Morning
HIS PRIVATE CELL PHONE rang at seven, while Pasquali was getting ready to go to Mass before heading to the office. That morning he had been less punctilious than usual. He had cut his chin and his part was crooked.
The familiar voice spoke. “Everything is set. We’ll end it this morning.”
Pasquali tried to sound confident. “I’ve arranged a meeting for him at ten o’clock, so he won’t get in the way.”
“Excellent. Take care of it yourself. No outside help.”
“The subject must be armed. And he has to react in a certain way when arrested.”
Pasquali had never thought of having to shoot at anyone, not even a serial killer. But if he shot at an armed serial killer it would be more than justified. He dared not look at the crucifix as he formulated the thought.
“You’ll be a national hero.” There was a mixture of irony and contempt in the voice.
“This thing has gotten way out of hand. We need to talk after it’s over.” It was a small act of rebellion, the most his fear would allow him to say.
“Of course. Our friend will be in suite twenty-seven. Be careful not to get your shoes dirty.”
A last jab at his compromised respectability. He did not dare take Communion that day.
. . . .
They arrived punctually at ten. He had chosen Piccolo to come with him so she’d definitely be under control, given she was prone to going over the top. They had brought the three Roma boys to Regina Coeli, the prison nearest to Trastevere.
They left their pistols and cell phones at the entrance and were accompanied to a room where the three Roma were waiting for them with an interpreter and a lawyer. They were between eighteen and twenty-one years of age, but they seemed much older than Balistreri remembered them.
Piccolo started at the beginning. When had they arrived in Italy? What were their casual jobs? Thefts. How had they met? The boys replied in monosyllables. They weren’t particularly interested. When the evening of the murder came up, Piccolo’s questions became more detailed. Which of them had been approached by the fourth man? His description? Medium height, black hair, long and straight, metal-rimmed glasses. Where was he while they were drinking his whiskey? In the bar, maybe. Maybe outside. Did he invite them to go outside? Yes. And the cocaine? Yes, it was his. Now, Samantha. Who suggested the idea? He did. Who hit her first? He did. Then they’d dragged her to the garbage dump. He had more cocaine and more whiskey. The story became much more muddled. Who had raped her first? Who had been last? And where was he duirng all this? There, somewhere around. They could hear him coughing as he smoked.
“Stop,” Balistreri said. Piccolo nodded. She’d picked up on it, too. He asked each of them again in turn, “Where was he while you were raping the girl?” One of the three was a little more specific. “He was nearby. We couldn’t see him, but we could hear him coughing.”
Piccolo checked their earlier statements. “You never mentioned the coughing before.”
The guy who had spoken shrugged and replied in Italian, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
They were shown a recent photo of Hagi. They looked at it reluctantly. “No,” said the first. “Don’t know,” said the second. “Could be, maybe,” said the third.
Then they were shown a photograph of Hagi with long hair and glasses added to it by computer. “Yes, that’s him,” they all said.
“Which one of you was the last to speak to him?”
No one could remember. The man disappeared at a certain point, as if vanishing into thin air. They all confirmed the same story. Samantha was alive, she was moaning, when they left. This time Balistreri had no doubts: they were telling the truth. It was the Invisible Man who had finished her off.
. . . .
Every time a cell phone disappeared that was connected in any way with a crime, the phone company was informed and told to take note and notify the police immediately of the eventual reactivation of the SIM card. The news came to Corvu in the office at exactly ten o’clock, at the precise moment when Balistreri and Piccolo were entering Regina Coeli. Selina Belhrouz’s SIM card had been reactivated and the phone company was very precise in its information. The microchip had been pinned down to the very narrow area of Rome where Casilino 900 was located.
Not being able to communicate with Balistreri, and wanting to follow procedure, Corvu informed Pasquali.
“Let’s go in with two men. No sirens—we don’t want to give anyone time to get away,” Pasquali said.
“But, sir, it could be dangerous with just two men,” Corvu protested.
“We’re going to make the arrest. You park a car at each exit, discreetly. Let’s meet downstairs in five minutes,” Pasquali said.
Corvu put on his bulletproof vest and his holster containing his Beretta. He got ahold of two plainclothes officers. It was the standard format for a simple arrest. But there was no telling that this would be a standard arrest. He tried the cell phones of Balistreri and Piccolo again. No answer. He left both of them a text message: Call me ASAP.
