The Puppeteer Read online

  Later, the head beams caught the sign post Ai laghi and he turned on to the main Milan/Venice highway. There was a smell of malt in the air; above the brewery on the outskirts of Brescia, white vapor poured from the stacks into the night sky.

  The man was reluctant to take his money, reluctant to take his eyes from a small television set that he had installed in the toll booth. Without even glancing at Trotti he handed him the ticket and the Opel surged forward onto the autostrada. Eighty, ninety kilometers an hour, Trotti picked up speed.

  From time to time, there were lights in his rear mirror. No car overtook him.

  He turned on the radio.

  The autostrada was empty. A few articulated trucks traveling ponderously towards Milan, and on the other side of the barrier there was the occasional set of yellow headlights—French trucks or perhaps tourists heading for an early holiday on the Adriatic.

  La Forza del Destino. The radio crackled but it did not matter because Trotti knew the music. He had once taken Agnese to see it at the Verona arena. She was pregnant with Pioppi and she had fallen asleep on his shoulder. The moment came back to him with a brief, intense feeling of happiness. It was only a few days later that Dottor Belluno was found murdered.

  1960—Trotti smiled to himself. He could still remember the dress that Agnese was wearing that night. He was still smiling and his fingers were following the rhythm of Verdi’s music when he pulled into a service station just beyond the Bergamo exit.

  The music had become an incomprehensible sound and he switched it off. PAVESI stood in bright neon letters, spanning the concrete bridge of the autostrada. He suddenly felt tired, all the fatigue of the last weeks coming back. He turned off the ignition, climbed out of the car.

  Away from the lake, the air still held the chill of winter.

  No other vehicle entered the car park.

  “A strong coffee, please.”

  A bright bar, full of shadowless light, red and black plastic. The girl behind the counter nodded. She was wearing a uniform, with a cap on her bleached hair. She did not smile. The rims of her eyes were red as if she had been crying.

  The bar was empty except for a couple of tourists—lovers, perhaps, who were quarrelling at a corner table. Two motorcycle helmets stood on the table beside the empty glasses. The boy wore heavy leather boots.

  At the counter, Trotti took a cake from the revolving stand; English plum cake in a hermetically sealed packet that advertised Mundial 82.

  He sat down and waited for the girl to bring his coffee. His eyes felt gritty and he stared out at the passing traffic beyond the window. La Forza del Destino—the overture ran through his head and he could see in his own reflection on the glass the familiar, enigmatic smile of Ramoverde.

  It had been on the day of the verdict and Ramoverde had come down the steps of the Palazzo di Giustizia supported on one side by his wife and on the other by his son. He had an angular face that the long trial had made weary. Before stepping into the waiting car he had looked up and seen Trotti. He had raised his hand in an almost imperceptible salute and the lips—until then devoid of any emotion—had broken into a thin smile of victory.

  The same face.

  Trotti drank the coffee after having emptied three spoonfuls of sugar into the small cup. Then he stood up, brushed away the crumbs of the plum cake, paid the girl and went out to the antiseptic lavatory. He felt less tired.

  Outside, the air seemed to have grown colder. He pulled the old jacket about his shoulders and pulled up the collar. Then climbing into the car, he turned on the heater.

  Mist had already formed on the windscreen.

  “Turn right.”

  Something cold pushed against the back of Trotti’s head.

  6: Sardi

  “WHAT D’YOU WANT?”

  Trotti wondered how he had failed to notice the smell—bitter sweat, old tobacco and rancid wine.

  “Keep your eyes on the road.” The slow, slurring accent of a Sardinian peasant.

  “What d’you want from me?”

  The man struck him; a blow to the back of the head that surprised Trotti more than it hurt him.

  “Drive—and keep quiet.”

  He did as he was told.

  The lights of the autostrada fell behind and the car went along the narrow country road. The flat fields were empty. One or two hamlets, a church, a large farmyard with tractors naked beneath the sodium lamps, and then the countryside. Clouds had come up, and sometimes the moon revealed the lines of poplar trees.

