Fairy Morgan - In The Mist Nothing Is What It Seems

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

Claudia Martini was sitting at the table in the prosecutor's bar and, like every morning, she read the newspaper while sipping her coffee. Sometimes croissants and a cappuccino were allowed, but not that day. She was tense and, to be honest, she wanted to go home. She lazily read a few articles: the umpteenth political scandal jumped in her eyes; a blurb was about a contemporary art exhibition.

A few words exchanged with the waiter, Mario, who lapidary sentences with the proverbial is a b***h of every news on the agenda. He got a smile form her.

A distracted greeting to a passing colleague, then she left the money on the table and walked away with her files.

Claudia was thirty-eight years old. Little was known about her because of her reticence.

She had moved into the new apartment in the city for less than a year but had not made many friends. For the truth, none.

The only person she often heard and saw from time to time was the twin, Aurora.

It certainly could not be said that she led a worldly life: at dinner out sporadically, few visits to the office, an invitation to co-workers' house on special occasions but little else. No relationship spun.

At first glance, she seemed to be the classic decisive and aggressive procurator, perhaps the kind that masks her insecurities behind the face of the ruthless professional. But it would have been too simplistic a reading.

Claudia had a complex personality with many facets, although she led too reserved a life to show this side of her character.

This contrast allowed her to escape from any attempt at labelling, frustrating the efforts of her colleagues who, by now, had simply accepted her as she was. An elusive and mysterious but reliable, serious and timely presence. In every sense.

«Good morning, Alberto.»

The chancellor looked at the office clock reflexively: eight o'clock sharp. He smiled, wondering as always what was the secret that would allow her to go like the clockwork.

No secrets. I live near and do not have to take the car or the bus would have been Claudia's answer in the hypothetical conversation that, however, had never taken place.

She entered his office and threw her bag over the chair in the corner of the room, then ran to open the windows. The night before she had slept badly, as it had been for a few weeks.

In these cases the answer that everyone tends to give is that it is about stress. As if this enigmatic word contained in itself the explanation for every evil of our days, and that it would be enough to eliminate it to fix everything; she did not escape the cliché.

So she closed her eyes and took a few breaths of cold air that immediately poured into the room; that lash awakened her from the numbness she had still been wearing since she left home.

She sat down on the armchair and finally immersed herself into her papers.

A quick look at the schedule of his commitments, then she headed to the courtroom but, as unexpected is a painting that comes off the wall without warning, so would have arrived soon after the news which would have started a series of chained events that, with a domino effect, would have had a devastating impact on her life.

The domino effect! Everything starts from a single card. An insignificant, small card; an imperceptible movement that triggers an unstoppable reaction once started. For her, the definitive input materialized in the moment when the phone rang.

The body was lying on the desk, in a position that suggested the last act performed by the man who, evidently intent on writing before being shot to death, still clutched the pen in his right hand. The cause of death was very evident: a wound at the base of the neck on the right side. The blade must have hit the jugular, at least judging from the pool of blood that had formed on the desk.

«The murder weapon? Was it found? »

«Good morning, Dr. Martini. No not yet. My men are also looking in other rooms. »

Commissioner Edoardo Montanari, everyone called him Eddy, was already on the spot and was coordinating operations.

Claudia approached him to ask for further details. Eddy gave her a summary report: Amedeo Giordani, a fifty-four-year-old psychiatrist, was not married and had no precedent. A respected professional.

The crime scene looked like a movie set, in which actors and technicians move naturally, each with their own, precise, task.

Eddy was a solitary policeman, similar to the stereotype of American films: unkempt beard, a deep, hoarse voice, an athletic physique who, despite his forty years of age, kept trained despite his cigarettes. He moved like the director of that film, even too realistic.

At first glance he suggested something of yesteryear. It would have been perfect for a film noir or a black and white by Truffaut. Faded jeans, black boots, motorcycle leather jacket.

«Who warned you?»

«It was the neighbour. He went out to go to work at the ... so here it is, around seven thirty. He noticed the door open. Since the doctor never received his patients so early, and in any case not before nine, he thought about thieves. So he looked inside.»

She clarified that he had already officially released his deposition.

