The Burial Hour

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Why would the Composer come here? It was after the murder, the witness said."

  "To see who was after him?" The young officer shrugged. "Or to communicate with the gods or Satan or whoever might be directing him."

  "That makes as much sense as anything."

  Ercole shook his head. "He would have some cover behind those trees. I will look."

  "I'll check out down there." Sachs stepped off the crest of the hill and walked to a small clearing closer to the camp.

  Wondering again: What was his point in coming here?

  It would have been out of his way--would have taken ten minutes of precious time needed for his escape--to climb the path.

  Then she stopped. Fast.

  The path!

  The only way to see the camp--and to be seen from it--was here, on the crest, after climbing from the road. Yet the emailer had said the suspect had been spotted standing "beside" a dark car as he looked over the camp.

  Impossible.

  There was no way to get a car up here; the vehicle would have had to remain in the valley, out of sight.

  It's a trap!

  The Composer himself had sent the email--in bad Italian, a program translating it from English--to lure her or other officers here.

  She turned and was just starting back to the crest, calling Ercole's name, when she heard the shot. A powerful rifle shot, booming off the hills.

  At the crest, Sachs dropped to a crouch in the brush that formed the perimeter of the clearing, drawing her Beretta. She glanced into the valley and saw Hill's driver, panicked and crouching behind the fender of the Audi. He was on his mobile, apparently shouting as he summoned the police.

  And then she looked over the fringe of dry, rustling weeds and saw Ercole Benelli sprawled facedown in the dust beside a regal magnolia. She started to rise and run toward him when a second bullet slammed into the ground right in front of her and, a moment later, the boom of the powerful gun's report filled the air.

  "One interview?"

  The man on the other end of the line was speaking in his soft Southern (U.S. not Italian) drawl. This always seemed to make a request more persuasive.

  Still Rhyme told Daryl Mulbry, "No."

  The pale fellow was nothing if not persistent.

  Rhyme and Thom sat in the breakfast room of their hotel. Rhyme rarely had much interest in an early meal but in Europe the room rate included a full breakfast and, perhaps because of the travel, or the intensity of the cases, his appetite was stronger than normal.

  Oh, and there was the fact that the food here was damn good.

  "Garry was beat up. Anything we can say about the case might help get him moved from general population." Mulbry was on speakerphone in the office Charlotte McKenzie was using at the consulate. She was with him and now said, "The Penitentiary Police are decent folks and they're looking out for him. But they can't be there all the time. I just need one fact that suggests he's innocent, to get him to a different facility."

  Mulbry came on the line. "At least could you give us," he asked, "an idea of what you've found?"

  Rhyme sighed. He said, trying to be patient, "We have some indication he might be innocent, yes." He didn't want to be more specific, for fear Mulbry would leak it.

  "Really?" This was McKenzie. Enthusiasm in her voice.

  "But that's only half the story. We need to be able to point to the real perp. We're not there yet." Spiro had blessed their involvement but no way was Rhyme going to make a press statement without the prosecutor's okay.

  Mulbry asked, "Could you give us any clue?"

  Rhyme looked up, across the breakfast table. "Oh, I'm sorry. I have an important meeting now. A man is here I have to see. I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

  "Well, if--"

  Click.

  Rhyme turned his attention to the man he'd referred to, who was approaching the breakfast table: their server, a slim fellow in a white jacket with a flamboyant mustache. He asked Rhyme, "Un altro caffe?"

  Thom began, "It means--"

  "I can figure it out and yes."

  The man left and returned a moment later with the Americano.

  Thom looked around the room. "Nobody's fat in Italy. Have you noticed?"

  "What was that?" Rhyme asked Thom. His tone suggested he was not fully present mentally. He was considering both the Garry Soames and the Composer cases.

  The aide continued, "Look at this food." He nodded to a large buffet of different kinds of ham, salami, cheese, fish, fruit, cereal, pastries, a half-dozen varieties of fresh bread, and mysterious delicacies wrapped in shiny paper. And there were eggs and other dishes cooked to order. Everyone was eating a full meal, and, yes, nobody was fat. Plump, maybe. Like Beatrice. But not fat.

