Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  “Only if you’ve got a headache.”

  With a weary smile she handed over the key. “I’ve got a headache.”

  Trotti opened the passenger door for her. He then opened the driver’s seat door and climbed in beside her. The car was ludicrously small and their shoulders were touching.

  Sitting beside him wrapped up in her fur coat, Signora Scola was almost as tall as Trotti. “Where are you going?” she asked. She did not look at him.

  “To interview Signora Quarenghi.”

  “I really don’t understand you.” She was peering through the misted windshield, staring at the corrugated metal billboards at the tower’s base. “It was you, Piero, who called me in to help with the Barnardi child. You wanted me in the Questura working for you.”

  “Of course I wanted you.”

  “It was you who was so interested in the setting up of a team. But now that it looks as if you’ve finally created something viable, you no longer care.”

  “Of course I care.”

  “The Questore’s offering you what you always wanted, Piero.”

  “I think it’s time for me to retire gracefully. Don’t you?”

  “You show no interest at all in Priscilla.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “You were interested in earlier cases.”

  “You’ve done good work, signora.”

  “You were genuinely interested. That was before.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Now I never see you.” Her face softened. “Priscilla’s a lovely child and she needs help. Your help, Piero, just as much as mine.” She turned to face him. “The help of a man.”

  47: Abuse

  “THE BEST COME from Alba in Piemonte. They’re worth their weight in gold.”

  “How much, Piero?”

  “Nearly five million lire for a kilo.”

  “That’s why you’re going to keep pigs?”

  “And like gold you’ve got to know where to look. Even with the best pig, you can spend your time looking and end up finding absolutely nothing.”

  “Why don’t you grow your own truffles?”

  “The life cycle is twelve years at least. I can start now and be a rich man in my coffin.”

  Signora Scola clicked her tongue angrily. “I really don’t understand why you talk about death all the time.” She had not removed her sunglasses and she had to raise her voice over the noise of the straining Fiat engine. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Piero. You look wonderful for your age.”

  “A balding dinosaur.”

  “You’ve been watching too many American films. A bit of exercise and perhaps a change in wardrobe—you’d look very good. You just need a woman to look after you.”

  “Change in wardrobe? My daughter bought this coat for me. It cost a fortune.”

  Signora Scola turned away. They had reached the edge of the city. The sun was shining out of a blue sky, on to the brown flatness of the rice fields. “You look marvelous and there are a lot of women who’d like to spend time with you.” She added, still staring out of the car window, “You never told me about that woman at your house.”

  “Two kinds of truffle. What we normally eat is tuber borchii which is a lot less expensive than tuber magnatum. There’s a difference in price but it’s not always possible to identify the difference just by taste. There are researchers in the university who’ve been working on a fast genetic identification for some time. Precisely what Anti Sofisticazione need.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Piero.”

  “Restaurants charge exorbitant prices for tuber borchii. And there are people gullible enough to pay. It’s like baccalà. North Sea cod, food of the poor. And now Italians think it’s five-star food and are willing to pay absurd prices.” Trotti smiled to himself. “What’s really needed’s a way of identifying the mycorrhizae before you spend twelve years growing them. At the moment, you’ve got to wait ten years.”

  “Who was the woman, Piero?”

  “Woman?”

  “When I phoned the other day?”

  “You mean my cousin?”

  Signora Scola gave a cold, unbelieving laugh. “I really don’t understand you, Piero.”

  He took his eyes from the road. “Did I ever ask you to understand me?”

  “There was a time when you were desperate for my help. Now you don’t care.”

  Piero Trotti frowned. “I don’t understand why you say that.”

  “It was you that called me in on your child abuse undertaking. And now you don’t care—either about the children or about me. I thought we were friends.”

  “There never was any child abuse undertaking. The rape of a fourteen year old. Later a couple of other cases turned up. So I called in the help of the professionals. People like you.”

  “You’re not even interested in Priscilla, are you?”

  “I know you’re doing good work, Signora Scola. I have a lot of faith in you.”

  Beyond the fields they could see the new extension to the university, rising like a modern cathedral from above the leafless plane trees.

  Trotti spoke softly—as softly as the whining motor allowed. “Tell me about Priscilla.”

  “Not much to say.”

  “Then tell me.”

  A quick, uncertain look at Trotti.

  “Please, Simona.” His hand touched her elbow.

  “One day the mother went out and when she got back into the house, the poor child was screaming. There was blood round the anus.”

  “Why did the mother go out, leaving the child unattended?”

  “The grandmother was there.” Signora Scola added, “They live in an old building where there are two or three different families under the same roof—or at least around the inner courtyard. The hospital thinks the brother-in-law’d been touching Priscilla even before that. But there’s no proof. No proof—other than the child hates to be anywhere near him. He’s a truck driver—like the husband—and sometimes he sleeps next door. In the grandmother’s part of the house.”

  “There are other possible molesters?”

  “They live in Esine.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a small village in the Val Camonica. Province of Brescia. About twenty kilometers north of Lake Iseo, with virtually everybody working in the steel industry. A lot of family businesses, but, like everybody else, they’ve been hit by the recession. A lot of the time the father and the uncle are out of work.”

