“We’ll have all the recordings by tomorrow morning.”
“For fuck’s sake – tomorrow morning?” Maiezza was furious.
“We have to be quick – call all the policemen who are available, pull them out of their beds and get the recordings from the traffic lights. Same for the banks, I’ve noticed one on the way from the house to the bus stop – call the manager. Let’s not waste any time, let’s get on with it right away.”
The policeman nodded and turned round to walk away.
“What about the telephone line?” The inspector asked.
“It’s been monitored for over an hour. Do you really think it’s kidnapping? Will anyone want a ransom?”
Maiezza stretched out his hand to point out to the Demba family’s humble dwelling. “Do you think there’s much here to raise a ransom with?”
2
The investigative unit met at the Police Commissioner Sensi’s office at 11:30 a.m. the following morning to discuss the disappearance of Ami Demba. Apart from him, there were six more people in the team – Inspector Maiezza, Police Commissioner Berni, Lieutenant Corbi and three other officials.
Ami had been missing for twenty-eight hours now.
The atmosphere was tense – nobody believed any more that it all may have been caused by the girl’s whim.
Two farmsteads, which were relatively close to the town, were searched during the night. At the first light of dawn, the police had begun to search all the neighbouring fields inch by inch with the help of many volunteers. So far, they had found no trace of Ami.
Nobody had rung the green number to report any sightings, but the police were expecting several calls in the near future. They were hoping that there would be at least one valid report among all the false alarms.
Sensi looked visibly annoyed. “Any news from the recordings?” He asked Maiezza.
“There are three cameras on the route that Ami should have taken yesterday morning.” Maiezza began his official report. “All of them filmed the girl. The last camera is at the end of the road, about sixty metres from the bus stop – Ami walks past it at 7:33 a.m.”
“What time did the bus pass?”
“It comes from the national highway and the reason it’s not caught on camera is that it’s due to arrive at 7:35 a.m, and the bus driver said that he was on time yesterday.”
“Ami didn’t get on board, though.”
“We found and interviewed five individuals who were at the bus stop yesterday morning and they all agree – Ami wasn’t there.”
“Two minutes to walk sixty metres…” Sensi muttered to himself. “That’s more than enough. She may not have wanted to, or been able to, take the bus.”
“Ami has never skipped a single day of school in her life,” Lieutenant Corbi chipped in. “We all know each other here in this town – she’s a good, well-behaved, shy little girl.”
Sensi made a noise that almost sounded like a groan.
“Go ahead, Maiezza.”
“There’s no image of Ami on any other CCTV during the following hours. We’ve looked at all possible recordings – she never returned into town.”
Sensi looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then spoke to Corbi. “What do you think about this? Is it possible that Ami came back into town from a different road that’s not monitored by CCTV?”
“It’s possible, but she would have had to detour through the fields around the town. The town is really small – she would have been filmed by some cameras in town anyway.”
“Hmm… Are there any buildings she could have sneaked in to avoid being recorded on CCTV?”
Corbi paused for a while to think, then he replied. “Yes, there are a few…”
“We might have to investigate then – we can’t afford to overlook anything. Fuggiano, you take care of this, please.”
“I’ve noticed something on the recordings,” Maiezza said.
“Yes, go ahead?”
“Ami walks past the first camera at 7:21 a.m, then she walks past the second camera, which is that of an ATM nearby, at 7:23 a.m. As we saw, the third camera records her at 7:33 a.m, which is ten minutes later.”
“What are you suggesting, Maiezza?”
“It takes about four minutes to walk the distance between the second and the third cameras at average speed. Ami took ten.”
Sensi paused for a moment, he looked thoughtful. Ami had disappeared between 7:33 a.m. and 7:35 a.m, at which time she should have caught the bus she never reached. She would have had plenty of time to reach the bus stop. “Did somebody convince her to follow them?” Sensi asked. “Maybe they offered her a lift? Or maybe they… but how would it be possible that nobody noticed anything? What happened during those two minutes?” Sensi paused to think. “Does it have a connection with anything that may have happened during the six extra minutes that she took to walk from one camera to the other?”
“We need to reconstruct Ami’s walk all the way from her house to the bus stop. We have to understand what happened during those six minutes. Walk around town, ask anybody – shop owners, passers-by, citizens. As for the recordings, we’ll have to view them again and analyse them frame by frame. Did anybody follow Ami? Find the number plates of all the cars that passed by the CCTV that morning – question the drivers. Ami may have been in one of those cars. We also have to question all those who were waiting at the bus stop again, we need to know everything that they saw and noticed that morning.” Sensi glanced at his watch. “Let’s do this,” he concluded. He stood up from his chair. “It’s already been twenty-eight hours and six minutes since she disappeared.”
*
Elaji and Rama didn’t sleep that night. They kept staring at the telephone. At dawn, Rama had snoozed for a few minutes on the armchair – she almost carried on crying silently during her sleep.
Elaji couldn’t even feel tired. He wanted to take part in the investigation but he was eventually convinced otherwise. He was sitting before Rama, the pain and anger his heart was burdened with triggering involuntary twitches in his face and chest.
