The Sacred Cut

“We can turn her,” she said, then held out a hand to stop Leapman, who was heading for the body without the slightest hesitation. “I said ”we.“ ”

The American halted reluctantly. Teresa and Di Capua called on two morgue assistants to help. They positioned themselves around the right-hand side of the corpse and placed gloved fingers on her limbs and shoulders.

“Is this going to be nasty?” Peroni asked, worried. “I like warnings about nasty stuff whenever possible.”

“Then don’t look,” the Deacon woman said bluntly.

On Teresa’s call, the team lifted the white corpse, rotated it on its own axis and gently placed the woman front first onto the marble floor, her head now tilted to one side against the shining stone. Peroni swore, then went to stand in the corner. Costa stared at the woman’s naked back and the strange shape carved there, an oddly symmetrical pattern of curves cut straight into the skin from above her waist to the shoulders, like a huge, cruel tattoo.

“What’s it meant to be?” he asked. “A cross?”

It was a diagonal shape, with four protruding curving arms.

Teresa stared at the body. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Consider yourself lucky.” Leapman bent to take a closer look at the corpse. “He used the cord. At least I don’t see any other marks. She was dead when he got round to doing what he wanted to do.”

The pathologist was shaking her head, bemused. “The pattern’s so precise. How could you do it? Here?”

Emily Deacon didn’t want to look at the shape on the woman’s back. She knew it too well already, Costa guessed. “To begin with you’d need a crayon, a ruler, possibly, and a scalpel,” she said softly. “After a little while I guess you just need something that cuts and a very steady hand.”

Leapman took out a hankie and blew into it noisily. “We’ve seen enough. We need a meeting in our office at the embassy. Five this evening. Bring who you want, but I’m going to trust you people with material I don’t want to go any further than our front door. So make sure whoever you bring can keep their mouths shut, and listen good because I don’t like repeating myself.”

Falcone shook his head in disbelief. “This is Rome. This is a murder inquiry. We are the state police force and we do this our way. You will visit us when I say. And I’ll ask you any damn thing I like.”

Leapman pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it over. “This, Inspector, is a signed order from a guy in the Palazzo Chigi none of you people want to argue with. This is all agreed with your superior and with SISDE too. Take a look at the signatures. It gives me the right to take this body into our custody any moment I choose. Which happens to be now. So don’t you go messing with anything before our people arrive.”

Teresa Lupo’s pale face went florid with fury. She walked over to the American and stabbed him in the chest with a podgy forefinger. “What were your names again? Burke and fucking Hare? The age of body-snatching is over, my American friend. I am the state pathologist here. I say where she goes and when.”

Falcone was glaring at the sheet of paper, livid. “How long before your people get here?” he asked Leapman without even looking at him, ignoring Teresa Lupo’s growing shrieks of complaint.

“Ten minutes. Fifteen.”

Falcone handed back the envelope. “She’s yours. We’ll see you at five. Until your people arrive, you can wait outside.”

Agent Leapman snorted, then stamped off back to the door and the snow beyond.

Emily Deacon hesitated for a moment, some uncertainty, regret perhaps, in her sharp blue eyes.

“I’m sorry for the unpleasantness,” she said. “It isn’t intentional. It’s just… his ma

“Of course,” Falcone replied flatly.

“Good.” She took one last look at the pathologist before leaving. “Forget what he said. We won’t have a vehicle here for thirty minutes or more in this weather. Why not make good use of the time?”

THERE WAS ONLY so much that could be done when the bodies had gone, Mauro’s into the white Questura morgue van, the American woman’s into the hearse the FBI had provided. At midday Falcone took one look at Costa and Peroni and ordered them to take a break. He wanted them both to attend the meeting at the embassy. They’d seen the shooter in the square. They were involved. Falcone said he needed them wide-awake for the FBI.

So the two of them took their leave of the crime scene and walked the fifteen minutes to Teresa Lupo’s apartment through an icy ermine Rome that was unca

Nic Costa had visited Teresa’s home once before. It was on the first floor of a block in Via Crispi, the narrow street ru

As the two men trudged in silence, dog-weary and cold, Costa thought about the body laid out stiffly on the geometric slabs and fought to remember the history lessons that had gripped him as a schoolboy. It was important, always, to remind himself: this is Rome. Everything interco

Costa watched Peroni fumbling with the key to the apartment block door. “Gia

“Yeah. I just need some sleep. Something to eat. Excuse my moods, Nic. It’s not like me.”

“I know,” Costa said. “You go inside. I’ve got something to do. Plus I’ll bring you a little present.”

Peroni’s eyes sparked with worry. “Don’t overdo the vegetables!”