The Abomination (27 page)

No, admit it, she thought to herself. Be honest
.

It hurts
.

She tried to analyse why she felt this way. Surely it was crazy to be jealous of previous lovers, but not of the wife he went home to every evening? She'd be outraged if a man got upset about her own former partners. So why did these past affairs, or possible past affairs, make any difference?

Because, she realised ruefully, she'd been flattered to think that his feelings for her were so overwhelming that he'd broken his marriage vows for her sake, and hers alone. She'd known absolutely that what they had wasn't a
fling
or a
liaison
or any of those other casual, throwaway words. Not that she'd expected it to be permanent – far from it – but it was somehow a thing apart, bound up with the incredible intensity of the murder investigation.

She'd read somewhere that in the armies of Ancient Greece and Sparta, a male fighter took a younger warrior to be his lover for the duration of the campaign. The two would train together, sleep together, fight together, and ultimately die together. In some strange way, her relationship with Piola felt more like that than an
affair
.

“Fuck you, Aldo,” she said aloud.

She'd told herself that she wasn't going to look up what other people had said about
her
on Carnivia. But now, a little bitter, and with the wine making her reckless, she did.

K
ATERINA
T
APO
–
NINE ENTRIES
.

She clicked.

A
RE YOU
s
URE
?

Y
ES
.

They'd left him his car keys, at least. He could only have been unconscious for a few minutes – he could see light bouncing off to his right, as the gunman's motorbike careered away over the rough ground.

He felt for his phone. Also still there. So he could call for an ambulance. Or go straight to the Ospedale dell'Angelo, less than twenty minutes away. He knew he shouldn't really drive with possible concussion, but he was damned if he was going to sit and wait for some paramedic to tell him so.

He started the engine. The cut on his temple was bleeding into his right eye, so he angled his head to one side. That was better.

He drove up to the main road and turned left, away from the hospital, in the direction of Kat's apartment.

She read the entries with a mixture of horror and detachment.
So this is what people think of me
.

“Slut” figured more than once, as did “manipulative”, “ambitious”, “self-centred” and “bitch”.

P
RICK TEASE
. . . H
AS ALL THE MEN WRAPPED ROUND HER LITTLE FINGER
. . . L
ED ME ON
. . . T
HINKS SHE
'
S SOMETHING SPECIAL
. . .

And one that almost made her smile:

I
THOUGHT SHE WAS WAY TOO HOT FOR A TRAVEL AGENT
.

Then there were the ones like:

C
ALLED HER BACK THREE TIMES, SHE NEVER ANSWERED
. L
OUSY LAY ANYWAY, DIDN'T EVEN WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN
.

You didn't need to be a detective to spot the inconsistency in
that
.

What came across with horrible clarity was the way people resented her. Women resented her because men were attracted to her. Men who were attracted to her resented her because she hadn't slept with them. Men she
had
slept with resented her because she hadn't called them back for a second date.

Once, when she was at the Training Academy, she'd seen something similar about herself written on a cubicle wall in the toilets. For days she'd been miserable. She'd even tried being extra nice to everyone, in an effort to make herself more liked. All that happened was that she despised herself. And finally, after a few days, she'd thought,
Oh, fuck it
.

What am I meant to do? How am I meant to behave?

Whatever people thought, she never used her looks to get favours or promotions. OK, so maybe asking Francesco Lotti, who clearly had a soft spot for her, to swing her a homicide allocation could be construed as taking advantage. But what was the alternative? Stop trying to get ahead, just because she looked a certain way?

Irritably, she pushed the thought aside. She looked a little further down the list of entries. It was all pretty much the same, a litany of bitchiness and envy mixed with a few names. Nothing that actually mattered.

Apart from the last one.

K
AT
T
APO
. H
OW LONG BEFORE SUAVE
C
OLONEL
P
IOLA FALLS FOR HER CHARMS
? T
HEY
'
VE BEEN SEEN ENJOYING LATE NIGHT RISOTTI AT THE
O
STERIA
S
AN
Z
ACCARIA
ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION
. I
DON
'
T SUPPOSE HIS WIFE AND KIDS HAVE SEEN MUCH OF HIM RECENTLY
. . .

Her blood ran cold. That changed everything. If the anonymous gossips were this vile about men she'd had casual hookups with, imagine what they'd make of an affair with her boss.

The doorbell rang.

As she stood up she looked at her kitchen with fresh eyes. The duck
ragù
simmering on the stove. The pan of water waiting for the
bigoli
. The sauté pan ready with its little pool of golden-green olive oil for the radicchio.
How sad is this?

She decided that the only sensible course was to break it off. Tonight, while her resolve was still strong. They'd have the talk, and then it would be over.

The doorbell rang again.

She composed her features into the neutral expression appropriate for someone about to end a relationship and opened the door.

He fell inside. “Oh my God,” she gasped, all her thoughts immediately forgotten. “What happened?”

“Gunman,” he croaked. He touched his throat. “Can't talk.”

“I'll get some grappa.”

She got him a glass of grape spirit and went to run hot water for his cuts. “Come here. And lie down.”

He wouldn't lie down, but she got him into a chair so she could sponge his temple. “What have they done to you?” she whispered, horrified.

He closed his eyes. “Nothing much. I'll live.”

“Nothing much!” A thought struck her. “You
are
going to report it, aren't you? Get forensics to examine your car, have a proper investigation. . .”

He shook his head.

“You're crazy! Why not?”

“Because I was on my way here,” he said quietly. “How could I explain that, without people finding out about us?”

She hesitated. It was her cue, she knew. She would never have a better opening.
Aldo, they're already starting to gossip. We need to talk . . .

She said nothing. She knew, in that moment, that she didn't want this to end. Some day, yes, but not here. Not now.

