'It's nothing, Mario,' said Fabrizio, swiftly rolling up the enlargement. 'Just bones. Lord knows how many you've seen.'

Mario got the hint and changed the subject. 'Listen, they're looking for you upstairs.'

'Who's looking for me?'

'That carabiniere lieutenant. His name's Reggiani.'

'Do you know what he wants?'

'He says it's just to talk with you . . . I'll bet you anything it's about that second bloke they found murdered. He's already asked me not to breathe a word about it. I don't know how he knew that I know.'

'That's his job, Mario.'

'Anyway, I haven't spoken to a soul, but people know about it. Word gets around. People are scared.'

'That's understandable.'

'You said it. So should I show him to your office?'

'Yes, do that. Tell him I'll be right there.'

Mario walked back up the stairs and Fabrizio turned to look at what he'd accomplished. Only the upper part of the human skeleton was reassembled, and only partially. He realized he might have to ask for help from a technician with expertise in osteology or he'd never manage to finish the job. There was still a lot of work to do, especially on the small fragments that were difficult to identify, and he hadn't even started on the animal, whose entire skeleton seemed to be present and was in near-perfect condition, except for some cracking and splintering probably due to exposure to freezing temperatures through the millennia. Fabrizio bent over the bones and saw that one of the four huge canine teeth had become detached from the top jaw, most likely jolted loose during transport. He picked it up and slipped it into his pocket, with the intention of observing it carefully and measuring it. He then walked up the stairs, switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

Lieutenant Reggiani was waiting in his office. When he entered, the officer got to his feet and held out his hand. 'Dr Castellani,' he started. His expression made it clear that this was no courtesy call.

'Hello, Lieutenant. Please make yourself at home,' said Fabrizio in greeting, forcing himself to appear normal. 'Would you like a cup of coffee? From the dispenser, I mean.'

'That's fine with me,' said Reggiani. 'It's not as bad as it used to be.'

Fabrizio left the room, then returned a few moments later with two espressos and two packets of sugar. He sat down at his desk.

Reggiani took a sip of the steaming coffee and began: 'Dr Castellani, I'm sorry to be taking up your time, but the circumstances won't allow me to do otherwise. You know what has been happening in the fields around Volterra . . .'

'I don't know all the details, but let's say I'm aware of the situation.'

'You don't want to know all the details. Unfortunately, the situation is far from being under control and I've come here in the hopes that talking with you might give me some new perspective. Let me tell you briefly what's been going on. On Wednesday at about two a.m., a Finanza police team surprised three individuals trying to break into an Etruscan tomb, the one that you have since become acquainted with.'

'That's right.'

'One of them, a person that both we and the Finanza have been watching for some while, a certain Armando Ronchetti, was found dead the next day not far from the site of the break-in. The guy's throat was basically ripped out. The coroner, who's certainly used to seeing dead people, vomited his guts out.'

'I can believe it.'

'At first we thought he'd been attacked by a stray, but that seemed unlikely from the start, since Ronchetti had no doubt roamed those fields at night for years, given his line of work, and would certainly have known how to handle any dog. In fact, he had a torch with a flasher in his pocket, along with a pistol, a little 6.35-calibre Astra Llama.

'As far as we can tell, whoever murdered him didn't even give him the time to put his hand on the gun. Then, on Thursday evening, while you were completing your work at the excavation site, we found a second corpse in even worse shape than the first, slaughtered in the same gruesome way. According to the papers we found in his pocket, he was one Aurelio Rastelli, a resident of Volterra. Like his father, he had a market stall and sold items of clothing. Nothing in his background that could justify such a bloodthirsty murder, except pure chance.'

'What you mean,' said Fabrizio, 'is finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

'We have evidence, nonetheless, that Rastelli, like Ronchetti, had been involved a although we don't know with what frequency a in the clandestine excavation and marketing of archaeological artefacts. You see, in this area, raiding tombs is like a second job for a number of people; a way to earn a little extra cash on the side. We and the Finanza do what we can, but there aren't enough of us a the territory is quite vast and the locals aren't always willing to lend a hand. I've talked to our anti-trafficking squad down in Rome and they confirm that Rastelli was picked up a few years ago for possession of stolen archaeological objects.'

'Which doesn't necessarily make him a professional tomb robber,' observed Fabrizio. 'I'm assuming you have no proof that he was at the Rovaio site with Ronchetti that night. Or do you?'

'I've had the soil from the soles of his shoes analysed and yes, it does correspond to the soil in that area. But, unfortunately, it's the same soil you'll find anywhere around here, including the neighbourhood where Rastelli lives.'

'So you're back to the starting line?'

'Yes, we are. He might have been present at the break-in, but then again, he might not. But let us suppose for a moment that, since we can't exclude the possibility, Aurelio Rastelli was at the Rovaio tomb site on Wednesday night with Ronchetti and with a third individual we have not as yet identified. At that point, the two murdered men would have something in common a that is, they teamed up in the attempt to plunder an Etruscan tomb.'

