by Will Adams
IV
It took Valentina Messana just ten minutes to decide there was no way she was going to let Barbieri and his crew see these DVDs. She bagged, tagged and boxed everything – including Rossi’s wallet, keys and phone – then carried it all down to her car and set off before they could arrive. Only once she was well out of Posillipo did she call Izzo to let him know.
‘DVDs?’ he said, puzzled. ‘Why bother putting those in a…’ Then he realised. ‘Oh, Christ. Not Santoro. I don’t believe it.’
‘I’ve only watched bits of three so far,’ she told him. ‘On fast-forward and skipping ahead. Two of the victims are early twenties. The third is maybe thirty or thirty-five. All are obviously drunk or drugged. Santoro has to help two of them walk. The third he actually carries in.’
‘So the cameras are already on?’
‘Yes. He must have set them up in advance, one either side of the bed. Anyway, he lays the women down then arranges them with a forearm over their chest and a hand over their groin. Like in the movies when a woman is surprised in the shower, you know? He talks to them until they’re fast asleep. About the museum, mostly. Once they’re fully out, that changes. He starts carrying on both sides of a conversation in which he’s some silver-tongued seducer and they’re trying to resist him, but failing. He slowly strips them of their clothes, kissing and stroking their skin as he exposes it. The cameras have remote controls. He pauses every so often to zoom or pan them. Occasionally he croons a line or two of a love song. One of the younger ones has these big tortoiseshell glasses that keep slipping off her nose. He replaces them carefully every time, as though that’s part of it. Once they’re naked, he undresses himself too. He touches them everywhere. He fondles and kisses their breasts, vaginas and anuses. He rubs his penis against them. Then he stands over them and masturbates until he ejaculates.’
‘Fuck me, we’re in for a scandal.’
‘That’s what you take from this?’
‘I’m just saying. What next?’
‘He wipes them down with paper towels, dabs them with perfume, puts them back into their clothes and covers them with a duvet. Then he turns off the cameras. The DVD ends.’
‘How long are they?’
‘Ninety minutes each, give or take. Though I think they’ve been edited down.’
‘Son of a whore!’ muttered Izzo. ‘What now?’
‘I’m heading back to Herculaneum to log them in as evidence. Oh, and I’ve got all Rossi’s shit too, as it happens. It was right where you said it would be.’
‘Herculaneum? What about the evacuation?’
‘There’s still hours left. And I’m damned if I’ll leave these for Barbieri and his team to drool over. But he’s going to be furious when he finds out. I’ll need your backing.’
Izzo grunted. ‘You’ve got it. Of course you have. But Barbieri’s drool can’t be our story. This is clearly going to be a major scandal. I therefore ordered you back to Herculaneum myself in an effort to keep the circle of knowledge as small as possible until we’ve identified and notified all the victims.’
‘Got it. Thanks. I’ll grab stills of their faces while I’m logging them in. My guess is they’re mostly from the museum. They have that look, you know? Kind. Intelligent. Trusting.’
Izzo closed his eyes and thought of Lucia. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know exactly.’
Chapter Thirty
I
To Cesco’s glad surprise, he returned to his holding cell to find that the duty policeman had procured him some painkillers. He threw them back with a scoop of water, then stretched out on the hard bench and somehow managed to doze off for a while before being woken again by the cell door clanging open. ‘On your feet,’ said Izzo, holding up a manila folder fat with paperwork. ‘You’re mine now.’
Cesco sat up gingerly. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Herculaneum.’
‘Herculaneum?’ He rubbed his face, still slow with sleep. ‘Isn’t there an evacuation on?’
‘We’ve still got until tonight. And Herculaneum’s where your wallet, phone and keys are. Assuming you want them back?’
‘Say no more.’ He pushed himself gingerly to his feet. ‘So what’s the deal? Am I free?’
‘We’ll talk in the car. Not here.’
They went out together, buckled their belts. Izzo checked his phone was on, then put it in the cupholder with its fascia towards him. ‘Can I borrow that a moment?’ asked Cesco. ‘I need to call Carmen.’
‘Help yourself.’
