“A Latin lover.” His left hand fiddled with a gold crucifix hanging at his neck. “Signor Commissario, I’m a Latin Lover.” He raised his shoulders again. “Perhaps you go fishing. Or you like soccer—or your friend likes to smoke a pipe. We all have our little hobby—and I’m a lover. Nothing wrong in that. You think women don’t need sex? You think they don’t like it?”
Trotti shrugged. “Long time since I’ve been in the thick of things.”
“I’m not a gigolo, if that’s what you think. I don’t do it for money.”
“Why did you screw her?”
“Why not?”
“Why?”
“I told you, it’s my hobby. More than a hobby, it’s a job. You’re a policeman—I’m a lover.” A satisfied shrug. “To use your expression—a professional.”
“Not afraid of catching diseases?”
From the hip pocket of his jeans, he fished out a little plastic capsule. “Tatù—I take my precautions, Commissario. In your job, I imagine you sometimes have to wear a bullet-proof vest.” A grin. “We professionals know the risks. And we come prepared.”
45: Lies
The jaw ceased to chew. It fell open, revealing the round ball of pink gum on the triangular tongue. “You think I’m lying?”
“That’s not what I said, Signor Pontevico.”
“I’m a liar?”
Trotti took another sweet from the packet of Charms. “You’re hiding something from us. Suppression of the truth.”
Luca resumed his chewing. He fiddled with the crucifix at his throat.
“You were her lover. You were this Snoopy woman’s lover. She—or a friend of hers—phones 113 and says Snoopy’s going to commit suicide. For love. Unrequited love for you.”
“Nothing to do with me.”
“That’s what you say, Signor Pontevico. But the same woman is now dead—beaten to death. And it’s my job—it’s our job to find the culprit.” Trotti paused, rattled the sweet nervously against the back of his teeth. “At this moment, you would seem to be our best suspect. Oh, I know, it’s nearly Ferragosto. You, me, Commissario Maiocchi here—we’d all like to get away from the city. Get away from the dust and the heat and spend a few days at the sea. Or in the hills. Or on the lakes. But the point is—you must understand this—Maiocchi and I are professionals in our way. Perhaps you’re not guilty. It’s possible, it’s even probable. You seem a nice sort of person. But try to understand our position. Professionally we need to put somebody away.” Trotti breathed in, shaking his head. “Why not you? You might be innocent, of course. That’s no major problem. If you’re innocent or if there’s not enough solid proof to justify your presence in prison, the judge can always let you go at the beginning of September. Innocent or guilty, the evidence available to us would appear to be against you.”
Maiocchi asked, “Is it really against him, Trotti?”
“Christ’s sake, Maiocchi, we can put him away. What’ve we got to lose?”
Luca stubbed out his cigarette. He was now nervously rubbing the crucifix between finger and thumb.
“What solid evidence do we have?”
Trotti turned to face the other policeman. A fat cloud rose from Maiocchi’s pipe. “Why don’t you take up sweets? That thing smells atrocious.”
“What solid evidence do we have, Commissario Trotti?”
“What do you suggest, Maiocchi? I want to get out of this place. I’m not going to hang around here. I want to get down to Bologna, see my daughter, see my grandchild. And if this man is guilty, I don’t want him to be going off to the Adriatic coast, enjoying himself with frustrated German hausfrau or with sex-starved rich old ladies. On his own admission, he’s a lady’s man. What if he’s a murderer? You realize what’ll happen if he gets up to something down in Rimini or wherever he’s going? Another corpse and we’ll get to carry the can, Maiocchi. Better for everybody if we put him away for a couple of weeks.”
Silence.
Maiocchi smoked his pipe, placidly watching Luca from behind the clouds of smoke. “Perhaps he’s telling the truth, Commissario Trotti.”
Trotti sucked his sweet.
Luca stared at his hand. He was sweating. “Of course I’m telling the truth.”
