The Abduction: A Novel

by Jonathan Holt

  “When were the remains discovered?”

  “Approximately two-thirty. We had a security ingress – protestors cut through the padlocks and forced open a gate. The gates are alarmed, and our cameras have night-vision capability, so we were well prepared for them. They let off these flares you can see, sprayed some graffiti, then split up. Two chained themselves to cranes – those are my biggest headache; we’ll have to call in abseilers to cut them loose. My men followed another to a 319D – that is, one of the big excavator trucks. By the time they caught up with him, he was on his phone to the police, saying he’d seen a skeleton in the tipper. One of them went to check, and it turned out he was right. At least, there was a skeleton.”

  Piola noted the implication. “You don’t believe the rest of his account?”

  “Well, sir, I don’t want to pre-empt your investigation. But on the cameras, we could make out that he was carrying a large holdall when he broke in. It seems possible he brought the skeleton with him, threw it in the truck himself, and then reported it, in the hope of holding up construction.” Pownall glanced across at Piola. “No offence, Colonel, but Italian bureaucracy can be notoriously slow, and it wouldn’t be the first time the antis have tried to get us tangled up in red tape. That’s why we made sure we got the Carabinieri, rather than the State Police, to run this investigation. You people get that this is a military schedule we’re dealing with.”

  Piola chose not to respond directly to that. “Have the protestors broken in before?”

  “Negative – this would be the first time since Transformazione began.”

  “Transformazione?” Piola echoed.

  Pownall shrugged. “That’s what the consortium call it. I guess you’ll see why. It’s rather more than your typical building project.”

  In fact, Piola could still see very little. Tattered fronds of fog greyed the Jeep’s headlights as they drove. He thought he glimpsed some earthmovers to their left, through a gap in the fog, but appearances were deceptive: it was at least another minute before the Jeep drew up beside them.

  As he followed Sergeant Pownall towards the vehicles, stepping gingerly through the mud in an effort to preserve his shoes, he realised why he’d been confused about the distance. The machines were vast – at least twice normal size, the tyres alone the height of a man. On the door of the nearest one, some graffiti had been sprayed – a round circle with an A in it, like the anarchy symbol, except that there were also a smaller D and M nestled between the A’s feet. The graffiti was very recent, the black paint still running in the moisture-laden air.

  The truck was so big that to see into the tipper he had to climb a ladder that was placed next to it. Peering over the edge, he saw two white-suited figures crouched amongst a heap of rubble, examining some bones by the glare of a portable arc light. Piola made out a skull, brown with age, and below it the hoops of a ribcage. Nearby, but separate, was a leg, still attached to a foot.

  “Good morning, Dottori,” he greeted them. One of the figures looked up.

  “Ah, Colonel. I was beginning to think we wouldn’t see you before breakfast.” Hapadi’s voice was muffled by his mask.

  “I’m not sure why I’m here at all,” Piola said. “As opposed to someone more local, I mean. What can you tell me?”

  The forensic examiner pulled down his mask and stood, stretching to ease the stiffness in his back. “I’d say it’s a man, from the size of the pelvis. DNA will confirm it – we’ll have to use mitochondrial, there isn’t enough adipose for a conventional assay.”

  Piola nodded, although he barely understood these technical details. “Any idea when it dates from?”

  They both knew this was the crucial question, and Hapadi’s voice when he answered was cautious. “Well, I doubt it’s pre-medieval. But neither is it fresh – the discoloration’s too evenly spread for that. There are some fragments of fibre that might help, probably from a khaki jacket, and he has an interesting distortion of the left wrist that could indicate pre-vaccination poliomyelitis – he’d have had a distinctive withered left hand, by the way. To be honest, dating skeletons is specialist work. I’ll have to find someone who’s more familiar with the tests than I am.”

  “Any thoughts on how it got here?”

  “It looks as if it was tossed in by someone on the ground – the bones are clearly positioned on top of the spoil, not amongst it. The force of the impact is what caused the femur and pelvis to separate, I imagine.”

