The Puppeteer

by Timothy Williams

  Trotti smiled.

  Magagna moved away from the wall—he had been standing close to the painting of General Diaz. “Which would explain the razor and the shaving cream. Clothes weren’t a problem—but stubble was. Stubble on his face and on his legs.”

  “Personally, I always wear long dresses.” Ramoverde smiled. “It’s shaving the backs of my hands that’s a nuisance. That and having to change my clothes whenever there’s somebody at the front door. Fortunately, Sandra keeps most visitors away—she’s a bright girl. Orazio’s granddaughter.”

  Magagna continued, “It would also explain why he pissed down the sink.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Douglas Ramoverde said primly.

  “He wouldn’t have dressed up as a woman each time he had wanted to go and piss—and so he wouldn’t have used the lavatory on the landing.”

  Trotti took a sweet from his pocket and was about to unwrap it. He had second thoughts and returned it to the pocket. “I know how Dell’Orto knew about my intention to go to Gardesana.”

  Ramoverde nodded.

  “But how did Bastia or the men that Bastia sent—how did they know?”

  “Through Dell’Orto.”

  “He told Baldassare?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Commissario. The old judge phoned Lia Guerra from the hotel. He wanted to tell her about Uras …”

  “About Uras?”

  “The Sardinians had taken part in the Banca San Matteo robbery. They realized that they had been used; that’s why they contacted Dell’Orto. They realized that it was more than just a robbery and they wanted to make some money.”

  “By blackmailing?”

  “They felt they’d been cheated and they told Dell’Orto they were in possession of some money stolen at the Banca San Matteo. But Dell’Orto was in a hurry. So he phoned Lia Guerra at the shop in Senigallia.” Douglas Ramoverde looked down at his shoes. “That is the only explanation we could find.”

  Magagna said, “What explanation?”

  Trotti turned to face him. “At the Ambassador the reception takes down the number of all out-going phone calls. And that enabled Baldassare to locate Lia Guerra. He found out she was at the shop—and through her, he got to Maltese.”

  “Because of that phone call—he was in a hurry, he wanted to speak to my son, tell him about the Sardinians—Dell’Orto believed that my son’s blood was on his hands. And so—” He shrugged. “And so he decided he didn’t want to live anymore.”

  “Dell’Orto would have saved me a lot of time and effort if he had told me the truth.”

  “The judge was a good man. A very good man and he had a strict code of ethics. He was a mason—but he was also a judge. And he believed in the Republic—for him it was something sacred.” Ramoverde paused. “He always spoke well of you.”

  “He should have told me about the freemasons.”

  “You are not devious enough, Commissario. Those are his words. Very fond of you—very fond indeed. He said that you were honest and you were the only person in Lombardy for whom he felt genuine respect. And because you were honest, he said that you would never get very far. As for P-Beta, it wasn’t something that he wanted you involved with.” He raised his hand. “It was Gianni’s idea to bring you the Sardinians’ money. Gianni wanted to show how Baldassare was behind the shooting at the Banca San Matteo. And he would produce the two witnesses of Uras and Suergiu.”

  “The judge should have told me the truth if he respected me. I thought we were friends—after all, he came to see me. But he told me lies—nothing but lies.”

  “He was your friend, Trotti—he liked you like a son. You and your wife. But there was something that he couldn’t bring himself to admit—not to you.” Ramoverde sighed and was about to say something more but the girl returned with the coffee. She gave small cups to Trotti and to Magagna; she gave a large cup to Douglas Ramoverde.

  “Since his wife’s death, his behavior had become erratic. He turned in on himself, went over his past. There were times when he would phone me here from Arezzo and for forty-five minutes he would go into the details of my trial. It still obsessed him, he still wondered whether he should have behaved as he did. But I know that if I were to have phoned him last week or last month—twenty years on—asking him for his help, he would have behaved no differently.” Ramoverde stopped. A sad smile. “A good man—but Dell’Orto was getting old. There were other times he would call me to tell me about a holiday he’d spent with Genoveffa—his wife—on the Adriatic. Or a trip he’d made to Syria. He’d started to live in the past—it helped him to accept his loneliness. That and his determination to destroy Baldassare, whom he’d never forgiven for debasing P-Beta.”

