A Known Evil: A gripping debut serial killer thriller full of twists you won’t see coming

Rossi had put available officers on door-to-door enquiries, to see if any of the early-bird shopkeepers might have seen passers-by acting suspiciously. But the area was largely residential and it had soon become clear that there was little hope of any useful leads emerging. Given the apparent absence of any sentimental motive, he doubted the killer was going to be the type to give himself away easily. He would have followed at a safe distance, hooded, probably, in easily disposable clothes. He would have made sure he was alone, knowing that, in winter, balconies were not frequented except for quick or furtive cigarettes. Then he would have struck and dragged the poor woman through the open gate and into the doorway, where he finished his work. She wouldn’t have even had time to scream.

There would have been blood on his hands, and he’d have had to wash, perhaps at one of the fountains that so usefully and civilly featured on Roman street corners. Check fountains for DNA? A long shot and it had rained too since then. So, until something else came in, they had only the note to go on and any similarities between this case and the last one. He’d got Bianco looking into the work side of things but, again, there was no office gossip to go on, no particular career jealousies, no career. Just a regular working lady. So, they would have to be lucky or wait and see if he would strike again.

His thoughts turned for a moment to Maroni. He annoyed Rossi, it was true, but he wasn’t a bad man, certainly not the worst, and to his credit he hadn’t given him anymore bullshit than was necessary when they’d met. As it was nothing to do with anything organized, nothing to do with narcos or vice rackets, Maroni and his superiors probably thought it would keep Rossi out of their hair. Not that they were all involved but somebody always knew somebody who got the nod from someone else and all the filth trickled down. Favours were owed and the people that had got to where they now were, often with minimal effort, were always put there at a price. Then those same favours got called in, sooner or later, by those who had granted them, and someone would be picking up the phone and giving it, “what the fuck’s your man doing down there? Do you know who he’s messing with. Does he know? Get him off our backs or there’ll be hell to pay!”

So many times he had got close to the big boys, the guys who never got their hands dirty, i mandanti. The shadowy figures behind the scenes, “those who sent” others to do their bidding but who, blood-sucking vampires that they were, never emerged into the daylight. He rolled the word around in his head as he walked. Then there was the note: LOOK INTO THE BLACK HOLE. He had been thinking in Italian but he sometimes did his best thinking in English. Now it was looking like he might have to.

Of course, the reasons for transferring him or relieving him of his duties were always dressed up as something quite innocuous or easily explained away. There was the ubiquitous issue of stress, brought up as a kind of panacea for all their concerns. “You need a break. We’re giving you a week to get yourself together.” Or they felt his cover was weak. They’d had tip-offs suggesting it would be safer to try a change of tack. Or they needed his expertise to crack a stubborn cold case. Either that or they’d feed him red herrings for as long as was necessary for their own man to cover his tracks or evaporate completely. That was an exact science in Italy, not taught at Police Academy but which was widely and well-practised. Depistaggio. Sending you off the trail, off-piste, if you like, if skiing was your thing, which, for Rossi, it wasn’t.

And then there was disciplinary action. Some character would come in spouting accusations about foul play, being roughed up. There’d be talk about his having flouted the usual procedures or taken a bribe. Hard to prove, hard to disprove. Mud sticks, doesn’t it? And he’d be “encouraged” to take the easy way out, though, of course, everyone knew he was innocent. Exemplary officer. Blah, blah, blah.

Still, despite all that, the way it was going and the way it looked so far, at least, for now, he felt he’d have a pretty free hand. Be thankful for small mercies? The public were shocked, afraid even. They hadn’t stopped talking about this one and the Colombo killing in the bars over their cappuccinos and morning cornetti. It even seemed to be supplanting the political chatter, giving them a break from all the election talk, the stunning emergence of the Movement for People’s Democracy, the MPD, which was rocking the establishment, maybe even to the foundations.

