THE BANDAGED HAND

THE BANDAGED HAND

It was five o’clock in the afternoon when Charlotte learned from the news that the serial killer of the screwdriver had killed another young woman. This time the victim had been a nurse who was walking to come back home after her shift in the hospital, and who had passed through the public gardens in the vicinity of the hospital, where she had been assaulted and killed with numerous knife blows. But even this time the serial killer had used also the screwdriver , which was considered precisely his signature in the crimes he had committed. The serial killer of the screwdriver killed women who, for different reasons, happened passing alone, at night, in less frequented areas of the city, such as public gardens, or even streets and squares that were almost deserted when he hit. This was the seventh woman he had killed in three years. The killer of the screwdriver usually killed in bad weather nights, when it rained and the wind blew impetuously . He had also killed a woman in a snowfall. The serial killer of the screwdriver, so called since, after killing the women with stabbing, he raged on them with a screwdriver, he seemed impregnable. If the investigations to trace him ( to find out him) had come to nothing, numerous hypothesis had been made about who he could be, that is, what kind of person he could be, what characteristics he could have. Even if, at least as far as was known, there was no suspect for those crimes, there was, of course, a lot of talk about that serial killer, and his crimes, not only on television and in the newspapers. There was also no lack of psychological profiles of that multiple murderer who, however, remained an unknown .People were afraid, even terrified of the atrocity of his crimes, but also very curious about  who he could be , whether a resident of the city where the crimes had been committed or someone from outside.

That there was until then no suspect for those crimes, it ( this) had not prevented many not only

wondering who killer could be, but also trying to imagine who he could be, and among these there were some who believed they knew who he was.( who pretended to know who he was), who were convinced ( sure) they knew who the serial killer was.  So much so that there had been those who had reported someone of their neighbors , or of their acquaintances , but even of friends and relatives, indicating him( that someone) as  surely the author of those crimes.

Charlotte , after learning of the new crime, dating back to the previous night, while she was going to call her sister, she saw, casually glancing out of the window, when she passed in front of it,  Mark D. getting on the bicycle. She saw him by chance. If she hadn’t looked out of the window, even casually, if she had passed a few minutes later before the window, she couldn’t have seen him. Instead Charlotte saw him just when he was stretching his legs and putting his hands over the handlebars of the bicycle. One of his hands had a large bandage , which also covered his wrist.

Mark D. was a fifty years old, who lived in another part of the city , but Charlotte happened to see him often, since he almost every day came to visit his mother, who was her roommate.  She only knew Mark D. by sight. Charlotte knew he was a municipal employee, and that he had been a widower for many years. His wife had died in childbirth shortly after they got married ( had gotten married) Even the baby had died. His mother, whom Charlotte knew, had often spoken to her about him , pitying him for the death of his wife and his child. She, who was an old woman, said that her son had never recovered from that misfortune, and that was why he hadn’t felt like getting married again and setting up family.

Charlotte until that day, even though she too wondered who could be the serial killer of the screwdriver, she had never suspected anyone. But now, the bandaged hand of Mark D,. perhaps because it had been the first thing she had seen( she had laid her eyes on) after learning of the latest murder of the serial killer, it led her instinctively , automatically to suspect him.  Especially since on the news they had said that this time the killer had to have remained injured . Blood of a different blood type from that of the victim had been found on the clothes of the killed woman.

They had said (on the news) it was believed that the maniac of the screwdriver could have injured himself, in the heat with which he had launched the stab wounds, and then the screwdriver blows, but it could also be that she, the woman, had hurt him, trying to defend herself.

Charlotte, who had never talked with Mark D.____she only knew him by sight____started wondering what she could do to find out if he was the screwdriver maniac. Could she follow him? But if he would have noticed her stalking, he could also become dangerous for her.

The next day, when she saw him go, as usual, to visit his mother, Charlotte stood ( appeared ) in front of him on the stairs, with a big screwdriver in her hands. “ You have to be Mrs Laura’s son, right? Sorry if I allow myself to bother you, I will be a bore,I know, oh, excuse me, but I have a great need  for someone who help me with this” she said, waving on his face, under his nose, the big screwdriver she was holding in her hands. Mark D., remaining unperturbed in front of the screwdriver, said that ah, unfortunately he didn’t have a great time with the repair work at home, either….with the screwdriver, he added. However he asked Charlotte how he could help her, and he went to narrow the screws of the washing machine , that she previously had cared to loosen.

Charlotte also in the following days tried to talk to Mark D., as well as to ask her mother about him. He, Mark D., although very kind with her, seemed not at all willing to talk with her for long, and their conversations were always too short for they could help Charlotte to understand, to know him. Could he be the serial killer of the screwdriver? Even though hers was just a feeling, unsupported by evidence, she thought it was likely that he, the son of her roommate, was the perpetrator of those crimes. What Charlotte would never have imagined, even remotely, was that Mark D., even if he wasn’t the serial killer of the screwdriver,  had really killed. Mark D., the inconsolable widower, had killed a prostitute. He had never been suspected of that crime.

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