be travelling to, Naples, Calabria?’
‘I can’t say until we’re agreed. I can say, however, this could open a whole new career for you.’ Massimiliani strode over to the door and looked again at the suitcase. ‘Looks to me like you are already packed and ready to go.’
Massimiliani opened the door. ‘Monday morning, nine o’clock, Polo Tuscolano Operations Centre. Go in the north gate. Use my name. If you’re there at seven, you’re there. If not, no problem. You decide.’
13
Milan
It was after watching the girl waiting for the number 45 bus climb into the car for the fiftieth time that Magistrate Francesco Fossati suddenly realized why he had been doing this. With a knot in his stomach in case he was too late, he called up the police at the Monforte-Vittoria station immediately and ordered them to sequester all the video recordings from the office building for the previous weeks, only to be told, with a certain tone of disdain, that this had already been done. An hour later, he and an inspector were sitting in his office watching grainy images of the girl as she left the sports centre every other weekday at the same time.
Teresa Resca had been going to the swimming baths on Via Piranesi on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ever since she finished school in June. She took the 45 bus from her house in San Donato at around two and took it back again at around four. It was almost a door-to-door service, but, to be safe, her father sometimes liked to meet her as she got off and walked back to the house through a narrow, isolated orchard path leading to the apartment block. She always phoned as the bus was drawing close to home. If he could not make it, then she took the long way round, increasing her walk by five minutes. When she failed to call or show up, they called the police immediately.
The father said he knew who it was, what they were doing, why they had done it, and as the investigation moved forwards, it looked like he was right. Giovanni Resca published essays, wrote a blog, gave talks and even put on earnest theatre performances, all for the sake of alerting the Milanese to the fact that the Ndrangheta was very much among them. He had received so many threats from the very start that over a period of five years of campaigning journalism, he had made the fatal mistake of becoming almost blasé. He thought they might kill him, because this is what they had threatened, but they had never threatened his wife or their one child. Then the threats stopped, along with Giovanni Resca’s embryonic career in journalism. Branded an agitator, his shows of political satire drew shrinking audiences to ever-smaller venues and newspapers stopped publishing his articles. The upside was that the threats dried up along with his work.
The magistrate had been true to his word and conducted a ruthless and invasive but quick and efficient line of inquiry that day by day rapidly extinguished theories of kidnapping for ransom, incest, fraud, substance abuse and voluntary flight and elopement until they were left with two options: what the father had been saying all along, which many of the police thought improbable and a symptom of his deluded tendency to see the Ndrangheta everywhere, or a random snatch of a young girl by sex traffickers or a killer. None of the endings was going to be good, and yet the parents still seemed so hopeful it was almost irresponsible of them. Despair was better than hope, he knew; but his job was to bring home a body.
‘Watch the woman,’ the magistrate told the inspector. ‘You never see her properly because the camera’s too high and far away, but from the dyed-yellowish shade of the hair, the shape of the body and the way she moves, I could tell it was the same person. The technicians agree with me.’
The woman had turned up four times in a row and stood waiting at the bus stop with Teresa. They could be seen chatting a little. She was always there at the same time as Teresa.
‘I can’t say until we’re agreed. I can say, however, this could open a whole new career for you.’ Massimiliani strode over to the door and looked again at the suitcase. ‘Looks to me like you are already packed and ready to go.’
Massimiliani opened the door. ‘Monday morning, nine o’clock, Polo Tuscolano Operations Centre. Go in the north gate. Use my name. If you’re there at seven, you’re there. If not, no problem. You decide.’
13
Milan
It was after watching the girl waiting for the number 45 bus climb into the car for the fiftieth time that Magistrate Francesco Fossati suddenly realized why he had been doing this. With a knot in his stomach in case he was too late, he called up the police at the Monforte-Vittoria station immediately and ordered them to sequester all the video recordings from the office building for the previous weeks, only to be told, with a certain tone of disdain, that this had already been done. An hour later, he and an inspector were sitting in his office watching grainy images of the girl as she left the sports centre every other weekday at the same time.
Teresa Resca had been going to the swimming baths on Via Piranesi on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays ever since she finished school in June. She took the 45 bus from her house in San Donato at around two and took it back again at around four. It was almost a door-to-door service, but, to be safe, her father sometimes liked to meet her as she got off and walked back to the house through a narrow, isolated orchard path leading to the apartment block. She always phoned as the bus was drawing close to home. If he could not make it, then she took the long way round, increasing her walk by five minutes. When she failed to call or show up, they called the police immediately.
The father said he knew who it was, what they were doing, why they had done it, and as the investigation moved forwards, it looked like he was right. Giovanni Resca published essays, wrote a blog, gave talks and even put on earnest theatre performances, all for the sake of alerting the Milanese to the fact that the Ndrangheta was very much among them. He had received so many threats from the very start that over a period of five years of campaigning journalism, he had made the fatal mistake of becoming almost blasé. He thought they might kill him, because this is what they had threatened, but they had never threatened his wife or their one child. Then the threats stopped, along with Giovanni Resca’s embryonic career in journalism. Branded an agitator, his shows of political satire drew shrinking audiences to ever-smaller venues and newspapers stopped publishing his articles. The upside was that the threats dried up along with his work.
The magistrate had been true to his word and conducted a ruthless and invasive but quick and efficient line of inquiry that day by day rapidly extinguished theories of kidnapping for ransom, incest, fraud, substance abuse and voluntary flight and elopement until they were left with two options: what the father had been saying all along, which many of the police thought improbable and a symptom of his deluded tendency to see the Ndrangheta everywhere, or a random snatch of a young girl by sex traffickers or a killer. None of the endings was going to be good, and yet the parents still seemed so hopeful it was almost irresponsible of them. Despair was better than hope, he knew; but his job was to bring home a body.
‘Watch the woman,’ the magistrate told the inspector. ‘You never see her properly because the camera’s too high and far away, but from the dyed-yellowish shade of the hair, the shape of the body and the way she moves, I could tell it was the same person. The technicians agree with me.’
The woman had turned up four times in a row and stood waiting at the bus stop with Teresa. They could be seen chatting a little. She was always there at the same time as Teresa.
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