‘Jesus Christ,’ said Blume. ‘That is something else.’
Konrad was sitting up almost straight now, and was in the process of composing himself when, out of nowhere, a rat skidded across the bonnet so fast it seemed to Blume that the animal had cleared the front of the van with a single leap. Konrad screamed. Instinctively, Blume slammed on the brakes, sending himself and Konrad lurching forward against the window. The vehicle shuddered to a halt, the engine cut out, and they sat in the unexpected silence, looking at each other.
Konrad had frozen up so much that when he spoke it was almost without his lips moving. ‘Please, take me away from this place.’
Blume pulled the key from the ignition and swung the key ring on his finger, looking thoughtful.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Waiting for you to tell me what you’re doing in Italy, Konrad.’
25
Milan
The inspector turned on the light, which shed a blue-tinged glow and bathed the young policeman beside him in a deathly pallor. The room contained a plastic bucket-seat chair with rusting legs, and the floor was made of unlevelled cement.
The building they stood in had belonged to the Mancuso clan, one of the principal Ndrangheta ’ ndrine in Milan. The seizure of the property by the police was supposed to have a symbolic effect, which it did — but not the intended one. Private investors turned out to be too afraid to use the building and the City failed to do anything with it. The final message was that the Ndrangheta was stronger than the state.
‘Give the walls a kick, see if they sound hollow.’
The young policeman was more conscientious than that, and methodically worked his way across the narrow space tapping the wall every inch from bottom to top and back again. His older colleague, shamed, did the same. After ten minutes, they were pretty sure nothing was hidden behind the walls.
‘There’s some staining here,’ said the young policeman.
‘That’s just damp.’
‘Maybe, but then it has to be recent because there is no mould and I can’t smell much damp in here. Some, but not a lot. Also, there’s a patch on the floor. It’s like they hosed down the place not too long ago, which would be strange. Who’d want to clean up in here?’
The inspector hunkered down and touched the floor with the back of his hand. ‘It seems fairly dry.’ A dull sheen near the corner of the room caught his eye, then disappeared. He went over to investigate and found himself marvelling at the fact they had not seen it immediately.
‘Look here,’ he said.
‘What? I can’t see anything.’
‘It’s a gold ring. It looks like a wedding ring.’
Magistrate Francesco Fossati held the clear plastic bag up to the light and examined the ring.
He handed it to a white-suited technician. ‘Can you use luminol spray in here, and examine those stains?’
‘This place is overrun with rats and stray animals who have been shitting all over the place,’ said the technician. ‘The whole place will light up blue. The important thing is to get a fleck of blood from the wall or floor, if that’s what you’re looking for.’
‘You’re the experts,’ said the magistrate. ‘Get scraping, or whatever you need to do.’
The technician handed the magistrate back the evidence bag. ‘There’s something written on the inside of the ring. A name… date. See?’
Fossati pulled out his reading glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. ‘Letizia,’ he read. ‘And then there is a date. “23 July 1985.” ’
‘Some wife is going to be pissed off with her husband for losing that,’ said the inspector.
But Fossati knew what they had found. ‘Was it covered in dirt?’ he asked the young policeman, who immediately reddened.
‘I don’t think so, but I didn’t touch it.’ Then he brightened up. ‘But they took photos. You can ask the technical team…’
‘Asking you was supposed to be a shortcut. Did it look like it had been there for long?’
The policeman decided to risk an opinion. ‘No. It looked newly lost.’
‘Yes,’ said Fossati, mainly to himself. ‘From a few days ago.’
Fossati had listened to his old friend Bazza and had not been concentrating on the Ndrangheta as likely perpetrators of the kidnapping. But Mafia-owned or not, this was an abandoned building that lay close to the place where the girl was last seen. And now he had a piece of vital evidence for Bazza, who would be grateful but would forever remain convinced that Fossati had ignored his advice and focused on a Mafia connection.
Fossati realized he had probably found the place where Arconti had been murdered. Letizia was the name of the wife of the murder victim. It was a good find, but he felt no triumph. Teresa was still missing, Arconti was still dead.
The technician appeared at the doorway. ‘Someone or something was shot in there.’
Fossati nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense.’
The technician looked at him in surprise. ‘There is even a small pockmark on the wall. We can look at the RNA ratios to see how old the bloodstains are. We need arc lights and more manpower in there.’
Fossati called in the inspector and the policeman.
‘Well done on finding the ring, but you two seem not to have noticed a wall covered in blood.’
The young policeman looked mortified, but the inspector stood his ground and returned the magistrate’s gaze. ‘That’s because you told us to look for something else: the body of a girl, a hiding place.’
‘So it’s my fault?’ said Fossati. ‘Maybe you’re right. You found something I wasn’t looking for, but I know someone who was.’
26
On the Road to Naples-Amalfi
‘I am investigating a possible new connection between the Camorra and the Ndrangheta for the dumping of toxic waste,’ said Konrad, glancing nervously out the window as if the rats might still be following them.
‘In your own time?’
‘I am dedicated, and I work best alone.’
The Camorra, the ‘system’ as they called it locally, was seeking to expand its drug operations into Lazio and was organizing a deal with the Ndrangheta for better wholesale prices and services in kind, namely the illegal dumping of toxic waste into the aquifers of Naples. Crime bosses drank only mineral water these days, observed Konrad.
His story was perfectly plausible. In fact, it was probably true that the Camorra and Ndrangheta were colluding, but Blume didn’t believe for a moment that it had anything to do with Konrad’s trip. No, the man, who now sat hunched and defensive in the passenger seat, was still not telling the truth. Blume could understand the anxiety of Konrad’s superiors. For all his academic precision and pretention, there was something reckless and irrational driving him, as if once untethered from a lifetime of desk-based investigation, he no longer cared for consequences.
Blume figured the best tactic was to nod and look as if he accepted the explanation. He knew from experience that suspects who had unconvincing alibis that they thought no intelligent person could accept were often more annoyed than relieved if their unlikely stories seemed to be taken at face value. Disappointed by the stupidity of their questioners, and unable to overcome the human need to be understood, they often started hinting at the truth. That was not how it always worked of course, but Blume figured Konrad would not be able to bear it for long, and he was right.
‘I am glad you told me that,’ he told Konrad. ‘Now I have something to put in my report. I guess you were worried about your investigation being leaked?’