grandfather’s campsite, fully aware of the carabinieri tail that followed him. The old green Skoda Octavia usually stayed three, maybe four, cars back, but sometimes it got confused or careless and ended up just a car behind. Then he would slow down and let a few vehicles pass to give himself cover. That killed Paolo. Only one type of vehicle in Naples wanted to get overtaken, so he might as well have strapped a flashing neon sign to the roof saying Carabinieri Sorveglianza – Police Surveillance.

  Back at the campsite Paolo checked on his grandfather. Antonio was asleep in his chair, looking older and more vulnerable than he’d ever seen him. He kissed his mottled head, grabbed a chunk of bread off a wooden chopping board and went out again.

  The Skoda was parked in Via Plinio, cop noses pointing towards the west of the city. Paolo dropped back inside the camp and worked his way east along the fencing for more than a kilometre. He climbed back on to the road just where it met the railway line and Plinio became Viale Giuseppe Mazzini.

  The street was wet and dark. Tourists were either gone or were heading back to their hotels for hot pasta and red wine. Paolo felt sure he was unwatched as he zigzagged across Via Colle San Bartolomeo. He skirted round the hospital, Casa di Cura Maria Rosario, then slipped into the southern part of the Pompeii ruins.

  Unlike Franco, Paolo hated the place after dark. It gave him the creeps. And tonight, the biting December wind and pale moonlight did nothing to improve things. He’d looked here before in the daylight, but now, after searching everywhere else, he reckoned it had to be worth another try.

  An hour later he found Franco. His cousin was sitting alone in the necropolis. Milky light played on the side of his face. Most of his body was hidden in the darkness of night. He was throwing sticks for a wild dog that was so thin you could see every rib in its body.

  ‘Ciao, Franco.’ His tone was as casual as if it had been only a few hours since he’d last seen him.

  Franco looked up. ‘Ciao, Paolo. You got the cops with you?’ He sounded croaky. It was the first time he’d spoken in days.

  ‘Like I’m that stupid.’

  ‘You are that stupid.’ Franco slowly got to his feet and the two cousins embraced.

  ‘Come stai?’

  ‘Not so good. I’ve been puking my guts out. I had some water, though, and a little food. But my stomach still hurts like fuck.’

  Paolo held his arms. ‘Cops had me and Grandpa in. They’ve got your face plastered up in windows, mail offices, every-fucking-where. They think you killed some people on the site.’

  Franco pulled away. ‘Well, I didn’t. They can think what they want.’

  They talked in hushed voices, their backs turned against the wind, their conversation constantly interrupted by the feral dog that wanted its stick throwing. Paolo told the whole story about him and his grandfather being arrested. Franco told everything – well, almost everything – about Rosa Novello, her boyfriend, and what was left of another woman in his fire pit.

  The dog returned and Franco wrestled the stick in its mouth, pulling the mutt backwards and forwards. The two cousins chatted for nearly an hour before Paolo left. It had felt like old times. Batting the breeze. Talking about something or nothing. There weren’t many people in life either of them felt that easy with.

  Paolo climbed back out of the ruins and trudged home, lost in his own thoughts.

  If he’d been more attentive, he may have seen the grey-faced man hiding in the slim shadow of a doorway opposite the campsite entrance.

  The Don had asked Sal to find leverage with old man Castellani. The veteran Camorrista reckoned he’d done just that.

  93

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

  The bones were almost entirely intact. The hands seemed to be the only parts that had been dismembered. And to make matters even easier, the victim had been buried in his suit and shoes. No doubt about it, stiff number eight was male. And by the cut of his clothes, he’d been buried several fashion generations ago.

  Luella Grazzioli hadn’t even needed to go back to the laboratory to make a skeletal assembly. The plastic sheeting that he’d been buried in had been lifted out of the grave and laid alongside the mound of lava rocks. Jack and Sylvia watched the scene, illuminated by arc lights, as Luella unpeeled the full horror of the sheet’s contents. All manner of creatures had fed on the flesh, fat and ligaments but the pla
stic had preserved much of the clothing. Jack thought it ironic that many years ago the sheeting had probably been used to prevent evidence being left at the murder scene, and now here it was, hopefully presenting them with their clearest clues to date.

