Spiro chuckled. “Allora, but you understand my meaning. And do you, as well, Ercole?”

“I believe I do, sir.”

“Our colleague Signor Rossi has gamed the system. Though he is admittedly a most talented investigator and civil servant, he is somewhat more. He is active politically.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

“It is not known to the public but he’s a member of the NN.”

Rhyme recalled: the Nuovo Nazionalismo. The right-wing anti-immigrant party. The one guilty of violence against refugees…and originally suspected by the team of setting up the fake terror attacks.

“He is allied with a senior government official in Campania, Andrea Marcos, who also is a member of NN. Rossi uses his role as a police inspector to give himself credibility but in fact when the possibility arises he tries to further the goals of his brethren. Goals that I myself find unfortunate. No, reprehensible. Yes, the refugees are a burden. And some are risks, and we must be vigilant. But Italy is a country of so many different peoples: Etruscans and Germans and Albanians and Silesians and Greeks and Ottomans and North Africans and Slavs and Tyroleans. Why, we even have French here! There are northern Italians and southern and Sicilians and Sardinians. The United States is perhaps the greatest melting pan on earth but we are a mixed country, as well. We are also a nation with a heart, moved by the plight of families risking death to escape the madness of failed states.

“Inspector Rossi believes—indeed believed from the moment he realized that this serial kidnapper might be targeting refugees—that the perpetrator was doing the right thing. Oh, Massimo did his job but in his heart he wished asylum-seekers to be punished. If the killer succeeded, word might get back that Italy was as dangerous as Libya and they might think twice about coming to our shores.”

“The Burial Hour.” Sachs said these words.

They looked her way, and she explained to them about a speech in Parliament, one that Rania Tasso, of the Capodichino refugee camp, had mentioned. An Italian politician had coined the phrase to refer to the belief that citizens were being suffocated by the waves of immigrants.

Spiro said, “Yes, I have heard that. The Burial Hour. Massimo Rossi felt that way, apparently.”

Ercole said to Spiro, “Inspector Rossi fought to take over the Ali Maziq case. At the bus stop, he tricked the Carabinieri so that he could retain control of the investigation and interfere with it. And he might have, sir, had you not been the prosecutor.”

Spiro tilted his head, acknowledging the comment. Then added, “And had our American friends not come here to assist.” The prosecutor took a sip of wine and savored it. “Now, Ercole, I must deliver news more difficult than this. And that news is that Massimo Rossi invited you onto the case for the sole purpose of you being a scapegoat.”

“L’ha fatto?”

“Yes. He did. He wanted ways to limit or even dismiss the case, but he couldn’t do it himself. Nor did he want his protégé, that young officer…What is his name?”