A Florentine Death Read Free Page B

moment his mobile rang.
    It was his deputy, Francesco Rizzo.
    A man had just been murdered.
     
     
     
    2.40 p.m.: in the squad car
     
     
     
    'There was a call to 113,' Officer Sebastiano Franchi, the driver, said as they crossed the city with sirens blaring.
    'Who's on the switchboard?'
    'Grassi.'

'What time was it?' '2.23, chief.'
    'Do we know who called?'
    'A woman, the cashier in a bar on the main square of Greve.'
    'What did she say?'
    'Just that they'd found a dead body. It was a murder. She sounded very agitated, according to Grassi.' 'What else?'
    'That's it, chief. She hung up immediately'
    From the way he said it, it was clear that he was quite indignant at the woman's lack of civic responsibility. He couldn't have been more than twenty, was new to the job and unaware that, in a situation like this, such behaviour was, unfortunately, only to be expected. By way of compensation, he drove as if he were at the wheel of a Ferrari at Monza. Like all drivers, he insisted on showing off his skills.
    They had left the city and were starting to climb towards Greve. Ferrara asked Franchi to turn off the siren and slow down a little. As he never tired of repeating: when a murder has been committed, five minutes more or less won't make any difference to the victim.
    Especially as Rizzo had already gone on ahead, setting off immediately while the driver was still on his way to pick Ferrara up from home.
    He was pleased with Rizzo, who'd turned out an excellent detective. Ever since, as a novice barely out of the Police Academy, he had been involved in the investigation of a series of prostitute murders, he had made great strides. His instincts were good, and he combined the old fashioned virtue of dogged commitment - an increasingly rare gift in policemen these days - with an ability to use the most up-to-date tools. In some ways he reminded Ferrara of Marshal Monaco, now retired, but whereas Monaco had hated even typewriters, Rizzo was perfectly at home with computers.
    He had preferred to send him on ahead because he trusted him, but mainly because he needed an oasis of peace and quiet during the brief journey out of the city. He needed to think.
    So someone wanted to eliminate him.
    Who? And why?
    Like everyone, he had his ghosts, personal and professional. After more than twenty years on the force, holding key posts, it was natural that a lot of people had grudges against him. Not only among those who lived on the margins of society and threatened it, but also within the establishment. Theoretically, he had a surfeit of choice. And yet he couldn't think of a single person among his possible enemies who might take things as far as this.
    Cases of released prisoners seeking revenge were rarer than might be imagined. And he also tended to exclude political motives: things had been quiet on that front in the last few years, the Red Brigades had long since left the scene, and nothing had happened recently to suggest that anyone was looking to rack up the tension again. Besides, politically motivated murders tended to be claimed after the event, not announced in advance. And certainly not this way.
    Of course, there was also the case of the Monster of Florence. The perpetrator of eight double murders, sixteen horrible crimes in which the victims had been dismembered, the Monster had been arrested before Ferrara had become head of the Squadra Mobile. Many people would have preferred to think of the case as closed, but Ferrara had insisted on reopening it, had demolished the theory of a lone serial killer, and had tracked down the killer's accomplices, all of whom were now in prison. That might have been enough for a lot of people, but not for him. Stubbornly, pigheadedly, he had continued searching for the people behind the crimes, and his search had taken him ever higher, as well as into the darkest corners of the city, uncovering a world of satanic rites and black masses - a lot of nonsense, according to those who still clung