The Deliverance of Evil (48 page)

“Did you really need encouragement, Balistreri? Aren’t you interested in the truth for its own sake?”

“You all lied in 1982.”

Balistreri could hear the rage creeping into his voice and fought to control it.

Rage is not a shortcut to the truth
.

“And so? You’re the police, not us. And in 1982 you were consumed with your vices and prejudices. According to you, a disfigured young man, and a nobleman to boot, was the perfect suspect.”

“Did you kill Elisa Sordi?”

Manfredi assumed his father’s scornful tone.

“After everything that’s happened, that’s all you can think to ask?”

“Of course. Either we clarify this point definitively or we go nowhere. And this time you’d better be more convincing. Another young girl’s life is in the balance. I’ve got no more time or patience for your lies.”

For some ridiculous reason Manfredi gave a half smile, then nodded.

“Good. I see you’re finally resolved, Balistreri. Will the truth about Elisa Sordi really help save this young woman?”

“Yes. Marius Hagi, the man we arrested, is demanding the truth before he’ll help us.”

I could ask if you know him, but I wouldn’t know if you were telling the truth.

Manfredi absorbed that piece of information in silence. “All right, I’ll tell you something I won’t ever repeat to anyone under any circumstances.”

“I’m listening.”

“I was very attracted to Elisa Sordi. So were you, right?”

Balistreri said nothing.

“Of course you were attracted to her. Everybody was. But all you wanted to do was get her into bed, while I was in love with her.”

Manfredi continued, “The afternoon of the World Cup final, Rome had come to a halt. It was deserted. Most people were resting up. It was as if every Italian was going to play in the final. But Elisa came to work. I saw her arrive mid-morning, then I saw her leave for lunch and come back again, followed by Valerio Bona. They were arguing. Then she left him outside the gate and went up to her office.”

“Where were your parents?”

“My father was at the Hotel Camilluccia, near here, at a party meeting. My mother had taken a sleeping pill. The two buildings were completely deserted; the only two people awake were Elisa and myself. It was the ideal moment to have a quiet word with her. What would you have done in my position?”

Balistreri didn’t reply. He was transported back to that afternoon. He was hot, half-drunk, and excited about that evening, when he wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted. He saw it all in slow motion, second by second.

I wanted to go up and see her
.

Manfredi continued, “I hoped maybe she liked me at least a little. I knew she wasn’t going out with Valerio, but I suspected she was seeing someone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was obsessed. I kept going from my room to the terrace and back. I took several showers. In the end I made up my mind.”

The truth. The truth you confessed to Cardinal Alessandrini.

“I saw Gina Giansanti go up and then leave.”

“What time was it?”

“I think it was a little after five. I went down, then crossed through the interconnecting basements so Gina Giansanti wouldn’t see me from the gatehouse. Then I went up the stairs. The door was closed. I knocked and called out to Elisa. She let me in and said she was happy to see me. She asked me for some help with her new computer. I fixed the problem she was having.”

Balistreri looked toward the window of Elisa Sordi’s office. Behind the closed blinds he saw Linda Nardi’s dark living room the previous evening. He could imagine what came next.

“Elisa kissed me on the cheek to thank me. I tried to kiss her on the mouth. She politely pushed me away. She was smiling. But then I glimpsed my own face in the mirror and thought she was laughing at me. I lost it.”

Someone who fights monsters has to be careful not to turn into a monster himself. If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss starts to stare back at you.

“I shoved her and she flew against the wall. I held her wrists with one hand and tore at her blouse and bra with the other. She offered no resistance at all; she was paralyzed with fear.”

Manfredi stopped. He didn’t appear upset at the memory. He must have gone over it thousands of times with his psychiatrist in Kenya. He was just pausing to give Balistreri a chance to take it all in.

“When she didn’t react, I turned into an animal. I punched her in the face. I think I broke her cheekbone. Her head hit the wall, hard, and she fell to the floor. I stood and watched her for a while. She was breathing softly. Eventually, I calmed down a little. I took a compact from her bag and held the mirror in front of her mouth to check whether it fogged up. She was breathing.”

