Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  “I don’t believe you’re guilty of dealing in cocaine, Signor Maluccio.”

  “Who does?”

  Trotti continued, “Bassi came asking me for help and four days later he’s found dead.”

  “Bassi told me you didn’t like him.”

  “I don’t like anybody.”

  “Then why bother about him? And why bother about me?”

  “I don’t like people being murdered.”

  “Go and live in Greenland. And change jobs.”

  “Before I retire to the OltrePò, I want to know who killed Fabrizio Bassi.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Bassi worked for me in 1998.”

  “So what?” Gennaro Maluccio sounded aggrieved.

  “Later he was thrown out of the police on bogus charges. Signor Maluccio, I didn’t particularly like or dislike Fabrizio Bassi.” Trotti raised a hand. “That doesn’t stop me from feeling responsible.”

  “Responsible?”

  Trotti finished his cup of coffee. It wasn’t bad and he liked the tang on the edge of his tongue that the brown sugar and the grappa gave.

  “Why do you expect me to help you, Trotti?”

  Beyond the windows, large, white snowflakes swirled and danced towards the earth. Trotti could see the snow settling on the far walls of the floodlit courtyard.

  “I should’ve stopped them throwing Bassi out of the Questura. Before he ever set up his FBI agency.”

  “Bassi didn’t work for you anymore. You weren’t responsible for him.”

  “The Questore was being manipulated by the mayor in our city. The mayor wanted Bassi out of the way and the Questore had Bassi kicked out of the Questura simply because he’d been having an affair with the mayor’s wife.”

  “Bassi was old enough to know what he was doing.”

  “The Questore and the ex-mayor are both Socialists.”

  “Responsible, Trotti?”

  “Policemen are like everybody else.”

  “You surprise me.”

  “We’re not necessarily worse.”

  “Policemen like power. It’s your drug—the power your job gives you over other people’s lives.”

  “I didn’t enter the PS because I wanted power.”

  “I’d like to believe you.”

  “I’m from the hills.” Trotti gestured to where he imagined the Apennines to be. “An ignorant peasant. The police was a job that accepted any healthy young man. And it offered promotion.” He added softly, “I never went to school beyond the terza media. Until I went to night school at the age of twenty-five.”

  “A check on the twenty-seventh of each month. A check and a good pension.”

  “A job for a poor and ignorant peasant like me.”

  “When peasants get a little power, they’re worse than everybody else.”

  “Long before I went to Bari and the South, I knew what it was like to work an unforgiving land for subsistence.”

  Ugo Rubino momentarily raised his eyes. Small, cold, bloodshot, Mediterranean eyes.

  “I’ve never voted for the Lega Lombarda,” Trotti said. “Unlike the leghisti, I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to go hungry.”

  “A caring policeman?”

  “I also know that when you’re poor you don’t have many choices. Perhaps if I had been able to choose, I wouldn’t have ever joined the Polizia di Stato. Perhaps I’d share your hostility, Signor Maluccio. And perhaps I wouldn’t be here.”

  56: Motta

  GENNARO MALUCCIO NOW appeared more relaxed. Blood had returned to his face and the thin hands had ceased to play with the zip of his tracksuit. “I don’t believe I can be connected with his death.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “Then what did you say, Trotti?”

  “There was something you said.”

  “What about it?”

  “Bassi left you and subsequently spoke with Signora Lucchi’s lawyer. Over the phone Bassi claimed to the lawyer he knew who’d killed Turellini.”

  “And Bassi told the lawyer?”

  “No.” Trotti shook his head. “I believe something you said to him enabled Bassi to identify the killer. Or at least, enabled Bassi to believe he’d identified the killer.”

  “And that’s why he got killed?”

  Trotti gestured with both hands. “Strange he should get killed just as he’d solved a year-old murder.”

  “Perhaps the lawyer killed him.”

  “I don’t think so.” Trotti grinned. “I don’t think Avvocato Regni would’ve killed Bassi.”

  “Why not?”