The first troop of journalists had arrived at 10 a.m. and consisted of just the bare essentials: a cameraman and a journalist. It still wasn’t clear how they should label Ami’s disappearance and the producers didn’t want to waste money on a case that could well be solved easily in a few days. April fools don’t attract an audience. They recorded around town and near the house, they didn’t ask to interview Elaji or Rama but asked a few quick questions of the neighbours. They drove away after a few minutes – Elaji watched them with an expressionless gaze from a window.
*
“Try to focus, try to remember something. Any detail could be essential.”
Maiezza repeated that sentence a thousand times – they had interviewed all of the people who were standing at the bus stop that morning. He had repeated that sentence to them all, many times. He wanted to find some different words – they sounded like an empty phrase from a cheap thriller on TV.
“Was there anybody else at the bus stop? Anybody who didn’t take the bus?”
His eyes were burning with tiredness; he felt his eyelids becoming increasingly heavy.
“I don’t think so… I’m not completely certain though… I’m sorry.”
Maiezza grumbled. “You don’t need to be sorry,” he said to the witness. “You just need to remember.”
From the night when Ami had disappeared, he had only managed to snooze for a couple of hours.
“Okay,” he said, more kindly. “Were there any cars parked near the bus stop? Maybe a car that passed by a few times in front of the stand?”
“There was a car parked somewhere… it wasn’t exactly in front of the bus stop.”
“Where was it?”
“There’s a parking space for the supermarket customers on the other side of the road – it’s a small shopping area. It’s not really in front of the bus stop, it must be twenty or thirty metres to the left hand side of it.
“Was the
car there then?”
“Yeah.”
“Were there no other cars in the parking area?”
“No, the shops are still closed at that time of morning.” The man was struggling to remember. “I can’t remember seeing any other cars.”
“Could you tell the make and type of car?”
“It was black… I’d say a Golf, but I’m not completely certain.”
“The number plate?”
The man spread his arms. “I was thirty metres away from it, it was a bit foggy and I had no reason to observe the number plate.”
“Okay, okay. How was this Golf parked?”
“I’m not following—”
Maiezza groaned again. “With reference to the bus stop – did you see the bonnet, the boot or the side of it?” His tone was irritated.
“The bonnet was facing the bus stop.”
“Okay, was there anybody in the car? Try to remember, think carefully.”
The man remained still for a few seconds, thinking – he was trying to recollect all of his memories from the previous morning. Then he spread his arms again. “I’m really not too sure.”
Maiezza got rid of him without ceremony, he was busy thinking about something else – including this last witness, four people had noticed a black Golf. This could be a lead, albeit a very small one.
*
“There are less than three thousand people in this town, almost ten per cent of them are immigrants. Among them, one third are from Africa, and Senegal is the most highly represented country.”
Mrs Ferrari was a school teacher who had retired a few years ago; now she volunteered enthusiastically at the social services office for the town council. She was familiar with most of the immigrants in town. She had been a volunteer for years, she was in touch with numerous associations and she was familiar with the African culture and the African population – she had travelled far and wide across the continent and she was confident she could give Corbi some useful information during the interview.
Lieutenant Corbi tried to make himself more comfortable on the small chair in the tiny office of the police department. “Okay, let’s talk about the Senegalese community…”
“They’re very united. They’re all hard-working people, they’re well integrated but at the same time they maintain their individuality.”
“Is there any rivalry within the community? Anything to do with religious or racial issues?”
“Do you mean ethnicity? Mrs Ferrari raised her eyebrows to emphasise her slight disappointment. “Africa is a very complicated continent, you see,” she continued. “Many countries are still home to wars among different ethnicities, which turn into massacres. That’s not the case in Senegal, though. That is a reasonably peaceful country and ‘mixed’ marriages are not uncommon. Elaji, for example, is a Wolof and his wife Rama is a Mandingo. I believe that their open-minded attitude depends on their culture – their education, jom, which is based on honesty, ngor; tolerance, mun; work, liggèey; hospitality, teranga; and obviously diina, religion.”
“Are our people from Senegal all of one religion?”
“They’re all Muslim, but their Islam is adapted to the traditional animist religions of their country.”
“No integralism?”
“Mun, tolerance. No integralism. The Senegalese community is very pacific.”
“So do you exclude the possibility that Elaji and his wife Rama may have experienced tensions with a member of their community for religious or ethnic reasons?”
Mrs Ferrari didn’t think for a moment. “Absolutely.”
“What about the other immigrant groups?”
“The town is small and, from what I know, Elaji is respected by everybody and they all like him, including the natives.” A satisfied smile appeared on Mrs Ferrari’s face when she said ‘the natives’.
“They all like him,” Corbi repeated thoughtfully, as he closed the office door behind him – that’s exactly what Elaji and Rama’s co-workers and managers had told him a little earlier.
