Viper

by Unknown

  FOUR

  54

  Via Caprese Michelangelo, centro città, Napoli

  There had never been any love lost between Bruno Valsi and Ricardo Mazerelli. Each had always been fully aware of the other’s ambitions and powers.

  Valsi threw his jacket down on one chair and made himself comfortable in another. He hated Mazerelli’s superior tones and condescending looks. Hated his stupid penthouse. ‘What’s with this place? You some kind of Jap lover, Ricardo? All these weird plants and fish.’ Valsi spat into the stream that gently flowed near his feet and tapped the tattoo close to his heart. ‘Vipers have no love for water.’ He turned to his side and contemptuously flicked his fingers at a wooden board with a bowl of black and white playing pieces. ‘And what is this shit? Jap chess, or something?’

  The consigliere smiled; he liked it when the anger and hatred were out in the open. It was those with the strength to conceal their emotions that he feared the most. ‘It’s Japanese, yes. But what it is won’t really interest you –’

  Valsi took the bait, hook straight into the soft, pink flesh. ‘Don’t treat me like a schmuck. I asked you what the fuck it was; now do me the decency of giving an answer.’

  ‘It is a game called Go.’

  ‘Go?’

  ‘Yes. Go.’ Mazerelli had the upper hand and was making the most of it. ‘Fifty million people in the Far East play the game.’ He smoothed a finger over the wooden base board. ‘Actually, it probably started in China – not Japan – invented by generals who used the stones to map out positions and strategies of attack. The Chinese call it Weiqi – The Surrounding Game.’

  ‘War games.’ Valsi clapped his hands, ‘Now you’re talking! This is something I’m good at.’

  Mazerelli drummed two fingers on the board, then swivelled it round to face his visitor. ‘This is called a goban; it’s made from a tree that is more than seven hundred years old. The stones are called goishi; the white ones in front of you are made from clamshells, these black ones are cut from slate.’

  Valsi scratched his nose. ‘What do we do?’

  Mazerelli disdainfully dropped a single black stone on to a square. ‘You have to surround my stone with your stones. You have to claim your territory and out-think your opponent. Do you understand?’

  ‘Course I understand. It’s like a gang war. Here you are…’ Valsi pointed at the black piece, then poured a handful of his white pieces around it in a circle. ‘And here I am. All over your head, your ass, your fucking heart and your weak lawyer balls. Game over!’ He swept his hand across the board and sent the expensive pieces clattering noisily on to the hard floor.

  Several lay chipped and broken.

  Valsi didn’t apologize. He didn’t even look to see where they’d fallen. His eyes stayed locked, challengingly, on Mazerelli’s.

  The consigliere didn’t blink. His face showed no trace of anger or even disappointment at what had happened. ‘You’re right. If crude and ugly moves like that were allowed, then yes, you’d have won hands down. But there are rules to the game.’ He bent down and began gathering the goishi from near Valsi’s feet.

  ‘Not for me,’ said the Capo. ‘I’ve never played by the rules. Maybe you best remember that.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to.’

  ‘What? You think great generals play by the rules? You think the Brits and Yanks, the Russians and your beloved fucking Japs do it all by the rule book? Don’t be so fucking naive.’ He glanced around the room, the argument was over for him. ‘You got any water, or anything to drink?’

  Mazerelli slowly finished gathering the pieces and put them away in subtle stone bowls next to the goban. He walked back into the galley kitchen, poured a tumbler of fresh water from a dispenser on the fridge and shouted, ‘You want ice?’

  ‘Yeah, plenty of it.’

  The consigliere handed over the glass and wondered what Gina had ever seen in the mannerless brute. ‘Your father-in-law has asked me to speak to you.’

  Valsi sipped the water. ‘Then speak.’

  Mazerelli rubbed his hands thoughtfully. He considered how exactly to phrase things. ‘Apparently, you have been indulging in some activities which are beyond your scope and beyond our territory.’

  Valsi put his water down. ‘Non capisco. Try again. Maybe this time use a language I might understand.’

