The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara)

by Michele Giuttari

  On this point, Ferrara was in total agreement with the Commissioner: if the media got wind of these details, they would make their reports even more salacious, and hide behind the constitutional right to information if any complaints were brought against them. Just as they had recently done in defending themselves from accusations of having revealed the contents of intercepted telephone calls – conversations about the private lives of politicians and celebrities – which had been recorded in the context of police investigations.

  ‘Absolutely, Commissioner,’ Ferrara assured him. ‘I’ll make sure nothing gets out.’

  ‘Proceed with caution, then. I don’t think I need to remind you that Senator Enrico Costanza was a very important figure here in Florence. I don’t want this case blowing up in our faces.’

  Adinolfi picked up the sheaf of papers on the desk in front of him and started writing, as if Ferrara had already left the office. On raising his eyes after a few moments, he was surprised to see him still sitting on the other side of the desk, watching him quietly.

  ‘Do you have something else to say to me?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘In that case you can go, and try not to exceed the overtime budget.’

  Ferrara got up and went out, these last words echoing in his head. They had to investigate a double murder while being careful not to exceed the monthly limit of thirty-five hours overtime to which each of his detectives was entitled. How on earth anyone was supposed to work with that sword of Damocles hanging over them, Ferrara did not know.

  Before he continued writing the report for the following morning, Ferrara extracted two painkillers from a blister pack, held them in his left hand for a moment, then swallowed them down with a glass of water.

  Getting away from his office, leaving all this behind him, were just dreams to him now. He had another thirteen months to go before he was eligible for a pension. Thirteen damn months before he might at last be a free man.

  11

  The murders were the kind that caused a big stir, especially with the series of horrendous events that had taken place in the two-week period starting on the night of the festival of San Giovanni, 24 June, still fresh in everyone’s memory.

  The first victim had been Giovanna Innocenti, the daughter of an internationally renowned Florentine wine producer.

  Then the charred body of Madalena, the owner of a private club, had been found in a small deconsecrated church in the hills of Sesto Fiorentino, a few miles outside Florence.

  Silvia De Luca – expert on the occult and friend and confidante of Inspector Riccardo Venturi – had been the third victim, her only crime having been to provide the police with some useful tips. But that had not been the end of it. Because the killer had yet to strike his true targets: Alvise Innocenti and his wife, Giovanna’s parents.

  The fear engendered in the populace by this escalating violence seemed to have faded with the death of the culprit: Leonardo Berghoff. Now, with the killing of Costanza, that fear would return.

  It was only natural, then, that the media should try to gather as much information as they could – not only from the Commissioner, but also from the Squadra Mobile, where, unusually for the time of day, a number of young reporters were prowling the corridors, hoping to catch someone out in an indiscretion that might provide them with a scoop. They may be only small vultures, but they were no less dangerous for that, and it was best to keep them at a greater distance than usual. Ferrara knew them well and did what he could to avoid them.

  The owner of the villa, Enrico Costanza, seventy-five years old, had been a senator under several governments. He had also been a Freemason. That much everyone knew, at least in Florence, so no one had been surprised when his name had featured on the membership list of a secret lodge that had been discovered at the start of the eighties in a well-known Tuscan villa by some Milanese prosecutors. A powerful lodge, whose members also included other highly influential political figures. A lodge that had used its power without ever exposing itself to the gaze of publicity.

  Holed up in his office, Ferrara was writing a press release containing just the basic information. Only the victims’ names and the briefest description of how they had been killed. No details of the search of the villa, which was still ongoing, or the results of the initial tests, which in any case were covered by confidentiality rules. He was sure the journalists would be disappointed, but he was trying to buy a bit of time. He could always fob them off with a few new details without compromising the investigation. It was a tactic that had proved useful in the past.

  When he had finished, he called in his secretary, Nestore Fanti, who was working in the adjoining office and to whom he had diverted his phone calls. The dividing door between their offices was almost always open.

  As always, Sergeant Fanti, tall, disconcertingly thin, with wiry blond hair, materialised immediately. He had been born in Trento, but had been assigned to Florence immediately after joining the police and had never moved on. An IT fanatic, he distinguished himself by his precision and discretion and by his accurate research, both in police records and online. It was these qualities that had prompted Ferrara to choose him as his personal secretary.

  ‘You called, Chief Superintendent?’

  Ferrara gave him the sheet of paper, a few lines printed out from the computer. ‘Fax this to the press agencies, the local television channels and the newspapers.’

  ‘Right away, chief,’ Fanti said, heading straight back to his own office.

  It was now almost five in the afternoon and the crime scene was starting to empty.

