by Bill Cariad
Sabbatini firmly applied the mental brake to this negative channel of thought. He was a positive thinker by nature, and knew that negativity was a debilitating force he could do without. Besides which he knew he was being unreasonably hard on himself. He and David had learned to live with their knowledge that two years ago, influential forces had deflected them both from their long-range Shrivenham search mission. It hadn’t stopped them completely, they had continued to exchange ideas and information when they could, but it had diluted their efforts enough to satisfy those unseen manipulators. As had been intended, and as had been realized by both men throughout the past two years. Ironically, mused Sabbatini now with a grim smile, along with unwanted manipulation had come desired career enhancement.
Their individually press-ganged roles had pitched them both into battle with organised crime-lords in their respective countries. Battlefields upon which each of them had been deemed to have served with distinction, and battles which had led to numerous professional successes along with advancement for them both. Like himself, reflected Sabbatini now, David Foster had attained higher rank and a reputation for investigative innovation which achieved results. ‘Results at a price’, was Sabbatini’s sudden and regretful thought now. A conclusion which he knew had already been arrived at by his brother-in-law in England.
Thinking about the results-driven lifestyles he and David Foster had chosen for themselves had made Sabbatini restless. Calculating that the percolator still had sufficient bubbling minutes to offer, he decided to freshen up in the marble temple Zola called his modest bathroom. In his mind now was the memory of the last telephone contact with his brother-in-law, made memorable for both its surprising disclosure and the underlying frustration which had prevailed throughout their conversation. Sounding dejected, David had imparted the startling news that the Americans were now controlling security at Shrivenham’s RCMS facility and that, despite being armed with fresh information supplied by him, the Oxford police had been denied further access to RCMS personnel. Previous conversations had exhausted their ongoing disappointment at the lack of progress in finding the killer-paedophile of Sophia’s child, so apart from David saying that he would continue monitoring the situation, the subject had been dropped. They had congratulated one another on results each had enjoyed on other operations, and had attempted to gloss over the price they had paid for success.
They had failed, reflected Sabbatini now, because their conversation had revealed the fact that each of them had sacrificed a private life upon the altar of duty. At one point, sounding embarrassed, David had even voiced the thought of wondering what it would be like to find someone with whom he could begin to rebuild a personal life. In his own clumsy attempt to lessen the man’s embarrassment, Sabbatini had confessed he couldn’t even remember when he had last found the time to visit their mother, let alone date a woman.
David had made mention of his probable inclusion in a special squad which would be using more sophisticated methods to tackle organised crime. At the time, not wishing to steal the Englishman’s thunder, Sabbatini had exercised Italian courtesy by not mentioning what lay ahead for himself. Before he had been presented with this current case, he too had been tasked to form his own hand-picked squad which would be going after the Mafia families in general, and the Bartalucci family in particular.
Sabbatini left Zola’s bathroom thinking about the never ending war against organised crime. Two years into the battle, and the original deflection by those unseen manipulators had become professionally self-perpetuating. A progression which continued to privately frustrate, a frustration he and David clearly shared along with the knowledge that their mother never mentioned her daughter and grandchild these days.
Sabbatini re-entered the kitchen-galley to find the percolator was ready, so he began sorting out cups. He was now feeling guilty about self-indulgent introspection whilst his sergeant was knee-deep in paperwork. At the same time he was wondering when they would get the break they needed to solve the riddle of six missing children. Mentally bracing himself for another assault on the case-file, he began pouring the coffee into the cups. Afterwards, he would tell himself it had been the thought of his mother and her tidiness which had made him pause in the kitchen galley. He found what he was looking for on a shelf, performed the task quickly, picked up the coffee cups, and rejoined Gianfranco Zola.
“Grazie”, acknowledged the sergeant with a smile as he took the proffered cup.
“I used some old newspaper,” explained Sabbatini, “ to wrap the flowers I found dying in there. I’ve dumped them.”
Staring intently at Sabbatini, Zola slowly grounded his coffee cup then broke eye-contact as he began rifling through the paperwork before him as he spoke.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed, “Newspaper and flowers, that’s it. That’s what I missed, I knew there was something. Just give me a moment.”
The one moment became several as an intrigued Sabbatini sipped coffee and Zola extracted selected items from the pile of paperwork, quickly assembling them into his obviously desired order of reading before passing a newspaper clipping to Sabbatini as he spoke again.
“I don’t think you’ve even seen that yet. I apologise. I should have made the connection sooner. My gut has been nagging my brain about what my eyes had already seen.”
“What connection?” queried Sabbatini, as he began reading without waiting for a reply.
“You ordered that anything unusual, no matter how strange or seemingly unrelated, which might have occurred around the time the children were taken, should be logged.”
