‘The photos? No thanks. I’ve seen all I need to. To be more precise, there’s nothing there to see.’
And he explains to Ramondini who has not understood: ‘Sometimes that’s what happens. An object enters in some way into your life and it won’t go away. For me at this moment it’s a photograph.’ He looks for something in his pocket, who knows what, and then gives up. ‘I wonder which photo the killer took after killing Nunzio? It must be important since he risked so much.’
‘Nunzio’s dead?’
Cataldo stares at him, wondering for a moment if he is being honest. Then he nods: ‘Just a few hours ago.’
‘And… how?’
‘Someone smashed his head in with a paperweight. Then this someone ripped a photo out of an old issue of Guiglia Oggi. Incredible, isn’t it? But that’s what happened. That was the motive. A photo that I wasn’t supposed to see.’
He is on his feet now, walking around the room.
‘Are you sure?’
He stops suddenly. ‘Yes, I’m sure. Nunzio had an appointment with me, to show me that issue of the paper. An article perhaps with photos, like these…’ And his jaw tightens with anger. ‘And now I know there was a photo. Otherwise Nunzio wouldn’t have been killed. But what type of photo? Like that one of you and Zoboli, for example? What does it all mean?’
He stops to catch his breath and the suddenly turns to look at Ramondini. For the first time the professor seems ill at ease.
‘Zoboli. I heard you were friends, despite the age difference.’
‘Just three years. That’s not…’
‘No, what I mean is that three years in themselves aren’t much, but from other points of view they can be important. Zoboli just entering high school, you leaving high school. Zoboli a student at the university while you already had your degree…’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Zoboli with temporary jobs, you with tenure. It’s important. You’ve always been – how shall I put it? – a point of reference for him. Someone more authoritative… I’m not even sure how to explain. And yet, despite this, you owed him something too… at least according to certain rumours I’ve heard.’ He studies him now, waiting for a gesture, a reaction, or a change of expression. ‘This is why I’m truly curious about the relationship you had… really… above and beyond what the others think, even above and beyond this investigation.’
‘What do you mean, above and beyond the investigation?’
‘I mean I really don’t know, believe me… whether your relationship in some way influenced his death. Perhaps not, not in the slightest. But I’d like to know. I’d like to understand you both better. That’s why I’m asking you, and please don’t be offended, whether Zoboli made – how shall I put it? – made some contribution to your career…’
‘A contribution?’
‘Yes. To your publications, or in some other way.’ He tries, as much as possible, to weigh his words. ‘Whether you might have used, even if the evidence says the opposite…’
‘Whether I might have exploited him, you mean?’
‘Well, yes… let’s try putting it that way.’
Ramondini seems smilingly indifferent. ‘I think you’re making a mistake, if you believe what Zoboli’s wife says—in love with her husband to the point where she can’t see the truth. Even though he didn’t deserve it…’
‘No?’
‘No… but I don’t want to say anything else, it’s not my business, especially now that he’s dead. What I do want to say is that I’ve never copied anything from him, or exploited his work in any way whatsoever. We worked together, that’s true… but in the sense that I gave him research to do and he did it – with me directing him of course – and in the end we compared notes and I made the final corrections…’
Cataldo wants to ask whose name went on the publications. But it is best for now to let him finish.
‘So… as you can see, it’s something quite different. This isn’t exploitation…’
It might even be true, if it were not for his insistent denials, a slight anxiety that betrays the conscious desire to be believed.
‘… and all this despite anything Miriam may have said.’
Cataldo smiles: ‘Actually Miriam doesn’t come into this at all, it was my idea. Ever since Don Lodi told me that you two were different, but complementary. You are hard-working, consistent, while Zoboli was – how did he put it? – yes… intuitive, acute. Although he was more sporadic and less confident. So I reckoned…’
‘Your reckoning’s wrong, believe me.’
‘Alright, let’s drop it. And Don Lodi?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I mean… what’s the relationship there? He says he values you very much, that he was right about you from your schooldays… and he’s very gratified by this fact, it seems. He certainly values your intellect…’
‘So?’
‘So I don’t understand the human side of it… your relationship. You… excuse me, but you’re not married…’
‘Is that so strange?’
‘Certainly not.’ And Cataldo smiles again behind the tension. ‘You’re not married, I was saying, and you’ve never gone out with anyone. Don Lodi seems to admire you for this… for the fact that you’ve never been distracted…’
‘And perhaps you find it strange… they’ll have told you about this I imagine. You find it strange that we’ve been on holiday together?’
‘No, I didn’t know that. The two of you?’
‘It was a study holiday! Frankfurt, for a conference! Didn’t they mention that? Does that seem strange too?’
He is over excited now and realizes it immediately. So he starts explaining: ‘I’m sorry, but the fact is that we’ve always been in love… no, don’t misunderstand me. We’ve always been in love with the same things, the same studies – literature, philosophy. We’ve studied, discussed, compared notes together regularly. Faithfully over the years. The same things. Without some sort of long-term trial, nothing, nothing at all can keep people united…’
He holds his hands on his knees as he speaks, and his fingers continue to contract and open, almost as though he cannot decide whether to clench them into fists or not.
