Naples, 18th of June, 14:30
Three days from the summer solstice
We spent about an hour in the vault of Due Sicilie Bank, hardly speaking and in oppressive silence, expecting to see at any moment one of the remaining five of us simply collapse the way poor Ricciardi had a few minutes before.
At one point the huge vault door opened, and we turned to see, through the slowly widening gap, first the bank employees and then Oscar, his face wearing an expression of anguish.
Àrtemis stared at him expectantly, but Oscar shook his head and said, with sad eyes, “I’m sorry Àrtemis – Professor Ricciardi is dead.”
Her eyes filled with tears, while Amato, putting a hand to his forehead, murmured in a faint voice, “They’re going to kill us… They’re going to kill us all.”
“I don’t think so, Enzo,” said Oscar. “As soon as the vault door was closed we called an ambulance. It arrived immediately, and the doctor and the paramedics immediately realised the gravity of the situation. Within seconds, they had made a diagnosis. A heart attack. A straightforward heart attack.”
“But perhaps it was caused by the poison,” I hypothesised.
“We will have to wait for the autopsy and toxicological tests, of course, but the doctor seemed very certain. When I mentioned the venom he expressed strong doubts. I repeat, as far as he was concerned, it was a perfectly normal heart attack.”
We looked at one another, not fully understanding what had happened. Professor Ricciardi hadn’t been killed by Asar’s Scorpion King? Was it all a bluff?
“What should we do now, Oscar?” asked Amato. “Stay shut up in here?”
I shook my head, remembering Asar’s words.
“No, there’s no need. Even if Professor Ricciardi was killed by the poison, if Asar can be trusted, we have about eleven hours before… it’s the turn of another of us.”
Oscar put his hands on his hips. “So let’s try and get the truth out of the guy we arrested.”
*
Asar’s man sat with his arms folded at a table in a bare room in the police station. He had no documents with him and his data – photos and fingerprints – were not in the police database. He had a clean record, and the only thing that was certain, from the very few words he had spoken, was that he was Italian.
Amato wanted to smash his face in, but Oscar’s presence prevented him from giving vent to the anger that was mounting within him by the minute. The man had a perfectly average face, close cropped brown hair, thin lips and a vacant gaze imprinted like a still image on his perfectly average eyes.
Oscar had allowed me to watch the questioning from behind a one way mirror, and I heard him repeat the same question for the umpteenth time: he wanted Asar’s real name and he wanted to speak to him. The man, however, was locked in stubborn silence. Oscar took out the smartphone which had been seized when he was arrested: there were no stored numbers and the outgoing calls list was empty. The police technicians, however, had found on it the application which supposedly activated the release of poison, and Oscar showed the screen to Asar’s man.
“You killed an innocent man, a respected university professor, right before my eyes. You did it with this, right? By just pressing a button.”
The man looked up for the first time and gave a slight smile. “We haven’t killed anyone. You’re making a big mistake.”
Amato lost control and, like a large predatory animal, leapt forward, snatched the smartphone from Oscar’s hands and pounced on the man, grabbing him by the shirt collar. He threw him to the floor and dragged him along the ground, pressing the phone forcefully against his face.
“You piece of shit, I’ll ram this phone into your brain, you hear me?”
“Enzo, calm down!” said Oscar, trying in vain to stop Amato.
“Tell me how it works! Tell me how the fuck it works!”
“Enzo, enough! Let go of him!”
The door opened and two officers came in to help Oscar restrain Amato’s fury. Asar’s man, now looking frightened, adjusted his clothes and sat down again.
“You are violating my rights. I want a lawyer,” he said arrogantly.
Oscar gave him a withering look.
“What lawyer, you scumbag? Start by telling us your name and how you killed the professor and maybe you’ll make it to tonight with your bones intact.”
The man grew strangely calm again and, enunciating his words, repeated, “We did not kill anyone.”
A strange idea had already begun to form in my mind after listening to Oscar’s account of what the doctor and the paramedic said. Death caused by heart failure. Asar too had insisted that the police had no evidence for accusing them of murdering Hašek. Naturally, I had assumed it was an attempt to exculpate himself, but now, listening to the man repeat several times, with conviction, that they had not been involved in those crimes, I began to have doubts.
A minute later, my suspicions received confirmation. Oscar had asked to have the results of the tests on Ricciardi’s corpse as soon as they were ready. To find out exactly how the professor had died we would have wait a few days, but the doctors were able to provide us with a fairly clear picture after only an hour.
Viola entered the interrogation room.
“Oscar, can I talk to you for a second?”
The enraged Commissioner turned towards the glass mirror which separated me from the room, so I was able to observe his face, at first frowning and then growing confused when Viola said, “The medics are ninety-nine percent certain that the professor died of a heart attack. They’ve carried out a rapid analysis and an initial examination found no traces of any kind of poisoning. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the autopsy, but…”
“I get it. Thanks Viola.”
Oscar turned away. Asar’s man held his gaze confidently.