“Is it a clear diagnosis?”
Bench nodded. “Schizophrenia. Her father asked me if he could see you.”
“You know that I don’t take on new patients any more.”
“Yes, and he insisted I plead with you.” Bench paused again for a few seconds. “Just for a chat.”
Trevis stared thoughtfully into his cognac while he swirled it round in the bottom of the glass.
Some time ago, he decided to focus only on patients that he was still treating and not to take on any more new ones. It was basically a decision to partially retire – a few patients, some papers to publish, a few conferences…
“Did you say just for a chat?”
“Whenever you have time.”
“I don’t have a lot of time,” Trevis lied. “I would be free tomorrow at 3 p.m. in my office in Follonica.”
He thought it would be best to get rid of this new patient soon.
4
It was raining heavily.
He had begun working during the night and hadn’t stopped since. The soil was muddy. The dirt road alongside the river was little more than a lane and had turned into a creek of mud.
The area to be searched was immense. The dirt road stretched for kilometres along the river and branched out into several different paths towards the forest. There were hectares of fields and bushes through which the black Golf may have driven… assuming that it was the same car that Mr Beattie was driving. The rain had erased every possible trace of tyre tracks.
Sensi was standing about a hundred metres away from the beginning of the dirt road, next to one of the police cars and under the shelter of his umbrella, which was being pelted by the constant rain. The police squad and the K-9 Unit had begun to search the nearest areas.
It was 7:30 a.m.
The night before, they received confirmation that the blood found in the black Golf rented by Philip Beattie was Ami’s.
The river reflected the agitation that churned in Sensi’s heart for the rain was hitting the surface so hard it looked as though it was boiling.
A police cruiser stopped behind him. Lieutenant Corbi and the couple that had reported the sighting of the black Golf got out of the car.
“Is this the place?” Sensi asked.
“Yes… maybe a few metres down the track,” the young man replied, from the shelter of his girlfriend’s umbrella.
“I showed them our photo.” Lieutenant Corbi didn’t mention Beattie’s name and nationality.
“So?” Sensi looked at the couple impatiently.
“Well—” the young man spoke hesitantly.
“It was him.” The young girl interrupted him. “Definitely.”
“Definitely.”
“Well… let’s say ninety per cent certain.”
“You have pointed out that the man behind the wheel had his head turned away ‘almost like he wanted to hide his face,’ as you said. It was dark. Think about it carefully – are you sure about it?”
The young girl remained silent for a while.
“Yes,” she said eventually. “It was the man in the photo.”
Sensi felt his stomach close again in a cramp.
“Right – when you saw the Golf, how far away was it from you?”
“We saw the beams – the car turned up from that curve down there.” The young man pointed to a spot with his finger. “Just before the open space.”
“It must be two hundred metres,” Corbi pondered.
“Was the car moving when you saw it? Do you think the driver turned on the engine when he saw you?”
“No, we saw it turning round. We thought it would stop at the open space to avoid crossing paths with us.”
Sensi walked away a few steps. He looked gloomy – he waved at Corbi and called him to come nearer.
“Let’s move our investigation five hundred metres down the river, we’ll have to move inwards from the bank. Do they all know what to look for apart from…” Sensi hesitated. “… a body?”
“Areas where the soil has been moved recently. It won’t be easy in this weather.”
“We have dogs, right?”
Sensi turned round to look at the river. The rain became heavier – it was a storm now. The noise forced him to raise his voice. “Let’s alert the river unit – perhaps he got rid of the body by leaving it to the mercy of the water.”
*
That morning, Alissa came back home. She had spent a couple of nights away from the crowd with family friends.
“The word tree!” she told her father. Elaji pretended not to hear.
“The word tree!” She repeated, speaking in the Wolof dialect.
Elaji took her up in his arms – she was incredibly light.
“The Word Tree?”
“Yes…”
He took her to the middle of the room and sat down with his legs crossed, still holding his daughter in his arms. He let her sit on his lap. There was a little space left which was sadly empty – Ami used to sit there.
Then he raised his arms and closed them in a circle, to give an impression of a tree.
When he was a young man, there was a giant baobab at the centre of his village. The adults would meet there to discuss and take decisions for the community. The children would gather there to listen to the old griot as he told the ancient story of the Mali empire and the heroic deeds of Sundjata, the lion prince, the forefather of the Djata dynasty.
“Which story do you want me to tell you?”
“I don’t want to hear a story, I want to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Ami… when will she come back?”
“She’ll be home soon.”
“They say that a bad man has taken her away.”
“She’ll be with us again soon.”
“Can you not go and get her off the bad man?”
Elaji closed his eyes. The anger that he was fostering inside now seemed uncontrollable.
“We have to be patient. God,” he spoke in Italian, “has decided this. Ami will be back soon.”
*
At the end of the morning, Sensi gave up and decided to go back to Milan. The police would carry on the search until dusk. They would need a lot longer than another day to inspect the whole area inch by inch. At least, the rain had stopped now.
