Michael Morley - Viper

The cigarette break was her first since arriving at the scene and cranking up the slow engine of a murder inquiry. It was probably something and nothing. A domestic, no doubt. Angry husband kills unfaithful wife and buries her body in woods. No big deal. Nevertheless, Sylvia was determined that it be investigated every bit as thoroughly as if a rich politician had just been killed. That was her style. Never cut corners.

The site had been taped off, an officer was in place to log visitors and a photographer had just arrived. An exhibits officer was on standby. A medic had pronounced death and the ME was on his way. The CSI had already established a safe corridor down which every man, woman and dog that had a right to be there could freely walk without fear of contaminating anything.

She'd also instructed officers to grid the scene, mark it off in zones with tapes and poles, so that the whole area could be scrupulously searched and accurate notes kept of whatever was found.

The crime-scene photographer began clicking away on the other side of the tape, getting wide shots of the location where forensic scientists were seemingly panning for bone.

Sylvia's Number Two, Lieutenant Pietro Raimondi, swigged from a small, green plastic bottle of Rocchetta Natura. 'In case we find skull fragments, you will want an orthodontist. Shall I contact Cavaliere?'

'No. Talk to Manuela in the office. She told me she found a hot new guy who studied at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Married, but gorgeous and prone to straying.'

'Remember we are carabinieri!' teased Raimondi. 'Our motto is Nei Secoli Fedele.' He melodramatically thumped his fist against his heart as though making an oath.

'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.

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 you there?'

'Early next week. Just to talk to the local cops, brief them on Creed, share the documents he gave me, that sort of thing. It could all be important.'

Nancy did little to hide her exasperation. 'Is there any point me pleading that we're supposed to be on holiday? That this is our one break together? That it's almost Christmas and I still have to help Mom and Dad prepare?'

Jack put his arm around his wife so she had to lean on his chest. 'Listen, honey. I feel bad about this guy Creed going AWOL. I feel even worse about things I found at his hotel and comments he made to me. I have to do this.'

'Like what?' she snapped. 'What did he say?'

Jack recalled Creed's comment… more will die and both you and I will feel like we have blood on our hands. 'Stuff, Nancy; just stuff.'

She screwed up her face.

'Listen, he might be a killer. If he is, then I don't want to think that I could have done something to prevent someone dying, but didn't.'

'And if he's not? What if he's just a weirdo, like you said?'

'Then there's no harm done, and I'll be back before the weekend.'

Nancy pulled herself from under his arm and headed for the bathroom. Sometimes her husband drove her crazy. Why didn't he just come straight out and say he wanted to be involved, admit that he ached to be out there in the thick of the action, racking his brains and testing himself? 'You'd better come home soon, even if he turns out to be Charlie Manson's murderous twin brother.'

Jack swung out of bed, smiled and told his first lie of the day. 'Don't worry, I'll be back on time, I promise.'

Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii Antonio Castellani's eighty-three-year-old face looked like it had been shaped out of saddle-leather. Skin sagged around a once broken and now entirely toothless jaw and fell in wrinkly folds down his scrawny neck.

Alone since his wife had died a decade ago, he spent most of his time in the old, rusting caravan that was both home and office. From here he ran the family holiday camp business and from the leaky window that let in the winter wind he watched what remained of his family go about their chores.