The Girl with the Crystal Eyes
Barbara Baraldi
* * *
Published by
MAXCRIME
an imprint of John Blake Publishing Ltd,
3 Bramber Court, 2 Bramber Road,
London W14 9PB, England
www.johnblakepublishing.co.uk
First published in Italy by Mondadori as La Bambola di Cristallo, 2008
This edition 2010
ISBN: 978 1 84454 930 6
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in
any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Papers used by John Blake Publishing are natural, recyclable products made
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conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin
* * *
* * *
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
* * *
PROLOGUE
The fingers in the black satin gloves drum on the square table, filling the room with a muffled tune that fades into the emptiness that surrounds her. And she waits.
She sits with her legs crossed, lips red as desire itself, her blue eyes framed by lashes like a spider's web.
She glances at the large mirror with its inlaid frame, while with her other hand she plays with the golden curls falling in front of her face. The sofa is velvet, the carpet the colour of burnt earth. Finally, her eyes come to rest on the open petals of the roses in the Chinese porcelain vase, the centrepiece of the table.
They give off their perfume so generously - wanting nothing in return for the beauty they provide our senses with, she thinks.
A petal detaches itself and falls onto the shiny wooden surface of the table just as he appears in the doorway.
The tapping of her fingers suddenly stops. All that remains is silence, the silence of their exchanged gaze.
The man is wearing a dark grey suit, cut very loosely. The fabric seems to hiss as he walks towards the girl, his eyes fixed on her with the hint of a smile on his lips. He stops and puts a sweaty hand on her white thigh.
There is a ring on his finger, a symbol of some oath he no longer remembers, or that he has buried deep within his memory.
Now his smile widens, revealing teeth yellowed by sin. He can already taste the sweetness of a fruit that has been out of his reach till now.
Arousal makes him breathe heavily. His eyes, small and dark, run up and down her body, leaving behind the slimy trail of his thoughts.
'You've got no knickers on - like I asked you?'
'Of course. I'm a very obedient girl.' Languidly, she gets up and then sits down again on the table, leaning with her back almost up against the perfumed flowers. 'I adore roses. Because they've got thorns.'
'Go on, prick me. Then I'll punish you like you deserve.' And he falls on her.
Her quick, small fingers" pick up a rose. But it's not the rose's thorns that pierce the man's flesh but a kitchen knife, sharp and shining, that enters deep into his chest and then slides out again, spurting hot, dark, dense drops of blood that splash the perfect features of her face.
In and out, in and out. The blade is like a silver fish jumping in and out of the waves at dusk, leaving the viewer's gaze adrift in the water, like a thought without an end.
The end.
The blade drives in again and again, stabbing at the hands with which he tries to protect himself - in vain - then at his neck as he sinks on to the carpet, which is now the colour of death.
The roses strewn over the table bathe their delicate petals in the blood that now covers everything. The blood soon fills the room with a cloying, suffocating fragrance.
The porcelain doll wipes her face with her black gloves. She tries not to slip on the sticky pool under her feet, while she leans over and starts to go through the man's pockets. He seems to be looking at her, his face distorted by a grimace of agony.
Here's the envelope. She opens it impatiently, then smiles.
'You were obedient, too,' she says, before turning her back on him and leaving.
She takes a last look in the gilded mirror, a mirror that wouldn't be out of place in a fairytale - a fairytale that's frightening but where she's the fairest of them all. Beautiful just as she is, smelling of blood.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
What did you get up to last night?' Viola asks, without looking at him.
He doesn't answer her, as he carries on cutting his rare steak.
'What'd you do last night?' She glances at him fleetingly. Her blue eyes appear black because of her anger, because of the doubt that has taken root inside her.
'You're so insecure. I can't stand insecure people, you know?' He pushes back his hair without putting down his fork. The fork smells of blood.
'You're what makes me insecure. I wasn't like this before I met you,' she lies.
