The Puppeteer

by Timothy Williams

  17: Pergola

  BANCA SAN MATTEO had once been a convent. The low ceiling of crossed arches was now white, but in places there were the remnants of a mural—cherubim and saints—forming irregular clouds of pastel color against the whitewash.

  Trotti walked slowly, leaning on Pisanelli’s supportive arm.

  They reached the Foreign Exchange desk—SERVIZIO ESTERO—and a tall man looked up from his typewriter. Pisanelli lifted the folding board in the counter.

  The bank clerk had the hangdog look of a cartoon animal. His eyes quickly returned to the keyboard.

  Trotti said, “Knock.”

  Pisanelli did as he was told. He tapped on the walnut door then, without waiting for a reply, turned the handle. Trotti stepped past him.

  It did not look like a bank manager’s office. It could have been a modern living room out of the pages of Casa Italia or Vogue. A low table, a rug, leather armchairs and tubular bookcases. Books that were leather-bound, neat and untouched. On the desk a telephone that appeared unhindered by wires.

  A plain wooden crucifix was attached to the wall.

  “A pleasant surprise.” Pergola was smoking. He stubbed out the cigarette and came towards Trotti. “Always a pleasure to see you, Commissario.” He held out his hand.

  Pergola limped.

  A well-dressed man, he wore a grey suit with a waistcoat that emphasized the narrowness of his body. The white shirt was new and spotless; the wine-dark tie had been knotted expertly. The bank manager was a small man with sloping shoulders and short hair. He wore discreet cologne. The grey eyes registered the bruising on Trotti’s face. “Please be seated.” He gestured to the armchairs. “But I thought you were on holiday, Commissario. I thought the Pubblica Sicurezza …”

  On one wall there was a long mural photograph. It showed the city—the river, the old houses along the banks of the Po and, rising above the rooftops, the familiar dome of the cathedral.

  The photograph must have been taken in Borgo Genovese.

  Pisanelli helped Trotti to sit down.

  Pergola smiled. “I see that I am not alone in being temporarily handicapped.” His smile was sympathetic.

  Trotti said, “The result of a misunderstanding,” and shrugged.

  “Can I offer you something to drink? Or perhaps, Commissario …” He turned to a walnut cabinet. He took small steps, hesitating to put his weight on his left leg. He opened the cabinet and took out a tin. “English boiled sweets.” He gave Trotti a large smile. “I think I know your vice, Commissario. Smith Kendon Travel Sweets.”

  Trotti took one of the sweets. “One of my vices.”

  Pergola carefully pulled at the crease of his trousers before sitting down on an armchair facing Trotti.

  “How’s your knee, Signor Pergola?”

  “I’m lucky still to have a knee. A few centimeters lower and I would have lost it.” The bland smile remained in place. “So what brings you here, Commissario? I really wasn’t expecting to see you so soon.” He allowed just a hint of firmness into his voice. “Can I assume that there have been developments in your enquiries?”

  “Signor Pergola, you know that I’m no longer involved. The dossier is now in the capable hands of the Guardia di Finanza.”

  Pergola nodded. His face was small and calm but the eyes were restless, moving from Trotti to Pisanelli and back. A shy but intelligent man. “The Guardia di Finanza,” he repeated, as if he had never heard the words before.

  “I think, Signor Pergola—despite the administrative reorganization—I think that we can help each other. There are some things that I should like to ask you.” Trotti allowed the boiled sweet to click against his teeth. “I’m not convinced that you’ve always been frank with me.”

  The ground glass window let in the white morning light and the sound of traffic along the Corso. In the office there was silence. Then Pergola gave an awkward laugh. “I’m afraid I forgot to offer a drink to your friend.”

  “Brigadiere Pisanelli is my assistant.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Pisanelli shook his head. Although he was nearly bald, at the back of Pisanelli’s head the hair was long and it brushed against the collar of his suede jacket.

  Another long silence while Pergola’s eyes moved from Trotti to Pisanelli and then back to Trotti. The fingers of one hand tapped against the crease of his trousers.

  “We’ve recovered five hundred thousand lire of the money that was stolen.” Trotti watched for the reaction in the man’s eyes: there was nothing.

  “Five hundred thousand—I suppose it’s a start. Congratulations.”

  “You can congratulate the Carabinieri.”

  “Is there any chance that the rest of the money—the rest of the hundred million will be found in this way?”

  “What I still don’t understand,” Trotti said, “is why the robbers should take the money and then still feel the need to put a couple of bullets into your legs.” He paused. “A way of behaving that’s more reminiscent of terrorists than of professional bank robbers.”

  “That’s an enigma that perhaps the Guardia di Finanza will be able to resolve.”

  For an instant, Trotti’s eyes blazed. “I think you should have told me more about your bank—and who it’s owned by.”

  “Commissario, have you ever met with anything other than our most sincere desire to cooperate? Nothing, I repeat nothing, has been deliberately kept from you and you have always—”

  “Of course, of course. But there may have been an element of suppression.”

  “An ugly word.”

