“Can I turn it on?”
Andrei was interested.
“For what purpose?”
“He certainly saved the file he was working on. It’s an automatic thing, next to every save the computer points to what time it was done.”
“Great idea, do it too. I do not think there are any fingers here.”
His colleagues, meanwhile, were knocking on the other apartments. The noise, ingrained by the unnatural silence surrounding the palace, made me shudder, and the fact that no one responded animated in me the gloomiest predictions. We waited a couple of minutes for the program to load, then I sat down and started exploring.
“Strange, very strange!”
Andrei immediately came to me.
“What?”
“Look, the last rescue is four o’clock in the afternoon.”
Andrei is exulted.
“Then it was at that time that happened!”
“Not at all. I phoned him at five to know what I had to buy at the supermarket. He was in full job and in a good mood.”
“I do not understand.”
I tried to explain it better.
“See, he was working. He was translating a document. Shutting down without saving would mean losing hours of work. It does not make sense.”
Andrei was developing his own theory.
“Something suddenly made him run out and turned off the computer without thinking about it.”
“Let’s figure it out, let it always light up, even as he ate, if someone had convinced him to go out, even if he had forced him, we would have found the computer turned on.” Andrei began to walk along the room. “So, someone else might have turned off the computer. To what purpose?”
Thousands of hypotheses went feverishly to my mind.
“Wait, wait! There is another possibility! What a stupid thing to do, because I did not think about it before!” I hit the keys in a dark look. Andrei put me behind “This program copies a file automatically, every five minutes. He understands, if by chance the current was missing, not everything would be lost. Let’s see what time the last one was made.”
I was on the keyboard for another minute and then shouted at me.
“At 18:30. The computer was on, until that hour!”
Andrei looked at me incredulously,
“It is not possible! By that time, the darkness had already fallen, the lights should have been lit.”
“Someone has seen them off.”
“How many? Did you go around the apartments, opening them one by one and turning off the lights in every room? It would take an hour for it! Instead, already at seven, the first reports came to the central police.”
I could not understand: the whole story had no logic.
“I have no idea what happened. The only thing certain is that this computer was shut off between 18:30 and 18:35. There can be no doubt about this.”
Andrei nodded, and he realized that he was not gentle, he took a more resigned tone.
“Yes, of course. Excuse me; In fact, I have to thank her for the idea she had. It was a great help.”
He was embarrassed. With a sudden inspiration, I grabbed his arm.
“You already know, of my husband. They told him, did not he?”
Andrei looked amazed at me,
“What did you say?”
“My husband is paralyzed, lives on a wheelchair. He never leaves home. He does not feel safe out. It is almost impossible that he may have come out of his own spontaneous will.”
Andrei looked dry.
“Nobody told me anything. I’m sorry.”
His embarrassment caught me unprepared: I did not want him to feel pity for us. Neither for me nor for Guido. We were so happy, we did not need anyone to understand.
“No matter, I told you just because I thought he could serve.”
Then entered an agent to call Andrei.
“Soon, come see.”
We followed him in the corridor to the door in front of ours. Inside he felt mumble.
Andrei turned to me.
“Who lives here?”
“Mrs. Righi. She’s a bit old-fashioned old woman with a tough character. She had been well connected with my husband, though. He gladly helped her.”
“Is there a cat in the house?”
“There are two, to tell the truth. They are her passion. I am surprised that she left them alone.”
Andrei was thoughtful.
“So, you confirm that the thing is strange. That there are the conditions to fear that the lady may have felt badly at home. This could allow us to enter…”
He nodded to his men and walked away from me. The cops opened the door shoulder-mounted. It was easy, the wood was old and there were no security locks. Even here the lights were off.
Cats, incredibly fat, ran for the newcomers to celebrate. We all went to the apartment, except for a policeman who watched in the corridor. Even here there were no traces of life: television was off and total silence. They rushed in quickly, finding only a bit of disorder, but nothing to think of violent actions. They were all disappointed, but I had seen a little detail stuck in the kitchen.
“Strange, very strange.”
“Did you notice something?”
“Maybe. She fed cats.”
“So?”
“Mrs. Righi is terribly habitual. Her cats always eat at the same time at seven o’clock in the evening, while cooking for herself. She does not feed them before to make sure they’re not hungry again before bed, because she put them on diet.”
“This time she must have done it. I doubt she might still be at home at seven o’clock.”
“Yes, of course, but look here! She did not even throw the can, left it on the table. It’s not from her: she’s certainly not an orderly person, but she keeps a lot of hygiene.”
Andrei was thinking loudly.
“So, she had to go out, she was not dragged out. She knew she had to go out in hurry and maybe she would not be able to get back for the seven. Then she fed the cats. So quickly to forget the box on the table. But all this does not agree with what we found in her home: if your husband had come out spontaneously, he would save the file he was working on or at least leave the computer on.”
