Nothing happened for more than half an hour, until a man, alone and carrying a briefcase in his right hand, crossed the entrance hall of the apartment block.
Germano got out of the car to get a better view of everything and noticed that the man was repeatedly and persistently pressing the button to call the lift.
The inspector immediately took out his phone.
“Yes.”
“It’s Germano, someone’s on their way up, it’s a man, get ready.”
“Ok.”
After a minute or so Pennino and Di Girolamo could see a shadow on the staircase, the figure came into view a few moments later, exclaiming:
“That bloody lift!”
“Sorry...?”
“Sorry, but it’s always breaking down, what the hell’s wrong with it this time?”
The officer responded: “Loss of power, there’s also a woman trapped inside...”
“Damn...what a nightmare!”
“These things happen, we see it every day...”
The man was still standing less than a metre from the two police officers, who were still not sure which door he was about to approach; Di Girolamo made sure that his hand was within reach of his gun under the overalls and pretended to carry on working.
The man walked towards the next flight of stairs and continued up to the fourth floor; as soon as he inserted his key into the lock a dog started barking to welcome its owner: he was not their man.
They immediately notified Germano.
Meanwhile, Officer Fiorini was still stuck in the pitch-black lift, but using the light from her phone she was able to make out the air vent at the top of the lift, which she opened to breathe some fresh air.
It was just gone two; there was no noise coming from inside the apartment, not a sound to be heard in the entire block. Outside, Germano continued to be vigilant, but there was nothing going on to catch his attention. He was starting to think that his man would not be back at all that night.
As he pulled out his packet of cigarettes, having decided to light yet another, he was distracted by his phone starting to vibrate.
“Hello.”
“Vincent! It’s Angelo...Parisi”.
“What’s the problem?”
“I think we’re on...Ricci’s phone was switched on a quarter of an hour ago, in the area of San Giovanni, but it looks as if he’s actually on his way home now.”
“How...”
“At the speed he’s going, he should be there in about five minutes, get ready.”
“Well done, Angelo, if he changes direction, let me know.”
“Ok.”
No sooner had Germano finished the call than he was dialling Di Girolamo’s number.
“Yes, Inspector...”
“Get ready, I think we’re in business...”
“At last...”
Germano then stepped out of his car and positioned himself behind a tree, eagerly awaiting the arrival of a grey Fiat Punto.
The man who got out looked just as Germano had imagined him: bald, with glasses, average build, wearing jeans and a white shirt.
He watched him enter the building and reach the first flight of stairs; Di Girolamo, on the second floor, could hear the distinct sound of regular steps, as the man climbed the stairs.
On reaching his floor, Carlo Ricci jumped at the sight of the two officers disguised as workmen and stopped for a few seconds before breaking the silence.
“Good God, are there people still working at two in the morning?”
The detective replied immediately, although somewhat awkwardly: “Well... it often happens that someone gets stuck in a lift, that’s the nature of our job...”
The smile with which Di Girolamo completed the sentence aroused the man’s suspicions even further, and rather than going on his way, he seemed to want to know more.
“Don’t you need to call the Fire Service in that case?”
“We have already, but they haven’t turned up yet, you could try calling them yourself...”
“Well don’t make too much noise, mind.”
“Don’t worry...you won’t hear a thing.”
“I hope not.”
Both police officers, on seeing which door the stranger walked towards, knew exactly what they needed to do; the performance would not need to go on for much longer.
After a few minutes Di Girolamo, exclaiming loudly enough to be heard from inside the apartments that they were missing a particular kind of spanner, went down the staircase and, with the feeling that someone was watching him from one of the windows, got into the unmarked car.
Surprised not to see anyone in the car behind his, he wondered where the devil Germano had got to, lowered his eyes as if he were looking for something, and when he looked up again he saw the inspector, hiding behind a tree, and miming the action of putting a cup to his lips; in his rear-view mirror he could see that the sign on the bar on the corner was still lit up.
Germano entered the bar and after a few moments was joined by his colleague.
“Inspector...”
“It’s him.”
“So what the hell do we do now?”
“Let me call Headquarters right now.”
“Flying Squad.”
“This is Inspector Germano.”
“Good evening, Inspector, how can we help?”
“I need three or four unmarked cars, I’m outside an apartment block on via Casilina and need to arrest someone who’s a strong suspect in a murder case.”
“Is he armed?”
“We don’t know.”
“Ok, they’ll be with you in ten minutes, they’ll drive around the block, and in the meantime please give me the details and a description, if you have one, of the suspect.”
The telephone call ended a couple of minutes later and the two officers left the bar separately; Di Girolamo had received specific instructions on how to proceed.
After explaining everything quickly to Officer Pennino, they both got ready to buzz the intercom outside Ricci’s door.
“Who is it?”
“It’s the lift engineers, signor Ricci...”
The door opened and Di Girolamo resumed the conversation.
“We must apologise both for the hour and for the inconvenience, but we saw that you’d just come in, so...”
“So....what?”
“The battery on our drill is dead, the Fire Service are on their way but we need to recharge it a bit, just for five or six minutes, would you mind if we used your power socket?”
“Haven’t you got a spare one?”
“We left it back in the store...”
Meanwhile, the officer trapped in the lift was banging and wailing, which helped convince Ricci to oblige.
The two officers entered and turned the light on.
The glare, coming from the second floor, meant that Germano’s men were now inside, prompting him to go into action too.
Taking care not to make any noise, he arrived outside the door, which appeared to be closed but had in fact been left open by Detective Di Girolamo. He kicked it open and found himself face to face with the man who, for so long, had seemed to be merely a ghost.
Carlo Ricci immediately recognised the man facing him; he had seen that face and read the press articles too often not to realise what was happening.
He tried to reach something near the sideboard, but in an instant found himself with two guns aimed at his head.
12
“What time does the concert start, Vinnie?”
“At nine, darling, but let’s try to get there for eight, so that we can also go behind the scenes...”
“It must be great to have a friend who’s a rock star!”
“Hah, hah, he’s not a rock star, Arianna, they play a softer kind of music.”
Germano had just got out of the car, which he had parked a short walk from the stadium, when he heard someone calling him.
“Inspector!”
“Claudia!”
&
nbsp; “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a SoundSerif fan. The bass player, Fabrizio Serrecchia, is an old friend of mine. What about you, what brings you to these parts? Have you been missing Italy?”
“Let’s just say that I’m on holiday, in Paris it’s like autumn even in summer!”
“This is my wife, Arianna.”
“Hi, nice to meet you.”
“Arianna, this is Claudia Ferretti, we met up a couple of months ago in France and...”
“What were you doing in France, Vinnie?”
“Don’t worry, signora Germano, it’s not what you think, let’s say that your husband came to...do some ghost hunting.”
“And did he find it?”
“Yes, he did this time...”
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