Louisa’s still playing catch-up. ‘She was hoping this prayer would keep her safe throughout her sleep?’
‘She was banking on it,’ answers Tom. ‘But safe from what? The Virgin Mary? That just doesn’t make sense.’
‘In my experience, DID patients often don’t.’
‘She didn’t say Virgin Mary,’ observes Valentina. ‘She said Holy Mother. Is there a difference?’
Tom has to think. ‘Theologically – and pedantically – maybe. Mary was a virgin before she was chosen by God to carry Jesus. At this point she would not have been a mother.’
Louisa interrupts them. ‘I think you’re chasing down the wrong alleyway, or should I say church aisle.’
They look to her to elaborate.
‘I think she meant holy in a sarcastic way. As in her own mother – a mother so holy she’s always right and never does any wrong.’
Valentina sees her point. ‘Could be. You’re thinking she’s traumatised by parental abuse?’
‘It would fit the pattern for dissociative identity disorder.’
‘How?’
‘Long story. Let me try to explain. Briefly, one day Anna gets abused by her mother.’
‘Physically or sexually?’ asks Valentina.
‘Doesn’t matter. Certainly not for the sake of this example. Anyway, she’s shocked and hurt by the abuse. Mother starts to make the abuse routine; this stresses Anna, who develops a mechanism to cope with it. So next time Mother comes seeking her kicks, Anna dissociates.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She imagines that she’s somewhere else and that whatever horrible thing her mother is doing is not happening to her. It’s happening to some other kid. Someone tough enough to take it.’
Distressing as it sounds, Valentina can see the logic. ‘Go on.’
Louisa does. ‘So, when Mother turns up to routinely abuse Anna, Anna routinely sends out her alter – Anna, a stronger and more detached side of her, to cope with the abuse. The longer this goes on, the more permanent the alter-Anna, probably Little Suzie Fratelli, as we’ve come to know her, becomes.’
‘How do you explain the others?’ asks Tom. ‘Cassandra, the Roman victim; Suzanna Grecoraci, the mother of two children; and Claudia from the Sabines.’
‘Sometimes a second or third abuser – or different levels of abuse – enters the dimension, and therefore a second or third alter is needed. As layers of trauma are added, more layers of alters – protection – are necessary.’
Tom hasn’t bought totally into the theory. ‘I know child abuse is one of the horrors of our modern-day world, but isn’t it usually the father, not the mother, who’s the offender? And isn’t it highly unusual for a mother to sexually abuse her own daughter?’
Valentina interrupts. ‘Yes, but not unheard of. And remember, it can be a stepmother as much as a mother. There’s a famous case in Britain of a serial killer who abused her daughter sexually, physically and psychologically for years. She and the girl’s father even killed her sister and buried her under a patio.’ Louisa becomes practical. ‘As I said earlier, now that we have her real name, we’ll search all the local doctors’ records for any history of physical, mental or sexual abuse.’
‘We’ll do the same,’ counters Valentina. ‘We’ll trace her mother and father and search for criminal records, social reports, anything that suggests incest or sexual assault from neighbours or extended family.’
Tom says nothing. He’s lost in his thoughts. Thoughts that suggest what’s going on could be even more than child abuse.
64
Guilio Brygus Angelis is brought into the interview room with handcuffs around his wrists and chains around his ankles.
Federico Assante introduces himself, sets a voice recorder whirring, reads him his rights and sits back without saying anything.
He wants to take stock.
This is an unusual case, with unusual victims. Now he’s face to face with an unusual suspect.
Angelis looks slender and harmless.
Certainly no giant.
At a guess, he weighs in at less than eleven stone. That said, he’s not carrying any body fat, and his arms are rippling with sinewy muscles. He certainly keeps himself fit; no doubt with some form of fight training. Federico wonders if there’s even a special martial art for eunuchs, like there is for Shaolin monks.
He studies the guy’s face.
No eyebrows.
Amazing how one missing feature messes up your whole appearance.
No beard line either. It gives him a strange softness that male models have. Metrosexuality.
The goon has the skin of a ten-year-old boy. Federico runs fingers over his own stubbly beard. It would be great not to shave again.
But not at the price of having your nuts cut off.
Then there are his eyes.
Federico has seen eyes like that before.
Many times before.
Savage eyes.
Criminal eyes.
Eyes that don’t blink when a fight’s about to break out. Eyes that don’t look away when there’s blood spilling and knives flashing under the street lights.
Now Federico’s got the measure of him.
He’s ready to start the interview.
‘So, Guilio, do you feel like talking to us today? Or do we just send your silent ass for trial on charges of breaking and entering, assault and maybe even the attempted murder of Anna Fratelli?’
Angelis is using his index finger to doodle in the dust on top of the interview table.
He finishes a line, lifts his eyes and lets a cold stare settle on the detective’s face.
Smug bastard.
A hard-working cop, but not that bright.
The fool thinks he’s much cleverer than he really is.
Thinks he knows what’s going on, but he doesn’t have a clue. He certainly has no idea about how wrong he’s got it. Okay, he’s smart enough and energetic enough to take some prints and use them to pull a rap sheet.
Big deal.
Sooner or later that was always going to happen.
And by now he’s probably also traced his home address and got some other fools to pull the place apart.
No matter.
They won’t find anything. Certainly nothing that will make any sense to them.
But they know about Anna.
And that’s a shame.
Anna should be invisible.
She shouldn’t be seen by jerks like the one sitting opposite him, or that woman detective and her big thug.
It would have been good to have spent more time with them.
To have dealt with them properly.
‘What’s it to be, Guilio? We talk, maybe try to work in some mitigation to the charges, or you go straight to court and look forward to an eternity of being ass-fucked in prison?’
