by Will Adams
Zeno grunted. ‘Go on.’
‘I went to the library for our daily meeting. It was hopeless, I couldn’t concentrate. I returned home early. I got drunk. By chance, me and Emanuela were due at Claudio’s that night for dinner. I took him aside when we got there, I said some stupid things.’
‘What kind of stupid things?’
‘The bastard was sleeping with my wife,’ scowled D’Agostino. ‘Have we really become the kind of country where a man can’t stand up for himself any more?’
‘What kind of stupid things?’
The defiance faded. He slumped like a burst tyre. ‘I didn’t ask him to kill Conte. Not explicitly. But I knew the kind of man he was. I knew who he worked for, what he did for them. So I told him I’d give anything to see Conte dead. That I wanted to see him burn. I actually said that: that I wanted to see him burn. It was after that madwoman had been on TV, you see, ranting about her Sicilian bull. I even joked that if it was done right, it would be blamed on her.’
‘Except it wasn’t a joke, was it?’
‘No. I knew precisely what he’d do, and that afterwards I’d belong to him. And, yes, I was drunk at the time. But I was sober the next morning. I could have phoned him to call it off, blame it on the booze. I kept quiet instead. I kept quiet and I waited. And then it happened, exactly as I’d asked. And it was horrible. Horrible. Not just seeing it or hearing it. But seeing myself too. The kind of man I was. Because Conte looked up, you know? He looked up when he realised what was happening, and he saw me standing there, and he knew. I could see it on his face.’
‘So what happened next?’
D’Agostino let out a long and weary breath. ‘I went home. Emanuela was watching on the news. She knew too, of course. She’d seen me at that party, conspiring with Claudio. We had a fight. She stormed out. Then Claudio called to present me with the bill. I tried to bluff it, but what was the point? The bastard had recorded our conversation.’
‘He played it for you?’
‘No, but…’ He thought back a moment, then covered his face with his hands. ‘Christ. I’m too stupid to live.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I held out that night somehow, but when I got into my car the next morning, he’d put a mobile beneath my seat. It began to ring. It scared the shit out of me. I mean, it’s a bloody Mercedes, it’s supposed to be secure. If they could get into it that easily… Anyway, it was Claudio telling me he wanted an alibi for his friend. You know about that already. I asked him what date. It turned out to be a night I’d gone out with Taddeo, so I told him no. He told me not to worry, Taddeo would never find out. I thought he meant that he’d never hear of it. But obviously he decided not to take even that much risk, so they killed him too. And Taddeo was my friend. My oldest friend. My best friend. This has to stop.’ He lifted his chin once more with a little rekindled pride. ‘And so it stops here.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
I
Pietro Chiellini danced down the front steps of Secondigliano’s main police station to greet Izzo and Messana as they pulled up on the forecourt. He winked cheerfully at Professor D’Agostino as Izzo hauled him from the back of the car. ‘Thought we’d meet again,’ he told him. ‘Didn’t think it’d be so quick.’
‘You picked up the cousin yet?’ asked Izzo.
‘Five minutes ago. Doubt he’ll talk, though. Made of granite, that one.’
‘May not need him to.’ He put a friendly hand on D’Agostino’s arm. ‘This one’s given us everything.’ He stooped by the driver’s window to talk to Valentina before she set off for Posillipo to liaise with the investigating team there. ‘You got the address?’ he asked.
‘You think I’m an idiot?’
‘We know the why, now,’ he told her. ‘We don’t yet know the how or who. We need that if we’re to make sure none of these bastards get away with it.’
‘You do you think I’m an idiot.’
‘Posillipo Serious Crime is run by a guy called Danilo Barbieri. Years back, I beat him to a promotion. Now he holds a grudge. If he’s there, feel free to trash-talk me all you like.’
‘I need permission to trash-talk you? Since when?’
He waved her off, then helped Chiellini escort D’Agostino inside. They parked him in holding while they went to talk to Cousin Claudio. An overweight, balding man, with a two-day beard and gold everywhere. Teeth, earrings, medallions and rings on all his fingers. ‘Look at you two,’ he muttered. ‘Is there an arsehole convention going on?’