Cataldo nods and says, ‘Fidelity, of course. Fidelity is very important in studies, as you said. But it’s also important in friendship. And in love… a thought has come to me, as you were speaking…’
And he says nothing now. In fact he turns and coughs, takes a handkerchief and blows his nose. But Cataldo sees a red blotch appear on his neck and watches it flush upwards, right up to his ears.
She is there in front of him at ten o’clock in the morning. They are in a cool, shady room in her villa. The biggest villa of them all, one of the new ones near the swimming pool. She was easy to find and he studies her now as he thanks her for her kindness, and he cannot get the idea out of his mind that she must have been a beautiful woman. Tall, about seventy, her grey hair neat, a gold chain round her neck, a moss-green gaberdine dress. She looks so cool that it is as though she does not feel the heat, or as though she has not been out of the house yet that morning. Only later does he notice the curtain that hangs from the ceiling, keeping the room in shade and muffling the sounds of the life that goes on outside. Because where they are now, in the dated atmosphere of that room, it is as though time has stood still. On the furniture, on a table, everywhere there are photographs, especially of children, most in slightly tatty leather frames. But there is a silver one too, tarnished with time, and in it the photograph of a girl in a wedding gown and on each side of it another photograph – one a carabiniere, the other a naked baby on a cushion. And as he looks around he follows her to the end of the room, towards a sofa and two armchairs, and he sits in the one she points to. She takes her place on the sofa, calmly, and she puts a cushion behind her back. Arthritis may have slowed down her movements, but her mind is still acute and rapid, Cataldo sees this immediately.
‘Why?’
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nbsp; He does not reply but stares, motionless, out of the window that looks out over the road. A shutter perhaps moves, but it cannot have been the wind.
‘Why?’ she repeats, and perhaps now there is a slight tone of irritation in her voice. ‘Why dig up the past? Everything was said and written eighteen years ago. You know that fine well.’
‘In the newspapers, yes. And at the trial. I’ve read the documents.’ Cataldo leans forward, speaks in a deep voice. ‘But in my work I’ve also come to understand something.’
‘Which is?’
‘Which is that you can never do the truth justice in an official summary. Because the things that count are the ones that are left out – the emotions, the feelings. People’s characters. These are all things that can’t appear in a document.’
He looks at her intently, but he is not hoping that she will confide in him. And yet she does starts speaking, a little tiredness in her voice.
‘Eighteen years have gone by, but I still remember everything. When he died and even before that, long before that. The marriage, our life together. But it’s only natural in the end. When we’re old we have more memories than we have hopes.’
‘Tell me about it, if you want to.’
She sighs. ‘I met him when I was just a girl. At a schoolfriend’s party. You know… the type of party that teenagers used to have – records, cakes and parents on the other side of the door.’
‘Things were different, it’s true,’ he says, smiling.
‘I fell in love immediately, like the girl I was. He was my first love,’ she says quietly, as though justifying herself. ‘After university, we got married…’
‘Did Don Lodi officiate?’
Cataldo’s question appeared spontaneously, with no precise motive. She shakes her head and her face takes on a strange expression.
‘I don’t know why I asked that… but you do know him, don’t you?’
‘Everyone here knows him.’
‘And you?’
‘Me?’
‘What do you think of him?’
‘Don Athos? Well… I don’t know…’ and she thinks, looking ill at ease. ‘A modern priest, I suppose,’ she says in the end. But it is obvious that it took some effort to come up with this.
‘You were telling me that you got married…’
‘Yes. But Marco was born later, when I’d already started teaching…’
‘So I’ve been told. History, I think…’
‘At the scientific high school.’
And since she stops speaking, to make sure the conversation does not die out, he says, ‘I have a lot of respect, you know, for your profession.’
‘Are you just saying that out of courtesy?’
‘I say that because I mean it. My mother was a teacher too, and I have good memories of my own teachers. Almost all of them, really. Honest people. A bit ingenuous, but uncompromising…’ He smiles with a conviction that comes from the phrase that has come to his mind. ‘There was a writer who once said, rightly, that whoever teaches is like a trainer… but not of bodies, of brains, which are a lot trickier.’
Now she smiles too. For the first time.
‘He was right. Indeed, teaching has been the best experience life has given me.’
‘More than your marriage?’
‘More than anything else, yes.’ She says it quickly and Cataldo looks at her, but she does not regret having said it. She just sighs and concentrates, like someone about to confess.
‘I don’t think I would have remained married to him till the very end, if it hadn’t been for… yes, if he hadn’t died.’
Cataldo wants to ask why, but he stops himself. Perhaps she will tell him anyway.
‘Because you can forgive many things. It’s normal when desire dies… one or two affairs. But an arid heart is unforgivable.’ She closes her eyes, just for a moment.
‘Especially when faced with pain…’
‘When did you hear that he’d died?’
