The Monster of Florence (39 page)
“No, I—no. I’ll find the clinic. I’ll be there before eleven. You’ll see a car waiting for you when you come out.”
“A police car? Or are you with the carabinieri?”
“Carabinieri. But I’ll come in my own car. If you’ll just stand still a moment as you come out I’ll find you. Thank you for talking to me.” He hung up.
6. The body of Margherita Vargius was found in the bedroom. The kitchen gas canister, with its tube still attached and the tap open, was standing by the bed. The tube had been placed on the pillow. Witnesses disagree as to whether the body was on the bed or on the floor beside it. The body was naked except for a pair of knickers. There was a patch of whitish liquid on the stomach, blood between the legs, a bruise in the shape of a thumbprint on the left side of the throat and numerous scratches on the face. The baby was standing in its cot, screaming.
Silvano. The Marshal pondered the problem of Silvano for some time, sitting alone in his office, staring, as always, at the map on the opposite wall without seeing it.
Di Maira was a good investigator, a much-respected one, and rightly so. Not only that but he had seen all these people face to face, talked to them.
“It’s him. It’s him.”
He was a murderer, he had sexual perversions—a photographic file at the back of the report he’d been reading showed a hair-raising collection of sex aids and pornographic comics. A note signed by Di Maira himself stated that the subject was totally deaf in his right ear and should always be interrogated from the left and that his deafness was a result of his being viciously beaten around the head by his father at the age of ten.
Silvano …
There was a photocopy amongst Di Maira’s papers of a clinical report dated April 1981, made out in the psychiatric ward of a Florence hospital.
Patient is deeply anxious and suffering from acute depression. In answer to questions, he states that he has no particular financial or work problems at present and that, though recently separated from his wife, he doesn’t consider this the cause of his problem. He is not abulic—on the contrary, he claims to be always full of plans and ideas for the small firm he runs. Asked if he has other causes for worry he says: “The real problem is the boy.” He is unwilling to enlarge on that remark. Not, in general, very communicative, though here by his own request.
Patient left the hospital after 10 days
.
There was a doctor’s signature and the date. Nothing more.
According to the books sitting there on his desk, Silvano was too old, too dominant, too successful at getting what he wanted. But what did the Marshal know that he could seriously pit generalized information from these foreign books against the first-hand experience of a man like Di Maira?
What, if it came to that, did any of them know about this type of crime, including Di Maira? The day’s papers were on his desk, too, with all the latest news about the Suspect. Wasn’t it just the same story? A murderer, a pervert …
It’s him, it’s him
!
Why shouldn’t Silvano just have murdered his second wife the way he did his first and then Belinda? He was getting older, that was why. His reactions became less, not more, violent …
If only Ferrini …
The phone rang.
“Salvatore, old thing! All right, are you?”
“Ferrini!”
“Were you expecting somebody else?”
“I—no. No!”
“Listen, I’ve got hold of a little bit of treasure. I can’t get away tonight, we’ve got people to supper—come along if you want, but we won’t be able to talk, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, but in any case I’m a bit tired …”
“Tomorrow I can’t … the night after, then. I’ll bring you this stuff over—I tried to find you yesterday, but your man there said you were over here with the Captain and when I went to look you’d vanished.”
“Yes … I didn’t wait to see him in the end …”
“You sound peculiar. What’s up?”
“Nothing, I just—well, I thought from what you said the other day that you didn’t want to be bothered with this business any more, that’s all.”
“Come on, Guarnaccia, I was just pissed off. Doesn’t that ever happen to you?”
“I suppose so …”
“You do take things tragically.”
“That’s what Teresa’s always saying.”
“Well, if she’d been here she’d have said it this time, too. Is she not back yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“That’s what’s wrong with you, then. Get a decent meal down
you and cheer yourself up! I’ll tell you what, when we get together I’ll take you to this place of a friend of mine—it’s a bit far out in the country but it’s worth it and we needn’t linger …”
Ferrini chatted on for a good quarter of an hour and the Marshal intoned the responses contentedly. Afterwards, he felt so much better that he decided to get through at least some of the paperwork Lorenzini had left for his signature and to look through the post and the newspapers. Lorenzini himself put his head round the door at eight o’clock.
