Deadly to the Sight
Page 24
Urbino checked his wristwatch. He had been in the Basilica for nearly an hour. It had seemed but a few minutes.
He went into Florian’s and declined the invitation of some friends to join them at a table. He fortified himself with a glass of wine at the bar, and then went out into the gray day again.
He walked between the two columns of the Piazzetta and around the Ducal Palace to the Riva degli Schiavoni. The island of San Giorgio Maggiore, floating serenely and improbably in the Basin, was gradually left behind as he skirted the edge of the Castello quarter.
He went over, yet again, what he thought Polidoro had said. As he passed the Church of La Pietà where Vivaldi had written most of his work, his thoughts about noses became absurdly mixed up with Vivaldi’s prominent one.
Surely, both he and the Contessa had misheard Polidoro. As he went down the Ponte del Sepolcro he asked himself over and over again what he could possibly have meant by referring to a nose.
Wrapped in reflections as impenetrable as the fog that was starting to come in from the Lido, he drifted past the Gothic Hotel Gabrielli Sandwirth where he and the Contessa sometimes came in summer to refresh themselves in the English rose garden. It wasn’t until he had walked for ten more minutes that he realized his steps were taking him in a direction he hadn’t been conscious of. He was going to Sant’Elena. He needed to talk with Jerome again.
19
This realization made him quicken his steps, but his only reward was to get no response after knocking on Jerome’s door for several minutes. He called out Jerome’s name. Either he wasn’t there or he didn’t want to talk to him. Urbino remembered how frightened he had been.
But Jerome would have to talk, Urbino said to himself as he went to the boat landing. He hoped he would find him at the language school, but if he didn’t, he was determined to camp out in front of his apartment block, despite the weather, for as long as it took until the Senegalese either went in or came out.
Fortunately, Urbino didn’t have to take this desperate measure. Jerome was in front of the school, darting nervous glances. He caught sight of Urbino. He looked as if he was about to bolt down the nearby calle. Urbino dragged him into the bar next to the school and pushed him into a chair, before seating himself across from him.
Jerome’s face was drawn and ashen.
“I know you’re afraid, Jerome. You’ll continue to be afraid as long as you keep silent. And you’ll feel guilty. Think of Habib. Hasn’t he been a good friend to you?”
The young man put his head down.
“You have no choice but to tell the truth, to me and then the police!”
“The police!”
His head snapped up. Fear gleamed from his eyes.
“Yes. It’s the only way to help yourself and Habib. The photographs, Jerome. You did give Giorgio photographs of yourself, didn’t you?”
Something seemed to collapse in Jerome. He put his face in his hands. The waiter chose this moment to come over to their table. Urbino ordered a bottle of mineral water and waved him away.
“I’m right, aren’t I, Jerome?”
“Yes,” he said in a defeated tone.
“And some of the other students as well?”
He nodded.
“What about Habib?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Giorgio promised you false identity papers and a passport.”
“But I never got them! Never! So I am innocent of anything bad.”
Urbino let this pass.
“Was a lot of money involved?”
“Too much. My brother sent it to me. He is a merchant in Dakar. But he did not know the reason! He will not be punished, will he?”
“Your brother did nothing wrong.”
At this, Jerome stared at him, tears brimming in his blue eyes.
“But I have, yes. I will be punished.”
“If you tell the police the truth, the punishment will be less severe. It might be forgotten about completely. But if you remain silent, you definitely will be punished.”
“You will tell?”
“I have no choice. Habib is in prison. They think he murdered Giorgio!”
Jerome broke out into rapid French that Urbino couldn’t follow. The waiter brought the mineral water and two glasses.
Urbino poured out a glassful for the both of them. Jerome gulped his down.
“The police will think that I killed Giorgio!”
“I’m sure they won’t. Tell me, Jerome, was Giorgio the only person you were doing business with?”
“It was only to Giorgio that I gave the photographs and the money, but I saw him speaking sometimes with a lady. I think I saw him hand her a photograph of someone. She put it in her purse very fast.”
“What did she look like?”
Jerome gave a fair enough description of Regina Bella.
“Come on. We’re going to the police.”
20
Based on Jerome’s testimony, and that of three other students, the police brought Regina Bella back from the clinic near Florence three days later. A thorough search of her apartment turned up incriminating documents that she had attempted to conceal, but not cleverly enough.
According to Corrado Scarpa, Bella confessed to having been involved in a lucrative traffic in false documents and passports, not only at Habib’s language school, but two others in Venice and one in Milan. Financial difficulties had led her into the hands of a Milan-based group involved in smuggling and human trafficking. She had been put in contact with Giorgio, ostensibly during a vacation on Capri. Illness was forcing Ugo Mazza, who was a member of the group, to retire. Over the previous three years Giorgio had gained experience with transporting and collecting money from illegal immigrants, most of them from North Africa and Albania. An injury to his foot during one of these transactions was the mundane explanation for his limp, which so many women, including Bella, had found a touch romantic.
