Death in Tuscany (53 page)

'Ce n'est pas possible, pas possible . . .'

They waited in silence for him to absorb the information.

'Unfortunately, those are the facts,' Ferrara said finally, 'and as I'm sure you'll appreciate . . .'

'Of course, you have to . . . Oh,
mon Dieu

'Yes, I have to ask the deputy prosecutor for a search warrant. It's absolutely essential that we search your father's apartment.'

'And what if I give you permission?' D'Incisa suggested after a long and clearly difficult pause for reflection.

'You?'

'I know, it seems impossible. I'm his son, and a lawyer . . . But apart from the fact that I have no wish to stop the truth coming out - though I hope the truth is not what you think -I'd prefer to keep my mother out of this. She'll be in church tomorrow morning, for the nine o'clock mass. She'll be leaving home at about eight thirty, and I can arrange for her to be taken to the park for some fresh air after the service . . .'

'The search might take a while.'

‘I’ll take that risk. If necessary I'll make something up to keep her away from the apartment. It would be much worse if you turned up with a search warrant, don't you see?'

'Yes, of course. So, tomorrow morning before nine?'

Piero d'Incisa nodded, thanked them, said goodbye and walked out, as unsteady on his feet as Elisa Rocca had been, crossing that same threshold only a few hours earlier.

Ferrara shuddered.

34

Ferrara got to the d'Incisa apartment at eight fifty, accompanied by Rizzo, Venturi and a three-man team from Forensics, one of them a computer expert. Piero d'Incisa was alone and waiting for them.

'We'll try not to make too much of a mess,' Ferrara reassured him.

The man was obviously sceptical, but shrugged. Nevertheless he kept his eyes on what they were doing, checking that everything was put back in place, in order to avoid having to explain things to his mother later.

He had to hop from one room to another, though, because they had split up in order to cover the largest number of rooms in the shortest time possible.

Venturi concentrated on the sitting room, two of the forensics men on the servants' rooms, kitchen and bathrooms, and Ferrara, Rizzo and the computer expert on the bedrooms and the professor's study. The study, in particular, was subjected to a thorough search. They emptied the drawers and sifted through notes, receipts, cheque stubs and photographs. The technician switched on the computer on the professor's desk and connected it to his own laptop.

After a few fruitless attempts to gain access, he asked Piero d'Incisa for the dates of birth of all the members of the family. The fifth one, Ludovico's daughter's date of birth, did the trick. Then he copied the entire contents of the computer onto his own laptop.

Rizzo, who had gone into Professor d'Incisa's bedroom, called Ferrara.

'There's a safe,' he said, pointing at the wall. A large painting had been removed, and was now on the floor propped against the wall. The removal had revealed the door of a safe, measuring some three feet by three feet. The lock had an electronic code.

'Do you know the combination?' Ferrara asked Piero d'Incisa, who had joined them when he heard Rizzo calling.

'No, I didn't even know he had a safe.'

'If we can't open it I'm afraid we'll have to call a technician to force it open,' Ferrara said.

'Why don't you try the dates of birth again, as your officer did?'

He called the computer expert and had Piero d'Incisa give him the dates again. He started with the one that had given access to the computer and the lock worked immediately. With a click the door of the safe half-opened. Ferrara opened it wide.

There were three shelves inside, filled with objects and documents: a large leather box containing five expensive-looking watches, a blue velvet case with nineteen pairs of cufflinks identical to the one found by Pietro Franceschini -which surprised the son but not Ferrara - a Sony digital video camera, various CDs marked with letters and numbers, and a lot of document folders.

Ferrara passed the CDs to the expert. 'Go and see what's on them.'

Then he opened the video camera and saw that there was a tape inside. He closed it again, took another look in the safe, and found the leads for connecting the camera directly to the TV set.

'Will you come with us?' he asked Piero d'Incisa as he walked back towards the study. Rizzo remained in the bedroom, examining the documents.

'I'd say it's my duty' d'Incisa replied.

They connected the video camera to the TV set but before they could start the video the technician called them over to the desk. Images had started appearing on the computer screen: images of naked children.

Piero d'Incisa turned white.

'Turn it off, please,' Ferrara ordered.

Then they started the video.

The girl, perhaps only a child, was looking around, frightened by the men surrounding her. They could hardly be made out, but they seemed to be distinguished-looking, commanding, rich.

And old. Terribly old compared with her, but that wasn't supposed to matter. She was not supposed to be bothered by the greedy looks they gave her, the hands that fondled her, the patches of saliva they left in turn on her cheeks and neck. On the contrary, she was supposed to stimulate them herself, if they had needed stimulating. But the girl was too pretty, and the men too old, for her to require any subtle skills which she had not yet learnt.

She was the prettiest of them all, prettier than the other children - all younger than her - at whom the camera pointed every now and again. The camera was shaky, as if held by an amateur. The children were naked, and were being forced to manipulate the old men's private parts with their hands and mouths, and to play with each other while their tormentors watched avidly. But the camera did not linger on these scenes. It returned as soon as it could to her, the queen of this obscene party.

Intimidated by that surreal atmosphere, with its multicoloured lights and deafening music and the laughter and salacious, contemptuous comments of the hosts, Alina, who had been taught to be docile and obedient, let herself be touched, caressed, stripped, passed from one man to the next. The champagne and the ecstasy pills circulated freely, as did the lecherous words they murmured to her, which she did not understand. She humoured them without really participating, and that was enough for these men who just wanted to savour the pleasure of young flesh.

All of them except Ugo Palladiani, who wasn't satisfied with Alina's passivity and complained angrily, 'She's too stiff, someone loosen her up!'

An order, not an invitation.

They tied a rubber strap round her arm and when the vein swelled, they inserted the needle. She made no objection, did not protest.

She soon slipped into a limbo which must have been populated by wild obscene images escaping from the thin plasma screen, invading her brain and echoing deafeningly in her mind. She slid to the floor and tried to cover her ears with her hands but her limbs did not respond. It was clear she was nauseous. And she was shivering with cold despite the sweat glistening on the bodies of the participants.

'Shit, now she's really stiff
remarked an off-screen voice which made Ferrara go pale. The remark was answered with sinister murmurs of assent.

It was at this point that the image suddenly juddered, and the screen went completely brown. But the camera continued to record sounds.

'Let me have a look.'

A different voice, which sounded like Ludovico d'Incisa's, although he had not been visible in the video.

'What did you give her?' 'Heroin, Professor.'

'How much, damn it? The girl's dying!'

The sudden silence was broken by a hysterical yell.

'Get her out of here! Right now! Everybody get out of here!'

Piero d'Incisa had covered his eyes, and was shaking with anger and pain. To say he was devastated would have been an understatement this time. He was a man whose world had come crashing around his ears.

Ferrara felt sorry for him.

'Did you recognise the voice?'

The man nodded.

'Chief, can you come here a minute?' Rizzo said. He had come back in with two sheets of paper in his hand and had stood there in silence, hypnotised by the images unfolding on the screen.

' Ferrara followed him, but Piero d'Incisa stayed where he was, sitting on the sofa in an almost catatonic state.

They moved only as far as they needed to in order to be out of earshot, and then Rizzo showed Ferrara the sheets of paper.