Richard House - The Kills

* * *

The officers’ heads jolted in unison as the squad car came steadily down the grey pumice track, silhouettes in their flat caps. Dust rose behind them in a long and low plume, obscuring the steep rise to the mountain and the two cars behind them.

The three police cars drew up beside the building. Two policemen waited on the opposite side of the road, between them stood an old man whose trousers were tucked into his socks. Further up against the wall leaned a bicycle. Niccolò recognized the old man as Italo, one of the market gardeners. He didn’t know his last name, but knew that the old man was difficult and disliked. It was the only reason that he knew the man. Italo grew dahlias in an allotment opposite the factory, and earlier that morning he had cycled by the building and heard boys inside throwing stones. There was something about their haste, the way they ran away from the factory and their pause on the hill that made him curious about what they were doing. Inside the warehouse he found cushions from a couch, and a split bag of lime, the room was empty. The boys had taken the dumpster from his land two weeks ago, he complained, a theft he had reported to the police. They had slashed the plastic in his hothouses and cut the irrigation pipes, but it was neither the theft nor the vandalism that justified his call to the police, it was the stench from the factory.

In one day the smell had become much worse, the boys had disturbed something, and as the police stepped out of their car they paused, recognizing the smell, and unwilling to go closer to the building they decided to wait. The investigating magistrate joined the police and the old man, and discussed what they were to do.

Niccolò sat alone in the car. He could see into the factory through the doorway, and he watched the two policemen approach the tank, hands covering their mouths. Standing at the entrance another officer threw a small stone. The stone hit the metal plate with a round boom, and a black storm of flies rose in a malignant buzz.

The three policemen backed out of the room and agreed that, clearly, something wasn’t right, and this was perhaps a matter they weren’t adequately prepared to handle. The magistrate shouted across the road to the men that nothing was to be disturbed. They were to wait.

Italo complained to the investigator that he knew exactly who the boys were, their parents worked for the cooperative, and he’d spoken with the police a number of times about their thievery and the damage they caused. He knew their names, and he knew where they lived. He’d given them the names before.

The first officer called across to the magistrate and said that they should take a look in the tank and see what it was. Supposing the experts and specialists arrived and all they found inside was a dead dog, or rotten fruit, or any of a number of things that had nothing to do with their investigation? How stupid would they look?

The second officer disagreed, it was unlikely that anything vegetable could smell that bad. Had he smelled anything that bad before?

They all knew what it was.

Both men hesitated and agreed they had never seen so many flies in one place. It was a bad sign.

Italo asked if they were going to do anything now that everyone agreed on how bad the smell was. The magistrate stood with his hands on his hips. Turning slightly he agreed that they should pry back the plate and disturb as little as they could. He looked at Niccolò as he spoke, but Niccolò sat still, his hands cuffed together on his lap.

Is there anything we need to know? he asked.

Niccolò shook his head. The heat was making him sleepy.

The first officer returned to the room with a stick. He pushed the cushions away, then tapped the metal plate covering the tank. On the floor were marks indicating that the plate had been recently dragged into place. He grimaced at the stench and shoved the plate back with his foot. Flies swarmed up as the lid slowly shifted back. The officer leaned over the pit, hand to his mouth as he squinted into the hole. He turned his face away but kept his place. He needed a torch, he said, it was too dark to see or guess what might be inside.

The second policeman shrugged and gingerly approached and he seemed to stare for a long time, squatting over the hole, squinting. Cupping his hand over his mouth he walked briskly out of the building. Out in the sun, a good distance away, he breathed fresher air. Then standing upright he said that there was something in the tank. The white back of splayed legs. It looked like a body.

Turning to the squad car, the magistrate asked Niccolò if he had any idea who it was.

Niccolò held up both his hands to scratch his neck, in the heat it was impossible not to yawn. What, he asked, what was he asking?

* * *

The police set up a barrier along the road to redirect traffic through the town. The only vehicles that arrived were the ones attached to the investigation, squad cars, a forensics van, and almost as an afterthought, an ambulance.

The magistrate sat beside Niccolò and said that he should just tell him now what he knew. Hey? Why not? Identification would be attempted on site to see if the body in the tank matched the basic description of the missing student. So why didn’t he simply tell them what he knew?

* * *

Livia was allowed to speak to Niccolò on the evening of his second day in custody.

‘They came to the school and brought me home.’ She sat at the table with her head down. She tapped her head, indicating the bandages about Niccolò’s head. ‘They told me you didn’t want me to know.’ She spoke calmly, her voice fading into the room.

Niccolò sat upright, he remembered to set his shoulders back and raise his head. There was work in Rome.

Livia caught her breath. She listened to him silently and appeared startled by the news. Niccolò continued to talk. There would be opportunities in Rome. When they released him he would go immediately and look for work. Why should he stay and struggle here? His mind was made up.

‘You can’t go to Rome because you don’t have the money.’ Livia shook her head. ‘Niccolò. They have dismissed you from work.’ Livia steadied one hand on her belly, the other at her mouth as if to delicately tease out the words or finish them so that he would clearly understand her — and looking at her he tried to measure if this was anger or pity. ‘Do you understand what is happening? Do you understand what they are saying about you?’

Niccolò again reminded himself to sit upright. He said nothing. It was obvious that he was helping the police. She should understand this. Tomorrow they were to take him back to the warehouses in Ercolano again, and this would all be cleared away.

‘Niccolò?’ Livia shook her head, her hand now clapped to her mouth. ‘How have you become so lost when I have always been by your side? How did you manage these things?’

Niccolò folded his arms and closed his eyes.

Eyes swollen from crying, Livia slowly regained her composure.

MONDAY

The magistrate agreed to meet with Finn on the understanding that his name would not be mentioned and there would be no direct reproduction of any of the material he would present. Finn agreed without hesitation and arranged an earlier flight so he could make his way directly from the airport to via Crispi in Chiaia in good time to meet the magistrate at Prima! — a café he’d picked for such a purpose on his previous trip, the kind of venue that deserves a tracking shot, a slow reveal of the space and the few mindfully solitary characters in it; white tiles, a god-damned chandelier, smocked waiters, a canvas-covered patio (in a word: Europe). Prima! sat beside an intriguingly unnamed jewellery boutique just up from Ferragamo, Emilio Zegna, Armani, and further over — piazza del Martiri. Pleased about how his day would focus down from Paris to Naples, to Chiaia. He liked the economy of it — the first day of his second visit to Naples. He’d be working as soon as he set foot in the city. The very moment.