Sabbatini was still scanning the clipping as the obviously fired-up sergeant continued, “I can summarise what you’re looking at there. It’s an article penned by Enzio Marchette, the editor of Il Tempo. He writes of the strange death, his own phrasing, of Francesca Scolari. The article states that she was one of his reporters, a healthy young woman by his account, who had been working undercover and had been on her way to meet him on the night she died. The cause of death was given as massive internal cranial haemorrhaging, but no evidence was found to suggest physical assault of any kind. She didn’t have a mark on her when she was found.”
Sabbatini had finished reading, but his sergeant hadn’t finished speaking.
“You will have noticed that the editor carefully doesn’t say where she was undercover, or what she was supposed to be uncovering. But her body was found in the Campo De’Fiori, the field of flowers, which is why your mention of dying flowers and old newspaper rang the bell for me.”
Sabbatini wordlessly accepted more of Gianfranco’s selected offerings as the sergeant’s words kept coming.
“As you know, we’ve already isolated a particular description of a man which was supplied by different witnesses who were on the various streets from which the children were snatched. In each case they said the person wasn’t local to their area. You also know we haven’t been able to find anyone who matches the description, and that our database searches have drawn a blank.”
Sabbatini was speed-reading now as Zola’s words rushed on.
“But what I’ve just given you there are two different witness statements related to the Scolari incident, which each contain a description of the man they said helped her to sit down against the statue of Giordono Bruno. If you compare the description we isolated earlier to the one in both Scolari related witness statements, you’ll see the connection.”
Sabbatini read each statement carefully and forced self-control into his voice as he looked up into Zola’s eyes and began slowly reciting the line which had twice leapt out at him.
“A tall and powerful looking man with his hair swept back into a pony-tail....”
“Who sounded like an American,” finished Zola.
His thoughts now in overdrive, Sabbatini stared at his sergeant for a moment before speaking. “Remind me, how many gave us the same descri
ption?”
“Three, and one would have been enough,” emphasised Zola.
“Yes, one would have been enough,” agreed Sabbatini. “You did well to spot this, Gianfranco. So she was found,” he murmured through pursed lips, “on the evening of the eighth.”
“Two nights after the children were taken,” Zola quietly added.
“She was killed,” Sabbatini stated emphatically.
“How was she killed?”
“I don’t know yet, but she was killed to stop her reaching the editor.”
“The editor who knows,” said Zola firmly, “where she had been coming from to get to him.”
Sabbatini was already reaching for the telephone which stood between them on the table as he replied, “An editor who has some explaining to do.”
“An editorial comment I look forward to hearing,” responded Zola with a grim looking smile.
Sabbatini’s call to his headquarters linked him to duty officer Kovac, who listened as the new development was relayed along with accompanying thoughts and a suggestion. Without demur the experienced officer agreed that interviewing the newspaper editor at the high-profile police headquarters would attract undesired attention, and that the man should instead be discreetly transported to Zola’s apartment.
Sabbatini was put on hold whilst the Il Tempo office was contacted, and was rewarded with confirmation that the newspaper man had agreed to be interviewed at the Via Salara Vecchia apartment. Seemingly his only condition had been that he drive himself, which had been readily granted by Kovac who was now explaining this to his captain.
“He sounded pleased to have the opportunity to talk to us privately,” reported the duty officer. “But I also heard,” continued Kovac, “another sound I recognized. It was the sound of a man who is guilty of something he wants to tell us about, so I think you’re on to something, Sergio.”
Sabbatini interrupted with a question which Kovac had obviously been expecting. The requested background information on Enzio Marchette was immediately furnished before the duty officer ended, “I’ve given him directions, but he says he knows the location and will leave his office immediately. Call me when you’ve finished with him, Sergio, regardless of time, and we’ll take it from there.”
Sabbatini re-cradled the phone and conveyed Kovac’s words to his sergeant.
“Nobody rushes to talk to the carabiniere,” said Zola behind a wolfish smile, “unless they have something important to tell us.”
Each now silently hoping they were about to learn something which could lead them to the missing children, the two men quickly repacked the bulk of the paperwork into the case-file box. They left out on display the Il Tempo newspaper clipping and linking witness statements. They wanted to observe Marchette’s initial reaction to seeing these items. The two men knew that once he had seen them, the newspaper editor would have three main questions to answer. Where had Francesca Scolari been working undercover? What had she been tasked to uncover? Could he put a name to the description of the man with the pony-tail?
They had devoured rapidly prepared sandwiches and Zola was making them fresh coffee when the apartment’s door-bell sounded the arrival of their expected interviewee.
Chapter Twelve
Sibling Memories
The Orsinni Gymnasium, evening, 10th January 1985
Maria Orsinni entered the gymnasium and instantly felt at home.
“You will miss this place, little sister,” said Paolo.
Maria nodded agreement, unable to really say just how right he was. His arrival at her quarters had surprised her. Discovering it had been her father who had alerted him to her leaving in the morning, had surprised her even more. She had been both touched and saddened by the way Paolo had looked at her as he had said that they should come here together for one last time.
“Do you still keep in contact with Tanaka?”
“I speak to him once a month, on the phone. I speak to him every day, in my head.”
