Flowers over the Inferno, page 25
But what if I’m wrong? What if I’m romanticizing the actions of a killer?
It was a possibility Teresa couldn’t allow herself to dwell on. Now more than ever she had to believe in herself, in spite of the exhaustion and confusion that periodically assailed her. She had to fight back. The face of the forest was shifting again as it became shrouded in shadows. Now was not the time to give in to doubt and fear.
“We’re all here, Superintendent,” Parisi informed her.
Teresa joined the team that had assembled in the meeting room of the police headquarters in Travenì. The heads of the search and rescue agencies, the mountain rescue teams, and a Rifles regiment had all gathered there, as well as her and Chief Knauss’s men. Maps and geographical surveys of the local area were spread across the table.
The fifteen-square mile area they had been searching had been divided into quadrants and combed through from dawn to dusk in shifts, eighty men at a time. The men had only stopped when night had fallen—and if it had been up to them, they would have carried on. But the public prosecutor and the district judge had agreed that putting lives at risk to save another life was out of the question. Teresa wasn’t sure whether, given the choice, she would have adhered to the same principle.
“Where’s Marini?” she asked De Carli.
“I haven’t seen him in a while, Superintendent.”
“Then call him, for Christ’s sake.”
“Right away.”
The meeting began, chaired by prosecutor Ambrosini. It was torture for Teresa to have to listen to a summary of what had been a day of fruitless searching, but worse than that was the knowledge that she couldn’t go straight back out to the forest to keep looking. A long night awaited her, twelve hours of darkness and enforced paralysis.
It was too long to wait, too long for her and the child both.
Soon, Ambrosini began running out of things to say, his words evaporating on the fire of Teresa’s impatience. She turned toward the window and looked out at the village. Travenì was not asleep; a column of flames snaked through its ancient, gloomy streets. The procession had started at dusk, when the inhabitants had assembled at the foot of the medieval clock tower in the main square, lighting hundreds of candles to carry with them.
While the people out there were busy praying for the child, those inside this room were actually looking for a way to bring him home. Seeing those lights, the bowed heads moving forward in single file, Teresa felt furious. Travenì had missed another chance to redeem itself in her eyes: no one from the village had volunteered to help with their search. They had elected instead to gather together spontaneously and look for the child far from the areas Teresa had identified as potential hideouts.
She had hoped they might be right, that one of them might come back cradling the baby, but that hadn’t been the case. Things had taken an almost farcical turn when a group of villagers had become trapped on a rock face, and a search helicopter had to be sent over to rescue them.
The serpentine procession fell out of sight as it reached the end of the street, and the sound of subdued chanting faded, as if the line of people had been engulfed into a black sea that was slowly submerging them all.
To Teresa it seemed a fitting metaphor for the hidden dynamics of this case. It was like the village had for many years been infected by a dark, tainted humor that had slipped beneath its surface and festered there, out of sight.
She studied the map on the wall again. The small patch of green before her was in reality a wide expanse that covered an area stretching from the valley itself all the way to the impregnable peaks that marked the Austrian border. It was a vast and in parts impenetrable surface, dotted with insidious crevasses. And there were cracks in the earth that led to underground alcoves, concealed beneath thick layers of vegetation.
Teresa stood up, suddenly animated.
An impenetrable surface. We’re only searching the surface, and that’s why it looks as if he’s disappeared.
“We need to change our strategy,” she said, interrupting the prosecutor. Ambrosini looked startled.
“What we’re doing now isn’t working,” Teresa went on, “and we can’t afford to waste any more time.”
“We’re doing all we can,” said the district judge.
Teresa turned to look at him.
“But we’re going about it the wrong way.” She pointed at the map. “This is his world, not ours. We’re kidding ourselves into thinking we can beat him on his own turf, but really we can’t take two steps without tripping.”
“I think you’re being unfair, Superintendent. The men are more than prepared for this.”
“But that’s exactly it: they’re only men.”
The judge looked bemused.
“Isn’t he a man, too?”
Teresa shook her head.
“Not in his own mind. We have to start thinking like he does, alter our perspective on things, or else we’ll never find him in time.”
“You’re making it sound like we’re hunting an animal,” said Ambrosini.
“He has very sharp instincts, and yes, there is an animalistic side to him that determines his actions,” Teresa replied. “That’s how he’s survived.”
“So what would you suggest we do, Superintendent?” asked the district judge.
Teresa studied the map.
“He won’t go back to the shelter. We breached its borders so he no longer considers it safe. But he won’t stray too far.” She gestured at the area they had surrounded. “This is his territory.”
“Don’t you think we should start looking elsewhere?”
“No! He’s still here. He would never abandon the thing he values most.”
“You mean those bones?”
