The Abomination Page 15

  What had happened in this room had taken place in a bubble, a separate world; one that had no connection with the world outside the investigation.

  Or so she told herself.

  Twenty-nine

  OH, SHIT.

  Kat woke up and knew, instantly, that she’d done something stupid the night before. She cursed herself. Why do I have to be so damn impulsive?

  There was no time to think about that now, though. The important thing was to look as if nothing had happened. The Carabinieri headquarters was a cauldron of gossip, particularly about sexual matters. It was one of the reasons she made it a rule never to sleep with colleagues, and why she told casual pickups she was a travel agent.

  Oh well: two rules broken in one night. But deep down, she knew it was rather more serious than that.

  The second reason for discretion was that she wasn’t sure how Aldo was going to feel about what had happened. In the cold light of day, having gone home to his wife and children, he would almost certainly be regretting the whole thing. Better for her to pretend it was no big deal.

  As she walked into the operations room she steeled herself to meet his eye with nothing more than a nod and a polite “Good morning, sir.” But in the event she didn’t need to. He was already in his glass-walled office, and she knew him well enough by now to understand that the expression of studied politeness on his face actually meant he was furious. With him was Prosecutor Marcello – sitting in Piola’s chair, she noticed. There was also a female carabiniere, and a woman whom Kat recognised from somewhere.

  Of course: the chambermaid from the Europa Hotel. Piola beckoned for her to join them. “Avvocato Marcello has been busy,” he said neutrally. “You remember Ema?”

  “Indeed.” Kat nodded to the chambermaid, who looked terrified.

  Marcello said, “Going through this lady’s statement, it struck me that it was somewhat patchy. I had an insight that she might be an illegal worker seeking to avoid drawing attention to herself. So I exercised my right to summon her before me personally, and suggested a favourable recommendation to the Office of Immigration if she gave a more complete account.” He held up a plastic-sheeted document. “I have it here.”

  Kat took it from him and scanned it.

  On one occasion I entered the room and found the two women kissing . . . On another occasion it was clear from the bedsheets that they had been making love . . . I believe on one occasion I heard the sound of a violent fight coming from their room . . .

  She glanced at the maid, who kept her eyes on the floor. “Ema? Is this true?”

  The girl nodded, a little reluctantly it seemed to Kat.

  “Well, this piece of paper certainly appears to corroborate your hypothesis, Avvocato,” Piola said with withering disinterest, as the female carabiniere took Ema away.

  “Correction, Colonel. This evidence . . .” Marcello gave the word a determined inflection, “is the first hard proof of motive in the case. And it also explains why the forensic material at the second crime scene is inconsistent. The maid was desperate to avoid the appearance of a crime, knowing that it would draw the attention of the police, so she cleaned up more thoroughly than you realised.”

  “On the other hand, sir, we have the link to organised crime offered by the body of Ricci Castiglione—” Piola began.

  Marcello cut him off. “It’s not a link, Colonel, because there is no proof of causality. A criminal has been killed by – you maintain – other criminals. The fact that he may also have been involved tangentially in your investigation is neither here nor there.”

  “We have a witness statement linking him to the crime scene.”

  Marcello frowned. “From who?”

  “A fisherman. He saw Ricci Castiglione’s boat at Poveglia on the night of the murder.”

  “But not Castiglione himself?”

  “No,” Piola admitted.

  “Then it’s hardly conclusive. Visiting the island may make him a potential witness, but it doesn’t turn our lovers into mobsters.” Marcello thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “But let’s say you’re right, and he is involved. Castiglione was visiting the island to meet a smuggling contact. Naturally, he was less than happy to discover that his rendezvous had been invaded by a couple of gay tourists intent on a secret ritual. Perhaps he was even offended by the priest’s robes – some of these fishermen can be very superstitious. So he shot one of them. Later, he realised that the other one might identify him. So he followed her to her hotel and shot her, too.”

  “Weighing down her body with her laptop. . .?”

  “. . . in order to make it look like a robbery,” Marcello concluded. “So you see, Colonel, the fact there was no weapon found beneath her hotel room yesterday also proves nothing – he might have taken it with him, and disposed of it later.”

  “We do, however, know that the weapon that killed both women was in all probability designed for US Special Forces.”

  Marcello shrugged. “Doubtless he trafficked it in from Bosnia or Croatia, along with the cigarettes and the drugs. There were many weapons left behind after the war.”

  “Well, let’s see if our forensic team find any evidence in the boatshed to support this new theory of yours,” Piola said calmly.

  Marcello shook his head. “They’ve been stood down.”

  “Stood down?” Piola said incredulously. “By whom?”

  “By the commissario in charge of the investigation. I’ve reassigned that case to the Polizia di Stato, who are already investigating a number of murders relating to smuggling and organised crime. Of course, I’ve told them to be sure to share any relevant findings with you.”

  “I see,” Piola said icily. “That’s very kind.”

  Marcello got to his feet. “Well, Colonel, I shall leave you. I’m sure you have plenty to do wrapping up the few loose ends that still remain. But it’s good news that we’re now making such excellent progress.” Was there just a hint of irony, Kat wondered, the slightest inflection of emphasis on that “now”? “And good day to you too, Capitano.” The lawyer’s eyes swept over her. “You are looking, if I may say so, particularly beautiful this morning. Colonel Piola is a very lucky man.”