Paolo knew his sister would not have revealed that to another living soul, and was glad she still felt able to open up to him.
“I understand, Maria,” he said quietly, “why you didn’t break your pledge to our mother.”
Maria instantly knew the servants had told him, but her relief was outweighing anger. “I am glad to hear that,” she replied.
“There’s something I never told you about Tanaka,” said Paolo, wanting to change the subject, “On only the second day he was here, right here in the gymnasium, he told those early instructors they had to stop using profane language when you were present. Two of them responded by making lewd remarks about you, and he felled them both without even appearing to move.”
Maria smiled, picturing the image, wondering which moves had been used.
“His speed and power was awesome,” resumed Paolo, “as is your own now, little sister.”
“You flatter me, kind sir,” she responded, lightly punching him on the arm.
“Tanaka told me,” said Paolo, “that you had a unique mind for one so young. He said even trained martial artists adopted specific meditation practices to achieve the state of mind which you already had when he met you.”
Maria smiled as she heard Paolo’s recounting of Tanaka’s words. The youngster being described now, seemed light years away from the person she had become. From the time that youngster had worn her first bra, from when her developing body had attracted the first furtive glances from the men who had surrounded her father, she had been aware of feeling somehow different from others of her gender whenever they had congregated together. In conversations she had struggled to feel part of, the girls had been content to talk about the kind of men they would one day marry and the kind of mothers they themselves would ultimately become.
“I remember,” said Paolo, “hearing him tell you that you had probably felt different from other girls of your age. He said that deep in your core you were different from them, but that if you chose to learn the way how to make it so, then that difference could be forged into a force for good which could provide a meaningful purpose to your life.” Paolo paused to smile at her, “He came out with some pretty heavy stuff at times, didn’t he?”
Maria returned her brother’s smile. Many of Tanaka’s words had been beyond her comprehension at the time, but she had often heard the meaning behind them. As for the ones Paolo had just quoted, on that occasion Tanaka had been voicing a message of hope for a future she had then thought of as unattainable.
“He tried once,” said Paolo, “to explain to me what he called ‘The Way’, but I forget what he said exactly. It sounded interesting, I remember that much.”
“The Way,” explained Maria, “is a term originating in Taoist philosophy. It has a deep and special meaning within the cultures of China, and Tanaka’s Japan.”
“Ah, yes,” responded Paolo, “That rings a bell. I can hear him now. He said it was....” Paolo paused, brow furrowed in mock concentration, the beginnings of a smile on his face, “he said it was the path to enlightenment, and fine tuning of the self in harmony with the universe through a mystical and impossible to describe system of metaphysics.”
They both erupted with laughter, and Paolo spoke again in the midst of it. “Like I said before, he did come out with some pretty heavy stuff.”
Maria smiled at the memory of Tanaka explaining the meaning of ‘The Way.’ Upon first hearing it where she now stood, it had been an almost impossible to understand explanation. Which had made her head spin, she recalled now with an inward chuckle, and had sent her running in search of a dictionary.
“He may have baffled me most of the time,” said a grinning Paolo, “but you and he spoke the same language, little sister. Thanks to him, I don’t ever have to worry about you being out there in the big bad world. Maria Orsinni need fear no man.”
Maria chose not to say that she was the one who was worried about an Orsinni with a temper being out there in his ‘big bad world.’ She was still hiding her surprise at how much he had remembered about Tanaka. She glanced at the dojo mat, and the sighting evoked another memory. It had been here in the gymnasium, whilst listening to Tanaka’s story about the pimp he had killed, that she had silently acknowledged the irony of the fact that the violent death of just one man from planet earth’s teeming millions had ultimately brought to her his killer bearing the gift of life. Because just as she had gifted Tanaka his freedom, so too had he gifted her a vision of the life she could have. Her determination to sever her ties to the Bartalucci family had never been in doubt, but Tanaka had been the one who had, quite literally, shown her the way she could do it and survive.
“Will you have a meal with me before you leave?” she asked.
“Who’s paying?”
“It’s normal for the man to pay,” she pointed out, smiling at the brother she adored.
“It will be my pleasure, little sister,” said Paolo, offering his arm.
Brother and sister left the gymnasium arm in arm, each hearing the voice of Tanaka in their head, each knowing they would never come here together again.
Chapter Thirteen
An Editor’s Story
Gianfranco Zola’s apartment, evening, 10th January 1985
Sergio Sabbatini opened the apartment door to a medium-height wiry looking man who was fast approaching fifty, he gauged. Radiating nervous energy, Enzio Marchette, the current editor of Il Tempo, shook hands with Sabbatini as he quickly introduced himself and entered the apartment in a rush. He acknowledged Zola with a quick nod of his head, and within seconds was standing at the table looking down with a frown at the openly displayed newspaper clipping. As if he were presiding over one of his own editorial meetings, the clearly agitated man immediately began asking questions rather than answering them and the strain was clearly evident in the torrent of words.