Hunted

by Monty Marsden

  “About one thousand, five hundred Euros, I have to be away for a few days.”

  “Surely you could have used an ATM in Bologna?”

  The man deflected Gottardi’s question with a smile.

  “It’s the money that I have in the flat and I don’t want to leave it here when I’m not around because the cleaner comes tomorrow.”

  “You’re a diffident man, Mr Contri.”

  “So are you, right?”

  “Well, that’s my job.” Gottardi paused for a moment, then continued. “Can you show me your computer or laptop? I would like to see Liberty’s online profile.”

  “Yeah, my laptop’s in my bedroom. Do you want to come with me to get it? So you can check that Liberty isn’t hiding under my bed or something?”

  “That’s a good idea, but I’ll let Uggeri follow you. I’m going to stay here and get in touch with an IT expert from the forensics department.”

  Facebook could be a useful source of information – did Riondino have other ‘friends’ from Florence he could have been in touch with? Did he have a backup plan after Matteo refused to host him? Maybe they could find some information from his conversations online that would suggest where they could find him?

  Then, while Gottardi was typing the number of the central police station, he felt something unusual… he couldn’t tell what it was – a muffled noise, a draught of air…

  He turned round instinctively, his attention on the corridor Matteo and Uggeri had disappeared down.

  Nothing, just silence. How long would it take to find a laptop? Why were they not having any form of conversation?

  Gottardi edged forward slowly, towards the corridor. He heard something coming from the room… it sounded like a muffled flapping of wings… and a hiss.

  “Uggeri?” He called out – a wave of adrenalin rushed through his system. He cursed himself for not having a weapon.

  No answer.

  The door was ajar… Gottardi pushed it open slowly.

  Then a body rammed him against the wall like a plank of wood. As he slammed against the wall, his mind registered Uggeri lying on the floor, his legs jerking in pain; his pierced neck covered in blood. He was struggling desperately to breathe.

  The body that had hit Gottardi was huge. A hand was pressing on his mouth, preventing him from breathing properly – then another hand hit his stomach. A punch… No, not a punch, he understood immediately with dismay… it was something that was rummaging inside him… a blade. A blade was cutting his aorta open.

  He began to feel confused, his legs were losing strength… he slid to the ground slowly as the man he had believed to be Matteo Contri loosened his grip on him. He was cold – life was ebbing from him.

  The lips of his killer were close to his ear. “Very well, you’ve found me – if you had been even a couple of minutes later, you’d be alive now, motherfucker.”

  It was freezing cold – breathing was painful.

  “Fuck…” Gottardi managed to say, then regretted that his very last word was a swear word.

  Riondino blinked.

  “Well done, Hannibal.”

  The huge man wiped Gottardi’s blood away from his face mechanically with the back of his hand.

  He dropped the knife, walked past Gottardi’s corpse and entered the bathroom.

  The tufts of hair that he had trimmed off were still on the floor and most of his beard was in the sink. Matteo Contri’s naked corpse was laid in the bath tub, curled up on itself. Riondino looked at his own reflection in the mirror. His face and clothes were stained with the blood of the two policemen he had just killed. He would have to wash and change his clothes again, but time was tight – how had they found him so soon?

  The phone call – sure, but it would have taken them hours to get there. What had gone wrong? Riondino tried to control his breathing, he couldn’t let anxiety ruin his plans. He was jealous of Hannibal because he never had emotions. He removed his clothes and washed the blood away.

  Before dressing again, he looked at himself in the mirror. His face was similar to that of Matteo Contri. He fixed his quiff a little, donned the heavy-framed, red glasses and smiled to himself with satisfaction.

  He could easily pass as Matteo.

  5

  Today.

  The place where Claps and Greta had agreed to meet up wasn’t crowded and it had been easy to find an empty table where they could talk freely. It had been months since they had last seen each other. Claps greeted her with a quick kiss on her cheek, he was a little shy every time that he saw her.

  “How are you?”

  Despite knowing each other for years and having been through a lot together, Claps struggled to address her by name. Was it a way for him to keep memories from the past at bay?

  They sat down and ordered drinks – Greta told him about Riondino’s escape from the hospital. She fiddled nervously with her car keys while she talked.

  “I was asked to write an article on Riondino,” she concluded. “It wasn’t easy – I’ve been trying to stay away from stories like that for so long.” Greta forced herself to smile.” I know that it’s silly, but this is not good for me… too many memories of the time when I worked in TV… and consequently, Morphy. I didn’t want to spend the rest of the day alone – thanks for agreeing to meet up.”

  Riondino. Claps observed the intense colour of his shot of rum. He could smell the intense aroma of the drink and yet it didn’t relax him. His stomach was tied in knots. “It’s not silly. It might be a bit of a cliché, but it takes years for the woo… the wounds to heal. You can’t just ignore them.”

  After years of rehabilitation, Claps had almost completely won his war against aphasia – he only struggled with the odd word and some hesitations if the sentences were a little too long for him.

  Greta looked away thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Riondino,” she said a little uncertainly. “If I remember correctly, you investigated him for the first time with Sensi.”