“I’m referring to his friend, Judge. The only companion he’s ever had. Hoffman’s plan is for the baby to take its place, but it’s still too early. The transition isn’t yet complete.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Teresa didn’t reply. On another day, in another time, she would have been the first to doubt her own words. But not today.
“I’d like to call in a team of cavers,” she said instead. “I think he’s hiding underground.”
“In a cave? Like a bear?”
Teresa didn’t take the judge’s bait.
“Yes, exactly like a bear,” she replied. “But he won’t have picked any old hole in the rock. He knows it would be too easy to track him there. What I’m thinking of is something larger, like an underground cave system.”
The silence that followed her words was effectively a vote count of those who were prepared to follow her in this new mission—and those who thought she had finally gone insane.
“I think that’s an inspired suggestion,” said Ambrosini. “We must look into it.”
“I’m not fully acquainted with the geology of the area,” said Knauss. “But I think the mountain rescue team know some people who could help us.”
“Yes, we’ve done joint search and rescue drills with the speleologists in Burnberg, over in the next valley,” the head of the mountain rescue team confirmed.
“Call them,” said Teresa. “We’re not going to spend another night here doing nothing.”
-71-
There were no caves in the forest of Travenì. The only natural feature that fit with Teresa’s hunch was a cleft between two rock slopes that clung to the side of the mountain. The fissure, which reached all the way to the surface, was a forty-foot black hole emitting putrid vapors. Over time, it had been covered by creepers and filled with loose soil that now formed a steep, almost vertical path down. At its base was a more spacious chamber, embedded among limestone boulders and tree roots.
“Could he really have climbed into that with a baby in tow?” said Parisi.
Standing on the edge of that silent hole, Teresa had felt a sense of vertigo and had doubted her own conviction. But then the flashlights had illuminated the snow beneath a scattering of pine needles: there were footprints there that could be a match for those they had previously measured, and a number of branches in the leafy undergrowth had snapped. Someone had clearly been there recently.
“I guess we’ll have to go in and find out,” she replied, more for her own benefit than Parisi’s.
It hadn’t been easy to decide who should be the first to descend. They couldn’t rely on guns for this operation, and it was possible that there was a killer waiting at the bottom, ready to attack anyone who got too close. The only person Teresa would have no qualms sending down there was herself, but the limitations of her body made that impossible.
Until then, her focus had been on finding Andreas, but once she’d managed that, she would have another problem to contend with: how to communicate with him. The usual negotiation techniques would be useless. His mind was different, its architecture in many ways alien.
She glanced at Parisi. One of the cavers was strapping a harness onto him. The equipment would help him negotiate the sheer path that led into the cave and would catch his fall in case he slipped. All the preparations had been conducted in the light of a single flashlight, so as not to draw attention to their presence. Parisi would have to climb down slowly, looking out for signs of Andreas’s presence at every step of the way. Physically, he was the strongest in the team and the best trained.
Once again, Teresa found herself wondering where Marini had gone, now feeling less annoyed at his disappearance and more and more concerned. He hadn’t been seen since the half hour break they’d all taken for dinner, and his phone seemed to be off. She hadn’t gotten to know him properly yet, but she could tell that this unexplained absence was out of character.
“We’re ready,” said the speleologist. A mini-cam designed for this kind of expedition had been affixed to Parisi’s helmet.
“Find him,” said Teresa, “then come right back up.”
He smiled.
“Sure, I’ll be in and out before you know it.”
She squeezed his arm, wishing she didn’t have to send him down.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Parisi. Heroes usually come to a sticky end.”
“Thanks, Superintendent, that makes me feel so much better!”
Now, Teresa was smiling, too.
“Go,” she said, releasing her grip on him. All she wanted was a sight of what lay at the bottom of the passageway. She needed to know where Andreas was hiding, where the baby was, and how to get to it without precipitating the wrath of the “Father.”
But wasn’t it too quiet inside that black tunnel? Teresa tried not to notice the unexpected absence of the sound of a baby crying, tried not to think of it as a bad omen.
Meanwhile, Parisi had begun his descent. He hadn’t gone more than a few feet before the mini-cam began transmitting images of animal bones hanging from the exposed tree roots that wound into the tunnel. There was no doubt these were man-made artifacts, just like the small totems they’d found around the mountain shelter and the dream catchers on the edge of the forest. This was someone’s lair.
A blur of black and white camera footage followed. Nobody breathed.
Then, Teresa’s phone vibrated with an incoming call. It was Parri. He hadn’t stopped working either. Teresa moved a few feet away to pick up, her eyes fixed on the entrance to the tunnel.
“Yes, Antonio?”
“I have the results of the toxicology report you’d asked me for. I thought you’d want to know straight away.”
“I do.”