‘My cousin came here to the house. He was crying, he couldn’t even speak. Then he scribbled on a sheet of paper, ‘Walter’s dead’. I sat down to watch the television, who knows what programme it was, and I didn’t cry.’ Then a pause before she adds, ‘I cried later.’
She shakes her head and for a moment it is almost as though she does not want to continue. ‘Why am I telling you all this? I haven’t spoken about it for years…’
‘But you’ve thought about it. You’ve always been thinking about it.’
‘Yes,’ and she nods two or three times.
‘But it’s good to talk, sometimes. Whatever the reason was for the silence – reserve, shyness… even remorse…’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ and she looks at him. ‘It’s guilt that lies behind some silences.’
‘Why don’t you carry on then?’ And since she says nothing, he adds, ‘Speaking, I mean. Because there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for some time now. Why on earth did your husband have all that money with him that night?’
And in her eyes there is a flash of fear before she manages to appear serious, alert.
‘You know why, Inspector. Everyone knows. He was buying a villa… nearby, in Gainazzo. Ever been there?’
‘No,’ he admits, indifferent.
‘A nineteenth-century villa, with stables, built on the Montecuccoli rock. A bargain. My cousin from Tecnodomus handled the deal… the owner was up to his eyes in debt or had to move, I can’t remember… so there was this opportunity to snap it up for such a low price… only he wanted cash and as soon as possible…’
‘Yes,’ Cataldo agrees. ‘That’s what you said at the trial. Exactly that.’
‘And what do you think?’
He shakes his head. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what I know.’
She swallows, lowers her eyes. And when she looks up into Cataldo’s eyes the question – what do you know? – is so obvious she does not have to utter it.
‘I know, for a start, that it’s just not believable that someone goes to buy real estate at night with seven hundred million lire in cash, like a thief. Not even for the purpose of tax evasion… a bank transfer would make much more sense. And then there’s the legal side… contracts, solicitors, all that. No, no… even you must see that it doesn’t add up…’
‘But everyone believed me at the trial.’
‘Because the aim of that investigation and trial was different. They were looking for the person who stole that money, not for an explanation as to why the money was there at midnight, in a suitcase…’ He continues to stare at her. ‘That’s what I’m interested in. Now.’
‘There’s nothing I can do if you think it’s unbelievable. But that’s how things went…’
But there is a slight crack in her obstinacy, a trace of fatigue. He sighs, patiently: ‘Come on, Signora. Don’t you think after so many years it’s time to tell the truth? Two people have died for that money. The latest died last night. Have you heard?’
‘No… I don’t read the newspapers… who was it?’
The tone of her voice is slightly higher now, almost as though she were trying to create a screen for her agitation.
‘Nunzio Napolitano.’
‘From the tourist office?’
‘That’s him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Did you know him?’
She nods. For a moment it looks as though she is going to cry, but she does not. Her voice is expressionless now: ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I can help you, if you like. With an idea. Just tell me if I’m wrong or if I’m right.’ He stands up, turns his eyes to the ceiling. ‘When I read about all that money I thought of two things… the only possible things. First, blackmail… perhaps something to do with work. But up here extortion and bribes are rare, and your husband wasn’t a businessman on the national scene… and then that amount of money was too much… for 1980 at least. So then I thought of the other thing…’
He stops now and looks at her. The room is silent, but outside, somewhere, a car alarm has gone off.
‘Kidnapping. That’s what I thought of. And at this point everything became clear in just one possible way. Who was the person closest to you… the only person you would have paid such a ransom for?’
She is petrified now. Almost as though she has stopped breathing. She looks into space beyond Cataldo. But still she does not cry.
‘Is that what it was, then?’
‘It always returns,’ she whispers. ‘The remorse, the anguish. It never goes away.’
‘It’s the past that never goes away. Sometimes a whole life isn’t enough.’
There is something dignified in her stillness, like an ancient statue. And in her defeat. Because there is another torment, the biggest one.
‘Perhaps there’s something else?’
She looks at him, her eyes red: ‘After eighteen years?’
‘Yes.’ And a book he once read comes to his aid, suddenly: ‘Because we owe respect to the dead, while to the living we owe the truth.’
She surrenders now: ‘You tell me. It’s easier for me if you say it.’
‘There’s just one thing to say.’ He sits down again. ‘There never was any kidnapping.’
‘Yes.’
‘Marco, your son, did it all. Perhaps he hated you both, perhaps just his father. Perhaps he needed money… or all these things together, I don’t know. The fact is he organized everything. He pretended he had been kidnapped and demanded the ransom.’
Cataldo’s throat is dry now, but he has almost finished.
‘I understood it all from the newspapers. He was the only one missing at the funeral. And he was an only child. So I wondered, ever heard of an only child that fails to go to his father’s funeral? Unless he was ill or abroad or doing some important job somewhere. It would have to be some incredibly important commitment or reason… like a kidnapping, for example. He couldn’t turn up straight away, after having led everyone on about the kidnapping. And you really had to be convinced, didn’t you?’
She strokes her cheek, gets her breath back.
Inspector Cataldo's Criminal Summer Page 13