When the Dead Awaken (4 page)

‘Thank you.'

Sabrina had spent two frantic hours researching various databases.

‘Coffee?' the prosecutor asked her.

She muttered another thank you.

Renda filled two delicate bone china cups.

‘I would like to have had access to the original case files. Officially the case is closed, but it ought to be reopened,' she declared with greater conviction than she felt.

‘Ought it indeed?'

‘After today, yes. That's my opinion.'

‘For whose sake?' Renda asked.

‘I've only had a couple of hours to familiarize myself with the story, dottore,' she said. ‘But a couple of days before Nanometric could file the completed patent applications, on 5 September 2007, there was an attack on the company, and Batista, Hanna Schmidt and Iacovelli were murdered.'

‘And Forlani?'

‘Killed during a staged collision on a motorway south of Milan,' Sabrina said. ‘His wife and son disappeared the same morning from a lift in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. The attack on the company and the related operations were brilliantly coordinated and executed. If you look at it as a technical achievement.'

Renda's eyes were anything but unemotional.

‘And now Lucia and Salvatore Forlani have been found,' she said. ‘Perhaps it's the story that refuses to go away.'

A pained expression crossed Renda's sleepless face. ‘Refuses to go away? Lucia Forlani was an orphan, as far as
I recall,' he said. ‘And her husband is dead. I can't see who would benefit from your efforts.'

Sweat broke out between her shoulder blades.

The public prosecutor drained his cup and leaned back slowly. If he was in pain, he didn't show it.

‘We're talking about an unsolved crime. A very serious crime,' Sabrina said.

‘I'm aware of it, dottoressa, but the case falls within the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecutor of Milan. Their best people investigated it and got nowhere.'

Renda placed his hands flat on his desk and Sabrina knew that her audience was at an end.

‘It has been gathering dust in Milan for three years, that much is true,' she said, making no effort to get up. ‘No progress whatsoever. The killers are from Naples. Everything else is a formality – in my opinion. Besides, the attacks on Nanometric, and the murders of Batista, Schmidt and Iacovelli, were investigated by the Office for Organized Crime at Milan's Palace of Justice, the abduction of Lucia and Salvatore Forlani by Milan's central police force, while the car crash on the A7 was handled by local officers from the police station in Città Studi. No one ever tried to pull all the threads together.'

She looked at her folded hands.

‘I would really like to have a go,' she declared.

‘You said the killers were from Naples?'

‘Urs Savelli and the woman up there –' She pointed to
the photo of L'Artista. ‘Hanna Schmidt was killed by a straight, double-edged blade. The cut matches those on Savelli's other victims perfectly,' she said. ‘His famous Basque walking stick. Furthermore, a witness reported seeing a young woman wearing a FedEx uniform enter the company's premises around ten o'clock in the morning. The witness, a retired army officer who lived nearby, had gone out for a walk with his old Alsatian. When he came back past the building ten minutes later, the same woman was just leaving in a FedEx car. He's certain. It was her.'

‘Or so you think. You're still a public prosecutor, even though you're now a member of the NAC,' Renda said. ‘We work only with evidence here – if you're familiar with that concept – not hunches.'

‘As far as I understand, the Camorra use L'Artista very sparingly and only for the most important assassinations, such as the attack on your own life,' Sabrina persisted. ‘She reports directly to Don Francesco Terrasino and no one else ever instructs her to carry out a hit. As far as I know the Terrasino family or Savelli never employ any other female freelancers.'

‘But the link between Don Francesco and L'Artista has never been proven. I do so hate to repeat myself,' the public prosecutor sighed.

‘No, but we both know that it exists,' Sabrina insisted.

She looked calmly at her boss. Renda looked back at her. Then he rubbed his neck and turned towards the windows.
In any other man his expression would have been interpreted as indecision.

‘Urs Savelli and L'Artista,' Federico Renda said, slowly and clearly addressing the shadows.

A ringing began in Sabrina's left ear.

‘I would like to review the case,' she repeated. ‘I really would.'

‘I understand that,' he said. ‘What do you know about Savelli?'