  The skull was a little broken up, but still held together. There was a glaring hole in the right cheekbone and another through the forehead. Everyone guessed they were bullet wounds. The skull showed bigger but corresponding holes in the temporal and occipital bones. The rotted remains of a grey jacket and a shirt were opened up.

  The guy’s ribcage had been caved in.

  ‘Is that the work of the ground, or his killer?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Most likely the ground,’ said Luella. ‘He wasn’t lying flat in the hole. He was all scrunched up. Almost foetal. I expect the weight of the earth and rocks heaped on top of him would have broken his ribcage.’

  ‘What about that?’ Sylvia pointed at the left side of the chest, close to the heart. ‘Is that rounded nick at the bottom of that rib consistent with a bullet wound?’

  Luella looked up from her work. ‘I’m sorry, you know that I’m really new to this. I helped Bernardo with the archaeology and the assembly, not the forensics. I’m really not qualified to tell you that kind of thing.’

  ‘But it could be?’ Sylvia pressed.

  Luella let out a light sigh. She repositioned the skeleton and pulled up the tail of the tattered grey jacket. She looked closely at the back of the ribcage. ‘I can’t exactly line them up, but there’s corresponding damage at the back.’

  ‘The bullet’s exit point?’ asked Jack.

  Luella smiled. ‘I’m really, really not qualified to –’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re not in court and we won’t quote you,’ said Sylvia.

  Luella hesitated. ‘Okay. Yes, it looks like an exit wound.’

  It all added up for Jack. This was most definitely Numero Uno. The first kill. Not nearly as professional as the later ones. He walked around the skeleton. The chest wound would have come from the killer’s first shot. Probably aimed for the heart and missed. The victim would have just looked stunned, dropped to his knees, mouth open, hands to his wound. The killer would have panicked and rushed to finish him off. Hence the second shot to the cheekbone. Also not good. Finally the trigger-man would have got his shit together. Probably walked up close and finished the job with a bullet to the brain. Determined but messy. The work of a beginner.

  The crime team didn’t rush anything. Numerous photographs were taken. Dozens of items were bagged and tagged. Most were mundane and useless. Some were pure treasure. The hands had been hacked off, an old-fashioned way of stopping fingerprint identification, but the skull was good enough to get a very accurate facial reconstruction from. They’d get DNA as well.

  There had been nothing in the pockets of the jacket or trousers but there was a label in the waistband, naming the tailor as Tombolini, Napoli.

  Luella said she’d send bone samples to specialists in Rome for isotopic examination. It would take more than a month to get the results but she was confident they’d confirm her suspicion that the body had been buried for at least ten to fifteen years.

  Aside from the forensic clues, there was a big psychological one too. The body hadn’t been violated. It hadn’t been stripped, let alone burned. It was almost as though there had been respect between killer and victim.

  Respect.

  Jack hung on to the word.

  Maybe the kind of respect the Camorra would show to someone?

  94

  Centro città, Napoli

  Cicerone consigliere Emile Courbit was the son of a French immigrant who’d died of bronchitis in a Neapolitan slum before his fortieth birthday. Emile vowed he’d never suffer the same fate as his father. As a consequence, he worked harder and longer than anyone Carmine the Dog had ever known. The two met just before midnight, the late hour not being a problem for either of them.

  ‘Ciao, Emile, you like espresso?’

  The lawyer nodded.

  The Dog called his PA, also well used to burning the midnight oil, and ordered coffees and water. There was only one thing on the agenda – a meeting earlier that evening with Finelli’s consigliere.

  ‘Did he show?’ asked the Capo, his lush leather chair creaking as he craned forward over the desk.

  ‘Sì, Mazerelli came. He said they understood our position, respected our rights. They will pay restoration for their actions.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ grunted Dog. ‘He say how much exactly, and when?’

  Courbit shook his well-groomed head. ‘No, not how much. Mazerelli has spoken to his boss and to Valsi. I cannot distinguish whether payment will be made by Finelli or by his son-in-law. But he did promise we would have it within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘If Fredo has any sense he will beat it out of the young blood’s hide and make him bring it here on his knees, the money in his mouth like a whipped dog.’

  ‘Amusing thought. But I don’t see Valsi backing down. Not if our information on him is correct,’ said Courbit. ‘It’s possible Finelli may pay, even if Valsi doesn’t, and then he’ll settle the dispute internally. As we know from Vito, all is not well in the Family.’

