‘I’d only just opened up when that girl came and stole a bunch of bananas,’ he replied, and even his voice sounded different. ‘It happens all the time. I can’t take it any more. Should I be running after people at my age? What are things coming to in this city? I can’t stand it any more, and I’m not the only one. If it carries on like this, we’ll have to shut down!’
‘Please calm down,’ Teresa said. ‘I’ll call 113 for a patrol car.’
‘No, don’t bother, it’s no use. They couldn’t do anything, even if they caught her. The law is on the criminals’ side now. And the police have more important things to do at the moment. You just have to read La Nazione, don’t you?’
Teresa preferred not to reply.
She headed back to her apartment building, thinking that the man had a point.
19
7.30 a.m. Police Headquarters
Ferrara was already in his office.
At Petra’s insistence, he had put a few drops in his reddened eyes before leaving the house.
Enjoying the morning hush, he read the newspapers, the reports by the various patrols, the details of responses to 113 calls, the telexes received from the Ministry and from other Headquarters.
It had been a quiet night.
There were only two detainees in the cells, two Albanians without the right residence permits, who had been caught in the act stealing petrol from a self-service garage in the Via Pisana. They would be taken to court later to be fast-tracked through the system.
This morning, he and his men would be concentrating on the double murder in Fiesole.
The name Enrico Costanza and the savagery of his killer were all over the front pages of the papers, along with photographs of the villa and of the victim when younger, and a brief biography. There were further articles and commentary on the inside pages. Ferrara noted with relief that they had avoided any particularly awkward details.
Basically, they all reported that the crimes had been committed in the dead of night, that the victims had been shot, and that nothing was yet known about the killer, except that he had acted with unusual barbarity.
Each journalist then set out his own theory. If only one of them was reliable, Ferrara thought. What wouldn’t they come up with to sell a single extra copy?
Costanza was described variously as a ‘highly respectable figure’ and as ‘a man always eager to help’. They all agreed that his death was ‘a great loss’ to the city.
Ferrara lingered in particular over the articles in La Nazione. The headline here was EX-SENATOR ENRICO COSTANZA EXECUTED IN HIS VILLA.
Beneath a photograph of the victim was the caption Enrico Costanza, the prince who will be missed by Florence.
The prince? Ferrara thought. Did that mean there was a king above him?
Even here, though, there were no awkward details, just a great deal of discretion.
Ferrara wondered why the journalists were still maintaining a low profile. Surely the regulars would soon be hanging around the corridors, peering into offices whose doors had been left open, even if only to catch a glimpse of the expressions on the detectives’ faces.
Bloodhounds on the hunt for a scoop.
He was particularly struck by the comment by the news editor, a bright young man who was making a name for himself. So far this year, he pointed out, there had been twelve murders in Florence. It was a lot, more than the nine that had occurred in the whole of the previous year. All were unsolved, except those committed by Leonardo Berghoff.
There was no reference to murders involving non-EU immigrants. These cases were particularly hard to solve. The victims were found in back alleys, on the pavements of streets on the outskirts of the city, sometimes even in squares in the historic centre. They were either completely unknown and unidentified, or at best were known drug dealers who lived their lives in the shadows.
Murders committed by the Mafia were a whole other story. Here, once the victim had been identified, it was possible to follow the trail back to the killer.
These were all different worlds, very distinct one from the other, and they required different methods of investigation.
As Ferrara was staring at the papers, Teresa came to his door. ‘Sorry to disturb you, chief.’
‘You’re not disturbing me at all. Come in, sit down.’
Ferrara noticed that she was carrying a diary and a notebook in one hand and a videocassette in the other. It was this on which his eyes came to rest as she approached. ‘Anything new, Teresa?’
‘Yes.’
A glimmer of light, he hoped.
At first all that could be seen were black and white dots.
Then the screen filled with colour.
A man’s dark suit, lying on a floor.
It was the scene of the crime, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Then a shirt, then a tie. And at last, the victim. He had been filmed sitting in the Jacuzzi with his head to one side: the exact same position in which he had been found.
Ferrara felt his stomach contract into a knot.
More black and white dots followed.
‘Is that it?’ Ferrara asked impatiently. In his head, he was already formulating a number of hypotheses.
‘No, chief. Wait a bit longer and you’ll see.’
After a couple of moments, the black and white dots were replaced by a figure, filmed from the waist up, sitting behind the huge desk in Costanza’s study. The face was hidden behind a dark-coloured balaclava. His top, perhaps part of a tracksuit, was also dark.
