Both of those who had taught him to love the “Eternal City” were dead, and he felt alone as the taxi cut between lanes into the city center.
Luigi had been diagnosed with lung cancer four years earlier and had died early one morning in September three and a half years ago. Milo remembered the funeral and the crowded church. And six months later his mother’s problems took hold of her in earnest, and she had been hospitalized. It was still difficult for him to reconcile the fact that she had chosen to end her life by her own hand.
* * *
The taxi stopped in front of the hotel, Milo tipped generously and shortly after he was checking in at reception.
“Emil Cavalli?”
The young man behind the counter was not able to restrain himself.
“Sei italiano? Are you Italian?”
“My mother was Italian.”
“Ah. I understand.”
Milo took the key, found the elevator, and went to his room on the eighth floor. It struck him how seldom he stayed at a hotel in Italy. As a rule, he stayed at one of three places: the apartment in Milan, the family place in Tuscany or the summer house in Sardinia.
He looked down at the traffic and the many Vespa scooters moving around like wasps—as the name suggested—and called Commissario Benedetti. Once again he had to leave a voice mail. There was nothing that suggested that the Italian policeman had any intention of working on the weekend.
But Milo did not intend to wait until Monday to do what he had come for. He quickly gathered his money, credit cards and cell phone and left the hotel room.
On his way into the taxi the phone rang. He hoped it was Benedetti, but saw Theresa’s name on the display.
“Ciao, carina! Hi, darling!”
“Hi. I was just talking with Corrado, and he said you were going to Rome.”
“I’m here now. Landed an hour ago.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Her tone was slightly reproachful.
“It just came up a few hours ago. An urgent assignment,” Milo replied.
“But I want to see you. How long will you be there?”
“I don’t really know. A couple of days, at most. A woman was killed here, and I’m going to help the family bring her body home.”
“Oh. But I want to see you,” she repeated.
“I want to see you too.”
“There’s a train to Rome arriving at quarter after nine. We could have a late dinner together.”
“That sounds great.”
“Will you meet me at the station?”
He looked automatically at his watch. That was only three hours from now, but in any event that was enough time for what he had planned the next few hours.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet you at the station,” he answered.
* * *
The courtyard was antique yellow with flower boxes in front of the windows. And between them were lines with clothes drying. As Milo went up to the entry and was about to ring the bell, the door opened and an old woman dressed in black toddled out.
“Signora,” Milo greeted her politely and slipped through the door, relieved at not having to talk his way in by using the phone system.
The entry smelled like Saturday. A mixture of laundry softener and food cooking.
On his way up the stairs he could hear the sound of TVs turned on full blast, filling the apartments with noise from loud game- and talk shows. He came to the fifth floor and checked that the name on the doorbell matched. He adjusted his tie and rang.
Inside he heard the occupants calling to each other about who was busiest and therefore couldn’t answer. Finally there was the sound of shuffling steps and the rattling of a chain being unhooked before the door was opened.
The man in the doorway was at least two heads shorter than Milo, and dressed in a white mesh undershirt and khaki pants that were fastened high above his navel. His hair, or the little that remained and which lay like a little wreath over his ears, was gray and matched what stuck out through the holes in the mesh undershirt. He stared uncomprehendingly at Milo.
“Signor Benedetti?” Milo asked.
“Sono io. Chi é?” That’s me. Who are you?”
“I’m Milo Cavalli. From the Norwegian police.”
Benedetti answered with a little “ah,” before he hurried to explain that it was Saturday and he didn’t work on weekends.
“We’ll do this Monday morning, Cavalli,” he said, while he tried to push him back and close the door.
Milo took a step forward, and right then Signora Benedetti came into view in the entry to see who her husband was talking with. Milo put on his best smile, and made a little bow.
“Signora, che profumo! What an aroma! What are you making for dinner?”
The woman lit up.
“Tummala!” she said proudly.
Milo turned his eyes skyward in recognition. He was familiar with the classic Sicilian gratin dish that contained everything from chicken, onions, tomatoes and celery to sausages, cheese and meatballs. It was one of his grandfather’s favorite dishes from southern Italy, and he felt a sting of melancholy and fullness when he recalled how his grandmother made him finish several generous portions. Crammed full on the verge of unbearable. And then a little, ice-cold glass of limoncello after dinner was the only salvation.
“It smells heavenly! Tell me, do you make it with veal meatballs too, the way my grandmother always did?”
“Of course! But who are you?”
Milo briefly explained who he was and why he was there. Contact with the wife in the house was established, and her husband stood like an extra, almost clinging to the door.
“The problem, signora, is that my bosses require me to submit a report. They don’t care if it’s a weekend and that we poor foot soldiers only want to rest.”
Kicking upwards never failed, and Signora Benedetti shook her head understandingly at how difficult bosses could be.
Milo continued.
“So I only wondered whether I could be so bold as to borrow your husband a short while, if I promise to have him back in time for dinner at nine o’clock?”
Even if Commissario Benedetti had said that they would soon be sitting down for dinner, Milo guessed that did not add up. Which his wife confirmed.
