and choose to whom it applies or when.”
Teresa Lupo raised her large hand in objection. “But if Bramante thought…”
“None of us knows what he was thinking!” Falcone insisted. “I was there when he was interviewed afterwards. I was the one who told him Ludo Torchia was dead. I told him that the doctor in the ambulance said he’d several broken ribs, a punctured lung. It was as bad a beating as I’ve seen in my life, and it was done slowly, deliberately. And Giorgio Bramante? When I told him, he acted as if beating a man to death was just an everyday event. I have no idea what he thought. He scarcely said a word afterwards. Not to us. Not to his wife. To the press. To anyone. Yes, yes, I know what you’re about to say. It was grief. Perhaps. But we still don’t understand what happened, and that’s a fact.”
Messina leaned forward and tapped Falcone on the knee. “I’ll tell you what happened. You made inspector. My father got kicked out of the force. After thirty years. But we’ll leave that to one side for now. Just don’t fool yourself. Those morons were responsible for that boy’s death somehow. Not my father. Not Giorgio Bramante. Ludo Torchia apart, they walked away scot-free. Changed their names, most of them. Grew up and found themselves different lives, mostly in places where no one knew who they were. They thought it was over, like a bad dream that scares the shit out of you at night and just fades away the next morning.”
“As far as they are concerned, it is over,” Falcone replied. “That’s the law.”
Messina pulled a set of folders out of his capacious briefcase.
“Not for Giorgio Bramante it isn’t.”
B RUNO MESSINA SEEMED TO KNOW BRAMANTE’S ENTIRE history from the moment he went to jail.
“He helped other prisoners with their work. He taught them to read and write. Counselled them on giving up drugs. The perfect prisoner. After three years he was getting early day release and he didn’t ever go running to the press. There was nothing to suggest he was anything else but an unfortunate man who lost his temper under stress and paid a heavy price for it, in circumstances where most people would feel sympathetic.”
“And?” Falcone asked, interested now.
“There were six students in those caves when Alessio went missing. Torchia died that day. Another, Sandro Vignola, moved to Puglia, then, three years after the case, came back to Rome for the day. We don’t know why. Vignola was never seen again. Of the remaining four…”
He spread out the papers from the files.
“Andrea Guerino. Farmer’s son. Changed his name. Moved to near Verona, where he ran a small fruit farm. Found dead of shotgun wounds out in the fields, June three years ago. The local police say his wife went missing the day before. She turns up alive. Guerino gets half his head blown off, and his wife’s too scared to say a word about where she’s been, who with, anything. The local force put it down to some kind of affair gone wrong and never charge a soul with his death. Raul Bellucci. Fifteen months ago, he was working as a cab driver in Florence, also under an assumed name. He gets a call at home. Someone’s kidnapped his daughter and wants a ransom or the girl’s gone. The idiot doesn’t go to us, of course. I imagine he’s worried we’d find out who he really is. The following day Raul Bellucci’s dead in some industrial park used by hookers on the edge of town. The police”—the venom in Messina’s voice was unmistakable—“decide that, since Bellucci’s throat’s been cut from ear to ear and his genitals have been removed, this is the work of some African gang. Most of the hookers thereabouts are Nigerian.”
“And today?” Teresa looked interested. She’d been complaining about the lack of challenging work.
“Today, or rather last night, was the turn of Toni LaMarca, the only student who stayed in Rome. He was some hoodlum’s kid from Naples.
Teresa Lupo raised her large hand in objection. “But if Bramante thought…”
“None of us knows what he was thinking!” Falcone insisted. “I was there when he was interviewed afterwards. I was the one who told him Ludo Torchia was dead. I told him that the doctor in the ambulance said he’d several broken ribs, a punctured lung. It was as bad a beating as I’ve seen in my life, and it was done slowly, deliberately. And Giorgio Bramante? When I told him, he acted as if beating a man to death was just an everyday event. I have no idea what he thought. He scarcely said a word afterwards. Not to us. Not to his wife. To the press. To anyone. Yes, yes, I know what you’re about to say. It was grief. Perhaps. But we still don’t understand what happened, and that’s a fact.”
Messina leaned forward and tapped Falcone on the knee. “I’ll tell you what happened. You made inspector. My father got kicked out of the force. After thirty years. But we’ll leave that to one side for now. Just don’t fool yourself. Those morons were responsible for that boy’s death somehow. Not my father. Not Giorgio Bramante. Ludo Torchia apart, they walked away scot-free. Changed their names, most of them. Grew up and found themselves different lives, mostly in places where no one knew who they were. They thought it was over, like a bad dream that scares the shit out of you at night and just fades away the next morning.”
“As far as they are concerned, it is over,” Falcone replied. “That’s the law.”
Messina pulled a set of folders out of his capacious briefcase.
“Not for Giorgio Bramante it isn’t.”
B RUNO MESSINA SEEMED TO KNOW BRAMANTE’S ENTIRE history from the moment he went to jail.
“He helped other prisoners with their work. He taught them to read and write. Counselled them on giving up drugs. The perfect prisoner. After three years he was getting early day release and he didn’t ever go running to the press. There was nothing to suggest he was anything else but an unfortunate man who lost his temper under stress and paid a heavy price for it, in circumstances where most people would feel sympathetic.”
“And?” Falcone asked, interested now.
“There were six students in those caves when Alessio went missing. Torchia died that day. Another, Sandro Vignola, moved to Puglia, then, three years after the case, came back to Rome for the day. We don’t know why. Vignola was never seen again. Of the remaining four…”
He spread out the papers from the files.
“Andrea Guerino. Farmer’s son. Changed his name. Moved to near Verona, where he ran a small fruit farm. Found dead of shotgun wounds out in the fields, June three years ago. The local police say his wife went missing the day before. She turns up alive. Guerino gets half his head blown off, and his wife’s too scared to say a word about where she’s been, who with, anything. The local force put it down to some kind of affair gone wrong and never charge a soul with his death. Raul Bellucci. Fifteen months ago, he was working as a cab driver in Florence, also under an assumed name. He gets a call at home. Someone’s kidnapped his daughter and wants a ransom or the girl’s gone. The idiot doesn’t go to us, of course. I imagine he’s worried we’d find out who he really is. The following day Raul Bellucci’s dead in some industrial park used by hookers on the edge of town. The police”—the venom in Messina’s voice was unmistakable—“decide that, since Bellucci’s throat’s been cut from ear to ear and his genitals have been removed, this is the work of some African gang. Most of the hookers thereabouts are Nigerian.”
“And today?” Teresa looked interested. She’d been complaining about the lack of challenging work.
“Today, or rather last night, was the turn of Toni LaMarca, the only student who stayed in Rome. He was some hoodlum’s kid from Naples.
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