  ‘I don’t care. I just want my money and their undertaking that they will never again trespass into our territory and our businesses.’

  ‘I understand. If they do pay, then the question is, what will you see as acceptable and what will you consider an insult?’

  Cicerone waved a hesitant hand in the air. ‘If Finelli pays, he will be generous. I think maybe half a million. If he leaves it to Valsi, then the stack will be short. Less than two fifty would be unacceptable. Less than six figures would be insulting.’

  The tray of coffees arrived, brought in by a young J-Lo shaped Russian girl called Agata. They both fell silent until she’d gone. Then Courbit continued, with a wry smile, ‘Do you want these troubles with Finelli to go away, or do you want to try to take advantage of them?’

  Cicerone bobbed his big heavy head from side to side as he weighed up his answer. Instinct urged him to wait. Play the long game. But the cards pressed a different case. Today’s Tarot had told him to be brave and opportunistic, to be strong when others were weak, to lead and not to follow. ‘What would you advise, consigliere?’

  There was no hesitation in Courbit’s voice. ‘I would not wait any longer. If you do not kill both Valsi and Finelli in the next twenty-four hours, then one day Bruno Valsi will control our neighbour’s clan and you can be sure that he will make it a priority to try to kill you.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours?’ The Dog looked amused. Haste was seldom wise in business.

  ‘Yes. Strike now, before the payment is made. You will have a story on the streets. Wait until after Finelli pays, then you will look unfair. Untrustworthy. After a war, we then have to win the loyalty of the beaten soldiers, we have to become one Family.’

  Cicerone liked the idea. But secretly he was frightened. It was one thing to order someone to be beaten up or even killed, but an all-out firefight was something completely different. Something he had no experience of. As usual, he erred on the side of caution. ‘Consult with Vito; you will find him in some bar somewhere in the city. Finalize the plans we have spoken of and be ready to explain how they will be executed. I will sleep on your notion and we’ll talk before morning Mass.’

  Cicerone looked at Courbit and could see that the young man didn’t understand his reasoning, his reluctance to draw first blood. Nor should he. At his age, the Dog had known little about the combined powers of God and the Supernatural. But he’d learned his lessons. And so too would Emile. After a brief sleep he’d cleanse his soul, consult the Tarot and then decide whether to fill the gutters of Naples with the bodies of his rivals.

  SIX

  December 22nd

  95

  3.45 a.m.

  Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna

  They’d drawn straws – literally drawn straws f
rom the carabinieri canteen – and Claudio Mancini had picked the short one. He dialled the emergency number on the Incident Room wall and waited for Capitano Sylvia Tomms to answer the phone.

  It was the dead of night and she was going to kill him.

  Most of the Murder Squad’s graveyard shift watched with amusement as he braced himself for a nuclear blast to the ear.

  ‘What? What is it?’ slurred Sylvia. She was coming out of a deep sleep. Brain grinding to find first gear.

  ‘Capitano, it’s Mancini from the Murder Squad. I am sorry but it is urgent, that’s why I’m calling you.’

  ‘What? What’s urgent?’ She frowned at the bedside clock. Eyes too blurry to read. The digits just red snakes.

  ‘Capitano, you left instructions that whatever time it was you wanted to be informed as soon as we had an ID on the Jane Doe in the pit.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Is that what you’re calling with?’

  Mancini thought he detected a sense of understanding in her voice. Maybe he would be okay. ‘Yes. We got DNA back from the lab very late last night and we’ve been working on an ID ever since. Missing Persons didn’t come up with anything but we checked the blood banks and hospitals and…’

  ‘Mancini, cut the how, just tell me the who.’ Sylvia dragged herself upright and propped pillows behind her back.

  ‘Kristen Petrov, twenty-four years old, born in Prague, emigrated when she was nineteen, has been in Naples for three years.’

  She was awake now. Wide awake. ‘Who the hell is she? Does she have any connections to our suspects?’

  Mancini glanced across at a whiteboard. ‘She worked as a call handler in a sex centre that the Finelli clan has run for the past decade. You know, they advertise on late-night TV, you can telephone and…’

  ‘I know what phone sex is, Mancini. Un momento…’ Sylvia used her phone-free hand to rub an itch from her eyes. ‘Get this information to Lorenzo Pisano’s office – you know who he is?’