Dead Men's Socks (Short Reads)

David Hewson is the author of the highly acclaimed Nic Costa detective series, set in Rome. In this exclusive short story, Hewson focuses on one of Nic Costa's colleagues, Gianni Peroni. Gianni Peroni is at a loose end – his friends and colleagues are all out of the office for a variety of different reasons. He's got nothing urgent to do but he notices that the pathologist has a busy day ahead: during the night two corpses were picked out of the Tiber. At first glance, it seems that the similarities between the two men end there. The bodies were found in different parts of the river, and it is clear once they have been identified that they come from very different walks of life. One is a wealthy psychiatrist, the other a young Roma boy with a police record for petty theft. But upon closer examination, Peroni notices something rather extraordinary. The men are both wearing exactly the same odd socks . .