Bella had shown some ingenuity that hadn’t gone unremarked by the group when she learned that Oriana was going to Capri. With Oriana’s flirtatious manner and her eye for a handsome man, the rest had quickly fallen into place. Giorgio had been established at the Ca’da Capo-Zendrini, a position of trust and mobility that would make his and Regina’s work all that easier.
Obviously enough, Habib had been particularly good prey. If they played their game well, they had hoped to benefit, through him, from Urbino’s resources and perhaps those of the Contessa. To this ultimate end, Giorgio had calculatedly befriended the trusting Habib.
Bella also admitted that she had attacked Frieda in order to retrieve the photographs. When Giorgio had told her about the other envelope, which he had taken by mistake from the kitchen, she had realized what had happened.
One thing that she was adamant about, however, was that she had had nothing to do with Giorgio’s murder. She had gone to the clinic because she had been emotionally exhausted in the days after his death and fearful for her own life. She knew that her relationship with him would eventually be exposed because they had grown careless.
They had found Giorgio’s murderer, she said, and it was Habib. Perhaps someone had helped him. Giorgio had complained to her about Habib’s impulsive behavior and his sudden, late-night visits to his apartment.
She claimed that no one associated with Il Piccolo Nettuno knew about her activities. Despite what Urbino had told Commissario Gemelli the previous week, the topic of Nina Crivelli hadn’t been pursued.
In the opinion of the Questura and the Substitute Prosecutor, Habib became a stronger suspect, and he would continue to be detained. Along with what Bella had said against him, the revelation of the traffic in false documents did him absolutely no good, despite his denials.
And so Habib remained in prison.
21
“She’s lying, caro,” the Contessa said two evenings after Regina Bella’s confession as she and Urbino sat in the salotto blu. “She killed Giorgio. It wasn’t Habib.”
Urbino had brought her up to date on everything he knew, including Habib’s assault on the Spaniard and his desire not to have Urbino visit him in prison.
“My heart is in it. But my mind, my mind! When everything looks black, am I to tell myself it looks white? Are you?”
“I know the way things look. And I know that you’re on my side, and that means you’re on Habib’s.” He brushed his hand across her cheek as he got up to go to the liquor cabinet. “You’re right. Bella is lying. She’s lying about Habib and probably a lot of other things.”
“Lying about not having killed Nina and then Giorgio to cover it up, or for some other reason!”
“I wish I could believe that, Barbara. It would make things easier. If only it were true! But I can’t delude myself into believing something just because I want to.”
She held his gaze until he looked away and poured himself more wine.
“But doesn’t it make complete sense,” she went on, “that Nina discovered what Regina and Giorgio were up to and was trying to get money from the both of them?”
“Yes,” he agreed. “And also that Nina wanted to sell you information against Giorgio. It fits in with everything she said to you, and with the way she became cautious and nervous when he walked into Santa Maria Formosa. She could have been taking the fullest advantage of what she knew.”
“Which led her to her death,” the Contessa said flatly. “That’s what you should be arguing with Gemelli to get Habib out of prison.”
“I’m well aware of that, but I just don’t feel that it will come to anything. And then it will only be the worse for Habib. No, Barbara, I have a feeling, an intuition about this—”
“Feeling!” she cried out. “Haven’t we had enough of feeling? Isn’t it time to look at things in the cool light of reason? Isn’t that what you’ve always done?”
“I know what you’re thinking, that my feeling for Habib is blinding me, but something else is going on here. Regina didn’t kill Giorgio or Nina. You’re forgetting about the attack on Polidoro. How does that fit in? He appears to have been bludgeoned, just as Giorgio was. Whoever attacked Polidoro most probably also killed Giorgio.”
“But Nina wasn’t bludgeoned to death! You’re making a big mistake.”
“It won’t do any harm to assume that I’m right. If Bella is the murderer, she’s already locked up.”
“If she isn’t, then the murderer is free to strike again.” The Contessa nodded. “Well, perhaps there’s some method in your madness. The police aren’t going to be any help. They aren’t even considering that the two deaths are related, or that Nina was murdered. You have an advantage over them.”
“Cold comfort.”
They turned to speculations about what Polidoro had said, or what they thought he had. They soon reached a dead end.
Noses and conflicts—or wells—didn’t add up to anything as far as they could see. Urbino theorized that Polidoro could have been referring in shorthand to fisticuffs with his assailant, whose nose he might have hit.
“It’s a possibility, but it’s like too many others,” the Contessa said. “Unless we know exactly what he was saying, it’s like the telephone game children play. By the time they get to the last child the word or sentence can mean the opposite of what it started out as.”
As Urbino walked back to the Palazzo Uccello through the dark, deserted alleys, he tried once again to rearrange the various pieces in different combinations. Sometimes they grouped themselves around Salvatore, at other times Frieda, Beatrix, and Marie. He was stymied, yet at the same time he felt that if he had only one more piece, or if he were able to see one of the pieces he already had in the proper light or at the proper distance, he would have the answer he needed.
The Contessa’s theory that Regina, or Giorgio, had murdered Nina, and then Regina had murdered Giorgio, was certainly plausible. But whether she did or she didn’t, the police weren’t asking her, or anyone else, it seemed, the right questions, the ones that could free Habib. Urbino intended to.