To his shame, he didn’t know Carmen’s number. His phone had become his memory. He logged into email instead. It touched his heart to see all the messages she’d left him overnight. He replied to her latest, assuring her he was fine and no longer under suspicion, that he was off to retrieve his belongings with Detective Izzo and would call her as soon as he got his phone back. He logged out and put the phone back in the cupholder, then made to ask a question. But Izzo held up a finger, concentrating on his driving until he found his way. Then he relaxed back into his seat and glanced across. ‘We’ve opened the safe,’ he told him. ‘Three guesses what we found.’
It was the grimness of his expression that convinced Cesco the time had come. ‘A camera?’ he suggested.
‘What else?’
‘There was a Blu-ray player hooked up to the TV. So I’d guess some DVDs.’
Izzo nodded several times. He bit his teeth so tight together, they made walnuts of his cheeks. ‘How did you know? Why didn’t you say?’
‘I didn’t know,’ sighed Cesco. ‘That was the point. I only ever suspected. And I wasn’t about to smear him if I was wrong. Not after what was done to him last night.’
‘Very well. Why did you suspect?’
‘You have to understand: Taddeo was great to me and Carmen when we arrived in Naples. We’d just found Alaric so, sure, we were enjoying our fifteen minutes. But even so. He gave us his personal tour of the museum. Then he invited us as his special guests to the opening of an exhibition. That’s where we met Lucia and Raff, as it happens. So, apart from anything else, I owed him my job and my flat. Anyway, there was a group of us there that night. Carmen was telling them about her thesis. Specifically, about a Roman empress called Galla Placidia who plays a big part in it. Taddeo mentioned he had a whole portfolio case at home of drawings of her famous tomb mosaics, and would she like to come see them sometime? One of the women there glanced down at the floor. It was only for a millisecond, but I taxed her with it later anyway. She claimed I’d imagined it. Then the next morning I got an anonymous email saying that four different women had come over so woozy at Santoro’s house over the past few years that they’d had to stay the night. There was no evidence of anything improper, but still…’
‘Four is a lot.’
‘Yes. So, anyway, Taddeo invited Carmen again the next time we met. He pressed her quite hard. And he was a difficult man to say no to. Not just his personal charm and forcefulness; his power too. Upset him, he could ruin your career.’
‘Go on.’
‘I didn’t have enough to go to the police. Not against a man like him. But I couldn’t ignore it either. There was some big political gala up in Rome that he attended with his wife. I found out where he lived and went out there while they were away. Their alarm system is pathetic. I broke in and looked around. The guest bedroom had a huge TV on its wall and a great big recliner smack in front. It was pristine too, except for some finger smudges at the back of the closet. That turned out to be a spring-loaded panel with a safe behind. I tried to open it, but I wasn’t skilful enough.’
Izzo grunted. ‘I’ll say. Skilful burglars don’t leave fingerprints.’
‘Combination locks are all about feel,’ pointed out Cesco. ‘You can’t feel with gloves on.’
‘Never heard of cleaning up after yourself?’
‘What is this? Burglary school? Anyway, I was tired and it was getting light. So I put everything back as I’d found it and got out of there.
’
‘Allowing Santoro to carry on as before?’
‘Fuck you,’ said Cesco. ‘What was I supposed to do? Besides, I didn’t do nothing. I took a tip from that email I’d received. I set up a new account and sent him an anonymous message. We know what you’ve been doing. We’ll be watching. That kind of thing. And he never asked Carmen out again. Or anyone else that I know of. Then our Alaric excavation got cancelled, thanks to the shitty weather. We hardly saw him after that. The weeks went by. Frankly, I forgot about it. If it hadn’t been for Raffaele—’
Izzo’s phone rang at that moment. He glanced down at it, held up his finger for silence. ‘Hey, Valentina,’ he said. ‘I’m in the car with Rossi. You’re on loudspeaker.’
‘Ah,’ she said.
