The Girl in the Fog Page 8

  Late that morning, he had presided over a prayer meeting held in the brotherhood’s assembly hall, dedicated once again to the return of Anna Lou. The Kastners had also been present.

  Sitting in his car, Borghi saw them leave the hall and head for home, still escorted by a small group of brotherhood members who were shielding them from the reporters and photographers trying to steal a comment or an image of their pain. But Borghi was interested in something else.

  Priscilla was one of the last to come out. She was wearing a green parka and combat boots, her hair was gathered in a bun and she had sunglasses on even though the sky was overcast. She wasn’t flashily dressed, but she looked pretty all the same. She was in the company of an adult woman. The resemblance between the two was so striking, the woman could only have been her mother. The two set off, ignoring the cameras and microphones that were now being thrust at the members of the community. While the mother talked with the other members, Priscilla lingered behind her, as if she wanted to put a distance between them. At the same time, she looked around, assessing the situation. After a while, she took advantage of the crush to move away from the group and head off in another direction.

  Borghi saw her turn the corner and get into a sports car that set off rapidly. There was a boy at the wheel.

  He soon caught up with them in an open space behind the village’s small cemetery. He parked some hundred metres from the other car. From that position, he could see the two of them as they stripped off their clothes, all the while kissing so passionately that they didn’t even realise someone was watching them. When Borghi decided he’d had enough, he opened the window, placed the flashing light on the roof of his car and switched it on, setting off a brief siren.

  The boy and girl stopped immediately, startled.

  Borghi drove forward slowly, giving them time to get dressed. When he reached the other car, he brought his to a halt. Then he got out and walked towards them. He leaned in at the window on the driver’s side. ‘Hi, kids.’ His smile was deliberately menacing.

  ‘Good morning, officer, is there any problem?’ The boy was trying to appear calm. In spite of his bluster, you could see that he was scared stiff.

  ‘I assume you borrowed your father’s car without permission, son. I don’t think you’re old enough to drive, or am I mistaken?’ It was a typical police phrase. In reality, he wanted to underline the fact that while the boy might have a licence, his passenger was still a minor.

  ‘Listen, we haven’t done anything wrong,’ the boy tried to reply, stupidly. But his voice was trembling.

  ‘Are you trying to act tough with me, son?’ Borghi’s tone was now that of a police officer losing patience.

  To stop that idiot from saying anything else that might make the situation worse, Priscilla leaned towards the window. ‘I beg you, officer, don’t say anything to my mother.’

  Borghi looked at her and let a few seconds go by, as if he was thinking. ‘All right, but I’ll drive you home myself.’

  As they drove through the streets of the village, Borghi managed to get a better look at her. She was quite short, but her boots made her look taller. There were coloured piercings in one ear and a small amount of eye pencil around her eyes. She had delicate features. Beneath the green parka she was wearing a black polo neck sweater that gave a sense of her small, firm breasts. She was also wearing a pair of flowered leggings, with a split at the height of one thigh. A deodorant with an excessively sweet strawberry smell mingled with a vague smell of sweat, cigarette smoke and mint chewing gum. All in all, she was a typical teenager.

  Borghi wanted to get some information from her. He had deliberately scared her at first, and now she was vulnerable. He knew that Priscilla would be honest with him in order not to make her position worse. ‘What can you tell me about Anna Lou?’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘You’re her best friend, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, she was a really good person, I think.’ The girl was watching the road, all the while eating the pink varnish from the nails on her right hand.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean the kids in our school gossip a lot. Some of them are now saying she had secrets. But she was good to everybody and never got angry.’

  ‘What type of secrets?’

  ‘That she slept around, that she did it with older guys. All bullshit.’

  ‘Did you go out together? What did she like to do?’

  ‘I was the only person her mother would let her go out with. Not that there’s much to do in Avechot in the evening. And anyway, she only had permission to see me in the afternoons, when she came to my house to do homework.’

  ‘But you weren’t in the same class.’

