More than six feet tall, athletic build, short fair hair, dyed in my opinion, very light grey eyes, foreign accent, English or American, more likely American, I'd say. Smartly dressed, rich obviously, look at the car he was driving. Can you imagine? He parked it outside for nearly half an hour, didn't give a damn about the ticket.'
It wasn't possible. He couldn't believe his ears. He'd never had so much luck all in one go.
'What..." - he hesitated, like someone about to place a bet at the roulette table, knowing for sure he has the right number but afraid the wheel might jam at the last moment - 'what ticket?'
'The parking ticket! Right here, outside the bookshop, can you imagine? If the traffic wardens hadn't arrived, I'd have called the police! Being a piece of shit is one thing, but doing whatever you like just because you've got money, that's something else again!'
'Thanks, Rita. If you were here, I'd give you a kiss!'
'Drop in whenever you like, Superintendent. I'm not going anywhere!'
*
Ferrara called Serpico, gave him the details, and ordered him to contact the traffic police immediately. Then he summoned Rizzo and brought him up to date.
It wasn't difficult to trace the car.
Within fifteen minutes, Inspector Sergi was back.
'The ticket was issued at 7.05 on October 1st 1999. The car was a Porsche Carrera with the licence number AP 286 XS. It was registered in Florence in the name of Lorenzo Ricciardi, living at 36 Via della Campora, in Bellosguardo.'
'Ricciardi?' Ferrara repeated. 'Like the antique dealer?'
'Of course!' Rizzo exclaimed. 'Ricciardi was the previous owner of the shop where Alfredo Lupi was killed. He died in a fire in his villa. Now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was in Bellosguardo.'
'Check if they're related. And send a team right now to stake out this Ricciardi's house. I'll ask the Prosecutor's Department for authorisation to tap his phone. Sergi, check if the man owns a mobile.'
When the men had gone, Ferrara dialled Anna Giulietti's number.
After talking to Anna Giulietti, he phoned Polito.
'I've found your fair-haired man,' he announced triumphantly. 'I know you're not going to believe this, but we may just possibly have killed two birds with one stone. This guy could be my man, too! His name is Lorenzo Ricciardi. He's from Florence, and I've already got his house staked out. If you come here tomorrow, we can pay him a visit together.'
'But . . . how did you . . .?' Polito said after a stunned silence.
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, but trust me, I'm sure. Are you coming?'
'You bet! Why not now?'
'I need a search warrant, and I won't get it till tomorrow morning. But don't worry, everything's under control. Bring me the photos of the corpses and the ballistics report. Something tells me there might be some interesting comparisons to be made.'
The following morning, Saturday - the maid's day off -Ferrara was informed that the house was still dark. Nobody had gone in or out. The Porsche was still parked outside.
'Did you bring the photos?' he asked Polito, who had arrived punctually at nine o'clock.
'Here's the report.'
Ferrara spread the photographs on his desk and examined the faces through a powerful magnifying glass. Knowing what to look for now, he had no difficulty identifying the 'A' on Cinzia Roberti's face, half-hidden among the other wounds. He was puzzled, though. He would have expected to find that letter somewhere on the body of Valentina Preti, who had been killed first, and an V on Cinzia's.
It was a troubling detail, but not enough to dent his certainty that he was on the right track. It was nearly 9.30: time for the meeting.
Anything wrong?' Polito asked.
'No, let's go,' Ferrara said. 'No point waiting any longer.'
The Squadra Mobile's conference room was not large enough to accommodate all those who had been summoned, and Ferrara had decided to hold the meeting in the reception room on the second floor which was normally used for special occasions, especially by the Commissioner. About six hundred square feet furnished in a modern style, its walls adorned with historical paintings on loan from the regional heritage board.
Ferrara sat down with Rizzo and Polito at the long conference table. Facing them, occupying the first rows of seats, were some thirty men, including inspectors. There were also a few marksmen sent all the way from Rome: that was due to Carracci, contacted by Ferrara the night before. They were from NOCS, the special forces unit usually brought in to deal with high-risk situations, who had become famous in the media for a number of major operations, including the liberation of the American general James Lee Dozier on 28 January 1982. The members of NOCS were highly trained in the use of firearms, precision shooting and assault techniques. They were distinguished from other police officers by their special black tracksuits, as well as their powerful athletic builds.
A member of the forensics team stood ready to work the projector which had been placed in the centre of the room, pointing towards a white screen to the right of the table where the three superintendents had taken their places.
The aim of the meeting was to prepare their raid on the villa in Bellosguardo down to the smallest detail. Photographs of the villa taken at dawn from a helicopter and land registry maps would be projected on the screen.
Ferrara opened the meeting.
He started by explaining the nature of the operation and the objective: to enter the villa and capture a dangerous killer.
An image of the villa appeared on the screen. It was surrounded by an extensive garden protected by high walls.
'Right, this is the place,' he said. 'The wall will have to be manned on both sides of the gate before we go in.' He went up to the screen and pointed out the positions with a wooden stick. 'Inspector Venturi has already inspected the area, and he'll put one officer on each side. They'll have to be placed so that they can keep visual contact between them.
