by Tobias Jones
‘I was wondering why Umberto Salati just paid you a flying visit.’
There was a crackle and the line went dead. I buzzed again but there was no reply. I stared at the grey gate. It was simultaneously ornate and brutal. Wealth’s lack of taste always surprises me.
The air seemed solid with its freezing fog. It was thickening as the air got colder. I heard the rattle of the delivery vans back on the main road. It was an isolated, melancholy place.
I pulled out my notebook and wrote down the date and the times that Salati had arrived at and left the Tonin estate.
I was looking at the notes when I heard a car slowing down. I looked up and could see the no-nonsense rectangles of Volvo headlights.
Tonin got out. ‘What are you doing hanging around outside my house?’
‘Still looking for answers.’
The man stared at me with veiled anger.
‘I’m interested as to why Umberto Salati should be visiting your house whilst you’re away.’
The man growled, but I could tell he was surprised.
‘You got any ideas?’
‘What do you want from me? I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘Have you?’
The old man just stared at me. He was wearing a black overcoat with a fur trim on the collar. He looked tired and tense. The situation was out of his control and he seemed to know it.
‘What happened to your face?’ he asked.
I ignored him. ‘What did Salati want with your wife?’
Tonin shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I told him that you and his mother were lovers. He didn’t take it well.’
Tonin was shaking his head vigorously. ‘That wasn’t wise.’
‘Why not?’
‘Have you no mercy? Silvia was buried yesterday and already today you’re telling her son …’
He had a point, but I didn’t have time for sensitive types.
‘I just spoke to your wife.’
‘When?’
‘Just now, on the intercom. Not a talkative type is she?’
Tonin looked confused, as if he couldn’t work it out himself. He looked like he was thinking deeply himself and couldn’t find an answer.
He pointed at his car, indicating to me that I should get in. I held up a finger to my taxi driver, suggesting I would only be a minute.
Tonin opened the gate with a remote and revved angrily as it swung open. As he got to the front of the house he braked hard and I heard the gravel smacking the underneath of the car.
The woman was on the phone when we went in. The hall was all marble and terracotta and her voice echoed off all the walls. She was short and slim with hair halfway between blonde and grey. She was wearing a skirt that was shorter than you would expect from someone her age, and it made her look much younger than her husband. From her appearance I guessed she read the fashion magazines, like she still wanted to look good for someone.
She turned round on hearing us and put a palm over the phone: ‘Who’s this?’ She glanced at her husband.
‘A private detective.’
‘You’ve been hanging around outside my house all this time?’ She took her palm away from the phone. ‘I’ll call you back.’
She looked me up and down. ‘You look like a boxer who lost every round. What do you want?’
‘Would you prefer to talk in private?’ I asked gently.
She laughed at the question and its tone.
‘I’ve been commissioned’, I said slowly, ‘by the estate of Silvia Salati to classify the legal status of her son, Riccardo.’
She shot her husband a look that he avoided.
‘I believe you knew Riccardo Salati was your husband’s son?’
She was still staring at her husband. ‘Is that right?’ There were years of resentment in her voice.
‘Why did Umberto Salati come here just now?’
She didn’t have a quick reply and both Tonin and I could see it.
‘He said he wanted to know if it was true. Said how we were to blame for what had happened to his family.’
‘What did he mean?’
‘That he knew our little secret. He kept saying it.’
‘Meaning?’ I looked at Tonin. His eyes were closed.
‘He had only just found out about,’ she paused, ‘about his brother. He seemed to blame my family for what had happened to the boy.’
She had recovered her composure and was talking fluently again. I had lost my chance to catch whatever it was that she was being evasive about. I looked at her face. She had a small, tight mouth which made her look mean.
‘Who do you think killed Riccardo?’ I asked her.
‘How should I know? All I knew about him was that he was a bad one. The kind that ran up debts and couldn’t stay still. It happens to some people. Especially those without a stable family life.’ She looked at her husband archly.
‘You didn’t like him much, did you?’
‘I didn’t dislike him. I wanted nothing to do with him. I’m sure you can understand why.’
‘Did Umberto ask you for money?’
‘He said he was owed, and he was going to get what was owing to him. That’s what he said.’
‘And what did he mean by that?’
‘That his father’s fortune shouldn’t be wasted on illegitimate ghosts. He said he needed proof that the boy was dead.’
‘And he thought he could get it from you?’
She stopped to draw breath, exhaled dismissively through her nostrils, and sneered. ‘I don’t know anything about his disappearance, let alone his death. I don’t know anything about his life. All I know about him is …’
‘How he was conceived.’ I finished her sentence for her.
‘I’ll open the gate for you on your way out.’ She said walking towards the door and holding it open.
I looked at her again. Her nails were painted a dark red, the same colour as her thin lips.
I bowed towards Tonin, feeling cowardly for leaving the poor man alone with such a woman.
As I walked back along the gravel, my footsteps sounded loud. I turned to look at the house, but the front lights had been switched off and it was in darkness. Someone must have been watching though because the gates swung open as I approached them.
