Flowers over the Inferno, page 9
“Do we not provide them with generous meals and perfectly hygienic conditions?”
Magdalena concealed her bitterness.
“Yes, Mrs. Braun.”
“Then, for the love of God, what are we even talking about?”
It sounded like she had given this speech before. Magdalena could see, now, that she must have grown used to manipulating people’s minds.
“There is one thing missing, Nurse Braun. Love,” she said.
For the first time since Magdalena had met her, Agnes looked genuinely surprised.
“Seclusion can have unexpected effects on those who aren’t used to it,” she replied. “I worry about the strain on your nerves. Go to your room and rest. We won’t need you today.”
Magdalena’s gaze sought out the cook and one of the orderlies, but there wasn’t the faintest trace of sympathy in their eyes. Marie was watching from behind the kitchen door, her apron soaked with dishwater.
“Magdalena,” said Agnes again, with chilling composure. “Go.”
The walls of the School seemed to close in on her, the cold was suddenly more biting, and Magdalena felt her determination slipping away like the water from Marie’s wet hands. She retreated. Not out of fear, but from the knowledge that she was alone and unarmed, facing a fortress that could outlast any siege.
She thought not for the first time that the School was a living organism that was now rejecting her as a potentially dangerous foreign body.
She walked out, away from all those hostile gazes. Back in her room, she pulled down her suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and filled it haphazardly with her few possessions. She was certainly going to miss the substantial salary paid by the School. It had felt like a blessing. But now she knew what the money was really for: to buy her silence.
She stopped as she was about to put on her coat.
She suddenly realized that saying nothing at all only ever helps the executioner, never the victim. What would her escape be if not the latest contribution to the conspiracy of silence that reigned within those walls?
She let go of her coat and sat on the bed. The springs creaked under her weight.
She was not going to run away. She was not going to abandon them. She was only going to leave if she could take them with her. All she needed was time. Time and proof.
-18-
The millennial forest of Travenì echoed with the steady dripping of water and the muffled rustle of snow slipping from overburdened tree branches. All else was silence. The freezing cold seemed to have placed life on hold and stilled its songs for a few months.
Teresa carefully picked her way along the path marked out by the forensics team to make sure she didn’t accidentally compromise any evidence. Walking behind her, Marini did the same. He had tried to help her once or twice when she’d seemed about to slip on some treacherous patch of ice, but Teresa had batted his hand away.
“Maybe it’s not the same guy. It could just be some pervert, not the killer,” she heard him say.
She didn’t bother to reply. She was convinced that wasn’t the case, and surely the fingerprint tests would soon show a match with the prints found on Valent’s body, proving her right. The fact that he’d been observing potential prey—spying on them, even—did not necessarily imply a sexual motive. It simply suggested that his homicidal instincts had awakened once more. There was always a voyeuristic element to these kinds of cases: the killer, patrolling his hunting grounds, might enter people’s homes when there was nobody there, perhaps steal some of their belongings—totems with which to fuel his fantasies. Hugo Knauss had said that someone had been stealing people’s washing. Teresa had found it an interesting detail. But what was most alarming was that there were no more than a thousand people living in Travenì, tourists excluded, so it was very likely that the killer was known to the victim, and perhaps even to the Kravina family. The thought of little Lucia alone at home worried Teresa. She would arrange for the house to be placed under police protection, like the Valent residence.
It was still afternoon, but already twilight was descending onto the forest. The shortest days of the year were approaching. It was the worst possible time to be hunting a killer who prowled the mountain trails.
“We must alert the municipal authorities, but without causing panic,” she told Marini. “And let’s be careful with the press; if we stroke the killer’s ego, we’ll only end up encouraging him.”
“Are you worried they’ll make front page news of him?”
She wasn’t worried, she was certain. It had happened before, and the literature was full of examples of killers who’d ended up in a twisted dance with the press, a game both parties relished.
“It will happen. It’s inevitable,” she said. “People are alarmed by this kind of news, but also secretly fascinated. It’s the lure of evil. It’s the same reason your heart’s beating so fast right now—it is, isn’t it? You’re wondering what it would be like to run into him at this very moment, hiding behind that tree over there. You’re wondering what kind of face someone like that might have, how he would look at you.”
“I’m not afraid.”
Teresa stopped to look at him.
“And yet I’m sure I felt your hand shaking earlier, Inspector.”
He ignored her and pointed at the stream bubbling through clumps of ivy.
“The forensics team say that’s where his trail vanishes,” he said.
Once again, the killer had protected himself. Teresa had never seen anything like this before: the perpetrator had no qualms taking risks, spreading traces of his DNA around, walking on the snow and leaving his footprints everywhere, showing them, in dozens of identical prints, the shape of the hand that had ripped the victim’s eyes out. But the moment he’d had enough, he was also capable of disappearing inside the forest, like an animal.
“Rational and deranged at the same time. Rational and deranged,” she murmured, watching the water flowing in limpid jets.
“If what you say is true, then there’s a monster walking around in the village.”
Teresa blew hot air onto her stiff fingers. Flecks of ice had caught in the wool of her gloves.
