The Crossroads (47 page)

He turned. Through the car's glassless windows he saw that nothing remained of the sun but a violet halo.

The police will have started searching for the murderer by now
.

At the thought of hundreds of people all trying to understand who could have killed Fabiana he felt as if he was suffocating.

In fact he had been feeling like this ever since his father's phone call had woken him up in the middle of the night. He couldn't breathe deeply, and even if he opened his chest and breathed in hard, he never completely filled his lungs with air.

Suddenly he remembered the piranha he had seen in the pet shop in the mall.

It was a handsome creature with a red belly. The size of a large sea bream. Three or four hundred grams.

Cristiano didn't like piranhas at all. They sat there motionless in the middle of the fishtank and did nothing. No fish was more boring.

And this one looked really stupid, with that expressionless face, those crooked teeth jutting out of its mouth and those eyes as black
as liquorice allsorts. They had put him in a tank that was too small for him, in the company of a large turtle, one of those green ones with orange patches on their cheeks. The ones people keep in bowls with little plastic palm trees till they get fed up with them and flush them down the loo.

Well, turtles are creatures it's better not to mess with. They're tough animals. Cold-blooded. They never die. Tropical beasts, used to living in warm water, but they're perfectly happy in cold water too, where they grow as big as frying pans. And in the natural world there are few animals more voracious and aggressive than turtles. They're worse than crocodiles, which may be voracious, but at least when they're full they flop down on the bank, where even if you kick them they don't take a blind bit of notice of you. But turtles are always hungry.

Anyway, the piranha and the turtle were in this little fishtank in the pet shop in the mall. The turtle flapped those little flippers of his as if he didn't even know how to swim and stretched out his neck and TAC, took a bite with that pointed beak of his out of the piranha's fins. He had already eaten half of its tail and its lateral fins were reduced to two stumps.

Cristiano, seeing what that monster was doing, had run to the owner of the shop to tell her. But she had stared at him with about as much interest as she showed in the tubs of goldfish food.

Cristiano had gone back to the fishtank and the turtle had continued to butcher the piranha, which had accepted the torture with a patience and resignation that made your guts churn in your belly.

But at one point the turtle, after attacking the fin, had turned its attentions to the gill cover. One bite. Then another. And finally it had sunk its teeth into the gill itself, which was swollen with blood. The tank had filled with a red cloud, which had faded to pale pink in the water. And that blood had come into contact with the piranha's nose. Its eye had come to life like a computer screen that has been on standby and the fish had started to quiver, to get excited, just like a shark would do at the blood of its prey: but this wasn't the blood of its prey, it was its own blood, and suddenly the piranha had shot into action, unsheathing a row of sharp teeth, and had ripped the turtle's throat open as easily as you can ladder a stocking.

Cristiano had succeeded, with the help of a net (he wouldn't have put his hands in there for anything in the world), in getting the reptile out of the tank before the piranha could kill it, and had thrown it into another one full of little neon tetras. The turtle, half dead, had swooped on the little fish and was swallowing them whole, but those that were still alive re-emerged through the gash in his throat.

Well, Cristiano Zena, at that moment, felt just like the piranha in the mall, under attack from all sides. And when he finally scented the smell of blood, his own blood, he would spring into action and kill someone.

He threw the cigarette stub on the ground and mashed it to pulp with his sole.

What if somebody saw me
?

Suddenly he wasn't quite so sure that no one had seen him when he had thrown the corpse in the river. All it needed was one fisherman, or anyone at all, even at a distance of hundreds of metres, and he was finished.

Cristiano wiped his hand over his forehead. He was sweating and felt sick.

They'll find me. They're bound to find me
.

Hold on a minute!

Hold on one goddam minute! You didn't kill her! What are you
thinking of? You didn't kill her! It wasn't you! You didn't do anything.
You only did what any son would have done
.

‘Any son would have done what I did,' murmured Cristiano, with his hand over his mouth. ‘They'll understand.'

Like hell they will … I'll go to jail for the rest of my life
.

‘Why oh why …? Shit!' He jumped to his feet, and just as he was aiming a kick at the dented door of the 127 his mobile started ringing. He took it out of his pocket, hoping it was Danilo. But it was Trecca …

He let it ring and after a dozen rings it fell silent and then he called Danilo again. His mobile, as usual, was switched off. He tried his landline.

It was free. It rang and rang, and nobody answered.

He was about to hang up when a woman's voice suddenly said: ‘Yes, hallo?'

‘Hallo …' replied Cristiano in amazement.

‘Who is it?'

‘It's Cristiano …'

A moment's pause, then: ‘Rino's son?'

Cristiano recognised the voice. It was Teresa, Danilo's wife. ‘Yes … Can I speak to Danilo?'

There was a brief silence, then in a lifeless tone Teresa said: ‘You haven't heard?'

‘No. What?'

‘Danilo … Danilo's gone.'

‘What do you mean, gone? Gone where?'

‘He had a terrible car accident. He went off the road and crashed into a wall and …'

No, it couldn't be true … ‘He's dead? I don't understand, is he dead?'

‘Yes. He's dead. I'm sorry …'

‘But why is he dead?'

‘Apparently he was drunk. He lost control of the car …' Teresa's voice seemed to be coming out of a hole.

Cristiano took the mobile away from his ear and let his arm slide down. He switched it off, staring at the gulls in the sky, the rubbish, the columns of black smoke.

Danilo was dead.

Like Cristiano's heart.

Which felt nothing any more. Absolutely nothing.

He didn't give a damn if Danilo, his adoptive uncle, that fat lump Danilo, had crashed into a wall and been killed.

The only thing that came to his mind was that now he was really in the shit.

I've got to run away. I've got to find Quattro Formaggi and we've
got to run away
.

