Bella Italia (22 page)

He got back on his feet. Because he got up so fast, his head spun for a moment, but he had to be fast now in order to surprise the man. The knife in the killer’s hand instilled no fear in him whatsoever. The lives of his family were at stake. After tonight, this bastard would wish he had never been born.

Salvatore hadn’t taken into account that the man would recover so quickly and would remain so determined. He saw the man rise up and started to become irritated that he didn’t have this situation under control completely. He lashed out with the knife when the man came too close and cut the idiot on his right shoulder.

The wound was so painful that Hans grabbed his shoulder and instinctively retreated. He tried to fight through the pain and to not let his knees buckle. But he was staggering and trying to get away from the killer who was now headed toward him.

“Daddy!” Niels screamed, petrified. “Daddy, run away!”

His son’s voice revived him. He took a deep breath, moved beyond the pain, and gave his attacker a challenging look.

Salvatore slashed around wildly with the knife, ensuring that Hans couldn’t get any closer to him. When he attempted to do so anyway, Salvatore kicked him in the belly. He couldn’t take much more and sank to his knees. His opponent now had free reign.

Something inside of Petra snapped. She grabbed the lamp from the nightstand next to the bed, yanked the plug from the electrical socket with one swift pull, and threw it with all of her might at the head of the man who was about to kill her husband.

The lamp hit Salvatore on the head, hard. He cried out, stepped aside, and tried to find his balance against the wall.

Hans managed to draw new strength from Petra’s fast action. He got back up, ignored the pain in his stomach, head, and shoulder, and lunged at his attacker. He missed his head, but hit him directly in his sternum, which caused the Italian to feel as if all the air was being pushed out of his lungs. Gasping for oxygen, he stepped to the side and tried to catch his breath.

Hans barely gave him a chance to recover. He grabbed Salvatore and held him tightly in a violent embrace as they staggered a few steps back, finally landing in the curtains.

Salvatore felt his control of the situation slipping away fast, and he didn’t have sight of his weapon. The knife cut through the curtain, but because he held it so tightly, he lost his balance. In an attempt to regain that balance, he turned a quarter turn and grabbed the curtain with his one free hand. When he put his full weight on it, the curtain rod came down. Hans stepped back just in time, but Salvatore was covered by a blanket of heavy, Bordeaux-red material.

While the Italian wrestled with the curtain, Hans didn’t think twice and started to kick immediately. The man screamed out in pain.

“This is for the boys you killed, you bastard,” he kicked the pile of curtains again.

Petra could see that Hans was losing control and wanted to intervene. This was their chance to overpower the murderer, but it had to be done with some self-control. If they lost their minds in a blind rage now, it could end badly for everyone involved.

Before she had the chance to calm Hans down and make it clear to him that they needed to work together, the pile of curtains came back to life. Salvatore had managed to get untangled from part of the curtain and was making wild stabbing motions with his knife. Hans almost got hit again but avoided the knife just in time and Petra was so startled that she stepped back. Salvatore now freed himself from the curtain completely and, while he got back up, he looked at Hans and Petra to decide which one of the two he would attack first.

Before he was back on his feet completely, the door flew open with a loud bang. Martuccia and Tardelli had forced the door open by breaking it down with the full weight of their shoulders. The door had flown off its hinges immediately, and because of the sheer force and speed it came crashing into the room, with the detectives falling down on the floor.

Martuccia managed to get up first. They all looked at him and Tardelli with pure astonishment. The boy and his mother were at a reasonably safe distance, but the father was still in the line of fire and entirely too close to the man with the knife. Tardelli pointed the barrel of his gun at the killer, who froze like a deer in the headlights.

“Don’t move,” he said in Italian, while he stared sternly at Salvatore. “I need you all to lie down,” he added in English, letting his gaze glide across the room quickly to indicate that his words were only meant for the Dutch family.

Hans and Petra did what was asked of them right away. Petra stepped back and lay down protectively in front of Niels. Hans squatted and lay down on his side, keeping his eye on the man with the knife.

