Black August Page 6

  The dome of the cathedral and the scaffolded towers of Piazza Leonardo dropped behind them to the west.

  Pisanelli had switched the radio on to a classical music station—Boris Godunov—that would suddenly fade as the car went under a bridge or ran alongside a high, brick wall of a farm.

  They took the minor roads for Garlasco. Occasionally Pisanelli overtook an isolated farm vehicle or a cyclist.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thanks for what, Commissario?”

  “For picking me up. I was beginning to get fed up with Boatti.”

  “He seems very friendly.”

  “Boatti wants to write a book.”

  “On what?”

  “Police procedure.”

  Pisanelli burst out laughing. “And he came to see you?”

  “He would like to write about Rosanna’s death.”

  “I thought he was a journalist.” Pisanelli glanced at Trotti. “You don’t like him, do you?”

  The countryside was flat and a dull haze hung over the fields, between the land and the sky. Already the green crops were turning to brown; Trotti could not help wondering if it would ever rain again. Global warming, hole in the ozone layer.

  It was very hot, indeed. Trotti’s eyelids were heavy. He opened the passenger window to let in the breeze. There was a strong smell of manure; it was the smell rather than the rush of air that revived Trotti.

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  “He doesn’t want Rosanna to have died in vain.”

  “No doubt he was very attached to her.”

  “You have never noticed, Pisa, that it’s the Marxists and devout Christians who have the most liberal and generous ideas—and who’re usually extremely self-centered?”

  “Like the Italian Communist party, Boatti gave up being a Marxist years ago.”

  “He doesn’t seem particularly upset by her death.”

  “Some people can lose a parent and not cry a single tear—that doesn’t mean they don’t suffer.”

  “Very profound.”

  “Thanks for the sarcasm.”

  Trotti turned to look at Pisanelli. “Good of you to pick me up.” He placed his hand on Pisanelli’s shoulder. “I don’t think the questore’s going to be pleased, though.”

  “The questore’s got better things to do with his time than to keep tabs on me.” Pisanelli shrugged. “The city’s dead—and like everybody else, I should be on holiday. Cipriani wanted me to accompany him—some vu comprà squatters at Malaspina.” Pisanelli took his hand off the wheel to make an obscene, masturbatory gesture. “Could I give a shit? We tried to colonize Africa and now the Africans are colonizing us. Africans and southerners and the Common Market.”

  “You sound like a manifesto for the Lega Lombarda.”

  “I don’t like having to work for Merenda much,” Pisanelli said with bitterness in his voice. “He wasn’t very pleased to see me with you last night at San Teodoro.”

  “If you don’t like southerners, you shouldn’t be in the police.”

  “It’s a nice day, I suppose. Another rainless day. The city’s dead except for Merenda and his friends in Reparto Omicidi.” Pisanelli gestured towards the rice fields, the dry ditches, the row of pylons. “Let’s enjoy the ride—and let’s forget about the Questura.”

  “And the procuratore from Rome with the nice legs?”

  “Tell me about Eva the cleaning lady, Commissario. Has she got nice legs? Brazilian?”

  “Time you were married.”

  Pisanelli was going to say something but his attention was taken by a Lamborghini tractor in a cloud of dust. He reduced speed and overtook, muttering under his breath.

  “You need a holiday, Pisa. A wife—not an adolescent, but the real thing. A wife and a holiday and perhaps your hair’ll stop falling out.”

  “I’ve tried everything.”

  “For your hair or for a wife?”

  “Why don’t you like Boatti, Commissario?”

  “I don’t like Boris Godunov. The Russians never have the tunes of Verdi or Leoncavallo or Puccini.”

  “Why don’t you like Boatti?”

  Trotti turned. “I never said I didn’t like him.”

  “What have you got out of him about the Belloni woman?”

  “He really does want to write a book about police procedure.”

  Pisanelli smiled. “What does Commissario Trotti know about police procedure? You told him he’s pissing against the wind.”

