“His face was covered,” said one of the other boys, encouraged by his friend’s reply.

  “Covered how?” asked Teresa.

  The boy mimed the act of wrapping something around his head.

  “There was light-colored fabric around his head, like this. It came down to his shoulders, too.”

  “Like a bandage?”

  “No. It looked like . . .”

  “A turban,” said the boy who had spoken first.

  “No way, that was no turban,” the third boy chimed in. “It was more like a scarf wrapped around his head and his face. Only the eyes were showing,” he explained, demonstrating with his hands.

  His friends nodded.

  “Are you sure?” asked Teresa.

  “Yes,” they chorused.

  “But then at one point we saw his mouth,” said the kid with the braces. “And it looked like . . . I swear it looked like he wanted to bite David!”

  He burst into tears and neither of his friends tried to comfort him. It was Chief Knauss who put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and drew him toward his chest.

  Teresa puzzled over their description, the emerging portrait of the suspect’s physical features, trying to make sense of the rudimentary picture they had obtained. A man with his face covered up and a long coat that came all the way to his calves. His feet wrapped up in thick socks and boots. His age impossible to determine. An enigma.

  She thought back to the stranger she had pursued along the old railway tracks. She couldn’t say for sure whether his profile matched. She couldn’t have described him in any great detail anyway. It had all happened so fast. Or perhaps her mind was no longer sharp enough.

  “Does it sound like anyone from Travenì?” she asked Knauss, more out of habit than with any expectation of a positive answer. The chief shook his head.

  “No, I’ve never seen anyone like that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “My eyesight’s still fine, Superintendent.”

  “It’s not your eyesight I’m worried about, Chief.”

  Knauss exhaled heavily, as if letting go of all the tension he’d accumulated that day.

  “My son is lying on a hospital bed right now,” he said. “I think you can count on my cooperation.”

  Teresa wasn’t so sure, but she refrained from saying so.

  “Fine,” she said, beckoning to Marini. “Let’s hear what your son has to say.”

  The boy was sprawled on the bed, his injured leg in a brace. Doctor Ian was by his side, dressing the wound. He smiled when he saw Teresa and Marini.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Just needed a couple of stitches and some painkillers. He’ll be ready to go home in an hour or two.”

  Ian finished bandaging the wound, secured the gauze with a clip, and took his leave with a nod.

  Teresa approached the boy, who’d kept his head turned toward the window. He hadn’t looked at her once.

  “I’m . . .”

  “I know who you are,” he interjected. “The whole village knows.”

  She found a chair and sat down by the bed. Marini stood by the door.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “What, my leg? No.”

  There were bruises on the boy’s neck, but Teresa was sure that they weren’t the cause of his pain either.

  “It’s hard to feel whole again when you’ve had a brush with death,” she said. “Something always breaks.”

  He finally looked at her.

  “How would you know?”

  Teresa was conscious of Marini’s presence behind her and didn’t reply. She turned around and signalled at him to leave. He shot her a look halfway between disappointment and irritation, but in that moment, she had neither the time nor the inclination to explain that sometimes, in their line of work, you had to know when to take a step back and disappear. She waited until the door was closed before focusing on David once more.

  “So? How would you know?” the boy asked her again. He’d sniffed out a crack in her armor and wasn’t about to let it go.

  Teresa sat on the bed. The mattress sank under her weight and brought them closer. She could feel the boy’s hand against the side of her leg, but she didn’t draw back. Neither did he.

  “I almost died once, a long time ago,” she admitted. “I know how it feels.”

  David studied her closely.

  “An accident?” he asked.

  Teresa pursed her lips and shook her head.

  “An accident with rather strong arms and legs,” she replied. “He hit quite hard.”

  “Who was it? Someone you were arresting?”

  “My husband.”

  The boy looked at her. He was surprised, and perhaps a little doubtful. Teresa wondered if he would decide to trust her.

  “How did it end?” David whispered.

  Teresa smiled.

  “Very badly, but I’m still alive,” she said.

  He lowered his eyes.

  “The good thing about how you’re feeling right now,” she told him, “is that it will help you see the true magnitude of things.”

  “What things?”

  “Life. Its joys and its sorrows.”

  David turned his head once more to look at the snow outside the window.

  “Doctor Ian said I was lucky,” she heard him say, “but I don’t believe that. It wasn’t luck.”

  “Then what was it?”

  This time the boy stayed quiet.

  “What was it, David?”

  “It was his decision. It wasn’t luck. I’m alive because he decided to spare me. I was going to die, I could see it in his face, but then something changed.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. Teresa could feel the emotion pulsating from him. It was powerful, an energy that pervaded the room.

  “I cried,” he murmured. “I cried, and he let me live.”

  Teresa hadn’t expected that.

  “How do you know for sure that’s why he spared you?” she asked.

  “Because he looked at my face, he was looking at my tears, and . . . And he changed, something in him changed, and that’s why I’m alive now.”

