Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  Francesca. For Christmas he’d buy his granddaughter a teddy like Pioppi’s old teddy bear at home in via Milano, but with two good eyes.

  “You don’t feel we’re getting somewhere?”

  “Goodness knows why you care so much about Bassi,” Pisanelli retorted, without taking his eyes off the road.

  “An old man’s pride,” Trotti responded.

  A sound of irritation. “Even if he was kicked out of the force because he was screwing around, that was his own fault. Bassi was a married man. He had no reason to get involved with another woman.”

  “You sound like a priest.”

  “Nothing justifies adultery.”

  “I can see you’ve never been married.”

  “Thanks to you, I’m not likely to be.”

  Trotti pretended not to have heard. “Bassi was single. His wife had left him a long time ago. Left him and taken the children.”

  “Viscontini’s wife was committing adultery.”

  “Perhaps the mayor’s wife was unhappy,” Trotti remarked.

  “Signora Viscontini could have gotten a divorce.” Pisanelli briefly took his eyes from the road to appraise Trotti in the light of an oncoming car.

  “There was never any talk of her wanting to leave her husband.”

  “You ever cheated on your wife?” Pisanelli asked with a sudden earnestness.

  “I think tomorrow we’ll have to talk to her, Pisa.”

  “You’ll have to talk to her.”

  “She’s the key to something.”

  “Key to what?”

  “No idea but I’m sure you’ll want to accompany me.”

  “Tomorrow morning’s Sunday and I’m going to stay in bed.”

  Trotti made a dismissive gesture. “You know her?”

  “I recognized the photo of Signora Viscontini at Bassi’s place, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You met her?”

  “Not personally. Not my type. I don’t go for blondes.”

  “What do you go for?”

  “Thanks to you, commissario, I don’t get either the time or the opportunity.” Pisanelli shook his head and his long hair danced along the collar of the suede jacket. “Even when her husband was mayor—before the Lega Lombarda ever took over the town hall—Signora Viscontini stayed out of the limelight.”

  “You knew she was Quarenghi’s sister-in-law?”

  “So what?”

  “It doesn’t occur to you that there’s a coincidence there?”

  “What coincidence?”

  “Bassi had been having an affair with Signora Viscontini.”

  Pisanelli again raised his shoulders.

  “At the same time, the mad Quarenghi woman—Signora Viscontini’s own sister-in-law, her husband’s sister—was possibly the very murderer Bassi was called in to track down?”

  “That’s a coincidence?”

  “Of course.”

  “With such a marvelous coincidence, why did it take Bassi more than a year to identify the murderer?”

  “Assuming Bassi did identify the murderer. Which doesn’t necessarily mean Signora Quarenghi killed Turellini.” The heavy zip of his jacket was cold against Trotti’s chin. “But the coincidence seems more than odd.”

  “I don’t see any coincidence. Anyway, Signora Quarenghi didn’t fire a gun the day Turellini was murdered.”

  “Pisa, there may be a different coincidence. It’s precisely because Bassi took more than a year to get to the truth that he was allowed to live.”

  “You’re suggesting Avvocato Regni hired him so that he wouldn’t find the murderer?”

  “I don’t know what I’m suggesting.”

  “You don’t hire somebody to find a murderer and then expect him to do nothing.”

  Trotti clicked the sweet noisily against his teeth. “It was precisely when Bassi finally did do something that he got himself killed.”

  “You think Avvocato Regni killed Bassi?”

  “Just another coincidence,” Trotti said. “Fabrizio Bassi gets killed when he’s found out who killed Turellini.”

  “It wasn’t the first time Bassi thought he’d identified the murderer.”

  Trotti laughed. “Perhaps at last Bassi’d got it right.”

  “He didn’t tell Regni who the murderer was.”

  “We’ve only got Regni’s word for that.”

  In the distance it was possible to distinguish the overhead lights of Zinasco. They had been repaired since the afternoon’s accident and were now working, beaming their alternating reds and greens through the falling snow.

