The Whisperer (36 page)

“Usually, but this time he made an exception.”

“Why was that?”

The special agent stared at her: “There was a survivor.”

You don’t survive a serial killer.

Weeping, despairing, pleading, they’re all pointless. On the contrary, they feed the murderer’s sadistic pleasure. The prey’s only hope is flight. But fear, panic, the inability to understand what’s happening all play to the predator’s advantage.

Still, in a few rare cases, the serial killer doesn’t manage to complete his killing. It happens because just as he is about to finish off the act, something—a brake suddenly activated by a phrase or gesture from the victim—stops him.

That was why Cynthia Pearl was a survivor.

“She said something to him…it came to her spontaneously, perhaps it was panic, I don’t know. She said, ‘Please, when I’m dead take care of my son. His name is Rick and he’s five years old’…She couldn’t believe she’d done it afterwards, but it saved her.”

“It halted his rage.”

“He dropped her off at a parking lot. As they walked, ‘In the Midnight Hour’ came on the radio…then she fainted and woke again in hospital: she didn’t remember a thing. We asked her how she’d got those injuries and she had no idea. Even when we showed her Gorka’s photograph, his face meant nothing…Until one Tuesday afternoon, she was at home alone and turned on the radio. They were playing the same Wilson Pickett song. It was only then that the memory came rushing back.” Stern threw down his cigarette and returned to the building.

Mila understood that the team had given Gorka the nickname only after he had been caught. And they had chosen it as a warning and a reminder of all their mistakes.

Goran Gavila’s team had fallen to pieces. And the investigation had collapsed with it. And the other thing that was shattered was the hope of saving little Sandra, who was now, somewhere, using up the last of the energy that still kept her alive. In the end she would have been killed not by a serial killer with a made-up name, but by the selfishness and shortcomings of other men and other women.

This was the best finale that Albert could have imagined
.

As she was formulating those thoughts, Mila saw Goran’s face appearing in the glass door in front of her. He was behind her. But he wasn’t looking into the building. He was looking for her eyes in the reflection.

Mila turned round. They looked at one another for a long time, in silence. They were united by the same discomfort, the same distress. It was natural to lean towards him, close her eyes and try to find his lips. To plunge her own into his mouth, and for him to respond.

Dirty water poured down on the city. It flooded the streets, poured down the manhole covers, the gutters tirelessly swallowed it up and spat it back out again. The taxi had brought them to a small hotel near the station. The facade was blackened by smog and the shutters were always closed, because the people who stayed there had no time to open them.

There was a constant bustle of people. And the beds were constantly being remade. In the corridors, sleepless chambermaids pushed squeaking trolleys of linen and pieces of soap. Breakfast trays arrived at all hours. Some people stopped there only to freshen up and change their clothes. And some came to make love.

The porter gave them the key to room 23.

They went up in the elevator, without saying a word, holding one another by the hand. But not like lovers. Like two people afraid of losing one another.

In the room, mismatched furniture, spray deodorant and stale nicotine. They kissed again. More intensely this time. As if to shed their thoughts before they shed their clothes.

He rested a hand on one of her little breasts. She closed her eyes.

The light from a Chinese restaurant sign filtered through, gleaming with rain, and carved out their shadows in the darkness.

Goran began undressing her.

Mila let him do it, waiting for his reaction.

First he revealed her flat belly, then rose, kissing her, towards her chest.

The first scar appeared, level with her hip.

He slipped off her sweater with infinite grace.

And saw the others.

But his eyes didn’t linger on them. That task was reserved for his lips.

To Mila’s great surprise, he began to kiss those old wounds, very slowly. As if he could somehow heal them.

When he slipped off her jeans, he repeated the operation on her legs. Where the blood was still flesh, or had just congealed. Where the blade had recently paused, before plunging into the living flesh.

Mila felt again all the anguish she had felt when inflicting that punishment on her soul through her body. But along with that old pain, there was now something sweet.

Like the tickle of a healing wound, at once stinging and pleasant.