“Of course. No problem. Just take him along. Here he’s just in the way,” she said before returning to the kitchen and the saucepans.
Milo looked at the Italian policeman in the mesh undershirt and smiled slyly.
“Let’s go.”
“Vengo. I’m coming,” Benedetti muttered.
6
They were followed by an overeager hotel manager, who glimpsed hope that the police could soon release the room and let him make money on it again. He inserted the key card into the door and invited them in with a bow.
The room was small and smelled musty.
Milo´s gaze drifted inexorably to the bed in the middle of the room, where Ingrid Tollefsen had been found dead a few days earlier. Now the bed was empty, and only a slight wrinkle on one side of the bedspread showed that someone had been lying there.
Milo held up the picture of the dead woman. Her hair spread out, one foot hanging limply off the edge of the bed. He moved around the bed and inspected the room. The other two observed him in silence.
“Where is her suitcase?”
“At the station. We have all her belongings,” Benedetti answered, handing him a sheet of paper. “Here’s the list of what she had.”
Milo took a quick look at it.
“No laptop?”
“No.”
“But she was traveling on business, wasn’t she?”
“Sì.”
“Strange to go on a business trip without a laptop.”
“Sì.”
Milo looked out the window. The street below was narrow, but people still managed to park on both sides of it. Granted that they made use of the sidewalk. A carabinieri car had squeezed in and blocked a pedestrian crossing. Right
across from the hotel was an apartment building. Could anyone have seen something? He turned around.
“Commissario, has—”
“We’ve gone door-to-door in the building across the street. No one saw or heard anything. As you see from the pictures, the drapes were drawn,” the Italian policeman interrupted him.
Milo looked at him. There was no hint of arrogance in his gaze, only a sincere desire to make the stay in the hotel room as brief as possible so that he could go home for dinner. Milo could not help liking him.
“Great. I’ll just look at the rest of the room, then we’ll go,” he said.
It was a corner room, and the bathroom faced a small courtyard. Milo glanced into the bathroom, and at the same time looked at the pictures the Italian police had taken. The shampoo bottle on the edge of the bathtub, the tube of toothpaste on the shelf, the pillboxes by the mirror and the bottle of body lotion on the washstand had been removed. Now the bathroom was emptied, but still not cleaned. The faint odor of shampoo and perfume remained.
He stepped on the pedal of the waste container and could see that it too, was empty. Then he pulled the shower curtain completely to the side. All he saw were some soap remnants and a few strands of hair by the drain. On the wall there was a small window opening. It was closed. Alongside it a small air vent was cracked open. The courtyard air struck him.
“Was the window in here closed or open when you came? Did one of you close it?” he called out to the two who were waiting.
A couple seconds later Benedetti stuck his head in.
“It was closed.”
“What about the air vent?”
Benedetti glanced at the wall.
“None of us have touched it. It’s probably been open the whole time.”
“What’s outside there?”
“Just a courtyard with some trash cans, cardboard boxes and parked scooters.”
“Hmmm.”
“We’ve checked there,” Benedetti answered.
Milo looked out, but the vent was too small to give him the overview he wanted of the courtyard.
He looked around. Pulled a little on the shower curtain, let his eyes move along the one wall up to the ceiling, where he could follow a little crack in the paint all the way over to the light fixture. He got out of the bathtub and stood in the middle of the room. Benedetti observed him, but did not seem to want to say anything.
Why were both the bathroom and the hotel room itself so orderly? Milo thought. Shouldn’t there be traces that a life-and-death struggle had taken place here? The killer could not have broken in while Ingrid Tollefsen was asleep, because there was no sign that the door was forced open. But, at the same time, it was difficult to understand that she had given up without a struggle.
Milo tried to picture how she opened the door and stared at the killer. He saw only two possibilities: either a life-and-death struggle with howling, screaming and blows, or quickly taking refuge in the bathroom.
He took hold of the door handle and closed it. The bathroom immediately felt smaller, and Benedetti took a step back toward the sink. As if the room was a bit too small for both of them.
The handle was round, the kind you twist around to open. The lock was a button you pushed in.
Milo tried to push it in, but as he let go, it sprang back again. It would not stay. He tried again. The same thing happened.
“It can’t be locked,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Benedetti.
The Italian policeman responded with a shrug.
Milo opened the door again and got down on his knees. He looked at the fitting on the door, and then at the fitting on the doorframe. The fitting was dull, but not everywhere. The hole in the doorframe, where the bolt of the lock slid in when the door was closed, was bent in a tiny bit, and there was a light scratch in the fitting facing into the bathroom.
He pointed at it, and turned toward Benedetti.
“This must have happened recently. This scratch is much lighter and doesn’t have the same faded color as the rest of the fitting.”
Benedetti came a few steps closer and looked at the spot Milo was pointing at.
“That might well be,” he said.
“Someone used force to push open the door not too long ago.”
Benedetti’s face was expressionless.
“She locked herself in the bathroom. And then the killer forced the door,” said Milo.
