The sly smile of a cunning peasant. “You didn’t know that when you started your enquiry, did you?”
“It’s Merenda’s enquiry.”
Zani was about to say something. He opened his mouth and then, thinking better of it, took a fresh cigarette from the packet of Nazionali. The fingers of his right hand were yellow with nicotine. He turned in his seat to catch the attention of the waitress, a pretty young woman in uniform. “Another beer,” he said curtly.
Trotti finished the sandwich.
Flour from the hard crust fell on to his hand and onto his clothes. He could taste the sharp olive oil and the softness of the mozzarella beneath his teeth. With food still in his mouth, he asked, “Your son’s sexual preferences still stop you from sleeping?” Trotti had slipped from lei into the familiar tu form. “I imagine that’s something you’ve known about for some time.”
“Commissario Merenda is in charge of Reparto Omicidi. I take orders from him,” Zani said, more an accusation than a statement.
Trotti frowned, not understanding.
“Commissario Trotti, both the questore and Commissario Merenda are convinced that my son Alberto is the murderer at San Teodoro.” The man sighed and took a photograph from the breast pocket of his rumpled tunic. “What do you think this is?” he asked and, as he handed Trotti the photograph, a small tear ran from the corner of the small, bloodshot eye.
63: Flag
Zani was slightly drunk.
“It’s all her fault.” The small eyes were damp and he held his head to one side to avoid the smoke rising from the Nazionali in his mouth. “I would have liked to be a good father but if he has turned out the way he has, it’s his mother’s fault.”
Trotti raised an eyebrow.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? When she was pregnant, she thought it was going to be a girl.” A hand propped up his forehead. “I don’t blame her, I think she wanted to give her daughter the kind of happiness that she had never known when she was a young girl. But it wasn’t a girl, it was a boy. My wife just couldn’t accept that Alberto was a boy. It was her fault, it was my wife’s fault. When Alberto was little, she dressed him in girls’ clothes. He had long hair just like a little girl. She’d never let him go out and play with the other children. He had to stay indoors and she got me to make him a doll’s house. Alberto was never allowed to have a gun or play at cowboys. He was her little doll, her little plaything.” A sigh. “I suppose I should have done something, but you know, it’s not easy. And I had my job. Bringing up children—that’s women’s business and I didn’t like to interfere. Now . . .”
(Zani’s son worked in a bookshop in the city center. The twenty-four-year-old Alberto Zani had been arrested on several occasions for disorderly or threatening behavior. It was known in the Questura that Alberto, despite his aggressiveness, his air of virility and the many girls who accompanied him at various times on his motorcycle, had several homosexual lovers.)
Trotti looked at the photograph. “Where did you get this from?”
“Her flat in San Teodoro.” He hesitated, then added, “The night the journalist found the body—the night you turned up—I wasn’t even on duty. But a friend in Operativa alerted me. Believe me, I got down there as quick as I could.”
Trotti frowned, looking at the old photograph. “Not exactly incriminating evidence. It must be at least fifteen years old.”
“In the same frame with the other photos that you looked at.”
“Why did you take it?”
The small eyes avoided Trotti’s. “Signorina Belloni liked my son.”
“He was a pupil at her school?”
He nodded. “She liked him—perhaps she felt sorry for him.”
“Why?”
“When he was little, Alberto was a good boy. Everybody said that. Everybody liked him. He was pretty.” Zani leaned forward and placed a damp hand on Trotti’s. “You can see, look. He’s wearing his school uniform.”
A little boy—he had curling blond hair and socks down over his ankle boots—was waving the Italian flag on the end of a stick. Rain had caused the red and green—varying shades of grey in the photograph—to run. The colors had dribbled on to his fist. There too was Rosanna Belloni; with a hand on the boy’s shoulder, she stared at the camera.
Trotti turned the photograph over. Somebody had written in pencil, 4 November 1973.
“This photograph was taken a long time ago,” Trotti said.
“When Alberto was fifteen things began to change. He no longer liked his mother.”
“And you?”