‘If there were an arsehole convention going on,’ said Chiellini, ‘wouldn’t you be addressing it?’
Claudio laughed. ‘Good one,’ he said. He turned to Izzo, ran his eyes up and down him. ‘Don’t think I know you, do I?’
‘You will,’ said Izzo, settling into a chair.
‘It’s you I owe this to, then? Rousting me at home. Embarrassing me in front of my wife and kids. Fucking disgrace, hard-working taxpayer like myself.’
‘You pay tax?’
‘The duty on cigarettes these days. It’s a scandal.’
Izzo took out his phone on which he’d recorded D’Agostino’s confession, set it on the table. ‘We have you,’ he said flatly. ‘Your cousin has told us everything.’
‘Bastard does go on, doesn’t he?’
‘Specifically, he told us how he contracted you to murder Raffaele Conte for sleeping with his wife.’
‘Contracted me, eh? So there’s paperwork?’
‘A verbal contract is surely enough for a man of honour like yourself.’
Claudio shrugged. ‘Why would I care if a man can’t keep his woman happy?’
‘You murdered Conte as a favour to your cousin. You also charged a price. An alibi for a mate of yours. An alibi he now admits was false.’
‘So you’re saying he’s a liar? Sounds like he’ll make a top witness.’
‘Was he lying when he told me how you confessed to killing Raffaele Conte?’
‘Confessed!’ snorted Claudio. ‘I fucking bragged about it.’
Izzo glanced at Chiellini. ‘You admit it?’
‘I admit nothing,’ said Claudio. ‘The stupid arse turned up drunk to my party, then spent the whole night snivelling. I told him to man up. I told him to give her a slapping. Even offered to do it for him myself, if he didn’t have the balls. Blood’s blood, right? But no. He still loved her, apparently. It was this guy Conte he was mad at. So I told him I’d take care of it, but only to shut him up, you know? He was ruining my fucking party. But I never gave it another thought.’
‘And yet, three weeks later, Raffaele Conte was murdered. Would you care to explain that?’
‘Your job, not mine. But it made me laugh, I’ll tell you that. Never thought the bastard had it in him. Then the details started coming out, and maybe it wasn’t him after all. Either way, I could use him in my pocket. So I called him. Bastard was already shit-faced. Got a real problem with that, you ask me. I told him I’d done as he’d asked, but only to see how he’d respond. Either way, I’ve got him, right? He tried to bluff me, but I wasn’t having it. I made him give the alibi. And here we are.’
‘So you admit you solicited a false alibi?’
‘False my arse. He really was with us that night. He was just too ashamed to admit it.’
‘He says he was at dinner with Taddeo Santoro.’
‘You just told me yourself what a liar he is.’
‘You know who Taddeo Santoro is, right? The director of our Archaeological Museum. Husband to our state senator and a good friend to everyone who matters in this city. It wasn’t just anybody you had murdered tonight.’
The amusement vanished instantly from Claudio’s expression. ‘Murdered?’ he said. ‘The fuck you talking about?’
‘Don’t give me that. When you asked your cousin for an alibi, he told you he couldn’t because he’d been out for dinner with Santoro at the time. So you had Santoro killed to stop him from ever finding out.’
C
laudio’s look of alarm faded, to be replaced by disgust. ‘You people!’ he said. ‘You fucking people! What do you have in your heads in place of brains? My mate punched an uppity shopkeeper for holding out on his pizzo. Sorry. I should say that’s what you idiots are accusing him of. All over a hundred euros. A hundred fucking euros. And not much of a punch anyway, from what I hear. Bent his nose a little, took a tooth or two; but the guy was ugly as fuck already. If my mate gets convicted – if – he’s looking at six months tops. He can do it on his head. It’ll be like a family reunion. And that’s tops. Most likely he’ll get a week or two, even a ticking-off. Our penal system is a joke. I only ever asked Zeno for an alibi because I needed him in my pocket before you guys found the real killer and I lost my leverage. This was all I had.’
‘So you say.’
‘Yeah. So I say.’
‘You’ve killed people over less than a false alibi.’