“That might well be. But then wouldn’t the damage have been greater? There is no damage to the door itself,” Benedetti replied.
Milo shook his head and stood up. He closed the door and pointed at the lock.
“The bolt doesn’t go very far in. A person with a little muscle, or weight, could easily force open this door. That might also explain the damage to the lock.”
He looked around the bathroom again. He was convinced that Ingrid Tollefsen had sought refuge in here. But why hadn’t she screamed? he thought. And it struck him that perhaps she had. Without anyone hearing it other than the killer. Or else she was unable to. She could have been paralyzed with fright.
His gaze was drawn toward the bathtub again. Milo stepped into it for the second time, let one hand glide along the edge, leaned over, and with a paper napkin, removed the strands of hair in the drain and looked down into it. Then he straightened up and thoughtfully drew his hand along the wall tiles under the little air vent.
He caught sight of something in one joint. Between two tiles a short line had been scratched. He glanced at the other joints, but no similar marks were to be seen.
It looked like the line had been scratched on purpose. Was there an attempt to draw an arrow on the upper part of the line? In that case it pointed right up at the vent.
He moved his head even closer. Under the arrow he saw another two lines. He felt a tingling through his body when he recognized the initials I T.
Ingrid Tollefsen.
Milo turned toward the Italian.
“I’d like to take a quick look in the courtyard anyway,” he said.
Benedetti shrugged his shoulders in resignation in an “as you wish” gesture. Milo smiled at him.
“Commissario, if it was you who had come to Oslo to investigate the killing of an Italian citizen, you would do the same,” he said.
Benedetti looked at him. “Certo. Of course.”
* * *
Six stories down, at ground level, the courtyard smelled even more like a rear courtyard. Even if it was too cramped and narrow for the sun to reach all the way down to the cobblestones, it warmed up enough that the garbage cans emitted an air of decay.
The hotel manager wisely stayed inside the door between the kitchen and the outside area, while Benedetti took a few steps into the courtyard for courtesy’s sake. Milo tried to identify the relevant bathroom window.
“It’s that window there, isn’t it?” he said, pointing.
Benedetti looked up, then nodded in reply.
Milo did not know what he was looking for. He only knew that he had to make the rounds down here too. Sørensen would certainly have done it. And even if Milo’s experience with homicide investigation was limited, he knew a lot about achieving results. About being the best.
“Essere il migliore é una funzione di due cose: sforzo e persistenza.” Being best is a function of two things: effort and persistence, his grandfather had always said.
Milo remembered especially well another of his grandfather’s sayings, from a summer in Sardinia. There was a discussion at dinner that touched on the concept of talent. Corrado, his cousin, was talking about some talented individuals he knew in Milan. Probably a couple of young ladies whose actual talent was highly debatable. Then their grandfather, who was never one to dominate dinner discussions, proclaimed loudly and clearly, “I consider myself fortunate that I have never had any talent that I’ve let myself be fooled by.”
The discussion died then and there.
Milo moved a few boxes and felt the sweat on his back. He longed for a shower b
efore meeting Theresa. Behind him he heard Benedetti fire up yet another cigarette.
“A couple more minutes,” he said, going carefully down on his knee to peek under a garbage can.
He glimpsed something white by one of the wheels. He stood up and started pulling on the garbage can, which stank of food scraps. Slowly it moved, and when he had pulled it all the way out, a small, round vial came into view. His pulse became stronger.
He picked up the vial. It was white and dirty and cracked. Probably from when the wheels on the garbage can had squeezed it down against the cobblestones. He rotated it in his hand and felt a flicker of satisfaction when he read the label taped to the vial.
“Commissario! Look!”
Benedetti came over to him. With his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he took the vial and rolled it around in his hands while he read the label.
“Che cazzo! What the fuck!”
The label said “Antidiab” and under the Norwegian doctor’s name was the patient’s: Ingrid Tollefsen.
He opened it and looked up. It contained a few tablets, but also a small piece of paper. Benedetti stuck his fingers down and carefully pulled the paper up. It was wet, and almost in shreds after the dampness had penetrated through the crack in the plastic.
What had once been written with black color was now flowing over the paper, apart from a few letters.
“Verba…” Milo read out loud as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the courtyard pungent with garbage.
Five barely legible letters. The rest was a blurry, black scribble.
* * *
It was almost eight thirty when they left the hotel.
“I’ll get a taxi and drop you off on the way back to my hotel,” said Milo.
“I’m in no hurry. There’s a bar right around the corner here,” Benedetti replied, beginning to zigzag between the parked cars on the sidewalk.
“But I promised your wife—”
“Neither she nor dinner are going anywhere,” the Italian policeman interrupted him.
The bar was a bar in the Italian sense. That is, a coffee bar during the day, but with the possibility to have a glass of wine standing at the counter in the afternoon and early evening. It was half-full, but the TV hanging up in one corner helped keep the noise level at maximum. They each brought a glass of prosecco out onto the sidewalk, and Benedetti took out his pack of cigarettes. He held it out to Milo, who thanked him and took one.
The Oslo Conspiracy Page 4