David Hewson by The Sacred Cut

under Teresa Lupo's care, he understood the body was in good hands. She
was a wonderful pathologist, the best, even if his relationship with her was
often strained. She had seen immediately that it was important to preserve any
shreds of evidence that might be hidden in the ice as it melted under the heat
of the lights. There was another reason too. The body had been arranged, quite
deliberately, on the circle which marked the exact midpoint of the building,
arms and legs outstretched to their limits in an angular fashion Falcone
recognized, though he was unable to remember from what. The pose of the
body--there was no other way to describe it--possessed meaning. It
was, somehow, a cryptic message from the woman's murderer and one they
needed to try to understand as quickly as possible.
    Carefully,
Falcone wound his way through the clear area marked by tape that had been set
up to allow safe access in and out of the building. Moretti followed in
silence. They reached the mouth of the tent. Falcone stopped and gestured
towards the body. Lupo and her deputy, Silvio Di Capua, were on their knees
moving gently around it, poring over the dead woman with painstaking, obsessive
deliberation. He had watched them get to work in the early hours of the
morning. Teresa Lupo had ordered her people to erect the tent the moment she
saw the scene, but it had proved a long and difficult job in the bitter cold of
the Pantheon's interior under a constant whirling downfall of snow. It
was almost an hour before they could crawl beneath the covering to examine the
ice funnel, slowly sweeping away the snowflakes with tiny brushes, revealing
the horror that lay beneath, millimetre by millimetre.
    Moretti
looked at the naked woman, then fired a disgusted expression somewhere into the
dark corners of the building. "Sex crime, Leo. As I said."
    "And
the photographer?"
    Moretti
scowled. He didn't like being put on the spot like this. "That's
what you're supposed to find out."
    Falcone
nodded. "We will."
    "Make
damn sure you do. The last thing this city needs is something that scares off
tourists."
    Falcone
reached into his pocket and took out the woman's passport. They'd
found it in a bag in a corner of the building. It named her as Margaret
Kearney, aged thirty-eight. The next-of-kin details weren't filled in. Her
driving licence had been issued in New York City six months before.
    "We
don't actually know she was a tourist. All we have is a name."
    "This
is going to be messy, isn't it?" Moretti grumbled. "The
Americans are asking questions already. They've got some resident FBI
people up at the embassy who want to talk to you."
    "Of
course," Falcone murmured, trying to decode what Moretti had said. "I
don't understand. You're saying these are FBI people who are
resident here in Rome?"
    Moretti
emitted a dry laugh. "Well, isn't that wonderful? Something you
don't know. Of course they've got FBI people here. Who the hell
knows
what they've got here? They're Americans, aren't they? They
do what the hell they like."
    "What
do I tell them?"
    Moretti's
dark eyes twinkled with delight. "Welcome to the tightrope. You tell them
just enough to keep them happy. And not a damn thing more. This is still Italy
as far as I'm concerned. We police our own country, thank you. At least
until someone tells me otherwise."
    Falcone
glanced at Teresa Lupo. She'd broken off from the work in the tent to
speak, in low and guarded tones, to Gianni Peroni, who was standing by the
altar looking exhausted. Nic Costa hung around just out of earshot.
    "I
understand," Falcone murmured.
    "Good,"
Moretti replied. "You didn't say how the dinner went. I would have
gone myself but, frankly, I don't think they feel I'm
sufficiently... interesting. At least they never talk to me with quite the
enthusiasm they seem to summon up for you."
    "It
slipped my mind. It was... fine."
    "Really?"
the commissario sniffed. "That's not what that slippery bastard
Viale said when he called this morning. He