As they closed behind me I stopped. I looked at the buzzer and walked towards it one last time. I pushed the button and held it. No one answered. I had wanted to know how many children they had, how many children of their own. I made a mental note to find out.
The taxi driver was impatient when I returned. We headed back to the city in silence. I was thinking about what I had heard. The woman seemed to know all about Riccardo. She had the weary, sarcastic tone of the wronged woman who didn’t want to be reminded of a past humiliation or slight. She must have been able to see what was coming. Umberto Salati had felt so indignant that he decided to confront the Tonin family, to insist that they compensate him for anything they had done wrong. I wondered what that was. What, other than dishonouring his father, did he blame them for?
I looked at the fields in the dark.
‘You been in this business long?’ I asked the driver.
‘Twenty-odd years. Since I left school.’
‘Always hanging around the station?’
‘Station, stadium, schools. You never know where you’re going to end up. That’s why I like it.’
The car was speeding back towards the tangenziale.
‘You the longest serving in that line-up?’
‘Just about. There’s a couple been there longer than me. But apart from them, I’m the veteran.’ He laughed.
Within a minute or two, we were approaching the outskirts of the city. There were static cranes and unfinished housing blocks amidst the frozen mud.
‘What’s the furthest anyone’s ever gone with you?’ I asked.
The man chuckled to himself. ‘I used to have a good number driving an Austrian girl to Vienna and back.
Lovely girl, an Erasmus student.’
‘Ever take anyone to Rimini?’
‘Couple of times, sure. In the summer.’
‘In 1995?’
The driver put his brakes on gently and the car slowed down into the darkness.
‘What is this?’ he said quietly, catching my eye in his mirror. ‘If someone wants to ask me a question, I prefer they do it straight, if I explain myself.’
‘Try this: you ever heard of a boy called Riccardo Salati?’
‘Yeah, sounds familiar. Who is he?’
‘Was he. He went missing in 1995 whilst waiting for a train to Rimini.’
The man was nodding slowly like it was all coming back to him. I looked at his ID on the dashboard and memorised the number just for luck.
‘Yeah, I remember. I read about it.’
‘No one ever ask you about it?’
‘Not until now.’
‘You mind asking your colleagues if they know anything?’
The man nodded without saying anything.
‘No one’s under any suspicion. I’m just starting from scratch and trying to put the pieces together.’
The man nodded again, his suspicion and curiosity aroused.
He dropped me off at Borgo delle Colonne and asked for a small fortune. He stared at me closely as I handed over the cash. I realised that my face was bound to arouse interest for the next few days.
‘Here, take this,’ I said, slipping him a card. ‘There’s a reward for any information,’ I lied.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was shocked at what I saw. Only my cropped hair looked normal. My right eye had swollen mauve and my ear lobe was caked in dark red crusts. The lower lip of my mouth looked bloated. I tried to roll my shoulders, but each millimetre of movement hurt in different ways. I was surprised how the pain shot to my back or fingertips as I tried to move my arms. I swallowed some painkillers and crawled into bed. I fell asleep to the hypnotic sound of the rain lashing against the windows.
Thursday
Thursday morning. I had been getting dressed when the phone went. It was Mauro. I found the news more confusing than surprising.
‘Salati’, I heard him say, ‘committed suicide.’
I thought it was him telling me his take on the Riccardo case. It sounded like a statement about what had happened to the young boy. But his voice was urgent and it was barely morning.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Umberto Salati. He’s committed suicide.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I heard it from a friend.’ Mauro told me the news. They had found Umberto outside his condominium early this morning. He had sky-dived from the top floor.
I kept hearing myself say I couldn’t believe it.
‘I heard this morning’, Mauro said, ‘when I was out buying the paper. Someone at the edicola told me.’
‘Is it public yet? Is it on the news?’
‘The radio said at six that a dead body had been found. They haven’t formally identified it.’
‘So how do you know it’s him?’
‘Because this guy seemed to know the details. He said Salati had jumped.’
‘I can’t believe it. You’re sure it’s Umberto Salati?’
‘Like I say, it hasn’t been confirmed. What are you going to do?’
‘He lives in Via Pestalozzi, doesn’t he?’
‘By the cittadella.’
‘I’ve got to go. Thanks Mauro.’
I threw the phone on the bed and finished getting dressed. It was freezing. I pulled on a jumper and went to put on the coffee.
Salati had committed suicide. Umberto Salati had jumped and I was the one who had pushed him to the edge. I had tried to break him and I had succeeded nicely. I don’t normally feel guilt because I live, if I may say so, a pretty clean life. But now I felt guilt like an ice-cube in the heart. If it was true that Umberto was dead, I knew I was to blame.
It was still early and after last night’s rain the sky was a slightly lighter grey than yesterday. I slugged the coffee and headed out towards the cittadella. The city was still asleep, just the odd bike or moped heading off to work.
