The Sleeping Nymph, page 29
She wasn’t surprised to see him there. He relished the power his position gave him over people. And he became incensed when confronted with people who, like Teresa, seemed immune to those effects.
“They’ve not made any progress,” he said, looking past her.
Teresa followed his gaze.
“These woods are vast,” she said. “Where one forest ends, another begins. The body could be anywhere.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re saying they won’t find it.”
“They will find it. Eventually.”
“You act like it isn’t your problem. I can assure you it is.”
Teresa put up no resistance to his calm fury: it would have been like asking a viper not to bite, or a boa constrictor not to suffocate. This was his nature.
“I have a solution,” she said instead. “I have someone who can speed up the search.”
“And who might that be?”
“An external asset.”
“Not this again. I have given you my answer already. No.”
“But this is different . . .”
Albert whipped his head around to look at her.
“No. No civilians. It will be my men who find that damned body and solve this case.”
She let out a sigh and then the unthinkable happened. Albert brought his hand up to her face and gently cupped her cheek.
“How many more battles will you lose before you realize you can’t do it alone?” she heard him say.
Teresa contemplated her existence from another’s point of view and for the first time in her life, she saw that there wasn’t just emptiness around her.
She had a team of young men to oversee—and to look after.
She had Blanca now, and her noble companion with his peerless nose.
She had all the victims she’d seen in her forty-year career, and cherished with a mother’s love. A love that powerful was bound to leave a trace, even when the victims couldn’t be saved. She could feel them, at night, all around her. She could feel them all, protecting her.
She had the victims’ families, which in time had become her own.
She had friends, like Parri and Ambrosini.
But most importantly, she had herself.
She gripped his wrist. She squeezed it hard, then pushed his hand away.
“I am not alone,” she said.
Albert’s expression changed like a snake shedding its skin.
“Then I will raze everything around you to the ground,” he vowed as if he were promising her eternal love.
Teresa couldn’t help but smile.
“Go ahead,” she told him, “but I still won’t be yours.”
He stared at her for a few silent moments, then turned his back and walked away.
Only then did Teresa notice that de Carli had already arrived and was waiting for her by the car.
She walked up to him, knowing he’d seen far too much. The officer rushed to open the door for her.
“I won’t ask what happened, Superintendent, but—”
“Good. Don’t,” she said, throwing her bag onto the back seat.
“Jesus, really . . . ?”
“Be quiet.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” he promised as he walked over to the other side of the car.
He jumped in and turned the engine on.
“You’d better not,” said Teresa, putting her glasses on to look at a parcel he had handed her.
It had her name on it.
“Morandini’s daughter brought it over to headquarters,” he explained.
Teresa tore it open to reveal a series of landscape shots of mountain views, some rather beautiful. There was also a handwritten note:
These are my father’s photographs, the only things from among his personal belongings that I neglected to destroy.
Your visit has reopened some very deep wounds. Do not contact me again.
Teresa pulled out a tissue and sifted through the photographs, trying as much as possible to avoid touching them. She had recognized the Resia Valley and its villages immediately.
So Cam had never ventured too far from those lands. But what was it that had so engrossed him?
She grabbed her phone and called headquarters, asking for Parisi.
“We’re going to need some urgent tests on the photographs Morandini’s daughter handed in. Tell the forensics team I’m bringing them over now,” she instructed. “They’ll need to look for fingerprints to compare with the one we found on the painting. And call the deputy prosecutor: we’ll need a warrant to search Carlo Alberto Morandini’s belongings.”
She hung up, her heart thumping in her chest. Instinctively, she plunged a hand inside her shoulder bag before her brain caught up and reminded her that what she was looking for was no longer there.
Her diary was in the murderer’s hands. She was sure of it. Teresa could feel him leafing through her, through page after page of her life. The killer was reading her. Getting to know her. Crawling into her personal inferno.
And that, she knew, was where they would eventually meet.
67
The wind ripped the older leaves off the ancient poplar tree before their time, making room for the younger shoots and clearing the plant of all the dead weight it had gathered. It tore through the foliage like a comb, sowing freedom in its wake.
When the occasional gust descended upon the meadow, blades of grass and stems of flowers bent obediently under the force of that cool wave, following its sudden changes in direction in a choreographed dance reminiscent of flocks of swifts. And so the sky was mirrored in the earth.
The wind ruffled the pages of the diary as if to sweep away the anguish and the sorrow lodged inside.
The Tikô Wariö had journeyed through the suffering enshrined in Teresa Battaglia’s notes, written down in words that were as wild as her spirit. So the forthright red-haired cop wasn’t as hard-hearted as she seemed—nor was she as unbreakable as she pretended to be.
