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

by Michele Giuttari

  One day, they had used a pin to draw blood from their fingers and mingle it. From that moment, their friendship had become something sacred and eternal. They weren’t lovers, they were blood siblings. And that link had remained strong. When they could not meet up in Paris or Mugello, they called each other often.

  The complicity between them had grown stronger and stronger.

  29

  It was almost eight in the evening when Fanti came into Ferrara’s office with an envelope in his hand.

  ‘It’s for you, Chief Superintendent,’ he said, putting it on the desk. ‘Just delivered.’

  Ferrara set aside the document he had been reading and opened the envelope.

  ‘At last!’ he said to himself on seeing the sender.

  Dr Francesco Leone – University of Florence, Department of Anatomy, Histology and Forensics – Forensics Division

  As usual, Leone had been as good as his word.

  It was a copy of the report on the post-mortems, which had been carried out that morning and for which he had been waiting anxiously. He started to read the first one. The one on Enrico Costanza.

  The introduction made it clear that this was a preliminary technical assessment, but that the results were either certain or very reliable.

  Enrico Costanza had been killed by shots fired from a 7.65 calibre pistol – which they already knew, Ferrara thought. The time of death was between midnight on 28 August and two in the morning on the following day. This conclusion was based on a serious of elements, including the cooling of the body and the hypostatic marks present in the lower body, caused by the blood filtering slowly down through the tissues after death, in accordance with the laws of gravity. The temperature of a corpse decreases by half a degree per hour in the first three or four hours after death, then by one degree per hour for the next six to eight hours. Finally, after twelve or more hours, the loss of temperature becomes increasingly marked, until the body reaches the ambient temperature somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four hours after death.

  Ferrara read that rigor mortis had not fully set in – during the external examination at the crime scene, it had been possible to manipulate the limbs without any particular difficulty.

  There were traces of drugs in the blood, but no alcohol, nor any kind of medication.

  In addition, the post-mortem had revealed a cancer of the lungs so advanced that the cancerous cells would soon have completed their life cycle.

  So Costanza had been a man with a death sentence hanging over his head.

  Of the two shots, one, in the back, had fractured a few ribs but missed both the heart and the principal arteries. The other, though, a shot to the head, had passed through the brain, turning it to pulp, and then exited. It had followed a downward trajectory, so there was no doubt that it had been fired when the victim was already on the ground.

  The cause of death had been a diffused internal haemorrhage, which had provoked terminal and irreversible cardio-respiratory failure.

  Finally, Leone’s report mentioned that the victim’s last meal had not been substantial. Rice and vegetables. A sample of the gastric contents had still to be analysed.

  To provide further answers, Leone concluded, I have taken samples of the organs and viscera for later histological and toxicological tests, the results of which the Prosecutor’s Department will receive directly from the relevant teams at the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

  Ferrara went on to read about the post-mortem on the butler. The bullet had been fired from close range, with the gun almost in contact with the skin, and had completely destroyed the brain. It had been recovered, and was also of 7.65 calibre.

  God alone knew if the bullets would be in a suitable condition to make comparisons, Ferrara thought.

  He made a note on a piece of paper: Ballistics report, and underlined the two words several times. He would call his colleague Fuschi later to remind him how urgent it was.

  In contrast to Enrico Costanza, the butler’s organs showed no traces of drugs, and no serious pathologies. In other words, Luis Rodriguez had been in excellent health. Before his death he had enjoyed a hearty meal: spaghetti with tomato sauce and red meat and a green salad.

  The time of death had been a couple of hours earlier than the senator’s, but the cause of death was identical.

  He must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, Ferrara thought.

  He closed the second report as well and opened another, smaller envelope, marked Strictly Confidential. It contained Leone’s own reconstruction of the murders in the light of what he had determined both during his initial investigation at the scene and during the post-mortems.

  Because of the initial bloodstains, Leone hypothesised that everything had started with Costanza in the room used as a study. It was there that the killer had fired the first shot into the victim’s back. It had been fired from a certain distance, some eight or nine feet, and the wounds inflicted had not been fatal. Costanza had crumpled to the floor, turning as he fell, most likely landing on his back. The second shot had been fired at close range, right between the eyes. This one was the fatal one. A typical contact wound, as Leone described it.

  Next, the body had been moved to the bathroom, as could be deduced from the traces of blood on the floor of the corridor. There, the killer had completed his task with the removal of the eyes. It had only taken a few moments, and had most probably been done with a sharp knife.