  “That’s right. Seven years ago.”

  “What really happened?”

  Claps bit on his lower lip nervously. “Are you interviewing me for… a new article?”

  “No, I won’t write any more articles on that.” Greta smiled, embarrassed. “I just feel the need to talk. To rationalise. To exorcise, if you will. Assuming that it’s okay with you.”

  Claps intertwined his fingers around his glass. Before speaking, he sipped on his rum.

  He wanted to be elsewhere right now.

  “After the death of Laura Minz,” he said eventually, “we w… we worked for ten days with no results.”

  “In fact, you weren’t that far away from identifying Riondino, right?”

  “No, we had a profile, which I had sketched. It was pretty accurate, as we found out subseq… later on… We worked on that profile, we tried to match it with everyone who could have been in contact with Laura Minz during the previous two mo… two months. Working with Sensi wasn’t easy at the beginning; he was very sceptical about my ability. Nevertheless he agreed to use my indications as a possible profile of the murderer to save time trying to find su… suspects. So at the end of those ten days we had about twelve names to work on. It was difficult, that’s for sure – the murderer could have seen Laura only from a distance and may not have been in touch with her directly.”

  “And Riondino was on the list.”

  “Yeah. He worked for a fi… finance company, he used to sell investment products – common funds, occupational pension schemes, shares. He had gone to visit Laura at her house a month before to meet her partner and discuss an investment portfolio. He had seen her there.”

  “And it wasn’t necessary to investigate beyond that list of names – you caught him reasonably early.”

  “The eleventh day. When Riondino kidnapped another young woman. Terry Schiavi, I believe she was ca… called. Same method – he kidnapped her in the morning and locked her in the horrific cell that he had turned his garage into. It was
more like a torture chamber. He left the woman tied and gagged there and then he went to w… wo… to work. He would have been back in the evening to finish her.”

  “But she freed herself.”

  Claps nodded. “Riondino hadn’t knotted the gag. The owner of the neighbouring garage came home around mid… day, and he heard her cry out for help. They freed her half an hour later. By 1 p.m., Riondino’s name was on all of the police radio frequencies. Sensi found him at work – it wasn’t quite 2 p.m. when they arrested the serial killer.”

  “His behaviour had appeared a little strange from the very beginning…”

  “He looked a little confused, he had no idea what was happening to him. The accusations startled him. After all, this could be a normal attitude when the culprit wants to protest his innocence – to each their own ways. In retrospect, though…”

  “What about his physique? Not very tall… chubby…”

  “There is no such thing as a stereotypical serial killer physique. Most of the time, they look inoffensive. I must admit that Riondino looked the part… particularly meek, unlikely to cause any harm. I mean, even physically – he looked weak, fragile, incapable of hurting anyone.”

  “The evidence against him was crystal clear, however.”

  “The woman who had been kidnapped recognised him straight away. A couple of hours later, DNA analysis showed that the organic material found in the garage belonged to the previous victims… the sperm that they found in their bodies belonged to Riondino.”

  “The man kept denying everything, until…”

  “Then Sensi asked me to meet him at his office urgently the morning after. As I said, we didn’t quite c… click at the beginning… but day by day Sensi had got to know me and my skills better. That day was a rainy one, like today…”

  Claps gazed away through the window. The rain had resumed falling on the city. Slowly, his memories came back to him and made him relive the events of seven years earlier. They were crystal clear, like the neon light from the restaurant which shone on the wet pavement outside.

  *

  Seven years before.

  Sensi let Claps into a small meeting room. There was a table long enough for no more than eight people and, in a corner, on a trolley that looked a little wobbly, a cathode-ray tube TV and a VCR.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet up urgently,” Sensi said quickly and a little formally.

  Claps noticed immediately that Sensi was thoughtful – something was worrying him.

  “I have something to show you,” Sensi said and then he took a VHS. “For now, we’re unable to use digital images,” he explained. “But video cassettes work just as well… maybe we’ll get the funds to buy new gadgets in the future.”

  Sensi’s eyes reflected a little more than just anxiety. He didn’t look Claps in the eye and his movements weren’t as decisive and fluid as Claps was used to. He wasn’t his usual self at all. Sensi looked worried, sure, but not only that… there was something else going on.

  The fact that Sensi didn’t look him in the eye… the explanations… Yeah, Claps was almost certain – it wasn’t just worry, there’s was something else that he couldn’t quite put his finger on… something was concerning him.

  “We interrogated Riondino this morning, his state lawyer was there with him and has encouraged him to use his right to remain silent – but to no avail.” Sensi said and then he played the recording.

  “The first part isn’t very interesting,” he continued and then fast-forwarded the recording a little. “He doesn’t say any more than he said yesterday, when you were around too. But here…” Sensi slowed the tape down to normal. “Look.”

  Claps focused on the recording – the frame was still and showed Riondino sitting at a table next to the person who had to be his lawyer. Sensi and another policeman were standing in front of them and had their backs to the camera – they were hardly visible in the tape.

  “Mr Riondino,” the audio was of a poor quality and Sensi’s voice was a little distorted. “Why do you keep denying it?”

