Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

‘Tried to save him?’ Ercole asked. ‘This is certain?’

‘Yes. He ran toward the men, shouting, but he was too late. They fled back into the camp. When the Composer saw Dadi lying on the ground, he simply stood over him, looking shocked. Shaking his head. Then he set the noose on the ground and he too fled.’

‘All right. That’s interesting news, Rania. Thank you. Did they say anything else about him? The identification of the car?’

‘No. It happened very quickly.’

Sachs turned to Fatima. ‘Please say I’m sorry for her trouble.’

But the woman answered in English. ‘I am thanks for that.’

‘What happened, exactly, please?’

Fatima gave a fast response, in Arabic, the words edgy and staccato.

Rania explained, ‘She and Khaled left Muna, this is her daughter, there, with a neighbor and went outside to meet a man about a job for Khaled after they were granted asylum. The Composer approached them there. He struck Fatima and pushed her down — it’s very bad for a non-Muslim to touch, much less strike, a Muslim woman. This shocked and stunned her. Then he slipped a hood over Khaled’s head, and immediately Khaled grew groggy. Fatima jumped up and fought. But he hit her again hard and she fell back, dazed. When she climbed to her feet, they were gone and a car was speeding away. She couldn’t see what kind it was either. Dark. That was all she said.’

‘I kick-ed him and scratch-ed,’ Fatima said in cumbersome English, speaking slowly as she sought the words. ‘He was...’ She said a word in Arabic to Rania.

‘Surprised,’ Rania translated. ‘Unprepared.’

‘His shoe came off in the struggle?’ Ercole asked.

‘Yes. I pull-ed it. Holding to his leg.’

‘Did you see anything unusual about him? Tattoos, scars. His eye color? Clothing?’

After translation, Rania said, ‘His sunglasses fell off and his eyes were brown. A round face. She might recognize him again but she is not sure. All Westerners look alike to her. There were scars on his face, from where he had shaved, it seemed. He wore a hat. But she can’t recall his other clothing. Except it was dark.’

‘She’ll be all right?’

‘Yes, our doctors say it was a superficial injury. Nothing broken. A bruise.’

Fatima cast her eyes onto Ercole’s gray uniform. Then she turned to Sachs and gazed at her desperately. ‘Please. Fine-ed Khaled. Fine-ed my husband. It so much is important!’

‘We’ll do everything we can.’

Fatima gave a hint of a smile, then grabbed Sachs’s hand and pressed it to her cheek. She muttered in Arabic, and Rania translated. ‘She says, “Bless you.”’

The injury wasn’t bad.

Stefan had been more shocked than hurt when the woman rose from the ground outside the Capodichino Reception Center and, screaming and flailing, attacked him.

He walked into his farmhouse now, carting the Browning .270 hunting rifle in his gloved hands. He hung it on hooks above the fireplace and set the box of shells beneath it. Ironic, he thought: using a hunting rifle against Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.

Well, she would be much less likely to pursue her prey now. Oh, he didn’t think she’d give up the search for him. But she’d be scared. She’d be distracted. They all would.

And that meant they’d make mistakes... and be far less likely to introduce discord into the music of the spheres.

Sitting now in his hideaway, he examined his stinging arm and leg. Just bruises. No broken skin. Still, he was shaky-hand, sweaty-skin... and a Black Scream was just waiting to burst out.

He’d lost his shoe. This was more than a little inconvenient, since he only had one pair and was reluctant to buy another, for fear the police would have put out word to retailers to alert them to a rotund white American in stocking feet buying shoes. With his prey safely unconscious in the trunk of his Mercedes, he’d driven past one of the beaches outside Naples and, when he was sure no one was looking, and there were no CCTVs, he’d snatched a pair of old running shoes a swimmer had left near the road. They fit well enough.

Then he’d hurried back here.

Stefan now walked into the darkened den off the living room. The rhythm section of his next composition lay here, on a cot. He gazed down at Khaled Jabril. The man was so scrawny. His wife had been more substantial. A man of narrow face, bushy hair, full beard. His fingernails were long and Stefan wondered what they would sound like if he clicked them together. He recalled a woman patient, in the hospital, one of the hospitals, New Jersey, he believed. She had worn a sweatshirt, pink, stained with a portion of her lunch. She was gazing out the window and clicking her nails. Thumbnail against index finger.

Click, click, click.

Again and again and again.

Another patient was obviously irritated by the noise and kept glaring at the woman angrily but staring at a mental patient to achieve a desired effect is the same as asking a tree for directions. Stefan had not been the least troubled by the sound. He disliked very few sounds — vocal fry was a rare exception.

Babies crying? So many textures of need, want, sorrow and confusion. Beautiful!

Pile drivers? The heartbeat of lonely machines.

Human screams? A tapestry of emotions.

Fingernails on a blackboard? Now, that was interesting. He had a dozen recordings in his archive. It comes third in the ranking of cringe-worthy sounds, after a fork on a plate and a knife on glass. The revulsion isn’t psychological: Some researchers thought people responded as if the sound were a primitive warning cry — it isn’t. No, it’s purely physical: a reaction to a particular megahertz range, amplified by the peculiar shape of the ear and painfully stabbing the amygdala region of the brain.

No, very few sounds troubled Stefan, though he would be fast to point out there’s a distinction between tone and volume.

Whatever the sound, crank up the decibels and it can move from unpleasant to painful... even to destructive.

Stefan knew this firsthand.

Now, that was a memory he cherished.

Shaky-hand.

He wiped sweat and put the tissue away.

Or, Euterpe... Calm me down, please!

Then he saw Khaled’s fingers twitch several times. This was not, however, a sign of waking. He would be snoozing for some period of time. Stefan knew his drugs well. Crazy people are savvy pharmacists.

Stefan relaxed. He now had a task. He sat beside Khaled. He reached down and, on a whim, took the man’s hand. He clicked his own fingernails against Khaled’s.

Click, click...

Delicious.

From his pocket he took his recorder and undid the man’s shirt.

Now he turned the device on and pressed it against Khaled’s chest. The heartbeat was, of course, slow and soft, as with anyone in sleep, but because the room was so quiet the sound was captured clearly and distinctly.

He had the beat. Now he needed the melody. Scrolling through his library, he found one that practically begged to be the soundtrack of his next video.

Stefan could think of no other waltz that so perfectly blended music and death.

‘About time,’ Rhyme muttered.

The evidence from the most recent kidnapping had arrived and Ercole was assisting Beatrice in setting it out on the examination tables in the non-sterile section of the lab. Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were observing from the situation room.

‘His shoe?’ Rhyme asked. This discovery surprised, and pleased, him. Shoes are wonderful forensically; not only do they often offer distinctive tread marks to help link a perp to a scene, but the shoe itself can contain a treasure of DNA, fingerprints and, in running shoes like this, trace tucked into the cavities of the sole. Rhyme had once nailed a perp because of the precious way he tied his oxfords.