Hunted

by Monty Marsden

  “It’s only because it was a very tense moment.”

  “She would have killed us – we would have suffocated with the gas, or we would have been involved in the explosion, Jack. A fucking spark would have been enough. Or if she had noticed the danger, she would have run outside asking for help to protect Little.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t say that name. Don’t talk about him. She didn’t show up in the end anyway, I kept her under control.”

  “What about last night, then? Did you manage to do the same? We wouldn’t be here now otherwise. We have to find a way to get rid of her, Jack.”

  “You’re talking rubbish – you know that’s impossible.”

  “There must be a way.”

  “Of course there is – we would have to jump under a train. We were tired and tense, Fox. That’s it. Let’s go and hide away at our friend’s now.”

  *

  Claps’ car had pulled up out outside Greta’s apartment.

  “Do you want come inside? I can cook something for us both.”

  “I should go and talk to Sensi right away, but thanks for the offer.”

  “About your suspicions about Mr Greco?”

  Claps nodded, without saying a word. He should have added ‘not only that’, but this would have triggered many more questions from Greta. Before telling her anything, he needed to hear Sensi’s opinion about what he had in mind to do. He glanced yet again at his mobile phone, which he kept on the dashboard. The previous night, Riondino had walked out of his hideout at around this time – news of his arrest could come any moment. He knew that this would make him feel better and would spare him from having to talk to Sensi about his idea.

  “Do you think that Greco lied to us and knows a lot more about Riondino?” Greta asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s all about nuances… impressions… of course, the fact that he wasn’t worried that we are investigating one of his contacts on Facebook isn’t proof of anything… but…” Claps hesitated for a few seconds. “But Sensi is convinced that Riondino had someone to help him here in Milan when he planned his escape. His plan was very detailed and so it’s unlikely that it didn’t include a safe hideout in the city. It’s difficult to believe that he found it all by himself while he was being kept in custody at the rehabilitation centre.”

  “An accomplice?”

  “An accomplice,” Claps paused a little longer and then he carried on talking. “Or better, some support. Maybe the person who helped him to find a hideout didn’t even know who Liberty really was. The only contacts that Riondino had with the outside world were those on his Facebook account.”

  “How could he convince a stranger to help him?”

  “Money, that’s the only solution. Money. Riondino has a lot of money which he scammed from the company he worked for – had you forgotten?”

  All of a sudden, the mobile phone on the dashboard began to vibrate and the screen flashed.

  Claps’ expression grew darker as he talked to Sensi on the phone.

  “I have to go. Immediately,” Claps said to Greta. He didn’t say anything else.

  *

  The pungent smell of fire was still strong in the area, albeit the flames had been out for a while now. The area had been surrounded with temporary barriers to keep the passers-by away. The fire engines were still outside the buildings. A few fire hoses had been unrolled and brought into the entrance hall of the building – they looked like long anacondas.

  Maiezza pointed to a spot on the second floor. That part of the building had been almost completely destroyed – there was a black hole a few metres across which had also damaged the upper floor.

  “There are only a couple of people wounded and a bunch who were suffering from smoke inhalation, but they’re okay. It’s a miracle.”

  Sensi felt his eyes burning because of the smoke. Claps was standing a little further away.

  “Gas,” Maiezza said. “A gas leak… but not only gas, unfortunately.” That’s a good version of the news for the media,” Maiezza said nervously. They were being observed by the cameras and journalists who had swamped the area and were crowding behind the barriers.

  “The flat – at least what remains of it – was empty when the firemen entered it to put out the fire. No wounded people, no corpses.”

  “Of course it was empty, for fuck’s sake!” Sensi snapped. “Do you really believe the gas leak was an accident? Do you believe in fairy tales, Maiezza?”

  “I’m just saying what happened,” Maiezza said, a little chastened.

  Claps had remained silent until now. “What do we know about the flat?”

  “We have learned something – the whole building was emptied for safety reasons, so we were able to talk to all of the inhabitants. They said that the flat was being rented out every now and then. It had been empty for a while but they said that somebody had been there for a few days.”

  “Did they see who was there?” Claps asked.

  “No, but the neighbour heard some noises coming from the flat and the blinds, which are visible from the street, were open during the day and closed at night. Somebody said that they saw a person behind the windows.”

  Sensi looked like a caged lion. He looked again at the hole in the building. “He could have killed somebody else.” he said angrily. “Maiezza, did you call all the staff back to work, like I asked?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want them to monitor the whole city. We’ll also give a press conference – there’s no point pretending that Riondino isn’t here any more. We will probably cause some panic and dozens of fake reports, but we have to let the public know that he’s here. They have to watch out for him. Let’s make it difficult for him to find a safe hideout. I want to see the CCTV recordings right away, please.”

  Maiezza nodded. “There are a few people running away from the building in the recordings, but the images are not clear – Riondino could be any one of them.

  “I want to talk to the landlord of the flat – get him to my office!”

