It was one of the Municipality-owned apartments that usually were given to the low-income people and it only took very little to get the apartment.
Consequently, it happened quite often that every time Marco’s aunt went to their apartment, she used to give some money to them in the hope of being used at best.
Because of hemiplegia, the boy had always with himself one orthopedic brace for the shoulders and the right arm and another one for the right leg and moreover, he regularly took the botulinum toxin for reducing the muscular tension.
Marco indeed felt enormously grateful to everyone taking care of him, though he constantly felt himself like a burden to his mother, aunt, and anyone else taking care of him.
Another person, with whom Marco had a close relation besides his mother and the aunt, was the nurse who every morning used to go to his home exactly at the wake-up time and made the botulinum toxin injections.
She always considered him as her own son and he felt deeply grateful to it.
Daniela Rossi, a middle-aged woman, was a member of the medical staff following up Marco since the day he’s been diagnosed with hemiplegia. In the very beginning, the nurses switched with each other in taking care of Marco and helping him to carry out the daily needs, then through his mother, he had expressly declared to be followed by Daniela for the whole time.
Every time the nurse showed up in the apartment, Marco’s mother usually went out and stayed alone in any other room, to avoid her presence; usually the injections made by Daniela lasted only half an hour in the morning and evening, and afterwards she used to leave and come back in the morning of the next day.
The same routine was applicable also to Andrea Fusari, the physiotherapy expert who was coaching Marco Mezzogori twice a week.
Exceptions were made only in the cases when Marisa Lavezzoli managed to find one of those small jobs at occasional basis, in which she was usually prompted to go out leaving her son alone: in such case, Ms. Rossi spent all the time with Marco until the return of his mother.
However, in some other cases, Marco used to remain alone at home, and it usually occurred when his mother considered necessary to do shopping unexpectedly.
Normally they counted on the availability of the service offered by the supermarket, it always worked out every time they’re making orders through phone calls and home delivery was made by the supermarket in return, while in the case of unplanned purchases, the mother used to go out and made shopping as quickly as possible to avoid leaving Marco alone for long hours.
The other cases when Marco used to be alone were exactly when he usually wrote on his personal diary.
He made such a decision when he had turned eighteen.
The diary was an inseparable companion of him, through the pages of which the emotions were transmitted, and he used to write down all the feelings, while sometimes he talked to it as if there was a mouth inside and it was able to speak. He recorded events from his everyday life, as well as any thought, emotion, and perception arisen to him.
Obviously, he considered the diary as a tool to give free rein to what he had inside, because he felt imposed to do so in a sort of situation which was never desirable to him.
Before sleep, he used to stay alone in his room, and turned his emotions into small letters written by him in ink.
Usually he tried to finish writing before the nurse showed up and before he laid himself on the bed, and if he couldn’t do so, she used to leave him uninterrupted while he kept writing not in a hurry, and right after writing, she began to take care of him.
II
Stefano Zamagni knew Carla Mezzogori as both lived at the same street, in a few meters of distance: he was living next to the Square Repubblica while she lived in the intersection with the first segment of the street Venezia.
The first time they’ve met was just occasional, as one day he had helped her to take a heavy box out of the car, and thus expressing his willingness to pull it up to the entrance door of the building.
He was passing by the lady’s car and immediately had offered his help seeing her in trouble.
In return, she had thanked him and then each of them had been going on their own way.
Since that day, he had met her by chance in the sidewalk and both saluted each other, and while the days passed, the police inspector had begun to get acquainted with the lady and her husband afterwards.
The relation established between Zamagni and Carla Mezzogori couldn’t be defined as a true and proper friendship, but more or less a good acquaintance by both parties.
Several times, the couple would also invite Zamagni to spend some hours in their companionship during the evening, and in return, sometimes he would bring some drink and sometimes would invite them for having breakfast at the bar.
In all conversations, they used to talk about a diverse range of topics, including the job (Carla was a state official in the post office of Bologna located in the Mazzini quarter, her husband worked in a mechanic’s shop; and they got very surprised when found that Stefano Zamagni was a police inspector), as well as the great attention Carla was paying to her nephew in particular, the bond she had established with him, and how the couple haven’t had decided so far to have kids fearing that they would have the same fate. Of course, their conversations did also tackle topics of general interest.
As far as he knew about this family situation, Zamagni was often asking Carla about the health of her nephew trying to avoid any excessive bothering to her family affairs, and in response, Carla told that his condition was more or less stable.
It was obvious that the police inspector didn’t always come up with such topic spontaneously, but he often took the chance from the lady, who was the one opening it up.
He only asked her very quickly about the boy’s health, because after all he regretted that people may suffer such experiences.
Sometimes, Carla had told him about the relationship with her sister-in-law, which she considered unsatisfactory, as well as about her brother who, many years ago, had disappeared without leaving any trace. Consequently, Zamagni could have been able to assume that the family situation was quite disadvantaged.
All such thoughts disappeared in his head while being at job place, highly involved on solving a complicated case. Among other things, he recently had experienced the unexpectable epilogue of the occurrences related to Atropos case.
Zamagni wasn’t yet able to realize the reality of things: he was committed to complete the process that seemed to be a routine investigation of the police, until a very strange and unimaginable thing occurred.
And everything ran so fast.
He was hearing with speakerphone a conversation that could have been very helpful to find the author of all those crimes, while Ema Simoni, one of his neighbors appeared nearby, bringing some food specialties she used to prepare, and exactly at this moment she distinguished the voice speaking on the other side of the phone. Meanwhile Zamagni hadn’t realized what was really happening at least for the moment, then immediately he had implied the right connections even though he couldn’t realize how it could be possible.
As far as appeared, the person speaking on the mobile phone had to do with Atropos case, but also he had to do with Daniele Santopietro, whom the inspector Zamagni had inquired in the past.
Moreover, there was the letter sent to him and those phone calls he’d received so far.
Haven’t you received yet? That means it will come very soon. Meanwhile I wanted to congratulate you, the other person had said to him, and later he had hung up in order to call him back in a few minutes.
I