Viola is beautiful and has a good figure, and she always smells nice - naturally. She has good skin. 'I'll ask you one
last time, and then I'm going.' And she stresses every word, as if she's reciting some magic spell that will open a secret door behind which is hidden priceless buried treasure. 'What did you do last night'
He stops chewing his steak and raises his eyes from his plate to look at her. She has big breasts, squeezed into that stretchy top that she got from the 'everything two Euros' stall in the market. He still fancies her, he decides, and he'd happily fuck her right now if he could. He swallows his mouthful of steak. 'I was at Luca's, watching the match. We had a few beers and then fell asleep on the sofa, you know.' He puts a big chunk of meat in his mouth and smiles. 'That's all, baby. That's all.'
She feels able to breathe again, but her words stick in her throat, fixed there by fear.
'I don't like it when you do that,' is all she manages to say. And she covers her face to hide two single tears, the tears she never manages to hold back when they argue.
They're always the same tears; she realises that. The same tears that appear without fail every time they have a fight. Right from the first time they'd argued, the day of their first date outside the Quadrifoglio Pizzeria, when his hands seemed to be everywhere at once and she had had to stop him.
'Gently,' she had murmured. In a fit of rage, he had exploded suddenly, like a firecracker too full of powder, leaving her terrified. In the end, she had burst into tears, and only then had he calmed down and had hugged her, making a vague and clumsy show of kindness.
Marco was a truly average man. A man with clichés in his veins instead of blood.
'Would you like anything else?' asks the waiter. He has been keeping an eye on them, waiting for them to calm down, not wanting to risk losing the usually generous tip that Marco leaves when he's in good company and also in a good mood.
'Yes, a coffee. A coffee with Sambuca,' he replies. When Marco says certain words - like coffee - there's still a trace of his southern accent.
The waiter looks to Viola. She's the most beautiful of the girls he's seen with The Thug. They call him that in this restaurant because of what he looks like, but also because of the way he speaks, a bit aggressive and never showing any respect.
'Nothing for me, thanks,' she answers politely.
Marco leaves his usual tip, and winks at the waiter. That wink means he's going to sleep with the girl he's now with.
'I've scored again, Giacomi,' he always says, slapping the waiter on the back as he gets up from the table, eyeing up the arse of whichever girl he's with this time, while she heads towards the door.
* * *
CHAPTER TWO
Eva gazes at the small white daisy, its petals edged with pink, which keeps her company, sitting on the overcrowded desk, a constant reminder of an overwhelming workload.
She doesn't know it yet but, while she sits there, every day a little piece of her dream deserts her, a dream she's had since she was only small. She tells herself that tomorrow will be different, that it won't always be like this, that soon they'll take her ideas seriously and she'll have her big chance. To help herself believe it, every now and then she lets her mind drift away as she contemplates the fresh flowers placed on duty on her desk, adding colour to that grey corner of the office, and she loses herself in daydreams as intangible as the smell of snow.
When she was a kid she adored adverts - she loved them almost more than cartoons. She liked the characters in adverts: the chicken Calimero because he was shy and clumsy, Coccolino the teddy bear because he was gentle and could talk, and she even thought the freckly kid who ate milk chocolate was really nice. On the other hand, bad adverts got on her nerves. What point was there in talking about quality or savings while walking round a supermarket in a bathrobe, or stuffing yourself from a plate piled high with snacks before you went to work?
So she'd always known what job she wanted to do when she grew up. After a quick degree in communications, here she is bent over a desk at Art &Work, an advertising agency in Bologna. Always arriving at least ten minutes early every morning, with a ready smile and a great deal of imagination. Gradually, as time went on, she saw that she always ended up doing the same lowly, unskilled job and, instead of getting closer, her dreams drifted further and further away. As in an advert, she saw her dreams fly higher, while she, tiny as an ant, jumped up and stretched out her arms but never managed to grab hold of them.
Eva does the cut-outs of photographs. Eva researches products. Eva photocopies at the speed of light. Eva is a wizard with the scanner and saves mountains of images on autopilot.
'Roberto, excuse me, can I say something?' she had once said to the creative director, overcoming her shyness. The creative director was someone who turned up every morning preceded by a fake smile, his fedora worn at an angle, and sporting one of his opart ties that made your eyes hurt.
'Of course you can.'.
'Sorry, but I couldn't help noticing the sketch you've done for that prunes advert, and…' She paused for a moment.