Then it was her turn to undress him. She did it as you take the petals from a flower. He too wore the signs of suffering. A thin ribcage, slowly dug from despair. And protruding bones where the flesh had been consumed by sadness.

They made love with strange violence. Full of anger, of rage, but also of urgency. As if each of them, with that act, were trying to pour all of themselves into the body of the other. And for a moment they even managed to forget.

When it was all over, they were left there side by side—separate but still united—listening to the rhythm of their own breathing. Then the question came, disguised as silence. But Mila could see it floating above them like a black bird.

It concerned the origins of the pain, her pain and his.

Which was first imprinted on her flesh and which she then tried to hide with her clothes.

And inevitably, the interrogation was interwoven with the fate of a child,
Sandra
. As they exchanged that feeling, she—somewhere, near or far—was dying.

Anticipating the words, Mila explained. “My work consists in finding missing people. Especially children. Some of them have been away for whole years, and then they don’t remember anything. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But perhaps it’s the aspect of my job that causes me the most problems…”

“Why?” asked Goran, interested.

“Because when I lower myself into the darkness to pull someone out, I always have to find a motive, a strong reason to bring myself back into the light. It’s a kind of safety rope to bring me back. Because, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the darkness calls to you, it seduces you with its pull. And it’s hard to resist the temptation…When I come out with the person I’ve rescued, I’m aware that we’re not alone. There’s always something else that comes with us out of that black hole, stuck to our shoes. And it’s hard to get rid of.”

Goran turned to look into her eyes. “Why are you telling me?”

“Because it’s from darkness that I come. And to darkness that I must, from time to time, return.”

S
he is leaning against the wall, with her hands behind her back, in the shadows. How long has she been there, staring at her?

Then she decides to call her. “Gloria…”

And she comes over.

She has the usual curiosity in her face, but this time there’s something different. A doubt.

“I’ve remembered one thing…I used to have a cat,” says Gloria.

“I’ve got one too: he’s called Houdini.”

“Is he nice?”

“He’s mean.” But she immediately knows that that’s not the answer the little girl wants from her, and corrects herself: “Yes. He has white and brown fur, he’s always sleeping and he’s always hungry.”

Gloria thinks about that for a moment, then asks again: “Why do you think I’d forgotten mine?”

“I don’t know.”

“I thought…if I forgot him, I’ll forget lots of other things as well. Maybe even my real name.”

“I like ‘Gloria,’” she says encouragingly, thinking of her reaction when she told her that her real name was Linda Brown.

“Gloria…”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell me about Steve?”

“Steve loves us. And soon you’ll come to love him too.”

“Why do you say he saved us?”

“Because it’s true. He did.”

“I didn’t need to be saved by him.”

“You didn’t know, but you were in danger.”

“Is Frankie the danger?”

Gloria is afraid of the name. She’s undecided. She doesn’t know whether to speak or not. She weighs up the situation, then comes closer to the bed and speaks in a very low voice.

“Frankie wants to hurt us. He’s looking for us. That’s why we have to stay hidden here.”

“I don’t know who Frankie is, or why he’s angry with me.”

“He isn’t angry with us, he’s angry with our parents.”

“With mine? Why?”

She can’t believe it, it sounds like a ridiculous story. But Gloria is very convinced.

“Our parents swindled him, something to do with money.”

Once again she sounds like she’s saying something borrowed from someone else, and passively learned by heart.

“My parents don’t owe money to anybody.”

“My mother and father are dead. Frankie killed them. Now he’s after me to finish the job. But Steve is sure that he won’t find me if I stay here.”

“Gloria, listen to me…”

Every now and again Gloria wanders off, and she has to go and get her from wherever she has ended up in her thoughts.

“Gloria, I’m talking to you…”

“Yes, what is it?”

“Your parents are alive. I remembered seeing you on TV a while ago: they were on a talk show and they were talking about you. They were wishing you a happy birthday.”

She doesn’t look surprised by the revelation. But now she starts considering the possibility that it’s all true.

“I can’t see the TV. Only the tapes Steve gives me.”