After a while, Trotti got up and went to the window. In a conversational tone, he said, “It was her money you were after, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Then why did you kill her?”
“You must be mad.”
“I’m in a hurry, Signor Pontevico. Please tell us the truth. Tell us the truth—then perhaps we can let you hurry back to your tanned women in the nightclubs of Rimini.”
The young man sighed.
“You took her to Garlasco, didn’t you?”
He folded his arms, a hand at the crucifix. “Yes.”
“You ran her back to the Casa Patrizia?”
“Where?”
“You knew she lived there.”
“The private home? That building you can see from the railway?”
Trotti nodded. “The Casa Patrizia.”
“That’s where they keep the insane people. It’s . . .”
“Yes?”
“It’s a private lunatic asylum, isn’t it?”
Trotti said, “That’s where you took her, isn’t it? After you screwed her, that’s where you took her?”
His face was very pale. “I left her at the railway station.”
“Please don’t lie.” Trotti turned to Maiocchi. “You got an arrest form?” He smiled. “This place is so tidy, I wonder where you can keep everything.” He leaned over and tapping Maiocchi on the arm, asked in a conversational tone, “I forgot to ask you, Gustavo—how’s the wife?”
“I think he’s innocent, Commissario Trotti.”
“He’s hiding something.”
Luca released the crucifix. “I took her to the station at Garlasco. And that was the last time I saw her—until we met at the station a week later.”
“Station?”
“In the city. The central station. She kept phoning me—I don’t know how she got my number in Rimini—it was becoming an embarrassment. And anyway, I had to come back to Broni. So I drove into town. And that’s where we met.”
“She was on drugs?”
He raised the shoulders of his T-shirt. “I suspected something. The first time we made love—she fell asleep. And in her sleep, she couldn’t stop shivering. And then I saw her at the station, here at the city station. In the days I hadn’t seen her, she’d got a lot thinner. And her breath smelled—you know how it is with people who aren’t eating properly. She was nervous—more agitated than at Redavalle. I felt sorry for her but . . .”
“Yes?”
“I was embarrassed. There weren’t many people in the station—but she had a very strange behavior. In public, like that.”
“What?”
“She pulled at my belt, she said she wanted to make love. She said she loved me. She called me strange names—names of other men. It was quite scary. Without me, she said she would die.”
“What did you do?”
“It was embarrassing. There were people who knew me.”
“Very embarrassing.”
“I managed to get her out of the station entrance. There’s a fountain, a water fountain, near the left-luggage office. I got her there and then I got angry. I told her that it wasn’t possible—that everything was over. I told her I was engaged to another woman.”
“And?”
“She started screaming and shouting—and suddenly she collapsed. Christ, I was scared. I thought she was dead. I splashed her with some water and when she came to, she was like another person. A quiet little girl. She started to cry. She said she wanted to go home. She was scared, she said. She knew that she was going to die and that it was my fault because I didn�
�t love her. Because I wouldn’t protect her. That’s what she said. But not hysterically. She spoke calmly. She kept blinking, like somebody who’d just woken from a long sleep.”
“Home to Garlasco?”
“I put her in the car and I ran her home.”
“Home where?”
“I can’t remember the name of the street.” Again Luca Pontevico shrugged. “I was surprised, I thought she lived in Milan. That’s what she’d told me. I didn’t know she had a place in the city.”
“San Teodoro?”
Luca shook his head and smiled. “No—I know San Teodoro.”
Trotti asked, “Via Mantova?”
“That’s right.” He nodded vigorously. “Via Mantova. I had to carry her up a flight of stairs.”
“You took her to her place in via Mantova—and then you screwed her—As good a way as any of spending the afternoon.”
“You have an unpleasant mind, Commissario.”
“We professionals never miss an opportunity.”
Luca’s hand resumed its autonomous fingering of the crucifix.
“You took her home, Signor Pontevico. Then what did you do?”
He hesitated.