But first I must explain to Papa
.

On the river, a few kilometres away from the rubbish dump, the carabinieri's rubber dinghy had succeeded in approaching the corpse.

The crowd had suddenly fallen silent, and the only sounds were the rustle of the rain on the umbrellas, the buzz of the incandescent spotlights which sent up spirals of steam, and the rush of the river.

A diver in wetsuit, lifejacket and harness jumped off the dinghy. For a moment an eddy seemed to suck him under, but then he was thrown up again and managed to get the current to carry him to the tree on which the corpse was caught. He put his arms round the bundle and was laboriously hauled back onto the dinghy.

From the embankments, and from up on the bridge, there came a burst of applause which was lost in the roar of the river.

The Carrion Man, peering over the parapet, was scratching his neck so hard that it bled.

Ramona
.

Who had done it? Who had wrapped her in that plastic sheet and thrown her in the river?

It can't have been God. He doesn't get his hands dirty
.

God always gets others to do things. He gives the orders and someone else has the job of carrying them out.

Why didn't you tell me to do it? I would have understood. I
would have sacrificed my plan to finish the crib. I've done everything
for you
.

He looked around. There were hundreds of drenched people. Among them, perhaps, was the person who had thrown the body in the river.

Who are you? Where are you? I want to talk to you. Perhaps
you can help me understand
.

He took his head in his hands and pressed his temples.

Too many thoughts were going through his mind. Too many voices were talking to him together and muddling him. Though he sensed that soon these thoughts that were infecting his brain would stop and there would finally be silence.

His mobile, in his pocket, started ringing. He took it out. ‘Hallo?'

‘Hallo, Quattro Formaggi?'

Don't call me that! It's not my name, can't you all get it into
your heads
?
‘Who's that?'

‘It's me, Cristiano. Listen to me. It's important. Where are you?'

‘Nowhere special.'

‘Can we meet at the hospital? I need to talk to you.'

‘When?'

‘Right away. I've had an idea. Come quick.'

The Carrion Man heard the sound of a siren behind him. He turned and saw a police car advancing slowly through the crowd. Through the rain-streaked rear window he saw a man.

It's him. He's the one who threw the body in the river
.

He swayed, his legs were giving way, he clutched hold of the railing.

‘Quattro Formaggi, are you there?'

‘Sorry.' He switched off his mobile. He began to follow the police car, to stagger among the people, to struggle forward, panting, in that mayhem, frantically elbowing his way through, almost fainting with the pain in his side and shoulder. Everything had dissolved into a darkness crowded with monsters who grew angry, who insulted him, who noticed him, who recorded his face in their memories, but it didn't matter; he had to follow that man.

At last the car stopped and the siren fell silent.

The Carrion Man wanted to get closer, but a cordon of policemen prevented him from doing so.

A woman holding an umbrella and a torch opened the door of the police car. The man got out, covering his head with a newspaper. The two disappeared down an iron stairway that led to the river bank.

The Carrion Man pushed through the crowd and leaned over to watch them.

He saw them go down a long iron stairway and reach the bank, where Ramona had been brought. He saw the man crouch down beside the corpse and then put his hands over his face.

It's her father
…

He opened his mouth and for a moment a ray of light lit up his heart. He was breathless, overwhelmed by the grief of that man whose daughter he had killed.

What have I done
?

But it only lasted for a moment. The darkness enveloped his heart again and he realised that he would never finish the crib. Now they would put Ramona in a coffin and cover her with earth.

Everything that he had done had been in vain. Nobody understood that she had died for something great, something more important.
Because God commands it
.

The people were beginning to return to their cars. The show was over.

There was a child in a blue raincoat with a helmet of black hair who was holding her mother's hand and kept sniffing, with tears in her eyes. The Carrion Man stopped, looked at her and felt like crying too. He raised his hand and, sobbing, waved to her. At first the child covered her face, awed by the figure of that thin man crying under a yellow hood. But then she waved back.

They smiled at each other.

Could it have been Rino who threw Ramona into the river
?
A flash of lightning lit up the dusk of the Carrion Man's mind.

What if Rino, in the woods, hadn't died as he had seemed to do? If he had only been pretending?

Beppe Trecca, sitting in his Puma, was still stuck in the traffic. If until half an hour earlier the queue had been moving at walking pace, now it had come to a complete stop. He could see the turning a hundred metres ahead, like a mirage.

He snapped his mobile shut, irritably.

The little hooligan didn't answer.

He had really gone too far this time. What kind of behaviour was this? He tried to help him and the boy just dashed off like a madman. What if something happened to him?

Who'll
get it in the neck? Yours truly!

When he found him he would give him a piece of his mind.

He must have gone to see his father. Where else could he go? But
supposing I don't find him in the hospital? What if the little fool
has run away
?

He felt as if a boa constrictor was crushing him. He loosened the knot of his tie, unbuttoned his shirt collar and started to hyperventilate, trying to dispel his anxiety.

I've even run out of
Xanax
.

It was impossible to breathe in that damned car. He opened the window, but that didn't help. It was that endless queue that made him feel so bad. He was boiling.

He steered the Puma into the emergency lane, switched on the hazard lights, took his folding umbrella from the back seat and got out.

It's only a panic attack. Once you've felt a few drops of rain on
your face you'll feel better
.

He leaned with one hand on the bonnet, as if he was exhausted after a long marathon, and looked around. The leaden sky. The honking cars. The never-ending rain.

What am I doing? Why am I still here
?

I must go to Burkina Faso
.

Cristiano had better go to a home. He had done what he could for him. But now, enough was enough.

And after all … I'm a free man
.

He didn't depend on anyone. And no one depended on him. He could choose to do what he liked with his life. It had been his decision to remain single, free to travel, to explore new worlds, new civilisations.