The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara) (12 page)

‘Chief Superintendent Ferrara!’

Someone had called his name as he walked down the corridor on his way back to his office. He turned and saw a man in his early thirties with a thick black moustache and curly brown hair, about the same height as he was, approaching him and holding out his hand.

He was wearing a pale blue polo shirt with the top two buttons undone. He had a blue cotton jacket over his left arm and a gold earring in his left ear. How times had changed, Ferrara thought. The senior officers didn’t take any notice of how their juniors dressed any more.

‘I’m Inspector Guido Polito from the SCO. I’ve been sent here with my team to work with your department.’

Ferrara, who had already guessed who he was, shook his hand. He could see the respect in the younger man’s eyes, and was sure he was aware of the importance of the investigation in which he was involved.

‘Let’s go to my office,’ Ferrara said, walking a few steps ahead.

The first thing he did once they arrived was take off his jacket and tie. He couldn’t stand them any more. They seemed to be suffocating him.

They stayed shut up in Ferrara’s office for almost an hour, during which time Ferrara brought his new colleague up to speed, without lingering over the details. He needed a bit more time to get the measure of the man before he involved him in specific activities. It was not distrust, but a necessary sense of caution.

Before they said goodbye, he asked him if he had ever carried out a complex investigation. Guido Polito was honest enough to admit this was the first time he had had to tackle such a tangled case. Ferrara told him that he would get someone to take him to Costanza’s villa the next day to show him the scene of the crime.

‘That’s where you need to start if you want to carry out a good investigation.’

The younger man nodded. He would have liked to ask Ferrara a few questions, but he realised that now was not the time.

Ferrara seemed to read his mind. ‘We’ll meet again to discuss any questions you might have. My secretary has reserved rooms for you in the nearby police residence.’

‘Thank you very much, Chief Superintendent. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

The inspector shook Ferrara’s hand and left, convinced he had learned very little.

In fact, he had learned nothing at all.

Teresa had been watching Fabio for almost two hours, getting up from her chair from time to time to stretch her legs.

At last he turned. ‘Here we are, come and have a look!’

Teresa went over to him.

‘There’s something right at the start,’ he said, ‘maybe traces of an earlier recording. I’ve extracted some of the images and digitised them.’ With the confidence of a true professional, he entered a series of commands on the computer and pointed at one of the monitors. ‘You can see something here. Come closer.’

Teresa moved so that her face was just a few inches from the image. It was quite blurry, and she had to stare at it for a long time before she had the impression that she could make something out.

‘I can try and improve it,’ Fabio said, noting the puzzled expression on Teresa’s face, ‘but that’ll take quite a bit of work. Let me show you something a little clearer.’ He rapidly typed in another command.

Her eyes widened. ‘Hold on, that’s…’

There was no doubt about it: it was a crucifix.

It seemed to be hanging on a wall, but upside down, like the one they had found at the scene of the murder of Madalena, the woman killed in the church at Sesto Fiorentino.

‘Are there any more images?’ Teresa asked after a long pause, aware that her heart was beating faster.

‘Quite likely, but that’s all I’ve managed to extract for the moment.’

‘It’s really urgent, Signor Fabio.’

‘I told you to call me Fabio,’ he corrected her with a wink.

‘OK, Fabio.’

‘Leave me the video and I’ll let you know what I come up with in a couple of days’ time. I hope it’ll be something useful.’

‘OK, Fabio. But make me a copy to take with me and I’ll leave you the original. It’s police property right now, but we have to give it to the Prosecutor’s Department as soon as possible.’

Fabio immediately made the copy and gave it to her.

‘Thanks!’ she said. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Try and get whatever you can out of that tape, but please, be as discreet as possible.’

‘You needn’t worry about my discretion. Didn’t your colleague Barba tell you? I consider myself to be a police officer like you. They didn’t want me because of one damn inch.’

‘I know. And I’m sure they made a big mistake.’

He nodded several times.

‘If I won’t be disturbing you,’ Teresa said, ‘can I call you tomorrow for an update?’

‘Of course. You police officers never disturb me. Let me give you my mobile number as well.’

Fabio wrote the number on a scrap of paper and gave it to her. Teresa folded it and put it in her wallet, behind her police ID.

Fabio walked her to the door and thanked her again for the amazing gift as they said goodbye. ‘I’ll take good care of it,’ he said before closing the door.

Maybe there was a glimmer of light after all, Teresa thought as she walked downstairs.

He was slouched in the pale leather armchair, leafing through a hard-core magazine, looking at scenes of extreme sadism. The only kind that ever aroused him.

‘Can I have a puff too?’ Angelica asked him as she came into the room, indicating the grass on the glass table with a nod of her head.

‘Of course you can, but be careful.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s strong stuff.’

She rolled a bit of it in a cigarette paper, added some tobacco from a broken cigarette, took a match and lit it. She took a moderate drag and felt the smoke spread through her lungs and then fill her head. It was the best marijuana on the market at that time.

The air soon became saturated with its bittersweet aroma.

