Hunted

by Monty Marsden

  Sensi arched a brow. “It’s not standard procedure.”

  “I’d like to be alone with him – nobody else around, please. Not even his lawyer.”

  “He doesn’t have any lawyers right now – the guy that you saw in the video clip got so scared that he resigned the post immediately. Riondino will have to wait until tomorrow to hear about a new lawyer. Your request to talk to him however doesn’t…”

  “It won’t be an interrogation,” Claps interrupted him with more energy than he intended to. “Nor is it going to be a psychiatric assessment. I just want to talk to him.”

  “You saw how dangerous he can be, right?”

  “There will be time to take action, if necessary.”

  “Four men barely managed to contain him.”

  “Then ask five men to wait outside the room, ready for action.”

  Sensi sighed. “You’re a consultant, Claps. A consultant – you’re not supposed to take part in the investigation.”

  “Yeah, a consultant – this will give me a chance to do my job to the best of my ability. Let me talk to Riondino.”

  “Why are you so insistent on talking to him?”

  Claps hesitated, then he answered. “Because I want to understand.”

  “Only a few minutes – it won’t be an interrogation on what happened, okay?”

  Claps nodded. “I won’t ask him anything related to the things that he has been accused of.”

  Sensi reflected for a moment and then walked towards the main door. “Alright then – let me organise this meeting.”

  6

  Today.

  Sensi was at a working dinner, in a high class restaurant in Milan. The politician that he was having dinner with was the centre of attention – everybody, including Sensi’s colleagues, were very keen to talk to him.

  Sensi was trying to find a good excuse to leave, when Maiezza called him on the phone. Sensi raised his hand to apologise to the politician and then walked a few steps away from the table to answer the phone call.

  “The police department in Florence sent us a notice; it’s from a few hours ago but I’ve only just started my shift so I only read the document now. I thought I should let you know immediately.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Riondino escaped this evening. He cut the throats of the two nurses who were with him and he ran away from the psychiatric hospital where he was staying.”

  Sensi’s stomach suddenly felt heavy – he was the one who had arrested Riondino. He had never been fully convinced that he was really the lunatic the psychiatrists had declared him to be – this diagnosis had spared him lifetime incarceration in prison because he was deemed unable to control his actions. He knew that something like this would happen, sooner or later.

  “Are we involved in the hunt?”

  “Not yet – they think that he’s still in the Florence area, but there’s something that we have to keep an eye on – we have details of a car that he might have used to escape from the site; we know the registration number and model.”

  “Have photographs been distributed?”

  “We have a problem with the photos – we only have very old ones. Apparently Riondino has lost an awful lot of weight over the last few years and has grown his hair and beard. We should be able to get something more recent tomorrow… if they don’t catch him earlier, that is.”

  “I hope so. Hell, I hope so.”

  Sensi hung up and walked back to the table, deeply troubled. If anything, he had a very good excuse to get away from there now.

  *

  Seven years earlier.

  Riondino was sitting behind a table, handcuffed. There was just one other chair in front of him. Sensi had figured that yes, the table could be dangerous if Riondino decided to throw it at him, but it would be more likely to work as a barrier between him and the man. It would give the police a few seconds to rush into the room if things took a turn for the worse. Claps wanted Riondino free of the handcuffs, but Sensi would’nt agree to that. No chance.

  “Good morning, Mr Riondino.” Claps sounded extraordinarily profound and relaxed.

  Riondino’s attitude was no different from usual. “Why did you handcuff me? I have done nothing wrong…” he complained.

  “I’m sure that you don’t mean any harm to me, but we have to do this, I’m sorry.”

  “But I never had them… you asked me so many questions without any… chains.”

  “Do you remember when you were handcuffed for the first time?”

  Riondino looked even more confused. “No… we were talking… they were telling me that I did some terrible things… then I don’t remember very well… I think that they beat me… they jumped over me and…” Riondino indicated the handcuffs by tilting his head slightly. “They put these around my wrists.”

  “Has it happened before that you blank out, even for a very short period of time during the day… where you just don’t remember what you did and what you said?”

  “No… I don’t think so… or maybe… sometimes… but it happens to everyone… right?”

  “Of course, it happens to me as well, sometimes. I feel confused… a bit like finding myself somewhere and not remembering how I got there. Is that how you feel?”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “My memory fails me… when it comes to remembering recent events, I mean. If I don’t try my best to focus, I don’t remember.”

  “I… don’t know…”

  “Let’s try together, shall we?”

  Riondino began to fidget nervously. “Why… a test? Do you think that I did those terrible things and that I don’t remember?”

  “No, Mr Riondino. I’m a doctor and my only job here is to help you. There are some drugs that could help with…”

  “You want to drug me? Is that your way to get me to admit things that I never did?” Riondino was keeping his fingers intertwined – they were so tight together that they had become pale and trembled.

