He hated that face, the reflected image of a destiny which had already been written many years before.
That horrible scar and all the others on his body would never fade, and he would bear them and the scars inside his mind until his life ended.
His destiny could no longer change.
He would have continued to kill for his entire life, like a damned demon, in solitude.
Death walked beside him and inside him, day after day…
Despite all the suffering and all the wounds which had marked his physique, he did not show the forty years of his real age.
His legs were thin but muscular and their agility, attached to a body which took him to 1.70m in height, was the basis of his survival on many occasions.
His glance, as grim as his disposition, oblique and apparently empty of any emotion, died like the cigarette left to burn out on the ashtray in the bathroom.
The small apartment had been his father’s last dwelling place. It was a spartanly furnished flat on the outskirts of Verona, made up of one bedroom, a living room with a kitchen area and a bathroom.
When he learned of his father’s death, Diego had come to take possession of the flat and lived in it for one week, then abandoned it.
He did not want to sell it or even rent it.
He had come back a few months ago, before Christmas.
Everything had stayed the same, no changes.
Even the air he breathed in seemed the same as twenty years ago, a stuffy smell which permeated the room.
A fly which had started to buzz around landed on the top of the cupboard.
Diego’s arm moved so quickly that the fly had no escape.
He squeezed his fist until he heard the fly’s body being crushed, and then he opened his right fist with satisfaction and mixed what remained, smearing it on the right side of his face like aftershave lotion.
He was pleased by the disgusting image the mirror returned.
He remembered the time when as a child playing with older friends he had ended up face down in a muddy puddle and his companions had teased him. He could still hear their sniggering.
Instead of crying, Diego had gathered more mud and dirtied his face even more. Then he opened his arms and shouted a dare towards the group of his playmates, who looked at him in disgust, running off and leaving him alone, shouting his strange anxiety.
He had gone home to his aunt, the one who took the place of his mother, but instead of comforting him she gave him a resounding slap.
Violence received easily turns into the urge to be violent towards others.
He quickly learned to fight back, even against bigger companions.
The basics of martial arts taught him how to hurt others and he was very successful. No child ever laughed at him again.
His tortured face attempted to break into a melancholic smile at the memory of his childhood, difficult as it was, as difficult as the attempt to raise his left cheek.
He picked up the remains of the cigarette and slowly inhaled the last part, then threw the stub down the toilet, and flushed.
He went back to the mirror and cleaned his face.
He started to dress.
He was ready in a flash.
On top of his underpants he wore a black jumper, then dark cotton overalls, like the ones used by special branch Police and a pair of short rubber boots.
2
The sun had nearly set when the high whistle of the pass card for the last tract of Italian motorway at the border in Tarvisio, before the Italian-Austrian border, distracted Lorenzo Anselmi from his thoughts and brought him back to the present.
He had travelled so quickly on his journey which was so familiar that he now drove almost automatically.
Another half an hour and he would be able to choose whether to lie down on one of the benches in front of the calm waters of the Worthersee, or rest in the pleasant Velden Hotel, where an excellent pepper steak was waiting for him, or …
He knew the area very well and recently, whenever he could, he had got into the habit of dashing up there at weekends in search of tranquillity, which he could no longer find on the lake near where he was born.
He loved the lakes, loved the image they gave him of a sea with well-defined edges.
Driving round the hills that surrounded the lake and looking down on it was relaxing, especially at sunset, just like when as a child he rode his bicycle round the hills from which he could dominate most of that closed-in sea which Lake Garda appeared to be from a distance.
A picture of his family around a table came to his mind.
Firstly the numerous family he was born into, then the smaller one he formed later, with his wife and son.
The memory caused a tear to roll down his face, perhaps he should not do what he was thinking.
A shiver ran through him and his hands tightened around the steering wheel.
An arrow indicated the Austrian town and his usual hotel, where he had booked a room for the whole weekend, but Lorenzo turned towards a road where a “Car Rental” sign flashed.
He stopped his car, a Ford diesel station wagon, in front of the entrance and got out.
He walked up to the employee and in perfect German asked:
“Do you have a car which is faster than mine available?”
“We have that BMW” replied the man, pointing to a sportscar.
“Fine, my station wagon is slower than usual and heavy to handle. It’s no use for taking a tour around your beautiful woods.”
The man smiled.
“Your German gets better every day, Mr. An..?”
“Laurenti. Anselmo …Laurenti”
He calmly took out a licence and identity card in the same name with which the man had just identified him.
“I’ll come to pick it up in an hour”.
He went out, got back into his own car and headed off to his usual hotel.
He parked the Ford right in front of the main entrance and, picking up his briefcase, went up to the reception desk.
“Ah, good evening Herr Anselmo, glad to see you again. We’ve reserved your usual room, on the terrace with a view of the lake” said the employee, who obviously knew him quite well.