  ‘Okay.’ The lawyer lifted an envelope off the top of a rosewood cabinet in the corner of the room. ‘Take a look at these. There are no difficult words, just pictures – you might be able to keep up with the conversation now.’

  Valsi fingered open the flap and shook out a set of black and white prints. He felt his pulse race as he fanned through the shots of his team of dealers, pushers and gang leaders plying their trade.

  Mazerelli lifted Valsi’s glass and put a bamboo coaster beneath it. ‘Good, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t know these people. Why are you showing them to me?’

  ‘I didn’t take them, a Cicerone took them. And you do know these people. They work for Ivetta, Donatello – and for you. Turn to the back and you’ll see some very revealing shots of the three of you. The Fun Boy Three. Only the Don doesn’t think you’re that much fun.’

  Valsi was shrewd enough to say nothing. He stared at Mazerelli as if he’d suddenly grown bored. ‘So, why am I here? You got a message to deliver – then deliver it.’

  ‘Ah, see – you do understand that games have rules. Good. Yes, I do have a message to give you.’

  Valsi sat forward a little and scratched his back.

  ‘You won’t need that.’ Mazerelli recognized the move as a cover to check a gun tucked in the back of his belt.

  Valsi pulled out the pistol anyway. The conversation had taken a turn for the worse and if it got any uglier – maybe with some armed knuckleheads materializing out of nowhere – then he’d rather have the piece in his hands. ‘So, get on with your message. What’s the word?’

  ‘Whatever money you made from the dealing, you give to me –’

  ‘The fuck I will.’

  ‘Let me finish.’

  Valsi glared at him, then waved a hand. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Whatever money you made from the dealing, you give to me. All of it. Plus one hundred thousand euros. I will pass this to the Cicerone consigliere and cement a peace between us.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Valsi stood up, shook the creases out of his trousers and tucked the pistol in his belt. ‘I’m leaving.’

  Mazerelli stepped to one side and waved him to the door. ‘Then go. But if you do not do this, you disrespect Don Fredo. And he may not be able to give you the protection of the Family.’

  Valsi slapped Mazerelli between the legs. Grabbed his balls and squeezed hard. ‘Now you listen to me, you bollockless, fancy-worded fucker. You dare talk to me about disrespect and protection? Who the fuck do you think you are?’ Valsi swished his leg in a fast curl behind the lawyer’s knees. Dropped him to the floor with the ease of a father play-fighting a young son. ‘I’m paying nothing. If the Don wants to wad-off the Cicerone Family himself, then fine, let the old man do that. If he chooses to encourage a Cicerone goon to try to whack me, then also fine. Good luck to him. Let them try. It would be good to have the war we should have had years ago. So, now I have a message for you, my dear consigliere. Tell my father-in-law not to disrespect me. Tell him that if he’s got a problem, he raises it with me personally, he doesn’t send his monkey.’ Valsi stepped away from the lawyer, held out his hand and helped him stand. ‘Oh, and tell the consigliere of the Cicerone that if they move against me, I will personally rip their Don’s heart out of his body, make calzone out of it and feed it to his whores.’

  Valsi brushed dust off Mazerelli’s shoulders. ‘Now, I’ll leave you to your work. Seems like you’ve suddenly become a very busy messenger boy.’

  55

  Parco Nazionale del Vesuvio

  Pale pink sunlight streamed through the rain clouds, making patches of broken ground in the National P
ark look like rare-cooked steak. On the safe side of the crime-scene tape, Sylvia Tomms slouched against the broad trunk of an evergreen and wondered how many women’s bodies had been buried in the earth that her team was now digging and sifting.

  Necropolis.

  Sorrentino’s word rolled noisily over her thoughts, like a primed hand grenade.

  Inside the cordoned-off search area, young carabinieri soldiers ignored the rain and dug hard volcanic earth. Each crack of a shovel made Sylvia wonder whether they’d hit centuries-old lava, or recently buried bone.

  ‘Caffè! ’ announced Pietro, handing over a plastic cup that was so thin Sylvia couldn’t hold it.

  ‘Che caldo, that’s hot!’ She hurriedly put it down, at the foot of the tree.

