by Andy Ben
Still holding the remote control, I push the red button and switch off the TV.
My house emptiness envelops me in a deafening silence, while my thoughts drive my eyes to the mobile phone, lying on the table by the remote I just put down.
I silently stare at the phone for some time... seconds, minutes, I am not sure. At the end, the silence is broken: the phone is ringing.
«Montorsi, I am chief Rossi. I wait for you in an hour, in my office.»
I have no time to answer to that, Rossi already hanged up the phone call.
Now I must play my cards very well.
15
«Damn it, Montorsi, can you explain me what the hell is going on?»
Chief Rossi’s fists hit violently on the desk, knocking over the penholder and scattering everything on the mahogany surface.
«Did you see Scala’s report? Where did he get the information? You are not even able to shut your men’s mouths... I will be forced to start an internal investigation...»
«It’s not necessary, Sir. I take full responsibility... I gave Scala the information.»
Rossi stares at me in astonishment, his mouth is open as if he had seen an alien.
«I think it’s better if I immediately report to you and clarify the facts.»
«“I think it’s better if I immediately report to you”... but are you gone insane! What the hell were you thinking... to hand in a Public Prosecutor’s file to a journalist. Forget a promotion, I am going to get you fired!»
«Forgive me insisting, Sir, but I should inform you of the latest events, I don’t want to justify myself: I did it and I had a very good reason.»
«There is no damned valid reason that could lead a member of this police station to break the secrecy of pre-trial investigation: from this moment on you are suspended from service... but, before you leave, I want to know what moved you to commit this folly.»
Once more I catch Rossi by surprise. «I know who the murderer is.»
«What the hell did you say!?»
I repeat myself: «I know who the murderer is.»
Rossi snorts and weakens sitting on his chair with a resigned gesture, then he adds: «Sit down and tell me everything, with no omissions.»
I sit opposite him, the desk between us, and I start my story.
«First and foremost, I must beg your pardon for my unorthodox methods, but both you and the Prosecutor have given me carte blanche and I acted with the sole interest of this case in mind.»
«Don’t take advantage of my patience, Montorsi. We were pretty clear, you were free to act but you should have reported each detail you deemed relevant... and breaking the secrecy of pre-trial investigations is not included in the methods that are thought at the Police Academy... similar episodes cannot happen in my Police Station...»
With a feeling of impotence and resignation, Rossi keeps venting his tirade before he calms down and finally starts listening to my motives.
«All right, Sir. As you can see, I brought you my report along with this file regarding the girl we found dead in the park, whose identity, until now, had remained a mystery to us. You will find in my report all the details of what I will relate to you in short.»
«I will read them later with my full attention. Now, go on.»
«Until two days ago, we had two homicides, apparently unrelated to one another. The only common element was the modus operandi of the murderer. A few weeks ago, as you might recall, I asked to be assigned the Bonomi investigation because, despite the place where the murder was committed, I have always been convinced that the two crimes were linked. Now I can tell you for sure, that I was right.
Bonomi is, or better was, the CEO of Taurus Pharmaceutics. According to some preliminary financial investigations on Taurus, we found out that it has long been interested in acquiring another pharmaceutical industry, called Sarca, that has resisted informal offering from Taurus both because it has strong shareholders and because they are launching a new life-saving drug, after five years of trial.
What I said so far did not help our investigation at all, until I found a file regarding Mara Marchetti.»
«I don’t recall this name being part of our investigation.»
«That was right until two days ago. Mara Marchetti is our first victim and the file I just gave you is all about her. With a minor annotation: Mara Marchetti does not exist and never has.»
«The story is getting complicated. Did you investigate on this? Did you ask Europol? And anyway, what does this Mara Marchetti have to do with the Bonomi case?»
«We did not need any investigation, I just double-checked the information to make sure that the report is true; when you will read it, you will agree that the information it contains are very accurate... worthy of the person who wrote it.»
Rossi picks up the file lying on his desk, take out the report and flips through it, then he looks at me adding: «I guess it is now that Carlo Scala gets into the picture, am I wrong?»
«You are very sagacious, Sir, yet you are wrong. Carlo Scala, unfortunately, got in the picture much earlier. The night the girl in the park was killed, the Marchetti girl, Scala was already there taking pictures and writing the article for his newspaper. When we questioned Scala and the witness that reported the crime, it emerged that no one we know informed Scala of the murder, he knew about it well before we where informed.»
«How is this possible?»
«I know Scala quite well and I know he is a great journalist, he would never reveal his sources. Furthermore, I can tell you that in this case he got very lucky.»
«How so?»
«You will agree with me that the “official version” of this story will say that this report was written by my squad, but unofficially it was Carlo Scala who wrote it. He had fundamental information we were missing: he new the name of the victim.
It was hard for us to find out who she was because she had no documents on her, nothing at all. We thought it was the murderer who took them, because he was related to her. And in fact, that was correct.»
