The Lost Girls of Rome (48 page)

With her skill as a doctor, Monica had snatched her from certain death. Then she had put on a performance for the police, substituting herself for Marcus in the scene and assuming responsibility for shooting Jeremiah. Before they arrived, she had wiped Marcus’s prints from the gun and put her own on it. It wasn’t revenge, she emphasised, but self-defence. Everything suggested that they believed her.

Now, Sandra saw Monica coming towards her in the corridor after being questioned for the umpteenth time. But she didn’t seem tired.

‘So, how are you?’ she asked, smiling cheerfully.

‘Fine,’ Sandra said, clearing her throat. Her voice was still hoarse from the breathing tube, and every muscle in her body hurt. But at
least the horrible sensation of paralysis had passed. An anaesthetist had helped her to gradually put behind her the effects of the succinylcholine. It was like being resuscitated. ‘Even slaps in the face teach you to grow, as your father says, if I’m not mistaken.’

They laughed. It had been pure chance that Monica had come back to the intensive care department the previous night. Sandra hadn’t asked why, but Monica had told her that she didn’t know what had driven her to return. ‘Maybe it was because of the little chat we had earlier, I don’t know.’

Sandra wasn’t sure whether to thank Monica for that, or fate, or else someone up there who made sure every now and again that things worked out. Whether it was God or her husband didn’t make much difference to her.

Monica bent towards Sandra and hugged her. There was no need for words. They stayed like that for a few seconds. Then the young doctor gave Sandra a kiss on the cheek and took her leave.

Distracted by watching Monica walk away, she had not noticed Superintendent Camusso approaching.

‘She’s a nice girl,’ he said.

Sandra turned to look at him. He was dressed completely in blue: blue jacket, blue trousers, blue shirt, blue tie. She would have bet on it that even his socks were blue. The only exception was his white moccasins. If it hadn’t been for his shoes and his hair, Camusso would have blended into the furniture and walls of the intensive care unit like a chameleon.

‘I’ve been talking to your superior, Inspector De Michelis. He’s coming from Milan to pick you up.’

‘No, damn it. Why didn’t you stop him? I was planning to leave tonight.’

‘He told me an interesting story about you.’

Sandra started to fear the worst.

‘Apparently you were right, Officer Vega. Congratulations.’

She was startled. ‘Right about what?’

‘The gas fire and the carbon monoxide. The husband who shoots his wife and son after the shower, and then goes back into the bathroom and faints, knocks his head and dies.’

The summary was perfect, but the outcome wasn’t clear. ‘Did the pathologist get to hear my theory?’

‘He not only heard it, he agreed with it.’

Sandra couldn’t believe it. This wouldn’t make things any better. But the truth is always a consolation. Just as in the case of David, she thought. Now that she knew who had killed him, she felt free to let him go.

‘All the departments in the hospital are monitored by security cameras, did you know that?’

The statement had come out of the blue, and a shudder went through Sandra. She hadn’t thought of that. The version of events provided by Monica and corroborated by her was in danger. Marcus was in danger. ‘Have you seen the tapes?’

Camusso gave a grimace. ‘Apparently, the security cameras in intensive care were out of order because of the storms of the past few days. So there’s no record of what happened here. A pity, don’t you think?’

Sandra tried not to appear relieved.

But Camusso had something else to add. ‘You did know the Gemelli hospital belongs to the Vatican, didn’t you?’

It wasn’t a chance statement, there was an insinuation in it, which Sandra ignored.

‘Why are you telling me that?’

Camusso shrugged, gave her a sidelong look, but decided not to go further into the matter. ‘Oh, just curiosity.’

Before he could go on, Sandra rose from her chair. ‘Could you ask someone to take me back to my hotel?’

‘I’ll take you. I don’t have anything else to do here.’

Sandra hid her disappointment behind a false smile. ‘All right, but there’s somewhere I’d like to go first.’

Camusso had an old Lancia Fulvia, which he kept in perfect condition. Getting in the car, Sandra had the impression she was going back in time. The interior smelled as if it had just come from the showroom. The rain was still falling steadily, but the bodywork seemed incredibly clean.