His bloodshot eyes opened, looked up at hers.

“Kat, I'm falling in love with you,” he said wearily, as if he was breaking the worst news in the world; as if he wished it wasn't so.

AVVOCATO MARCELLO LOOKED
appalled. His eyes kept straying, with a kind of horrified fascination, to Piola's face, now sporting a number of livid red-black bruises. Once Kat thought she saw the prosecutor actually flinch, as if imagining the pistol smashing into his own smooth-skinned, well-shaven face.

“And those were the only words he said? ‘You should keep your nose out of other people's business,'” he persisted. “You're sure?”

Piola nodded. “Quite sure.”

Marcello's expression attempted sympathy and alarm at the same time. “This is terrible,” he said for the third or fourth time. “Truly terrible.”

It wasn't clear, Kat reflected, whether he meant specifically terrible for Piola, or for anyone tangentially attached to the investigation.

“And do you have any idea,” the prosecutor continued, “why this might have happened?”

Piola passed over a copy of Mareta's disc.

“You want me to watch this?” Marcello said nervously.

“Please.”

Marcello managed about two minutes before reaching out to eject it from his computer. “Terrible,” he repeated, as if in shock.

“The link to organised crime is now incontrovertible.”

“Indeed.” Marcello picked up an old-fashioned-looking fountain pen and rolled it back and forth anxiously in his fingers, as a man might toy with a cigar he isn't allowed to smoke until later. “And you had the disc why?” he asked after a few moments.

“Mareta Castiglione chose to give it to the Carabinieri, rather than the Polizia di Stato,” Piola said. He didn't think it worth antagonising the prosecutor by mentioning that he'd shaken Mareta down to get it.

Kat found herself looking at the pen in Avvocato Marcello's hand. It was an Aurora, the oldest and most prestigious Milanese pen makers. The best ones cost up to a thousand euros.

“So in a sense,” Marcello said thoughtfully, “the gunman was right.”

“Sir?” Piola said, clearly surprised.

“I don't mean to criticise, Colonel, or to make light of your injuries. But the proper course of action would have been to pass the film, and the person who gave it to you, straight on to the
commissario
with responsibility for investigating the organised crime aspects of this case.”

Piola said nothing.

Marcello kept building on his riff. “Indeed, this unfortunate affair illustrates precisely the dangers of not following such a course. An investigation into organised crime requires special measures to protect the safety of the investigators. It becomes almost foolhardy, in a sense, to try to follow such leads without proper precautions.”

“Sir,” Piola said. “If I may . . . We think we've lifted the stone on a major pipeline out of Eastern Europe—”

“Exactly,” Marcello said, nodding. “Organised crime. It should be handed over to the Polizia in the first instance, and then to the proper international authorities.”

“We believe the girl in the film is an Eastern European, forced into prostitution in Italy against her will. Before they died, Jelena Babić and Barbara Holton were seen questioning Eastern European prostitutes around Stazione Santa Lucia. They were looking for a particular girl, a Croatian. Their deaths and the organised crime aspect of this case are inseparable.” Piola stopped, aware that he was starting to raise his voice.

Marcello barely glanced at him. “I'm just not sure your investigation is going to tell us very much more, Colonnello. You don't know who the girl in the video is, or who the girl the two women were seeking was, or even why they were looking for her in the first place. And while of course I'm glad you've dropped the ridiculous suggestion that the United States Army was somehow implicated in the murders, it does seem that we've come to the end of the line as far as collecting evidence is concerned.”

Piola sighed. “At least let us try to resolve why the murder victims were talking to the prostitutes.”

Marcello considered. “Very well,” he conceded. “I suppose that is still a valid line of enquiry. But I'm going to set a time limit on it. Let's say three days. After that, we'll agree that Barbara Holton and Jelena Babić were two foolish foreigners, killed by Ricci Castiglione when they trespassed on a derelict island where he was carrying out criminal activities. There are plenty of other cases far more worthy of your attention, Colonel.” He glanced at Kat. “Many of which would offer the
capitano
here far greater opportunities to display her talents. None of us wants to get bogged down in something murky and ultimately unproductive, do we?”

His words were addressed to Piola, but his eyes remained on Kat, so it was she who eventually broke the silence that ensued. “Indeed, sir.”

Marcello nodded. “Well, thank you both for coming.”

When they had gone, Marcello swivelled his chair towards the window and thought some more, rolling the Aurora in his fingers, taking pleasure from the weight of the fat, cold metal.

Then, with a sigh, he lifted his desk phone and dialled a number.

“Sir?” he said respectfully. “You asked to be kept informed of progress on the Poveglia investigation . . . Of course. There have been some developments, but nothing I think to be alarmed about.”

He spoke for three more minutes, then put down the phone.

“I WON'T GIVE UP.”

“I know you won't.”

They were in bed, the two of them, their noses almost touching. Lying under him like this, Kat could see every pore and laughter line around his eyes, like some rough landscape marked by watercourses. And above it, the bruised and scabbed crater of his wound.

“They'll have to drag me off this case. Until then, I follow the evidence. And fuck Marcello.”

Aldo might be zealous when it came to refusing favours and attempts at petty corruption, but he had an exhilarating disregard for commands from his superiors, however clear-cut. He also had an ability – one she'd not come across in other men she'd slept with – to slow his lovemaking temporarily in order to talk about whatever was on his mind, as he was doing now. She found she rather liked these conversational intermissions, with him inside her but not quite motionless; pleasure deferred but balanced with another kind of intimacy, the physical and the verbal in temporary equilibrium.

She resisted the urge to say that it wasn't Avvocato Marcello he should fuck right now. Instead she said, “Be careful, won't you?”

“The more evidence we have, the safer we'll be. They want to frighten us, that's all. But yes, I'll be careful.”