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

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      “It takes us back. Outside of time, even.”

      “Meaning?”

      Two pizzas as big as cartwheels sustained by a white-shirted waiter’s arms were flying across the restaurant high above the heads of the engrossed diners.

      “Capricciosa?” the waiter boomed making some nearby foreign tourists start from their chairs.

      “For me, said Rossi.”

      “And Margherita?”

      Carrara raised a hand in distracted acknowledgement.

      “Meaning, I don’t know,” said Rossi. “But it could be significant.”

      “And in the meantime? Every woman in Rome needs to stay at home. We bring in Sharia law? Or they’d all better get themselves a gun, or what?” said Carrara.

      Rossi was already carving into his tomato base, spread with slices of cured ham, artichoke hearts, black olives, and all topped off with halves of boiled egg. A meal for lunch- and dinner-skippers; a policeman’s meal. He reached for his beer. It was icy-sharp, clean, and lightly hoppy. Already he was feeling it and the food’s anaesthetising, calming effect on his stomach and, as a consequence, on his mind. As he lowered the glass, making more room on the cluttered table-for-two, his eyes were drawn to that portion of the menu where the names of the dishes were translated into something resembling English for the convenience of tourists. They usually got it right, to be fair, but sometimes the renderings were comical. One word, which should perhaps have been platter, had become instead plater.

      “Or maybe not all women,” said Rossi.

      Carrara lowered his fork.

      “Do you know something I don’t?”

      Rossi took another large draught.

      “And if, say, it wasn’t matter but mater?”

      “As in ‘mother’, in Latin? You think he’s killing mothers?”

      “I don’t know. Or it could be symbolic. The Mother Church even. Sancta Mater Ecclesia. Our Holy Mother the Church. Remember your catechism? Might need to check if they were practising Catholics.”

      Rossi’s phone, for once occupying prime table space, began to vibrate.

      “You’d better answer that,” said Carrara.

       Nine

      It wasn’t the phone call they had both feared and even in some way almost willed, yet it afforded them some relief. They needed time to think. But they also needed evidence and the killer was giving little away, aside from the sick notes. Sick notes. Rossi dwelt on the irony as he ate. Maybe there was something in that. For being excused, from games, from school. A sick note for life. I don’t belong to you and your moral order and here’s my little note that says why. He remembered how such boys had often been treated with open contempt by some teachers, at least at the school he’d attended in England for those few years. Pilloried and humiliated in the gymnasium and the changing room for their perceived weakness, cowardice, their lack of male vigour. Could they grow up to wreak such terrible revenge on society? Ridiculed outsiders wielding their new-found power and enjoying it. Repeating it. Needing it.

      It was someone with a very big axe to grind. Someone hard done by and conscious of it, not like those wretched creatures who strangled and knifed but could never articulate the reason why. Maybe they never even knew themselves. They didn’t have the mental apparatus, the support system, to process their feelings and frustrations or even put a name to them. But kill they did. Often without warning or without apparent motive.

      He shared some of his thoughts with Carrara as they both leant back, satisfied and contemplating dessert. There were also factors that pointed towards a clean skin, someone with no record of violence, at least in Italy. The foreigner theory couldn’t be discounted, though Rossi winced at such politically populist apportioning of blame. Or even the smouldering suggestion of an Islamic plot. Was it someone who hadn’t killed before? They had as yet unearthed no particular similarities with unsolved crimes. There was no clear motive. Unless this killer had been long-incubated, a slow burner, and had chosen a propitious moment to hatch from his dark cocoon.

      “Look, we’re not fucking magicians, Michael,” Carrara concluded, tipsy now and a little the worse for wear from tiredness. Rossi glanced up from his plate.

      “Kid been keeping you up?” he enquired. “Or is it the enforced abstinence?”

      Carrara returned a forced smile.

      They both opted for crème caramel, and Rossi asked for the limoncello, telling the waiter not to bring coffee until he asked for it. He wanted time, time to savour and time to think. Carrara declined the liqueur.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