by Aidan Conway
Grief vied with duty in his embattled psyche. They had had so many great times, great discussions, fallings out even, but always they had been bound by a common sense of doing what was right and exposing evil wherever it might hide. Now he alone had to carry the flame. But Dario would not have wanted him to grieve for long. Dust yourself off, there’s work to be done. That was his way.
He grabbed at the papers, the preliminary reports, and swallowed the rest of his drink. The words on the page though were surreal. He couldn’t connect but knew he had to. Forensics were still searching for any personal effects that might have survived the intense heat, but it was complicated, too, by the bomb’s having been packed into a hijacked meat lorry that had not been emptied of its cargo. An anonymous call had been made to a local newspaper, a hire car was unaccounted for, and no single, male motorist fitting Iannelli’s description had been seen boarding any ferry for “the continent” neither that evening, nor the following morning. His mobile phone, of course, was dead too.
As for the local Roman hood, Pietro Marciano, he’d had myriad enemies and the press had “revealed” his involvement with both the n’dranghetta – the Calabrian Mafia – as well as with Cosa Nostra, all of which was news to Rossi. He had been a Mafia unto himself, an unscrupulous street villain who’d worked his way up, even coming to challenge the big boys. But what did it matter to him when he could only stand by and watch as the anti-mafia boys swooped in like Feds all over the dead guy’s business affairs, sealing up every possible opportunity of a lead as tight as a body bag?
The African’s death was being painted as another settling of scores. Still no identity. Paperless. Seemed West African, possibly Nigerian. Fingerprints erased. So, the working hypothesis was that it was within ‘the community’ and its murky underworld. They’d appealed for witnesses but weren’t holding their breath. No. That internecine narrative got cooked up all too readily sometimes, especially when there was little chance of any public outcry. Who cared about the death of an African living on the fringes?
And then there was the cardinal, one of many of the Italian porporati, the purple-clad princes of the Church. On any other day, it would have made something like headline news, but his death had been tucked between the inside pages like a bribe. He’d slipped away in his sleep. Heart attack. Private funeral arrangements would be made in accordance with his wishes and all deep within the walls of the Vatican City, hidden from prying eyes.
But what was also news to Rossi were the suggestions that Iannelli had been close to figures in both the Sicilian and Roman underworlds, that there were dark shadows not so much around the circumstances of his death but behind the reasons for his being in Sicily and which may have led to the hit. But it was lies, all lies and it was so easy now that there was no one to speak up for him. They were falling over themselves to rubbish his character and airbrush him and his discoveries from history. Doubtless some pale facsimile of a journalist would try to step in and appropriate his mantle, that of the voice of the ordinary people against the powers-that-be. All a sham and an insult to his memory. Rossi threw the papers aside.
He closed his eyes and, as he did so, he imagined he heard Dario’s voice amidst the melee of confused thoughts in his head. He couldn’t just be a spectator here, an ordinary bystander. Mafia killings would be a given until politicians got out of bed with them and started turning the screws. He had known things, things he had referred to. So he was dead, they’d got their man but what else had he known? But Rossi feared those secrets had gone to the grave with Iannelli. A stunned Iovine had been in touch and he was no better informed. They too, at The Facet, had been waiting on his return, believing he was onto something of immense proportions. But Dario had been holding back on the details, intending as he was to deliver them in person. Was intending to. Past tense. And now what?
They were all feeling under siege and rumours were circulating again about high-profile figures in the institutions who’d been sabre-rattling. There was talk, too, in some circles of the deepening gravity of the security situation transforming itself into a “potential coup scenario”. But Rossi knew it was also time for him to pull out the stops.
He stared into the whirling patterns in the wood on his kitchen table and reached out to pour himself another drink. It was barely numbing him and he was drinking his whiskey undiluted now. Yet it tasted of almost nothing as it slid down his throat like the water he might have mixed with it. As easily as human life itself could slip away.
Fifty-Four
Rossi’s organism had finally won the battle with his besieged mind and he had collapsed into a deep whiskey-soaked slumber, waking late the next day when his phone rang and rang again and then rang out. Things were not much clearer but he had observed the ritual of mourning and that, at least, had given him some small solace. He had showered, shaved and, to get his mind back into action, had taken a long walk across the park and far out onto the Appian Way. There the tombs of the Roman patricians and patriarchs still lined the thoroughfare, and he imagined some such similar monument for Iannelli would be as fitting as it was impossible.
He had returned home aching but shriven and plunged himself into a hot bath before welcoming Carrara for an afternoon of brainstorming and planning.
“You know they haven’t got a clue, don’t you? Maroni’s crowd,” said Carrara. “They’re sending their guys out like headless chickens and here we are with the only leads worth anything and we’re having to work as if we were subversives, or some kind of terrorist cell holed-up and eating paranoia from a can for breakfast, lunch and supper.”
“I don’t see any other way round the problem,” Rossi replied without lifting his eyes from one of the many newspapers strewn across the couch. “Do you?”