She carried inside an elaborate emotional universe.
She had a secret, and she was afraid. There was someone she cared for more than she cared about herself: that young man she never let out of her sight, as if it were her duty to protect him, to guard him from the self-destructive streak that threatened to destroy him.
She wasn’t unbreakable, but she was strong. She was smart. She knew how to use her intuition to go where reason alone could never reach. She could see clearly where others saw only darkness.
Teresa Battaglia was a deadly huntress. But now she was on the other side. Now, her heart had been laid bare. And it was vulnerable.
68
Massimo realized he had no idea where he was going. He had simply been driving, moved by the uncontrollable urge to get away from Francesco and his guilt, away from Superintendent Battaglia and that inquisitive gaze of hers that always seemed to be upon him, now more than ever before.
He couldn’t understand why she was still chasing after his secret. Surely it was right there for her to see, spelled out in his personal file, which she had to have read. Massimo had been waiting for her to confront him about it since the day he’d joined her team, but so far, she’d never once mentioned it.
Recent events had conspired to take over his life and tear it to pieces: Elena and the child they were expecting, but not just that. It was as if the Sleeping Nymph, too, had been waiting for him, just like Superintendent Battaglia, with a baby who had never been born.
And Carlo Alberto Morandini’s daughter, too: her angst over a father who’d never loved her had rattled Massimo. It had been like peering into his own future and seeing himself as the villain.
And finally Francesco, still agonizing over a death he had unwittingly caused.
He felt a wave of nausea and had to pull over. He let go of the clutch, and the engine died with a shudder as other cars drove past him, horns blaring.
He rested his forehead against the steering wheel, his skin cold and clammy with panic.
He glanced at his mobile phone on the passenger seat, blinking with notifications from endless messages and missed calls. He already knew who they were from, but he couldn’t let her look inside him again and see the person he truly was. Teresa Battaglia was a rope that fate had thrown his way when there had been nothing but emptiness in every direction. He’d clung on to it with all the strength he had, but he wouldn’t allow himself to drag her down with him.
He picked up the phone and dialed the number of the only person who knew his secret. Speaking to her was never easy. He had abandoned his roots in order to make a clear break from his past—but that was the same past she was still drowning in. He wondered how she must feel whenever she looked at him and was reminded of the day Massimo had stopped being a child and became something else.
When she picked up, he didn’t immediately recognize her voice. She seemed more distant than usual.
“Mom,” he said.
There was a moment’s hesitation.
“Is something wrong?” she asked fearfully.
One choked word out of him had been enough to throw her into a state of alarm.
There were a thousand words Massimo could have chosen to explain what had happened, but they weren’t necessary. She would understand.
“I’m going to be a father, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he whispered.
A gasp coursed through the low hiss of the telephone. His mother started crying, and they weren’t tears of joy. She knew the demon that haunted her son. She’d looked it right in the eyes.
“I’m scared,” Massimo murmured into that distant weeping. “I’m scared.”
As he turned the word over and over in his mind, he felt anger growing inside him like a sudden hunger. He needed that rage to get rid of the pain.
Finally, he knew where to go.
69
Teresa woke with a start. She was sure she’d screamed, her lips pressed against the imitation leather upholstery of the couch, which had a bitter taste that now filled her mouth. She was in the meeting room of the police headquarters. Someone had covered her with a plaid blanket. She shrugged it off and pushed herself upright.
The clock told her she’d slept for just over a couple of hours.
The door opened slowly and Parisi stuck his head inside.
“I’m up,” she told him.
He came in and put a file on the coffee table in front of her.
“This came in for you. But I’ll need a little more time to find what you asked me for. Coffee?”
“No, thanks. Have you figured out where Marini’s gone?”
“No, but we’ve had some news on the partial footprints found on the landing outside his flat: men’s trainers, size forty-three. Soon we’ll know the brand, too.”
Teresa nodded, stretching her back.
“Have you and de Carli had any sleep?” she asked.
The officer smiled.
“In installments, like you. Oh, and by the way, the district attorney’s out of the office until tomorrow.”
“Excellent news.”
“We’ve gotten him off our asses for a few hours at least, Superintendent.”
“Good God, Parisi, you’ve started talking like me.”
“It’s a proud moment.”
“I’m touched.” Teresa put on her glasses. “Now, get out of here.”
Alone again, Teresa picked up the file. The sealed envelope had come with a typewritten note:
I know you’ll make good use of this. We’re even now.
