Death and the Olive Grove

by Marco Vichi

‘He’s suspected of killing a little girl.’

  ‘What rubbish …’ said Manfredini, feigning the utmost nonchalance. But he was a terrible actor. The inspector went up to him, looking him straight in the eye.

  ‘Listen to me … I am almost convinced he didn’t do it, but if Simone keeps on hiding, it will worsen his chances.’

  ‘There must be some kind of misunderstanding. It’s absurd to think—’

  ‘Your cousin is taking a very grave risk,’ Bordelli interrupted him. ‘If you know where he is, you’d better tell me.’

  ‘I assure you I don’t know where he is, Inspector,’ said Manfredini, trying to smile but trembling slightly. Outside it started thundering. It was pouring, and one could hear the sound of the rain violently striking the asphalt of Via Stibbert. Piras shook his head and started pacing back and forth behind Manfredini.

  ‘Perhaps you haven’t fully understood the situation,’ he said.

  ‘No, indeed I haven’t,’ said Manfredini.

  ‘Let me explain it to you … A witness saw your cousin kneeling over the corpse of a little girl and swears that he was the killer …’

  ‘That’s absurd!’

  ‘Let me finish. The inspector and I are practically convinced your cousin Simone is innocent, but if he was at the scene where the murder took place, he may have seen something that could be of use to us.’

  ‘We need speak to him as soon as possible,’ Bordelli added.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know where he is,’ Manfredini repeated, staring at the inspector with a nervous look in his eye.

  ‘You’re making a mistake,’ Piras said in a wicked tone, stopping right beside him. Manfredini put a hand behind his neck and started sweating. He seemed very tense, and Bordelli tried to take advantage of this.

  ‘If we don’t speak immediately with Simone, that testimony will end up on Judge Ginzillo’s desk, and that will mean big trouble,’ he said to frighten him. Manfredini bit his lip, trying to control his nerves.

  ‘But why would anyone listen to that … that woman?’ he stammered.

  ‘How did you know the witness is a woman?’ asked Piras.

  ‘You told me yourselves, didn’t you?’ said Manfredini, head sinking into his shoulders.

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ said Piras, staring at him.

  ‘Of course you did, I remember it clearly—’ A very close thunderclap rattled the windowpanes and Manfredini gave a start.

  ‘Tell us where he is,’ said the inspector. Manfredini looked him long in the eye without speaking, as if he were torn.

  ‘I swear I don’t know where he is,’ he finally said. Bordelli sighed impatiently, jingling the car keys in his pocket.

  ‘Pay close attention to me, Francesco, I’ll put it to you another way. It makes no difference whether Simone is guilty or innocent. If you know where he is and you don’t tell us, you can be charged with aiding a suspect. Think it over very carefully.’

  Manfredini was having trouble breathing, and his face was shiny with sweat.

  ‘I don’t know where he is, I haven’t seen him since yesterday,’ he said, nearly hysterical.

  The inspector crushed his cigarette butt in a small silver platter.

  ‘Let’s go, Piras,’ he said drily. He gestured to his assistant, and together they headed towards the door. Manfredini followed them, face hardened with tension. In the doorway, Bordelli turned and looked him straight in the eye again.

  ‘What you’re doing is very serious, Signor Manfredini,’ he said severely.

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ Francesco muttered.

  The inspector thrust his fists into his pockets and started descending the stairs, with Piras following behind.

  They came out on to the street. It was raining frightfully hard. Pulling their jackets up over their heads, they dashed inside the Beetle, already soaking wet.

  ‘We’ve got to put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance and tap his telephone,’ said Bordelli, drying his face with his handkerchief.

  ‘For the telephone we’re going to need Ginzillo’s authorisation,’ said Piras, already knowing what the inspector would say.

  ‘Never mind Ginzillo, he’ll only waste our time,’ said Bordelli, shrugging.

  ‘What about Simone’s place?’ asked Piras.

  ‘Same thing.’ Bordelli took Simone’s picture out of his pocket and handed it to Piras. ‘Have a hundred copies made and send them to every police station in town and in the surrounding villages,’ he said, starting up the car.

  Piras took the photograph as if it were scalding hot and stuffed it into his pocket without looking at it.

  It was not quite midnight. Bordelli was still at the office, limp with fatigue in his chair. That afternoon he had dashed over to the cemetery to attend Casimiro’s burial. Then he’d dropped in on Diotivede to find out whether there was any news about Sara Bini, but the pathologist hadn’t yet had the time to work on her and told him that it was best not to get one’s hopes up. Bordelli had come back to the station as taut as a drum, and organised, with Piras’s help, the shifts of surveillance of Simone Fantini and his cousin Francesco Manfredini. After a long dinner in Totò’s kitchen, he’d returned to the office and set about comparing the reports on the two murdered girls. He had smoked a great deal and felt that he needed to relax a little. He thought of paying Rosa a quick visit. On his way out of the station, he stopped at Mugnai’s guard booth.

  ‘If there are any urgent developments, you’ll find me at home, or at this number,’ he said, and he dictated Rosa’s telephone number to him.

  ‘Very well, Inspector,’ Mugnai said, adding a little chuckle of understanding. Bordelli ignored him and went out. He got into his Beetle and drove through the centre of town in the rain. Pulling up in Via Neri with two wheels on the pavement, he parked the car next to the front door of Rosa’s building. Dashing out of the car to avoid getting too wet, he collided with a short, hairless man who was walking fast in the middle of the street. The little man mumbled an apology with his head bowed and continued on his way, but Bordelli grabbed him by the arm and stopped him.

  ‘Romeo! Don’t you say hello to me any more?’

