Daughter of Ashes, page 19
“What do you mean by his ‘center of main interests’?”
“His place of work, for example, or the location of any other activity that takes up most of his time, though I continue to think that he must have long since abandoned his daily routine to devote himself entirely to his fantasies.”
Albert did not dismiss her theories. He called the other officers over.
“We need to narrow the search perimeter; we don’t have enough on-field resources.”
“We need to be careful not to scare him away,” said Teresa absent-mindedly.
She sat on her haunches, taking a closer look at the blood on the car seat while she waited for a chance to examine the corpse itself.
The smell reached her nostrils, muddled her thoughts, and stirred her gastric fluids.
There was something stuck in the clotted mess. She carefully pulled it out with a pair of tongs she’d brought in her pocket.
Albert saw what she was doing.
“What’s that?”
Teresa brought it close to her eyes.
Lanceolate, turquoise, fleshy: she’d seen it before.
“A petal. From the water lilies at the second crime scene. He must have gone back there.”
“Is that normal?”
“Textbook behavior. But I’m not sure what it means. Why a petal?”
It wasn’t the only one, either. There were others.
Teresa summoned Lorenzi and gave him the tongs.
“Over to you.”
She quickly stepped away, mouth full of saliva. She felt like she was about to throw up, and did not intend to do so over the evidence.
She hid behind an ambulance, knees bent, hand clutching a tissue she’d managed to pull out of its pack at the last moment.
She took deep breaths, the smell of silt mixing with the sweet scent of acacia flowers. She kept her eyes fixed upon the edge of the ditch, staring at a patch of wild violets.
The wave of nausea reversed down her throat, back toward her stomach.
“Everything okay?”
Teresa shook her head, reluctant to risk speaking. The voice did not belong to any of her colleagues, and it wasn’t Albert’s, either. Thank goodness for small mercies.
A hand massaged her back from her kidneys all the way up to her shoulder blades. She flinched at first, but the contact eased the tension in her muscles and helped her regain some measure of control.
“I told you, you should eat fruit candy whenever you feel it coming.”
Teresa smiled, her eyes closed. She recognized him now.
“I’ve run out.”
“Good thing you bumped into me. I happen to always carry a spare pack with me.”
He helped her straighten up. He was wearing his nurse’s uniform under a big waterproof jacket.
“What are you doing here?”
He put his hands in his pockets and nodded toward the crime scene.
“I’m here with Doctor Parri, though it looks like he’d prefer to do all the work himself.”
“Is he sober?”
He grimaced.
“More or less.”
Teresa stifled a curse, but felt a smile forming over her face. He offered her the pack of sweets, still unopened.
“Sweets from a stranger.”
He bent down to pluck a violet, opened one of her hands, placed the sweets and the flower in her palm, and pushed her fingers closed again, his own hand lingering there for a moment that could have meant anything and nothing.
Teresa said the first silly thing that popped into her head.
“But what if you need sweets, too?”
They looked at each other, rain streaming down their faces.
“I’ll wait until I meet you again. You’d better save me one. Actually, wait. I’ll give you my number.” He took the notebook he could see peeking out of her pocket, pulled out a pen, and looked for a blank page.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
He laughed as he quickly scribbled something down.
“What are you so afraid of?” He gave her the notebook back, immediately serious again. “You’re looking at me as if I’d written down the devil’s number.”
Teresa was trembling. Sebastiano would be furious if he found out about the stranger’s attentions, and the looks and words they had already exchanged. She lowered her eyes, feeling the young man’s gaze roaming over her face.
“I’m married. And I’m pregnant.”
“I know.”
The moment of unexpected intimacy was interrupted by the sound of thunder. He looked away.
“Parri is waving me over. See you later, Inspector.”
Teresa did not turn around. She listened to his fading footsteps. She listened as the storm reached her and turned the soft drizzle into a raucous deluge. She thought of when she was just a girl, dancing under rain showers. She could feel it now, that same urge to turn her face up to the sky and drink.
She turned around only when she heard Albert calling for her. In the ensuing ruckus, she did not manage to catch sight of the young man who had come to her aid.
She hadn’t even asked for his name.
31
Today
THE CAGE WAS FILLED with white noise. Gone was the silence that had come with the awakening of the monster inside his flesh. Prison had digested his fear, like an organism mutating endlessly, observing, cataloging, and commandeering every stimulus, and responding with a thousand staring eyes, hundreds of layers of skin, and perennially hungry throats.
Giacomo could feel it buzzing around him. In the language he had learned to speak ever since he was a child, it meant that there was a new predator roaming the corridors, searching for him in every cell.
The guard who watched his every move would not protect him. His job was to stop Giacomo from killing himself—not to risk his life saving him from someone else.
Every blow of Giacomo’s hammer matched a thundering beat of his savage heart. He alternated between striking the marble and the tongs until the metal thinned—until it grew sharp.
