The Faces of Angels (56 page)

I have a cold, shrinking feeling inside as if my stomach is withering. Pallioti shakes his head.

‘That doesn't get us anywhere,' he says. ‘It still means it could be anyone. Some nut who saw Signora Warren on the street, or in a piazza, or in a bar. He could even have read about her in the paper when she was attacked. There was a lot of coverage. It doesn't narrow the field enough.' He smiles at me. I think he's trying to be reassuring, but it isn't working.

‘We can't attack it that way,' he says. ‘What we have to do is anticipate him. And to do that we still need to know what connects these women. Something will. Something always does.'

Pallioti reaches into his briefcase, pulls out a folder and deals a set of eight-by-ten pictures across the table.

‘Eleanora Darnelli. Benedetta Lucchese. Caterina Fusarno. Ginevra Montelleone. Anthea “Billy” Kalczeska.' He slaps their photos down like a dealer in a casino. ‘Signora Warren's right,' he says, ‘the dates, the desire to martyr, is significant in what it tells us about him. But in terms of catching him, why he picks his victims is even more significant. We've checked schools, professions, neighbourhoods, hair colours. Even horoscopes. So, any ideas, anyone?'

These aren't crime-scene pictures, and we reach for them, all of us except Pallioti, secretly fascinated, I think, eager to look behind the curtain and catch a glimpse of who these women were in the days before they were made special by a serial killer. I realize that I've never seen a picture of Benedetta alive as an adult, or of Caterina Fusarno alive at all, and it occurs to me that these are like photos of the famous and the infamous as kids, the ones you study in magazines, looking for a hint, a clue, that they had any idea of what they would one day become

Francesca Giusti is looking at the portrait of Ginevra Montelleone, the same one that was in the bar. Pain flashes across her face. Ginevra looks so like her, they could be mother and daughter. I reach for a photo of Eleanora and find that Gabriel Fabbiacelli is as good as I thought he was: she looks exactly like his painting of her in the fresco. Except in this picture, she's wearing her nun's habit, not angel's robes.

Eleanora stands on what looks like a playground, smiling into the camera, one child hanging on her hand, another peeking around the edge of her skirt. The brown serge of her nun's habit looks hot in what is obviously summer sun, and she's hitched it up in the work apron she wears so it hangs at mid-length. I wonder how stifling it must be to pass the whole summer in black stockings and black lace-up shoes. Shoes so highly polished they shine. Like patent leather.

Without thinking, I snatch the photograph of Benedetta.

Pallioti is talking, saying something to Francesca Giusti about the number of men he can make available. His words blur and mix with the buzzing of the bees in the lavender pot and the tattoo of the drum set. The photograph in my hand is in colour. Benedetta sits on a park bench in her nurse's uniform, one arm draped along the back, the pretty blue watch she's wearing setting off the tan on her arm.

‘He's been in the apartment.'

The talking at the table stops. ‘He's been in the apartment!' I stand up, the chair behind me almost tipping over.

Pallioti gets to his feet. ‘Signora?'

Pierangelo stands up too. He reaches out, but I duck away. I don't want anyone to touch me.

‘He's been in the apartment,' I say again, louder this time. ‘That shoe, the one he took from Eleanora Darnelli, it's in the bottom of Billy's closet. And she found black nail polish in the bathroom. She thought it was mine. But it was Caterina's. Caterina Fusarno was wearing it when she died, it must have been in her bag. And Benedetta Lucchese's watch. It has a B and a date, 1992, I think, engraved on the back, doesn't it?'

I don't even have to see Pallioti nod.

‘It's on Billy's bureau. In her jewellery box. I thought she didn't wear it because she was being difficult, but she probably didn't even know it was there.'

I sit down, suddenly, groping for the chair. ‘He's been coming in the whole time.'

Pieces of the puzzle are falling around me like hailstones, clattering out of the sky and locking into place. The picture grows and grows, seeping like a stain across the weeks we spent in the apartment.

‘My keys were missing. I lose keys. He must have got hold of them, somehow, and had them copied. Then he came in and out. He did it all the time.' I close my eyes and see my room, my lipsticks and eye shadow all messed up. I thought it was Billy. But it wasn't. He sprayed my perfume. He took my toothbrush.

‘That's how he got my cell number.' I feel sick. ‘He left things and he took things. I think he made designs on the floor, with postcards. It wasn't Billy outside on the landing, last Thursday. It was him.'

I feel the door panel against my cheek. Hear my own whisper in the dark.

‘I smelled him. He used my perfume. He was right on the other side of the door.'

My skin starts to crawl. Rats' whiskers tickling my scars. I see my room, Signora Bardino's pretty pink counterpane, and the indent, the unmistakable shape of a head on the pillow.

‘Oh God,' I wail, ‘he was on my bed! He lay on my bed!' And the drumming stops abruptly.

