Читать книгу A Known Evil: A gripping debut serial killer thriller full of twists you won’t see coming - Aidan Conway - Страница 14

Rossi threw into the boot the remaining profiles of perverts, murderers, and violent stalkers released from prison in the last ten years, as well as those of similarly inclined suspects still walking the streets. Another day of paperwork, computer-screens, and head-scratching. And now this. The workload was doubling every 24 hours. And they were getting no nearer an answer. It was like a blank crossword staring back at him. After knocking the lads into shape on the crime scene he’d managed to carve out enough time to keep a planned appointment at the hospital of legal medicine to see what they could get on the second, more detailed autopsy on Paola Gentili. Nothing particularly useful had come out of the trip except the discovery that she’d had the beginnings of a particularly aggressive cancer in her right lung. And she didn’t even smoke.

“Bitch of a life,” said Rossi as they left the building to be greeted by a blast of the now customary wintery air. Carrara was musing in his own world. The place had that effect on you. Leaving its confines wasn’t like leaving any normal hospital where you had that feeling of relief that you weren’t in there yourself mixed with lingering concern for the person who was. Here was different. This coldly modern, austere, imposing building concealed within its walls real-life horror stories and tragedies in equal measure. And then there was the final ignominy of being carved up by experience-hardened doctors-cum-butchers to see how you had been dispatched from this mortal coil. A necessary evil, Rossi managed to convince himself, if they were going to stop this beast. Yet another necessary evil.

They decided to leave the car and take a stroll past the Verano cemetery. They ventured across the tramlines gleaming like blades that carved up the piazza and on which the number three passed then swept away into the dank concrete tube of the railway tunnel leading to San Lorenzo. ‘Red’ San Lorenzo, as it was known. Historically, solidly working-class and the cradle of Rome’s Communist and Anarchist communities, it was now becoming like another sort of Trastevere, a nascent mini Covent Garden with bistros, boutiques and wine bars sprouting on every corner.

But Rossi wanted to think, and he thought best when he had eaten, but not in the police canteen or the other cop haunts within walking distance of the Questura, and away, too, from the usual press-frequented places in the centre.

“Formula One?”

“Sounds good to me,” replied Carrara appearing to perk up. Many’s the time Rossi had put everyday concerns aside there, as a child, with both his parents, and back in his Roman high-school days. All that before the Erasmus experience. Before, for better or for worse, everything had changed in his love life and in the professional direction he would finally choose to take in life.

The pizzeria’s busy evening was almost coming to a close. Waiters dawdled with the look of men counting the minutes until they could knock off. But it was open. They took a table with a view of the street and ordered stuffed, fried pumpkin flowers as starters and half-litre tankards of Moretti.

“So here we are again,” said Rossi. “We’re talking serial, or spree?” he proffered without raising his eyes from the plate.

“Looks that way,” Carrara replied, busy with his own.

“And Rome’s never had a serial killer.”

“Not like this.”

“And he’s leaving notes. In English.”

“He could be English. Or American.”

“He could be anyone, a freak, full stop. And the psychologist’s report? Are they building a profile?”

“Too early to say.”

Rossi looked up, knife and fork gripped. “What? We need a few more dead women first and then there’ll be something to go on? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that it’s not that helpful. It’s the usual kind of thing. Nothing that really narrows the circle. Woman-hater. Egocentric. Low self-esteem. Absence of sexual relations. Abuse victim himself, possibly. Certainly above-average intelligence, though. Won’t let himself get caught, but leaves clues and likes playing games.”

“But he’s killing ordinary women, not prostitutes or foreigners. He’s not going for marginalized targets, outsiders. It goes against type.”

“True.”

“And now he’s giving us the answers?”

The waiter passed, and Rossi added two more beers to their pizza order.

“Right,” said Rossi. “Inside a black hole there’s dark matter. But what does that tell us?”

Carrara gave a shrug.

“Of course, there’s always time,” said Rossi, appearing to drift off with his thoughts.

“Time?” Carrara replied. “Time for what?”

“The black hole, Gigi. Bends time, doesn’t it? Einstein’s theory.”

“O-kay.” His friend was trying to keep up with him.

“It takes us back. Outside of time, even.”

“Meaning?”

Two pizzas as big as cartwheels sustained by a white-shirted waiter’s arms were flying across the restaurant high above the heads of the engrossed diners.

“Capricciosa?” the waiter boomed making some nearby foreign tourists start from their chairs.

“For me, said Rossi.”

“And Margherita?”

Carrara raised a hand in distracted acknowledgement.

“Meaning, I don’t know,” said Rossi. “But it could be significant.”

“And in the meantime? Every woman in Rome needs to stay at home. We bring in Sharia law? Or they’d all better get themselves a gun, or what?” said Carrara.

Rossi was already carving into his tomato base, spread with slices of cured ham, artichoke hearts, black olives, and all topped off with halves of boiled egg. A meal for lunch- and dinner-skippers; a policeman’s meal. He reached for his beer. It was icy-sharp, clean, and lightly hoppy. Already he was feeling it and the food’s anaesthetising, calming effect on his stomach and, as a consequence, on his mind. As he lowered the glass, making more room on the cluttered table-for-two, his eyes were drawn to that portion of the menu where the names of the dishes were translated into something resembling English for the convenience of tourists. They usually got it right, to be fair, but sometimes the renderings were comical. One word, which should perhaps have been platter, had become instead plater.

“Or maybe not all women,” said Rossi.

Carrara lowered his fork.

“Do you know something I don’t?”

Rossi took another large draught.

“And if, say, it wasn’t matter but mater?”

“As in ‘mother’, in Latin? You think he’s killing mothers?”

“I don’t know. Or it could be symbolic. The Mother Church even. Sancta Mater Ecclesia. Our Holy Mother the Church. Remember your catechism? Might need to check if they were practising Catholics.”

Rossi’s phone, for once occupying prime table space, began to vibrate.

“You’d better answer that,” said Carrara.