  “I don’t mean you any harm, I promise. I’m here to help you. I want you to be able to defend yourself better than you’re doing now.”

  “Where’s my lawyer?”

  “You’re not going to need a lawyer this time – I’m not going to interrogate you. I’m just asking if we can try something together to see if your memory is still okay or if you forget something every now and then just like me. You see, it might be that we can find something in one of your hidden memories that will help you to defend yourself from the accusations.”

  “Defend myself?” Riondino appeared to calm down. “Can you take my handcuffs off? Please?”

  “I’ll try… let’s take a short break,” Claps said and then he stood up and walked out of the room.

  As soon as Claps emerged from the room, Sensi snapped nervously. “Forget it!”

  “It’s important – he has to be able to relax and he won’t be able to do that handcuffed.”

  “Relax? How would that help? He’s been good so far but I don’t understand what he’s trying to get and what he plans to do. Why should he relax? Isn’t it enough for him to just answer your questions?”

  “You’ll see – just free him from the handcuffs for now.”

  “You’re thinking about something, right?”

  “Yeah, but I need to verify my hypothesis – please take the handcuffs off him.”

  “Tell me your hypothesis, first.”

  The old footage appeared in Claps’ mind again.

  “I’ll give you a name – Billy Milligan.”

  “Billy Milligan? Who’s he? What’s that to do with it?”

  “I’ll tell you later – the handcuffs, please.”

  *

  Claps waited a few minutes and then decided to walk back in to free Riondino’s hands. Riondino sat behind the table again and raised his hands timidly towards Claps. “Thank you.”

  “Is it better now?”

  Riondino nodded and then looked away. “I’m ready, if you want.”

&n
bsp; Claps was sitting comfortably, his back leaning against the chair and his hands resting on the table. He wanted to create as much space as possible between Riondino and himself, he didn’t want to give him the impression that he was invading his territory. Claps observed the hands of the man who had been freed from the handcuffs – they were intertwined together, but not as tightly as before. His shoulders were still hunched; his head lowered.

  “Can I ask you a few questions about one of your days?”

  Riondino nodded silently again.

  “Let’s take a random day from last week, before everything happened. Do you remember any days? Would you rather talk about one day in particular?”

  “It doesn’t matter… Thursday.”

  Claps tried to resist the temptation to ask him why he had chosen that day in particular. “Very well, Thursday it is then. Can you tell me what you did that day?”

  “Well… I woke up in the morning and then I went to work…”

  Claps interrupted him almost immediately. “You didn’t have breakfast?”

  “Of course.”

  “At home or outside?”

  “I always have breakfast at home.”

  “With what?”

  “I make myself a coffee and I have a brioche, one of those packaged cakes.”

  “And you had coffee and brioche that day as well?”

  “Thursday… Yeah. In fact, I remember that I realised that I was running out of brioches – I went out to buy some more in the evening.”

  “Do you remember what you were wearing at work?”

  “I have three suits that I wear at work – I was wearing the grey, striped one.”

  Claps carried on asking questions about his day for a few more minutes – how he had gone to work, where he had parked, whether he remembered what the weather was like. Riondino struggled to remember some details at times, but he answered fairly precisely to almost everything.

  One the other side of the glass, Sensi was itching to know where Claps was leading.

  “What does he have in mind?” he hissed to one of the men who were ready to enter the room if Claps needed help. “Why on earth is he interested in knowing so many details about a random day?” Who was Billy Milligan and what did he have to do with this case?

  “Did you go and see any clients that day?” Claps asked.

  “Yes,” Riondino frowned a little.

  “I remember submitting three reports before leaving the office that day.”

  “Last Thursday – are you sure? It has been a few days, though maybe not so many.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure because those were the last visits of the week – Friday is always the day of administrative tasks.”

  “So you met three clients. Do you remember the first one?”

  Riondino looked a little lost for a moment. “They’re all so similar…” he said unsurely. “I usually always say the same things to them.”

  “Was your client a man or a woman?” Claps asked, making sure he kept a friendly, calm attitude throughout their conversation.

  “It’s difficult to say on the spot… maybe a man.”

  “Maybe?”

  “I don’t remember very well…”

  “Perhaps you’ll remember your second client better – was it a man or a woman? Or a couple, even?”

  Riondino shook his head quickly – he was getting nervous. “It’s so strange… I can’t remember… I’m sorry.”

  “Is it the same for your third visit?”

  “I’m trying my best… but yeah.”

  Sensi was confused. “This man remembers perfectly what he eats for breakfast, what he wears at work and where he parked his car that day… and then he forgets who he talked to at work?” Sensi asked out loud, talking more to himself than to the men who were next to him.

  On the other side of the glass, Claps carried on with his conversation, using a persuasive tone. “Don’t worry – it’s not that important after all. Just out of curiosity – what do you write in those reports that you have to hand in at the end of your day at work?”

