The Cold Summer

by Gianrico Carofiglio

  The woman looked at them, first one and then the other. She must have been thinking that there was a contrast between the kindness of the question and the appearance of the two men; she must also have been thinking that they didn’t look much like Urania’s usual clients. She decided it was none of her business.

  “The last caravan on the left, right at the end. But I don’t know if she’s there.”

  Urania’s caravan had a large owl painted on the door. Fenoglio looked around and knocked on the owl’s beak. Some ten seconds later, from inside, a resolute voice asked who it was.

  “Good morning. We’d like to talk to Madame Urania.”

  The door opened with a creak that sounded fake, like a special effect to create atmosphere.

  “Who are you?” The woman was nondescript-looking, with the kind of face you can’t even remember a few hours after seeing it. The interior was dark and there was a slight smell of incense.

  “We’re carabinieri. Can I come in?”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “We know, we just want to ask you a few questions,” Fenoglio said, gently pushing open the door, trying to accustom his eyes to the semidarkness.

  “I’m expecting clients,” the woman said, but the two carabinieri were already inside.

  Fenoglio sat down on a chair, while Pellecchia leaned on a small table in the centre of which was a crystal ball. From a shelf, a stuffed owl stared down at them.

  Fenoglio cleared his throat and got straight to the point. “We know you have rather a special appointment today,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We mean a woman’s coming here to find her missing son,” Pellecchia said, abruptly accelerating the rhythm, as he tended to do. “Don’t make us waste our time. I get pissed off when I have to waste my time.”

  The woman sat down with her legs together and her hands on her knees, looking unexpectedly composed. “What do you want?”

  “Who called you to make the appointment?” Fenoglio asked, also adopting a less formal tone. He didn’t like that assumption of familiarity common to police officers and carabinieri, but in many cases being formal simply complicated the work.

  “A woman I know came here. She told me that a boy had disappeared and that I had to help them find him.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Rita.”

  “All right, Rita. Now listen carefully. It’s very important for us to know what the woman who’s coming here today tells you. Someone kidnapped her son. The family aren’t cooperating, and we’re worried about the boy. You have to get his mother to tell you everything and also ask her a few questions, explaining that in order to see the boy you need more information. Then you’ll pretend to concentrate and say that you can’t see him, that you’ll need to try again when you’re alone. Tell her you’ll call her. Then we come back and you tell us everything.”

  Fenoglio hadn’t finished speaking when the woman started shaking her head. “You want to get me killed. These people are dangerous. If they find out I tricked them to help you —”

  “You’d be tricking them anyway, you know that as well as I do. We won’t write anything down, and they’ll never know you helped us.”

  “You can’t force me.”

  Fenoglio let his shoulders droop wearily. “Maybe not. But do you have any idea how many offences you’re committing every day in here? Fraud, misappropriation, abuse of public credulity. If I decide to cause you trouble, I just have to place a patrol car outside. Every time someone comes in, the carabinieri will come in, too, check on you, then take your client to the station to get his statement and ask him if he wants to file a complaint against you. How long do you think it’ll be before word spreads and people start going to another medium? Plus, we may well need to confiscate the caravan as evidence. Shall I go on?”

  A few minutes’ silence followed. “You swear to me they’ll never find out?” the woman said at last.

  “They never will,” Fenoglio replied.

  “And you won’t write my name down anywhere?”

  “You have my word.”

  The woman sighed, resigned. “What do I have to ask?”

  “We need to know if they’ve paid a ransom, if they have any suspicions as to who it was, and above all, how they communicated with the kidnappers: if they spoke by phone, if there was a go-between …”

  “What if she gets suspicious?”

  “I’m sure you don’t have any problems asking questions without making your clients suspicious.”

  Urania didn’t reply.

  “Let’s go over what we need to know.”

  “When the boy disappeared; what contact they’ve had with the people who took him; if they’ve paid and if they suspect anyone. After we’ve talked, what do I have to do?”

  “Nothing. We come back, you tell us everything and it’s over. Your name won’t appear on any document.”

  She seemed to ponder Fenoglio’s last words, as if they contained a hidden meaning. At last, she took a deep breath. “All right. Now go, I have to get ready.”

  9

  On their way out, they passed a huge fellow with a white handlebar moustache and hands like frying pans. He might have been about seventy, but looked as if he could easily slap down three or four twenty-year-olds. He waved at Pellecchia, who waved back.

  “Remember him?” Pellecchia said once they had left the amusement park.

  “Who?”

  “Whiskers. Don’t you remember?”

  “Who is he?”

  Pellecchia rubbed his face. “Oh, of course. I’m going soft in the head. It happened about ten years ago, before you came to Bari. We arrested him after this incredible brawl.” He continued speaking but Fenoglio stopped listening. About ten years ago. When he’d been on the verge of being transferred to Bari because he had met Serena and they would be married in a few months. The happiest part of his life had been about to begin; and now it was probably over.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Pellecchia asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” The question surprised him: Pellecchia wasn’t the kind to notice subtle signals.

