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  MISSING

  Monty Marsden

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  About this Book

  About the Author

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  www.ariafiction.com

  About Missing

  The search for a missing child reveals she is not the only one…

  In a little village in Lombardy, it’s a cold November morning when Ami, steps out of her house to go to school...and never comes back. As soon as her father raises the alarm, a frantic search begins. The investigation is led by Police Commissioner Sensi. His men immediately find a trail to follow, but it soon proves to lead nowhere. Three months later, Police Commissioner Sensi decides to visit Dr Claps, an old friend and a renowned criminologist, who guesses from his first few words the real reason for the visit. It’s not just about Ami; she’s not the only little girl to have disappeared.

  Contents

  Cover

  Welcome Page

  About Missing

  Introduction

  Part One

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Part Two

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  The End

  Translator’s Acknowledgements

  About Monty Marsden

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Claps was already at the table when Sensi entered the restaurant. He stood up as soon as he saw the police commissioner walking towards him.

  “Please sit down, my friend,” Sensi said. He shook his hand. “How are you?”

  Once a month, the two would meet in the Italian cafe almost opposite the central police station. They both enjoyed the time spent there, talking like old friends – and each time, Claps showed considerable progress with his speech.

  Up until three years ago, his life had been very different. Completely different.

  Psychiatrist, criminologist, expert in psychological profiles of violent criminals for the police department. His help had often been crucial to the police when solving apparently obscure cases. He had never taken part in the operative part of the investigation, except for the last time…

  The criminal’s knife had pierced his femoral artery – he had a massive haemorrhage, his heart had stopped twice, the second time for a prolonged period. He was still alive because the ambulance had arrived quickly and the hospital was nearby… or perhaps simply because of a miracle. The cardiac arrest that he endured caused a shortage of oxygen to his brain resulting in permanent brain damage – he would recover from it to a certain extent but he would never return to his old self.

  Aphasia, n. An alteration of the brain’s ability to comprehend and use words and verbal expressions.

  After Claps had woken up in the rehabilitation department, it wasn’t like returning to his old life – it was a nightmare. Despite trying very hard, he couldn’t turn his thoughts into words any more, it was almost as if he had forgotten how to. Similarly, he didn’t understand a word of what others were saying to him.

  *

  “How are you today?” Sensi asked him.

  “Fine… Thanks.”

  Fine. Could anyone in his conditions ever say ‘fine’? Sure, he was much, much better than he had been since they had discharged him from the hospital.

  A long time ago, in his previous life, every single word had a specific meaning and it became immediately apparent as soon as he heard it.

  Each word was a living part of his world – he built his world with hundreds, thousands of words. Each of those words triggered a range of emotions. Mastering words meant being able to awaken memories, to understand things, to conceive ideas. To put it shortly, it meant to have a life.

  Then everything had vanished out of the blue. It had all been cut off by a criminal’s knife.

  Rehab had been long and atrocious – he had forgotten the simplest words and he had been encouraged to strive to remember their meaning by sounding out his own memory. It was as though he had been thrown into a pitch dark room and he had been forced to get familiar with it by blindly touching every single object in it.

  He had slowly regained, day by day, the ability to understand language, but speech had been much more difficult, despite the doctors believing that his case of aphasia had had an inexplicably positive turn. He struggled to articulate complex phrases and the correct usage of grammar was still a massive hurdle for him. Sometimes, when the sentence was long and complex, he wrote it down on a piece of paper he always carried with him.

  “Fancy a chat?”

  That was the usual start of their conversation. They talked about everything, except for the cold cases Sensi was investigating; and Morphy’s story. They had both agreed this – neither of them wanted to remember.

  “Okay… but no money for you… I’m already having speech therapy!

  That was his standard answer – a year ago, Claps wouldn’t have been able to say it.

  That night, however, Sensi was acting a bit differently – he was forcing himself to smile and his eyes had a darker shade to them. Claps had immediately noticed the difference.

  “I thought you would… defer tonight,” he said. “Some import… important things happened.”

  Sensi looked away and pretended to read the menu, which he knew off by heart. “No, you know that I really enjoy meeting up with you. Also…” he spoke very slowly. He lifted his eyes towards Claps again, “I want to talk to you about what happened.”

  He looked away again. “I mean, if you want to, of course.” Then he remained silent for a while.

  Ever since the Morphy case was over, and Claps had undergone rehab, they’d never even mentioned the cold cases Sensi was investigating. Claps had been okay with this – he was a man with a severe disability who still had many personal hurdles to overcome; he felt like a veteran who was thankful for still being alive.

  What was the point of being interested in his old job, a job that he could never return to? Wouldn’t it just be an excuse for him to pretend that he could still lead his old life? Wouldn’t it just create the illusion that he was still alive?