‘He's Albanian. He's high up in the Terrasino family and responsible for liaising between the fashion houses in northern Italy and the bootleg factories in Naples and the Far East. The Terrasino family will never trust him completely because he is and always will be a
straniero
, an outsider, but he is good.'

Sabrina began as the teacher's pet she always had been, but her words soon ebbed out.

‘He is enigmatic … and … and …'

She looked at the public prosecutor, dreading his thin, private smile, but Renda's face was devoid of expression.

‘I don't know anything, do I?' she conceded.

‘No, but I don't know very much more and I've been looking for him for twenty years,' Renda said. ‘All we have are rumours that have been repeated so often that they have become legend. I dislike myth makers, Dottoressa D'Avalos, I prefer committed rationalists. Are you a rationalist?'

‘I would certainly like to think so.'

‘Excellent. Savelli isn't, as you say, Italian, but Albanian. He comes from a small village in East Albania, Dunice, not far from Lake Ohrid. When he was very young, he made his living as a bear dancer. Hence his nickname Ursus – Urs – which means bear. At least that's what many of his biographers are guessing. God knows what his family name was, but he took the name Savelli.

‘Bear dancer?' she asked with incredulity.

‘Yes. He owned a tame black bear. The boy and the bear walked from market to market to perform. It's a good story; the best of all the stories about Savelli's origins. Urs or Ursus played the flute and the bear danced. A meagre living at best. One day a gypsy stole his blankets, his money and food. A few days later Urs tracked down the thief in a forest and knocked him unconscious. When the man woke up he found himself tied to the trunk of a tree with a noose of barbed wire around his neck. The gypsy had eaten Urs's food, sold his blankets and spent his money in a travelling brothel. Urs made it clear to him that he had put him, Urs – and not least the bear – in an awkward situation. The bear had to be fed. Urs slit open the gypsy's abdomen with the man's own knife and let the bear help himself. Bears are like pigs, signorina, they'll eat anything.'

Sabrina gulped. ‘And then?'

‘I'm sure you can imagine that even the most backward
country policeman could interpret that crime scene without too much difficulty. Urs was duly arrested in a nearby forest. The bear was shot and the gypsy's hands and face found in its stomach, among other things. It's very hard to argue against that level of evidence. And I can't imagine that a single state-appointed defence counsel would even have tried. The boy was thrown into one of Enver Hoxar's notorious prisons. Most people with that kind of story would have disappeared without trace.'

‘But not Savelli?'

‘No. Legend has it that the boy was taken under the wing of the prison librarian, a kind of self-appointed Christian missionary, who performed prohibited religious services, claimed to grant the absolution of the Church and undertook baptisms and gave communion. He got access to Urs's body and Urs in return got access to the protection of the congregation and the prison library. An excellent arrangement – if you're not of an overly sensitive nature. One day, however, a new prison governor arrived, an ideologically scrubbed-clean apparatchik who couldn't accept any other cosmology than the historical materialism right under his own nose. There wasn't a single country behind the Iron Curtain where religion was persecuted and suppressed as fiercely as it was in Albania, signorina. In order not to waste a bullet on a shot to the back of his head, the missionary was garrotted in the prison yard, and Urs and other members of the congregation were thrown into
solitary confinement. For two or maybe three years, Urs saw nothing but the hand that pushed a bowl of food through the shutter in the door to his cell, he heard nothing but the sound of his own voice, the slamming of the shutter and the footsteps of the guards. But, he was allowed to read and learned English, German, French and Italian – and he taught himself to whisper to stay sane. He also developed a kind of sixth, seventh, perhaps even an eighth sense: no photos exist of Savelli. We don't have one and neither does the FBI. From a long distance and with absolute certainty he can sense if anyone is aiming a camera lens or a telescopic sight at him, and he moves the instant a photo is about to be taken or the trigger pulled, so they say. He has numerous identities and secret residences around Europe.'

‘He got out? Did he escape?'