  “Apparently Rosanna Belloni used to have a lover—a lover she unwittingly shared with her sister. A southerner who had his eye on the family fortune. At the moment, Boatti is down at the Scuola Elementare Gerolamo Cardano to see if he can find out anything about the man—he used to teach there, apparently.”

  “A lover?” Pisanelli’s smile slowly died on his face. “With Rosanna dead, her money reverts to her next of kin—to Maria Cristina and the other siblings.”

  At Bereguardo, they turned left and, a few minutes later, the car rumbled over the Po bridge. “You know,” Pisanelli said, “if Rosanna Belloni was murdered on Sunday afternoon, as the doctor thinks, the entire building was empty.”

  Trotti glanced at Pisanelli. “You can’t be sure of the time of death until the autopsy.”

  “The front gate was closed on Sunday. At the time of her death, we can assume Rosanna was alone in the building.”

  “When’s the autopsy, Pisa?”

  Pisanelli lifted his right hand from the steering wheel, his fingers spread. “No one on the top floor—your friend Boatti and his wife were visiting relatives at Vercelli. On the ground floor, there’s a shop. It’s owned by Signor Signoroni and his wife—a small stationer’s that caters to the various offices and schools in the San Teodoro quarter. The shop was closed and there’s no reason to suppose that Signor Signoroni or anybody else was there or in the storerooms behind the shop.”

  “Signora Isella told me she thought Rosanna Belloni had gone on holiday.”

  “Where to?”

  “She normally visits her brother—a stepbrother—in Foggia.”

  Pisanelli smiled a satisfied smile. “While you were down at the river, Commissario, eating your risotto, I was doing some homework—your homework.”

  “Slofu—and very expensive.”

  “What?” Pisanelli frowned.

  “Slofu—that’s what Boatti called it. The opposite of fasfu.”

  “Fast food,” Pisanelli said in English, correcting Trotti’s pronunciation.

  “Whatever you call it, Boatti paid more for a plate of risotto than I earn in a month.”

  “Time we all got a raise in salary.” Pisanelli ran a hand through the hair at the side of his head. “I didn’t get to have any lunch at all.”

  “You’ll make a good policeman one day.”

  Pisanelli glanced at Trotti. “Twelve years you’ve been saying that.” He sounded slightly aggrieved. His eyes reverted to the road ahead. “The front gate at San Teodoro is normally left open during the week. But in the evening and on Sundays it’s closed. If a visitor rings, you have to go down and open the door—there’s no automatic latch.”

  “Which means whoever murdered Rosanna had the key to the front door.”

  “Or, Commissario . . . ?”

  “Or the murderer was invited in.”

  “You’ll make a good policeman one day, Commissario.”

  “One day.”

  16: Roberti

  Trotti was now feeling a lot less sleepy. “Who lives on the second floor?”

  “Entirely taken up by the Roberti family.”

  “Who are the Roberti?”

  “They’ve been living on the second floor for over twenty years, ever since Dottor Roberti was a student in the city. He graduated as a doctor and went to Turin or somew
here.”

  “Somewhere?”

  “Dottor Roberti lived in Turin but he also worked at Varese. Being from a rich family, he could afford to keep up the lease in San Teodoro.”

  “Why do that?”

  “He was hoping to be offered an internship at the city hospital. In the late sixties, he married and, from then on, he came down to the city once a month or so. He gave the occasional lecture at the university.”

  “Where did you find this out, Pisanelli?”

  “Why don’t you like Boatti, Commissario?”

  “Pisanelli, why do you never answer my questions?”

  “What questions?”

  “All the questions I ask you.”

  “I just asked you why you don’t like Boatti.” Pisanelli sounded hurt. “I’m still waiting for the answer.”

  Trotti gave a grim smile. “I don’t answer your questions?”

  Pisanelli asked in an aggrieved voice, “The autopsy? When’s Belloni’s autopsy?”

  “For example?”

  “Tomorrow morning at eleven. Merenda’s going to be there.”

  “Thank you, Pisa.”

  “Why don’t you like Boatti, Commissario?”

  Trotti was silent.