  That night was different.

  A spark, a sudden subliminal flash of lightning, had given Claps unusual interest in his colleague’s investigation.

  “Tell… I’ll listen…”

  Sensi took off his glasses and laid them carefully on the table. He began to speak in a calm voice. “As I’m sure you remember, it all began a little over three months ago…”

  PART ONE

  One hundred days earlier, late November.

  Elaji Demba had been in Italy for around twenty years. He had arrived as an illegal immigrant from Senegal when he was about twenty. To survive, he had been a street trader over the summer and had done any type of underpaid, illegal job that he could find during the winter.

  Elaji was a strong man – he was tall, with a well-built body, solid like a baobab. He was proud of his family – his father, his grandfather before him and his ancestors, too, were highly respected in the village where he had lived as a child.

  Elaji was an honest, calm man. He didn’t like to speak much.

  “Those who always speak will always know less than those who keep calm and ponder.”

  After a while, he had managed to legitimise his stay in Italy and had found a job in this little town in the north. He lived ne
ar a river that looked very different from those of his homeland – in the winter, it would get colder than he ever could have imagined when he was a child.

  Elaji’s life hadn’t been easy, but a baobab thrives whatever the weather.

  His jom, the essence of his education, had guided his heart and his footsteps; his ngor, the art of being honest, had always been an obvious quality; his yokute, his willingness to improve himself, had never worn out.

  He’d been married only once, to Rama – something which was unique in his family – she had given him two daughters: Alissa, who was seven years old, and Aminata, his fourteen-year-old elder daughter commonly known as Ami. If necessary, he would have given his life for his two daughters.

  Elaji owned the house he lived in – the mortgage would take another ten years to pay off. For this reason, he liked to work long hours, so that he could save some money.

  That evening in late November a thin fog brooded over the river and he returned home a few minutes after seven. Rama wouldn’t be much longer – she had gone into town to do the laundry, as she did every day.

  Only Alissa ran to him.

  1

  “Elaji, are you sure?”

  Everybody in town knew Elaji Demba – the agent talking to him that night had never seen him so upset.

  “Maybe she decided to sleep over at a friend’s.”

  “No, she’s disappeared – we’ve looked for her everywhere. Rama called one of my daughter’s school mates – Ami wasn’t at school this morning.”

  “Did you try to call her on the phone?”

  “Ami doesn’t have a mobile phone.”

  “Listen, Elaji – does Ami have a boyfriend? Maybe they just…”

  “Noo!” Elaji roared, as he banged his fists on the balcony’s balustrade.

  “She’s a baby, a little girl. Somebody kidnapped my little Ami.”

  “Okay, Elaji, relax now. We’ll find her, trust me. I’ll ring the police commissioner.”

  *

  A quarter of an hour later, Elaji Demba told Lieutenant Corbi, the police commissioner and head of the central police station, of the events of the day. As on every other day, Ami had left the house early in the morning to catch the school bus to Crema. Initially, Rama hadn’t wanted her daughter to commute so far to school, but there were no high schools in town and Elaji had made a decision – Ami was a promising student, she was well behaved and she loved studying. She had a right to her yokute.

  That day, school had finished around 4 p.m. and Ami should have been back home by 6 p.m. – at that time, both Rama and Elaji were still at work. That night, Ami hadn’t come home. That morning, she hadn’t turned up at school.

  “Somebody kidnapped her,” Elaji repeated. “Somebody kidnapped her.”

  Within a few minutes, the police commissioner verified that no black girl had been admitted to any neighbouring hospitals and none of the local police stations had issued a report concerning anybody of Ami’s description.

  It had been an hour since Elaji Demba had made his appearance at the central police station. Lieutenant Corbi pulled a grim expression, then decided to call a number at the police headquarters in Milan.

  *

  Police Commissioner Sensi’s mobile phone vibrated at 9 p.m. He was following, with little interest and some irritation, a talk show on TV, whilst slumped in his armchair.

  “An underage girl has been reported missing.”

  For cases like this, a new European protocol of intervention had been introduced a few months earlier, in order to extend the search to a national level as quickly as possible. This protocol acknowledged that the first few hours are paramount to the investigation and instructed the police to spread a message across the country on displays at harbours, airports, motorway services and train stations. Furthermore, the information should be broadcast on radio and television, internet websites and by telephone providers. A little later on, if the gravity of the situation justified it – for almost all suspected kidnappings were usually resolved in a matter of days – the police would form an inter-force investigative unit to co-ordinate the search.

  Sensi had been charged with the co-ordination of the project for the Lombardy region.

  “Aminata Demba, commonly known as Ami, fourteen years old.”