  “No motive.”

  “Perhaps the lawyer was involved in Turellini’s death.”

  Again Trotti gestured. “And just supposing Avvocato Regni did murder Bassi, he certainly wouldn’t have then told me about the phone call.”

  “Which means I wasn’t the last person to speak to Bassi?”

  “You’re one of the last people to have seen him alive.” Trotti glanced briefly through the window, thinking of Fabrizio Bassi, now a corpse at San Matteo morgue. “I don’t know who else Bassi saw. We think it was from his apartment Bassi phoned Avoccato Regni—but that’s something we’ll check with the SIP. Fabrizio Bassi left you and this prison just after six. He spoke to the lawyer a couple of hours later. He was murdered some time during the next four hours. I don’t even know whether Bassi returned to his apartment in the city or whether he was taken directly to where they shot him.”

  Maluccio seemed to shiver. “Where was Bassi murdered?”

  “Probably at Melegnano where the body was found. We’ll only know for sure after the autopsy.”

  Pisanelli spoke. He had looked up from what he was reading and now said softly, “Bassi’s apartment was broken into, Signor Maluccio. Somebody was looking for something—and most probably found it.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “A letter, a note, a fax—we don’t know.”

  Maluccio frowned.

  “Something that could be hidden between the sheets of a newspaper. Or behind a photograph.”

  “He never mentioned anything to me.”

  “He appeared scared?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Pisanelli continued. “We found an answering machine in Bassi’s place and on it there was a new tape with just one message. An untimed message, unfortunately. A message Bassi never got to hear.”

  “What message?”

  Pisanelli glanced at Trotti who nodded. “A woman’s voice.”

  “Saying?”

  “Saying she was expecting Bassi for twenty-three hours—eleven o’clock—at the agreed place.”

  “That’s all?” Gennaro Maluccio sounded faintly amused.

  “That’s all.” Pisanelli nodded.

  “Whose voice?”

  “No idea.” Pisanelli leaned forward. “Various people were hoping to see Bassi. We believe they wanted to see Bassi because of you.”

  “A good-looking man like Bassi? I imagine there were women who were interested in him. Why d’you think the woman wanting to see him had anything to do with me?”

  “Because Bassi had visited you here.”

  Gennaro Maluccio shook his head. “I find that hard to swallow.”

  Trotti made a movement of irritation. “It’s possible, probable even, there’s some connection between Bassi’s death and your being put in prison on a trumped-up charge. That’s what Bassi thought. So try and help us, Signor Maluccio. Help us find that connection, help us find out why Bassi was killed.”

  Snowflakes now fell against the window, deforming the swirling beams of the prison searchlights.

  “Helping us is your best way of getting out of here.”

  The journalist looked carefully at Trotti. “Why?”

  “You want to get out of here?”

  The journalist snorted. “I’ve been framed and you know that, Trotti. I’ve been framed by the Polizia di Stato and you really expect me to believe Commissario
Trotti’s willing to take on his colleagues? Take on his powerful colleagues just for my sake? For the sake of an insignificant journalist? You may be senile, Trotti, but you’re no Don Quixote.”

  Pisanelli asked, “What exactly did you tell Bassi, Signor Maluccio?”

  Both men were probably of the same age, but Pisanelli, now nearly forty and almost bald, looked badly overworked. He needed rest and there was unreasonable irritation in his voice as he repeated the question. “What did you tell him, Signor Maluccio?”

  Maluccio did not answer.

  “What did you talk to Bassi about?”

  A moment’s hesitation, as the journalist caught his breath. His glance flickered between Trotti and Pisanelli. “It was during the daily visiting hours—half an hour for each prisoner per day—and the visitor has to make a demand in writing at least two days in advance. I was glad to get out of the cell. No bigger than this room and it sleeps six grown men.”

  Pisanelli said, “What did Bassi talk to you about?”

  “The cocaine.”

  “Bassi thought it was a setup?”

  “Of course,” the journalist retorted. “He believed there was a connection with my article on him.”

