Romeo Izzo gazed at Giovanni Bruno across the empty bedroom. Four years ago, his investigation and testimony had got this man convicted of serious drug trafficking offences that should have seen him serving at least a dozen years, had he not, by all accounts, bribed the judge with a charming seafront villa just west of Terracina. Even so, he’d heard that on his release, he’d had to be talked out of coming after Izzo with a baseball bat. It was fair to say they did not much care for one another.
‘The fuck you doing here?’ demanded Bruno. ‘This is my property.’
‘Just looking,’ said Izzo.
‘Your place too big for you, eh? What with your wife dead, I mean?’
Izzo allowed himself a moment before replying. ‘It suits me fine, thanks.’
‘I was sorry to hear about her. Truly.’ His lips twitched and his eyes grew mean and hard with malicious pleasure. ‘Looking forward to bending her over your kitchen table was the one thing kept me sane inside.’
‘You were never her type. She hated the smell of shit.’
‘Glad you’re not looking. Place is promised to my nephew. Getting married, he tells me.’ He glanced round at Giuseppe. ‘What was her name again?’
‘Margarita.’
‘That’s it. Margarita. A wedding present. What do you think?’
‘Makes sense. She’ll need some kind of bribe.’
‘Not what I hear. I hear she’s all for it. Apparently there’s this sad old pig won’t leave her alone.’ He advanced upon Izzo, snuffling loudly as he came, before stopping right in front of him. He was a short man, despite his lifts and heels, but far more powerfully built than Izzo, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. His hair was almost all gone, but his jaw was blackly stubbled, like a wheat field after a harvest burn. And no silk suits for him. Baggy blue jeans, a plain T-shirt and a well-worn leather jacket, as if he’d come directly from his farm – which, for all Izzo knew, might well be the case. They said he’d spent hours there every day since his release, growing salad vegetables of which he was inordinately proud. Heaven help you if you made fun of his tomatoes or spurned his radishes. A man of Herculaneum through and through. Camorra through and through. Wealthy enough to live anywhere he liked yet instead he was knocking together all the top-floor apartments in the block in which he’d been born and raised.
‘Did you do it?’ Izzo asked him.
‘Do what?’
‘This morning’s murder.’
‘Trip up a lot of people with this kind of questioning, do you?’
‘This is your turf. Nothing happens here without your say-so. Either you ordered it yourself or someone just took a shit in your mouth.’
Bruno stepped even closer to Izzo, so that their chests touched. He could feel the man’s breath on his face, hot and garlicky. ‘It is my turf,’ he agreed. He held up his meaty hands, turned them round for inspection. Izzo swallowed. Word was that Bruno had strangled at least half a dozen people himself. They said he got a kick from watching up close as the flailing slackened and the lights went out. ‘I could end you right here and now and no one would lift a finger,’ he told him softly. ‘I could pitch you from this window and have a dozen witnesses claim they saw you lean out too far and overbalance. I could have my guys drag you outside and kick you to death in plain view of everyone in all these houses, and not one of them would ever breathe a word. But I’m not about to. Not unless you push me. You know why not?’
‘Because you’re not an idiot.’
‘Because I’m not an idiot,’ agreed Bruno. ‘I don’t need the kind of grief that comes from shredding a suit, let alone a uniform like you.’
‘You wanted to send a message,’ suggested Izzo. ‘Not much point if no one hears.’
‘People hear what I want them to hear. Don’t worry about that. Like they heard about the damage the excavations have done my houses. Because bullshit it was those fucking tremors. The cracks were there long before those. I’ve got complaints from my tenants going back years.’
‘I’ll bet you do.’
‘A surveyor’s report too. Fifty pages documenting it all in detail.’ His eyes narrowed at Izzo’s snort. ‘You’re right,’ he acknowledged. ‘I can get a report to say whatever the hell I want. And yes, you’d better believe I’m angry with those Foundation arseholes. But let me put all this into context for you. I own these houses, sure. I also own five apartment blocks around town, including yours, plus stakes in God knows how many businesses. I own properties in Rome, Milan, Paris. In London, Cyprus, New York. I have a five-star hotel in Bali.’