  The manner of the killing demonstrates deep hatred or rage on the part of the killer towards the victim was Leone’s conclusion. Rizzo had been spot on when he had suggested it could be a revenge crime, Ferrara thought.

  The butler, on the other hand, had been killed in the same place that his body had been found. It was evident that the killer had forced him there at gunpoint. A single shot at close range. The bullet’s trajectory indicated that both the victim and the killer had been standing. Rodriguez had been nearly six feet tall.

  Ferrara underlined this last detail with a pencil. It gave them an idea of the killer’s approximate height.

  He folded Leone’s note, put it back in the envelope and locked everything in his desk drawer. Then he leant back in his chair and started to think. He tried to imagine both scenes. He saw the butler on the threshold after opening the front door.

  Had he known the killer?

  He saw in his mind a hooded man – the one from the video? – pointing a gun at the butler, and the look of fear on Rodriguez’s face.

  Had there been one man or more than one? As the calibre of the bullets was the same, did that mean the same weapon had been used?

  Then he imagined the walk to the old chapel: Rodriguez moving tentatively, with the gun pointing at his back. He imagined his pleas, his tears. All in vain: his killer would not allow himself to show any pity.

  He even seemed to hear the shot… But what if the gun had a silencer?

  He made a careful note of this.

  Then he saw the killer, or killers, going into the villa and murdering Costanza following the sequence described by Leone.

  But had the senator been at home when the killer entered the building, or was he surprised on his return? And, if that was the case, when did he go into the study? They knew from the chauffeur that he had been dropped off at the villa just before midnight.

  At last, he thought, something definite: the killer had been waiting for Costanza in the house. Because the butler’s death had occurred between ten and midnight.

  He folded the piece of paper on which he had been making his notes, put that in the drawer as well, lit half a Toscano cigar and slowly inhaled.

  He was still lost in thought when the telephone rang and brought him back to the present. He picked up the receiver, wondering if something else serious had happened.

  He wasn’t even close.

  30

  ‘Chief Superintendent Ferrara,’ he announced himself.

  ‘Good evening.’ The voice was male and unsteady. ‘I called this
afternoon but they told me you weren’t there.’

  ‘No, I was out. Go on, signor…’

  ‘Do I really have to tell you my name?’

  ‘I’d prefer it, but carry on. Why are you calling?’

  ‘On the night between Saturday and Sunday…’

  The voice came to a halt, and Ferrara thought they had been cut off. A moment later, though, he heard the caller’s breathing.

  ‘… I was driving along the road that goes from Borgo San Lorenzo to Fiesole and then carries on to Florence – the Via Bolognese.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘It must have been about half past two, a quarter to three.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘As I’m sure you know, the road winds a lot, and as I came round a bend another car came right at me. The driver was a woman. She was going so fast, I just had time to swerve, or there would have been a collision. My car ended up on the verge, though fortunately there was no damage. I sounded my horn several times but she didn’t stop.’

  ‘Where exactly did this happen?’

  ‘Near the turn-off that leads to a restaurant called Il Ferriolo.’

  Ferrara knew the place. ‘Why do you think this information might be useful?’ he asked.

  ‘I drive that way for my work, often at night, and I’ve never seen a woman driving down that road alone at that time of night, especially not at that speed.’

  ‘What sort of car was it?’

  ‘An A-Class Mercedes.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What colour was it?’

  ‘Dark, I think. I can’t be more specific than that. She was almost on top of me and I was scared.’

  ‘Did you notice anything else about the woman or the car?’

  ‘The woman’s head was moving backwards and forwards like a pendulum. I thought she might be drunk or on drugs.’

  ‘You’re going to have to come in to Headquarters. This information could be very useful to us.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I think —’

  Before Ferrara could finish his sentence, he was aware of silence at the other end. He put the receiver down in annoyance. Using the internal phone, he called the Operations Room and asked them to trace the call. A few moments later, the phone rang again. He answered straight away.

  ‘Please don’t think I was being rude, Chief Superintendent. I was cut off.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d call back.’

  ‘Do you really think I can be of use?’

  Ferrara did not reply at once, because an officer had just come in with a piece of paper which he handed to him.

  ‘You’re calling from telephone number 33562…’ Ferrara said. ‘Making this call from a mobile really must be costing you quite a bit. Come in and see me, or I’ll have to send a patrol car out to pick you up from home. What do you say?’

  ‘Give me an hour.’

  ‘I’ll be expecting you.’