  “Ten and a half per cent of the shares in the Banca San Matteo are in the hands of a Liechtenstein consortium.”

  “Dienstinvest.” He nodded. “That is the information which you can find in the annual report.”

  “You would have helped me a great deal—me and my colleagues of the Guardia di Finanza—if you had revealed that Dienstinvest of Vaduz was in turn controlled by the Banco Milanese.”

  A light laugh, but the eyes continued their rapid movement. “It’s hard for me to know what you know and what you don’t know.”

  “Tell me everything and I have merely to pick and choose.”

  “I’ve always acted in good faith. And so, I’m sure, has the staff of the Banca San Matteo. I can assure that there’s been no …” He made an open gesture. “As for a connection between Banco Milanese and Dienstinvest—that really doesn’t concern us here. On the other hand, if you feel that in some underhand way this bank is concerned with Banco Milanese, I can assure you you’re making a mistake. The very nature of Banco Milanese …” He shrugged. “Things are very critical.”

  “Precisely. Then you know that the Banco Milanese has been the target of several attacks in the press and even in Parliament? You know that it’s been the object of inspection by the Banca d’Italia?”

  “I know what I read in the paper.”

  “Popolo d’Italia, Signor Pergola?”

  For an instant the banker did not speak. “I know that Banco Milanese is run by a very strange man. I can assure you I’ve never met him. Signor Bastia and I do not orbit in the same circles. I can also assure you that between the Banca San Matteo and Banco Milanese …”

  Trotti asked, “It’s quite possible, isn’t it, that the unfortunate attack of which you were the victim, is connected with the Banco Milanese?”

  “Absurd.” He laughed.

  “Isn’t it possible that the two bullets removed from your leg were a warning, Signor Pergola?”

  “It’s quite true that Dienstinvest controls an important percentage of this bank’s shares. But to maintain—as you seem to be doing—that because of Dienstinvest, the Banco Milanese is exerting direct or indirect control upon us—this is quite absurd. Quite absurd.”

  “Who owns Dienstinvest?”

  “A list of investors is something that Dienstinvest will readily supply you with. You have their address in Vaduz.” He leaned back in the armchair and folded his arms. “There ar
e always transactions going on between banks—between all banks. The contrary would be strange, I think you’d agree.”

  Trotti held up his hand. “These are matters that the Guardia di Finanza will be able to look into at length, and with the necessary competence.”

  “Neither the Guardia di Finanza nor anybody else will find any impropriety in the running of the Banca San Matteo.” The same bland smile. The eyes had ceased to move dartingly; they now showed amusement. “I can’t help wondering—I trust you don’t mind my saying so—why you bother about these things now that another police force is dealing with the enquiry.”

  “You haven’t asked me where the five hundred thousand lire was found.”

  “Another sweet, Commissario?”

  “Does the name Maltese mean anything to you?”

  “Maltese?”

  “He was once a journalist with the Popolo d’Italia.”

  “Ah.” A look of understanding. “He was, I believe, one of the gentlemen involved in the …”

  “The Night of the Tazebao.” Trotti nodded. “Precisely.”

  “Please don’t associate this bank with what happened in Milan.”

  “Of course not.” It was Trotti’s turn to smile; as his lips moved, the bruised skin hurt him. “I am simply trying to reach the truth. When a highly respected bank manager—a son of this city, an alumnus of our university—is shot in the leg in broad daylight—the only robbery this city has known in fifteen years—and when one million lire disappear, it’s only normal that, as an officer of the Pubblica Sicurezza, I ask a few questions.”

  An almost imperceptible nod.

  “And although—like you, Signor Pergola—I’ve limitless faith in the efficiency and devotion and probity of the Guardia di Finanza, I can’t help worrying.”

  “I’m sure there are other things for you to worry over.”

  “Many.”

  The two men looked at each other in silence.

  “Just one more question, Signor Pergola.”

  “Please ask as many questions as you wish.”

  “You’ve heard of Ramoverde?”

  A pause while he frowned. “That was many years ago.”

  “Did you know, Signor Pergola, that the journalist Maltese—the man on whose corpse the five hundred thousand lire were found—did you know that he was Ramoverde’s son—and that last Friday, he was murdered at Gardesana? In my presence?”

  “Really?” Pergola said in a casual tone, but both Trotti and Pisanelli noticed that for an instant the small bank manager in the neat, expensive suit had turned pale.

  18: Baldassare

  A PORTER APPROACHED them. Trotti produced his identity card.

  “You are looking for somebody in the university?”

  “Signorina Guerra?”

  “Nobody here with that name.”

  “She’s the daughter of the city architect.”

  The porter lifted his peaked cap with its brass escutcheon and he scratched at the receding hairline. “Signorina Guerra?”

  “I think she teaches history.”

  More scratching and then a look of enlightenment. “History of literature, you mean.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “But she’s no longer Signorina Guerra—she’s been married for three years now. Signora Baldassare.” He nodded. “You mean Signora Baldassarre.”

  “Where is she?”

  “This way, please.”

  They followed the long porticoes. The small porter walked briskly, the iron tips of his shoes echoing on the stone slabs.