‘Got you,’ said Izzo. ‘Give me a moment.’ He pulled up onto the pavement, put on his hazard lights. He told Cesco to stay where he was, then grabbed his keys and phone and got out, pacing back and forth along the pavement. When he climbed back in, he looked grey and grim, as though he’d just had bad news from his doctor. ‘That woman at the party,’ he said, buckling himself back in. ‘The one who looked down at the floor. It was Lucia Conte, wasn’t it?’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Just tell me.’
‘Is she on one of the DVDs?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that.’ But then he did anyway, by making a fist and punching the steering wheel. A little harder than he’d intended, from the way he winced and shook his hand. ‘This whole shitty story is going to get out soon. That’s how she’ll learn about it, unless I can break it to her first. Her and the others too. Because she’s our best bet for putting names to faces. But how can I go see her with you in the car? I can’t have her thinking I betrayed her to someone who didn’t already know.’
‘Fine,’ sighed Cesco. ‘Yes, it was Lucia.’
‘Thank you.’ He tried her mobile. She didn’t answer. He left a message for her to call back, then tried the library. No luck there either. ‘You don’t know her home number, by any chance?’ he asked.
‘She doesn’t have one. But I do know where she lives. And it’s only a couple of minutes from the library. Two birds, one stone.’
‘Okay,’ nodded Izzo. ‘Let’s do it.’
Chapter Thirty-One
I
The Spanish Quarter was the beating heart of old Naples, a crowded, tight, dark grid of dilapidated tall buildings with interior courtyards mostly now converted into cheap apartments set either side of cobbled lanes narrowed by the display trays outside the small fishmongers and grocers, by the pavement tables outside the pizza parlours, by the illegally parked Vespas and the three-wheeler delivery vans pulled in tight against the walls. Add in concrete bollards in unexpected places, and you had a one-way system so labyrinthine that it could reduce hardened tourists to tears.
On Cesco’s advice, Izzo circled round to approach it from the south, turning onto Lucia’s street in time to witness a man and woman scuffling at its far end. The woman cried out and fell to the ground, while the man took off running towards them. He was wearing dark glasses and had a hoodie drawn tight around his face, with a bulging green canvas haversack on his back and a black crocodile-skin handbag and kitchen knife in either hand, along with the tattered remains of a cheap white plastic supermarket bag that he threw away even as he ran by.
The Spanish Quarter was Camorra turf. Muggings were commonplace. Izzo braked then put the Fiat into reverse to go after him, only for a three-wheeler to come up behind them and then refuse to budge. He pulled into the side instead, jumped out. But the mugger was long gone, and his first duty now was to the victim, who’d picked herself up and was sitting on the front step of a courtyard entrance. He reached in through the Fiat’s open window to grab the keys. ‘Wait here,’ he told Rossi. He hurried along the pavement, passing a teenage girl astride a pushbike filming on her phone. His heart skipped a beat when he saw that the victim was Lucia, surrounded by the items that had evidently fallen from the ripped shopping bag. An unopened glass jar of runny honey had smashed on the pavement. A new pair of kitchen gloves and a glazing brush were both still in their original packaging. A chill ran through him. He recalled the third threat – to paint the victim’s face with honey for the birds to pluck their eyes. No ordinary mugger then. That man had been their killer.
And he’d just let him get away.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, crouching beside Lucia.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, though her tears and grimaces of pain said otherwise.
‘That man. Did you know him?’
She shook her head. ‘He had his face hidden. Though there was something…’
‘Yes,’ said Izzo. The schoolgirl was still filming. Everyone was a journalist these days. He went up to her. ‘Did you get his face?’ he asked, showing his badge. She shrugged and set her footage playing, holding it out so that they both could watch. It began in a blur of movement, then the mugger pushed Lucia to the ground and sprinted off with her handbag, passing close enough for her to catch the shadowed interior of his drawstring hoodie, his eyes hidden by mirror sunglasses, his mouth an expressive mix of euphoria, exertion and panic.
‘May I?’ he asked. He plucked the phone from her before she could say no, then texted the clip through to Andreas, their media liaison. He waited till it was on its way, then called him on his own mobile to have him distribute it to the region’s media, along with the warning that the hooded man was a suspect in the Herculaneum murder and therefore not to be approached.
