“Listen, Claps…”
“The necklace… from the photo…” Claps ignored Trevis, he just couldn’t contain his excitement about what he had learned from that casual conversation with Mrs Mira. “That probably… belonged to… Elisa!”
“Claps, look…”
“Denise had lost… her necklace… months before… she lost it… in Bench’s garden… somehow.”
“Hey, Claps…” The professor struggled again.
“You know what this… means?… whomever took… the photo… had to have… free access to… Elisa’s things… and to that house…”
“They lived in it.” Trevis said in a surprisingly calm, patient tone. “The man simply lived in the house.”
Claps stopped talking suddenly.
“What I’ve been trying to tell you is that Elisa has drawn the story of what happened that day. Look…”
Trevis showed the drawing to Claps. Elisa was standing on the edge of the cliff at the edge of the woods. Denise was lying on the ground at the foot of the cliff, her arms spread wide. Trickles of blood ran from her head and her left hand, near the little finger, and flowed into the lake. A man was hunkered down in front of Denise, his weapon was on the ground next to her.
“What the…”
Claps’ mobile rang.
“Look here, Claps. There’s another character in the woods – I drew this before letting Elisa finish off the story.
“Mr… Cellini?” Claps ignored the call.
“Yes, can you see what he’s using?”
“Some kind of… axe?”
The mobile was still ringing, the ringtone seemed to grow louder and louder.
Trevis nodded. “It seems so. Now look what Elisa has drawn on the ground next to Denise…”
Claps pulled out his mobile while the professor was still talking. He wanted to turn it off, but when he saw Maiezza’s number on the screen, he answered the call instinctively. In the meantime, he stared at Elisa’s drawing.
“I’m glad you’ve answered the call! They’ve called from Milan… They kept breaking up and I’m still waiting for a fax with the full details, but we have another name. I understood that part of the conversation without any problem. You’re not going to believe this… It’s Mr Cellini.”
Maiezza’s words echoed in Claps’ head, while Trevis was still pointing to the weapon next to Denise in the drawing.
“The two weapons are the same… that man is Elisa and Denise’s father.”
*
Claps was driving faster than ever before. His mind, however, was racing even further ahead.
The nightmare that he had had the night before…
He knew where to go.
He had to make it in time.
He wanted to look into his eyes.
He had decided not to call Sensi for now – he wouldn’t have been able to utter a single word and he knew that he would have needed to find a lot of words to convince Sensi that a drawing had helped him find the culprit. And yet… he wasn’t even sure that Cellini was the culprit, he had to make sure of that in person.
The road to Niccioleta wound through the woods with turns here and there, the asphalt was illuminated by yellow lights. The car screeched round the turns, the tyres squealing on the road.
He reached the town, he drove past it in a few minutes.
The headlights finally illuminated the mine.
The hide-out.
How had he not thought of it before?
His nightmare had spoken to him.
The large open area was deserted.
There was not a single movement in the dark, not a single car. Nobody.
Claps got out of the car, he was already struggling to breathe.
His movements were stiff. He almost had to force himself to carry on walking towards the cage.
He turned the switch on to give power to the whole area, as he had seen Mr Cellini do.
The monster.
The man who had taken his own daughter as the first one.
An electric buzz echoed in the air, then some lights turned on.
The cage seemed to rattle.
Claps’ heart raced when he closed the grating in front of himself.
He closed his eyes as the cage jolted and began to descend.
The stench of the mine invaded his throat.
He hunkered down, while memories from the nightmare became more vivid in his mind.
His forehead was covered in cold sweat.
The air was getting thicker.
The descent seemed never-ending.
Maybe he had demanded too much from himself. He should have warned Sensi and Maiezza first… going alone had been a crazy idea.
He craved light and fresh air. How long to the station now?
The cage jolted again, then stopped. He didn’t expect it that quickly. He had almost begun to believe that he would drown in that dark abyss.
The station was lit, the neon lights were buzzing.
Just as in his nightmare, Claps took a while to decide to take the first step out of the cage.
His legs were shaking, his hands felt incredibly cold.
He felt just like the first time that he had come down there. This time, though, it was for a different reason.
He walked towards one of the corridors, the darkness was enveloping him.
His heart rate had begun to slow down and his breathing was more regular now. He felt some strength return to his muscles. Claps felt more determined now, more confident of his abilities.
He found three doors – he pushed the first one and it opened slowly and easily. The room was softly lit. There was a collection of mining tools. They were all tidied up into boxes, which in turn were stacked up on shelves attached to the walls. The room smelled of iron.
Claps ignored the second door and headed to the third one – the only one with a lock.
He stared at it, then he weighed it with his hand.
He walked back to the first room and picked up an axe.
He couldn’t believe that it was so heavy. He struggled to lift it up.
A strike. Another one. A loud bang echoed down the walls.
The lock broke at the third strike.
*
The white Volvo was once again being driven by the monster.
