Maiezza nodded, then turned, thoughtfully, to walk out of the office. Sensi called him back before he could step out of the door. “Don’t let anyone else know that we’re certain he’s here in Milan. In fact, let’s tell people that we think he’s far away from here… let’s make him feel free to move around in the city. Let’s see if he falls into our trap.”
When Sensi was alone in the office, he walked towards the window.
He had something to work on now, at least.
He pulled the curtain aside. The street was crowded with cars and passers-by.
“I’ll find you, you bastard. I’ll find you.”
*
Riondino had slept for the whole day – twelve hours straight since dawn, when he had finally managed to fall asleep.
It felt good to wake up free. It was a feeling that he had only dreamed about during the last seven years.
“How do you feel, Fox?”
“It’s weird… it’s like there’s too much air to breathe.”
“It’s called freedom – you’ll get used to it.” he said and then turned on the TV to watch the news. The anchor man was showing some photographs of the victims, as he explained that the search had been extended to cover the whole country. Riondino had left the car in Milan and he had probably taken a train to god knows where.
“It’s working,” the Fox said.
“Bullshit, they know that we’re in Milan. There’s no other place that we know so well and where we can hide among so many people.”
The anchor man showed a fairly recent photo of Riondino followed by a photoshopped version – without the beard and the long hair.
“This is what Giacomo Riondino could look like today,” the anchor man said. The two pictures stayed on the screen for a long time.
“It doesn’t look like me, especially now that we look like Matteo,” the Fox said.
“No, but it’s not that different… we’ll change appearance soon anyway. We’re safe here and we have everything that we need – food, money, a TV, a mobile phone and a laptop, all brand new. We shouldn’t walk around in the city much, as we discussed before. And then we’ll do what we have to do.”
“Hannibal and the others?”
“Don’t worry – it’s all under control. Nobody will give us any trouble.”
*
Greta had decided to write a second article eventually – she hadn’t even tried to oppose her manager when he asked her to write it a couple of hours earlier. “I’d like you to write a few lines about Riondino’s childhood and then include an interview with an expert which explains why it is the cause of all his problems.”
She didn’t have to make any effort to remember. After she had met Claps the previous night she was overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding – some kind of background, constant uneasiness that didn’t allow her to completely forget about Riondino. It was as if after so many years of withdrawing from cases like this, she couldn’t help but feel a magnetic attraction to it. She had spent the whole night watching and reading all the material relating to Riondino that she had produced before her seven year break, when she was the queen of the news, one of the most famous and talented personalities on TV. She had turned the lights off only when it was almost dawn.
It hadn’t been difficult to write that second article at all – and she had written a lot more than just a few lines. After all, how could such a complicated story be told in a few lines?
Riondino’s mother Anna had given birth to him after a casual relationship. Three years later, she had married Sergio Riondino, a violent alcoholic who had given little more than his family name to the fledgling serial killer. The marriage had been hell from the very beginning – just like in one of those shabby, clichéd novels; the man would disappear for days and then he would turn up at home drunk and violent towards his wife and son. He had been in prison for a year for robbery and when he had returned home – a little early thanks to his good behaviour – he was a different man. Anna became pregnant again and when she gave birth to her second child, Riondino was already seven years old. The childbirth was difficult – she underwent emergency surgery and that was the beginning of a long period of depression that would only get worse over the years. Soon afterwards, Sergio fell into his old habits again and became even more violent. The little Riondino was the one who would suffer most of the violent – and sometimes sexual – attacks. Sergio died three years later as he drove his moped the wrong way up a one way street, drunk and with his other little son on board. The little child died a few hours later in agony. Giacomo Riondino was left alone with his mother and spent the rest of his childhood and most of his teenage years quietly. All those who knew him would describe him as a slightly unusual guy, extremely clever at school in some subjects, but hopeless in others. He graduated two years later than average and two months before his mother passed away.
Even after she had sent the article to the editors, Greta couldn’t get rid of the overwhelming sense of foreboding – a restless sense of agony that hadn’t left her alone since the previous night. She thought that she would have been rid of it after talking to Claps and then by writing the article… but none of that had worked.
She swallowed one more benzodiazepine bill and then prepared herself for a warm bath, avoiding looking at her reflection in the mirrors – she knew that her haunted eyes would make her feel even worse. After the bath, while she was still wearing her robe, she picked up her phone.
“Claps?”
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Do you know anything else about Riondino? Did you get a chance to talk to Sensi?”
Claps hesitated and then answered. “I saw him,” he said eventually, almost unwillingly. “He wants me to help him understand how Riondino’s illness has changed him over the… the years.”
“Excellent,” Greta exclaimed, with an excited tone that didn’t sound natural. “Maybe you’ll be able to answer some of the questions that we were thinking about last night.”
