The prosecutor had said the same thing, hadn’t he? ‘You take too much upon yourself.’
He hadn’t thought, it was true. He’d done his best; but if his best wasn’t good enough, if his best was an ill-written report—and he was no writer, any more than he was a talker—resulting in delays, even in a failure to convince at all? A florid man, balding, leaving the bedroom. A crying child. And all the weight of power and wealth against him.
The captain had picked up the letter of resignation and was holding it out. He took it and, in silence, gave him the report. The rain was coming down harder.
* * *
‘Eternal rest give unto her, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon her. . . .’
The church was very small but, even so, the marshal was puzzled by its being so full. His plan of sitting right at the back so as to watch everyone coming out was foiled since all the benches were full. Nevertheless, he remained at the back on his feet and soon worked out that the greater part of the congregation was not in mourning and probably consisted of regular churchgoers here.
‘We don’t know anybody. . . .’ Hadn’t the younger daughter said that one morning as they walked in the garden? Even some of those in black at the front of the church were a bit uncertain about kneeling and sitting, and the marshal felt sure that they were employees from Paoletti’s club, under orders to dress for the occasion, who couldn’t remember when they had last been at mass.
‘I confess to almighty God, to the Blessed Mary ever a Virgin, Blessed Michael the Archangel. . . .’
If it came to that, he wasn’t sure he could remember when he had last been at mass himself, so he was hardly the one to criticise.
‘Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. . . .’
He’d been crazy to think he could take it upon himself . . . now he was following the captain’s instructions to the letter.
‘Just listen to whatever the prosecutor says and look compliant.’
He’d done that, silent, respectful, and, above all, expressionless.
‘If he tells you to take some particular line of inquiry, as I imagine he has been doing until now. . . .’
‘Oh, yes. The daughter’s private life, finding an ex-gardener who has a record, that sort of thing. . . .’ He was doing that, too. And since Paoletti, as expected, had to go back into hospital for tests, he was going to to follow the prosecutor’s orders and stay close to the family. After all, they didn’t want something happening to the second daughter in his absence.
‘He’ll be out in a day or two.’
‘And are you likely to be able to find this gardener?’
‘I’ll find him, just as slowly as the prosecutor wants. And to make it more convincing, we’re doing a DNA check on the child. I’d thought . . . I’d hoped he might not want that, to be honest.’
‘You didn’t think De Vita could be—’
‘No. Not him, no . . . I suppose I should have done. If he and Paoletti have been involved for years . . . and the murder occurred on his watch. That can hardly be luck, can it? No. You’re right, I should have thought about it, but no. It’s Paoletti I’m thinking of.’
‘Incest?’
‘Well, it’s not a crime, strictly speaking, is it? Unless it’s a public scandal or the child’s under age. Paoletti likes respectability. He’s ostentatious in his religion and his charitable donations. I know I’m not making myself clear, but everything in his life is controlled by him. . . . He couldn’t have killed her, it’s true, and he wouldn’t have wanted her killed by anybody else—even if she was trying to get away from him— not in his respectable household.’
‘No. From what you’ve told me about him, I can quite see that. But that it happened on this particular prosecutor’s watch is a consideration and, as you say, if you’re right about the child’s paternity, one would expect him to be reluctant to issue the warrant. Of course, he might not know.’ ‘And I might be wrong.’
‘You might. In any case, the test will show if the child’s parents are blood relations and besides, remember that what De Vita’s trying to keep you away from may have nothing to do with your murder case. It’s probably only about saving his own skin.’
‘Yes. . . .’
‘You’re not convinced.’
He wasn’t. But how could he explain that he felt the way those girls felt? That it made no difference whether Paoletti was in hospital when it happened or not: The hand of Paoletti was everywhere in this story. Whatever happened around Paoletti, he was guilty of it because he controlled everything. Poor Cristina had transmitted her fear to him, and he was finding it hard to shake off. Thinking she’d be on television. Would they be in time . . . ? Don Antonino would arrive this afternoon and be briefed.
The prosecutor would be suspended pending an investigation; but once he knew that, then Paoletti would be warned and the children would disappear. Everything had to be coordinated so that there was no time for Paoletti to act.
And even then, would they succeed in getting a conviction? There was the priest in the pulpit now, not talking about Daniela so much as about the heartfelt generosity of her father. Not only had he paid for the heating that had been installed in the church last autumn. . . .
They must need it, too, the marshal thought, because it was ice-cold in here now, and it was still August.
He also intended, in the name of his dear daughter, so sadly taken from us, to restore the frescoes behind the altar. . . .
Pink cherubs fluttering around a madonna in blue and white, hand to heart, eyes raised, soaring up to heaven on a damp-ravaged cloud with gold rays coming out of it.
All that pink and blue reminded the marshal of the bedroom ceiling in that hotel. Paoletti had no doubt restored that, too. The cold in here was yet another reminder of that long, unhappy night.
‘Lord have mercy.
‘Christ have mercy.
‘Christ have mercy.