  Ferrara thought of delegating the interview to one of his team, but then dismissed the idea. The man, whoever he was, had trusted him and, if he found himself having to deal with someone else, it was quite likely he’d clam up.

  Just over half an hour later, the telephone rang.

  It was the gatehouse, telling him that the person he had been waiting for had arrived.

  ‘Bring him to my office,’ Ferrara replied.

  The man said his name was Sergio D’Amato. He looked to be just over fifty. He was a few inches short of six feet, thin, with light brown hair and an honest-looking face.

  ‘Thank you for coming in,’ Ferrara said, motioning D’Amato to the armchair in front of the desk, the one nearest to the window. ‘All right, Signor D’Amato, please tell me again what happened to you.’

  ‘I already told you on the phone.’

  ‘Yes, but going over it again may help you remember certain details, even small ones, that you didn’t mention before.’

  D’Amato nodded, sat back in the chair, and repeated his account, without adding any further details to those he had provided on the phone.

  ‘What kind of work do you do, Signor D’Amato?’ Ferrara asked him when he had finished. ‘On the phone you told me you often use that road.’

  ‘I’m a mechanic. I own a repair shop in Borgo San Lorenzo.’

  ‘Would you be able to give as detailed a description as possible of the woman who was driving?’

  ‘Chief Superintendent, I was in shock. I was scared, very scared. She suddenly appeared out of nowhere, right on top of me. I only saw her for a few seconds before I swerved to the right to get out of her way.’

  The man paused for several moments, as if trying to remember a half-forgotten detail. Then he continued, ‘What really struck me was the way she was moving her head. She seemed like a robot, as if she was driving with a veil over her eyes. That’s why I thought she must be a drunk or a junkie. At least that’s the impression I got in those few seconds.’

  ‘Could you describe her face?’

  ‘A normal kind of face. She had long hair, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Youngish, I’d say.’

  ‘And was she alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s something I have to ask you to do.’

  ‘Go ahead. I’m here to help.’

  ‘I’d like you to work with an officer from Forensics to put together an identikit. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Now?’ the man said, glancing at his watch. ‘I’ve got to start work early tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s best to do it straight away, while this is all still fresh in your mind. It won’t take more than ten minutes and our expert’s already here.’

  ‘Ten minutes?’

  ‘I guarantee it.’

  Sergio D’Amato nodded his head in agreement.

  ‘In the meantime, let me get you a coffee.’

  Ferrara called Fanti on the internal phone and asked him to make two coffees.

  31

  ‘We’ll be eating in a quarter of an hour or so,’ Eleonora said.

  Rizzo had been watching her in silence from the doorway for several moments while she cooked. He liked his wife’s attention to detail as much now as when they had first met.

  This evening she was wearing a striped yellow apron and was cooking spaghetti carbonara, one of his favourites.

  ‘OK, darling,’ he said, his mouth already watering.

  He went back into the living room and slumped onto the sofa. This was the room he always dreamed about when he was in the office trying to solve a case.

  He thought back over the last few hours, and then over everything else that had happened during that hellish summer. He thought about Leonardo Berghoff’s letter, about Antonio Sergi, a colleague whose possible collusion with the lodge he found hard to believe, and about the words in Costanza’s diary, which might well actually refer to Sergi. And he thought ahead to the inquiries he would have to make the next day, as ordered by the chief.

  There were lots of questions and too few answers.

  For example, how were they going to tell the Prosecutor’s Department that they had hushed up the existence of the letter? Would they be accused of hiding it so as not to wash their dirty linen in public?

  Eleonora’s voice shook him out of his thoughts.

  ‘Dinner’s served, Francesco!’ she called him, carrying the saucepan down the hall to the dining room. ‘Open a bottle of red wine.’

  Yes, he thought, time to think about eating now. Tomorrow is another day.

  Once they had had their coffee, he got up from the table and went to look in on his little girl. When he had got home, she had been asleep and, not wanting to wake her, he had simply glanced in through the half-open door. She was almost a year old and slept in a cot next to their double bed.

  She was just waking up and as soon as she saw him leaning over her, she became agitated, kicked her legs, then started to cry. Eleon
ora ran into the room and put her dummy in her mouth, stroking her back and murmuring sweet nothings to her. After a while, the girl calmed down.

  ‘It’s because you’re never here, Francesco,’ his wife said, with a touch of reproof. ‘She doesn’t recognise you. As far as she’s concerned, you’re a stranger.’