Ferrara threw a questioning glance at Teresa, who said, ‘Get ready…’
And then they heard the voice.
‘This was just the beginning. You won’t stop me, you should know that. Today, 24 August 2004, I have put just one piece of the jigsaw in place. The first. You will hear from me again soon. And when you think of me, just call me Genius. So long.’
The whole message had taken thirty-two seconds. The tone was artificial, the words articulated slowly and clearly as if to hide the sound of a sneer.
Ferrara tried to imagine that figure at the scene of the crime, after the killings. The killer was so sure of himself, he was making fun of them. More than that, he was challenging them, telling them that he was cleverer than they were and that there would be further murders.
You will hear from me again soon.
When?
You won’t stop me.
Why was he so sure he would get away with it?
Genius!
Why choose that name?
The black and white spots had now reappeared on the screen, but Ferrara paid no attention to them.
‘Do you want to see it again, chief?’ Teresa asked, interrupting the flow of his thoughts.
‘I want to hear the words again.’
Teresa rewound the tape, then pressed PLAY. This time, Ferrara noted the words down on a piece of A4 paper from the printer.
They were dealing with a madman, he thought, when Teresa pressed the STOP button. A madman who thought he was unbeatable. Just like a serial killer. In this case, a serial killer who had planned everything and was ready to strike again in accordance with a specific programme.
One serial killer? Or two?
Ferrara re-read the words and considered the possibility of a serial killer with a split personality: normal on the outside, but basically violent and destructive.
But which of the five categories of split-personality serial killers did he fit?
The Visionary? Had he carried out the murders after hearing voices or having a vision? It didn’t seem so.
The Missionary? Had he felt compelled to accomplish a mission to cleanse the world of people he considered the dregs of society, like prostitutes and tramps? Maybe. If that was the case, he must consider deviant Masonic activity the ‘dregs’.
The Thrill Killer? Had he killed for the pleasure that the act gave him? Was it a kind of emotional orgasm, the way gamblers got turned on waiting for the hand to be revealed? May
be.
The Control Freak? Had he killed to exercise his own power over the lives and deaths of his victims? Possibly.
The Lust Killer? Had he killed to obtain a purely sexual satisfaction? No, that was one they could rule out.
And what role did the Black Rose play in all this? From what he knew so far, maybe none at all. It could just be a coincidence.
The thought that the murders of Costanza and his butler were unconnected to the Black Rose almost revived his spirits.
But the room was like ice, and the voice of ‘Genius’ seemed to echo endlessly between the walls.
A few minutes had passed. Ferrara’s instinct, which he trusted implicitly, told him he had to get back in control of the situation.
‘Did you find anything else, Teresa?’
‘I think so, chief.’
‘Go on.’
She summarised what she had ascertained so far in examining the material that had been taken. In particular, the entry in Costanza’s diary for 20 August 2004, which she handed to Ferrara.
11.15 p.m. I met him today and he told me everything was under control. But he doesn’t want to expose himself any further. Idiot!!!
The last word was underlined.
Ferrara made a note of these sentences too. They might constitute a clue.
There was a brief pause, during which he could not help linking this diary entry to Serpico, then he immediately hoped he was wrong.
‘Anything else?’ he asked Teresa Micalizi.
She opened the notebook she had put down in front of her – the kind typically sold by Florentine stationers, with a leather cover and gold lettering – and leafed through it. ‘I’ve transcribed the names and telephone numbers from the diary, and also those from various scraps of paper and on business cards. There are several foreign ones, mostly English.’
‘Good. Do some more research on the people named, and put in a request to Interpol for information on the foreign nationals. After that, we’ll decide how to proceed.’
‘OK, chief.’
‘Thanks, Teresa. Carry on with your work. We might find the motive somewhere in Costanza’s papers.’
Teresa left the office, determined to watch the video again, alone this time. She had a hunch, and she wanted to follow it up.
20
9.07 a.m. Ministry of the Interior, Viminale Palace, Rome
Sitting in a small armchair in the second-floor waiting room, Adinolfi re-read his memo for the umpteenth time. The result of meticulous work, it ran to seven pages. He had tried to find the most appropriate words, the style most befitting of the recipient. It had kept him busy all week and had forced him to resort to further painkillers.
His usual headache had kicked in as soon as he had woken up.
Dressed in a dark blue suit, a white shirt, a blue tie with light polka dots and black shoes, he had left Florence at five in the morning in order to be punctual. He had told the driver they absolutely had to reach Rome by eight, and that he would have him transferred if they didn’t. It hadn’t been a genuine threat, but the possibility had been enough for the young driver to put his foot down more than he might have done otherwise.
