Sofia was well aware that she spent more time at work than at home. She'd never married, and she told herself that she hadn't had time-her first priority had been her career, the doctorate, her position with the Art Crimes Department, the travel that came with the job. She'd just turned forty, and she knew-she didn't lie to herself-that her love life was a disaster.

Over the years, perhaps just because of all the time they spent together, she and Pietro had drifted into something more than friendship, falling into a low-key routine of sharing a room when they traveled, spending time together some nights after work. He would go back home with her, they'd have a drink, have dinner, go to bed, and around two or three in the morning he'd quietly get up and leave. But although she and Pietro slept together once in a while, he was never going to leave his wife, nor was Sofia so sure that she wanted him to. It was okay the way it was.

At the office they tried to keep the whole thing under wraps, but Antonino, Giuseppe, and Minerva knew, and Marco had finally taken them aside and brusquely told them that they were old enough to do what they wanted, but he hoped their personal lives wouldn't interfere with their work or with the functioning of the team.

Pietro and she had agreed that whatever happened between them, they had to keep it to themselves; it couldn't be talked about to their colleagues-no airing of clean or dirty laundry So far it had worked, although they'd never really put it to the test. They had very few arguments, and those were only minor, nothing they hadn't been able to fix. They both knew the relationship wasn't going anywhere, so neither of them had any particular expectations.

Marco was deep in thought, sitting only a few yards from the display case that held the shroud. He looked up, startled, when Sofia gently touched his shoulder, then smiled and patted the pew beside him.

"Impressive, isn't it?" he said, as she sat down next to him.

"Yes, it really is-fake, but impressive nonetheless."

"Fake? I wouldn't be quite so unqualified in my judgment. There's something mysterious in the shroud, something scientists haven't ever been able to explain. NASA determined that the image is three-dimensional. There are scientists who are convinced it's the result of some radiation unknown to science and others who will swear that the prints are blood."

"Marco, you know as well as I do that radiocarbon dating doesn't lie. Doctor Tite and the laboratories that worked on the tests couldn't possibly allow any errors. The cloth is from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, between 1260 and 1390, and three different labs have said so. The probability of error is something like five percent. And the Church has accepted the carbon-fourteen results."

"But no one can explain how the image on the cloth was made. And I remind you that the three-dimensional photographs have revealed some words- INNECE written around the face three times."

"Yeah, to death."

'And on the same side, from top to bottom, farther in, there are several letters: S NAZARE."

"Which" could be read as NEAZARENUS," Sofia recited. They had been down this road before.

'Above, more letters: IBER…"

'And some people think that the missing letters spell out TIBERIUS."

"And the coins, the leptons?"

"Blowups of the image show circles over the eyes, and on the right eye especially some people think they see a coin, which was common at the time to keep the dead person's eyes closed."

"… which can be read…" Marco prodded.

"There are people who say that by putting the letters together they can read TIBEPIOY CAICAROC, Tiberius Caesar, which is the inscription that appears on the coins minted in the time of Pontius Pilate. They were bronze, and in the center was an image of the seer's crook."

"You're a good historian, dottoressa, which means you take nothing on faith."

Sofia smiled, then turned serious again.

"Marco, can I ask you a personal question?"

"If you can't, who can?"

"Well, I know you're Catholic-I mean, we all are, we're Italians, for God's sake, and after all those years of catechism and nuns, something has to stick-but do you believe'? Really believe? Because truly having faith is more than just being 'Catholic,' and I think you have faith, I think you're convinced that the man on the shroud is Christ, so you couldn't care less what the scientists say-you believe."

"Well, it's complicated. I'm not sure, really, what I believe in and what I don't. It doesn't have much to do with what the Church says, with what they call 'faith,' and there are some things I just can't square logically. But that piece of linen has something special about it- magical, if you will. It's not just a piece of cloth."

They fell silent, contemplating the piece of linen with its impressed image of a man who, if not Jesus, had suffered the same torments as Jesus. A man who, according to scholars and the anthropometric studies done by Giovanni Battista Judica-Cordiglia, must have weighed between 175 and 180 pounds, stood between five feet eight and five feet ten inches tall, and whose features corresponded to no particular ethnic group.

In the wake of the fire, the cathedral was closed to the public. It would remain closed for a while, so once again the shroud was to be transferred to a vault in the Banco Nazionale. The decision had been made by Marco, and the cardinal had agreed. The shroud was the cathedral's most precious treasure, one of Christianity's most important relics, and given the circumstances it would be much better protected deep within the vaults of the bank.

Sofia squeezed Marco's arm. She didn't want him to feel alone; she wanted him to know she believed in him. She admired him, almost venerated him, for his integrity and because, behind the unsentimental, tough-guy image he cultivated, she knew there was a sensitive man always ready to listen, a humble man always willing to recognize when others knew more than he, yet a man sure enough of himself never to forgo his authority.

When they argued over the authenticity of a work of art, Marco never imposed his own opinion, he always let the members of his team give theirs, and Sofia knew he deferred especially to hers. A few years back he had started calling her dottoressa, in tribute to her academic record: a Ph.D. in the history of art, an undergraduate degree in ancient languages, a degree in Italian philology. She spoke English, French, Spanish, and Greek fluently and had also studied Arabic, which she could read and generally communicate in.

Marco looked at her out of the corner of his eye, comforted by her presence. As much as he respected her academic achievements and relied on her considerable professional expertise, he couldn't help feeling it was a shame that a woman like her hadn't found the right man. She was very attractive-beautiful, really. Blond, blue-eyed, slender, funny, and intelligent-extremely intelligent-although she herself didn't seem aware of how exceptional she was. Paola was always on the lookout for somebody for Sofia, but so far her efforts had all failed; the men were either threatened or overwhelmed by Sofia's intelligence. Marco couldn't understand how a woman like that could maintain a stable relationship with Pietro, who seemed well out of her league, but Paola had told him to stay out of it, that Sofia was obviously comfortable with it.

Pietro had been the last person to come on board the team. He'd been in the department for ten years. He was a good investigator, meticulous, painstaking, and untrusting by nature-which meant nothing escaped him, however small and seemingly unimportant. He had worked in Homicide for many years but had asked for a transfer-sick, he said, of the blood. Whatever-he'd made a good impression when the guys upstairs sent him in for the interview and opened a position for him on the team in response to Marco's chronic complaints that he was understaffed.