A Cold Flame: A gripping crime thriller that will keep you hooked

He didn’t want to leave Italy, but he had tasted freedom once and had liked it. For the six month post he had been awarded in San Francisco, after he had completed his PhD, the university had contacted him! They came looking for his expertise after they had seen his research. They had decided to go to the States together, and Paola had then had to persuade her parents, old-style Catholics that they were, that the cohabitation abroad would be a prelude to marriage. They went. The wedding, however, had remained on hold.

They had not committed themselves to a longer stay as Paola was less keen to tear up her roots in the old country. So they had come back, hoping to make a go of it and use the experience gained to get a leg-up. He had been obliged to make the expected compromises – working for free, waiting, biding his time. But he had believed that it might just be worth it. That there would be an outlet in Italy for his ideas. Now the nagging fear always at the back of his mind had become the simple realization that he had been wrong.

And it could all have been so different. He had done his compulsory military service in the carabinieri, the military branch of the police, and had enjoyed it, thriving on its culture of rigour and seriousness and dedication to duty. He’d also been drawn to the increasing use of technology, science, and psychology for the solving and prevention of crimes. So much so that after his initial one-year conscription he had signed on for another one as a paid, working recruit. He hadn’t wanted to fall back on his parents again. That would have been the easy way out; whereas he enjoyed a challenge, like when he was in the mountains with his friends and he would head for the highest peaks. He wasn’t content with the view of the top from halfway up.

Francesco got up from the breakfast bar in the kitchen and began closing all the windows despite the heat. He was cautious, prudent, suspicious of the opportunist ready to exploit any weakness in their defences. His family had always expected him to pursue an academic career, their view being that the police force and the army were for those who didn’t have it in them to go any further. They were also institutions tainted by their association with the “regime”. They had been a well-respected and quietly influential family until the fascists had seized power before the war, something which had set in motion their gradual decline towards irrelevance. Yet they had clung on to some of the trappings, the values, the pride, the culture. As for what had actually happened back then, Francesco didn’t know the details but, according to his mother, it was something that had continued to rankle, at least for his father, while he had been alive.

Five

They left the bar and walked across the almost-deserted Piazza Verano, the nearby cemetery not visible but always a presence.

“The park, perhaps,” she suggested, walking slightly ahead. “There are tables and it’s quiet now.”

They stopped at a dark green art-deco kiosk and a wide esplanade where cast-iron tables occupied the space under the shade of several tall eucalyptus trees.

“May we?” said Carrara, addressing a white-shirted and tieless employee moving about without particular urgency while a mop in a steaming bucket stood propped against some flower pots. The bar seemed in general disorder with teetering piles of ashtrays and cases of mineral water dumped here and there. His grudging nod of assent meant they were technically open for business.

“The coffee’s not the best and gossip doesn’t travel well if it’s not in a confined space,” she commented. “So you can always count on getting some breathing space.”

Rossi imagined that it was a commodity she was in need of.

“Here?” he said, indicating the most isolated corner and the cleanest-looking table and chairs. Their new guest gave her approval and Carrara was first to pull out a chair for her.

“Well, gentlemen, I suppose now I should introduce myself,” she said, placing her light, coffee-coloured handbag on the table. “My name is Tiziana Belfonte. And as I said, I work in the hospital.”

“And you have something you would like to tell us?” said Rossi. “With regard to Dario Iannelli.”

“Well,” she began, “yes, but indirectly. It concerns a murder victim. An as yet unidentified murder victim.”

“Do you mean from the Prenestina fire?” said Carrara.

“No, actually. An earlier victim. The African murdered last winter. I have reason to believe Dario Iannelli may be in some way connected.”

“Go on,” said Rossi. “We know something of the case, among others. It was a busy time.”

“Well, it all goes back to the winter and when your colleagues were trying to identify the victim. His body has not been identified or claimed but sooner or later he will have to be buried: in a pauper’s grave, if no one comes forward. It’s policy I’m afraid and it’s all to do with the demands of cost and space.”

