As on every morning, Professor Zeno D’Agostino rose before the sun. Unlike those other mornings, however, today he barely made it to his bathroom for paracetamol and an alarmingly yellow piss before collapsing back into bed, where he lay in a hangover fugue, groaning quietly to himself and taking such comfort as he could from hugging a pillow and pretending it was Emanuela.
The sun appeared, if murkily. It traced a slow passage across his wall. The room grew sticky. He could excuse himself no longer. He rose a second time, showered, shaved, dressed, went downstairs, and forced down a light breakfast of coffee, yoghurt and fruit. At every moment, he expected Cousin Claudio to ring with his quid pro quo. And yet the phone remained silent. He took the lift down. The rain had stopped and the broken sunshine made their small parking lot glittery with puddles. He felt noticeably lighter as he approached his Mercedes; lighter still once he’d turned off his mobile for the drive in to the university. Whatever misery Cousin Claudio had in mind for him, he was free of it for the next half hour at least.
He turned his key in the ignition. A phone trilled beneath his seat. With horror, he remembered yesterday morning, the Lamborghini bursting into flames, poor Raffaele sitting up as the fire had engulfed him. He cried out in terror, flung open his door and hurled himself out onto the broken tarmac, scrambling away on hands and knees while bracing for the eruption.
The Rohypnol could hardly be called a breakthrough. It did, however, give Izzo an excuse to pay Lucia Conte another visit. He drove back up to Torre Del Greco Hospital in a borrowed squad car, buying a bunch of flowers at a roadside stall along the way – somewhat undermining his claim to be on official business when he discovered visiting hours hadn’t started yet.
Lucia invited him in with a weak smile. Her arm and throat and cheek were less heavily bandaged, he was glad to see. And she took her flowers without obvious discomfort. But there was pallor still in her cheeks, grief still in her eyes.
Yesterday’s chair had been replaced in the corner. He put it back beside her bed and settled in. ‘You’re looking better,’ he told her.
‘The miracle of poppy juice. Finally I understand why the ancients so loved it.’
‘Don’t get too attached,’ he said. ‘You should see the lost souls we deal with every day.’
‘I can look after myself. How about you? Any news?’
‘It’s early days. We have good leads.’
Her face fell. ‘As bad as that?’
‘It’s not easy,’ he sighed. ‘This isn’t a wife bludgeoned by her husband, or two drunks fighting in a bar. Someone planned this. They meant to get away with it.’
‘Come on, Romeo. You wouldn’t be here this early unless you had something.’
He smiled at that. She always had seen through him. He sat forward a little, elbows on his knees. ‘There is one thing. It’s not for repetition, and I don’t know if it will be much comfort, but we found traces of a drug called flunitrazepam in your brother’s system.’
‘Flunitrazepam?’
‘You’ll know it better as Rohypnol.’
She pushed herself up. ‘Rohypnol?’ she said in alarm. ‘You’re not telling me that—’
‘No, no, no,’ said Izzo hurriedly, realising too late the inference she might draw. ‘My apologies. There’s no evidence at all of anything like that. That he was interfered with, I mean. We think they simply used it as a tranquilliser. Just like your morphine. It means your brother wouldn’t have felt the flames as severely as he might have done.’ He gave a little grimace. ‘Not much of a consolation, I know, but something.’
‘Oh,’ she murmured, resting her head back down on her pillow. ‘Yes. Yes it is.’ Her forehead creased. A little colour even flushed her cheek. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That actually means a lot.’
‘Good. I’m glad.’ Yet he’d lost her, for some reason. Her thoughts were elsewhere. He pushed himself to his feet. ‘If there’s anything else I can do…?’
‘No,’ she told him. ‘But you’ll keep me informed, yes? You yourself, I mean.’
‘Of course. I’ll come back again tomorrow, if you’d like?’
‘Thank you, yes. Though to be honest, I doubt I’ll still be here. They’re transferring patients out because of Vesuvius. And I’ve watched them change my dressings enough now. I’m sure I can do it for myself.’
‘Then maybe you should give me your contact details. Just in case.’