Pasquali did three things at great speed. He put on his bulletproof vest, readied his Beretta, and turned to the crucifix.
“Lord, forgive me for what I am about to do.”
. . . .
Corvu and Pasquali sat behind the two plainclothes officers in the car.
“Good,” said Pasquali. “The telephone company’s circled an area containing a total of six broken-down trailers. We’ll go in quietly, as if it were a normal patrol. They’re used to seeing the police these days. After we’ve gone in, no one can leave without being searched and having their ID checked.”
Corvu said, “With all due respect, sir, I think it would be better to search in groups.”
“No. We’d only find the cell phone in a dumpster. I want to catch someone holding that phone in his hands.”
“It could be dangerous,” Corvu protested.
“That’s precisely why we’re here. And I want one thing clear. We’ve already lost three able policemen and Captain Balistreri only survived by some miracle. If you see even a hint that someone’s going for a gun, open fire immediately. Don’t wait for them to fire first.”
The two plainclothes officers were clearly intimidated by Pasquali’s authority. They looked at Corvu.
“But, sir, that’s not proper procedure.”
Pasquali gave him a withering look. “Deputy Corvu, I will not allow another criminal to shoot at a policeman. I take full responsibility. There certainly won’t be any shortage of political support if you shoot an armed Roma in self-defense.”
His face strained, Corvu leaned his head back, stifling his thoughts. “All right. How are we to proceed?”
“We’ll start with the trailer closest to the entrance to the camp. One of you will knock. If they open up, we go in, check IDs, and continue to search until the Belhrouz woman’s phone turns up.”
“And if no one opens the door?”
“We go in and search anyway.”
Corvu didn’t like this at all, and he knew Balistreri would have been furious.
. . . .
Vasile confirmed that the man who had called on December 23 spoke excellent Italian. “Did he have an accent?” Piccolo asked.
“I don’t know. He sounded Italian to me.”
“What else do you remember about the call?”
He repeated what he’d said in his statement.
“What was his voice like?”
“Raspy. He coughed a lot.”
Balistreri and Piccolo exchanged glances. Perhaps this wouldn’t be enough for the prosecutor’s office. All they had was circumstantial evidence. Many people have a cough. Many people have friends with motocross bikes. The deaths in Romania weren’t attributable to him. His wife Alina was running away from him when she had her accident on the moped, but so what? And he didn’t have any alibi? Neither did millions of people.
Piccolo tightened her lips in rage. “But we know it was him.”
Balistreri got up, troubled. Something wasn’t right. He’d never liked coincidences, and here there really were a great many—too many.
I must tell Pasquali how Colajacono died. And as soon as I can.
. . . .
They entered the camp under a blazing sun that had dried the mud left from the previous day’s storm. There were a good many people around, mainly women, old men, and children jumping off a heap of old mattresses for fun. The garbage gave off a dreadful smell in the sun and mingled with the smell of urine from the port-o-potties. Groups of children swarmed happily around the policemen. Corvu shivered—this was sheer folly. Their holsters were open below their jackets and visible to the expert eye. He saw Pasquali, disorented and sweating in his impeccable gray pinstripe suit, and looking around.
He made a last attempt to call Balistreri. Nothing. They were still in Regina Coeli.
They knocked on a trailer door. A toothless old woman holding a child in her arms opened the door; she could as well have been the mother as the grandmother.
They went in. The heat was suffocating, as was the smell. Water was boiling on the small camp stove. There was no one there besides the old woman and the child.
“You search the trailer, Corvu. I don’t see any danger here. I’m going next door,” Pasquali said.
Before Corvu could protest, Pasquali was out the door.
Corvu imagined that he wanted to make the arrest himself because he wanted to be the star of the show. He indicated to the two plainclothes men to go with Pasquali.
“Do you have a cell phone in here?” he asked the old woman as he looked around. It was a stupid question, but he had to ask.
The woman didn’t understand Italian. The child began to cry while the pungent smell of its feces spread through the caravan along with the stink of rubbish.
Corvu had a feeling he was going to vomit and went to a window to get some air. From where he was he saw one of the policemen knocking at the door of trailer twenty-seven. Pasquali and the other policeman were a yard behind him. A moment later the door opened. It was another old woman. Three small children ran out between the legs of Pasquali and the two policemen.
Corvu saw with surprise that there was a motocross bike parked behind the trailer. And he didn’t notice the old man in a hat and dark glasses coming up behind the men and Pasquali. Then he heard the sound of a cough.