'All you need to do, then, is uncover the identity of the third man. You put a couple of well-armed units on his tail and wait until the killer a man or beast a shows up. Then you capture him or take him out.'

'I could hire you as an investigator,' Reggiani complimented him.

'Yeah, an archaeologist is a bit like an investigator, Lieutenant, but there's a difference. You arrive at the scene of a crime a few minutes or at most a few hours after the fact. We don't get there until centuries later.'

'That's true. I never thought of that. But, as I was saying, we are unfortunately not certain that the second victim is actually connected to the first and we can't afford to wait until we find the third. I've got too many people breathing down my neck.'

'How can I help you, then?'

Reggiani lowered his head as though he were too embarrassed to express his thoughts in words. 'I don't know how to say this . . . Well, I have the impression that all this originated from the opening or, if you prefer, the violation of the Rovaio tomb. I know this will make you laugh, but I can't help but wonder if . . . somehow . . . if it's not the fault of some . . .'

'Curse?' offered Fabrizio, without a trace of sarcasm in his tone.

'Well, I don't know how to explain this . . . but I can tell you that sometimes, when we don't have a scrap of information to go on, we've resorted to consulting certain individuals a you know . . . psychics, to be blunt. I can assure you that the results have been astonishing at times. It's done abroad as well, in France, the US . . .'

'Confidentially speaking, Lieutenant, there are archaeologists who consult psychics as well, though I'm not sure with what kind of success rate. Personally, I've never believed in them,' Fabrizio went on, 'but I must admit you have quite a problem on your hands. You don't know where to turn.'

'You're right. We have no trail to follow, no evidence to examine. Nothing to go on, in short.'

Fabrizio thought of what he had imagined while he was at work below and he felt a chill go up his spine. Reggiani noticed his shudder.

'What about that chase the other night?' asked Fabrizio to distract the officer from his own reaction. 'You had your guys out in full force.'

'Right, and that attracted a little too much attention. We tried to pass it off as a man hunt after a robbery. Anyway, we turned up nothing. Like looking for ghosts. There's nothing we haven't tried. This morning I saw an anatomopathologist and spoke to our medical examiner, Dr La Bella. He's a man of few words but great experience, and the results of his autopsy were, simply put, horrifying. Both men were slaughtered by an enormously powerful wild animal with huge fangs. We're talking six or seven centimetres.'

Fabrizio scowled and remembered the canine tooth he'd picked out of the box downstairs. He stuck his hand in his pocket and felt it there, long, smooth and sharp, as if twenty-four centuries had passed without making a dent. He pulled it out and showed it to Lieutenant Reggiani, holding it by the tip.

'Like this one?' he asked.

6.

LIEUTENANT REGGIANI stared in amazement at the sharp fang between Fabrizio's index finger and thumb, then raised his eyes and held the archaeologist's gaze for a long, tense, silent minute before saying, 'Yes . . . I would say so. What is it?'

'I should have an answer for that,' said Fabrizio. 'But I don t. A colleague of mine who is an expert in palaeozoology should be arriving soon from Bologna. She has studied a vast number of ancient bone fragments and skeletons of every species, both wild and domesticated. If she can't figure this one out, I know of no one else who can. This tooth belongs to a complete skeleton of which I've sent her a photograph by email, but she seemed quite puzzled. She thought it was a canid, but wouldn't hazard anything else. It's the dimensions which are astonishing, along with its uncommon anatomical features.'

'Where did you find it?'

Fabrizio opened his desk drawer and pulled out a photograph, setting it down on the table for the officer.

'In a roughly carved sarcophagus, without an inscription of any sort, inside the tomb I excavated at the Rovaio site.'

'How extraordinary,' exclaimed Reggiani as soon as he had managed to work out what he was looking at. 'But . . . what is it?'

'It's the first and only physical proof we have ever found of the most frightful rite of the Etruscan religion. This is the tomb of a Phersu. Until now, we've only suspected its existence from iconography a most notably, a fresco in the Tomb of the Augurs in Tarquinia, along with a couple of others. But we've never had tangible evidence and certainly nothing so explicit.'

'Go on,' prompted Reggiani, as if he were interrogating a witness.

'Habitually it was a sort of human sacrifice dedicated to the soul of a high-ranking person who had died. The rite has very ancient roots and was performed by diverse civilizations. Even the Greeks, in the most archaic age. Do you remember the Iliad?'

'A little, here and there. I haven't read it since high school,' said Reggiani, certain that the professor was about to give him a lecture on classical culture.

'You must certainly recall the funeral games honouring Patroclus, including a sword fight between two men. The referee, who is Achilles in this case, interrupts the combat at first blood. But it's thought that in more ancient cultures the duellers were forced to fight on until one of them died, so that his soul could accompany into the afterlife the dead person for whom funeral rites were being celebrated. In later ages, these duels were purged of their bloodier components and became purely athletic competitions, converging in great sporting and religious performances like the Olympics. In Italy, on the other hand, the duels maintained their violent connotations and evolved into the gladiator fights of the Roman age.'