  Riondino appeared to calm down a little. “Details of the client that I visit and the results of the meeting – whether they have bought any products or whether they intend to, whether I’m planning to meet them again, whether I have identified a particular product that could be of interest to the client…”

  “Do you remember what you wrote in your reports that day?”

  “I remember very well that I handed the reports in.”

  “But I asked you what you wrote in them?”

  “I just… remember that I handed them in.” Riondino had begun to sound nervous again.

  “Okay, let’s move on. What did you do after handing in the reports?”

  “I went home… but before then, I went to the supermarket to buy some food.”

  “The brioches?”

  “Yeah, but not only those – I always go food shopping on a Thursday… there are less people around.”

  “Do you remember anything in particular of when you went food shopping? Something that you bought… or that you saw?”

  “Let me think… yes… when I was queuing up at the check-out, there was a young man complaining about how slow the lady at the till was – he was a football fan and he didn’t want to be late for the match.”

  “A football match on a Thursday?”

  “Yeah, one of those league matches… European League, I think he said. He supported Inter Milan.”

  “Do you like football? Do you support a team?”

  “No, I’m not interested in football.”

  “Yeah, same here,” Claps said with a hint of a smile. “What did you do after shopping?”

  “I went back home… I made some dinner. Fifty grams of pasta with some passata and a lean steak, if it matters.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Just some TV and then I went to bed – I’m always tired after dinner.”

  “What did you watch on TV?”

  “A film.”

  “Do you remember the title or what it was about?”

  “No… I can’t remember… but I’m pretty sure that I watched a film.”

  “What do you usually watch on TV?”

  “Films, most of the times… and the news, of course.”

  “Any shows, sport, music channels?”

  “No, I’m not interested in them – just films.”

  “What’s the last one that you saw?”

  Riondino seemed to struggle to remember once again. “I’m tired… can we take a break? I need a drink…”

  Claps stood up. “A glass of tap water?”

  Riondino nodded wearily and Claps left the room.

  *

  Today.

  “Whatever way we choose, we’re likely to cross paths with a police patrol. Let’s just take the motorway, shall we, Fox?”

  The Audi sports car that had belonged to Matteo Contri headed out of Florence.

  “I don’t like blood – it makes me sick. I’ve seen enough for today.”

  “Hannibal loves it – we didn’t have a choice anyway. I’m glad that we took that long knife from the kitchen… it would have been difficult to deal with two policemen without a weapon.”

  “A butchering knife, just like one of those knives that he likes so much. We have been wise. And lucky.”

  “Your idea of luck is messed up, Fox – they found us when they still should have had no idea where we could be.”

  “The phone call…”

  “Yeah, the phone call… what else?”

  “Using that man’s mobile phone was a wrong move.”

  “Shut up, you didn’t even want to get rid of it at first. Of course they would have found us sooner or later… but I don’t understand how they did so quickly.”

  A police patrol car appeared a few minutes later and parked at the edge of the road a few metres away from the toll booth – it was too late to change direction. The few cars around at that time of day were all
lined up and it was impossible to turn round before the police check. There were at least six policemen, all of them with automatic weapons at the ready. Riondino felt his stomach tie in knots and his heart began to pound as he approached the roadblock. There were four cars in front of him.

  The first car went through very quickly – the policeman just pointed his torch at the driver and let her through. A woman, Riondino thought. The second car’s driver showed his documents to the policeman – he was asked to get out of the car and open the boot.

  The third car belonged to a couple – they were waved through quickly. The Audi moved forward and stopped gently next to the policeman. The other officers, who were standing in front of the car and on the other side were watching carefully, fingers ready on their triggers. The torchlight illuminated Riondino’s face first for a few seconds and then moved to the back of the car. The policeman was probably looking for an older version of Riondino – a man with long hair tied in a ponytail and a beard; he was probably expecting Riondino to drive a different car from the one that belonged to Matteo Contri.

  “Your documents, please.”

  Riondino handed his documents through the window. The policeman lingered for a few seconds on the driving licence photo.

  “Can you kindly get out of the car and open the boot for us, Mr Contri?”

  Riondino got out of the car a little nervously and opened the boot. “I’m sorry,” he said to justify his clumsiness. “Those automatic weapons freak me out.”

  “What does the suitcase contain?” The agent asked. “Can you open it for us?”

  Riondino followed the policeman’s order. “They’re just personal things, as you can see.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Bologna – I have a work appointment early tomorrow morning.”

  The policeman looked at him one more time and then handed him the documents back. “Drive safely.”

  7

  Seven years earlier.

  “So now we know that he doesn’t remember details of a random day from last week.” Sensi gave Claps a sceptical look. “How’s that helpful?”

  “He remembers some details with unusual precision, though. Isn’t that a little strange? He remembers what he had for breakfast, what he was wearing but not one of the people that he talked to… and I’m sure his conversations lasted a while.”