  “He could have told me the truth. Why didn’t he? Or come to that, why didn’t you? Why has everybody lied? Even the Guerra girl.”

  Ramoverde raised his cup. “As for Lia Guerra, I don’t think she likes you, Commissario. She still feels that you’re responsible for what happened to her. Even if she can now see her past as a terrorist objectively, that doesn’t mean she loves the police and the Carabinieri. You will always remain a fascist in her eyes.”

  Trotti was silent.

  “She didn’t want my son to contact you. She never trusted you—and she holds you responsible—directly or indirectly—for my son’s death.”

  “Where did she hide when she left viale Lodi?”

  Ramoverde shrugged.

  Another silence while Trotti nibbled at the edge of his lip. “But why lie? Why did the old man invent the tale of a letter? Not only a waste of time, Ramoverde, but it also put my life in danger.”

  “I don’t think your life has ever been in danger, Commissario.”

  “Why did Dell’Orto refuse to tell me the truth? Maltese wanted to see me—but Dell’Orto couldn’t bring himself to tell me the truth.”

  “My son wanted to talk about Baldassare—and how Baldassare had been to New York to see Scalfari. How Baldassare had seen Scalfari in jail, how they had patched up their disagreements and how they had decided to work together. And my son wanted to tell you about the shooting at the Banca San Matteo. And how Baldassare was behind it. But, you see, for Dell’Orto to talk to you about all that …” He shrugged. “It would have meant explaining things.”

  “Things?”

  Ramoverde drank more coffee, then put the cup down. “Grappa, you said, Commissario?” A gesture. “I’m afraid there’s no alcohol in the house.”

  “Two spoonfuls of sugar will suffice.”

  “The same sweet tooth?”

  “Dell’Orto sent me on a wild goose chase looking for some dead woman. He lied to me. He was my friend and he lied to me.”

  “He lied, Commissario. Because what had happened here—in this villa—had become a point of honor for him. He had acted out of friendship—or if you wish, he had helped a “fratello” … in those days, I was a freemason, too. But Dell’Orto was a man of law, a man of the Republic and he knew that he had made use of his position for my sake. It was something that he had accepted; but it still hurt him. Because it made him realize …” Again Ramoverde shrugged. “It made him realize that in fact there wasn’t really any difference between him and Baldassare. Of course, he had behaved selflessly—what he did he did for my sake. But the fact remained that he had sacrificed his idea of Republican justice for his idea of masonic aid.” He watched Trotti spoon sugar into the cup and then drink the coffee. “Above all else, he did not want you to know that. Not you, Commissario—because you were somebody like him. Somebody special—somebody with the same values. That’s why he killed himself.”

  Trotti put the cup down and stood up. “Are you trying to tell me that Dell’Orto died because he didn’t want me to know about his past?”

  “He was going to die anyway.” Ramoverde’s eyes followed Trotti as he started to pace up and down the marble of the hall, the coffee cup in his hand. “He was going to die anyway—and he didn’t want to live. He felt that he had sent my son to his
death. Or rather, had taken him in the hired car to meet his appointment with death. I tried to dissuade him. I told him that my son knew what risks he was taking—it was my son’s idea to give you the stolen money and even if Dell’Orto hadn’t known about your trip to the Lake, Giovanni would have found another way of meeting you. Meeting you in private, and talking to you confidentially. But the old Judge didn’t want to listen. He talked about Belluno and he talked about the past and he talked about you, Commissario. And he talked about Genoveffa. And by the time I left him, I realized that he wanted to be with his wife again.”

  He shrugged. “A last pill, a last cup of good coffee—the best coffee in the city—and then die in the sunshine, knowing that he would soon be with his wife—you know, there are worse ways for an old man to die.”