“I’m off. Shall I switch the phone through or will you do it?”
Calls coming through after the station closed were automatically transferred to the emergency number at Headquarters.
“Do it now—I’m practically finished here …”
There was a handwritten letter from Marco which he didn’t open but propped against the phone to remind himself to call him sometime tomorrow. The next letter he picked up was a long envelope with a number of typewritten sheets in it and a hurried note attached by a paper clip.
Sorry to be so long about it—desperately busy on this case (and not sorry to be off the other). This comes from a research centre and has more to do with prevention than detection, but might help. You really need the whole FBI profile on your man but no hope of that, I suppose. Good luck. (Keep the books for now.)
It was from Bacci. He hadn’t forgotten, then. The Marshal unfolded the typewritten sheets.
SYMPTOMS OF SUBJECTS WHO SHOULD BE CONSIDERED HIGH-RISK POSSIBLE PERPETRATORS IN THE EPISODIC AGGRESSION CATEGORY.
The first contact may come either through an attempted or successful arrest, whether for a major or minor offence or through the subject’s seeking psychiatric help. In both cases he may attempt to
warn the authorities overtly of an urge to kill. Such warnings should always be taken seriously and the subject examined with reference to the following:
1. Has the person already committed two or more crimes of violence, particularly rapes or assault?
2. Does the person drink to excess? Is he a drug abuser? Chronic substance abuse can trigger innate violence and may also cause mental blackouts, which cause the person to forget having committed acts of violence.
3. Manic depressive symptoms. Does the subject suffer from violent swings of mood which cannot be accounted for by outside provocation?
4. Insatiable sex drive. There is nothing abnormal or unhealthy about a large sexual appetite. What is dangerous is an insatiable appetite which cannot be satisfied with sex alone but requires violence, even torture, to stimulate orgasm.
5. An excessive interest in blood, horror and death, often fed by films and magazines, together with other symptoms, can be a sign of impending danger.
6. Is the person cold and indifferent to the suffering of others? Such indifference caused by a lack of affectionate contact during infancy, is very dangerous.
7. Has the person been convicted of arson or been known to have amused himself by setting fire to things as a child?
8. Is the person gathering an arsenal of weapons? This may be an unconscious preparation for the turning of fantasy into fact.
The Marshal sighed and gave it up. Bacci was right. It was far too general. One minute he thought he was reading about Silvano, the next it was a portrait of the Suspect. And as far as the three younger men he suspected were concerned, what was the use when he had
never seen them or talked to them? The information just wasn’t available. What was he supposed to do? Track down Salvatore Angius and ring him up to ask him what films he enjoyed?
In any case, this was all psychiatrists’ stuff, it wasn’t police work. Disheartened, he decided to call it a day and take Ferrini’s advice. He was tired and hungry. He gathered up the newspapers, thinking he could glance through them after a cheering bowl of pasta, switched off the office light and locked up.
“Blast!” he muttered as he felt for the key of his own door. He could hear the television going so he must have left it on at lunch time, which showed how tired …
But the lights were on and the supper was cooking and the boys were skidding towards him helter-skelter through the tiled hall, shouting. “Dad! Da-a-a-ad! We’re home!”
They had passed an evening that was as noisy as it was happy. The washing machine went on, then the television, then Toto’s tape player that he’d got for Christmas. Teresa bustled from room to room, cooking, unpacking, reorganizing, whilst the boys dashed about creating chaos out of her order. The Marshal wandered around happy and aimless, not wanting to let any of them out of his sight for a second. He realized he had forgotten it was the Epiphany today, only remembering when Giovanni got in a row with his mother for starting to eat a huge lump of sugar coal from his stocking before supper. The Marshal was told to remove it from him and he stared at his plump son with his huge eyes, which he thought were threatening.