‘Just ask me out already.’
‘I’m just saying, is it worth it for me to stir up some shit over the excavations? Sure. Did I bung a few of my tenants a few euros to kick off outside the Town Hall? Why wouldn’t I? Did I have the boys spray some paint, break a window or two? Fine, you caught me. But kill a civilian over it? For a few cracked walls that we both know I’ll get someone else to pay for in the end, one way or another? Fuck no.’
Izzo nodded. ‘And the death threat letter?’
‘Did you even read that thing?’ said Bruno disgustedly. ‘It wasn’t from anyone in my line of work, believe me. We know how to frighten. This wasn’t that. This was some prick jacking off into his sock about how clever he was, how well read. It was written to impress.’
‘So you say.’
‘So I say. Which means you’re looking in the wrong place.’
‘And the right place would be?’
‘The fuck would I know? That’s your job.’
‘But if you hear anything…?’
Bruno took another half step forward, pushing Izzo backward against the window despite his attempt to hold his spot. He clamped his right hand round Izzo’s throat, lifting him up so that he had to stand on tiptoes. Then he squeezed until Izzo found himself gasping for air. He tried to bat his hand away, but Bruno was too strong for him. ‘Three years you cost me,’ he snarled. ‘Three fucking years. If you think I’m ever going to do shit to help you with anything, think again.’ Then he let go so abruptly that Izzo stumbled to his knees. Bruno gave him a final scowl, then turned and stalked back out, followed by Battaglia and the rest of his crew, leaving him there alone, nauseous and shaken, massaging his sore throat and breathing gratefully of the restorative air.
Carmen took the train back to Porto Nolana, a bus down to Università, then walked in along Via Toledo. She usually loved this pedestrianised thoroughfare, thanks to its youth, vibrancy and chic; but today she found its boisterousness a nuisance, what with a difficult phone call to make to the museum, to pass on Lucia’s message about tomorrow’s meeting of the Philodemus project.
To her surprise, when she gave her name and asked for Taddeo Santoro, she was put straight through. The great man himself came on, in equal measures distraught for Raffaele and solicitous for her welfare. She assured him she was fine and briefed him on Lucia, her burns, her treatment, and how she’d entrusted her with her keys so she’d be there tomorrow to open up for him, the professor and Father Alberts. Santoro hesitated a moment, then thanked her and assured her he’d notify the others himself and that they’d see her tomorrow at eleven. She ended the call, then slowed almost to a stop. In hospital, Lucia had referred to Alberts as Father rather than Rupert. Almost unconsciously, she’d repeated that to Santoro. And he hadn’t corrected her.
She reached Piazza del Plebiscito and the Palazzo Reale. She showed her ID at the gate, then made her way to its rear wing, up its grand staircase to the first floor and Naples’ National Library. The staircase stopped here. The library didn’t. There was another floor above that few people even knew about. It was the old servants’ quarters, out of bounds to the general public, reachable only by well-hidden back stairs and a small lift. All the same, it was Carmen’s favourite part of the library, an Alice in Wonderland labyrinth of grand rooms cluttered with startling delights: antique globes, erotic sculptures, marble busts of forgotten or disgraced personages, all connected by eerie, long corridors narrowed by fat bookshelves filled with ancient journals, archives and almanacs, with inexplicable flights of steps and archways so low that even she had to duck beneath them.
Best of all, however, this was home to the Herculaneum Papyri.
Back home in America, a collection this extraordinary would have its own museum, complete with climate control, armed guards and hush-voiced curators. But Italy had too many treasures for such treatment. Most of the scrolls were stored in boxes on the shelves here, with just a few on display in glass cabinets for those few tourists who asked to see them. Perhaps because they weren’t much to look at, so badly scorched they resembled the charred branches of a morning-after bonfire. The first excavators had, in fact, thought them exactly that. They’d even used a few as torches to light their way. But finally they’d realised what they were, and that some were even well-enough preserved to open and read.