  “Turn here!”

  “What d’you want?” His eyes had started to water.

  “Turn here.”

  The headlights moved and held the image of an unsurfaced country road. Trotti drove slowly and the car bumped across the uneven surface.

  “Leave the lights on and turn off the engine.”

  Trotti obeyed.

  “Now get out.”

  The man slid from the backseat and as he moved, Trotti caught sight of the gun. It glinted.

  Trotti got out of the car and the man hit him, fist across the face, then in the groin. Trotti fell to the ground.

  Wurlitzer, Centomiglia, Fausto Leali.

  A dream—a bad dream that was repeating itself.

  “Stand up.”

  Trotti rolled on to his side, then collapsed again onto the ground.

  “I said stand up.”

  He leaned against the wheel; it was covered with white mud. Hand on the hood, Trotti pulled himself into a half-standing position, his weight lying across the front of the car.

  “Bastard!”

  He had not seen the other man, he did not know whether he had been in the back of the Opel as well. He kicked Trotti in the ankle and he fell sideways.

  (In the last ten years he had only once been back to the school at Padua where the Englishman with the broken nose gave lessons in self-defense and unarmed combat.)

  Trotti tried to concentrate. Mucus and saliva poured from his nose and mixed with the salty taste of blood in his mouth.

  The second man smelled of warm stables. He knelt down and took Trotti by the lapels. Behind the mask—a balaclava pulled down clumsily over his head—the eyes glinted with stupidity and pleasure. “Where’s the money?”

  Trotti managed to ignore the pain and there was a clearheadedness about his thinking. But before he could reply the man struck him hard, the harshness of his hand and the rings ripping at Trotti’s cheek.

  “Where’s the money, you bastard? If you want to stay alive, tell me where the money is.”

  Trotti knew that they were going to kill him. He remembered the words of the Englishman—“Survival is a state of mind. It is the desire to stay alive and the determination to find the right way to do so”—and he knew he had little time to think.

  “The money belongs to us. We’re not going to allow a little shit like you to get away without paying.” They were standing over him and Trotti wondered why they bothered to wear masks. Sardinians, shepherds from Nuoro province. One kicked him in the ribs; then the other pulled him to his feet.

  The Englishman had said, “There is a point beyond which the brain no longer cares.” It had been in the gymnasium near the city walls. “It will send its message telling you that death is preferable. Don’t allow it; only your brain can save you.”

  Mud, blood, the white loam wet against the palms of his hands. The smell of sheep and sweat. The smaller man took Trotti’s arm and twisted it back until his nose was hard against the hood. The metal was warm.

  Only his brain could save him, but he was tired, old and weak. The man released his hold and Trotti turned, and his lifted knee made sharp contact with the Sardinian’s groin.

  Commissario Trotti, fifty-five years old and now going bald, bunched his fist and struck out at the second Sardinian. He missed, but in stepping back, the taller man stumbled and fell.

  Mud under his foot and his breath coming in short, painful gasps, Trotti started to run.

  7: Lab c
oat

  “COMMISSARIO?”

  He was wearing an anorak and he had shaved away his mustache; he looked plumper than when Trotti had last seen him.

  “Commissario?”

  If Magagna had not been wearing his American sunglasses, Trotti would have had difficulty recognizing him.

  “Well?”

  He had been sitting on a steel chair; he now stood up and emptied the contents of his pockets onto the bed. “I bought you this.” Half a dozen packets of boiled sweets.

  “A rich man.”

  “One of the advantages of working in the Pubblica Sicurezza—easy money and fast promotion.”

  Trotti smiled; then he winced in pain as they shook hands. “Unwrap one of those sweets for me.”

  “What flavor?”

  “Eighteen months in Milan and you’ve forgotten that rhubarb has always been my favorite?”

  Magagna took one of the packets, removed the wrapping and placed the sweet in Trotti’s mouth. “Looks as if you’ve been in a fight.”