Zani said simply, “My son has always hated me.”
“Why?”
A cold laugh. The rising smoke continued to dance before his eyes. “I’m not an educated person, Commissario, and I don’t have sophisticated tastes. I’m a policeman, unimaginative. Even honest, if that’s possible. I could’ve just as well become a soldier. Or a criminal. I don’t have many interests.” He looked at his hands. “A couple of packets of cigarettes a week, the occasional drink. Totocalcio, a football game or a boxing match on TV—that’s all I need.” His voice grew bitter. “Whereas my wonderful son, he’s better than us, always has been. He’s going to become a famous writer. Or an actor. Or a clothes designer. He’s always had wonderful friends, friends who’re a lot better than his stupid dull father and his stupid, doting and indulgent mother.” The man banged at his chest. “But his stupid father doesn’t sell his asshole away. His father is a man, a real man. Not a woman with a man’s thing hanging between his legs.” The round face had turned red. “You think I didn’t realize he was queer? When he was still only fifteen the phone would start ringing and there were these artists and painters and actors wanting to talk to Albert. Lisping and rolling their Rs and using long words I’d never heard before.” A pause. “At sixteen he ran away from home. We didn’t see him for three months.”
“What’s all this got to do with Rosanna?” Trotti wanted to get away from this man, get away from his suffering and his self-pity. He wanted to get to a phone and call Pioppi in Bologna.
(They would call the baby Piero.)
“When he came back to the city, Alberto stayed with her.”
“Her?”
“Rosanna Belloni. She gave him a bed and he slept there. She used to have a place in via Mantova, near the old gymnasium. He stayed with her for over three months. And that’s how he got his maturità. It was Rosanna who pushed him.” Zani was in the process of nervously lighting another cigarette. “At the time I resented her interfering, but I realize now she did it out of kindness. Out of kindness because . . . because Rosanna is a kind woman.”
“That was a long time ago. Six or seven years ago. Your son must’ve sat his maturità at eighteen or nineteen.”
Zani inhaled; for a fraction of a second the eyes rested on Trotti’s before being averted. The man folded his arms against the rumpled uniform shirt.
“He still sees her, you know.”
“They made love?” Trotti could feel a wrenching in his gut.
The small peasant eyes looked at Trotti. “You liked Rosanna Belloni, didn’t you?”
“I hardly knew her,” Trotti replied, aware of the defensive tone in his voice, aware that he did not have to answer.
“Should’ve married her, Commissario.”
“I’m a married man.” Trotti wiped his hands on a paper serviette and brushed the flour from his trousers. “Did your son and Rosanna make love?”
“That’s what the questore believes.”
“How does he know about your son?”
“Alberto hangs around with a crowd of rich kids—young people who’re a lot richer than him and who lead him on. A crowd that runs around on big motorcycles and who wear leather jackets. Alberto isn’t rich—he works at the Libreria Ticinum, his father hasn’t got money to bail him out when he gets arrested
—I’m not a doctor or a lawyer. On a couple of occasions, the questore has wanted to speak to me. It was the questore who stopped Alberto from going to prison.”
“And the questore told you about Rosanna and Alberto?”
“At least she’s a woman. She may be thirty-five years older than him, but if he’s screwing her, it means that he’s not with one of his queer friends.”
“The questore thought your son murdered Rosanna?”
“My son is innocent.” Zani snorted two brief clouds of tobacco smoke.
“Both the questore and Merenda now know it wasn’t Rosanna who was murdered.”
There was a long silence. The restaurant had filled up with customers. A large woman eyed the empty seat beside Trotti before taking her tray to another table.
“About a year ago,” Zani said in a low voice, his eyes on the table, “Alberto lost his temper. I don’t think it was anything serious, Alberto is not someone to get violent.”
“He hit Rosanna?”
“You knew, Commissario?”
“She accused him of being a homosexual and he grew violent?”
Zani looked glumly at Trotti. He nodded unhappily.
“And the questore now thinks your son murdered Maria Cristina for the same reason?”