Word had spread. Excitement. Trepidation. Who could say what great lost works might not be among them? So they’d pared away their bark and unrolled them on a purpose-built machine at a centimetre per hour. To great disappointment, however, they’d mostly contained the work of a previously obscure Epicurean philosopher called Philodemus, likely a friend or relative of the Piso family who’d owned the Villa. And once all the amenable scrolls had been unrolled, the remainder were packed away and largely forgotten, to await a time when technology could reveal their secrets.
A time like now.
Lucia’s assistants Carlotta and Pippa were sharing a cigarette out on the terrace when Carmen arrived. They did this five or six times a day, allowing each to believe that it was the other who smoked, and they who merely kept them company. They fluttered in when they heard her, all agitation and enquiry. She assured them that Lucia would be fine, passed on her messages and gave them the hospital’s visiting hours. Then she returned downstairs to her more familiar haunt of Rare Books & Manuscripts, brooding as she went.
No one had ever addressed Rupert Alberts as Father before. Not in her hearing. Nothing wrong in him being a priest, of course. Nor even surprising. Many top classical experts were clerics of one kind or another. Yet why hide it? It felt disloyal to Lucia, but – unable to deny her curiosity – she googled him on her phone. It gave her a mild shock to discover he had his own Wikipedia page. The photograph was undeniably him, though several years younger. And not merely a priest, it transpired, but a Monsignor and a member of the Society of Jesus too. But what truly startled her was that he turned out to be a senior figure in the Pontificia Commissione Biblica, part of the Congregation of the Order of the Faith.
Or, to give it its older and better-known title, the Holy Inquisition.
A dark-blue van with museum livery was parked outside the studio. Only on seeing it did Cesco remember the photographic session booked for that afternoon. He pulled up alongside and saw Emilia Notaro reading a news report on her phone, her face a picture of grief, glazed with tears and smeared mascara. She gave a start when she noticed him. She wiped her eyes on a rumpled lace handkerchief, then jumped down to envelop him in her vast embrace and weep against his chest.
Forty years she’d worked at the museum, including six as Taddeo Santoro’s PA. Her globetrotting retirement had tragically been cut short when her husband had died scuba diving off Bali. Santoro had needed someone to oversee his digitisation project; she’d been the obvious choice. Efficient, hard-working, trustworthy and irrepressibly cheerful, despite her widowhood. And she’d taken straight to Raffaele and Cesco, always complaining how scrawny they were, doing her best to remedy it with her homemade cream cakes and chocolate puddings.
Valentina arrived in her squad car. She held up her hand to tell Cesco to let Emilia grieve. It took her another minute to compose herself. She dried her eyes, took a pace back.
‘Were you there?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Was it… was it as bad as they’re saying?’
He hesitated. ‘It was over quickly.’
‘Who did it? Do they know?’
‘They’ve got good people working on it.’ He gestured at Valentina. ‘I’m sure they’ll find out soon.’ He introduced them to one another, unlocked the front door, disabled the alarm, and led them through the small lobby into the studio. It was a large open room with walls of white, green and blue, and crowded with screens, backdrops, stands, lights and props, as well as a pair of worktables with their video- and image-editing suite. The phone was ringing. He let it go to voicemail. Two dozen messages already. Word was clearly out. He found a pad of paper and went through them, making a note of who he needed to call back.
Emilia went to the loo to freshen up. Messana poked dutifully around, as though to justify her visit. She flipped through the studio’s address and appointments book, jotting down the name and phone number of their bookkeeper, then reminded him he was going to tell her what time they’d locked up and left the night before. Cesco turned on the computer for their security app. ‘Five forty-six,’ he told her. She commandeered the mouse and brought up recent files. All were photographs. She opened its two browsers to check their histories. Neither had been used in months.
