Читать книгу A Known Evil: A gripping debut serial killer thriller full of twists you won’t see coming - Aidan Conway - Страница 15

It wasn’t the phone call they had both feared and even in some way almost willed, yet it afforded them some relief. They needed time to think. But they also needed evidence and the killer was giving little away, aside from the sick notes. Sick notes. Rossi dwelt on the irony as he ate. Maybe there was something in that. For being excused, from games, from school. A sick note for life. I don’t belong to you and your moral order and here’s my little note that says why. He remembered how such boys had often been treated with open contempt by some teachers, at least at the school he’d attended in England for those few years. Pilloried and humiliated in the gymnasium and the changing room for their perceived weakness, cowardice, their lack of male vigour. Could they grow up to wreak such terrible revenge on society? Ridiculed outsiders wielding their new-found power and enjoying it. Repeating it. Needing it.

It was someone with a very big axe to grind. Someone hard done by and conscious of it, not like those wretched creatures who strangled and knifed but could never articulate the reason why. Maybe they never even knew themselves. They didn’t have the mental apparatus, the support system, to process their feelings and frustrations or even put a name to them. But kill they did. Often without warning or without apparent motive.

He shared some of his thoughts with Carrara as they both leant back, satisfied and contemplating dessert. There were also factors that pointed towards a clean skin, someone with no record of violence, at least in Italy. The foreigner theory couldn’t be discounted, though Rossi winced at such politically populist apportioning of blame. Or even the smouldering suggestion of an Islamic plot. Was it someone who hadn’t killed before? They had as yet unearthed no particular similarities with unsolved crimes. There was no clear motive. Unless this killer had been long-incubated, a slow burner, and had chosen a propitious moment to hatch from his dark cocoon.

“Look, we’re not fucking magicians, Michael,” Carrara concluded, tipsy now and a little the worse for wear from tiredness. Rossi glanced up from his plate.

“Kid been keeping you up?” he enquired. “Or is it the enforced abstinence?”

Carrara returned a forced smile.

They both opted for crème caramel, and Rossi asked for the limoncello, telling the waiter not to bring coffee until he asked for it. He wanted time, time to savour and time to think. Carrara declined the liqueur.

“You can leave the bottle,” said Rossi. The gruff waiter shot him a look askance, his hopes of an early finish dwindling.

“We definitely won’t be getting a smile out of Mr Happy tonight,” concluded Rossi.

They split the bill, alla Romana, each paying an equal share irrespective of what they had consumed, and decided to walk a little and drop in at a bar on their way home. They stopped at a news stand with international papers for Rossi to pick up Le Monde and El País. He liked to keep abreast of European events, finding their coverage superior to that of many of the Italian papers, obsessed as they were with internecine politics and endless wrangling and the labyrinthine complexities of one financial scandal on the heels of another.

A bill-sticker smothered in a hat and scarf was slathering election posters onto the wall next to the tunnel. Here we go again, thought Rossi. It was one constant election campaign. Governments forming, falling, then getting into bed together (literally and figuratively) in bizarre, mutually convenient coalitions. The brush-wielder slapped on more of the acrid adhesive and a rancid, hypocritical ghoul now loomed over the street. He held a pen in one hand, ostensibly symbolizing bureaucratic ability, saper fare, and, perhaps for the many less well-educated voters, simply his ability to read and write. His other hand was positioned on his knee, the wedding ring to the fore. Family man, and good for his word.

It repulsed Rossi, all the public money sliding down into the abyss of corruption, interests, and rampant, unashamed nepotism. Yet, it did now seem that they were living in more interesting times. No one had really believed that the MPD would actually start to threaten the big boys, but they had. They’d harnessed the Internet, seeing its potential earlier than anyone else, and had begun raking in huge consensus among the young, the underpaid, the unemployed, and students who saw no future. Now a power block was ominously taking shape, threatening the sclerotic party system and its cynical and systematic carving up of the country’s resources.

They took the tunnel back towards Piazza Vittorio and the Esquiline hill, one of Rome’s seven. Though dirty and ill-kempt, it was a characterful area and one that Rossi knew and liked, partly, if not only, for its preponderance of Indian restaurants and readily available supplies of oriental spices in the Bangladeshi mini-markets. Many of the other shops had become Chinese-owned, alleged fronts for money laundering, among other things. The older residents lamented the decline continually. Yet, it was a real melting pot, something of a bazaar and, despite some well-publicized concerns about racial tension, everyone seemed to get on with their own business and mingle on the busy streets quite peaceably.