She stretched out on the sofa. She was starting to feel horny. She unbuttoned her jeans and slipped her right hand inside her knickers. She assumed that everything would be the way it always was: that, instead of leaping on her, he would stay where he was, smoking and flicking through his porn magazines.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he shouted at her after a while in an almost hysterical voice, by now highly aroused. ‘Are you planning to make yourself come? Don’t you realise how ill that makes me feel?’

He got up from the armchair and stood staring at her for a moment or two, then opened the flies of his trousers. At last, she thought, he’s really turned on. It had happened before that smoking grass had made things a bit more relaxed between them.

The first thrusts were slow and controlled, then the pounding became almost angry. But they were still a long way from reaching orgasm, which was nothing new.

It wasn’t easy for him.

There were other methods he could use, but not with her.

Never with her.

‘What about your gun?’

‘I don’t have it with me.’

‘Good. If you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll let my commander know.’

‘Thank you.’

It was 2.45 in the afternoon and Ferrara was in the gatehouse of Sollicciano Prison, a complex with an unusual layout, inspired by the Florentine fleur-de-lis.

The car from the Headquarters pool had already been given a preliminary going over in the inner courtyard, as dictated by the Ministry’s strict rules for all visitors, even police officers.

After a few minutes, a young guard came towards him. Ferrara noticed his massive build: he must spend several hours a day in the gym, he thought.

‘If you’ll follow me, Chief Superintendent,’ the man said in a hoarse voice, ‘I’ll take you through.’

The driver stayed where he was, chatting with the sentry while he waited.

Ferrara and his escort entered the small block to their left, the women’s section. They went through a series of gates and down a number of long corridors and stopped outside the interview room.

The guard’s keys jangled as he opened it.

The white-walled room was very small, with a table, a couple of chairs and a small barred window. On the ceiling a fluorescent light, which probably needed replacing, gave out a weak buzzing sound.

They were obviously short of funds here too, Ferrara thought.

‘Please take a seat, Chief Superintendent,’ the guard, who had not said a single word during their walk, now said. ‘I’ll go and get the prisoner.’

‘Thank you.’

After several minutes the door opened and Leonardo Berghoff’s accomplice Beatrice Filangeri, who had been arrested for her role in Madalena’s death, came in.

Little more than five feet tall, she seemed even thinner than when he had first met her two months before, and older than her thirty-five years. In that brief time, her physical appearance had been transformed. Perhaps it was just the effect being in prison could have, especially on someone who wasn’t a repeat offender, which she wasn’t: this was her first time here.

To avoid her getting away, compromising an investigation that was not yet complete, or re-offending, she was being held in preventive custody. It was highly likely she would be given a hefty sentence at her trial, maybe even life, unless her lawyer persuaded her to plead guilty in exchange for a fast-track procedure and a lighter sentence.

There was quite a bit of evidence against her, the most important piece of which was her being in possession of the murder weapon, the knife that had been used to kill Madalena, which had been found in her home during the search coordinated by Rizzo.

The guard who had brought her in left silently and closed the door behind him. Beatrice Filangeri came and sat down on the other side of the desk from Ferrara. Her eyes, which she kept fixed on the barred window, seemed calm and distant.

‘Good afternoon, Signora Filangeri,’ Ferrara said. ‘Do you remember me?’

She merely shook her head.

‘Do you want to get out of prison?’

No reply.

She looked down at her knees, where she had placed her folded hands as soon as she sat down. She was in the classic defensive position, typical of suspects during interrogation.

‘The one condition is that you tell me about your friend Leonardo Berghoff, about the lodge and about Enrico Costanza, who, as I’m sure you already know, has been murdered. In return, we could put you in our witness protection programme.’

Ferrara had lowered his voice: he was sure the guard must have his ear glued to the door.

‘Think about it, signora. If you don’t cooperate, this prison will become your home for the next thirty years at least, if not for the rest of your life. Talk to me and I guarantee that anything you say will remain between these four walls.’

He waited, but no reply was forthcoming. From the vague look she gave him when she decided to raise her eyes for a brief moment, it almost seemed as if she had not been listening to him.

After a couple of minutes, Ferrara went on to explain the different levels of protection available, depending on the nature of the witness’s cooperation: the highest level involved a new identity and relocation.

He stopped again and waited for her questions. They did not come.

After a while, Beatrice Filangeri shook her head, looked up again and said in a thin voice, ‘You can go to hell, the lot of you. I’m not interested in all that crap. And anyway, I don’t know any of the people you mentioned, and I don’t know about any lodge. Just leave me alone.’

Ferrara tried to insist, but Beatrice Filangeri’s mouth remained tightly shut.

Too bad, he thought. She didn’t seem to understand that she could be in danger even here.

Abruptly he got to his feet. The interview was over. It had achieved nothing.

But at least he had tried.

‘Just one night, is that right, sir?’

‘Yes, one night,’ the man replied.

He was at the reception desk of the Hotel Excelsior in the Via Veneto in Rome.

‘Would you like to pay by card or in cash, sir?’

‘Cash.’

