Aidan Conway - A Known Evil - A gripping debut serial killer thriller full of twists you won’t see coming

“Is it too much to ask that they not touch anything?” said Rossi, running an irritated hand through his hair and giving a protracted sigh.

“Parking problems, sir,” said a hassled-looking traffic cop. “We’re getting all sorts of earache from them that’ve got their wheels in the car park and those that want to get theirs in. There’s the match later, you know?”

Rossi turned his eyes heavenwards.

“There’s a murder in their backyard and they want to see the match?”

The officer looked down at his own shoes then sneaked a glimpse at his watch. Him too.

“Let’s just hope they haven’t destroyed key evidence this time. Hasn’t anybody learned from Perugia?”

It had been late afternoon or early evening as far as the young female pathologist, whom Rossi had never seen before, was prepared to venture. Like the health service , thought Rossi. Never get the same doctor twice. Was a bit of continuity out of the question too ? The excited officer he had spoken to over the phone was now filling him in but in person. Once again, there had been no one else around. A suburban area without CCTV.

“Personally, I dislike the ever brasher intrusions of Big Brother into daily life,” Rossi lamented, “but in cases like this we could have used it.” No. This wasn’t London where your every move was filmed. There was still something that resembled freedom here, strange as it was to hear himself saying it. Yes. Here you could quite easily get away with murder.

By the time forensics had arrived, it was plain to see they had an identical situation. A woman, head smashed in, and now another note for them to ponder. The same enthusiastic-looking officer had handed it to Rossi in an evidence bag. He’ll be studying law in his spare time , thought Rossi. God help us if he becomes a magistrate . The note read: THE DARK MATTER.

“An answer to our riddle, then?” proffered Rossi.

“Could be,” Carrara replied, “but I wouldn’t count on it being that simple. Would you?”

Rossi stared at the note and then looked up and took Carrara by the arm.

“See those trails of blood, mixed in with the oil stains? Assuming nobody else has moved the body, what does it say?”

“She wasn’t killed there.”

“Maybe finished off, yes, but moved. Get them to work out which car she might have been in without compromising the integrity of the crime scene. If there’s a print, a footprint, or a fingerprint, I want it. Have we got the lights up and the ultraviolet? Who’s doing that? Who’s shadowing the forensics?” Rossi clapped his hands together to get the attention of a cluster of dozier-looking uniforms. “And run checks on all the cars within a twenty-five metre radius. Any warm engines, for example. Has anyone got on to the vehicles yet?” he shouted above Carrara’s head to everyone and no one in particular.

Rossi threw into the boot the remaining profiles of perverts, murderers, and violent stalkers released from prison in the last ten years, as well as those of similarly inclined suspects still walking the streets. Another day of paperwork, computer-screens, and head-scratching. And now this. The workload was doubling every 24 hours. And they were getting no nearer an answer. It was like a blank crossword staring back at him. After knocking the lads into shape on the crime scene he’d managed to carve out enough time to keep a planned appointment at the hospital of legal medicine to see what they could get on the second, more detailed autopsy on Paola Gentili. Nothing particularly useful had come out of the trip except the discovery that she’d had the beginnings of a particularly aggressive cancer in her right lung. And she didn’t even smoke.

“Bitch of a life,” said Rossi as they left the building to be greeted by a blast of the now customary wintery air. Carrara was musing in his own world. The place had that effect on you. Leaving its confines wasn’t like leaving any normal hospital where you had that feeling of relief that you weren’t in there yourself mixed with lingering concern for the person who was. Here was different. This coldly modern, austere, imposing building concealed within its walls real-life horror stories and tragedies in equal measure. And then there was the final ignominy of being carved up by experience-hardened doctors-cum-butchers to see how you had been dispatched from this mortal coil. A necessary evil, Rossi managed to convince himself, if they were going to stop this beast. Yet another necessary evil.

They decided to leave the car and take a stroll past the Verano cemetery. They ventured across the tramlines gleaming like blades that carved up the piazza and on which the number three passed then swept away into the dank concrete tube of the railway tunnel leading to San Lorenzo. ‘Red’ San Lorenzo, as it was known. Historically, solidly working-class and the cradle of Rome’s Communist and Anarchist communities, it was now becoming like another sort of Trastevere, a nascent mini Covent Garden with bistros, boutiques and wine bars sprouting on every corner.

But Rossi wanted to think, and he thought best when he had eaten, but not in the police canteen or the other cop haunts within walking distance of the Questura, and away, too, from the usual press-frequented places in the centre.

“Formula One?”

“Sounds good to me,” replied Carrara appearing to perk up. Many’s the time Rossi had put everyday concerns aside there, as a child, with both his parents, and back in his Roman high-school days. All that before the Erasmus experience. Before, for better or for worse, everything had changed in his love life and in the professional direction he would finally choose to take in life.

The pizzeria’s busy evening was almost coming to a close. Waiters dawdled with the look of men counting the minutes until they could knock off. But it was open. They took a table with a view of the street and ordered stuffed, fried pumpkin flowers as starters and half-litre tankards of Moretti.

“So here we are again,” said Rossi. “We’re talking serial, or spree?” he proffered without raising his eyes from the plate.

“Looks that way,” Carrara replied, busy with his own.

“And Rome’s never had a serial killer.”

“Not like this.”

“And he’s leaving notes. In English.”

“He could be English. Or American.”

“He could be anyone, a freak, full stop. And the psychologist’s report? Are they building a profile?”

“Too early to say.”

Rossi looked up, knife and fork gripped. “What? We need a few more dead women first and then there’ll be something to go on? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying that it’s not that helpful. It’s the usual kind of thing. Nothing that really narrows the circle. Woman-hater. Egocentric. Low self-esteem. Absence of sexual relations. Abuse victim himself, possibly. Certainly above-average intelligence, though. Won’t let himself get caught, but leaves clues and likes playing games.”

“But he’s killing ordinary women, not prostitutes or foreigners. He’s not going for marginalized targets, outsiders. It goes against type.”

“True.”

“And now he’s giving us the answers?”

The waiter passed, and Rossi added two more beers to their pizza order.

“Right,” said Rossi. “Inside a black hole there’s dark matter. But what does that tell us?”

Carrara gave a shrug.

“Of course, there’s always time,” said Rossi, appearing to drift off with his thoughts.

“Time?” Carrara replied. “Time for what?”

“The black hole, Gigi. Bends time, doesn’t it? Einstein’s theory.”

“O-kay.” His friend was trying to keep up with him.