  Sensi cussed again, then he turned towards Claps. He asked him to follow him, as he walked towards the patrol car. “What did you want to talk about?” Sensi said more calmly. “Did you find something?”

  “Antonio Greco – I talked to him about an hour ago.”

  Claps told Sensi about his conversation with Greco and about his ideas.

  “I have learned to trust your skills over the years.” Sensi didn’t attempt to hide his bewilderment. “But that doesn’t sound like a good hunch – Greco said that he didn’t remember Liberty. It’s understandable that he wasn’t interested in knowing why we are investigating him.”

  “That’s not the point… Greco was a little reticent and that got me thinking about something.”

  They had reached Sensi’s car. Sensi opened the door but didn’t get in. “Go on?”

  “It’s possible that whoever helped Riondino didn’t know who he really was… maybe they still don’t know.”

  “Are they being fooled like Matteo Contri? That’s possible, but how does that help us with anything?”

  “It does. Let’s forget about Greco – let’s think about whoever is helping him to find shelter in Milan… if they don’t know who Riondino really is yet…”

  “Wait a minute – if Greco didn’t know who Liberty really is, then your hypothesis doesn’t work any more. It’s unlikely that Greco didn’t ask why Liberty was being investigated because he knew what he had done.”

  “Forget Greco for a moment – my point is more general. Do you really believe that R… Riondino told his whole story and then offered someone money to help him to escape? That he found somebody who was happy to help him knowing the whole truth about what he had do… done?”

  “Go on.”

  “Only eight contacts in Milan – did he really find his accomplice among such a small number of people? A reliable person, prepared to overlook the terrible crimes that Riondino had committed? Somebody who accepted risking
being accused of terrible crimes just for money? No, Riondino must have told… a whole different story. Sure, maybe he made it clear that the whole thing would have been borderline illegal, so that the large amount of money offered could be justifiable. At the same time, though, he didn’t mention the huge legal problems that his accomplice could incur.”

  “Okay, Claps. Let’s assume that Riondino has fooled his accomplice from Milan and that he told him some story or other. Again, how does that change anything?”

  “It’s a lot more likely that somebody would help someone else when the context is borderline illegal, than when the other person is a… wicked serial killer.”

  “Do you mean that his accomplice, as you call him, keeps helping him because he doesn’t know who he’s really helping? Do you think that if he knew, he would try to get out of it and turn to the police?”

  Claps nodded confidently. “Let’s feed the media with everything that we know – not just that Riondino is hiding somewhere in Milan. Let’s tell them about how he hoodwinked and then killed Matteo Contri, about the young lady at the shop who was brutally murdered. Let’s make it clear that anyone who is helping Riondino will not be punished. Let’s point out the risks of helping Riondino – let’s give them the option of turning to us.”

  Sensi looked at the building where the explosion had occurred. “If he used Greco or anybody else to find that hideout, he has run away now.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know where to hide any more… maybe he’s desperate. Maybe he had to ask for help again… he needs his accomplice.”

  Sensi still looked a little hesitant.

  “Like you said,” Claps insisted. “Let’s make it difficult for him to move around.”

  “If I revealed everything, the public prosecutor would not be happy. We have to comply with the confidentiality of the investigation.” Sensi spoke, still sounding a little uncertain. “We would stir up a lot of controversy – the fake blitz in Rome, the fact that we lost him once again tonight…”

  “It doesn’t have to be you who reveals everything at the… press conference. You can just mention the fact that Riondino is in Milan. I’ll think about… revealing the rest of the information as though it were a rumour from a reliable source. All that you’ll have to do is avoid denying it… and just confirm everything when the journalists ask you about it in detail.”

  *

  Sensi remained silent for a little while, still looking dubious.

  “Isn’t it better to be a little embarrassed… than to never get your hands on Riondino?” Claps stared into Sensi’s eyes. “Let’s not just hunt him down – let’s make his life difficult.”

  Sensi looked back into Claps’ eyes for a while. “I hope I won’t regret this,” he said eventually, as he got in the car and closed the door.

  *

  No, he wasn’t happy to talk to Riondino. Above all, he had no intention of letting him hide in his house any more. “That wasn’t our agreement… it’s too dangerous for me.”

  “Listen,” Jack hissed on the phone. “I don’t give a shit about your fears. In fact, you should be quite frightened if you decide not to let me stay in your house. The police are chasing me and I don’t know where else to go. How long do you think it would take them to catch me? It would be the end for me, but it would be for you, too. I would tell them everything immediately. I wouldn’t want to be in jail all by myself.”

  A long pause on the other end of the line.

  “Think how rich you could be in the near future – don’t you like money any more?”

  “I just wasn’t expecting all this,” the man’s voice was trembling. “All those dead people.”

  “Are you still on about that shit? That’s the way it went down, get over it.”

  More silence.

  “Listen – I can’t fuck around out here much longer. Make up your mind. You can let me in – in which case you’ll enjoy the money that I promised you; or you can leave me out – in which case, two things could happen. The first one is that they arrest you and in that case you’ll end up in jail with me for goodness knows how long. The second scenario is that I make it, in which case you’ll be free, but without the money. And you won’t lose just that. Hannibal will find you, even if it’s the last thing that he ever does.”