  “Like in prison, Signor Ramoverde.”

  “I wonder if she weighs a hundred kilos in heaven.”

  67: Sampierdarena

  It was my first love.

  She was more than ten years older than me and at first I just looked at her from a distance, admiring her. It was not until Christmas—Christmas 1959—that I realized that my feelings were reciprocated.

  Looking back, it all seems so strange—childish, even. And that is how it ought to have ended—a first love, something intense and magical for a few months and then, inevitably, we would have grown tired of each other. But that never happened. Instead we both talked of marriage. Indeed, Eva was talking of marriage when she was killed.

  She was running the bath—it must have been past midnight and I was sitting on the bathroom stool. I can still remember its cork surface. Sitting with my back to the door and Eva quietly getting undressed to take her bath. We were not bothered by the thought that we might be disturbed. For several weeks now she had been putting something into his evening drink—not just to put him to sleep at night but to make him less arduous during the day as well. Lately he had become more aggressive. There were times when he would fly off the handle even with me—and I was his favorite. Mama and Papa worried about him, worried about the change in grandfather’s behavior. I never told them about the little pills we bought from the herbalist in Castelveltro.

  We were chatting, Eva and I, making plans, talking of marriage—a twenty-eight-year-old woman who admitted to already having an abortion, and a seventeen-year-old spoiled brat. I think we were both rather proud of ourselves—she in having fooled the Nonno into thinking that she felt tender emotion for him, and me because I had managed to convince Papa that an adventure with Eva was the only way he could ever save the three villas from her hands. Of course, Eva had no intention of marrying old Ismaele—and she was not particularly interested in his will. If she put on airs, it was all a ploy. The more she appeared to be counting on my grandfather’s will, the more Mama and Papa played into our hands. It was all tremendous fun. And so we sat in the bathroom, young, happy, laughing and in love. And that night, we didn’t even make love—it was the wrong time of the month. Just talking and happy to be together. We were really in love—what had started out as a game for me had become something quite, quite different. And then suddenly the Nonno came bursting in. He struck me immediately and he must have used the onyx paperweight because when I gathered my senses he was bent over the bathtub, foaming at the mouth and holding her down. He was swearing at her, calling her a whore and a bitch and other words in his Pugliese dialect. He did not hear me get to my feet and he took no notice of me when I tried to pull him away. I tugged at his arm. He was an old man but there was the strength of the devil in him. The strength of the cuckold.

  I picked up the paperweight and I struck him.

  I did not kill him but the sight—the sight of him lying like a landed fish, his eyes open and the mixture of blood and mucus that poured from his mouth and nose—terrified me.

  Later a witness was to say that she had heard a scream. Perhaps it was mine. I do not kn0w if I screamed—I cannot remember. But I recall staring down at him, not knowing what to do. I did not even think of the girl. Then I came to my senses at last. I remember feeling ashamed that I had wetted myself and my trousers were damp. Quite suddenly I found myself thinking clearly and I left them both. Perhaps she was dead already or perhaps I could have saved her. If I had pulled her from the water and given her respiration, perhaps she might have regained consciousness. Instead of trying to help her, I rushed from the bathroom, went down the stairs and climbed through the window.

  Papa was asleep in the car. Goodness knows what he must have thought when I awoke him and he saw me covered in blood. It was at that moment I must have left stains on the front seat. Of course, Papa knew what to do. He calmed me down, told me to explain what had happened and he accompanied me back to the Villa.

  Medically and legally speaking, it was Papa who killed Nonno Ismaele. He felt there was no choice. He hit him once—very hard with the onyx and then dragged the corpse halfway down the stairs. It was horrid and I watched with amazement as Papa worked so methodically. Of course, he had studied as a doctor and he must have seen corpses before in the hospital. But for me—it was all terrifyingly impressive.

