The Hunter of the Dark by Carrisi Donato

Author:Carrisi, Donato [Carrisi, Donato]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime, Mystery & Detective, General, Thrillers, Suspense
ISBN: 9780349141190
Google: U_HGCAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00YAKIVRU
Goodreads: 25813492
Publisher: Abacus
Published: 2014-09-29T05:00:00+00:00

15

The Technical Analysis Laboratory of the Rome police was among the most advanced in Europe. Its activity ranged from decoding DNA to electronic investigation.

The head of it was Leopoldo Strini, a thirty-five-year-old expert with balding hair, thick glasses and a pale complexion. ‘Here we decrypt codes and reconstruct the contents of home and telephone intercepts,’ he explained to Sandra. ‘If, for example, a recording has gaps, we’re able to fill them with the exact words, thanks to our apparatus. Just as we can extract the underlying image from a photograph taken in the dark, as if it was bright daylight.’

‘How is that possible?’ Sandra asked.

With a self-satisfied air, Strini went to one of the terminals in the room and gave the monitor a couple of slaps. ‘Thanks to a system of very powerful state-of-the-art software, our margin of error is 0.009.’

The computers were the real secret of the place. The laboratory was equipped with technological tools that nobody else – public authorities or private companies – had at their disposal. The large room that housed them was in the basement of Police Headquarters. There were no windows, and a ventilation system maintained a constant temperature in order to keep the sophisticated instruments from damage. The servers that supported all this technology, meanwhile, were buried a good twenty feet below the foundations of the Headquarters building.

To Sandra, this place seemed like a mixture of a biology lab – the counter with microscopes and all the rest – a computer centre and an electronics workshop – with soldering irons, components and various tools.

Currently the laboratory was at work on the DNA of the Monster of Rome, found on the shirt that the killer had inadvertently left in the car of the young people he had attacked in Ostia. And it was also busy examining the finds taken from Dr Astolfi’s apartment. But, in accordance with the wishes of the upper echelons at Headquarters, this second matter was secret, Leopoldo Strini remembered. So there was no way Sandra Vega, a mere forensic photographer, could have come to see him about that.

‘The killer’s DNA hasn’t revealed anything else,’ Strini said, putting his hands up. ‘No matches with other cases or with any of the samples we’ve been getting from people with records for similar crimes.’

‘I need a favour,’ Sandra said, cutting short his speech. She handed him the mobile phone given to her by Pia Rimonti’s boyfriend Ivan.

‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

‘In the voicemail, there’s a message from my colleague who was killed two nights ago. First I need you to listen to it.’

Strini took the phone from Sandra’s hands as if it were a relic. Then, staring at it in silence, he walked towards a terminal. He connected the mobile and dialled a series of commands on the keyboard. ‘I’m extracting the message,’ he announced, and pressed the button that connected directly to the voicemail. Then he raised the volume of the speakers on the table.

The call started. An electronic female voice welcomed them and announced that the voicemail contained one saved message.

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