Michael Morley - Viper

Minutes later, the door reopened and Pietro entered with Sorrentino.

Sylvia's heart sank. She'd hoped Pietro would have got rid of him.

'I thought you had better hear this yourself,' he explained.

Sorrentino flashed his perfect white teeth. She could see that he'd dyed his hair again. This was a man who would go to his grave denying he'd ever had a grey hair on his head.

'Professore, good to see you,' she pretended. 'To what do we owe the enormous pleasure of your company?'

Sorrentino killed her sarcasm in mid-air, swatted it like a pesky fly.

'There are more bodies.' He tossed a file on to her desk. 'Some of the human bones recovered from the park don't belong to Francesca Di Lauro. They belong to someone else.'

Sylvia was open-mouthed. 'You're sure? You're certain they are not Francesca's?'

Sorrentino enjoyed his moment. 'I wouldn't be here if I wasn't certain.' He reached across her desk and flipped open the file he'd dropped in front of her.

'Here in this picture you see the skeleton of Francesca Di Lauro. Okay, maybe we've missed some bones, here and there, but it is a good reconstruction.'

Horrible, not good – that was the word Sylvia would have chosen. She looked at the photograph and couldn't suppress a shiver of sisterly sympathy.

Sorrentino slid the black and white blow-up to one side. 'This photograph shows sixteen separate fragments of bone, also burned and blackened, and as you can seen I have assembled them. They're clearly from the left tibia and right femur of another woman.' He paused and went back on himself to make sure Sylvia fully understood. 'Bones not from Francesca, but from another woman. This one is aged somewhere between nineteen and thirty, probably about one-and-a-half metres tall.'

'O porca puttana!' Sylvia looked across at Pietro. He seemed as shocked as she was.

What a setback. One murder like this was a drain on resources, two sucked you dry.

'How do you know it's a woman?' Pietro gestured towards the photograph. 'And all that about age and size? How do you know her age?'

Sorrentino was glad to explain. 'Generally, female bones are thinner and shorter than male ones. The biggest clue, though, is in the femur.'

'The thigh bone?' checked Pietro.

'Yes. Femur is Latin for thigh.' He looked at Pietro as though he were a stupid child. 'It is the largest and strongest bone in the body. After reassembling the whole of the femur, it's a simple calculation to project the size of the individual.'

'And the sex and age?'

Sorrentino sighed wearily. 'Size and shape of the bone. To determine sex we look at the length and diameter plus the way it joins the hip bone. Age – well, we know the head of the femur is fully developed when a woman is about eighteen or nineteen – and in this case, it was.'

Sylvia stared at the photographs and felt as drained as a dead car battery. She handled the scattered images on her desk and absorbed the reality of what she now accepted was probably another murdered woman. Were these broken and burned bones really all that were left of some lost soul like Luisa Banotti, Patricia Calvi, Donna Rizzi or Gloria Pirandello? The thought angered her. It dropped like a match into a pool of gasoline and sparked her into action.

'Pietro, I want search teams, exhibit officers, scientists, photographers and every other goddamned overworked person we can find back out in the fields. Dig the whole fucking park up if necessary. We have to see exactly what's there.'

Sorrentino smirked at her. 'I'll tell you exactly what's there.' His tone was sotto voce; he waited a beat, then dropped the bomb. 'A necropolis. That's what's there, Capitano. You have stumbled into a serial killer's secret graveyard and you are about to open up your very own necropolis.'

Via Caprese Michelangelo, centro citta, Napoli There had never been any love lost between Bruno Valsi and Ricardo Mazerelli. Each had always been fully aware of the other's ambitions and powers.

Valsi threw his jacket down on one chair and made himself comfortable in another. He hated Mazerelli's superior tones and condescending looks. Hated his stupid penthouse. 'What's with this place? You some kind of Jap lover, Ricardo? All these weird plants and fish.' Valsi spat into the stream that gently flowed near his feet and tapped the tattoo close to his heart. 'Vipers have no love for water.' He turned to his side and contemptuously flicked his fingers at a wooden board with a bowl of black and white playing pieces. 'And what is this shit? Jap chess, or something?'

The consigliere smiled; he liked it when the anger and hatred were out in the open. It was those with the strength to conceal their emotions that he feared the most. 'It's Japanese, yes. But what it is won't really interest you -'

Valsi took the bait, hook straight into the soft, pink flesh. 'Don't treat me like a schmuck. I asked you what the fuck it was; now do me the decency of giving an answer.'

'It is a game called Go.'

'Go?'

'Yes. Go.' Mazerelli had the upper hand and was making the most of it. 'Fifty million people in the Far East play the game.' He smoothed a finger over the wooden base board. 'Actually, it probably started in China – not Japan – invented by generals who used the stones to map out positions and strategies of attack. The Chinese call it Weiqi – The Surrounding Game.'

'War games.' Valsi clapped his hands, 'Now you're talking! This is something I'm good at.'

Mazerelli drummed two fingers on the board, then swivelled it round to face his visitor. 'This is called a goban; it's made from a tree that is more than seven hundred years old. The stones are called goishi; the white ones in front of you are made from clamshells, these black ones are cut from slate.'

Valsi scratched his nose. 'What do we do?'

Mazerelli disdainfully dropped a single black stone on to a square. 'You have to surround my stone with your stones. You have to claim your territory and out-think your opponent. Do you understand?'

'Course I understand. It's like a gang war. Here you are…' Valsi pointed at the black piece, then poured a handful of his white pieces around it in a circle. 'And here I am. All over your head, your ass, your fucking heart and your weak lawyer balls. Game over!' He swept his hand across the board and sent the expensive pieces clattering noisily on to the hard floor.

Several lay chipped and broken.

Valsi didn't apologize. He didn't even look to see where they'd fallen. His eyes stayed locked, challengingly, on Mazerelli's.

The consigliere didn't blink. His face showed no trace of anger or even disappointment at what had happened. 'You're right. If crude and ugly moves like that were allowed, then yes, you'd have won hands down. But there are rules to the game.' He bent down and began gathering the goishi from near Valsi's feet.

'Not for me,' said the Capo. 'I've never played by the rules. Maybe you best remember that.'

'I'll be sure to.'

'What? You think great generals play by the rules? You think the Brits and Yanks, the Russians and your beloved fucking Japs do it all by the rule book? Don't be so fucking naive.' He glanced around the room, the argument was over for him. 'You got any water, or anything to drink?'

Mazerelli slowly finished gathering the pieces and put them away in subtle stone bowls next to the goban. He walked back into the galley kitchen, poured a tumbler of fresh water from a dispenser on the fridge and shouted, 'You want ice?'

'Yeah, plenty of it.'

The consigliere handed over the glass and wondered what Gina had ever seen in the mannerless brute. 'Your father-in-law has asked me to speak to you.'

Valsi sipped the water. 'Then speak.'

Mazerelli rubbed his hands thoughtfully. He considered how exactly to phrase things. 'Apparently, you have been indulging in some activities which are beyond your scope and beyond our territory.'