'When they're in position, I'll ring at the gate. If it's opened, I'll go in in an armoured car, along with the NOCS commander and two of his men. Everyone agreed?'
'Of course,' the commander replied immediately, sounding very sure of himself.
'I don't agree,' Polito objected.
'Why?'
'Because I'd like to go in with you.'
He had a point. The murder had been committed within his jurisdiction, even though the area they were going into was Ferrara's responsibility.
'Okay'
'What if there's no answer?' the NOCS commander asked.
'Then we'll open the gate ourselves. A crowbar should do it. But we'll have to move quickly - every second counts, the element of surprise is important. We have the prosecutor's authorisation to use force to remove any obstacles to our search, even if it means causing damage. Any questions?'
No one asked anything. He saw only heads nodding in agreement.
'Once inside the grounds, each man will have his own special task. We'll spread out, making sure we always keep visual contact, and advance towards the villa, under my orders. Nobody, I repeat nobody, must do anything off his own bat, understood?'
They all nodded.
Ferrara signalled to the forensics man to go on to the next image: a detail of the villa.
'This is the front door. There's another door at the back, almost at the corner, but it can't be seen in the photo. We'll try ringing again, and if there is no immediate answer we'll force this door, too. If it's metal
'We'll take over,' the NOCS commander said, as if the scene had been rehearsed. 'We'll use explosive charges. It'll only take a few seconds.'
'Good,' Ferrara said. 'Now we come to the trickiest part. I want you all to listen very carefully because we can't afford the slightest error. Once we're inside, six officers, equipped with night sights and rifles, will immediately take up position, two on each floor, check that the corridors are basically safe, then provide cover for their colleagues to go in and search.'
Ferrara, Rizzo and
Polito, each at the head of a team, would simultaneously enter and search the rooms on all three floors - Ferrara on the ground floor, Rizzo on the first floor and Polito on the second.
While Ferrara explained the operations inside the villa, the man from forensics projected images from the land registry maps showing the internal structure of the villa and the layout of the rooms.
'One very important thing,' Ferrara said. 'To communicate among ourselves, we'll use portable radios equipped with earphones. As we don't want anyone listening in, we'll be using a private frequency'
He knew the press often listened in to police frequencies to keep up to date, and he had no desire for them to know what was happening in the villa.
'Will there still be anyone outside the villa?' Rizzo asked.
'One man on each side to make sure no one throws anything out of the windows or shoots at us or tries to escape. We already have people outside the perimeter wall, but we need to keep an eye on the villa from close up, too.'
'What about helicopters?'
'I'll tell the commander of the Airborne Squad to keep one ready. We'll use it if we need it. They can get to us in a few minutes, if necessary'
The meeting ended. There was nothing else to say.
They went down in groups to the courtyard and took their places in various police cars and one unmarked van. They were all wearing bulletproof vests and had their weapons at the ready. Some carried sub-machine guns and Ml6s, others lethal-looking pump rifles.
As they were going downstairs, Polito whispered in Ferrara's ear, 'I wasn't expecting such a display of force. I thought the two of us would be going in with a few men. What if Ricciardi's not at home and sees this little army as he's coming back? Isn't that a big risk?'
'No. If he gets as far as that, he's already in our trap. There's only one access road and it'll be guarded by plain clothes men who'll keep well out of sight. Once in, he won't be able to get out. If on the other hand, he's barricaded himself inside the house, then the more precautions we take, the better. If he was inside and it was just the two of us going in, we'd be perfect targets, wouldn't we?'
Polito nodded.
The cars and the van left Headquarters, in ones and twos in order not to attract attention, especially from the journalists.
When they arrived, Ferrara went up to one of the men on guard.
Anything new?'
'Nothing, chief. I don't think anyone's at home. No signs of life from inside.'
Ferrara rang the bell at the gate twice. There was no reply. He ordered the gate to be forced. Everything went according to plan. They swept into the grounds and reached the front door. As they had half expected, it was made of metal. The NOCS men blew it open and within a couple of minutes, they were inside the villa and proceeding as ordered.
The portable radios immediately started to crackle. Every message said the same thing: there was no one in the house. So there was no exchange of fire, no escape, no arrest. Nothing.
They went ahead with the search of the house in a completely different frame of mind.
On the first floor, only one room seemed to have been refurbished, and it was the only room with a light switch that worked.
'Chief, come here,' Ferrara heard through his headphones.
It was Rizzo, who must be on the first floor.
Ferrara and Sergi went upstairs. With all the windows and doors flung open, daylight now illuminated the corridors and stairs.
'Careful, Sergi,' Ferrara said, stopping him from treading on a couple of stairs stained with something red that looked like congealed blood. 'I want a man to stay here and make sure no one steps on that.'
Rizzo greeted Ferrara on the first floor. 'There's something you should see, chief. Follow me.' He led him along the corridor.
'What is it?'
'You'll see. We're nearly there.'
Ferrara followed him into the one intact room on the whole floor. 'Look.'
He pointed at the bloodstains.