  Pisanelli asked, “What was the connection?”

  “I told you—I don’t know.”

  A sigh escaped from Trotti as he sat back in his chair. He had found a long-forgotten English toffee in his jacket pocket and was now playing with the wrapper.

  Pisanelli continued. “How long did you and Bassi talk for?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “What sort of questions did he ask you?”

  “He wanted to know what had brought me to Alessandria in the first place. I told him I was doing an article on an apparition of the Virgin Mary to a couple of schoolgirls.” An apologetic smile for Trotti. “Just the kind of thing that gets into Vissuto. Anything that’ll sell the magazine to its ignorant and superstitious readership. The sort of thing to stop my daughters from going hungry.”

  “Simmental corned beef?”

  Maluccio’s smile disappeared as he turned back towards Pisanelli. “I got the impression Bassi was trying to reassure himself.”

  “In what way?”

  “He wanted to know whether I’d been to Alessandria before. He wanted to know whether I knew anybody here in the Polizia di Stato. It was as if he believed my arrest was his fault and he was trying to find reasons to let himself off the hook.”

  “And it was about …” Gennaro Maluccio stopped, his mouth open.

  “What?”

  The journalist shook his head.

  “You’ve remembered something, Signor Maluccio?”

  “Cherchez la femme.”

  “What?”

  “Of course, Bassi couldn’t speak French. Pig ignorant—like most policemen. Cherchez la femme was the section editor’s idea.”

  “A fat man with a liking for beer?” Trotti asked.

  “You’ve been to the Milan offices, I see.” Maluccio smiled while his eyes remained on Pisanelli. “Cherchez la femme—a crime of passion. It’s what Bassi thought when he was first called into the inquiry. But Bassi told me he’d finally given up believing the Turellini killing had anything to do with a jealous woman.”

  Pisanelli asked, “When you saw Bassi on Thursday, you had time to talk about the Turellini case?”

  Another hesitant pause.

  “Please answer my question.”

  “I’d done Bassi a favor. It was because of the Turellini affair he wanted to get into the magazine. He felt he was being hindered, somebody was stopping him from getting to the truth. He was determined to get Turellini’s death back into the spotlight after a year of marking time. He said they’d put the case on hold at the Palazzo di Giustizia. Bassi wanted to embarrass people into action. That’s why he went to see the celebrated Commissario Trotti.” Maluccio made a gesture of mock admiration.

  “For all the good it did him,” Trotti remarked.

  “Yes.”

  Trotti frowned. “Yes what?”

  “Yes. To answer your question. There was something Bassi told me.”

  Pisanelli asked, “What?”

  “When he’d first been called in on the inquiry, Bassi was told by the lawyer—”

  “Avoccato Regni.”

  “He was told by Regni that the madwoman had probably killed Turellini out of jealousy.”

  “Madwoman? You mean Signora Quarenghi?”

  “Signora Quarenghi.” Maluccio nodded. “It’s also what the Carabinieri at Segrate believed.”

  “Why?”

  “Bassi told me she was unbalanced. The kind of woman who’d never come to terms with being childless. When she’d found out Turellini was trying to have a child with the English teacher, she killed out of blind jealousy.” Maluccio’s glance went from Pisanelli to Trotti. “This Quarenghi woman had turned up at Segrate soon after the murder. Turned up in her cream-colored Jaguar. Insisted upon talking to the Carabinieri. That’s when she started making accusations about her husband.”

  “Her husband was in Rome at the time.”

  “Precisely.”

  Trotti and Pisanelli glanced briefly at each other. Trotti now sat forward, resting his arms on his thighs. He asked, “You mentioned Signora Quarenghi to Bassi?”

  “Bassi talked about her to me.”

  “But there was something about her that you told Bassi?”

  “Not really.” Gennaro Maluccio bit his lip. His hand had returned to the zip, fiddling nervously with the metal runner.

  “Not really. You told him something about Signora Quarenghi or not?”