He was driving swiftly and carefully. He couldn’t afford to get involved in an accident and thus be noticed by someone.
He had to take her.
No one would stop him this time.
Djara.
A turn.
The headlights illuminated his way to the large open area in front of the mine, and then shone on Claps’ car.
*
The room was lit by an even weaker, yellower light. The smell was different, there was a different scent mingling with that of the mine. Candles. There were a lot of them.
There was a large box in the middle of the room – it was rectangular. A chair was placed next to the box. There was nothing else.
Claps remained motionless on the doorstep, the buzzing of the neon lights seemed to have grown noisier, the sound was drilling into his brain.
He took one step forward. Then another one towards the box.
He knew what there would be inside the box.
Ami. Afya. Denise. And all the other little trophies. With frozen, shaking hands, he opened the lid.
No trophies.
His eyes didn’t immediately focus on what he was seeing.
It took a few seconds for his mind to accept it.
The blonde hair looked like silk. It was very fine.
It framed a dehydrated face, it was as though it had collapsed from the inside, but it wasn’t corrupted. The facial traits were delicate and small.
Her expression was almost tranquil.
Denise was wearing a white dress, which covered her down to her ankles. Her arms were crossed on her chest.
Claps’ eyes focused on her left hand.
He began to cry when he noticed that t
he little finger was missing.
It was a sudden, uncontrollable cry; a wave of pity, pain and anguish in front of that small body which had once been alive. He imagined a smile on her face.
He kept weeping for a long time, hunkered down in front of Denise.
He would have prayed, if only he knew how.
*
How long had he been down there? Claps had lost all sense of time.
The tears had dried on his cheeks.
The stench of the mine had become stronger again.
It was as if he had woken from a trance.
He closed the box with incredibly slow, gentle movements.
He looked at Denise’s face one last time, before it disappeared.
He wished he could stroke it, but he didn’t.
He went out of the room.
He was thinking lucidly again.
Sensi!
He pulled out his mobile as he walked towards the station.
There was no signal, obviously. He was many metres underground.
Then, suddenly, something startled him.
Why?
What had he seen?
What had he heard?
What had he subconsciously noticed for a moment?
He realized just in time. He stopped breathing, a few metres from the cage.
The axe.
He had dropped it on the floor soon after breaking the lock. He should have walked past it on his way back… but he hadn’t. It wasn’t there.
He heard a noise behind him.
Cellini, the fire of hatred in his eyes, appeared from the shadows. He was holding the axe with his right hand.
Claps stood still.
Cellini walked two steps forward and stood in front of him.
Claps felt a scream die in his throat, as he held up his hands in a futile attempt to protect himself from the axe.
But the expected blow didn’t come.
“I saw the lights and your car in the open area.” Cellini sounded calm, almost emotionless. “The cage wasn’t there. I climbed down the emergency ladder.”
Claps could hear his own heart beat at a crazy speed in his throat. His lungs wouldn’t work any more.
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Claps lowered his hands and nodded.
“It’s the air here in the mine. Something preserves her down here. I didn’t know when I took Denise down here. I came back many days later, I was busy with the police and the journalists. I thought I would find a decomposing body.”
Denise’s father lowered the axe, though still gripping it with his right hand. “She’s still so beautiful, right?”
“Yes… very beauti-ful.” Claps managed to articulate. “Why did you… why?” He asked soon after.
Denise’s father’s eyes stared to a point behind Claps’ shoulders, Mr Cellini’s mind was travelling back to his memories. “I was full of anger that day. The bank had refused me a loan, the branch director had talked down to me, he had used condescending language, as though I was some kind of annoying person that he should get rid of as quickly as possible. I have always paid my debts and I never had any problems with loans. He said that the fact I owned a house wasn’t enough as a guarantee. I had only recently learned about my wife’s illness, I knew that she only had a year or so to live. I needed the money to seek treatment for her, I wanted to travel abroad to find the best specialists. I was blind with rage, I wanted to kill that man. I wanted to be alone that day, but my wife was exhausted, so I decided to take the girls with me to let her rest. When we got to the woods, Denise insisted on going to the lake so I took her there. I didn’t want them to run too far away by themselves. Denise was happy but demanded all my attention and I was getting more and more impatient. I had to find a way to vent. I told her off for something silly, I was very harsh with her. She gave me a nasty reply. We were on the edge of the cliff, near the lake. I slapped her cheek, once and then twice. She lost her balance and fell down the cliff.”
Cellini’s grip on the axe had become so tight that his knuckles were white. “I heard the bang – she had hit her head on a large stone.”
Silence. The stench of the mine had become unbearable for Claps.
“She was dead when I climbed down the cliff to help her up.”
Cellini relaxed his grip on the axe, he seemed to lose all of his strength for a moment, his face portrayed his anguish.
Time froze.