  Riondino remained in the same position throughout the whole interrogation – his hands on the table, his fingers intertwined so tightly that they had turned unusually pale, his shoulders were slumped and his chest leant against the table, his head hung low. His distraught eyes were lowered, his gaze fixed on an undefined point.

  “I did none of the things you’re talking about…” His voice was more like a moan – he seemed about to burst into tears. “I would never be able to do anything like that…”

  “Come on,” Sensi continued calmly. “Terry Schiavi recognised you as the man who kidnapped her and held her captive. She was imprisoned in a garage that you own and the DNA test results have shown the presence of organic material on the bodies of the victims… and the DNA is unmistakably yours.”

  “We’ll have to be careful with the DNA test results, if I may…” the state lawyer said. “There is still a counter examination to carry out…”

  “Okay,” Sensi had begun to sound annoyed. “In that case, you’ll be able to discuss this with the public prosecutor, and even better with the judge, to validate the arrest. Not now with me.”

  “I was just making an observation.”

  Riondino had lifted his eyes – they appeared to be full of tears. “It wasn’t me,” he kept repeating. “There must be an explanation…”

  “We know that you went to Terry Schiavi’s house twice to discuss her partner’s supplementary pension. Did you decide that you wanted to kidnap her when you saw her there?”

  “No, it wasn’t me… there must be an explanation…”

  “There’s no other explanation – the girl knows you. She told us how you kidnapped her and took her to your garage, how you took her clothes off, tied her up and gagged her. She told us how she was able to set herself free.”

  Claps noticed that Riondino made a strange movement during the recording – he raised his head, blinking swiftly, then his eyes began to move from one side to the other. Sensi asked Riondino if he was feeling okay and then…

  Then something made Claps’ blood run cold – Riondino’s face changed rapidly. His eyes become cold, penetrating; his posture became upright and tense like an archer ready to fire an arrow. His facial traits transformed into a mask of evil and cruelty and he looked like a different person. What had been until then an innocuous man hissed hoarsely. “I should have tied her tighter, that slut. Or slaughtered her earlier.”

  Soon afterwards, Riondino sprang to his feet and knocked the table over with seemingly uncontrollable anger – a moment later, the recording ended in a mosaic of electric charge.

  “Three policemen jumped on him and one of them knocked over the camera,” Sensi said. “A fourth man was needed to restrain him… and two of them ended up in hospital. He was raging.”

  Claps couldn’t help but stare at the blank screen, almost as though he were hypnotised.

  “He’s quite angelic now and he says that he doesn’t remember what happened.”

  “Can I see this again?”

  Sensi wound the tape backwards for a few seconds. The last few frames of the recording rolled in front of Claps’ eyes again.

  That voice sounded like the devil. “I should have tied her tighter, that slut. Or slaughtered her earlier.”

  Before the recording ended for a second time, Claps was certain that he had seen a similar video clip years before.

  Sensi took off his glasses and rubbed his face with his palms.

  “Remarkable, huh? That voice is terrifying.”

  Claps finally moved his eyes away from the screen, but didn’t turn towards Sensi. “He confessed like you wanted him to,” he said almost distractedly to Sensi, while he was thinking about a different possibility.

  “You know, I have seen many unlikely murderers over the years break down and show their true side… but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Riondino doesn’t remember anything of what he has said an
d done.”

  Sensi nodded. “When they calmed him down – but before they injected him with a sedative – he kind of suddenly lost all of his strength and lay lifeless, all the anger that he had shown before had gone. He stopped fighting the policemen and kept asking what was happening and why he was being handcuffed, crying like a child.”

  “Do you think he was honest?”

  Sensi didn’t answer immediately; he stood up and nervously moved a few steps forward across the room. Then he spoke. “He looked genuinely in shock,” he admitted unwillingly. “But my mind tells me that he’s lying. He lies when he tries to act like a weak, submissive, whinging man, unable to even conceive of anything that he is accused of. He lies when he says that he doesn’t remember any of what he did a few minutes earlier.” Sensi stopped for a moment and then took a deep breath. “At least, that’s what my instinct tells me. You say – he fakes foolishness, he comes across as a bad actor to get away from a heavy punishment in court. I have seen many try to play that card. But, again, I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  “Why did you call me? The investigation is over – the culprit has been arrested. It will be up to the psychiatrists to establish whether Riondino is an insane serial killer or whether he acted lucidly and knowingly. It’s not your job.”

  Sensi sat down again, slowly. “Yeah, but I want to know now, Claps. I want to know who I’m dealing with. Is he acting? You’re a psychiatrist if I’m not mistaken, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s my first specialisation – I took an interest in criminology later on.”

  “Help me to understand then, please.”

  Claps lowered his eyes again. “Did you notice the way he moves his eyes before he turns into his aggressive self? It’s called nystagmus and it’s completely involuntary – you can’t fake it.”

  “What does it mean? That he wasn’t lying?”

  “It means that I’d like to talk to him before I make any judgements.”

  Claps saw in his mind’s eye the video clip from years before.

  “Face to face. Is that possible?”