Michael Morley - Viper

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. Degrading 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.

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.

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.'