‘Christ have mercy.
‘Lord have mercy. . . .’
All the money Paoletti had contributed to the church would explain why the congregation had turned out this morning, urged, no doubt, from the pulpit last Sunday.
How had they managed to get the mother up and dressed and to church at this hour? Of course, things must be different with Paoletti at home. However sick he might be, he would still be obeyed. They say some caged birds wouldn’t fly away even though you left the cage door open. Paoletti knew how to choose his little birds. Fluttering captives.
‘Eternal rest give unto her, O Lord. . . .’
A child’s whimper echoed. It must be Piero. He was silenced.
‘And let perpetual light shine upon her. . . .’
The marshal had this feeling about Paoletti: that, somehow, he would slip through their fingers. Even if the operation they were planning went perfectly, even though they had witnesses. After all, all those years ago, he’d been in a much tighter spot. He’d been arrested, there were witnesses, including his victim, and he hadn’t the experience then that he did now—or a priest already on his side. How had he managed it that time? Thinking about Piazza and Paoletti’s approach there, it occurred to him that the man had probably started out by having his confession heard and recruiting the priest that way. We all like to think we’ve saved somebody. Wasn’t he guilty of that himself? Paoletti was such a clever manipulator. His antennae picked up people’s weak spots and their little vanities too. And what about the sort of fancy lawyer his money would buy—no, he wouldn’t even have to pay. That lawyer on his list of victims would do the job for free to protect himself. So clever . . . he would never go to prison, unless it was to leave right away by the back door like last time. The marshal admitted to himself that he was afraid of the man. Those children. . . .
‘Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who taketh away the sins of the world. . . .’
Communion was given at one side of the altar, since Daniela’s coffin stood in the nave. Paoletti and his wife and da
ughter took communion before the rest of the congregation.
Just before the mass ended, the marshal retreated very quietly and stepped outside into the sun’s heat, fishing for his dark glasses.
‘I thought I’d find you here.’
‘Nesti—you shouldn’t be seen here, and especially not with me—’
‘Let’s go, then. Get in my car, I’ve got a surprise for you—and don’t start! I’ve kept my word, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, but . . . who is that?’
‘An important witness with something interesting to tell you about our friend Paoletti. Get in. They’ll be coming out.’
‘My own car and driver are here, and I have to go to the cemetery. What’s this about?’
‘Follow us, then. We’ll go up to Trespiano and tuck our cars out of sight somewhere inside the cemetery gates. You can join the funeral when it arrives.’
Whoever the man in Nesti’s car was, the marshal didn’t recognize him, but he followed them down through the city and up the via Bolognese. The steep, narrow road was strewn with purple ribbons and lost flower heads blown from speeding hearses.
Inside the cemetery, the marshal and the stranger stood in the strip of shade offered by a line of cypresses while Nesti walked up and down, smoking, keeping an eye out for the arrival of the Paoletti cortège.
The stranger introduced himself as an ex-colleague with the same grade as the marshal.
‘I saw that piece in the paper and so I rang up. Nesti said I should talk to you.’
‘You know something about this murder?’
‘Murder? No. But I know something about Paoletti. I was marshal out there up to a couple of years ago, before Piazza.’
‘You . . . you look young to have retired. . . .’
‘Retired? Well, I suppose you could say retired. I took on Paoletti and lost—not deliberately, I’m no hero. I heard rumours about that hotel and decided to do a bit of nighttime investigating. Saw people I shouldn’t have seen. Anyway, I found myself transferred.’
‘Where?’
‘Basilicata. I’ve nothing against the south, but my wife’s from Bologna . . . you know how it is. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they didn’t come with me, they went to her mother’s—just at first, the wife said, and then. . . . After a while I realized they’d never come. Kids liked their schools there, and so on. So, I took early retirement.’
‘Could you afford it? I mean. . . .’
‘Of course I couldn’t afford it. Could you?’
‘No. No, I. . . .’
‘Watch your back, then. He’s dangerous and he’s well-connected.’
‘I know. Lucky for me, my commanding officer—’
‘A company captain? Don’t kid yourself. You’ll both be out on your ear. Don’t mess around with him. You’ll be the one to lose out. There are politicians involved. You follow me?’
‘Is that all you came to tell me?’
‘No, it’s not, but it’s one of the things, so if you’ve got a family. . . .’
‘What . . . what did you do? I mean, after you left the army?’
‘Moved in with her mother. What else could I do?’
‘And. . . .’ He wanted to ask if it had turned out all right, but he could see that it hadn’t. Everything about the man showed that he no longer had a wife. The day was very hot, of course, but that was yesterday’s shirt giving off the smell of stale sweat and his hair was just a bit too long and smelled of . . . hair. The marshal changed his question. ‘Did you find work?’
‘Eventually. Security job. Boring. Didn’t get on too well with the mother-in-law, though, so. . . . You know how it is.’
‘You said that you had something else to tell me.’
