Lorenzo asked himself what he did wrong; maybe he had not understood what a fragile character his wife had. He angrily kicked a flat football abandoned by some child right into the water.
He turned towards the car park where he had left the BMW, returning it immediately to the car hire company.
At two o’clock, after a light lunch, he started home at the wheel of the Ford station wagon, driving through the rain which had started to fall insistently.
While he was driving he glanced with pleasure at the small, cellophane-wrapped plant on the passenger seat he had bought that morning. Together with some Japanese characters showing where it was from, the attached tag showed its name: dark peony, a species which would flower in the months to come, blossoming into beautiful large dark red flowers.
Considered antique, these plants had recently become slightly unfashionable; they flowered for a short time, such as the life of the most beautiful things.
The garden of the Lorenzo’s small villa where Giulio had been born was full of them and their strong red colour, in full splendour during June, must have appealed to his imagination. Those flowers always figured in his first drawings.
Like all children, as soon as he could grasp a coloured pencil, he had started to draw.
First he tried drawing himself, then the various members of his family, his mother, his father, his house and then he always coloured the background dark red, like the flowers in his garden…
Lorenzo now lived in a modest apartment in the Montorio Veronese area, rented after his separation, consisting of two bedrooms, one for himself and one for Giulio, which the little boy occupied when they spent the weekends together. It was still raining when he reached the toll at the North Verona motorway, but before he went back to his temporary home, he stopped for a few moments in the small cemetery in Corrubio, on the outskirts of the town. He got out of the car and, carrying the vase, headed towards a small grave.
He put the vase down carefully, stroked the picture on the headstone, watching it in meditation and prayer: it was the photograph of a boy; Giulio Anselmi, his son…
Inside the headstone, protected from the rain, tied with an elastic band to the small glass lamp and sealed in a plastic envelope, there was a drawing, done by a child, showing those red flowers with the dedication: “To my daddy, for Father’s day”.
14
Giorgia Veronesi went to the window in the living room.
Outside it was still raining.
Ever since she got home the previous Friday night, it had practically never stopped and she had not left the house.
Saturday was spent reading interior decorating magazines.
She had tried to call Laura, but she was not answering and Giorgia mentally refused to go out alone.
She would have met the usual people, and could imagine their shocked comments at the news. They would ask her a load of questions, perhaps asking her if she knew anything that had not come to light after the initial investigations, knowing that her husband was in charge of the case.
Gianni had been more taciturn than usual.
Saturday he came home saying he had already eaten and Sunday he got up late.
They had eaten together at home at lunchtime, in silence.
She usually never asked him what he wanted to eat. She was used to cooking for both whatever she had decided she wanted herself, without bothering to ask his opinion, and the same thing happened that time.
Then he had shut himself away in his office and she was left alone, as usual, but she did not care any more.
At the beginning of their relationship she had put up with, not without contestation, her husband’s fixation with his career, but then she got used to it.
Her work and their son Antonio filled the empty spaces left by her husband.
After she gained a degree late in life with not the highest of grades and a marriage which had worn out very quickly, she had tried to pour all her hopes which were a consequence of the frustrations she had suffered onto her only son.
But he also grew up quickly and had soon followed his own road, leaving her alone once again.
She had just called him, even if it was only to inform him of the death of Mauro, a person who her son only knew slightly and never noticed, therefore the news had not affected him. His life was elsewhere now and, with his mother’s blessing, he had always cultivated a strong independent spirit.
As soon as he got his degree in Economy and Commerce in the local University he moved to London to complete his Masters in the revision of accounts and had remained there, finding both employment and a fiancé.
They had last seen him at Easter and would see him again for the summer holidays and after that only at Christmas.
Even though it was biologically inevitable sooner or later, the mere sound of the word “grandma” horrified Giorgia.
Ten years after Antonio was born she had fallen pregnant again, but had never told Gianni. She did not feel she could go through another pregnancy, her life had stabilized. Antonio had finished primary school, he was completely self-sufficient and she had been diagnosed with a fairly difficult gestation period.
She would have had to be bedridden for the entire time, and then she would have to face a period which was hard for her: delivery, post-natal depression and so on…
Luckily Laura, a girl with a volatile character who had just joined the studio of architect and engineers where Giorgia worked, had come to her rescue.
Brunette, about ten years younger, Laura was very attractive but her beauty was cold enough to take your breath away.
She had no men, in fact she detested them.
Giorgia had confided in her, telling her what she did not tell her husband, he would not have understood or given her the chance to choose.
She walked into the large kitchen with its elegant furnishings and everything in the correct place, with all the equipment in the centre of the room.
She put on another coffee pot and waited, while her thoughts went to the past.