“Maybe…” Claps didn’t want to tell her that all that he wanted was to keep out of that story, all the blood and the bodies. “I’ll go to Florence to talk to Professor Re… Reti tomorrow. He’s the doctor who has given medical advice to Riondino over the last five years.”
“There was more than one doctor who treated him?”
“Not that many – there was another psychiatrist over the last two years… the one who certified that Riondino was no longer dangerous… and allowed him to transfer to a rehabilitation centre. Doctor Rinaldi. He lives in Milan and commutes to Florence regularly. I’m going to see him after I talk to Professor Reti.”
“Can you keep me updated?”
Once again, Claps felt like a war veteran who had been scarred by the horrors of the war and had lost his peace in the battlefield, despite emerging victorious.
Claps asked the question spontaneously. “Do you want to… come with me?”
Maybe some company was all that he needed to fight this new battle.
His voice sounded unusually dreamy when he asked the question again. “Do you want to come to Florence with me?”
*
“Hey Professor… I need you. I need to find an Internet connection that’s different from ours.”
Riondino’s fingers lightly touched the keyboard of his laptop.
“There are three different Wi-Fi connections, but they’re all protected by passwords.”
“Are you able to use any of them?”
“I have to find some software to decrypt passwords and download it – it’s not that easy.”
“Move your ass, then.”
“Excuse me, Jack, but why can’t we just use this computer for what you want to do?”
“It’s not safe, now get typing away and find a way to connect to one of those Wi-Fi bands.”
It took almost an hour, then Riondino smiled the smile of victory. “Here we go, Jack. It’s a strong connection; it probably comes from the neighbours.”
“Will
the neighbours find out that we’re using their connection?”
“I made sure we’re invisible – we can use the Internet without anyone knowing.”
“Well done, man. Now get some rest and let me do some work – there’s a website that I have to visit.”
Riondino typed quickly on the keyboard: ‘www.identificationconsulting.com2. The webpage opened immediately.
We provide new digital identities online
Yes, that’s right – we are able to make authentic copies of identity documents, including number and data based security systems. Simply send us a passport sized photo and we will attach it to the document that you request. All that you have to do is to select age and gender and we will find an identity to clone with your desired data.
We are able to provide a European identity card or a driving licence, cloned from original documents and based on the data provided by the client.
The identity card and the driving licence will be fully cloned from original, existing documents and will display the photo provided by the client. They will be legally valid, because the personal details and document numbers, rather than the photograph, are always recorded by the authorities.
The Clone Documents can only be used for entertainment purposes. Any illegal use will be subject to prosecution.
Riondino followed the instructions to obtain an identity profile and accessed a chat room from the United Kingdom. A few seconds later, a new window opened asking him to select the language that he intended to use.
He clicked on ‘Italiano’.
A few seconds later, he was put through to a new window.
“Please be aware that the documents that we provide can only be used for entertainment purposes. We hope that this is clear.”
“Crystal clear, thanks.”
“What type of service are you interested in?”
“I want a European identity card and a driving licence, please. Both of them in the same name.”
“Can you give me details of the person in question?”
“Male, aged between fifty and fifty-three, preferably residing in Milan.”
“I’ll have a look in our database to see if we can be of any help. It will take a few minutes.”
A few minutes later, the chat window flashed.
“Claudio Alderighi, fifty-two years old, living in Milan, via Ariberto 1.”
“That’s perfect – let me know how to proceed.”
“An advance payment will have to be made for us to continue – it will be two thousand five hundred Euros payable by MoneyGram or Western Union. You will then have to send an HD passport sized photo that you want in your document. Finally, we will need an address to send the requested documents.”
“How long will it take?”
“Five days at most.”
“I need the documents urgently. I would be prepared to pay a thousand Euros extra to receive the documents a lot quicker than you suggested.”
“Okay. In that case, we will be able to send them to you within two or three days at most.”
“Okay, that’s better – give me the details to make payment, please.”
*
“Do you want me to order some food for you? Maybe a pizza? It’s 11 p.m. and you haven’t eaten anything yet.”
“Fuck, Maiezza, why do you always need to be so precise with time? We’re not writing a report or anything.” Sensi was immersed in researching the profiles of Riondino’s online friends – he had wanted to get on with the work as soon as he got hold of the access details on Facebook. “Thanks anyway – I’m not hungry. Maybe some more coffee?”
Sensi was nervous and doubtful. At a first glance, only two of the eight profiles could have been of interest to Riondino. Both of them were single males in their forties, without much of a social life; one of them was probably gay. He looked like Matteo Contri’s doppelganger. These two men, however, seemed the only two contacts likely to have been of interest to Riondino if Sensi worked on the assumption that Matteo Contri was the prototype of an interesting, useful person for Riondino’s plans. That is to say, a solitary person with their own accommodation who could be disposed of relatively unobtrusively..
