The Crocodile (24 page)

Letizia laughed. “Of course I’m sure of it: in this whole city the only place you can get a really outstanding meal is right here, don’t kid yourself. Hold on, I’ll bring you something.”

She let him have plenty of time to eat, lending a distracted ear to the television news reports that included, as they did every night, references to the elusive Crocodile, the child-murderer who wept before he killed. And of course the inability of the forces of law and order to bring this Crocodile to book.

As usual, once the dining room was partially empty, she came over and sat with him.

“You feel like telling me about it?”

Lojacono was draining his last gulp of wine.

“We don’t have a lot of evidence in hand. Something is brewing, but it’s still not enough. I’m more and more convinced of what I told you before—that he’s doing this to get even with the parents. They’re the ones he’s interested in punishing. And I don’t even think anymore that he’s interested in extracting ransom, the way I did at the beginning. Unless all these dead children are a tool to threaten someone else, like: “You see the way I kill other people’s children? I could do the same to you, or to your son or daughter, so pay up.”’

Letizia listened attentively. “I don’t think so either. In that case all he needed to do was send a letter, right? If you ask me, he’s taking revenge. And nothing more.”

Lojacono sat with his glass suspended halfway between the table and his mouth.

“You think? How can you be so sure?”

“According to what I’ve heard on television, this man doesn’t care whether or not he’s caught. He drops tissues on the crime scene, he always uses the same gun, and always the same technique, as you described it to me—the crocodile’s technique. He’s following a path, that’s all: nothing more, nothing less. He’s taking the steps he needs to. Someone who’s doing that has no interest in a future for himself, right? He’s not being tactical. Like someone who, I don’t know, goes to a friend’s office to see if he’s all right, if there’s some reason why she hasn’t seen him for a while. Completely untactical.”

Lojacono nodded, smiling. “Giuffrè told me all about that. And he told me about the little pastries too, which he took home and ate himself, every last one. Didn’t save even one for me. I owe you an apology, I dropped out of circulation without a word, but it’s just that this case has been eating me up.”

She smiled back. “Don’t worry about it. I wanted to be sure you were doing all right, that’s all. I’m really happy to know that you’re involved in your work; I know how much you missed that this last year. And then that Giuffrè, once you get to know him, is very likable. So I’m glad I had the chance.”

“You think so? Having him around all day long tends to change a person’s opinion. He never shuts up for a second. Still, he is what he seems, and that’s already something, in this city.”

“Don’t forget that shutting the door and leaving the rest of the world outside, the way you do, might not be the best way to lead a life. But I’m happier to see you with a purpose, the way you are now; you’re tired and you’re worried, but you’re thinking about something. Much better than the way it was before.”

Lojacono looked her in the eye. “You’re right. As you seem to be so often. And maybe you’re right about the Crocodile too. Let me ask you something though, as maybe you can see the situation with the right degree of detachment, while we’re in it too deep to see things clearly. Let’s say you had a person who was dear to you, like a fiancée, a girlfriend, someone who had been forced to have an abortion and in the wake of that abortion, as a result of it, she had killed herself. And now let’s say you wanted to take revenge, like you said before: who would you focus on first?”

Letizia was paying close attention. “So this is it, this is what happened? An abortion, then she killed herself? And who was she?”

Lojacono shook his head. “We don’t know yet. For that matter, we don’t have any confirmation that we’re pursuing the right lead. For all we know this might be a damn lunatic, or it could be the Camorra after all, as everyone else working on this case seems to think.”

“In other words, the only people pursuing this lead are you and her, right? You and that prosecutor, the one who’s not just pretty but also knows what she’s doing.” She put a fake cheerfulness into her voice.

“That’s right. She’s the only one willing to support me on this crazy manhunt. But there’s no reason for you to make fun of me: it’s work, work, nothing but work. I couldn’t imagine, given the tragedies we’re dealing with here, having anything else in mind. But why don’t you try answering my question: if something like that had happened to you, who is it you’d want to take revenge on?”