In the next few minutes, Pallioti makes a series of phone calls while Francesca Giusti takes me into the house to use the bathroom and wash my face. She runs ice-cold water and hands me a pink fluffy towel. When she walks back with me across the lawn, she puts her arm around my shoulders. By the time we sit down again, Pallioti is pacing back and forth. The rats are still tickling me, but as he speaks I feel calmer.

‘When was the last time you think he was there?'

‘Yesterday.'

All of them stare at me.

‘I saw him,' I say slowly. I'm way too embarrassed to confess I thought it was Billy's ghost, but I tell them about the shadow in the kitchen. ‘He left while I was at Sophie's. Signora Sassinelli,' I explain. ‘He must have.' I stop, remembering how close I came to not going up to Sophie's at all. ‘He took Billy on Wednesday or Thursday.' I run my hand across my eyes, trying to stop the days sliding together. ‘And he's come back since,' I add. ‘That night, he didn't think I'd be there; I called Billy's name when I woke up, and stopped him coming in. But he came back yesterday. There were cigarettes,' I say slowly, remembering the red and lavender bands. ‘He uses my lipstick.'

‘Mary should leave,' Pierangelo says suddenly. ‘She should leave Florence today.'

There is silence at the table. Babinellio, Francesca Giusti and Pallioti exchange glances.

‘Of course,' Francesca Giusti says, ‘Signora Thorcroft is entirely free to do as she wishes, and her safety is our primary concern.'

‘Good.' Pierangelo stands up.

Babinellio looks at me. ‘I think it would be a great shame if you left.'

His small black eyes are almost glittering with excitement. ‘You see,' he says, ‘it appears I was right. Not only is he interested in you, signora. He wants, even needs, to be close to you.'

‘What Babinellio is saying,' Pallioti interjects, ‘is that you're the only certain way we have of catching him.'

The argument goes on for the better part of an hour, and finally it's me who settles it. Francesca Giusti and Pierangelo both suggest using a policewoman who looks like me, someone in a wig who will come and go from the apartment while the police stake it out. But one look at Babinellio's face is enough to tell me that he thinks this idea is pointless. And so do I. Because whoever it is who's doing this, whoever's plucking women out of Florence to offer them his peculiar brand of salvation, will know. I can sense it. I don't know who he is. I can't pick his face out in a crowd, as familiar as it may be. But he's caressed my clothes. And used my toothbrush. He's rested his head on my pillow. He's my secret friend. And he won't be deceived.

I consider this as I stand outside the door to Signora Bardino's apartment with Pallioti, two other policemen I don't know, and a forensics team. It's just past five a.m. on Monday, and I feel as if I've been away for years.

The Sassinellis and Signora Raguzza and Dinya, her companion—in other words everyone who lives in the building—have been eliminated as suspects, so it was decided yesterday that we would come here this morning, immediately after dawn. Coming at night would have meant using lights, which would be unusual because I haven't been staying here, and appearing during the day would have attracted attention, which Pallioti is desperate to avoid. The only chance for springing this trap is for everything to appear completely normal.

So that's what I've been instructed to do; be normal. All the time. Twenty-four seven. The apartment will be watched continuously, and in the meantime I'm supposed to go to lectures, and go to Pierangelo's and go out to eat, and go shopping. A panic button has been installed in Piero's apartment, and another one will be put here. My cell phone is still being monitored, and the phones at Pierangelo's and here are tapped. I won't know who the police are who are shadowing me, in case I do something to give them away, but I have been assured that somewhere, close by, they'll be watching, looking for someone, anyone, who is looking at me. I don't need to worry, Pallioti says. I'll be fine. Because from now on, I'll never be alone.

‘Ready?' He turns the key in the lock, and I nod. All I have to do is walk in, go through the apartment and notice everything: anything I think he might have touched or taken or left behind.

In the dull light, the rooms look dead. The bed counter-panes are smooth, there's no indent on the pillows. I wear gloves to open my own closet and stare at the empty hangers. In Billy's room, dust is collecting again on the top of her bureau. In the kitchen, I go through the cupboards, the bottles of oil, the spices and sugar to see if he's left a little gift there. When I look at the eggshell cups and ugly mugs I wonder which one he drank out of. If he opened packets and stuck his fingers in our food. What did he lick? What did he spit in? Who knows?

After I have finished, the forensic crew seem to take for ever. It's crucial that the chain of evidence be preserved, so everything has to be photographed and rephotographed, annotated and bagged. There are three of them, and before they go inside, they zip themselves into white paper spacesuits. Pallioti and I only have to wear gloves and little paper bags over our shoes, and we stand in the hall, which seems to be a neutral area, while they brush and swab everything in sight.

Yesterday, Pallioti asked me over and over again when I first noticed things: the nail polish, the shoe, the watch. Papers out of place. Food missing. And I told him everything I could remember. But now, actually standing here, I am no longer certain of anything. The past has been all shaken up; what I thought was our life in this apartment, the days Billy and I spent coming and going that seemed so ordinary, have been put into a kaleidoscope, whirled and rearranged, and nothing I look at is what I thought it was.