‘Not at all. Hoxha died in 1985 and he was succeeded as president of Albania by the moderate Ramiz Alia. In 1989 Mother Teresa, who was herself Albanian, visited Tirana and met with Alia and Hoxha's widow. In 1990 the ban on religious institutions was lifted and anyone who had been imprisoned for reasons of faith or political affiliation was granted amnesty. Urs Savelli walked out of the prison gate in Pogradec in June 1990. Out into the sunshine and a glorious future.'

‘But he was in prison for murder,' Sabrina objected.

‘Technically the bear was the murderer,' Renda said.

‘Why are you telling me this?'

‘For your own sake. Savelli is the most dangerous person you can imagine. Anything else?'

‘No – yes, thank you. Are you telling me that I can—'

‘Just a moment. Savelli stole a boat and went ashore in Corfu. Like the magician Prospero and his deformed slave, Caliban, in one and the same person.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘
The Tempest
. Shakespeare's swansong,' the public prosecutor said. ‘Following a mighty tempest the King of Naples is shipwrecked with his followers on Sycorax's island, almost an anagram of the old name for Corfu, Corcyra. Do you remember your Shakespeare?'

‘No.'

‘Pity. After Corfu things get somewhat vague. Somehow Savelli reaches Brindisi. After Brindisi he takes control of his identity, his persona and his name. Sources and informants dry up or are killed. Savelli understands that when people view him only through his legend, much of his work is already done. The myth is far more terrifying than the reality. It allows him to concentrate on the job in hand. He must have been spotted early on by one of the Camorra's talent scouts, probably here in the port of Naples, and earned his advancement up the ranks very quickly.' Federico Renda swallowed a mouthful of coffee and cleared his throat. ‘
He was the ivy which had hid my princely trunk, And sucked my verdure out on't
,' he quoted.

Sabrina felt dizzy. The vast room, the dark panels, the green underwater light. The quotation. Her feelings were heightened by the fact that the usually very reserved man behind the desk was smiling broadly.

‘Are you fond of Shakespeare, dottoressa?' he asked.

‘Absolutely,' she said, and thought that the public prosecutor was as lonely as a goldfish in a bowl.

‘But there's a time for everything?'

‘Definitely.'

‘I'm saying that you should devote your time to tracking down any living relatives that the victims may have,' Renda said, leaning forwards. ‘The container investigation has overloaded our resources and I desperately need all the good people I can lay my hands on.'

‘I understand,' she said.

Federico Renda held up his hand. He hadn't finished.

‘I'm restating my opinion that there is no point to your current assignment. But perhaps the Forlani case needs a fresh pair of eyes, as you say. You might find family members or other relatives of Lucia Forlani who need to be told what happened to her and the boy.'

‘Boys. The foetus was male.'

Renda nodded.

‘The boys. You have a week. I'll make sure you're granted access to the files.'

‘But they're in Milan.'

‘Milan is remote in more ways than one,' Renda
conceded. ‘However, it's not the dark side of the moon. They will be brought to your apartment. Today if possible.'

She had almost reached the door, but she turned around when he spoke again.

Federico Renda repeated his warning.

‘The walking stick. Savelli's Basque stick. The makila. If you hear that stick – like a chisel against a gravestone – you must run as fast as you can without ever looking back. Will you promise me that?'

‘Absolutely.'

‘
Arrivederci
.' He held up his index finger. ‘One week.'

‘Thank you.'

The prosecutor was about to say something, but changed his mind.

Sabrina smiled politely. ‘Was there something else?' she asked.

Again he flashed her a smile that transformed his entire appearance.

‘L'Artista. My brothers refer to her as my obsession. I'm perfectly aware of it and if I'm boring you, please say so. She's probably Don Francesco Terrasino's private executioner, as you said. They use her for complicated assassinations. For years I've been trying to find out how the two of them communicate. Don Francesco would never dream of confiding a word to a mobile telephone, a landline or an e-mail. So how does he do it? He's a simple man.'

‘Radio?'

Renda nodded. ‘A good suggestion. In our days radio is an overlooked means of communication. However, our best experts from the Army and the Navy have listened in on all frequencies around his residence for years. Nothing.'