by Aidan Conway
Yana, his Ukrainian girlfriend of several years standing, was already in bed. He had cooked dinner and then they had chatted a little. She had seen, however, that he was distant, newly involved with a case. Tired herself after a busy day in the health centre, she had left him to ponder. Since going back to work full-time in the Wellness Centre, she had hardly had a moment’s rest. She lived, ate and slept work now, as if surviving the attempt on her life only a little more than six months earlier had left her leading a charmed life – every day and every moment was precious. She knew it and she was going to make it count and was even talking of expanding the business.
But it still chilled Rossi to the bone when he remembered it all and he still feared for Yana. Giuseppe had taunted him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he had crossed Yana’s path in the dark days when she had arrived in Italy and fallen victim to traffickers. It had unsettled Rossi profoundly. But who else knew Yana’s secrets? Who else might crawl out from under a rock and want revenge? Perhaps the snakehead of the trafficking ring who had evaded Rossi all those years ago, thanks probably to a tip-off from a rat in his own Rome Serious Crime Squad, the RSCS.
The same rat who was still on the force now and, though he had his suspicions, remained unknown to him.
And the calls still came to his house or to Yana’s when they were together, sometimes months or even a year apart. Sometimes in the dead of night to torment him, or them. No voice. Just silence, a barely perceptible breathing. Someone he knew, he was sure, keeping tabs on him, making sure of where he lived and who he was with.
His thoughts turned to Yana again. The August-induced insomnia had left her feeling jaded, and the combination of heat-disturbed sleep and the effects of her cocktail of medication were wreaking havoc with her natural rhythms. Still she had astounded every doctor that had examined her. It had to be something to do with her inherent athleticism and her Ukrainian resilience or the will to live that he had seen all those years before when he had played his part in freeing her from the nightmare world of drugs, violence and exploitation that she had been sucked into as a naive young immigrant.
Apart from that, all in all, Rossi had to admit he was quite enjoying their, albeit temporary, cohabitation. Perhaps because it was temporary. So far, so good at least. He had even proposed the arrangement himself when Yana, having improvements made to her flat, had found herself in limbo. Their busy schedules meant that the time spent together was only ever a few hours in the evening. Yet, he felt it was a start and steady progress in uncharted waters.
He looked towards the Roma hills and the flickering yellow lights as he sipped on his drink and the rubbish collection truck made its slow, lumbering progress along Via Latina. It was the Prenestina fire that was beginning to occupy his thoughts and perhaps already to obsess him. He knew the signs. He knew too that it had come from on high when he and Carrara had been moved “temporarily” from homicide to arson. Why else, when by anyone’s standards they had got concrete results in the Marini case? It was dressed up as something else, of course – we need your expertise on this one, we think you’re the men for the job, and all that bullshit. And Maroni, his boss, in his best don’t shoot the messenger guise, had assured him that it all fell under the Serious Crime Squad remit.
He looked back into the lounge. His phone was buzzing on the coffee table. It was Carrara.
“Gigi.”
“Another fire, Mick. Initial reports indicate it could be of interest.”
“Where?”
“Parioli.”
“Parioli?”
It was one of Rome’s more well-to-do suburbs.
“Yep. They think there’s a family inside. Nigerians. You’d better get here quick.”
The fire brigade were still dousing sizeable pockets of flame in the detached two-storey villa’s badly scorched shell. The worst seemed to be under control but it had spread quickly with the hot summer air and a light breeze exacerbating matters.
A large crowd had assembled for the spectacle, but there was no hard fast news on who the occupants might be and so far chaos seemed to be reigning. Rossi and Carrara began to apprise themselves of the situation, only to find that no one could give them a simple, unified version of events.
What they knew was that flames had been spotted about about an hour earlier, and a passerby had raised the alarm. Others had then hammered at the door to rouse the presumably sleeping occupants, but all to no avail. Attempts to kick the door in had also failed.
Rossi walked over to a fountain and splashed his face, trying not to imagine the worst that could be about to greet them when they finally got news about the occupants’ fate. As he looked up again, Carrara was returning. He’d got something.
“Registered in the name of a prominent local politician, the Honourable Mimmo Carducci,” he said. “But some of the neighbours are saying there’s an African family living there, fairly recently arrived.”
Rossi pondered the information.
“But no one’s been calling for help from any of the windows, back or front,” he said finally. They both knew what that meant: that smoke inhalation could have done for them already.
The fire crews were gathered and assessing the level of danger. Nineteenth-century building. No reinforced concrete, a lot of wood in the ceilings. Parts of it could collapse at any moment.
“Family of four. Nigerian asylum seekers,” said the chief fire officer.
Behind him a squadron of four men had begun donning breathing apparatus.
“I’m sending them in,” he continued, “if there’s half a chance of finding anyone alive. But it doesn’t look promising.”
Rossi put an anxious hand to his face.
Carrara, who had dashed off again, was now concluding a rapid discussion with another local family who had pulled up in a car. There was a lot of nodding of heads, then some cries of either pain or happiness. It was hard to be sure. Then Carrara turned back towards Rossi and raised a hand in what appeared to be a sign of victory and as a signal to call off the search.
