“But the front door is open to a busy street and many neighbors. I can’t break in that way. Maybe I could pretend to be interested in letting the apartment upstairs and, when the real estate agent lets me in, I sneak down to Garry’s flat and leave the evidence.”

“But would you, as the criminal, do that?” Thom asked.

“No. Of course not. Because I would leave a record of my presence. So, I have to break in through the side or the back. But the doors and windows are locked or painted shut. And there are no signs of—”

“Ah, Ercole, you’re thinking as an investigator. After the fact of the crime. You have to think like the criminal. You have to be the criminal. You’re the real rapist who has to blame Garry. Or you’re the girlfriend that he treated badly and who wants to get even. You’re desperate. You need to make this work.”

“Yes, yes,” Ercole whispered.

So I am the perp.

I’m desperate or furious. I must get inside, and plant drugs in Garry’s bedroom.

Ercole began to pace through the backyard. Thom followed. The officer stopped quickly. “I have to plant the drugs but that’s only part of my crime. The other part is being certain that no one knows I’ve done it. Otherwise, the police will instantly conclude Garry is innocent and begin looking for me.”

“Yes. Good. You said, ‘me,’ not ‘him.’”

“How would I do this? I can’t be a supervillain and abseil down the chimney. I can’t tunnel up into the basement apartment…”

Ercole’s eyes scanned the back of the building, actually feeling a twist of desperation in his belly. I have little time because I can’t be seen. I have no fancy tools because I’m not a professional thief. Yet I have to break in and make sure there are no signs of jimmied doors or windows. He muttered, “No signs at all…How do I do that? How?”

Thom was silent.

Ercole, staring at the building he needed to breach. Staring, staring.

And then understood. He gave a laugh.

“What?” Thom asked.

“I think I have the answer,” the officer said softly. “Flower pots. The answer is flower pots.”

Chapter 40

Now was the time for blood.

Alberto Allegro Pronti moved silently from the shadows of an alleyway behind the Guida Brothers warehouse at Filippo Argelati, 20-32, in Milan.

While sitting at an unsteady table, sipping a Valpolicella, red of course, he had heard a noise from half a block away. A rapping. Perhaps a voice.

He’d stood immediately and hurried to where he believed that sound had come from: the warehouse.

He was now behind the old structure and could see what he believed was a flicker of shadow on one of the painted-over windows.

Someone was inside.

And that was good for Pronti, and quite bad for whoever that person might be.

The fifty-eight-year-old, wiry and strong, returned to where he’d been sipping and collected a weapon. An iron rod, about three feet long. At the threaded end was a square nut, rusted permanently onto the staff.