He swore in Sardinian and, turning sharply around, bumped into the old woman, knocking her to the ground along with the child, whose feces spattered across the floor. He lost a few seconds apologizing and helping her get up again, then he burst outside with the Beretta in his hand, shouting, ready to shoot.
Pasquali turned but did not raise the pistol in his hand quickly enough. He only managed to see Marius Hagi’s malicious grin below the dark glasses as he squeezed the trigger. He had no time to ask God to forgive his sins before the bullet passed through his head. Hagi threw the pistol far away and raised his arms above his head in the sign of surrender. The plainclothes men pointed their weapons at him, trembling with fear and rage.
“Stop! Don’t shoot!” Corvu shouted to the plainclothes men as he ran toward them, keeping his Beretta aimed at Hagi. Hagi looked at him with a mocking smile.
“Call an ambulance and block all the exits,” Corvu shouted desperately.
“No accomplices. I acted alone,” Hagi said. He was completely unruffled.
Corvu didn’t dare look at Pasquali. He ordered the other policeman to handcuff Hagi, who offered no resistance. A huge crowd had gathered around them and many patrolmen were running toward them, weapons in hand.
Hagi watched the scene with seeming amusement. He smiled at Corvu. “Where’s your boss, chief street sweeper in paradise?”
Afternoon
Balistreri refused to participate in the press conference arranged for the early afternoon. He watched it on the television in his office along with Corvu, Piccolo, and Mastroianni. First the minister of the interior spoke a few words of praise for the police and Captain Antonio Pasquali’s heroic sacrifice to rid the Italian people of this source of evil. He promised that within a few days the government would take drastic measures to control all immigrants, using a decree with the force of law so as to avoid bureaucratic delays in Parliament’s red tape.
To a question from a French journalist about possible protests from the UN, the Vatican, and humanitarian organizations, he replied with scant diplomacy: “We do not expect protests from anyone, and they will not be welcome.”
He then handed the floor to the chief of police for a reconstruction of events. Floris was visibly shaken, but he maintained his composure. He gave a succinct precis of the deaths of the four young women, which were linked by the four incisions in their bodies. He spoke about the Invisible Man and, by way of illustration, the mountain of indirect evidence that converged on Marius Hagi on whom, incidentally, Selina Belhrouz’s cell phone had been discovered. He recalled that four Romanians linked to Hagi had been killed in an exchange of fire in which three heroic policemen had lost their lives and the head of the special team, Michele Balistreri, had been gravely wounded.
He ended by saying he was certain that Marius Hagi’s arrest had delivered the city from a nightmare and added that, together with the minister of the interior, he had summoned the mayor of Rome for urgent talks. He used the word summoned, as if calling for a servant.
Then all hell broke loose, the journalists unleashing a barrage of questions at the top of their voices, but there were no further statements.
Corvu was overcome. Television’s merciless footage had shown his face drained of color as Pasquali’s body was taken away from Casilino 900 and Hagi was loaded into the police van that would take him to jail. Balistreri had tried everything to get him to go home, but without success. He had explained in every way that he was not at fault; it was only Pasquali’s rashness and desire to play a leading role that had led to this outcome.
“Corvu, you can’t be in the room for Hagi’s questioning. You’re in shock. You’ve filed your report. Take a few days off and go see Natalya in Ukraine.”
Corvu shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said firmly.
But Balistreri had made up his mind. “I bought you a ticket. You’re leaving tonight. Natalya’s expecting you. In two hours, my brother, Alberto, is going to come by and give you a ride to the airport.”
I have to protect you right now, Graziano, because this isn’t over. Indeed, it’s only just begun.
Corvu raised his head. He looked shaken. “Thank you, sir,” he whispered, getting up. Then the ever duty-conscious Corvu said, “I checked the list of alibis you asked for and gave it to Mastroianni. If it still matters.”
Piccolo and Mastroianni hugged Corvu. Balistreri put a congenial arm around his shoulders and walked him to the exit. He was trembling.
Out on the sidewalk, something occurred to Balistreri. He turned to Corvu and asked, “How much time did Pasquali have from the time he saw Hagi to when he tried to shoot?”
“Less than a second.”
Less than a second. He already had his gun drawn.
. . . .
In the hot afternoon, Balistreri went to Regina Coeli for the second time that day. This time, he didn’t bring Piccolo.