During the journey, Adinolfi had read the copy of La Nazione he had picked up at the news stand near Santa Maria Novella station, the only place where you could get the city’s daily paper at that hour of the morning. What he had read had made him more than a little nervous.
The fact was, he wasn’t worried about criminals in general. He didn’t really care about fraudsters or corrupt politicians, or even tax evaders. He understood how people got involved in that kind of thing. He was even fairly indifferent to organised crime: after all, they settled their scores among themselves. The ones who really made him angry were the violent ones: the rapists and the muggers. And the small-time crooks, the pickpockets and bag snatchers who bothered tourists in the historic centre. That was the kind of thing that left the victims traumatised, especially if they were elderly, that spoilt the city, turned its streets into a jungle and its homes into prisons, aroused feelings of insecurity and damaged Florence’s image. He was convinced that sentences had to be tougher and, most of all, that they should be fixed.
For now, though, there was a high profile victim and a truly horrible crime, and his men didn’t have much time to shed light on it.
Having finished the newspaper, he had sat back in his seat with his eyes half closed, trying to hold back the anger eating away at him.
Even though he had arrived on time, it was now after nine and the Head of the State Police still seemed in no hurry to receive him.
‘He’s busy on the phone to the Minister,’ his personal secretary had explained on his arrival, motioning him into this waiting room, where the smell of furniture polish was overpowering. To make matters worse, the only window was closed.
At last, at 9.45, he was given the green light.
The Big Chief’s door opened wide.
‘Have you brought the memo I asked for?’
Armando Guaschelli, the Head of the State Police, did not even give him time to come in. Nor had he got up to shake his hand, just looked up distractedly from his paperwork.
‘Yes, sir,’ Adinolfi replied. Still standing, he opened his folder, took out the memo and handed it to him.
Guaschelli began reading it immediately, his gaunt, pallid face – a chain-smoker’s face, as his nicotine-stained yellow fingers confirmed – betraying no hint of emotion. When he had finished, he put the pages to one side. ‘I need to be kept up to date with all the latest developments. I don’t want to be left exposed, not when the Minister is so worried. And, above all, a word to the wise: I think what we need is a crackdown. There are people in positions of power who ought to be transferred.’
Adinolfi nodded several times, hoping that this last comment did not refer to him.
‘Don’t worry, sir,’ he reassured him. ‘You’ll be informed of everything immediately.’
‘Good. Now, go back to Florence and don’t breathe a word to anyone, not even your prefect, about the crackdown. Do you understand?’
‘Absolutely, sir. You can count on me. I’ll be as silent as the grave.’
Guaschelli stood up and offered Adinolfi his hand. As so often before, Adinolfi wondered how on earth they’d let him join the police. The man was a dwarf!
But he was perfectly well aware of the rumours circulating about Guaschelli, and not just in the corridors of the Ministry. Right from the start, he had been thought to have friends in high places and to be destined for a successful career, which was exactly what had come to pass.
His path had been smoothed even more by the way he had personally handled criminals who turned State’s evidence, of whom there had been an increasing number since the beginning of the nineties.
On the one hand, their testimonies had provided certain police officers with major successes; on the other, it had caused the fall from grace of a number of important political figures, but nobody had ever questioned what these criminals’ true motives were. Was it just a tactic to avoid prison or were they settling accounts with their enemies? Clearly, their intentions were not entirely honourable.
Guaschelli could not have cared less. He was only concerned with making arrests, capturing fugitives and, above all, getting his name into the papers.
What he craved was success at any cost. And now, as Head of the State Police, he enjoyed a salary of over five hundred thousand euros a year, in addition to the use of a service apartment and other benefits. He was the best paid major police official in the world, earning more than the director of the FBI and the head of Scotland Yard! A slap in the face to all those public servants who struggled to make it to the end of the month on their salaries. And to those police officers who had not been paid the overtime due to them.
21
The last images from the dream vanished.
It had been a lovely dream, much nicer than those she had had in the past few days.
Those
nightmare days, when she had woken up between those four walls and told herself yet again that she would never know true affection, were over.
She opened her eyes, turned onto her side, and in the half-light saw someone watching her from the doorway.
‘Good morning, darling.’
‘Angelica, you scared me.’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you. You were sleeping like an angel.’
‘How long have you been watching me?’
The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara) Page 8