As I got closer, though, there were people running towards Via Pestalozzi. It made me impatient to get there first and I started walking more quickly. There were carabinieri at either end of the street holding back people with microphones.
‘Is it true?’ I asked a man with a camera on his shoulder.
‘Don’t know.’
‘What’s the official line?’
‘They’ve found a body.’
‘Has someone tried to call him?’ I didn’t even need to mention Salati’s name.
‘No reply.’
I moved towards the carabinieri.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘There’s been a suicide.’
‘Have they identified the body?’
‘No.’
The carabinieri didn’t like privates muscling in, but I had to try. I showed them my licence but it didn’t make any difference. I got the usual, dead-pan brush-off.
There was nothing to do. I went and sat in the bar at the corner of Via Solferino. Other journalists started turning up. Someone from La Gazzetta, one of the staff reporters from the local radio station, the local Rai guy.
Carabinieri kept coming and going. The first reliable confirmation we got was when one of the neighbours emerged from the condominium.
He was immediately besieged by the journalists and he seemed to enjoy the attention.
‘Is it true it’s Umberto Salati?’ one of the journalists asked.
‘It’s unbelievable. Poor man. I had no idea he was, no idea he might …’
‘Could you identify who it was?’
‘Umberto,’ he said, hearing the question for the first time. ‘He was on his back, but his head was, it was horrible.’
I looked beyond the crowd. I had to get to the site, but it was still cordoned off. I had already shown my badge to the blank carabiniere this end of the street, so I did three sides of a rectangle, walking along Solferino to the Stradone, along that to Passo Buole so that I came at the street from the other end. An officer held up his hand as I approached.
‘Forbidden,’ he said.
‘I live here.’
‘What number?’
‘Seventeen.’ I pointed at a building and the carabiniere fell into step with me, expecting to accompany me to my door just to make sure. He kept looking back every few steps to check that no one else had ducked under the thin plastic ribbon.
I walked slowly knowing I would be allowed to pass only once. After they had realised I didn’t live here, I would be hounded away with a choice insult. I slowed down even more as I came to the middle of the street. There was an ambulance, two carabinieri Alfa Romeos, and an unmarked car that was so badly parked it could only be the plainclothes.
Outside the block at number eight were men in white overalls taking measurements in the courtyard. I crouched down, pretending to be doing up my shoe-laces and saw between the various ankles a man’s face.
The chin was unnaturally far from the shoulder. The yellowing moustache was red. I tilted my head and saw the con torted features of Umberto Salati: the thick hair, the round cheeks. It looked like he was asleep.
I had an involuntary intake of breath. Seeing it like that didn’t leave much doubt about life and death.
I pretended that I had forgotten my keys and slinked away from my escort. I still couldn’t believe it.
I tried to think straight. I had been in the game long enough to know that something was suspicious. This had something to do with Riccardo. Whatever had started a couple days ago had caused Umberto Salati to jump. Or had persuaded someone to push him. Because it was always like this. A case was never just a case. It became many, each one knocking into the next. What I had assumed was a cold case had become suddenly hot. A bit of gentle sport had become dangerous.
I felt
under threat myself, as if I were somehow responsible for what had happened. I was often tense on a case, but I never felt, like now, that I was somehow at the centre of it. It might even have been my aggressive openness the night before that had unhinged Salati.
I hated not being at the scene of the crime. If this really was a murder, every minute was precious. You needed to stop people moving. You couldn’t let them into or out of the building. You had to do everything quickly: take statements, swabs, photographs, measurements, record number plates, request phone records, dust every handle and button in the building. I didn’t trust the officials to be anything like thorough enough.
‘What are you doing?’ The voice made me jump and I stood up quickly. ‘Castagnetti?’ The voice sounded surprised.
It was Dall’Aglio. He had the same uniform as the young boy who had been escorting me, but he looked much older. ‘You shouldn’t be here. I’m going to have to move you on.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said wearily.
‘What are you doing here anyway? I know you’re quick, but this isn’t even public knowledge yet.’
‘Tip-off.’
‘Always a tip-off, eh?’
I looked at him, trying to work out if he was malleable. ‘Was it really suicide?’
‘I can’t answer that, you know the rules.’
‘What time did it happen?’
‘There will be an official announcement later today.’
‘What floor was he on?’
Dall’Aglio didn’t say anything, but subtly put his index finger vertically upwards.
‘Top?’
He nodded.
I looked at Dall’Aglio. We had been out for a drink together a couple of times but now he was in uniform and this was different. It was pointless to throw more questions his way.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘OK. See you around.’
I walked a little further on and took out my binoculars. There was a row of trees shielding the building from the street. I moved further on to see the building better. It was a six-storey block. It looked elegant and large. Through the brass and glass doors you could see the dark banisters. The lighting was low. It looked typical for this chic part of town: large awnings overhanging balconies laden with leafy plants.
The top floor was surrounded by a terrace which formed a continuous balcony on all four sides. It had no plants. I could see an open door leading on to the balcony above where the body lay.