Attorney Massimo Morandi was waiting for Balistreri outside the interrogation room. “I’m sorry about Pasquali.”
Balistreri looked at him.
You’re only sorry about your own reputation, you son of a bitch.
“What happened was unfortunate, but it does clearly confirm what I told you last time.”
“That I should have stayed in Dubai?”
“You now have the perpetrator. My client will confess to everything.”
“Really? Will he tell me why he faked an argument in order to kill poor Camarà?”
Morandi turned pale despite his tanning-booth complexion.
“Be satisfied with what is obviously the truth,” Morandi said icily.
Balistreri resisted the temptation to lay his hands on him or else they would have relieved him of the investigation; this time he wanted to get to the truth. He congratulated himself on his self-control. He turned his back and went into the room, Morandi following.
The public prosecutor was already there. He muttered a few words to the lawyer and then turned to Balistreri.
“Mr. Morandi has already told me that his client will plead guilty to all the murders, including the murder of Camarà. He’ll give a full and detailed confession.”
Hagi was brought in wearing handcuffs. His black eyes rested calmly on those of Balistreri. He had grown thinner since he had last seen him seven months earlier and was coughing much more. But his eyes now burned even fiercer above the huge dark bags beneath. The resemblance to a demon was now complete.
After the preliminaries, the public prosecutor let Balistreri take over the questioning.
“Let’s start from the beginning, Mr. Hagi.”
“Fine. Let’s start with Samantha Rossi.”
Balistreri shook his head. “No, Mr. Hagi. The beginning was in 1982.”
Hagi nodded with a smile. “Elisa Sordi?” He said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
The words surprised everyone: the public prosecutor, Morandi, the corrections officers. Only Balistreri failed to react.
Hagi said with obvious contempt, “You did quite the job on that case, didn’t you, Captain Balistreri?”
“Please just answer the questions without making any extraneous comments, Mr. Hagi,” the public prosecutor said.
Morandi raised a hand. “Hold on just a minute. I need to confer with my client. I don’t know anything about the connection to the Elisa Sordi case.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hagi said placidly. “Your job is to ensure that these gentlemen don’t distort what I say. I want everything to be extremely clear, and we’ve got some people in this room who always seem to make a mess of things and have been doing so since 1982.”
“When did you meet Elisa Sordi?” Balistreri asked, ignoring Hagi’s remark.
“I don’t remember exactly—a little before the summer of 1982. I went to the residential complex on Via della Camilluccia, where Alina introduced me to a young man. Elisa was with that young man.”
“What was the man’s name?”
Hagi shrugged. “I don’t remember. I didn’t take much notice of him. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her, on the other hand.”
He’s trying to provoke you. Stay cool.
“Why did you go to Via della Camilluccia?” Balistreri asked.
“I’d gotten some work through Alina. I was hired to organize a trip to Auschwitz for a woman there.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“She was from northern Europe. Her husband was an Italian nobleman with a very long last name.”
“All right. We’ll come back to that. You met Elisa Sordi. And then?”
“What would you like to know exactly?”
Balistreri saw the public prosecutor and Morandi shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
“What happened next?”
Hagi stared at him brazenly. “Did you not get that there was an O on her left breast? You were young then, but surely you’ve figured it out by now, haven’t you?”
Morandi almost fell off his chair. The public prosecutor jumped to his feet and began pacing.
“Was that your first letter?” Balistreri asked impassively, as if they were talking about the weather.
“I took her body out into the middle of the river on a small boat. I was going to weigh it down with rocks. I figured even the rats would want a piece of her.”
The public prosecutor and the prison officers looked ready to go off. Balistreri gestured to them to calm down. Hagi’s game was clear: he wanted to drag everyone down to his level.
“And why did you hide such a work of art with so much care?” Balistreri asked.
“I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t left traces of organic material or fingerprints on the girl. So I let the river see to it.”
Balistreri came to the most complicated point. “Alina found out everything, didn’t she?”
Hagi had a coughing fit. Balistreri saw some blood on his handkerchief. Then the coughing subsided.
“I’ve already told you I have no intention of talking about my wife. I would never have hurt her.”
“I find that hard to believe, Mr. Hagi. I know what you did to the two men who killed your brother in Romania.”
Hagi shrugged. “I couldn’t care less what you believe, Balistreri.”
“How many women did you kill in the twenty-four years between the murders of Elisa and Samantha?”
