The Centro Direzionale office park was a grim place even on sunny days or warm spring afternoons, but on that chilly winter evening, largely deserted and with the metal shutters of the sparsely scattered shops and cafés rolled down and locked tight, it was evocative of the postnuclear landscape of some dystopian science fiction holocaust.
Alex and Lojacono had left their department-issued car in one of the underground parking structures—dimly lit, frightening grottoes where the wind moaned like a wounded wild beast. They had then climbed the stairs to the ground level: an ideal spot for armed robbers, or evildoers in general, to lurk in ambush, though it was safe to say that, with the chill in the air, it was likely the evildoers were holed up in video game arcades, or else at home with whatever company they could scrape together. Nonetheless, the two cops had each instinctively raised their hand to grip the butt of the pistol resting in a shoulder holster, a gesture that gave each a subliminal surge of comfort.
Their footsteps echoed in the silence. It had just turned seven o’clock, but it might as well have been two in the morning, deserted as it was except for the infrequent passersby they crossed paths with along the ultramodern thoroughfares of the quarter. The glass-clad skyscrapers still had plenty of windows lit up in the darkness, which meant that business was continuing as usual and Planet Earth was still inhabited; that said, no one was defying the chill of the evening, unless strictly necessary.
When they reached the building indicated on the sheet of paper Ottavia had given them, a structure of average height wedged between two steel-and-glass colossuses, they entered a vast, unheated atrium where there was no sign of an attendant. They studied the many nameplates on display until they found the one they were looking for: “Charles Elegance.” Fourth floor, unit 32.
The elevator felt like a walk-in freezer; it even made the same sound as one. Lojacono, who was slightly claustrophobic, imagined the grim outcome if the mechanism were to break down in those desolate surroundings, and the likelihood that their lifeless bodies would be found frozen solid the next morning. Instead, they arrived at their destination safe and sound. They rang the doorbell.
Greeting them as they walked through the door was a goodlooking, dark-haired young woman. Her welcome, as plastic as it was professional, was replaced by a crestfallen expression when she learned that they were policemen. The young woman stood up and left her desk, vanishing around a corner only to reappear a few moments later, inviting them to follow her.
The agency certainly lived up to its name. The deep pile of the dark-brown carpeting absorbed their footsteps, drowning all sound, while hidden speakers spread melodious notes that made the place seem exotic and charming. In the one room with an open door, Alex and Lojacono glimpsed two female models dressed in evening gowns, stretched out on a sofa and floodlit; a photographer was moving around them, snapping photos in rapid succession. The receptionist apologized, as if they had just stumbled upon some unseemly spectacle.
When they reached the end of the hallway, she knocked gracefully at a dark wooden doorway, more massive than any of the others. Next to the door a nameplate commanded pride of place: “Director.”
They went in.
The office was illuminated by the warm light flooding from two floor lamps and a desk lamp that stood atop a massive mahogany desk. Behind the desk sat a skinny man in his early fifties dressed in a dark sweater and wearing eyeglasses. The man stood up and walked to meet the two policemen, hand extended in greeting.
“Buonasera, I’m Carlo Cava, I run this agency. I can imagine why you’re here. Make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you something?”
Alex and Lojacono thanked him politely but declined the offer and then took seats in the armchairs to which they’d been directed. The young woman who had accompanied them to this point slipped away after being dismissed by her employer with a wave of his hand.
Now they could talk.
“Signor Cava, I’m Lieutenant Lojacono from the Pizzofalcone police precinct; my partner here is Officer Di Nardo. May I ask why you assume you already know the reason for our visit?”
“Lieutenant, I do read the occasional newspaper. And even if I didn’t, plenty of my compatriots watch the television news and listen to the radio, all the more so given the fact that for the past two days this topic is all anyone in this city has talked about, with the possible exception of the extreme cold. I know what happened to Grazia Varricchio, I’m sad to say. And, of course, I know that she was one of our models, even though she had only started working with us very recently. I simply added two and two and got four.”
“Why didn’t you think of calling us to inform us that she had been working with you?” Alex asked.
“And what could I have told you, officer? That the young woman had taken a few pictures here, that she had been duly paid, and that not even the staff of this agency had had time to get to know her?”
Alex felt an instinctive surge of dislike for that individual and the way he spoke, in a barely audible voice, leaning comfortably against the high backrest of his chair, arms crossed over his narrow chest. The man struck her as being perfectly in control of the situation, and extremely careful not to let slip that control.
