Thom looked around the neighborhood. "What part of town is this?"
"Near the university, so there are many students. Writers. Artists. Yes, yes, it looks tough but it's rather pleasant."
The street was typical of this portion of Naples. Narrow apartment buildings painted yellow or gray or red--and most in need of more painting. Some walls were decorated with graffiti and the air was "fragrant"; it had been several days since the trash had been picked up--a condition not unusual, or entirely Naples's fault, as the Camorra largely controlled the trash collection and the dump sites. Waste removal could be fitful, depending on who was late in paying off whom.
Clothing hung from lines. Children played in the alleyways and the yards behind the stand-alone structures. At least four football games were in progress, the age of the players ranging from six or seven up to early twenties. The latter players, Ercole noted, were strapping and intense and skillful; some of them seemed of professional quality.
He himself had never played seriously--too tall, too gangly. Ercole's hobby as a boy had been bird-watching and board games.
"Did you play football? I mean soccer," he asked Thom.
"No. I fenced in college."
"Fencing! Very exciting. You were serious about it?" He regarded the man's thin, muscular frame.
"I won some awards." The words were modestly spoken.
Ercole managed to get the man to admit he'd nearly made it to the Olympics.
"That's the building there." Ercole strode toward the structure. It was a two-story affair and had apparently been modified for rental: A second door to the ground floor had been installed, clumsily. This, the lower-level living space, was the one that Garry Soames lived in. An easy deduction, since the cheap wooden panel was mounted with a bold placard warning that the space was closed by order of the police and one must not trespass. Was this typical? Closing a whole floor for merely a connection to a crime, rather than the site where an assault had occurred?
Perhaps for such a terrible wrongdoing as rape, yes.
Thom smiled. "That says we're not supposed to be here, right?"
"No trespassing, yes. Let us go to the back. We're easily seen here in front." They circled through a weed-filled alley to the back of the place.
As he did, his phone dinged with a text. It was the response to one he had sent not long before--while driving here.
Ercole. Yes, I am free for an aperitivo after work. May I suggest Castello's Lounge at 21:00.
A thump, low in his belly. Well, look at this. Convinced she wouldn't say yes to his proposal for a drink or dinner, he'd resigned himself to a rejection.
Badger cop. Fungus cop...
But she had agreed! He had a date!
He typed: Good!
Debated. Ercole removed the exclamation point and sent the text.
All right. Back to work, Inspector Benelli.
It was unlikely one could have broken into the front door to plant the date-rape trace without being seen. The back? There was one door here, on the first-floor deck. There were windows, but those large enough for someone to climb through were high--three meters up, not easily reachable. At the ground level were slits of windows on the sides of the structure, but only about twenty centimeters high, too small for entry. In any event, they were painted shut and clearly had not been opened in decades, if ever.
Thom pointed out two pudgy workmen painting the building next door. Ercole and he approached. The men regarded the officer's uniform and climbed from the scaffolding. Ercole asked if they'd seen anyone at the backyard in the past few days. They replied they'd noticed only some boys playing football yesterday or the day before.
Thom had Ercole ask if they kept ladders here overnight, one that an intruder might borrow. But they did not. They took all their equipment with them. A person wishing to break in might have brought his own ladder, of course. Ercole now borrowed one of the workmen's and used it to climb to each of the windows. They were locked or painted shut. He returned the ladder and stepped into the backyard.
Standing with hands on hips, he gazed at the rear of Garry's building. There was trash in the yard, and not much else. Under the deck were two large plastic flower pots, empty. There was no rear entrance on this level--only one tiny window to the right of the deck. Like the others, on the sides, it was painted shut.
He pulled on latex gloves and wrapped his feet with rubber bands. Thom did the same. They climbed to the deck, jutting from the first floor. On it was a lawn chair, faded and torn, and three more large flower pots, filled with dry, cracked dirt but empty of plants, living or dead. A windowed door led into the upper apartment. He tried it. Locked, as were these windows. Through the dust-and mud-spattered glass he could see a kitchen but no utensils or furniture. The counters were covered with undisturbed dust.
Thom squinted too. "Unoccupied. So, no witnesses in the form of Garry's upstairs neighbors."
"No. That is too bad."
Climbing down from the deck into the backyard once more, Ercole followed Daniela's advice and stepped away from the building, a good ten yards. He turned and surveyed the structure in its entirety. She'd explained that this gave you context.