“Thank you” said Lorenzo, taking the key that the receptionist was offering him before walking to the lift.
“I left the car parked badly outside, if it is in the way here are the keys, I may not go out this evening. I have a bad headache.”
He walked off and then turned, as if on the spur of the moment.
“Yes, I’ll stay in my room. Can you have a bowl of vegetable soup and.. that’s all, that will be enough brought up?”
He let himself into his usual room and opened the large window which looked out over the lake, breathing in the intense air of the approaching sunset.
Then he opened his briefcase, set out his toiletries in the bathroom and his other things in the wardrobe, changing his clothes, abandoning his shirt and tie and pulling on a dark coloured, polo-necked cable knit jumper and a pair of cotton jeans.
He put on the same jacket, but put on his double-sided raincoat with the dark blue side out.
He turned off his mobile phone, and left his documents on the bedside table. He checked the two identity cards and relative licences which bore two different photographs, but which looked so similar …
He smiled. The false one could certainly fool the employee of the car hire firm, but closer examination by a border policeman who was being scrupulous could lead to a few problems.
His thoughts were interrupted by the waitress knocking on the door carrying his supper tray.
Shortly afterwards a very differently dressed and different looking Lorenzo Anselmi to the one who entered just an hour beforehand left the room, placed the now-eaten frugal supper tray on the floor and hung the “Do not Disturb” notice on the door handle.
He crept out of the hotel, making sure he was not seen by anybody and walked quickly towards the taxi stand.
3
It was midnight.
Diego was walking in the street.
Despite the weekend rain which had just started, people were anxious to reach someone, a date, a bar, a place where they could satisfy the urge for warmth and happiness brought on by the advent of spring after an unusually cold and gloomy winter.
Diego hated people, especially the ones who looked happy and wanted to be happy at all costs, and he hated the streets too.
It all started in a street that damned evening in November, about twenty years ago.
It had been autumnally warm all day, then in the space of a few hours the temperature had plummeted and at that moment, one o’clock at night, it was really cold.
Diego’s gloveless hands gloves ran up and down the machine gun he had around his neck and every so often he rubbed them together, breathing on them to warm them.
He could hardly wait for that uncomfortable shift to be over.
After completing the police academy his father, a NCO in the Carabinieri close to retirement, had insisted he join and had got him accepted into, he had been sent to Verona.
Diego had not led a normal life.
The only son of an elderly couple, after losing his mother at the age of six, Diego spent a difficult childhood as the son of a Carabiniere, entrusted to the care of an ancient aunt and sister of his father, often left alone to his own devices.
He did not have the chance of a normal life and the good principles that his father tried to instil into him during their rare meetings often clashed with his own, much more violent, nature.
He struggled through his education, justified in his negligence by his orphaned state and his father, seeing the turn Diego’s life had taken amongst friends and not exactly sons of a moral society, had insisted and managed to have his son accepted into the Police Academy.
He did quite well in training; he was good with weapons and had fighting in his blood. His feelings were already compromised but not deviated; he already had his own code which made him react to any sort of provocation or to choose solitude rather than the company of many of his colleagues.
Above all it was the rules which were often not to his liking, especially concerning the protection of the citizens and society for which he had no love.
Unfortunately he had already drawn attention to himself for the hard streak he had shown during some public order duties and in order to calm him down and get him back to the occupation of being a policeman, he had been assigned for a while under the wing of an ancient NCO close to retirement.
The NCO got out of the car where he had finished writing his report, closed the file and went to meet him. “All done!” he said, clapping and rubbing his hands together “let’s get out of here and go back to the barracks”.
At that moment they were both caught in the sudden light of the full headlights of a large powerful car travelling at speed.
Instinctively and angrily with his left hand Diego pulled out the stop sign he carried inside his boot and held it up.
The driver saw the stop sign and first slowed down, seemed undecided, skidded slightly, slowed down again, and stopped on the edge of the road after moving slightly forwards.
The NCO who was a little further away, seeing the strange movements the car had been making, had extracted his pistol and aimed it at the black BMW which had then finally stopped.
The passenger door opened suddenly and a girl wearing a mini skirt got out, blonde hair blown over her face, a shoulder bag on her left arm, leaned against the nearest tree and vomited violently.
Diego walked up to the car angrily.
The driver opened the automatic window.
He was wearing a silk foulard, jacket, white shirt and jeans, with smooth black hair and green eyes which were dilated as if he had just taken drugs, red veins spreading out from his pupils.
“Licence and documents please!” Diego asked in a suddenly calm voice, staring at him with a hard look, instinctively taking a dislike to that handsome face.
“I stopped because my girlfriend was feeling sick. I never usually stop at night at road blocks: you could be thieves, dressed as policemen.”
