60: Taste
“Humble, my eye.” Pisanelli slumped down into the ugly new armchair. He had removed his jacket. There were large patches of sweat under the sleeves of his denim shirt. The hair hung in greasy strands at the side of his head. “You’re going to arrest Boatti, Commissario?”
Trotti leaned across the artificial teak of the desk, his hands clasped together. “For screwing the little Roberti girl?”
“You don’t think he’s guilty of killing Rosanna’s sister?”
“If what Maserati says is right, I don’t see how a single person could have killed Maria Cristina—supposing of course that she was drowned in the apartment.”
“Why not, Commissario? The murderer bashed her over the head. Then he stuck her head in a bowl of water.”
“A bowl of river water? A bit complicated, isn’t it? Why not use tap water?” Trotti clicked his tongue in irritation. “I don’t really see how Boatti can be screwing and murdering at the same time. And anyway, there’s no motive.”
“He lied, Commissario. He told us he was in Vercelli—and his wife corroborated that. Instead he was here in the city on Saturday night. In bed with Laura Roberti. And if he was in the building the night of the murder, there’s nothing to have stopped him going up to Rosanna’s flat and killing Maria Cristina.”
“Nothing other than a motive.” Trotti sat back. He opened a drawer and placing his feet on the side of the wooden slat, pushed himself back in the armchair.
“Nothing other than a motive, Commissario? Maria Cristina was Boatti’s natural mother.”
“Assuming that he knew that.”
“He must have known Maria Cristina was his mother, surely?”
For a moment, Trotti remained silent. “Why kill her now, after so many years?”
“Because she was in the city, no longer tucked away and out of sight at the Casa Patrizia. Because he was ashamed of her, because he hated her.”
Trotti shrugged.
“Your mother’s on drugs . . .”
“That’s not what Maserati says.”
Pisanelli nodded. “At the Casa Patrizia, they were feeding her with neuroleptics. Traces of chlorpromazine. Admittedly, she’d come off the stuff since being back in the city. But you heard what Maserati said about addiction, Commissario. Carnecine and his doctors had wittingly or unwittingly transformed Maria Cristina into an addict—and she was unstable when she came off her anti-depressants. You can understand how Boatti feels. The woman—his mother—screws around like an animal on heat. You wouldn’t be ashamed of her? You wouldn’t be afraid you’ve inherited her madness?”
Trotti raised a finger. “If Boatti hit Maria Cristina with a blunt instrument, what’s happened to the instrument? And anyway, how did Maria Cristina get into the flat?”
“The old woman saw two people but it was in the middle of the night—perhaps it was Maria Cristina who was drunk. Perhaps it was Boatti who supported her.” Pisanelli frowned. “And . . .”
“Yes?”
“Perhaps he was supporting her because she was already dead.”
Trotti was silent. The dark, tired eyes looked at Pisanelli sitting in the armchair with his jacket over his knees.
“Why didn’t you get her Gian Maria’s phone number from Laura Roberti?”
“What?” Trotti’s thoughts were elsewhere.
“You’re not eating your sweets, Commissario.”
Trotti laughed as his eyes focused on the younger man. “Pisanelli, you must think I’m an addict, a sugar addict.”
“Why didn’t you take her boyfriend’s number?”
“Laura’s boyfriend? Not much point.”
“Why not?”
“By the time I could get to him, she would’ve already contacted him and told him what to say.”
Pisanelli smiled indulgently. Like Maserati, he was beginning to age, but unlike Maserati, Pisanelli was not yet married. “It’s Boatti who’s been screwing the Roberti girl.”
“That doesn’t make Boatti a murderer.” Trotti added, “You know, I think you’re jealous, Pisanelli.”
A snort of laughter.
“You like the Roberti girl more than you care to admit.”
“She’s pretty—if you care for that sort of thing. Pretty, wealthy and spoiled.” A dismissive gesture. “Boatti spent last night in the Roberti flat. His wife’s on holiday, so this morning he could lie in with Laura Roberti. He was there when we arrived—she took more than a couple of minutes to answer the doorbell. And while we were chatting to the girl in her flat and you were flattering her over her Lavazza coffee, the fornicating bastard made his escape. He crept out of her place, back upstairs. But he forgot his little recording machine.”
A nod of agreement. “Which would explain the Grignolino.”
“What Grignolino?”
“Not a common wine. Grignolino’s from the area around Asti in Piemonte and it’s not the sort of wine that you can find easily in the supermarket. Yet both Laura Roberti and Signora Boatti offered me Grignolino. Which probably means that it comes from Dottor Roberti’s vineyards.”
“You agree he’s screwing her?”
“It doesn’t really matter.” Trotti raised his shoulders. “Boatti’s wife suspects something. She didn’t say as much—she just told me that she loved her husband. Frightened of losing him. She suspects him of having an affair and she hinted pretty heavily that it was with Rosanna. Why not? Rosanna was no spring chicken, but she was—she is certainly not unattractive.”
“You should know.”
“Signora Boatti suspects something—but why should she suspect the sweet, fresh little Laura Roberti? Especially when the Roberti girl’s got her boyfriend?”