“Someone’s going to have to explain to me some day what constitutes a monster,” she said. “That’s what we like to call them, yet we can’t look away, we won’t change the channel, and that’s because we know they’re just like the rest of us: human. That’s what captivates us, the realization that a small part of them exists in every one of us.”
Marini stood perfectly still and stared into the forest. Perhaps he was trying to work out what secrets it held, what fresh horrors it might soon witness.
“You think a monster lives inside us all?” he asked. He sounded doubtful.
“I’m sure of it. If you’re lucky enough that fate has been generous and bequeathed you with a half-decent life, the monster will lie dormant until your last breath. But the monster inside these people has been fed by trauma and abuse.”
Marini’s eyes searched her face.
“You see them as victims?” he asked with a mixture of shock and revulsion. But Teresa was used to her opinions causing vehement reactions. It wasn’t easy to admit there was something human in that kind of horror—it was far more reassuring to regard it as entirely alien.
“They always are,” she replied firmly. “Condemned to live off the only thing that can placate their gnawing hunger.”
“Hunger for what?”
“Power. Absolute power over another human being.”
Marini took a step forward and a twig snapped beneath the sole of his shoe. An identical sound echoed from among the trees further up the slope. They turned their heads toward the noise. The fog seemed to be rolling down from the peak.
“An animal,” said Marini.
Teresa motioned at him to stop talking. She could have sworn someone had been watching her from the moment she’d stepped into the forest. She’d told herself it was an illusion, but she didn’t think it could be causing auditory hallucinations. She picked up a branch and snapped it in half. From up the slope, about twenty meters to the east, came the same sound.
“It’s not an animal,” she said, her breath hitching. “It’s mimicry.”
Someone was hiding up there in the mist and the lengthening shadows. Someone who’d just begun playing a game with them, and who knew he was perfectly safe. Hunting for him now among the mountain’s gorges and deep crevasses, just as night was about to fall, would be impossible.
And so, protected by the mountain and the darkness, he watched them both.
-19-
Snow had transformed the Sliva river valley. The gully through which the river flowed had become a kingdom of ice, its verdant fronds supplanted by a white expanse of shimmering crystal, and the lance-like forms of the fir trees transformed into downy pillows. The voice of the water had changed: the sound that rose from the riverbed was no longer a thunderous rumble, but a subdued murmur. The cold had put a brake on the rapids, while the shallower chutes and the stagnant pools had frozen over.
Even the waterfall beyond the cave, where the Sliva plunged into a deep ravine among boulders carved out by time, had been stilled; only the finest of trickles slid down its gleaming, transparent stalactites.
To Diego the frozen waterfall looked like a stairway to the sky. He wondered if his father had climbed up steps as pretty as those when he’d died. His grandmother kept saying that his father was watching over him from heaven now, but to Diego, this was hardly a reassuring prospect. His father’s eyes had never looked at him with anything other than unadulterated sternness. He had never hit Diego, and he had never raised his voice either, as far as Diego could recall. But there was no need for any of that; all his father had to do was to look at him for Diego to know what a disappointment he was. Diego knew that his father’s body currently lay in a morgue, without his eyes. But when Diego had dreamt of him the night before, his father had been whole: he had appeared dressed in nothing but a white sheet, and had simply scowled. Even now that he was dead he was displeased with Diego. And now that he was up in the sky, he was going to find out all the secrets and lies that Diego used in order to survive.
Diego reached his friends with a last leap over an old, fallen tree trunk. Mathias and Oliver were throwing stones at the frozen riverbank. When they saw him, they stiffened. Diego had witnessed the same reaction in everyone he’d come across in those last few hours, except for the police lady with the red hair. Instead of being drawn closer, people seemed to be repelled by you when you were in mourning. They recognized the smell of death, and they feared it, just as animals fear the scent of hunters.
He looked pleadingly at his friends while trying to catch his breath.
“It’s s-still m-me,” he said, tripping over the words. It could be a struggle to get them out, whereas his thoughts always ran so smoothly. He hated words sometimes.
Mathias’s hand clasped the back of Diego’s neck and pulled him close.
“I was scared you wouldn’t come,” he said, hugging him tight. Oliver, who was not only a year younger than they were, but smaller, too, soon joined their embrace.
“I r-ran away,” he said. His mother didn’t want him going out.
Inside the circle of their arms, Diego felt like he was in a nest of familiar smells and shared breaths. But someone was missing.
“L-Lucia?” he asked.
Mathias shrugged.
“She might not come today,” he said.
Diego noticed a mark on Mathias’s neck. He stretched his finger out to push down the collar of Mathias’s coat, but Mathias wouldn’t let Diego touch him; he knew what question he’d be asked next.
“Mom can’t do anything about it,” he said. “Otherwise there’d be hell to pay for her, too.”
Diego and Oliver exchanged a sad look.
“Does it hurt?” asked the younger boy.
Mathias rolled his shoulders as if to shake off the pain he was not willing to acknowledge.
