man put his hand around her elbow to support her. Salvatore Forlani started to cry.
There could be no doubt about this: two cameras, one behind the till in a menswear shop on the other side of the shopping mall and one directly opposite the lifts, had recorded the incident. Sabrina played the recording at a slow speed, fast-forwarded it and played it backwards. She cut out sequences and viewed them in Photoshop; zoomed in on the womanâs face and what little she could see of the boyâs.
If she had ever seen a smile of recognition, then this was how Lucia Forlani had reacted when the man had entered the lift.
She would have expected the trio to be picked up by the cameras that overlooked the café on the first floor, but they never arrived. In his report, the investigating officer had mentioned the possibility that cameras in the underground car park might have caught the boy, the woman and the man. These cameras, however, had been out of action â byunfortunate chance or sabotage. Lucia Forlani, Salvatore and the unknown man had vanished without a trace between three floors of one of the most frequented shopping centres in the world. An almost impossible achievement.
The officer had included a list of vehicles in the underground car park at the time of the abduction. Every owner had been interviewed with no result.
As the days and weeks passed, the tone of the reports grew increasingly despondent. The investigating officer had followed up even the most improbable theories and Sabrina was impressed by his diligence. No one could find fault with the investigation.
Sabrina lit a couple of candles behind her bed and was holding a small strip of magic between her fingers. Thin, sharp, black and bendy like celluloid. Half a centimetre wide and four centimetres long. The strip had fluttered down on her naked foot when she found Giulio Forlaniâs apparently empty wallet in a paper bag. On the paper bag was the name and address of a famous patisserie in Milan. She could still smell almond cake.
The magic ingredient was in the luminous green numbers and letters that could be read from any angle at which she viewed the strip:
WED 2010:09:08
Which, as it happened, was todayâs day and date. The date was followed by a twelve-digit code. She had run a fingernail across the strip. The numbers and letters drifted apart, but reformed when she removed the pressure. It was extraordinary. She now started to understand the potential of the strip, not just for goods produced by the fashion industry, but also for banknotes, DVDs, credit cards, passports and driving licences. She imagined a yuppie on a rush-hour train in Rome or New York with a Prada bag and a date strip that displayed 12 December, for example â at the height of summer. If the strip was sewn into or mounted on the relevant product, visible to anyone, with a date that changed at midnight like a clock, the combination would be unbeatable; and no fashion-conscious woman â or man â would ever risk exposing their expensive accessories as rip-offs.
She put the strip inside a copy of
Northanger Abbey
on her bedside table.
Forlaniâs wallet was covered in dried blood and it had been emptied of photos, credit cards, driving licence and banknotes, which had undoubtedly been handed over to his family. The wallet itself had been stored with his bloodstained clothes, shoes and socks.
She poured the remaining contents of the grey sports bag out on to the floor, tiny fragments of glass from the Å kodaâs broken side windows sparkling like sugar crystals on Giulio Forlaniâs clothes. A dark blue anorak, socks stiffwith congealed blood, a shirt that had once been blue, an enormous pair of moccasins, khaki trousers cut from the turn-ups to the belt loops and black underpants. Sabrina picked up the shirt and poked her index finger through a sooty hole, just the diameter of a fingertip, high up on the right-hand side of the chest.
There could be no doubt about this: two cameras, one behind the till in a menswear shop on the other side of the shopping mall and one directly opposite the lifts, had recorded the incident. Sabrina played the recording at a slow speed, fast-forwarded it and played it backwards. She cut out sequences and viewed them in Photoshop; zoomed in on the womanâs face and what little she could see of the boyâs.
If she had ever seen a smile of recognition, then this was how Lucia Forlani had reacted when the man had entered the lift.
She would have expected the trio to be picked up by the cameras that overlooked the café on the first floor, but they never arrived. In his report, the investigating officer had mentioned the possibility that cameras in the underground car park might have caught the boy, the woman and the man. These cameras, however, had been out of action â byunfortunate chance or sabotage. Lucia Forlani, Salvatore and the unknown man had vanished without a trace between three floors of one of the most frequented shopping centres in the world. An almost impossible achievement.
The officer had included a list of vehicles in the underground car park at the time of the abduction. Every owner had been interviewed with no result.
As the days and weeks passed, the tone of the reports grew increasingly despondent. The investigating officer had followed up even the most improbable theories and Sabrina was impressed by his diligence. No one could find fault with the investigation.
Sabrina lit a couple of candles behind her bed and was holding a small strip of magic between her fingers. Thin, sharp, black and bendy like celluloid. Half a centimetre wide and four centimetres long. The strip had fluttered down on her naked foot when she found Giulio Forlaniâs apparently empty wallet in a paper bag. On the paper bag was the name and address of a famous patisserie in Milan. She could still smell almond cake.
The magic ingredient was in the luminous green numbers and letters that could be read from any angle at which she viewed the strip:
WED 2010:09:08
Which, as it happened, was todayâs day and date. The date was followed by a twelve-digit code. She had run a fingernail across the strip. The numbers and letters drifted apart, but reformed when she removed the pressure. It was extraordinary. She now started to understand the potential of the strip, not just for goods produced by the fashion industry, but also for banknotes, DVDs, credit cards, passports and driving licences. She imagined a yuppie on a rush-hour train in Rome or New York with a Prada bag and a date strip that displayed 12 December, for example â at the height of summer. If the strip was sewn into or mounted on the relevant product, visible to anyone, with a date that changed at midnight like a clock, the combination would be unbeatable; and no fashion-conscious woman â or man â would ever risk exposing their expensive accessories as rip-offs.
She put the strip inside a copy of
Northanger Abbey
on her bedside table.
Forlaniâs wallet was covered in dried blood and it had been emptied of photos, credit cards, driving licence and banknotes, which had undoubtedly been handed over to his family. The wallet itself had been stored with his bloodstained clothes, shoes and socks.
She poured the remaining contents of the grey sports bag out on to the floor, tiny fragments of glass from the Å kodaâs broken side windows sparkling like sugar crystals on Giulio Forlaniâs clothes. A dark blue anorak, socks stiffwith congealed blood, a shirt that had once been blue, an enormous pair of moccasins, khaki trousers cut from the turn-ups to the belt loops and black underpants. Sabrina picked up the shirt and poked her index finger through a sooty hole, just the diameter of a fingertip, high up on the right-hand side of the chest.
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