by Aidan Conway
After some hours, feeling jaded and none the wiser, he threw the last file onto the pile. He left the flat to stretch his legs and pick up essential groceries, the bare bones. When he returned, he made himself a cup of tea and watched the first news of the evening. Halfway through, when the merry-go-round of political name-calling and faked animosity had become intolerable, he switched it off. He began stalking the flat to and fro, plotting his revenge, fantasizing what he would do when he finally faced the scum who had tried to kill Yana. It was then that he noticed the newspapers he had bought just a couple of days before. They had been folded neatly – presumably by Yana or her cleaner – and placed under the coffee table. He hadn’t even opened them.
Hungry for a change of scene and perspective he started with Le Monde but found it heavy going and cast it aside before switching to El País. He scanned the sports pages, the culture section, then politics and world news. More of the same. Crime, deceit, and degeneracy. There was a short article about Rome’s serial killer. It seemed like old news now. He was just about to toss it to one side when another small article in a column of the crime news section caught his eye.
No arrests yet in Bueu murder case.
It was the unusual name that first aroused his curiosity. As he read, however, he realized that it wasn’t an unfamiliar word but rather a remote, otherwise anonymous coastal town in Galicia, in the north-west of Spain. A woman, a mother of two, had been murdered there almost a month previously. It bore the hallmarks of a botched burglary, probably by a drug addict. No longer news for Spanish readers familiar with the case, the article unspooled its key details in reverse. It was only as he neared the end of the piece that it revealed to him that the case had aroused interest also due to the victim’s having lived for many years prior to her death under an assumed name. The article gave that name, which, to Rossi, meant nothing, and then gave her real name, age, and other particulars. Incredulous, at first, his eyes read and re-read the stark reality of the printed letters. He put the paper down. It was reading these last details that now allowed him to confirm beyond any doubt that it was his own past that was hurtling back like a train to haunt him. He felt his blood run cold.
Twenty-Six
“Troubles come not as single spies but in battalions.” Rossi sat in the dim light of a reading lamp, The Complete Works of Shakespeare open on his knee. He couldn’t even contemplate trying to sleep and had reached for the volume to divert his thoughts from his own helplessness and to perhaps find some small crumbs of comfort. He felt more alone than perhaps he had ever felt. The discovery had left him reeling. He’d done some Internet research and found more details of this new conundrum in the local Spanish papers. He had then tried to get some sleep but had woken as if it were daytime already, yet it was only four in the morning. The worst time of the night to be alone. He thought of a Szymborska poem. Yes, she had known exactly what that bleakness meant.
Unless for some bizarre coincidence, Rosa Garcia, the woman murdered in Spain, had been his first real adult love. Adult love? He’d been in his early twenties, independent, with his own ideas clear in his mind, free to choose, but adult? Perhaps not. Anyway, the love had been passionate and troubled, almost consuming him. And in the end it was he who had abandoned it. He had made the hard choice and with time had moved on and forgotten. He had chosen to live his own life, despite her protests, her emotional blackmail, her begging him to give her time, time, always time. For it had not been a simple affair of the heart but rather a complex play between him, her, and another. And now? Bury it? Definitively? Now there could be no going back. There was no going back. There never had been. But this ending was worse than tragedy.
She must, he supposed, have shaken off her toxic attachment to “him” and got free of her own demons and then found some happiness and built a family with someone else. That, at least, was a glimmer of joy. She must have passed some years in relative peace. That, at least, he hoped but the more he thought about it the more he wanted confirmation. He needed to put his mind at ease. He needed to know that his abandoning her, his breaking the circle then, had been right not only for him but for her too. As for the other, for him, he could never ever have envisaged any other plausible future but complete and utter perdition.
He opened a French window and stepped out onto the balcony. Not a soul. In another hour or so the first commercial vehicles would begin to appear, unloading their goods in the comforting light of the street lamps. The cold was penetrating again and the clear sky seemed to have sucked any heat that there was far out into space. He thought then of Yana, across the city, and wondered if she was thinking of him. He felt himself being pulled in three different directions: to Yana, to his own past, and to the case. Yes, the case. He had to get back on it if he wanted to keep his sanity. So much for just doing the washing-up. He decided to try to get some sleep. He would need it. He closed the window and lowered the shutters against an unwelcome dawn. Somewhere out there their killer would be getting ready, waiting to strike again.
PART II
Twenty-Seven
Late again. Cinzia Borghetti pulled the door closed behind her and, fumbling for her keys, dropped them as the lift she had been hoping to catch, departed towards the top floor. More lost minutes. Why life had to be like this she didn’t know. She pressed the button. Nothing. She took the stairs down and stepped out through the main door and on to the street.