I nodded, I myself thought the same things.
“That’s right, it makes no sense. The facts do not fit at all!”
Andrei decided.
“We have to look at the other apartments.”
I was glad that Andrei had abandoned the regulation to finally follow the logic, although this did not affect my concern. We came back to the landing.
“Who lives in the last apartment?”
“Merlini, they are a nice family. He is an engineer and his wife is homemaker. We are friends, even though we have little time to attend. They have three children.”
Andrei nodded.
“Get down the door.”
Without much precautions, the cops obeyed.
There was chaos in the apartment, it was clear that there were children in that house. It was difficult to determine whether the disorder was a habitual or emergency condition. There were toys scattered everywhere and magazines open on the couch. But the kitchen was in order and so did the rooms. The television was on, the volume low enough to not be heard from the landing. The dark screen, surely there had been problems with the antenna. “Another mystery! Here they came out without even turning off the TV, a sign they thought about coming back right away. But why did the Merlini bring their children with them, while Righi left the cats in the house? If there was a danger, why did the lady abandon them? It is obvious that she loves them.”
I found myself smiling, I never imagined I could do it in such a way.
“They did not, they were not used to it. They never came out of that house, it would have been impossible to drag them out, it would have taken a cage to do it and she did not. I remember that when she was compelled to take one by the vet if she had had it lent.”
Andrey nodded,
but I was not finished yet.
“But there could not be a real danger, or at least Mrs. Righi did not think he could get here. Otherwise she would not leave them, she would stay with them at any cost.”
“All this does not make sense! Where are all of them? Let’s go to the other floor.”
They had left the apartment. I kept throwing a sad look at my apartment, then, grasping a sudden idea, I shouted, screaming Andrei, who was already climbing the ladder.
“Stupid, stupid! How did I not think about it before?”
The cops were immediately around me.
“We must take the electric current away, come on.”
I went into the apartment, followed by Andrei. In the storage room, I lowered the general switch lever. The apartment fell into the dark, broken only by the weak light of the landing.
“The computer is still on?”
Andrei was astonished at this question and ran to see.
“Yes, it is still on.”
I reached and sat beside him: the man looked curiously at me.
“What does that mean?”
“We have to wait. Let’s see what’s going on.”
Andrei was astonished,
“Why is the computer still on?”
“We have a continuity group, I forgot about it. Runs as soon as the current is missing. To avoid the risk, it was indispensable for his work.”
“Interesting.”
“It should last an hour, a whole hour without current.”
“Is this what we are waiting for? That the computer goes off?”
“That’s right.”
“Dear lady, I do not think I have an hour to lose here. There are more important things to do!”
I just hoped my suspicion would be grounded.
“If what I think is true, you will not have to wait an hour.”
The computer went off.
Now the darkness was total.
“What do you want to tell?”
Andrei was upset.
“It means the UPS was unloaded. It had already been used and had not had time to recharge. It takes hours for it to come back to full operation and have not had them available.”
“So…”
“So, the light is back soon, between six and a half and the seven I would say.”
“And it missed at least one hour.”
“Sure, an hour during which my husband went on quietly to work. And when he was due to leave he left the computer on. Perhaps he had not realized that there was no light, it was day after all…”
“Then, if the batteries last an hour, anything has happened between five and a half and six and a half, now that the computer turned off. And then, somehow, someone must have reactivated the light.”
“I guess that’s how it is.”
I looked at him carefully, trying to penetrate his impassioned
“Are you sure nobody left this house?”
“So, they say the neighbors, the shops in front of you, the annoying gossip woman that lives in front of you and spending the day at the window spying on passers-by. They only saw people coming in and no one left after five o’clock.”
“What time was the light coming in?”
Andrei had been caught in a counter-attack,
“Why is that important?”
“At seven o’clock, perhaps seven o’clock a quarter, they are not sure.”
“Well, of course it’s important. It should have turned on at six o’clock! It always turned on at six o’clock, at this time!”
“So, the current went back to the seven when all had already disappeared. Who can have it restored?”
“This is irrelevant, the problem is another. If no one has come out, they must still be here, all of them!”
Andrei motioned to his men to continue.
“Then we have to look for them.”
We climbed to the fifth floor. Here the situation was quite different, there were signs of irregularity, very obvious: the door to the apartment at the bottom was completely missing, as it had been scavenger and removed. We all stayed open mouth.
Pistols to the hand, the younger policemen came cautiously into the room. Spini lit the light.
An incredible force had destroyed the room. The door had been thrown inside and lying in the back against the couch. The furniture had all been moved and the furnishings was smashed, some even pulverized. Curtain pieces shredded with shreds scattered everywhere. Another door, leading to the bedroom, had also been dislodged.