  "No," Rhyme said in a snappy tone, summarily ending what would probably have been a conversation about American obesity--a topic that he had absolutely no interest in. "Where the hell is she? We need to get going."

  Mike Hill's private jet had collected Amelia Sachs in Milan and had transported her back to Naples. She'd landed a half hour ago. She was going to meet Ercole to check out a possible clue in the hills above the refugee camp, but Rhyme hadn't thought that would take this long.

  The waiter was hovering once again.

  Thom said, "No, grazie."

  "Prego." Then, after a dawdle: "It is possible for un autografo?"

  "Is he serious?" Rhyme muttered.

  "Lincoln," Thom said in his most admonishing tone.

  "I'm a cop. A former cop. Who cares about my autograph? He doesn't know me from Adam."

  Thom said, "But you're on the trail of the Composer."

  "Si! Il Compositore!" The waiter's eyes were bright.

  "He'd be happy to." Thom took the waiter's proffered order pad and set it in front of Rhyme, who gave a labored smile and took the offered pen. In a stilted maneuver, he signed his name.

  "Grazie mille!"

  Thom admonished, "Say--"

  "Don't be a schoolmarm," Rhyme whispered to Thom and then said to the server: "Prego."

  "The eggs are excellent," Thom said. "Le uova sono molto buone. Is that right?"

  "Si, si! Perfetto! Caffe?"

  "E una grappa." Rhyme gave it a shot.

  "Si."

  "No." From Thom.

  The man noted the aide's steely eyes and headed off, with a conspiratorial glance toward Rhyme. He took this to mean perhaps not now, but grappa would figure in the near future. Rhyme smiled.

  He glanced through the large plate-glass window and noted Mike Hill's limousine pulling to a stop in front of the hotel. Sachs climbed out and stretched.

  Something was odd. Her clothes were dusty. And, what was this? She had a fleck of blood on her blouse. She wasn't smiling.

  He looked Thom's way. The aide too was frowning.

  The driver, a big, dark-complexioned, hirsute man--so very Italian--leapt out and grabbed her small bag from the trunk. She shook her head--at the unnecessary gallantry; the bag weighed ten pounds, tops. They exchanged a few words and he tipped his head, then joined a cluster of other drivers for a smoke and--as Rhyme had observed about the Italians--conversation.

  She joined Rhyme and Thom.

  "Amelia!" Thom said, rising, as she walked into the lobby.

  "What happened?" Rhyme asked firmly. "You're hurt?"

  "Fine. I'm fine." She sat down, drank a whole glass of water. "But..."

  "Oh, hell. A trap?"

  "Yep. The Composer. He's got a rifle, Rhyme. High caliber."

  Rhyme cocked his head. "Ercole? He was with you."

  "He's all right too. I thought he'd been hit, but the Composer was probably shooting iron sights, no scope. He missed and Ercole went to cover. He just dropped. Played dead. I got a slug parked near me but then I laid down covering fire and we got off the hill."

  "You're all right?"

  She touched some scrapes on her neck. Then glanced down at her tan blouse, grimacing. "Got some spray, gravel or something
, but Hill's driver, he'd called the police and they were there real fast. The Scientific Police're running the scene now. But I had no clue where he was shooting from and he only fired twice, so he probably took the brass with him. They'll find the slugs, I hope. They were using metal detectors when I left. Ercole's there helping."

  The Composer, armed. Noose. Then a knife. Now a rifle.

  Well, that changed everything. Every scene, from now on, they'd have to assume he was nearby and eager to stop them.

  Whatever his mission was, saving the world from demons or reincarnated Hitlers, it was important enough for him to do anything--even killing police--to make sure he finished it.

  Sachs sipped from Rhyme's coffee. Calm, as always after a run-in like this. It was only boredom and quiet that flustered her. She took a call, listened and hung up.

  "That was Ercole. They can't find the site of the shooter and he's bypassed or gotten through all the roadblocks they set up. They found one slug. Looks like a Winchester two-seventy round."

  A popular hunting rifle cartridge.

  Rhyme explained about Spiro's catching the unauthorized operation, to try to exculpate Garry Soames. But then softening.

  "Did Beatrice blow the whistle?"