  “So it could have been thrown in only a couple of hours ago?”

  “Possibly. I’m aware that’s what’s being hypothesised.” Piola caught the wariness in the doctor’s voice. “But you should be able to prove or disprove it easily enough.”

  “How, Dottore?”

  Hapadi crouched down again. “See here, how earth has filled the pelvic cavity? If it was carried here, some would have fallen out along the way. Your skeleton will have left a trail of crumbs, Colonel. Like Hansel and Gretel.”

  “Thank you, Dottore. That’s very useful.”

  As Piola started back down the ladder, Hapadi added, “You didn’t ask about cause of death.”

  Piola stopped. “That’s because I didn’t think you’d be able to tell me.”

  “Normally, perhaps. But when it’s like this it’s not difficult.” The doctor lifted the skull in white-gloved hands, rotating it so that Piola could see the neat circle just behind where the left ear would have been. “That’s how I know it isn’t medieval, Colonel. They didn’t make holes like this before they had bullets.”

  TWO

  MIA WOKE UP in a warm, comfortable haze that receded abruptly as the memory of what had happened came flooding back. It had been this way for a while now – sleeping from the drugs they’d given her; waking, her panic momentarily surfacing through the fog in her brain, then drifting back into oblivion again. How long exactly, she had no idea.

  She vaguely remembered the motion of the van, and sensing when it pulled off a smooth, fast road on to bumpier, more rural ones. From the way her body had rolled from side to side, she’d guessed they must be climbing up into the hills. Eventually they’d turned onto what felt like a farm track, crawling over potholes.

  She’d drifted off again, waking only when the van finally stopped. Doors banged, and cold air rushed in around her feet. A male voice spoke, the Italian dialect too thick and fast for her to make out the words.

  A second man, close to her head, answered – he must have been in the back with her the whole time. Hands lifted her, the two men sliding her out and carrying her between them. There was some quiet conversation – “Lentamente”, “Attenzione alla porta” – as if they were simply moving furniture or a piece of rolled carpet. Then she was somewhere that felt both small and echoey. The men’s boots scuffed on a rough floor as she was lowered onto a mattress.

  A sharp sting in her wrist had brought back the panic, only for sleep to claim her once more.

  When she woke, it was to discover that the hood had been replaced with goggles – large ones, like skiing goggles, but with the lenses blacked out. She tested her hands. Handcuffed. Bile rose into her mouth.

  “Looks like you’re awake, princess,” a voice said in heavily accented English.

  A hand clamped around her wrist – not roughly, but resting there. She flinched at the touch, as light as a caress, but he was simply taking her pulse.

  “OK,” the same voice said at last. “Cominciamo.”

  She didn’t speak much Italian, but she understood that, and her body stiffened in terror.

  Let’s begin.

  THREE

  AS HE CLIMBED back down the ladder Piola caught the sound of raised voices. Looking over his shoulder, he saw four people standing under the arc lights. One was a young Carabinieri lieutenant who Piola didn’t know. He was flanked by Sergeant Pownall and a big, thickset man wearing a bulging business suit, incongruously topped with a high-visibility jacket and a hard hat several sizes too small. The fourth was a wom
an.

  “… which is why I need to examine the remains in situ,” she was saying forcibly. “There are clear procedures for moving bones, and the most important one is this: don’t move anything at all until it’s been sifted and mapped.”

  “Well, it’s in the hands of the Italian police now,” the big man said.

  “Or rather, the Carabinieri,” Piola agreed, joining them. “Good morning. I’m Colonel Piola.”

  The big man stepped forward, effectively using his bulk to mask the woman, and thrust out a meaty hand. “Sergio Sagese, Transformation Director.” Although his Italian was fluent, there was a twang that told Piola he was more used to speaking American. “Do you have what you need? We want to facilitate a speedy resolution for you people any way we can.”

