Persona Non Grata Read online

  “I don’t get up early in the mornings.”

  “And your younger daughter, Laura, was sleeping in Netta’s place—on the couch?”

  Then Signor Vardin frowned. “There’s nothing wrong in that.”

  “It is possible the r—… the man … it is possible he knew your house?”

  “Why would he know my house?”

  “And it’s possible he was expecting to find not Laura but her seventeen-year-old sister, warm and tucked up on the kitchen couch?”

  “But he attacked Laura—not Netta.”

  “Does your elder daughter—does Netta have a boyfriend, Signor Vardin?”

  Only then did the eyes seem to register what Trotti was saying.

  3: Hospital

  THE FLOWERS HUNG loosely from Vardin’s hand.

  They entered the large waiting room and his wife stood up.

  “Is there any news?” She did not notice Trotti but moved towards her husband, her eyes searching his face. Even though the air was now warm, she wore a green overcoat with a fur collar. She had been crying but she seemed calmer than before, calmer and slower. In one hand she held a crumpled handkerchief. She repeated, “Is there any news?”

  Vardin kissed her and handed her the flowers.

  “Tell me.”

  He shrugged.

  Trotti went over to where Brigadiere Ciuffi stood. A brief nod of her small head with its carefully brushed hair. “Any joy, Commissario?”

  “Where is Pisanelli?”

  “The ostetrica.”

  “The maternity ward? What on earth for?”

  “To have a baby.”

  “A baby?”

  Ciuffi did not smile. “Pisanelli went off about an hour ago. He said he would be back.”

  “I told him to stay with you.”

  “He’s with Commissario Merenda.”

  “What does he think he’s doing? He works for me, not Merenda.”

  “Any luck with the father?”

  “I need Pisanelli.” Trotti turned to look at Ciuffi in puzzlement. “Father?”

  Ciuffi nodded towards where Signor Vardin was talking with his wife. There were red rims to Signora Vardin’s eyelids and her husband was standing close to her. His hand held hers. The flowers had been placed on the stone bench.

  “Maserati’s got a computer portrait of the attacker. We’ve had it distributed over the printer. But Vardin only saw the man for an instant—and I’ll be surprised if the identikit brings us anything.” Trotti shrugged. “How’s the little girl? She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

  Ciuffi said, “There’s been a nurse—but she doesn’t seem to know anything.”

  Trotti clicked his tongue with impatience. “You’ve been here for more than three hours.”

  “I thought the best thing was to stay with Signora Vardin. The nurse gave her a couple of pills.”

  Trotti pushed past Ciuffi and went through the green door into the hospital corridor. It smelled of floor wax and antiseptic and muted suffering.

  There was nobody.

  He started walking down the corridor. Flooding morning light came through the windows. At the end of the corridor he found a nurse.

  “The little girl with stab wounds?”

  She was plump and beneath the gull-wing coiffe of her religious order she looked stocky. The face was pale; a crucifix hung at her neck.

  “I’m looking for the girl who was stabbed early this morning.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Pubblica Sicurezza,” Trotti said tersely. “Squadra Mobile.”

  “What little girl?” She softened her Rs with a Piemonte accent. Before Trotti could reply she turned on her heel and said, “You’d better follow me,” heading off along the rubber-tile floor.

  They went down the corridor, past the busts of earlier benefactors, now sightless in their whitewashed niches.

  CHIRURGIA D’URGENZA—Emergency Surgery.

  The nun raised her hand and knocked on a door that had been painted mustard yellow. She turned to him. “Sit there.” She indicated a short bench. She then went through the door. It hissed shut behind her.

  Trotti stared at his hands.

  The nurse came back five minutes later.

  “Vardin?” she asked. “Laura Vardin?”

  Trotti nodded and again the nun went away, this time to return with a young doctor who was in the process of peeling rubber gloves from his long, thin hands.

  Trotti stood up and the two men nodded to each other without shaking hands. On one of the gloves there were dark traces.

