Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  (In the first months of Pioppi’s pregnancy, Nando had suggested their taking a holiday together in England, Trotti had turned the invitation down. He preferred to spend his free time in the OltrePò. Or at the Villa Ondina on the lake.)

  “I suppose it’s about Carlo.” Signora Coddrington ran the back of her hand across her forehead. It was a feminine gesture. Sitting less than a meter away from her, Trotti could smell her perfume.

  She was pretty, of course, just as Signora Luciana Lucchi must have been pretty twenty years earlier. Turellini had been a powerful doctor and was able to surround himself with all the tangible signs of the good life, including beautiful women.

  “I’ve got ten minutes before the next lesson—an Alitalia class of trainee stewards and hostesses.” An amused laugh, engagingly spontaneous. “The beautiful hostesses all look longingly at the stewards and the gorgeous stewards all look longingly at each other.” She giggled and Trotti enjoyed watching the movement of her mouth. “I suppose in this life, we can never get what we really want.”

  “You were happy with Dr. Turellini, signora?”

  The laughter vanished from her eyes. “He’s dead.”

  “You don’t answer my question.”

  “Was I happy with Carlo?”

  Trotti nodded, curious to know the answer. Pisanelli sat beside him like a dutiful schoolboy. Both men kept their eyes on the pleasant, even features of the teacher.

  “We spent two very happy years together. I was twenty-nine when I met him and I was trying to get over … to get over a rather miserable experience. Carlo was gentle and I needed a lot of gentleness. I’d been rather badly bruised. I’m afraid and that’s why I decided to leave London.”

  “Where did you meet him?”

  She smiled at the walls, at the posters. “I met him here. Carlo was going to America and he needed a quick course in English.” She paused. “I know this sounds silly, but it was love at first sight. He was twenty-four years older than me. And the first time we met—he took me to a Japanese restaurant—I realized he was the man I’d always been looking for.” The white teeth nibbled nervously at the lower lip. “And I wasn’t completely wrong about a man. For once.”

  “You moved in with him?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with you.”

  “He was living in his villa in Segrate and you moved in with him. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  The door opened and an Asian man with glasses pushed his head through the gap. She smiled and said something in English. The head nodded and disappeared.

  “Like me, Carlo had made a lot of mistakes. He needed female company—but often he went for the wrong sort of woman. In a way, Carlo lived off conflict and he liked the company of domineering women. But that’s not what he needed.”

  “What did Turellini need?”

  “Me,” the Englishwoman said simply.

  “Why?”

  “He needed understanding.” She nodded. “Companionship. Complicity.”

  “That’s what you gave him?”

  “Carlo always gave me a lot more than I could ever give him.” She added, “In a way, I knew it couldn’t last.”

  Trotti wondered fleetingly whether she would cry. Instead she smiled, almost happily. “It was just when I’d persuaded him that we could have children, that he wasn’t too old and that he wouldn’t be making a mistake, that he’d be making me very happy—it was then Carlo had to get killed.”

  The door opened and closed again. Pisanelli got up and turned the key, and then stood with his back against the door.

  “It was all planned. We were going to spend Christmas at Cortina d’Ampezzo and I was going to get pregnant.” Her hand went to her belly. “It was then she had to kill him.”

  “Who?”

  “She couldn’t bear to see his happiness. That scheming, aristocratic woman couldn’t bear to see I was able to give Carlo something that she was quite incapable of.”

  “Who?”

  “She always said he’d married her for her money and perhaps she was right. She and that awful daughter—they hated me. Luciana Lucchi’s a monster, her daughter’s a monster and together they would rather have seen Carlo dead than see him happy with a woman half his age.” Signora Coddrington raised her shoulders and looked Trotti squarely in the face. “The silly English girl and the Italian doctor. May and September, it was like some stupid fotoromanzo and we were happy. Both of us—we thought happiness had passed us by a long time ago. Yet this was the new deal. Better, more intense, more beautiful than anything either of us had ever expected. More beautiful than we deserved.” The romantic Englishwoman momentarily lost her self-control. “That’s why she had him murdered in cold blood. And only in this wretched, medieval country could the bitch still be walking free.”

