The Salati Case

by Tobias Jones

  ‘You saying I’m a grass?’

  ‘You said that. I wouldn’t ever say that.’

  An elbow hit me above the ear and the pain shot through my shoulder.

  The information was worth the blow. Lo Squarcione was a squealer all right. The guilty always leap to defend their honour because it’s the only way they can make it look like they’ve got any honour left. Lo Squarcione was a grass, and that meant he would normally sing from whatever songsheet he was given. That’s what grasses were like. They said anything if it made them some money or bought some protection.

  I leaned across the table and whispered. He had to lean close to hear my words. ‘I know you’re a squealer. My friends in the Questura told me all about you. Unless you set me straight about this Sandro piece of shit, I’ll tell everyone in the city that you do the uniform’s dirty work for them, you with me?’

  He had gone a pleasing shade of white

  ‘Wednesday night,’ I said slowly, ‘did you see Sandro Tonin?’

  He looked at me with disdain. ‘What am I supposed to say?’ he asked. That was typical. The idea of the truth was so alien to him that he wanted me to tell him what I wanted to hear. That’s what grasses are like.

  ‘This is one of your regulars. You know him well enough. Just tell me if you saw him on Wednesday night.’

  He looked at me and shrugged. ‘Sure, I saw him.’

  ‘Do you ever tell the truth?’

  Lo Squarcione shrugged again, like he didn’t know what he had done. It looked to me like he was the kind of cuckold who gave away alibis like he gave out his poisons: he probably sold them to the highest bidder.

  ‘You saw this boy on Wednesday night? What time?’

  ‘How do I know?’

  ‘You’re sure you’re telling this right? You saw Sandro Tonin on Wednesday night did you?’ I asked uncertain.

  ‘I saw him,’ he said, trying to sound convincing.

  I got up to leave. ‘I’ll let you know about that reward,’ I said.

  I walked out frustrated. It felt instinctively that my guesses from last night were all wrong. It might have been true that Sandro had been with his woman all evening, and had only gone out to score some substance to pickle his brain. You didn’t need to be a genius to know that a guilty man needing to set up a watertight alibi wouldn’t exactly ask Lo Squarcione for one.

  In the car I took snaps of all the number plates in the Blue Camel car park just for luck. I drove off thinking about Lo Squarcione. I assumed he was simply pond life, a peddler of unpleasantries. It was possible that he was with the nice gentlemen of the south, but that seemed unlikely. Informers from that part of the world tend to be used for building foundations. Lo Squarcione’s accent was from round here. This was a local racket run by amateurs. Not that that made him any less dangerous. He would certainly have decent backup. But it meant Lo Squarcione almost certainly couldn’t count on what euphemistically used to be called political assistance.

  It was yet another dead end. Sandro had seemed a likely bet and now I had lost another twenty-four hours. It didn’t seem much set against fourteen years, but it was only days since Umberto Salati had been killed. Every hour counted. As soon as normality returned and the momentum was lost, nothing would stand out any more. I needed to understand what had happened Wednesday night but nothing was connecting.

  The lack of sleep was getting to me. My concentration was evaporating now the adrenalin of the chase had gone. I yawned and felt my jaw ache. I tried to think about the case, but my mind had the staying power of a leaf in autumn.

  I parked on Viale Mentana and walked to my flat. There was nothing to do but sit and think.

  I looked at the bee balm I had put into tiny containers last night. They were properly set now. I checked for lumps but it looked smooth and white. I unscrewed a cap and ran my finger across the top of the oily mixture. It smelt as you would expect: vanilla, coconut, the usual. I rubbed it off my finger and screwed the top back on.

  I sat on the sofa and thought about old Massimo Tonin. I couldn’t believe it was him. He didn’t seem the type. There was no motive. I didn’t even think he had paid for that mourning notice, though I was sure he knew who had.