“None,” Hagi said. “And I have no reason to lie to you. Alina’s death changed my life.”
“Then why did you kill Samantha a year ago?”
“Because a year ago I was diagnosed with lung cancer.”
The public prosecutor looked at Balistreri, who motioned to him to hold on and continued.
“We can verify that later. You found out you were ill, so you fell back into your bad habits? I don’t believe that.”
Hagi wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “If you want more answers, take these cuffs off me. I want a cigarette.”
The public prosecutor looked at Balistreri, who nodded consent. A corrections officer removed the handcuffs. Balistreri offered Hagi a cigarette and lit it for him with the Bella Blu lighter. Then Hagi picked up his story again.
“Alina knew the truth. She was too smart for her own good. I beat her, because she was going to report me, and for a while she let it drop. Then Anna Rossi began to interfere. She saw Alina’s bruises, and she suggested that Alina leave me and go and stay with her. That terrible evening I tried to convince her to stay, but Alina ran away on the moped to go stay with that bitch.”
Another coughing fit, more blood on the handkerchief. Hagi’s face was contorted with rage and hatred.
“I never forget a friend, but I also never forget anyone who crosses me. It gave me real pleasure to have her daughter killed by those three Roma. But what really pleases me is the thought of how Anna Rossi is going to feel when you inform her that she was responsible for her daughter’s death.”
Balistreri was extremely thankful he hadn’t brought Giulia Piccolo with him. No one could have managed to hold her back from tearing Hagi apart. Hatred filled the room as if it were a layer of poisonous gas. Morandi held his head between his hands, incredulous, while the public prosecutor was no longer even taking notes, his face parchment white. The prison officers appeared ready to jump on Hagi and take him apart right there in the room.
“Why did you kill Nadia? What did she have to do with anything?”
“Nadia could have been Alina’s identical twin. I wanted revenge on my wife, symbolically at least. She ruined my life by dying like that.”
A well-rehearsed reply, far-fetched. Don’t reply.
“Your wife ruined your life because she’d discovered you were a murderer, and she died running away from you. Whose fault was that, Mr. Hagi?”
“A wife must never betray her husband. She must remain with him come what may. It was the atmosphere at San Valente parish that turned her against me, her uncle the cardinal and the joke that is the Catholic religion.”
“You took a big risk killing Nadia after Camarà had seen you together in the private lounge and she’d taken the lighter from there—the same one I just used to light your cigarette. Why not kill someone else?”
Hagi hesitated. “She was the spitting image of Alina. I wasn’t going to find anyone who looked so much like her. Anyway, it was easy enough to cut up that fucking nigger.”
“What about Selina Belhrouz and Ornella Corona? What did your vendetta have to do with them?”
Hagi coughed for a long time, spitting blood into his handkerchief.
“You didn’t like the V and the I?”
He was avoiding certain topics. Balistreri decided to try another tactic.
“We have five letters, Mr. Hagi, beginning in 1982: O, R, E, V, and I. Can you explain what those mean?”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Hagi said. “You have to take my wife, Alina, into account.”
“What’s her letter?”
“Her initial, A.”
“O, A, R, E, V, I. What does it mean?”
Hagi stared at him with malevolent eyes. “I see nothing that I say surprises you, Balistreri. I’d like to give you something new to think about.”
Balistreri understood beforehand what Hagi was about to say. In that brief moment he was certain he was facing not a simple serial killer but a merciless plot, and that they had no idea where it began and where it would end.
“You’re going to like the next letter, Balistreri.”
. . . .
Fiorella Romani, twenty-three, granddaughter of Gina Giansanti, the former concierge at Via della Camilluccia, newly graduated and recently employed by a bank, had left her home in the suburbs at seven thirty that morning, the same as every day, to take the Metro to the office. Except that she never got there. At six that evening, seeing that she wasn’t home, her mother Franca called her cell phone repeatedly, but it was switched off. After calling all her daughter’s friends, she decided to report her missing.
“Too many hours have gone by,” Mastroianni said at the start of the meeting later in Balistreri’s office. “Hagi probably kidnapped her at seven thirty, as soon as she left home, and killed her right away. Then he buried her in the woods or dumped her in the river or down a well. Then he went to Casilino 900 to kill Pasquali.”
Balistreri listened in silence, smoking and leafing through Mastroianni’s report on the search of Hagi’s house. They had found the Invisible Man’s disguises—wigs, sunglasses, hats.
