A Known Evil

by Aidan Conway

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Lebanese,” Rossi replied.

  “Bastardo.”

  “I’m guessing you haven’t then. I’ll pick you up some pizza.”

  The Inquiry Room was semi-deserted although the desks were replete with the innumerable files, papers, and the assorted trappings of the enquiry. Behind them on the wall was the collage of the victims’ movements, crime-scene-photos, and hypothesized spider diagrams. Without the hubbub of activity of detectives and uniforms together working flat out on the case the space felt like some school room visited on a weekend, their handiwork a forgotten project, an unfinished epic. It was as if the enthusiasm and buzz that had characterized the place over the previous couple of days had been chloroformed into a sudden forced sleep.

  “The Marie Celeste,” said Carrara.

  “Nothing to be done,” Rossi countered. Spoilt for choice, he took a seat at random. “So, what now? Have the tests come through?”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “So late?”

  “That was early, according to the geek.”

  “And your friend?”

  “Had to work on other priority tasks. Geek’s orders.”

  “I get it. It’s total then, the shutdown?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Well, there really is ‘nothing to be done’, tonight, as far as I can see.”

  “And if the test comes out positive?”

  “It means the guy had Rohypnol in his bloodstream on the night of the malicious e-mail and in the early hours of the day on which Marini was murdered. They can suppress it anyway. And what am I going to do? Report it to the police?” Rossi laughed with cynical abandon.

  “Go to the papers.”

  “Yeah, and following a geological timescale the truth may one day emerge, when everyone is dead, retired, forgotten, or all three. You know the way things work here, Gigi: the truth, the news, reality itself; it’s a pantomime.”

  Rossi took a seat and put his feet up.

  “And yet we keep on going,” reflected a more pensive than usual Carrara. “Even though it seems the state, the state as we perceive it, as it should be, the one we grew up believing in, sometimes doesn’t even seem to exist.”

  “It’s precisely because we believe in it, Gigi,” said Rossi. “It’s like Schweitzer and the Historical Jesus.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. You know who Schweitzer was?”

  “Um. Heard of him.”

  Rossi had relaxed a little and was settling in to his teaching persona. It was perhaps his lost vocation.

  “Well, around the turn of the last century you had this situation where scholars were sitting down and looking at the sacred scriptures and saying, hang on, this isn’t history; it’s actually much closer to a fairy tale, a myth – it doesn’t add up. Is Jesus anymore real than, say, Hercules? Is our faith no more deeply founded in reality than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans? Anyway, belief was thrown into crisis. So, theologians and archaeologists and whole swathes of the academic community decided that, as they had the means and the methodology to try to find the proof of whether Jesus existed or not, they should set about the task.”

  Carrara, too, was now enjoying the professorial diversion.

  “And they found it, the proof?”

  “No. Well, what they found, shall we say, pointed decidedly in the ‘Jesus as we know him probably didn’t ever exist’ direction. Maybe there were two or three Jesus-like characters who got blended together into an idea of Jesus, a sort of composite. Anyway, one after another, theologian after theologian, Schweitzer among them, set off on their quests only to be thwarted when they came up against the inevitable brick wall, a black hole, a dead end. Gaps in the story, a lack of evidence, inconsistencies.”

  “And that was that?”

  “Well, Schweitzer, who was a doctor, hung up his theologian’s hat and spent the rest of his days in Africa as a missionary, helping the poor, the oppressed and the sick, building hospitals and living the gospel rather than trying to prove it.”

  “So, the moral of the story is?”

  “The moral of this story is that even if ‘He’ didn’t exist, even if we can’t prove that ‘He’ walked this same earth and performed the miracles we attribute to ‘Him’, it’s the message that lives. And the same could be said to go for the state. It’s the message that drives you on, the idea, the principle, if you like. Even if you look around and you can only see shadows, even if you run into brick walls, up blind alleys, dead ends. You’ve got to live the gospel.”