The morning was chill but she liked it that way. She loosened her blouse a little, opened another button to feel the cold air on her neck and chest. It was liberating, refreshing after the pressure and the stress of the flat. A teenage daughter and a teenage husband, she said to herself. She didn’t know which was worse sometimes and if there was ever a morning without an argument it would be a miracle. Why Giulia had to dress like that she did not know. She was rebelling, had to be different, but it hadn’t been like that in her day. Back then she’d had to fight tooth and nail to be like the other girls: first, just to wear jeans, and then to go out late, and stay out late, all the time with her father practically calling her a common whore. The protective type, they said. Too much though and too oppressive and her own mother passive and subjugated until the day he died. They had been different times, to say the least. And now Giulia wanted to cover up, dress all in black. What was she? A goth or something?
Work was a release from all that. The salary was important but if she had been paid half she probably would still have done it. She had her friends there, shared interests, her own desk and computer. Freedom – in a word. There was no way she was going to spend the best years of her life dusting and cleaning and cooking and killing the time till the family came home. She cooked when she enjoyed it. The cleaner did the donkey work and she dedicated herself to the more creative side of things.
She passed one of her favourite shops. Closing down sale. Everything must go. She stopped. Not another one. Was this economic crisis ever going to stop? But it wasn’t going to spoil her day. The sun was just beginning to illuminate the clouds behind the church. A few bright rays lit up her breath, billowing now before her as she turned into the alleyway to take the short cut for the station. She glanced at her watch. OK. It was quiet she thought, only her, but then from the car park at the other end of the narrow, fenced lane, a figure approached – head down, a council worker, she presumed. The sun was gone, the cold felt less friendly now. She looked up and saw what she and every woman in the city most feared. A hammer hung from his hand. And yes, he had his work to do.
Leaving a hospital could only really mean something when you knew you weren’t destined to return any time in the near future, Rossi reflected. Thus, he wasn’t leaving at all; he was simply stretching an invisible chord that tied him to it, like Yana herself was rigged up to the machines and tubes, manacled by the unseen forces of … of … what? Destiny? Chance? Science? The morning visit. The afternoon visit. The evening visit. This was the routine that kept him busy and focused now that he was “temporarily reli
eved of his duties”. He stopped. Where was he? He’d got himself lost again.
“Nurse.”
“Yes?”
“Excuse me. The way out?”
In the fresh air, once he’d left behind the dressing-gowned, catheter-accoutred gaggle of smokers clogging the entrance, he took up his train of thought once more. Could science and medicine bring her out from where she was? He had always been thankful for progress and its contribution to the welfare of humankind. That nature should not always be allowed to take its course alleviated much suffering and saved many lives. But now? If she remained in this way should nature then be allowed to run its natural course, or was he bound to honour the bond, thus making them slaves to that same science?
The consultant could give him little news either way. They had reduced the sedation necessary to minimize damage to the brain and now it was a question of waiting to see if the body would “respond”, “wake up” in the popular, misguided (so he’d been told) language often bandied about as clinical terminology. Forensic reports from the scene of Yana’s attempted murder had brought little of significance. They had checked her clothes, too, for fibres or organics, but working as she did in a health and fitness centre, she’d picked up hairs of varying lengths and almost all probably female. A DNA check on the database was out of the question at this stage and Maroni had told him so. Cost, time, and nothing hard and fast to go on. They would need more and given that Maroni had already ordered him off investigations until he was in a better state, his pressing was not doing him any favours.
But Spain, too, was nagging at Rossi. The police were looking for her husband of some fifteen years. Rossi had cross-checked everything with the Interpol reports punctually brought to his attention, discovering that he had disappeared around the time of the murder and, in the absence of any other clear motive, had assumed prime suspect status. At a police level, Rossi knew it was nothing to do with him now but he wanted to know. Perhaps he could go there and feel a bit more useful. He was still off the case, whatever the case now was, and on compassionate leave but he was tearing himself up about the rights and wrongs of it all. What if there was a change in Yana’s condition? And the notes, and Spinelli in custody awaiting trial for a murder Rossi was now sure he hadn’t committed. But he couldn’t be kicking around the house, walking the streets, not with so many questions unanswered. He’d speak to Maroni again. Best thing to do. And he might just be able to get him to have a change of mind. He was only another cop after all.
Twenty-Eight
Well, things were definitely looking up. Dario Iannelli got to his feet as Iovine introduced him to the rest of the editorial board of The Facet. The call had come out of the blue the morning after the press conference. Could he start tomorrow? He’d resigned his post at the Roman Post on the spot and in the ensuing bust-up with Torrini they had almost come to blows. Technically, he was still serving out his notice but in a temporary, unofficial capacity, The Facet was now already his home and it felt good. The meeting and greeting was a pleasant formality as he already knew all but a handful of the gathered journalists. They were preparing to stream their editorial meeting, as was now customary, quite unlike the other dailies, and Pietro, the technician, was making a few adjustments to the cameras and equipment.
How refreshing it was to be here. His long-held but besieged idealism had received a welcome shot in the arm and he was buzzing now with enthusiasm. No more humiliating foul-mouthed ranting from Torrini, but instead, serious, ethical, hard-working team journalists. How liberating it was not to have to kow-tow to the interests of the lobbies and the parties or be their mouthpiece when they wanted their side of the story told their way. How rewarding to know conscientious work would bring its just rewards. It was the only paper that was doing anything like real investigative journalism, and while they didn’t have much money, at least they weren’t living off state handouts. And if the MPD got their way, no one would be getting freebies anymore. They were going to put an end to the state-sponsored media; they’d have to sink or swim on their ability to sell copy and advertising and not on their ability to disguise what the politicos were really up to behind the scenes.