  “You’re being a bit hard on him just because he doesn’t appear upset. He paid for your lunch, didn’t he?”

  “One day, Pisanelli, I’ll make risotto with frog legs and I’ll invite you round. Better than any of your slofu. Or fasfu.”

  “You’ll introduce me to Eva the cleaning lady?”

  “How did you find out about Roberti?”

  “You never answer my questions, Commissario.”

  “How did you find out about Roberti?”

  A sigh. “I went down to San Teodoro—and I asked a lot of questions.”

  “What’s Roberti’s specialty?”

  “There are always old women who spend their days behind half-closed blinds who are only too happy to share their knowledge with a personable young police officer. And since I’m supposed to have a certain amount of sensitivity and feminine intuition . . .”

  “A phallocrat. You and every other male in the Questura.”

  Pisanelli frowned as he concentrated on his driving.

  “Well, Pisanelli?”

  “You never forget a thing, do you, Commissario?”

  Trotti shrugged.

  “You know that Brigadiere Ciuffi liked me. You know that she didn’t really think I was a phallocrat.”

  “Brigadiere Ciuffi is dead,” Trotti said coldly. “Roberti’s specialization, Pisa?”

  Pisanelli’s voice was equally cold. “Dermatology and STDs.”

  “What?”

  “Sexually transmitted diseases.” A slow, boyish smile as Pisanelli’s face brightened up. “About two years ago, Roberti’s daughter moved into the apartment.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s at the university. Studying the Science of Communication.”

  “Why not go to Turin?”

  Pisanelli shook his head. Pulled by the centrifugal force, the long hair rose from his collar. “For over twenty years, Roberti’s been paying a 1960s rent for a big, centrally situated apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the Peninsula. Expensive because it is supposed to have one of the best universities.”

  “Supposed?”

  “We’re Italians—the easy victims of our own rhetoric. If you say something often enough, you begin to believe it. Perhaps it is the best university in Italy.”

  “Italian universities aren’t up to their foreign counterparts?”

  “Being the best doesn’t mean it’s a good university.”

  “Is that why you gave up your medical studies?”

  Pisanelli didn’t answer. He paused before saying, “Italy is the only country in the European community that has no qualification after the degree. If you want a PhD you have to emigrate.”

  “The Lega Lombarda would like a university for every province in Lombardy.”

  “You seem to think, Commissario Trotti, that I vote Lega Lombarda.”

  “Over twenty per cent of the population does—and if you assume transplanted terroni from the south don’t, that means nearly forty per cent of the native population in Lombardy votes Lega Lombarda.”

  “Most provinces in Lombardy have got their own university, anyway. And people don’t vote Lega Lombarda just to have a university on their doorstep.” Pisanelli again ran a hand through his hair. “If Rosanna Belloni had renovated and then rented out to students, she could’ve made ten times the money she was getting from Roberti.”

  “Who told you all this, Pisa?”

  “A little old lady in San Teodoro church. I bribed her with a candle for the altar. And I bought her a tattered old copy of Nigrizia. Trouble is with all these vu compràs hawking their wares in our cities, nobody cares any more about Christian missions in black Africa.”

  “Why didn’t Rosanna let the flat out to students?”

  “Not interested in money.”

  “People who aren’t interested in money are normally people who already have enough money.”

  “The Belloni family isn’t poor. They have land and property. But they also have the expense of keeping this sister at Garlasco.”

  “People who have enough money don’t put their money under a mattress.”

  “Was it ever said that Signorina Belloni put her money under the mattress?”

  “You suggested that the motive behind the murder was robbery.”

  “Her mother was from an old bourgeois family—and she was connected with one of the local banks, the Banco San Giovanni. There’s an uncle who’s a director there. Belloni wasn’t the sort of person to keep money about the house—just enough for her to survive the week on.”

  “Tell me about the Roberti girl.”

  “What about her?”

  Trotti said, “Is she the only person to stay in the apartment at the moment?”