  “I don’t know, you’re acting strange.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m going through a rough patch. My wife’s left home and I keep thinking about her.” Even before he finished the sentence, he was surprised that he had uttered it. He had never been especially inclined to confide in anyone, and the last person he would have thought of telling his problems to was Corporal Antonio Pellecchia, known as Tonino. It was hard to imagine two more different people. They had been working together for years and had never had a conversation that wasn’t about the job in hand.

  “So these things happen to superheroes, too.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know what the boys call you?”

  “What boys?”

  “The boys in the unit.”

  “What do they call me?”

  “Mr Perfect. Some also: Mr Uptight. No offence. I don’t think there’s any need for explanations.”

  Indeed, there was no need, and Fenoglio didn’t say anything. They walked for a while in silence, both looking straight ahead.

  “Shall we have a coffee, chief?”

  “Sure, it’ll only be the sixth one today.”

  They went into an anonymous café. Behind the counter was a thin girl with a long, rather equine face and a look of quiet desperation. Pellecchia greeted her by name – Liliana – and she replied with an infinitesimal nod.

  “Two coffees. We’ll sit in the back.”

  Fenoglio felt an inexplicable sense of relief as they took their seats in that bare back room. They were the only ones there, and it seemed like a refuge. Pellecchia lit his cigar butt, took two puffs and put it down on the ashtray to let it burn itself out, as usual.

  “Have you separated?”

  “I don’t know.” And after a hesitation:
“She told me she has to sort out a few issues. She added that she was sorry it sounded like such a cliché, but unfortunately that’s the way it was.”

  “Does she have someone else?”

  “She didn’t say. But it’s possible.”

  Liliana arrived with the two coffees, along with two pastries and two chocolates. Pellecchia waited until she had put it all down and gone back to the counter.

  “My wife left me ten years ago. It’s not hard to figure out why a woman would want to leave someone like me. At the time I was really pissed off, but although it bugs me to admit it, she had every reason in the world. But why would a woman want to leave someone like you? The only reason, in my opinion, is if she has someone else. Pardon my frankness.”

  Fenoglio ate the pastry and the chocolate. Pellecchia did the same. Then they drank the coffee. The scene resembled a ritual with specific rules, almost like a tea ceremony.

  “You’re surprised you confided in me, aren’t you?”

  Fenoglio had the impulse to deny it – no, why should he be surprised? – but realized it would have denoted a lack of respect. “Yes.”

  Pellecchia sniffed. If it’s possible to convey different emotions by sniffing, then Pellecchia’s sniff now was different from his usual one. Usually, his sniffing communicated annoyance, arrogance, boredom, insolence. This time, it seemed to Fenoglio that there was a hint of melancholy in it.

  “You don’t like me, I know. But I haven’t liked myself for some time now, so I can’t blame you.”

  Again Fenoglio had the impulse to lie and suppressed it. “Maybe you’ve never liked me much either.”

  “That’s not completely true. Let’s be clear about this: you’ve often been a pain in the arse, for the reasons already mentioned. It’s annoying having someone who always goes by the book as your immediate superior. But at the same time …” Pellecchia seemed embarrassed. “Well, I’ve always admired you but never had the courage to admit it to myself – and for a reason you may not imagine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s a scene in that film with Robert De Niro, New York, New York … what’s her name, the actress who also sings?”

  “Liza Minnelli.”

  “That’s the one. Anyway, Liza Minnelli has nothing to do with what I meant to say. When I was younger, some dickhead told me I looked just like Robert De Niro. As I was an idiot, I started watching all his films over and over, just to see how much like him I was and feel smug about it. A real idiot.”

  “You want to know something?”

  “Go on.”

  “I feel like an idiot most of the time. In normal circumstances, let alone at a time like this.”

  “Half an hour ago, I’d have thought that was absurd. Not now. Life is fucking strange. Anyway, in one scene, when De Niro has already become famous, a guy asks him for advice. He answers something like: You want my advice? Okay, stay away from the shit.” He broke off and seemed to ponder for a few moments. “I’ve always thought that was the best advice I’ve ever heard. Stay away from the shit. It’s what I should have done in my life. But I never managed it.”

  “It’s hard in our line of work.”

  “True, it’s hard. You’re too close to it. I’ve got myself dirty a few times, and after a while I didn’t feel like getting clean any more. I didn’t even want to think about it.” He sniffed. Without meaning to, Fenoglio also sniffed. “You’re close to the shit, too, like all of us. But you never get it on you. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s like you had some kind of power, like all those fucking superheroes. It annoys me, and I admire you for it. Maybe it annoys me because I admire you, or vice versa. Am I talking crap?”

  “No, you’re making perfect sense.”

  “Like hell I am. All right, anyway. In all these years we’ve worked together, I’ve never seen you slap someone who was handcuffed, I’ve never seen you write anything false in a report, and I’ve never seen some arsehole of an officer or some arsehole of a judge step on you. You know something I’ll never forget?”

  “What?”