  “She’s sleeping.” His Italian was good but he spoke with a marked accent.

  “Sleeping?”

  His name was on his lapel. Dottor James Wafula. An African with large, brown eyes and a flat, intelligent face. His white coat was undone at the neck and there was no shirt beneath but several tight curls of dark chest hair. “You have just operated on her, Dottore?”

  “Goodness, no.” The doctor noticed Trotti’s glance to the bloodstains. “We finished with the child a couple of hours ago.”

  “Then she’s all right?” He was surprised by the excitement in his own voice. “She’s going to live?”

  The laugh was infectious. “Of course.” Dottor Wafula added, “But there may be scars.”

  “Her life is not in danger?”

  “She is going to live to a ripe old age, I am quite sure, with children and grandchildren.” The eyes were rapidly squeezed shut with amusement. “She was covered in blood—she had been stabbed ten times.” The face immediately grew serious. “There was only one dangerous stab wound—on her shoulder and not really very deep. It was probably what woke her—perhaps saved her life. But I am not sure that her attacker was trying to kill her. If it was a knife he used, it was sharp but not very long. The wounds are not deep. I don’t think it was a knife.”

  “What was it?”

  “You see, I didn’t give her more than three stitches in all, and apart from the shoulder wound, everything was very superficial.”

  “What instrument, Dottore?”

  The doctor raised his shoulders slightly. “Perhaps they were just playing games.”

  “They?”

  Dottor Wafula looked at Trotti but he said nothing while he rubbed the gloves into a ball and placed them into the pocket of his white coat. He lit an English cigarette. “Stab wounds can leave traces,” he said, after exhaling smoke into the air. “I think I have done a useful job.” The teeth were not white but yellow; against the black skin, the smile was brilliant. “You white people are lucky.”

  “Lucky to have you to sew us up?”

  “You’ve never noticed the navel on African children?”

  Trotti shook his head.

  “Black skin can swell up when it heals. It is a phenomenon that is rare in white-skinned people.”

  “Why don’t you think her attacker was trying to kill her?”

  Wafula shook his head as he inhaled the cigarette smoke.

  “In your opinion, why was she attacked? The wounds are not deep … it doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

  “What did you say the name was, Ispettore?”

  “Trotti, Commissario Trotti.”

  “The girl’s name?”

  “Vardin—Laura Vardin.”

  The doctor stood still as he looked down at the ground. The cigarette was in his mouth and the smoke curled upwards into his eyes, causing him to squint. He put his head to one side, as if inspecting his shoe.

  (It was in 1945 that Trotti had first seen a black man—an American soldier who had handed him chocolate and who had smiled from ear to ear.)

  When the African doctor looked up, the dark eyes were moist. “Not a common name in this part of the world. A name from Friuli—and there can’t be many of them in this city, can there?”

  “Friuli?” Trotti repeated in surprise but the surgeon hurriedly turned on his heels and disappeared through the mustard-colored doors. The smell of Virginia t
obacco lingered in the air.

  The nun accompanied Trotti back to Brigadiere Ciuffi.

  4: Abandon

  “THE WOMAN REFUSES to talk.”

  “Where the hell have you been, Pisanelli? I thought I told you to stay with Ciuffi and the Vardin woman.”

  “I’ve been in Ostetrica.”

  “I never told you to go to Ostetrica. I told you to do a job—and instead you leave Ciuffi by herself.”

  “Ciuffi didn’t need me.”

  “It’s not for you to make the decisions.”

  Pisanelli shrugged sheepishly.

  “Ostetrica? You’re pregnant?”

  “Merenda is over there.”

  Trotti’s voice was cold. “You don’t work for Commissario Merenda, Pisanelli.”

  A grin. “He’s with this woman …”

  “You work with me, Pisanelli.”

  “Of course, Commissario, but, you see, the doctors think she’s murdered her baby.”

  Trotti paused, looking carefully at the younger man. “Who’s murdered her baby?”

