Death In Florence

by Marco Vichi

  Signorini dropped his hands to his knees and, taking a deep breath, resumed speaking in a feeble voice.

  The morphine took effect in less than a minute. The child couldn’t keep his eyes open and was drooling from the corner of his mouth. Italo sped to Via Luna, entered the flat and carried the child down to the cellar. Laying him on the bed, he gave him a shot of morphine and locked him inside. He would sleep for several hours, but even if he woke up, it wasn’t a problem. He could scream all he liked and nobody would hear him.

  He phoned the others to tell them he’d found a tasty little titbit, and they arranged to meet there that evening, just after supper. Italo went much earlier and injected more morphine into the still-drowsy boy, taking care not to administer too much, for fear of killing him.

  The first to arrive was Beccaroni. Peering in through the basement door, he realised that this time Italo had gone too far. This was a textbook kidnapping, for Christ’s sake, it could land them in jail for thirty years. They locked the door and went back upstairs to wait for the others. Panerai arrived shortly afterwards with Monsignor Sercambi. They were told the situation, and all were in agreement that it was madness, but no one was able to make a decision. Then Gattacci also arrived, and as soon as he knew the situation, he left in terror.

  The atmosphere was charged with electricity, and every so often one of them started laughing hysterically. They snorted a bit of coke mixed with morphine, and a short while later Panerai came out with his idea … By now the damage was already done … they should think about it … an opportunity like this happens only once in a lifetime … they would be very gentle … only once … slow and soft … with masks on, as always … The only person whose face he’s seen is Italo, but it’s unlikely he could ever recognise him … we’ll just have a little fun, what could ever come of it? Then we’ll put him into a deep sleep with the morphine and drop him off somewhere … Maybe we’ll open up some car at random and put him inside … I know how to break into a car, that’s not a problem … Tomorrow morning our little boy will be back in his mother’s arms, and in a few days he’ll forget about the whole thing and go back to playing with toy soldiers … What do you say?

  It was so silent they could hear their hearts beating. They sighed, they shook their heads, they bit their lips. When Monsignor Sercambi made the sign of the cross, they lost their heads. After a quick exchange of glances they put on their carnival masks and went down to the cellar. The boy was still groggy but by now he understood, and there was terror in his eyes.

  Come on now, don’t be afraid … We don’t want to hurt you … not in the least … Now now, hold still … Don’t scream, you little brat … Come on, you know you like it … Good … Ah, fuck! … the little pup bites … Hold him still for me … Look at that beautiful little bottom …

  The boy was dragged to the ground and stripped. He kept kicking and trying to elude their grasp, grabbing on to the carpet and scratching the wall as if he wanted to dig a hole in it, trying to bite the hand pressed over his mouth … but it was all useless, and Sercambi was the first to penetrate him.

  Italo stood to the side and watched the bullfight, his heart racing. He was hoping to catch a gleam of pleasure in the boy’s eyes, the same as he’d felt that summer afternoon at Forte dei Marmi …

  All at once the boy stopped struggling, exhausted. A grimace of pain and fear remained on his face, but his fingers moved very slowly, almost imperceptibly, like a crab’s legs in the sun.

  After a long moan, Monsignor Sercambi collapsed on to the boy, huffing like a locomotive. Then it was Beccaroni’s turn, and as usual he was done in a hurry. When Panerai’s turn came, Italo left the room and went upstairs to give himself a shot of morphine. He couldn’t wait for it all to be over, and he felt remorse for having made it happen. From now on only quiet affairs, he thought, floating in his morphine paradise.

  Suddenly he heard Beccaroni coming up the stairs in a hurry, muttering something. The lawyer charged into the room in vest and trousers and, trembling in fear, said that Panerai had killed the boy. He didn’t mean to, bloody hell, he really didn’t. Italo felt a river of anguish course through his veins and dashed downstairs. Panerai and Monsignor Sercambi were putting their clothes back on. The butcher was pale and kept shooting glances of what looked like anger at the boy’s lifeless body. The prelate’s eyes burned with bitterness over this disastrous inconvenience.