«I am fully aware of this detail, but you still have not told me how Scala got to know all this and why this file is now on my desk, although I am starting to get an idea.»
«I’ll immediately get to the point. As I told you, we were right but the murderer did not destroy the documents, he anonymously sent them to Carlo Scala... and I can think of two hypothesis to explain it: either the murderer knows very well Scala and the way he works, or he just wanted to gain some time to commit the second murder. I think that the murderer wants us to stop him or at least that he wants this story to have a big echo: I say this because if he had gotten in touch with any journalist, this case would have been on the headlines right away, while Scala is different. He checks the sources, makes his own researches, he is meticulous... and this could be an advantage for the murderer.»
«Let me get this straight, Montorsi. You investigated without permission, you used resources and men without a prior request and above all without informing me, and you basically sold the documents of a reserved and delicate investigation to a reporter in exchange for the victim’s name, am I right?»
«Yes, Sir. When I understood that Scala had some elements that would have helped our investigation, I thought it useful to hand him something else he could work on, the scoop he was looking for, in exchange of the information I needed. This will keep him away from my investigation for quite some time, so we can close the case... Was I wrong in thinking that arresting a murderer is way more important than some conmen hiding in our Parliament?»
My question remains hanging in midair, without an answer.
«I start agreeing with the Prosecutor: you are ambitious and you use methods that are not in line with the uniform you wear and you will have to take responsibility for this in front of me and the Prosecutor’s office... you behave in a thoughtless way, without taking consequences into consideration, with the sole aim to achieve your goals... you are too zealous and this behavior, sooner or
later, will work against you. You are smart, sharp, intuitive and you are a hard worker, I must recognize it. You excel in the substance, but you are totally lacking in the form and this is unacceptable as long as you will be under my command.»
I know this reprimand will not remain without consequences. Rossi is very meticulous on these issues, but right now I am not worried about it. Once the rebuke is over, Rossi concentrates on the case.
«You still haven’t told me how this Mara Marchetti is involved in the Bonomi’s murder...»
«I was getting to that. According to the report, Miss Mara Vertova, twenty-eight years old, Polish, alias Mara Marchetti, has two warrants of arrest issued against her by the German and Moldovan police forces; the alleged charges are industrial espionage. As Mara Marchetti she had been hired at Sarca to work as secretary to the quality manager. If we sum these elements together...»
«We have a link between the two homicides. It’s enough to open the proceedings. I will talk to the Prosecutor, but tell me who the murderer is first.»
«I can’t do that, Sir.»
For the second time in our discussion, Chief Rossi gets upset, hits the desk with his fists and tells me again, with the usual phrase: «Damn it, Montorsi, don’t take advantage of my patience. You have a natural ability to enrage me...»
I answer back: «I cannot do that, Sir. There are valid reasons.»
«... you still have credit, Montorsi, but don’t abuse it. End your report.»
«I have proofs that put the suspect on the scene of Bonomi’s murder, but we don’t have either the murder weapon or any hard evidence for the first crime. The link between the two crimes is only circumstantial, as long as we don’t know the motives. And the financial one is not enough to explain three murders.»
«Three murders?»
«Yes, Chief. All things considered, I suspect the accident at villa Renzi where Mrs. Giovanna Renzi, vice-president of Sarca, was killed could in fact be a third homicide carried out by our man.»
«I guess that, once more, you acted on your on.»
«No, Sir. The case is in the jurisdiction of the Bergamo police station, it’s out of my area... in this case, I would need your help and then...»
I stop there, waiting for Rossi to press me on.
«Then what?»
I stiffen, what I am about to say could oust me fro the case. The pause seems to last a lifetime, so much so that Rossi presses me on again.
«What the hell, Montorsi, what else?»
With a soft voice, I relate to the Chief the last explanations. «The witness who puts the suspect at the Dark Angel on the night of the murder recognized him with no hesitation, yet her position and her profession inside the club make her a not very reliable witness. Furthermore, just being at the Dark Angel is not sufficient for an indictment. The fact is that the witness recognized the suspect after I prompted her... I don’t want to hide this... you see... I and only I could identify the murderer in the Dark Angel’s CCTV footage, and I say this not out of arrogance, but because I know him.»
A freezing silence falls on Chief Rossi’s office.
Each second that goes by, resignation grows inside me, taking away all my certainties. And I was close, so damned close...
Suddenly, Rossi’s voice stops the chill.
He is not talking to me right now. He turns his chair towards the wall and stares at an unspecified point in front of him, while he let’s out loud his thoughts.
«Suspension is the obvious solution, not only considering her behavior, but because she is directly involved in the case she is investigating... the case would go to someone else... investigations would proceed in a more, let’s say, traditional way... but... I will not keep my word... I would loose a valid element, with an impeccable record of service...»
Rossi turns again towards me and this time I am the one being surprised.
«What do you need, Montorsi?»
I am amazed, but I quickly answer.
«I would like to close the investigation...»
