Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Ercole lifted an eyebrow and kissed his fingertips, apparently meaning this was quite the posh place.

He rang the bell on a pale wooden frame and a moment later a very slim and very beautiful woman in her early twenties opened the door.

Ercole introduced himself and Sachs, and the woman nodded, smiling in a friendly way. ‘You are a policewoman from America, yes. Because Garry is American. Of course. Come in, please. Sono Natalia.’

Hands were shaken.

From the girl’s jewelry and clothes — leather pants, a silk blouse and enviable boots — Sachs deduced family money. The apartment too. Surely her parents had arranged for the place: student housing a lot better than most kids dwelled in. This place could have been the setting for a Prada fashion shoot. The walls were done in lavender stucco and hung with huge, boldly colored oil paintings, in two styles: abstract and nudes of both sexes. The couches and chairs were dark-green leather and brushed steel. A glass bar dominated one wall and a huge high-def TV the other. Silent music videos jerked across the screen.

‘Lovely place.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘My father works in design in Milan. Furniture and accessories. I am studying the subject here and will go into the profession too, when I graduate. Or fashion. Please, tell me, how is Garry?’ Her English was perfect with a faint icing of accent.

She answered, ‘As well as can be expected.’

Suitably ambiguous.

Ercole said, ‘We are looking into follow-up questions on the case. We will take little of your time.’

Natalia said, ‘It was terrible, what happened! And, I will tell you, it had to be someone not with our group. They are all simply the nicest people. Someone from the next building — there are Serbians living there.’ Her nose creased in distaste. ‘Some men, three or four of them. I have often thought they might be up to trouble. I told your colleagues about them.’

Ercole said, deferentially, ‘The residents of that building — everyone — were interviewed and dismissed as suspects. The police found the men you are speaking of were out of town that night.’

‘Still. Someone from the school? It is impossible.’

‘But someone might have tagged along with a student. You know what I mean.’

‘I do, yes. I should have been more careful, I suppose.’ Her beautiful lips, dark purple, tightened.

‘Do you know Frieda well?’

‘Not well. Only for a few weeks, when classes began. My boyfriend and I met her in European Political History.’

‘Did you see her with anyone at the party you didn’t recognize?’

‘It was crowded. I saw her with Garry and some girlfriends of ours. But I didn’t pay much attention.’

‘If you don’t mind, tell us again what you remember about that evening,’ Sachs asked.

‘My boyfriend and I went to dinner around eight and came back here to set out wine and some snacks and dolce . The people started arriving about ten for the party.’ She shrugged, touched her hair, patting it into place. Sachs, as a former fashion model, knew beauty and Natalia was one of the most stunning women she’d ever seen. That would help immeasurably in a career in the industry, even if she chose simply to design, not model. The way of the world.

Beauty rules.

‘Garry was in one of the first groups to arrive. I do not know him so good. I spoke to him. I like to hang out with the Americans and English and Canadians to improve my language. More and more people arrived and about midnight I saw Frieda and Garry together. They were very close. You know, the way people are when they meet and are flirting. Touching, kissing, whispering close. I saw them go up to the roof, carrying their drinks. They were both drunk.’ She shook her head. ‘Sometime later I saw Garry downstairs. He was, how do you say, groggy. Stumbling. I remember thinking I hope he doesn’t drive home. He was not looking good. He left before I could say anything.

‘The party went on and by about four, everyone had left. Dev, my boyfriend, and I were cleaning up. And we heard cries from the roof. I went up and found Frieda beside the wall separating the roofs. She had fallen. She was in a terrible state. Her skirt torn, scrapes on her legs. I helped her up. She was hysterical. She knew she’d been attacked but could remember nothing. Dev called the police and they were here soon.’

‘Can you show us where that was?’

‘Yes.’

Natalia took them to spring-loaded stairs that led to a trapdoor in the ceiling of the back hall. Even the stairs — a wire-and-steel contraption, which pulled down from overhead — were stylish. The climb would be a bit risqué in a skirt, Sachs thought. Like the hostess, though, she was in pants — jeans in her case, not thousand-dollar leather. On the roof was a wooden deck and several ten-foot-high sheds that may have been holding water tanks or tools. A sitting area, about twelve by twelve feet, contained metal chairs and tables, on which sat ashtrays.

The smoking station.

Sachs supposed that, unable to smoke indoors many places in Italy, nicotine addicts would migrate to places like this: decks and patios. The view was spectacular. You could see the entire expanse of Naples Bay, the misty form of the volcano to one side and, to the other, a massive castle, which was nearby.

Sachs walked from the smoking station around the corner of one of the sheds, secluded from view. There was a bench here, where Garry and Frieda would have settled in for their limonarono — or whatever the gerund of that verb might be.

Natalia said, in a weak voice, ‘The attack occurred over there.’ She pointed to the roof of the adjoining building, delineated by yellow police tape. ‘I will never look at this place again the same way. So pleasant once. And now, so terrible.’

They walked to the tape. There was no gap between this building and the one next door; they were separated only by a brick wall, about three feet high. Looking left, Sachs and Ercole could see another cordoned-off area of police tape on the adjoining structure, where the actual crime had occurred. This was out of sight of the smoking station. A logical place for an attack.

‘Let’s go.’

‘But the tape!’ Ercole whispered.

She smiled at him. Mindful of her joints, Sachs sat on the wall and eased onto the neighboring roof. Ercole sighed then leapt over. Natalia remained on the roof of her building. The pebbles covering the tar paper meant that they could find no footprints, so they didn’t worry about booties or rubber bands. Pulling on latex gloves, Sachs took samples of the stones and flecks of tar from the place where the assault had occurred and the route leading to it.

When she was finished, she looked across the street and to the south at a tall building a half block away.

‘What is that?’

Ercole noted the modern high-rise. ‘A hotel. The NV, I believe. A very nice place.’

She squinted into the sun. ‘It looks like that’s a parking garage.’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘About level with the roof here. Let’s find out if they have a CCTV, and if it’s pointed this way.’

‘Yes, yes, good. Many parking structures have video security. I’ll follow up on that.’

She nodded and they returned to the smoking station and she performed a similar evidence collection there, as Natalia watched with curiosity. ‘It is like that show, CSI . Isn’t it?’

‘Very much like that,’ Sachs said.

In ten minutes they were finished. Sachs and Ercole thanked the young woman. She shook their hands firmly and opened the door for them to leave. ‘Please, I am sure Garry could not have done this. In my heart I know.’ Her eyes darkened and she glanced in the direction of the building next door. ‘Those men, those Serbians, you should look once more at them. I read people very good. I do not trust them at all.’