CHAPTER THIRTYFOUR
Ruggero woke up on the morning of the last day of the year, with a confident feeling, almost a conviction, that today the case would be solved. He would start the New Year afresh, probably allow himself a few days off work, and have some time to spend with Cosimo. He showered and dressed quickly, and went quickly down the stairs. In the kitchen, Hilary was sitting in front of the fire with her big cat, Cassius. He went in uncertain whether or not to say good morning and break in on her solitude.
She looked up and said, "Good morning Ruggero. Amanda and James will be down any minute. They want to say goodbye to you before they leave."
"How kind."
He poured himself out a cup of freshly made coffee and sipped it. Then he reached over for a piece of bread to put into the toaster. Since his stay in England he had become addicted to toast and marmalade for breakfast, with salted butter. As he buttered his toast he hummed quietly, and Hilary looked up from reading an old international newspaper and said, "You're very cheerful. Has something happened?"
"Not yet, but I feel sure that it will."
"Camilla and Cosimo are arriving this afternoon."
"Yes, I know, so this is the last time you can sit alone in your kitchen, and I have disturbed you again."
"No, you didn't. I've been here since dawn, and anyway, I didn't mean it that time. I know that everything will change, but I have accepted it now."
"Accepted it, but not welcomed it."
"It will be a new life, I'm ready for it. I only hope you are. At least I have some idea of what I'm in for, but do you?"
"No, none at all, but I'm ready for it too. I'm very excited about having a son. I've never had one before. When I was talking to Alex last night, I tried to imagine what it would be like with Cosimo in twenty years time. I hope it will be that good. I like Alex."
"Who likes Alex?" asked Amanda coming into the room.
"I do," said Ruggero, "and I like you too. You're a nice family. I'm glad to be part of it."
"It's too early in the morning for compliments, but thank you anyway."
"Well, I won't see you again for a while, so I thought I'd say something nice for you to remember me by."
"I like you too, Ruggero, and I'm glad you are going to marry Ma."
"Thank you for saying that, Amanda."
"Hilary broke in with, "Hey, this is getting a bit too much for this time of day. Let's just eat breakfast."
James joined them, and as they finished breakfast, Alex came down looking bleary eyed.
"Good God, Alex," said Amanda, "You look terrible. Have you got up in my honour?"
"No, I wanted to say goodbye to James; you don't come into it at all."
"I see you are still as charming as ever, even when sleep-walking."
Alex grinned at her, and poured himself out a cup of coffee.
Amanda and James were both hugged and soundly kissed on both cheeks by Ruggero, before he left for work, promising, "See you soon. Don't forget, I'm coming to your wedding."
After he had left, Amanda went upstairs with James to finish packing, and Alex drank his third cup of coffee.
"Alex, after Amanda has left, I'd like you to help me move the double bed out of that room, and put the single one in," said Hilary.
"For Camilla."
"Yes. It's a better size room for her; there's a desk and an aerial for the television. There's room for the baby's cot too, if she wants it in there, otherwise he can sleep alone in the small room. That will be his room anyway in the future."
"Where do you want me to put the bed?"
"Up in the attic where you are."
"Great! Can I sleep in it? It'll be much more comfortable than that fold up bed I've got."
"If you like."
"Who knows next time I come, I might not be alone."
"Really."
"If I'm lucky. Which reminds me, Ruggero was very happy this morning, what's up?"
"I don't know for sure, but I rather think he's solved his case."
When Ruggero di Girolamo got to the police station, he had to fight his way through a sea of microphones. The vultures were there, a whole pack of them. They could smell the blood, and knew that this time they were not going to be left empty handed. He grinned at them and said, "Be patient a little longer, I should have something for you very soon."
Maresciallo Biagioni met him and Ruggero asked casually, "Has it arrived?"
"It's on its way."
"Was there anything? What did they say." He couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice.
"Nothing."
"What!" He felt a terrible despair take hold of him.
"Only that we have struck gold." He laughed, and Ruggero said to him, "You dreadful old man, you frightened the life out of me. I didn't know you had a sense of humour."
"Nor did I, until I got the good news."
They both took a hold on themselves, and Ruggero said, "Bring the wretched man up to my office. I'd like to get this over and done with as soon as possible. The press are going crazy out there. It is strange how they always know almost before we do."
"They have a nose for it." He left the room and came back shortly afterwards with Matteo Rossi.
Matteo Rossi looked ill-kempt. According to his guard he had eaten nothing and had refused to wash. He shuffled in and sat where he was told to, but did not look at Ruggero. Maresciallo Biagioni sat to one side and started the tape recorder.
