Free The Oracle by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

skin. His eyes were light in colour and watery, pacific, the eyes of a clerk. Ferocious and cowardly at the same time, faithful as a dog and deferential to his superiors, he was capable of savage atrocity as long as he was guaranteed impunity.
    There was this little whore who’d had a good time with the boys at the University for days on end. Now she didn’t want to collaborate. That little bitch on the radio who spat out all kinds of poison and insults against the police. And now she was refusing to answer the questions they were putting to her.
    ‘This is a job for you,’ the chief had said. ‘Vlassos, you take care of it: this baby is all for you, do whatever you want with her. Got my message, old friend? Anything you have to . . .’ and the chief had smiled in that way that meant, ‘You know what I mean, don’t you, buddy?’
    And Vlassos had answered: ‘You can count on me, Chief, I know how to handle these things.’
    ‘That’s what I wanted to hear. We’ll see if your . . . bedside manner is sufficient to get her to see things our way. Otherwise we’ll just have to repeat the treatment until she becomes more reasonable. It’s not a problem for you to repeat the treatment if necessary . . .’
    And Vlassos snickered: ‘Oh, no, no, not a problem for me . . .’
    H ELENI WAS LYING on an iron bed, drowsy with weakness and exhausted by her anaemia, but she lifted her head and tried to get up on her elbows when the door opened and Sergeant Vlassos’s corpulent figure filled the doorway.
    ‘Now I’ll get you to talk, you little whore, I’ll get you talking
    Heleni begged him through her tears: ‘For the love of God . . .’ she said with a faint voice, ‘please . . . don’t hurt me.’
    ‘Shut up!’ yelled Vlassos. ‘I know what I have to do.’ He lifted his hand and slapped her face with all his might. Behind the door, Karamanlis was watching everything through a oneway window: behind him a man with a taut face, evidently upset, drew back into the shadows of the corridor so as not to see.
    ‘We’ll find out everything we want to know now,’ Karamanlis said without turning around. ‘And if she doesn’t talk, he will, I can guarantee it, mister.’
    ‘Your methods are disgraceful and you are a sod, Karamanlis,’ said the foreigner. ‘I wish you’d drop dead.’
    ‘Don’t be a hypocrite. Your friends are as interested as I am in knowing what’s behind this story, who’s manoeuvring these fools. We’re lucky to have caught so many of them, and they’ll give us all the information we need. You just let me work and don’t break my balls.’
    Claudio arrived at that moment, dragged down the hall by a policeman. Karamanlis made a gesture and the man pushed Claudio against the door with his face up against the window. Claudio saw Vlassos violently slapping Heleni’s face again. He turned, screaming, towards Karamanlis, but the man holding him twisted his arm to the point of breaking it. Claudio fell to his knees but never stopped shouting and insulting the officer: ‘Coward, bastard, your mother fucked a Turk! Goddamned fucking murderer!’
    Karamanlis paled, took him by the shoulders and lifted him back up to window level, smashing his face against the glass. ‘See, look at that, you’ll talk now, you’ll tell us everything you know, won’t you? You’ll quit playing the smart guy, won’t you?’
    Claudio was paralysed with horror: Heleni lay there motionless, unconscious. But hitting the girl had obviously excited Vlassos, and he was unzipping his pants, displaying the hairy obscenity of his groin. He lifted Heleni’s skirt, tore off her underwear and mounted her, sweat-soaked, panting and groaning.
    Claudio felt something break inside him, shatter like a sheet of ice smashed by a hammer. ‘There’s nothing to say!’ he yelled. ‘There’s nothing to tell! Stop him, for God’s sake, stop him! Stop him!’ He twisted free, swiftly pulled his arm back and dealt a lightning-quick