  “I walked into a door.”

  “Violent doors here in Piacenza.”

  “You can’t be too careful.”

  “In Piacenza?” Magagna was from Pescara and considered anywhere else insignificant. The smile vanished. “Who did it, Commissario?”

  Trotti’s jaw ached and as he moved his head, there was a sharp pain in his neck. “I’m trying to remember.”

  “They clearly didn’t like you.”

  Trotti clicked the sweet against his teeth. “How did you know I was here?”

  “The Piacenza police find a naked man staggering across the road bridge at six clock in the morning—you think that’s the sort of thing that goes unnoticed?”

  “Six o’clock? And what’s the time now?”

  “I was driving up from Bologna when I heard. After all these years, I felt that you were worth the detour.”

  “What time is it?”

  “You’ve been under sedation for fourteen hours—they thought you had a concussion.”

  “The time, Magagna?”

  The other man looked at his watch and Trotti noticed that it was an expensive Swiss affair in rolled gold. “Half past midnight.”

  “Christ … and Pioppi?”

  The white door opened and a nurse entered. A middle-aged woman with grey hair and a harsh, narrow face. She wore a silver crucifix in the lapel of her spotless laboratory coat. “You’re not supposed to have visitors.” She placed her hand on the back of Magagna’s chair. “With liquid that could well be spinal fluid coming out of my mouth I’d make sure I was getting some rest instead of getting myself excited.” She spoke in a flat monotone.

  “Pubblica Sicurezza,” Magagna said lamely and fumbled with his card.

  The lips pulled tight, as if activated by a purse string. She turned on her heel and left the room in silence.

  8: Spirals

  “I DIDN’T KNOW you were short-sighted, Magagna.”

  “You think the Sardinians wanted money?”

  The road was almost empty. Magagna drove, his face partially lit by the green light of the fascia board. He had put on a different pair of glasses: the same tear-drop frame, but the lenses were of clear glass.

  Trotti nodded. “And that’s why they took me and beat me up. They seemed to think Maltese had given me some money.”

  “Ramoverde,” Magagna said, without looking at Trotti, and the name hung in the silence of the car. Magagna was smoking and the world seemed to be caught up in the white spirals of smoke that rose towards the upholstered roof of the Lancia.

  “You ought to give up smoking, Magagna.”

  “And ruin my teeth on sweets?”

  Trotti ran his tongue along the edge of the chipped tooth. “That’s what your friend Leonardelli always told me—he said that I would die of diabetes.”

  “If you don’t get murdered first.” Magagna smiled to himself, then added, “He’s in Washington.”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend.”

  “What friend?” Trotti turned in surprise.

  “Leonardelli.”

  “He was never a friend of mine.”

  “You got on well enough.”

  Trotti asked, “What’s he doing in Washington?”

  “At the Embassy. He’s there to liaise with the FBI.”

  Trotti laughed.

  “He’s working with the US narcotics bureau.”

  “Leonardelli doesn’t know the first thing about narcotics.”

  “Perhaps not—but he earns twice the salary in America.”

  Trotti did not reply but he was suddenly aware how pleased he was to have Magagna beside him again. He had missed him over the last eighteen months. He had missed Magagna’s common sense. And his humor.

  Meanwhile, the long rows of plane trees sped past like fleeing giants. To the left Trotti could sense the presence of the river and once or twice he imagined he caught the reflection of light through the trees. From time to time the head beams lit up a billboard—VANIZZA, the same familiar advertisement that had become as much a part of Italian life as Fiat or Olivetti. Vanizza, Trotti thought, and allowed himself a bruised smile. Perhaps he was lucky to have got away with sore ribs, a broken tooth and spinal fluid at the back of his throat. They had kidnapped Vanizza for more than a month and the amount of the ransom was never made public.

  “I’ll have to get my tooth capped,” Trotti said.

  “Who were they, Commissario?”