  "No, she didn't know it wasn't officially sanctioned. I think Dante's just a very, very good investigator. But we kissed and made up. That is, up to a certain point. But from now on, we clear things with him."

  Rhyme then added details about the analysis of evidence from the roof of Natalia Garelli's flat, where the attack took place, and at Garry's flat.

  "Well. Interesting development."

  "Still waiting for the Rome date-rape drug analysis. And some soil samples Ercole picked up at Garry's. But let's get to the Questura. See if our friend was careless enough to load his hunting rifle without those damn latex gloves."

  "Fatima!"

  Hearing the friendly voice, Fatima Jabril turned and saw Rania Tasso approaching through the crowded walkways between the tents. The woman, normally severe--as much as Fatima herself--was smiling.

  "Director Tasso."

  "Rania, please. Call me Rania."

  "Yes, you said that. I am sorry." Fatima set down her backpack, filled with medical supplies--it must have weighed ten kilos--and the paper package she held. She straightened and a bone in her back popped.

  "I heard about the baby!" Rania said.

  "Yes, both are well. The mother and the child."

  Fatima had been the midwife for a delivery just a half hour ago. Births were not uncommon, in this "village" of thousands, but the baby girl had been a milestone--the hundredth infant born in Capodichino this year.

  And, surprising everyone, the Tunisian parents had named her Margherita, after the queen consort of the king of Italy in the late nineteenth century.

  "It is going well for you?" Rania asked. "In the clinic."

  "Yes. The facilities are not bad." She nodded at the backpack of medical supplies. "Though I feel like a doctor in a battle zone sometimes. Going here and there, fixing scraped knees, bandaging burns. The people are careless. A man bought some goat--from the vendors." Fatima glanced outside the fence, where the booths and kiosks were set up. "And he started a fire in his tent!"

  "No!"

  "They would have asphyxiated if their son hadn't run up to me and said, 'Why are Mommy and Daddy sleeping?'"

  "Not Bedouins, of course," Rania said.

  "No. Tribal peoples would know how to live in tents. What is safe and what is not. These were from the suburbs of Tobruk. They will be fine, though their clothing will smell thick with smoke forever."

  "I will send out a flyer that people are not supposed to do that."

  Fatima picked up the package, which Rania glanced at. The refugee smiled--perhaps the first such expression she'd shared with anyone here, other than her husband or Muna. She indicated the wrapped paper parcel. "A miracle! My mother sent some tea from Tripoli. It was addressed to me at the 'Cappuccino' Reception Center in Naples."

  "Cappuccino?" Rania laughed.

  "Yes. Yet it arrived."

  "That is quite amazing. The Italian post has been known to misdeliver mail with even the accurate addresses."

  The women exchanged parting nods and went their separate ways, Fatima laboring under the backpack. She returned to the tent and, setting down the burdens, greeted her husband, then scooped up her daughter and hugged the girl. Khaled had a pleased look on his face. Also, one of conspiracy.

  "What, my husband?"

  "I have just learned of some chance for work, after our asylum is approved. There's a Tunisian who's lived here for years, who owns an Arab-language bookshop, and he might want to hire me."

  Khaled had been happiest as a teacher--he loved words, loved stories. After the Liberation, when that was no longer possible, he had become a merchant. That was both unfulfilling and unsuccessful (largely because the men in the streets would rather loot than build a democracy). Fatima smiled at her husband but then looked away...and did not share with him that in her heart she knew it wouldn't work out. All that had happened over the past month told her it would be impossible to simply restart a content, pleasant family life here in Italy, as if nothing had happened.

  Impossible. She felt a mantle of doom ease down upon her shoulders and she clutched her daughter more tightly.

  Yet her husband was so naive, she couldn't destroy his hope, and when Khaled said that the bookseller would meet him for tea, outside the camp, would she join them, she said yes. And struggled to put aside memories of drinking tea with him on their first evening together, near the massive plaza in Tripoli that was, ironically, built by the Italians in the colonial days, originally called Piazza Italia. Now, Martyrs' Square.

  Liberation...

  She shivered with rage.

  Fools! Madmen! Who are ruining our world, who...

