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Rhyme knew that Natalia was the person who placed the anonymous call claiming to have seen Garry spiking the wine, and she herself would have broken into his apartment to plant the date-rape drug on his clothing; the footprints Ercole and Thom found could easily be a woman’s size.

‘Lies!’ Natalia raged, eyes flashing with pure hatred.

Spiro now continued, ‘Our inquiries as to guests at the party focused on men. We will be interviewing witnesses about your whereabouts, at the time of the rape. We have been comparing DNA with that of the men at the party. And Frieda’s other boyfriends. We will now get a warrant to compel a test of yours.’

She scoffed. ‘This is ridiculous.’ Her indignation was profound. ‘I cannot be treated like this.’

Rhyme’s impression was that she truly believed normal rules did not apply … because she was so beautiful.

Natalia rose. ‘I will not put up with this any longer. I am leaving.’

‘No, you are not.’ Spiro stood to block her way and gestured into the hall. Daniela Canton approached, pulling cuffs from her belt, then ratcheting them on Natalia’s wrists.

‘No, no! You can’t do that. It is … not right!’

Natalia stared down at her wrists, and it seemed to Rhyme that the horror registering in her eyes was not from the fact she was cuffed but that the silver of the shackles clashed with the gold of her bracelets.

Though this surely had to be his imagination.

CHAPTER 53

Hopeless.

His life was over.

Garry Soames was close to crying when he left the interview room and was let out into the prison’s common area, about two acres of anemic grass and sidewalks, largely deserted at this time of day. He walked slowly back to the wing in which his cell was located.

His lawyer, Elena Cinelli, had told him that although the police were considering the possibility that he had been set up as a fall guy for the rape of Frieda Schorel, the magistrate had turned down her request that he be released, even with the surrender of his passport.

This was so unfair!

Elena had told him that two of the best forensic scientists in America, who happened to be in Naples on another case, were assisting with the evidence. But assisting wasn’t the same as proving he was innocent. Valentina Morelli, who’d turned on him so viciously, had been located and had given a statement – subsequently verified – that she had been in Mantua the night of Frieda’s assault. Suspicion had returned once again to him.

What a nightmare this had become …

He was in a strange land, with ‘friends’ who were suddenly wary of visiting him. His parents were still in the midst of making arrangements to fly to Italy (Garry’s younger brothers and sisters had to be sorted out). The food was terrible, the hours of solitude – and despair – stretching on and on.

The uncertainty.

And the looks the other prisoners gave him. Some offered sly, conspiratorial glances, as if they shared a rapist’s inclination. Those were just plain creepy. And then there were the glares – of those who seemed to want to short-circuit the judicial system and dish out fast, uncompromising justice. Several times he’d heard, in stilted English, the word ‘honor.’ Offered like a whip, lashing him for his crime of debasing a woman.

And the goddamn pisser of it all? The reason the night with Frieda on the roof, under the stars of Naples, could not have turned out to be sexual assault?

He hadn’t been able to get it up. Me, Garry Soames. Mr Ever-ready.

Kissing, touching … and he’d stayed limp as a rag.

Sorry, sorry, sorry … It’s out of my hands. I can’t control it.

A fact he hadn’t dared to share with anyone. The most shameful thing he could think of had to be kept a secret. He couldn’t tell the police, couldn’t tell his lawyer. No one. ‘No, I couldn’t have raped Frieda, even if I’d drugged her – which I didn’t. No, Old Dependable hadn’t worked that night.’

And now? What would happen—?

His thoughts were interrupted as two men appeared in the prison yard, stepping from the doorway of a wing nearby. He didn’t know the short, muscled prisoners very well, other than that they weren’t Italian. Albanian, he thought. Swarthy and forever unsmiling. They kept to themselves or hung out with a few others that looked somewhat like them. The two, brothers, had never said anything to Garry and had largely ignored him.

Now it was the same. They looked toward him once and returned to their conversation, continuing on a path roughly parallel to his, about twenty steps behind.

He nodded. They returned the gesture and kept walking, heads down.

Garry thinking: Why the hell did I go to that party in the first place?

I should have been studying.

He didn’t regret coming to Italy. He loved the country. He loved the people and the culture and the food. But now he was looking at the whole adventure as a mistake. I could have gone anywhere. But, no, I had to be the big famous world traveler, show everyone from a punk-ass suburb in middle America that I was different. I was special.

Garry observed the two Albanian prisoners moving slightly faster. They would catch up with him in the shadow of the children’s climbing wall – in a small area where prisoners could play with their children and visit with their wives on Sunday.