Could a person be prepared to die in order to survive?
Yes.
Just as they could be prepared to be locked up forever behind steel bars. But that hadn’t worked.
He kept time with every strike of his hammer. For most people, deciding when to kill themselves would be an unfathomable thought, but he was marking the seconds so that he wouldn’t succumb to panic, so that he could shape this opportunity to his liking, and be born again elsewhere.
And when the moment came, when the guard—absorbed and comforted by a routine that dulled his senses—looked down at the screen of his mobile phone, Giacomo took action.
The sharpened edges of the tongs sliced the flesh of his wrists wide open.
Giacomo watched silently as his portrait of Teresa took on a dark red hue.
He bent down to kiss her lips. They tasted of blood, just as they had all those years ago.
32
Today
THE POLICE HEADQUARTERS WERE beginning to empty as people left for their lunch breaks. Massimo had already tossed out the sandwich he had bought from the vending machine. It tasted like plastic and he wasn’t hungry enough to eat it anyway.
He had been scrutinizing every single line of the final report on the Giacomo Mainardi case that had been drawn up twenty-seven years ago, and he still hadn’t discovered what he was so desperate to find: that crucial piece of Teresa Battaglia’s story, the keystone that could explain the bond she felt she had with the killer.
Their lives hadn’t merely crossed. They must have been intertwined.
Massimo had rediscovered her words among the documents he had reviewed, and recognized her signature underneath the reports. She was a constant presence, her tone tenacious but her assumptions and her conclusions always impeccably balanced. No inaccuracies, not a single oversight. She was already the relentless hunter he had come to know.
But at a certain point, her presence seemed to disappear entirely, leaving behind only a surface trace of Albert Lona—who appeared even back then to be feeding off her energy. He was the superintendent at the time, and he had been the one to close the case. Inspector Battaglia had simply vanished.
“Marini? I need a word.”
Massimo looked up from the stacks of paperwork. It was Lona, quietly ominous, and as unerringly punctual as the devil to turn up when summoned. The district attorney’s expression changed when he saw the report Massimo was looking at.
“How can I help you, Doctor Lona?”
He sat on the edge of Massimo’s desk.
“I wanted to know whether you had any news of Superintendent Battaglia.”
Massimo leaned back in his chair. This was certainly an interesting development.
“Yes. I do have news of Superintendent Battaglia.”
“How is she?”
“She’s recovering.”
“I heard you were with her when she found out.”
“I was.”
“Did she tell you anything?”
Massimo crossed his legs and surveyed the elusive, unknowable creature before him.
“About her tooth? What do you think?”
Lona’s gaze fell on the old case file.
“She didn’t, of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here combing through the past.”
Lona seemed tired, and not like a man busy with endless machinations.
Massimo took his chance, thinking he might be able to glean some information from him.
“I’ve deduced it must have something to do with the trail of bodies Giacomo Mainardi left in his wake. Was there a physical altercation, perhaps?”
“It wasn’t a good time in her life.”
“I know about her abusive husband and the child she lost.”
“Good!”
“Good?”
“Yes. This way you’ll have a better sense of how to . . . I can’t think of the right expression. Handle her, I suppose. Yes, that’s it.”
“Handle her.”
“Did I say something inappropriate?”
“What happened to the husband?”
Lona looked down, plucking nonexistent lint from his trousers.
“She reported him, of course. As soon as she was able to. He was arrested and later sentenced, but he never served the full term. He was released early for good conduct.”
Massimo cursed. Even Lona seemed embarrassed about how things had gone.
“If you think about it, Marini, it had only been twelve years since the law on honor killings had been repealed. That mindset hadn’t really changed yet.”
“Things aren’t that different now, either. They still let them out of prison far too soon, and they often go right back to their old persecuting ways.”
“Not in this case. Her husband obeyed the restraining order that barred him from approaching her. He disappeared from her life.” The district attorney looked at his watch. “The deputy prosecutor has called a meeting for this afternoon.”
“I got the memo.”
“We’ve moved it forward. We need to be in his office in less than an hour. Oh, and apparently the forensics team has found some camera footage that might turn out to be useful. It seems it caught Mainardi driving with his last victim. They are trying to trace the owner through the license plate. We’ll be discussing it at the meeting.” He felt his pockets for his phone, took it out and scrolled through the menu. “I want Superintendent Battaglia there, too. I’ve already sent a squad car to pick her up.” He held out a hand as if to silence any objections before they could be raised. This exchange was only ever meant to be a one-way process, the kind Lona knew best. “We need to get her statement anyway, now that her tooth has appeared.”
“I can do that. I’ll just go over to see her, and . . .”
“No. We’ll skip that step. We might as well hear the full story with everyone present and up to date on the latest news. We’re already falling behind.”
