Excerpt of Double Murder at the Grand Hotel Miramare by Elena Martignoni, Michela Martignoni

The man was lying on his back. He looked around sixty, but could have been older. Graying hair, regular features, a light tan. Apart from the face, only his muscular arms were visible; the rest of the body was covered with a sheet and bedspread pierced by at least four bullet holes. Another shot, probably the fatal one, had struck him in the temple.

It didn’t seem like the work of a professional, Berté mused, but given the number of rounds fired at random, something very personal. The killer’s enthusiasm suggested both little familiarity with weapons and blind rage. The shots had probably been fired from about ten feet away, judging by the casings on the floor. Berté could see a few of them near the door. But that wasn’t definitive. They could have rolled or been accidentally disturbed by whoever had fled the room after discovering the murder. He bent over to inspect them. They were 9mm casings. He also looked under the bed and saw that the pistol was there. It often happened that the weapon was abandoned at the scene, especially when the serial number had been filed off. From what he could see, and by the type of the casings, it was a semi-automatic with a silencer, a Beretta 98 to be exact: the civilian version of the 9mm Beretta 92 FS Parabellum used by the Armed Forces and the police. The fact that it had a silencer attached confirmed that it had been acquired illegally. A rather average pistol, with a 15-round magazine, in this case empty, given that the breech was open. The ballistic analysis and forensic findings would either confirm or deny his hypothesis that this was the murder weapon.

Berté stood back up and approached the other side of the bed, where the woman was lying. Estimated age: about forty. She was face down, with no clothes. Her blond hair, crusted with dried blood, was strewn over the pillow. A shot had partially destroyed the back of her head. She had also been wounded in her back and legs. A looker, from what was visible.

Suddenly, for no good reason, Berté found himself fantasizing. The plot for a story erupted – that was the right word – in his mind.

Right now? Really?

Yes, his conscience was right, this wasn’t the time for playing writer, but he knew that as soon as he had a spare moment, he would shut himself in his room and sit at his desk in front of the computer. His sudden, barely-suppressed anger triggered his imagination but his passion for writing was a secret he kept well safeguarded.