A Florentine Death (34 page)

'The warden would like to know if you're going to be much longer.'

'I don't think so. Ten, fifteen minutes at the most. Thank him for his patience. And thank you, too.' The officer let the room.

Salustri lit a cigarette and took deep drags at it. Ferrara lit a cigar. The air would soon be unbreathable, but it was worth it.

'Do you have any idea how much Ricciardi's estate was worth?'

'Billions of lire, but I don't know how much.' And it all went to Lorenzo?'

'I don't know, but I think it's unlikely. As I said, Ricciardi senior was connected with the Calabrian Mafia and some of the money must have been used for laundering. I don't think the clan left it all to Lorenzo. It's possible he belongs to the clan, but I doubt it, as he wouldn't have stayed in America all that time and I'd probably have known about it. Most likely, they found a way to share the inheritance.'

'Do you have any idea where he might be hiding?'

'No. Abroad, I suppose. That's the likeliest. Or maybe Reggio Calabria or Aspromonte. That's if he kept his links with the Calabrians, or contacted them again.'

That was something he hadn't thought of, and he couldn't rule it out. After all, Lorenzo Ricciardi was in unlawful possession of a firearm, which suggested he might still have underworld connections. It was unlikely he'd brought it with him from the United States.

'You said Alfredo Lupi was a friend of his. Do you know any others?'

'No. Like I said, he was a shy person. I don't think he had many friends, not even when he was at boarding school, which is when you'd expect people to make friends. I think he was a loner even there, especially as he hated the place.'

'I see. You said it wasn't in Florence, right? Was it a private school?'

'It was run by priests. Very exclusive. His father, or rather his stepfather, wanted the best for him, like I said. And to keep him away from the business, of course. I think they closed the place down later, after some scandal the Church managed to cover up.'

Ferrara's head started buzzing again. 'What was the name of this boarding school?'

'San Benedetto something . . . oh, yes, San Benedetto in Bosco, it was part of an abb —'

CLICK!

Two more pieces fell into place with military precision, echoing deafeningly in Ferrara's head. He suddenly remembered, word for word, as if he were seeing a transcript in his mind, the last part of his conversation with Monsignor Federici:

'Father Sergio is merely a poor, frightened man.' 'Frightened of what?'

'His sins? The world? Who knows?'

'Or the killer? Maybe he's a split personality, and is trying to escape his other self by shutting himself up in a cell. Or maybe he knows who the killer is, but can't say anything.'

That was the detail that had escaped him this morning! He had originally said that last sentence as part of his attempt to see Don Sergio, but it was his instinct as a detective that had suggested it to him and now it was turning out to be right.

Two separate leads pointed to the abbey of San Benedetto in Bosco.

Did Don Sergio really know the killer? Had he become a recluse to suppress a secret he could not confess? Would an interview with Don Sergio at last make it possible for Ferrara to reconstruct the entire case and understand who Lorenzo Ricciardi really was?

Rather than wait until he was back in the office, he called the switchboard from the car and obtained the number of the Curia.

He was in luck. Monsignor Federici was there, and was happy to take his call.

Tm sorry to disturb you, Monsignor, but I'd like to ask you something.'

'Go ahead.'

'You told me you knew Don Sergio well. Could you tell me where he went to school?'

The monsignor did not seem surprised by the question. It was as if he'd been expecting it and was relieved and amused that it had finally arrived.

'Yes, San Benedetto in Bosco, the same place he's just gone back to, when it was still a boarding school. The school's closed down now. A pity, it was a good school. Quite a journey he's made, don't you think? All the way back to the place where he started.'

'That dispensation from the bishop
...
It is still valid, isn't it? I can still talk to Don Sergio?'

'Of course. After what His Eminence did to get you that interview, not to do so would be . . . well, a waste of his valuable time, I'd say. I sincerely hope it's worth it.'

'Thank you. I think it will be.'

'Call me tomorrow morning, and I'll tell you when you can see him.'

3

Once he was off the main road, Ferrara could not help regretting that he had taken his own car. A police car would at least have had the aura of officialdom.

His old Mercedes was not meant for this tortuous dirt road that wound at first through a wood full of chestnut trees and gradually emerged in a genuine forest, full of big beeches, Scots pines and the occasional silver fir. The sudden dips and ubiquitous stones really put the car's suspension to the test, and the brambles hanging over the road scratched the bodywork.

He might also have to put up the chains, because wide swathes of the forest were still under snow. He drove extremely carefully, afraid that roe bucks, wild boar, stags or fallow deer might suddenly appear and bar his way. Having travelled more than twenty-five miles - on the map he had calculated it was only about ten miles to the abbey - he noted that he was moving at a speed that varied between six and ten miles an hour! He cursed. He still had another hour of this torture.

The road was so bumpy, it made the CD jump, and Callas was hiccoughing rather than singing
Caro nome.
Ferrara finally switched off the player in exasperation. He couldn't even stand
Rigoletto
at the moment.

He was tempted to turn back, but it wouldn't make sense after coming this far. That was the way he was: once he'd started on a particular road, he couldn't turn back, not even when common sense told him that the problems still to come could well outweigh those he had left behind. The mere thought that anything he'd done thus far had been a wasted effort was more than he could bear. He was stubborn. He was Sicilian.

