It had been so long since she’d been able to get to sleep before the early hours that she couldn’t even remember when that had been anymore. Another lifetime.
Looking back on her own past, it was easy to split it into before and after.
She’d been a bright, happy girl. She loved to laugh, read, and study, play sports, dance. She loved everything. She loved life. She was curious and attracted by everything with the excitement and glee of a young girl. And that excitement had a name: Carlo.
She’d met him in middle school, back home in Cagliari. He was an extremely skinny, gangly boy, with perennially tousled hair that she tried unsuccessfully to brush into some semblance of order with her hands. Carlo, in his turtleneck sweater all winter long. Carlo, and his passion for political activism. Carlo, and his determination to play soccer, no matter how bad a player he might be. Carlo, who could make her laugh even at a funeral. Carlo, who had loved her from the moment he first saw her until the day he closed his eyes for the last time.
In the dark, as she sought sleep without finding it, Laura retraced her steps with Carlo. They spent every waking minute together, they studied together, they engaged in political activism together, they went to the movies, and they made love. Everyone in town was used to seeing them together: the shapely, smiling girl and the gangly, bespectacled boy. Laura smiled at the memory of how they wanted to change the world by leaving their island. And at the way that coming from an island makes you different and determined for the rest of your life.
The thought of her island brought an oblique gaze and a half smile to mind, though they dissolved before bobbing to the surface of consciousness. And once again Carlo emerged, top grades like her after secondary school, and both of them opting for law—more concrete than philosophy and less abstruse than architecture.
And then, after the summa cum laude degree, the civil service exam. She was running a little behind schedule, what with her father’s illness and subsequent death, in the atrocious grip of a cancerous tumor. So he was ridiculously embarrassed to tell her that he had become a public prosecutor at age twenty-four. She’d laughed, as usual, and told him, “You know I’ll not only catch up with you but I’ll leave you in my dust.”
“I know,” he had replied, serious as ever. “You always beat me, even at billiards.”
Together they had picked through a list of likely destinations for his posting, and together they had dismissed Lombardy, which, of course, was where he was assigned. In the early days it had seemed so strange telling him, in the foggy north, about the sunshine of home, studying by herself, turning around to make a wry comment and finding that he was no longer at her side. But there were always the weekends. She felt her mood lift at the airport when she saw him emerge from the crowd, a good head taller than her, with that bunch of bananas that constituted his hair.
“How on earth do they take you seriously up there, the northern polenta-grubbers, with that head of hair?” she’d say.
And he’d reply, “Why, what’s wrong with my hair?”
And they’d both burst into helpless peals of laughter.
There had been guys coming on to her even then. Laura was pretty, and she’d always exuded a feminine allure. But with someone like Carlo, she felt no need for anyone else. That’s just how it was.
It happened, in fact, when he was on his way to the airport, to catch the flight down from Malpensa. Who knows why. Maybe he fell asleep at the wheel. Maybe he wasn’t used to the fog yet. Maybe he was distracted, stupid, dopey bastard that he was. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that Friday morning, there he was, the usual hasty phone call confirming he’d be arriving, and that same Friday evening, a policeman on duty at Cagliari airport awkwardly broke the news to her that he wouldn’t be getting off the plane. Ever again.
In the silence of the night, broken only by the wail of a distant siren, she tried to remember that grief. Losing him was like an amputation—they say that you go on feeling the limb after you’ve lost it, that the body never cancels the memory of its missing part.
She changed. She studied even harder than before, came in at the top of the civil service exam rankings, and left the island of Sardinia. So eager to put a stretch of salt water between her and that odd couple that resembled the Italian il, she so short, he so tall; to put distance between her and a spirit whose hair was always rumpled and flyaway; between her and the person she had been, the one who always laughed too loud and too long. She no longer wanted to talk to anyone, neither family nor friends. She made a hasty, reluctant weekly phone call to her mother to see how she was, as if performing an objectionable task, and she’d hang up with a sense of relief, free until the following week.
She’d taken a posting to a dangerous, challenging place that none of her colleagues would have accepted. She could have turned it down; she could easily have opted for somewhere quieter, more attractive, that would have turbocharged her already glittering career trajectory. But that was not what she wanted. She wanted to work hard, plunge body and soul into the dream that those two kids had once shared, and change the world from the ground up.
She knew that her attitude, the sharp edges that she did nothing to conceal, the cutting harshness in her responses, were all viewed by others as signs of arrogant pride—the typical female prosecutor, young and attractive, who puts on an unyielding persona to establish her authority. But that wasn’t the truth of it. Her brittle edge was nothing more than a manifestation of the permanent night that had fallen over her heart when the policeman at the airport, nervously turning his cap in his hands, had told her that she’d be alone from now on.
She had chosen not to let anyone get close to her. Not because she thought she should be faithful to a memory, but because she thought there was no point teaching the essence of herself to love someone who would never ever know her the way Carlo had. The call of the flesh was surprisingly infrequent, and anyway, it exhausted itself in brief, solitary moments that only left her feeling sadder than before. There were times when she thought she must be getting old without realizing it. She saw herself as rigid, and unlovely, and couldn’t understand the allure that she continued to exert over the men that she met. In any case, she unfailingly rejected their advances, decisively and unilaterally.