  “Sir?” she said, horrified. Had Piola said something?

  He waved his hand. “To get to spend so much time with you, I mean.”

  She couldn’t help it: she blushed, although Marcello seemed to assume that it was prompted by his compliment rather than her own guilty conscience. His chest visibly puffed up inside his suit, he sauntered from the room.

  “Prick,” she said when he’d gone.

  Piola smiled wearily. “What’s the betting that Avvocato Marcello’s generous offer of intervention with the Immigration authorities, far from making it possible for Ema to stay in this country, somehow has the exact opposite effect and she’s hastened back to Eastern Europe before the ink is dry on this bullshit?” He picked up the maid’s statement and tossed it back onto the desk. “Anyway, there’s no point in questioning her again now. She knows what Marcello wants to hear, and she’ll keep on saying it. You know,” he added bitterly, “the problem is that he’s actually quite good at this. Sooner or later he’ll come up with some ludicrous theory that explains away everything – every scrap of evidence there is. And there won’t be a single thing we can do about it.”

  “Except collect more evidence.”

  “Except collect more evidence,” he agreed.

  She leant over his computer and typed in “Benito Marcello”. “Interesting,” she commented.

  “What is?”

  “Our prosecutor appears to be one of the most successful lawyers in the Venetian judiciary. La Nuova Venezia calls him ‘a rising star’.”

  “I hope there’s a ‘but’.”

  “He doesn’t appear ever to have prosecuted a case against organised crime. It isn’t that he fights them and doesn’t win. He just never seems to get them.”

  “Or when he does, he makes sure t
hey go away,” Piola said. “I thought he looked like he was covered in something slippery. But I assumed it was just his greasy hair gel.”

  Kat smiled. Even though on the face of it nothing had been said – even though both of them had been careful not to betray themselves by so much as an unguarded look – something, nevertheless, was different. That last remark, for example, was one that he wouldn’t have made to her twenty-four hours before.

  He came to stand by her, looking down at the computer screen. Impulsively, she touched the back of his hand briefly with her own. Equally briefly, he squeezed her fingers, and she felt her pulse quicken. Ridiculous, she thought, ridiculous, but she darted him the quickest of smiles, and a wave of happiness washed over her when he smiled back, the lines around his eyes crinkling.

  “So,” he said, stepping back. “Where were we? Oh yes – they found the photograph Spira was talking about, the one the victims were showing to the working girls. It was with the other possessions from the hotel room that were waiting to be logged.”

  He passed it to her. It showed a pretty, dark-haired girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen years old.

  “There were several copies. And,” he said, holding up an evidence bag, “when they were found, they were tucked inside this.” The bag contained a book. On the cover were the words Svetom Pismu.

  “Is that the Bible?”

  He nodded. “In Croatian. And no, it hasn’t been defaced with occult symbols, upside-down crosses or any of that nonsense.”

  “I’d bet the lock of hair we found also belongs to the girl in this photograph. We should run the DNA through the records. And we should start showing the photograph around ourselves. It’s way too early now, but I could check out the streets around Santa Lucia this evening.”

  Later that day a huge bunch of flowers arrived for her at the office. There was no note, but she found an email from her boss in her inbox.

  Thought I’d better send you some before the prick does.

  She smiled to herself, and sent a two-word reply.

  It’s appreciated.

  She would be careful. She would be careful, and what happened inside the bubble would stay inside the bubble.

  So it happened that when she left Campo San Zaccaria at about four o’clock to go home and change into clothes more appropriate for a long, cold evening hanging out in the seedy bars round the train station, she was also carrying a large bunch of flowers. The combination of an attractive officer of the Carabinieri and blossoms proved irresistible to the waiting photographer, who snapped her twice before she’d even realised that it was her he was pointing his camera at.

  There was a journalist too, walking alongside her when she didn’t stop, asking question after question but barely pausing to hear an answer. “Are you part of the investigation into the black magic murders, Capitano? Can you confirm that the women were lovers? Is it true the murders were linked to the Carnivia website?”

  She muttered “No comment” and kept walking. It was ridiculous – the journalist must have known she wouldn’t speak to the press, and besides, anyone after a scoop wouldn’t do it like this, in full public view: they’d call discreetly by phone, or arrange a quiet word in one of the bars round the back of Fondamenta San Severo.

  Which meant, perhaps, that he already had his scoop, and what he wanted from her was precisely that “No comment”.

  She got out her phone and called Piola.

  “The press are outside headquarters,” she said without preamble. “They’re calling it ‘the Black Magic Murders’.”

  He swore softly. “The prick doesn’t waste any time, I’ll give him that. OK, thanks for the warning.”