64: Fax
“A coffee addict, Commissario.”
Trotti turned, frowning against the light from Strada Nuova. The plastic cup was hot in his hand.
“This is for you, Commissario.”
“What is it, Tocca?”
“A couple of faxes from Ferrara. From the Carabinieri.” Toccafondi was holding two sheets of printed paper in his large hand. “Friends in high places, Commissario?”
“In both high and low places. Carabinieri and Polizia.”
“Just arrived on the machine. I was bringing them up.” The policeman closed the door of Operativa behind him.
“Care to share a cappuccino, Tocca?” Trotti looked down at the cup of coffee he was carrying back to the office.
“A cup of sugar with a hint of coffee, you mean.” Agente Toccafondi slipped into dialect. He was very young and was one of the few men in the Questura Trotti genuinely liked. “Any news of your daughter?”
“Fax, Tocca?” Trotti frowned. “Maybe one day I’ll get to have my own fax machine. Or perhaps I’m just too old for all this modernity. What are they about? Why are the Carabinieri sending me faxes?”
(In dialect, everything sounded more real, more genuine.)
Toccafondi held the top sheet so that Trotti could look at it. A series of identity photographs. A man, left profile, right profile and full frontal. Beneath them, a larger photograph of the same head, but this time lolling against what appeared to be a white sheet. The mouth was open, the eyes closed in death and there was considerable swelling of cheeks and forehead.
“What on earth?” Trotti shook his head. He put the sandwich and coffee down on the floor. He took the fax from Toccafondi’s hand. He read, “Milovan Djencas, date of birth, June ninth, 1953, in Belgrade. First entry in Italy, September seventh, 1969. Residence permit N° TR 34237772. Criminal record, see entry.”
“Make any sense, Commissario?” Toccafondi raised a thick eyebrow. “A friend of yours?”
Trotti turned to the second faxsheet.
“Carabinieri, servizio coordinamento,” Trotti said, running his finger along the heading. He had to hold the handwritten fax at arm’s length to get it into focus.
Toccafondi was smiling, his hands now in his pockets.
Trotti read aloud: “Here’s your corpse, Piero. The divers found him at two o’clock this morning. The body was carried towards the sea by the tide. Doesn’t look very much like your Signorina Belloni, I’m afraid. Djencas is a Yugoslav national who has served several short sentences in this country for pimping, extortion, theft. The body is in the hospital morgue in Ferrara. Djencas hired the Fiat using American Express under the name of Giovanni Svevo, via Addis Ababa, Trieste. The card was stolen, but for the moment there is no trace on Svevo. If I can be of help or if you require further information, don’t hesitate to contact me in Venice. Good luck.” The neat signature, Spadano, followed by a postscriptum: A boy or a girl? Let me know a.s.a.p.
Mechanically, without removing his eyes from the fax, Trotti took a rhubarb sweet from his pocket and put it into his mouth.
65: Truth
“Signor Boatti would like to make a confession. He says he murdered Signorina Belloni.”
Trotti placed the now tepid cappuccino on the desktop. “For over four days not a single lead.” With both hands he made an obscene gesture of frustration that referred to the present bloated state of his testicles. “All of a sudden everybody seems to know who killed Signorina Belloni.” He turned and looked at the journalist who was sitting in the armchair. Trotti grinned. “You think you killed her?”
“I never said that.” Boatti needed a shave. His pale face looked unhealthy and his clothes were crumpled. He was wearing the same linen trousers and Saxone moccasins as on the night Trotti first met him. He appeared older, as if it were only now that he was feeling the effects of the murder in San Teodoro. He ran a hand over his mouth.
“If you’re trying to defend Rosanna Belloni, there is no point. Don’t get yourself into further trouble. You’ve perjured yourself sufficiently, Boatti.”
Boatti said nothing.
“Do yourself and everybody else a favor. Tell us where Rosanna Belloni is.”
Pisanelli and Maiocchi were leaning against the radiator. Maiocchi was staring disconsolately at the pipe he held in his left hand. In his right hand he held the large box of kitchen matches. Pisanelli looked at Boatti, arms folded against his chest, a smile hovering at the corner of his lips. The suede jacket hung from the end of the radiator.