“The fate of many,” said Rossi. “In this day and age.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I am afraid so. And not only migrants or foreigners. But the point I want to make is that someone did come forward to identify him. At least I thought he would make an identification but, as it turned out, it wasn’t to be.”

An accumulation of guilt, perhaps, or unresolved doubts seemed to surface now, as her voice began to betray more emotion. Rossi knew the signs. The secret knowledge that could devour the thoughts of the well-intentioned and conscientious, just as it could eat away at the souls of the remorseful. This had been backing up for God knows how long and he wondered what trap she might have felt she was in.

“Could you perhaps clarify what you mean by ‘it wasn’t to be’?” said Rossi.

The waiter had begun his slow walk towards their table.

“Perhaps we should order something,” said Rossi, noting the approach and sensing the need to ease the tension.

“Tiziana?”

“Oh, just water for me, thank you,”

“Solo un’acqua minerale per la signora,” said Rossi dismissing the waiter before he could materialize.

“There’s no rush, Tiziana,” said Rossi. “Just tell me what you remember and then we’ll see what we can do. But when you are ready,” he added, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

She almost smiled and some of the rigidity in her elegant form softened. Plenty of men had put their hands on her in plenty of other situations, something she neither sought nor appreciated, but she didn’t find Rossi patronizing or threatening. He seemed genuine and she was warming to him already.

“My job is very important to me, Inspector. I have considerable responsibility and I am the only woman in my department. I oversee the clerical side of things but I have become a de facto factotum, if you will.”

“A sort of Girl Friday,” said Rossi. “The go-to person.”

“It’s frequently the way, in the public sector.”

Rossi gave a knowing nod. He sensed she didn’t have any sounding board in her work life.

“Otherwise,” she continued, “nothing gets done and we would be doing a disservice to the citizens we are supposed to be there for. It doesn’t go down well with everyone, however, my attitude to work and duty, and I’ve had to put up with my fair share of bitching.”

The water arrived, and Carrara filled her glass but Tiziana didn’t drink.

“Anyway, that day, last winter, a young man came – I don’t remember the exact date but it’s all recorded in my diary. He was African and he said he was looking for his friend who he feared might have been murdered. He had no form of identification and the front office staff had given him the brush-off, while neglecting to inform me of his presence. It was common practice on their part. Trying to isolate me, trying to get me to slip up, withholding information, that sort of thing. However, I happened to be passing through the office – I had come to find a file or something – and I noticed the gentleman still waiting. I enquired as to who he might be and asked him to come with me and then I assessed the situation on the merits of his story. He seemed to have a genuine interest.”

“Did he give you a name?” Rossi enquired.

“Yes,” she replied. “Jibril. I didn’t press him for a surname as I had gathered that he was an illegal, but my conscience would not allow me to throw him out. I could see it in his eyes, Inspector. He was biting back the tears.”

“So you let him see the body, at his request?”

“Yes, but I first asked if there was anyone who could vouch for him. I had no reason to believe he himself might be criminally involved. Surely no criminal would go back to see the victim if he had been his killer.”

“Stranger things can happen,” said Carrara.

“Go on,” said Rossi.

“Well, I just felt that I would be more comfortable if there were someone who could corroborate his story. And that’s where Iannelli comes in,” she continued, with greater composure now.

Rossi knew that what she was saying tallied with his own recollection of events at that time – his old journalist friend’s investigation into high-level corruption, the mysterious attempt by some emissary of the powers-that-be to buy him off, and then the attempt on his life in Sicily, which had sent him into hiding and the life under 24-hour armed escort he now lived.