Salvatore realized it was over. He was being held at gunpoint by someone with a real weapon, and the other detective was back on his feet now too, and also had his service weapon drawn. These men would arrest him and from that moment on his life would become a living hell. People like him didn’t stand a chance in jail.

I need to escape
, echoed through his mind.
Anything is better than jail. There is only one way out of this.

He dropped the knife and showed the detectives his empty hands. He tightened his muscles and waited for the moment. When Tardelli took the first step in his direction, he didn’t hesitate. He turned around and with full conviction took the only way out.

“Don’t move!” Tardelli fired a warning shot in the air. “Don’t move!”

Salvatore didn’t let it stop him and had pulled open the window. At the exact moment that he wanted to jump, Martuccia fired his gun. When the bullet hit him, he seemed to freeze for a moment, but the force of the shot forced him forward even more and he fell out the window. Martuccia and Tardelli raced to the window.

There he was. The Monster of Garda. Dead on the sidewalk.

“Don’t look,” Martuccia said to Petra, as she and Niels tried to walk to the window together. He was surprised when the Dutch woman grabbed her son by the hand and still moved toward him. He turned around and looked at her sternly. “Do not look,” he said once again. This time with some force.

His stern response made no impression on Petra.

“We will absolutely look,” she answered coldly. “Otherwise we will never have closure.”

“This one looks like it would be fun,” Hans said. He and Petra sat at the coffee table, looking at holiday destinations on her laptop. After a quick search through European destinations, they ended up in the Caribbean. There were gazing at beautiful images of Curaçao on the screen.

“The sun, the ocean, palm trees, every single imaginable water sport,” Hans continued enthusiastically. “That has to be irresistible for someone his age.”

“I’m not so sure. But I do think it is irresistible to a father of a child that age.”

“Very funny. … But are you serious? I mean, you don’t think Niels will like it?”

Petra nodded slowly. She had her suspicions, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were right. If Hans really wanted to show this idyllic picture of paradise to Niels, she thought that would be fine. Without saying much more about it to Hans, she was actually quite curious how their son would react.

Hans started to doubt himself. “It does sort of seem a lot like those vacations we took before Italy. The sun, the ocean, gorgeous hotels and bungalows … Maybe we better not do this. I don’t want to take the risk; things have been going so well that past few weeks.”

He made an attempt to close the page, but Petra stopped him. “Don’t exaggerate,” she said firmly. “A picture of the Caribbean isn’t going to upset him. If it does, then it is proof that we haven’t come as far as we would like to think and hope.”

Hans pulled his hand back. “You’re right,” he mumbled.

After that awful night in the hotel room, they flew back to Holland after giving another statement and cooperating with the crime reconstruction. Even though Martuccia’s protective response was more understandable and logical than Petra’s decision to allow Niels to look at the dead body of the child killer, it seemed to have done Niels a lot of good. Of course, Niels would still suffer from everything that had happened, but the fact that he had seen him dead would be vital to his recovery process. He would never have to be afraid again that the killer had gotten away. He was relieved. Death was something permanent. That horrible man could never harm them or anyone else. Of course, they had no idea how all of this would affect him in the long run. At first, Irene had been rather skeptical when she found out how Petra had handled the situation, but after talking to Niels she discovered that Niels had wanted to see it for himself.

In the days after their return home, the media had sought contact with them. This time they chose a different approach. Openness could also help them in their healing process. With a spokesperson at their side, they decided ahead of time whom they would speak to. The story of the family from Baarn, who helped intensively at unmasking and bringing down a child killer, eventually faded, swallowed up by other world news events. After a month they were able to pick up their old lives again. They could really use peace and quiet after all they had gone through.

“I’m going to go and pick up Niels,” Hans said.

“Fine, then I’ll just leave this page open.”

A little later Hans returned with Niels.

