'They know everything… Please, for me… Come in… please… Please…' There was a pause and Harry's head started to come up as if to say something more, then the tape abruptly ended.

'Why wasn't I told the priest might still be alive?' Roscani looked at Taglia and then Farel as the lights came up.

'I learned of it only moments before this video was brought to my attention,' Farel said. 'The incident happened yesterday, when the American asked that the casket be opened, and when it was, swore the remains were not those of his brother… It could be the truth, it could be a lie… Cardinal Marsciano was there. He felt the American was emotionally overwrought. It was only this afternoon, when he learned of the circumstances of Pio's death, he sent Father Bardoni to tell me.'

Roscani got up and crossed the room. He was irritated. This was something he should have been told of immediately. Besides, there was no love lost between him and Farel.

'And you and your people have no idea where the video came from.'

Farel's eyes locked on Roscani's and stayed there. 'If we knew, Ispettore Capo, we would have done something about it, don't you think?'

Taglia, slim and dressed in a dark pinstripe suit, and with a bearing that suggested an aristocratic upbringing, intervened and spoke for the first time.

'Why would he do it?'

'Ask for the casket to be opened?' Farel looked to Taglia.

'Yes.'

'From what I was told he was overcome with emotion; he wanted to see his brother to tell him good-bye… Blood runs deep, even with murderers… Then when he saw the body was not Father Daniel, he reacted in surprise, without thinking.'

Roscani came back across the room, working to ignore Farel's abrasiveness. 'Suppose that's true and he made a mistake – why, a day later, does he assume the man is still alive and beg him to come forward? Especially when he's wanted for murder himself?'

'It's a gamble,' Taglia said. 'They're worried that if he is alive, what he might reveal if he is caught. They have his brother call him in so they can kill him.'

'This same brother who so emotionally asked to look at a hideous corpse now wants to kill him?'

'Maybe that was the reason.' Farel sat back in his chair. 'Maybe it was more calculated than it appears. Maybe he had a sense that everything was not as it seemed.'

'Then why did he say so out loud? Father Daniel was officially dead. Why didn't he leave it that way? It's not likely the police would search for a dead man. If he were alive, he could have gone after him quietly.'

'But where to look?' Taglia said. 'Why not let the police help find him?'

Roscani shook a cigarette from a pack and lit it. 'But they send the video to the pope instead of here. Why? There's been enough publicity, they know who we are.'

'Because,' Farel said, 'they want it released to the media. Gruppo Cardinale might do it, they might not. By sending the video to the Holy Father, they hoped he would intervene personally. Ask me to pressure you to release it. All of Italy knows how shocked and horrified he was by the cardinal vicar's murder and how much it would mean to him to have his assassin caught and brought to justice.'

'And did he ask you?' Roscani said.

'Yes.'

Roscani stared at Farel for a moment, then walked off.

'We have to assume they've calculated the odds. They know if we choose not to give it to the media, we would be losing a major chance to have the public help us fish for him. If we do, and he is alive and sees the story on television or reads about it in the newspapers and decides to do what his brother asks, we might very well get to him before they do. Thereby giving him the chance to tell us the very thing they are so concerned about.'

'Evidently it is a chance they are willing to take,' Taglia said.

'Evidently…' Putting out his cigarette, Roscani let his eyes wander from Taglia to Farel and then to Castelletti, Scala, and the others.

'There is one other concern.' Farel stood up, buttoning his suit coat. 'If the media are given the video, we must provide a photograph of the priest and, more significantly, details of what, until now, has been highly confidential… the Vatican cleric who murders a Roman cardinal… I have consulted with secretariat of state Cardinal Palestrina, and he agrees that no matter the pope's personal feelings, if this becomes public, the Holy See will be exposed to a scandal unknown for decades. And at a time when the Church's influence is quite the opposite of hugely popular.'

'Dottor Farel, we're talking about murder.' Roscani was looking directly at the Vatican policeman.

'Be respectful of your personal passions, Ispettore Capo. You will remember that they, among other things, were why you were not selected to head the investigation.' Farel stared at Roscani for a long moment, then turned to Taglia.

'I am confident you will make the right decision…'

With that, he walked out.

Once again Roscani had to work to ignore Farel. The Vatican policeman was gruff, direct, abrasive when it suited him, putting the Holy See before anything else, as if it and only it had any stake here. It was what you got when you dealt with him, especially if you were from a police force outside his control, and if you were, like Roscani, a person far more introspective, and a great deal less political. Roscani's daily life was devoted to grinding it out and doing the best job he possibly could, whatever it was and whatever it took. It was an attribute he'd learned from his father – a taskmaster and maker and seller of leather goods who had died of a heart attack in his own shop at eighty while trying to move a hundred-pound anvil; the same attribute that he tried to instill in his sons.

So, if you were like that and you realized it, you did your best to disregard people like Farel altogether, and devote your energies to things more positive and useful to what you were doing. Like Scala's comment after Farel had gone, about what they had seen on the video, pointing out the bandage on Harry Addison's forehead and suggesting that most probably he had been injured when Pio's car collided with the truck. If so, and if a medical professional had treated him and they could find that person, it would give them a direction the man had gone.

And Castelletti, not to be outdone, had picked up the videocassette itself and written down the manufacturer and manufacturer's batch code number printed on the back. Who knew where a trace like that could go, what it might turn up? Manufacturer, to wholesaler, to a store chain, to a certain store, to a clerk who might remember selling it to someone in particular.

And then the meeting was over, with the room emptying of everyone but Roscani and Taglia, Taglia with a decision to make, Roscani to hear it.

'You want to give the video to the media. And, like the TV show America's Most Wanted, let the public help us find them,' Taglia said softly.

'Sometimes it works.'

'And sometimes it drives fugitives farther from sight… But there are other considerations. What Farel was talking about. The delicate nature of the whole thing. And the diplomatic implications that could rise between Italy and the Vatican… The pope may wish one thing personally, but Farel did not mention Cardinal Palestrina for no reason… He is the real keeper of the Vatican flame and how the world views the Holy See.'

'In other words, diplomatically, scandal is worse than murder. And you are not going to release the video.'

'No, we are not – Gruppo Cardinale will continue to treat the hunt for fugitives as classified and confidential. All pertinent files will continue to be protected.' Taglia stood. 'I'm sorry, Otello… Buona sera.'

^'Buona sera…'