Claps knew that this was the time, the only time when he could have attempted to hit Cellini and run away from the mine, but he didn’t do anything. He was frozen. He wanted to know everything more than he wanted to save his own life.
“Why did you… carry on?”
“Carry on?”
“The black… little girls… Ami… the others.”
“The black girls? I’m confused… what do you mean?”
Cellini looked genuinely confused.
“Why did you… carry on… killing?”
“Killing?”
Cellini’s eyes were wide open. Claps had gotten it all wrong.
“The girls… that you took… from the camp… then Ami Demba… a few months ago… near Milan.”
“Noooo!”
Cellini screamed an angry lion’s roar, he threw the axe aside, took Claps by his shirt and pushed him violently against the wall. “Kill?” He screamed in Claps’ face. “Kill?!”
Claps was frozen, Cellini had almost lifted him off his feet with his fury.
“How can you think that I would be capable of killing after what happened to my daughter?!”
Slowly – almost in slow motion – Cellini loosened his grip on Claps and he slid to the ground with his back against the wall, his face was pale and his arms had no strength.
“Ami Demba…” Cellini’s tone was much less angry now, it was more like a whine. “I know her story.”
Cellini turned towards the gallery. “You saw my daughter. You saw her! How can you think that I would be capable of murdering someone else?”
Claps struggled to utter his words. “You were… in Milan… when Ami… was taken.”
“In Milan? What are you talking about?!” Cellini’s tone became aggressive again. “Who else were you referring to apart from Ami?”
“Other young girls… were murdered… apart from Ami.”
Cellini glanced again towards the room where Denise was laid. He sighed, then his body seemed to lose all of its strength for a moment. Cellini almost struggled to speak. “Why do you believe that I did that?”
*
Elaji stopped at the crossing lights. He was impatient. The Fiat Panda’s engine was a rather elderly and it threatened to die while he waited for people to cross over. The headlights cut through the darkness and illuminated the road. A few minutes earlier, not too far away from Prata and Niccioleta, Elaji had taken a sudden turn in Abedi’s car. He hadn’t realized how tight the turn was and he had almost crashed into the car coming the other way.
It was a split second – the car was a white Volvo. With a glance at his rear view mirror, he noticed that the estate car’s rear windscreen was framed by a series of stickers. A rush of adrenaline took over his body.
Elaji didn’t know how he had managed to turn his car round so quickly, the road was too narrow for such a manoeuvre. He had shot towards the white Volvo, screaming like a warrior running down an escarpment towards his enemy.
His scream had turned into a wild roar which echoed in the car and become deafening when Elaji managed to see the rear lights of the Volvo. Elaji was getting closer – his heart pumped so much blood into his muscles that he felt invincible.
The road had opened into a long stretch.
The Volvo had increased its speed.
Abedi’s old Fiat couldn’t keep up.
Elaji saw the red rear lights grow smaller and smaller and then disappear after a turn.
When Elaji took that curve, he found many others in quick succession and then another long stretch which ended at
a crossroads. The Volvo had disappeared. Elaji glanced at the direction signs. The road in front of him lead to Massa Marittima, The one on the left to Siena and the one on the right to Cecina.
He had once chance in three.
Elaji put the car in gear.
Then, as it began to move, he thought about how lions hunt their prey.
*
Why do you believe that I did that?” Cellini repeated.
Claps had resumed breathing normally. He could think clearly again now. He knew that Cellini wasn’t playing a game. The man looked like he had no strength left, he had sagged slowly against the wall. He was unable to fight and kill to hide his secret. No, he couldn’t be the monster.
Claps’ thoughts were running away with him, faster than his words could express. “I will… tell you… but I want to… know what else… happened that day.”
“I told you everything.”
“You didn’t tell me… what happened… later.”
Cellini didn’t seem to hear the question. “That’s it now,” he sighed. “I’m going to pay for what I did. I’m going to pay for it.”
Cellini seemed calm, almost relaxed. “I need a favour from you – I promise that I’ll go to the police station tomorrow to tell them everything, but I need a few hours for myself first. I have to sort out a few things. I can’t leave Elisa alone all of a sudden.”
After some hesitation, Claps nodded slightly and then insisted with his question. “What happened… later?”
“I took her here, as you know.”
“Why didn’t you… tell the truth… straight away?… It was an accident… you didn’t mean to…”
“You can’t imagine the struggle of a father during those moments. My wife was ill… they had said that she would have a year, maybe two, left to live. I didn’t want to hurt her with what happened. I also thought about myself… I couldn’t stay by her side any more, she wouldn’t have wanted me to live under the same roof with her any more. I would have been her daughter’s murderer. We also had to deal with Elisa’s illness…”
Cellini started shaking suddenly, but he regained control of his body soon after. “There was so much pain already in my family. My wife’s physical illness, my daughter’s mental problems. This kind of struggle kept us together, it made us help each other. We faced it all together. I would have destroyed everything if I had told the truth.”
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