The initial dislike changed to hate, as soon as he heard the voice which replied trying to provoke him, showing himself to be a spoilt young man.
The NCO had replaced his pistol and was now approaching the girl, who waved a hand, probably waiting for the next bout of vomiting.
Diego ordered the driver to get out with a rapid gesture.
The young man got out of the car; he towered over Diego and continued with his arrogant tone.
“Look at my surname, can you read? It really is me and I have a licence to own a weapon. Now that you know who I am, let me go because I am in a hurry”
“But I am not in a hurry” Diego growled “ In fact, I’m taking you in to check just how much shit you’ve swallowed in the last half an hour”.
“Do as you wish, but if you arrest me, the day after tomorrow I’ll have you transferred to guarding sheep in Sardinia”
“Listen you moron, you could be the son of the Holy Father, but tonight I am putting you in jail, in the cooler with your pretty white jacket, and if you do have a pistol with you, I order you to hand it over immediately”.
“Oh yeah, do you wanna see it?”
The man got back into the car, opened the dashboard and took out a PPK which he pointed at Diego’s face, laughing.
Diego could never stand anyone laughing at him.
That clean face which was waving a pistol in his face, reminded him of those children who laughed at him so many years ago.
Diego’s slanted, dead eyes lit up with joy, it was just what he was waiting for.
He had already removed the safety catch off his machine gun, and he took a step backwards and emptied half the bullets into the man, killing him instantly, without once altering his cold expression.
The NCO, who had stayed beside the girl and had not heard any of what had been said, turned abruptly:
“What’s happening? What have you done?”
Diego backed away, his machine gun smoking, staring at the young man’s body with its white jacket over an elegant shirt of the same colour, unbuttoned on the chest, on which blood started to appear.
“He aimed a pistol at me, what was I to do?”
The girl, who had stopped vomiting, started to move towards him, walking like a robot in a fit of delirium.
“You are insane! He always plays with guns, he was joking, he is a really rich man, obsessed with the idea of being kidnapped; every so often he does the same to me, pretending to shoot me!”
And, limping, she slowly approached the dead body of the young man.
The officer went after her, staring questioningly at Diego who stared back, emotionless, as if he had shot at a paper target, watching the girl.
Realising her friend was dead, the girl started to scream like a madwoman, she picked up the pistol still dangling from the hands of the man who was possibly her fiancé and aimed it with anger born from despair.
The officer went up to her and without thinking about the consequences did one of the things that the academy teaches you never to do – try and disarm someone who is mad with anger.
In that moment the headlights of an approaching car lit up both of them, lighting up the area and distracting the old officer.
In the middle of another sudden nervous fit, the girl pulled the trigger hard.
A shot hit went straight into the chest of the officer who slid slowly to the ground while the girl, even more scared and dazed, still held the pistol, in front of the headlights of the car which had stopped in the middle of the road upon seeing the scene.
Diego gave her no time to think about what she had done, he narrowed his ice cold eyes and with calculated rage shot the remainder of his bullets into her.
The girl with the beautiful blonde hair fell backwards, next to the body of the officer, who had been due to retire in six months time.
His evidence and the sequence of facts should have closed the case, but to calm the ire of the powerful parents of the victims, somebody started to say that Diego was a policeman with an easy trigger finger.
Diego was subjected to a series of interviews with a psychologist who, encountering a wall of indifference typical of his closed character, immediately pronounced him totally unsuitable for the role of an ordinary law defence officer. Within headquarters Diego had never made any friends or particular protectors, thanks to his character and lack of inclination to make conversation, therefore it was easy to make him a scapegoat for a campaign against unnecessary violence.
His father was able to do nothing against the determination of several over-zealous officials keen to advance their own careers who made sure that Diego was expelled from the Police force, accused of abuse of power and consequent manslaughter.
There was no possibility of dialogue between father and son, the proud and obstinate characters they both possessed meant they would never meet again.
The elderly parent, now retired, was destroyed.
He learnt later that his son had become a squalid international mercenary, disgracing the name of a family which had always served its country.
Free from ties of respect of the rules and with another reason to hate the world which had kept him an orphan, he found a way to give a free reign to his cold, violent and cruel character.
Practically, from that tragic evening, Diego never stopped killing.
The sound of a horn of a fast car on the road brought him back to the present.
He looked up. Night was closing in on the gentle hills which surrounded Verona.
Many years had passed since he disappeared and lately he had only returned a couple of times, to kneel on his father’s grave.
He did not leave any telephone numbers and only contacted his aunt every so often for news of his father.
During one of those rare phone calls he learned of his father’s suicide.
4
Just after midnight Lorenzo reached the elegant building which overlooked a crossroad, near Borgo Trento, on the outskirts of Verona.
Dark Peony Page 2