Her skirt was tight and her jacket wrapped itself lovingly around her petite body. Only a gold crucifix with a single ruby red tear on the lapel of her dark grey jacket revealed Apollonia’s rank within the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She was no older than Antonia.
Apollonia, too, was originally from Castellarano – the daughter of a pharmacist – and she had come back home: the little mountain town held an irresistible attraction for anyone who was born there.
She sat down on a kitchen chair, accepted a cup of tea, folded her trench coat in her lap and came straight to the point.
‘The Mikado, Antonia, is this year’s performance for the Old Girls’ Day. But my girls look like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga or Beyoncé. They don’t look like anyone from the court of the Emperor of Japan, and certainly not like anything Gilbert and Sullivan would recognize. They need serious styling. A total makeover, in fact. All of them.’
Antonia pointed to herself. ‘Me?’
‘If you have the time. It’s a major commitment,’ the headmistress warned her. ‘They rehearse every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The first night is in two weeks. If Signor Conti needs you for a death we’ll understand, of course.’
‘There’s nothing I would rather do. It sounds exciting!’
‘Competent students from the upper school will help you.’ Apollonia blew steam from the rim of the cup. ‘We have plenty of white kabuki paint or whatever you call it.’
‘Thank you. I would love to do it.’
CHAPTER 13
Milan
Teenagers were skateboarding in the park outside the Grand Hotel, moving at dizzying speed between hedges, rock gardens, steps and railings with the total lack of fear only fourteen-year-olds possess. Sabrina D’Avalos continued along the little street south of the cathedral. Regardless of whether she walked in the sun or shade, she had a sense of being under surveillance. A tightness in her chest.
How strange to feel both lonely and observed at the same time.
She had identified two of her tails on the Corso outside the Palace of Justice. It wasn’t difficult once you knew how. People’s social interaction, even in open squares and in crowds, still remained so predictable that deviations stood out – especially if you were as paranoid as she was. A man in a pavement café, dressed like a tourist in shorts, bumbag and sandals, with a camera slung over his shoulder, had tried too hard to ignore her when she walked past. But when she was fifty metres away he looked after her and got up – she could see him reflected in the window of a computer shop. He had already left the exact money on the table. Another middle-aged man, dressed like your average businessman, emerged from a chemist’s ten metres behind Sabrina and adapted his footsteps a little too neatly to match hers.
The two men also walked at the same speed, as if a cable connected them. Her neck started to feel sweaty. Both men moved smoothly and economically and appeared to be in good shape. They were presumably faster than her, even over a short distance. The tourist’s bumbag and the businessman’s folded-up newspaper also meant the likelihood of easily accessible weapons.
She walked fast and didn’t look back.
In Corso di Porta Vittoria she reduced her speed and synchronized her entrance into a department store to put a group of college students between her and her pursuers. In the glass of the revolving door she saw the two men accelerate before their path was blocked by the impenetrable group of youngsters.
Coin was busy. Sabrina made her way through the crowds in the perfumery, went around a pillar and ran downstairs to the basement where lavatories, lockers and telephone booths were located. She took the lift to the third floor: Men’s and Boys’ Wear. She found a black hoodie at least three sizes too big and a pair of black jeans a size too small. She paid without trying on the clothes and dropped her shoulder bag into the shopping bag. In the sports section she bought a pair of large, masculine sunglasses.
On the floor below, Sabrina found a quiet changing room. She loosened her ponytail and combed her hair forwards so that it covered the scarred part of her face, put her leather jacket and blue jeans in the plastic bag, and put on the hoodie and the tight jeans. She pulled the hood over her head, looked in the mirror, applied thick black mascara and black kohl. She was fairly pleased with the result. Assistant Public Prosecutor Sabrina D’Avalos had entered the cubicle, and an introverted, androgynous emo had emerged instead – or so she hoped. She sat down on the stool in the changing room and placed the four identical cheap wristwatches that she had brought with her from Naples on the floor. She twisted off the plastic straps and binned them. She put two of the watches in separate scrunched-up cigarette packages, one in an empty sweet bag and the last in an empty tampon box.
She left the changing room and tried to slouch like a boy. A pursuer would be looking out as much for a person’s pattern of movement as external features when trying to identify his target.
At a side exit she mingled with another small group of teenagers on their way out through the revolving door. She asked a girl for directions to the nearest Internet café. The girl answered her as she would any other Milanese teenager. Sabrina almost smiled, but stopped herself. Emos don’t smile.
She hung around the area outside the cathedral for a couple of hours. Ate pizza slices, drank cola, smoked cigarettes and sat on a bench in the square for a long time, watching early evening tourists and pigeons. A young couple sat down on the bench next to her and parked a sleeping child in a buggy in front of them. Sabrina looked at them and did a double take. She recognized the woman from her law course … Sofia something or other … and the young man had sat in the row behind her in the lecture hall for several years. The woman glanced at Sabrina’s hooded figure and carried on talking regardless. Shortly afterwards they got up and left.
The sense of being watched was lifting, and Sabrina was just congratulating herself when a man sat down next to her.
‘Signor Raspallo,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Call me Nestore,’ he said.