  ‘No, that’s right. But we saw each other because Anna Lou’s very good at mathematics and gives me a hand.’

  ‘As far as you know, did she have a boyfriend?’

  Priscilla gave a little laugh. ‘A boyfriend? Oh, no.’

  ‘Did she like anyone?’

  ‘Yes, my cat.’ She laughed again. But her humour wasn’t appreciated, so she turned serious. ‘Anna Lou was different. She wasn’t interested in things like pleasing the boys or getting up to mischief with her friends.’

  ‘So you were the only one she saw, apart obviously from her classmates.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Priscilla was determined to be thought of as the person Anna Lou was friendliest with. Maybe to divert suspicion from herself, Borghi thought. ‘What do you think happened to her?’

  Priscilla paused. ‘I don’t know. They’re saying all kinds of things, like that she ran away. I don’t believe that.’

  ‘Maybe something happened and she didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Impossible: if there’d been anything, she would have said.’

  She was lying, Borghi was sure of it. ‘Even after you quarrelled?’

  This hit home, and Priscilla turned and looked at him. ‘How did you know that?’

  Borghi didn’t tell her it was because Anna Lou had erased her number from the contacts list on her mobile phone. He slowed down and parked at the kerb. Then he switched off the engine because he wanted to look her full in the face. ‘It’ll stay here, but I want the truth.’

  Priscilla resumed chewing the polish from her nails. ‘I didn’t tell anyone because I already have enough trouble with my mother,’ she said defensively. ‘Ever since my last stepfather left, she’s been obsessed with the brotherhood. He was the sixth or seventh bastard who dumped her. Usually they’re losers who’ve landed themselves in the shit. She picks them up, the way some people pick up stray dogs. She puts them back on their feet and then they leave without saying so much as a thank you. Now she’s telling everyone that the brotherhood saved her, and she wants to save me, too. She says Jesus loves her, but as far as I can see he’s just another man on her list. I go with her to meetings to keep her happy, but I’m not interested in religion.’

  ‘Anna Lou was your cover, am I right? As long as you kept seeing her, your mother had no reason to go on at you about your friends. So you never told her anything about the quarrel, or she would have made things difficult for you.’

  Priscilla got on her high horse. ‘I’m not a bitch, I really did like Anna Lou. But it’s true, we hadn’t spoken for at least two weeks when she disappeared.’

  Borghi looked at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she said resolutely. ‘It’s not a big deal. I just opened her eyes about something that was happening.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The nerd who was following her.’

  Mattia, Borghi immediately thought. ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘Of course, he’s in my class, his name’s Mattia. He doesn’t talk to anybody, and nobody wants anything to do with him.’

  ‘Why was he following Anna Lou?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because he liked her or maybe because she was the only one who talked to him. But when she
did that she encouraged him, and I told her she was making a mistake. Anna Lou would never have become his girlfriend, but in my opinion he was deceiving himself that she would, because he was always hanging around her.’

  Borghi was beginning to understand, but once again Priscilla wasn’t telling him everything. ‘So you warned her but she didn’t listen to you. That doesn’t strike me as a good reason to break off a friendship.’

  His scepticism convinced her to tell him the rest of the story. ‘All right: something else happened. One day, he was following her around as usual, trying to make her notice him. I couldn’t stand it any more: I went up to him and told him what I thought. I was expecting him to react, start arguing. Instead, he looks at me like a scared puppy and doesn’t say a word. And then he pisses himself.’

  ‘He pisses himself?’

  ‘That’s right. I see the dark stains start to form on his trousers, through his pants. And then the pee forms a kind of puddle under his gym shoes. Can you believe it?’

  Borghi sighed and shook his head. Teenagers, he thought. What a mess. ‘So Anna Lou blamed you.’

  ‘What could I do? She’d even made one of her bracelets for him, she wanted to give it to him as a present. So then she got angry with me, said I’d humiliated him and she didn’t want to speak to me again.’