“The gentleman, Jibril, produced a business card – Dottor Iannelli’s business card – and said that he knew him personally. I assumed that it had come into his possession by pure chance and that he hadn’t the slightest idea who it might belong to. The card was professional, of course, and said Dottor Dario Iannelli, The Facet. Enough perhaps for a naive young migrant to think it could serve as some temporary passport to acceptance. I had also just heard that the journalist had been caught up in an ambush and was feared killed. I didn’t take it any further. I assumed it was a desperate last-ditch attempt to circumvent the obstacles that bureaucracy put in his way, and I could only feel pity for him, not suspicion.”

“And you then took him to view the corpse, I presume,” said Rossi.

“Given the circumstances, I waived normal practice. I followed my conscience, feeling that he and the victim had likely been acquaintances or even relatives. They were, as far as I could see, both of West African appearance and I deduced they could easily have been co-nationals.”

“And yet the identification was negative,” said Rossi.

“Well, that is the central issue here, Inspector. As I pulled back the cover, apart from the reaction of shock you might expect – you know, of course, how he was killed.”

Yes, Rossi knew. His throat had been cut, almost to the point of decapitation.

“The reaction I witnessed was consistent with recognition. I have seen it enough times to be reasonably confident. He was restrained, yes, but when I asked him to confirm whether or not he could positively identify the corpse he gave a firm ‘no’ and that was that. He then asked to leave and began to get rather agitated. I think he also feared that he might be detained or reported to the police. I let him out through a side door as I didn’t want him to have to face the other staff and I didn’t want anyone asking me awkward questions. I would be able to manage that better by myself. I’ve had plenty of practice.”

Rossi looked at Carrara.

“So, if he did recognize him, why didn’t he say so?”

“As I said, presumably fear of being detained, as an illegal, even if that hadn’t stopped him stepping into the lion’s den in the first place. He took a big chance.”

“Are you sure he was a migrant?” said Carrara. “How did you know?”

“I presumed he was. I suppose from his clothing. I mean he really wasn’t dressed for winter. He looked itinerant, tired, and he wasn’t streetwise yet, not in the Roman sense. He seemed fresh out of Africa. It was the impression I got, but I’ve met many such people in my work and in my voluntary activities too. I help out sometimes with a group providing assistance to refugees and migrants.”

“So,” said Rossi, “Iannelli was or wasn’t connected? You said you thought it was a ruse, the business card, a stratagem on his part. What makes you think differently now?”

“I just think that maybe there was something important, something more to it than I first thought. When I heard Dottor Iannelli had survived the attack in Sicily and when the stories began to emerge about corruption in the Detention Centres, I thought that maybe their paths could have crossed in some way. I didn’t give it serious thought at the time, but later I wondered if I’d been hasty in dismissing it out of hand. And then there was the fire on Via Prenestina. All those people. At least one of them was West African too. Call it intuition or instinct but it has continued to prey on my mind, every day – the thought that there could even be a connection. And when I heard you talking about him this morning, it seemed like I had to seize an opportunity to put things straight. I had thought about going to a police station but I was concerned for my position. I didn’t know what to do. It could have come out looking very bad for me. Do you understand?”

Rossi could see she was taking a chance, putting trust in him. It was courageous, a quality he admired.

“Well,” said Rossi, “as luck would have it, we were on our way to the hospital to pay a visit to the pathologist. Our paths may well have crossed anyway.”

His comment raised a more relaxed smile. She had a conscience, he reflected, but she didn’t look like someone who put much stock in fate. Compassionate but practical, realistic. She had to be.

“Did Jibril have an address for the person he was looking for?” asked Carrara.

“He gave me one but it was false. I checked it but I let it go. You have to understand how emotional and how trying all this can be. He needed to know and as far as I was concerned there was no ulterior motive, no other reason for his being there. You know, it did even occur to me that they might have been lovers.”

“Well,” said Carrara, “he was clearly covering all bases if he didn’t want to give a real address. He wanted to appear credible without leaving any trail. As you say, probably the illegal immigrant’s preservation instinct.”

“And his name?” said Rossi. “Do you think he gave you his real name?”