He leaned forwards and studied his elegant suede shoes. She noted to her satisfaction that he had taken off the bow tie.
‘Nestore … damn you.’
‘An excellent disguise,’ he said. ‘The emo.’
‘Not good enough, it would appear. I assume you’re not here by chance?’
‘Not entirely. But I come here often. I never tire of the cathedral. Do you know what I love about it the most?’
‘Tell me.’
‘That it was created by anonymous and forgotten masons. They toiled for years, producing some of the greatest art the world has ever seen. Not for themselves, not for any recognition in their lifetime, but for something higher.’
‘Perhaps they weren’t anonymous in their lifetime?’ she suggested.
Sabrina, too, looked at the miraculous cathedral, which she had always felt lacked something. A unifying thought, possibly. It had borrowed freely from every European style from Gothic to late Romantic and, yes, the result was unique, but you had to look carefully to spot the original concept. On the other hand, there was something deeply Italian and life-affirming about the architectural clash.
Raspallo placed an envelope between them.
‘Here are a couple of things which I think will interest you.’
‘What things?’
‘You’ll know when you see them. There’s also a number on which you can reach me at any time.’
‘In case anything happens?’
‘In case of anything.’
‘Is that official, Nestore?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Yes and no?’
‘I think it depends on whether you succeed. If you do, it’ll be official, obviously; if not they don’t want anyone to know they were involved.’
‘I see. So who are you?’
‘A friend, I think.’
A friend under orders, she thought.
He described the two Camorra tails Sabrina had managed to lose at the entrance to Coin. A
fter a brief deliberation the two men had wandered back in the direction of Via Durini and her hotel.
He stood up and looked at her gravely.
‘It means that you’re of interest to the Camorra. They would appear not to be indifferent to the identity of the bodies in the container. Perhaps they still retain an interest in Lucia and Salvatore Forlani. Did you drive here directly from Naples?’
‘Yes,’ she lied.
‘Although it might look like it, the Camorra haven’t promised not to liquidate public prosecutors, though it has been a long time since the last one,’ he said. ‘Watch yourself.’
‘Thank you, Nestore. But I think they’re waiting to see where I go and whom I visit.’
‘Possibly.’
It was as if the young man wanted to add something. He looked at her with some doubts. Then he went inside the cathedral.
She hoped he might consider lighting a candle for her.
It had grown dark when she turned into Via Durini. In the distance she saw the neon sign of Albergo Merlin flash out the guest house’s position to the rest of the world. She had long since selected her candidates: the green Fiat van, obviously, the other white van with reflective foil covering the rear window, a new beige Ford Mondeo whose owner had been leaning against the door studying a map for a remarkable period of time, and a minibus that appeared to be empty. Behind the dark windows of the minibus she thought she saw a tiny movement, but it wasn’t repeated. She couldn’t see either the tourist or the businessman.
She walked along the pavement to the beat of Katie Melua. She let one of the cigarette packets with the wristwatch slip from her hand just behind the rear wheel of the green van. Sabrina entered a kiosk and bought a packet of chewing gum and a magazine with a latex-clad Lady Gaga on the cover.
She unwrapped a piece of chewing gum near the white van and let the paper and the other cigarette packet fall down behind its left rear wheel. Sabrina repeated the procedure by the minibus and the Mondeo. The man in the driver’s seat had swapped the map with Il Golfo, a Neapolitan newspaper, and Sabrina frowned at this display of poor professional standards. She turned left at the corner of Via Borgogna and walked up the road which ran parallel with Via Durini.
In a quiet corner in one of the courtyards connecting Corso Europa and Albergo Merlin she quickly changed her clothing, pulled her hair back in a ponytail and stuffed the shopping bags from Coin into her shoulder bag. She removed the make-up with a cleansing wipe – and the emo was no more.
The receptionist managed to muster a feeble smile when she appeared at the counter.
Sabrina beamed back at him.
She nodded to the back room where she could see a flickering computer screen.
‘Good evening, signore. I’ve a favour to ask you.’
‘Yes?’
‘Tomorrow my husband and children arrive at Milan Linate. The airport, you know.’
‘I have heard of it,’ the man said.
‘Of course you have. I’m sorry. But, please, could I ask you to check on your computer if there are any delays in flight traffic tomorrow at 12.05? Meridiana flight 2306. It would be a great help.’
She folded her hands demurely on the counter.
The receptionist sighed and got up.
‘All right.’
‘Thank you so much, signore.’
The man closed the folding door behind him and Sabrina slipped silently behind the counter and swapped one of her room keys with one from a room on the third floor. Earlier she had noticed that room number 307 – like practically all rooms at Albergo Merlin – was vacant.
She resumed her original position in front of the counter.
‘There would appear to be no delays, signora,’ the receptionist said when he returned.
‘That’s great. Are you married?’
He looked at her. He was evidently trying to remember.
‘Yes.’
She nodded as if the two of them had now bonded and requested her keys. The receptionist handed them to her without looking at them.
‘Good night, signore.’
‘Night.’
‘Sleep well.’
‘I’ll try, signora.’