  “Thank you.” Piola looked around Sagese’s shoulder to the woman, who now appeared even more furious. “And you are?”

  “Dottora Ester Iadanza, forensic archaeologist.” Piola noticed her unusual use of the female “-a” ending, as opposed to the more usual “Dottoressa”. Some feminists, he had heard, had started avoiding the latter, which had traditionally been used to denote any woman with a university degree, or even a doctor’s wife. “I’m attached to this construction project,” she added. “Supposedly.”

  “Only for the preparatory stages,” Sagese interjected. “And as it turned out, your involvement was never actually required.”

  Dr Iadanza spoke directly to Piola. “It was a condition of work going ahead that my team be given access. Not surprisingly, having been given not a shred of cooperation, we’ve found very little.”

  “Did you think you might?” Piola asked, curious. “I hadn’t realised this area was of particular significance.”

  “Archaeology doesn’t just mean ancient history, Colonel. This airfield was used by both the Italian and German air forces in the Second World War. Anything relating to that might be of great interest to a historian.”

  “And what is it – exactly – that you want, Dottora?”

  “I want to examine the remains, and sift the soil they were found with, metre by cubic metre,” she said promptly. “And if there’s any evidence that they actually came from a different part of the site, I want to do the same in that location too.”

  “Surely there’s no suggestion—” Sagese began, but Piola cut him off.

  “Speak to Dr Hapadi, Dottora. He’s already expressed a desire to work with a specialist on this. If he has no objection, neither do I.”

  “Thank you. I’ll get suited up.” She turned and headed off into the mist.

  Sagese cleared his throat, although the sound that came from his thick neck sounded more like a growl. “This won’t affect construction, Colonel, will it?”

  “In what respect?” Piola said.

  Sagese jerked out his elbow to inspect the watch strapped to his massive wrist. “In exactly seventy-five minutes, our next shift comes on site. I just want to be certain there’ll be no obstacles to them doing a proper day’s work.” He gave the word “obstacles” a disdainful sneer.

  Clearly, Piola thought, any Carabinieri investigation of more than a few minutes would represent just such an impediment in Sagese’s eyes. “It will be necessary to stand them down, for the time being,” he said politely. “I’ll let you know how soon you can expect to resume work when I have a better idea myself.”

  Sagese shook his head in exasperation. “Let me just explain what we’re dealing with here, Colonel. This project involves the construction of over four hundred buildings across a site of one hundred and thirty acres. Structures on the east side are being completed even as groundworks are initiated here in the west. And each day my workers stand idle costs half a million dollars in overheads and penalty clauses – not least to the Italian government, who are co-financiers of the project and receive regular updates at the very highest level. Halting work is simply not an option.”

  Piola felt a flash of irritation at the man’s tone, although he tried hard not to let it show. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  “What the hell does that mean? An hour? A morning? A day?” Sagese demanded, pulling out his phone as threateningly as another man might pull out a knife.

  “It’s much too early to say. In the meantime, I’d like you, and all your people, to clear this area. Whoever threw that skeleton in the tipper may have left evidence on the ground, and we’re trampling it.”

  As Sagese stamped off, already punching in numbers, Piola turned to the carabiniere, who had so far said nothing. “What’s your name, Sottotenente?”

  “Panicucci, sir.”

  “Do you know how to establish an investigative perimeter, Panicucci?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then please do so. One-hundred-metre tapes in every direction, with a single entry and exit point. Carabinieri guards front and rear. Every authorised visitor to be logged in and out, and make sure they wear microfibre overalls. Those remains may or may not be recent, but they didn’t climb inside that tipper by themselves. And now,” he said, turning back to Pownall, “I’d like to speak to the protestor who called this in.”

  The site guardhouse was like every guardhouse Piola had ever been in – too warm, and smelling of microwaved food. But the interview room where the protestor was being held was well equipped, with a table and chairs bolted to the floor, heavy-duty bars on the window, and a CCTV camera mounted behind a protective grille. Clearly, the US Military Police didn’t do things by halves.

