The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara)

by Michele Giuttari

  They came to the doorway of a large room. The door was wide open and Rizzo stopped for a moment. ‘Everything’s in order in here, chief,’ he said.

  Ferrara glanced in and saw an enormous sandstone fireplace and two separate living areas with various items of genuine antique furniture. The cushions were perfectly arranged, as were the rugs. The valuable paintings on the walls were untouched. Everything gave the impression of good taste and evident wealth.

  ‘Let’s carry on, Francesco.’

  They continued down the corridor, and as they walked red marks on the floor seemed to announce the slaughter. The bottom of a section of wall was spattered with blood. Carefully avoiding it, they entered the nearest room: a spacious study with a high coffered ceiling, two of its walls lined with well-filled bookshelves. There were further bloodstains on the floor near the door.

  ‘Where’s the body?’ Ferrara asked.

  ‘In the bathroom.’

  ‘Let’s go, then.’

  Ferrara noticed more drops of dark blood on the floor along the way. And other marks of the same colour clearly left by something being dragged. In front of the bathroom door lay several items of men’s clothing: a jacket, a pair of trousers, and a shirt that had once been white.

  They had arrived.

  The Carrara marble floor reflected the glow of the numerous spotlights shining down from the ceiling. In the middle of the room was a Jacuzzi. The taps were dripping and the slow patter made the atmosphere even grimmer. Two men stood by the Jacuzzi: Francesco Leone, the pathologist, and a technician from Forensics. They were both wearing overshoes and sterile gloves, and the technician had a single-use cap on his head. He was writing down everything Leone told him in a notebook.

  ‘Typical burn marks are visible round the entrance wound…’

  On seeing Ferrara, Leone broke off. ‘Good morning, Chief Superintendent,’ he greeted him, emphasising the word ‘good’.

  Ferrara returned the greeting formally. Although they had worked together on many cases and established a good understanding, he preferred to keep things businesslike when they were on the job.

  Leone, who was of stocky build and completely bald, with an egg-shaped head, was wearing rumpled trousers and had his shirtsleeves rolled up. His forearms were completely hairless. He gave the impression that he had only just got out of bed and come running straight to the crime scene. He wiped the sweat from his gleaming forehead with a tissue.

  At first glance, he might have seemed a man of little account. But when he was at work, he exuded power. He admired only a few detectives, Ferrara being one. He couldn’t stand the vast majority of them, with their endless requests: they wanted first one thing then another, the results of the post-mortem, the results of the toxicology report. And they wanted everything straight away, almost before he had had a chance to consider the evidence. They seemed ignorant of the fact that science had its own rhythms that had to be respected.

  ‘Come closer, Chief Superintendent,’ Leone said, shifting a bit. ‘He was shot at very close range, most probably with the weapon pressed to his forehead. The bullet exited through the back of the neck.’ Leaning forward, he used his hands to turn the head.

  Ferrara stared at the corpse.

  There was a sudden glint in his eyes, a momentary disturbance, that the others recognised. At that instant, he had realised that this was not just another crime scene.

  There was something special about the body in front of him, something he had never witnessed before. He had seen so many corpses, both in person and in photographs, that he had lost count. Corpses of men, women, children… This scene, though, was the most gruesome of all.

  It was like something from a horror film.

  On second thoughts, it was even worse.

  6

  The victim was an elderly man. He was sitting in the Jacuzzi, completely naked, his head against the backboard, his face turned towards those now observing him. His skin was the colour of alabaster and his legs were as spindly as sticks. A thin line of blood was trickling down his left cheek. His mouth was wide open, as if he had been saying something just before he was shot. His hair was caked with blood.

  Ferrara’s gaze moved to the victim’s face and he abruptly felt his stomach heave. He leant slightly forward to confirm his first impression.

  The eye-sockets were empty.

  The eyes were gone.

  The killer had gouged them out, preventing the investigators from catching the expression, whether of terror or disbelief, that might have made it possible to understand the last moments of this man’s life.

  Why the eyes?

  For now, he could not even imagine the answer.

  He turned to Leone and looked at him questioningly.

  ‘The killer must have taken them with him,’ Leone said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘We’re dealing with a serious case here, Chief Superintendent,’ he added in a grave tone, wiping his forehead again. ‘A really nasty business.’

  Ferrara shook his head and shrugged. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He sighed, gave Leone a piercing look, and moved away a few steps.

  He needed to think.

  Leone went back to his work. ‘No external indication that the victim tried to defend himself,’ he dictated to the technician, who was still by his side. ‘I’m now going to check the nails for any possible fragments of skin or organic matter…’

  A few minutes later, Teresa Micalizi appeared. ‘Chief,’ she said, out of breath, her voice betraying her agitation, ‘there’s another body.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’ve found another victim.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In a small building in the garden.’