“A lucky escape,” said Carrara, the relief on his face clearly visible.
The house had been empty. When Carrara had finally spoken to the absent occupant, a Nigerian university professor in exile, it emerged that as the dramatic scenes had been playing out on the street in Parioli he, his children and their friends had been playing blind man’s buff in someone’s converted cellar in Trastevere where there was no cell phone signal. Friends of theirs had organized a surprise party. The guy hadn’t had even an inkling of the plan and they had all left the house at the last minute. The father had seen the missed calls only when he went out for a cigarette.
Rossi tried to rub the stress out of his face as Carrara dialled a number.
“I’m calling the professor now.”
The fire crew were removing their apparatus as they awaited further orders. This one at least had turned out for the better and their cold beers would go down a lot easier when this shift ended.
The Parioli fire had now pushed the Prenestina case off their agenda. Rossi and Carrara had driven back to the office in the Alfa Romeo to weigh it all up.
“Initial findings say that the house was torched,” said Carrara. “Accelerants and a relatively sophisticated timed incendiary device were used. The occupant has been confirmed as being the exiled Nigerian writer and professor – Chini Okoli – and his family, living there as guests of the Honourable Mimmo Carducci, who had given them the run of one of the houses he had in his portfolio.”
“Portfolio?” said Rossi sitting up. “What do we know about him?”
“Ex PCI, Italian Communist Party. Now part of the wobbly left-of-centre alliance. Well-to-do Roman family, connections with the university, family law firm. Active overseas in human rights work. The usual story. Seems there was a network of friends of friends in academic circles. They helped out with solidarity missions for Palestine and Brazil.”
This was certainly different to the Prenestina
fire but whether or not it was connected he didn’t know. Racial, maybe, but if they had targeted an intellectual, given the context – Nigeria, asylum seekers – it had political written all over it.
“So, technically, it was a bomb. An incendiary. When can we speak to Okoli?”
“I think he might need a night off first, don’t you?” said Carrara.
Rossi nodded but knew he would need to see him as soon as was practicable, to get a handle on any motives, but there were other elements which were already interesting him.
He got up and opened the door of the office’s mini fridge. No beers left. He went then to the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Jameson’s twelve-year-old reserve.
“What have you got?” said Carrara. He could see Rossi might already be onto something.
“First up,” said Rossi, pouring a large and a disgracefully small measure for himself and Carrara respectively, “the surprise party. It was so well concealed that any intelligence the firebombers might have had didn’t reveal it either.”
“Go on,” said Carrara, warming to it now. Rossi took a bottle of water from the fridge for his whiskey, a few ice cubes for Carrara and pulled up a chair for himself.
“So, either they hadn’t been tapping the phones or they hadn’t employed the sophistication necessary to monitor, record, and translate from their private conversations in Okoli’s native language.”
“Which suggests a lack of sophistication on the part of the assailants.”
“Or plain sloppiness,” said Rossi. He took a meditative sip on his whiskey and water. It was too hot for it but he needed the kick.
“Improvised far-right aggression?” said Carrara. “A warning by way of a relatively high-profile figure?”
“Or an attempted assassination under the cover of a spontaneous race attack.”
“Riding on the back of the Prenestina business,” said Carrara.
They both considered the significance of their theorizing as they sipped on their drinks. Some unifying strategy could have been behind it. Attacking minorities, blacks, immigrants. That was Nazi-style. It also grabbed the headlines.
“Or what if we’re talking some kind of Unabomber?” said Carrara. “A lone wolf carrying out random strikes, varying his technique, leading us all a merry dance as we try to come up with some ideological motive behind it all?”
They both knew the story well. The Italian Unabomber had never been caught. He, and a he it almost certainly was, as far as the psychological profiling went, had terrorized the north of the country for over ten years with random attacks, planting pipe bombs and incendiary devices in public spaces – park benches, beaches, bus shelters and the like. He had caused only one direct fatality but had maimed and traumatized numerous members of the public. He had once booby-trapped a child’s chocolate egg.
The theory went that since the last attack some six or seven years before, he had either died, or was on an extended cooling-off period, serial-killer style. That there might be more than one, other emulators, could not be ruled out either. That he might have moved south or spawned an imitator in Rome was also a possibility.
“Perhaps someone with military experience,” said Rossi. “Someone with a generalized grudge. PTSD from Iraq or Afghanistan. The race-hate agenda might be right up his street.”
“Maybe” said Carrara. “Have you seen this?” he said then, holding up a printout.
Rossi reached across the desk. Another “potentially relevant” incident had come up on the radar from earlier in the evening. A lot of motorbikes had gone up in flames in a car park in the affluent Prati area and their none-too-pleased and, in some cases, influential owners had already been harassing the local cops.
“No casualties, no homicide,” said Rossi.
“But they want answers,” said Carrara. He was scrolling through the latest headlines and news on social media. “And those with a bit of weight to throw around are calling for ‘deployment of resources, protection of Italian interests. Get the police out of the ghettos and back in the heartlands’.”