  Italo laid the boy down on the bed, closed his eyes, and covered him with the sheet. Then he went back upstairs with the other two. There they were again, standing before one another, exchanging anxious glances, as they had a little while ago … before the murder.

  Now what? There was no turning back. All they could do was find a solution. There was a strange sense of calm in the room, but you could almost hear the sound of their brains whirring.

  Panerai was biting his lips and pacing back and forth, opening and closing his hands. It was he who’d killed the boy, of course … but they were all implicated, that should be clear to all. An unfortunate accident. He’d just wanted to squeeze the boy’s neck a little, as he always did when he came … Damn it all …

  Once again, it was he who took the initiative. He already had a plan for getting rid of the body. Listen closely … The first thing we do is put him in the refrigerator, so we’re not forced to rush things, and at the right moment we’ll go and bury him in the hills of Cintoia. I know those woods like the back of my hand, I’ve been going hunting there for years. If we do things right, they’ll never catch us …

  They were all in agreement. They didn’t have any choice. And so they took everything out of the refrigerator, including the shelves, then turned the thermostat down as far as it would go and put the body inside. All that was left to do was to find the right moment for burying it, and in the meantime they should each continue to live their normal lives. Beccaroni said that Alberto Sordi would be appearing on Studio Uno on Saturday night; he’d read the announcement in the newspaper. Everyone would be glued to their television sets, and if it kept raining as the reports said it would, the circumstances would be perfect.

  Saturday came and it was raining hard, just as they had hoped. At nine o’clock Panerai and Italo left Via Luna with the corpse in the boot of the butcher’s Fiat 850, wrapped in a sheet. They had worked everything out, down to the last detail. All they needed now was a little luck and they would be home free. They had two spades, a pickaxe, a torch, and some rags and wire to wrap round their boots so that they wouldn’t leave tracks. Taking the boy’s stiff body out of the fridge was horrible. His skin had taken on a grey cast, but luckily he didn’t smell too bad.

  They left the city and reached Upper Cintoia without any trouble. They took the dirt road that led to Monte Scalari, and after about a mile and a half, they stopped the car. Wrapping their boots with the rags and iron wire, they went out and very silently climbed a small hill, lighting their way with the torch. They found an appropriate spot and hastily dug a quite shallow grave, impatient as they were to leave. They buried the child and went back to the city.

  To be safe, the following day they cleaned all the mud off the car, tools and boots. Once their clothes had been through the washing machine, the operation was definitively over. No one could ever trace the killing back to them. All they could do was wait for the body to be discovered, though it was possible it might never be found … The woods are full of boar, thought Panerai …

  ‘There, now you know everything … Now you must keep your promise,’ Signorini said in a soft voice, exhausted.

  ‘What are your nicknames?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘I’m called Sheepie, though I won’t tell you why. Gualtiero is Giraffe, because he’s so tall. Livio is called Piglet, and Moreno is the Penguin because of the way he walks …’

  ‘What about Gattacci?’

  ‘He’s Benito.’

  ‘Such imagination …’

  ‘Can I, now?’ the young man asked anxiously.

  ‘Go
ahead,’ said the inspector. There was no harm in letting him have his last dose of morphine. If anything it would make him more docile. Signorini stood up with effort, dragged his feet as far as the desk and collapsed into the chair. Taking a spoon out of the pen-case, he started preparing the morphine with trembling hands.

  Bordelli attacked another Nazionale cigarette. He’d been chain-smoking all the while, and the room smelled like a snooker hall. One reassuring thing had emerged from Signorini’s confession: Giacomo died on the night of the kidnapping, not after three days of sexual abuse, as he had imagined. The inspector inhaled the smoke angrily. He still had the images evoked by Signorini in his head and couldn’t wait to arrest the three comrades. Who knew how long they would survive in jail? Even the most hardened criminals were disgusted by those who preyed on children, and in prison their disgust turned magically into the most atrocious sort of violence. But he certainly wouldn’t shed any tears over them …

  Once again he was getting ahead of himself. He was already imagining the monsters being sodomised with the handle of a spade, castrated with a flick knife, and torn to shreds in their jail cells with the approval of the prison guards. But he hadn’t even arrested them yet. In order to do this he needed Signorini’s signature on the transcript of an official interrogation with a lawyer present. Until that moment, no word of any of this must get out. In that sense the flood was a big help; the news reporters had other things to think about.