  ‘It is the boiling water that makes it like that,’ joked her lieutenant.

  Sylvia was too tired to laugh. Every volt of her brain power, every watt of her energy, was spent on the investigation. ‘You check with the overnight team? Any news? Any sign of Creed?’

  ‘I checked. Nothing. I have two details canvassing houses near where Jack and I saw him pull off the autostrada. Local patrols are still searching for the car. It’s his own, not stolen.’

  ‘Good. I want this man sitting in a cell – as soon as possible.’ Her eyes scanned the scarred, rugged parkland, settling on the soldiers as they dug for bones. ‘How many, Pietro? How many bodies do you think might be out here?’

  The big Italian gazed over the fluttering tape. ‘Depends. Maybe we’ll find only one more.’

  What an optimist! Only one more? Somehow Sylvia didn’t think so.

  Necropolis.

  She retrieved her coffee from the foot of the tree and warmed her hands around the cup.

  A serial killer’s secret graveyard.

  The rain stopped and the sun’s warmth created an eerie mist around the soldiers as they dug. A much larger area had now been measured out in a grid. One team was still deployed on the inner squares of the old excavation zone – the area that had yielded the remains of Francesca Di Lauro. Another group worked intensely on the neighbouring site – the one that, according to Sorrentino, had produced the second victim. Four other groups, one for each point of the compass, dug outwards into new ground. It was hit and miss whether they would find anything. Sylvia hoped they wouldn’t.

  Sorrentino was back in the thick of the action, his hands darting this way and that, as expressive as an orchestra conductor. His staff bobbed from dig to dig and checked when the topsoil had been removed and lower layers of earth had been sieved. Meanwhile, a pace back from them all, a crime-scene photographer alternated between snapping away with a digital camera and filming video footage with a hand-held recorder. It was hard, laborious work, and it had to be done meticulously.

  ‘Do you think we’ll read about all this in the newspapers tomorrow?’ asked Pietro.

  Sylvia threw the dregs of her coffee on the ground. ‘I hope not.’ She crumpled the empty plastic coffee cup and shoved it in the pocket of her blue wool coat. ‘I really hope Sorrentino now understands that this kind of exercise is best done without the public knowing.’ Her thoughts turned to the families of the missing women. She knew they’d be reading every column inch of every paper, praying every day for news that would end their doubts and suffering.

  The sun was soon high enough to show the brooding outline of Vesuvius and to start casting shadows on the hard ground near where the teams toiled. Armed carabinieri ringed the excavation area and brusquely turned away a few early morning dog walkers and an old, breathless jogger. Sylvia had seen enough. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the office. This place has all the atmosphere of a funeral. We can’t do anything more here.’

  Pietro nodded and fell in behind her. She was right, the depressive solemnity of the dig was tangible, no one even talked as they dug.

  And amid the silence, no one noticed him.

  Watching.

  Silently cursing.

  Damning them all for the sacrilege they were carrying out on his hallowed ground.

  His eyes bored into Sylvia. She was nothing much. He was good at first impressions. Not a threat. Not nearly intelligent enough to worry him.

  His gaze slipped across to Sorrentino.

  The anthropologist’s face was easy to recognize. It was plastered all over the press. Il Grande Leone. Now he could be a threat. A serious one.

  Why was he here again? What had he found now?

  Another victim. That would be it. That would explain all the activity.

  The so-called genius was about to make more discoveries. He was pointing and people were running. He was creating excitement. Not the kind of excitement that was wanted. Not the kind that was helpful.

  Kill him and you stop the inquiry in its tracks. Slow them down. Screw them up. Burn them out.

  Sylvia caught his eye again as she walked back to her car.

  Come to think of it, there was something about her. Not drop-dead beautiful – he liked that phrase, drop-dead – but she had a certain style. A certain way about her. She was – he struggled to describe her – challenging.

  Yes, that’s it. She was challenging. Well, he was always up for a challenge.

  Sylvia Tomms walked out of his view, but not out of his mind.

  She’d look good naked. The stupid policewoman heading the inquiry would look great dressed in flames.

  But first, there was some lion-taming to be done.