  Carrara leant back and let out a whoosh of a sigh.

  “That’s pretty deep, Mick, for eleven o’clock in the evening. Correct me if I’m wrong but did I hear you mention at some point the quest for the historical bottle of Jameson’s Whiskey? It does exist, doesn’t it?”

  “That will be the bottom drawer, I do believe.”

  Rossi had poured a first generous glass for each of them when his desk phone rang. They let it ring out as they took their first sips. Then it rang again.

  “I suppose I’d better answer that,” said Rossi, getting up to cover the ten or so paces to his desk. Carrara nodded slowly and sagely, savouring the gleaming gold liquid. He had his feet on a chair and, to an observer, could have appeared to be ruminating some finer point of their discussion.

  “Inspector Michael Rossi?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is St John’s Hospital.”

  “Yes,” said Rossi, anticipating more unwelcome procedural boredom. “How can I help?”

  “Could you confirm your relationship with Ms Yana Shulyayev.”

  “My ‘relationship’?”

  “Yes, your relationship, Inspector Rossi. Please, try not to be too alarmed but this evening Ms Shulyayev was admitted to hospital and documents in her possession indicated you as next of kin along with her daughter, whom we have not been able to reach.”

  Rossi almost let the glass slip from his hand then attempted to steady himself against the desk, his thoughts now rapid, confused.

  “Her daughter! Can you tell me what has happened?”

  “Ms Shulyayev is in a stable but critical condition, Inspector. She was violently assaulted near her home. She has serious cranial and vertebral trauma. But it would be better if you came to the hospital where we can explain. Inspector Rossi? Inspector Rossi?”

  But Rossi wasn’t listening now. He was back firmly on his feet and surging through the Incident Room.

  “Come on! It’s Yana! He’s tried to kill Yana!”

  As the car screeched away from the Questura, the two friends and colleagues had snapped into character and like seasoned performers taking the stage or players confronting the maelstrom of a hostile stadium they plunged back into the cold Roman night.

  Twenty-Two

  When Rossi and Carrara burst through the doors there was an added hive of activity to complement the usual chaos that epitomized the busy central Roman hospital. Black-uniformed carabinieri dominated the scene and some of Maroni’s closer plain-clothes RSCS confidantes were there too and involved in tense exchanges with exponents of the rival law enforcement organizations. A quick calculation told him the local police must have been first on the case, a possible explanation for his not being informed by them but rather by the hospital authorities. At least he hoped that was the reason.

  Cut to the chase, thought Rossi, and bypassing the scrum, he headed to the information desk where a white-coated nurse was fielding enquiries at cruising speed and with undisguised indifference. Rossi placed his badge on the desk in front of her.

  “Inspector Michael Rossi, next of kin of Yana Shulyayev, admitted this evening. I want to know what’s going on!”

  His tone was terse enough to jolt the nurse-receptionist into giving him her sudden full attention.

  “One moment, please, Inspector.” She turned to pick up a phone into which she uttered three magic words.<
br />
  “Inspector Rossi. Yes.”

  At the rear of the front office a door then opened and a male colleague appeared and, in a business-class tone, asked Rossi to follow him.

  “Gigi,” Rossi hissed over the heads of the mob, “wait here, and keep your eyes and ears open for anything and everything.”

  His heart was pounding now. The clinical disturbed him. He wanted some emotion, some sign, but knew that this was how it had to be. The white-smocked orderly glanced at a clipboard and stroked his unshaven chin, then with a hirsute outstretched arm, showed Rossi into an office where a silver-haired doctor sat behind a spartan grey metal desk. The door closed. Rossi, on the second invitation, took a seat. He was beside himself: why couldn’t he see her immediately? What seemed like a hundred questions were ready to leave his lips while in his head there were another hundred what ifs and whys and hows and when or if would he see her again? Other, sane voices were telling him she was alive. She was critical but stable. But until he knew where she was, until he could see her, touch her, he was hostage to his own guilt and the terror of losing everything he had.