“Steve. Steve is the bad man, Gloria. Frankie doesn’t exist. He’s only an invention of Steve’s to keep you prisoner here.”

“He exists.”

“Think about it: have you ever seen him?”

She thinks about it. “No.”

“So why do you believe in him?”

Even if Gloria is the same age as her, she seems much younger than her twelve years. It’s as if her brain had stopped growing when she was nine. When, that is, Steve had kidnapped Linda Brown. That’s why she always needs to think about things a bit.

“Steve loves me,” she repeats, more to convince herself than anything else.

“No, Gloria. He doesn’t love you.”

“So you’re saying that if I try and leave here, Frankie won’t kill me?”

“It’ll never happen. And we’re going to leave together, you won’t be alone.”

“Will you be with me?”

“Yes. But we have to find a way to escape Steve.”

“But you’re ill.”

“I know. And I can’t move my arm.”

“It’s broken.”

“How did that happen? I don’t remember…”

“You fell down the stairs together when Steve brought you here. He’s very angry about it: he doesn’t want you to die. And then he won’t be able to teach you how to love him. That’s very important, do you know that?”

“I’ll never love him.”

Gloria takes a couple of seconds. “I like the name Linda.”

“I’m glad you like it, because it’s your real name.”

“So you can call me that…”

“All right, Linda.” She articulates it clearly, and she smiles at her. “So now we’re friends.”

“Really?”

“When you swap names you become friends, didn’t anyone tell you that?”

“I already knew your name…you’re Maria Eléna.”

“Yes, but all my friends call me Mila.”

T
he bastard’s name was Steve,
Steve Smitty
.”

Mila uttered the name with contempt, as Goran held her hand on the three-quarter-sized hotel bed.

“He was just an idiot who’d never done anything with his life. He moved from one stupid job to another, and couldn’t hold one down for as much as a month. Most of the time he was unemployed. When his parents died he had inherited a house—the one in which he kept us prisoner—and the money from a life insurance policy. Not much, but enough to let us bring his ‘grand plan’ to life at last!”

She said it with exaggerated emphasis. Then she shook her head on the pillow, thinking of the absurdity of the story.

“Steve liked girls, but he didn’t dare to approach them because his penis was the size of a little finger and he was afraid they’d laugh at him.” A mocking, vindictive smile brightened her features for a moment. “So he started taking an interest in children, sure that he’d have more success with them.”

“I remember the Linda Brown case,” said Goran. “I’d just been given my first chair at university. I thought the police had made a few mistakes.”

“Mistakes? They made a complete mess of it! Steve was an unskilled slob, he’d left a trail of clues and witnesses behind! They couldn’t find him straightaway, so they said he was clever. When in fact he was a complete fool! A very lucky fool…”

“But he had managed to convince Linda…”

“He had tortured her, exploiting her fear. He had invented this evil character—Frankie—and given him the role of the bad guy, so that he could set himself up as the good one, the ‘savior.’ That imbecile hadn’t even had much imagination: he’d called him Frankie because it was the name of a turtle he had when he was a child!”

“It worked.”

Mila calmed down. “With a child who was terrified and distressed. It’s easy to lose your sense of reality in those conditions. All along I thought I was in some damned basement, and called it the ‘belly of the monster.’ But there was a house above me, and the house was in a suburban area with a lot of other houses around it, all the same, all normal. People walked by and didn’t know I was down there. The worst thing about it was that Linda—or Gloria, as he had rechristened her, giving her the name of the first girl who had rejected him—could move freely. But she didn’t even think of going outside, even though the front door was practically always open. He didn’t lock it even when he went out for a walk, he was so sure that the story of Frankie would work!”

“You were lucky to get out alive.”

“My arm was almost in a state of necrosis. For a long time the doctors despaired of saving it. And I was starving, too. The bastard gave me baby food and treated me with out-of-date medicine that he stole from a pharmacy dump. He didn’t need to drug me: my blood was so poisoned by that filth that it was a real miracle that I was conscious!”

The rain outside was pelting down, washing the streets of leftover snow. Sudden gusts of wind shook the blinds.