‘That was the Lamborghini killer?’ said the girl when he handed back her phone. ‘Cool.’ He watched her cycle off. It would be on YouTube and TikTok within minutes. But so what? The more publicity the better.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Rossi.
Izzo scowled at him. ‘I told you to wait in the car.’
‘Sorry. I must have misheard.’
‘Aren’t you under arrest?’ frowned Lucia.
‘A misunderstanding,’ he assured her. ‘Isn’t that right, Detective?’
‘Up to a point.’
‘Then you should let Carmen know. She’s worried sick.’
‘I already did.’
Lucia turned back to Izzo. ‘Why are you even here? Have you been… watching me?’
‘Of course not. It’s just that something has come up. Something I need to discuss with you as a matter of urgency. To do with Taddeo Santoro.’
‘I heard. Such terrible news.’
‘This isn’t about that. Or not exactly. My colleague Valentina Messana discovered something in his house. Something disturbing. I’m afraid it involves you.’
‘Me?’
He took a deep breath. ‘Santoro had a safe in his spare bedroom. A safe not even his wife knew about. We found cameras and a number of DVDs inside. DVDs of women who it seems he’d drugged into spending the night at his house.’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Lucia.
He sat beside her on the step, pressed her hand between his own. ‘Only Valentina has seen it. Only she, I and Cesco know about it. And Cesco knew anyway, from the email you sent him. The thing is, Lucia, Valentina’s going through the other DVDs now, taking screenshots of the victims so that we can notify them ourselves, before they find out some other way. But, to identify them, we naturally need the help of someone likely to know them.’
‘You want me to look at them? See who I recognise?’
‘Would you?’
‘How many are we talking?’
‘Two dozen or so.’
‘Two dozen! Dear God. How bad are they? What… what exactly did he do?’
‘I could put you on with Valentina, if you like? But I’m afraid it was pretty bad. Though, from what I understand, it could have been somewhat worse.’
She nodded twice as if accepting this. Then she scowled furiously. ‘That bastard. I was so young. He asked me out to his house to talk about an exhibition. He kept pressing more wine on me. From his
own vineyard, he kept telling me. When I tried to say no, he looked so hurt. Then my head started spinning. He helped me to his spare room. I was embarrassed when I woke the next morning. Getting drunk at his house, of all people. But he was so understanding. Except that his wife tended to get furiously jealous. She’d crucify him if she found out. Perhaps it would be best to keep it secret. I was grateful. Grateful! Then I heard whispers about it happening to other women too, but I didn’t say a word. I can’t explain it. It was like I froze whenever it came up. I froze and put it from my mind until it was gone again.’
‘You’re not to blame.’
‘Two dozen of us. Two dozen! Think what I could have stopped!’
‘Stopped how? You had no proof.’
‘The proof was in his fucking safe. If I’d made the police…’ She stopped, frowned. ‘Oh shit!’ she said. ‘The safe!’
‘What about it?’ asked Izzo.
‘Not that safe. My one. The one in the library. That bastard who just attacked me. He took my bag. It had my keys in it. The keys to the Colonna room. The keys to the safe. The one with our new scroll in it.’ Then her face fell even further, and she added: ‘I know who it was now. And where he’s headed too.’
II
Carmen was at a research table in Rare Books & Manuscripts when Rupert Alberts came hurrying by, breathing heavily with exertion. He was wearing a grey jacket with red piping and its hood down and had a green canvas haversack on his back. He was also carrying a black crocodile-skin handbag and a keyring, both of which looked like Lucia’s.
She rose uncertainly to her feet, watched as he marched up to the door of the Colonna room and made to unlock it. No way would Lucia have trusted Alberts with her bag and keys. No way. A little dizzily, she went after him. He was a Jesuit, a Monsignor, a respected figure in the Congregation of the Order of the Faith. Surely one could trust such a man. And yet she didn’t. He opened the door, slipped inside, made to swing it shut behind him, only for Carmen to reach it before it could lock. ‘Hey!’ she said, even as he sank to his knees beside the table to pull the server out from beneath it. ‘What are you doing?’