This was not one of the drugs-war killings that sometimes stunned the seedier parts of the city. Neither was it any vendetta. The feeling was growing that he – and a he it surely was – could well strike again. The press would love it, and Rossi knew he’d be shoved into the public eye, under pressure, and then it would all come to a head and that’s when he’d be expected to deliver the goods. Hah! Rossi laughed to himself. Of course, that’s why he was being gifted the case. Sure, if he got his man, great! And there’d be slaps on the back all round and everyone basking in his reflected glory. But if he didn’t, it was his fault. Tough shit, Michael. That’s what the people pay you for. You’re on your own. Bye, bye. Ciao, bello, ciao!

He crossed Via Labicana and came to Via Tasso. It would bring him to San Giovanni Square avoiding the busier roads. On his right, the shining tramlines led away towards the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. This, though, was a humble, anonymous street that saw little of the usual tourist crowds. Yet, it was somewhere he would often stop to reflect, for it was here, during the Nazi occupation, that the Gestapo had set up its headquarters and its interrogation centre. In this very building the Bosch had had its torture chambers and, within those walls, many patriots had given their lives for what they believed in: a better, free Italy, without dictatorship, without hatred and division. Could that be the black hole? he wondered, with a spurt of unexpected enthusiasm. The black-shirted fascists who’d aided the Nazis in their massacres and whose modern-day heirs were getting a new lease of life of late? Their graffiti seemed to greet him on every other whitewashed wall these days. Forza Nuova. Italia per gli Italiani. Italy for the Italians. And they’d never really let go, had they? Indeed, that was their very motto, that the flame still burned.

But it could be anything. And nothing. A distraction to tease them with while the killer got his sick kicks. Or perhaps it was a financial reference, but again he reminded himself the victim had no apparent links with the banks or big institutions. She was a cleaner, even though the ministry where she worked was the Treasury. But how many Romans worked in ministries? Thousands. He could put someone on to it in the morning, just in case, but he didn’t place much store in it as a real lead. Tomorrow they would have to get to work on the note.

He put a hand to his jacket pocket. It was nearly one o’clock and in the sudden quiet of the side street he realized his phone was buzzing. He had forgotten to turn the ringtone back on and had accumulated a message and four unanswered calls.

WHY DO YOU NEVER ANSWER YOUR F******G PHONE? GONE TO BED. GOODNIGHT.

One too many asterisks there, he noted. It wasn’t signed. No need. There were no kisses. It was Yana.

Five

“C’mon,” said Rossi, glancing at his watch as they strolled back to the car. “Talk about a wasted day but I reckon we’ve still got time to get over to the Colombo scene before dark and run some office checks before we go to the mortuary. Let’s see what Silvestre failed to pick up on there.”

The best part of a day spent trawling through past cases and suspects vaguely fitting a broad possible profile had produced nothing of note and had succeeded only in giving Rossi a thumping headache and more lower-back pain.

“Have you got the case notes?”

“There,” said Carrara as he opened the driver’s door and jerked his head to indicate a thin folder on the back seat.

Rossi got in and turned to look at the meagre offering.

“Been busy has he then, Silvestre? Lazy sod. Have to do that one from scratch, won’t we?”

“It’s actually off the Colombo,” said Rossi, leafing again through the scant inherited offering. A modest car park by a school on Via Grotta Perfetta. Road of the perfect cave. This certainly had given it a twist of the grotesque too. But in Rome, sordid murder locations were soon enough forgotten when the media coverage dried up. They were rubbed out by the eraser of the daily city grind and few victims got epitaphs. Serial or no serial. Carrara turned left off the Via Cristoforo Colombo’s zipping dual carriageway, driving slowly then until Rossi had picked out the turning.

“Tucked away, isn’t it? Easy to miss, wouldn’t you say?”

A sloping slip road led up to the smallish car park, which, in turn, gave onto grass and play areas that formed part of the long extension of the Caffarella Valley Park, a precious green lung in the midst of south-east Rome. It was empty and unremarkable. Broken glass, cigarette packets, and in the corner where the vehicle and the body had been found, the usual discarded tissues, wet wipes, and prophylactic paraphernalia could be seen.

“A lovers’ lane then,” Rossi concluded. “Not much lighting at night. Ideal for trysts.” He shuffled through the scene-of-crime photos showing the victim sprawled next to the front wheel on the passenger’s side. Blood was smeared across the bonnet.