Rossi was now beginning to toy with the idea of there being some link there too, but knew it was early days. What if someone was trying to sow chaos, stretch their resources? Crazy environmentalists maybe. There were nuts everywhere in Rome, especially when the mercury was rising. He got up and went to the window to get some air. There wasn’t much.
“Priority goes to the house fires for now,” he said turning back to face Carrara. “Send out some uniforms. Get statements, check for witnesses and CCTV. Then we’ll see.”
The others would get their precious insurance eventually. He was going to nail the real cowardly scum who got their kicks out of burning working men, women, and children in their beds.
Three
Yana was going in late to the Wellness Health and Fitness Centre, so Rossi had let her sleep. She was her own boss and could do as she pleased, but she had a business head and a work ethic that put others to shame. Plans were afoot for expansion and her hunger was plain to see. He steered clear, not understanding a thing of that world. He hoped they would find a balance, however, as his own obsessive approach to cases was not always ideal for those around him.
He laid the table for them both and then allowed himself a quiet, meditative breakfast before the sun began to emerge from behind the apartment blocks, extinguishing with all its gathering fury the night’s last vague hints of coolness. It was relentless, sapping. He lowered the shutter a few notches to keep the heat minimally at bay and then finished his coffee, leaving enough in the pot for Yana. He did a couple of yoga stretches that Yana had taught him, just so as to render the exercise not wholly perfunctory. He was sweating already and headed for the shower.
She was waking as he slipped on his lightest summer jacket.
“Don’t make yourself too beautiful,” she said through her sleep-infused languor. A strap had slipped off one shoulder of her ivory silk camisole and her smooth body was again calling, siren-like, to Rossi. He knotted his tie as loosely as decency would allow and leaned over to kiss her, his lips straying then along her neck and shoulder and into the warmth of her breasts. As Yana flopped back onto the bed the sunlight fell across her body evoking the promise of long carefree hours. But he stopped and tore himself away.
“Have to go,” he mumbled. “Gigi will be waiting.” He didn’t say where. On a morning like this, when life seemed to burst from every pore of his and their being, it was neither the time nor the place to talk of mortuaries, death, and carbonized corpses. She flopped back down onto the bed. Her strength seemed neutralized, and he couldn’t help feeling protective again, even now. A good deal of time had passed since the winter’s events but Rossi knew that doing the job he did and having the enemies he had would always mean she was vulnerable. They could always hit her to get to him. Always.
“Don’t forget to lock the door,” he said then, trying to assuage something of his guilt. As if that action would lock off his darkest and most persistent fears. As if that could stop the worst they could ever do, if they chose to.
He felt tense. The relief after tracing the professor and his family had worn off and he had slept badly, fitfully, in the near-tropical humidity, his thoughts looping as he turned over the various scenarios again and again.
The city was tense too and that same heat wasn’t helping. Grievances often rankled in the punishing summer torpor, especially in situations where numbers or circumstances created a critical mass – a crowded bus, a queue in the post office, a traffic jam. People didn’t move on with their problems here and in the stifling humidity they could fester. They were oversensitive, their assailed and worn-down egos were fragile. And August in the city was also the time of the forgotten and marginalized – the loners, the rejects; those who didn’t or couldn’t get away to summer retreats to enjoy the fruits of their year-long labours. They too had their own axes to grind.
Only the other day Yana had dared to remind a dog walker not t
o let his animal foul the street outside her building, and the owner in question, once he had quickly established Yana’s non-native status, had subjected her to a tirade of the most venomous abuse. Racist, misogynist, vile and frightening. A few phrases echoed now in Rossi’s mind as he remembered Yana’s stunned retelling of the event.
We wanna be the bosses in our own country!… Italy for the Italians … Burn the lot of ’em!
In another part of the city, as she stepped into the bathroom, Tiziana Belfonte amused herself by thinking again of the extra touches and final details she might add to a well-deserved holiday she had been planning. She had stayed up late the night before to profit from some of the cooler air that had finally wafted in over the city and onto her balcony. She had been organizing the vacation for months now and had decided to take it in September with a good friend in similar circumstances – happily single, feisty and ready for whatever may come, be it fair or foul.
She was also one of the tribe who liked to work through the hottest months, drawing comfort and real benefit from living in the city when it was at its most arid and deserted. True, the sleep-impaired nights could be torrid and also, being a fairly strict ecologist in her outlook, she didn’t use any artificial air-conditioning. Only adding to the source problem, wasn’t it? Heating up the atmosphere to keep you cool. It was against nature. The summer heat meant you had to slow down, find natural solutions to combat its toll on the body. As such, she enjoyed these months when an ice-cold shower before breakfast was like plunging into the waters of some imagined crystal lagoon. That would soon be a reality and the thought gave her a frisson of anticipated pleasure as the water rushed against her lightly tanned skin. She glanced at her own reflection in the misted mirror panelling, patting and caressing herself a little with satisfaction. Not bad. Not bad at all considering she’d been doing the daily grind for nearly twenty years now. Ready for action in mind and body, whatever the bastards might throw at her today.