  “This woman. She lives out at Sicamario Po.” Pisanelli ran a nervous hand through the long hair at the side of his head. “Nobody can get her to talk.”

  “You can charm her.”

  Pisanelli appeared offended. “She’s a married woman.”

  “Married?”

  Pisanelli nodded. “With two girls. One five years old, the other three.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Who?”

  “How old is this wretched woman?”

  “Twenty-three.” Pisanelli defensively flicked the long hair away from his ears. On the top of his head, Pisanelli had gone completely bald.

  “Why does my colleague Commissario Merenda think she’s murdered her baby?”

  “All the signs of a recent childbirth. She was brought in the day before yesterday—covered with blood. But, despite all the questions from Merenda’s team, she still hasn’t admitted to anything.”

  They were standing outside the hospital, the noise of the controller over the scratching radio. Ciuffi was sitting in the car, waiting.

  “And so instead of doing as you’re told and staying with Ciuffi, you decide to go off and give Commissario Merenda a hand, Pisanelli?”

  “I thought I could be of use.”

  “You’re of most use doing what I tell you. If Commissario Merenda feels that he needs you, he will inform me. It’s not for you to decide what you want to do and what you don’t want to do.” Trotti started to move round the back of the car. “And you’re telling me you believe her?”

  “Believe her?”

  “You don’t believe she’s had a baby?”

  A shaft of sunlight caught the pale eyes, making Pisanelli appear innocent and very young, “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “The doctors should know when a woman has given birth. They know when …”

  “Placenta in the uterus.” Pisanelli shrugged the shoulders of his suede jacket. Trotti wondered whether it was the old jacket that had been cleaned, or whether it was a new and equally scruffy one. “And they’ve put her on a diet for loss of blood, giving her protein and vitamins. As far as the hospital is concerned there’s no question. Loss of blood, dilated vagina.” He blushed. “Etcetera, etcetera.” He hesitated. “Within the last forty-eight hours.”

  “You know a lot about these things?”

  “I did a couple of years of medicine at university.”

  “And you can’t get her to talk?”

  “Nobody seems to be able to.”

  “What’s Merenda doing?”

  “Commissario Merenda’s been with her now for over thirty-six hours. At her bedside. Trying to get her to say where she’s hidden the baby. That’s why I went … I wanted to help.”

  “Merenda doesn’t need help.”

  “I want to help the poor child.” Pisanelli gestured towards the city, now bright with sparkling roofs beneath the mid-morning light. “Out there somewhere is a baby—and perhaps it’s still alive. A baby abandoned by its mother.”

  “Well?”

  “That’s what the doctors believe—and it’s what Commissario Merenda believes.”

  Silence as the two men looked at each other.

  Trotti released a sigh. “Then you’d better get back to Ostetrica and get the damn woman to talk.”

  Pisanelli’s face broke into a wide grin.

  “With your boyish charm, you should be able to get her to tell you everything. Get her to talk, Pisanelli. And show Merenda that old Commissario Trotti has still got a few good men with him.”

  Pisanelli fumbled as he opened the door for him. Trotti got into the Lancia beside Ciuffi. “Even if you have to seduce the woman, Pisanelli.”

  5: I Paninari

  THREE O’CLOCK IN the afternoon on the third floor of the Questura.

  The small office was stuffy. Beige files gathering dust on the floor.

  She sat opposite him and the young eyes looked at Trotti without blinking. The girl was pretty: the new generation, the generation for which so many Italian parents had made sacrifices, the generation born during the heady years of the Italian Miracle.

  She was wearing jeans and a tennis shirt. Soft down ran along her arms. She had crossed her legs and was sitting back in the grubby canvas armchair.

  Trotti noticed the nervous tapping of her foot.

  Antonetta Vardin glanced from Trotti to where Brigadiere Ciuffi was sitting.

  “Your father says you have a boyfriend, Netta.”

  She shrugged.

  “Well?”

