Hunted

by Monty Marsden

  “Don’t worry about the email – just make a note and call me back. It will be quicker.”

  After hanging up, Claps looked at the calendar again where he had circled all the dates of the therapy meetings, according to the video tapes he had. The meetings had been every Thursday, up until the one where Riondino mentioned the hypnosis. The tapes then skipped five Thursdays.

  Of course, there could be an explanation for that. The meetings could have been cancelled for some reason. During the four months which preceded Riondino’s transfer to a rehabilitation unit, there were no recordings for a whole month.

  Had Rinaldi gone on holiday? Had he been sick?

  Claps breathed deeply. There was another possible explanation, but he had to have more evidence. All that he could do now was wait.

  He tried to call Greta on the phone. She had called him a few times that morning. Her phone was switched off.

  *

  Riondino closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply. His mind was clear like a clean whiteboard.

  “Jack?”

  “Did you like that, Julia? Did you caress her well enough?”

  “She’s gorgeous.”

  “More than anyone else?”

  “Her skin is silky. Her scent… is stunning. I could smell it as soon as she walked in.”

  “Is that why you called me?”

  “She wanted to go… and I wanted to caress her skin so badly. She would have taken the scent away with her.”

  “I could smell it too when I was undressing her, and I had to keep Hannibal at bay. He doesn’t enjoy waiting, he wants everything here and now.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “You want to ignore him, as usual? You know what is going to happen now that I go and see her with Hannibal.”

  “It’s none of my business – all that I want is to be with Little.”

  “For fuck’s sake – don’t ever say that name again.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack. You keep ignoring him… you can do it if you want, but then let me ignore whatever you do with Hannibal.”

  “Don’t ever say his name again!”

  “Jack – are you still angry about the other night?”

  “You fucked up everything – they almost got us!”

  “I’m sorry, I just had to go and get some fresh air… and you were distracted.”

  “We had agreed that you wouldn’t turn up for a while.”

  “I thought that it was only for a couple of days.”

  “You tried to show up again and you made it, this morning. Don’t you dare think that I didn’t notice.”

  “You were happy when you saw her.”

  “It was a good idea to call me and you had your reward. Give me two days now. I have to play it safe. It will only be two days, this time.”

  “Do you like her, Jack?”

  “I enjoyed taking her clothes off. It will be good in a bit.”

  “She’s so pretty.”

  “I saw her on TV the other day. She’s a journalist. She was talking about us. She must know us very well. We’ll give her some breaking news.”

  “Two days?”

  “We’ll have a new life.”

  “Will you find me more girls to caress?”

  “We’ll find plenty of girls, you can rest assured.”

  28

  Riondino had been sitting in the room for a long time. The curtains were pulled together, the lights were off. The TV was the only source of light in the room. There was a foreign musical talent show on the TV. In reality, though, Riondino wasn’t listening or seeing anything. His fingers moved along the blade and rolled between the handle and the sharp point, which was so perfect and yet so dangerous. He could feel Hannibal trembling inside… he would free him soon, but not just yet.

  “We have to go, Jack – there’s no time for this shit right now.”

  “We’ll be gone in an hour, Fox.”

  “We should already be somewhere far away – one more hour could mean the end for us! Do you not understand?”

  “Leave me alone, Fox, keep calm. I have to do it… you know that I do.”

  In that moment, something changed on the TV screen. The singing was interrupted to show a special news bulletin.

  Montanari appeared on the screen – he looked extremely tense and serious.

  “We are interrupting the show to give you some breaking news. The police have issued a photograph of Giacomo Riondino.”

  The same photo that Riondino had on his documents appeared on the screen. Montanari’s voice became even more tense now.

  “If anybody sees him or has knowledge of his whereabouts, contact the police immediately. This would be of vital importance to them in their search for the dangerous serial killer. Here are some frames that were taken last night from the CCTV in the underground station. The person that you can see here is Giacomo Riondino – his face is not visible, unfortunately. If anybody remembers seeing him or knows where he was travelling to, please let the police know as soon as possible.

  Thanks for your attention – the show will be resumed as normal now. We will leave a picture of Giacomo Riondino on the bottom right side of the screen for you. As I said, if anybody…”

  Riondino turned off the TV pressing furiously on the remote.

  “Fuck!” He shouted.

  “Are you happy now? We’re fucked, Jack.”

  *

  It was late afternoon already and Claps was becoming more and more nervous and agitated.

  Why had he not received a call from Montelupo yet?

  How long did it take to check the files?

  He tried to calm down – he phoned Greta’s number, but her mobile was still turned off. He called Sensi.

  “We have no reported sightings so far, Claps. No realistic and credible ones at least. We have in fact received about ten phone calls so far but nobody has really seen him. The accomplice, or should I say the support, like you said, is still hiding away.”

  “Did you have any problems as a result of yesterday’s… TV show?”

  “I received a couple of phone calls from the superintendent – I don’t think he wanted to congratulate us on the leaking of information. I don’t care anyway – one thing matters for now. What I hate is having to stay here waiting for a stroke of luck to be able to catch the motherfucker.”