He would see Polidoro again in a few days when he regained more of his strength. It might be all he needed.
His steps took him behind the Palazzo Vendramin Calergi where Wagner had died on a cold February day like this one. The Palazzo was now the winter quarters of the Casino. The building’s associations with Frieda’s favorite composer invariably led him to think of her and her possible role in the violent and deadly events. Her German origins could be seen as a link between her and the Crivellis, since Evelina had not only looked German, according to Carolina Bruni, but also appeared to have run off to Germany.
He remembered, however, that Gabriella and Lidia had disputed whether it was actually Germany, or instead Switzerland, that Evelina had run off to. Beatrix Bauma was from Austria, which was close to both. She had seemed very nervous last week in her apartment, and even a little frightened of what Marie might tell him. At more than one point, the Austrian woman had stood silently, staring at him and at Marie as if—
His thoughts took an abrupt shift as an image flashed before his eyes. The mask of the plague doctor! With its long beak of a nose! Could Polidoro have been referring to the mask?
Urbino’s initial excitement started to ebb as he asked himself why Polidoro would have referred to a detail of the mask instead of the mask itself. Of course, the man had been in a confused state of mind, and could barely speak.
Before going down the bridge over the Rio della Maddelena, Urbino paused to look at the little campo to his right. It was one of his favorite spots in the city. Even though the dark and the fog obscured most of the details, he re-created them in his mind’s eye. The old houses. The tall chimney pots. The Renaissance wellhead. Habib had been looking forward to the spring to take advantage of the picturesque scene.
The sight of the wellhead sent his thoughts back to what Polidoro had whispered to them. If Urbino remembered correctly, there was a covered well in the courtyard behind Il Piccolo Nettuno. Could he possibly have been referring to that?
Anything and everything seemed a possibility at the moment, except, of course, that Habib was involved in any way but the most innocent and peripheral. If this were his blind spot, he would cling to it as if it were his most precious possession.
He went past Santa Fosca, then down the bridge where the Renaissance monk Paolo Sarpi had been stabbed. He was soon standing on the bridge that gave a view of the Palazzo Uccello, dark except for the two lamps by the entrance.
It was then that he had the sense that he was being followed. The feeling swept over him as it had that night in Dorsoduro. Then he had heard footsteps approaching, stopping, and retreating behind him. Habib had been following him then, he had said, fearful that he might come to harm. But Habib was in no position to be looking out for him now.
Tonight there were no footsteps. It was nothing more than an instinct, but he had learned to trust them. He looked behind him but saw and heard no one.
He crossed the short distance to the entrance of the Palazzo Uccello and let himself in, and locked the door behind him with relief, his heart pounding.
22
In the parlor, Urbino unlatched the window. The damp night air rushed in. The silence seemed suddenly and unnaturally profound.
He peered down into the calle where fog was starting to drift in from the nearby lagoon. A cat crouched by the bridge. Almost any of the dark shadows could have concealed a figure. Salvatore, Frieda, Beatrix, or Marie. The thought of the milliner lurking outside his house in one of her hats brought a smile to his lips, but then he thought, why not Marie? Hadn’t he perceived a harder edge in the little woman recently? He couldn’t discount her, any more than he could the others.
He stood staring out for a full five more minutes, but the scene became even emptier when the cat slipped into one of the shadows.
He put Britten’s Billy Budd on the player to accompany his musings and sat on the
sofa. He hoped that the opera would act as a kind of perverse exorcism of his deepest fears, but instead it reinforced them, as he should have realized it would.
The anguish of the fatherly Captain Vere, the openhearted nature of Billy, his violent confrontation of his accuser, and his punishment by death despite the absence of any murderous intention—they all rolled out with a frightening and familiar inevitability. He shut it off.
He stroked Serena as his mind wandered. Vague thoughts about fathers and sons, provoked by the opera, soon crystallized into specific ones about Salvatore and his lost son Gino. To have lost him in the way that he had, and to be searching for him, to be hoping that someday he would come back might be worse than knowing that he was gone forever, and perhaps even dead.
Were there indeed some things far worse than death? Than your own death or the one of someone you loved? He had no doubt that there were.
He had once speculated with the Contessa that Nina might have died because, after so many years, she had recognized Gino grown into Giorgio. Carolina Bruni had put it bluntly when she had said that if Evelina and Gino had ever returned, Nina would have dropped dead from the shock.
Although he no longer saw any reason to believe that Giorgio had been anyone but himself, he considered various possibilities of both true and mistaken identity involving Salvatore, his real or presumed son, and Giorgio.
They didn’t lead anywhere as far as he could see, but something lingered in his mind like one of the wisps of fog outside. He would have to return to it at another time, when he had a few more pieces in his possession.
There were still holes in the fabric of his thinking. Were they the kind that made things fall apart or the kind that contributed to a meaningful design? He felt he was nearing the end, in one way or another, an end of either success or failure. He needed patience, but he also needed time, something he was afraid he didn’t have, in order to give the necessary extra twists to the thread.
From his meditation on fathers and sons he passed on to mothers and sons—but not Evelina and Gino—but Nina Crivelli and Salvatore.