Letizia tried to put herself into the situation. Then she said, “Everyone. Everyone who had a hand in pushing her to that decision. But especially whoever got her pregnant and then abandoned her to that solitude and loneliness. If she decided to kill herself, it was because she had been abandoned and was utterly alone. There’s no doubt about that. If she’d still had the man she loved, she would have found a reason to go on living.”

Lojacono sat for a long time without speaking, reflecting on the simplicity of this drive, the extreme purity of the most human emotion there is: the thirst for revenge.

“You’re right. You’re dead right. I could tell that he wasn’t done yet. That he hasn’t stopped. The last target is himself: it has to be himself.”

He stood up, as if a sudden sense of urgency had come over him. He reached out and caressed her face. Letizia felt the warmth, rough texture and scent of his skin. The first physical contact with him.

She half-closed her eyes, and by the time she had opened them again, the door was slowly swinging shut behind him.

Sweetheart, my darling,

I think back to the ten years it took me to prepare everything I’ve done. And I have to say that I’m very proud: proud that I was able to predict every imaginable outcome, and its opposite.

Many things, obviously and luckily, weren’t necessary after all. With all the eventualities and unpredictable twists of fate that I’d imagined, at a certain point I began to feel a little ridiculous. All that was missing was a military invasion and an alien landing, and then I could say that I really had foreseen everything. But you know, my darling, when someone has nothing else to do for so many years, nothing else to think about, with no company other than a death rattle coming from the next room, planning becomes a comparatively agreeable pastime.

You might ask me: why did it take you so long? You know, the actual decision to take concrete steps, to put it into effect, only came after a number of years. I’ve wondered about that more than once.

Maybe I wasn’t sure if I was up to it, wasn’t sure I could pull it off. It was something too alien to the way I was, to the principles I used to hold dear, to my way of thinking. Maybe I was too physically beaten down, out of shape, inadequate. Maybe I was just waiting for her to show me the way, after all: she’d always been the decision-maker for the two of us.

Instead she got sick, and as time went on, sicker still. She’d stopped talking, you know. She’d spend hours at the window, looking out. As if she was expecting something; or someone.

It’s a strange thing, my darling, the way the human mind operates. Or maybe it’s the heart I’m thinking of. For years and years I folded in on myself, clutching at memories and at what could no longer be. Then you became my one reason for living: to see you again, to be able to hold you once more in my arms.

Perhaps the spark, or I should say the detonator, was the handgun. Do you remember my Uncle Nicola? No, maybe you don’t. He was my mother’s brother, a glorious head on his shoulders, a legend to the rest of the family: he’d never resigned himself to the sleepy atmosphere of the town, he said that he was the only one left in the whole valley with any life in him, while everyone else was happy to sit in one place and breathe. Well, there wasn’t a single undertaking or initiative that didn’t have his fingerprints on it: film clubs, dance halls, cultural associations. If there was something to be started up, he was ready and willing. Then one bad day, a stroke carried him off, and he died in his sleep.

A couple of days after the funeral his wife called me and asked me to hurry over because she had a problem. Who knows how and who knows why, but in the back of a desk drawer, buried under a messy heap of papers, she’d found a box with a handgun inside. Perfectly cleaned and oiled, a working pistol in good operating order.

My aunt asked me: What should I do with it? I’m afraid to throw it away, and I’m even afraid to take it outside and bury it somewhere. Could you take care of it for me?

Of course I can, I tell her. And I leave, with the box under my arm.

Back at home, she was already quite sick and sleeping through much of the day. I put the box on the table and I sat down in front of it. I sat there for a long time, more than an hour. By the time I stood up, I’d had the idea.

Of course, it was still in embryonic form, and I lacked a plan. It would be a long, long time before I worked that out. But that was the idea, or this was the idea, I guess I should say. And if you want to know the truth, I believe that this, along with the desire to see you again, of course, is what sustained me for all these years.

