‘Who?’

‘He came in for the formal ID on Argento. Colonel Gallo thought it better that they leave separately.’

She glanced at the door he had indicated and with a curious frown stepped towards it. Peering through the porthole she could see that it opened on to a large and resolutely featureless rectangular room, the only splash of colour coming from a few moulded blue plastic seats that were huddled for warmth around a water cooler bolted to the right-hand wall. Opposite these were a series of evenly spaced square aluminium doors, perhaps eight across and three high, each with a large levered handle and a name-tag slot. One of the doors was open; the drawer had been pulled out. A man was standing to one side of it, his back to her.

‘Signor Santos?’

She pushed the door open and announced herself with a warm smile and an outstretched hand. Santos turned slowly at the sound of her voice. He was in his late forties and looked slim and fit, with a tanned face and teeth the colour of polished ivory. His closecropped dark hair was sprinkled with silver and started high up his head where his hairline had begun to recede a little. He was immaculately dressed in a Cesare Attolini navy blazer and white flannel trousers that had been cut to crease at just the right place to slightly ride up over a pair of brown Church’s. His creamy pink shirt was from Barba in Naples, his striped tie from Marinella, and his belt by Gucci, although given the obvious excellence of the tailoring, this last item was clearly worn for sartorial effect rather than to keep his trousers up.

He gave her a wary, even suspicious look that prompted her into an explanation.

‘Lieutenant Allegra Damico,’ she introduced herself, holding out her ID. ‘I’m working with Colonel Gallo.’

‘I see.’ He smiled, returning her wallet with a nod. ‘Apologies. I thought you might be from the press.’

‘They’re looking for you?’

‘They’re looking for an opportunity to snatch a photograph of an elected official grieving over his dead brother’s butchered corpse. I’m here to make sure they don’t get that chance.’

‘Deputy Argento asked you to identify his brother’s body instead of him?’ she guessed.

‘Actually, Colonel Gallo suggested it,’ he corrected her. ‘He thought it might help…simplify matters.’

‘How did you know the victim?’

‘My apologies -’ Santos stepped forward with an apologetic shrug, his hand rising to meet hers – ‘I haven’t introduced myself. I am Antonio Santos, President of the Banco Rosalia.’

He handed her his business card, the way he held it out with both hands suggesting he had lived, or at least done a lot of business in the Far East. It was stiff and elaborately engraved with a sweeping copperplate script that identified him as:

Antonio Santos

President & Director-General

Banco Rosalia

‘Gio used to work for me.’

Allegra moved over to stand on the other side of the open drawer, her ghostly form reflecting indistinctly in the adjacent door’s dull aluminium surface.

Giulio Argento was lying in between them, naked and shrouded by a white sheet apart from his uncovered face and where it had fallen away from his left arm, revealing a bar-coded tag fixed to his wrist like a supermarket label. She barely recognised his waxen and hollow features but there was no mistaking, though, the ugly welt of the sword strike where it had opened up his neck like a second smile.

‘Liquorice?’

She refused. There seemed something strangely inappropriate about the way Santos was shaking the ornate tin over Argento’s body.

‘I read that Roman soldiers could go for ten days without eating or drinking with liquorice in their rations,’ he said, popping two pieces into his mouth and then slipping the tin back into his pocket. Allegra nodded, deciding against mentioning that she had read somewhere else that too much liquorice could reduce a man’s testosterone levels. ‘So? Any leads? Any clues as to who did it? Why they did it?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t…’

‘I understand.’ He shrugged. ‘Due process, jeopardising a live investigation, respect for the victim’s family…Gallo spun me a similar line.’

‘It’s for your own protection,’ she insisted.

A pause. Santos looked back down at the body.

‘You know, the traffic was terrible the day they found the body,’ he said eventually, a strangely vacant expression on his face, as if he couldn’t quite see Argento and yet knew he was there. ‘Half the streets seemed to have been barricaded off. I remember being angry that it had made me late for a meeting. I never realised that…’

‘What did Signor Argento do for you?’

‘God’s work.’

‘In a bank?’ The words came out sounding more sceptical than she had intended.

‘The Vatican Bank is our largest shareholder,’ he explained with the weary patience of someone who had had to give this explanation many times before. ‘We take deposits in the normal way and then lend money at subsidised rates to worthy projects that might not otherwise get funding. Gio had responsibility for managing the relationships with some of our larger accounts.’

‘So no reason to think that anyone would want to -’

‘This?’ Santos gestured with disgust. ‘This is the devil’s work.’

‘The devil?’ she asked, not sure from his expression if he meant it literally or had someone in mind.

‘I trained as a priest in Rio before I realised that my true calling lay in financing God’s will rather than trying to live by it.’ He fiddled with the buckle of his belt, aligning it with his shirt buttons. ‘But I still recognise the hand of evil when I see it.’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Of course.’ With the memory of Ricci’s staring eyes and Argento’s congealed scream still fresh in her mind, it was hard not to agree with him.

‘The irony, of course, was that, despite working for us, poor Gio was not a true believer.’ Santos glanced up at Allegra with a rueful smile. ‘He used to say that life was too short to waste it worrying about what might happen when he was dead. At times like this, when it almost seems that God might have deserted us, I almost understand what he meant.’

Folding the sheet back over Argento’s face, Santos made the sign of the cross and then eased the drawer back into the wall and swung the door shut. It closed with a hollow metal clang, the echo reverberating around them as if a stone slab had been dropped over a tomb. Allegra turned to leave, then paused.

‘I wonder, did he ever mention an organisation or group called the Delian League?’

‘The Delian League? Not as far as I remember.’ Santos shook his head, frowning in thought. ‘Why, who are they? Do you think they…?’

‘It’s just a name I’ve come across,’ she reassured him with a smile. ‘It probably means nothing. Shall I see you out?’

A large Mercedes with diplomatic plates was waiting for Santos on the street outside. The chauffeur jogged round and held the rear door open for him.

‘A small perk of the job,’ Santos smiled as he shook her hand. ‘Saves me a fortune in parking tickets.’

He slipped inside and peered up at her through the open window, an earnest look on his face.

‘Gio had many faults, but he was a good man, Lieutenant Damico. He deserved better. I hope you catch whoever did this to him.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ she reassured him with a nod.

The windo hummed shut and Santos settled back into his seat. As the car drew away, he reached for his phone.

‘You know who it is. Don’t hang up,’ Santos said carefully when the number he had dialled was answered. ‘I need a favour. And then I’m gone. For good this time, you have my word.’