Twenty minutes later he caught a fleeting but distinct glimpse of the vast monastic complex. He was up on a ridge, and the monastery was down to his left. The road twisted down towards it. What struck him most from this first glimpse was the precise geometrical arrangement of the walls and buildings and the sheer size of the complex.

He checked the speedometer and realised that he had gone faster than anticipated, thanks to a few straight, clear stretches of road where he'd been able to increase speed. He had the impression that the closer he came to his target, the better the condition of the road.

He accelerated confidently, pleased with the excellence of German engineering that had allowed his old car to pass this unexpected test with flying colours.

The satisfaction, however, was short-lived. There was a huge trunk across the road, which forced him to brake sharply The trunk had clearly been cut down recently and had been stripped bare of branches.

He had two options: either turn back, or leave the car and proceed on foot. Being Ferrara, he had no hesitation in choosing the second of these. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. It had been late morning when Monsignor Federici had phoned him and told him that Brother Anselmo would be expecting him at two o'clock.

He got out of the car and looked around. There was not a soul in sight, and it was cold. The only sounds were the rustling of the leaves in the wind, the dull thud of snow coming loose from the foliage of the fir trees and falling to the ground, the chattering of a few distant birds and the sporadic snapping of branches as animals passed. Knowing there were wolves about, he was pleased that for once he had a pistol in the glove compartment of his car. But he felt uncomfortable having it on him, and he would never have dreamed of entering a monastery carrying a weapon.

He tried to get through to the abbey on his mobile phone, to inform them that he had been delayed, but there was no signal. He cursed again. He was just about to clamber over the trunk when he heard voices and the noise of hooves coming closer. A group of monks appeared from around the bend on the other side of the trunk, leading four oxen.

As they approached, he was struck by the monks' healthy, sturdy appearance and impressive builds.

'So sorry, it seems we've blocked your path,' the one at the front said brightly, not sounding at all sorry. 'Don't worry, it'll only take a minute.'

Ferrara thought he was joking, but the team moved with an efficiency and a precision that would have made the engineers who'd worked on his Mercedes green with envy. The trunk was secured to the oxen with thick ropes, and what with the animals pulling and the men pushing, it started to move. Ferrara would learn subsequently that one of the main activities of the monastery was the maintenance and care of the surrounding forest and that many of the monks were expert lumberjacks.

'There, it's done!' the one who had spoken before said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Are you on your way to the abbey?'

It was a rhetorical question: there was nothing else in that area.

'Yes, the prior's waiting for me and I'm late,' Ferrara said, quickly getting back behind the wheel.

'Don't worry. Time has a different rhythm here. I'm sure Brother Anselmo will have found something to do while he's waiting. The road is plain sailing from here on' - there was pride in his voice - 'and with a big car like this it won't take you more than five minutes.'

Exactly five minutes later, he parked in a space in front of the main gate, between a small van and an old red Ciao moped with a broken rear light.

4

Lorenzo Ricciardi had found the perfect refuge in his former school. Not only was it isolated, but he knew that it received laymen who for whatever reason had decided to exchange -either temporarily or permanently - both the comforts and the stresses of modern society for a life of humble work and prayer. Among the guests were former bank managers, professionals, industrialists. In addition, Lorenzo knew many of the monks, and if Brother Anselmo was still there, he could hardly refuse to take him in for a short time.

At San Benedetto in Bosco, he would be able to stay safe for as long as it took to let the dust settle. Then he would strike again. Because that was his mission, and, although he'd had to change his plan slightly because of the two girls, he would still see it through to the end. One by one, those responsible for what he had become - what he hated — would fall. The first of them, and perhaps the most despicable, he had saved for last: Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, who had made him an orphan and condemned him to a terrible fate.

Ferrara had had to stand by powerless while the others died, had known the bitter taste of one defeat after another, and had been forced to suffer the agony of waiting, aware that a killer was after him. Finally, he, Lorenzo Ricciardi, would torture him. Torture was the most refined form of humiliation there was, as he had learned at San Gimignano. He'd read about that fascinating exhibition in an article by Mike Ross, whose name he had subsequently adopted.

If they didn't yet know his identity and were still searching for a fair-haired American, as he was sure they were, he would be able to go back to his villa, where he had prepared the Judas Cradle for the superintendent. He savoured in advance the pleasure he would feel, seeing Ferrara suspended over that sharp point, begging for mercy - a mercy that had not been shown to Lorenzo as a child. Before Ferrara died, Lorenzo wanted him to suffer as much as he himself had suffered. He wanted him to know how it felt to offer his own defenceless body to the obscene, pitiless violence of torturers.

He had arrived four days earlier, and as he had predicted, Brother Anselmo had been pleased to receive him. He had travelled the long stretch of road from Florence by moped, stopping often, sleeping in makeshift shelters along the way, buying the newspapers every day to find out how much they knew about him. By the time he arrived at the abbey, he was convinced that the newspaper article about an imminent arrest was pure invention, something planted by the police. That was just as well: he couldn't risk the monks recognising him as a wanted man.

He had to take into account the fact that the woman in Bologna must have given a description of him to the police. But the search had probably been confined to Bologna and the surrounding area, and besides, they still didn't know his true identity. Obviously they were not looking for him in Florence: those four days spent working in the fields, praying and watching the TV news with the others had left him absolutely certain about that. Now he was ready to leave the monastery.

It was then that he saw him.

5