Darkness for the Bastards of Pizzofalcone (15 page)

She ought to have waited, theoretically, until it had been confirmed that they really were dealing with a kidnapping—intercepting communications between individual citizens when it wasn't strictly necessary represented both an invasion of privacy and a significant cost to society at large—but the face of that child when he turned to look into the video camera had prompted a mixture of emotions that had caught her entirely by surprise.

She got out of her chair and went over to the window. Ten floors below lay the city's pathetic, half-kilometer-long attempt to build itself a modern business district; the effort had been aborted twenty years earlier in a series of skyscrapers, avenues, and patches of greenery that remained disconnected from the metropolis, linked neither structurally, nor culturally, nor even by train to the rest of the neighborhood. The ideal sort of place from which to cultivate diffidence and keep at bay the passions inspired by beauty. As well as to avoid becoming too reflective, thought Laura; it was perfect only for those who wanted to do nothing but work.

She'd never felt much of a maternal instinct. Not even when she and Carlo, her first and only boyfriend, killed in a car crash, had talked about sharing a home and spending their lives together; even then she hadn't given much serious thought to the idea of having children. There were too many other things to think about: moving away from Sardinia, her career, the world and how she planned to change it. Back then, the last thing she'd wanted was a distraction.

But the image of Dodo, his expressionless face as he walked blithely out to who knows what fate, had stirred something deep inside her. She felt a stabbing, physical yearning; like a hunger for something, though she couldn't say what.

Her mind, guided by emotions more than by any conscious thought, went to Lojacono. The man who had reawakened her senses, something she'd long ago assumed would never happen again.

She'd taken men to bed over the years; she was a sensuous woman, with a physicality that attracted men's attention. But they'd been fleeting, sporadic relationships that she'd never wanted to pursue or build on.

This time, instead, she found herself dreaming, occasionally, of an end to her solitary life. They weren't really thoughts, strictly speaking: they were pictures, scenes that she imagined. A Sunday dinner. A hike in the mountains. A day at the beach.

How she hated having a biological clock in her body. What's more, even if she managed to overcome her own countless qualms about coupled life, winning that man over might prove to be a challenge.

She knew he liked her, there was no doubt about it: She could read his glances; she could interpret his tone of voice. And that night, when she'd driven him home, the night they'd solved the murder of the notary's wife, if there hadn't been someone waiting for him in the lobby of his apartment building, whatever would have happened would have put their relationship on the right path.

But when they got there, there had indeed been a person waiting for him in the lobby of his building.

His daughter, Marinella. She was only a girl, but in a glance they'd understood each other clearly. Women, Laura thought to herself, understand certain things. She knew how much Lojacono cared about the girl, she'd listened to him talk about Marinella during his long period of separation from her. If she wanted that man, she'd have to breach the wall that Marinella, she was certain, would try to erect between them. It didn't require her deductive skills to see that, since that rainy night, Giuseppe had stopped trying to see her outside of their professional encounters and had been very evasive about his own free time.

Even though they talked on an almost daily basis, sometimes on the flimsiest of excuses. But then she was his contact in the district attorney's office; it was normal for them to be in close touch. Moreover, the successful outcome of his posting to the reconstituted Pizzofalcone precinct would no doubt prove decisive for Lojacono's future career.

Nonsense. She liked him and she wanted him. And he wanted her. The little girl would just have to deal with it. Anyway, she'd have to go home to her mamma sooner or later, wouldn't she?

A light tap at the door.

“Yes?”

Her assistant stuck her head in, a young woman who'd just finished college, with a solemn, perennially terrified look on her face: “Dottoressa, the wiretap team reports that they've picked up an interesting phone call on the Borrelli line. What would you like to do, go and listen, or shall I have them send you an electronic file?”

Laura was already on her way out the door: “Have them send it by email to the Pizzofalcone precinct house, to Chief Officer Palma's address, and while they're doing that, call Palma and tell him to wait for me. I'm heading over; I want to listen to it with them.”

