The Lost Girls of Rome (15 page)

The fact that the rain had not washed it away suggested it was some kind of oily substance. Marcus bent down to check. It was motor oil.

Clearly, the car had been parked outside the abandoned warehouse. That much he had already deduced from the muddy bodywork. At first, Marcus had thought the two things were linked: Ranieri had damaged and dirtied the car at the same time. But he looked around and did not see any potholes or protruding stones that might have caused damage. So that must have happened earlier, somewhere else.

Where had Ranieri been before coming here?

Marcus lifted a hand to the scar on his temple. His head was throbbing, another migraine was on the way. He needed a painkiller and something to eat. He felt as if he had come to a dead end and needed to find a way to continue. When he saw his bus approaching the stop, he hurried to catch it. Once aboard, he made his way to one of the seats at the back, next to an elderly lady with a shopping bag, who looked askance at his swollen cheek and split lip, both souvenirs of the attack by Raffaele Altieri. Ignoring her, Marcus folded his arms across his chest and stretched his legs under the seat in front. He closed his eyes, trying to forget the hammer ing in his head and drifted into a kind of half-sleep, still
vaguely aware of the voices and other noises around him, and unable to dream. There had been many times he’d got on a bus like this one or an underground carriage and fallen half-asleep, aimlessly going back and forth between termini, trying to escape the recurring dream in which he and Devok both died. The motion cradled him, creating the impression that an invisible force was taking care of him, making him feel safe.

He opened his eyes again because he had stopped feeling the peaceful rocking of the bus and the passengers around him had suddenly become agitated.

The bus had, in fact, ground to a halt and some of the passengers were complaining about the time they were wasting. Marcus looked out of the window to see where they were. He recognised the buildings lining the ring road. He got up from his seat and made his way to the front of the bus. The driver had not switched off the engine, but was sitting there with his arms folded.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘An accident,’ the driver replied. ‘I think we’ll be moving soon.’

Marcus looked at the vehicles in front of them. One by one, they were driving across a space that had been cleared at the side of the road in order to avoid the scene of the accident, which seemed to have involved several cars.

The bus advanced in fits and starts. When their turn finally came, a traffic policeman motioned them to hurry up. Marcus was still on his feet next to the bus driver when they passed a mass of twisted and burnt metal. The firemen had only just managed to put out the flames.

He recognised Ranieri’s green Subaru from part of the bonnet that had been spared by the flames. Inside, the body of the driver had been covered with a sheet.

At last Marcus understood the reason for the oil stains the detective’s car had left behind everywhere it stopped. He had been wrong: they were not linked to a place Ranieri had visited and where he had damaged the Subaru. The oil must have been leaking from the brakes, because someone had tampered with them.

This was no accident.

5.07 p.m.

The song was for her. A message. Drop the investigation, in your own interest.

Or else the exact opposite. Come and get me.

The water from the shower poured down her neck and back. Sandra stood there without moving, her eyes closed, her hands pressed against the tiled wall. In her head, she again heard the melody of ‘Cheek to Cheek’ mixed with David’s last words on the recorder.

‘Wait! Wait! Wait!’

She had decided she would not cry again until this was all over. She was afraid, but she would not turn back. Now she knew.

Someone was involved in her husband’s death.

That death was irreversible, she knew, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. The idea that she could do something, something that could make up, at least partly, for an absurd, unjust loss, was one she found strangely consoling.

She had settled for a modest one-star hotel near the Termini station, used mainly by groups of pilgrims who had come to visit the Christian sites.

David had stayed here when he had been in Rome. Sandra had asked for the same room and fortunately it had been available. In order to carry out her own investigation, she needed to reproduce the conditions in which he had operated.

Why, after her discovery of the recording, hadn’t she immediately gone to the police and told them what had happened? It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her colleagues. The husband of one of their own had been murdered. They would have given priority to the case. That was the unwritten rule, a kind of code of honour. She could at least have told De Michelis. She continued to tell herself that she preferred to put together enough evidence to facilitate his work. But that wasn’t the real motive. The real motive was one she wouldn’t even admit to herself.