*
At 5:30 p.m, Sensi was at the public prosecutor’s office – he was accompanied by Police Commissioner Fuggiano and a tired Maiezza. The search for Ami in the neighbouring fields hadn’t been fruitful and had been suspended because night had fallen; the search would have to be resumed the following day at the first light of dawn. In the meantime, several sightings had been reported to the free number – somebody had called all the way from Sicily saying that they had seen Ami eat an ice cream somewhere in Palermo. All of them had quickly turned out to be a waste of time.
“We’ll carry on searching the fields tomorrow morning, with the help of the K-9 Unit. However, we’ll have to tick off the possibility that the girl hid away in the fields for some reason and had an accident or fell ill.”
“Are there any pits in the area?” The magistrate asked.
“There are a few but they’re all shallow and there are irrigation gates – we would have found her immediately. We’ve inspected the irrigation system within a five kilometre radius, just to be certain.”
“What about the wells?”
Sensi nodded. “We’ve also inspected all the abandoned farmhouses.”
The public prosecutor sighed. “I believe that we have to resign ourselves to the worst now, the most heinous crime. The kidnapping of an underage girl.”
“There are no alternatives at the moment.”
“Motive?”
“I’d exclude a kidnapping for money – the Demba family are not rich.”
“Revenge? A feud within their community?”
“That’s possible, even if the first investigation has shown that Elaji and his family are respected and liked by their community. We’re still doing research on this aspect anyway.”
“Do the Demba family have financial problems? Perhaps they turned to a loan shark to borrow some money?”
“We spoke to their bank – small transactions, sometimes small overdrafts, but never any requests for loans apart from the mortgage – which they’re paying regularly.”
“There’s one last hypothesis…” The public prosecutor seemed reluctant to even pronounce the word.
Sensi did it for him. “Paedophilia.”
He said it with a flat tone, and his stomach closed up in a knot. He felt like he’d known Ami forever now.
For a few seconds, complete silence reigned over the office – you could have heard a pin drop.
“Nobody has had any criminal record of that kind in this town, it’s one of the few details that we checked almost immediately.” Sensi continued. “We’re verifying all of the individuals on file, but…”
“But?”
“I’d like to extend the search on different fronts; for cases of paedophilia and abuse of underage people, it’s statistically more common that the danger comes from nearby – relatives, friends, acquaintances. I’d like to tap a number of telephone lines, both mobile and landlines – I suppose this could provide useful information even if it is a case of kidnapping for vendetta or because of a blood feud.”
“Are you talking about the people close to the Dembas?”
Sensi nodded.
“Okay, let me have a list of them, I’ll sign all the necessary permits immediately.” The magistrate said, without hesitation. “We’ll do all that we can.”
After a brief pause where nobody spoke, Sensi took off his glasses with a gesture that expressed tiredness. “Right, here’s what we know – Ami goes out punctually to go to school, she’s a well-behaved young girl, a good student, she’s a down-to-earth type of girl, she’s a little shy. She walks past the first two CCTV cameras at the right time, and apparently nobody follows her until then. She takes six extra minutes to walk past the third camera. Commissioner Fuggiano?”
“She stopped at the bakery to buy a focaccia to eat at school,” Fuggiano explained, after he was called upon. “She did it every morning, the bakery owner told us that she had other clients to serve yesterday before
Ami. She stayed at the bakery for about five minutes.”
“So we can account for the missing minutes now,” Sensi replied. “We see her again at 7:33 a few metres away from the bus stop – the bus to Crema would have passed punctually at 7:35 a.m. Even though she was so close to the bus stop, Ami didn’t catch the bus and none of the passengers saw her at the bus stop.
“We checked the bus tachograph,” Fuggiano chipped in again. “there’s a delay slightly longer than two minutes between that and the camera time. In other words, when it’s 7:33 a.m. according to the camera, the bus tachograph indicates 7:35 a.m.”
Sensi put his glasses on again. “That means that Ami was late – when she walks past the last camera, the bus for Crema has already left the stop. Ami may have made it in time to see the bus leave the stop, but definitely not in time to get on board – she missed it because of a long queue at the bakery. We know something else, there’s a van that went out of town at 7:40 a.m… It’s a city council van and it stopped near the bus stop for a bit of road work. The two council workmen are certain that Ami wasn’t there any more.”
Sensi paused for a moment before carrying on talking, it was almost like he wanted to emphasise what he was about to say. “Between 7:33 a.m. and 7:40 a.m. – Ami disappeared in those seven minutes. She was taken.”
Once again, nobody spoke for a few moments, the atmosphere grew heavy in the room.
“Is it possible to figure out whether somebody was following the girl from a distance?”
Sensi shook his head while looking at the magistrate. “All of the people who appear near Ami are subsequently followed by other cameras.”
Silence again. “Some cars passed by during those seven minutes.” Sensi carried on talking. “We followed up the plate number of each of them – our colleagues have interviewed them already and nothing noteworthy has emerged. Just to be certain, I’ve marked three of the interviewees in the list of those whose landlines and mobile phones will be regularly monitored. There’s also something else… Maiezza?”
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