"Matteo Rossi, You have already been charged with offences regarding your daughter and your wife. Furthermore you have been charged with aggression and grievous bodily harm to Signora Isabelle Plunkett Smith. Is that clear?"
"Yes," he mumbled.
"I will now question you regarding another offence. Do you wish to have a legal representative present?"
"No, I haven't done anything wrong."
"Well, if you answer my questions we'll soon find out if that's true or not." As there was no reaction from Rossi, he continued, "I have been to see your daughter Grazia."
"That whore," he spat out the words with contempt.
"Do you know who the father of your grandchild is?"
"No, and neither does she."
"Despite the ill treatment that she suffered at your hands, she is getting better, and was able to give me some valuable information. She informed me that she told you the names of the four boys who raped her."
"Rape!"
"Well, did she tell you who they were?"
Matteo said nothing.
"I am telling you that she did, and that those four boys are now dead. Do you have anything to say about their deaths?"
"Good riddance."
There was a knock at the door, and Maresciallo Biagioni got up to take a large envelope from the hands of a policeman. He placed it on the desk in front of Di Girolamo, who opened it, drew out the two sheets of paper and read them quickly. Then he turned his attention back to Matteo Rossi and said, "Your Ape truck was confiscated and the dust in it has been analysed. Several hairs were found and it has been determined that they belonged to Giovanni Lazzerini and Walter Verdone. Furthermore, fibres found on Walter Verdone's trousers matched the fibres of the ropes found in your tool shed. One of the mallets bore traces of blood, and is probably the weapon used to kill Italo Franchini. We'll know that for certain, very soon. You could easily have killed Pietro Lagonda on the night between the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of December. You have no alibi for the times that these murders took place, and every reason to kill these boys. I think you did kill them, and I am going to arrest you for the murder of Giovanni Lazzerini, Walter Verdone, and Italo Franchini, and Pietro Lagonda."
"They got what they deserved. I'm not saying anything else."
A phone call after lunch…
"About the fourth murder." It was Pia Rossi.
"Yes."
"Didn't you say it was on the twenty-third of December?"
"Yes. After midnight."
"Then that wasn't Matteo.
He was with me that night."
"All night?" Di Girolamo felt depressed, as he realised what that could mean.
"Yes, he wasn't well. He had toothache, and couldn't sleep. I remember it was the twenty-third, because I said to him, "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, we must phone your brother and say we can't go for Christmas."
"You're certain?"
"Oh yes. I don't know about the others, but he didn't kill that one. It's the only night I can say for certain he was in the house. Perhaps if he didn't kill that boy, then he didn't kill any of them." Her voice pleaded with him. He could imagine her standing in the little phone booth at the back of the bar in Altamura, her back turned to other people, speaking quietly so that no one could hear her. They had probably all fallen silent when she came into the bar, and were now trying to guess who she could be calling.
"I'm sorry, Pia," he said quietly. "Thank you for calling. I will take into account what you have said, but it isn't proof of innocence."
Back to Matteo Rossi, "How did you get Giovanni to meet you?"
"Why should I tell you?"
"You've nothing to lose. I know he was in your truck and that you tied him up and drove him away. What have you got to lose if you tell me how you got him to meet you?"
Di Girolamo wanted a full confession, nothing less.
"Come on Matteo. Get it off your chest, tell me."
Rossi sighed and then gave in. "I wrote him a note, "Meet me at the crossroads at ten, and you'll get some more of what you had before."
"You signed it with your daughter's name, of course."
"Yes, and he came panting along, reeking of perfume. When I saw him I thought I'd soon take him down a peg, the jumped up little shit."
"So you hit him over the head and tied him up with the ropes, put him in the Ape and took him up to the place where his body was found."
"That's right."
"Then you tied him to the tree trunk, made sure he was conscious and tortured him to death."
"Torture! I wanted him to suffer. That was only right. He had to pay for what he’d done to my little girl. I didn't think he'd die, but he did. I mean I didn't set out to kill him, but he died anyway. He was a weakling. They make out they're so tough, these kids, but they're weaklings."
"So once one boy had died, and you were a murderer, it didn't matter if you killed the others."
"That's right. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened, so I thought, one, or two, or three what difference did it make? I didn't kill Pietro Lagonda though, someone else did that for me, saved me the bother."
"Aren't you sorry that you killed them? Do you have no pity?"
"Pity? Did they have any pity for my daughter? Of course she was asking for it, silly little cow going to parties and drinking at her age, but they didn't have any pity, so neither did I. I told you I didn't want to kill him, Giovanni I mean, but when he died, well, he signed the death warrant for the others. Funny how things work out sometimes isn't it. Anyway everyone got what they deserved."
