down at his desk.
Reggiani took a sip of the steaming coffee and began: ‘Dr Castellani, I’m sorry to be taking up your time, but the circumstances won’t allow me to do otherwise. You know what has been happening in the fields around Volterra…’
‘I don’t know all the details, but let’s say I’m aware of the situation.’
‘You don’t want to know all the details. Unfortunately, the situation is far from being under control and I’ve come here in the hopes that talking with you might give me some new perspective. Let me tell you briefly what’s been going on. On Wednesday at about two a.m., a Finanza police team surprised three individuals trying to break into an Etruscan tomb, the one that you have since become acquainted with.’
‘That’s right.’
‘One of them, a person that both we and the Finanza have been watching for some while, a certain Armando Ronchetti, was found dead the next day not far from the site of the break-in. The guy’s throat was basically ripped out. The coroner, who’s certainly used to seeing dead people, vomited his guts out.’
‘I can believe it.’
‘At first we thought he’d been attacked by a stray, but that seemed unlikely from the start, since Ronchetti had no doubt roamed those fields at night for years, given his line of work, and would certainly have known how to handle any dog. In fact, he had a torch with a flasher in his pocket, along with a pistol, a little 6.35-calibre Astra Llama.
‘As far as we can tell, whoever murdered him didn’t even give him the time to put his hand on the gun. Then, on Thursday evening, while you were completing your work at the excavation site, we found a second corpse in even worse shape than the first, slaughtered in the same gruesome way. According to the papers we found in his pocket, he was one Aurelio Rastelli, a resident of Volterra. Like his father, he had a market stall and sold items of clothing. Nothing in his background that could justify such a bloodthirsty murder, except pure chance.’
‘What you mean,’ said Fabrizio, ‘is finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘We have evidence, nonetheless, that Rastelli, like Ronchetti, had been involved – although we don’t know with what frequency – in the clandestine excavation and marketing of archaeological artefacts. You see, in this area, raiding tombs is like a second job for a number of people; a way to earn a little extra cash on the side. We and the Finanza do what we can, but there aren’t enough of us – the territory is quite vast and the locals aren’t always willing to lend a hand. I’ve talked to our anti-trafficking squad down in Rome and they confirm that Rastelli was picked up a few years ago for possession of stolen archaeological objects.’
‘Which doesn’t necessarily make him a professional tomb robber,’ observed Fabrizio. ‘I’m assuming you have no proof that he was at the Rovaio site with Ronchetti that night. Or do you?’
‘I’ve had the soil from the soles of his shoes analysed and yes, it does correspond to the soil in that area. But, unfortunately, it’s the same soil you’ll find anywhere around here, including the neighbourhood where Rastelli lives.’
‘So you’re back to the starting line?’
‘Yes, we are. He might have been present at the break-in, but then again, he might not. But let us suppose for a moment that, since we can’t exclude the possibility, Aurelio Rastelli was at the Rovaio tomb site on Wednesday night with Ronchetti and with a third individual we have not as yet identified. At that point, the two murdered men would have something in common – that is, they teamed up in the attempt to plunder an Etruscan tomb.’
‘All you need to do, then, is uncover the identity of the third man. You put a couple of well-armed units on his tail and wait until the killer – man or beast – shows up. Then you capture him or take him out.’
‘I could hire you as an investigator,’ Reggiani complimented him.
‘Yeah, an archaeologist is a bit like an investigator, Lieutenant, but there’s a difference. You arrive at the scene of a crime a few minutes or at most a few hours after the fact. We don’t get there until centuries later.’
‘That’s true. I never thought of that. But, as I was saying, we are unfortunately not certain that the second victim is actually connected to the first and we can’t afford to wait until we find the third. I’ve got too many people breathing down my neck.’
‘How can I help you, then?’
Reggiani lowered his head as though he were too embarrassed to express his thoughts in words. ‘I don’t know how to say this… Well, I have the impression that all this originated from the opening or, if you prefer, the violation of the Rovaio tomb. I know this will make you laugh, but I can’t help but wonder if… somehow… if it’s not the fault of some…’
‘Curse?’ offered Fabrizio, without a trace of sarcasm in his tone.
‘Well, I don’t know how to explain this… but I can tell you that sometimes, when we don’t have a scrap of information to go on, we’ve resorted to consulting certain individuals – you know… psychics, to be blunt. I can assure you that the results have been astonishing at times. It’s done abroad as well, in France, the US…’
‘Confidentially speaking, Lieutenant, there are archaeologists who consult psychics as well, though I’m not sure with what kind of success rate. Personally, I’ve never believed in them,’ Fabrizio went on, ‘but I must admit you have quite a problem on your hands. You don’t know where to turn.’
‘You’re right. We have no trail to follow, no evidence to examine. Nothing to go on, in short.’
Fabrizio thought of what he had imagined while he was at work below and he felt a chill go up his spine. Reggiani noticed his shudder.
‘What about that chase the other night?’ asked Fabrizio to distract the officer from his own reaction. ‘You had your guys out in full force.’
‘Right, and that attracted a little too much attention. We tried to pass it off as a man hunt after a robbery. Anyway, we turned up nothing. Like looking for ghosts. There’s nothing we haven’t tried. This morning I saw an anatomopathologist and spoke to our medical examiner, Dr La Bella. He’s a man of few words but great experience, and the results of his autopsy were, simply put, horrifying. Both men were slaughtered by an enormously powerful wild animal with huge fangs. We’re talking six or seven centimetres.’
Fabrizio scowled and remembered the canine tooth he’d picked out of the box downstairs. He stuck his hand in his pocket and felt it there, long, smooth and sharp, as if twenty-four centuries had passed without making a dent. He pulled it out and showed it to Lieutenant Reggiani, holding it by the tip.
‘Like this one?’ he asked.
6
LIEUTENANT REGGIANI stared in amazement at the sharp fang between Fabrizio’s index finger and thumb, then raised his eyes and held the archaeologist’s gaze for a long, tense, silent minute before saying, ‘Yes… I would say so. What is it?’
‘I should have an answer for that,’ said Fabrizio. ‘But I don t. A colleague of mine who is an expert in palaeozoology should be arriving soon from Bologna. She has studied a vast number of ancient bone fragments and skeletons of every species, both wild and domesticated. If she can’t figure this one out, I know of no one else who can. This tooth belongs to a complete skeleton of which I’ve sent her a photograph by email, but she seemed quite puzzled. She thought it was a canid, but wouldn’t hazard anything else. It’s the dimensions which are astonishing, along with its uncommon anatomical features.’
‘Where did you find it?’
Fabrizio opened his desk drawer and pulled out a photograph, setting it down on the table for the officer.
‘In a roughly carved sarcophagus, without an inscription of any sort, inside the tomb I excavated at the Rovaio site.’
‘How extraordinary,’ exclaimed Reggiani as soon as he had managed to work out what he was looking at. ‘But… what is it?’
‘It’s the first and only physical proof we have ever found of the most frightful rite of the Etruscan religion. This is the tomb of a Phersu. Until now, we’ve only suspected its existence from iconography – most notably, a fresco in the Tomb of the Augurs in Tarquinia, along with a couple of others. But we’ve never had tangible evidence and certainly nothing so explicit.’
‘Go on,’ prompted Reggiani, as if he were interrogating a witness.