“Like I said, it was Jibril, but more than that I don’t know.”

“Well, it looks like we will have to get on to Dario,” said Rossi to Carrara. He turned back to Tiziana; she was taking restorative sips on her water like a witness granted time to collect herself during a cross-examination.

“What you must remember here, Tiziana, is that this is a murder investigation. Anything that could lead us to the killer could help save lives. We don’t have reason to believe that there have been other victims but we can’t rule it out either. But whoever killed him was ruthless and could do it again. This body was meant to be found. Others may not have been. Your biggest mistake here, if there is one, is not dishonesty or dereliction of duty but simply that of having let time pass. In our job, time is everything. It is a little late in the day.”

She first nodded with something like contrition but then rallied.

“What you say is, of course, perfectly true, Inspector, and I realize that I fell short of certain obligations. However, if I hadn’t intervened in the first place, if I hadn’t set aside normal practice, he would have walked out that door. He was being turned away by my colleagues. I too could have done the same. At least now you have something to go on, even if it is, as you point out, ‘a little late in the day’.”

Carrara was nodding his agreement while Rossi, taken aback first by the steeliness of her retort, couldn’t help then but smile. He sensed he might have the makings of a dependable ally in Tiziana, and allies were hard to come by at the best of times.

“Could you leave us your number, please,” Rossi said. “Mobile and office.” He slid his notebook and pen across the table. “I think we’ll need to be seeing more of each other, Tiziana. But you can rest assured that for now, at least, you have nothing to fear.”

Tiziana wrote down two phone numbers, then Rossi slipped the notebook back into his jacket pocket.

“Perhaps we could accompany you to the hospital,” he proposed.

“Thank you, Inspector,” she replied. “If it’s no trouble.”

“Not at all,” said Rossi. “As I said, we were on our way there.”

Six

At the reception area, Tiziana waved them through the security checks despite the burly security guard’s evident displeasure.

“These gentlemen are with me,” she said. “They are senior police officers.”

The additional information seemed to make the necessary difference as the guard acquiesced and went back to studying his phone.

“I think we know the way now,” said Rossi.

“Wait,” she said, “let me ring ahead first. It will make things easier.”

She unlocked a door on her right in the dim, impersonal corridor in which they now stood. “My office. The back door.”

She emerged a moment later holding out a slip of paper. “Doctor Piredda. First floor, corridor 2, room 209. He’s not busy, so ask him as much as you want. He’s usually pretty straight up actually. Sardinian.”

They thanked her with firm handshakes all round and made their way along the eery passageways. While there was nothing to see, what lurked behind the doors and the nature of the traffic that went through the place was enough to overload the dark side of the imagination.

“Always prefer to come here in the morning,” said Rossi. “Gives me time to forget about it during the rest of the day.”

“Bad dreams?” said Carrara.

“Bad memories more than dreams,” Rossi replied. “I can deal with the dreams. You wake up from them.”

Doctor Piredda was sitting waiting, his hands joined on a writing pad in front of him, a clunky monitor and a computer keyboard yellowed to a soiled ivory colour to one side on his sparse, largely unencumbered working space. He reached across to shake hands with them both, his white-coated bulk straining against the edge of the desk.

“A bad business,” he began. “And still none the wiser, are we?”

Who we was supposed to be, Rossi couldn’t quite be sure.

“I went through it all, you know,” he continued, “with your colleague. He looked down then at his notes in an open Manilla folder. “Lallana.”

“Yes,” said Rossi. “He’s in homicide, specifically. We, Inspector Carrara and I, are from the Serious Crime Squad. We are investigating acts of arson in the city, and we were wondering if there was anything else that may have come to light in the intervening period. Apart from the identification, of course. Any anomalies, for example? We are fairly certain it was intentional. Could you give us something that might indicate intent?”

Piredda shook his head. Rossi knew the signs: that he wasn’t going to stick his neck out on the motive behind the fire.