“Do we have the car still?”

“Dunno,” said Carrara.

“Well, it’s clear enough she was outside the vehicle when he hit her, isn’t it? And no lovers? Nothing?”

Carrara checked the notes.

“Luzi’s statement says he was training for a marathon – and he does actually run marathons – while she was at a yoga class.”

“Any phone calls? Any calls to men?”

“The care worker looking after Anna Luzi’s mother – lives, lived with them – got a call from her but her phone wasn’t found at the scene. Could be important, if someone didn’t want it to be found.”

Rossi let out a sigh.

“We’ll have to get onto the telephone company to get transcripts. Can you do that? All her calls. We’ll have to check everything. Or does that have to go through ClearTech too? Was there an address book, by chance? I know no one uses them anymore but …”

Carrara shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”

“OK,” said Rossi.

“Shall I pencil in another chat with Mr Luzi?”

“Yes, you could pay him a visit,” said Rossi. “And check his movements again. See if you can find a witness for that running story. A flower seller, a petrol-pump attendant or something. And see if his wife really went to the yoga class, what time it was, and what time he went running and for how long. See if he wears one of those armband thingies, for measuring his calorific output. They all have them, don’t they?”

“You think he might have done it?”

“Why not? Husbands kill wives. How many times have we seen it?”

“He just doesn’t seem the type. Very Christian and all. You know he’s treasurer of The Speranza Foundation?”

“Perfect cover.”

“Sure you don’t want to come?”

Rossi shook his head.

“Where shall I drop you?”

“The bloody Questura,” said Rossi, “may as well keep working through the case files. See what comes up.”

Six

An array of stacked leaflets and promotional material for The Speranza Foundation – bringing hope to the hopeless and light where darkness rules – were the most striking feature of Luzi’s fourth floor executive’s office in Italian State Railways. Carrara had gone back to the beginning and, so far, could find nothing suggesting obvious foul play on the part of the slim, fit blue-suited man he now had before him. His sportsman’s physique did little to hide that he was now a shell of a man. Dark rings were scored under his eyes. In his vacant, defeated face Carrara detected some shadow of the departed – the confident manager Luzi had once been, just like the others shuttling between high-power meetings, phones glued to their ears, dispatching secretaries with alpha-male authority. That was all gone. He still went through the motions, which was enough, for the time being, at least, but bereavement by vicious unexplained murder had left him in the darkest of places.

Carrara had put his sympathies to one side and was looking for any sign of guilt in that void Luzi now occupied. Perhaps it was still the effects of shock or some ingrained sense of duty and propriety, but he answered all Carrara’s questions with remarkable steadiness. Not once did his emotions overcome him. Carrara could only conclude that it had to be a defence mechanism. He had to be postponing the reaction, only deferring collapse. Luzi couldn’t come up with any hard, fast witness for his own 20k run that evening, he was able to provide the name of the gym where his wife had been, as every week, from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. for her class.

“I would normally go for my run around 8.30 p.m. and finish about 10 p.m., depending how long it was. It’s late but it’s a quieter time for traffic. She would usually meet up with a friend after her class and we’d see each other at home before going to bed. I’d have my training meal and watch TV or deal with correspondence for the foundation until she returned. Except, that night, well, she didn’t, did she?”

Carrara had seen other men break down at points like this. Luzi’s mouth twitched slightly, at the corner. Nothing more.

Carrara’s impression was that they had been as happily married as any other young middle-aged couple could have been. No affairs on her part – though he did admit to having had what he called “an infatuation” with a colleague, which was long over. “I did my time for that,” he tried to joke, “and we’d been back on track, for years. We had a good balance, with our own interests and jobs. And then. Just like that. Gone. You never expect it. You can’t plan for it.”

“Do you know why she might have been there?” Carrara asked. Luzi shook his head but glanced downwards for a fraction of a second before resetting his attention on Carrara.

“Perhaps just to make a phone call, to check on her mother – she’s got Alzheimer’s. She always pulled over to call – never at the wheel. Or maybe just to think; she did that sometimes. She said she liked the peace. Dealing with her mother was hard and she bore the brunt of most of it. She’s in a home now.”