‘We saved it for image work,’ Cesco told her, almost apologetically. ‘It’s too clunky for anything else. And we’ve both got phones and laptops.’ She seemed satisfied by that. She asked him to contact her if anything turned up, then left him to it. Emilia came out of the loo, her face washed of everything but grief.
‘Our session?’ he asked gently. ‘You still want to go ahead?’
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Could you bear it? I can’t leave everything in the van, not overnight.’ The anxiety was palpable in her voice. ‘What if it was stolen? I’d never be able to—’
‘It’s okay,’ he assured her. ‘We’ll do today’s, leave tomorrow for tomorrow.’
‘We’ll devise a plan,’ she said vaguely. ‘Any thoughts of taking it on yourself?’
He shook his head. It was way too soon for that. ‘I need to let our clients know what’s happened. It’s only fair to offer to do any booked work, if they want. Or let them go elsewhere. Either’s fine by me. But the lease is coming up for renewal soon. I won’t make any commitments beyond that.’
‘And us?’
‘Same deal. I’ll carry on for the moment, if Taddeo so wishes.’
‘This is my project, not his,’ she told him, with unexpected vehemence. ‘And I want you on it. For your skill. For who you are. Please.’
‘Oh,’ said Cesco, taken aback. ‘Thanks. Then sure.’
They went outside together. The van was half full, but only a dozen or so boxes were marked up for studio photography. The way it worked was Emilia collected artefacts from one of the museum’s current warehouses to distribute among their in-house experts for assessment, cataloguing and basic snaps. Then she’d bring it all here for such further photography as was needed before taking everything on to their new home. They carried the boxes inside, cut the seals, removed the lids. He never knew what to expect. Last week, they’d had a consignment of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sex toys, including a pair of grotesque, vulture-shaped ceramic dildos. Raff had pretended bafflement in order to ask Emilia how each piece worked. A happy memory to make him sad. Nothing so exotic this afternoon. Four gorgeous Aragonese-era dishes, a pair of blue and white maiolica vases, and several bronze Amendola figurines. He turned each piece around in his hands, wondering how best to capture not just its physical appearance, but its character too, how it stood out. But he didn’t feel the magic that afternoon. He had to settle for workmanlike.
He gave Emilia a copy of the photographs, then packed the pieces back in the van. She hugged him farewell and had another cry against his chest. He waved her off, then checked the time. Hard to believe but it was still only mid-afternoon. Tough duties still lay ahead, however, so he took a bracing breath and headed back inside.
Valentina Messana stopped off at Napoli Centrale on her way back to Herculaneum. A railway porter came up to tell her she couldn’t park on the station forecourt. She showed him her badge and asked him to watch her Renault while she wandered the banks of payphones, ringing the number from Conte’s apartment, until finally she found it just outside the western exit. She looked around. No CCTV in sight. But you never knew. She tracked down the security office, spoke with the station head, a pale thin tall man with blinking eyes and a pencil moustache. His eyes lit up when she mentioned the Lamborghini murder. A detective wannabe. No cameras on those phones, he admitted. But he could send footage from ones nearby, if that would help. She thanked him and gave him her card.
She brooded on her drive back to Herculaneum. So hard, indeed, that she passed Viale Due Giugno and Parco Massimo Troisi almost without realising their significance. Then she braked so sharply that the bus behind almost ran into her. She took the next left and made her way back to Due Giugno, a long straight avenue of firs and streetlamps alongside the park’s gardens and artificial lake.
2G PMT 6.30
Surely that was here. Again not a camera in sight. Luck or judgement? Assuming the note on Conte’s pad was connected to last night’s call from Napoli Centrale, then presumably it had been to arrange a meeting this morning – very possibly with his killer. A yellow Lamborghini at that hour; someone must have noticed it. She made a note to send a team out here at six tomorrow morning, armed with pictures of Conte and his car to show to anyone out and about.
It wasn’t likely to make her popular with her colleagues. But then Messana had never much cared about that.