Rossi disconnected his call and looked over the chart. His face bore a wry smile. “No, Signor Maziq still remembers nothing of the day or so before the kidnapping. Or claims he doesn’t. But I think perhaps it is less due to the Composer’s drugs and the suffocation than to a typical criminal’s amnesia.”
“How’s that?” Rhyme asked.
“As I mentioned, leaving a refugee camp briefly is not considered a serious offense. But leaving the country of first landfall is. And that’s what Maziq was trying to do, it appears.”
Spiro added, “Yes, now the phone calls on Maziq’s mobile to and from Bolzano make sense. That is in the South Tyrol—very far north in Italy, close to the Austrian border. And about six hours on Trenitalia from here. It would be a good way station for an immigrant desiring to slip out of Italy and into northern European cities, where there are better opportunities for refugees than Italy. This man he dined with? Another human smuggler arranging to spirit Maziq out of the country, north. For a substantial fee, of course. This is a serious crime and, accordingly, he remembers nothing of it.”
Rhyme noted Ercole’s face brighten as he glanced toward the doorway. The blond Flying Squad officer Daniela Canton walked briskly into the room, her posture perfect.
“Officer,” Spiro said.
She spoke to those assembled in Italian and Ercole translated for the Americans. “She and Giacomo have canvassed for witnesses and looked for CCTVs around the site of the kidnapping, Viale Margherita. They found nothing. One person thinks he saw a black car late at night but nothing else about it. And the tabaccaio where the Composer purchased the Nokia—the one to alert him that the aqueduct facility had been breached? No camera and the clerks have no memory of who it might have been.”
Daniela left the room, Ercole’s gaze following like a puppy, and then he turned back.
Sachs said, “So, the Composer is driving around the countryside, looking for a potential target. He sees Maziq and decides to kidnap him. But why, though? Why him?”
“I have a thought,” Ercole said, speaking hesitantly.
Rossi asked, “And what might that be?”
A glance at Spiro. “It takes into account your interest in patterns, Procuratore.”
“How?” the prosecutor muttered.
“We’ve found the drugs, the evidence of electroconvulsive treatment. We know the Composer’s psychotic. Schizophrenia is one of the common forms of psychosis. These patients truly believe they are doing good—sometimes the work of God or alien beings or mythological figures. Now, on the surface, Maziq and Robert Ellis are very different. A refugee in Italy and a businessman in New York. But the Composer might have become convinced that they are reincarnations of some evil figures.”
Spiro asked, “Mussolini? Billy the Kid? Hitler?”
“Yes, yes, just so. He is justified in killing them to rid the world of their evil. Or to get revenge on behalf of a deity or spirit.”
“And the music? The video?”
“Perhaps so other demons or villains will see. And flee back to hell.”
“If they have good Internet servers,” Spiro muttered. “You must have much free time in Forestry, Ercole, to study such subjects.”
He blushed and responded, “Procuratore, this particular fact about criminal psychosis I learned last night. Doing some, come si dice?” A frown. “Doing homework.”
“Mythological figures enlisting the Composer to rid the world of evil.” Spiro frowned, gazing at the newsprint sheet. “I think we have not yet stumbled upon a pattern that satisfies me.” He regarded his elaborate watch. “I have a call to Rome I must make.”
Without another word he turned and left the situation room, pulling a cheroot from his pocket.
Rhyme’s phone hummed with a text. He assumed it was Thom, who had taken a few hours off and was seeing the sights in Naples. But he saw immediately that he was wrong. The text was lengthy and, after reading it, he nodded to Sachs. She took the phone and frowned.
“What do you think of this, Rhyme?”
“What do I think?” He scowled. “I think: Why the hell now?”
Chapter 26
Greeting Lincoln Rhyme proved troublesome for some people.
Such as Charlotte McKenzie.
Should you offer a hand and risk embarrassing a “patient” unable to reciprocate? Should you not, and embarrass anyway by suggesting you don’t want to touch a person who’s different?
Rhyme could not have cared less, so he had no reaction when, after an awkward glance at the chair, the woman simply nodded and said with a stilted smile that they should keep their distance; she had a cold.
This was a common excuse.
Rhyme, Sachs and Thom were meeting with McKenzie in the U.S. consulate, a white, functional five-story shoe box of a building, near Naples Bay. They’d showed their passports to the U.S. Marines downstairs and been ushered up to the top floor.
“Mr. Rhyme,” the woman said. “Captain?”
“Lincoln.”
“Yes. Lincoln.” McKenzie was about fifty-five, with a doughy, grandmotherly face, powdered but otherwise largely makeup-free. Her light hair was short, in the style he believed favored by some famous British actress whose name he could not recall.
McKenzie opened a file folder. “Thank you so much for seeing me. Let me explain. I’m a legal liaison officer with the State Department. We work with citizens who’ve run into legal problems in foreign countries. I’m based in Rome but a situation’s come up in Naples and I flew down here to look into it. I’m hoping you might be able to help.”
“How did you know we were here?” Sachs asked.
“That case, the serial killer? An FBI update went to the embassy and all the consular offices. What’s his name, the killer?” she asked.
“We don’t know. We’re calling him the Composer.”
She offered a concerned furrow of brow. “That’s right. Bizarre. Kidnapping and that music video. But you saved the victim yesterday, I read. Is he all right?”
“Yes,” Rhyme said quickly, preempting Sachs and Thom, who might be inclined to explain further.
“How’s it working out with the Police of State? Or is it Carabinieri?”
“Police of State. Working well enough.” Rhyme fell silent and only the lack of a timepiece prevented him from glancing at a wristwatch. He had to convey impatience by a studied lack of interest. But this he was very good at.
McKenzie may have noticed. She got to it. “Well, I’m sure you’re pressed. So thanks for coming in. Your reputation is significant, Lincoln. You’re maybe the best forensic officer in the U.S.”