Rossi suddenly stops me. «Don’t try and fool me, you already have. Even if you did not say it out loud, it is obvious that our main suspect is Marco Politto, high-level manager at Sarca, whom you already met two years ago while investigating the death of Laura Falchi. If you forgot, let me remind you that even then you were under my command; at the time, I was in charge of the investigations and, to your dismay, I remember every detail of every case I investigated in my career.» He continues: «We can link Politto to both homicides and, if this was confirmed, to a third one... we have all the elements to charge him, yet you hesitate... I don’t know why and I don’t care... I ask you again: what do you need?»
«I want to know the reasons, Chief, the motive. As you must well remember, the Falchi case was unsolved and you closed it when we were near catching the culprit.»
«That is right, Montorsi... it was probably a case of manslaughter following a robbery, main suspect what that boy, the drug-addict...»
«Angelo Colantuoni, son of Francesca Colantuoni, prominent employee of Sacra Pharmaceutics, and close friend of Laura Falchi, also employed at Sarca.»
«Maybe you have forgotten that we got too late to the culprit... in his state, it was useless to put him on trial.»
«Yes, Sir, I would never criticize your behavior in that case. The boy suffered a serious motorcycle accident that has put him in a vegetative state: it would have been useless and costly to proceed against him. I am not interested in this.»
«I understand, you think...»
«Exactly, Sir. At the time, we thought the boy robbed Laura Falchi because he knew her, he knew her income status and that he was striking a sure hit robbing her. But taking what has happened now into consideration, I think we were wrong then: I am now convinced that the bag-snatching had a different reason altogether and that the fact that they knew each other has a complete different meaning... I want to know why on earth Laura Falchi died.»
«Montorsi, I ask you one last time: what do you need?»
«Time, Sir. Before we put Politto in jail, I want to do him justice and find out the real motives that turned him into a cruel murderer... I want to close once and for all the Falchi case.»
The Chief reflects on my words for a long moment, before he breaks the surreal silence that has enveloped his office and answering my requests.
«I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I will ask the Bergamo Police station an accurate examination of Giovanna Renzi’s body to look for elements that could indicate a homicide. In 72 hours I will hand the Prosecutor the Marchetti’s file and your report. He will most certainly start a financial investigation on Taurus Pharmaceutics and, at the same time, he will take action for your behavior, unless you close the case... did I make myself clear, Montorsi?»
«Yes, Sir...»
«You have 72 hours to solve your doubts. Act as you deem best. This does not mean that I agree with your actions so far, on the contrary. You stepped over my authority and committed a crime. Disregarding how this case will end, officially or unofficially you will pay for it. Your career is in your hands. You can go now.»
I turn to go, I put my hand on the door knob and, right when I am leaving, the Chief adds: «One last thing, Montorsi... don’t you think that Politto already knows the answer you are looking for?»
16
The queue is not moving at all.
The sky is now clear and daylight is slowly giving way to dusk.
My instinct of lighting up another cigarette is won over when I spot a narrow opening, a chance of getting away from this damned traffic.
On my left, just a few meters from where I am, the line of trees that runs in the middle of the road, dividing it in two carriageways, shows an opening that allows a U-turn, yet not very orthodox.
It’s the chance I was waiting for.
I put the indicator on to move on the lane furthest right towards the opening and, with a swift maneuver, I move in front of the car standing on the left, that w
as about to move and is forced to jam on the breaks right behind me. The driver curses at me, but I ignore the provocation and gesture him to go to hell, succeeding to enter the small opening.
I look right to make sure no one is coming that way, then with a squealing I enter the free lane.
After spending hours in a queue, I am able to engage the second gear and step on the gas. My foot, heavy like a boulder, I press the accelerator. Clutch, accelerator, third gear, then fourth.
I drive like a madman, free at last from traffic.
The slow noise coming from the engine that has kept me company until e few moments ago, has now transformed into a thundering roar coming from the hood and entering from the lowered window.
Left indicator, I enter a side road.
After a hundred meters, I turn right.
A traffic light. Green. I don’t slow down, not even when I cross the intersection, I rather step on the pedal.
Turn left, then right.
Unaware of where I am going, I reach the pub. The pub where I met Laura.
I spot a free parking place right in front of the place. I park my car, turn the engine and I sit back, exhausted, on the seat. I wait an endless and indefinite time before I get down from the car and enter the pub.
I step in through a glass door, cut in a large glass window that allows the dim sunset light to enter the place and light up the room without the need of switching on the artificial lights.
I reach the L-shaped counter and I sit on a high stool.
The bartender recognizes me and pours me my usual drink.
While I stare at the dark liquid falling on the ice cubes inside the glass, my thoughts start wandering in my foggy memories.
The pub is half empty.
A couple of boys playing video-poker in a small area left of the glass window. Behind me, an old man is sitting at a table, sipping peacefully his coffee.
The silence is broken by the jingles coming from the videogames. Then another noise catches my attention and I turn my head towards the door.
