“When… she died?”
“Ages before, it wasn’t possible to date it with precision but it had to be between four and seven years ago.”
“That’s not possible… more precision?”
“The LAFoD didn’t take care of the case, unfortunately.” Sensi continued.
“Where…?”
“The oldest discovery was made in a forest in the vicinity of a national park between Siena and Grosseto; the most recent one was near the coast between the provinces of Livorno and Grosseto.”
Claps pondered for a long time, then spoke again.
“Cellophane?”
“The reports say that there were no traces of cellophane near the bodies.”
“How… Ami… died?”
Sensi sighed. “She was strangled. She was tortured before that…”
“Ra…raped?”
Sensi lowered his eyes. “Yes.”
“The… others?”
“We can’t say much about the skeleton, but for the other body it was certainly a death by strangulation and, although we can’t be certain because of the body’s condition, she may also have been raped.”
Claps closed his eyes.
The ghost. The ogre.
An evil shadow began to take shape in his mind, just like it would have done three years ago, when he was still able to talk and express himself with no trouble.
By analysing the extremely organized behaviour of the ghost in the most recent story of little Ami, it was obvious that the man would strike again – Ami hadn’t been his first and only victim.
Perhaps there were more than three victims – there may have been up to seven years between the first murder and the last one, maybe too much time for only three victims.
The ogre.
He was from Tuscany, he was certain of it. The first murder was there… and usually they don’t go too far from their local area the first time, the second murder had also been in the same region. There was no trace of cellophane in the pits. Why?
He had used it with Ami to avoid leaving traces in the house. He must have laid on the cellophane to… lay on her. Like a beast.
The first two bodies showed no trace of cellophane. Maybe he had a hide-out where he felt safe, where he knew that nobody could have found the girls? Who would have found them, anyway, if nobody had reported them missing?
Certainly, the monster had counted on that factor.
Nameless, faceless victims with no justice.
Tuscany was the region where Beattie, lecturer in the History of Art, must have travelled several times. Florence, Pisa, Siena, probably also Volterra, San Gimignano and God knows how many other places. The beast had met him somewhere and stolen his driving licence.
He lived in Tuscany, the ogre.
A body in the forest, another one near the coast. Maybe his hide-out was somewhere in between the two spots.
Claps opened his eyes. He struggled to express his thoughts out loud.
“Yes,” the police commissioner replied, after listening to him. “It’s all very likely. Why did he strike here now, though? One possible reason is that he recently moved to live in this area.”
Claps spread his arms.
“Possible… but here… now… no trace… I think that… if we want to find the ghost that took… Ami… we need to find the… ogre… who kidnapped the… victims… in Tuscany.”
Claps was trying his best to speak clearly – in the meantime, one question dominated his mind: why Ami?
She wasn’t his standard victim, he couldn’t have thought that nobody would miss her. He wasn’t in his environment, he wasn’t in his forest any more.
Then why Ami?
Again, for a moment, the faint shadow of the ogre re-materialised in his mind.
“What will you do… now?” He asked.
“I’ll think about it and then I’ll follow your suggestions. As always. We’ll carry on our investigation in Tuscany.”
1
“I want to talk to the Demba family… and I want to… go to… Tuscany.”
Sensi had been at the office for only a few minutes, when Claps had appeared in front of him.
“Listen, my friend.” The police commissioner was trying to be careful not to offend Claps. “Maybe I shouldn’t have talked to you last night.”
He remained silent for a little while, he was trying to find the right words to say. “I wanted to talk to somebody to sort out my ideas. I wanted to have some opinions, some new ideas. That’s why I needed you. That’s why I talked to you. But that’s all that I wanted. It has to be all that I want.”
Claps remained expressionless. He carried on staring into Sensi’s eyes.
“It’s too late now… to keep me out of it. I feel… alive… you brought me back to work.”
Sensi stood up and walked towards the window. He began to stare out of it, he had turned his back to Claps. “Come on, it sucks to be back at work, you realized that the last time… remember?”
“It didn’t end that badly… we got him.”
“Morphy almost killed you, he almost…”
“Took away my speech? I move normally… I can walk… and I have very good health otherwise. I understand and… I let others understand me. Most importantly… I’m still able to think… just like three years ago. I feel… the same.”
Sensi turned round and looked at him, almost with pity. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
Claps stared intensely into his eyes. “It’s true… I didn’t want to… work… but, do you remember? You convinced me to… you had to in-sist, you were convincing…”
Sensi lowered his eyes for a moment, then Claps spoke again. “I wouldn’t be… like this… now.”
“You owe me… something.” Claps concluded. “My previous life… back.”
The police commissioner walked to his desk and sat down again. Then he raised his eyes again. “Even if I wanted to, it’s not possible – you’re retired now.”
“Re-tired? The law allows… pensioned people to… work… you can take me on as… an external consultant.”