  39: Motives

  “PERHAPS YOU’RE RIGHT, signora.”

  Somebody tapped lightly on the door, but the sound was muffled by Pisanelli, who was still leaning against it.

  “Right in what way?”

  “Signora Corr …” Trotti could not pronounce the foreign name. “Perhaps this is a medieval country. As you can see for yourself, it’s only now we Italians are learning the meaning of democracy. But, even here, there are rules we have to obey.”

  “I never noticed.” Her smile was amused. “What rules?”

  “There’d appear to be no reason for Signora Lucchi’s being in prison. Even in this medieval country, the police have to have proof.”

  “She murdered him,” the Englishwoman stated.

  “Why?”

  “She was jealous.”

  “Signora Lucchi and her husband divorced more than ten years ago. If she was jealous, it must have been a long time ago. Between the time the Turellinis broke up and the time Carlo Turellini was living with you a lot of water had run under the bridge. You don’t think she’d accepted the inevitable?”

  “It was for her daughter. For Carla Turellini.”

  “What about her, signora?”

  “The old woman was frightened Carla Turellini was going to be left out of the will.”

  “You just told me Signora Lucchi had a lot of money.”

  “Which didn’t stop her from wanting more. For herself and for her daughter.”

  “You know about the will?”

  “Carla was generously provided for. She made sure of that. She’d spent enough time buzzing round her father, trying to be his confidante, his secretary and his conscience. She even told him she was delighted to see him happy again.” The Englishwoman nodded her head. “She told her father she’d nothing against our marriage.”

  “You were going to marry him?”

  A distant smile. “Marry him, get pregnant and have his children.”

  There was more knocking at the door. The sound of muffled voices, both male and female.

  “And you, signora?” Pisanelli asked. He looked tired and his eyes were bloodshot.

  She moved her head. She propped her body with her hand against the desktop. Her chin now touched her shoulder. The position gave her an innocent, demure air. “What about me?”

  “In the will?”

  “It’s yet to be applied.”

  “What do you get?”

  “More than enough.”

  Pisanelli raised his eyebrows.

  “The house in Segrate and a lot more.” She shook her head. “Don’t think for a minute I wanted Carlo dead.” Her glance went back to Trotti. “Carlo was a lot older than me—but that’s what I needed. Someone to look after me and someone I could care for.” She breathed deeply. “And now I have nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing but memories.”

  Trotti asked, “You’re sure Turellini was killed by his ex-wife?”

  “As sure as anyone can be.”

  “Carlo Turellini had enemies.”

  “Of course.”

  “Enemies within the medical world. People who were jealous of him.”

  “Carlo wanted
the professorship at the university. He ran for it in 1991, but as you know, he failed. The cards were stacked against him. A lot of people didn’t like him.”

  “He was interested in power?”

  “He wasn’t interested in politics. He’d dabbled a bit with the Destra Nazionale. Carlo was interested in his job. That’s why he wanted to run the new university clinic.”

  “Why?”

  “Everybody agreed Carlo was competent. Even his enemies. If he were to become director of the Sant’Eusebio, he would have been a thorn in the flesh for several colleagues and rivals who coveted the post.”

  “There were people who wanted him dead?”

  “Dead?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Out of the way, perhaps—but not dead.”

  The thumping was now imperious. Someone was shouting.

  “Signora, did you meet Fabrizio Bassi?”

  “Who?”

  “A private detective—Fabrizio Bassi.”

  “You mean the man who never straightens his tie?” She smiled. “A couple of times. He was working for the Turellini woman, wasn’t he? Why do you ask?”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Louder banging.

  She raised her shoulders, “A year ago—perhaps even more.” A shrug of exaggerated nonchalance.

  More hammering outside. Trotti nodded and Pisanelli turned the key and opened the door.

