The Lost Girls of Rome (35 page)

What counts most for me? he asked himself. Fame interests me, but it’s not essential: unfortunately you don’t become famous by saving lives or giving to charity. Then my profession. But my talent is more important to other people, so it’s not what is most dear to me.

The solution came spontaneously as he looked again at the wall celebrating the doctor’s life. My name, that’s what really counts. My reputation is the most valuable thing I possess.

Because I’m convinced that I’m a good man.

He went and sat down in Canestrari’s armchair. He put his hands together under his chin and asked himself one essential question.

How can I kill myself while making everyone believe I died from natural causes?

What Canestrari had feared most was scandal. He would never have tolerated the idea of people remembering anything bad about him. So he must have thought up a method. Marcus was convinced that the answer was very near.

‘Within reach,’ he said. He swivelled the chair round towards the bookcase.

Simulating a natural death should not have been a problem for someone so versed in the secrets of life. He was sure there was a simple method that would not arouse suspicion. Nobody would investigate, nobody would dig deeper, because it was such an upright man who had died.

Marcus stood up and started examining the titles of the books lined up on the shelves. It took him a while to find what he was after. He took out the volume.

It was a handbook of natural and artificial poisons.

He started to leaf through the lists of essences and toxins, mineral and vegetable acids, caustic alkalines. Everything was here, from arsenic to antimony, from belladonna to nitrobenzene, phenacetin and chloroform, with an indication of the fatal dosage, the active ingredients, and the uses and side-effects. At last he came across something that might be the answer he was looking for.

Succinylcholine.

It was a muscle relaxant used in anaesthaesia. Being a surgeon, Canestrari would have been familiar with it. In the book it was compared to a kind of synthetic curare, because it possessed the ability to paralyse patients for the duration of an operation, thus avoiding the risk of spasms or involuntary movements.

After studying the drug’s properties, Marcus came to the conclusion that Canestrari would have needed a one-milligram dose to stop his respiratory muscles from working. A few minutes, and he would choke. It would have felt like an eternity, and made for a
terrible death, but it would certainly be highly effective, because the paralysis of the body would make the process irreversible. Once the drug was injected, there would be no time for second thoughts.

But there was another reason why Canestrari had chosen it.

Marcus was surprised to learn that the principal quality of succinylcholine was that it did not show up in toxicological tests because it was composed of succinic and choline acids, two substances normally present in the human body. Death would seem to be from natural causes. No pathologist would think of looking for a very small hole caused by the insertion of a syringe, between the toes for example.

His good name would be safe.

But what of the syringe? If someone had found it next to the body, the idea of simulating a natural death would have gone out of the window. That didn’t quite fit with the rest.

Marcus mulled it over. Before coming here, he had read on the internet that it was Canestrari’s nurse who had found his body, when she opened up the clinic in the morning. Maybe she had been the one to get rid of the embarrassing evidence that it had not been a natural death.

Too risky, Marcus told himself: what was there to guarantee that the nurse would do that? Canestrari must have been sure that the syringe would be removed. Why?

Marcus looked around at the place where the famous doctor had decided to take his own life. This surgery was the centre of his universe. But that wasn’t the reason he had chosen it. He must have been certain that someone would see his plan through to its conclusion. Someone who had an interest in getting rid of the syringe.

He did it here because he knew he was being watched.

Marcus leapt to his feet. There had to be a device in the room. Where could they have put it? In the electrical wiring, was the answer.

He looked at the light switch on the wall. He went up to it and noticed that there was a small hole in the box. To remove it, he used a paper knife he found on the desk. First he loosened the screws, then slowly prised the box off the wall.

It took one glance to recognise a transmitter cable among the electric wires.

Whoever had hidden this spy camera had been good.

But if someone was watching the clinic at the time of Canestrari’s suicide, why was the device still there? Marcus realised he was in imminent danger. By now, his presence in the clinic must already be known.

They’ve left me alone so far to see who I am. But now they’re on their way.