  The convicted murderer had not moved. Ugo Rubino sat beside the journalist, his face a mask, his lids almost closed and his hands loosely clasped between his knees. Like a laborer waiting for work in a dusty piazza of Puglia. Only the beret and the acrid cigarette were missing.

  “Not really?” Trotti repeated mockingly. “You mentioned Signora Quarenghi, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know her. Never had any reason to meet her. It’s not as if she’s had visions of the Virgin Mary or there were stigmata on her hands and feet.”

  “You said something about her to Bassi, didn’t you?”

  Gennaro Maluccio bit his lip nervously.

  “Well?”

  “I’m a journalist,” Maluccio said, “and I get to hear various things. That’s all.”

  “That’s all what?”

  The hand along the zip was moving faster upwards and downwards. Despite the cold, Gennaro Maluccio was now sweating in his tracksuit. He turned slightly on his chair, revealing the sponsor’s logo—Motta, red letters on a white synthetic background.

  “Well?”

  Maluccio glanced sideways at the other prisoner; Ugo Rubino simply continued to study the worn carpet.

  “What had you heard, Signor Maluccio, about Signora Quarenghi?”

  “I happened to mention …”

  “Yes?”

  “I told Bassi what I’d heard from a couple of sources.”

  “Please continue.”

  “Her husband …”

  “Whose husband?”

  “I told Bassi I’d heard Quarenghi was under inquiry. Several weeks ago I heard the rumor. An inquiry coming from Milan, an inquiry under the direction of Abete.”

  “Judge Abete?”

  “Bassi seemed to think the Turellini dossier had been shelved by Abete. That’s why I told him …”

  “Told him what?”

  “Abete was working on something.”

  “Something to do with Quarenghi?”

  “Something to do with Quarenghi’s job in Rome—to do with pharmaceuticals.”

  Trotti had forgotten all about the cold in the prison director’s office. Like the journalist, he was sweating in his waxed English jacket.

  57: Hybrid

  HE POPPED A sweet into his mouth. “What do you think, Pisanelli?”

  “It’s Saturday and I’m cold
and I want to get home. That’s what I think, commissario.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “I also wish the bastard in the Volvo behind us would keep out of my exhaust pipe. Must’ve been snowing heavily in the hills because he’s got chains on his wheels.”

  “Let him pass.”

  Pisanelli laughed without conviction. “Gets any closer and we’ll be producing a hybrid of a Volvo and a Citroën.”

  “Tell me what you think.”

  “About what?”

  “A connection between Bassi’s visit to the journalist and his ending up dead a few hours later?”

  Pisanelli shrugged.

  “And the doctor?” Trotti asked, irked by Pisanelli’s silence. “You think Dr. Quarenghi’s got anything to do with Bassi’s being killed?”

  “How d’you expect me to know?”

  “You have an opinion.”

  “Too tired to have an opinion.”

  “What makes you so tired, Pisanelli? You’re half my age.” Pisanelli said nothing.

  “You ever heard anything about an inquiry into Quarenghi’s job at the Ministry?”

  “Rome,” Pisanelli said mournfully. “A different planet.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m tired, commissario.”

  “You were good, Pisa. You were good with that journalist—you asked the right questions without alienating him. I’m grateful. When you put your mind to it, you’re one of the best investigators I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Pleased to hear it.”

  “Now tell me why you’re sulking.”

  “It’s Saturday night, commissario, and I want to get home.” Pisanelli drove carefully, a lot slower than on the trip down to Alessandria, sitting forward in his seat, peering into the feeble yellow beams that the French car cast on to the treacherous road ahead.

  They had left the autostrada and were heading towards Zinasco. It was still snowing and towards the middle of the road, between the lanes, were the beginnings of white drifts. It was cold inside the car but Trotti felt strangely pleased. Perhaps it was because he had always liked snow—anything was better than fog. Or perhaps it was because he believed—he did not quite know why—that soon he would know who had murdered Fabrizio Bassi. Then he could leave for Bologna. For Pioppi and the little Francesca.