The Lost Girls of Rome Read Online Free PDF

lying prone on the table, his face buried in a bowl of cornflakes. There’s a deep gunshot wound on the back of his neck.’
    For Sandra, death was not in the two bullet-riddled bodies, or in the blood that had spattered everywhere and was slowly drying at their feet. It wasn’t in their glassy eyes that continued to lookwithout seeing, or in the unfinished gestures with which they had taken their leave of the world. It was elsewhere. Sandra had learned that death’s greatest talent was being able to hide in details, and it was in those details that she would reveal it with her camera. In the coffee stains on the oven, where it had spilled from the old coffee maker that had continued to boil until someone switched it off after discovering the scene. In the hum of the refrigerator, which continued impassively to keep the food fresh in its belly. In the TV, which was still broadcasting cheerful cartoons. After the massacre, this artificial life had continued, unheeding and pointless. It was in that deception that death lay hidden.
    ‘Nice way to start the day, eh?’
    Sandra switched off the recorder and turned.
    Inspector De Michelis stood in the doorway with his arms folded, an unlit cigarette drooping from his lips. ‘The man you saw in the bathroom worked as a guard for a security company. The gun was licensed. They lived on his salary. What with the rent and the car insurance, they probably found it hard to make ends meet. But who doesn’t?’
    ‘Why did he do it?’
    ‘We’re interviewing the neighbours. The husband and wife quarrelled frequently, but not violently enough for anyone to call the police.’
    ‘So there were problems in the marriage?’
    ‘Apparently, yes. He was into Thai boxing, he was even provincial champion for a while, but he gave it up after being disqualified for using anabolic steroids.’
    ‘Did he beat her?’
    ‘The pathologist should be able to tell us that. What we do know is that he was very jealous.’
    Sandra looked at the woman lying on the floor, half-naked from the waist down. You can’t be jealous of a corpse, she thought. Not any more.
    ‘Think she had a lover?’
    ‘Maybe. Who can say?’ De Michelis shrugged. ‘How are you getting on in the bathroom?’
    ‘I set up the first camera, it’s already taking the panoramic shots. I’m waiting either for it to finish or for Sergi to call me.’
    ‘It didn’t happen the way it looks …’
    Sandra looked at De Michelis. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The man didn’t shoot himself. We’ve counted the cartridge cases: they’re all in the kitchen.’
    ‘So what happened?’
    De Michelis took the cigarette from his lips and stepped inside the room. ‘He was having a shower. He left the bathroom naked, took the gun, which he kept in the hall in a holster next to his uniform, came into the kitchen, and, more or less where you are now, shot his son. One shot in the back of the neck, at point-blank range.’ He mimed the gesture with his hand. ‘Then he turned the gun on his wife. The whole thing only lasted a few seconds. He went back to the bathroom. The floor was still wet. He slipped and as he fell he hit his head really hard on the wash basin, so hard he broke a piece off. Death was instantaneous.’ The inspector paused, then added sarcastically, ‘God is great sometimes.’
    God had nothing to do with it, Sandra thought, her eyes on the little boy. This morning, He was looking the other way.
    ‘By seven twenty it was all over.’
    She went back to the bathroom, feeling distinctly uneasy. De Michelis’s last words had shaken her more than they should have done. Opening the door, she was overcome by the steam that filled the room. Sergi had already turned off the tap and was leaning over his small case of reagents.
    ‘The cranberries, the problem’s always the cranberries …’ Sandra had no idea what he was talking about. He seemed completely absorbed, so she decided not to say anything, for fear of provoking a