The night dragged on and sleep gradually enveloped her in a murky fog. Those kids, those murders. The press and its damned Crocodile. She didn’t mind the reporting of it per se; she just hated the way that the media attention created pressure and haste. Haste, as she knew all too well, made people do stupid things.
Maybe Lojacono, the Sicilian, had a point: the Camorra was a false trail.
Lojacono. Quite a guy. She’d felt his eyes running the length of her body but she’d picked up no attraction, not even when she’d impulsively invited him for a coffee. He’d struck her as different from the others. He was intelligent, that was obvious: he’d proved it at the crime scene, noticing the tissues before anybody else. And the observations he’d shared at the café hung together nicely too. She thought back to the file about him that she’d decided to read through once she got back to her office. A grim story: a police witness who’d decided to run his mouth. Maybe the informant had simply been inclined to get rid of a talented cop.
Suddenly she shivered and pulled the blankets a little tighter. Somewhere out there was the Crocodile, probably alone, and possibly hungry. And there was a Sicilian policeman with almond-shaped eyes, whom she imagined was every bit as alone.
So many people are alone in this crazy, chaotic city, thought Laura Piras.
And she finally dropped off to sleep.
CHAPTER 33
Sweetheart, my darling,
I’m heading out soon.
As usual I’ve prepared it all in detail and I’m ready for any eventuality, including the possibility that I’ll come back here without having achieved what I set out to do because something went wrong at the last second.
Because that’s the key, my darling. To be in no
hurry. To be sure you don’t compromise your ultimate aim just because you must complete the job at all costs. You have to wait for conditions to suit the plan. However long it takes.
If you think about it, the ten years that have already passed are part of that philosophy. One day after another, building: in my head, on paper, on the computer, at the shooting range, in the garage. Readying everything, second by second. I never prepared a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C; I only ever had a single plan. And I have to wait for the parts—all the parts—to fit together before I make my move.
I creep around the city, doing what I need to. I watch from my hiding places, I never look anyone in the eye, crawling along, clinging to the wall. And I realize that all these people, running to and fro, cursing and swearing, listening to music on their headphones and chewing their gum, dead-eyed—all these people actually protect me. They’re like a shifting wall that I can hide behind.
I think of you, my darling. I think of all the time you spent here, alone. Without me. I think of how you suffered. It won’t be long now, you know. Not long at all.
This time it’ll be even easier; this time there’s no danger of anyone coming by with a dog. I still laugh. Did I tell you that I found some splashes of beagle pee on the cuffs of my trousers?
Writing to you keeps me company. I hope you like it. It warms my heart, makes me feel as if I’m talking to you, even if I can’t hear you answer me. But soon we’ll sit side by side, and we’ll talk and talk—we’ll tell each other stories until our throats are parched.
Sometimes I can hear your laughter. It’s happened a lot in recent years. I took refuge in it, trying not to hear her gasp and wheeze.
I’ve often wondered about what I’d feel. I’ve thought about it, so much and for so long, about all this, every detail, every practical aspect, but I’ve never really known what I would feel. What feelings I would experience, in other words. And now I think I have the answer.
I don’t feel a thing.
I love you, my sweet and only darling—that’s the only thing I feel. I feel no joy, I feel no pain. I see them fall, I see them die. I see them pass away, give up the ghost. And I feel nothing when they do.
I stay and look, making sure that what I wanted to make happen really has happened. I watch as death moves from one corpse to another. I see a dawning expression on the faces of those left behind as the doors to hell on earth swing wide open. Which is what I wanted. But I don’t feel any satisfaction, nor am I brushed by even the shadow of regret.
I feel nothing.
All I feel is the powerful, overwhelming love that I have for you.
CHAPTER 34
Dawn on a rainy day.
There’s not a specific moment when you see the dawn, on a rainy day. Suddenly it’s there, sliding into view while you had your mind on other things.
You feel it in the air. You watch as the night abandons the rain, step by step, and unexpectedly there’s a pallid light, translucent as a wet silk sheet.
It descends gradually, like a disease. It settles on the smoke-grey trees, washes the walls with tears, turns the glittering cobblestones dull and opaque.
Dawn on a rainy day constricts the breathing and, to the sorrows of whoever is still awake at that hour, it adds pain.
A girl in love has checked the time over and over, dialing a cell phone number over and over again, until she finally resigns herself to the fact that there’s no answer, and she falls asleep, fully dressed, in an armchair. Dawn arrives in the rain and caresses her from the window, without waking her, regretfully.
A father awakes and, as he heads for the bathroom, notices an empty bedroom, an untouched bed. Suddenly he feels fearful and looks out of the window at the rainy dawn. Below, he sees the garage door open. He hurries down in pajamas and slippers, steps outside, indifferent to the cold and damp. He walks into the garage.
A scream tears through the air.
The wet dawn folds back around that tear.