“So, Elisa was alive?”

“Absolutely. But I didn’t know what to do. I was desperate. I could hear the elevator traveling to the floor above. I was shaking with fear. Then I heard Angelo Dioguardi ring the bell and say hello to Cardinal Alessandrini. So I took Elisa’s keys, which were in the door, locked the office, and hurried back here through the basement. It took me less than five minutes.”

“And you did nothing to the girl while she was passed out?”

“You want to know if I put out several cigarettes on her and suffocated her? Absolutely not.”

Balistreri decided to press on further. He could have come back at another time to carve the letter O.

“And once you were home what did you do?”

Manfredi looked at him calmly. “What would you have done?”

“I would have called my father, especially if he was a powerful man.”

“I called him immediately from the telephone by the balcony and told him everything. He ordered me to go to my room and not move from there. He said he would be home in a couple of minutes and would take care of everything. Before I went back to my room, I looked out with my binoculars and saw you, Balistreri. You were smoking a cigarette near the gatehouse, chatting with Gina Giansanti. Then I went straight to my room.”

I looked up toward the balcony of Building A. A fleeting reflection, then nothing. Manfredi was acting shy that day.

“My father sent Ulla away and gave me a sedative to calm me down. He promised me that my life would change, that our relatives in Africa would help. He would talk to Elisa and apologize; he would give her a permanent job. In those few interminable moments my life was decided. For better or worse.”

I stopped to look up at her window. It was the only one open, and this time there was a flower on the windowsill. She must have put it there when the sun was no longer as strong. I still didn’t know what to do, so I stayed there for a couple of minutes, thinking about her. Then I got into the elevator. When the doors opened on the cardinal’s landing, Angelo was standing there.

“I gave Elisa’s office keys to my father. He told me to act normal and go to the gym until the guests arrived for the game. A person he trusted would talk to Elisa while he went to his appointment with the minister of the interior.”

Balistreri remembered it clearly.

“I saw you leaving; he took the car with Ulla and you took your bike. But you didn’t go to the gym.”

Manfredi told him exactly the same version of events as the cardinal had. He was with Ulla at the cardinal’s. The count didn’t know about this part. He would rather have gone to prison than told him.

“What about the next day, when Elisa’s body couldn’t be found and the police arrived?”

Manfredi said, “My father never told me what happened. That night after the game, he told me to deny having seen Elisa Sordi that day.”

“You didn’t ask him for an explanation when they fished Elisa’s body out of the Tiber?”

“I didn’t have the courage. You don’t know my father. He told me again that I should deny having seen Elisa Sordi that day. I asked him if he believed I’d left her alive. He told me it didn’t matter. When things died down, he was going to send me to Kenya and I’d be happy there. Even as you were taking me away, he told me to hang tough and be patient and everything would be sorted out.”

“And your mother? Didn’t she suggest you use her as an alibi? You could have said you and she were together with Cardinal Alessandrini.”

“She was too upset, and then the next day she killed herself.”

“Manfredi, I need to speak to your father right away.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that until tomorrow evening. He went away three days ago. He’s with his brother, Giuliano, and my cousin Rinaldo in Uganda; they’re sailing down the White Nile in an area that even satellite phone can’t reach. But tomorrow afternoon he’ll be in Nairobi. From there he’s flying to Frankfurt. We’re meeting there Monday morning, then I’m going back to Africa and he’s coming back to Rome. You can see him then.”

“So you maintain that you don’t know what your father did that day. And expect me to find out the truth? After twenty-four years?!” Balistreri asked, furious.

“We’ve never spoken about Elisa Sordi again. It’s as if she never existed. He never asked me if I killed her and I never asked him how she came to be killed or what happened to her body. Someone killed Elisa Sordi after I attacked her. You accused me because it was the most obvious answer. Ulla killed herself because she saw no way out.”

Balistreri looked him in the eye. “Don’t you feel any remorse for what you did to Elisa Sordi?”

Manfredi turned to look at what had been Elisa’s office window.