'I had no idea,' admitted Reggiani. 'So the origins of Roman combat in the arena were Etruscan?'

'Most probably. But, as I said, it started out as a religious rite, as far-fetched as that may seem to us now. Human sacrifice was a way of appeasing the gods. Usually a prisoner of war would be forced to fight against a wild animal, or more than one, under conditions which doomed him to lose.

'But what I've found evidence of here makes me hypothesize an even more cruel variant. I think that when the crime committed was beyond the pale, a real monstrosity, a horrible act that broke the laws of man and nature, the community would be seized by a kind of collective panic, fearing that the gods would not be satisfied with the sacrifice of a single life to atone for such horror and would seek to punish the whole community.

'The natural solution would be to execute the guilty party by subjecting him to the most tremendous torture. But what would happen if, let's say, the person accused of this horrendous crime declared himself innocent and that there was no definitive evidence to prove his guilt. In that case, he would be subjected to a trial by ordeal. He would be given a sword, but one hand would be tied behind his back and his head would be enclosed in a sack. Thus disabled, he would be made to fight off a ferocious animal: a wolf, or even a lion. If he managed to survive, that meant he was innocent and he could return to his everyday life, with his prior rank and rights. If he died, the beast that had killed him would be buried along with his body so it could continue to torment him for all eternity. That's what I think I see in this photograph,' concluded Fabrizio, replacing it in the drawer.

'What a nightmare,' commented Reggiani. 'I've never heard of such a thing. I have no doubt you're right about the photo. And you know, it makes me think twice about these gruesome murders. Now that I've heard this story, it almost seems that someone may be re-enacting this ancient ritual . . .'

'Seems that way to me too,' admitted Fabrizio.

'Let's say someone who learned about this discovery and got it into his head to act it out . . .'

'I can see what you're saying, but for what reason? I don't get the motive.'

'No, you're right,' agreed Reggiani. 'And Ronchetti's body was found before you opened the tomb.'

'So we're back where we started.'

Lieutenant Reggiani bit his lower lip. 'As a matter of principle, I can only consider hypotheses that are rational, caused by a natural sequence of events.'

'Do you think I was suggesting otherwise?'

'No, of course not. But why did you show me that fang then? You know it belongs to an animal that died twenty-four centuries ago, if I'm not mistaken.'

'I don't know why I pulled it out. I did it without thinking.'

Reggiani held out his hand and Fabrizio put the fang in his palm.

'You know,' the officer continued, fingering the oversized tooth, 'when you showed me this, I was reminded of something I saw on television a few days ago. It was in one of those nature programmes. They were showing the skull of a southern African hominid with two strange indentations at the top. No one had been able to interpret the marks until they found the skull of a predator from that age, whose top canines were a perfect match for the indentations.' He held out the fang. 'Can I keep this for twenty-four hours?' he asked.

Fabrizio shrugged. 'No, not really, but what the hell? If I can't trust a carabiniere, who can I trust?' Then he added, 'What are you going to do with it?'

'Show it to a friend.'

'All right. But be sure you give it back to me tomorrow. My colleague will be coming from Bologna and she'll be examining the skeleton. I don't want her to find anything missing.'

'You bet,' the officer promised. He was about to put his cap back on, when Fabrizio remembered that threatening voice on the telephone and thought it would be best to let the police know.

'Listen, there's something I wanted to mention . . .' he began.

Just then, someone knocked at the door.

It was Francesca. 'Good morning, Lieutenant,' she said to Reggiani, before turning to Fabrizio. 'The director is in his office. He wants to talk to you.'

'I'm coming,' said Fabrizio, getting up.

'Wasn't there something you wanted to tell me?' asked Lieutenant Reggiani.

'No, it doesn't matter,' replied Fabrizio. 'Some other time.'

'As you like. Goodbye, Dr Castellani.'

'Goodbye, Lieutenant. And . . . don't forget.'

'Not to worry. You'll have it back tomorrow.' He placed his cap on his head and walked away down the hall.

'What's he talking about?' asked Francesca.

'Nothing. Just something I lent him. Do you have any idea what Balestra wants?'

'That doesn't take much guesswork. You've just excavated an intact late-fourth-century tomb, haven't you?'

'Right. Now that you mention it, it's strange it took him so long to start looking for me.'

'He's been out.'

'Where?'

'He didn't say. At the ministry maybe. Who knows?'

They had reached the director's office. Francesca waved him towards the door with her hand and walked away. Fabrizio knocked.

'Come in,' replied Balestra's voice from inside.

'It must seem impossible,' began the director before Fabrizio had even taken a seat, 'but with a dig this important in progress, I haven't been able to find a moment to touch base with you.'

I'd love to know why, thought Fabrizio. Out loud, he commiserated: 'I can imagine. So many things clamouring for your attention at once.'