“I’ve got Corvu’s list, too,” Mastroianni said. He handed over the list of alibis that Corvu had checked on Balistreri’s request.
It was the check on the alibis he’d asked for.
In order to avoid any trouble they hadn’t directly questioned the count, or his son, let alone Cardinal Alessandrini, on the murders of the previous year. Corvu had confined himself to checking the official record.
In the Nairobi newspapers were photographs of the opening of the new hospital wing, which had taken place on December 25 in the presence of Manfredi, Count Tommaso, Manfredi’s colleagues, and the local authorities. Corvu had even checked that the only direct flight from Europe that could have taken Manfredi to Nairobi in the early morning left Zurich at midnight and that the last flight from Rome to Zurich on the evening of December 24 left at six, before Nadia was kidnapped. There was no sign of Manfredi in Rome either on the passenger lists or in passport control. So while Nadia was being killed, Manfredi was in Nairobi. On the other hand, for the murders of Samantha, Selina, and Ornella, neither the count nor Manfredi had a secure alibi.
Corvu had also noted Cardinal Alessandrini’s movements in the Vatican for official events during the afternoon and evening of December 24, but it wasn’t possible to check if he had been temporarily absent. On the day of Samantha Rossi’s death he was in Madrid, but it wasn’t known when he had come back. And on the evening of Ornella Corona’s death he was at home alone.
Ajello, Paul, and Valerio had been questioned. They had seemed more worried and surprised than angered. Paul and Valerio were together in San Valente on the evening of December 24 for the orphans’ Christmas Eve dinner; from at least eight o’clock onward their movements could be traced. Ajello was certainly at the opening of an ENT nightclub in Milan the night Samantha was killed, and there were many witnesses. There was a ridiculous coincidence in that, for different reasons, all three found themselves in Ostia on the night of Ornella Corona’s death. Ajello had had sex with her, Paul had taken the orphans to the seaside and had slept over there with them, and Valerio had been out on a boat on his own and no one knew what time he’d returned. As for the case of Elisa Sordi, there was no one who could confirm Ajello’s alibi after so many years. One result was clear: Hagi alone never had an alibi. And he was the one charged with having committed all the crimes.
Balistreri was exhausted. Around him he saw looks on his colleagues’ faces that ranged from commiseration to contempt to derision.
Late in the day, he received a phone call from the chief of police.
“Balistreri, this is a disaster from start to finish, beginning with the victims and their loved ones all the way up to the media circus and the political consequences.”
“Sir, if I may, we’re dealing with something highly complex that was planned down to the last detail.”
“So you don’t think Marius Hagi could have done all this on his own?”
“I don’t know. And this might be just the start.”
“The start?” Floris shouted. “Five young women have been brutally murdered, the first twenty-four years ago, then Camarà, Colajacono, Tatò, Coppola, Pasquali—you were nearly killed yourself—and now Fiorella Romani. The start of what? World War III?”
There was no way Balistreri could reassure him. The fact that Pasquali already had his pistol in his hand while the plainclothes officer knocked at the trailer door was a real concern.
“I have to talk to Hagi again,” Balistreri said.
“He has a plan. If we want to try to save Fiorella Romani we have to play along with him.”
“What good will it do to play along with him?” Floris asked.
“Either Fiorella Romani is already dead or she will be soon. If Hagi’s got her hidden away somewhere and we don’t find her, she’ll die of starvation. On the other hand, maybe he wants us to find her. Maybe Hagi’s playing a game with us.”
“What are you talking about?” the chief of police asked, exasperated.
“It’s too complicated,” Balistreri concluded.
Floris sighed, exhausted. He’d been a well-respected man, but now he was flailing. He was chained that was sinking into on quicksand.
Evening
It was already dark when Balistreri returned to Regina Coeli for the third time. The image of Angelo with Linda was tormenting him. He brushed it aside angrily and tried to concentrate on Hagi and Fiorella Romani. But that image took him back to his worst nightmare, back to Africa in the summer of 1970.
Corvu called from Kiev to ask how things were going. Balistreri told him Hagi had confessed to everything, including the killing of Elisa Sordi and the letter O. Then he told him about Fiorella Romani’s disappearance.
“I’m coming back tomorrow. I can’t stay away any longer.”
“Okay, Corvu. In that case I’m going to ask the chief of police to transfer you to the beautiful and peaceful mountains of Sardinia immediately. You can count goats there. That should calm you down.” And he snapped his cell phone shut.