Then I bought the computer and got on the internet. And I started searching and researching.

It took time, a lot of determination, and a lot of hard work. I built my workshop so I could make the silencer. I researched everything I needed to know about the lives I was interested in. I studied locations, conditions, even factors such as the weather. I put together a wardrobe, selecting the most nondescript clothing I could find, and whatever I lacked I procured, one item at a time.

When I went out shopping, there were those who asked me what I was doing with myself. It was a polite question, a form of courtesy. I would tell them that I was taking care of her, and it was true: I kept her clean, I kept her fed, I gave her her medicines and injections. When she started to get bedsores, I’d turn her over to keep her from suffering too much.

Every once in a while she’d look at me, with those despairing eyes, the way a prisoner looks out from behind the bars of his cell. She said nothing. She asked nothing.

I think she knew what I was doing, and she couldn’t ask me to stop. Perhaps she wouldn’t have asked it, even if she’d been able to speak.

Well, this is it, right? Now we’ll see how it all turns out.

Now we’ll all see.

This time Piras sent a car to pick up Lojacono. When the driver looked into the Crime Reporting Office, Lojacono was in the bathroom, which gave Giuffrè the opportunity to mock him upon his return, even as he was still zipping up.

“Your lordship, as your butler I’m honored to inform you that your carriage is ready and awaits you in the courtyard. Which suit will you be wearing this morning, sir: dinner jacket or full dress tailcoat?”

Lojacono shook his head and gathered up the papers on his desk. “If I had the time for it, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself. But since I’m in a hurry, you’ll have to take my word for it.”

“At your service, your lordship, I’ll take care of it immediately. Consider it done.”

During the brief journey, Lojacono thought the summons over. There must be major new developments, otherwise Laura Piras would have called him on the phone; and she must need to speak to him in a hurry, otherwise she wouldn’t have sent a car. After all, it was only a ten-minute walk, maybe a little more. What could have happened?

With a mixture of excitement and trepidation, he walked into the conference room that she’d practically taken over as her office. Piras’s eyes were glittering but impenetrable.

“Well? What’s going on?” Lojacono asked.

“I’ve got bad news and good news. The bad news is that according to the city’s police archives, there were no suicides named Eleonora in 1996. At least, nobody was called out to investigate one.”

He felt something collapse inside him, but he immediately started thinking over possible alternatives.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. There may have been no callout if, say, the girl slit her wrists, or took an overdose of barbiturates. That happens sometimes, you know, especially if the family is trying to hush it up, and—”

Piras raised her hand to halt the rush of words. “Stop right there. Don’t you want to know the good news?”

Lojacono looked at her quizzically.

“The good news, Inspector Lojacono, is that while it may be true that there were no such reports during the year 1996, we do have one for 1997. Specifically, for Sunday, January twelfth: the day that Eleonora De Falco, aged twenty-three, put an end to her life by throwing herself out of the fifth-floor window of her flat in Via dei Cristallini, number sixteen.”

As she said it, she tapped her index finger on a file in front of her on the table.

Lojacono shook his head. “Dottoressa, you pull another stunt like that on me and I’ll leave you to fend for yourself, helpless without my indispensable assistance. Sunday, eh? The worst day of the week for suicides. The world over, Sunday afternoon is when people kill themselves. It’s a given.”

Piras grimaced. “True, very true. In any case, don’t underrate yourself: your assistance really is crucial to me. In fact, when we’re done with this case, we’ll need to have a serious talk about the best use we can make of you.”

“The best use you can make of me? Like a horse, in other words. Here, let me take a look at these papers.”

The contents of the file were actually fairly meager. Just three documents: the report from the police car that responded to the emergency call from the doorman of the mansion block, a certain Giovanni Martone; the medical examiner’s report, based on his on-site inspection of the body; and the autopsy report, filed subsequently.