“It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s my little brother, Markus,” he said, breaking the embrace. He picked up a rock and flung it at the river. It shattered the ice and sprayed frozen shards onto his flushed cheeks. He picked up another rock, larger than the first, but this time his hand froze mid-air.
Diego saw him staring at the trees across the stream, squinting as if he were trying to focus on some distant object.
“W-w-what are you l-looking at?” he asked.
“Someone’s watching us from the forest,” Mathias replied.
Diego followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything.
“It must be a deer,” said Oliver. “My dad says the cold drives them down into the valley and closer to the village.”
“If it’s an animal,” said Mathias, “then this will scare it off.”
He pulled his arm back and threw the rock. It whistled in a taut arc through the air and vanished into the vegetation, swallowed by the snow.
They stood staring at the spot where the stone had disappeared.
“I g-guess it was n-nothing,” said Diego. He wasn’t sure why, but he was breathing a little easier now.
Mathias started laughing.
“You should have seen your faces!” he said. “You fell for it!”
“Idiot!” Oliver protested.
“J-Jerk.”
It landed not too far from their feet, its dull rattling cloaked by their laughter, which quickly died down. The thing rolled onto the flat rock they used as a diving platform during the summer, then came to a stop and stared at them.
They turned toward it in unison. Whoever had thrown it had taken good aim.
It was white and not much larger than a fist.
A squirrel’s skull.
-20-
The police station in Travenì looked like a mountain hotel. Until twenty years ago, the border crossing nearby had bustled with activity, and there had been almost fifty officers stationed there. The station’s decline had begun with the lifting of customs controls, and now most of its rooms lay empty, its cafeteria dismantled. Hugo Knauss and his team made do by cooking their own food or bringing in meals prepared at home by their wives. Some officers still spent nights there, returning to the bottom of the valley at the end of the week—unless it was their turn to take the weekend shift.
That was where Teresa had decided to base the investigation. She’d had a sizeable room set up for meetings between her team and the local police, the first of which had just begun. They hadn’t got off to a good start.
Teresa looked at Knauss over the frame of her reading glasses.
“Are you telling me we already have names and surnames for a pool of potential suspects?” she asked him, enunciating every word. Those who knew her well knew this was never a good sign.
Knauss held her gaze with his customary lopsided smile, which Teresa had begun to find exasperating.
“We have the situation under control, Superintendent,” he assured her.
She rubbed her eyes beneath her spectacles.
“I’m glad to hear that, Chief Knauss. What a relief,” she replied.
“Now let’s not get personal about this.”
“I’m not, but I might if you keep at it.”
Knauss did not respond.
“So,” Teresa pressed, “do we or do we not have a list of suspects?”
He surrendered—at least for the time being.
“We do,” he confirmed.
Teresa took off her glasses, and placed them folded onto the table in front of her.
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so before?” she asked.
His smile was genuine now.
“They’re good kids. I can vouch for them,” he said.
Teresa looked at Parisi, who was standing next to her, then at De Carli, and finally at Marini. It was like she was talking to them; that sequence of glances was the equivalent of a lengthy sequence of imprecations. She felt like screaming, but only allowed herself a sigh, holding her head in her hands. She felt tired in a way she wasn’t used to. Her body was alert; it was her mind that was lagging behind. She was finding it difficult to follow conversations, to pluck out the words in her head and put them into the right order.
She kept telling herself she’d just been working too hard, and willed herself to ignore how unsteady she felt. She tried to gather her thoughts, moistening her lips to make the words come out more easily. Taking a deep breath, she focused once more on the case.
“They have a motive, and there is a precedent for vandalism and damage to the victim’s property,” she said.
Knauss squirmed in his chair, his bulk suddenly diminished, as if he were shrivelling up in his own skin.
Teresa didn’t wait for him to respond.
“I want the details for each and every one,” she commanded.
Knauss tried once more to explain his position.
“They’re from the village . . . we’ve known them forever.”
“I don’t give a damn if you have your morning coffee with them every day,” Teresa snapped.
She regretted it immediately. From the moment she’d woken up that morning, she’d felt unmoored. All day her emotions had seesawed, and that unpredictability was a destabilizing force.
“They are idealists, Superintendent, they’re young. They just don’t want another ski slope defacing the valley.”
“Idealists are dreamers who organize peace marches, Chief Knauss, they don’t roam about armed with petrol cans and fire bombs,” she said. “What are the charges?”
Knauss signalled to one of his men, and the files were pushed toward Teresa. Within minutes she’d figured out what had happened. The ski resort currently under construction required the deforestation of a vast expanse of mountain slope. She could easily imagine how a certain portion of the valley’s inhabitants might be displeased with these plans. The zone of interest had been divided into lots. A number of soil samples from the lots on the ridge toward the north had already been analyzed; the results from the hydrological tests had been positive, and the work was set to begin in the spring, once the ice had thawed. As for the lots further south, near the village, those had already been fenced off and construction had commenced. These were the sites that the environmental activists had targeted; the worst offence had taken place two weeks before Valent’s disappearance, an episode of arson for which three locals from the protest movement had already been arrested and charged.