 

She got there just as Romano and Aragona were returning from their call on Eva Borrelli. The younger officer seemed as giddy as little kid on Christmas: “Dottoressa, you see? The call came in, we're all set, it's a kidnapping.”

Laura, climbing the stairs, shot him a glare: “Aragona, I still really can't make up my mind. Are you insane or just stupid? Sometimes it seems like the one thing, but then I start to think it's the other. And anyway, I can't see why you should be so overjoyed.”

Aragona, huffing and puffing his way up the stairs, put on his most contrite expression: “Dottoressa, you always try to embarrass me. I'm not overjoyed, how could you think such a thing? I was just saying that now the situation is clear and we can finally start to work on it for real.”

Laura threw open the door to the communal office, waving a hand in the direction of Palma, who stood waiting, ready to play the recording.

They were all here now, the show could begin.

O
ttavia's computer speakers broadcast the sound of static throughout the communal office.

This time there was nothing to see, but still Palma was standing next to his colleague, facing the monitor. Laura was sitting at Lojacono's desk, while the lieutenant was leaning against the wall behind her, arms folded, face expressionless. Pisanelli had taken off his reading glasses; he seemed intensely concentrated, as if he were listening to a symphony. Alex was cracking her knuckles one by one, apparently calm. Aragona and Romano were standing in the doorway, as if they were ready to head out in pursuit of someone on a moment's notice.

The background noise was broken by Eva's housekeeper: “Hello, Borrelli residence.”

Silence. Then a man's voice, deep and hoarse: “Signora, please.”

A brusque, precise tone. A foreign accent was immediately audible. Aragona took off his glasses; no one else made a move.

After a few seconds, there was Eva: “Yes, hello, this is Signora Borrelli. Who's speaking?”

Every word she spoke throbbed with emotion and worry. A distinct rustling sound could be heard. Then, once again, the man with the foreign accent: “Your son is with us. Don't be afraid, if everything goes the way it should, nothing will happen to him. Right now he's fine, he's safe. Wait for the next phone call.”

Short, terse sentences, fired off like so many bullets. Eva, in a louder voice, said: “But who are you? Where's Dodo? What have you done to him?”

The sound of static ceased. The conversation had turned into a monologue with Eva repeating, over and over, increasingly distraught: “Hello? Hello?” Until finally, with the phone line still open and the recording under way, she burst into despairing tears.

Then Romano's voice could be heard, asking: “Was that them?”

 

“Forty-two seconds in all,” Ottavia said, her voice mournful. “From the beginning to when the call was ended.”

No one felt like talking. Along with the mild spring air, the sound of a car horn came in through the window, followed by a shouted insult.

Romano broke the embarrassed silence: “You heard it, we were there too. I was hoping that there was already a wiretap on the phone, because afterward Borrelli was in no condition to tell us anything: She practically passed out, she hasn't slept in thirty hours by this point.”

Aragona put on his glasses and, in a satisfied tone of voice, declared: “He's a foreigner, no doubt about it. You heard the accent, didn't you? He must be a gypsy or something like that. At least now we have something to go on, though I thought right from the beginning it was likely to be one of their kind.”

Alex shot him a harsh look: “Of course, because whenever something happens, we always know who to blame, don't we? Just look in the usual places and round up the usual suspects. God, you're so predictable, Aragona.”

Her colleague looked around for support from the others: “Well, you heard him yourselves, didn't you? Didn't you hear from the way he talked that he was a foreigner?”

Palma waved a hand in the air: “This isn't the time to start engaging in hack sociology. Yes, I thought the accent sounded foreign, but that doesn't mean much. Leaving aside the fact that you can fake an accent, maybe they just pulled someone off the street and asked him to make the phone call, or it could even be prerecorded, who can say?”

Pisanelli, who was leaning back in his chair as if trying to relax, said: “I don't think it was a recording. The timing of his responses to the housekeeper and the mother was too precise, and the voice was the same from start to finish. No, that wasn't a recording.”