Balistreri entered the room with the public prosecutor and Morandi, who felt it was his duty to mutter some more words that Balistreri ignored completely.
Hagi appeared to have rested for the last few hours. The corrections officers who were watching him said he had eaten a little and had slept. Medical reports confirmed he had late-stage lung cancer. The doctors said he had little time to live.
“You’re tired, Balistreri. You’ve got terrible bags under your eyes. If you keep going like this you’ll die of a heart attack before I die of cancer,” Hagi said cheerfully.
“Don’t worry about me. I’d like to talk about Fiorella Romani. Is she alive?”
Hagi appeared to consider the question carefully. “I think so. Naturally that depends on how strong she is.”
The public prosecutor couldn’t contain himself. “You should be thankful that in this civilized country, where no one can torture you like Ceausescu’s hired killers tortured your brother. I only wish I were allowed to torture you.”
Hagi looked at the public prosecutor pityingly. “You wouldn’t have it in you to harm a hair on my head. You people are as spineless now as you were during the fall of the Roman Empire. The people you call barbarians are going to rape your women, steal your houses, and take over your country, while you sit and watch.”
Morandi felt moved to intervene. “Mr. Hagi, I’m begging you to save Fiorella Romani’s life. The court will take it into consideration.”
Hagi laughed. “I’ll die before I go before a judge. But I’m willing to save Fiorella Romani’s life on certain conditions.”
Balistreri bent toward Hagi. “What do you want in exchange?”
“The truth, Balistreri. It would be simple if you weren’t so incompetent.”
The public prosecutor and Morandi looked at him, disconcerted.
But Balistreri was ready for him; he knew what truth he meant.
The one I haven’t found. The one I gave up finding all these years. The one I thought to atone for by giving up on life.
“He wants me to speak to Fiorella Romani’s grandmother and reopen the investigation into Elisa Sordi’s murder. In the meantime, Fiorella could be dead,” Balistreri said. He might as well have been speaking Chinese for all the comprehension displayed by the public prosecutor and Morandi.
“We’ll do our best to keep her alive a little longer. But be a little quicker this time, Balistreri. Fiorella won’t live another twenty-four years.”
The public prosecutor cut in. “I don’t understand. You confessed to killing Elisa Sordi, Mr. Hagi. Are you retracting that statement?”
Hagi looked at them with scorn.
“I never said I killed her, just that I threw her body in the Tiber. You’re as incompetent as Balistreri here, this street sweeper in paradise. I want the truth—only the truth can save Fiorella Romani.”
The chief of police and the public prosecutor agreed to reopen the investigation immediately and contact eighty-four-year-old Gina Giansanti. Her daughter, Franca, Fiorella’s mother, told them that Gina was ill and had been living in Puglia for more than twenty years in a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of Lecce, her birthplace. A military airplane would be provided to transport Balistreri and Fiorella’s mother there the following morning.
. . . .
It was almost midnight when Balistreri left Regina Coeli. He had smoked at least thirty cigarettes and drunk a dozen cups of espresso. He was physically and psychologically destroyed. Keeping himself from reacting to Marius Hagi had been extremely tough. His nerves were in shreds, his thoughts roiling.
He’s kissing her right now on her terrace, where I hesitated. Next he’ll take her to bed.
. . . .
He took the walk home from Regina Coeli through Trastevere, where the chaos was greater because it was Friday night. There were cars everywhere tooting horns, music at top volume, ice cream, kids with bottles of beer walking in and out of the traffic. And yet he didn’t hear a thing—he was walking down a tunnel that had only one possible exit.
And if he carves up another girl? This had been Linda Nardi’s question the first time they had gone out to dinner on December 30, 2005. It was time to know where that idea had come from.
Don’t confuse the investigation with your anger. Stop here, Michele, while you still have time.
But his footsteps led him toward her apartment. When he got to the main door it was a little after midnight. He looked up and saw a faint light in the windows. He still had the key she’d given him. Breathing heavily, he walked up the staircase.
Linda Nardi’s door was the only one on that floor. The lock was gleaming, evidently new. He rang the bell. He heard steps coming to the door. He was tempted to run away but remained nailed to the spot in front of the door like a man condemned to death facing a firing squad.
“Who is it?” Linda asked from inside.
“It’s me.”
There was a brief silence, then Linda opened the door but left it chained.