  “Never saw their faces.”

  “But they spoke to you?”

  “You know the smell of wool when it’s wet? That’s what they smelled of. Sardinian shepherds.” Under his breath, he added, “Animals.”

  “Lucky not to have been sodomized.”

  “They were going to kill me.”

  “Why didn’t they?”

  “I must have escaped.” Trotti shrugged. “When the police found me, I was naked—naked as the day I was born.”

  “With a few obvious additions.”

  “They took everything—the old clothes I was wearing—but they must have been looking for money. They took my wallet.”

  “And that’s when they realized you were a policeman. They got scared and that saved your life.” Magagna stubbed out his cigarette into the ashtray; the interior of the car was filled with an acrid smell of tobacco ash. “You’re a lucky man.”

  “Concussion isn’t my idea of luck.”

  “But he never spoke to you?”

  Trotti said, “Who?”

  “Ramoverde.”

  “The man in the bar? The name on the identity card was Maltese.”

  “But he didn’t speak to you?”

  “There was blood everywhere.”

  “Did you have time to search him?”

  “You’re heartless. Magagna.”

  “What did you find in his pockets?”

  “Five hundred thousand lire.”

  “A lot of money to carry around.”

  “Not enough for somebody to get killed for.”

  “Tell that to Maltese.”

  Magagna corrected him, “Ramoverde.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Trotti said, suddenly losing his temper, “I don’t know what his name was. I saw his identity card—Giovanni Maltese, a journalist with the Popolo d’Italia.”

  “But you knew Ramoverde?”

  “Mareschini told me that the fingerprints were those of Giovanni Ramoverde.” Trotti shrugged.

  “Losing spinal fluid can’t be good for the memory.” Magagna repeated his question, with the same flat intonation, “You knew Ramoverde?”

  “I knew Douglas Ramoverde.”

  It was as if he had made a confession and Magagna seemed to lose interest in the conversation. He drove in silence, his face emotionless in the light of the fascia board.

  “Twenty-two years ago, Magagna. Perhaps Maltese was the son—it’s possible—but how was I going to recognize the son after all these years?” Trotti fumbled f
or another sweet in the packet. “You remember the Ramoverde affair?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Twenty-two years ago—you were still at your mother’s breast.”

  Magagna gave a thin smile and lit another cigarette in the dashboard lighter. “We studied the whole business at Grosseto—an object lesson in how not to draw up a case.”

  Trotti bit his lip and waited before answering. “It wasn’t our fault and it certainly wasn’t mine. There wasn’t a valid case against Ramoverde but the investigating magistrate panicked. Twice—Ramoverde was arrested twice.” He shrugged. “There was a lot of pressure—and a lot of publicity.”

  “For nearly two years?”

  Trotti did not reply but fell into a reverie. Images were returning that took him by surprise. The Villa Laura. A warm November afternoon, the trees almost bare and beneath his feet the rustle of dead leaves. And the investigating judge—Dell’Orto, small and waspish with an old-fashioned pince-nez—getting angry with the flashing bulbs of the photographers.

  “There was a photo,” Trotti said.

  Magagna showed no sign of having heard.

  “There was a photograph in Maltese’s wallet—and I took it.” He glanced at Magagna. “The photograph of a girl—probably his girlfriend.”

  “Manipulating the evidence, Commissario?”

  “I needed to be sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  Trotti looked at him, suspecting a hint of sarcasm in his voice. “I needed to be sure that Maltese was the intended victim—and not me.”

  “Nobody knew you were in Gardesana.”

  “That’s what I thought. I could have been followed. I left home at five o’clock in the morning and never once had the feeling I was being followed.”

  Magagna gave a thin smile without looking at Trotti. “Who’d want to kill you?”

  “Two Sardinian shepherds came pretty close to doing just that. Listen, Magagna, I’m grateful to you—I’m grateful that you came to the hospital and I’m grateful to you for bringing me home.” Trotti paused. “But I’m going to need more help.”