  “Bring me his bag,” Piola instructed. “And anything else he had with him.”

  The American guard hesitated, then, as Piola had intended, left Piola and the protestor alone.

  “Luca Marchesin?” The young man with the straggly goatee sitting across the table nodded. “I’ll need to see your ID.”

  He wrote down the details in his notebook. The date of birth was ridiculously recent – only nine years before his own son’s. “Tell me what happened here, Luca.”

  Luca shrugged, affecting a bravado that Piola suspected he no longer felt after several hours of being incarcerated by men in American uniform. “Five of us broke in just after two a.m. We all had different tasks – mine was to get right to the centre of the site, to leave a sign we’d been there. I had to move fast – the MPs were after us within seconds. I found a big excavator truck, so I climbed up the steps to spray the door. And that’s when I saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “A skeleton, lying right there in the tipper. So I called 112.”

  “You didn’t touch the remains, or disturb them in any way?”

  It was important to establish whether Luca was admitting any forensic contact with the bones. But the boy was shaking his head emphatically. “I never went near them. Check the film from my GoPro if you like.”

  The soldier had returned with a black holdall and a tray containing the boy’s things: a watch, an iPhone and a small video camera on an elastic strap, like the ones worn by snow-boarders. Piola picked the camera up. It was completely wrecked, the housing almost in two pieces and the innards spilling out.

  “Your camera seems to be broken,” Piola said neutrally.

  Luca gave a hollow laugh. “So it is.”

  Piola unzipped the holdall. Inside were four aerosol cans, but otherwise it was empty. It was also perfectly clean, with no crumbs of earth like the ones Hapadi had said would fall out of the skeleton when it was moved.

  “That graffiti you were spraying. ‘ADM’ – what’s that all about?” he asked, turning the lining inside out to check.

  “Azione Dal Molin.” Luca looked defiant. “Our new group. The only thing the Americans understand is direct action. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

  “‘Direct action’? Trespass and sabotage, you mean? What’s wrong with legal forms of protest?”

  Luca snorted. “Marches, petitions, protests – we’ve had all that. The decision to give this land to the US was made behind closed doors, by Berlusconi and his cronies.
Why should we respect the law, when our own government ignores it?”

  Piola looked at the young man thoughtfully. “You’re making this very difficult for me, Luca. On the one hand, you say you’ve done nothing wrong. On the other hand, you’re telling me you broke into the site with the express intention of breaking the law.”

  “I told you. Check out the footage.”

  “And as I told you,” Piola indicated the broken camera, “that doesn’t appear to be possible.”

  Luca’s face cracked into a smile. “That’s what the people who smashed it thought. But this isn’t a conventional video camera, Colonel. This part here connects directly to the internet, via the personal hotspot on my iPhone. As soon as I broke into the site, I was streaming the film to our group’s Facebook page.”

  The technical details meant nothing to Piola, but he understood the gist. “Can you show me? On your phone, for example?”

  “Sure.” Luca entered a passcode, then placed the phone in front of Piola, turning his head sideways so he could see too. “Ninety views already. Not bad.”

  The footage was often blurry as Luca, unseen behind the camera, scrabbled over obstacles, but the section by the excavator was clear enough, as was the sudden force with which the boy had been wrestled to the ground. The part where a burly figure – Piola couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Sergeant Pownall – yanked the camera off Luca’s head, placed it on the ground, then lifted his booted foot and stamped on it, turning the image into flickering visual porridge, was almost comic. It was, Piola guessed, the kind of thing that would go round the internet like wildfire.

  “OK,” he said. “Stay here. And for your own sake, try not to antagonise anyone.”

  He went and found Sagese and Pownall.

  “Well? Did the kid confess yet?” Sagese demanded.

  “I need to confirm something,” Piola said. “In the meantime, can you find me whoever was driving the excavator truck yesterday? And get me his documents, along with a plan of where he was working?”