Читать книгу A Known Evil: A gripping debut serial killer thriller full of twists you won’t see coming - Aidan Conway - Страница 8

The press had got their picture. As usual, in the confusion between traffic police, municipal police, carabinieri, and the state police, someone had left the poor woman’s feet sticking out from under the blood-soaked tarp, like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. A final ignominy to grace some of the seedier papers’ inside spreads. They had only partially succeeded in keeping the crowds back and sealing off the street, but the citizenry was beginning to grow impatient. Close off a road in Rome and the already mad traffic goes berserk with all those narrow cobbled streets peppered with potholes, the ancient city walls’ archways forming designer bottlenecks, not to mention the one-way systems and the curse of double parking. It didn’t take much to tip the balance. So, the quicker you got everything back to normal the better for everyone.

“Remember, it all starts with good forensics guys,” said Rossi ambling onto the crime scene. The “guys” in white gave him minimal glances of assent from under their cagoule-like hoods while snapping and sampling and moving in to examine the body in greater detail. Rossi was the most senior officer on the scene and he and they knew it. He turned to Carrara, who was flicking through his mobile for news.

“Got anything more on her old man, officially or unofficially?”

“Still in shock, but according to the ‘reports’ he’s clean. No apparent motives. Family man. Besides, he was still in bed. His own bed. And alone. Shift-worker apparently. And no strange cash movements, no dodgy mates we know of. Nothing, as yet.”

“No links with the Colombo case? Anything in common? Friends, work, family, schools, anything?”

Carrara shook his head.

“Nothing. Just similar methods, married woman but different workplace.”

“And the kids?” said Rossi, finally allowing a dark sliver of the human reality to sink in.

“With their grandparents. We’ve got counselling on to that too.”

Rossi tried to put it to the back of his mind. Remain objective. He was a policeman. This was his job. Find the evidence. Find the killer. Stop the murders. Limit the murders. More than this he couldn’t do, and God knows that was what it was all about. But it didn’t get any easier. So much for an experience-hardened cop.

He glimpsed that one of the white-hooded moon-men, as if in contemplative genuflection next to the victim, had changed rhythm and was getting to his feet.

“What is it?” said Rossi, sensing its importance.

“Paper, sir. Note or list by the looks of it. Nailed to the sternum.”

“Not shopping, I trust.”

Blood-soaked but legible and left visible enough inside her blouse to be discovered quickly, it was in block capitals and written in English.

LOOK INTO THE BLACK HOLE FOR WHAT YOU WANT.

Was he growing in confidence? Already? Toying with them maybe? Now I do, now I don’t. Work it out. Want another clue? You’ll have to wait. And there’s only one way you’re going to get it. Special delivery. They might be able to find what model of printer or machine had been used, the make of paper, but more than that? It was hardly going to narrow the field. There’d be no prints.

Rossi looked at Carrara. “Any good at riddles, Gigi? Or are you still more of a sudoku man?”

“Looks like your area, Mick,” replied Carrara. “A late Christmas present.”

Rossi looked up to where the magistrate Cannavaro was skirting around the crime scene.

“And how would you say our magistrate’s doing?” said Rossi. “Ready to refer all this to the professionals now?”