But he ignored them and thought again of the party at Natalia’s. He never should have left Frieda on the roof. But seeing her drowsy eyes and feeling her head on his shoulder … and feeling nothing down below, he’d had to flee. It never occurred to him that she’d been drugged and would be at risk.

What a mess …

The Albanians were now closer. Ilir and Artin, he believed, were their names. They claimed to have been wrongly arrested simply for helping refugees flee oppression. The prosecutor’s charges were a bit different: that they spirited young girls away from their homes and set them up working in brothels in Scampia, a grim suburb of Naples. The altruistic argument they made – that they were saviors of the oppressed – fell on deaf ears, as most of the girls they ‘rescued’ came not from North Africa but from the Baltic states and small towns in Italy itself, lured by their promise of modeling careers.

Garry didn’t like that the men had sped up and were just a few steps behind. He diverted, hoping to avoid them.

But it was too late.

The squat, swarthy men lunged and flung him to the grass.

‘No!’ Gasping, his breath knocked from his lungs.

‘Shhh. Quiet!’ Ilir – the smaller – raged in Garry’s ear.

His brother looked around to see there were no guards or other prisoners present and drew a long, thick piece of glass from his pocket, a shiv. The base was wrapped in cloth, but six-inches of razor edge glistened.

‘No! Please! Come on, I haven’t done anything!’ Maybe they thought he’d been with the prison police, just now, informing on them. ‘I haven’t said anything!’

Artin smiled and eased back, letting Ilir hold him down. In thickly accented English, he said, ‘Now, here. Here it is. Yes? Here is what is going to happen. You are knowing Alberto Bregia?’

‘Please! I haven’t done anything to you. I just—’

‘Now, now. You are answering me. Yes, there you go. Answer me. Do not baby-cry. Answer me.’

‘Yes, I know Bregia.’

Who wouldn’t? A huge, psychotic prisoner – six foot four – who terrified everyone who crossed him, even if their betrayals were pure figments of his bizarre imagination.

‘So, it is this. Bregia has problem with my brother and me. And he is wishing to murder us. Now, now. What we are doing is this.’

Garry struggled to push Ilir off. But the wiry man held him down firmly. ‘Stop,’ he muttered. Garry complied.

‘We are having to hurt you some. Stabbing you, yes.’ He held up the glass knife. ‘But we not kill you. Cut you some much. But you will not be dying. And then you will be saying that Alberto Bregia did this.’

Ilir said, ‘So he will go to other prison. For dangerous prisoners. We have seen into this. It is how this works. All good.’

‘No, don’t! Please!’

Artin was nodding. ‘Ah, it won’t be much. Six, seven times. Which is nothing. I am being stabbed. Look at these scars. People here in prison, they talk. They say you should have balls cut, you rapist.’ He brushed the point over Garry’s crotch. ‘No, no. We are not be doing that.’ They both laughed. ‘Just some girl you fuck? Who care? So, you good. Just face, chest, maybe cut ear bad.’

‘Cut off,’ his brother said.

‘Has to look like Bregia, something he would do.’

‘Look, baby-cry, stop that. Okay, Artin. Cut him and we go. Hurry!’

Artin muttered something in Albanian and Ilir clamped his filthy hand over Garry’s mouth and gripped him with fierce strength.

Garry tried to scream.

The glass point moved toward his ear.

And then a distant voice: ‘Signor Soames! Dove sei?’

From the doorway he’d just exited through, the hallway that led to the interview rooms, a man was calling him.

‘Are you still in the yard?’

The Albanian brothers looked toward each other.

‘Mut,’ Ilir spat out.

The knife vanished and they rose quickly.

Garry struggled to his feet.

‘You are saying nothing!’ Artin whispered. ‘Silence, baby-cry.’ They turned and walked away quickly.

Garry stepped from the wall.

He saw who’d just called to him. It was the assistant director of the prison, a narrow, balding man who wore the uniform of the Penitentiary Police. It was perfectly pressed.

Garry joined the man in front of the doorway.

‘You are well? What has happened?’ He was regarding Garry’s gray, grass-stained jumpsuit.

‘I fell.’

‘Ah, fell. I see.’ He didn’t believe him, but in prison – even in this short period of time, Garry had learned – the authorities don’t question what they choose not to question.

‘Sì?’ Garry asked.

‘Signor Soames, I have for you good news. The prosecutor in your case has just called and informed me that the true attacker has been identified. He has applied to a magistrate that you be released.’

Breathlessly, Garry asked, ‘For sure?’