  56

  Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna

  Back at her desk, Sylvia mainlined on more coffee and nicotine. Creed’s picture stared up at her from an open file and begged a bunch of questions. Was he the type to kill because he felt inadequate? The type to crash a press conference to flaunt his power? Or, was he the proverbial fly in the ointment? One of those weird interlopers who bog you down and bleed you of resources?

  The last thing she needed right now was another twist in the already tangled tale of murder and missing women. But that’s exactly what she got. It came in the form of the man hastily ushered in to see her. A fresh-faced detective from the local homicide division of the polizia. He’d arrived unannounced and had insisted on seeing her straight away.

  ‘Capitano, my name is Mario Dal Santo.’ He was in his early thirties, maybe even late twenties. Sylvia noticed the trousers of his smart grey suit were splashed with mud, as were the soles and heels of his highly polished shoes. ‘Please, sit down.’

  ‘I saw you on the news yesterday – the Di Lauro killing. Everyone at the station house is talking about that press conference.’

  Great, a surprise dose of public humiliation. Get used to it, girl, you’re going to hear that a lot. ‘And that’s why you’re here?’

  He managed a sympathetic look. ‘No. Not at all. We’re investigating the shooting of a young courting couple, not far from here – teenagers…’

  ‘Wait a second,’ Sylvia cut him off. She picked up the overnight area crime report from her in-tray. ‘This must be really fresh. I’ve no cross-force intel.’

  ‘We’re still at the scene. The ME isn’t even there yet. My boss sent me because he remembered a confidential you’d circulated, asking to be alerted if anyone came across a homicide in which a woman was killed by fire.’

  Sylvia frowned. ‘But you said two shootings, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did,’ he smiled. Perfect teeth and puppy-dog eyes. ‘But I hadn’t finished telling you the full story. Two teenagers were killed in the car belonging to one of their parents. A third body was also discovered, a woman’s, and this one was burned as well as shot.’

  ‘How? Where?’

  ‘In a pit near where the kids were killed. It’s some kind of garbage dump for a campsite. Maybe local rubbish is torched there as well.’

  ‘You said burned – how was she burned? Completely burned, partly burned? I mean, forensically is there anything left of her?’

  ‘There’s almost nothing left. Well, there didn’t seem much to me
. Like I said, the scene is still active. You want to come and see for yourself?’

  ‘Mister, the last thing I want to do is go and see another burned body, but I think I’d better.’ She grabbed her lighter and cigarettes and slugged back the now cold coffee, knowing it might be her last for a while. ‘Give me a second to update my team. If this incident is connected, I want jurisdiction, understood? No disrespect, but I think we’re better equipped to deal with this incident. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed. I’ll have to double-check with my boss but we’ve got so much on, I reckon he’ll be glad to dump the paperwork on your desk.’ Dal Santo glanced down at the mess. ‘Providing you promise not to lose it in there.’

  57

  Crime scene 1, Campeggio Castellani, Pompeii

  A carabinieri driver sped Jack to the new crime scene. From what Sylvia had told him on the phone, the fresh killings might provide a breakthrough. The scene was rich in forensic evidence that hadn’t been corrupted by five years of burial, and – Jack guessed – probably just as rich in psychological evidence as well. The new deaths were only a few kilometres from where the graves of Francesca Di Lauro and the second victim had just been found. Given the burning of the bodies, it seemed probable they were connected. This might – just might – be the scene where both women had been killed.

  The driver flicked on an indicator. ‘We’re here. I just have to turn in about a hundred metres,’ said the driver, looking at a satnav screen. The car veered right into the campsite. There was so much crime-scene tape fluttering in the wind that it looked as though the area had been marked off for marathon runners. Soldiers swarmed around the vehicle and chatted to the driver in Italian. Then they waved them on; down the driveway, past static caravans, a run-down children’s play area, some decrepit wooden chalets that needed refurbishing, a shabby shower block, a screen that hid overflowing waste bins and then more static vans. They stopped alongside a parking area on soft ground. As he got out, Jack recognized the big shape of Lieutenant Pietro Raimondi.