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

They had concluded matters in the very late early hours with Rossi agreeing to meet with the judge again the following day, which was, as Rossi now noted, today. Maroni wanted him to probe a little more into the woman’s private life and business affairs but also to keep her father at a manageable distance. “We don’t want a bloody judge sniffing around,” Maroni had hissed, “and following our every move, Rossi, so work on him. Soft soap him. You’re good at that, aren’t you?”

He tried to remember the time they had set for the meeting. His morning mind was fuzzier than usual and then he remembered how he had needed two or three visits to the bottom drawer, that of the filing cabinet, where the emergency supply of whiskey was located. That and extra nightcaps to wind down on the way back over to Yana’s. Not to mention the third of a bottle of Limoncello, and the beers. It was all mounting up to something approaching unjustified excess. Carrara would know. He went to look for his phone. God only knew where that was.

The front door clicked. Rossi turned to see Yana standing there.

“Well,” she said, “are you going to tell me what’s going on, or what?”

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” said Rossi.

“I felt guilty or something,” she replied, dropping her bag into the corner and pulling off her scarf. “And if we don’t talk now I don’t think we’re ever going to talk, are we? Besides what is it they say about never letting the sun go down on an argument?”

“Even if it was only in the form of a text?”

“You got the message though? I was expecting you at a respectable hour.”

“Am I forgiven?”

She threw her coat across the chair and walked over to him.

“Well, it’s winter and I didn’t fancy my chances of seeing you before dark tonight. Having a boyfriend in your line of work, one has to live for the moment, shall we say. You got drunk, didn’t you, last night?”

“We had a late one,” said Rossi. “There was all sorts of ‘shit going down’, as our American friends say.”

She went closer and sniffed around, testing him and still showing something of the disdain for him which was part and parcel of their sometimes tempestuous love affair.

“Well you brush up reasonably well, Inspector fucking Rossi. What time’s your first appointment?”

“Now, it’s funny you should mention that,” said Rossi, “but I can’t find my phone. Going to give me a hand?” But before Yana was able to do the time-honoured call-the-lost-mobile-routine, somebody had got there first. “It’s buzzing,” he said, throwing cushions hither and thither as he tried to home in on the vibrations.

“Got it,” said Yana sliding a hand down the side of the settee.

It was Carrara.

“Just reminding you not to forget that you’ve got an appointment with the judge at his place. All right?”

“What makes you think I would have forgotten?” said Rossi, knowing his gravelly tones were giving him away. But Yana, who had pulled the curtains in the lounge, had already begun to unzip her top and was shaking her head, mouthing “no, no, no.”

“Look,” said Rossi as Yana came closer now and put her arms around his waist. “Give him a call, will you?” he said. “Tell him that some lab reports have come through and that I’ll be over as soon as I can. It’s not like he’ll be going to work today, is it? The man’s got a funeral to organize.”

“Rome is Afraid.” That would be the headline for tomorrow’s paper. That would get copies moving and, to his delight, ad-space had already been filling up fast. Giorgio Torrini, editor-in-chief of the Roman Post , was not quite rubbing his hands but had the look of someone who has just bagged a sizeable win on the horses or the lottery. Until now, the public had been taking more interest in the apparently drug-related killings spilling out of the usual run-down and deprived ghetto territories and into the “civilized” centre, sometimes in broad daylight. Yet people didn’t really feel threatened. Just like with the dodgy heroin-killing junkies, or the ex-husbands losing their jobs then losing the plot and massacring entire families; all that was still going on but it didn’t make people afraid. But now The Carpenter had made sure they were. More cautious husbands weren’t letting wives go out on their own. The city was becoming a virtual ghost town after dark. Taxis were doing a roaring trade.

Torrini had his best man on the story and he was dictating what line to take now that Marini had been identified.

“Nobody cares about Mafia,” he was saying. “Unless they start planting bombs outside the Stadio Olimpico, in St Peter’s Square, or in pizzerias, it’s water off a duck’s back. They’ve heard it all before.”

“So we stick with the serial-killer line?”

“Rome is Afraid,” he repeated, holding up hands which grasped the extremities of an imaginary banner headline.

“And tourism? Isn’t it going to hit tourism? All this negative publicity.”

“Tourism?” spluttered Torrini. “Tourism? They always bounce back. They can drop their prices. Probably boost tourism once it all dies down,” he added, “and I mean, how long is it going to last? A couple of weeks, a month or two? By Easter it’ll all be forgotten. Mark my words. It’ll be history. More history for Rome. More guided tours. ‘This is where The Carpenter killed his first victim.’ Blah, blah, blah.”

Senior reporter Dario Iannelli was taking notes. So far, he had only written “mad heartless fucker”. Dario knew a good story and had the knack of finding them but what he wanted was the scoop that went right to the top and could let him get at the real criminals. Serial killers were one offs, sad fucked-up losers, true enough. But the others, those who were selling the country down the river for thirty pieces of silver? They were the real nasty pieces of work. It was them he wanted to nail.

But he was also beginning to feel that there might be something more to this story. Rome didn’t do serial killers. It wasn’t in its nature. But he couldn’t prove anything, not yet. So, for now he would have to go along with the official line. Fear sells papers. Fear is good. Tell the Romans to be afraid. But he was searching; he was on the lookout for any and every clue, the slightest slip that might let that crucial something come his way.

“So, you get your arse down to the press conference, right, and get a good question in, on mike, and on camera, if possible, so stand up or something?” Dario nodded.

“I want everyone to hear the Roman Post is covering this story. Fuck the nationals. We’re on the ground here. This is our big one.”

Dario made another careful note: “egomaniac arsehole. Fuckwit”.

“Let’s milk it. Oh, and try and get something on his methods.”

“Meaning, sir?”

“His methods!” blurted Torrini, popping out suddenly from the comfort zone of his ego-bubble. “What he does!”

“He kills them, sir,” said Iannelli, scenting a prime piss-taking opportunity.

The editor’s face contorted in a sign of near total non-comprehension before he finally put two and two together.

Never been quick on the uptake, have you ? thought Dario. Romans often weren’t.

“I mean, does he cut their fingers off! Does he carve shit into their skin or something? I don’t know!” He leaned over the desk at a more intimate distance. “Does he fuck them, or what? We’ve got none of that yet. Is there something they’re not telling us?”

“Ah,” said Iannelli, “those methods. I’ll see what I can find, sir. Do my damnedest. Try and get something out of Rossi.”

But for now he knew he would still be keeping his word. Rossi was about as close as anyone could be to being his friend, but he might need to cash in a favour from him, perhaps sooner rather than later.