The Devil Will Come by Glenn Cooper Page A

them to let me bring you inside the tent. I said I needed a medical doctor and De Stefano agreed only because you’re my sister.’
    The two women who emerged from the Mercedes car at the entrance to the Institute could not have looked more different – Micaela in a tightly fitting print dress with a sharp leather jacket and high heels and Elisabetta in her black habit and sensible shoes.
    While Elisabetta hung back, Micaela told the man at the reception area that she had an appointment. After he had placed a call upstairs he looked up again and asked the nun if he could be of assistance.
    ‘We’re together,’ Elisabetta replied.
    He looked them over and shook his head, seemingly uncertain about this apparent collision of two worlds.
    Earlier, Micaela had driven Elisabetta to hysterics about the pomposity of German academic titles. So when Herr Professor Dr Med. Peter-Michael Gunther emerged from the elevator Micaela fired off a wicked wink. He looked every inch the Herr Professor. Tall and imperious, and with a smug goatee, his full title was embroidered above the pocket of his lab coat at the expense of a considerable amount of red thread.
    ‘Ladies,’ Gunther said in crisp English, seemingly struggling for a proper way to address them, ‘it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Please follow me.’
    Micaela chatted his ear off all the way upstairs. She’d been the one to make initial contact and he seemed far more comfortable with her anyway.
    ‘I’m surprised you were interested in my little paper,’ Gunther said, showing them into his starkly modern office that overlooked the Institute’s reflecting pool.
    ‘Was no one else interested?’ Elisabetta asked, speaking for the first time.
    He poured coffee from a cafetière. ‘You know, I thought it would generate some wider expressions of interest and comment but that was not the case. Just a few notes from colleagues, a joke or two. Actually, the greatest interest came from the police.’
    Elisabetta put her cup down. ‘Why the police? Was his death suspicious?’
    ‘Not at all. The cause of death was clearly a coronary thrombosis. The man was in his eighties, found unresponsive on the street and taken to the casualty ward where he was pronounced dead. All very routine until someone removed his trousers. The case took a further unusual turn two days after his autopsy when someone broke into the hospital morgue and removed his body. The same night, my hospital office was burglarized and some of my files were taken, including the notes and photographs of our gentleman. Even my digital camera was stolen, complete with the relevant memory card. The police were quite useless, in my opinion. There was never any solution.’
    Elisabetta’s heart sank at the news. Had their journey been a waste of time? All she could ask was, ‘What did his loved ones do?’
    ‘There were none. The man had no living relatives that we could find. He was a long-retired university professor who lived in a rented flat near the city center. It seems that he was quite alone. The police concluded that someone in the hospital might have talked about his unusual anatomy and some oddball group stole his remains for ritualistic purposes or as a sick joke. Who knows?’
    ‘How did you write the paper if everything was stolen?’ Micaela asked.
    ‘Ah, so!’ Gunther said slyly. ‘Because the case was unique, I printed a duplicate set of photos and a copy of the autopsy report and brought them back to this office the evening of his post-mortem. I wanted to study them at my leisure. It was fortunate that I had two offices.’
    ‘So you have photos?’ Micaela asked.
    ‘Yes, several.’
    ‘More than the ones you published?’ Elisabetta asked.
    ‘Yes, of course. Now perhaps it’s your turn to tell me why a nun and a gastroenterologist are so interested in my case.’
    The sisters looked at each other. They’d rehearsed their reply. ‘It’s the tattoos,’ Elisabetta said.