Read Online The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara) by Michele Giuttari - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michele Giuttari
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any mistakes. I’m leaving for Tuscany on Tuesday. We’ll meet again there.’
‘Of course, Sir George,’ Richard said. He already had a very clear idea of what needed to be done.
Sir George handed him an envelope. ‘You’ll find all the details in here.’
Richard took it and slipped it into the inside jacket pocket of the hand-tailored linen suit that he wore with total nonchalance. He would destroy it later, once he had read it.
He got up, said goodbye to everyone and left without staying for the rest of the meeting: he was sure it would continue late into the night.
He needed to get down to work immediately.
17
It was impossible for Ferrara to get to sleep that night. He was unable to shake off the terrible images that had shocked Florence over the past three months.
He looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was 1.46 a.m. and there was no chance he would fall asleep now.
The bedside lamp was still on. He looked tenderly at Petra, who was fast asleep, her blonde hair spread across the pillow and her mouth slightly open. He switched off the lamp, got up and went into the living room, a fairly large room split into two. On one side were the sofas, the armchairs and a desk, at which he sometimes spent entire nights working. On the other, a long, narrow eighteenth-century table, which served as a surface for his work when necessary.
He sat down at the desk, opened the drawer and took out a file. The first document in it was the letter Leonardo Berghoff had written to him shortly before his death.
In the past few days he had re-read it several times in search of some meaning hidden between the lines. Now, though, he realised this letter was a problem in itself. The fact that he had kept it to himself, without informing the Prosecutor’s Department, could cost him dearly.
How could he justify his conduct to his superiors? How could he explain that he had not followed up on the letter? Would they hold him morally responsible for the double murder as a consequence?
No, he reassured himself. But he was far from certain, given how little he trusted certain people in the Prosecutor’s Department.
Leonardo Berghoff had met his end the previous month, on 5 July at Marienbrücke in Bavaria. On the same wooden suspension bridge over the river where Ludwig II had often gone at night to gaze at the castle of Neuschwanstein illuminated by hundreds and hundreds of candles. At the same spot, Ferrara had been wounded in the left shoulder from a shot Berghoff had fired at him before being killed. A sniper, hidden in the vegetation on the other side of the bridge, had killed Berghoff before he could fire at Ferrara again, and had then disappeared into the darkness of the mountains without leaving a single trace.
He re-read the letter.
In it, Berghoff explained the reason for the vendetta he had planned against the man who had wronged him: Alvise Innocenti, his natural father, who had abandoned him immediately after his birth. A plan so diabolical, he had had to wait many years to carry it out.
Ferrara lingered over the last part:
A group which has been hindering your every move from behind the scenes, and which could take drastic action against you if its secrecy were to be endangered. I don’t know the leaders, but I know for certain that they represent the blackest evil.
But I will give you two names connected to them, though in different ways. One is that officer of yours they call Serpico. The other is former senator Enrico Costanza, who has the rank of prince and who has now reached the end of the line because of the cancer that’s killing him. He’s my godfather. It was he who introduced me into the secret world of the hooded men and the black rose. It was also he who ordered the murder of Madalena after she had seen him with his face uncovered during a ceremony. But it’s all too complex to explain in detail. I’ll only tell you that they intend to destroy the Bartolotti family, which is
‘Of course, Sir George,’ Richard said. He already had a very clear idea of what needed to be done.
Sir George handed him an envelope. ‘You’ll find all the details in here.’
Richard took it and slipped it into the inside jacket pocket of the hand-tailored linen suit that he wore with total nonchalance. He would destroy it later, once he had read it.
He got up, said goodbye to everyone and left without staying for the rest of the meeting: he was sure it would continue late into the night.
He needed to get down to work immediately.
17
It was impossible for Ferrara to get to sleep that night. He was unable to shake off the terrible images that had shocked Florence over the past three months.
He looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was 1.46 a.m. and there was no chance he would fall asleep now.
The bedside lamp was still on. He looked tenderly at Petra, who was fast asleep, her blonde hair spread across the pillow and her mouth slightly open. He switched off the lamp, got up and went into the living room, a fairly large room split into two. On one side were the sofas, the armchairs and a desk, at which he sometimes spent entire nights working. On the other, a long, narrow eighteenth-century table, which served as a surface for his work when necessary.
He sat down at the desk, opened the drawer and took out a file. The first document in it was the letter Leonardo Berghoff had written to him shortly before his death.
In the past few days he had re-read it several times in search of some meaning hidden between the lines. Now, though, he realised this letter was a problem in itself. The fact that he had kept it to himself, without informing the Prosecutor’s Department, could cost him dearly.
How could he justify his conduct to his superiors? How could he explain that he had not followed up on the letter? Would they hold him morally responsible for the double murder as a consequence?
No, he reassured himself. But he was far from certain, given how little he trusted certain people in the Prosecutor’s Department.
Leonardo Berghoff had met his end the previous month, on 5 July at Marienbrücke in Bavaria. On the same wooden suspension bridge over the river where Ludwig II had often gone at night to gaze at the castle of Neuschwanstein illuminated by hundreds and hundreds of candles. At the same spot, Ferrara had been wounded in the left shoulder from a shot Berghoff had fired at him before being killed. A sniper, hidden in the vegetation on the other side of the bridge, had killed Berghoff before he could fire at Ferrara again, and had then disappeared into the darkness of the mountains without leaving a single trace.
He re-read the letter.
In it, Berghoff explained the reason for the vendetta he had planned against the man who had wronged him: Alvise Innocenti, his natural father, who had abandoned him immediately after his birth. A plan so diabolical, he had had to wait many years to carry it out.
Ferrara lingered over the last part:
A group which has been hindering your every move from behind the scenes, and which could take drastic action against you if its secrecy were to be endangered. I don’t know the leaders, but I know for certain that they represent the blackest evil.
But I will give you two names connected to them, though in different ways. One is that officer of yours they call Serpico. The other is former senator Enrico Costanza, who has the rank of prince and who has now reached the end of the line because of the cancer that’s killing him. He’s my godfather. It was he who introduced me into the secret world of the hooded men and the black rose. It was also he who ordered the murder of Madalena after she had seen him with his face uncovered during a ceremony. But it’s all too complex to explain in detail. I’ll only tell you that they intend to destroy the Bartolotti family, which is
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