‘Bullshit I have,’ said Claudio indignantly. ‘We… The Camorra, I should say, punish people who cheat them, who slander them, who challenge them, who disrespect them, who fail to pay their dues. Sometimes civilians get caught up in it. That’s too bad, but it’s different. What we’d… What they’d never do is take out a man like your Direttore over a piece of shit dispute like this. Not because we’re saints, but because it brings thousands of you fucking wasps buzzing out of your nests, getting in our faces and making it impossible for us… making it impossible for them to carry out their normal business. All we ask is to be left alone. And yet you think I’m gonna whack your nest with a stick for an alibi I barely even need?’ He shook his head and tapped a cigarette from his pack. ‘But you already know all this. Why even bother me with it?’
Izzo glared at him. But the man was imperturbable. He turned to Chiellini instead. Chiellini nodded at the door. They stood and left together. ‘What do you think?’ asked Izzo once they were outside.
Chiellini shrugged. ‘I hate to say it. And we’ll keep on sweating him…’
‘Yeah,’ sighed Izzo. ‘Me too.’ Back where they’d started, only now with a second corpse to explain. He took out his phone to notify Valentina.
II
Santoro’s house was easy enough to find, thanks to all the police lights that even from a distance turned the sky above it a fluttering blue. There were barriers across the road too. Valentina Messana showed her badge to a uniformed woman officer who let her through. She turned into the drive. An ambulance had its rear doors open, presumably waiting for Santoro’s body. She pulled up well behind it, then got out and worked her back, stiff from an old injury. Lights were blazing inside. She could see the scene-of-crime officers in their white bodysuits and considered taking a photograph to show Onofrio how they worked. Two paramedics, a uniformed officer and a pair of plainclothes detectives were standing by the fountain. All were men. She braced herself for the usual bullshit. One of them came to meet her, hands on hips to block her view. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘And you are?’
‘Valentina Messana,’ she told him. ‘I called this in.’
He stared at her a few moments. She smiled quizzically. ‘Danilo Barbieri,’ he said finally, offering his hand. ‘You already have the perps, I hear?’
‘Turns out maybe not.’ She passed on what Izzo had just told her.
Barbieri shook his head. ‘A mafioso pleads his innocence,’ he sneered, ‘and you believe him?’
‘My boss does. This isn’t his first day.’
‘Your boss?’
She lifted her chin slightly. ‘Romeo Izzo.’
‘That stronzo, eh? My sympathies.’
‘For what? Best boss I’ve ever had.’
He grinned at that, though whether she’d just passed some test, or failed it, she wasn’t entirely sure. He beckoned her to follow, then stepped abruptly aside, as if to shock her with the reveal. But this was hardly her first corpse. Taddeo Santoro was being zipped into a black body bag by a paramedic, who paused to let her take it in. His face was pale against his bushy black beard; his white shirt was gashed and bloody, and she could see the telltale black marks of a stun gun on his throat. A soaking wet white pillowcase was spattered with watery blood. And three brass figurines lay on the gravel beside it: a snake, a cock and a dog.
‘They were inside the pillowcase,’ said Barbieri. ‘Looks like they got them from inside. They have others like them on all their mantelpieces, and some gaps that correspond. But what they mean…’
‘It’s poena cullei,’ she told him.
‘You what?’
‘Poena cullei. The ancient Roman punishment for killing your father. They’d sew you up in a leather sack with all those animals, then toss you in the river to drown.’
Barbieri gazed down in bemusement. ‘You’re saying he killed his father?’
‘It was one of that madwoman’s curses. Remember? From the TV?’
‘No way that old biddy did this.’
‘There was a letter too. A letter she didn’t write. It listed the same punishments. Including the one for how Raffaele Conte died.’
He frowned at her. ‘What are you saying? Are you saying we’ve got a serial?’
‘I’m saying we’ve got a connection.’
‘Shit. Better work together, then. Assuming you’re up for it?’
‘Unless you’d rather have my boss.’ She looked around. ‘But where’s Rossi?’
‘Rossi?’
‘Cesco Rossi. The guy who called this in.’