“There are traces of cyanide in the bone tissue. The child was poisoned.”
Teresa said nothing. Wallner must have put his plan into action after all.
“Teresa?”
“I’m here.”
“There’s more.”
As the coroner spoke, Teresa saw Parisi emerging from the tunnel. From his calmness, and his colleagues’ unhurried manner as they helped him out of the harness, Teresa deduced the cave must have been empty.
This had been Andreas’s refuge once, but it wasn’t anymore. He had smelled danger and found himself another den, in the same way animals did, moving their cubs from one safe place to another.
“Could you repeat that?” she asked Parri.
“Blende and galena,” he repeated. “I hope that helps.”
It did.
“Now I know where to look for him.”
-72-
“I’m sorry, Inspector. The walls here are thick, and there’s no signal.”
Massimo looked up from his mobile phone screen to find a woman observing him. Considering the position she held, she was younger than he’d expected; her face, devoid of makeup, showed the traces of interrupted sleep, but her black, sparkling eyes were alert and curious, and only a little bit cautious.
He recognized her from the Saint Nicholas’s Day celebrations. He held out his hand, and she shook it with a delicate but resolute grip.
“I must apologize for the late hour,” said Massimo.
The abbess bowed her head slightly.
“I was informed that the matter was urgent,” she replied.
“It is. There’s something we need to check.”
“I see. What is it?”
Massimo’s eyes darted to a room near the main entrance. It was closed off by an imposing door, reinforced with studs, and sealed by a handmade wrought-iron latch, the metal thick and coarsely molded. Everything inside the convent of Rail was ancient—except for the lives of the women who inhabited it.
“I’ve come to enquire about the foundling wheel,” Massimo said. “I need to find out how long it was in use, and how the babies who were left there were looked after.”
Sister Agata looked astonished.
“The wheel hasn’t been in use for a long time, Inspector.”
“I know. But the case that brings me here has its roots in the past.”
“And you think you’ll find the answers you’re looking for here?”
“I hope so.”
She smiled.
“I hope so, too,” she said, “but I’m afraid it’s unlikely. This is a place of prayer and not much else.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d still like to try.”
“Of course.”
“We have found some human remains in the forest of Travenì, around eighteen miles from here.”
The nun frowned.
“I know that village,” she said. “Whose remains are they?”
“They belong to a young boy, not yet a teenager. We know nothing about his identity.”
Sister Agata crossed herself.
“That’s awful,” she whispered.
“The date of birth is likely to be 1982,” said Marini. That was the year when child Omega had made his first appearance in Wallner’s diary, though no other details had been included in the entry.
“How can I help?”
“I need to know what became of the children who were left in the foundling wheel.”
The woman glanced at the door behind Massimo.
“I understand,” she said. “But the wheel has been closed for much longer than that. Follow me, I’ll show you.”
She led him through the corridor, the hem of her long black habit sweeping the stone floor. A double lancet window gave out onto the inner cloister and garden, illuminated by tall lamps. A sculpture of an angel with outstretched wings and a melancholy expression on its face gleamed among skeletal fruit trees.
Sister Agata unfastened the latch and opened the door. Massimo looked inside.
“We’ve preserved everything as it was, in memory of our late sisters’ good deeds,” the abbess explained. “You can go in, if you want.”
Massimo stepped into the room. It smelled of dried lavender, and looked pristine, as if someone cleaned it every day. There was a bed against the wall on the right hand side, made with plain cotton sheets and a rough wool blanket. A ceramic chamber pot peeked out from beneath the bedstead. On the opposite wall, beneath a wooden crucifix, were a table and a chair with a straw seat. An open book rested on the table.
“That’s the wheel,” said Sister Agata, pointing at the wall opposite them. The wheel was a revolving metal hatch with room for a tiny bed. Massimo noticed the fine linen bedspread, painstakingly embroidered. It was touching to witness the care those nuns had shown for the babies that had been left there. The cot stood in marked contrast to the frugal bed reserved for the nun whose turn it was to spend the night inside that room.
“You could open the hatch from outside the building, and put the baby inside,” Sister Agata explained. “Then you would turn the hatch, and no one would see you or know who you were. But people would usually leave something tucked inside the child’s blankets, so that it could be identified in case they changed their minds and repented.”
Marini was surprised to notice the sadness that had engulfed him since he’d entered that room.
“This particular wheel dates back to the second half of the eighteenth century,” Sister Agata continued. “It was always in use, except during the Fascist era, when it was banned. It was opened again in the fifties.”
“Were there many abandoned children?”
“Not as many as they had in the big cities, where the effects of industrialization forced many working women to give up their babies. Then again, I suppose that up in these mountains, that same unfortunate role was played by poverty and famine.”