  “Inspector Rossi,” he began, “I am Professor Renzi, the consultant on intensive care.” Then, exhaling, as if trying to expel at least a part of the accumulated years of procedural ennui, he scanned the papers in front of him. He looked then at Rossi. “As you will know, Yana was admitted this evening after being attacked and receiving serious head injuries as a result of a series of blows delivered to the skull, neck, and forearms. She has fractures to the radius and ulna of her,” he looked again at the papers, “left arm, which would seem, in part, to have mitigated the force of at least one of the blows.” He paused and dwelled again on the paperwork before him before closing the Manila folder. “I do not, at this juncture, believe that her life is in immediate danger but she was unconscious at the time she was admitted and we now have to wait and see when she will regain consciousness. In some cases, coma can be induced, pharmacologically, to limit the risk of damage, to the vertebra and such like. In this case we hope also that the possible damage to her brain has been minimal.”

  Rossi allowed himself to release a degree of the tension his terror was putting him through. It was as if the doctor’s matter-of-fact reassurance allowed him to make a half-turn on some impossible-to-define scale, the limits of which he could not know.

  “We also measured photosensitive response to which there was a positive reaction. Her irises are not permanently dilated. We work on a scale from 1–15, the lowest number being a very slim chance of survival while the highest represents a normal person, like you or I. Values in this case would appear to be nearer to the upper range.”

  “Can I see her?” said Rossi. “I want to see her.”

  “Of course, but we do intend to operate at the earliest possible opportunity, if the scans currently being carried out reveal any bleeds which could compromise her recovery.”

  She was alive then. She would live. He would accept anything so long as she lived.

  “And by head injuries, you said head injuries. What exactly do you mean?”

  “In layman’s terms, a fractured skull and severe trauma to the vertebrae but, I should add, Inspector, that given the very violent nature of the assault, Yana is somewhat lucky to be alive.”

  There was a pause as both men, for differing reasons, couldn’t but begin to reflect on how they had become real players in the drama being lived out in their city. Rossi was as certain as he could be that the killer had attacked Yana because of him. This could be no coincidence, not in a city of five million souls. But the why and the how had passed into a distant second place for now.

  “And what are her chances of recovery?” said Rossi, fearing the very words as he feared only death itself and knowing that her survival could be temporary, a cruel trick of fate, raising his hopes first before dashing them, perhaps to the sadistic satisfaction of her would-be killer.

  “Time, Inspector. The only definite answer I can give you is that time will tell. The earlier she begins to react the better. But that is statistical. We base our knowledge on the statistics and the literature. It is not an exact science and in the area of neurology, quite frankly, we still know very little. I see she is very fit, a strong lady, and relatively young. All points in her favour, which could speed a possible recovery. But as I say, it is a matter of time and patience.”

  The consultant stood up and walked to the door. As he opened it, holding it and turning slightly then beckoning to Rossi to accompany him, the lapels of his white coat flexed slightly to reveal a fine-quality tweed jacket. Rossi had already noted the immaculately fastened tie and in that instant the additional detail of the jacket had, for some reason, produced a reassuring, soothing effect on him. It was epiphanic, chiming perhaps with some echo, maybe of that same style his own father had preferred but which he himself, so far in his life, had largely eschewed. So far. The doctor was waiting. Rossi pushed back his chair. Childlike, vulnerable, a shell of himself, he followed.

  Making his way on foot in a near-aimless, meandering fashion in the approximate direction of his flat, the image of Yana in that cold, technical, and yet scrupulously safe environment was a stubborn paradox he couldn’t erase from his mind’s eye. The plastic tubes, the pulse monitor around her finger like the ring he had not yet seen fit to give her, the strange hotel that was a hospital room. All vied for his attention and conspired to mock the ease with which he was now walking and breathing and going about his own life on earth. But it felt like half a life, less than half a life if it were to be without her. Where was she now? Suspended between this world and the other? Or nowhere? Or was she fully there but trapped as if behind some screen or in a vault the key to which was lost, or broken, or had never even been cut? He sank down on his haunches to gather himself, a dizziness and a coldness sweeping over him. Passers-by looked but walked on. With an effort he got back on his feet and took a drink from a nearby fountain.

