She said, “Here’s our problem. An American student attending Federico the Second, the University of Naples, has been arrested for sexual assault. His name’s Garry Soames. He and the victim—she’s known in the police documents as Frieda S.—were at a party here in town. She’s a first-term student from Amsterdam. At some point she passed out and was assaulted.” McKenzie looked up, to the doorway. “Ah, here. Elena will be able to tell us more.”

Two others entered the office. The first was a woman in her forties, of athletic build, her hair pinned into a bun, taut, though errant strands escaped. She wore glasses with complex metal-and-tortoiseshell frames, the sort you’d see in upscale fashion mags. (He thought of Beatrice Renza’s eyewear.) Her outfit was a charcoal-gray pin-striped suit with a dark-blue blouse, open at the neck. Beside her was a short, slim man, in a conservative suit, also gray, though lighter. He had thinning blondish hair. He might have been thirty or fifty. His skin was so pale Rhyme thought at first he was a person with albinism, though, no, it seemed that he just didn’t get outside very much.

“This is Elena Cinelli,” McKenzie said.

In slightly accented English the woman said, “I’m an Italian attorney. I specialize in defending foreigners who’ve been accused of crimes here. Charlotte contacted me about Garry’s situation. His family has retained me.”

The pale man said, “Captain Rhyme, Detective Sachs. I’m Daryl Mulbry. I’m with the community and public relations office here at the consulate.” The inflected tones situated his roots somewhere in the Carolinas, or possibly Tennessee. Seeing that Rhyme’s right arm functioned, Mulbry extended his hand and they shook. (Rhyme now tempered his criticism of Charlotte McKenzie, who was dabbing her nose and then fighting down a sneeze; apparently she did have a reason for not shaking anyone’s hand—gimps included.)

Mulbry greeted Thom too. And he lifted an eyebrow to McKenzie—apparently at her win on getting Rhyme into the office, undoubtedly to pitch a request his way.

We’ll see about that.

“Please,” McKenzie said, gesturing to a coffee table. Rhyme wheeled close and everyone else sat around it. “I was just filling in our visitors about the arrest. You can explain, Signorina Cinelli, better than I could.”

Cinelli reiterated some of what McKenzie had said, then: “Garry and the victim were drinking quite a bit and becoming romantic and—to seek privacy—went upstairs to the roof. The victim says she remembers going up there but soon passed out. The next thing she recalls, it is waking hours later on the roof of an adjoining building, having been sexually assaulted. Garry admits they were up there but when Frieda grew tired he left her and returned downstairs. There were, from time to time, others on the roof—at a place where people were smoking—but the adjoining roof, where the attack occurred, is not visible from there. No one saw or heard the actual attack.”

Sachs asked, “Why was Garry implicated?”

“The police received an anonymous call that he seemed to have mixed something into the victim’s wineglass. We haven’t been able to find out who this person is. On the basis of that call, the police searched his flat and found traces of a date-rape drug. Like roofie?”