  Storia della letteratura moderna was on the first floor, facing the university library across the quadrangle. They went through a door and Trotti found himself in a corridor, long, dark and chill. The office was halfway down, hidden between two large bookcases. The porter knocked on the door.

  “Signora Baldassare, visitors for you.”

  Trotti and Pisanelli entered the room.

  The walls were covered with bookcases, there was an old carpet on the floor and a ladder stood in one corner.

  “Two gentlemen from the Questura,” the porter said huskily before closing the door. His metallic footfalls grew gradually fainter down the corridor.

  The woman sitting behind a desk—not the main mahogany desk in the center of the room, but a small, humbler one pushed into one corner, almost hidden had it not been for the light cast by the table lamp—stood up. The same light partially lit her face.

  She came towards them. “Commissario Trotti, I believe.”

  “You recognize me?”

  “I was at my sister’s trial. So were you.” She held out her hand and Trotti shook it.

  “It’s about your sister, Signora Baldassare.”

  No reaction.

  She had large eyes—very dark brown in the feeble light—and they looked at him without emotion, waiting for an explanation. There was something prim about her. She stood with her feet together. Sensible brown shoes and a brown cardigan. Her hair was pulled away from her forehead. Her complexion was clear but pale.

  “I’d like to know where she is.”

  “I don’t think I can help you, Commissario.”

  “Lia Guerra is your sister?”

  “I hardly ever see her.”

  Pisanelli took a notebook from his jacket pocket.

  “We’re not close.” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Lia ought never to have gotten involved in politics.”

  “Is she still political?”

  Signora Baldassare shrugged. “In a small town like this, people don’t forget.” She leaned her weight against the small desk. The light was behind her and Trotti could not make out her features. Older than he had at first imagined—thirty-five, perhaps thirty-seven. Her arms were crossed as if to protect herself from any form of contact. “What Lia has done has made life very difficult for me.”

  “She still lives here in the city?”

  “I have my life to lead—and because of my sister they think—I don’t know—they think that I belong to the Red Brigades or that I’m a feminist or a lesbian.”

  “Signora, I have got to find her.”

  “Why?”

  “I have to talk to her.”

  “My sister is ten years younger than me. She was born at a time when life started to get a bit easier for my parents. Mama always said that she was going to spoil Lia.” A hurried laugh—or perhaps a repressed snort. “One of the few promises that Mama ever kept. It was as if Mama could never forgive me—she was pregnant with me when she got married. Mama who had great pretensions of becoming a politician. And she had to give it all up because I came along. But Lia—that was different. Lia was the perfect daughter—so pretty, so intelligent.”

  “Your mother …”

  “My mother’s dead.” There was no emotion in her voice. “She didn’t live to see her little Lia pass before the judges and be accused of plotting against the State. Mama was spared that.”

  “Can you tell me where she is?”

  “The best clothes for Lia. I had to make to do with what there was with the clothes from my cousins—uncomfortable clothes that were worn and smelly. But our Lia was the princess. She had everything that money could buy. And a lot more as well.”

  Outside there was the sound of footfalls along the cloisters.

  Pisanelli said, “We believe that your sister went to live in Milan.”

  The woman shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  Trotti asked, “What would she do in Milan?”

  “Mother gave her everything—and then was surprised when she discovered that her little baby, her fourteen-year-old daughter, was going to bed with men twice her age.”

  “Is she living with a man now?”

  “How would I know? And anyway, I couldn’t care less.” She turned away from them and moved, like a moth attracted by the light, towards the opaque glass of the window. She had a small, trim body that the dowdy clothes could not hide. “Has she murdered her lover?”

  “A man
called Maltese was murdered in a bar. I think that perhaps he knew her.” Trotti added, “He died in my arms.”

  She stood with her back to Trotti and Pisanelli.

  “There was a photograph of your sister in his wallet.”

  She turned her head slightly. “There’s not much that I can do about that.”

  “You can help me,” Trotti said. “If I can talk to her, it might help me find out who murdered Maltese.”

  “I really don’t see how I can help. I heard that she’d gone to Milan. I gave her some money—but that was eighteen months ago. As she hasn’t been in touch with me—not even to ask for more money—I must assume that she has found money—or somebody to supply her with it.”

  “Perhaps she’s got a job.”

  Signora Baldassare turned to face them, face taut, lips slightly trembling. “I’m very sorry. I can’t help you.”

  Steps outside. The door opened. The porter put his head round the side of the door. “Commissario Trotti?”

  “Yes?”

  “A Dottor Magagna for you on the phone?”

  19: Senigallia

  THE TRAIN STOPPED and Trotti looked up from the dusty pages that he held open on his knees. He looked out of the window. The backs of humdrum houses, minute gardens and, wedged between two brick walls, a bowling alley where two old men were throwing bocce balls across the dusty ground.

  Then the train started to move again and a few minutes later, it pulled into the grey light of the station. Magagna was on the platform. He looked up through his sunglasses and smiled as he caught sight of Trotti. Magagna helped him climb down from the train.