'And?'
Pluck up the courage and tell him, she thought to herself.
'It's brown.'
'It's brown?'
'Yes, it's brown.'
'And what's the problem?'
'Brown, prunes, laxatives.'
'Eva…' A pause for him to gather his words and fire them at her, like an action hero firing bullets from a machine-gun. 'Eva, first, it isn't brown; it's a khaki colour. Second, I've worked in advertising for years and I've been behind successful campaigns, and I think I can manage without your advice, don't you?' He stopped, his two raised fingers open in a giant 'v' that seemed ready to swallow her - or rather a huge victory sign about to crush her.
Roberto is fucking Mariangela.
Overtime means fucking Mariangela in every possible position.
Mariangela is married to a much older man, very rich, who presented her with the advertising agency to give her something to do outside the house - her lovers being an added extra with the package.
After having won and married her, everything changed for them. Sex, for example. 'Before you have a woman, you imagine how she makes love, how she moves when she's under you, what noises she makes when she comes. You're generous as a lover,' he liked to say - often - to his few friends, 'but then everything changes. Two fucks and you're like brother and sister.' For his sister, he had opened a shoe shop - he really was generous to his relatives, Mr Dicarmine.
The day the publicity campaign for the laxative prunes was to be presented to the client, Eva joined in the hearty congratulations paid to the great creative talent who had produced an advert of such good taste and originality. The sun-dried prunes, against a background of beautiful bright yellow, made you think of the Californian sun and conveyed the idea of wholesomeness, of a product good to eat.
'Eva, you'd like my job, wouldn't you? Tell me, what colour background would you have used to advertise these prunes?' Roberto had asked, just to humiliate her, certain that she wouldn't dare say a word. 'Perhaps a nice brown?' he had added, without giving her time to speak and provoking, unsurprisingly, a burst of laughter from everyone else.
Eva had clenched her fists and had then gone back to her scanning, and had lost herself in the potted violet sitting on her desk.
A violet far too perfumed to be condemned to die on that grey desk. Grey like her shattered dreams.
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
I feel empty.
Empty like a night without him.
He has gone out again this evening. He splashed on some aftershave and smoothed gel into his hair, put on his light-coloured jeans and a tight white T-shirt. I hadn't even seen that T-shirt before. It must be new. He must have bought it without me, and he didn't even show it to me.
And me, I'm stuck here alone on the sofa, in my pyjamas.
I'm just a pair of pyjamas with a soul.
I'm feeling so, so tired. And I was twenty only a week ago.
She closes her eyes to lose herself in her memories, those memories of when she was small. Her
father. The week of her birthday. Seven days full of music and surprises. Yes, there was always music in the background.
It was the rule.
'Birthdays are the personal celebrations we all have.
Which means they're the most important. Do you follow me, Viola?'
'Yes.'
'Listen to me carefully. Everyone celebrates Christmas, and at Easter every child gets their chocolate egg, the ones with a surprise inside…'
'Yes.' She was then hardly more than a metre tall.
'But a birthday, that's just yours, your day, the day when you're a princess and we all have to pay lots of attention to you.' And he would bow to her.
She used to laugh and gaze up at him.
'One day isn't long enough to celebrate such an important event; we need at least seven days…' That was the rule. Seven days, not a single one less.
Her father used to listen to the records of Franco Battiato.
Perhaps it's because of this indulgence that she doesn't have a permanent centre of gravity, and she's always changing her opinion about things and about people. How happy she was when her father was there, the man in her life.
She cries.
She often cries, perhaps every day, at least for a minute.
She's never understood why she cries so much.
Too much.
Today she has cried twice. The first time when she woke up, after having made love with him, and she found a love bite on Marco's neck - it turned out to be a bruise.
'A bruise,' she says out loud.
And the second time - now - while she listens to Battiato on her own, seated on the sofa in her pyjamas.
I'm alone and I turned twenty less than a week ago.
Twenty years to realise that perhaps Mr Right, the man every girl is waiting for, was there for me as soon as I was born, but with a sell-by date.
It lasted ten years. That's what was written on the box.
She cries.
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