Sensi called Maiezza while he was driving along the motorway. “Any news on Beattie?”
“We’ve made his photo public. All of the police departments have been alerted.”
“What about the media?”
“We’ve kept it quiet, don’t worry.”
“Okay, did we find out exactly when he arrived?”
“Early June – on a British Airways flight from London to Rome.”
“Early June?” Sensi repeated. “That’s six months ago!”
“And we have no record of his return.”
“Fuck, he’s still around.”
It seems so, but he’s not registered at any hotels. We’re still looking for him, he’s been in Italy for a good while. Maybe he rented a house.”
“That’s possible, perhaps near Malpensa… why rent a car there otherwise?”
Sensi remained silent for a little while.
“Scotland Yard?”
“The magistrate signed the international mandate a couple of hours ago and has sent it out to London and Interpol. Beattie is wanted all over Europe now.”
“Okay, I’ll be back in the office in half an hour – call me immediately if you have any news in the meantime.”
“I will do, and… excuse me?”
“Yes?”
“What about the Golf along the river?”
“The young lady is convinced that the man behind the steering wheel was Mr Beattie.”
Maiezza sighed heavily. “Fuck.”
“Let’s find Philip Beattie,” Sensi closed the conversation.
‘How realistic is it to hope that Ami’s still alive?’ he asked himself gloomily. Of course, the young girl might have been w
rong when she identified Mr Beattie as the man driving the black Golf. Maybe the blood that they had found in the boot was from a small wound and Beattie had chosen to hide her in the boot to make sure that she wouldn’t cry out for help during the drive. Perhaps Ami was still alive and was being kept captive somewhere secret. Perhaps she was being held in Beattie’s Italian residence. If this was the case, however, why had he been driving along the shores of the Adda river the same night? That was an isolated place, with nothing more than bushes, fields and a river. The ideal place to get rid of a b.
Why did he return the car the following morning? He kept wondering. Was it because everything was over? Or perhaps he wanted to swap cars to avoid somebody recognizing him from when he picked Ami up from the bus stop?
Police Commissioner Sensi accelerated angrily along the motorway.
They had to find Beattie really soon.
*
It was a few minutes to 3 p.m. when Police Commissioner Fuggiano threw himself into Sensi’s office without knocking. “We got him! He rented a house!”
Sensi sprang up on his feet. “Son of a bitch!”
“It’s about twenty kilometres away from where he picked up Ami, in a village near Milan. He rented the house for three months on the Internet.”
“Fuck, are there any police departments in the area?”
“The Paullo police district is only a few kilometres away.”
“Ask them to inspect the place and keep an eye on the house. Tell them not to give away their presence, for goodness’s sake. Let’s go.” Sensi tried hard to believe she might still be alive. “Let’s go and get him.”
*
He had to be only a little over fifty, but the network of wrinkles on his face was misleading and definitely made him look older than he really was.
Trevis welcomed the man into his office. The glass windows rattled as they were buffeted by the wind.
“South-west wind…” Trevis commented.
“Yes, it started last night. I walked along the promenade – there was a storm and the wind was sweeping the sand from the beach onto the road.”
His voice was as rough as his aspect and hinted that this tall, robust man still had some strength. His eyes were brown and penetrating, his hair was thin and ruffled but still incredibly black. Trevis wondered whether that colour was natural or he dyed his hair.
“Please take a seat, Mr Cellini.” Trevis pointed to an armchair in front of his desk. “Have you known Bench for a long time?” Trevis asked.
“I’ve known him forever, we’re from the same village – Niccioleta. It’s such a small village that we’re probably relatives somehow.” Cellini hesitated. “I noticed how much better he’s doing thanks to your help.”
Trevis also hesitated for a while.
“Bench may have already told you that I don’t take on new patients any more.”
“I’d like to tell you my daughter’s story…” The man’s eyes looked darker now.
The glass windows rattled again with the wind. Trevis thought for a moment that he could smell the stormy sea.
“Elisa is twenty years old. She’s been diagnosed as schizophrenic for the last five years.” Cellini’s eyes were clouded again. “She doesn't really have a normal life – she has a vegetative existence in a drug-induced straightjacket.”
“Risperidone?”
“Yes, and high doses of quietapine. Without these drugs, Elisa becomes aggressive, she has hallucinations and becomes delirious – under the effect of the drugs, however, she’s like a ghost, completely absent. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t answer our questions, she doesn’t seem to notice anything that happens around her.”
Trevis nodded silently. He knew well that that latest generation of drugs were able to suppress the active effects of schizophrenia, like Elisa’s hallucinations and delirium, but they had no power over the negative effects. The absence of emotions, the indifference towards whatever is happening around, the absence of communication – all these problems remained.
“We have to take care of her completely. We wash her, we dress her. We feed her at regular intervals, we accompany her to the bathroom.” Cellini sighed, noisily. “My wife passed away three years ago. I take care of everything, with the help of a couple of people. Don’t get me wrong, professor, I’m not complaining about my life – I’m happy to do everything that I do. I just want a better quality of life for Elisa. I want her to have a semblance of a normal life.”