The message was unsigned, but if it hadn’t been anonymous, it would have carried the signature of the Guardian—as the keeper of the archives of the juvenile court was known. He was the only official who was authorized to access the database on “atypical” homicides —cases involving what some cops rather morbidly referred to as “evil in nappies.” The information in these archives was so strictly classified that none of the files mentioned full names. These tribunals followed different procedures—faster ones designed to leave no long-term trace. Sometimes they were carried out in total secrecy, for those cases no one must ever know about. And always, the imperative was to forget quickly.
Teresa broke the seal and opened the file containing the declassified portion of the court records concerning the case of a child named Massimo Marini.
There were words there she would never have wished to read and photographs it was physically painful to look at.
When she thought she’d finally made it through to the very end of the file, she turned the page and suffered the worst blow yet. She had to read the words again and again. Her mind seemed to refuse to accept the truth. She’d been ready for anything, but not this.
Finally, she understood. And now that little boy’s suffering was her own, too.
She studied all the reports and the witness transcripts, checked the photographs and compared them to the coroner’s findings. Everything matched, but Teresa didn’t give up—she went back to the start, over and over again. She had to find something, anything—a mistake she could show that little boy so that she could tell him: you’re free now.
But I can’t find it. I can’t find it.
Her arms fell to her sides. She couldn’t help him. All she had to give him were words of comfort, which would make no difference at all.
Then, a new thought weaved its way into her head. Perhaps it wasn’t the truth she needed to hunt for.
She looked at her phone and picked it up.
If I make this call, there’s no going back.
Parri answered on the second ring.
“I need your help and I can’t give you any context,” she told him.
Her friend’s laugh flooded her with relief.
“Just tell me what you need.”
Shortly thereafter, Parisi came in bringing the material she’d requested from Parri. Teresa closed the file and quickly wiped a hand over her eyes, though she wasn’t sure she’d been fast enough for it to escape his notice. But Parisi didn’t say anything. There was no time for jokes now. Wordlessly, he handed her a note bearing the name of a woman and the address of a hotel.
“We’ve found Marini, Superintendent.”
70
Practicing mixed martial arts was one of the many escape routes Massimo had devised over the years. Shut inside that cage, surrounded by a circle of raging, boisterous men inciting him and his opponent to hit harder, to hurt each other more, he felt liberated, free to act as nature commanded. And so he hit out, again and again, with every fiber of his being.
Christian Neri’s body was a tangle of tendons, of thick bones and hardened muscles, a body that wouldn’t be overpowered but would return with interest each and every blow Massimo managed to land.
The rivalry they’d always had in the gym had finally found its outlet, but when he looked at his opponent, it wasn’t Neri’s eyes that Massimo saw. The true target of his anger had never been Neri. It had always been his own father who Massimo was trying to destroy—or perhaps it was himself.
Visions of Elena, of an unborn child, of his own lonely future, of his suffering mother who would never forgive him—all flashed through his mind and clouded his judgement.
But then, for the briefest moment, his eyes drifted toward the cheering crowd, as if drawn there by a silent powerful call. When he spotted Teresa Battaglia’s furious face in the audience, Massimo froze.
He felt something he couldn’t quite name. Shame: that was the first word that came floating into his field of vision, like a punch about to smash into his face. Relief: that was the next. She had come to save him.
The punch to his face eventually came through, though this time it was real. It was a knockout blow.
Massimo felt his head bounce against the mat, while fireworks exploded in his eyes and a hissing in his ears shut out the rest of the world. His brain seemed to be spinning inside his skull.
Someone did a countdown, which was followed by cheers for the winner. All that was left for Massimo was the coldness of the rubber mat beneath his cheek and the sting of sweat on his scratches.
Lucius, the ballet dancer turned fighter, was soon beside him, pressing a towel against his face and talking rapidly in his mother tongue. They didn’t sound like words of comfort. The odor of hemostatic cream was followed by the feel of hands prodding at his face, as if in search of broken bones that might need immediate setting. Massimo tasted blood on his lips: it tasted like freedom, and peace. He had managed to punish himself.
Another pair of hands was holding his head now, but the touch was gentle this time, in sharp contrast to the voice lashing out at him.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
It was her. It was Superintendent Battaglia, who’d climbed into the ring to help, or perhaps to smash that malfunctioning head of his.
Her voice was different than usual, a tangle of anger and affectionate concern. The strands of feeling were woven into it so thick that it was impossible to see where they began and ended. They were a single unified whole.
It was the voice of a mother grieving for her son.
71
“I could have this place shut down, you know.”
Marini opened one eye. The other was covered with an ice pack. They’d made him lie down on a bench in the changing rooms.
“Please, Superintendent . . .” he said, his voice croaky.
Teresa sat fuming beside him, keeping one of his legs elevated.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” she declared. “Have I told you that already?”