  “His photos have only recently been made public. Some… somebody will be in touch soon,” Claps tried to encourage him. “What else can you do right now anyway?”

  “I can give all of his Facebook contacts a real grilling. If the accomplice really is one of them, I’ll make him shit his pants so bad that he will beg me to stop. I’ll start off with Reggi in a bit and then I’ll move on to Greco if the first interrogation isn’t successful.”

  “Do you need me?”

  “Maybe… I’ll give you a call if I do.”

  *

  “That’s the only thing that we can do.”

  “Okay, Fox. Let’s give it a go.”

  “Are you sure that it’s a good idea to wait until night, Jack?”

  “We have to – the sunlight would make us too obvious.”

  “We’ll have to wait a little longer. It’s possible that they could find us before then. You saw the announcement on TV, right?”

  “We’ll have to risk it, Fox. There’s no other option. It won’t be too long until nightfall.”

  “What about the bitch? We will have to take her with us, you know that, right?”

  “We’ll be alright – she’s tied up and gagged right now and she can’t do anything bad. She’ll be ready when the right moment arrives.”

  “Okay then. We’ll go when it’s dark outside.”

  “Fox… how lucky do you think we’ll be?”

  “Maybe not very, Jack. The city is flooded with police, they are desperate to find us. The photos that we have on our documents are being made public through the media. Maybe they’ll put up posters of our face on the streets too.”

/>   “At least we’ll be driving Rinaldi’s car – we won’t have to walk on the street.”

  “It will be a miracle if we manage to get out of the city without being noticed. But we have no other choice. They’ll find us if we stay here.”

  “If we make it, though…”

  “Then we might have another chance. Just another chance, anyway. Let’s not raise our hopes.”

  “Fox… I don’t want us to be caught alive. Do you mind if we…”

  “No, Jack, I don’t want to be buried alive in jail. I’d rather be dead – fuck it all to hell.”

  29

  Claps answered his phone after the first ring.

  “It took us longer than I thought, sir – the files were all stored away and…”

  “The dates,” Claps interrupted her. “Did you find the dates?”

  The secretary began to spell out the dates over the phone, Claps crossed them out in blue on his calendar. He counted nine blue crosses in the end – none of them had been circled in red, which indicated that there was no recording of those therapy sessions.

  “Let me ask you something else quickly – do the audio recordings of the therapy sessions depend on the doctor? Who decides whether recordings should be made or not?”

  “No, they’re a requirement in our rehabilitation unit. Each and every meeting has to be recorded and stored, to allow for further investigation if the court requests it.”

  “And this didn’t happen with Riondino, when he was declared safe?”

  “It never happens, in reality. The court always accepts whatever the doctor in question affirms.”

  “One more thing – where do you store the recordings?”

  “They’re safely stored in our archives.”

  “Are the archives secure?”

  “The archive room has a lock and only authorised personnel are able to access it.”

  “The medical staff and the psychiatrists are among the authorised personnel, right?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Thank you, that was very helpful.”

  Claps cussed out loud, as he threw his mobile phone down on his desk. Sensi and he had been so damn blind to everything. They had been so naïve and slow that they hadn’t seen the truth! They hadn’t considered the fact that Rinaldi could also have been one of Riondino’s external contacts, as well as the people on Facebook.

  Rinaldi was the one who could be the most useful to Riondino – he could sign a document that allowed him to move to a rehabilitation unit.

  Rinaldi was not a victim. The missing recordings probably contained the meetings conducted during hypnosis and the subsequent agreement between the two – the crazy deal, the plan for Riondino’s escape to Milan. That is why Rinaldi had made those tapes disappear. More tangible proof was needed now, but it shouldn’t be too difficult for Sensi to find it.

  Claps grabbed his phone and called Sensi’s number, but he eventually changed his mind. It would have been difficult to explain everything over the phone and Sensi’s office was only a few minutes’ drive away, after all. A minute later, Claps was on the road. It was getting dark outside.

  *

  Maiezza knocked on Sensi’s office door and walked in without waiting for his permission. Sensi was interrogating Alberto Reggi the way that he had wanted to interrogate him for a long time. Judging from Reggi’s red face, Sensi was doing his job decisively and pretty harshly.

  “What?” he asked, barely glancing at Maiezza.

  “The estate agent that we spoke to this morning…

  “What about him?”

  “He’s in my office – he came with his lawyer. He wants to report something.”

  *

  Greta watched the door open as Riondino walked in. He was holding a knife in his hand.

  She had resigned herself to dying, or rather, she had got used to the thought. No life evaluations for her; no examination of conscience; no prayers. She had thought about the irony of death, which had found her when she had finally stopped considering herself a victim. Death had been absent during her struggle to reclaim her life. It would have been exaggerating a little to say that she was feeling at peace, but the fear that she had felt a while earlier had now disappeared. She naively clung to the hope that if she didn’t go to pieces she wouldn’t suffer at the end.