  ‘All right, Teresa, let’s go!’

  As they hurried back towards the front door, Leone’s words echoed in Ferrara’s mind. A serious case, a really nasty business. Why should Leone, an experienced pathologist, have to emphasise that this was a nasty business? Did the old fox know more than he was letting on?

  At that moment, they heard the roar of a police helicopter approaching.

  The investigative machine was now in full operation.

  The corpse lay on the almost completely blackened floor of what had once been a small chapel and was now reduced to a storage shed for garden tools and building materials. He was on his back with his arms by his sides, and his jet-black hair was caked with blood. His eyes were wide open in an expression of terror, staring into space. He must have been about thirty, thirty-five at the most, and wore what looked like a butler’s uniform.

  Kneeling, Ferrara noticed a bullet hole in his left temple.

  Another full-blown execution, he thought.

  A trickle of blood from the wound had run down the victim’s cheek. It was no longer fresh.

  Why had he been killed? Had he seen something he wasn’t supposed to? And which of the two had been killed first? Most likely the man in front of him, Ferrara decided.

  There was no bullet casing on the floor. They would have to look carefully under the body and in every corner.

  He left the chapel, his head buzzing with thoughts. Probably too many at this point.

  One, though, predominated: this was likely to be a long and difficult investigation.

  7

  ‘How did you get in?’

  For more than half an hour, Inspector Riccardo Venturi had been questioning Rolando Russo, the man who had called 113, at the villa.

  He had been working for the villa’s owner as a driver for a couple of years. Of average height, with short dark hair, he was twenty-two and lived with his parents in the nearby town of Borgo San Lorenzo.

  He had told Venturi that he had driven his employer to Milan the previous day for what he presumed was a routine appointment at the National Tumour Institute. It wasn’t the first time they had gone there. Back in Florence, he had dropped him off at the Hotel Villa Medici in the Via Il Prato, from where he had collected him at 11.15 to take him home.<
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  ‘As I already explained to your colleague,’ he said, ‘I found the front door half open this morning and when nobody came, I got out of the car. I went to the doorway and called. As there was no answer, I guessed something must have happened.’

  ‘And so you went into the rooms?’

  ‘That’s right. I saw the bloodstains and then the body —’ He broke off, his eyes brimming with tears, and took a deep breath.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’

  ‘No, only the phone. I was shaking all over and felt as if I was going to faint. I couldn’t wait for the police to get here. While I was waiting I sat on the steps outside the front door.’

  ‘When you went in, did you happen to notice anything suspicious?’

  ‘Suspicious? What do you mean?’

  ‘Was there anyone in the area? Did you hear any noises, notice any particular smell?’

  ‘No, nothing like that.’ He seemed very certain.

  ‘And why was the door half open?’

  ‘They leave it like that sometimes.’

  ‘Did you notice anything strange yesterday, or the day before yesterday, let’s say in the last week?’

  ‘What do you call strange?’

  ‘Someone following you? A car? A new face in the area?’

  For a while, the young man was silent, as if looking for the right words. ‘Let me think about it,’ he said at last.

  ‘Take all the time you need.’

  8

  9.15 a.m. The countryside between Dicomano and San Godenzo

  A hand shook her gently. She opened her eyes and saw that it was already day.

  ‘You slept more than twelve hours,’ her companion said, smiling.

  ‘I haven’t had such a deep sleep for years,’ she replied, sitting up in bed and stretching.

  ‘I’ll make you breakfast,’ the other woman said. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Toast, butter, jam and a soft-boiled egg.’

  ‘Great. I’ll put the egg on at the last minute.’

  Rubbing her eyes to rid them of the last traces of sleep, she got up, staggered to the bathroom, stripped off and got into the shower. As soon as the water was nice and hot, she let it flow over her head. She stood for a good ten minutes with her eyes closed and her hands on the ceramic tiles. When she got out she wrapped herself in a bath towel and dried herself. Then she let it fall to the floor and stood in front of the mirror to examine her body.

  She no longer saw the young girl with small breasts and an undeveloped body whose dark eyes had looked back at her from the dressing-table mirror in her mother’s room. She no longer felt ridiculous and uncomfortable, the way she had whenever she and her basketball teammates showered in the changing rooms after training or a match. She was no longer jealous of anyone else. She had grown into an attractive woman, with a good, firm pair of breasts and a perfect physique.

  The transformation had taken place, almost without her realising it, in that depressing ten-by-six-foot cell which she wanted to erase from her mind as quickly as possible.