  Some officers set off back to Headquarters with material gathered from the scene. Others stayed in the area to help with the search for evidence and useful information. Others still would check the places where drug dealers hung out to see what they could dig up. Soon the only things left in the parking area were paper napkins, cigarette ends and empty polystyrene cups stained with coffee.

  The last to leave were Francesco Rizzo and Teresa Micalizi.

  It was still very hot, and as soon as they left the villa they were hit by a wave of heat. Their car had spent the whole day in the boiling sun and when they got in they felt as if they were in an oven. The air-conditioning was not working. They lowered the windows, but the air that came in was even hotter.

  As they drove through the gates, they were filmed by a couple of cameramen from Tuscan television. The crews had been there for several hours, waiting patiently to grab a few images for the evening news.

  After a mile or two, they both noticed a terrible country smell.

  ‘What a stench!’ Teresa exclaimed. Her cotton T-shirt clung to her body and she could feel the sweat trickling down her chest. She took a tissue out of her bag and dabbed her neck. She ordered the driver to go faster, and he obeyed without a thought for the thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit or the watching speed cameras, which, according to the rumours doing the rounds of the piazzas and cafés, had been installed so that the fines could help bring the local municipalities’ budgets back into the black. These cameras had been springing up like fungus all over the place, not just in Tuscany, and some had been confiscated by court order because they had not been correctly calibrated.

  ‘It’s just bullshit,’ Rizzo said. Just like the shit he and Ferrara were knee-deep in, he thought. They had to solve this thing as quickly as they could.

  Teresa recognised her straight away: the blonde policewoman who had been at Costanza’s villa. She was waiting for Teresa in front of her office door, holding several sheets of paper in her right hand.

  ‘I’ve brought you my chief’s duty reports on the operation this morning, but there’s something else I’d like to ask you. Can I talk to you for a minute, Superintendent? I’ll only take a moment of your time.’

  ‘Please come in.’

  The policewoman followed her in and stopped in front of the desk.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, sit down.’

  ‘Thank you.’<
br />
  ‘So, what did you want?’

  The young woman hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘I’d like to work with the Squadra Mobile, if possible with you. I was actually wondering if you needed reinforcements after what’s happened.’

  ‘You mean the double murder?’

  ‘Yes. It would be a chance for me to learn. This morning was the first time I’d been present at a murder scene, so I’d like to know what happens next, how the investigation develops, how you track down the culprit, how —’

  ‘What happens next,’ Teresa interrupted her, ‘is that you have to work like a donkey, give up your private life, your friends, your family, and sometimes you don’t get anywhere in the end. Sometimes it’s all for nothing.’

  But these words did nothing to discourage the young officer. ‘I’d guessed that much, Superintendent, but I joined the police because I believe in this job and I’m prepared to make sacrifices.’

  ‘But you don’t have any experience,’ Teresa replied. ‘You still need to learn the ropes. You need to know the area really well, the places, the people.’

  ‘I know that, but I’m good at collating reports, classifying papers, doing research online and in records. I’d like to help out and learn more about investigative methods first-hand. I’m in my second year studying law, and after I graduate I want to take the exam to become either a superintendent or a prosecutor.’

  Teresa shifted some papers on her desk as she thought about it. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll talk to Ferrara about it. But tell me, why did you ask me instead of going directly to him?’

  ‘The Chief Superintendent is always really busy and I didn’t want to disturb him. Plus, I thought you might understand me better.’

  The girl didn’t know how helpful the Chief Superintendent could be, Teresa thought.

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said, holding out her hand.

  ‘Thank you for whatever you’re able to do,’ the young officer said. She was about to leave when Teresa called her back.

  ‘You haven’t told me your name.’

  ‘Alessandra Belli, member of the Auto Unit since the first of March 2004.’

  Teresa made a note of her details on a sheet of paper.

  12

  7.15 p.m. Chief Superintendent Ferrara’s office

  They knocked at the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Francesco Rizzo and Teresa Micalizi entered.

  Ferrara motioned to them to sit down. ‘Any developments?’

  ‘A few,’ Rizzo replied, settling himself in one of the two black chairs in front of the desk. Teresa had already taken her seat in the other, visibly tired. Her beautiful face, which usually turned heads, looked drawn, and her eyes had lost their normal sparkle.

  After attending the Police Academy in Rome, she had been assigned to Headquarters in Florence, and on her first introduction to real investigative work had immediately distinguished herself by her insight and intelligence. She had soon realised that the Squadra Mobile was not actually what some of her female colleagues had told her it was: an old boys’ club where we’re seen as intruders.