«What do you think, Montanari?»

«I don't know.» There was a pause, a hesitation, then he restarted. «It is not a common crime. I would exclude a robbery or a quarrel as a motive. »

«Why not a fight?»

Montanari crossed his arms and frowned, as if to concentrate on the answer. He looked around the room to find and gather words between the images of the many paintings hanging on the walls of the study. They did not look like the usual framed posters found in the clinics or dentists. The care with which they had been chosen was evident; there were authentic paintings and prints of famous paintings. Eddy was not an expert but understood that the reproductions concerned famous works by important authors; it was clear that the doctor loved art.

«Look,» he said, pointing to the victim's hand. «He still tightens the pen. He knew the assailant, since he was sitting and the position does not presume that he was forced in any way, or that he was in danger. »

In fact, if it were not for the blood, one might have thought he was asleep. The blow was undoubtedly inflicted by surprise.

«Of course he knew the assailant,» Claudia added, «he was a doctor and probably it was one of his patients. If he was a man of such integrity, it is reasonable to think that the study only met its patients.»

«I didn't mean that, Doctor"

He scratched his chin then continued.

«I meant that it could be an acquaintance, a friend or, why not, a new patient; someone who had already known for a long time and who had only recently turned to him; only if he was familiar with Giordani, the killer could approach him without arousing suspicion. If you're at the doctor, sitting in front of him, you have no reason to turn around.»

He stopped to think: even he was perplexed by those hypotheses.

«Maybe he pretended to take the coat, or go to the bathroom. Perhaps he knew the study.»

He took a deep breath.

«I would not be surprised if the blow had been carried from behind. And then, I think something is missing from the desk. "

Claudia watched the scene, then Eddy, quizzically.

«That means?»

«Well, if he wrote he will have used a diary or a sheet. In short, some paper. And there is no trace of it here.»

She returned to stare at the victim; in fact it seemed that he was asleep, of a sleep of day.

«Or maybe a prescription pad. Maybe the killer did not want to leave traces, not even a prescription.»

"Commissioner." An agent peeped out in the doorway.

«Maybe we found something.»

Claudia and Eddy followed the policeman into the other room. It was a small adjoining room, without windows, like a closet. A few shelves, a few small pieces of furniture and a small writing desk complete with a small armchair on wheels.

Even at first glance one noticed that something was not right. Small details, an apparent imposed, artificial tidiness. It lacked the naturalness typical of living environments in which chaos is organized according to its own logic. In that circumstance, on the other hand, there was an apparent symmetry, broken by some loose detail that for some reason met the eye.

«Apparently, someone has rummaged and then tidied up rather hurriedly,» the woman observed.

Eddy went to the point indicated by the agent: a drawer in the file. He seemed forced.

«The killer was looking for something. I wouldn't be surprised if some files had disappeared.»

They returned to the scene of the crime, so as to allow the scientist to operate the reliefs as per the procedure; they would look for fingerprints or biological traces, like a hair or saliva on a cigarette, that would allow lab technicians to extract the DNA of a possible killer.

Around the victim's body, the medical examiner and the photographer completed their surveys, in order to allow the members of the investigative team to begin cataloging the finds.

Eddy watched the lightning of the flash light up the wall; he had seen many crime scenes, just like this and yet he distinctly felt something different from the past.

Who knows why that reminded him of the buzz of the old cameras that recharged the flash after every shot; the new digital machines did not emit the metallic noise of the diaphragm and the mechanical shutter; all this made things even more aseptic. He was getting tired of that life.

Claudia asked the doctor for the presumed hour of death which, according to the doctor, should have occurred immediately, and it could be placed in an interval of about two hours between twenty and twenty-two on the previous day.

«Nobody saw or heard anything. We are keeping on asking the tenants of the building and the porter. He also says he did not notice anything strange.»

The studio was located in a park situated outside the city, in a quiet and out of the way, mostly inhabited by discreet and reserved people; it was plausible that someone could enter and leave the park without attracting attention.

Claudia watched Eddy fix a point outside the window.

«I wonder if those surveillance cameras recorded anything.»

He sharpened his sight trying to imagine in his mind the possible path followed by the assassin.