‘Yes, yes, he is certain. The documents for release have not been signed yet but that will happen soon.’

Garry looked back at the doorway to his cell wing, thinking of the two Albanians. ‘Do you want me to wait in my cell?’

The assistant director debated a moment, looking over Garry’s torn sleeve. ‘No, I think that’s not necessary. Come into the administrative wing. You can wait in my office. I will bring for you caffè.’

Now the tears came. And came in earnest.

CHAPTER 54

The team had assembled in the situation room near the lab on the ground floor of the Questura.

Sachs and Flying Squad officer Daniela Canton had brought the evidence collected at the farmhouse near the organic fertilizer farm, and Beatrice Renza was completing her analysis. The evidence was here too from the factory in Naples, dubbed by Daniela’s partner, Giovanni Schiller, Il Casa dei Ratti.

Spiro stood in the corner of the room, arms crossed. ‘Where is Ercole?’

Sachs explained that she’d sent him on another assignment; he would be back soon.

Rossi was on the telephone and when he disconnected, he explained that he had located the owner of the farmhouse, who’d rented the place to the Composer. He lived in Rome and had driven to Naples to meet an American, who had given his name as Tim Smith, from Florida. The owner confirmed he resembled the composite picture of the kidnapper. He’d paid cash for two months plus a bonus.

‘A bonus,’ Rossi said with a wink in his voice, ‘for riservatezza. Discretion, you would say. That’s not what the landlord said but it was what I understood. He supposed the man wanted a place for his mistress. He didn’t suspect a crime, he insisted. Of course he did but he hardly cared.’

The landlord had told Rossi he had none of the cash left – hence, no fingerprint possibility – but he did have a thought about the make of the man’s car. Though the renter had parked out of sight, the landlord had coincidentally driven away from the main road to get to a restaurant outside town and gotten a look at an old dark-blue Mercedes. A quick search confirmed that the Michelin tire size was compatible with older Mercedes. Rossi put the notice out to all law enforcement agencies to look for such a sedan.

Farmhouse Outside of Caiazzo

• Dell Inspiron computer.

Passcode-protected, sent to Postal Police.

• Western Digital, 1 TB drive.

Passcode-protected, sent to Postal Police.

• Browning AB3 rifle, caliber: Winchester .270.

Serial number indicates stolen three years ago, private residence in Bari, probably sold on the underground market.

Box of 23 Winchester .270 cartridges, two empty brass shells.

Ballistics indicate same weapons used to fire at American detective Amelia Sachs and Officer Ercole Benelli at Capodichino refugee camp.

• Six E-note bass strings, one tied in a noose.

• Drives an older-model, dark-blue Mercedes.

• Four tire treads in driveway.

Michelin 205/55R16 91H (same as earlier scene), probably from the Mercedes.

Pirelli model 6000 185/70R15.

Pirelli P4 P215/60R15.

Continental 195/65R15.

• Various items of clothing, some suspect’s, some from victims (see inventory).

Unable to trace purchase.

• Various items of toiletries (see inventory).

Unable to trace purchase.

• Food (see inventory).

Unable to trace purchase.

• Fodor’s guide to Italy.

Unable to trace purchase.

• Berlitz Italian phrase book.

Unable to trace purchase.

• List of victims, personal details, locations where they were to be held for videoing. (printout).

Ali Maziq.

Malek Dadi.

Khaled Jabril.

• Additional traces of olanzapine and amobarbital.

• Friction ridges:

Only the victims’.

Ali Maziq.

Khaled Jabril.

Areas in house seem to have been swept, alcohol used.

Latex glove marks revealed throughout.

• Two dozen footprints, not matching any earlier.

Size 7½ (m)/9 (f)/40 (European), leather sole.

Size 10½ (m)/13 (f)/45 (European), unknown running shoe, well worn.

Size 9 (m)/10½ (f)/43 (European), unknown style, probably hiking boot or running shoe.

Converse Cons, as before – The Composer’s.

Three others of indistinct size, two plain leather soles, one Rocky Lakeland hiking boot.

‘Why all the footprints?’ Spiro wondered aloud.

Rossi: ‘Some possible tenants looking at the rental, I would assume. And the victims. The Composer kept them there until he was ready to make his video. They might have walked to and from the car – even if they can’t remember it now.’

Rhyme sighed. ‘I hope one of those prints isn’t another vic. Just because a name wasn’t on the list doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken somebody else.’

Beatrice said, ‘It is so extremely curious, no fingerprints. None at all, excepting for the victims’. It is as if, as you say, Captain Rhyme, he wears the gloves in his sleep.’