  His son Sandro had seemed plausible, but before I had even got to him, it felt wrong. Dall’Aglio would bring him in anyway, and they might find something in his flat, but Sandro had been more concerned about buying his fix than silencing the past. His mother had phoned him, that I knew. But it might just have been, as Dall’Aglio said, a mother phoning her son.

  I thought about that. They were talking when I got there on Wednesday. They had been talking on the phone as soon as Umberto Salati had left. I made a note to ask Infostrada how long that little chat had lasted. The only bit I had heard was the end of their chat, when old Tonin and I went in. ‘I’ll call you back,’ she had said.

  I’ll call you back, I said to myself. The woman had said it to her son. But there had been only one call. That’s what Dall’Aglio had told me.

  It probably wasn’t anything. We all say stuff we never do. But she hadn’t called him back, and mothers normally do. They do everything for their children, especially if there’s only one. They do everything, I repeated, trying to think of all the absurd things my friends allowed their mothers to do. Their ironing, their cooking, their cleaning.

  Someone had told me that the Tonin woman made Sandro’s bed and put food in his fridge. It was that receptionist who had said it. Said that the mother came into town to do all his chores.

  That was when the penny dropped. How did the woman get around? I kept imagining her stuck in the Tonin villa all day because that’s where I had always seen her. But she spent half her time in the city by the sound of it. Old Tonin had made out his wife was immobile, but it sounded like she got around just fine.

  It was late afternoon by now. It was dull outside, the grey turning black. I called the Studio Tonin, but there was no reply.

  I called Crespi’s phone. ‘I need Giovanna Monti’s number.’

  ‘My assistant? Why?’

  ‘I just do. Where is she?’

  ‘She left at lunchtime, always does on a Saturday.’

  ‘What’s her mobile?’

  He gave me her number.

  ‘Any news on those properties?’ I asked impatiently.

  ‘I’m engaged in other matters this afternoon. I’ll look into it on Monday. What time are you coming round?’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  I phoned Monti and asked for Serena’s number. She asked me why and I said it was to do with a murder. That put her straight and she gave me the number just to get shot of me.

  I dialled the number.

  ‘Sì.’

  ‘Serena? Castagnetti.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I need to ask you just one or two more questions.’

  ‘Now?’

  I listened to the background noise, hoping that I wouldn’t hear a man in the background. ‘You busy?’

  ‘I’m about to meet friends.’

  ‘It will only take two minutes,’ I said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Bruno’s.’

  ‘Stay there. I’ll be round in a minute.’

  I gathered my stuff quickly. I opened up my bag and checked the contents. The camera was in there. A bit of cash, eight keys, the notebook, the cuffs. I put the pistol in place under my arm and looked around the flat. I picked up a tub of the balm and put it in a pocket.

  She was there waiting for me when I walked up to the bar. Bruno’s is a noisy bar at this time on a Saturday. People were raising glasses, laughing hard, shouting at friends on the street. Serena looked even better than I remembered her. She had changed her clothes since leaving the office, and was dressed to go out for the evening. She was unbuttoned at the front, and it was hard not to admire her.

  ‘What is it now?’ she said.

  ‘You said something the other day.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You
said Sandro’s mother came in to make his bed, fill his fridge.’

  ‘Did I?’ she said.

  ‘I just wondered… are you sure about that?’

  She laughed nervously. She looked less innocent then. She must have seen what I was thinking because she blushed.

  ‘You had a thing with Sandro?’

  ‘It wasn’t even a thing.’

  That’s what I mean when I said this city was small. There’s never more than one degree of separation. ‘It’s irrelevant what it was,’ I said. ‘I just want you to be sure about what you’re telling me. You said Teresa Tonin would go to his flat to make his bed and so on.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Certain?’

  She nodded like she had been responsible for messing up the bed. It wasn’t an image I wanted to linger on.

  ‘How did she get into town if she doesn’t drive?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did she often come in?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  She looked at me. I thought she was about to give an explanation for something, but she just asked if that was it. I said it was and she walked off.