  “Saturday night, commissario,” Pisanelli said wearily. “Why d’you bother?”

  “What you need, Pisa, is a good rest. You look terrible.”

  “Then perhaps you should stop bullying me into helping you.”

  “You enjoy it.”

  “An old man’s pride, Commissario Trotti? It’s your old man’s pride that makes you so obsessive about Bassi?”

  “I’ve always been obsessive. Or so people tell me.”

  “You didn’t always give a shit about Bassi.”

  “He came to see me.”

  “A lot of people have been to see you over the years. That’s never sent you scurrying across the Po valley in the middle of a snowstorm.”

  “Bassi came to see me because he trusted me.”

  “I really don’t see what’s so special about Bassi.”

  “Bassi was once a cop.”

  “The Pavesi couple came to see you about their parents who’ve disappeared. You told them to get lost.”

  “Not the same thing.”

  “You’d been a friend of their father’s. More of a friend than you’d ever been of Bassi’s.”

  “The father’s a shit. A loser, a sycophant and a shit.”

  “You refused to help his daughter.”

  “Nice girl with big tits, Pisa? Is that what you mean?”

  “Why not help the girl look for her parents? The Pavesis are rich.”

  “Bassi used to work for me.”

  Pisanelli laughed cynically. “Fabrizio Bassi was a fool and you know it, commissario. An idiot who watched more American rubbish on television than was good for him.”

  “Bassi was a cop—not a loser with political pretensions.”

  “Let’s just suppose Bassi was thrown out of the PS simply because of the Questore’s intervention.” The aggressive tone had disappeared from Pisanelli’s voice. “You know as well as I do Fabrizio Bassi wasn’t exactly the ideal functionary of the state. Never had the reputation of being particularly honest. Or diligent. Not of course that that makes him any different from the rest of us.” A snort of cold amusement. “But in addition, Bassi was a womanizer and a fool. Divorce work was about all he was capable of doing without shooting off his big toe. Or his oversized prick.”

  “He’d worked for me.”

  “And when he came to see you he offered you money for your help.”

  “So what?”

  Pisanelli went on. “You didn’t like him, commissario. Like most other people in the Questura, you despised the man. Bassi’s womanizing and his big prick were just part of the problem. Just part of the problem.” Pisanelli hesitated before adding, “Wasn’t there talk of his having an affair with Brigadiere Ciuffi—with your good friend Ornella Ciuffi?”

  “Absurd idea.”

  “You say you don’t have friends but there are a few people you like.”

  “And there are many, many people I don’t like.”

  “It was always quite apparent you couldn’t stand Bassi. At the time I thought it was because of Ornella Ciuffi.”

  “If all the people I disliked got murdered, the Questura’d be a pretty empty place.”

  “Italy’d be a pretty empty place.”

  “For your information, Brigadiere Ciuffi was killed long before Bassi left the Questura.”

  Pisanelli again glanced hurriedly at Trotti. “As I understand it, Bassi told you there was good money
to be earned with the Turellini enquiry.”

  “He wanted me to collaborate with him on a permanent basis. I replied I’d be happy enough with my state pension.”

  “What you replied to Bassi was before you ever found out about your cousin’s death.”

  Trotti laughed.

  “Signora Lucchi has a lot of money, commissario.”

  “So what?”

  “Money that could be useful.”

  “I don’t need her money.”

  “Money that’d let you buy back the place in Santa Maria.”

  “What are you trying to get at?” Trotti laughed awkwardly. “I told you Avvocato Regni offered me money. He even pulled out a fat checkbook.”

  “Hope you accepted, commissario.”

  Trotti said nothing. He could feel blood rising to his face and he was glad the darkness hid him from Pisanelli’s eyes. “You’re joking, Pisa.”

  “You accepted?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Gave up thinking a long time ago.”

  “But you didn’t give up asking foolish questions.” Trotti could not suppress the tremble in his voice which seemed high-pitched and out of character. “I’d like to remind you it was you, Pisanelli, who pulled me out of my warm bed at four o’clock on Friday morning because Bassi’d got himself killed.”