She came out of the shower and wrapped herself in the bath towel. Dripping, she came back to the room, put her case on the bed
and started emptying it until she came to an item she had put right at the bottom.

Her service gun.

She checked the magazine and the safety catch, then placed it on the chest of drawers. From now on, she would always carry it with her.

She put on just a pair of knickers and started sorting through the other things she had brought with her. She removed the small TV set from the shelf where it stood and replaced it with the two-way radio, David’s diary with those strange addresses, and the voice recorder. With adhesive tape, she stuck the five photographs she had developed from the Leica to the wall. The first was that of the building site, and she had already used it. Then there was the one that had come out completely dark, which she had decided to keep all the same. Then the one of the man with the scar on his temple, the detail from the painting, and, finally, the image of her husband waving and simultaneously taking a photograph while standing bare-chested in front of the mirror.

Sandra turned towards the bathroom. That was where this last photograph had been taken.

At first sight it appeared to be one of those humorous gestures typical of him, like when he had sent her a photograph of himself lunching on roast anaconda in Borneo or another where he was covered with leeches in a swamp in Australia.

But, unlike those photos, in this one David was not smiling.

Maybe what she had at first thought of as a sad farewell from a ghost concealed another message for her. Maybe Sandra ought to search the room, because David had hidden something there and wanted her to find it.

She shifted the furniture, looked under the bed and the wardrobe. She carefully felt the mattress and pillows. She took the cover off the telephone and the TV set and looked inside. She checked the floor tiles and the skirting board. Finally, she carefully inspected the bathroom.

Apart from proof that it wasn’t cleaned very often, she didn’t find anything.

Five months had gone by. Whatever it was might well have been removed. She cursed herself again for waiting so long before checking what was in David’s bags.

Sitting on the floor, still without any clothes on, she started to feel cold. She pulled the faded bedspread around herself and stayed there, trying not to let her frustration overcome her powers of reasoning. Just then, her mobile phone began vibrating.

‘So, Officer Vega, did you follow my advice?’

It took her a moment or two to recognise that irritating, German-accented voice.

‘Schalber, I was hoping I’d hear from you.’

‘Is your husband’s luggage still in the police storeroom, or can I take a look at it?’

‘If there’s an investigation in progress, you can submit a request to the examining magistrate.’

‘You know as well as I do that Interpol can only work alongside a country’s official police force. I wouldn’t like to bother your colleagues, it might be embarrassing for you.’

‘I have nothing to hide.’ The man really did have the ability to get on her nerves.

‘Where are you now, Sandra? I can call you Sandra, can’t I?’

‘No, and it’s none of your business.’

‘I’m in Milan, we could meet for a coffee, or whatever you prefer.’

Sandra absolutely had to avoid him finding out that she was in Rome. ‘Why not? How about tomorrow afternoon? Then we can clear up this whole thing.’

Schalber gave a loud laugh. ‘I think the two of us are going to get along very well.’

‘Don’t delude yourself. I don’t like the way you operate.’

‘I assume you asked one of your superiors to check me out.’

Sandra said nothing.

‘You did the right thing. He’ll tell you I’m the kind of person who doesn’t easily let go.’

That phrase sounded to her like a threat. She wouldn’t let herself be intimidated. ‘Tell me, Schalber, how did you end up in Interpol?’

‘I was in the police in Vienna. Murder squad, antiterrorism, drug squad: a bit of everything. I got noticed and Interpol called me.’

‘And what do you deal with for them?’

Schalber made a pregnant pause, and when he spoke his jocular tone had vanished. ‘I deal with liars.’

Sandra shook her head. ‘You know what, I should slam the phone down on you, but I’m still curious to hear what you have to tell me.’

‘I’d like to tell you a story.’