  I need to start living! she said to herself, examining her own profile. She pulled a flirtatious face at herself, then turned and went back to the bedroom. She stretched out on the small double bed with its leather headboard. Facing her was a reproduction of Klimt’s beautiful, intense The Kiss.

  ‘Breakfast is almost ready!’ came the call. ‘You can come now!’

  She turned her eyes away from the picture, dismissing the thoughts that had sprung into her mind. But she did not get up. She did not want to, even though she was starting to feel hunger pangs.

  ‘You come here, Angelica, please!’ she called out, her voice imploring, her eyes gleaming with a special light.

  Angelica came running. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Will you give me a massage? Just for five minutes. I’m aching all over, as if someone had given me a beating.’

  ‘But your egg’s almost ready…’

  Do you think I give a fuck about an egg right now? It’s you I want.

  ‘OK, Guendi, five minutes. How could I refuse you? You crashed out straight after dinner last night. I helped you to bed. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘No, I don’t remember a thing.’

  ‘Turn over then.’

  Angelica let her silk dressing gown fall to the floor. Then she sat astride Guendalina, gently placed her hands on her back and began to move them with great skill.

  Guendalina’s body started to tingle.

  Soon, though, Angelica’s hands went lower and her fingers started to move between her thighs. Guendalina turned abruptly, pulling her companion to her, and kissed her. It was a long, deep, passionate kiss. Their bodies started to move in unison, at an ever-accelerating rhythm.

  Angelica, who had only discovered her own bisexuality as she grew to adulthood, had felt a strong physical attraction to Guendalina since their first meetings in Sollicciano Prison.

  She kissed her now, with ever-increasing intensity, all over her body, and soon the air was filled with sighs, gasps and moans.

  The room was empty of everything else – objects, thoughts, worries – and they alone were left, with the love that had thrown them into each other’s arms and the unstoppable desire to embrace and caress and melt into each other until they became a single body and a single soul.

  When they both felt fully satisfied, they moved apart and lay side by side, exhausted. Only their fingers remained locked together, an afterglow of the desire they had just experienced. The deep silence of the room was disturbed only by their breathing.

  An hour later, Angelica brought in the breakfast on a tray. Guendalina, who was still lying on top of the sheets, sat up and propped herself against the headboard. And when her friend turned to go, she watched her as she walked back to the kitchen. With her enviable physique, tall and slim with small breasts and a flat, firm stomach, she was truly beautiful and sensual, enough to take your breath away.

  Angelica had been her social worker for two years. But actually she was more than that: she was her confidante, her safety valve. It was Angelica who had arranged for her to be assigned a single cell, following the first attempt by another lesbian inmate to take advantage of her.

  Guendalina had told her about her sad childhood, the suffering experienced by her mother, who had died of stomach cancer while she was in prison. Her grandmother had had the same disease, and she was scared that one day she too might be struck down by that terrible monster.

  Angelica was the only person she had told her true motive for killing her stepfather. He was a brute who would return home in a drunken rage and beat her mother, who, either out of fear or to avoid a scandal, had never called the police. One day, shortly after her sixteenth birthday, unable to stand yet another act of violence, she had steeled herself, taken a long, sharp knife from the kitchen, gone to his bed while he was asleep and cut his throat. The memory of his hot blood spattering her hand and face had stayed with her for years, haunting her dreams.

  But she had never felt any remorse. Why should she? The man had also tried to abuse her. And it was that attempted assault that had reinforced her lack of interest in men.

  Angelica was also the only person to whom she had dared reveal what had become her obsession: to live in such a way as to make up for lost time.

  And it had been Angelica, in her role as social worker, who had written a report assessing her character that had contributed in no small measure to her sentence being reduced:… the detainee seems genuinely repentant for the act she committed and does not demonstrate any criminal impulses. On this basis, the possibility that she would commit further criminal acts once released can be ruled out. Her reintegration into society seems a foregone conclusion.

  Now, at last, Guendalina felt happy.

  For the first time she felt comfortable in the world, the real world. And comfortable with love too, perhaps. She closed her eyes, and was unaware that Angelica had come back into the bedroom until she felt her lean over
the bed and received her passionate kiss and heard her sweet, languid voice: ‘I want to make love to you again.’ She felt Angelica’s lips at her ear and the warmth of her tanned body as she embraced her.

  ‘You’re so damn sexy, Angi, with these little hearts and flowers tattooed on your back. In prison I always looked forward to our meetings. Every time you left it seemed like an endless wait until I saw you again. I was always really sad.’

  ‘And I couldn’t wait to have you here with me. Just the two of us, alone.’