  “Sure.”

  “Now you’re surprised I continue with the inquiry?” His voice was getting more shrill. “Or perhaps you don’t understand me.”

  “I understand you, commissario.”

  “For the last few years, I’ve been shunted off to dealing with molested children. Persona non grata, Pisa. But molested children are not what I trained for. That’s not what I’ve got experience in. That’s not what I am good at—despite what the Questore may say. Despite what that shit Merenda’d like to think. I’m a detective, Tenente Pisanelli. I’ve done some useful work in my time. Now that I’m about to leave the Questura for good, I …”

  “You know if you really needed money for your place in the OltrePò there are always ways of getting it.” Pisanelli glanced at Trotti but his companion had fallen silent and was now biting his lip as he stared at the approaching traffic lights.

  “Ever thought of marrying some rich widow, commissario?”

  58: Angel of Death

  “I STILL THINK it’s the Englishwoman,” Pisanelli said respectfully.

  Trotti did not answer.

  “Signora Coddrington, commissario. It’s her voice on the tape. I recognized it.”

  Piero Trotti continued to look out of the window as Zinasco fell behind, engulfed in the night. The wipers battled noisily with the large flakes of snow that now struck the windshield.

  “I told you that after meeting her in her school.”

  Trotti clicked the sweet against his teeth.

  “I told you it was her voice as soon as we left her English school in Milan.”

  Trotti made more clicking noises before speaking. His voice had recovered its normal pitch but there was no affability. “Why should Signora Coddrington phone Bassi?”

  “No idea.”

  A signpost, caught briefly in the yellow beams, announced a distance of three kilometers to Carbonara.

  “You’re right, commissario. I do need a rest.”

  Another silence before Trotti unexpectedly tapped Pisanelli’s arm. “That looked like a book of anatomy you were reading in the prison director’s office.”

  A smile fluttered across Pisanelli’s weary features. “Two possibilities, commissario. Either Bassi’s death was connected with Turellini’s or it wasn’t.” He held up his thumb. “Let’s assume it was. Now what do we know about Turellini?”

  “That he was murdered. Just over a year ago in the suburbs of Milan.”

  “According to Bassi, there were two possible lines of enquiry. Either Turellini was murdered for business reasons and his business was essentially among doctors. Or it was a crime of passion. As always, either sex or money.”

  “Cherchez la femme.”

  Suddenly and surprisingly, Pisanelli laughed very loudly.

  “I don’t see what’s funny.”

  “The Questore’s hoping to set up his regional child abuse center. He wants it to be a European thing, in direct contact with Interpol in Lyons.” Pisanelli had difficulty in speaking between his laughter. “I suppose he’ll be wanting you to do the liaison work with the French.”

  “You see, I can speak French.”

  “So I notice.”

  “Tartufòn, c’est si bon.”

  Against his will, Trotti too started to laugh. He was still laughing after they had been over the railway line and there was a sudden jolt of the Citroën.

  “Careful!”

  His head was pulled backwards, then forwards.

  “What’s that, Pisa, for God’s sake?”

  “He’s turned off his lights!”

  A sudden, horrid sense of fear.

  “The dangerous bastard.”

  Fear of a kind that Trotti had almost forgotten about. The fear of his imminent demise and the adrenaline coursing, unannounced and uncalled for, through his whole system as again the car was rammed from the rear and Pisanelli seemed to lose control of the steering.

  “The Volvo!”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Trying to kill us, heaven help us!”

  “Pisa, pull on to the shoulder.”

  Pisanelli did not reply but, anyway, there was no shoulder. Trotti knew the road well and, although he could scarcely see through the snow, he knew that there was no stabilized edge, just a few centimeters of snow and then darkness.

  A dip, a ditch.

  They were less than eight kilometers from the Po but here the road ran along a dike, built to hold back the flooding. Flooding that came three or four times in a century.