  “There are other possible molesters?”

  “Hard to say. Initially the mother didn’t want to lodge any complaint at all—which implies she knew what was going on. But the people at the hospital in Lovere contacted the Carabinieri.” Signora Scola caught her breath. “The mother had come home and found the child covered in feces and blood. She managed to get the brother-in-law to drive her, Priscilla and the grandmother to the hospital. Of course, he’s not really the brother-in-law because the woman isn’t married.” Again she breathed deeply. “There’s even some doubt whether her boyfriend is Priscilla’s real father.”

  “What do the doctors think?”

  “Priscilla was in a terrible state—a torn rectum, gaping sphincter.”

  “The grandmother had heard nothing?”

  Signora Scola shook her head solemnly. “Once inside the hospital, Priscilla didn’t stop screaming for hours.”

  “No semen on the child’s bed?”

  Signora Scola did not reply.

  Trotti repeated his question. “Didn’t the rapist leave anything? Even fingerprints?”

  “The mother cleaned everything. And burned the bedsheets. By the time the Carabinieri were called in—it was the doctor at Lovere who lodged the complaint—the mother had managed to get back to Esine.”

  “Why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Piero.”

  “You think you can get the child to tell you the truth?”

  “Brescia’s sent the little girl to San Matteo. Both mother
and daughter are staying at the hospital. Problem is, there’s nowhere for them to sleep. There’s a small room in Pediatria but it’s not adequate, little better than a cubbyhole.” She tapped his arm lightly. “Piero, there are a lot of people who know about the work we’ve been doing.”

  “What makes you think Priscilla will tell you who touched her?”

  “It’s happened before. You saw that with the Alda child.”

  “Alda was a lot older.”

  “Eventually it has to come out.”

  “Then why hasn’t Priscilla told her mother?”

  “I don’t think Priscilla really trusts her mother.”

  “Why not?”

  “The hospital at Lovere started the official inquiry. Not the mother.”

  “The mother brought her child to the hospital.”

  “Not much choice. The poor thing was bleeding badly. But the mother didn’t want to press charges. Children are sensitive. They’re sensitive to affection, they know whether they’re being protected or not. Perhaps Priscilla can feel her mother is trying to protect somebody else.”

  “Why would the mother want to save the brother-in-law’s skin?”

  “It seems incredible—but then I’ve never had a child of my own.”

  “Why not, Simona?”

  “I find it hard to understand how a mother can put anything above the interests of her child.”

  “Time you had a child of your own.” Trotti took his hand from the steering wheel and fleetingly touched her arm. “Your husband would be only too delighted.”

  Signora Scola took a deep breath. “You really should accept the Questore’s offer.”

  “A trip to Venezuela?”

  “If you took on the child abuse center the Questore’s trying to start up, Piero, there’s just so much we could do.” She held her hand up preemptively. “I know, I know. You must worry about your pigs and your truffles.”

  Trotti hushed her, putting a finger to his smiling lips. “Don’t mention truffles to anybody.”

  “But perhaps you could do both.”

  “I don’t want to work for the Questore.”

  He turned left and the car came to a halt outside an iron gate that opened on to a small estate of expensive, low houses hidden among the plane and cypress trees.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not with a child abuse center and with Piero Trotti that the Questore’s going to buy himself a clean slate now that the Socialists are out of power.”

  “You don’t care about the children?”

  “I don’t care about the Questore.”

  “And the little Priscilla? You don’t care about her?”

  “Time I started thinking about myself.”

  “You don’t care about me, Piero?”

  “I don’t want to stay on in the Questura. It’s as simple as that, Simona.”

  48: Quarenghi

  “COMMISSARIO TROTTI OF the Polizia di Stato.”

  A young maid answered the door. She was black and spoke with a French accent. “The signora’s expecting you.” She beckoned Trotti and Signora Scola to follow her and took them into the house. The maid was very small and the tight waist of her blue work-blouse accentuated her ample hips. The shining skin of her calves was marked with dark blemishes.

  Signora Quarenghi was waiting in the large lounge.

  The maid said something in French and then vanished.

  Signora Quarenghi stood up and held out her hand. “I was expecting you.” A hint of dramatic resignation in her voice. She wore a short skirt.

  “Commissario Trotti,” Trotti said and gesturing to Signora Scola, added, “My assistant.”

  “Very attractive young women in the Polizia di Stato nowadays.”

  “We like to keep up with the times.”

  “Of course, of course.” The eyes watched Simona Scola coldly. “A commissario—well, that does make a change.”

  Signora Quarenghi was in her early forties. She had no doubt once been an attractive woman, with blue eyes and blonde hair, but the hair had lost its texture and her eyes appeared tired. Her skin had aged, as if from too much exposure to the sun. There were lines around her large mouth. Lipstick had been applied haphazardly and scarcely followed its natural ridges. There was blonde hair along the upper lip.

  “I won’t waste your time, signora.”

  “I’ve already wasted enough time in these last thirteen months. I really don’t see how a new inquiry is going to change anything. Carlo’s dead and, anyway, you know who’s guilty.”