‘I’ve got plenty to tell you if you’re sure you want to keep after him.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Well then—Wait—it looks like they’re here.’
Nesti was signalling the arrival of the funeral procession. There was nothing for it but to interrupt. The marshal’s presence there was official, furthering the pretence of looking for the unknown father of little Piero. The other two men must not be seen, so they arranged to meet at the same spot when it was all over.
The marshal got into his car. Only three cars followed the hearse apart from his own, one with the family, the other two with employees. At the burial niche, the marshal recognized Frida and Danuta. The others he wasn’t so sure about, but, judging by their size and aspect, at least two of them he reckoned were bouncers from the club and a young thin one could well be the character in the orange baseball cap. Was he perhaps the Mauro who drove the two cleaning girls back and forth between the villa here and the club and Cristina and the rest between the club and the hotel? It was only a guess, of course, but the marshal, staring at the back of his head, bare today, felt sure of it and sure, too, that he acted as postman. Something was wrong, though . . . to do with his driving the girls. . . .
He couldn’t see the priest, a short man, beyond the broad backs of the bouncers, but he heard the quiet clink of the aspergillum as he blessed the coffin.
‘May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’
‘Amen.’
Above them, the rainwashed cypresses raised sharp black sihouettes to the clean blue sky.
Teresa would be there by now. He’d put her on the seven twenty flight to Catania.
‘I’ll get a taxi straight to the hospital.’
‘I’m sorry . . . I mean—’
‘It doesn’t matter—I understand how you feel about the two children—but you shouldn’t take things so personally. It’s still only a case.’
‘Yes. . . .’ He couldn’t tell her the truth.
What was it he was trying to remember about the driver? It would come back to him. The brief word with his ex-colleague had agitated him. You can’t remember things if you’re agitated. You can’t observe things properly, either. Of all those standing around the coffin on its trestles, it was the mother he would have liked to observe, but he couldn’t see her face. There was a brief moment, when the group moved to allow the coffin to be slid into its niche in the wall, when he got a good look at Paoletti. He looked distressed. His face was paler and looked collapsed. After all, he was just a man who’d lost his first-born child. Frida and Danuta were standing to one side, a little apart, and he had a good view of them. They had little Piero between them. They each held one of his hands, and he kept trying to swing on them. The girls were dressed in black, but their short dresses and high heels looked more suitable for waiting on customers in the club than for a funeral, and so did their makeup. All that black eye makeup made the pale little things look haggard in the sunlight.
As for the mother, when he did manoeuvre himself into a position where he could see her, the marshal was surprised. On this day, of all days, she could have been expected to have an incapacitating hangover. But she was sober, well-groomed, and calm. Her face was expressionless. Moving again, he saw Silvana in profile, crying, leaning against her father. He put an arm around her, murmuring something that quietened her when her crying became audible. She put on a pair of dark glasses and stood up straight. But then she was obedient. The marshal himself had found her so. Surely, though, even Paoletti’s authority couldn’t cure an alcoholic overnight. . . .
‘She doesn’t drink!’
Silvana had snapped at him that first morning when he’d suggested she give her mother a drop of something to revive her. It would have worked, too. She had been too hungover—or even still too drunk—to register her daughter’s death. Of course, it was possible that she had been taking advantage of her husband’s absence to drink so much, but the timetable of the two girls who came and got her up at midday. . . .
‘Don’t hold on to the table. Lean on me.‘ They were used to dealing with it.
‘My mother’s not well. . . .’
All that stuff didn’t square with her composure this morning. Y
et he was a witness to both states.
What was it he needed to remember about the driver, Mauro? The group standing before the niche was breaking up. The builders began walling it up. The low sun burned strong and clean this morning, so that the red icon lights on the marble plaques of the other niches burned in reflection. All the little bunches of flowers, real or plastic, still held unshed raindrops. He wanted to talk to the mother, the way she was now, sober. But Nesti and his ex-colleague were waiting for him, and he had no choice but to watch the cars drive away and then join them near the gates. Daniela was dead, buried now, and he had to give priority to those who were still in danger. He was going to have to be careful, too, since he shouldn’t tell the man anything he didn’t already know. It was obvious from his first question that he knew nothing about Daniela’s death.
‘So, who were they burying?’
‘Paoletti’s daughter, Daniela.’
‘His daughter? You mentioned a murder before— you don’t mean that she—’
‘Yes. You didn’t see that in the paper?’
‘No—well, I confess I wasn’t taking much notice. Just saw Paoletti’s name and thought “Right, that’s it.” I’m out of the army now and I can say what I want, you know what I mean? He’s probably trodden on somebody’s toes if they’ve gone for the daughter. I can’t be any help to you on that. It’s Paoletti himself I’m concerned with, him and De Vita.’
‘De Vita? Fulvio De Vita?’
‘The prosecutor.’
‘You’ve seen Paoletti’s list, then?’
‘I haven’t seen any list. I suppose there had to be one. A list of the people who could be blackmailed—if that’s what you mean.’
Vita Nuova Page 16