CHAPTER 14
Castellarano
The door to Enzo’s rooms opened when Antonia had finished in the bathroom. She counted eight steps as he crossed the landing to the stairs and knew that the front door would slam shut nine seconds later. She opened her bedroom window to the song of a blackbird on the roof across the road. The evening sky was dark blue. She tightened the cord of her dressing gown, gathered her hair at the nape of her neck and leaned forwards, resting on her elbows on the windowsill. Opposite, at their usual table near the garden and bowling alley of La Stazione, three regulars reclined in wicker chairs, elegant and colourful as only middle-aged Italian men can be.
The men spotted Enzo the moment he stepped outside her front door. They called out greetings that could easily be heard across the road. One got up and waved him over, but tonight her strange lodger ignored his friends. At times, without warning, Enzo could become as distant as a sleepwalker. Stiff and dark he would march down the road and disappear in the shadows.
A few minutes later a bottle-green English car, which Gianni had identified as a Bentley Brooklands, would drive past the restaurant in grandiose silence and vanish in the darkness behind Enzo Canavaro. No one knew who owned it, but every now and then it would appear like a ghost on the road. Usually on evenings when Enzo was at his most twitchy and unapproachable. Speculations about the strange car had spread across the town for the last two years, but no one had yet come up with a plausible explanation.
Enzo’s unfathomable behaviour angered Antonia. Any rejection of intimacy, of any opportunity for happiness and enjoyment of life, outraged her. She felt the same indignation every night as she watched old Signora Pantoni’s rituals: the dinner, the cutlery laid out for breakfast the following morning, a glass of water before bedtime, fifteen minutes of reading before the lights were switched off behind the blinds.
A strange wait for death, without offering any resistance.
Antonia stacked up the pillows against the headboard. A bowl of sweets and a pile of almost new fashion magazines were within sinful reach.
Later, she registered Enzo’s footsteps walking up the stairs.
The American edition of Vogue featured an article on the Milanese fashion designer Massimiliano Di Luca’s rise and … fall? American insiders were united in expressing doubt whether the master could survive the departure of his young chief designer, who had left to set up his own house.
Antonia pushed her reading glasses up her nose and studied Massimiliano Di Luca, who was locked in an embrace with an ecstatic Madonna and Scarlett Johansson on a glittering Paris runway. Signature black suit, open-necked white shirt, a virile and handsome face, a ponytail. His gaze was aimed at something that was not clear to anyone but Massimiliano Di Luca. He had designed several collections that had all been original and unique, giving the public the impression that he had arrived on earth in a rescue capsule from a dying star. For three decades Di Luca had left even his severest critics euphoric and his rivals in despair. At the same time his furious energy had enabled him to serve as president and director of the powerful fashion industry body, the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana.
Antonia switched off her reading light, tossed some of the pillows on the floor and fell asleep to the sound of Enzo moving around in his self-imposed solitude.
Milan
In her room Sabrina opened the envelope from Nestore Raspallo while she contemplated his motives. He had undoubtedly spoken to Federico Renda, who was of the opinion that she needed help – something that infuriated her. Renda’s influence extended far beyond Naples, and his condescending remarks about the North were pure affectation. He often entertained top politicians and important business people from northern Italy. The President had visited him several times and Renda had a seat on countless national c
ouncils and committees.
The envelope contained a log of calls to and from her father’s mobile phone in the last five days of his life. The final call was to a GIS captain, a Primo Alba, three hours before her father was killed in the cabin in Alto Adige. The list had been printed out on perforated printer paper from a well-known telecommunications company. It took up three sheets and was dated today.
She let her eyes skim over the dates, times, call duration and the names of subscribers. In a few instances the name of the subscriber had been replaced with a line of x’s. There was a dramatic accumulation of calls to and from her father’s mobile after the attack on Nanometric on 5 September 2007: from the local Polizia Municipale in San Siro, the ambulance service, the Carabinieri and the Polizia Stradale. A few hours later calls from the traffic police in Città Studi south of Milan had come in when the rescue crew started cutting Giulio Forlani free from his wrecked car. She traced the list with her finger: Palazzo di Giustizia, Ospedale Maggiore, etc. Nothing jumped out at her. Sabrina frowned when she saw that no calls had been logged to or from the mobile phone between 11.15 a.m. and 12.15 p.m. Half an hour before and after the time Lucia and Salvatore Forlani were abducted, her father had switched off his mobile. In the eye of the storm.
At 12.15 p.m. the general had turned on his mobile again. The first call was an outgoing one and according to the telecommunications company the number belonged to Emp. Massimiliano Di Luca, s.a.
Her father and Massimiliano Di Luca?
On one hand, it was only natural that her father would contact Di Luca about the disaster if they were financing Forlani’s and Nanometric’s research. On the other hand it seemed strange that he would risk exposing his involvement with Nanometric, instead of making use of a front-man and a fictitious EU Commission office as he usually did. She had no recollection of him ever mentioning copyright protection, Nanometric or Massimiliano Di Luca at home. The latter would undoubtedly have caught the attention of his fashion-conscious daughter who would have pestered him for tickets to Di Luca’s shows.
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