  No, she had been made welcome and had gone straight into Ferrara’s good books. He recognised that she had the potential to become an excellent detective, and he wasn’t usually wrong about things like that. Keep doing what you’re doing, you’ve got what it takes, he had told her on more than one occasion, making her break out in goose pimples.

  ‘So, Francesco, what’s new?’

  Consulting his notes, Rizzo summarised the outcome of the forensic examination and the search of the property. Only two bullet casings – from a 7.65 calibre pistol – had been found in the villa, one on the floor of the study, to the right of whoever had been sitting at the desk, the other in the corridor near the study door.

  ‘Have they found any bullets?’ Ferrara asked.

  ‘Only one, in the corridor. Forensics suspect it’s too twisted to be any use for making comparisons. It was crushed when it hit the wall.’

  ‘What about the time of death?’

  ‘Leone thinks it was the early hours of this morning, but he said he’d give us a more definite answer after the post-mortem, which he’ll do tomorrow. He’ll also let you know his hypothesis about the bullet’s trajectory —’

  At that moment, someone knocked twice, sharply, at the door. It was the sentry from the guardhouse downstairs.

  ‘The butler’s wife is here, Chief Superintendent,’ he announced.

  ‘So, she’s turned up at last. Put her in the waiting room. We’ll call her in a few minutes.’

  ‘What have you found apart from the cocaine?’ Ferrara asked Rizzo once the door had closed again. Rizzo explained that they had searched everywhere and taken away a great deal of paperwork – bank and financial documents – as well as correspondence, diaries, CDs, DVDs, videotapes and a computer.

  ‘Have you checked the computer?’ Ferrara asked.

  ‘Not yet. We’ll do it as soon as we can.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘We found the key to a safe-deposit box at the Florentine Savings Bank,’ Rizzo replied, then corrected himself, ‘Actually, Micalizi found it.’

  ‘It was in the desk drawer in the study,’ Teresa said, ‘along with a copy of the contract.’

  ‘And what about the person who called 113? What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing useful, chief,’ Rizzo said. ‘He was the victim’s driver. He told us he’d gone to pick him up at seven on the dot, because that was the time Costanza had specified the previous day. He made it clear, though, that he didn’t know where he was supposed to be taking him. He didn’t notice anything strange when he arrived. He hadn’t noticed anything in the previous few days either. He has absolutely no idea what the motive for the crime might be.’

  ‘Who questioned him?’

  ‘Inspector Venturi.’

  ‘Good.’

  Ferrara had great respect for the scrupulous, patient Riccardo Venturi, a walking encyclopedia of the unit’s history as well as an IT wizard. Like his other colleagues, he spent more time at work than with his family.

  Ferrara was ready to give his instructions.

  Rizzo would check out the safe-deposit box and coordinate the investigation, especially the interviews with the immediate families, relatives and friends of the victims, who would have to be grilled thoroughly if they were going to get at the truth.

  Teresa would work alongside Venturi, going through the material removed from the villa.

  For his part, Ferrara would go to the prison the next morning for an interview.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you to keep me updated,’ he said as he got up from his chair. ‘Francesco, you take care of the butler’s wife. We’ll need to get her to identify the body too.’

  Rizzo nodded, and was about to leave the room when Ferrara called him back.

  ‘What’s up, chief?’

  ‘A team from the SCO are coming from Rome along with an inspector. I want you to deal with them tomorrow. Take them to Costanza’s villa, then give them any jobs that need doing, working alongside some of our men. Do you understand?’

  The involvement of the SCO, the Central Operational Service, the pride of the State Police, consisting of investigators of proven experience – in theory, the best there were – was a clear sign that the case was making waves in the upper echelons in Rome.

  Rizzo merely said, ‘OK,’ a smile playing on his lips.

  Ferrara glanced at his watch. It was time to go home.

  He put the papers on his desk in order and closed up the office. At last he was ready to leave Headquarters, mentally exhausted. As soon as he crossed the threshold of his apartment, he would put all thoughts of work aside. He wanted to devote himself to Petra alone.

  It was a special occasion; one he would not miss for the world.

  What a thankless job awaited Rizzo!

  As a police officer, it fell to him to inform the butler’s wife
of her husband’s death.

  It was a task that, as with many of his colleagues, he was still not accustomed to. And having to accompany a victim’s relative when he or she identified the body was just as bad.

  Luis Rodriguez’s wife had rushed back to Florence from the village in the Veneto where she had been visiting her sister. When the officer from Headquarters in Venice had gone to find her, he had told her only that she needed to present herself to the Florence police as a matter of urgency on a family matter.