Viper - Michael Morley [58]
Sal hunched forward a little. ‘Would you like to stop?’ he whispered across the table.
Valsi said nothing. He tried to use the pain to summon a second surge of strength. He channelled all his efforts into ramming Sal’s hand down on to the jagged glass. But he couldn’t.
The Snake’s iron grip tightened another notch.
Then another.
And another.
Valsi hung his head low. The pain was unbearable. He wanted to scream. Yell his head off like a teenage girl at a horror movie. He ground his teeth and ate up the agony. Swallowed the fear, and the shame that came with it. But he knew he didn’t have much longer. Soon the bastard would break his hand. Crush his fingers like day-old breadsticks.
‘We can stop whenever you want.’ said Sal, in a humiliating matter-of-fact tone. ‘Just say it.’
Valsi’s eyes blazed. Defiance. One last effort.
But he didn’t have anything to give.
Sal swung Valsi’s crushed hand and drained arm up into the vertical, then, like a felled tree, down towards the spikes of shining glass.
Valsi shut his eyes. Readied himself for the pain. And the humiliation.
And it came. But not in the way he expected. Much worse.
Sal let go.
Just a centimetre from victory, the Snake opened his fingers and slipped his arm away. ‘Enough,’ he said, as though bored with a naughty child. ‘I’m going to take that piss now.’
46
Stazione dei carabinieri, Castello di Cisterna
In a grey anteroom to hell – a waiting room inside the carabinieri barracks – the parents of Francesca Di Lauro wept in each other’s arms. It was the first time they’d touched since divorcing more than ten years ago.
The Di Lauros had thought they could never feel sadder than the moment when they’d learned of their daughter’s murder. But the news that she’d also been pregnant had ratcheted them deeper into the depths of despair.
Bernadetta Di Lauro raised her head from her ex-husband’s tear-soaked shoulder. She looked sadly into the eyes that she knew had once adored her. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t make sense of this.’
He patted her hand gently. ‘I know. I don’t believe it either. It all seems so unreal.’
She found a handkerchief in her purse, next to a small photograph of Francesca graduating from university. She blew her nose and dabbed her eyes. Dreaded to think what she looked like.
Genarro Di Lauro blinked back the last of his own tears. He was still in shock. He’d never got over the trauma of learning that his daughter had gone missing. Now he could barely cope with the news that the police had identified the remains of her body. Remains. That’s what they’d called them – remains – what an awful word. The leftovers. The discarded bits. The final dregs of life that couldn’t be better hidden. The remains.
‘Genarro!’
Bernadetta’s raised voice made him realize that he’d been miles away. Lost again in the uniquely depressive fog that engulfs parents of murdered children. ‘What?’
She smiled at him and nodded towards a young carabinieri officer. The policeman was about the same age as Francesca would have been. He looked smart in his full uniform. No doubt his parents’ pride and joy. ‘The Capitano is ready to see you now.’ His voice was soft and respectful. His eyes suggested he understood their pain. But, of course, he didn’t. Couldn’t. Not until he was much older and a father himself.
Sylvia Tomms had met them before. She made them as comfortable as possible. Not in her broom cupboard of an office but in a special room reserved for breaking bad news. The furnishings were less harsh but still businesslike. Brown cotton sofas were grouped around a low wooden table littered with plastic cups of coffee left by previous grievers. She cursed the fact that they hadn’t been cleared and hastily palmed them into a steel bin.
‘Do you have any idea who may have been the father of my daughter’s child?’ asked Genarro.
Sylvia winced. ‘I’d hoped that was something you or your wife might be able to help us with.’
‘Ex-wife,’ corrected Bernadetta and in the same breath wished she hadn’t. She felt