Present Day Carabinieri HQ 'There's no trace of Shaman.' Valentina sounds worried. 'I've called his hotel – they say he left soon after I phoned him last night and he hasn't been seen since.'
'When did you call him?' Vito glances to the clock on his wall.
'About nine-thirty – we were still here, working late.'
Vito turns to Rocco. 'Pull his cellphone records and see if he called anyone after that time.' He glances towards Valentina. 'Best have someone check restaurants, bars and hospitals to see if he got drunk, hurt or sick. Give his description to the foot and boat patrols.'
'Lieutenant Totti is already working his phone records,' says Valentina. 'She was happy to help out.'
'Fine,' says Vito distantly. Suddenly the unthinkable has occurred to him. 'We need to get forensics round to Tom's hotel room. See if they can find some hair on his pillows, towels, robes, anything like that.'
The remark shocks Valentina. 'DNA? You want his DNA?'
Vito frowns. He knows she likes the ex-priest, maybe even sees him as a substitute for her cousin. 'Just a precaution, Valentina. Best to do the legwork now.'
The penny drops. 'The blood at the basilica yesterday – you think it was his.'
Vito plays it down. 'I don't think anything of the sort. I just want to be prepared.'
'It could be,' says Rocco. 'Satanists would get pretty excited by smearing a priest's blood in St Mark's.'
Valentina shoots him a withering look. She's still not forgiven him for letting her take the rap over the missed fingerprints at the hippy mansion, and his latest crack isn't winning her over. 'When I last spoke to Tom he started to tell me something about a serial killer in California who used his victims' blood to write messages in churches. He was going to come in and tell us about it today.'
'Charles Manson?' queries Vito.
She shakes her head. 'No, no. It was someone I'd never heard of… Yale? Or was it Cale? A name like that.' She scratches her head while dredging her memory. 'Bale! That's it, I'm sure it was Bale – Lars Bale. Tom said he'd met him more than a decade ago at San Quentin.'
The major looks to Rocco. 'Call the FBI, have them go through VICAP and send us anything that might be useful. Ring LAPD and see what they know about Bale. Find out where he is now, and the whereabouts of any known associates.'
Valentina waits for him to catch his breath. 'Tom said Bale had a teardrop tattooed under his left eye. It reminded him of the one Mera Teale has.'
'Mario Fabianelli's PA?' Vito remembers her arms looking like a comic-book spread. 'She's American too.'
'Si.'
Rocco nods. 'Yeah, I know: check her too.'
'Mera Teale is not very old,' Valentina adds reflectively. 'Mid-twenties, no more. If she were connected to Bale ten or twelve years ago, then she would have been very young, maybe even pre-teen.'
'I don't care,' says Vito. 'They're connected by these tattoos, and maybe much more. Let's dig and dig.'
On a flipchart in the corner of his room is a red felt-tip drawing of the rectangular symbol found in the basilica. Vito's eyes are not so much focused on the shape as the number six hanging from the bottom of it. As Valentina said yesterday, numbers are for counting, so chances are the blood message is a countdown.
But to what?
And what units is the writer working in? Six months – six weeks – six days – six hours?
He has to work this out, and work it out quickly.
The one thing he's sure of is that someone's life depends on it.