  But her resolve crumbled when she saw the knife…

  … and Riondino slowly walking towards her.

  She began to jerk desperately, she tried to scream. Riondino was on her in an instant. He held her still with his weight.

  The blade shone in the dim light.

  Everything stopped for a moment. Greta closed her eyes.

  Then, with a quick movement, Riondino cut the ropes that still bound her to the bed.

  “Get dressed, whore. Do anything silly and you’re dead. Got that?”

  Greta didn’t understand, she was confused. She sat on the edge of the bed, her wrists were hurting as the blood was flowing back to her hands again.

  “Move your ass! We’re leaving. I’ll use you in case things don’t go as planned. Move!”

  Greta put her clothes on slowly. She couldn’t think. She tried to control her sobs. Her hands were shaking, they were refusing to hook the bra around her chest.

  “No need to wear that – we need to hurry the fuck up! Listen to me – we’re going down to the garage. Do anything silly, and I’ll murder you here. Try to run away, and you’re dead. Pray that we don’t meet anybody as we walk downstairs, because you will be dead in a moment. Is that clear?”

  Greta nodded. She was struggling to hold in her sobs, which convulsed her.

  “I’ll tie you up in the car – you’ll have to lie on the back seat and you’ll pretend to be asleep. Try to free yourself and you’re dead. Try to attract someone’s attention and you’re dead.” Riondino moved the blade along his neck in an obscenely threatening gesture. “Behave and I might let you off when I get to my destination. I wouldn’t mind seeing you on TV telling this story.”

  Riondino blinked his eyes momentarily.

  “The pillow, Jack, get her to take the pillow with us.”

  Greta was standing in front of him, fully dressed.

  “Let’s go now. Take the pillow with you.”

  For a moment, Greta looked into Riondino’s eyes. During that fraction of a second, she could read the whole, terrible truth. She grabbed the pillow. It felt so soft. And cold.

  “We’ll need it later on,” he added icily. “We’ll use it to let people believe that you’re sleeping.” A moment later, he pushed her towards the door.

  *

  Claps was stationary, stuck in the rush hour traffic. He glanced at his wrist watch and then his mobile phone. He was tempted to call Sensi, even if he was close now. He called Greta, instead, and he found the phone turned off yet again. The queue was moving slowly. He looked for Greta’s editorial office number in his contacts and called it. The call was directed to Montanari, who was extremely nervous. “I’ve no idea where she is, her phone is turned off and she should have been here a while ago. We’re in trouble – we have to plan the show for tonight!”

  “She hasn’t answered her… phone all day, today. It’s not like her.” Claps was beginning to get worried, even if he was still thinking about Rinaldi.

  “I spoke to her a few hours ago – she was going for an interview, for tonight’s special edition. Then she disappeared. I tried to call the person that she was going to interview, but his phone is turned off too.”

  “Who was she going to interview?” Claps asked.

  “The idiot who allowed Riondino to move to a rehabilitation unit – Doctor Rinaldi. Hello? Hello?”

  Claps threw the phone away, pressed on the horn and did a U-turn. His foot was flat down on the accelerator.

  *

  The girl slid out of bed, naked. “It’s so late!”

  “Please… just a little longer.”

  “Are you serious? I should have been at home ages ago – m
y mother is going to be furious!”

  “No… she must be more used to you being late than I am,” her boyfriend said slowly under the blanket.

  “That’s not even funny. I’ll see you after dinner anyway!” the girl replied as she quickly put her clothes on.

  The young man leaned over towards the bedside cabinet; he took the remote and turned on the TV. “Are you going to make me wait outside your house for hours again?”

  The girl was about to reply, but she froze when she saw that her boyfriend was staring at the TV in shock. He leapt out of bed. Riondino’s photos from the CCTV in the underground had appeared on the screen. “What’s the problem, now?”

  “Holy cow. Fuck!”

  *

  There could only be one reason why the estate agent had returned to the police station to make a report, accompanied by his lawyer. Sensi knew it all too well and he was looking forward to hearing everything.

  The lawyer spoke first, while the estate agent kept his eyes lowered.

  “Mr Sensi – my client is an honest person, he’s a hard worker and he has a good sense of public duty.”

  “I assume that’s not all that you want to report today,” Sensi said ironically.

  “Of course not, but I believe it’s important to stress that – sometimes, even the best citizens can make mistakes, overlook things, but as soon as they realise…”

  “You’re making me waste precious time,” Sensi interrupted him. “Get to the point, please.”

  “About the statement made this morning – my client didn’t understand the importance of your questions, the case to which they were connected…”

  “Would you like to add something?” Sensi chipped in.

  “I would say that he would like to amend his statement.”

  “And why does he need to come over with a lawyer to do that?”

  “It’s a delicate thing… I hope that you’ll take into consideration the fact that my client has returned to the police department to collaborate, albeit he had a moment of understandable uncertainty.”

  Sensi didn’t want to waste any more time in empty talk. “Okay, tell me what you have to say without any more excuses.”