Sensi remained silent for a few seconds. “Why? Why do you want to come back?”
“Because… after all… I’m alive. I understood it… last night.”
Sensi knew Claps very well. “Is that everything?”
“No. The man… he’s now on my mind.”
The police commissioner observed Claps’ hands – they were clutched into fists.
“On your mind… and you won’t rest until we’ve found him, right?”
“Until we’ve… found him.”
Neither of them spoke for a goodly while.
Then Claps broke the silence: “Siena is in Tuscany… Hospital… it’s easier to steal… a driving li-cence… there.”
Sensi nodded – he’d already thought of that. He took his telephone and dialled an internal number. Police Commissioner Fuggiano replied immediately.
“Listen, I need a list please – I want to know the names of the doctors, nurses and patients who were in touch with Beattie when he was hospitalised in Siena following his stroke. Do a quick, detailed job please.”
Sensi hung up and looked into Claps’ eyes. “Okay?”
“That’s a… start.”
He opened a drawer and pulled out a heavy folder. He dropped it onto the desk in front of Claps.
“There’s everything about Ami we know here and all that we know about the cold cases in Tuscany. There’s also the Demba family’s address, obviously. Are you going to drive your old wreck there and meet them?”
“I don’t have that car… any more… I have an estate car now… easier for my dog.”
“Brando! I haven’t seen him in a while, how big is he now?”
“He’s overweight… he’s eighty kilos.”
“A Corsican shepherd of eighty kilos, you must be crazy.” Sensi handed the folder to Claps. “And I must be crazier than you.”
2
Trevis observed Elisa with a s
mile – she seemed uncertain about which crayon to use.
Nothing had changed over the few sessions since he’d first met her. Every day, her father took her to his office and then picked her up again after a few hours. He’d stopped asking whether there had been any progress. Elisa remained sitting solemnly for hours in the chair. She didn’t say a single word. She didn’t respond to any input – words, sounds, music or anything else. Her eyes were fixed, expressionless, but it didn’t look as though she was staring into the void – in his notes, Trevis had defined it as simply transparent, almost as if there wasn’t anything to look at. After all, that’s how it was – there was no surrounding environment for her, she existed only in her own world, inside her mind.
Trevis had begun to modify the doses of the drugs that the girl had to take every day. For a few weeks, nothing changed. Then he began to decrease the doses, with caution, progressively. Finally, one day, after he shouted “Elisa?” one more time, she turned her head towards him.
It had been an instant, a moment – Elisa had perceived the world around her for the first time in a long while, right then.
It was only a first, small step down the long, rough path to a better life and there was no guarantee that they would reach their destination. But it was the first step.
A fundamental one.
Trevis was hoping that Elisa would show some kind of break from her constant state of self-isolation and her obstinate rejection of the world surrounding her. He needed some kind of sign desperately in order to make a connection, to find a common ground where he could meet her.
Eventually, Elisa chose the yellow crayon – she’d decided to begin colouring the hair.
*
“I’m really… sorry… about… Ami.” He was struggling to speak that day.
As soon as he’d woken up, he’d felt the same sense of alienation that had accompanied him for a long time during his recovery. He hadn’t felt that way for weeks now.
“Everybody says that.” Elaji’s eyes were full of hatred. “It’s useless. Meaningless.”
Claps felt unable to utter any words – he was searching for them in his mind. Perhaps it was impossible to find any words for that occasion.
Claps and Elaji were sitting at the dinner table, Rama wasn’t around.
There was a background scent in that house – leather, wood, tears, pain. Hatred.
“Do you also want to ask me questions about Ami? Do you want to see her room, her things? They all want that. I’ve always welcomed them all. Polite to everybody. I’ve always worked, I’ve always paid my debts. And now? Ami won’t be at home any more. Never again.”
Elaji stood up and walked towards the window.
Claps could see that Elaji’s solid body was crumbling and his eyes were lost outside the window.
“I still can’t see her body.”
Claps remained silent. Even if he had been able to find some of the hidden words in his oblivious memory, what could he have said to Elaji?
That he could bury Ami in a few days?
That he had to be patient?
That they would get the monster?
That he had to be proud of his honesty and his efforts… and that he had to carry on that way, with the same dignity, bearing his pain?
Elaji turned and glared at Claps.
“Leave my house. I’m not going to talk to anyone else. Not any more.”
*
After that very small step, Elisa had made some progress during the following few weeks.
More often, during her sessions with Trevis, she seemed to have moments where she knew what was happening around her and others where her eyes looked alive and full of expression – sometimes she looked amazed, sometimes desperate, as if an invisible tragedy materialised in front of her eyes. Trevis tried to make the most of those moments, with his words, some music, by standing in front of her and mirroring her movements. The results, however, had never been encouraging – as much as he tried, Trevis seemed unable to find a common ground to meet her.