“Death was due to asphyxiation in primis. The absence of oxygen. It would have been relatively rapid, in the circumstances, with the confined space and the volume of highly toxic smoke.”

“Even with the windows open?” said Carrara. “It was hot. There were locked bars on the windows but the windows themselves must have been open, for ventilation.”

“I think that’s beside the point. The oxygen coming in would only have fed the flames further. They would have quickly lost consciousness, in minutes, and the burns would then in a sense have been secondary factors. Horrendous though they were. I’m sure you know that most victims are not actually burnt to death. What’s more, they will have been asleep and the chances are they were already inhaling the fumes as they slept. They were, I believe, in all but one case found close to where they would have been sleeping. It was night. You can’t orientate yourself in such conditions, and the heat would have been completely overpowering.”

“The ethnicities?” said Rossi feeling already that it was going to be a wasted visit. “Age? Nothing you think you might be able to add?”

“I provided my estimates for age, considering a margin of error of around three to five years either way. I also provided the racial profile. Nothing has changed, Inspector.”

“You said African. Black African. And North African.”

“That is correct. Three black African corpses. One North African. The other victim, of course, was identified by his jewellery. His ‘dog tags’.”

“Could you hazard a guess as to a country, a more specific region?” Rossi asked. “South or West African? You see we’ve had very little in the line of witnesses who had even seen the occupants.”

“Seems like we’ve run into a bit of omertà,” Carrara chipped in. “No one’s saying a goddam word.”

The doctor gave a weak smile.

“That’s more difficult without DNA tests, but I’d venture that the two black Africans were likely sub-Saharan, possibly West African.”

“But we could run those tests,” said Rossi. “If necessary, and get something more definite on age. It could help narrow the search considerably. It might give us something more to work on.”

“Teeth can give excellent results. Carbon-14 dating and crown dentin analysis, without blinding you with the science, Inspector. Of course it takes a little time and it’s rather expensive and there are budget constraints to consider. But if it’s required …,” he trailed off without appearing to exude any great enthusiasm at the prospect.

Carrara meanwhile had whipped out his phone. He nudged Rossi.

“We’re going to have to adjourn, I’m afraid,” he said.

“Now, what?” said Rossi. “Another fire?”

“No. Look,” he said showing Rossi the screen on his wafer-like smartphone. Codice Rosso. Tutte le unità. A red alert. For all units.

“You will have to excuse us, Dottore,” said Rossi, rising with as much decorum as was possible but already making for the door. “Maybe we can talk about that DNA again soon, but it seems we have a major incident in the city. I think it would be a good idea to alert the hospitals. Perhaps all of them.”

Seven

The Libertas Language Centre was on a side street off the road running south away from the centre and parallel with the Brutalist concrete bulk of Termini station. Here, at only two or three minutes’ walk from the station’s buzz, it was already far enough away from the bars and shops to attract very few tourists. Just beyond the school, there was an improvised stall selling pornographic magazines and videos for the remnants of the pre-digital generation. Staff smoked and idled outside a Chinese wholesaler of knick-knacks and costume jewellery, and there was a knot of middle-aged men chatting intently outside a cut-price Indian takeaway. The language centre served as a focus, especially on hot afternoons in summer, for various nationalities who loitered on the footpath and against the railings on the raised walkway leading further away from the station. Some had improvised a marketplace underneath its slope where, on tarpaulins and rugs, they laid out second-hand clothes, shoes, kitchenware and dated household goods and furnishings.

Olivia Modena had already stacked up her books, the unmarked homework, and the register. The money a non-profit cooperative paid her for the few hours a week she taught Italian to immigrants was hardly worth the effort but she wasn’t there for that. She was there because she needed the experience, but also because she enjoyed making a difference. She enjoyed seeing the barriers between herself and the others coming down as their trust in her grew. She took pleasure too from seeing some of those same barriers crumbling between people who would never have had occasion to meet in other circumstances.