  Borghi realised he had underestimated Anna Lou. He had thought she was a weak, submissive character. But she had a mind of her own and, when necessary, she could be fair. She had punished Priscilla for her needless cruelty. He couldn’t ask the girl if she thought Mattia had anything to do with the disappearance. It was obvious that Priscilla didn’t suspect him, partly because she couldn’t know that the boy who had pissed in his trousers in front of her had had problems with controlling his anger in the past. So he asked, ‘Why do you think Mattia was some kind of danger to Anna Lou? All right, he followed her, but I don’t understand—’

  ‘He followed her with a camcorder.’

  The various eight o’clock TV news bulletins ran items on the New Year celebrations in various cities around the country. But when the time came to talk about the Kastner case, the correspondents showed a dark house in a residential neighbourhood of a mountain village, where two parents were still worrying about the fate of their eldest child.

  Mixing the bitter with the sweet was a well-tried formula of the media.

  The TV set in the hotel room was on but unwatched. The sound, though, reached Vogel in the bathroom. He was in his dressing gown, standing at the mirror and slowly, delicately putting dark dye on his eyebrows with a small brush. As he did so, he kept his mouth open. It was an involuntary gesture, which made him look ridiculous but which he didn’t notice in the mirror.

  The wardrobe next to the bed was wide open. In it hung the row of elegant suits that Vogel had brought with him, as if he would be spending months in Avechot. Each was on its own wooden hanger with a little canvas bag of dried lavender next to it to deter moths and keep the material fresh. Fixed to one of the doors was a crossbar on which his ties were lined up: silk, wool, cashmere. They had different patterns, but Vogel had carefully arranged them in a particular scale of colours. Last but not least, the shoes were at the bottom – at least five pairs. All tightly laced, English and Italian, hand-finished and polished. One beside the other, like the soldiers in a firing squad.

  The wardrobe’s contents were only a fraction of what Vogel kept at home. They were the result of years of passionate research. Each suit was matched to a specific eau de cologne, meticulously sprayed on the pocket handkerchief. Vogel was fanatical about this. His collection of shirts and cufflinks reeked of obsession.

  He despised those colleagues of his who went around looking scruffy. It wasn’t just a question of appearance or mere vanity. For him, these clothes were like a knight’s armour. They expressed strength, discipline and self-confidence.

  But that evening, the suits would remain in the wardrobe. He had no intention of going out. Outside, a storm was gathering and he would stay here and wait for the New Year on his own, as he always did. He had ordered a light dinner and would open a bottle of Cabernet from his own cellar, which he had slipped into his suitcase before leaving.

  While he stood at the bathroom mirror, already savouring the thought of the evening ahead, he went over what had so far emerged in the case.

  Anna Lou knew her kidnapper. That was why she had followed him without putting up any resistance.

  She’s almost certainly dead. Dealing with a hostage was quite complicated, especially for a solitary kidnapper. He had probably killed her after abducting her. She might only have survived a few hours.

  The girl felt the need to keep a fake diary for her mother. But what had happened to the real one? And what shameful secrets did it contain?

  His mobile phone started ringing. Vogel snorted irritably, but given that the device didn’t want to stop, he broke off dyeing his eyebrows and went to answer.

  ‘Mattia was making videos of Anna Lou,’ Borghi said without even saying hello.

  ‘What?’ Vogel asked, surprised.

  ‘He followed her everywhere and filmed her.’

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘Her best friend told me, but this afternoon I looked for confirmation. Apparently a police patrol caught him a while back filming the couples who go off into a corner behind the cemetery.’

  It was excellent news, Vogel thought. It seemed he wasn’t the only one to have obsessions. But Mattia’s obsession was a lot more disturbing than his own innocuous passion for dressing well. In the light of this new scenario, he came to a decision. ‘Are our people still keeping an eye on the boy’s house?’

  ‘A couple of agents at a time, on four-hour shifts. But they haven’t seen anything unusual yet.’