«It seems that they partially shoot the main entrance. If they are closed circuit they'll have recorded something. I'll arrange for the records to be acquired.»

The cameras were mounted at the main entrance and the large gate that allowed entry of the cars, but this last case they were directed downwards, exclusively towards the entrance.

«Who could have been? And what would he have looked for so important, among the files of a psychiatrist, to induce him to kill? »

Claudia dropped the question almost like a thought expressed aloud, but at that moment a sudden wave of nausea seized her stomach and her throat: she would never have gotten used to scenes like that. He limited herself to listening to Eddy who had immediate controls in Giordani's private life. The commissioner was asking his men to go through the files, check the victim's friendships and find out if there were any of his colleagues he had quarreled or even had a simple argument or a disagreement with; the last indications were for Inspector Bettini, his closest collaborator, about the press and the need to keep it away for as long as possible.

Claudia moved away from the scene of the crime shortly thereafter, leaving behind herself, with each step more and more indistinct, the buzz of the investigators and re-emerged in the blinding sun, in the light of day; a cathartic feeling, of rebirth after that palpable halo of death that always accompanies inspections like that. She decided to go back to work immediately.

Once in the office, Claudia felt a little better. All the times when the events related to their work, sometimes unpleasant in their raw violence, threw on her that sense of inadequacy, the commitment in the office ran to her rescue making sure that the hours increased the distance between her mind and the images from which she wanted to get away as soon as possible.

Sometimes it happened to reflect on the fact that hers was simply a virtual escape, a palliative since what helped her was not thinking about anything else, but rethinking the event in a different way, process everything in the form of investigations, reconstruction of events, intertwining the threads of the story, so as to contextualize the event and just turn it into a brick in the wall of the process.

And like the bird of prey that, intent in the hunting, exploits its peculiar sight raising in flight and scanning the fields in search of prey that, not being able neither to see, nor to smell or even to feel the arrival of the predator, venture outside without fear and caution, so she led the investigations: she moved away from the focal point of the story and, in this way, the overall picture seemed clearer to her. Sometimes the protagonists of the judicial affair behaved just like the unaware rodents of the hawk, to which it is enough to arrive with the sun in front of them, so as not to reveal their presence and that of their own shadow. Yet this time, she could not identify the reason, the murder Giordani gave her the feeling of being a difficult and challenging case.

The afternoon came unexpectedly, since the work had absorbed her completely. The clock indicated five o'clock and Claudia was about to go home. He would have had a little work, and perhaps she would have given herself a little shopping: the music and the care of his aquarium were the only passions that she allowed herslf. So she bought some tropical fish food and stopped at the record store.

When she got home, she took off her shoes, got rid of her purse and coat, and with the delicacy only the true melomaniac is capable of, she put the CD in the futuristic-looking reader. A few seconds and Maria Callas's voice painted the room with its melody, wandering in the corridors and following her like a constant but quite natural presence, like the chirping of birds in spring.

She got closer the aquarium and dropped some flakes of food inside, then sat down on the sofa and immersed himself in that feeling of decompression, of total relaxation that washed away, like a liturgical lavage, the anxieties and worries. Norma's notes veined with anguish caressed her ears when her attention was captured by a detail that had escaped her in the beginning, like a dissonant element that at first glance goes unnoticed but is then unearthed by the unconscious mental processes elaborating subliminal information which, from time to time, rise on the surface of consciousness recalled by the comparison of that element with its own memories.

She lifted her back from the sofa to look better, then slowly got up to go to the large bookcase that filled the opposite wall.

Her steps on the carpet remained silent and it took only a few meters to realize that she was right: an empty space in front of her confirmed the lack of a book, but she could not remember when she had taken it and where it was. Someone else would probably let it slip but not her, methodical and precise as she was. At least in her apartment. If she had taken the book, she would have certainly remembered it but, above all, he would not have left it around.

She tried to concentrate, to understand at least which one was missing but when she turned to go to the bedroom to check, she stopped: the book was on the floor next to the sofa.

Her heart started racing but she recovered and reached for her cell phone on the wooden table, just behind her.