She thought about Mauro.
They had been to secondary school together and flirted for years, she had always dominated him.
When he turned 18 and his father allowed him to use his Ferrari Dino, she was the first to get into it and drive it, without a licence.
They had made love, but she had been left sceptic and the experience was never repeated, even if they carried on seeing each other, as if they were together. She knew that Mauro visited prostitutes.
After the first few years at University in the pursuit of the wildest fun according to an old out-of-date tradition, one evening, by chance, at the Arena, she met Gianni.
To her he appeared handsome and interesting, athletic, soberly dressed, the perfect physique of a man only a few years older than her, used to going to the gym regularly, a mature type who instilled security.
His confident and magnetic glance had immediately won her over; it was an instantly mutual attraction which developed into a burning passion.
With him she had found that physical satisfaction in love which she had never experienced with Mauro.
She had become pregnant almost immediately which meant they did not have the chance to get to know each other enough, and then…twenty-five years had gone by.
The smell of coffee coming out of the coffee pot brought her back to the present.
She drank it with no sugar, and then headed for her bedroom.
She would go out, despite the weather, she could not bear to stay at home along any more, but she had to change.
She had still not changed out of the green silk pyjamas she had been wearing all day.
On her way through the large lounge she glanced at her favourite piece of furniture, an important Louis XVI style commode, eighteenth century French, with three large and three small drawers, in amaranth wood, with a rich decoration of bronzes and column uprights.
She adored beautiful objects, but the money to buy them was never enough.
She went towards the drawer and looked at it, then placed her hands on it.
She pulled the first drawer open and gazed at a velvet holder.
She opened it.
It contained samurai swords.
She picked out the longest and drew it out of its sheath.
Holding the grip tightly in her right hand, she mimicked the movements that she had seen so often in the cinema and theatre, and in a ballet she had seen together with her friend.
She took a few more steps, fascinated by the thing, as if inspired, then she stood still and very carefully stoked the thin blade.
It was as cold as Laura, like her hands, and yet it was with her that Giorgia had started to get to know her own body.
It was with her that she had cried in the throws of orgasm, it was with her that she was not ashamed to come.
She put the weapon back in the drawer, picked up her mobile phone and formed the familiar number.
“Laura! Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you since yesterday! “ her voice, apprehensive at first, became sweet, understanding.. “I’ll get dressed and come over”.
15
Diego was walking carelessly in the evening rain.
A taxi slowed down to avoid a puddle that had formed after the sudden downpour which had descended on the city after ten and Diego shrank back, hiding his face and his horrible scar with his hand inside the collar of his raincoat. Then he touched the inside of his coat, checking something, continually worrying he would lose what for him had become essential.
The headlights of the taxi lit up the wet road forming a strange reflection, in which Diego recognised the way he had been, many years ago.
Diego stared at the hole formed following a fault in the uneven asphalt which was filling with water.
It was two am. Mercenaries in Africa called it the witches’ hour, the one in which the enemy feels the weariness of the day the most, the ideal time to attack quickly.
It was raining…
It often rained in Nigeria and that filthy African humidity had become normal for him.
The jeep in which he was waiting together with other mercenaries was parked hidden amongst the vegetation of a wide road, where few lights appeared even if it was in one of the most elegant suburbs of the large city.
Diego was wearing a black jumper with jeans of the same colour and combat boots, even his face had been blackened with a layer of camouflage cream.
A couple of hand grenades hung on his belt and he nervously grasped his attack rifle, thinking about the orders for the action which he had not wanted to refuse.
Chewing gum, he glanced at the nearest villa, surrounded by an enormous green lawn, very far away from their objective, then his eyes returned to concentrate on the entrance of the large, three-story house where the main exponent of one of the families who opposed the regime of General Babangida lived.
The latter, author of the coup which had brought the downfall of the previous regime in 1985, often had to deal with the dissatisfaction of the various ethnic groups which made up the country.
He had already savagely crushed an attempt at a coup against him in 1990.
Some of his ministers and powerful friends still resorted to the use of groups of mercenaries to remove the obstacles the government often met with.
After months of lack of willpower following his expulsion from the Italian police force, Diego had come into contact with an old soldier belonging to the foreign legion, dedicated to hiring and training mercenaries. Africa became his adopted land where there was always work for people like him.
He could no longer remember the number of fights or retaliations he had taken part in, or which wars he had been in.
His particular skills of professionalism in combat, together with his natural predisposition for cruelty had lead to being chosen, with the other components of his command, for what was meant to be a total clean-up operation of the entire family of an enemy who had become too uncomfortable for the friends of the regime.
They could leave no witnesses.