  "What, Fatima? Your face, it seems troubled?"

  "Ah, nothing, my husband. Let us go."

  They stepped outside and delivered Muna to a neighbor, who had four children of her own. Her tent was an informal child-care center.

  Together, husband and wife walked to the back of the camp. Here was one of the impromptu gates--really just a cut in the chain link. The guards knew about these exits but no one made much of an effort to keep people from slipping out to make purchases or to visit with friends and relatives who had been granted asylum and moved out of the camp. They now ducked through the cut portion of the fence and walked along a row of trees and low brush.

  "Ah, look," Fatima said. Khaled continued a few steps on while Fatima was pausing at a low, flowering plant. The blossoms were like tiny purple stars, set among deep green leaves. She would pick some for Muna. She started to bend down. And froze, gasping.

  A large man was pushing suddenly through the brush. He was light-complexioned and wore dark clothing, a dark cap and had sunglasses on. His hands were encased in blue rubber gloves.

  The sort that she'd just worn to deliver beautiful little Margherita.

  One hand held what seemed to be a hood, made of black cloth.

  She began to scream and turn toward her husband.

  But the intruder's fist, coming from nowhere, connected solidly with her jaw and she fell backward, as silent as if God, praise be to Him, had struck her mute.

  Within the hour, the Composer task force had assembled in the windowless situation room, just off the forensic lab. In addition to Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were Spiro and Rossi, and Giacomo Schiller, the sandy-haired Flying Squad officer.

  "You are injured?" Spiro asked, his eyes dipping to Sachs's cut.

  Sachs replied that she was fine.

  Rhyme asked about any more news of the Composer's getaway after the sniper attack on Sachs and Benelli.

  "No," Rossi said. "But the Scientific Police found his sniper's nest. Prints of his Converse shoes. They are scanning all the ridges with metal detectors but it is likely he took with him the shell casings." A shake of his head. "And
I am sorry to report that there are no fingerprints on the recovered bullet, nor does it match any in our national criminal firearms database. I assume it would be a weapon he acquired or stole here."

  Rhyme agreed. The Composer wouldn't dare bring a gun in from the United States. Even if he could do so legally, there would be too many questions at Customs.

  Ercole Benelli now arrived, offering, "Scusatemi, scusatemi! I am late."

  Spiro eyed the young man with concern. "Not a worry, Ercole. Untouched?"

  "Yes, yes, fine. It is not the first time I have been shot at."

  "Shot at before, Forestry Officer?"

  "Yes, a blind farmer believed I was a thief, on his property to steal his prize sow. He missed by a long way." A shrug.

  Spiro said, "Still, a bullet is a bullet."

  "Exactly."

  Sachs: "Any witnesses?"

  "No, we searched the whole area. None." The officer frowned. "It makes little sense. It doesn't seem to fit his profile. A weapon like that."

  Sachs disagreed. "I think he's getting desperate. The amobarb drug tells us he has panic attacks and suffers from anxiety. His condition could be getting worse."

  Rhyme asked, "Where would he get the weapon?"

  Rossi said, "It would not be so difficult. Handguns and automatic weapons, yes. You would need an underworld connection; the Camorra has access to whole arsenals. But I would think he stole it. There are many hunters in the countryside."

  Rhyme added, "We all need to be particularly careful now. Assume scenes are hot. You know what I mean? That the Composer is nearby with his rifle or another weapon."

  Rossi said he would put the information out on the law enforcement wire, alerting all the officers to the risk.

  "So," Spiro said to Sachs, "I understand from Lincoln that there seemed to be no connection between the Composer and the warehouse?"

  "Very unlikely. No one saw anybody matching his description. There were footprints but no Converse Cons. No fingerprints. I've left soil samples with Beatrice. She might find there's trace that connects him with the place but I really doubt it."

  Ercole said, "I will say too that after we had dinner I spent the evening reviewing airport security footage looking for someone who might resemble the Composer, flying to Milan. Unfortunately, most flights are connections through Rome. I had hundreds to look at. And it was several days' worth of video. But I saw no sign of him."

  Rhyme noted the pronoun. We had dinner. And recalled Ercole's texts and his glances toward Daniela Canton.