  A third, violent shove and he saw the Volvo now edging level. No traffic in the opposite direction. Looking past Pisanelli, gripping the overhead strap, Trotti thought he could make out a faceless silhouette.

  “Stop, Pisanelli. The bastard’s going to send us over the edge.”

  Trotti remembered that beyond the road and below it there were ranks of plane trees. Trees for the cellulose factories that had been closed down years ago.

  Five, ten meters beneath the Citroën, to both left and right.

  Perhaps Trotti or perhaps somebody else was shouting. Shouting in uncontrolled, uncontrollable fear.

  A few months short of retirement and a good life behind him, wife, daughter and now grandchildren, and he was afraid of dying.

  Afraid of dying when Sandro was already dead.

  As terrified as the young boy hearing the bombers over Santa Maria on their way to Milan.

  Angels of death.

  “Where’s your damn Beretta, Pisa?”

  A fourth, a fifth violent ramming and this time Pisanelli lost all traction on the icy surface. The rear of the car skidded to the right as the back wheel hit the edge and Trotti felt himself being thrown sideways, being thrown upwards and he was thinking about the little boy in Pioppi’s belly, the boy who would never know his grandfather, who would never know just how much Piero Trotti had loved him.

  59: LAB COAT

  “COMMISSARIO?”

  He was wearing an anorak and he had shaved; he looked plumper than when Trotti had last seen him in Milan.

  “Commissario?”

  If Magagna had not been wearing his American sunglasses, Trotti would have had difficulty in recognizing him.

  “Well?”

  He had been sitting on a steel chair. He now stood up and emptied the contents of his pockets on to the bed. “I bought you these.” Half a dozen packets of boiled sweets.

  “A rich man.”

  “One of the advantages of working for the Polizia di Stato—easy money and good prospects.”

  Trotti smiled, then he winced in pain as they shook hands.

  “Unwrap one of those sweets for me.”
>
  “What flavor?”

  “After all these years you’ve forgotten rhubarb’s my favorite?”

  Magagna took one of the packets, removed the wrapping and placed the sweet in Trotti’s mouth. “Looks as if you’ve been in a fight.”

  “I walked into a door.”

  “Coming back from Piemonte?”

  “You can’t be too careful.”

  “This is why you shouldn’t go to Alessandria.” Magagna was from Pescara and considered anywhere else as insignificant. The smile vanished. “Who did it, commissario?”

  Trotti’s shoulder ached and, as he moved his head, there was a sharp pain in the back of his neck. “Trying to remember.”

  “They clearly didn’t like you.”

  Trotti clicked the sweet against his teeth and it was then he realized there was a chip in the enamel of what used to be one of his good front teeth. “How did you know I was here?”

  “The Polizia Stradale see a Volvo with no lights pulling out into the middle of the road? The sort of thing that goes unremarked?”

  “They got the number?”

  “It was the snow that saved you. Instead of falling, the Citroën slid down the embankment. Backwards. And hit a tree. If it’d turned over, you’d be dead.” Magagna added, amused, “There were medical books scattered all over the snow.”

  Trotti frowned, not understanding. “What’s the time now?”

  “I was driving back from Monza. After all these years, I felt you were worth the detour.”

  “What’s the time?”

  “Unconscious for over forty minutes. And then under light sedation.” The other man looked at his watch. “Half-past midnight.”

  “Christ—and Pisanelli?”

  The white door opened and a nurse entered. A middle-aged woman with grey hair and a harsh, narrow face. She wore a silver crucifix in the lapel of her spotless laboratory coat.

  “You’re not supposed to have visitors.” She placed her hand on the back of Magagna’s chair. “With blood coming from my mouth and what looks like diabetes, I’d make sure I was getting some rest instead of getting excited.” She spoke in a flat monotone.

  “Polizia di Stato,” Magagna said lamely and fumbled with his card.

  The lips pulled tight, as if activated by a pursestring. She turned on her heel and left the room in offended silence.