  It was already evening on a cold December night in Milan, yet Magagna was wearing his American sunglasses.

  “Ciao, Pisa,” he grinned happily. “You’re with the old man?”

  40: Magagna

  “MY WIFE.”

  They sat in the car while the engine softly hummed, allowing the heater to warm the cold air. Occasionally a taxi hooted but Magagna ignored it. The right wheels of the Alfa were up on the curb and the taxi drivers had only to look more carefully at the registration plate.

  “What about your wife?”

  “She said you’d rung, commissario. Not often you come to Milan.”

  Pisanelli sat in the back. He started to light a cigarette but Magagna told him to put it out.

  Pisanelli spoke in an aggrieved voice. “You smoke.”

  Magagna shook his head. “Not in the car.”

  Trotti asked, “When did you get back from Turin?”

  Magagna seemed puzzled. “I was at Segrate.”

  “Your wife said you were in Turin.” Trotti added, “She calls you Gabri.”

  “After Gabriele d’Annunzio,” Magagna replied, emphasizing the Pescara accent that had almost disappeared beneath the Milan overlay.

  “Did you find out about Turellini?”

  “What exactly did you want to know, commissario?” Magagna had pushed the sunglasses up on to his forehead and he looked through the windshield as he rubbed his eyes with his balled hands.

  Advertisements for the wax museum blinked in neon.

  They were parked in the forecourt of the Stazione Centrale, between the Fascist façade and the station. Only the central escalators were now working, carrying people up to the main platforms. The rush hour was over and most commuters had already returned to the suburbs or the villages of the Milan hinterland.

  “Very helpful.”

  “Nothing from the Palazzo di Giustizia.” Magagna turned to face Trotti. “There are several floors that are virtually impenetrable to the rest of the human race. And since the bombs in Rome and Florence they’ve increased security.”

  “What about the judge? About Abete?”

  “You want me to go into Abete’s office with a spy camera? Force the locks on his filing cabinets? Is that what you want?”

  Either Pisanelli was sulking or he had fallen asleep.

  “I want to know why Bassi was warned off the Turellini case. And I want you to help me, Gabri.”

  “Nobody likes private detectives.”

  “Not everybody murders them.” Trotti paused, catching his breath. “Pisa pulled me out of bed this morning and took me to where Bassi had been murdered.”

  The aviator sunglasses slipped from his forehead back on to Magagna’s nose. “Murdered?”

  “A bullet in the head and the body dumped in a tributary of the Lambro outside Melegnano. Where he was found by Milan Pollution Control unit.”

  “How did Pisa find out?” Magagna gestured to the back seat where Pisanelli had started to snore.

  “Over the radio.”

  Magagna lowered his voice. “That’s why you’re getting Pisanelli to run you about Milan? Running you about when he works for Omicidi?”

  Trotti shrugged. “He likes helping me, Gabri.”

  “Never seen him look so haggard. And he doesn’t have a wife at home nagging him.”

  “Pisa seems to think I’m the reason he’s not married.”

  “Why do you think I left the city to come to Milan? And please don’t call me Gabri.”

  Trotti made a movement of irritation. “You’ve got nothing from Abete?”

  “Tighter than a rat’s arse.”

  “Why come looking for me in the English school?”

  “You make me feel so loved, commissario. I could’ve gone straight home to Sesto, you know, to my wife and my children and instead I chose to come into the center of the city, just to be insulted by you.”

  “What were you doing at Segrate?”

  “I spoke with Gamberi.”

  Trotti frowned and from behind the Alfa came a sudden, brief blare of a hooter as a yellow taxi pulled out. A screech of tires.

  “Gamberi’s been at Segrate for more than four years. There at the time of the murder. He got to Turellini’s place some twenty minutes after the killing.” Magagna grinned. “The Englishwoman’s okay, isn’t she? Nice solid chassis.”

  “Signora Coddrington?” Trotti said, pronouncing the name with difficulty. “You saw her, Magagna?”