  Teresa didn’t know what to think. She placed the summary of the description his friends had provided onto his lap.

  “Does it match?” she asked him. She watched him read it closely before looking away.

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to add to it?”

  “He has blue eyes, or maybe green. God, I can’t remember!” He put his head in his hands. “I looked at him, I really looked at him, and still I can’t remember!”

  He seemed distraught. Teresa patted his hand.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s the shock. And you had other things to worry about back there. How old do you think he is?”

  “Thirty, maybe forty. His face was painted.”

  “Do you remember anything else? It’s important, David. You’re the only one who’s really seen him.”

  “I’m not the only one. You’ve seen him, too,” he said. “Outside the school. He was dressed different, but I’m sure it was him.”

  So it really had been him. Now she understood where the stain on her coat sleeve had come from. The man must be using animal excrement to paint his face.

  “But that’s just the means to an end,” she said to herself. “He paints his face because he wants to look like a skull.”

  -39-

  Light towers illuminated the forest with a premature, unnatural dawn. A few birds had begun to sing already, their cries ringing across the sky through sporadic flakes of snow.

  The marks left by the SUV were still visible on the road. Shards of glass from the car’s broken headlights showed the exact spot where it had crashed against the rocks.

  The sequence of events as the boys had described it was backed up by the footprints on the ground. Early signs suggested that they matched the prints found on the Valent crime scene.

  “It’s him,” said Marini.

  Teresa was sure of it. She nodded in greeting at the regional chief of police and deputy public prosecutor Gardini, who were standing across from the police tape that bordered the marks.

  “The boys frightened him. Why?” she wondered.

  “He attacked in anger, because he was hit,” said Marini.

  Teresa didn’t agree. From the account the boys had given, it sounded like the stranger had stood with his arms outstretched, as if to stop the vehicle. He had wanted to protect something.

  “No. He did it to defend himself. He felt threatened,” she replied.

  “Do you think he lives in the woods?”

  “Do you reckon that would be possible?”

  “No—at least not in total isolation.”

  “I want to see the survey maps of all the mountain shelters in this area. He might be using them as bases.”

  Someone from the team cried out in surprise as a herd of roe deer crossed the path right in front of them in lithe, powerful leaps. It was a spectacle of sinister allure; this was not normal behavior for those animals.

  “Something’s scared them and driven them down to the valley,” said Knauss, voicing what everyone was thinking.

  Teresa eyed the gloom among the trees.

  “He’s here,” she muttered. “He’s watching us. Again.”

  The darkness and the forest were protecting him once more and there was no question of going in to look for him.

  “And who knows where he will be tomorrow.”

  -40-

  The Sleeping Bear was Travenì’s only pub. It took up the basement of a building that dated back to the Middle Ages and faced out onto the main square. A short flight of stairs carved into stone led down to the bar; its walls were as thick as an outstretched arm, and the vaulted ceiling was coated in dense, uneven plaster. The relics of a rustic, sylvan past were ensconced among the protruding stone slabs of its interior walls. The only windows were tall, narrow rectangles decorated with lead-beamed, vividly polychromatic glass. From the air bubbles in the panes of glass, Teresa deduced that they must either be antiques, or meticulously accurate replicas. She didn’t think any natural sunlight could filter all the way down there, even in the middle of the day, if not in the form of a dazzling rainbow of colors. A collection of beer tankards of various shapes and sizes hung over the pinewood bar. A carved devil’s head with enormous curving horns and yellow, malevolent eyes observed the patrons from a wall in a corner of the room. It had a mane of black hair and pointed teeth.

  Teresa was staring at it as she sat slumped in an uncomfortable chair, cradling a pint of beer she had barely sipped, and half-heartedly nibbling at peanuts from a small bowl. De Carli and Parisi were busy playing pool; Marini watched them from his perch on a bar stool. The whole unit had come down from the city as back-up, and the rest of them—the only ones who’d managed to eat something—were spread over a couple of tables at the back of the room. They’d left it up to Hugo Knauss and his men to patrol the streets that night.

  The pub was half-empty. Teresa knew it was partly her fault, and the owner must have been thinking the same, judging by the glares he sent her way every now and again. Teresa responded in kind, and he always emerged defeated from the ensuing staring contest. Yet he persisted; Teresa couldn’t understand why.

  The sound of animated chatter announced the arrival of new customers, a group of four who made their way toward Teresa. One of them in particular carried himself with a bellicose air that instantly irritated her. She knew who he was, having met him a couple of times before, and she also knew why he looked so upset.

  “Good evening, Mayor,” she greeted him when he stopped by her table.

  “Serial killer?” he barked without even acknowledging her greeting. “Do you know what that means for this village? It’s a disaster!”

  He was shaking with fury. Teresa didn’t let it intimidate her. She could understand his worry, but the press release the regional police chief had issued at her suggestion was a necessary precaution in the interests of public safety.