  I called after her, remembering the bee balm. ‘Here, take this.’

  She turned round and looked at me and then at the tub.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a kind of balm,’ I said. ‘Cures all ailments known to man. I make it from beeswax.’

  She looked at me and didn’t know what to do. She took it out of my hand and unscrewed the lid. She smelt it and ran a finger around the surface and looked at it. She wiped it on to her lips. ‘He let me stay in his flat once or twice, that’s all,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t need to know,’ I said, unsure why she was trying to prove her innocence to me.

  ‘It’s just you seemed to think …’

  ‘I’m thinking about other things right now.’

  I went back to Borgo delle Colonne and picked up the car. I drove back to La Bassa one last time. I parked in the main square in Sissa and looked around. You couldn’t see further than your nose the fog was so thick, but it meant that voices carried. I could hear the distant shrieks of teenagers. I could hear the old ladies incanting in the church. I walked around the square and saw a bar with little lights strung from one corner to another. Here and there they were hung too low and people had to duck to get in. There seemed to be a pensioners’ dance going on. The music was oompah liscio, but very gentle and quick, so that some of the smoothies looked snappy and sharp. The bar was three deep with men buying amari and beer.

  I wandered around for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of Saturday night in a village in winter. I kept thinking about Teresa Tonin, wondering how she got about. I returned to the car and drove on to the Tonin estate. When I got there all the lights were off and the gate was closed.

  I needed to get in unannounced, so I parked further up the road and went in on foot.

  As soon as I had landed the other side of the railings a dog started barking. It didn’t sound like it was getting closer, but it was going nuts, gnashing and growling somewhere in the distance.

  The Tonin place was all in darkness, but the lodge off to the right had lights on. As I walked towards it I guessed this was where the dog was. It was a small cottage with a tidy pile of logs stacked outside.

  I rang the bell. The dog kept up his performance and I heard a gruff voice inside telling him to shut up.

  The door opened and I saw an old woman I hadn’t seen before. She had the suspicion of a peasant, and held the dog in front of her to remind me who was in charge.

  ‘Is this where the gardener lives? I’m a friend of the Tonin family. You might have heard Massimo Tonin is in some trouble, and I need to see … I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten his name.’

  ‘Giulio. Giulio Bocchialini.’

  ‘You’re his wife?’

  She nodded, pulling the dog back from my groin. She was a large woman with soft hair growing around her jawline.

  ‘Who is it?’ A voice shouted from inside.

  ‘Was your husband at home on Wednesday night?’ I asked quickly. She didn’t have time to reply when he appeared at her shoulder. It was the gardener I had seen a few days ago. I didn’t know if he had heard the question, but he looked at me with wide, blue eyes.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I need to ask you a couple of questions,’ I said.

  ‘What are you after?’

  ‘Do you drive as well as garden?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you drive Teresa Tonin into the city on Wednesday night?’

  He didn’t answer.

  I repeated the question. The man looked at me with contempt.

  ‘What do you want exactly?’

  ‘Did you?’

  He shook his head, but he had lost his self-assurance.

  ‘Who did you drive?’

  He didn’t say anything, so I reached for my phone and dialled Dall’Aglio’s number.

  The man put a thin hand on my wrist and stared at me. ‘Who are you calling?’

  ‘The carabinieri.’ I let the phone ring on until he started talking.

  ‘Hold it,’ he said quickly. I stopped the call to the Questura, but he didn’t say anything else. I was about to redial when he started his little confession. ‘I’ve been doing the same thing for forty years. It’s simple, honest, humble work. I fix their boiler. I sweep the leaves. I change their tyres. I queue at the post-office.’ He was saying it with glazed eyes, like he had just gone into retirement and he was missing it already.

  ‘And did you drive the woman into the city on Wednesday night?’