  By half past six she was in position near the train station, wearing jeans and an old leather jacket. It was still quiet: at this hour you mostly got the girls who sat quietly with their pimps, toying with drinks and not saying much while the men shouted and jostled and brandished phones and money at each other. Occasionally, when the men went to piss or the girls stepped outside for a cigarette, she’d be able to get one on her own for a moment. Then she’d show the photograph. “Ever seen this girl?” The reaction was mostly the same: a disinterested glance, a shrug, then a slyer, second glance at Kat as they realised she was a cop. After that they simply turned their backs on her.

  Her next question, as she pulled out her ID, was: “Has anyone asked you this before?” She was lucky if she even got a shrug.

  Sometimes, if she was fortunate, the girl would be high. Coke was the best: it made them talkative. A few women said they’d been shown her photograph before, “by a Croatian woman”.

  All the girls she spoke to were East European – Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian, Montenegrin: a roll-call of bloody, half-formed countries that together made up Italy’s mirror-image across the Adriatic. All were dead behind the eyes. Many had tiny pustules and burns round the mouth that even too much scarlet lipstick couldn’t disguise: the legacy of chronic solvent abuse.

  One said to her, “Two Croat women showed me this.”

  “Two? Are you sure?”

  “But one spoke with an American accent.”

  Something fell into place in Kat’s mind. So Barbara Holton, despite the American-sounding name, spoke Serbo-Croat. A second-generation American, perhaps, with parental links to the old country.

  Another girl looked at the photo, chewed her gum twice, and said blankly, “A man showed it to me.”

  “What sort of man?”

  “An American. But he wasn’t buying.”

  “What did he look like?”

  The girl shrugged. “Like a john. He was big, you know? Strong-looking.”

  Twice Kat was threatened by pimps with flick-knives. Producing her police ID made the pimps back off a little, but they didn’t put the knives away. She got out of those bars fast.

  And then there was one girl, lucid and articulate, with a pimp nowhere in sight, who said she’d talk if Kat paid her for her time. Kat gave her the fifty euros she asked for. No, she hadn’t seen the girl, or the Croatian-speaking women looking for her, but she’d heard stories about an American man looking for one particular Croat girl, so maybe they were with him.

  The girl seemed happy to keep talking, so Kat asked her what her background was. Her Italian was better than most, but she still spoke with an East European accent.

  The girl, who had earlier said she was called Maria but now said her real name was Nevena, was from Bosnia. Her family had lost their house and all their savings in the civil war. As a result, when a family friend suggested Nevena could earn good money working as a nanny in Italy, her parents had encouraged her to go. For her part, she’d hoped to send enough money back for her younger sisters to get an education. She’d known, of course, that it would mean being trafficked into Italy illegally, but that hadn’t seemed such a great crime when there were, according to the friend, people in Italy who couldn’t get nannies and babysitters because Italian girls were greedy and wanted too much money.

  She hadn’t worried when the trafficker took her passport, or when she was separated from the group of would-be migrants and taken in a different vehicle. The man who was driving her took her to a remote farmhouse and raped her, violently, although he took care not to mark her. The worst thing, she said, was the feeling of powerlessness: knowing that he could do whatever he wanted and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it; no one she could report him to. She’d hated him so much that when he passed her onto another man she was relieved rather than frightened, although it had scared her when she’d seen money changing hands.

  The second man put her in a van with three other girls and took them to a tiny fishing port, where they were put on a boat and brought across to Italy at night. After they landed, they were taken to a place where some other girls were already waiting. One of them explained how it worked: they were being sold along a supply chain that ended up in the big Italian cities, where they would have to earn back the
money that whoever eventually bought them had paid for them. Because they didn’t have their passports, they couldn’t run away, and if they somehow escaped and went to the police their families back home would be targeted.

  She’d asked how they could ever earn enough as nannies to pay back the traffickers. It was the other girl’s silence that finally made her realise what was going to happen to her.

  There was another remote farmhouse, in the Italian countryside this time, where the girls were “trained”. Those who resisted were raped until they stopped resisting. Those who didn’t resist were shown pornographic videos and instructed to “do it like that”. All the girls were filmed having sex, and were told that if they stepped out of line the films would be sent to their families.

  By that time Nevena had made a decision. She was going to survive, so she did what she had to do. After a while, she said, you got used to it. Men didn’t hurt you if you knew what you were doing and made it look as if you wanted to please them. When she finally got to Venice she was sold to a pimp for 1,500 euros, and told that once she’d earned it back her passport would be returned.

  It turned out to be even harder than it seemed. The cost of the room where she serviced her customers was taken out of her earnings, as was the pizzo due to the Mafia. She had to pay for her food, and a deduction was made for lighting, heating, laundry and medical check-ups. Even so, she’d nearly made it, after a year of having sex with as many as six men a night. But not long before she reached the magic figure, her pimp sold her to someone else. Now she had to start all over again. But she was going to do it; she wasn’t going to let herself give up hope.

  Nevena spread the money Kat had given her on the table. She pushed ten euros to one side. “That’s the pizzo – what Romano has to give the Mafia.” She took another ten and put it on top. “That’s for my upkeep.” There were three tens left. “He gets that, and I get that,” she said, putting two on the pile and leaving one out for herself.

  Kat gave Nevena her card. “There are organisations that can help you,” she said, just as she always did. “They can take you away from this work, send you back home. . .”