At the steps leading down to the Metro, Rossi bid Carrara goodnight then set off to take a walk around the square. He knew its history, that it had been built following Italy’s unification and, as such, was typical of the northern Italian style. The echoey arcades with their rows of columns and arches afforded shelter from the inclement weather in the Piedmont, be it snow or rain, whereas here they served more as welcome shade for the searing Roman summers. It was under these same arches, too, that his courtship with Yana had begun, in another winter. They had played childish games of hide-and-seek behind the columns and then, arm-in-arm, had performed a comical three-legged walk she taught him, all the way back to her old shared apartment near Porta Maggiore.

She had worked hard after that, getting her MBA, setting up the business with Marta and, when the profits began coming in, finally making a down payment on a place of her own which she was now well on the way to paying off. A small but well-proportioned flat with a mezzanine split-level of her own design, it was where Rossi was now heading, specifically to the calm oasis of her bedroom.

The call in the restaurant had been from her. He’d gone outside to take it where it was marginally quieter, and they had talked. She had been more relaxed and interested to hear about the case. They’d both had tough days and amidst the mutual expressions of solidarity, Rossi had persuaded her to let him come over later. He had his own key but never entered without prior arrangement. Yana had her rules and had her reasons and he respected that. They were together, an item, maybe, but there were limits and lines drawn in the sand, even if he felt sometimes that the tides of their two lives changed and shifted the sands so much as to render such confines meaningless. Periodically, they disappeared completely only to then reappear, perhaps, in the cold light of day, or when he had overstepped the limits of reasonableness. That said, the bond, though unusual, was strong.

She would be asleep now. So, he would let himself in, as quietly as he could, slip off his shoes and maybe, no, definitely, help himself to another cold beer. He would watch a little TV with his feet up, perhaps glance at his papers then climb the wooden steps, placing his feet where he knew he wouldn’t cause the boards to creak before finally sliding in beside her. He’d test the water to see if she wanted to satisfy his more primal nocturnal needs, knowing she’d probably just shove him away. But tomorrow, if she was not working early, they could make up for lost time.

A shivering street-worker in black leather boots and a short fake-fur jacket peeled herself slowly off the corner where she had been trying her best to recline.

“Hello, darling. Looking for fun?” she said through gritted teeth.

Rossi stopped. Was she a mind reader? He smiled, and declined, adding a polite but sincere warning concerning the concomitant risks of being out at night, a woman, and alone. Not all the girls had pimps here, he knew. They wanted, quite rightly, to be free agents but it could be a double-edged sword, especially at times like this.

As a matter of course, he put a hand to his jacket pocket to check his phone. A missed call from Carrara. He rang back. He must have just got off the Metro, he thought. His heart was beating faster now. Not another victim. Not so soon.

“Gigi?”

“Yes, we’ve got news, Mick. ID on the third victim.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Very. She was Maria Marini. A lawyer, 35, single mother, separated and …” Carrara paused.

“And what?” said Rossi

“You’re going to like this. Her father’s a judge. Guido Marini, anti-mafia, Palermo pool, in semi-retirement but put a lot of people inside for a long time.”

“Has he been informed?”

“Informed? He identified the body. And we got a handbag with ID inside picked up by the Tiber. They ran some checks and it seems the lady had missed a regular dinner appointment with her father and wasn’t answering her phone. Out of character and all that. He called the police around 10 p.m. then came straight over.”

Rossi was thinking at full tilt. So, Maroni had kept that to himself until now.

“Are you there, Mick?”

“Yeah. What have you got on her personal life?”

“Like I said, her father told us she was separated, got a kid too.”

“And the ex?”

“Looks clean enough but not exactly in a state of shock. Took it rather philosophically, shall we say. He’s in Milan for work. Travels a lot. He’s been informed and is heading to Rome ‘as soon as he can’.”

Rossi had turned on his heel and was heading towards the square.

“Gigi, send a car to Piazza Vittorio, Fassi’s ice-cream place,” he said then shoved his phone into his pocket.

The girl was still propping up the wall like an eroticized flying buttress.

“C’mon on, hun,” she said. “You know you want to. We’ll have a ball!”

“No, thanks, love. Back on duty myself, I’m afraid.”