“Well?”
“She was pale—she was trembling. I was frightened. And she was sweating.” He bit his lip.
“So you tiptoed out and left her to sweat it out?”
Luca said nothing. His eyes went from Trotti to Maiocchi.
“Well?”
He looked down at his hands. “I called a friend. I went down to the car and I called a friend.”
“What friend?”
“A doctor.”
Maiocchi was frowning. “Why did you hide that?”
“Hide what?”
“You never mentioned a doctor. Why did you hide that from us?”
Trotti sighed with repressed irritation. He turned to face his colleague, sadly shaking his head. “Maiocchi, you’re deliberately trying to be stupid?”
“Stupid?”
“He didn’t give a shit one way or another about the girl. But can’t you see she was blackmailing him? Tatù or no Tatù, she was playing at being pregnant. A trick as old as the hills. And that’s why he needed a doctor. To see if she needed an abortion. A common enough risk in his profession.”
46: Abortion
“I’m going home,” Trotti said.
“We need to see the autopsy report.” Maiocchi accompanied him down the corridor of the third floor. The blonde receptionist had disappeared.
“To find out whether the woman was pregnant?”
“You think she was blackmailing him, Trotti?”
It was past seven o’clock. The air was now a lot cooler. Trotti felt tired; his head was heavy from too much concentration. “A cold shower—and then a meal with my two young lovers.” He glanced at the clock on the wall.
“You think Maria Cristina was blackmailing him? You don’t really think she was pregnant?”
“It doesn’t matter whether she was pregnant or not. For all I know, the Belloni woman had already been through menopause. The autopsy’s not going to tell you anything. The point is that he was scared. And he called for his doctor friend . . . There was something wrong with her and he was scared. Not for her, but for himself. What did he say the doctor’s name was?”
“You think we should arrest Luca now?”
“What evidence have you got against him?” Trotti smiled to himself. “You remember Gino?”
“The old blind receptionist?”
“Gino always used to say I was too hard on my men. He said that was why I’d lost Magagna.”
Maiocchi asked, “You want me to arrest Luca?”
“And he said that I’d lose Pisanelli too.”
“You think Luca’s guilty?”
“Do I think your young film star Luca murdered Rosanna’s sister?” Trotti stopped before the open door of his office. “It’s possible—anything’s possible. But you’d still have to explain all the song and dance about Snoopy and the letter addressed to him. If he really murdered her, why did he want to call attention to himself? And how did she get to San Teodoro?”
“I shouldn’t arrest him now?”
“Get hold of the doctor.”
“Dottor Silvio Silvi.”
“Get the doctor first. Find out what happened. Perhaps the doctor can tell you how the body got from via Mantova to San Teodoro. Hang on to Luca until you’ve spoken to his doctor. You’ll probably find that he specializes in cheap abortions.” Trotti put a hand on the door handle. The other hand he placed on Maiocchi’s shoulder. “You, too, Maiocchi, ought to take a holiday, you know. Get away from here for a few days. Spend a bit of time with your wife. And with your children.”
The younger man shrugged. “My wife doesn’t want to spend any time with me. She’s fed up with me, she’s fed up with her policeman husband.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“And now she’s found somebody else.”
“It must be this building.” Trotti sighed before making a gesture towards the ugly walls of the corridor. “Husbands and fathers—and this Questura makes us into monsters. Uncaring monsters.”
“This is my job. The Questura is my home.”
“Your job is your family, Maiocchi.”
Maiocchi smiled. “I don’t think you understand, Trotti.”
“I understand.”
“No,” Maiocchi said, shaking his head. “Perhaps you’ve always been married to the job. But with me—with us—it’s different. My wife doesn’t like me. Sometimes I don’t even think my children like me. So what else do you want me to do?” He tapped the ugly wall. “The Questura—this job—it’s all I’ve got. Let me hang on to it. Because there is nothing else.”
