The Mosaic

Chapter 3

Decided to split the previous chapter, it was far too long. Do you guys prefer shorter or longer chapters?

Alessandro shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine. Stay." What's it to me? And to you, it's everything.

Giacinto's head perked up at that. A grin slowly began to stretch over his face. It was less of the mocking, teeth-baring snarl and more of an actual grin, eyes shining. "Good. That's good." He clapped his hands. "We better get to work then!"

"Since when is this a we?" Alessandro had crossed his arms, his tall figure stopping Giacinto from starting to pace again.

"Oh, it's not, it's not." Giacinto looked up surprised, waving his hand dismissively. "Have I said that?" He paused, frowning. "I haven't said that," he decided.

"Strange, I was sure I heard a we." Alessandro kept the tiny smile from his lips, but he could hear it in his voice.

"Let's not discuss my choice of words here. Shouldn't you focus on the corpse--" Giacinto coughed, "uh, the matter -- at hand." The young man's nose scrunched up when he talked, when he couldn't hide his irritation. "And don't ry sarcasm. Doesn't suit your serious--" he gestured vaguely at the officer, "-- look."

"You're no policeman –" Alessandro stated, narrowing his eyes, " – too small for a soldier, too rich for a gravedigger, yet you can tell me exactly how long this man's been dead by looking at him for not even a minute – "

"You're ranked too high and act too professional for pissing people off, but here we are."

" –  how would you know such things?" Alessandro ignored the provoking grin on the other's face.

The level of confidence radiating from the other man in waves of jokes and sharp grins started to grate on Alessandro's patience. What an irritating man. Giacinto had definitely been nervous before, at least wary – but now it was gone, replaced with cockiness and easy grins.

"Are we back to questioning me as a suspect? I thought you were smart enough to know more than two conversation topics."

There he goes again. Alessandro raised both eyebrows and strode towards the platform, muttering under his breath: "Immature."

Giacinto barked a laugh and followed. "Shoved or jumped?" He looked at the officer from the side who had placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder.

Alessandro didn't look at him, staring up the ladder with narrowed eyes. "Jumped. There are no traces of struggle. He didn't slip either. The utensils near the edges are undisturbed."

"Cheating. I had no chance of knowing that," Giacinto said.

"It's called doing my job. How else would I know?"

"You'll get suspicious again, but," Giacinto muttered, "his bones aren't broken in the right way."

"Clearly he didn't stepp of the edge." Alessandro nodded. "Stepping off generally results in a straight fall. He'd land feet first, breaking every single bone there, which is not the case here."

"You're not as dumb as you look."

Alessandro shot him an exasperated look.

"You know, with all this ...height and muscles. Doesn't look like the thinking type," Giacinto said. "What I meant, he couldn't have been slipped or shoved, because his arms aren't broken that way." When Alessandro didn't reply he added: "The shoulder is shattered more than the arms. The hands are fractured, yes, but even less than the arms. So the shoulders hit the floor before them."