The receptionist put the registration form and a pen on the counter and asked for an identity document. The man handed her his passport, then filled in the form and gave it back.

What a beautiful voice, he was thinking all the while, and what a gorgeous woman!

She gave him his key and explained how to find the lifts, his floor and the breakfast room.

He took the pink carnation from his buttonhole and gave it to her.

‘Thank you!’ she said with a smile, then went on to remind him that he would have to vacate his room by noon the next day.

‘Of course,’ he replied as he walked away.

He was planning to leave a lot earlier than midday.

When she woke up, Angelica found him still sitting in the same armchair.

She looked at her watch. It was just after six-thirty. Damn, she’d been asleep for ages.

He had dropped the magazine on the floor by the armchair and was now concentrating on cleaning the various parts of the semi-automatic pistol he had just dismantled, putting the pieces on a light-coloured cloth so as not to soil the heavy wooden coffee table.

Staring at the weapon, she picked up her jeans. ‘What are you thinking of doing?’ she asked.

He ignored her.

He had always been a man of few words and she knew how difficult it was to get inside his head. But she knew many of his secrets and was perfectly well aware that it wasn’t a good idea to pester him with questions. Without another word, she went to the bathroom.

They had spent a lot of time together as teenagers.

They had been neighbours and had attended the same middle school in Vicchio del Mugello. Their classmates had nicknamed him ‘the icicle’, an epithet that suited him perfectly. He never seemed to feel any emotion, never reacted, either to affection or mockery. He was completely detached.

Then, at eighteen, he had moved to France under the auspices of a beautiful woman who was always elegant and impeccably turned out. From time to time he would come back to Mugello, to what had become his second home.

He was now thirty-six and had come a long way.

In Paris, he had moved in select circles, joined a bridge club and a tennis club, and become a regular at the Lido on the Champs-Elysées. At the bridge club, he had met a wealthy plastic surgeon who was always surrounded by attractive women. The doctor had been captivated by his intelligence and his skill at the game. They had soon become friends and had taken to spending more and more time together.

The surgeon had introduced him to his own circle, which was heavily involved in sadomasochism. He had been fascinated by it. Most of all, he had discovered that such techniques were able to arouse an excitement in him that he had never previously felt.

The very first time, in fact, he had experienced something he had been unable even to imagine until that day: he had had an erection. It was as if his small penis had suddenly awoken from a long sleep. The discovery made him more daring, made him take things to extremes. Made him kill. And the more he killed, the greater the pleasure he felt in it.

And so the times when any encounter with the opposite sex would end in disaster were long gone, the times when he was nicknamed Pansy or Little Dick.

To kill, to rape, to dominate a human being, to torture them for pure pleasure had ended up making him feel like a man.

It had actually made him a monster.

He had put the pistol back together and was now holding it in his hand.

He really enjoyed the feel of it, the weight. It gave him a real sense of power. It always had. And she knew it.

As soon as Angelica came back from the bathroom, he went on the attack. ‘Who the fuck was that woman?’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Don’t act dumb! Yesterday, when we met in the Piazza San Marco… I saw you walking away with her, and people turning to look at you. She was standing there at the bar, in a little white dress with a low neckline.’

‘She’s a friend of mine,’ Angelica said, unfazed.

‘A friend of yours? And how long have you had this friend?’

‘For a few weeks, though I’ve known her for several years.’

‘How did you meet her? You’ve never mentioned her before. You’ve been keeping secrets from me!’

‘What the hell’s got into you? Why are you giving me the third degree?’

‘Leave her!’ he retorted, giving her a piercing look.

She stared back at him in silence.

He walked away.

And went downstairs to that big, dark room, the symbol of his tortured childhood. He had decisions to make. One was urgent: what to do about this relationship between the two women? It could pose a danger.

Before going back up, he went over the next steps in his plan. All those long-meditated stages that would eventually lead him to his goal, that goal that now seemed within reach.

Their history had begun down here in the dark.

One day, after lunch, they had come down to this very room. Enveloped by the darkness, he had suddenly found her tongue in his mouth, warm and wet. He had put his hand between her legs and felt the heat through the soft fabric of her underwear.

‘Let’s get undressed,’ she had said to him, unbuttoning her blouse.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Just no,’ he had replied, nervously. In his mind, the memories of his bitter childhood experiences were still vivid.

She had looked at him, not understanding. Then her eyes had clouded over and she had leant her head against his chest and stroked his long fair hair. He wore it like that even then. It had been the fashion.

Everything had started that day, when they were both sixteen.

That first encounter had been followed by others.

And she had always been the one to take the initiative, almost hypnotised by his beauty. The first few times she had tried to persuade him to make love, but her efforts were in vain. She had had to resign herself to touching him and his touching her. They had moved on to mutual masturbation while smoking grass.

One day, they had used a pin to draw blood from their fingers and mingle it. From that moment, their friendship had become something sacred and eternal. They weren’t lovers, they were blood siblings. And that link had remained strong. When they could not meet up in Paris or Mugello, they called each other often.

The complicity between them had grown stronger and stronger.