  “It was five or six years ago. We brought in a young guy who was peddling dope on Piazza Umberto. We were slapping him around a bit to get him to tell us who he’d got it from. There was that idiot of a lieutenant who was always tanned and toned from the gym.”

  “I remember him.”

  “He enjoyed beating people up. After a few slaps he took a cloth and wrapped it around his hand. He was going to punch the guy in the face. Not that he gave a fuck about what the guy had done, he just wanted to have a bit of fun. You know I’ve never had any problem beating up these sons of bitches. But I don’t do it for the hell of it, only if there’s a good reason. You said something like: ‘Can I talk to you for a moment, lieutenant?’ and you left the room together. After five minutes you came back in without him. Just like that. You piss me off, but you were great that time. I’d have liked to know what you said to get rid of him.”

  Fenoglio shrugged, but was unable to suppress a smile. That lieutenant was a coward, and it had been a real pleasure threatening him with a charge of coercion and assaulting a suspect.

  “I’ve done lots of things I’m ashamed of,” Pellecchia went on. “I’ve justified them up to a point by telling myself there was no other way of doing this job. If you want to nail these bastards, you have to be more of a bastard than they are. I always told myself there was no other choice if you wanted to help this fucking society a little. But then, for many reasons, I had the feeling I’d lost control.”

  Fenoglio understood that well. Throughout his career in the Carabinieri, he had heard these arguments; he had heard that there was no other way. The rules are important, but they can’t always be respected. Sometimes they can – sometimes they must – be broken for the greater good. For the greater good, he had seen things that disgusted him, and he had decided that he didn’t care about the greater good.

  “I’m sorry about your wife,” Pellecchia concluded. “Maybe she really does only need to sort out a few issues.”

  “Maybe. Now let’s go, Montemurro’s waiting for us.”

  10

  They parked the car about a hundred yards from the entrance to the amusement park, in a position to see who was going in and out. Grimaldi’s wife arrived about an hour later, accompanied by a short-haired, broad-shouldered woman with a resolute demeanour.

  They came out again after about forty minutes.

  “You two follow the women and try to find out who the other one is,” Fenoglio said, getting out of the car.

  In the caravan, the smell of incense was much more pungent than before. On the table lay a pile of tarot cards, a fabric egg with lots of pins stuck in it, a book of occult symbols, the crystal ball and the stuffed owl that had previously been on the shelf.

  “Why the owl?” Fenoglio asked.

  “It’s a symbol of clairvoyance.” They were silent for a few seconds, then Rita Urania broke into an almost conspiratorial smile. “It impresses the customers. Complete baloney. Like all of it,” she added, indicating the other objects on the table. “Would you like a coffee?”

  Fenoglio was about to say, no thanks, I’ve already had too much. Then it struck him that, given the circumstances, considering how they had interfered in the woman’s life and forced her to cooperate, it would have been impolite to refuse, so he accepted. She told him to sit down, moved into the kitchen area of the caravan and made coffee.

  “How did it go, Rita?” Fenoglio asked after taking a sip.

  The woman opened two of the caravan’s windows, lit an MS and sucked in the smoke.

  “The boy’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “It’s quite likely.”

  Urania took another few drags. Fenoglio waited.

  “I didn’t want to say anything at first. She brought something of the boy’s” – Rita pointed towards the sofa bed, on which lay a football kit in the colours of the Bari team – “and wanted me to find out where he was by touching his t
hings.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told her I needed to know everything if I was going to try and see the boy, that touching the objects wouldn’t be enough. Then she looked at the other woman, and the other woman told her I was right.”

  “Who was the other woman?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t introduce herself, not even when she gave me her hand.”

  “All right, go on.”

  “She says she was alone in the house. The boy had gone to school an hour before, more or less. The telephone rang and when she answered it a man asked to speak to her husband, but he wasn’t there.”

  “Did she say anything about this man’s voice? Did she recognize it? Did he have an accent of any kind?”

  “I didn’t ask her anything about the voice, it might have seemed strange. It’s one thing to ask —”

  “You’re right,” Fenoglio cut in. “You did the right thing.”

  “He said he was a friend and that he wanted to help them get their son back. That was when she got scared. The man repeated: I’m a friend of your husband’s, you’d better get hold of him if you want to see the boy alive. He said he’d call back after an hour, and hung up. That’s when she got all paranoid and called her husband on his mobile. He was really pissed off, he told her she was a fool, instead of calling him she should have gone straight to the school to see if the boy was there.”

  “And that’s where she went.”

  Urania nodded and lit herself another cigarette. Fenoglio wondered how old she was. The face and the body suggested different ages. From the face, you would have said she was about fifty, but the body seemed that of a much younger woman.

  “She went to the school and asked the caretaker if she could see her son. The woman went to the classroom to call him and they discovered he wasn’t there. So she called her husband again. He was out on business, but he came home and called all the men who work for him, who are in his gang, as far as I could tell, and sent them out to look for the boy and ask questions to find out what had happened. Then those people phoned again.”