  “We never said anything like that,” she told him. “But we can’t deny how dangerous the situation is, either.”

  The man planted his hands on the table and leaned menacingly toward her.

  “I’ll tell you what’s really dangerous,” he said, his face reddening. “A stranger coming here and telling us what we should be scared of!”

  Her eyes darted from her beer to the man’s face.

  “Am I the stranger you’re referring to?” she asked, though she knew the answer already. To the people of the valley the rest of the world was a foreign land full of perils and populated by incompetents and unscrupulous swindlers. Their small world embodied a perfection that ought to be preserved even at the cost of a few lives. But Teresa had seen the cracks beginning to form in that picture, showing a glimpse of a reality that was far from idyllic.

  “Travenì has no need for you or your lectures,” the man hissed. “We’ve survived for hundreds of years without any help from city folk. And we will continue to do so.”

  Teresa fished a peanut from the bowl and placed it in her mouth. It had a rancid taste, though perhaps it was the bile rising in her throat.

  “You know how to survive, do you?” she said, echoing his words. “Perhaps you should tell that to Valent’s widow; it seems her husband never got the memo.”

  The mayor hurled an insult at her, and with a furious swipe of his hand knocked everything off her table. Her tankard shattered in a spray of foam and beer as it hit the floor, while the peanuts rolled away underneath the chairs and benches.

  Teresa sprung to her feet, shooting one glance at her squad to warn them off from getting involved.

  “Don’t you fucking dare do anything like that ever again,” she said, enunciating every word. “I will not tolerate aggression. Have I made myself clear?”

  Something in her tone persuaded the mayor it would be better to desist. Teresa knew she could be much tougher than people imagined when they first saw her. And if there was one thing she was no longer prepared to countenance, it was violence.

  The man seemed to calm down, though he was still breathing heavily. His friends put their arms around his chest and quietly encouraged him to leave.

  “The ski season has just begun and the Christmas holidays are around the corner,” he gritted out. “Any damage to our reputation now means empty hotels and deserted ski slopes.”

  He was trying to justify his actions. It was a partial retreat. Teresa allowed him to vent.

  “And what are we going to do about the fifth of December, huh? How are we going to celebrate the eve of Saint Nicholas’s Day? We’ll have worshippers dressed as the devil coming down from the mountains to the village, and we usually expect hundreds of tourists. But what’s the point of a parade if there’s no one around to watch it?” he continued.

  Teresa listened patiently to his arguments. The mayor had good reason to be worried, but the police’s priority was to protect the locals and deter curious tourists.

  “I am not sure you understand how serious the situation is, Mayor. A man has been killed in broad daylight, along one of the paths favored by hikers,” she said. “He was physically strong, yet he wasn’t able to defend himself. He didn’t even have time to try. The killer clawed the victim’s eyes out; we still haven’t found them. A woman has been attacked on her way home from work. She’s missing part of her face, too.”

  Silence had fallen over the pub.

  “Do you know what that means?” Teresa resumed. “That the attacker ate it or put it in his pocket and took it with him. Either way, I guess this place already has a devil of its own, and I’m afraid it’s pretty real. I’ll tell you what I’ve been wondering about, Mayor: Does this village intend to cooperate, or will it take yet another assault before it decides to do so?”

  The mayor’s eyes and those of his friends shifted to the demonic mask that hung near the beer tap. They saw something else, now, in its predatory snarl.

  “Nobody’s saying we won’t cooperate,” said the mayor.

  Teresa shook her head.

  “You see everyone from outside your community as trespassers—even us, though we’re here to help. You huddle together and reject the outside world thinking that will save you, but all you’re doing is making things worse.”

  The mayor didn’t react. He left without saying a word, followed by his friends. Perhaps they were still angry, or perhaps they were now also a little scared.

  Teresa sat back down among broken glass and scattered peanuts. The barman hurried over to wipe her table clean and mop the floor, his eyes downcast. A young woman brought her a fresh glass filled to the brim with beer, telling her sheepishly that it was on the house.

  Slowly the chatter resumed, though it was quieter than before. Teresa sipped her beer. Only then did she notice the man sitting at a table on the opposite side of the pub. Doctor Ian raised his tankard in Teresa’s direction, and she did the same. She watched him rise to his feet and walk toward her, bringing his hat and beer with him.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  The doctor sat down.

  “You mustn’t take it personally,” he said. “The mayor is a good man, though his methods are questionable. For many families in Travenì, having fewer tourists would make it impossible to make ends meet. There’s not much else to live on around here.”

  “I don’t enjoy frightening people or spreading panic, Doctor, but this time I don’t have a choice. Fear is often the difference between survival and death. It can save you.”

  “Oh, I understand, of course. Fear originates in the most primitive part of our brain, the one we have in common with reptiles. Even after millions of years of evolution, its core is still here,” he said, tapping at his head, “in a tiny hub the shape of an almond. God must think it indispensable if He hasn’t seen fit to change it in any way.”

 

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