  He’d left the hospital on the consultant’s advice that he “get some rest”, like in the films, and with Maroni’s “orders” that he take indefinite leave still ringing in his ears. He hadn’t even had the strength to put the more obvious questions to him about why he hadn’t been informed sooner, this story out of the blue about a daughter, whether there had been any leads on the assailant, any witnesses. He had acquiesced and now, clearly in shock, he was wandering across a Piazza San Giovanni peopled by only a few stubborn, coated couples perched on the pocked marble benches, or an unfortunate figure or two sheltering in the lee of the towering white basilica’s facade. A screech of brakes and a voluble litany of swear words jolted him to his senses as a taxi froze inches short of catapulting him over the square’s bronze statue of Saint Francis and into the public gardens behind.

  “Aoooh! Ma ke katza sta’ a fffa! Crre-tiiinoo!”

  A stunned Rossi, feeling more lucid again thanks to the outburst, put his hands on the bonnet as if about to push the vehicle back up the hill and glared through the windscreen. His stare must have been manic for the taxi driver was instantly silenced. Rossi reached into his jacket and produced his badge, stood up, opened a door and then got into the back of the stationary cab. He proceeded to dictate an address to the now cowed and obsequious recipient of his cold rage, telling him to put his foot down, unless of course he wanted to end up a squeegee merchant in his next professional incarnation. He was in pieces, he felt alien and out of his own mind but he was getting back on track. He was going to Yana’s place and before anyone else got there first.

  Twenty-Three

  One thing was being a cop and rifling through people’s most intimate possessions and another thing was doing the same with the person you shared a bed with. Where to begin? The flat was in order, as usual, not least because he hadn’t seen much of it in the last few days. The phone was flashing with an incoming message. He managed to navigate the menu’s commands and listen, but it was in Russian. A woman’s voice. Or was it a girl? Could be anyone.
He sat down in the kitchen and looked around. What was he searching for? The secrets she had kept from him? Well, why didn’t she tell him she had a daughter and what bearing, if any, might it have had on the attack? He had an idea where she kept her most intimate, private things but had no stomach to start rummaging through her memories, a part of her soul. Not now. Not like this. But if it produced a lead? Something to bring this maniac at least into range?

  He stood up, walked the few paces to the drinks cabinet and pulled out the first part of the answer to his questions and with it half-filled the closest thing to a whiskey glass he could find. Adding a splash of water straight from the tap, he sank into the sofa and drank it down in two quick draughts. Good. Better. The taste was irrelevant, the effect almost instantaneous, but it had to battle hard with the demons the night had now unleashed. He went back and filled the glass again. Other demons now surfaced. He felt them gathering like wraiths from the past.

  The murky world from which he had helped her to escape was part of a previous life about which he knew many things but not everything. For her sake, he had put aside numerous questions he could have asked, not wanting her to have to revisit memories perhaps best left forgotten. But now he felt they were looming again like the shadows cast by things he needed to know more about. Like betrayals forgiven but not forgotten, they were gnawing at the fabric of his innermost thoughts.

  Or could it, as he had first thought, all be directed against him? Unless that was his own selfish ego getting the upper hand when he should have been thinking about her and only her. He picked up a framed photo from one of the shelves. The two of them on holiday, in a bright, alien light, both slim, smiling, relaxed. It was only from a few years before but how much younger they looked. Yes, time passed, it fled. He remembered the consultant’s words. Time will tell. But was the past now catching up with him? Somebody he had put away? In his position, it was always on the cards, no matter what you did. People soon got out and, in Italy, if they ever went inside, they were out even quicker.