‘Of course.’ She beckoned for his pad and pen and wrote her numbers down for him, resting the pad awkwardly against the back of her bandaged left paw. Mobile and work phone numbers, her home address and email too. He looked into her eyes, held them far longer than was appropriate. But then she didn’t look away either.
‘You have a son,’ she said finally.
‘Mario, yes. He’s six. You’re going to like him.’
‘I’m sure. Once all this is behind us.’
‘Yes.’ He found a wry smile. ‘Then I should probably get back to work on it, shouldn’t I?’
Zeno D’Agostino lay on the broken wet tarmac with his hands clutched over his head, waiting for the fireball to erupt and consume his car. But seconds passed and nothing happened.
‘Is everything well, my friend?’
He looked up. His Ukrainian downstairs neighbour Yuri was standing there, outlandishly tall and impeccably dressed as ever, beaming down at him with amused concern.
‘It’s nothing,’ Zeno assured him after checking on his Mercedes. He picked himself up, brushed down his trousers and sleeves. ‘Just nerves. I watched a friend die yesterday, you see. Burned alive in his car. You may have seen it on the news.’
‘That poor fellow in Herculaneum? You were there?’
Zeno nodded. ‘There’ve been threats against all of us too. So when a phone went off beneath my seat…’
They both looked at the car. The phone was ringing still. ‘Not yours?’ asked Yuri. ‘Then whose?’
‘My wife’s, I suppose. She borrowed my car yesterday.’
‘How terrifying,’ Yuri said. But his words were undercut by the puzzlement in his voice, for he knew full well that Emanuela had a Mercedes of her own. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. I hope your day improves.’
‘Thank you. You too.’ The ringing finally stopped. But it was silent only a few seconds before starting up again. He went across, felt beneath the driver’s seat for the phone. Its fascia pulsed yellow with each ring. Not a bomb, at least. Not today. But it might as well have been. For surely this was Cousin Claudio showing him how easily he could get to him if he chose. So it was with a trembling thumb that he answered it. ‘Yes?’
‘You know who I am this morning, I trust,’ said Claudio. ‘No more games.’
‘No,’ said Zeno. ‘No more games.’
‘Good. Then listen close. The Secondigliano cops have arrested a mate of mine on a bullshit assault charge. It’s a joke. He was with me and some others at the time. But they refuse to believe us, just because we all have records. So he needs a suit to speak for him. A suit with weight.’
‘Me?’
‘Who the fuck else? You think I’m after a recipe?’
‘When was this?’
‘Last Tuesday night. Around ten.’
‘Last Tuesday?’ Hope flared in Zeno’s chest. ‘Then I’m sorry but I can’t help. I was at dinner with a friend.’
‘A friend?’
‘His name’s Taddeo Santoro. He’s director of our Archaeological Museum.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘How the hell do you think I mean. Was it just you two or were there others?’
‘Just us two, though I’m sure the waiters would—’
‘Waiters!’ scoffed Claudio. ‘And don’t worry about your mate. He’ll never even hear of this, I promise.’
‘But what if he does? What if he tells the police that I—’
‘Listen to me,’ said Claudio. ‘I burned a man to death for you yesterday morning, just for sleeping with your wife. Now you owe me.’
Zeno looked around in alarm. But there was no one in sight, let alone in earshot. ‘But I never asked you to—’
‘Yes, you did. Yes, you fucking did. Don’t you dare try that now. Not unless you want what he got. Because I can do it. I just proved that. And I will too, if you push me. Understand?’
That memory again: Raffaele engulfed by the flames like some poor medieval heretic. His awful screams and the unexpected stench of it too, of burning flesh and fuel, of melted plastic and rubber and synthetic fabrics. It would stay with him until he died. ‘Yes,’ he said, as the last dregs of fight drained from him. ‘I understand.’
‘Good. The person you need to see is Pietro Chiellini. Works out of Secondigliano polizia di stato. You’re gonna go there now and—’
‘Now? But I have a meeting at eleven. I can’t possibly be late for—’
‘Right this fucking minute. And when you get there, this is what you’re gonna tell him.’