The health clinic where the Maugeris' son had been examined was in a misshapen rectangle of gray cement on Via Nomentana, at the on-ramp to the eastern bypass road. It looked like a child's play block that had wound up in the oven by mistake, with bubbles and protuberances scattered across the facades in an apparently random fashion. When Dante and Colomba got there around midnight, Alberti's squad car was already parked out front with the roof lights flashing. He came to meet them, accompanied by his older partner, so fat he barely fit into his uniform and reeking of stale sweat: Colomba understood exactly what kind of cop he was even before shaking hands with him. He smiled and nonchalantly stared at her tits.

"And the doctor?" asked Colomba.

Alberti pointed to him. De Michele was standing next to the car, looking annoyed.

She went over to him and shook hands. "Thanks for coming out."

"Your colleague told me this was very important. So I have to guess that the child you asked me about doesn't just happen to have the same name. We're talking about the boy who was murdered by his father."

"We're still not assuming he's dead."

"And what do I have to do with it?"

"You? Nothing."

The night watchman showed up at that moment to open the front entrance, and Colomba went over to the car and tapped on Dante's window. He'd remained in the car, slumped over in the seat like a collapsing bag.

"We're all here but you," she said to him.

"Let's do it some other time."

"Tomorrow morning half the executive staff of the national health service are going to be on the phone to Rovere, and they're going to be hopping mad, so we're not going to have another chance to set foot in there for the next millennium."

"You don't really need me to go in with you."

"Get out. Don't make me go all cop on you."

Dante sighed. "Let's make it quick, though," he said. Before leaving the hotel he'd downed a cocktail of pills and drops that would have flattened a horse, but the adrenaline continued to neutralize the effects of the pharmaceuticals. His internal thermometer was at ten, if not above: any higher, and columns of steam would be whistling from his ears. Colomba took his arm, leading him toward the entrance. The watchman opened the door and switched on the lights inside. The fluorescent bulbs in the lobby flicked on in sequence.

De Michele stared at Dante's ashen face. "Are you all right?"

"No, but just show me the way," he said in a strangled voice.

"What way?"

"The way the children went with their families."

De Michele stood there for a moment, baffled, then led them up to the mezzanine lobby. At the far end were the teller windows of the hospital intake office and the information window for the public. They were darkened, and Colomba thought of The Walking Dead, where the survivors of the zombie attack took shelter in abandoned public buildings. Her work had often taken her to strange and sometimes dangerous places, but this one had a fascination all its own.

"This is the way in," said De Michele, "and you go up to the second floor, by elevator or else there are stairs."

"Stairs," Dante muttered. The lobby looked to him like a gray, airless cavern. Struggling to control his respiration, he practically ran up the stairs, ahead of everyone else. "What next?" he asked, panting. The hallway was a claustrophobic passageway with just one window. The black night outside pressed in against the glass.

"Your colleague's breathing is quite labored," De Michele said to Colomba.

"That's just because he's happy. Now where to?" she asked.

De Michele pointed to the two doors on opposite sides of the hallway, the walls of which were lined with children's drawings of bugs and flowers. "This is the school medicine ward; in there are the clinics." He opened one of the doors, revealing a square room with another door and a line of chairs on each wall. "This is where the children and their families wait to be called."

"Which clinic did you use?" Dante asked in a barely audible voice.

"Mmm . . . that one." It was the middle room.

Dante took off at a gallop. He went through the first door, tore through the waiting room, and lunged into the clinic, throwing open the white door. It was a dark box. Dante froze, covered with cold sweat, until the others caught up with him and turned on the light. In the room there was a metal table with two facing chairs, an examination bed, and a screen to undress behind. A door concealed a small bathroom. Dante raised the sash window and took in deep lungfuls of the muggy outside air. The alarm went off immediately.

"Fuck," said Colomba.

Alberti's radio beeped. It was his older partner. "Hey, geniuses, did you know the perimeter alarm is turned on?" he said.

Colomba grabbed the radio out of Alberti's hands. "Tell the night watchman to turn it off."

"He can't do it from here, it's controlled by the Dispatch office."

"Then call Dispatch. And do it now."

"Yes ma'am."

The siren went on howling for another minute. Dante kept both hands pressed to his ears the whole time, miming Edvard Munch's The Scream. When the sound ceased, he resumed his probing of the room. Behind the table, he sought a position that would allow him to take in both the patient's chair and the examination bed. From up high, he thought. He looked up and saw the air conditioning vent. So obvious . . . He pointed it out to Colomba. "Dismantle it."

"Are you sure?"

Dante said nothing and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Is he always like this?" asked De Michele.

"Only on his good days," said Colomba. She couldn't reach the AC vent even standing on tiptoes and reaching up. She dragged the desk over and stood on it. Now her face was next to the vent, but all she could see inside was darkness. It was held in place by four Phillips-head screws.

"Do you need a hand, Deputy Captain?" asked Alberti.

"Do you happen to have a screwdriver in your pocket?"

"No."

"I do," said De Michele. "I was a boy scout. Be prepared." He tossed her a Swiss Army knife. "But exactly what do you hope to find?"