“Do you want a bit?” Giovanni had whispered, misinterpreting the pop-eyed stare. And he’d eaten some.
It was after eleven when it quietened down. The house was warm and tidy and the lingering good smells of supper were gradually being overpowered by an open bag full of pungent oranges and lemons picked the day before down home.
“I forgot to tell you,” Teresa said, giving him a cup of camomile tea and sitting down beside him with a happy sigh. “That nice boy Marco called just before you came in.”
“Why didn’t he call me at the office?”
“He did but he said he got put through to the emergency service.”
“Ah. Never mind, I was going to call him tomorrow anyway.” He slid an arm around her. “Shall we go to bed?”
“You said you had to read the papers in case there was anything about your case.”
But he didn’t answer.
“Signora?” He had recognized her the minute she came out of the door, even before she paused to look around for him. She was a slight woman who looked older than his calculation of her real age. She was well wrapped up in a tweed overcoat and a brown woollen scarf.
“Marshal?” They shook hands and he opened the car door for her.
“The less you stand about in this cold wind, the better.”
“Oh, I don’t mind it. The cold up north is damp …”
Inside the car it was really very warm, sheltered from the wind and with the strong sun beating on the glass. Despite his dark glasses, the Marshal was obliged to fish out a big white handkerchief and dry his eyes.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no … it’s an allergy I have. The sunlight hurts my eyes.” He was also playing for time. It occurred to him, now that she was actually here in his car, that he really didn’t know where to take her. It was more than probable that Simonetti and the rest had never seen this woman. Nevertheless, his feeling of being under observation hadn’t passed, even now that Di Maira had revealed himself.
He frowned as he turned the ignition, trying to think of a solution. She must have sensed his tension.
“You did say nothing had happened? You weren’t deceiving me?”
“No, signora, no. I was just wondering … perhaps you’d like a coffee, something of that sort …” He signalled and pulled out.
“Well, that’s very kind of you. It has been a long morning. I had a little operation, you see, six months ago. It wasn’t what could seriously be called a cure, but they remove a little piece of bone behind
your nose. It sometimes helps but it hasn’t helped me. I had to tell them today. There’s no difference that I can detect. People have no idea what a curse migraine is when it’s really bad. I lose my sight, you see, even before the headache starts. It happens so suddenly I’ve never had the courage to drive a car. And, of course, it’s difficult to keep a job.”
“Yes, it must be.”
“They’re very understanding where I am now. I work in a bar very near home so I can get back quickly when it comes on and give myself an injection—even then, you see, the injections, they cost more than a hundred thousand lire each. It’s no joke.” She took off her sheepskin mittens and placed them neatly on the handbag on her knee. He glanced at her thin, shiny hands, the nails cut short and straight.
“Is your husband a help to you in all this?”
“I never married.”
“I see. Then it must be even more difficult. Coping alone.”
“After what happened to my sister I decided I would never, ever, put myself at risk. It wasn’t just her death, you see, it was how he treated her when she was alive. She was only nineteen when it happened. Did you know that?”
“Yes. Yes, she was very young. A tragic business.”
“Nineteen. Of course, at the time I thought of her as a grown-up, a woman. I was only twelve. But when I think of her now, whenever I see the girls of eighteen, nineteen or so, who come into the bar … She was practically still a child.”
“That’s true.”
She fell silent for a while as they drove towards the centre and slowed down behind a queue of cars. Her coat smelled of mothballs and there was a faint whiff of mint on her breath each time she turned to talk to him. He noticed that she didn’t say,
“I’ve already told the others everything I know,”
the way most people did in these circumstances. He took the tree-lined avenue up to Piazzale Michelangelo. There were always tourists up there whatever the season. They could mingle with them and have coffee in one of the bars.”
“Oh …!”
What was the matter with her? He parked near the balustrade and then turned to look at her.
“You’ve never been up here before?”
“No! It’s so beautiful! The river’s quite green, isn’t it, and all the red tiles and the marble … You’d never imagine! I just have to catch my train, you see, when I leave the hospital clinic so I’ve never—Well!”