  “Guilty?”

  “You know as well as I do who murdered poor Carlo.”

  Trotti gave her a bland smile. “I’ve absolutely no idea who murdered Carlo Turellini.”

  She was not wearing a brassiere. She had put on a powder-blue sweater over a flat chest. The nipples pushed against the woolen weave. Beneath the short skirt, the tights had a bright harlequin pattern of greens and reds. Narrow hips that managed to give her a boyish look. A loose blue scarf was tied at the neck in an attempt to hide the premature wrinkling. Several rings on her fingers and large plastic earrings. “Then you are wasting my time. Goodness knows why you never arrested her.”

  “Her?”

  “That awful Englishwoman.”

  Commissario Trotti smiled. “Would you mind if we sat down?”

  With a broad gesture, she invited Trotti and Signora Scola to use the vast Chesterfield.

  The room was large, decorated in Spanish hacienda style. The furniture was of black wood and there were various ornaments to suggest that the proprietor raised cattle—rough-hewn yokes and wheels with wooden spokes.

  A cellular telephone lay on the piano, near a pile of telephone directories. In a far corner stood a beige computer with its satellite printers and matching accessories.

  The room would have been somber but for the daylight coming through the large French windows. Beyond the windows was a garden with a hedge of cypress trees. The hedge gave on to the flat rice fields.

  “Signora Quarenghi, do you know Signor Bassi?”

  “Bassi?” She shook her head. “It’s not about Carlo you’ve come to see me?”

  “Do you know Fabrizio Bassi?”

  “I know some Bassis—but not in this city.”

  “A private detective. I believe you spoke to him.”

  “Ah!” She smiled with recollection. “You mean that strange man who left his tie undone.”

  Trotti nodded.

  “Like some character on television. Or Umberto Bossi of the Lega Lombarda. Yes, I met him.” An amused curving of her lips. “A friend of yours?”

  “Fabrizio Bassi was a private detective who used to be a policeman.”

  “Why do you mention him? He was, you say. He’s dead?”

  “Bassi was making an inquiry into Carlo Turellini’s death.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Please answer the question.”

  Another cold glance at Signora Scola as the woman tried to recollect. “It must have been some time after Carlo’s death. He came to see me.” She raised her thin shoulders. “I’m afraid I got the impression he was somebody in from the fields. A nice man—but not terribly intelligent. Bit of a peasant.”

  “He asked you a few questions?”

  “You all do.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “The same questions that everybody else asks.”

  “When did you last see Fabrizio Bassi?”

  She thought for a moment before replying. “I saw him twice. The first time soon after Carlo’s death. Then he came back six, seven months later. The second time I let him in and he told me he was working for the old woman.”

  “What old woman?”

  “Carlo’s ex-wife.” A movement of her hand. “The man was sitting where you’re sitting now and he asked all sorts of stupid questions about me and Carlo, about me and my husband. Worse tha
n the police and all the time he was playing a little recorder to get my answers on tape.”

  “You never saw him again?”

  “Like the police, he wanted to know why I was in the vicinity of Carlo’s place at Segrate when Carlo was murdered …”

  “Why were you in the vicinity of Carlo Turellini’s place when he was shot?”

  “I see you’re no more imaginative than all the others.”

  “Kindly answer my question.”

  Signora Quarenghi lowered herself into the leather armchair opposite. Beside the chair was a potted rubber plant. The woman sat with her back to the French windows and her face in the shade. Girlishly she brought her legs up beneath her thighs. “I had a premonition.”

  “Premonition?”

  “That’s what I told the police. I may be a stupid woman—a lot of people tell me so, not least my dear, dear husband—but I believe in premonitions. I dreamt Carlo was going to be murdered—and I tried to help him.”

  “Too late.”

  She nodded. She placed a thin hand on her thigh. There was an ashtray on the arm of the chair.

  “Why did you accuse your husband of Dr. Turellini’s murder?”

  “At the time …”

  “Yes?”

  “At the time, I thought …” She stopped.

  “What did you think?”

  “I was having problems with my husband. Paolo’s not always a very understanding man. You see, he is quite a bit older than me. He’s an intellectual and he’s not really interested in anything he can’t measure—measure or weigh.”

  “Why did you accuse him?”

  “I was being silly. It was a mistake. I realize that now.”

  “Where is Dr. Quarenghi at the moment?”

  “In Rome,” she said, raising the shoulders of her V-necked sweater. “He has an apartment there. I haven’t seen Paolo for a couple of weeks. He often has to go to the ministry for weeks on end.”

  “You don’t have any children?”

  She shook her head, and then looked carefully at Signora Scola who was sitting beside Trotti taking notes on a pad. Signora Scola did not return the glance.

  “Why did you accuse your husband, Signora Quarenghi?”

  “Paolo knew about me and Carlo. Of course, the affair had been over for some time. By then Carlo had found someone younger and more beautiful and more stupid—a foreigner. But you can’t imagine how jealous my husband is. He found a letter—that was the evening I had the terrible dream.”