Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

Sachs, still in Milan, was reporting no success; it was almost certain that the clue they’d found — the Post-it note — was from Malek Dadi, not the Composer. For completeness’s sake, she was taking soil samples in the warehouse, and photographing footprints. As for fingerprints, she’d found nearly three hundred latents, too many for a practical analysis. But the effort was surely futile; it was unlikely the Composer had any connection to the place.

Rhyme was disappointed, though not surprised. He was disappointed too that Sachs wouldn’t be able to return to Naples until tomorrow. The crew of Mike Hill’s private plane would stay in Switzerland that night and would collect Sachs in the morning, early.

She reported, though, that she’d found a great hotel, the Manin, across the street from what had been the famed Milan zoo. It was also within walking distance of La Scala, the opera house, and the Duomo, the Milan cathedral. She was lukewarm about tourist sites but would probably hit them, since there wasn’t time to do what she really wanted: head out to Maranello — the home of Ferrari — and take an F1 out on the track for a joyride.

Rhyme now looked up at the Forestry officer. ‘Yes, yes, Ercole. Tell me.’ He nodded too to Thom, indicia of his thanks.

‘Beatrice Renza has finished her analysis of the evidence.’ Ercole lowered his voice, unnecessarily, for they were alone. ‘In the Soames case. I will report to you now. First, about the apartment where the attack occurred.’

Ercole walked to the desk and found the yellow pad that the unauthorized investigative team was using for the renegade assignment — the mini chart. He wrote carefully, apparently recalling his bad marks for penmanship:

‘As you can see,’ Ercole said excitedly, ‘there are similarities, common elements of the two. So it’s likely that the same person at the smoking station, who left that trace, also was the attacker.’

Not necessarily likely but certainly possible, Rhyme thought. Scanning the listings, considering possibilities, plugging in theories, unplugging others.

‘Beatrice is working to tell us what the chemicals might mean.’

‘Fine, fine, fine, though I think we might not need her to.’

The Forestry officer paused. Then he said, ‘But alone, they’re just substances. How can we tell what they might be from? We need to see what they combine to become.’

Rhyme muttered, ‘Which is what I’ve done. The chemicals at the smoking station — for instance, the acetic acid, acetone, ammonia, benzene, butane and cadmium — are, no shock here, from cigarettes.’

‘But they’re poisons, aren’t they?’

Thom laughed. ‘Don’t smoke, Ercole.’

‘No, I don’t. I won’t.’

Rhyme frowned at the interruption. ‘So, I was saying. At the smoking station, cigarette smoke residue. But, the other ingredients: I see laundry detergent. The spices, of course, are obvious. Curry. Indian food. Now, at the site of the assault? Laundry detergent and spices only. Now, think back, Ercole. On the roof, was there laundry hanging anywhere nearby? I’ve seen that everywhere in Naples.’

‘No, I’m sure there was not. Because I, as a matter of fact, looked for that very thing myself. I was thinking that someone reeling in laundry might have seen the attack.’

‘Hm,’ Rhyme offered, and refrained from yet another lecture about the unreliability of witnesses. ‘The couple whose apartment this was, do you have their number?’

‘The woman of the pair, yes. Natalia. She’s a fellow student. And most beautiful.’

‘Do I care?’

‘You would if you saw her.’

‘Call her. Now. Find out if she did laundry before the party. And if the food served at the party was Indian. Curry.’

Ercole searched his phone then placed a call and, Rhyme was pleased to hear, got through immediately. A conversation in Italian ensued; like most, it sounded passionate, more expressive than a similar English exchange.

When Ercole disconnected, he said, ‘Yes, to the laundry question, I am sorry to report. She had just washed the clothing for the beds that afternoon, thinking some guests might wish to stay over, rather than drive back home late. The clue did not come from the rapist.

‘And, unfortunately, as to food, the same. There was, at the party, nothing other than chips — you know, potato chips and the like — and nuts and dolce , sweets. But at dinner before the party she and her boyfriend ate curry. I remember a picture of him. He’s Indian. So, that too is bad news for us.’

‘Yes, it is.’

The spices and detergent at the smoking station would have come from Natalia when she was either mixing with guests or cleaning up afterward. And she would have left those bits of trace at the site of the attack when she went to the woman’s aid.

Ercole asked, ‘You had mentioned, I believe, that Garry thought perhaps a former lover of his was blaming him to get revenge.’

Rhyme said, ‘His lawyer told us that. Someone, Valentina Morelli. She is apparently in Florence or nearby there. She’s still not returning calls.’

At that moment Ercole’s phone chimed and he glanced at the screen. He seemed to be blushing. And smiling. He typed a response.

Rhyme and Thom looked at each other. Rhyme suspected they were thinking the same: a woman.

Probably that attractive blonde, Daniela, whom he’d been fawning over.

Well, the young man could do worse than date a beautiful, intense policewoman.

Lincoln Rhyme knew this for a fact.

Ercole put his phone away. ‘I have saved the best for the last.’

‘Which means what?’ Rhyme groused. Sachs was not present to temper his delivery.

‘Now, at Garry’s flat, Signor Reston was very helpful in instructing me. He counseled that I should become the perp. And I did that and we found something quite interesting.’

Impatient eyebrows.

‘The building was typical construction, symmetrical. For every window on the right, there was one on the left. For every gable in the front, there was one in the back. For every—’

‘Ercole?’

‘Ah, yes. But in the back, there was only one low window — about twenty centimeters high — for allowing light into the cellar apartment. To the right as you faced the rear of the building. Only the one. Why was there no window to the left? Symmetry everywhere but there. The yard itself was not higher on the left than to the right, except in the very place where the window would have been. There was a small hill. Now, beneath the porch were empty flower pots. They matched flower pots on the deck above — but those were full of earth.’

Rhyme was intrigued. ‘So the perp broke into the window on the left. It was Garry’s bedroom?’

‘Yes. And he, or she, scattered the drugs inside and used the dirt in a couple of the pots to cover up the window.’

‘But the crime scene people didn’t find glass or dirt on the floor?’

‘Ah,’ Ercole said. ‘He — or she — was clever. They used a glass cutter. Here, look.’ He extracted from a folder some eight-by-ten glossy shots and displayed them. ‘Beatrice has printed these out.’

Rhyme could see the even fracture marks, in the shape of a rough rectangle.

Ercole continued, ‘And after he was finished he put a piece of cardboard he’d found in the yard against the open window before piling the dirt up to conceal the break-in. I am sorry to tell you there were no fingerprints on the flower pots or cardboard. But I did see marks that were left by...’ He paused. ‘That were consistent with marks left by latex gloves.’