She looked not surprised, but sad. “What do you want, Michele?”
“We have to talk. Right now.”
He saw the vertical line furrowing her brow. She could have said no, never. Or not now, we can speak tomorrow. But that would not have been Linda Nardi.
She can leave you outside of her life, but not outside of her door.
When she took off the chain and opened the door, Angelo Dioguardi was standing in the middle of the small, softly lit living. His hair was more ruffled than usual, his eyes tired, the lines deep on his face.
“He has to leave,” Balistreri said to Linda.
Angelo didn’t wait for her reply and stepped toward toward the door. As they brushed past one another, Balistreri felt him hesitate a moment and halt as if he had something to say, a last attempt to clarify things. But it was only an exchange of silences and then Angelo left, pulling the door behind him.
Linda stared at him, arms folded. She wasn’t angry. “I’m listening, Michele.”
She was so beautiful. He had never seen her more attractive. Her blouse was buttoned almost to the neck and held the breasts he’d imagined so often but only now wanted to fondle and kiss. Her trousers, as usual, were baggy but were more intriguing precisely because of that, and he wanted to put his hands inside them, where perhaps a few minutes earlier Angelo’s hands had been.
The desire he had repressed during the months they had spent together suddenly erupted with a violent force, making him almost reel. He felt his knees buckle. He should have taken her in his arms instead. He should have told her he did not understand her, but he trusted her. He should have promised her he would do everything for her, anything at all, even without understanding. He should have. But he didn’t want to, not anymore. Linda Nardi was now only flesh and blood, a woman he desired, a woman who had sent him packing and thrown herself into the arms of his best friend.
Surprising himself, he said in a harsh voice “Who told you about the letter carved on Samantha Rossi?”
Her eyes were sad. Linda felt sorry for him, and he couldn’t stand it. “You told me yourself, Michele, the way you reacted that night in the restaurant.”
His desire added to his frustration and his frustration added to his anger, which was flowing through his veins with an effect so strong it might have been heroin.
“Bullshit! You knew. Someone told you.”
“I had my suspicions, but your reaction that night made me certain,” she said calmly.
“I don’t believe you. About anything.” He stopped himself before he cut all ties between them forever. He recognized the uncontrolled anger that the young Michele Balistreri had felt when things didn’t go the way he wanted—the anger he’d tried to bury at the bottom of the Mediterranean in the summer of 1970.
She knew what he was going to say. “Angelo doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“If someone lies about something, she’s capable of lying about everything. Did you play nurse with me to be sure I’d get better and continue looking for the Invisible Man? Did you want the scoop when I found him?” His voice was growing louder and more threatening.
“Michele, get out of your prison cell now or you’ll never get out of it.”
“I should have fucked you like an ordinary whore. So much for all your bullshit about Saint Agnes.”
She was looking at him with a different light in her eyes. She was looking at him with regret. She was saying good-bye.
“Yes, you should have. Maybe then you’d understand.”
The words themselves, her calm tone, her eyes shining in the semidarkness. He found himself as he had been thirty-six years earlier, in a place where there would never be enough remorse to find repentance.
His slap sent Linda reeling against the wall. He held her wrists together with one arm and grabbed her hair with the other, forcing her to look at him. He kissed her violently. He forced his tongue into her mouth. She didn’t cry out or offer any resistance. She was lifeless, defenseless.
It was her passivity that was the last straw, the absence of any attempt to defend herself. He ripped off her blouse and bra and flung her on the sofa. Linda confined herself to covering her breasts, crossing her arms while he took off her sneakers and pants. Then he leaped on top of her, breathing heavily from desire and fury.
“Have you already had sex tonight?”
She turned her face away and he tore off her underwear. He would have done it; he was ready. But he had to stand up to unzip his pants, and when he did, their bodies separated in the dim light. In the silence broken only by his own heavy breathing, Balistreri saw the slim figure of a seminaked woman with her clothes torn, her breasts shielded by her arms, naked from the waist down. She could have been Elisa, Samantha, Nadia, Ornella, Alina, or Saint Agnes. She could have been another woman, too, one he’d never forgotten since that last night of August in 1970.
And, as Linda had predicted, he saw the first glimmer of truth. It was only a sensation, not a real and fleshed-out idea. Incredulous, horrified, he took a step back, staggering. He crashed into a table lamp, which fell and broke, and he left the apartment in total darkness. He took advantage of it to escape into the night.