“I can look at that window today, Balistreri, better than you can. I still come back here, and I bet you’ve avoided walking down this street ever since. Remorse is useless. Look at what I’ve done for the poor in Africa, while you can’t even sleep at night.”

Manfredi stared at him with something worse than hate—something deeper and more painful.

“It’s time you made yourself useful, Balistreri. You look like hell. Go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, take a shower, shave, and eat a good breakfast. If your mind is in the same condition as your body, that missing girl doesn’t stand a chance.”

Balistreri got up. At the door Manfredi said good-bye without shaking his hand.

“At least try to save this girl, Balistreri, rather than your own soul.”

Evening

Balistreri returned to the office at ten, exhausted. Ajello was nowhere to be found. Corvu had checked his home, but his wife said he had left on a business trip and she didn’t know where he was. They had checked with border control, the ports, and the airports, but there was no trace of him.

Balistreri decided he needed to talk to Hagi again and tell him all that he’d done to save Fiorella Romani, if she was still alive. The Prosecutor was absolutely against sharing confidential information with Hagi, such as what had been learned from Valerio and Manfredi, but Floris was in agreement with Balistreri. He called Avvocato Morandi on his cell phone and suggested an informal chat without lawyers, just Balistreri and Hagi alone in the prison courtyard. Morandi was helpful and said he would suggest it to Hagi right away. Ten minutes later Balistreri called Floris back to say that Hagi was agreeable.

Corvu and Piccolo went with Balistreri to Regina Coeli by car around eleven. They had to switch on the siren to get through the heavy Saturday night traffic. Trastevere’s bars and restaurants were humming with sunburned crowds fresh from the beach—coated with moisturizing cream and now in need of drinks, amusement, and a cool breeze.

Balistreri was shattered at the end of an interminable day that had begun at dawn with the trip to Gina Giansanti in Lecce. But saving Fiorella Romani allowed no time to pause.

Hagi was ready and waiting, handcuffed, in the prison courtyard. Balistreri coud see that since he last saw him, Hagi’s physical state had deteriorated; his cough was heavier, continuous. His body was quickly being eaten up, but his black soul was still thriving.

“I’m a dying man, but you look worse than I do. Take off my handcuffs and light me a cigarette.”

Balistreri did as he asked. The yard was empty but floodlit. The air was cool, and the traffic and general racket of Trastevere were just discernible. They walked and smoked.

“I did what you asked, Mr. Hagi.”

“Good. I’m listening.”

“First you have to give me your word that Fiorella Romani is still alive.”

Hagi’s deep black eyes stared at him with curiosity. “You’ll take my word for it?”

“In this case, yes.”

“I can’t be sure she’s alive, but she was in the best of health when you arrested me and I have no reason to believe she’s dead. Now tell me who killed Elisa Sordi.”

Balistreri told him the information he’d gotten from Gina Giansanti, Cardinal Alessandrini, Valerio Bona, and Manfredi. Hagi nodded and listened.

“That’s all?” he asked finally.

“I still have to question the count and Ajello; without them we’re at a standstill.”

“Why is that?” Hagi asked.

“Because we have to know what the count did with those keys and how he took care of Elisa. Did he send Ajello, or did he go himself? Was she dead or alive? Do you have anything you want to share?”

Hagi said, “This case is yours and has been for twenty-four years.”

“But everyone lied,” Balistreri protested.

“Exactly. Everyone lied, despite the fact that you Catholics have a commandment against it, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Mr. Hagi, I’ll do anything you ask me to do, but I want Fiorella Romani alive and back with her mother. We can’t wait until the count comes back the day after tomorrow. It’ll be too late.”

“That’s true, it will be too late,” Hagi said. That sentence hung in the air with brutal force.

Hagi looked at him in silence. Balistreri felt fatigue coming over him in waves, together with the memory of his attack on Linda Nardi and the image of Fiorella Romani tied up in a cave. His body was giving in to sleep while his brain was fighting to stay awake, grasping at the hope of saving Fiorella. Suddenly another image made its way into the fog of his mind.

“You were on the hill the night they shot me,” he said.

“Of course I was. I was the boss,” Hagi admitted.