“Why give Boatti Grignolino?”
“Neighborliness.”
“What on earth can that silly girl see in a fat, aging, failed journalist like Boatti?”
“Good question.” Trotti took his feet from the drawer and the chair fell forward with a resonant bang. “What can the pretty Anna Ermagni see in Tenente Pisanelli?” Trotti then laughed with genuine amusement.
Pisanelli was offended. “I beg your pardon.”
“In this profession, one of the first lessons you must learn is that there is no accounting for taste, Pisa. Greed is farseeing—but love is blind.”
61: CHARMS
“How do you explain the Jehovah’s Witness stuff?”
Trotti’s feet had returned to the side of the drawer. “I don’t think there’s anything to explain. There’s no particular reason to believe the Watchtower was brought there by the murderer. The Witnesses do their proselytizing throughout the city—throughout the country. The old widow has the magazines—so why should Rosanna have refused them?”
“And the drugs?”
“What drugs?”
“Perhaps the murderer was looking for money—that was a hypothesis of yours.”
“When I thought it was Rosanna who’d been killed. But it wasn’t Rosanna, it was her sister. Money’s not a motive.” Suddenly Trotti banged his forehead with the palm of his hand.
“Swallowed your sweet, Commissario?”
“Yesterday, with Beltoni, I had a rendezvous for midday.” Again he banged his forehead. “I need to see him.”
“Why?”
Trotti pulled the telephone towards him. “The questore’s keeping tabs on me—and if it’s not Boatti, it may well be Beltoni who’s relaying things back to him.”
“Why Boatti?”
Trotti was looking through the pages of a pocket notebook. “This book stuff of Boatti’s—I’ve never believed it. An excuse to be in on the enquiry—but why? What does Boatti want? He’s after something—and it’s not journalism.” Trotti was about to raise the receiver when there was a knock on the door.
Commissario Maiocchi entered the small off
ice. He looked flustered and unhappy. His long hair was ruffled. He closed the door softly, approached the desk, and emptying his pockets he covered the plastic teak with several packets of Charms sweets. And two tins of Smith and Kendon barley sugar. “Spoil yourself, Trotti.”
“My birthday?”
Maiocchi walked over to the radiator and leaned against it. “I thought I’d give them a try. They seem to work for you, Piero Trotti. At least, sometimes. Trouble is they get stuck between your teeth and the taste stays in your mouth for hours.”
“An acquired taste—it takes time,” Pisanelli remarked.
Commissario Maiocchi ran a hand through his dark hair. Then he stuck the unlit pipe between his teeth. “My wife has always said my breath stinks of tar, that my teeth are dirty and that if she’d known I was going to smoke a pipe for the rest of my days, she would never have married me.”
Trotti and Pisanelli laughed.
“It’s not funny.”
“Do you blame her, Maiocchi?”
“I came to talk to you about Luca.”
Pisanelli grinned. “You can talk about your marriage, if you wish. Commissario Trotti is an expert on marriage. And on women. Extremely objective, having gained the peace of the senses.”
“A phallocrat—me and all the other men in the wretched Questura.” Seeing the smile die on Pisanelli’s face, Trotti asked, “What about your Luca, Maiocchi?”
“Off to the Adriatic.”
“It’s you who should go to the Adriatic. You could do with the holiday. And perhaps an adventure with a Danish blonde or a German hausfrau would help you get things into perspective. Get some iodine into your lungs. Give up that pipe. Start eating sweets.”
“What has everybody got against my pipe?” Maiocchi raised his shoulders in a movement of irritation. “I like my pipe, for heaven’s sake.”
“You will have to choose between your wife and your pipe,” Pisanelli said.
“If you love your wife, why do you spend all your time in this wretched Questura?”
“Where d’you want me to go, Commissario?” Maiocchi turned and looked out of the window at the opposite wall of pebble dash. “Here at least I’m useful. Here I’m doing something.”
“Go down to the Adriatic.”
“I’m already missing the kids.”
“Any news on the doctor?”
Pisanelli had been rubbing at the leather of his shoe with the sleeve of the suede jacket. “What doctor?”
“You never listen, Pisanelli. When this man Luca met Snoopy . . .”
“Maria Cristina,” Pisanelli said, raising a finger. His shoes were spotless.
“When Luca met her at the railway station, she fell into a faint. He ran her down to via Mantova and called up a doctor.”
“You never told me that.”
“Luca suspected she was pregnant.”
“If Maria Cristina was pregnant, Bottone would’ve noticed it at the autopsy.” A pause. “Pregnant at fifty?”
“Pregnant or not pregnant, Luca couldn’t know the truth. And perhaps he was frightened.”
“Dottor Silvio Silvi,” Maiocchi said, “Luca’s doctor friend is Silvio Silvi.”
“And where is he?”
“On holiday.”
“Of course.” Without concealing his irritation Trotti opened one of Maiocchi’s packets of pineapple Charms.
“On holiday in Calabria.”
“We get the Carabinieri to pick him up?”
It was Maiocchi who grinned. “You’re not going on holiday after all, Trotti? You’re not going up to the lake?”
“Don’t worry about me, Maiocchi. Let’s see if we can get hold of this doctor.”