  “Not really. She didn’t speak to me.”

  “You’re a married man. Why do you need to look at other women?”

  “You don’t look at women?”

  Trotti raised a shoulder. “I put my desires to sleep a long time ago.”

  “Yet you still eat those terrible sweets.”

  “I’m entitled to some pleasure in life.”

  Pisanelli grunted in the back seat. He was gently snoring through his nose.

  On the other side of the road, opposite the station, the double arch of the McDonald’s neon sign lit up its share of the Milan sky.

  “I don’t ask much of life—just sweets and giving Pisa a hard time.”

  “You and Pisa …” Magagna smiled. “You’re like a married couple.”

  “Heaven forbid.”

  “You could do worse, Commissario Trotti.”

  “I haven’t got the transvestite nipples that you get so excited over.”

  “Not doing enough to impress me,” Magagna laughed. Then the smile vanished. “Gamberi considered her a potential suspect at one point.”

  “Who?”

  “The Englishwoman.” Magagna adjusted the sunglasses and Trotti wondered how he could see anything through the dark lenses. “The Carabinieri and Abete now seem to favor money as a motive. Perhaps a disgruntled colleague or rival of Turellini’s at the university.”

  “That’s what Bassi thought. But Turellini led an active sex life. There were a lot of women.”

  “Gamberi maintains the sexual thing doesn’t hold water.”

  “Cherchez la femme.”

  “The dialect of the OltrePò? Your poor chickens.”

  “Look for the woman. It’s French.”

  “What woman?” Magagna shook his head. “There are three possible suspects—but none had any reason to kill him.”

  “Who told you?”

  “You don’t think Gamberi and his pals are pissed off at seeing their hard work gathering dust in Abete’s office?”

  “What did Gamberi tell you?”

  “Three women, commissario. The Englishwoman you’ve just seen. She
had no reason. There’s proof she’d been trying to have a child. She’d even been on several cures. Endometriosis, I think it’s called. Something to do with the walls of the uterus. Signora Coddrington was already thirty years old. She was desperate to have a baby. You don’t kill off the potential father when you need to get pregnant.” Magagna tapped his thumb. “Too big a drop in the sperm count.”

  Trotti popped a sweet into his mouth.

  “As for the ex-wife …”

  “Signora Lucchi.”

  “Both she and the daughter were accounted for in the will. Perhaps Lucchi was frightened there could be a change in the will. But at the time of the divorce, there was a written agreement over what she and her daughter Carla would get.”

  “I went to see Signora Lucchi this afternoon. She’s rich—one of those bourgeois families living in a big apartment on the via Montenapoleone. She accused Quarenghi.”

  “The doctor’s wife.” Magagna pulled at his index finger. “Signora Quarenghi’s unbalanced. She had once been attractive, according to Gamberi.”

  “Signora Quarenghi was seen near the scene of the crime within half an hour of the murder.”

  “That’s true,” Magagna nodded. “It’s also true she made accusations against her husband. But Dr. Quarenghi was in Rome at a congress at the time of the murder.”

  “He could’ve paid someone to shoot Turellini.”

  “Precisely the direction the Carabinieri inquiry took. According to Gamberi, although they were associates at the clinic, there was no love lost between the two men—Signora Quarenghi had been Turellini’s lover. And Quarenghi, as a Socialist and as a close collaborator at the Ministry of Health, was in a position where his wife had to be above all suspicion.”

  “Why don’t the Carabinieri think it was Signora Quarenghi?”

  “The Carabinieri don’t exclude anybody. They just don’t favor the crime of passion thing. There’s no motive.”

  “Signora Quarenghi was jealous,” Trotti said. “Turellini had been receiving phone calls in the middle of the night. That’s the sort of thing a jealous and unhinged woman might do.”

  “She was taken to the barracks at Segrate and agreed to have the paraffin test. Negative. She hadn’t used a firearm that morning.”

  “Perhaps there’s another woman.”