Milan
They found Teresa Resca’s body on Tuesday morning between the railway lines and the quarry lake, half a kilometre from the abandoned buildings they had searched. A team of volunteers, policemen working overtime and, crucially, dog handlers, beginning at first light, had spread out over the area, and there she was, Teresa, a small heap, face down, already sinking into the mud. The great mystery was how she had not been discovered earlier. The other was why whoever had done this to her had not tried to dispose of the body in the lake. Or maybe they had.
By now it was clear there was no organized crime connection. Fossati was not surprised that Bazza had been right. From the start he, too, had doubted that the father’s denunciations of the Ndrangheta had had anything to do with the disappearance, thought his articles and opinions, ignored for so long by the mainstream press, were now being reprinted as part of the late-summer horror story.
Be careful what you wish for.
Teresa’s mother received the news in hospital, where she had been taken two days before. She was under sedation, suicide watch, and armed guard.
The suspects were Kosovars, already in custody. They had been arrested on charges of loansharking in the past, and now faced life for murder. They started confessing and accusing each other within half an hour of the body being found.
Lost in his political obsessions, Giovanni Resca had failed to notice that his wife, who worked nights in the Policlinico San Donato, the very hospital in which she now lay drugged, though this time legally, was living far beyond her means. The jewellery he had assumed was cheap imitation was real, the clothes he attributed to her innate sense of style were designer, the irascibility, constant running nose, late lie-ins and increased tolerance and liking for liquor were not signs of an unshakeable cold. Nights out had been disguised as night-shift work, requiring her not only to hide the expenditure but to create the impression of earning overtime. She had borrowed € 50,000 five years ago, had made regular payments, yet now owed the Kosovars € 180,000. Her apartment was rented, her car was a Skoda, and her husband a failure, so when they came looking for collateral, they found nothing but her child.
Whether they had intended to kill the girl was another matter. The woman at the bus stop, who now had a face and a name, Altea Agushi, seemed also to have a conscience, or it might have been an instinct for self-preservation. Whatever it was, her testimony put her partner Dardan, now in San Vittore prison, in a very bad position, even if she continued to insist Dardan had not really meant to harm the girl. They had only wanted to scare the parents. But Dardan was a kick boxer, and hardly knew his own strength.
Fossati believed her, in that he believed the killing made no sense and was unplanned. When the girl started screaming, Dardan probably just lost it for a moment, as his wife said. But the moment was a long one. It had taken more than one blow to silence her, and when the moment was finally over, time had stopped for ever for Teresa.
‘I told you it could never end well, this story,’ said the magistrate.
The inspector beside him shook his head in disgust at the whole sorry mess, then brightened up a little. ‘Amazing that dog. It was like it knew. You’d almost arrest the dog and the handler for the way they went straight to the spot.’
‘What can you do with people like Dardan and Altea?’ asked Fossati. ‘You can’t make them care. That would be the best punishment: make them care. But you can’t. You can put them away for life, but you can’t touch them inside.’
The policeman ignored his musings. ‘I hear that the wedding ring we found helped make a breakthrough in that case of the dead Romanians. You know, the one that’s connected to the killing of the insurance guy, Arconti, and the judge in Rome?’
‘That is no concern of yours or mine,’ said Fossati.
‘Word spreads,’ said the inspector, unrepentant.
‘You police talk to each other too much.’