“Exactly, how long had Varricchio been working with you?” Lojacono resumed.
“Less than two months. I’d have to check to be sure, but I’m almost positive that she only did two photo shoots: one for swimsuits, which was rather successful, and another for wedding gowns, which has yet to be published. She also did a runway presentation, though not here, of course.”
Alex asked: “What do you mean by ‘not here’?”
“We only do photo shoots here. We prepare a set, we make use of our own photographers, or else freelancers we decide to hire for the project, and then we deliver the pictures to the client who commissioned the shoot. The runway presentations, on the other hand, are held at the fashion houses themselves, or else in hotels, cafés, or nightspots. Depending on what is needed. We receive a fee for each young woman we supply.”
“So the Varricchio girl modeled for runway presentations and photo shoots?” Lojacono asked.
“A reasonable question; after all, not all the girls are suited for both jobs. There are highly photogenic women who just don’t know how to do a runway presentation, and others who are magnificent on the runway but simply don’t lend themselves to being photographed.”
Alex was perplexed.
“Even though they’re all pretty? Why is there such a difference?”
“Signorina, beauty is much more complex than people generally think. To put it in professional terms, there is static beauty and dynamic beauty. I imagine you’ve had occasion to notice how, sometimes, a person that you consider beautiful looks very different in a photograph; while on the other hand you may have chanced to meet someone who was stunning in photographs and found them very disappointing. Young women who have the gift of appearing perfectly lovely both to the eye and the camera lens are rare, exceedingly rare. Varricchio was one of these rare creatures.”
There was something alluring about the way Cava spoke. That impression was only heightened by the comfortable warmth that enveloped the room and the scent of sandalwood that floated in the air. Alex had the sensation she had wandered into the lair of a dangerous animal.
“And how do you find these girls? Do you place classified ads?” Lojacono asked.
“Lieutenant, if we asked all the girls who consider themselves pretty or, even better, elegant, to come into our offices, we’d have to fight off a genuine state of siege. And most likely we wouldn’t find even one young woman suitable to our purposes out of the whole mob. So in answer to your question, heavens, no. We have our networks, people my colleagues and employees know or have chanced to meet, professional models who have worked with us before, actresses in local theaters, announcers from various local television networks. From time to time someone may happen to come in of their own accord and we decide to give her an audition, but that’s a rare exception.”
Lojacono took a look around. On a number of shelves lining the walls, for the most part stacked with numbered file boxes, there were also photographs on display with the same model dressed in radically varying fashions. The cut of the dresses and the changes in the woman’s face made it clear that the pictures dated back over a period of at least two decades.
Cava followed Lojacono’s gaze.
“That’s my wife, Lieutenant. The most elegant woman this agency has ever had the privilege to represent.”
That last phrase aroused Alex’s curiosity.
“Elegant. From the way I hear you use that adjective, I’d have to guess that you consider elegance to be superior to beauty. In fact, earlier you said: ‘Pretty or, even better, elegant.’ Why did you say that?”
The man turned in her direction, but he didn’t seem to be looking at her.
“Elegance, Signorina, is far less common than beauty. Most important of all, there’s no two ways about it. It’s something that no cosmetic surgeon, no fitness center or gymnasium, no beautician can give you: you have it or you don’t. But I realize that that’s not easy to understand.”
It was clear, not so much from the choice of words as from the tone of voice in which those words had been uttered, that there was a subtext to what the man was saying: Alex not only didn’t possess the gift of elegance, but she would almost certainly be incapable of even recognizing it if she saw it. The police officer didn’t feel even slightly diminished by that tacit judgement: she would have been far more uneasy if she’d sensed that the reptile sitting across from her found her attractive.
Lojacono tried to shrug off the sleepiness that Cava’s voice and the atmosphere of the place were inducing in his body.
“So did the Varricchio girl have it, this quality of elegance?”
Cava stared at his desktop for a moment, and then looked up at the lieutenant.
“Yes. She did.”
The answer prompted a brief silence. Then Alex stirred in her chair.
“Can you tell us how you found her? Is she one of those very few candidates who came in unprompted?”
“No. She was spotted by chance, she was asked if she wanted to do a test shoot, and she accepted.”
“And just who is it that spotted her?” asked Lojacono.
Cava turned his face to the window on his left, through which he enjoyed a splendid panoramic view of the void that was the central thoroughfare of that block of offices. He sat that way for a few seconds. An instant before Lojacono could solicit an answer to his question, he finally said: “I did.”