Was it logical to think that Riondino could act the same way twice? That he used the same strategy? Surely he couldn’t imagine that the police had found his Facebook profile, but would it have been wise to repeat himself? Did he not figure out that they would have understood how he had found Matteo Contri?
“A winning strategy is a winning strategy,” Maiezza said when Sensi told him his thoughts.
Why had Riondino chose those eight particular people as new friends online? Surely he didn’t want to just make new friends, although that might have been part of the reason. There had to be more to it – something that he could have used once he had escaped from the rehabilitation centre.
But what?
Sensi sighed one more time – it had been a long day. Maybe he had to focus on the qualities of each person – what each of them could give Riondino that he didn’t have already. Sensi wanted to understand, to wait for him at the gate, to foresee his movements. He would wait no more than two days – if he still hadn’t found the motherfucker after that, he would interrogate each of those eight people, one after the other.
Sensi stretched out in his armchair and then called Maiezza on his internal landline. “No news?”
“Three people are using the Internet at the moment but only one of them is using Facebook. He’s not chatting to anyone though, just ‘liking’ some posts.”
“What about their phone lines?”
“Nothing noteworthy unfortunately.”
“Okay. I’ll go and get some rest for a couple of hours. Call me immediately if you have any news.”
2 This website was active not long ago but it has been removed due to the complaints which appeared in national newspapers regarding the service offered. There are other similar websites at the moment, and one of them is an exact copy of it.
10
Professor Reti lived near the city centre in Florence, on the ancient Via Delle Pallottole, a few metres away from the Duomo. He was an old man and his movements were stiff; his mind, however, was still alert and had a remarkably youthful outlook. Reti welcomed Claps and Greta while Giotto’s bell tower on top of Brunelleschi’s dome signalled that it was 11 a.m.
“Yeah, I treated Giacomo Riondino for almost five years,” he said after letting them sit down in his office. “That is to say, until I officially retired, a year before he was released from the secure psychiatric unit.”
“So until two years ago, roughly?”
“More or less… consequently, the information I can give you isn’t up to date. Can I…?” The professor asked while he took his tobacco filled pipe from his desk. “A remarkable case… I would say fascinating, if it wasn’t for the deaths that this man caused.”
The sweet aroma of Dutch tobacco spread through the room.
“Riondino’s medical history is fairly standard,” the professor said. “His childhood was very difficult.”
“We know his st… story a little,” Claps interrupted him, gently.
“Nasty events, maybe even sexual abuse, the death of his brother… everything just very sad.”
“Does his illness have…” Greta paused for a moment. “roots in his childhood?”
“Certainly – he wasn’t able to bear the burden of the pain and in order to overcome the trauma, his sub-conscious split into many pieces, rather than following a natural growth process. Let me explain it better…” The professor paused. “You see, we ourselves think that we’re a little different from what we are or what we believe that we are at times. The same situations and the same things are perceived differently sometimes. We respond to different stimuli with different emotions but we don’t question our identity for that reason. For example, we might laugh and then get worried about the same event. Sometimes we’re in agreement with people, other times we feel rebellious… sociable o
r introverted… yet we are aware that we’re the same person. We know, we feel, we accept our consciousness, our self, made of different parts well integrated with each other. Now, imagine a child that undergoes psychological traumas on a continuous basis. Traumas that would be difficult to accept, understand and overcome even for an adult. A child who might have a particular brain structure condition. A child who goes through the delicate process of awareness building and formation. We shouldn’t be surprised if he developed personality problems, if a split in his consciousness becomes so marked that the parts become different personalities and are perceived as different identities; in other words, different individuals.”
“That’s how the other personalities have formed… the Wimp, the Fox and Hannibal,” Greta muttered.
The professor smiled bitterly. “Three? No, Riondino has many, many more personalities – he needed each and every one of them to overcome his personal traumas.”
Greta felt the chills run up her back. “How many others?” she almost whispered; Claps clenched his jaw.
“When I began to meet him, the Wimp was the only one that would surface; the Fox would materialise only through hypnosis and Hannibal… it was almost like he didn’t exist… when I asked the Wimp if he knew Hannibal, he just acted confused, the Fox became nervous and refused to continue talking. A few months later, the Fox admitted that there were two other personalities – while he was only aware of the existence of one of these two personalities, he had never spoken to it. The other personality was unwilling to reveal itself and the Fox didn’t want to talk about it. He said that this other personality would get very angry now that he had revealed its existence.”
“How is that possible?” Greta burst out. “How can Riondino’s mind work like some kind of multi-storey building? Too many people coming and going without any control.”
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