  He then cleaned up the bathroom, wiping away the sill and all the other places where I might have left my fingerprints. He spent over an hour wiping everything with the meticulous attention of a Charterhouse monk. Fortunately, when Eva had let me into the house, I had accompanied her immediately upstairs and apart from the bathroom, there were few places where I had left my prints. As it happened, several were found—but as a regular visitor to the Villa Laura, it was only normal that my fingerprints should be there, along with Mama’s and Papa’s. Then with the same, clinical detachment, Papa smeared blood on the walls of Eva’s bedroom. To make it look like rape, he said.

  Before we left, I took a last look at Eva.

  She lay in the bath and her battered face was pale. The bath water was cold by now, and red with blood. She looked like a child.

  Papa turned off the current at the fuse box and then we crept out of the back window.

  We drove to Voghera where I was to catch the train. Papa parked in the dark outside the station. He wanted to buy the ticket for me but in the end, I did. The front of my face was not even bruised—and the lump on the side of my skull went down long before the police ever came to see us. There was a long wait for the train and during that time I sat in the car, Papa made his phone call. It was already past three o’clock in the morning, but fortunately no one ever saw him at Voghera station—or at least, no one recognized him.

  It is possible that if Dell’Orto had had more time to think, he would have come up with a different plan. Possible but not certain. The point is that both Papa and Dell’Orto agreed that for me to be safe, for me to be above all suspicion, there would have to be another possible culprit. Papa would never have accepted that I should confess the truth to the police. And so, with the active support of Dell’Orto, Papa agreed to become the scapegoat. He acted out of love and I don’t think it ever occurred to him that perhaps he would not be found guilty. Many years later he told me that he acted out of self-interest. He said that if ever the truth had come out and it had been discovered that not only had he been aware of the relationship between me and Eva, but that he had even gone so far as to encourage—organize, even—our meetings, then his reputation would have been ruined definitively. Admit that he had pimped for his son, admit that he had allowed his son to carry on with a maid so that the family fortune should never end up in her hands?

  But I know Papa and I know that his only concern was for my well-being. In his cold, detached way he has always loved me. And I have always loved him, though I sometimes wish that I had never inherited the recklessness that was in his blood.

  And so I returned to San Remo.

  At Genoa Sampierdarena I had to change trains. It was there that I broke down and started to weep. To weep like a child while I hid in the dark, empty compartment.

  I reached San Remo just before dawn.

  68:
Garda

  FROM MILAN TO Brescia the train was crowded and although they had first-class tickets, it was impossible to talk, impossible to sleep. Pioppi looked out of the window at the monotonous countryside while Magagna read the paper.

  They got off at Desenzano and took a taxi to the port.

  A cool breeze came down from the mountains and blew the length of the lake—a cool, fresh wind that ruffled through Pioppi’s hair and for the first time since leaving the Policlinico she smiled. Trotti took her by the arm and they went aboard the Giuseppe Verdi.

  Later there was a short blast of the horn, and the boat pulled out across the water and headed towards the open lake. The sky was cloudless but the lakeside soon grew misty in the afternoon haze. Pioppi went to the aft rail and stared at the green water as it was churned by the propellers. Trotti noticed out of the corner of his eye that one of the officers glanced at her from time to time. Later when Trotti turned to look, he saw that the man was in conversation with Pioppi. She was smiling and he was pointing towards the faint outline of the Pre-Alps.

  Magagna sat down beside Trotti and lit a cigarette.

  “Why do you smoke those things? They’re expensive and they’re bad for you. When I smoked, I used to smoke Nazionali.”

  Magagna laughed.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I gave up eating sweets when I was a kid.” In the same breath, Magagna went on, “I still don’t understand who killed him.”

  “Him?”

  “Maltese.”

  “You read the notes he wrote.”

  Magagna shook his head. “I had a look at them while you were having lunch in Milan, Commissario. But not at length. There wasn’t time—you were in a hurry to get to the Villa Laura.”

  “I didn’t stop you from looking at the dossier.”

  Magagna let the smoke escape from his mouth; the grey wisps were carried away by the breeze. “He was working on the P-Beta, wasn’t he?”