He had to get out immediately. He was heading for the door when he heard a noise coming from the corridor. Cautiously, he peered out through the doorway and saw a big, thuggish-looking man in a suit and tie trying to manoeuvre his huge frame along the narrow corridor without making a noise. Marcus retreated before the man could see him. There was no way out. His one escape route was occupied right now by that human mountain.

He looked around and saw the sliding door that led to the consulting room. He would be able to hide there. If the man came into the office, he might be able to slip out. After all, he was more agile than his adversary, and once he was out he would run.

The man stopped in the doorway. His head turned slowly on his massive neck, and two tiny eyes peered into the semi-darkness without seeing anything. Then he noticed the sliding door leading to the consulting room. He went to it, put his fat fingers in the gap, quickly pulled the siding door across, and burst into the consulting room. He had barely had time to see that it was empty when the sliding door closed behind him.

Marcus congratulated himself on having changed the plan at the last moment. He had hidden under Canestrari’s desk and as soon as the man had fallen into the trap had jumped out and rushed to the sliding door to shut him in. But just as he was feeling smug about his own cleverness, he realised that the key did not turn in the lock. The sliding door started to vibrate as the man hammered on it. Marcus dropped the key and started running. He was in the corridor and could hear the thug behind him: the man had freed himself and was gaining ground. He slammed the main door of the surgery
behind him, to slow his pursuer down, and ran to the landing. He was about to continue his escape down the main stairs when it struck him that the man behind him might not be alone, that he might have an accomplice downstairs, keeping an eye on the front door of the building. He spotted an emergency exit and decided to use it. The stairs were narrower and the steps themselves shorter, and he was forced to jump them to keep his head start. The thug was much more agile than he had anticipated and had almost caught up with him. The three floors separating him from the street seemed to take forever. Behind the last door lay salvation. When he flung it open, he found himself not in the street but in an underground car park. It was deserted. At the far end of the vast space, he saw a lift whose doors were opening. When they did so, instead of offering him a new way out, they revealed the existence of a second man in a jacket and tie, who recognised him and started running towards him. With two pursuers on his heels he wouldn’t make it. He was getting out of breath. He was afraid he might collapse at any moment. He started climbing the ramp that led out of the garage. A few cars came towards him in the opposite direction. Some almost grazed him, and the drivers hooted their horns in protest. By the time he came out on the street, the two men had almost caught up with him. But then they stopped suddenly.

Ahead of them, a party of Chinese tourists formed a human barrier.

Marcus took advantage of them to get away. Soon, he was watching from a corner as his pursuers, having lost him, bent double from their exertions and tried to catch their breath.

Who were these two? Who had sent them? Could someone else have been involved in the death of Alberto Canestrari?

11.00 a.m.

Her badge hanging around her neck, she presented herself to the police officers standing guard outside the gate of Jeremiah Smith’s villa and showed them the service order that De Michelis had sent
her. As the officers checked her credentials, they exchanged knowing glances. Sandra had the impression that the male race had suddenly started taking an interest in her again. And she knew why. That night spent with Schalber had removed the stench of sadness from her. She bore the procedure with resignation. At last, the officers let her pass, apologising for detaining her.

She walked along the drive leading to the Smith residence. The garden was in a state of abandonment. The grass had grown until it had covered the big stone planters. Here and there, statues of nymphs and Venuses, some without limbs, saluted her with incomplete, though still graceful, gestures. There was a fountain covered with ivy, the pool around it brimming with green, stagnant water. The house was a monolith made grey by time. Access to it was via a flight of steps that was wide at the bottom but narrowed towards the top. Instead of making the front of the house look thinner, it seemed to be supporting it like a pedestal.

Sandra climbed the steps, some of which were crumbling. As she went in through the main door, the light of day suddenly vanished, absorbed by the dark walls of a long corridor. It was a strange sensation, as if a black hole had sucked everything in.

