I Am God by Giorgio Faletti Page B

feeling the unavoidable excitement she always felt on the verge of a new case. Along with the awareness that, whether she solved it or not, everyone would – as they always did – end up defeated.

CHAPTER 9
    To get to the construction site, she had walked up Third Avenue.
    She had to emerge from that anonymity that had allowed her to merge into the humanity around her and assume a very specific role. The arrival of a detective on a crime scene was always a special moment, like a curtain rising on an actor. Nobody ever moved a finger before the person in charge of the investigation arrived. She knew the kind of things she was going to feel. And she knew that, as always, she’d have been happy to do without those feelings. The place where a murder had been committed, whether recently or some time in the past, had a certain grisly fascination. Some murder scenes even became tourist attractions. For her, a murder scene was a place where she had to put her emotions to one side and concentrate on her job. Whatever theories she might have constructed in her head during her brief walk were about to be put to the test.
    Bowman and Salinas, the two officers sent by Bellew, were nowhere to be seen. They must be inside, putting yellow tape around the area where the body had been found.
    The workers had gathered outside the door of one of the huts at one end of the site. Standing slightly apart from them were two other men, a large black man and a white man in ablue cotton work jacket. Everyone seemed extremely nervous. Vivien could understand how they felt. It isn’t every day you knock down a wall and find a corpse.
    She approached the two men and flashed her shield. ‘Hi, I think you’re expecting me. I’m Detective Vivien Light.’
    If they were surprised to see her arrive on foot, they didn’t show it. Their relief that she was here, that they finally had someone they could talk to, overcame any other consideration.
    The white man spoke for both of them. ‘I’m Jeremy Cortese, the site supervisor. And this is my deputy, Ron Freeman.’
    Vivien, sure that the two men couldn’t wait to get started, came straight to the point. ‘Who found the body?’
    Cortese indicated the group of workers behind them. ‘Jeff Sefakias over there. He was knocking down a wall and—’
    Vivien interrupted him. ‘OK. I’ll talk to him later. Right now I’d like to take a look at the scene.’
    Cortese took a step towards the site entrance. ‘This way. I’ll take you.’
    Freeman didn’t move. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather not see that … that thing again.’
    Vivien made an effort to suppress a sympathetic smile. She was afraid that it might be misunderstood, that the man might think she was making fun of him. There was no reason to humiliate someone she instinctively sensed was a good person. Not for the first time, Vivien reflected on how difficult it was to guess a person’s character from his body. The man’s huge frame would have struck fear into anyone, and yet he was the one upset by the sight of the corpse.
    Just then, a large dark sedan pulled up close to the barriers. The driver quickly got out and opened the door for thepassenger in the back seat. A woman emerged from the car. She was tall and blond and must once have been beautiful. Now she was only an advertisement for the futile battle some women waged against the indifference of time. Even though her clothes were casual, they all had designer labels. She reeked of Saks Fifth Avenue, massage sessions at exclusive spas, French perfume, and snobbery. Without so much as a glance at Vivien, she addressed Cortese directly.
    ‘Jeremy, what’s going on here?’
    ‘As I told you on the phone, we found a man’s body while we were digging.’
    ‘Well, I understand that, but we can’t stop work because of it. Do you have any idea how much this site is costing the company per day?’
    Cortese shrugged and made an instinctive gesture with his hands in Vivien’s