Laura nodded: “I agree, and I also agree that this was a foreigner. Slavic, from the sound of it, but I'll get an expert to listen to it. But there's another thing: Didn't you all get the impression that he was reading a text?”

Lojacono, standing behind her, replied: “Yes. You could hear the sound of the page being unfolded, and the slow, flat pace of someone reading.”

Romano added: “What's more, when the housekeeper answered the phone, he said: ‘Signora, please,' without the article, but after that he spoke in perfect Italian. He was reading, no doubt.”

Aragona brushed his hair back: “She was horrified. And that was no act, believe me. She was horrified and afraid.”

Palma stared into space and said: “That was just a call made for effect, to create anxiety and fear. That's what they usually do. Now we're certain that this really is a kidnapping and in all likelihood there's going to be a demand for ransom. So we should expect another call about that.”

Ottavia continued to stare at her computer, almost as if she expected it to start talking again: “This is the worst part for the family. Now they know that their child is in the hands of strangers, and that they could hurt him at any moment. Every minute will be an eternity.”

Piras stood up, as if to shake off her anxiety. “We all have work to do, I imagine. I'm going to get busy freezing assets: the father's, the mother's, and the grandfather's. By the way, I think this would be a good time to swing by and pay a call on old man Borrelli.”

Lojacono, still motionless in the position he'd assumed when he started listening, broke in: “I'd take a look at some of the background characters, the housekeeper for example, and the mother's boyfriend: Whoever took the child did it at the only possible moment, and it strikes me as a little much in terms of pure luck. If you ask me, it's possible that they knew his schedule and routine in detail.”

“Then there's the other matter,” Alex murmured.

“Which?” asked Aragona.

“If the man was reading a text, then we need to figure out who wrote it. And why.”

Di Nardo's voice was little more than a whisper, but her words resounded like a gunshot. An electric shock of determination ran through the communal office. Romano agreed, determinedly: “Then let's get busy. The countdown has started, I believe.”

“We'll need to inform the father, too,” Ottavia said, “or at least make sure that Borrelli does. We have to make sure they put their differences aside: we can't run the risk of having some valuable piece of information slip through the cracks just because those two won't speak to each other.”

“True,” admitted Palma, “maybe I should call the father. Romano and Aragona can go call on old man Borrelli. You, Giorgio, make some calls to your friends at the banks, see if you can find out the actual financial situation of Eva Borrelli and her boyfriend, what's his name . . . Manuel Scarano. Ottavia, you coordinate and help Pisanelli with his research online. Di Nardo and Lojacono, if you can get free of your burglary case, maybe you can help us out.”

Laura liked the way the commissario intervened directly, entrusting each member of his staff with a specific task. A proactive approach, ideal for encouraging teamwork and, at the same time, the kind of thing that could speed up the investigation. She'd do the same, to the extent that she was able. Because in the last hour, everything had changed.

Now it was a kidnapping.

H
e wanders around his home like a lion in a cage.

And really, to call it a home is an exaggeration.

It's nice, of course. It looks out onto every possible shade of blue: the sea, the sky, the silhouette of the island and the peninsula in the distance. But an apartment becomes a home when you live in it. Not just because it has hardwood floors and all the modern conveniences.

Alberto can't seem to read, or listen to music, or even channel surf. He's tried, but he just can't do it.

Dodo.

He thinks of him all the time, he's like a sound track, like background noise, like the background in a painting. Dodo sneaks into his thoughts even during the confused and agitated sleep he only managed to achieve in the very early hours of the morning, as the night that seemed to have gone on forever was dissolving into dawn.

His little boy.

He walks back into the little room he set up for him, in that impersonal apartment he comes back to every fifteen days, the place that remains, despite his efforts, stubbornly anonymous, where he feels out of place, as if he were in a hotel. Dodo's room too is anonymous. The bed, almost never used because when he stays over he sleeps in his papà's bed, of course. The desk, where Dodo never sits because they do his homework in there, at the living room table. The shelves full of new toys because the ones that Dodo really cares about are
there
.