They had no time to say anything because at that moment Polito joined them. 'Valentina Preti lived upstairs,' he said. 'All her things are there.'
But the surprises were not over yet.
Ferrara's radio crackled.
The NOCS commander had found the entrance to the cellar.
'You should come and see this, Chief Superintendent. Immediately.'
Followed by the others, Ferrara hurried downstairs. The NOCS men showed him the way. They went down a flight of stairs into a large space surrounded by brick walls.
'What the hell is this?' Polito exclaimed.
In the centre of the room stood a rudimentary wooden tripod topped with a pyramid-shaped wedge with a sharp point. Just above it there hung an iron ring supported by ropes tethered to the walls, and another rope hung from the ceiling directly over the tip of the wedge.
'Let's leave this to forensics, boys,' Ferrara ordered. 'The villa will have to be turned over from top to bottom.'
He was clearly disappointed.
Further examination of the house might explain the purpose of that mysterious contraption and would surely give them valuable clues as to the killer's identity. He would direct the search himself, calmly and methodically. But he had lost this move, he knew that. As his friend Massimo had said after studying the messages, he was dealing with an unusually intelligent killer. And the truth, when you came down to it, was that he had let him escape. Months of searching and now that he'd had him within his grasp, he'd let him slip through his fingers!
He thought about the tip he'd fed Ahmed Farah, and felt a fool.
PART THREE
THE HUNT
1
Lorenzo Ricciardi had read Ahmed Farah's article on the train taking him back to Florence immediately after the latest murder.
He was sitting in an almost empty first-class compartment, smiling bitterly to himself. His plan had been thrown into confusion and needed to be rethought. Not because of a journalist's article, which was probably just a publicity stunt, but because of his own weakness, which had taken him by surprise. All because of a woman, as fate would have it.
Valentina . . .
He sat back in his seat and closed his eyes. He felt sad, tired, drained.
He had never known love until he had met her. He had never known a mother's affection, never had any friends, male or female. And then, on the very day he'd started carrying out his plan - the plan he'd prepared meticulously during his stay in the United States, only adding Ferrara as the final link in the chain after he'd seen him shooting wildly in that TV broadcast and had realised he was at the bottom of it all - on that very day, Valentina had burst into his life with devastating force.
Fate played strange tricks, he thought.
In the unlikely event that they tracked him down, his date with Valentina in Greve was supposed to have been his alibi, the reason he was in that little town on the very day that Stefano had been killed. Instead it had become the start of an unsettling adventure with a bitter ending.
He had really loved her, but he would never have let her stand in the way of his plan for revenge, which was guided by the Lord and carried out in the name of the Father - both of them, the one in Heaven and the natural one.
It had been a difficult path to tread, between the cold execution of the murders and Valentina's warm embrace. Perhaps it was inevitable that it would end like this. But that didn't make it any less painful.
Now that game was over for ever and he had to think about the rest of his plan.
His mind, dulled by these sad memories and the monotonous rhythm of the train, became clear and alert again.
Knowing the press, he was sure the news about an imminent arrest was exaggerated. Knowing the police, he thought it likely they'd planted it. But even if that were the case, he decided that it wasn't worth taking any risks.
He wouldn't go home.
All he had with him was his Beretta and his knife, a little money and his diary, which was nearly finished. He w
as reserving the remaining blank pages for a minute description of the torture he would inflict on Ferrara.
Of course it was a problem, not being able to go home. What's more, he wouldn't be able to use his credit cards, or withdraw money from the bank, because that would help them trace him. He would have to make do with what he had, try not to be noticed, make himself as anonymous as possible. The best thing to do would be to disappear for as long as it took to figure out whether that news item was genuine and to rethink his strategy.
He knew what to do.
When he got to Santa Maria Novella station, he went straight to the toilets, where he threw his sunglasses in a litter bin and took out his contact lenses. His light chestnut-coloured eyes were no longer ice-cold. Then he set off on foot towards the eastern edge of the city, keeping his eye open for mopeds, looking for easy pickings.
He found a red Ciao, so old its owner hadn't bothered to chain it properly. Stealing it was a walkover. Its rear light was broken, but if he only used it during the day he wouldn't have any problems.
Still heading east, he stopped in a little village just before Pontassieve and entered a modest-looking barber's shop.
'How would you like it?' the hairdresser asked, once he'd sat down in the chair.
'Close shaven,' he replied in a perfect Italian accent, at last abandoning the character of the American which had served him so well. If they'd broadcast the photofit of a fair-haired foreigner, which seemed likely once he'd been seen by that woman in Bologna, nobody would pay any attention to him and he could move about with greater ease. His hair, when it had grown back, would be its natural chestnut colour.
In the next village he bought a padded anorak and a pair of mountain boots in a general store.
The prospect of a few nights in the open didn't bother him.
Ferrara turned Lorenzo Ricciardi's passport over and over in his hands. It had been found during the raid. A week had passed.
Everything useful they had found in the villa had been brought to Headquarters, and both his own men and the forensics team had gone through it with a fine-tooth comb.
A Florentine Death Page 25