He had also been busy trying to reassure her father – for ever since he had reduced the drugs, Elisa had begun to show some signs of agitation.
One morning, while he was sitting in front of her as he usually did, Trevis decided to put a blank sheet of paper on his desk. As soon as Elisa looked self-aware, he drew a circle on the paper, then he gave her the pen. For a few minutes, the girl had shown no signs of understanding and ordinarily would have returned to her absent state shortly. That time, however, she gulped as if she had been woken up unexpectedly – she grabbed the paper with anger, she crumpled it and threw it away from her. Then, she sank into her inner self again for the rest of the session, until her father came to pick her up.
With excitement, Trevis had written in his notes:
We have some kind of contact for the first time today… or better, a contact refusal, a rejection of the possibility to communicate. A refusal denotes the patient’s ability to evaluate the possibilities. It’s a step forward.
The same event occurred many times, until one day Elisa decided not to destroy the circle drawn by Trevis. She observed the drawing for a long time and she remained present for an unusually long time. She moved her hand towards the pen… Trevis stood up and turned towards the window – his back was towards Elisa. He followed her movements from her reflection in the glass. Elisa grabbed the pen and scribbled frantically, she was trying to erase the circle drawn by Trevis.
From that moment, things began to change – Trevis would draw circles and other shapes, and Elisa drew lines on top which looked increasingly less shaky and angry. Then Trevis began to draw some lines using coloured crayons – one colour at first, then different colours for each line. A week later, Elisa had stopped drawing her lines on top of Trevis’ drawing and she had begun to use the same colours more regularly.
Eventually, Trevis left her alone with some crayons and a blank sheet.
Elisa began to draw…
3
Two days later
The cross country train stopped at the small station of Campiglia Marittima exactly on time. Five passengers got off the train – one, a woman, was wearing sporty clothes, her blonde hair tied up in a pony tail. She wasn’t that young, but she moved with agility and she acted younger than she looked. She had a red suitcase with her and as soon as she landed on the platform, she began to search around, looking for somebody.
As soon as Claps saw her, he waved.
“Cristina!”
She waved back and smiled – she had a beautiful smile.
“Thank you for… coming. You must have a lot of work… to do… for LAFoD.”
“How can I reject an old friend? I have a lot of leave owing anyway.”
Claps had travelled to Tuscany the day before – he had gone immediately to the police station in Massa Marittima, for theirs had been the first team to visit the area where the unidentified skeleton had been found. Sensi had told him that the victim had died between four and seven years earlier – but it was essential for the investigation to identify the time of death more precisely.
A few minutes later, without saying any more, they left the train station and headed towards Claps’ car, which was parked outside.
“Where’s your lovely dog?”
“I left him with… a friend… for a few days.”
“Greta?”
“Yeah… they make a good match.”
“Anyway,” she said. She sounded happy. “When are you going to take me to see the old pit?”
“It’s lunch time… don’t you want to… eat something… first?”
“No,” Cristina said. She glanced at her watch – it was half twelve. “We’ll have the best daylight now, let’s go.”
Claps had known Dr Cristina Manara for a long time – she was one of the pillars of the LAFoD. He had called her the morning before and had got straight to the point – he had asked her whether it would be possible to pinpoint a more precise time of death, even though
the victim had been dead a long time.
She had listened to the story, then replied. “Maybe… We’ll have to get lucky and we need to know exactly where the pit was. There’s always a hint somewhere in the wilderness. Of course, I’d have to see the place in person.”
Claps hadn’t mentioned the fact that the body was missing the left little finger, exactly as Ami was. He told her when the car left the motorway and headed towards Massa Marittima.
“What?” Dr Manara almost bounced on the passenger seat.
“This could mean that… oh fuck, Ami. Wait, are we certain that the finger was amputated?”
“The report says…so.”
“Who analysed the body? Somebody sufficiently expert? I want to see the bones, it might have been an animal.”
Claps shook his head in disagreement.
“The chest and the arms were… still… buried… when the skeleton was… found. They were under a few inches… of soil… but still buried. Therefore… no animals…”
“I want to see those bones. How long will it take us to get to the pit?”
“Not too… long.”
*
A few minutes later, they turned onto a secondary road which bordered a dense, wild area made of tall trees, bushes and entanglements of brambles. They continued up a dirt road for a little while. Claps stopped at an open area which appeared suddenly amongst the overgrown vegetation.
The sun was shining high in the sky, it was unexpectedly warm for the time of year. When Claps got out of the car, he felt the warm rays of the sun caress his face – the south-east breeze was carrying the scent of sea and salt from the coast.
They walked along a small path for about two hundred metres – it was so narrow and indistinct that they struggled to find their way through the wilderness. Eventually, they arrived at a smaller open area.
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