The previous day and night’s drinking and thinking and drinking again had left him fuzzy and indolent but, while realistic about their options, he was not resigned to any predetermined fate. Iannelli was gone and it was time to move on. He had wanted to help in some way but Iannelli’s family, his parents, from whom he had been effectively estranged, had made it known that they were dealing with it themselves. They had shut him out.
Carrara was pacing the apartment. A man of action without any action becoming very frustrated indeed. Something had got into him. That was now clear. Irritation, frustration, and some of it, too, was aimed at him. He had tried to commiserate with Rossi as best he could but there was an underlying tension he couldn’t disguise, no matter how much he felt for him. It had to be Marini. She had volunteered to work with Carrara on what they both did best, trawling through databases and scouring underworld contacts, thus freeing up Rossi, who had enough on his plate with Yana, to think of other possible approaches. But they had never worked this way and the unnatural distance now being put between Rossi and Carrara was taking its toll on the trust between them and their old reliable equilibrium as Maria began to modify Carrara’s outlook with her secret service ideas.
“Want to go back to the old days, Gigi?” said Rossi. “The balaclavas, the stakeouts, the big prize?”
That was the life Carrara had been living when Rossi had met the up-and-coming detective who would become his future partner. Rossi had been on a train to Naples, a slow train, by choice, one Saturday morning, heading down to see to some business with distant family that couldn’t be put off any longer. The athletic young guy who had got on at Caserta and sat opposite him in the carriage, had, at a certain point, leaned across and asked if he might see his newspaper.
“Yep,” he’d said then, handing it back with satisfaction and pointing to the front page. There was a spread of a long-wanted Camorra boss being bundled into a police car by undercover agents. “We got him. And that’s me. First photo I’ve seen of it.” Rossi had introduced himself and they’d kept in touch. Carrara had married, decided a move to a more liveable city wouldn’t hurt, and they’d been on the Rome Serious Crime Squad ever since.
They’d both watched as Rome changed, and often for
the worse. The dark side had always been there, the machinations of the criminal establishment, the obscure bidding of the “deep state”, but it had begun to spill over more and more into everyday life in a way that was unnerving now in its spasmodic cruelty.
Rossi began to reflect on that first meeting and how things had subsequently evolved. Carrara had been a poster boy of anti-mafia back then and had enjoyed it, had thrived on it. He had been one of the main men, joining the force straight out of school and rocketing up the ranks. But what if he missed it now? Perhaps he didn’t want to be playing second fiddle to Rossi anymore.
“I want to do something,” said Carrara. “I want to make things happen!”
Carrara was still formidable in terms both of his physical presence and his application and focus, but he wasn’t the rock star cop anymore. He was a family man, he was getting older. He was getting like Rossi even and maybe that was bothering him.
The intercom buzzer rang. Rossi looked at his watch.
“Well, she’s bang on time.”
“That’s secret service training?” quipped Carrara. “They’d never have had you, would they?”
Rossi considered a response but resisted.
“And now here’s something you can do, Gigi,” he said rising with some reluctance from his reading and giving himself a cursory smartening. “Get the coffee on, will you. Big pot and strong.”
As soon as the door had closed behind her, Marini gave no sign that she was intending to stay.
“I’ve had an idea,” she said. “Can we take the car?”
“For what?” said Rossi, who had just been getting comfortable.
“I’ve been going over the case notes,” she said. “Gigi let me see them.”
Rossi glanced at his colleague. Marini looked at them both in turn.
“I’ve just got a feeling about something,” she continued. “About the Luzi murder and I want to see if you are with me on it. Can we go?”
“C’mon then,” said Rossi rising and grabbing his coat off the back of a chair, “the coffee can wait. Where to?”
“To the crime scene. Where else? Back to square one.”
“We’ve been through it with a fine-tooth comb already,” said Rossi.
“OK. But have you been there at night?”
*
“So we just continue to wait?” said Rossi growing colder by the minute.
“Watch and wait,” Marini replied.
No sooner had she spoken than a vehicle swung into the car park and took up a position opposite them. A tall, shapely figure in a black polo neck got out of the passenger’s side. From the driver’s side, a stocky, leather-jacketed male emerged. They began to smoke and throw a few glances around, interested but not interested. They were waiting but not waiting. Then discarding their half-smoked cigarettes, they got back into the car. A few seconds elapsed before the driver flashed his headlights.
“Don’t answer,” Marini whispered. “They’re looking for company.”
“Company?” said Rossi.
“Doggers,” said Carrara. “You don’t get out much, do you? Swingers, if you like.”
“Wife-swapping,” said Rossi. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Marini nodded.
“Look.”
Another car came crunching up the gravel slip road.
“More of the same?” Rossi enquired.
“Seems like it.”
There was another flash of headlights from the first car but this time the second vehicle responded in kind. Then the former’s interior light went on to reveal what appeared to be a semi-naked female figure reclining in the passenger seat while being attended to by her companion. A youngish man in a tracksuit got out of the second car and walked towards the first car.
“Seen enough?” said Marini. “That’s what most people come here for after hours. Casual encounters. Car sex. Voyeurism.”
“And Luzi?” asked Carrara glancing towards Rossi who was, despite himself, still observing.