There was a light tap at the door.
Trotti let out a sigh. “The old woman says she saw two people—a rather drunk Laura Roberti and a man—entering the building at San Teodoro at three in the morning. We have good reason to believe that Boatti and Signorina Roberti were already inside the building. What we don’t know is how Maria Cristina got from her place in via Mantova to San Teodoro. Perhaps if we know that, we can find out who killed her.”
Again the light tap and Pisanelli ceased brushing at his shoes, got up and went to the door.
“The last person to see her in via Mantova was Luca. And this doctor. Dottor Silvi may just happen to know how she got to San Teodoro. Did Maria Cristina arrive in her sister’s flat alive or dead? If she was already dead, who carried her? Did the old woman mistake Maria Cristina for Laura?”
Maiocchi said, “I’ll see if I can trace this Silvi . . . if you’re not going on holiday.”
“You should’ve traced him a long time ago, Maiocchi. Am I supposed to do everything?”
“You really could do with a holiday.”
“I’m going on holiday, don’t worry about me. I’ll be going down to Bologna—but not straight away.”
“News of your grandson, Piero?”
“Pisa?” Trotti looked up irritably and frowned. “Why are you whispering like that?”
Pisanelli stepped back from the door and the person he was talking to. “Agente Zani would like a few words with you, Commissario Trotti.”
“Zani?”
“It’s about Rosanna Belloni.”
62: Zani
Trotti picked up the packet on the tabletop. “Where the hell d’you get your Nazionali from?”
Zani frowned, ill at ease in his uniform that was too small for the corpulent body. The red, sly face appeared redder and unhappier than Trotti remembered it. Agente Zani sat slumped forward at the table, one hand playing with the glass of Nastro Azzurro, the other holding a smoldering cigarette.
The smell of the sweet, black tobacco irritated Trotti’s nostrils.
Zani stared at the beer in silence. He wanted to finish the contents of the glass but was waiting for Trotti to lift the long mozzarella sandwich to his mouth.
(In the Questura and down the three flights of stairs Zani had not uttered a word.)
“You’ve been drinking a lot, Zani.”
“Drinking a lot, smoking a lot and not getting much sleep.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t like something to eat? A sandwich or something hot?”
He replied sullenly, “I’m not hungry.”
“Perhaps you need a holiday.”
“A holiday? I need a new life.” A final gulp of beer and an oblique glance at Trotti. “You’re not looking so good yourself, Commissario.”
His mouth full of sandwich, Trotti said, “That’s why I’m getting away from the city for a couple of weeks.”
“And Rosanna Belloni? You’re going away? I thought she was a friend of yours.” He spoke with a slight Marche accent. Zani had worked for ten years in Macerata province.
“What exactly did you want to speak to me about?” Trotti did not hide his impatience. “There are things I’ve got to do before I can get away.”
Trotti had hoped to get Zani to eat something. They were sitting at the back of the Tavola Calda da Pippo. It was a hundred meters up Strada Nuova from the Questura. In term time, the small, clean and efficient snack bar was a meeting place for students. Now a few customers were eating an early lunch of salad or pasta, taken from the buffet. A couple of girls with paper bonnets and in striped red and white dresses prodded at the steel dishes behind the glass counter. Stuffed artichokes, mauve squid, various varieties of pasta, several meat dishes, olive oil and basil.
Zani asked abruptly, “You have a daughter, Commissario?”
An unexpected tightening in the gut. “She’s in Bologna,” Trotti said in a neutral tone.
“You know what it means to be a father?” The small peasant eyes briefly searched his face. Trotti wondered if he was looking for sympathy.
“My daughter is married.”
“Marri
ed?”
“Pioppi’s nearly thirty. She’s expecting a child any day. That’s why I’m hoping to get away. I want to go down to Bologna sometime over the next few days.”
Zani finished off the beer. “It would have been better if we’d had a daughter.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat, Zani? You need to get something into your stomach.”
“I’m not hungry.” Zani looked disconsolately at the glass in his hand. “My son is a queer.”
Silence.
“A queer, Commissario.”
Trotti searched for something to say, something to fill the sudden emptiness that seemed to separate the two men. Lamely he remarked, “For nearly a year, I thought my little girl was going to die. She didn’t want to eat.”
“Queer, gay—homosexual.” Zani tapped his left ear; the corner of his lip turned downwards. “I need another beer.”
Trotti put out a restraining hand. “No.”
Zani pushed Trotti’s hand away. The small eyes looked carefully at Trotti. Zani pulled on the Nazionali. “Commissario, the other day in San Teodoro . . .” He stopped.
“Yes?”
Another inhalation off the cigarette. “You said that we were friends. You said that we had been friends for a long time.”
Trotti glanced around the dining room. It was almost midday and people were beginning to line up along the counter, their faces lit up by the brightness of the overhead lamps. “I’m not sure that a policeman can have friends.”
“You’re a friend of Rosanna Belloni.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the yellow ashtray advertising the Provincia Padana. “You were her friend—that’s why you want to find her killer.”
“Not Rosanna.” Trotti shook his head. “It was her sister who was killed.”
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