Camusso drove her to the address she had given him. On the way, they listened to a radio station broadcasting hits of the sixties. They drove down the Via Veneto and Sandra felt as if she was back in the time of the Dolce Vita.

This anachronistic tour ended outside the building that housed the Interpol guest apartment.

As she climbed the stairs, Sandra was hoping with all her heart that she would meet Schalber. She was far from sure she would find him here, but she had to try. She had a thousand things to tell him, and above all she was expecting him to tell her something. For example, that he was pleased she had survived, even though it had been stupid on her part to cover her tracks: if he had followed her to the Gemelli the previous evening, things might have been very different. When you came down to it, Schalber had only been trying to protect her.

But what she would have liked to hear him say more than anything else was that it would be nice to see each other again in the future. They had made love, and she had liked it. She didn’t want to lose him. She might not want to admit it yet, but she was falling in love with him.

Reaching the landing, she found the door open. She didn’t hesitate: filled with hope, she walked in. Hearing noises coming from the kitchen, she went straight to it. But when she got there, she saw another man, wearing a very smart blue suit.

All she could say to him was ‘Hello.’

He looked at her in surprise. ‘Haven’t you brought your husband?’

Sandra didn’t understand, but hastened to clear up any misunderstanding. ‘Actually, I was looking for Thomas Schalber.’

The man thought this over. ‘Maybe he was a previous occupant.’

‘I think he’s a colleague of yours. Don’t you know him?’

‘As far as I’m aware, the only agency handling the sale is ours. And there’s nobody of that name working for us.’

Sandra was starting to understand, even though it wasn’t at all clear to her. ‘You’re from an estate agency?’

‘Didn’t you see our sign on the front door?’ the man said in an affected tone. ‘The apartment is for sale.’

She didn’t know whether to be more upset or surprised. ‘How long has it been on the market?’

The man seemed puzzled by the question. ‘Nobody’s lived here for more than six months.’

She didn’t know what to say. No explanation that came to mind seemed especially convincing.

The man approached her. ‘I’m expecting some potential buyers,’ he said affably. ‘But if you’d like to have a look around in the meantime …’

‘No, thanks,’ Sandra replied. ‘I made a mistake, I’m sorry.’ She turned to go.

‘If the furniture’s not to your taste, you’re not obliged to take it. We can deduct it from the price.’

She ran back down the stairs, so quickly that by the time she got to the ground floor she felt dizzy and had to lean against the wall. After a couple of minutes, she went out on the street and got back in Camusso’s car.

‘You look pale. Do you want me to take you back to the hospital?’

‘I’m fine.’ But it wasn’t true. She was furious. Another deception of Schalber’s. Was it possible that everything he’d told her was a lie? So what had that night they had spent together been all about?

‘Who were you looking for in that building?’ Camusso asked.

‘A friend who works for Interpol. But he wasn’t there and I don’t know where he is.’

‘I can find him for you, if you like. I know some people who work in the Rome office of Interpol. I can give them a call. It’s no trouble.’

Sandra felt she had to see this through to the end. She couldn’t go back to Milan with that question unresolved: she had to know if Schalber felt for her even a fraction of what she felt for him. ‘Thanks, I’d really appreciate that.’

1.55 p.m.

Bruno Martini had gone to ground in one of the garages in the courtyard of the apartment block where he lived. He had turned it
into a kind of laboratory. His pastime was small repairs. He repaired domestic appliances, but also dabbled in carpentry and mechanics. When Marcus saw him beneath the raised metal shutter, he was working on the engine of a Vespa.

Martini didn’t notice him as he approached. The rain was coming down as vertically as a curtain, and he didn’t see him until he was very close. On his knees next to the scooter, he looked up and recognised Marcus. ‘What do you want with me now?’

He was a mountain of a man, with muscles strong enough to face the trials and tribulations of life, but his daughter’s disappearance had left him feeling powerless. His quick temper was the one thing still protecting him from complete collapse. Marcus didn’t blame him. ‘Can we talk?’

Martini thought about it for a moment. ‘Come inside. You’re getting wet.’ He got to his feet, wiping the palms of his hands on his grease-stained overalls. ‘I talked to Camilla Rocca this morning,’ he said. ‘She was quite upset. Now she knows she’ll never have justice.’