47: Raleigh
In the air there was the perfume of honeysuckle blossom and the fumes of the buses.
Swallows perched, facing both backwards and forwards, on the light cables strung across the street. It would soon be eight o’clock and the air was now pleasantly cool. There was a slight hint of wind. As Trotti glanced up to the red tinged sky, he saw there was still no sign of rain.
Trotti stepped out of the Questura and went down the steps.
His head ached. He felt tired, but strangely cheerful. And now, he told himself, he would be taking a holiday. He wondered whether Eva was still in via Milano waiting for him. He felt an unexpected pleasure at the thought she had cooked for him last night. Perhaps she had prepared something tonight—anyway, he would take her to the restaurant with Anna and Pisanelli. He turned north up Strada Nuova, enjoying the evening, enjoying the sense that the further he got away from the Questura, the freer he was of his problems. The trouble was, he knew, that he allowed his job to pervade his existence. Now, he told himself, he was going to relax. He looked forward to eating with the two young people. Perhaps in his way Pisanelli was the right person for Anna. “Pierangelo?” Trotti smiled to himself and silently promised he would make an effort to be pleasant.
“Commissario Trotti?”
He turned.
The man was wheeling a bicycle—an English bicycle with high handlebars, a glinting bell, a leather saddle and with a white reflective strip on the rear mudguard. The yellow headlamp dimmed as the man halted beside Trotti.
“I am Signor Belloni. We met this morning.”
Trotti gave the man a smile. “Of course. At the autopsy.”
“If you have a minute.” He propped the bike against the wall of the old pharmacy. (Several years earlier the wall had been covered with political graffiti. The graffiti had now been partly hidden by a new coat of ocher paint.) “I would like to talk to you—about my niece. About my nieces. If you have a spare moment.”
“I’m afraid I really don’t have any time. I’m going home—and tomorrow I�
��m going on holiday.”
The man was well dressed; he wore a cream-colored suit, a blue shirt and a dark blue bow tie. His hair was white and very elegantly cut. Mid-seventies, Trotti thought, and wondered whether he, Piero Trotti, would be as well preserved in ten years’ time.
In ten years’ time, when the little Piero Solaroli would be ten years old. Quinta elementare.
“My niece always spoke well of you, Commissario Trotti.” He placed a hand on Trotti’s sleeve. “Please, just a moment.” The patrician face and the pale blue eyes were pleading. “You would be doing me an immense favor.”
For a moment Trotti hesitated. He thought of Pisanelli, he thought of Anna Ermagni. He had promised to take them for a meal. He thought of Eva. “Just five minutes,” Trotti said, knowing well that he would stay with the retired banker as long as it was necessary to find out the truth. The hidden truth—that was why he had become a policeman. Not—as his wife always maintained—because he enjoyed bullying people or manipulating them or having a hold over them. He had become a policeman because he had always wanted to know the truth. Trotti was not an educated man but he liked to think that he understood human nature. The truth about people. Why they did what they did. As he looked at the older man, Trotti sensed that at last perhaps he was going to understand what had happened to Maria Cristina, what had led up to that final, fatal moment when she had been beaten to death at San Teodoro.
And perhaps he would find out what had become of Rosanna.
Rosanna Belloni, his friend.
Trotti asked, “You care for a drink? We could go to the Bar Dante.”
The man smiled with satisfaction. “Good man.” He took a key from the jacket pocket and locked the rear wheel of the black, Raleigh bicycle—the letters in imperial gold down the main frame. “I’d rather we were alone.” He made a gesture towards the high walls of the university on the other side of Strada Nuova. The Italian flag hung limply, scarcely affected by the feeble breeze. “And I loathe the smoke in bars.” Signor Belloni took the newspaper—Indro Montanelli’s Giornale—from where it was clipped to the handlebars and put it in his jacket pocket. He slipped his arm through Trotti’s and together they crossed the road and entered the high archway of the university.
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