“Once I woke from that kind of coma because I’d heard someone say my name. I’d also tried to attract attention, but Linda had appeared and persuaded me to stop. So I’d bartered my safety for the small happiness of not being alone. But I hadn’t been mistaken: up above me there really had been two police officers scouring the area. They were still looking for me! If I had called out more loudly, perhaps they would have heard me. Basically we were separated only by a thin wooden floor. There was a woman with them, and she had been the one who called my name. But she hadn’t done it with her voice, just her mind.”

“It was Nicla Papakidis, wasn’t it? That’s how you met her…”

“Yes, it was. But even though I didn’t reply, she had still heard something. So she had come back over the next few days, she’d walked around outside the house in the hope of hearing me again…”

“So it wasn’t Linda who saved you…”

Mila snorted. “Her? She always went and told Steve everything. She was his small and involuntary accomplice by now. For three years he had been her whole world. As far as she knew, Steve was the last adult left on earth. And children always trust adults. But Steve had already thought of getting rid of me. He was sure that I would die soon, so he had prepared a hole in the shed behind the house.”

The photographs in the newspapers of that hole had struck her more than anything else.

“When I left that house I was more dead than alive. I didn’t notice the paramedics carrying me away on the stretcher, up the same stairs that that klutz Steve had dropped me down when he’d been carrying me to the basement. I couldn’t see the dozens of policemen gathering around the house. I didn’t hear the applause of the crowd that had collected there to celebrate my freedom. But I was accompanied by Nicla’s voice, which was still describing everything to me and telling me not to go towards the light…”

“What light?” Goran asked curiously.

Mila smiled. “She was convinced that there was one. Perhaps because of her faith, she believed that when we die we become detached from our bodies, and after we have gone quickly down a tunnel, a beautiful light appears to us…I’ve never told her that I didn’t see anything. Just darkness. I didn’t want to disappoint her.”

Goran leaned over her and kissed her on the shoulder. “It must have been terrible.”

“I was lucky,” she said. And her thoughts ran suddenly to Sandra, girl number six. “I should have saved her. But I didn’t. What chance did she have of surviving?”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.”

Mila drew herself up, still sitting on the edge of the bed. Goran stretched an arm out towards her again. But he could no longer touch her. His caress touched her skin but couldn’t reach her, because she was far away again.

He noticed, and let her go. “I’m going to have a shower,” he said. “I have to go home, Tommy needs me.”

She stayed there motionless, still naked, until she heard the water running in the bathroom. She wanted to empty her mind of those horrible memories, to have a white void to fill with the weightless thoughts that children have, a privilege that had been torn from her.

The hole in the tool shed behind Steve’s house had not been left empty. Her ability to feel empathy had ended up in there.

She stretched out a hand to the bedside table and picked up the television remote. She turned it on in the hope that, like the water of Goran’s shower, meaningless chatter and images would wash away the remains of all the pain in her head.

On the screen a woman was clutching a microphone as wind and rain tried to carry her away. To her right was the logo of a television news program. Below her, the scrolling text of breaking news. In the background, a long way away, a house surrounded by dozens of police cars, their flashing lights splitting the night.

“…and in an hour Chief Inspector Roche will issue an official statement. Meanwhile I can confirm that the news is real: the maniac who has been terrorizing the country by kidnapping and killing innocent little girls has been identified…”

Mila couldn’t move, her eyes were fixed on the screen.

“…he is the offender, released on probation, who this morning opened fire on two correction officers who had visited his house for a routine check…”

Mila couldn’t believe it.

“…following the death in hospital of the wounded correction officer, the special units sent to the site decided to break in. It was only after killing the offender and entering the house, they made the unexpected and surprising discovery…”

“The little girl, tell me about the little girl!”

“…for the benefit of viewers who have just joined us: the name of the offender was Vincent Clarisso…”

“Albert,” Mila corrected her in her head.

“…Department inform us that the sixth child is still in the house behind me: we believe she is receiving first aid from a medical support team. We have no confirmation, but it would seem that little Sandra is still alive.”