  He looked at me. Whatever he was thinking, one thing was clear: he knew why I was asking. His face appeared old suddenly, and his eyes opened wide like he had just seen his last minute of freedom flash in front of him.

  ‘Wait here a minute,’ he said, walking inside his house at a brisk pace. I followed him. The TV was on loud in a dark room.

  I followed him into a small garage. I looked round at the chaos. Boxes stuffed with old tiles and taps and odd nuts. There were rags and ancient copies of gardening magazines. There wasn’t anything that stood out. Certainly not a pair of keys.

  Before I knew what was happening I heard an explosion. I found myself doubled up, almost on the floor on instinct. It can’t have been more than a metre or two from me and my ears were ringing.

  I reached for my gun as I crouched there, but the room was horribly still. I stood up. The gardener was on the floor. His face all intact, but there was nothing behind it. It looked like a mask floating in a lake.

  You couldn’t see an entry point for a bullet but the exit was pretty clear. He was missing the back of his brain. There was a line of blood and cartilage up the wall.

  The woman came rushing in with the barking hound. She screamed when she saw her husband and looked at me.

  ‘He took his life. I didn’t even know he had a gun.’

  She was screaming and wailing. I wasn’t sure she had heard what I had said. I tried to get my phone out to finish that call to the Questura. That’s what I should have done two minutes ago and then perhaps this man would still be alive. Two minutes ago he had been a walking, talking human being and now he was cooling matter, nothing more. I could still hear the sound of blood and cartilage falling from the walls to the ground.

  The woman must have let go of the dog because it jumped for me, its paws at head height. It knocked me backwards and fell on top of me, its teeth going for my neck. I got my thumbs into the soft bit of his throat and squeezed with everything I had. I managed to hold his gnawing teeth away from me until he started whimpering.

  ‘Pull it off,’ I shouted at the woman but she didn’t move. She had frozen. I shouted again, but by then the dog was almost gone and I rolled over on top of it and relaxed my grip. It lay there coughing and whining.

  I took out my phone. ‘Get Dall’Aglio. It’s an eme
rgency,’ I said.

  Dall’Aglio came on the line.

  ‘The Tonins’ fixer has topped himself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The gardener on their estate. He just swallowed a speeding bullet.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the grounds, round the back.’

  ‘I’ll be there right away.’

  I looked at the woman. She was staring into space and shaking. I took her into the room with the TV on and sat her down. She didn’t seem able to focus on anything.

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  She looked at me with eyes so sharp they could have sliced bread. She didn’t say anything, but it was pretty clear from her face that she thought I was part of the answer.

  ‘I was questioning him about Wednesday night,’ I said. ‘I was asking if he was at home.’ She was staring at the TV and I could see its bright lights reflected in her pallid flesh. ‘Was he?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Where did he go?’

  She was still shaking her head. I wasn’t sure if she wasn’t saying or didn’t know.

  ‘Did he often up and leave?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘How long was he gone for?’

  She just managed to whisper her reply. ‘About an hour.’

  I sat there with her whilst we waited for Dall’Aglio and his men. He arrived within a few minutes. One of his officers took the woman away. Others went into the garage and started photographing the corpse.

  Dall’Aglio was staring at me like he blamed me for everything bad that had happened in his life.

  ‘Why can’t you just do things by the book?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s the best thing about my job, there is no book.’

  ‘Why is it that wherever you go, people start dying?’

  ‘This time it was suicide,’ I said. ‘Bocchialini and that Tonin woman were in it together. I had half an idea, listening to Bocchialini talk, that he was involved with the Tonin woman himself.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was listing all the menial chores he used to do for the family like he was restoring the Sistine Chapel. He loved something in that household, and I don’t think it was his salary or his overalls.’

  ‘You think he and Teresa …?’

  ‘Not my taste, possibly not yours,’ I conceded, ‘but love works in mysterious ways. If they were an item and Sandro was their son, it might make the whole thing a lot more comprehensible.’