A few private guards, armed to the teeth, were on duty in the entrance.
Evidently the opposition had access to non-indifferent economic supplies, but in that climate of continuous rivalry between clans and tribes, nobody could feel safe.
“You know what to do. First take the guards at the entrance, and then straight in. Hit without mercy, take advantage of the element of surprise. As soon as everywhere is clean, run out. Remember, we get the money as promised only if there are no survivors. OK?”
The man in a khaki uniform sitting next to the mercenary driving the jeep was in charge of the operation of that night. He spoke in English, keeping his voice low, and his white skin and red hair betrayed his Anglo-Saxon origins.
He looked at each of his men in turn.
Their reply was silence; there was no need for anything else.
Not one word had been exchanged between them.
The plan was already known and those who were going to execute it had done the same thing before.
There was no need for further information beyond the details already received from a servant who betrayed the family he worked for.
The five men got out silently in the night darkness and slowly approached the villa.
When the first guard got suspicious and grabbed his rifle, the Englishman’s machine gun fired the first dull shots, hitting the man and throwing his body backwards.
The mercenary on Diego’s left took out the second guard, hitting him with two precise bullets which puffed up his shirt with blood, making him sink to the ground without a cry.
The weapons they had used until then were fitted with silencers so no particular movement was heard from inside the villa.
One mercenary used pincers to cut through the large iron chain which locked the gate, while the others started to climb over the wall at the back. The man in the driving seat started the jeep again, driving slowly in a circular movement towards the villa to keep any possible external help away.
The men started their work inside the villa, wandering through the rooms with their machine guns like hungry wolves searching for prey.
Diego headed straight for the top floor, ran to the end of the corridor he could make out in the semi-darkness, and started from the first door on his left.
He kicked it in.
An old couple huddled on the bed, gathering the sheets.
The hysterical screams coming from the old woman lacerated his nerves for a moment, the time it took to hit them mercilessly with a spray of bullets.
He opened the other doors in the same way.
They were empty.
In the penultimate room a semi-naked guard who had just woken up tried to reach for his gun hanging on the wall but Diego killed him instinctively.
A brief moment of gratification meant he did not hear a movement to his rear.
He whipped round and the long curved blade welded by a muscular Negro, which should have hit him in the back, sliced into his left cheek from his eye to his jaw.
“Agh” he screamed while the blood flowed down his face.
Gritting his teeth and with his face screwed up in disgust, he emptied the entire magazine of his machine gun into his attacker.
He saw the bullets coming out of the back of the enemy warrior who was still holding the dangerous knife, its handle carved from rhinoceros horn.
The blood which was now flowing freely down his face obscured his vision, for a second he saw a child appear before him, trembling, terrified.
He instinctively lowered his weapon but from behind him the flame of the gun of one of his companions in that terrible mission let its mortal bullets fly towards that small figure.
His tragic “… No! “ was lost in the horror of that night.
The image returned him to the present and was re-absorbed by the road, together with its memories.
16
Cesare Cavasso had spent Sunday afternoon checking
his stock. The value was close to one million Euros, but the money he could get for it was considerably lower. The pieces he possessed were not sellable… both the house he lived in and the shop had already been mortgaged by the bank and his creditors had become more demanding since he had been having more difficulties. He needed more time.
He knew that if his few possessions were auctioned they would raise about half their true value and he would be on the street, with no income.
A sad prospect for an already grey and rainy afternoon, complicated further by the murder the previous Saturday. He was involved, and if necessary he would have to hire a lawyer, at which his creditors would swoop like vultures, in particular that bitch of a crook who held more than half of his debts.
He wandered around amongst his pieces of furniture and then sank down into his favourite armchair, holding a glass of grappa. He must have drunken more than usual because he fell asleep straight away.
When he woke up there was no light in the shop, it was pitch dark. He opened his eyes and stood up. He tripped over the glass which had dropped from his hand when he fell asleep. He bent down to pick it up and, feeling his way, reached the light switch. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. It was past ten pm. He had been asleep for several hours. Breathing heavily, he walked slowly to the modest bathroom where he urinated and washed his face.
From the nearby bar he could hear the noise made by customers watching the Sunday football match.
Shortly after he entered the bar, holding a small umbrella to protect himself from the rain.
The walls displayed photographs of the home football team and, in pride of place, a picture of the players on the team that won the championship.
The customers, all fans, were as noisy as usual.
The barman looked at him curiously because of the time, questioning him with a glance to ask if he wanted anything and receiving a gesture of refusal from the antiques dealer. After greeting a few of the regulars, the dealer walked into the billiard room and sat down on one of the chairs which surrounded the tables.
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