  “Riccardo and I are friends.”

  “You like dancing?”

  “It depends who I’m with.”

  “With your boyfriend.”

  She smiled tautly. “My father can be old-fashioned.” There were freckles on her nose and cheeks.

  “But your parents don’t mind your having a boyfriend?”

  A shrug.

  (The smell was coming from the hall.)

  “And they let you go out together?”

  “I am allowed out on Saturday night—provided I am back before eleven o’clock.”

  “And where do you go with your boyfriend?”

  “Riccardo is a friend—that’s all.”

  “Where do you go together?” Trotti took another sweet from the packet he had bought at the hospital shop. Barley sugar.

  She shrugged. “There’s the Fast Dog Americano in corso Mazzini—we go there for a hamburger. Or sometimes to the gelateria.”

  “And when you want to be alone?”

  The foot continued to tap silently. “Then we go into the piazza and we sit and chat.”

  “Not much privacy in Piazza Vittoria.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “A boy and a girl together … there are things you are tempted to do.”

  “Don’t try to get me to say things that aren’t true. Riccardo and I are friends—that’s all. We are young, we have interests in common and we enjoy each other’s company.”

  “How old are you, Netta?”

  No reply.

  Brigadiere Ciuffi repeated the question.

  Antonetta stared at the dusty desktop. “Seventeen.”

  “And did Riccardo accompany you to Piazza Vittoria last night?”

  There was a pause before she shook her head. “I went with my sister and Bettina. Riccardo didn’t want to come—he has some exams that he is working for.”

  “You mean he didn’t want to be with your father.”

  The girl turned her head, giving a slight shrug, “My father doesn’t like Riccardo very much—Riccardo or any other friend of mine.”

  “What exams is he working for?”

  “He failed his maturità tecnica in June.”

  Trotti glanced out of the window. The sill was a white patchwork of pigeon droppings. “But he has been to your house?”

  “You have a very old-fashioned idea about young people today
. You are like my father.” She looked up at Trotti and added, “Next January, I shall be able to vote.”

  “Riccardo has been to your house?”

  She nodded. “I presented him to Papa once—but Papa was not very friendly.”

  “Netta, how long have you known Riccardo?”

  “My name is Antonetta.”

  “How long have you been going out with Riccardo?”

  There was a long silence.

  Brigadiere Ciuffi said softly, “Please answer the question.”

  The young girl shrugged.

  Brigadiere Ciuffi smiled encouragingly.

  “He is in the class above me at the Istituto Tecnico.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “A year—it will be a year in October.”

  Trotti asked, “Do you kiss?”

  Before the first tint of a blush began to color the pale face, Brigadiere Ciuffi hurriedly interrupted, “What the Commissario wants to know is whether there is something special between Riccardo and you.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Just friends?” Trotti asked.

  Brigadiere Ciuffi glanced at Trotti and frowned. She moved forward and crouched beside the seated girl. Brigadiere Ciuffi was wearing a uniform dress of dark blue serge. It made her look young. The two women could have been sisters.

  “These are embarrassing questions, Antonetta—but you must understand that Commissario Trotti has got to find the man who did those things to Laura. Because if we don’t stop him, perhaps he will do the same thing to other innocent girls.”

  “Laura is all right now.”

  “She will have to stay in the hospital for a few days. You don’t want that happening to other little girls.” Ciuffi placed her hand reassuringly on the girl’s knee. “Please help us.”

  A flicker of worry in Antonetta’s eyes. “I don’t see how I can.”

  “You must tell the Commissario about Riccardo.”

  Trotti opened the new file and took out the computer-printed picture. “Does Riccardo have long hair?”

  “What?”

  He handed her the picture. “Do you know this man?”

  She hesitated before shaking her head. “Riccardo has shorter hair than that. And, anyway, his face is quite different. It is thin.” She pushed the picture away. “Riccardo is handsome.”

  “Riccardo has been to your house, hasn’t he?”