Sure, there were voices of dissent about freedom of information, about pluralism and the inordinate power of the tycoons and their media empires. Live by the word or die by the word, thought Iannelli to himself. It was time to tell things as they were. That was the only way things could change in this godforsaken country. But the old guard here wouldn’t go down without a fight. Oh no. There was too much meat left on the bone.
Piero gave the thumbs up to Iovine. The first issue on the agenda was to be their take on the ongoing immigration crisis in Lampedusa, the tiny rock of an island flung into the southern Mediterranean, nearer to Africa than to Italy, and which had become one of the main gateways into Italy and Europe for so many hopefuls. Many of these same hopefuls found themselves languishing in a bureaucratic limbo, neither prisoners nor free, awaiting either a cruel repatriation or, if they were “lucky”, a dubious liberty in which they would have to fend for themselves as best they could in a country without any formally structured immigration and integration policy.
“Before we go live with the stream, I need somebody to get down there and see what on earth’s going on,” said an energetic and smiling Luca Iovine leaning forward in his editor’s chair. “We’ve got some copy from Pippo on the ground but I’d like to get another angle, from outside, as it were. Seems there’s rumours circulating about ill-treatment and funds going astray and there could be a mutiny in the offing by all accounts.”
Iannelli shot up a hand.
“Yes, Dario?”
“I’ll go,” he said. “I’ve got a few leads there myself I’d like to follow up.”
“Such as?”
“Like you said, funds being diverted, human rights issues, people in high places, that sort of thing.”
Iovine looked around the table.
“Any objections to sending Dario?” There was a general murmur of consent.
“Dario it is then. Let’s just have a little confab after the meet, OK? A contact has come my way too. I’ve got a number for you. A pissed-off ex cop, apparently, who’s retired to his ancestral home. Could be nothing but there’s no smoke without fire, right?”
Iannelli nodded his assent and gave a yet more satisfied smile. Could things get any better?
“OK,” Iovine continued, “on a not unrelated issue there’s the Episcopal conference later today and Cardinal whatsisname, the one with the mega apartment in Campo de Fiori, is addressing the Faith and Freedom annual meeting. It says here,” he went on, picking up a crumpled Holy See press release, “he’ll be holding forth on ethics and morality, the immigrant crisis, and our old friend euthanasia. Anybody fancy it?”
The response was not immediately enthusiastic as Iovine cast his eye over his staff. There was a general checking of phones, some overly avid note taking and general avoidance of eye contact. A tweet from someone’s unsilenced phone broke the tension accompanied by a mumbled “Oh, fuck” at the far end of the room from where a hand then shot up.
“Yes, Rino. Fancy it?”
“I think we might need to adjourn, boss. Says here there’s been another one.”
Twenty-Nine
“Look, Rossi,” said a besieged-looking Maroni from behind his folder-strewn desk, “I am unbelievably up to my eyes in shit. Can it wait?”
“Given the circumstances, I think it’s important, sir.”
“Well, I suppose you’ve heard all the details already, haven’t you?”
Rossi nodded. He’d got a tip-off from Bianco and had dropped in uninvited at the scene. It was all too familiar, and her body had been dumped behind a fence next to an alleyway in the Cinecittà area of the city.
“We think it’s probably murder,” continued Maroni. “But it could be manslaughter, a domestic, you know.”
Clutching at straws now, said Rossi to himself. Look at the facts, for God
’s sake. But he would play along for now.
“Woman?” said Rossi.
“Yes.”
“Mother?”
“Don’t know that yet, but married, yes.”
“Face smashed in with a blunt instrument, probably a hammer?”
“Something like that, yes, Rossi. Something like that. No apparent motive, nothing we can really go on and no bleeding witnesses. Not a thing. Look.”
He slid some case notes across the table. Cinzia Borghetti, 48. Council employee. Rossi ran his eyes over the repeat scenario. He could sense now even Maroni was shaken. Vulnerable then? But if this was serial killing, why so close together? The cooling-off period was surely too brief. Better tell him what I came here for.
“Look, sir,” said Rossi, sliding the briefing back across the desk as though operating a slide on a mixing console. I know you want me to stay on leave. I don’t agree, however, and I want to get stuck into this case as much as you do, regardless of whether Yana was targeted by the same killer or not.
“I told you, Rossi,” Maroni replied, “and it’s not me telling you this – it’s procedure. Give it up, at least for now.”
Rossi sat in silence for a few moments.
“All right,” he said then. “If that’s how it has to be, fine. But there’s something else. Now, I know the timing might seem off but I need to go away for a day, possibly two. To Spain. Does that fit into procedure?”
“To Spain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But what on earth for?”
“Personal matters.”
“Personal matters? Now? With that girl of yours in a coma?” Maroni blurted.