  “Wait.”

  “Make your mind up,” Jack interrupted him. “You’ve had your time.”

  Another brief hesitation. “Okay… I’ll explain to you how to get in without attracting anyone’s attention.”

  *

  On the other side of the road, a young man was drumming his fingers nervously on the steering wheel inside the parked car. He had been there for about twenty minutes, waiting for his girlfriend to come down. They were late for their dinner with friends.

  “Finally!” He exclaimed when he saw her walk out of the door. She crossed the road quickly towards the car. “I’m always punctual, yet somehow I’m the loser!”

  She kissed him. “I’m sorry that you had to wait,” she said happily. “Did you get too bored, sweetheart?”

  “Oh no, I had a laugh here! A lot of fun stuff happened – a dog peed on my parking meter, then I watched someone who couldn’t park her car in a space big enough for a lorry. And then, the cherry on the cake, someone who was pissed on the phone – he sneaked through the door next to yours.”

  “Fuck off… let’s go, it’s late.”

  *

  Sensi was in his office – he was leading the hunt for Riondino from there. A few more minutes and he would be going downstairs to meet the journalists.

  “Colonel Visentini from the Guardia di Finanza on line 2.”

  The colonel went straight to the point. “I know that it’s a little late, but I wanted to tell you this right away. The money that Riondino got hold of ended up in Liechtenstein, via a very complex route. The Restelli company had already dome some good research but they had hit a brick wall. We managed to get to the bottom of it and find the bank where the money is. At the moment, we don’t know much more – just that it’s a ciphered account. There’s an agreement that has been made recently between our two countries regarding confidential financial information. We’ll be able to have a look into that bank account, we’ll just need time.”

  “Do we know if the money is there?”

  “We don’t know at the moment, the last movement that we traced was from seven years ago, about two months before Riondino was arrested. In theory, he could have moved all of the money somewhere else in that span of time.”

  “Why would he have done that? Financial privacy was absolute back then. The money was safe abroad, he was confident about it,” Sensi replied.

  “That’s true. I agree that it’s unlikely that he moved the money elsewhere; but even if he did, we can track it down as soon as we have access to the bank account and find it anyway.”

  Sensi clenched his fist, feeling almost exultant. Even if Riondino managed to evade them, he finally had something; a fine thread that could lead them straight to him. “We have to find a way to access the bank account as soon as possible. When we do, it won’t matter whether the money is in the Cayman Islands or in any other fucking part of the world…”

  “We’ll be able to track any withdrawals, payments and any other transactions,” the colonel continued.

  “And I want to know all the details; who, when etc. Everything – their full names and their full addresses,” Sensi concluded. His eyes had an almost ominous glint. “How long do you reckon that it will take?”

  “We’re doing our best to gain access as quickly as possible – considering the urgency of the case, we have been assured that politicians will be involved. I would say a week, ten days at most.”

  24

  The special news bulletin had been announced an hour earlier – the scheduled programmes had been interrupted for it. Montanari wore a serious, worried expression – he had appeared on the screen, revealing that they had extremely important information regarding the hunt
for Giacomo Riondino. From then, an on-screen text reminded the viewers that the scheduled programmes would be interrupted soon for a special edition of the news.

  In the meantime, Sensi had delivered a short press conference, which had been broadcast by the media and over the Internet. Sensi had declared that Riondino was now in Milan, the police were after him and he was looking for a new hideout. There were many questions from the journalists and he had briefly mentioned that the explosion, followed by the fire a few hours earlier in the city, had probably been caused by Riondino himself. He had concluded the press conference with an appeal to the citizens of Milan, telling them to be alert and take care to stay safe, because Riondino was a dangerous man. He had asked them to report anything suspicious that they might happen to witness.

  Greta was in the dressing room – the make-up artist had almost finished her work. Greta had hardly had any time to think at all during the last couple of hours. Events had followed on quickly – Claps’ phone call, then Montanari’s phone call, the journey to the TV studio by car (where Montanari was waiting for her in a visible state of over-excitement), the briefing before going on air. The many familiar feelings that surfaced again.

  Now, for a moment, everything had frozen – she could see her own reflection in the mirror, she recognised Greta Alfieri, the one time queen of the scoop.

  The woman that she had hated for so long.

  Was she really any different now?

  Wasn’t she enjoying the electric vibes, the spotlight, people’s attention on her, just like she used to? The idea that millions of people would watch her show and admire her?

  Was that what she really wanted? Did she want to become what she used to be?

  Was the idea of being a different journalist – a more sensitive, honest one, only one of the many lies that she had told herself during the last few years?

  She looked at her reflection in the mirror for a little longer. Her eyes didn’t look all that different from those of Greta Lafenice.

  No, she wasn’t a victim any more.

  Greta Alfieri breathed in deeply.