"And now you too will get what you deserve."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Alessio Pinucci was nervy, jumpy, and came into the room looking tense. He said immediately "I want to go home. Everyone's saying you've got the killer, so why don't you let me go?" He sounded irritable.
"I'm afraid I can't Alessio. You know why, don't you?"
"No, I 'ant done nothing."
"I want to tell you a story. Listen carefully. On the twenty third of December you went back to the Duomo to meet Maria Cottafava. At the back of the Duomo you had sex with her, believing that you were hidden and no one could see you, but you were wrong. Somewhere was a person who saw and heard everything. Maybe he had gone round there behind the trees to urinate or vomit, because like you, he had drunk too much, but he stayed to watch you, and when you left, he followed you and jeered at you."
"No, you're wrong. It didn't happen." He spoke fast, tripping over his words, his voice high, with an edge of hysteria.
"Alessio, calm down. Now listen carefully, I know that the person who waited and watched you was Pietro Lagonda."
"NO!"
"Yes. You told him to shut up and leave you alone, but he wouldn't. He'd had a lot to drink, enough to make him incapable of seeing that you were really angry. He said he would tell everyone, he laughed and jeered, and you were upset. You’d drunk enough to act without thinking. You picked up a stone, to threaten him, and then you hit him with it, and when you saw the blood, you were frightened, and thought you had better get rid of him. If he were dead, he wouldn't be able to tell anyone what you had done to him, and what you had done with Maria. So you took him and lay him across the wall of the piazza in front of the Duomo. I think that as you were getting ready to push him off the wall, he came to and tried to fight back, to save his life. He bruised your neck as he tried to hold on to something, but he was too weak. He was conscious when he went over, which is why he landed on his feet."
"No, it wasn't like that." His hand went up to his neck to cover the bruise.
"Alright Alessio, if it wasn't like that, why don't you tell me what happened."
"I didn't do nothing, and you can't prove it."
"You were there. There was no one else, and you had a motive for doing it, so I know you did it." He lowered his voice as he spoke, and moved round the table to stand behind the boy. He put his hands on his shoulders and said, "I know how you feel. He was your friend. You didn't want to kill him, it was almost an accident. You were drunk, you had smoked a joint, you had had sex, and you were happy, but Pietro ruined everything for you and instead of behaving like your friend, you thought he was your enemy. But afterwards, you knew he’d always been your friend, and you didn't want him to die. Tell me Alessio, was it like that?" He felt the boys shoulders shaking beneath his hands.
Alessio lowered his head, and said, "I didn't mean to do it. I hit him with the rock at him to make him go away, but I hit his head too hard, and he fell down. I thought he was dead." He was sobbing now, loud raucous sobs. " I thought if I threw him over the wall it would seem like it was an accident, so that's what I did, but as he was going over he woke up, and grabbed at me, I tried to hold on to him, but it was too late, he went over. He was my friend."
"It's alright Alessio. The important thing is always to tell the truth."
"Will I go to prison?"
"That will be for a judge to decide. You will tell your story to him and he will decide."
"It was all a mistake, Pietro was my friend."
"Yes, I know." He patted Alessio's shoulder , and signed to his colleague to turn off the tape recorder. Alessio was accompanied out of the room. Ruggero sat down at his desk and covered his face with his hands. Thoughts crowded into his mind. How he hated this sort of crime. It was so terrible to see someone who had gone over the limits in an apparently casual way. He thought, ‘poor boy’. Chance had dealt him a heavy hand here, but then that was what life was like. One minute you're happy, the next you are plunged into an abyss of misery. He prepared the statement for the press then he got up and put on his coat. He was tired, and wanted to rest, anyway, there was nothing more to be done. He went wearily outside to read the short statement to the press and television. It was already dark and the flash-lights blinded him. Microphones were held up, as near to him as was possible, like a forest of carnivorous plants. He read the statement slowly and carefully, without once raising his eyes, then turned and left the media to fight over the carcass, answering only two questions.
"Dottor. Di Girolamo, what about Rossi's wife; was she his accomplice?"
"No charges have been made."
"What about the girl? Will she keep her baby, and take it home?"
"That will be for the juvenile courts to decide. Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen, no further questions please."
They let him leave, because they all wanted to phone in to their newspapers. The television crews would do an extensive summing up, and the various television stations were vying for
good spots for the recording. He was old stuff now. Tomorrow, the journalists would all disappear, and leave Borgo San Cristoforo in peace to lick its wounds, and to try and forget. He shivered, and pulled his coat collar up as he walked quickly towards his car. He was going home, to his family, to his son.
END
The Tuscan Mystery Trilogy Page 71