Colomba chose a blade with a flat edge. "I just hope I don't find anything at all."

But something was there, and Colomba knew it when she turned the first screw. It moved too easily; someone had opened it recently. She undid the third screw and rotated the vent using the fourth screw as a pivot. And then she saw.

In the HVAC duct, fastened to the wall with duct tape, was a video camera.

6.

Dante had smoked the last cigarette in the packet when Colomba came out with two little plastic cups of espresso. "The coffee machine on the ground floor is on," she said, handing him one.

"Are you trying to poison me?"

"Lots of people drink it, and it doesn't kill them."

"Lots of people drink Ganges River water."

"You make things harder than they need to be." Colomba poured the contents of the second cup into the first and gulped it down. "The main thing is that it keeps you awake."

Lieutenant Dino Anzelmo from the Ministry of Justice's postal and communication police came to meet them. He was about thirty and looked for all the world like a college student who'd fallen behind on his exams; he wore glasses with black frames. He'd been sent here by Rovere, and he'd brought along a couple of his men and a search warrant.

"We found some fingerprints," said Anzelmo. "He'd cleaned them off the video camera but not off the cassette, and there's a partial on the wall, as well." He waved the tablet he was holding, a terminal connected to AFIS, the automatic fingerprint identification system. "And we were lucky: We found a match."

"Does he have a record?" asked Colomba.

"He was arrested for assault and battery fifteen years ago," Anzelmo replied. "And there's a criminal complaint for illegal gambling. No sex offenses. But he's a pro at surveillance, the video camera was equipped with a motion detector. If there was no one in the room, it was on standby."

"How old is he?" asked Colomba.

"Fifty," said Anzelmo, reading from the screen, and then he gave her the handheld terminal. Colomba saw a man with a goatee and short salt-and-pepper hair. His name was Sabino Montanari, born and currently residing in Rome. Divorced, no kids.

"He works here, right?" asked Dante.

"As an attendant," Anzelmo replied. "You ought to be a cop."

"I'd only enlist in case of war."

Anzelmo blinked in bafflement and decided to speak to Colomba from now on. "I alerted the magistrate, who issued an order of precautionary detainment. I mentioned an anonymous tip, I'll manage to make it look like one."

"Thanks," said Colomba, who knew what Anzelmo was risking by covering for her. Dante pulled on her arm and walked a short distance away.

"I didn't know you were such a patriot," she observed.

Dante looked at her, uncomprehending. "Patriot?"

"You said you'd sign up if a war broke out."

"Strictly because in wartime more civilians die than soldiers, didn't you know? I need to talk to him."

"To who?" asked Colomba.

"To Montanari."

"Forget about that. The cops are going to pick him up, and he'll be interviewed by the judge."

"The Father went through him to reach Luca Maugeri," Dante insisted.

"Even if there is a connection between the video camera and the kidnapping, Montanari might have done it all on his own."

"If it was him and Luca was who he was looking for, why didn't he take the camera?"

"Maybe he just didn't move fast enough," Colomba replied.

"Was it on or off?"

"On."

"The battery doesn't last four days," Dante noted. "Montanari is a middleman for the kidnapper, whether or not you choose to believe in the Father. And if you let him wind up in the gears of the justice system, we're screwed. I won't get a chance to talk to him until they let him out."

Colomba rolled her eyes and went back to Anzelmo. "What instructions did Rovere give you?"

"He just said to help you out here."

"Then keep helping me out. Let me take part in the arrest."

Anzelmo shook his head. "You're not on active duty." His sidelong stare seemed to imply that he knew why.

Colomba wasn't giving up. "To Montanari I'll just be another cop asking questions. It won't even occur to him to say I was there unless someone asks. And who the fuck is going to ask? Come on, partner, don't make me beg."

Anzelmo pointed at Dante, who stood a short distance away. "What about him?"

"He'll stay in the car."

"And so will you until I've handcuffed him, okay? Because if he has a gun and shoots you, I'd have to find a way to get rid of your corpse."

"Okay," said Colomba. She kept her face impassive, but even from where he stood, Dante could tell she was lying.

7.

Montanari lived on Via Salaria, and he wasn't answering the doorbell. Alberti and his older partner forced the lock with a small battering ram and stepped aside to let Anzelmo and Colomba through, guns in hand.

Anzelmo stopped just inside the door, aiming his gun at the center of the room and shouting "Police! Show yourself with your hands in the air!"

Every time he said those words, he sounded to himself as if he were in a bad movie, but he'd never been able to come up with another sentence that was quite as effective. Luckily, given the nature of his job, he didn't have to deal with the issue often, and the only time he'd fired his gun was at the shooting range. Colomba, on the other hand, seemed to be a woman who used her gun for everything, even to open bottles at home. Anzelmo was astonished to see her so determined and active after everything that had happened to her. She might even be a little too active. As soon as they'd pulled up in front of the building, she'd hopped out of the car, leaving it in the middle of the street, and had started ringing the neighbors' doorbells to get the front door open.