“Might there have been some other reason?” Carrara asked, sensing in his reaction the slightest sign of a crack in his composure.

“Well, the engine had started playing up of late,” he began, too calm for Carrara’s liking.

“But given the manner of her attire?” Carrara probed, recalling from the scene-of-crime photos the short skirt, the suspenders, and high heels which, while not vulgar, at least suggested a possible erotic agenda.

“Well, I can’t believe there was any other reason, if that’s what you’re saying?” Luzi said, as if, in his innocence, only then realizing what Carrara was now driving at. “Is that what you’re saying?” his voice finally breaking into something resembling real anger. “That she was having an affair? In a car park?”

So he was human, after all, Carrara thought. He had infringed on the sacred memory of his wife and the reaction was, if not textbook in an innocent man, at least more reassuring.

“We have to stop the murders, Dottor Luzi,” he replied. “I have to ask you these questions if we are to have any chance of doing that.”

Carrara looked again at the ordinary, proper man before him. He hadn’t flinched in holding his gaze, but… But… Was there still something?

“Oh, by the way,” Carrara continued, changing pace like a bowler to see if Luzi would deal with the delivery, “do you record your running route, Dottor Luzi, on your phone, with GPS?”

“No,” Luzi replied, his tone still hard. “I’m kind of old-fashioned on that score.”

He raised his left arm. “Just my wristwatch and then later I sometimes measure the route on a maps app on the PC.”

Carrara nodded and made a note. Well they could track that down anyway, if they had to, or check whether he’d left the phone at home, he thought, noticing then that it was his own mobile now that was buzzing.

“Excuse me,” he said. “This could be important … yes. Carrara.”

It was Rossi and it was important. He had struck again.

Seven

With the third victim, the killer was set to acquire a nickname. The headlines in the following day’s Messenger would proclaim that ‘The Carpenter’, due to his apparent preference for a hammer and nails, had indeed killed again. They would not be publishing anything about the notes, however, for though there were now two to consider, Rossi had asked his contacts not to reveal that particular detail. Not yet. In return, he had promised to keep them informed and to give them what he could. He needed the press on his side and still had some people he hoped he could consider friends, though who was a friend in a murder investigation was anybody’s guess. There was meat on the menu and it was not going to be easy persuading hardened carnivores to pass up a meal.

“And I thought we might have finished for the day,” said Carrara who had cut short his informal chat with Luzi to pick up Rossi. He was motoring towards the scene while Rossi, a sheaf of papers in one hand, had an ear cocked to the radio as the excited officer who’d been first on the scene recounted what he had found. The victim had been ambushed in an underground car park on the Via Tuscolana. Her face had been beaten to a pulp, so they’d have to wait for a positive ID, especially as they had no personal effects to go on, no keys, no handbag, no ring. Nothing.

“OK, OK,” said Rossi. “We’ll be there in five.”

When they arrived, only the preliminaries were already underway. No forensics yet. No magistrate had arrived, so had likely already been informed and had thus delegated the investigation directly to the RSCS in line with the usual but not exclusive practice.

“Is it too much to ask that they not touch anything?” said Rossi, running an irritated hand through his hair and giving a protracted sigh.

“Parking problems, sir,” said a hassled-looking traffic cop. “We’re getting all sorts of earache from them that’ve got their wheels in the car park and those that want to get theirs in. There’s the match later, you know?”

Rossi turned his eyes heavenwards.

“There’s a murder in their backyard and they want to see the match?”

The officer looked down at his own shoes then sneaked a glimpse at his watch. Him too.

“Let’s just hope they haven’t destroyed key evidence this time. Hasn’t anybody learned from Perugia?”

It had been late afternoon or early evening as far as the young female pathologist, whom Rossi had never seen before, was prepared to venture. Like the health service, thought Rossi. Never get the same doctor twice. Was a bit of continuity out of the question too? The excited officer he had spoken to over the phone was now filling him in but in person. Once again, there had been no one else around. A suburban area without CCTV.