‘I thought that was you.’
‘He reported it to me. I passed it on. He said he’d wait here for you guys.’
One of the uniformed officers looked up and around. ‘No one here when we arrived, except this poor bastard. But the gate was open.’
‘You’re sure? About thirty. Athletic. Rides a Harley.’
‘Don’t know if it was a Harley, but we passed a bike on the way up. Big black beast with red flashes. Matching helmet.’
‘That’s him. See where he went?’
The policeman shrugged. ‘Sorry. Could have gone anywhere. Didn’t think anything of it, to be honest.’
‘Why would you? Was he alone or with someone?’
‘Alone. I mean we passed a van and another car. But he was by himself.’
‘Shit,’ she said, for she’d liked Rossi, and didn’t want this to be him. But why else take off like that? And he’d hardly be the first perp to call in their own crime intending to bluff it out only to lose their nerve and flee. She tried his mobile. He didn’t answer. No surprise there.
‘Could he have done your Lamborghini murder too?’ asked Barbieri.
She thought back. Raffaele had been Rossi’s friend. But that just meant it would have been easy to lure him to the park. Bang him over the head, inject him with Rohypnol, set him up to burn inside the Villa gates. Wait for Santoro and the others to arrive before triggering the firebomb and photographing it from outside to give himself an alibi. She gave a reluctant nod. Maybe they had their killer after all.
But with what motive? And where the hell had he vanished to?
III
Cesco lay in the back of the white van with a hood over his head and his feet and hands tingling from the black tape wound tightly round his wrists and ankles. There were Hammerskins on the bench seats either side. He knew that because each time he tried to roll onto his side to relieve his arms they’d kick him back again. He learned the lesson and kept still. After all, even though he couldn’t see or shout for help, he wasn’t completely without resource. He could still feel and smell and listen.
He could still think.
The van smelled pungently of urine, pizza, scorched rubber and fumes. An aeroplane passed low enough overhead to suggest they were near Capodichino Airport. Traffic grew thinner. A train rattled by. Still they drove. They left the city well behind on a good fast road. They slowed and came to a stop. He heard the tapping of their indicator light and the growl of the Harley pulling up behind. A sharp right turn, then they wended steeply uphil
l. He counted six hairpins before they came to another stop. The clunk and squeak of an automated gate. They bumped over its rails, drove on another twenty metres or so, then backed up a little and parked. The rear doors were thrown open. He felt fresh air. His ankles were grabbed. He was dragged along the floor to the end, let drop to the ground. He twisted round to buffer himself, but still banged his head. There was laughter. He was dragged up a front step and inside. Someone lifted him by his collar, threw him over their shoulder. He was carried down a flight of stairs and dumped onto what felt like a folding wooden chair, his wrists still tied behind his back so that his left arm twisted painfully against his shoulder socket.
Throughout it all, the Hammerskins chatted away with unnerving calmness. They were sick of pizza but couldn’t think what else to eat. A couple were sent off with their orders and were told to pick up beers too. His hood was whipped unexpectedly from his head. Dieter stood before him, grinning. He’d forgotten how big the bastard was. ‘Remember me?’ he asked. Then he punched him in the gut, not even that hard, but enough to drive the wind from his lungs and double him up. His mouth was still taped, leaving him only his nose. It wasn’t enough. He felt himself turning puce, writhing this way and that to get air into his lungs until Dieter himself came to his rescue, peeling back a corner of the tape over his mouth, leaving his skin feeling stretched and raw, but at least allowing him to breathe.
‘Better?’ he asked.
Cesco nodded fractionally. It was all he could manage.
‘Good,’ said Dieter. ‘Because we don’t want you leaving us just yet.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
I
A scene-of-crime officer called out from inside Santoro’s house. Something they needed to see. Messana followed the others upstairs to a guest bedroom with an empty walk-in closet, in which a fingerprint technician was kneeling by the closed door of a combination lock safe that would normally have been hidden behind a spring-loaded rear panel. ‘This is how we found it,’ said the SOCO. ‘With the closet doors and the panel already wide open, I mean. We’d never have spotted it otherwise.’