‘That’s not why I’m here. Unfortunately I can’t do anything more for her.’

‘Sometimes it’s better not to know.’

He was surprised to hear Martini say this: a father who would do everything he could to find his daughter, who had bought a weapon illegally, turned himself into a lone avenger, stood up to the authorities. He wondered if he had done the right thing to come. ‘What about you? Don’t you still want to know the truth about what happened to Alice?’

‘For three years I’ve been looking for her as if she was alive but mourning her as if she was dead.’

‘That’s no answer,’ Marcus replied with equal sharpness.

‘Do you know what it means not to be able to die?’ Martini went on, lowering his eyes a little. ‘It means continuing to live without any choice, like an immortal. But think about it, what kind of sentence is that? Well, I won’t be able to die until I discover what happened to Alice. I have to stay here and suffer.’

‘Why are you so hard on yourself?’

‘Three years ago I was still a smoker.’

Marcus wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but he let him continue.

‘That day at the park, I’d walked away to smoke a cigarette when Alice disappeared. Her mother was also there, but I was supposed to be the one watching her. I’m her father, it was my job. Instead I got distracted.’

For Marcus, that answer was sufficient. He put his hand in his pocket and took out the file that Clemente had given him.

c.g. 294-21-12.

He opened it and took out a sheet of paper. ‘What I’m about to tell you has one condition attached to it: you mustn’t ask me how I found out and you mustn’t ever say that you heard it from me. Agreed?’

Martini looked at him, puzzled. ‘All right.’ There was a new note deep in his voice. It was hope.

‘I warn you that what I’m going to tell you won’t be pleasant. Do you feel ready?’

‘Yes,’ Martini said in a thin voice.

Marcus tried to be delicate. ‘Three years ago, Alice was kidnapped by a man and taken abroad.’

‘How can that be?’

‘He’s a psychopath: he thinks his dead wife has been reincarnated in your daughter. That’s why he took her.’

‘So …’ He couldn’t believe it.

‘Yes, she’s still alive.’

Martini’s eyes filled with tears: the human mountain was on the verge of collapse.

Marcus held out the sheet of paper he had in his hand. ‘Here is everything you need to trace her. But you mustn’t do it alone, promise me.’

‘I promise.’

‘At the bottom of the page there’s the telephone number of a specialist in tracing missing persons, especially children. Get in touch with her. She’s an excellent police officer, so I’m told. Her name is Mila Vasquez.’

Martini took the sheet of paper and stared at it, without knowing what to say.

‘I have to go now.’

‘Wait.’

Marcus stopped, but Martini couldn’t speak. Silent sobs shook his chest. Marcus knew what was going through his mind. Martini wasn’t only thinking about Alice. For the first time, he was envisaging the possibility of reuniting his family. His wife, who had left him because of the way he had reacted to the disappearance, might return to him, along with his other child. And they would love each other again as they once had.

‘I don’t want Camilla Rocca to know,’ Martini said. ‘At least, not yet. It would be terrible for her to know that there’s a hope for Alice, while her son Filippo will never come back again.’

‘I have no intention of telling her. Still, she has her own family.’

Martini lifted his head and looked at him in surprise. ‘What family? Her husband left her two years ago, he started a new life with another woman, they even have a child. That’s what brought the two of us together.’

Marcus remembered the note he had seen in Camilla’s house, stuck to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a crab.

I’ll see you in ten days. I love you.

God alone knew how long it had been there. But there was something else that disturbed him, even though he didn’t know what it was. ‘I have to go,’ he said to Martini. And before the man could thank him, he turned and plunged once again through the curtain of rain.

The rain had slowed the traffic, and it took him nearly two hours to get to Ostia. The bus dropped him at a roundabout on the seafront, and from there he continued on foot.

Camilla Rocca’s car wasn’t parked on the little path, but Marcus stood for a while in the rain looking at the house, to make sure there was no one in it. Then he walked to the entrance and before long was again inside the house.

Nothing had changed since his visit the day before. The
furnishings in nautical style, the sand crunching under his shoes. The washing machine in the kitchen, though, had not been turned off properly and was dripping. The sound of it mingled with the rain pouring outside.