“Who lived here?”
Finish not to notice the past form used by Andrei. The man did not realize it, and even in me was the horrible suspicion that the chances for the occupants to be free from such destruction were scarce.
“I did not know them well. A Chinese family who had opened a nearby restaurant. They were eight, I think. A couple, two other men I never really knew about kinship and three kids. There was also a very old woman, the grandmother of one of them, I think.”
“It is evident that these did not come out of goodwill like the others. Someone had to come in to pick them up.”
Andrei pointed to the furniture in the middle of the room.
“They had been trying to get inside. But it was useless, apparently.”
Guido… What probability were I still seeing him again? What end could he have done? I could not accept the idea that something had happened to him, that he was hurt or worse.
“Who can have done all this? What strength has the doors broken in this way?”
Andrei shook his head, did not know what to answer. A policeman called him with a scream. We rushed into the room. Within the wardrobe, there was a daunting surprise: it was the old woman, crouched in a fetal position, as if hiding. Her eyes wide open, her mouth shouting.
As if an ice cube had wrapped around me, I found myself trembling, unable to stop.
“She’s dead?”
“I’m afraid of that.”
Andrei shook my arm, as if to console me. I thanked him mentally.
“They tried to hide it. They knew they were in danger. But she didn’t do it.”
Andrei carefully examined the corpse.
“There are no apparent traces of violence, perhaps she is dead of fear.”
I turned, I could no longer hold that view. I did not know her, had perhaps met her a couple of times on the ladder, but that absurd death had even shaken me more than that of my parents. It was all too strange, surreal. Never, as long as I lived, I could forget her vitreous eyes.
“What must have been so terrible of…”
“She was very old, maybe stirring was sufficient.”
He put an arm around my back and escorted me out.
The implications of that macabre discovery brought a completely different light on the mystery and lighted a glimmer of hope in me.
“They left her here. He didn’t need her from dead.”
“What does it mean?”
“The cats were in the house and they were fine. The old Chinese didn’t take anything to take her away but they ignored her. Only the living ones are gone.”
“What nonsense. Probably they’re all hidden somewhere, you’ll see we’ll find them.”
He was treating me like a little girl! His stupid reassurance was only irritating.
“But you do not realize! No door was forced, except that of the Chinese. Because they had barricaded inside. How did they know it? How could they be sure there was no other? They did not even try.”
“What do we know, maybe there’s really someone hiding in one of these apartments. We will have to explore them all before making certain statements.”
“Why didn’t the Chinese come out? Why didn’t they go with the others, but have they barricaded at home?”
“I don’t know what to answer. Maybe they did not understand the language, they did not trust who had knocked on their door.”
“Nonsense, their language was pretty good. And if Mrs. Righi follows someone, he must be trusted, o
r the serious situation at the right point. I think rather than just the opposite. They, alone in the palace, had an idea of the danger they were running.”
“What makes you think?”
“They did not try to escape, they were barricaded in the house.”
Andrei nodded thoughtfully, while an idea was moving in his mind.
“Certainly, they made a curtain crack, shrinking it in strips.”
“Why do you think they were them?”
Andrei ignored me, continuing his reasoning.
“They tried to plug all the cracks in the door, so it was totally shielded. But it was not enough, I imagine.”
“How do you deduce something like that from a shreds curtain? It might have reduced it as an aggressor.”
“But it was not shreds! It was shrunk in carefully torn strips, with a purpose. It cannot be done otherwise.”
Andrei now had forgotten my presence, lost in his suppositions.
“How did the Chinese know the danger? Was it somehow tied to them? They had had to deal with something like this or knew about other occasions when it had happened. Why did they try to isolate the door? From the outside, they would see the cloth, they would attract even more attention. And above all, if they were aware that they were really in danger, why no one in the whole house faced a window shouting? It would have been a lot easier and faster! I cannot believe anyone came to mind!”
We stayed silent for a few minutes, while the worst fears undermined our courage and the other cops await awkwardly. How many images came to my mind: remember wonderful, small divergences, the comforting routine of our common life. No, Guido was fine, I was sure, could not have done anything irreparable. I got up and decided.
“Let’s see above, we only miss a plan, by now.”
We left the last ramp in the row of Indian police officers with the pistols in their hands. Spini locked me in before he came to the top.
“It’s better not to look at it.”
No, it was not possible. My whole body was screaming that there was nothing on the ground that nothing could hurt me, everything was normal. But I could not believe it either. I pushed aside the cop and climbed the last steps. Sprawled next to the elevator, there was my husband’s wheelchair. There was no trace of him, but that one witness was enough to frighten me. Guido could not move without it, it was a dead weight.
The Prison Page 52