“Niels, summer vacation is right around the corner, and we were thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to look around online a little bit at different destinations.” He pointed to Petra’s laptop. “We were looking at the Caribbean, and suddenly we saw these nice pictures. This is Curaçao, a tropical island where you can play practically any type of water sport that you can imagine.” He motioned toward the screen to encourage his son to look at the pictures of paradise on earth.

Niels stood next to Petra and looked at the gorgeous pictures. “So, this is where you want to go this summer?” he wanted to know.

“Well, it’s an option,” Petra answered. “We all need to agree on where want to go. But it seems really nice to me.”

Niels shook his head. “Not to me,” he said decisively.

“Why not?” Hans asked.

“Because there are other things I’d rather do. There is summer karate training, and Jerry has two tournaments and I’m allowed to join them on the bus. He’s already arranged it with the team coach. Also, Jerry and I really want to go fishing this summer. Pike and bass!”

A silence fell. Jerry Tenvoorde had moved to Baarn from Amsterdam earlier that year and was now in Niels’s class. He had become the most popular boy in school from the moment he arrived. He was a great soccer talent and according to him he was at the top of the list of the various scouts and professional teams. But before they could steal him away, he began playing for the local soccer team and quickly became their most valuable player.

Niels barely had contact with Jerry during the first few months; the new kid had quickly worked his way up to being the new “hero” of the school. A position he now had to share with Niels, after the story about what had taken place in Italy and Niels’s role in catching the killer came out. In sharp contrast to the extroverted Jerry, Niels barely spoke about his experiences, which made him unintentionally more popular with his classmates. But still, Jerry and Niels ended up becoming close, and now they were best friends.

“But we haven’t even talked about that karate training week yet, and now you’re saying that Jerry has soccer tournaments and you already made plans to go fishing,” Hans said in a tone he instantly tried to correct after he heard himself. “Which I do understand,” he added quickly, trying to save himself. “But we would also like to have a real family vacation together.” He looked at Niels and gave him a good-natured smile. “Right?”

Niels shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, I understand that. But I just don’t feel like going to another country this year. ” It was quiet for a moment. Then he added, “I would really like to stay at home, right here in Holland.”

Hans thought quickly. Something suddenly occurred to him. “Pike and bass, huh?” He smiled slightly. “Have you ever heard of trout? In Holland, trouts are the strongest fish. If you happen to catch one on your fishing rod, you really have to work very hard to rein it in. Sometimes they jump out of the water to try and escape the line.” He reenacted his words by pretending to be a fisherman who had to pull back his rod. “I know of two trout ponds, reasonably close by. What do you think about the three of us, or four of us, if your mother wants to join us, going fishing there?”

“So Jerry could go too?”

Hans nodded. “Better yet, we will offer to take him. You have to pay to fish in a pond like that and we will pay for it. We may not catch anything, so in that case we will buy fresh trout at the store next to the pond and put it on the barbeque at night. Trout is one of the best tasting fish in the world, it’s a real delicacy.” He grinned. “But of course we are going to catch a lot of those big suckers on our own!”

Niels nodded. “That sounds like fun.”

“
Like
fun?!” Hans pretended to be surprised. “We’re going to have a blast, man. Fishing and barbecuing! Right, Petra?” Hans asked with a semi-guilty face.

“If you guys would really enjoy that, then I’m in.”

“So, we’re going for it then?”

“Yes,” Niels answered. “Cool that you’re inviting Jerry along.” He wormed his way out of his father’s bear hug and walked to the door. “I’m going to go finish my games, okay?”

“That’s fine,” Petra said.

Once Niels was back in his room, Petra looked at Hans with a crooked grin. “You always get your way, as usual.”

Hans shrugged his shoulders and laughed with her. “Hey, even if it means I have to run around through the city butt-ass naked, if it means it will make him happy, I will do it. Better yet, I will continue to walk all the way to Amersfoort if I have to.”

Petra conjured up an image of Hans walking the streets naked and laughed loudly, shaking her head. “You go right ahead, but try to keep your ass … uh … I mean your head in the game.”