The unmistakable London accent on the other end of the phone already revealed the identity of the interlocutor from the first small talk: it was the lawyer Scott Brewer, the representative of an important English multinational who, at the time, had dealt with his father, known expert on art, about the sale of the gallery owned by the family, which Claudia had never wanted to take over. She regretted not having first looked at the name on the display. The dislike she felt for him went beyond professional reasons. By heart, from the first meetings, she had hated the lawyer's Cockney inflection that, originally from Whitechapel, had tried in every way to mask it, at least in the used vocabulary but, to an average trained ear to English, sooner or later the notes of the accent did not escape. Evidently, after his studies in Cambridge, made possible probably thanks to the sacrifices of his parents, he had tried to get out of his environment by attending the City, the art galleries in Soho and Chelsea.

The Galleria Martini had lived moments of great notoriety even at international level and had launched important avant-garde artists in the late eighties but, after the first successes on the international market, it became evident the impossibility to continue with that family-run organisation. The father had thus dealt with the sale of the majority of the company that ran the gallery or the transformation into a foundation, hoping to give a new impetus to business thanks to the interest of the British. The Martini family would maintain a minority share and participate in the administrative board of foundation; this would assure the father of a job that he would try to transfer to his daughter, before her engagement in the magistracy. The death of Eugenio Martini had ended the project and he was replaced by Brando, the elder brother of Claudia. But they had not digested the matter in London and Brewer had returned to office: evidently the Englishman wanted to dismiss the matter as soon as possible. It was entirely taken over by Brewer, who had the power of attorney and who, obviously, was the bearer of a new proposal, which was bound to redefine the terms of the agreement.

On the phone, strangely, he was quick and compliant. Just him who loved soliloquy beyond everything, at the limit of tolerance for the interlocutor. Claudia was convinced that, in reality, was a strategy to tire the opponent on duty and take him to the ground that he preferred, after having bored and prepared to close the eventual agreement as soon as possible. And he could wonderfully go through with being unpleasant. His reversal was at least suspicious and it was not clear why he insisted on a meeting as soon as possible.

She decided to take time: he would call him back. She interrupted the conversation. She looked around then decided to make some tea.

Claudia was nervous. The day had been heavy and even though she had tried to maintain a professional attitude, she was sure that her face looked tired.

She was also waiting for news on the Giordani case but Commissioner Montanari had not given any news yet.

She knew she would have to wait a few more days to get a better overview of the situation; it was necessary to listen to the witnesses, to acquire and to view the videos recorded by the surveillance cameras, to record the fingerprints and anything else useful for the investigations. Nonetheless, she was impatient and restless at the same time.

The truth was that the call from a few days ago had disturbed her. His father had asked his daughters many times to take care of the gallery, but Claudia had understood that she was cut out for that job even before entering the judiciary; the engagement in the gallery required talents that she did not possess: patience, diplomacy, the art of compromise and she realized that everything got info fight with her character

She was aggressive, often surly and did not like mince words. Actually it had not always been this way. She had changed a lot since she left home and had moved away from her family and friends.

The work had led her to live in different cities, and now that she had returned to the places where she had grown up, her change seemed even more evident.

She hated talking about his lack of commitment to society; every time someone touched the subject she became nervous. Even when she went to visit her mother in the country villa where she lived with her other daughter, Aurora, the subject remained suspended in the air like a thin mist, ethereal yet present.

The last times she had visited his brother Brando, in his new house just outside the city, not far from Villa Martini, she had reacted badly when he had asked her the real reasons for her choice. She had immediately regretted it but she did not allow for derogations on this point: it was her life, she had made decisions and had no intention of going back

Perhaps it was the reappearance of these memories that convinced her that it would be better to call Brewer to define the matter once and for all.

Moreover, this would have meant the need to return to the family for a few days and the prospect of seeing the house where she had grown up did not mind her at all.

She undressed throwing her clothes on the couch. She never did it: he always folded his clothes but she was nervous and in a hurry to slip into the shower. The water would wash away fatigue and worries.

She went into the bathroom, turned on the light, and waited a few seconds for the neon to stabilize, then looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was tired, drawn; a grayish halo veiled her big green eyes, which the brown mass of her brown hair put even more prominently, especially on sunny days.