Jeffery Deaver - The Burial Hour

What a mess...

The Albanians were now closer. Ilir and Artin, he believed, were their names. They claimed to have been wrongly arrested simply for helping refugees flee oppression. The prosecutor’s charges were a bit different: that they spirited young girls away from their homes and set them up working in brothels in Scampia, a grim suburb of Naples. The altruistic argument they made — that they were saviors of the oppressed — fell on deaf ears, as most of the girls they ‘rescued’ came not from North Africa but from the Baltic states and small towns in Italy itself, lured by their promise of modeling careers.

Garry didn’t like that the men had sped up and were just a few steps behind. He diverted, hoping to avoid them.

But it was too late.

The squat, swarthy men lunged and flung him to the grass.

‘No!’ Gasping, his breath knocked from his lungs.

‘Shhh. Quiet!’ Ilir — the smaller — raged in Garry’s ear.

His brother looked around to see there were no guards or other prisoners present and drew a long, thick piece of glass from his pocket, a shiv. The base was wrapped in cloth, but six-inches of razor edge glistened.

‘No! Please! Come on, I haven’t done anything!’ Maybe they thought he’d been with the prison police, just now, informing on them. ‘I haven’t said anything!’

Artin smiled and eased back, letting Ilir hold him down. In thickly accented English, he said, ‘Now, here. Here it is. Yes? Here is what is going to happen. You are knowing Alberto Bregia?’

‘Please! I haven’t done anything to you. I just—’

‘Now, now. You are answering me. Yes, there you go. Answer me. Do not baby-cry. Answer me.’

‘Yes, I know Bregia.’

Who wouldn’t? A huge, psychotic prisoner — six foot four — who terrified everyone who crossed him, even if their betrayals were pure figments of his bizarre imagination.

‘So, it is this. Bregia has problem with my brother and me. And he is wishing to murder us. Now, now. What we are doing is this.’

Garry struggled to push Ilir off. But the wiry man held him down firmly. ‘Stop,’ he muttered. Garry complied.

‘We are having to hurt you some. Stabbing you, yes.’ He held up the glass knife. ‘But we not kill you. Cut you some much. But you will not be dying. And then you will be saying that Alberto Bregia did this.’

Ilir said, ‘So he will go to other prison. For dangerous prisoners. We have seen into this. It is how this works. All good.’

‘No, don’t! Please!’

Artin was nodding. ‘Ah, it won’t be much. Six, seven times. Which is nothing. I am being stabbed. Look at these scars. People here in prison, they talk. They say you should have balls cut, you rapist.’ He brushed the point over Garry’s crotch. ‘No, no. We are not be doing that.’ They both laughed. ‘Just some girl you fuck? Who care? So, you good. Just face, chest, maybe cut ear bad.’

‘Cut off,’ his brother said.

‘Has to look like Bregia, something he would do.’

‘Look, baby-cry, stop that. Okay, Artin. Cut him and we go. Hurry!’

Artin muttered something in Albanian and Ilir clamped his filthy hand over Garry’s mouth and gripped him with fierce strength.

Garry tried to scream.

The glass point moved toward his ear.

And then a distant voice: ‘Signor Soames! Dove sei? ’

From the doorway he’d just exited through, the hallway that led to the interview rooms, a man was calling him.

‘Are you still in the yard?’

The Albanian brothers looked toward each other.

‘ Mut ,’ Ilir spat out.

The knife vanished and they rose quickly.

Garry struggled to his feet.

‘You are saying nothing!’ Artin whispered. ‘Silence, baby-cry.’ They turned and walked away quickly.

Garry stepped from the wall.

He saw who’d just called to him. It was the assistant director of the prison, a narrow, balding man who wore the uniform of the Penitentiary Police. It was perfectly pressed.

Garry joined the man in front of the doorway.

‘You are well? What has happened?’ He was regarding Garry’s gray, grass-stained jumpsuit.

‘I fell.’

‘Ah, fell. I see.’ He didn’t believe him, but in prison — even in this short period of time, Garry had learned — the authorities don’t question what they choose not to question.

‘ Sì? ’ Garry asked.

‘Signor Soames, I have for you good news. The prosecutor in your case has just called and informed me that the true attacker has been identified. He has applied to a magistrate that you be released.’

Breathlessly, Garry asked, ‘For sure?’

‘Yes, yes, he is certain. The documents for release have not been signed yet but that will happen soon.’

Garry looked back at the doorway to his cell wing, thinking of the two Albanians. ‘Do you want me to wait in my cell?’

The assistant director debated a moment, looking over Garry’s torn sleeve. ‘No, I think that’s not necessary. Come into the administrative wing. You can wait in my office. I will bring for you caffè .’

Now the tears came. And came in earnest.

The team had assembled in the situation room near the lab on the ground floor of the Questura.

Sachs and Flying Squad officer Daniela Canton had brought the evidence collected at the farmhouse near the organic fertilizer farm, and Beatrice Renza was completing her analysis. The evidence was here too from the factory in Naples, dubbed by Daniela’s partner, Giovanni Schiller, Il Casa dei Ratti .

Spiro stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed. ‘Where is Ercole?’

Sachs explained that she’d sent him on another assignment; he would be back soon.

Rossi was on the telephone and when he disconnected, he explained that he had located the owner of the farmhouse, who’d rented the place to the Composer. He lived in Rome and had driven to Naples to meet an American, who had given his name as Tim Smith, from Florida. The owner confirmed he resembled the composite picture of the kidnapper. He’d paid cash for two months plus a bonus.

‘A bonus,’ Rossi said with a wink in his voice, ‘for riservatezza . Discretion, you would say. That’s not what the landlord said but it was what I understood. He supposed the man wanted a place for his mistress. He didn’t suspect a crime, he insisted. Of course he did but he hardly cared.’

The landlord had told Rossi he had none of the cash left — hence, no fingerprint possibility — but he did have a thought about the make of the man’s car. Though the renter had parked out of sight, the landlord had coincidentally driven away from the main road to get to a restaurant outside town and gotten a look at an old dark-blue Mercedes. A quick search confirmed that the Michelin tire size was compatible with older Mercedes. Rossi put the notice out to all law enforcement agencies to look for such a sedan.

‘Why all the footprints?’ Spiro wondered aloud.

Rossi: ‘Some possible tenants looking at the rental, I would assume. And the victims. The Composer kept them there until he was ready to make his video. They might have walked to and from the car — even if they can’t remember it now.’

Rhyme sighed. ‘I hope one of those prints isn’t another vic. Just because a name wasn’t on the list doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken somebody else.’