  Signorini rolled up a sleeve and tied a haemostatic tube around his arm, enlarging the vein. He inserted the needle with a sure hand and pressed the plunger. One second later his face turned into a mask of bliss. Rolling his sleeve back down, he turned towards Bordelli.

  ‘How did you find us?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘By chance.’

  ‘The death of that boy … weighs on my mind like a boulder …’

  ‘Well, you’ve got Mamma Morphine to coddle you.’

  ‘It’s as if I killed him with my own two hands,’ the young man continued, ignoring the provocation.

  ‘That’s only just occurred to you?’ said Bordelli.

  ‘You can believe what you like, but I was about to turn myself in many times.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Prison frightens me … And whatever the case … no justice can raise the dead.’

  ‘Pretty good excuse,’ said the inspector, wishing he could slap him.

  ‘What’s done is done …’ Signorini whispered, staring into space through heavy eyelids. The inspector stood up and went over to the desk.

  ‘At police headquarters you’re going to have to repeat everything before a witness and a lawyer. Naturally, someone other than your friend Beccaroni.’

  ‘I’ll do everything you ask,’ the young man muttered, rubbing his nose slowly with his fingers.

  Bordelli picked up the telephone and calmly dialled the number for headquarters. He had them ring Piras and then asked him where he was.

  ‘In Via Bolognese, Inspector.’

  ‘Wait for me outside the gate in the car.’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘See you in a few minutes.’

  He hung up. Justice had prevailed, but the satisfaction of having found Giacomo’s killers did nothing to cancel out his bitterness and disgust. He gestured to Signorini to let him know that it was time to go. Signorini stood up, leaning with his hands on the desk.

  ‘First I’d like to show you something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute,’ the young man mumbled, staggering towards the door.

  Curious to know what it was, Bordelli followed him. They went down the hall to the landing without saying a word, then went up to the second floor and into Signorini’s bedroom. The inspector remained in the doorway, awaiting the revelation. The young man went and opened the window, threw open the shutters and, with a surprising leap, threw himself out without a cry. Before he could make a move, Bordelli heard the dull thud of the body striking the stone pavement below. He dashed to the window and looked down. The ground around Sigorini’s head began to stain red. The inspector clenched his fists and raced down the stairs, swearing. He’d let himself be walked over like a rookie. Bloody hell. If Signorini died, goodbye confession …

  He went out of the front door and ran behind the villa. Signorini lay motionless, in an unseemly and almost light-hearted pose. His eyes were open and he had a beatific expression on his face. Bordelli put two fingers on his jugular and felt no pulse. He sat down on the edge of a large flowerpot and lit a cigarette. It had all gone to the dogs. No transcript, no charge, no proof. He was back to square one, the only difference being that now he knew for certain who the killers were. He’d never found himself trapped inside such a paradox before. He could, of course, repeat Signorini’s confession under oath, but what would be the use? Without any evidence, even a court-appointed lawyer would send him home with his tail between his legs. And a good lawyer would make him look like a pathological liar …

  What should he do? Become a vigilante and personally kill Panerai, Beccaroni and Monsignor Sercambi? He would have been delighted to do so, but that wasn’t why he’d joined the police force. In spite of everything, he believed in the state and couldn’t take justice into his own hands. Giacomo Pellissari deserved a proper public trial; he deserved to have the names of his tormentors plastered over all the newpapers; he deserved justice … not three anonymous gunshots.