Trevis rocked back and forth for a while in his armchair.
“Did it all begin out of the blue five years ago?”
Cellini hesitated for a while, then he answered. He gave Trevis the impression that he wanted to collect his thoughts before speaking.
“Bench didn’t talk to you about it, right? Something… caused her to fall straight into the illness. She’d only shown a few signs beforehand and we never paid a lot of attention to them. She was fifteen years old, that age can be difficult.”
“What signs?”
“She seemed unable to enjoy the little things, to have fun. She was obsessed with the idea that she didn’t smell nice. Occasionally, she was aggressive with her mother and she would become very quiet soon afterwards.”
The wind shook the glass windows again, making them rattle noisily.
“What happened then, Mr Cellini?”
“Elisa isn’t my only daughter… she had an identical twin, it was like looking at her mirror image.” Cellini swallowed, he was struggling to carry on talking. “She disappeared five years ago, during a barbecue. We never found her again.”
Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.
“What a tragedy…” Trevis spoke, then paused again for a little while. “I believe there is somethng we could try, Mr Cellini. If you prefer, I can refer you to somebody who can see her regularly.”
“I trust your abilities, Professor Trevis. Do you really not want to care for Elisa?”
Trevis smiled kindly, but said firmly “I’m sorry.”
He fumbled into one of his drawers and fished out a business card. He handed it over to Cellini. “Doctor Marcone will be able to take care of Elisa just as well as me, probably even better.”
Cellini stood up. He looked older and more stooped than he had when he entered the office. Trevis accompanied him to the door.
He asked the question casually, by way of making conversation and showing empathy with Elisa's parent.
“What was the other twin’s name?”
“Denise.”
Trevis’s soul broke apart in a moment.
Denise!
In a moment, a thousand images, memories and sounds filled his mind.
Denise. His Denise…
Her smile, her gestures, her way of speaking. Her lips, the warmth of her body.
“Are you okay, professor?”
“Yes… yes.” He tried to pull himself together.
“Someone very close to me had that name. It's over twenty years ago now.”
“Someone I couldn’t protect,” he wanted to add. “Somebody I wasn’t able to rescue.”
Trevis breathed in deeply. He was overwhelmed by his emotions and chose to do the only thing that seemed reasonable at that moment in time.
“Denise,” he muttered under his breath. “I’ll take care of your daughter.”
*
It wasn’t the typical detached house that Sensi had imagined. It was in fact an old, grey house – it was isolated and in the countryside. A small fence of rusty iron railings surrounded the house and separated it from wild, untamed undergrowth.
It was impossible to get any closer without being noticed.
A business van was parked about fifty metres away from the gate. Lieutenant Corbi was sitting behind the steering wheel, Sensi was next to him, and Maiezza and Fuggiano stood outside and pretended to be working on some electric cables. In the meantime, a squad had silently sneaked behind the house through the bushes.
Sensi handed the binoculars to C
orbi.
“It seems to be empty inside.” He sighed. “There are no cars parked nearby.”
“Maybe he’s sleeping.”
Sensi’s emotions swung between the exhilaration of having found Beattie’s abode, perhaps with Ami captive inside, to the fear and the fury that he might be too late.
“How long will your agent take to arrive?” he asked, impatiently.
“He should be here already… there he is!”
A ‘postman’ arrived from round the corner and stopped outside the gate for a few seconds.
“Get ready.” Sensi ordered into his microphone. His voice had suddenly become shrill.
Maiezza and Fuggiano walked to the other side of the road. They could charge to the front door in a moment if necessary. The other squad was ready to enter the house from behind.
The postman approached the door, and, holding a parcel in his hand, rang the buzzer twice. He had hidden his gun in the back of his trousers – it would have been impossible for anyone to notice that he was armed.
Sensi grabbed the binoculars again and observed the house – there was no movement inside, no lights switched on or off.
The postman pressed the buzzer again – this time for a longer period.
“Nothing?” Sensi asked, as he addressed the squad.
“No signs.”
The postman made one last attempt; then, following his instructions, he left a parcel delivery slip in the post box and disappeared round the corner again.
“He’s not in,” Corbi said. “Or maybe he’s suspicious – a postman delivering a parcel in the afternoon… maybe that wasn’t a good idea.”
“Can you see any back doors?” Sensi said into his walkie-talkie, addressing the squad.
“Yes, there’s a back door. And a window.”
The daylight was fading; it would be dark very soon.
“Can we get into the house through there?”
“We can get in easily, if he’s in another room he won’t hear anything. We’ll wait for your order.”
“Wait a few more minutes. Let’s wait until dark. Let’s see if and where lights turn on in the house.”
The following minutes lasted hours and nobody spoke.
The daylight faded slowly.
No lights went on in the house.
Missing Page 5