  ‘Tell the men to stand down.’

  At the other end, Borghi was silent for a moment. ‘Are you sure, sir? I thought, since tonight is New Year’s Eve, Mattia might decide to take advantage of the bustle there’ll be to go back home and stock up with supplies.’

  ‘He won’t do that, he’s not so stupid,’ Vogel said immediately. ‘I’m convinced he’ll try and get in touch with his mother. She’s washing dishes this evening.’

  Borghi, though, didn’t seem convinced. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t understand: what’s the plan?’

  But Vogel had no intention of sharing his strategy with him. ‘Do as I say, officer,’ he replied calmly. Then he added: ‘Trust me.’

  Borghi asked no further questions. ‘All right,’ was all he said, but there wasn’t much conviction in his voice.

  Why the hell do you want to know my plan? Vogel thought irritably as he hung up.

  1 January

  Nine days after the disappearance

  It was just after midnight when Vogel drove through the village in a service car.

  There were only a few night owls hurrying to private parties. Vogel could see them through the lighted windows of the houses as they celebrated, embracing one another and smiling over the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one. Ridiculous superstitions. He had no need of them. Getting rid of the past was only a way of not admitting your own failure. And in twelve months, the future they would soon be greeting with such joy would be a pointless thing they would be trying to forget.

  Vogel, though, thought like the media. The only thing that mattered was the present. Some made it, others merely endured it. He felt part of the first category, because he knew how to achieve success in every situation. The second category was composed of those who, like Anna Lou, were predestined for the role of victim and paid the price for other people’s fame.

  That was why, right now, Vogel wasn’t interested in the New Year. He had more important things to deal with. And as he drove straight to his goal, he picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number he knew by heart.

  It took less than two rings for Stella Honer to answer. ‘I’m here,’ was all she said.

  ‘Tw
enty-five minutes before the others, remember?’

  Stella knew what that meant: something was going to happen tonight.

  Vogel parked a hundred metres from the house where Mattia and his mother lived, a small chalet at the top of a low hill, surrounded by a bare, untended lawn and a fence that needed urgent maintenance. It was dark, apart from a reddish glow behind one of the windows.

  Vogel was aware that calling off his men wasn’t sufficient, because the perimeter around the house was strewn with bugs ready to capture any sound inside. That was why he had to act with extreme caution: nobody must know that he was there. But he had a solution for that, too.

  He looked at his watch. He only had to wait a few minutes. Then, as predicted in the weather forecast, it started to rain. The rain beat down on the ground and the houses, drowning out every other sound.

  Vogel got out of the car and walked quickly towards the house along the dirt path. Reaching the shelter of the porch, he shook the water from his coat and cautiously climbed a couple of steps. Outside the front door, he took a pair of rubber gloves from his pocket to avoid prints, as well as a screwdriver which he used to break the lock. It wasn’t difficult. The door opened and, after making sure there was nobody around, he slipped into the house.

  The first impression was one of respectable poverty. A smell of cabbage and damp. Old furniture and dust. Clothes hung up to dry between two chairs. Dirty plates. Cold. In that disorder, though, was also a woman’s love for her wayward son. Vogel could sense her fear, her terror at not making it, at failing, seeing everything collapse overnight. Because she knew that the boy she had brought into the world was a danger to himself and others. And she also knew that the drugs and the psychiatrists would never be able to do anything about it.

  The old wooden floorboards squeaked beneath the weight of Vogel’s steps, but the rain beating on the roof drowned the noise. So he started to walk through the few rooms.

  In a corner of the kitchen that also functioned as a living room stood an oven from which came the reddish glow he had glimpsed through the window. But it gave out only a weak heat that didn’t even warm the room. He passed a collapsed sofa and continued towards another room. There was a double bed with a small wooden crucifix above it and some shelves that took the place of a wardrobe, but apart from them the walls were bare. A few towels were heaped on a chair and there was a pair of worn slippers by the bedside table.