60
It’s almost four a. m by the time the Carabinieri arrest team process their newest prisoner.
Down in the shower block a shameful freak show is under way. Soldiers crowd around to see the guy with no balls and the smallest penis known to man.
‘I should have sold fucking tickets. Get back to work!’ barks custody officer Piero la Malfa.
Outside, at the admissions counter, Federico Assante is trying to shrug off a heavy night’s drinking and go through the prisoner’s clothes. He got home after what everyone would admit was a pretty emotional day and decided drink was the best short cut to a place where all the shit with Caesario and Morassi had never happened.
Then Valentina had called.
That damned woman was relentless. Even when he didn’t answer the phone, she left haunting messages, the kind you can’t ignore, the type that keep the pressure on and don’t let you rest.
Federico pulls apart the stack of forensically bagged clothes in front of him. Black trainers, black socks, black jeans, black pants, black T-shirt, black hooded top and black gloves. That ball-less buffoon either has a black fetish or he dresses professionally for the night-time.
Federico is sure it’s not a fashion choice.
Black doesn’t only help burglars, robbers and rapists blend into the shadows; it completely screws eye- witness reports. Without distinctive clothing or something visually unique to tie to an offender, judges and juries are wary of any testimony that includes the phrase ‘I think it was black.’
The young lieutenant is dispirited. There’s nothing to give him a clue to the identity of the man, and so far the son-ofa-bitch hasn’t said a word.
Maybe he’s mute as well as ball-less.
Assante looks again at the prisoner’s sum possessions: two hundred euros, a handful of Kleenex tissues and a spool of old fishing line. The line is significant: it’s handy to tie people up or choke them with. Apart from that, there are car keys and an interesting piece of cheap jewellery.
It’s a black pendant on a rope necklace.
He gets a shiver as he turns it over in its clear forensic bag.
It’s exactly the same as the one the nurses at the hospital took from Anna.
‘Anything come back on his prints yet?’ Federico calls to la Malfa through the open door to the cell block.
‘ Domani! ’ comes the reply. ‘Why the fuck don’t you go upstairs to your own office and do the job yourself?’
‘Come on, man. I told you how much I’ve had to drink. I can barely search for the toilet. Give me some help here.’
‘ Vaffanculo stronzo! ’
‘Hey! Per favore.’
La Malfa stomps off somewhere.
Lazy fucker, thinks Assante. He’d have helped out if the tables had been turned.
He pulls up a second chair, puts his feet up and closes his eyes. Twenty minutes’ sleep is what he needs. A quick nap, then he’ll do the job himself.
Somewhere off in the distance he hears raised voices.
Iron doors clanging shut. Keys rattling. Drunks swearing. Someone throwing up. More swearing. Cops laughing.
The chunky old radiator he’s curled up next to coughs and hisses, and within a few minutes he’s drifted off.
‘You want this or not?’
Federico is still half-asleep, and the voice doesn’t really register.
‘I said, do you want this or not?’
La Malfa is standing over him, waving a piece of paper. ‘I’m knocking off. With a little luck I’ll be home before my wife wakes and starts bitching at me.’
Federico looks at his watch. Six-thirty a.m.
Unbelievable.
It feels like he shut his eyes ten seconds ago, not two hours back.
La Malfa slaps the paperwork on his chest. ‘We hit the jackpot with your guy’s prints. By the look of it, he’s got more history than Julius fucking Caesar.’
61
The room is so filthy, Tom and Valentina have spent the last few hours scratching or sneezing.
Their arms are still wrapped around each other as morning creeps icily through the gaps in the ragged curtains and beneath the ill-fitting bedroom door.
They’re huddled together, still dressed, on a stained mattress smelling of strangers long since gone.
They were both so tired when they got back from the hospital they just curled up tight and fell asleep.
Through the haze of waking, Valentina peers for her Mickey clock on the bedside cabinet, and realises it’s not there. A grim reminder – not that she needs one – of the blaze that destroyed her apartment, robbed her of parts of her own past and almost cost her a precious part of her future too.
She kisses Tom until he wakes. ‘Come on,’ she says softly, ‘let’s make love in the shower, then get out of here and find some breakfast.’
He’s still not ready to open his eyes. ‘God, woman, you’re insatiable. Is there not just time for me to wake first?’
She slides her body on top of his. ‘Nope. I’ll wake you in the shower.’
And she does.
She wakes him so well that neither of them complains about the barely warm drizzle that oozes painfully from a filthy shower caked in limescale.
A five-minute drive, just after eight a.m., finds them a bar that’s already filled with locals bolting espresso like shots of vodka before rushing off to work.
Valentina plates up croissants, jam, cheese, fruit, water and coffee. She pays, and joins Tom at a table in the corner beneath an overhead heater that sounds like it’s on its last legs. ‘I’m starving,’ she says, grabbing a croissant before she’s even sat down.
Tom takes everything off the old brown tray and slides it on to a spare table so they have more room. ‘I hope today isn’t quite as eventful as yesterday.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ She takes a slug of coffee and then looks straight into his eyes. ‘Before we talk work – all the nasty shit – I need to tell you something.’
‘What?’
She leans forward so that she can whisper. ‘I want to say that not only are you the best lover I’ve ever had, but I’ve never been happier in my life than I am right here, right now, with you.’
The sweetness catches Tom off guard.
He puts a hand to her beautiful face and kisses her a little longer than suitable for a public place.
What she said was a code for ‘I love you’ and he knows it. He just wishes he was more confident, more practised in expressing his own feelings, but he isn’t. It’s the price he has to pay for too many years as a priest.
A few ironic claps splatter across the tabletops around them.
‘I’m very happy as well,’ manages Tom.
Valentina blushes. ‘I can tell from that kiss.’
They both laugh and reach for their coffees.