“Personally, I dislike the ever brasher intrusions of Big Brother into daily life,” Rossi lamented, “but in cases like this we could have used it.” No. This wasn’t London where your every move was filmed. There was still something that resembled freedom here, strange as it was to hear himself saying it. Yes. Here you could quite easily get away with murder.

By the time forensics had arrived, it was plain to see they had an identical situation. A woman, head smashed in, and now another note for them to ponder. The same enthusiastic-looking officer had handed it to Rossi in an evidence bag. He’ll be studying law in his spare time, thought Rossi. God help us if he becomes a magistrate. The note read: THE DARK MATTER.

“An answer to our riddle, then?” proffered Rossi.

“Could be,” Carrara replied, “but I wouldn’t count on it being that simple. Would you?”

Rossi stared at the note and then looked up and took Carrara by the arm.

“See those trails of blood, mixed in with the oil stains? Assuming nobody else has moved the body, what does it say?”

“She wasn’t killed there.”

“Maybe finished off, yes, but moved. Get them to work out which car she might have been in without compromising the integrity of the crime scene. If there’s a print, a footprint, or a fingerprint, I want it. Have we got the lights up and the ultraviolet? Who’s doing that? Who’s shadowing the forensics?” Rossi clapped his hands together to get the attention of a cluster of dozier-looking uniforms. “And run checks on all the cars within a twenty-five metre radius. Any warm engines, for example. Has anyone got on to the vehicles yet?” he shouted above Carrara’s head to everyone and no one in particular.

Eight

Rossi threw into the boot the remaining profiles of perverts, murderers, and violent stalkers released from prison in the last ten years, as well as those of similarly inclined suspects still walking the streets. Another day of paperwork, computer-screens, and head-scratching. And now this. The workload was doubling every 24 hours. And they were getting no nearer an answer. It was like a blank crossword staring back at him. After knocking the lads into shape on the crime scene he’d managed to carve out enough time to keep a planned appointment at the hospital of legal medicine to see what they could get on the second, more detailed autopsy on Paola Gentili. Nothing particularly useful had come out of the trip except the discovery that she’d had the beginnings of a particularly aggressive cancer in her right lung. And she didn’t even smoke.

“Bitch of a life,” said Rossi as they left the building to be greeted by a blast of the now customary wintery air. Carrara was musing in his own world. The place had that effect on you. Leaving its confines wasn’t like leaving any normal hospital where you had that feeling of relief that you weren’t in there yourself mixed with lingering concern for the person who was. Here was different. This coldly modern, austere, imposing building concealed within its walls real-life horror stories and tragedies in equal measure. And then there was the final ignominy of being carved up by experience-hardened doctors-cum-butchers to see how you had been dispatched from this mortal coil. A necessary evil, Rossi managed to convince himself, if they were going to stop this beast. Yet another necessary evil.

They decided to leave the car and take a stroll past the Verano cemetery. They ventured across the tramlines gleaming like blades that carved up the piazza and on which the number three passed then swept away into the dank concrete tube of the railway tunnel leading to San Lorenzo. ‘Red’ San Lorenzo, as it was known. Historically, solidly working-class and the cradle of Rome’s Communist and Anarchist communities, it was now becoming like another sort of Trastevere, a nascent mini Covent Garden with bistros, boutiques and wine bars sprouting on every corner.

But Rossi wanted to think, and he thought best when he had eaten, but not in the police canteen or the other cop haunts within walking distance of the Questura, and away, too, from the usual press-frequented places in the centre.

“Formula One?”

“Sounds good to me,” replied Carrara appearing to perk up. Many’s the time Rossi had put everyday concerns aside there, as a child, with both his parents, and back in his Roman high-school days. All that before the Erasmus experience. Before, for better or for worse, everything had changed in his love life and in the professional direction he would finally choose to take in life.

The pizzeria’s busy evening was almost coming to a close. Waiters dawdled with the look of men counting the minutes until they could knock off. But it was open. They took a table with a view of the street and ordered stuffed, fried pumpkin flowers as starters and half-litre tankards of Moretti.