  The first thing that Sensi had to decide was whether he had to activate a crisis unit, together with the standard warnings according to the protocol.

  “We have been unable to trace any sightings of her since 7:30 a.m. today, when she left home to go to school.”

  “It’s been fourteen hours already.”

  “We received a notification from the local police station – they carried out the first investigative steps with no results.” The policeman on the telephone had written a short report of all the information known to date. “We’ve gathered enough information about the little girl,” he concluded. “and she doesn’t sound like somebody who would leave home out of the blue. This sounds like a serious case.”

  “Yes. Send out the notifications immediately, I’ll be at the office soon. If we don’t solve the case by midnight, we’ll activate a crisis unit. Call Inspector Maiezza – I want to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  “Fourteen hours,” Sensi mumbled to himself as he drove through Milan at night. It had been a long time already.

  *

  Elaji Demba’s house had become increasingly more crowded. The small Senegalese community in the town had gathered to support the family. Friends and neighbours had also gathered outside their house. It was clear that the Demba family were well known and respected by the whole town. The women were gathered round Rama, who was crying quietly while they prayed for and consoled her; the men were standing around with expressions of impotence mixed with blind rage for an injustice that nobody had the courage to call by its proper name. Every now and again, Elaji repeated to himself: “They kidnapped her… they kidnapped her.”

  The opening theme tune of the late night news on television attracted everyone’s attention. Following the headlines – the anchorman announced in a serious tone:

  During the evening newscast, we announced that Ami Demba was declared missing – she’s a young girl of Senegalese origin, who was born and brought up in Italy. Her family haven’t had any contact with her since this morning. We can now show you a photo of this young girl.

  Ami’s beautiful face appeared on the screen.

  She still looks like a baby…

  The anchorman’s tone had become much more fatherly.

  Ami is fourteen years old and she’s about 1.4 metres tall. When she walked out of her house to catch the school bus this morning, she was wearing a light blue coat – the same one that you can see on this other photo.

  Another photo appeared on the screen – it portrayed Ami holding hands with a friend, smiling and waving at the photographer.

  Ami goes to a secondary school in Crema. Every morning, she catches a bus to get to the city from her town. Investigators are attempting to find out whether Ami did actually get on the bus this morning. She was not seen at school.

  After the photo had disappeared from the screen, the anchorman paused for a moment.

  If you have seen or heard news about little Ami, please call the number below. We hope that the girl will be found sooner rather than later.

  The anchorman smiled.

  We hope that it’s only one of those pranks that are typical of adolescents. Let’s move on with the following news.

  Somebody turned off the television. Inspector Maiezza, who had been sent by Sensi to co-ordinate the investigation on the spot, had arrived about an hour earlier. He had already realized that the situation wasn’t one of the most promising – the girl was too young and had never shown any signs of rebelling against her family. The hope that everything was just caused by the girl’s whim and would result in only a bit of a scare for her parents was diminishing. The inspector approached Elaji. “Mr Demba, we expect journalists and cameramen to ap
pear on the spot pretty soon – please make sure that…”

  “I don’t want any journalists at home.” Elaji interrupted him, abruptly. “I don’t want to see anybody, no-one at all. I just want to find Ami.”

  “Mr Demba, this is what we’re all here for.”

  “I’ve nothing to show here. This is not a show. I don’t want anybody here.”

  “I know how you feel, Mr Demba, believe me. But you have to try to be practical – let’s hope that everything will be over by tomorrow morning; if not, the more the news about Ami’s disappearance spreads, the easier it will be to find somebody who has some information about her.”

  Elaji remained silent and stared at the floor.

  “They might be able to help, Mr Demba. You won’t have to let them into your house, you might only have to go out and have a few words with them. Our policemen will be on duty to protect your privacy, they’ll make sure that their presence isn’t too invasive.”

  Elaji lifted up his eyes. “Somebody kidnapped her. I’ll do anything to get her back – anything. I’ll talk to them.”

  Inspector Maiezza would have liked to add something to comfort him, but a policeman entered and signalled him to follow. They walked out of the house to speak.

  “We managed to contact one of the people who took the bus to Crema this morning.”

  “What did they see?”

  “Ami wasn’t on the bus – he was sure about that.”

  For the investigation, ironically, this was good news – it narrowed the focus of the search down considerably. Maiezza had followed Ami’s route to the bus stop in the morning. Her house was only a ten minute walk away from the bus stop so it had to be in those ten minutes that everything had happened.

  “We need to recover any CCTV recordings,” he said, decisively. “We’ll focus firstly on any CCTV footage of the path between the house and the bus stop and then that of the whole town – shops, traffic lights, banks… I mean, everything.”