Death Brings Gold

CHAPTER 19

David was sitting on the bed, his eyes fixed on his mother’s lifeless ones. He was listening to the mangled words the woman was pronouncing with difficulty. They seemed meaningless and made no sense. A sign that death was coming to take her.

David sighed, trying to hold back the tears.

“David, m-mhy d-d-hear…”

The voice shook him.

For the first time his mother had said something almost comprehensible.

He granted her his full attention. He stood there staring at her for a time that seemed eternal, then more words came.

“… ss-h-k-keep on sshmoukeeng, if hhhyou c-can’t do… uithout …em…”

Then, on the woman’s face there was the sign of a breakdown, a snarl of pain that prompted David to squeeze her hand to comfort her, making her feel his presence.

The old woman’s head fell heavily forward, almost lifeless, and he tried to call her.

“Mum…”

The woman, with her last strength, raised her head and half-closed her eyes, trying to focus on her son’s face. Then, she shut them completely and started chewing on nothing again.

A series of distorted and fragmented syllables was the reward to David’s patient wait.

“…But plheashe … it’s for u hoo… art a mmly…I whuont hhee you sttleouwn.”

He sprung suddenly and sat on his bed soaked with sweat. That dream again. That nasty pain again, suffered at his mother’s deathbed.

He placed a hand on his chest, as if trying to calm the frantic beat of his heart.

He repeated the words engraved in his memory, but he couldn’t decipher their meaning.

He sat there until a normal heartbeat returned.

He lit a cigarette and took a long strong drag. He held the smoke inside until he felt some kind of itchiness in his lungs, then he let it out, along with a thousand thoughts.

He entered the bathroom with uncertain steps, in the hope that his morning routine would bring him some peace. He came back to the bedroom, leaned for a moment against the door frame.

It was from there that he saw it.

On the pillow was the sheet of paper that he had almost worn out from constantly looking at the symbols.

He stood there observing the crumpled piece of paper, while taking his mind back to Ghezzi’s house.

He had entered into Raffaele Ghezzi’s flat, after Bassani had his intuition. The metallic sound …

At that point he and the detective, having donned latex gloves, had begun searching the living room. They had looked everywhere. Under the furniture, on and under the rug, they had searched meticulously between the gaps of the tiles. Nothing. Besides, what could they have expected to find, after the Forensic team had gone through that room again and again?

They had looked at each other, dejected. Walker had dragged a small chair over to sit down. That was when he heard something scraping against the floor. He had turned the chair upside down and there it was: the tag.

He held the little gold coloured piece close to his eyes and tried to read the symbols engraved on its surface.

While Bassani, triumphant, was going back to Headquarters with their loot, Walker got in his car to go home, having copied the symbols of the two small tags on a new sheet of paper.

And now, as he approached the sheet of paper, he realised that he was not even a millimetre closer to the solution. In fact, the increasing number of symbols rendered him practically unable to come up with (let alone find!) any meaning whatsoever. Lines, dots, circles. Nothing, he couldn’t think of anything.

He noticed his cigarette had almost burnt out. He stubbed out what was left of it in the ashtray and grabbed the crumpled paper.

He stood staring at the new symbols.

ḷ % -

ḷ % -

He sighed.

Then he made his tongue click against his palate, turned the paper over, so he could see the whole sequence of symbols, and tried for the umpteenth time to solve the problem.

- / = ḷ % -

- / = ḷ % -

He was sure: those signs were nothing more than a mathematical code to decipher. Or maybe a lead, a hint that, somehow, held information. About what? The murders already committed, or…

They should expect a third murder, Walker said to himself. And maybe a fourth one, even.

Many serial killers were in the habit of using that modus operandi. It was the means the killer was using to communicate with the Police. The only thing in common between him and those who were hunting him. The main difference was that one formulated the riddles to make them as difficult as possible; whereas the others racked their brains trying to solve them, before it was too late.

“This son of a bitch wants to play the maths professor,” he said out loud, conscious that he was talking to himself like crazy people do.

He turned the sheet of paper over again and focused on the symbols found at the first crime scene.

ḷ % -

ḷ % -

He tried to find a link between the three or five symbols – in case the central one was a percentage symbol – and the place where the second victim had been found.

What is the fucking connection between the minus, the percent, that bloody ‘i’, and the murder of Giuliano Giuliani, a man with one foot and one hand?

The answer he was hoping for didn’t come. And he was sure it was not going to come easily.

Disheartened, he let the paper fall on the pillow.

He retrieved the clothes he had thrown on a chair the night before and started putting them on, letting his mind keep wandering around those damned symbols.

He shook his head, depressed. He had never been that good at maths, even less at algebra.

Nevertheless, he smiled.

He knew who to turn to. Arturo Mosetti would surely have given him some brilliant advice. He had done it several times during previous investigations, when Walker had been in difficulty.

And there was nothing to say that he couldn’t have also solved this complicated problem.

He would see him that same afternoon, but right now he had another meeting. He had decided to have Merli followed from that very night. Before that, however, he was going to ask him some questions. If he could catch him straight away, there would be no need to have him followed.

When Walker arrived at Headquarters, he was surprised to see that detective Paolo Caslini, – his most loyal man – had already come back to work.

“Weren’t you supposed to come back next week?” he asked , with a sidelong glance.

“Let’s not go there , Chief. I thought this time she was the real thing, but I had to dump her too.”

“Even this brunette left hair in the toilet?” Walker said ironically.

This was not the first time Caslini left a current flame while on holiday and took off in haste. He was intolerant of people, but if you asked him, it was they who were full of faults.

“If that had been all, Chief” answered Caslini, disconsolate.

“You’ll tell me later, Paolo. Now I’ve got some urgent work to do. Actually, you could come along.” he said to him. That wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order.

When they entered the office, Merli – who was the only suspect, though unaware of the fact - was already there waiting for them. Once again Bassani had done a great job. He had got him there in record time.

The guy seemed anxious. Was it guilt or fear?

Walker stood behind Merli, who had neither seen nor heard him come in. Walker could sense Merli’s anxiety even by standing behind him. So he decided to surprise him.

“Good morning, Mr Merli.”

Merli turned, almost scared, his mouth open.

“I’m Inspector Walker,” he continued. “And this is detective Caslini.”

At last Merli spoke as well.

“Good morning,” he answered in a soft, but firm, voice.

David went past him, looking at him. He took a seat at the other end of the desk, along with Caslini. Lining themselves up in that way, they wanted to make Merli understand that there were two of them, while he was on his own. They were putting mental pressure on the suspect, something that in the majority of cases brought results.

Walker’s steady eyes locked on Merli’s disorientated eyes. He deliberately remained silent, in order to increase the man’s anxiety.

Merli started looking around, as if he was wondering if they were still waiting for somebody else. He was also wondering if one of these two men was going to tell him why he was in that room with Homicide police, instead of being in his small garage. When his anxiety was about to become painful, he made up his mind.

“May I know why you’ve called me?” His tone of voice was trying to show a confidence that he didn’t have. He was scared, clearly.

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