Despite himself, Grimaldi glanced over as the ambulance men transferred the corpse to the plastic sheeting. He noted with impersonal curiosity, as though watching a film, that the blue lounge suit in which the shattered body was clad was of the highest quality, and that one of the black brogues was missing. He looked again at the material of the suit. It looked oddly familiar. His breath started to come in heaves and gasps. No, he thought, not that. Please not that.

The ambulance men had already started to parcel up the body.

‘Just a minute,’ Grimaldi told them. ‘We need to know who he was.’

‘That’s all done at the hospital,’ one of the men replied dismissively, not even looking up.

‘The victim must be identified before the body is released to the representatives of the Italian authorities,’ Grimaldi recited pedantically.

The ambulance man looked up wearily, as though dealing with a halfwit.

‘All the paperwork’s done back at the morgue. We’ve got a strict turn-around time.’

Grimaldi planted his foot on the plastic sheeting just inches from the man’s hand.

‘Listen, this may be just another bit of Trastevere to you, but when you drove through the archway out there, past our Swiss friends in their fancy dress, you left Italy and went abroad. Just like any other foreign country, this one has its own rules and regulations, and in the present case they stipulate that before this cadaver can be released to the representatives of the Italian state — that’s you — it must be identified to the satisfaction of an official of the Vatican City State — which in this case means me. So let’s get busy. Pass me the contents of his pockets.’