  It occurred to him that Piras must be already outside the gate. He cast a final glance at Signorini and went back into the villa. Climbing the stairs to the study, he removed his cigarette butts from the ashtray and with a handkerchief wiped down everything he’d touched. He put the Beretta back in its place and threw open the window to let the smoke out. He went to the second floor as well, to wipe away any trace of his having been there. Then he left, closing the front door behind him. He walked calmly down the pebbled driveway, in no hurry. By now he’d made up his mind. Except for Piras, no one would know that Signorini had killed himself before his very eyes.

  He would let someone else find the corpse. It seemed the only real solution, if he was to avoid creating a firestorm of controversy. The other members of the clique would think their little friend had taken his life out of remorse, but they wouldn’t be alarmed. They had no way of knowing that a pig-headed cop had unmasked them.

  He went out on to the pavement and found Piras there waiting for him in the 1100. There wasn’t a soul about. He opened the door and stuck his head inside.

  ‘I don’t need a lift any more, Piras. I’ll walk back.’

  ‘All the way to Via Zara?’ the Sardinian asked in surprise.

  ‘I need to think.’

  ‘Did you talk to Signorini?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later, Piras. Just wait for me at the station, please.’

  ‘All right, sir,’ said Piras, setting aside his curiosity for the moment. There was no point in insisting when the inspector had that look on his face. He started up the car and drove off.

  Bordelli headed down the street, his thousandth cigarette of the day in his mouth. Just a few hours ago he had been in bed with Eleonora, and now it felt as if he hadn’t seen her for a century …

  He passed by Villa Triste again, thinking that the flat in Via Luna was also a Villa Triste. Who knew how many other Ville Tristi there were in the world? Buildings that looked normal from the outside, but inside which …

  Not far from there, in Via Trieste, lived the beautiful Sonia Zarcone, Piras’s girlfriend. Certainly the nights the Sardinian spent there were anything but sad.

  Almost without realising, he found himself in Piazza della Libertà, but instead of crossing it and going to the station, he headed up the pavement on Viale Lavagnini. He suddenly felt an urgent need to eat something and drink a glass of wine. It was late, but maybe Totò had some leftovers.

  The moment he returned to the station he shut himself up in his office with Piras to tell him abo
ut Signorini’s confession and suicide. The Sardinian listened in silence without batting an eyelid, his face as stony as a nuragh.50 Bordelli lit a cigarette and blew the smoke upwards.

  ‘Nobody must know. I mean it.’

  ‘Sardinians don’t talk, Inspector.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning the cleaning lady’s going to come and discover the body.’

  ‘At least we know who the killers are now.’

  ‘That’s not much help, if we can’t find any proof. Our only hope was the flat in Via Luna, but the river took care of that by washing all the evidence away.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘They can’t get away with this.’

  ‘They won’t get away with this, Piras. I just need some time to think,’ said Bordelli. The Sardinian realised the inspector wanted to be alone, and so he left without another word.

  Bordelli began pacing back and forth in front of the window, hands in his pockets. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, he evaluated the situation from every angle. What did he have in hand? A bill from the telephone company, a male prostitute’s story about the parties at the villa in Via Bolognese, and a dead man’s confession. A handful of flies would probably have been more useful in a courtroom. His word against that of a high-ranking prelate of the Curia, an influential lawyer, and an honest citizen who sold meat. He would never overcome such odds. Now it really made no more sense to tail the other three, waiting for them to commit more crimes. The little boy’s death had been a ‘damned accident’, and they would never put themselves in the same situation again. It had always been Signorini, moreover, who took care of finding unusual young boys, and now he was no longer around. And so? What could the right move possibly be? To set a trap for them. How? Those sorts of things were long and complicated, and often didn’t work.

  In the end he realised there was only one thing he could do. To hound those three sons of bitches until they gave themselves up, even if it meant spending the rest of his life doing so. They mustn’t have a minute of peace. He couldn’t see any other solution. And he might as well start right away. He looked at his watch: ten to seven. He drove off in the 1100 and took Via Cavour to the centre of town. A long queue had formed in front of the pharmacy. The city looked as if it had just emerged from the war. In Piazza del Duomo there was a great coming and going of people and military vehicles. Two tankers, surrounded by crowds, were distributing water.