Like a chilly shroud.
*
Lojacono could hardly fail to notice that something had happened. In the alley, at the front entrance of the police station, there were two vans and a car emblazoned with the logos of the leading national television networks and surmounted by large dish antennae. The vehicles partly obstructed the already narrow passageway, and a uniformed policeman was arguing with the drivers in a spirited but unsuccessful attempt to get them to move.
Within the courtyard things were even worse. A platoon of journalists with microphones and digital recorders were pushing and shoving, trying to get inside the building, while two blank-faced cops barred the entrance. Lojacono was forced to signal to catch their attention before he could be allowed in. A young woman reporter wearing glasses realized that he was a cop and tried to grab his sleeve, but he wriggled out of her grasp.
Inside, it was relatively peaceful. Giuffrè was already swaying nervously.
“Do you mind telling me what the hell’s going on? What is all this ruckus?”
The little man snickered. “Oh, right, I almost forgot: what with you living in a cave and all, you don’t have a TV or a radio. But how do you manage to get any sleep with all that silence? I think I’d lose my mind.”
“Well, you’re right. Who gets any sleep? Are you going to tell me what’s happening or not?”
The sergeant puffed up his chest in pride. “First item on the national news. The whole country is interested in us, as you can see. The Crocodile has struck again. A university student, in the better part of Vomero, same technique, this time in the garage at his villa. It probably happened last night. His father found him this morning at dawn—a prestigious doctor, well known in this city, apparently a gynecologist.”
Lojacono flopped into his chair. “So they’re certain? There’s no doubt about it? It was him?”
Giuffrè nodded gravely. “Of course it was him. Unless there’s already a copycat out there. You know how it is these days. The minute you’re the subject of a front-page story, other people start trying to imitate you. But all the necessary elements were there: tissues on the sidewalk, a shell casing from a .22 pistol, a shot to the head, fired point-blank. He waited for the boy to sit down at the wheel and then fired before he could close the door. So it was him.”
The inspector stared into the void. “Another one. That makes three. What do we know about the kid?”
Giuffrè extended both arms. “I can’t help you there. All I know is what they said on the TV news. It happened last night, so the morning newspapers missed it. His name was Donato Rinaldi, he was almost twenty-three, studying medicine. He was on track for his degree, a good student. He live alone with his father, a widower. He was an only child. His father’s one of the most sought-after gynecologists in town, plenty of money, they broadcast shots of the villa where they live. They live there, instead of Posillipo like the other rich people in this city, to be closer to the hospital where the father is head physician. I don’t know anything else.”
“I don’t understand—if it happened on the other side of town, why are all these reporters here?”
The little man’s expression suddenly turned crafty. “Because we were the first to handle these murders, so we’ve had longer than anyone else to investigate, even if we haven’t found out a thing. So we’re especially to blame, don’t you think? Now they’re waiting for Di Vincenzo, to rip him limb from limb the second they get the chance.”
“Does he know?”
“Oh, you bet he knows. He’s here, locked in his office, and he has been since seven-fifteen this morning. He’s taking no calls. Pontolillo told me that Piras has already called three times. But he won’t answer and he even has his mobile turned off.”
Lojacono shook his head. “A single father. A widower. Lorusso was born to a single mother; no one ever knew who the father was. De Matteis’s mother is divorced; the girl’s father didn’t even come to the funeral. I heard a couple of people talking about it—he wasn’t able to get a flight back
from America in time. And they’re all just kids.”
Giuffrè listened, rapt, his eyes magnified by his bottle-bottom glasses. “I can tell–the mind of the great detective is grinding into gear. Think, Loja’, think. I know it–you’re our one and only hope of ever getting out of here.”
“Get used to it, Giuffrè. I know less about all this than the others. All I’m doing is linking what facts I do possess, that’s it.”
At that moment Di Vincenzo walked past their office door, heading for the courtyard. He was as white as a sheet. His gait was rigid and he stared straight ahead. An instant later, the platoon of reporters exploded with a shout.
CHAPTER 35
Now she knows she’ll never see him again. Her fear has turned into certainty.
Eleonora gets out of bed, stiff-limbed. She feels completely drained of energy. She struggles against an immediate, violent surge of vertigo and the retching urge to vomit that follows. She leans back against the wall, inhaling deeply.
As she washes her face with ice-cold water she feels a distinctly odd sensation: she sees herself from outside. Right there, in the bathroom of the flat she lives in, as if it were a movie and she were the only spectator, sitting and watching. She looks with detachment at this pallid, unkempt woman, with her rumpled clothing, her makeup smeared from sleep and tears. She could be any age, come from any walk of life. She is the very picture of loneliness and despair.
She’s alone now. And she’s scared.
She’s terrified by the thought of having to make her way through a hostile world. Having to decide for herself, and defend her decision. Having no one to rely on, no one in it with her.
It’s the first time in her life that anything like this has happened. There was always someone to take care of her, to point her in the right direction. Sometimes she followed her own instincts, but even so, she knew that she could count on help from others if needed.
The Crocodile (World Noir) Page 10