Forensics were still at work, although they had nearly finished. Right now they were examining the furniture, pulling out the drawers, tipping them out on the floor and sifting through the contents, taking the lining out of the sofas and emptying the cushions. Some were probing the walls with phonendoscopes in search of cavities that might have been used as hiding places.

A tall thin man was giving instructions to the officers of the canine unit, pointing them in the direction of the garden. He noticed Sandra and gestured to her to wait. Sandra nodded and waited in the hall. The officers with the dogs left the house, the animals pulling them towards the garden. Now the thin man came towards her.

‘I’m Superintendent Camusso.’ He held out his hand. He was wearing a purple suit and a striped shirt of the same colour, with a yellow tie as the finishing touch. A real dandy.

Sandra refused to let herself be distracted by her colleague’s
eccentric costume, even though it offered some much-needed light relief amid all this darkness. ‘Vega.’

‘I know who you are, they told me. Welcome.’

‘I don’t want to get in your way.’

‘Don’t worry. We’re nearly finished here. The circus is taking down the tents this afternoon. You’ve come a bit late for the show, I’m afraid.’

‘You already have Jeremiah Smith and the evidence linking him to the four killings – what are you still looking for?’

‘We don’t know where his playpen is. The women weren’t killed here. He kept them prisoner for a month. He didn’t rape them. They’d been tied up, but he didn’t torture them. After thirty days he cut their throats. But he must have needed a secluded spot to do all that in peace. We were hoping to find some clue that might lead us to it, but we’ve drawn a blank so far. And what are
you
looking for?’

‘My chief, Inspector De Michelis, wants me to write a detailed report on the killer. Cases such as this don’t turn up every day. It’s an excellent opportunity for a forensics person like me to get some experience.’

‘I see,’ Camusso said, apparently unconcerned as to whether or not she had told him the truth.

‘What’s the canine unit still doing here?’

‘The dogs are going to take another sniff around the garden. A body may yet turn up – it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. With all the rain there’s been in the last few days, we haven’t had a chance till now. Though I doubt they’ll be able to pick up a scent. When the ground is damp, there are too many smells. The animals get confused.’ The superintendent signalled to one of his subordinates, who approached with a case file. ‘Here, this is for you. Everything you need to know: reports, profiles of Smith and the four victims, and obviously all the photographs. If you want a copy, you’ll need make a request to the examining magistrate. This one has to come back to me when you’ve finished with it.’

‘That’s fine, I won’t need it for long,’ Sandra replied, taking the file.

‘I think that’s everything. You can go wherever you want, I don’t think you’ll need a guide.’

‘I’ll manage, thanks.’

Camusso handed her overshoes and latex gloves. ‘Well, have fun.’

‘Yes, I think this place must put everyone in a good mood.’

‘We love it. We’re like children playing hide and seek in a cemetery.’

Sandra waited for Camusso to walk away, then took out her mobile phone, intending to take some photographs of the house. She opened the file and scanned through the last report. It referred to the way the killer had been identified. As she read it, she had difficulty believing that things had happened as they were described.

She headed for the room where Jeremiah Smith had been found dying by the ambulance crew.

In the living room, the forensics team had already finished their work, and Sandra found herself alone. Looking around, she tried to imagine the scene. The ambulance people arrive and find the man lying on the floor. They try to revive him, but he’s in a critical condition. They’re stabilising him in order to take him away when one of them – the doctor who’s come in the ambulance – notices an object in the room.

A red roller skate with gold trimmings.

The doctor’s name is Monica and she’s the sister of one of the victims of a serial killer who has been kidnapping and murdering young women for the past six years. The skate belonged to her twin sister. Its pair was found on the foot of her corpse. Monica realises she has the murderer lying in front of her. The paramedic who is with her knows the story, as does everybody at the hospital. Sandra knew how it was: the police were the same. Your workmates become a kind of second family, because it’s the only way to deal with the pain and injustice you come across every day. Out of that bond come new rules and a kind of solemn pact.