“You’ve always known Rosanna was alive,” Trotti said coldly. “For a journalist, Boatti, you have a very cavalier attitude towards the truth.”
The eyes were tired, as if Giorgio Boatti had been crying.
“For once, do me a favor. Tell me the truth—the truth that you’ve deliberately hidden.”
“There are things more important than the truth.” Boatti’s voice sounded high pitched and awkward.
A dismissive gesture. Trotti did not hide his irritation. “You knew it was Maria Cristina, didn’t you? From the start you knew it was her body, didn’t you?”
An almost imperceptible nod.
“And you’ve always known where Rosanna is?”
Boatti was sweating; his temples were damp.
“You know where she is, don’t you, Boatti?”
“How do you know that I didn’t murder Maria Cristina?”
Trotti remarked mockingly, “You haven’t brought your little tape machine?” He moved round the desk, sat down and put his feet on the edge of the desk drawer. He glanced at his two colleagues.
Pisanelli said, “He’s left it with his girlfriend.”
“Gentlemen, Signor Boatti has come to the Questura of his own accord to tell us the truth.” Trotti picked up the coffee.
“Are we going to arrest Signor Boatti?” Pisanelli asked Trotti. Maiocchi continued to stare at his pipe.
“You want to arrest him for screwing the Roberti girl? You think that adultery is a criminal offense, Tenente Pisanelli? We put him away because he’s been cheating on his wife, climbing into bed with the pretty little Turin girl in the downstairs flat.”
A deep blush worked its way across Boatti’s damp face. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”
Trotti gave a brief laugh. “Why did you come?”
“There are things I can tell you now that I couldn’t tell you before.”
Trotti got up and walked towards the two officers. “You know what Zani told me, gentlemen?” He did not look at Boatti. “He told me that his son, Alberto, wa
s an old pupil of Rosanna’s and he’d kept in contact with her since leaving the school more than ten years ago . . .”
“The homosexual that works in the Libreria Ticinum—with an earring and motorcycle boots? With a pretty little face? That’s Zani’s son?” Maiocchi said.
“Alberto Zani.” Trotti nodded. “About a year ago—he’d been seeing her fairly regularly—for some reason he got angry with Rosanna, lost his temper and attacked her.” Trotti gestured towards the door. “Rosanna must’ve unwittingly made a disparaging remark about the boy’s sexuality. He attacked her—and Signor Boatti here fortunately happened to be going past the flat. He heard Rosanna shouting and went into the flat. He stopped Zani from strangling Rosanna and then he called the Carabinieri. Understandably, in everybody’s interest, the matter was hushed up.” Trotti turned back to Boatti. “Why didn’t you tell me about the Zani boy?”
“Commissario Merenda knew.”
Bending towards the journalist, Trotti tapped his chest. “I’m not Merenda. Why didn’t you tell me, Boatti?”
Boatti didn’t reply.
“You didn’t tell me because you knew it wasn’t Rosanna Belloni who’d been killed.”
A shrug.
“You knew that. You knew it was not Rosanna and that there was no reason for Zani to attack Maria Cristina. No motive—and, anyway, Zani wouldn’t have been able to get into the house at San Teodoro without a key. You knew that.”
“Maria Cristina could’ve let him in. He wouldn’t have been her first lover.”
“When everybody else thought Rosanna was dead, you knew the truth. You knew it was Maria Cristina. Commissario Merenda didn’t know that. And neither did the questore. Fairly reasonable they should think it was Zani who had gone back to the scene of the crime. And that this time he’d really killed Rosanna.” Trotti took another sip of tepid coffee. “A low profile,” Trotti said. “Of course the questore didn’t want me on the San Teodoro case. That’s why he told me to keep quiet. He knew the culprit, or at least, so he thought. Trouble was the questore’s culprit just happened to be the son of one of his oldest and most reliable policemen.”
Black August Page 25