  Pisanelli shook his head. “It’s possible she’s staying in the city over the summer to prepare her exams. There are always students around, whatever the time of the year. But in August, most leave to be with their family.”

  “A nice girl?”

  For a moment Pisanelli appeared to hesitate.

  “Well?”

  “My informant sitting by the Holy Water is all Famiglia Cristiana and counting her beads. The old generation who still believe that Catholics shouldn’t vote and that the mass should be sung in Latin.”

  A blue signpost announced another five kilometers to Garlasco.

  “She wears black and anybody in Benetton is the devil incarnate. The sort of pious Christian who loved the poor Africans until the vu compràs started invading our city. The sort of person who still thinks nice girls ride side-saddle.”

  “Well?”

  “A whore—the good Christian lady says the Roberti girl is a whore who sleeps with a different man every evening.”

  17: World Cup

  Two old men sat in the sun on a painted bench at the roadside. They wore loose coats over their striped pajamas and they both smoked, sharing the same stub of cigarette. A thin trail of blue cloud hovered over their heads.

  It was late afternoon and the air still hot. Trotti shivered.

  The building stood at the top of a small hill that ran down to the Po, to the upriver waters, alpine and relatively unpolluted before the confluent with its industrial discharge from Milan. A discreet house, built by a discreet nobleman at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in an amalgam of Austrian and Italianate styles. A broad, red brick facade that dominated the surrounding flat countryside.

  A couple of hundred meters past the old men Pisanelli turned left and entered a long drive. There was an unlit neon sign announcing the Casa Patrizia. On th
e other side of the drive, a white statue of Mary holding her dead Son in her arms. Mother and Son had been stained by the frequent fogs and the polluted rain of the Po valley.

  The drive was lined with chestnut trees. There were several benches and old people sat or stood in the shade, taking no notice of the passing car. It was past five o’clock and the afternoon was beginning to lose its heat.

  The windscreen of the car had developed a yellowish patina of dead insects.

  Pisanelli parked in front of the building, behind an ageing white Fiat van. Trotti no longer felt tired. With Pisanelli, he went up the flight of stairs and through the modernized glass doorway that opened automatically.

  The cool interior smelled of floor polish, medication and old men’s urine.

  “I should like to see the director, please.”

  The girl behind the desk had a small, pretty, unsophisticated face. There was too much makeup under the eyes and the fuchsia lipstick was smudged. She wore a white spencer over an orange T-shirt—the words, Best Company, printed above her small breasts. She put down the Visto magazine she was reading and smiled, revealing uneven teeth and dark gums.

  “I am Commissario Trotti.”

  She picked up the telephone. “If you could . . .”

  Trotti pushed her hand and the receiver back into the receiver’s cradle. “Commissario Trotti of the Polizia di Stato. The director, please. Now.”

  The girl closed the magazine—she had been reading an article on Cacao Meravigliao—stood up, said, “This way,” and without another word, her lips pressed resolutely together, led the two policemen down a long corridor. Her shoes were too big for her at the heel, and to stop them slipping, she walked with an unnatural stoop. Pisanelli kept his eyes on the white skirt and the hips which were large for her narrow body. The two men followed her up a flight of carpeted steps to a darkly varnished door. She tapped on the door, entered and after a few mumbled words spoken to the person inside, beckoned Trotti and Pisanelli to enter.

  Pisanelli grinned. “Arriverderci, signorina,” he said, running a hand through his long, loose hair. The girl disappeared, keeping her dark, disapproving eyes on her outsize shoes.

  “Polizia di Stato?”

  The director of the Casa Patrizia was a small, wiry man who looked like a retired army sergeant. He wore a shirt with epaulettes and his grey hair was very short. He had been sitting in a stuffed leather armchair. He now stood up, a forced smile on the narrow face, and held out his hand. “Emmanuele Carnecine,” he announced, pointing to where his name had been placed in sculpted wooden letters on the desktop. “How can I be of help?” Next to the name was a small vase filled with yellowed bullrushes. A folded copy of La Repubblica. And hidden beneath it, the pink pages of the Gazzetta dello Sport.