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

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always Maroni’s case, especially when he needs it. But does he know what you’ve got?”

      “Came straight to you, Mick,” said Carrara, “but listen, there’s more.”

      “Go on.”

      “Well, the forensics, for one. They’ve got some DNA from her clothing and in the car and if they match with the other crime scenes we might be onto something. We could try Spinelli.”

      Rossi let out a sigh.

      “Are you telling me that this Spinelli guy has faked himself as a serial killer as a perfect cover, or actually became a serial killer, murdered one or two innocent women just so he can bump off his ex-lover? Sounds a bit off the wall, don’t you think?”

      “Unless,” countered Carrara, “he heard about the note on the second victim, got a tip-off or something about it being a possible serial killer. Then he hatched himself a plan.”

      Rossi was swinging in short, rapid, pensive arcs in his chair.

      “Iannelli knows. I told him to keep it to himself, in return for tasty morsels, obviously. But it’s way off the mark.”

      “But we’re still going to have to give this to Maroni, right?” said Carrara, “and then the public prosecutor might want to make a move. Impatient for an arrest and the like. You know they want to be informed.”

      Rossi felt it was Carrara who was piling the pressure on now. Time to release the valve, he thought.

      “I think we’d better make a little visit to Mr Spinelli first, don’t you? Just for a chat. As someone who knew the victim, he has valuable information to offer. No need to make it official. No lawyers. Routine enquiries. Can we hold off until tomorrow?”

      “Possibly,” said a guarded Carrara realizing he’d have to put the champagne moment on hold.

      “Any of the guys go with you to the ex?”

      “Just Bianco, and he’s onside, I’m pretty sure.”

      “Well tell him to keep it under his proverbial. And the press conference? We’ll have to put it back to eight o’clock now. They’re going to hate us but it might give us time to see what this crazed lover has got to say for himself.”

      Carrara made a note.

      “We can say we’re still waiting on some forensics. I’ll have a word with Loretta in the lab. She’ll cover up if we need her to.”

      “Good,” said Rossi. “What’s his name and where can we find him?”

      There was a knock at the door.

      “Come in,” said Rossi.

      “Call from Chief Superintendent Maroni, sir,” said a uniformed female officer whose name he couldn’t remember but whose smile always brightened his day. “Says it is of the utmost urgency.”

      But Rossi had already got to his feet and was gesturing to Carrara to do likewise.

      “Tell him I’m not here. I’m out. No, at the dentist. Terrible toothache. Can’t even speak. Face out here,” he said miming a mild deformity of the cheek area. “He can call me on my mobile,” he said, grinning now while grabbing his coat and giving Carrara the definitive signal to move out. “And I won’t be answering that in a hurry,” he added, sotto voce, as they headed for the car.

       Seventeen

      Early forties, exuding a twitchy, impatient enthusiasm and an earnest if weary expression, Luca Spinelli was the new face of Italian politics. They had agreed to meet at his office where it was clear that he’d been both working and living since the break-up with Maria and the subsequent collapse of his own marriage.

      “I’ve made a pretty good job of losing it all, don’t you think?” he said as he faced Rossi and Carrara across his desk. “A marriage, the woman I loved. Still have my work though,” he said with a liberal dose of acid irony.

      “And we won’t be keeping you from it for long, I’m sure,” Rossi reassured him. “Just a few questions but it would be helpful if you could tell us anything you think may have aroused your suspicion in recent weeks.”

      “With pleasure, Inspector,” he replied maintaining the same satirical tone.

      Rossi passed the sheaf of e-mails across the desk. “You can, I presume, confirm that you wrote these? In particular, the last one, written in the early hours of the day on which Maria was later killed.”

      Spinelli’s expression went from shock and embarrassment through to apparent incredulity.

      “How did you get these?”

      As Rossi explained, Spinelli went back to leafing through them, reliving the strange, voyeuristic dislocation that comes from seeing your own words already become a form of history. He stopped and held out one of the sheets.

      “I didn’t write this,” he said. “I couldn’t have written this. I mean it’s not possible. It’s not me. It can’t be me.” He began to read out some of the more incriminating sentences: “‘If I can’t be with you then you can’t live either, you are coming with me, then we will always be together, I won’t let you get away with this so easy, if I can’t have you no one can … I’ll do myself in or both of us …’”

      “It’s your e-mail account,” said Rossi, “and we can pretty quickly ascertain if it came from your own computer, in which case, if it did, it makes things, shall we say, at best, awkward for you.”

      “So you’re saying that I did it, that I’m a suspect?”

      “I am saying that circumstantial evidence could implicate you as a possible suspect at this point in the investigation – for the murder of Maria Marini and those of both Paola Gentili and Anna Luzi. Unless perhaps you can explain why you wrote it.”

      “Or who wrote it,” he added. “Who, Inspector.”

      Spinelli’s tone had turned combative, and he now had something of the cornered look in his eyes, a look Rossi had seen many times before.

      “Does anyone else have access to your account?”

      “No.”

      “So you are the sole user.”

      “That would appear to be the case.”

      “And you aren’t in the habit of letting other people write e-mails for you. A secretary, an aid. Maria herself, maybe? She was helping you, I believe.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Spinelli, “and I often give people the keys to my flat too and say ‘walk right in, go on, help yourself’.”

      Rossi gave a partially muted sigh.

      “So, when you say ‘who’ wrote it, what do you mean exactly?”

      “Well,” began Spinelli, “call me an MPD conspiracy theorist, by all means, but has the thought not occurred to you that they might have hacked it, Inspector?”

      Rossi never liked the way the final inspector was tagged on like a sardonic Post-it note, but he’d grown used to it. Comes with the job, he mused internally, nobody likes a cop, unless they need one, and then they’re never there, are they? Ha, ha. Come to think of it, he didn’t even like being called inspector when it wasn’t used ironically and would happily have deployed his first name but then it just wasn’t done, was it? Hi, I’m Michael and I’m here to help you. Like fuck you are. You’re here to bang me up as quick as you can and get yourself another stripe. Back to work.

      “And you think there might be a reason for that.”

      “To frame me, of course!” Spinelli exploded.

      “But do you have reason

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