‘If you really think it’s necessary …’

‘I had a colleague in Vienna. We were investigating a gang of Eastern European smugglers, but he had a bad habit. He didn’t like to share information, because he was desperate to advance his career. He took a week’s leave, telling me he was taking his wife on a cruise. Instead of which, he infiltrated this gang. But they found out who he was. They tortured him for three days and three nights, knowing nobody would come and look for him, then killed him. If he’d trusted me, he might still be alive today.’

‘That’s a nice anecdote,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I bet you tell it to all the girls.’

‘Give it some thought. We all need somebody. I’ll call you tomorrow about that coffee.’

He hung up. She sat there, wondering what he had meant by that last phrase. The only person she needed was no longer here. And what about David? Who had he needed? Was she sure she was the target of the clues he had disseminated before leaving forever?

When he was still alive, he had kept her out of the investigation, he had not told her he was running any risks. But had he been alone in Rome? On David’s mobile phone there was no record of calls received from or sent to unknown numbers. He didn’t seem to have been in contact with anyone. But maybe he had received help of some kind.

Her eyes came to rest on the two-way radio. She had wondered what David was doing with it. What if he had used it to communicate with someone?

She got up, went to the shelf, picked up the radio and examined it now with different eyes. It was tuned to channel 81.
Maybe she should keep it on, maybe someone would try to contact her.

She switched it on and raised the volume. Of course she was not expecting to hear anything. She put it back on the shelf and turned back to her case to get her clothes.

At that moment, a transmission began.

It was the cold, monotone voice of a woman reporting that a fight between drug dealers was in progress in the Via Nomentana. Patrol cars in the area were asked to intervene.

Sandra turned to look at the radio. It was tuned to the frequency used by the headquarters of the Rome police to communicate with patrol cars.

And with that realisation, she also understood the meaning of the addresses in David’s diary.

7.47 p.m.

Marcus went back to his attic room in the Via dei Serpenti. Without turning on the light or taking off his raincoat, he lay huddled on the bed with his hands between his knees. His sleepless night was catching up with him, and he could feel another migraine coming on.

Ranieri’s death had brought his investigation crashing to a halt. All that effort for nothing!

What had the detective taken from the safe in his office that morning?

Whatever it was, it had probably been destroyed with him in the Subaru. Marcus took the file on case number
c.g. 796-74-8
from his pocket. He didn’t need it any more. He threw it down, and the papers scattered across the floor. The moonlight shone on the faces of those involved in a murder that had occurred nearly twenty years ago. Far too long ago to get at the truth now, he thought. If he couldn’t have justice, he had to be satisfied with that conclusion. Now, though, he had to start again from the beginning. His priority was Lara.

Valeria Altieri looked up at him from a newspaper cutting, smiling in a photograph of a New Year’s Eve party. She looked very elegant, her blonde hair and shapely body perfectly set off by the dress she was wearing. There was a unique magnetism in her eyes.

She had paid for so much beauty with her life.

If she had been a less striking woman, her death might not have interested anybody.

Marcus found himself involuntarily thinking about the reason the killers had chosen her. Just like Lara, who for some obscure reason had been selected by Jeremiah Smith.

Up until that moment, he had thought of Valeria as Raffaele’s mother. After seeing the bloody footprints of his little feet on the white carpet in the bedroom, he hadn’t been able to focus on her.

There’s always a reason we attract other people’s attention, he told himself. It didn’t happen to him, of course, he was invisible. But Valeria was a woman who was very much in the public eye.

The word EVIL written on the wall behind the bed. The numerous stab wounds on the victims’ bodies. The murder taking place within a domestic environment. Everything seemed to have been done in order to be noticed. The homicide had captured the public’s imagination not only because it had involved a member of high society and her equally well-known lover, but also because of the way it had happened.

It seemed to have been staged specially for the scandal magazines, even though no paparazzo had photographed the crime scene.