“Don’t you think you should ask him?” said Marini.
Fifty-Five
Back at the flat she took off her dark-brown, three-quarter length leather coat and with visible relief also removed her blonde wig. She threw them both on to the arm of an empty chair and sat down opposite Rossi from where she then began to undo the various accoutrements keeping her long, glossy hair under wraps until she finally shook it loose. Once she had lit her first cigarette, she began to put forward her own assessment of the situation. So, she was planning on staying, thought Rossi. But for now, at least, in line with her declared wishes, he was quite prepared to take a back seat. He’d hear her out.
She had no real opinion on the motives behind the various killings other than to say that the Luzi killing had more to it than met the eye.
“That’s your job. Police work,” she said, “and not what I’m here for. I’m more of a psychologist. I need to know who I’m dealing with and what he’s capable of.”
Carrara had brought in the much-needed coffee.
“So tell us: what you do know,” said Rossi cutting in with just a hint of irritation at the superior tone she appeared now to be honing. Paying no visible heed to his imprecation, she started by outlining the essence of her thesis.
“We know he likes women, attractive women. We know he kills women. Let’s focus on that side of his character. Maybe he stalks vulnerable individuals, couples, or frequents swinger sites, maybe it’s his thing. So why couldn’t we go down that road?”
“Some sort of a trap, then?” said Rossi adding extra sugar to his double espresso. “A honey trap, if you like?”
She shrugged.
“The guy’s a deviant, by your own admission. Highly sexed. He could have met Luzi there, maybe by arrangement. Maybe both of them. Have you checked her phone traffic?”
“Her phone went missing,” said Carrara, “but her call records don’t reveal anything out of the ordinary. Only calls to her husband.”
“Her computer? Her husband’s?”
“Nothing to report,” said Carrara. “ClearTech came through fast on that and it was negative. And anyway, he, or they, could just as well have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like the others. Like Kristina.”
“But can’t you see that it gives us a possible lead?” continued Marini. “People go there precisely for that. At that time of the night, in percentage terms, it narrows the circle. What was she doing there? And even if she was there by chance, which I doubt, there must be some connection between Bonaventura’s predatory sexual profile and the murders. He exploits an aspect of his victims’ vulnerability. There’s no other matrix. You’ve exhausted every alternative line of enquiry.”
Rossi certainly knew of Bonaventura’s predilection for casual sex and prostitutes back in the Erasmus days when they’d all been more libertine than even he may have cared to admit. Giuseppe though had had a predatory and insatiable appetite. His serial infidelity, passed off as mere sport in a country with a very pre-feminist attitude to sex, had not been something he had tried particularly hard to hide while he was with Rosa, but it later became an issue that had helped to drive them apart. Afterwards, Rossi knew he had revelled in the other opportunities that came his way in Spain at that time – the influx of South Americans, the boom in transexual prostitution, all coupled with the ready availability of cocaine. There too rumours had circulated as to his conduct. Life on the mean backstreets and out in the forlorn hinterlands of the Valenciana had been cheap, especially the lives of foreign street workers. And Giuseppe’s bragging comments could be very close to the bone. The kind of girls he mixed with were psychologically fragile, badly damaged goods more often than not, and at least one had disappeared in dubious circumstances.
“So we could start checking out all the usual outlets,” said Rossi, trying to reassert a bit of old-fashioned authority. “The ‘piazzas’, the car parks, the strip joints, escort agencies and so forth. And what about the singles bars?”
“That’s a mammoth task, don’t you think?” Carrara countered. “And with what manpower? We’re doing this on a shoestring, remember? And besides, couldn’t it have the opposite effect? Scare him off if the place is crawling with cops? And I mean we can hardly distribute his photo, can we?”
“We could try, but it might just work in our favour too,” said Marini, rising now and with fresh confidence striding towards the window.
“Wouldn’t open that if I were you,” Rossi warned. “Don’t you think we might be under surveillance?”
“I wasn’t going to,” she almost snapped and then, softening, “but if you’ll hear me out, Inspector,” she said, wheeling round on a well-stacked heel to confront the still-seated Rossi. “What if we were to attempt to nudge our deviant into more niche activities?”
Carrara glanced at Rossi who was still looking at Marini. She had one arm held across her chest while supporting the elbow of her smoking hand and appeared to be revelling in the role she was attempting to carve out for herself. Unless, of course, it was Rossi’s own imagination getting the better of him. His own more primal urges.
“Don’t forget,” she said, “you know something about him. You knew him for real. I, or we, can profile him; it’s part of my training. He needs his kicks. He’s a man on the edge and he must have a weakness. He didn’t just go into the health club because he planned to get to you through Yana, he did it because he wanted to get sexually close first. It was part of his plan to violate her and you – high risk but that’s his Achilles heel. Then, while we’re targeting the more obvious vice locations, we get to work in other areas. The area of adult social media. That’s where it all happens now, Inspector. We can go to the dark web, too, if needs be. And we get every man we can out on the street, a general security crackdown. No one will be able to move without feeling us breathing down their neck.”