Massimo was beginning to understand what Lona was getting at, and he didn’t like what he was hearing.
“And I’m supposed to handle the superintendent, be the lightning rod.”
“It might not be . . . easy, for Teresa.”
“Yet you’re determined to saddle her with this anyway, aren’t you? You won’t let her take the easier path.”
“Obviously not.”
“Why all this acrimony, Doctor Lona?”
“Perhaps you should ask her, Inspector Marini. But if you want my side of the story, well, I said something unfortunate once, and she’s been seeking her revenge ever since.”
“Teresa Battaglia, seeking revenge? You must be joking.”
“It depends on the angle from which you look at things. At me and her.”
“There’s only one thing that woman cares about, and that’s justice.”
“Justice . . .” said Lona, smiling as if Massimo had made a joke. “Do you think you can persuade her to return from sick leave sooner?”
Until that moment, it was all Massimo himself had wanted.
“No. You’re on your own there, Doctor Lona.”
“Wrong, Inspector Marini. You’re on your own. I always land on my feet.”
“And on top of everyone else.”
“That’s what hierarchies are for.”
“Do you know what I’m thinking of? I’m thinking of violent men. Only some violent men are actually capable of killing people, but on an emotional and psychological level, all of them are murderers. Words can kill, too, and so can intimidation. You wanted to annihilate her. You didn’t succeed. Now you’ve decided to start picking on me.”
“Picking on you? I’ve been accused of much worse, Marini. I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am by being easily offended.”
“You seem pretty easily offended to me.”
Lona made a face, as if to downplay the comment.
“No. I’m just vindictive. It’s a different approach. Far more rational.”
“What revenge could you possibly want, after nearly thirty years?”
“I’m sure you can work it out.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“You’re crossing the line now.”
“Is there even a line, at this point?”
Lona shrugged.
“No, I suppose not. I suppose we’ve long since moved past it.”
Massimo waited.
“I offered her my help. She refused it. I suppose I was . . . irked.”
“Wounded. Rejected.”
“I see. You already know what this is about. She’s told you.”
“Indeed.”
Lona sighed.
“We can only do so much, no? And I did what I could. Regrettably, it wasn’t enough.”
“You seem sorry about it.”
“How could I not be? She lost her baby.”
Massimo believed him. He could see something there—not exactly anguish, perhaps, but some sort of mild sorrow which he couldn’t quite bring himself to call guilt.
“Then why all this hostility toward Teresa?”
Lona stood up, looking irritated.
“Why, why, why. Because I’m difficult, that’s why; because I made a mistake, and I can’t ever make up for it. When someone sees you as a monster, it’s easier to just turn into one rather than spend your life trying to convince them otherwise, don’t you think?”
Massimo kept quiet.
The district attorney indicated the case file. “You’re looking in the wrong place, anyway. That’s not where you’re going to find the answers to your questions.”
“Where should I be looking, then?”
Lona was already at the door, with his back turned, when he replied.
“I’ve just sent you an email with an attachment. That should satisfy your curiosity.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To prepare you.”
Massimo sat motionless before his screen. All he had to do was log onto his email, and the secret would reveal itself.
Did he really want that?
Would she really want that?
There are some truths about the people we love that we should never be able to access. Human beings are made more of mystery than of transparent matter, and that ratio is ingrained in their nature.
It wasn’t Massimo’s place—or Albert Lona’s—to shine a light back where Teresa Battaglia had decided to extinguish it forever. But he did it anyway. He clicked on the attachment.
The photographs loaded first.
33
Twenty-seven years ago
TERESA PULLED THE ZIP shut, sealing part of her life inside the suitcase. It hadn’t been too difficult to choose what to pack. Anything could be useful, but nothing was truly necessary. Every object she took from this life would be a reminder of failure. Carrying it into her new life before it had even started would be like casting a deadly spell.
Starting again. It felt like far too bold an ambition, yet here she was, about to take that leap. Into the void, into the dark, on her own.
For Teresa really was alone, even though she’d briefly deluded herself into thinking the opposite.
She’d been packing her notebooks when she had taken the newest one from her bag and searched for the phone number that had been hurriedly jotted down in the rain by the same hand that had brushed fleetingly against her hips. As she’d flicked through its pages, a violet had fallen out and fluttered to the floor.
She had felt like a fool as she’d dialed his number. What would she say to him? What would he think of her?
But her questions had immediately been swept aside by an automated message: The number you have called is no longer in service.
She’d felt so gullible—idiotic, even.
A disconnected number. What a marvelous metaphor for all her hopes.
She heard the front door open, and hurriedly hid the suitcase in the wardrobe.
She sat on the bed and grabbed a book from the bedside table.
Sebastiano called out from the floor below.
She heard him coming up the stairs in quick, heavy strides. She could picture him climbing two steps at a time.