  ‘Inspector! I didn’t see you.’

  As it was still raining hard, Bordelli pulled Romeo towards him under the jutting cornice of a building.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re running off to some shady business deal of yours.’

  ‘I swear I’m not, Inspector,’ Romeo said between coughs.

  ‘Don’t swear.’

  ‘I’ve taken your advice, Inspector: no more fake money.’

  ‘And how’s the blonde?’

  ‘What blonde?’

  ‘The one you showed me a picture of the other day, a good-looking blonde you’d fallen head over heels for.’

  ‘Ah, her …’

  ‘You don’t like her any more?’

  ‘She’s dumped me for some prick from up north, Inspector … The man’s a chicken thief. A woman like that is worthless.’

  ‘Too bad …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m a lot better off alone.’

  ‘Try not to get into any trouble, Romeo, and stay away from the big circuits. They’re not for you.’

  ‘From now on, just safe deals, I swear. I don’t want to go back to jail.’

  Bordelli patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Best of luck,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll need it.’

  Romeo made a gesture of goodbye and walked away in the rain, coughing hard. Poor Romeo. There was good reason to hope he never ended up in jail again. With those lungs, he would never come out alive.

  Bordelli turned up the collar of his jacket and ran to Rosa’s front door. He rang the buzzer three times, then paused, then rang three more times. It was their code for when he arrived late at night.

  Rosa welcomed him with her usual good cheer, even though she had already gone to bed and didn’t like people to see her without make-up. She was wearing a rather transpar
ent pink dressing gown and strange slippers with heels. Sitting him down on the sofa, she took off his shoes, poured him a glass of vin santo and ran into the kitchen to make him something to eat. Bordelli tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy. His brain was moving all by itself, ploddingly, like an earthworm stuck in mud.

  Rosa returned a short while later with a plate full of colourful tartines and a maternal smile that deformed her lipstick-covered lips. She had also been to the bathroom to put on some make-up.

  ‘You’re a dear,’ said Bordelli, chewing.

  ‘For so little, monkey?’ she replied.

  ‘Where’s Gideon?’

  ‘Out and about over the rooftops.’

  ‘In this rain?’

  ‘He’s got a lot of girlfriends.’

  ‘Lucky guy.’

  The inspector took one last bite and downed the rest of the vin santo in his glass.

  ‘You spoil me like a baby,’ he said. Rosa looked very proud of herself. She blew a kiss at him and went and poured him a glass of cognac.

  ‘You know, Rosa, I just can’t get those two little girls out of my head.’

  Rosa squeezed her eyes shut in horror.

  ‘Poor little things. Who knows what terrible moments they went through in the hands of that madman,’ she said.

  ‘If this goes on much longer, I’ll go mad myself … I can’t even manage to move an inch forward on Casimiro.’

  ‘Poor little man. What did he ever do to end up that way?’

  Bordelli collapsed horizontally on the sofa, listening to the sound of the rain pelting the roof tiles. From the window giving on to the terrace he could see rooftops cluttered with chimneys and antennae and, farther on, Arnolfo’s Tower.

  As nobody had come forward to claim Casimiro’s mortal remains, the dwarf was buried early that afternoon in Soffiano cemetery, at the city government’s expense. Only Bordelli and the priest, motionless in the rain, each with his own umbrella, watched him being lowered into the grave. The matter was over in minutes, after a few words of farewell and a handshake with the priest.

  Rosa had grown somewhat sad, which didn’t happen very often. She lit a little ball of incense and a few candles, then turned off all the lights except for the standing lamp beside the couch, and collapsed into the armchair with a sigh. From a canvas bag she extracted some knitting work and started knitting without a word. Gideon came home soaking wet and shook himself on the carpet. Then he yawned and went and lay down at Rosa’s feet.

  Bordelli closed his eyes. It was nice just to lie there listening to the sound of the rain and the clicking of Rosa’s needles, but his thoughts continued to oppress him. He was obsessed with the case of the little girls, and for the moment there was no hope of stopping the killer. He felt very discouraged, more than he had for a long time. Even finding Simone Fantini would probably serve no purpose. The sooner he realised this, the better.

  Then there was the murder of Casimiro. Here too, total darkness. Too many questions he couldn’t answer. Who was that man with the black spot on his neck? And who was the foreigner that had punched him in the liver? Did the two men know each other? Had they been involved in the killing, or were these only stupid coincidences? Most importantly, who could have any interest in killing a miserable little dwarf who never frightened anyone? Had he discovered something big?

  ‘What are you thinking about, monkey?’ Rosa suddenly asked, startling Bordelli.

  ‘Can’t you imagine?’

  ‘Don’t obsess, dear. You’ll catch that monster soon … Another drop of cognac?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Rosa filled the glass very nearly to the brim. Cognac was never lacking in her household. A girlfriend of hers sent it to her periodically from Paris.

  The inspector took little sips, warming the glass in his hands. Though he tried not to think of those things, his mind always came back to them, like flies to shit. Feeling suddenly hot from the alcohol, he unbuttoned his collar. Rosa carried on knitting with her usual slowness.

  ‘What are you making?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘A winter sweater for you … Do you like the colour?’

  It was a nondescript light green.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ said the inspector.

  As often happened, they started talking about days gone by. Rosa loved to tell stories, and Bordelli loved most of all to listen. In some respects she was proud of her life … She would often say that she felt as if she had lived three or four lives instead of just one. As a little girl she had known hunger and cold. Then she’d grown up, and since she was very pretty and very poor, she found herself surrounded by admirers of all ages, from spineless youths to old wankers who got right to the point without any fuss, opening their fat wallets straight away. ‘Whores are made,’ she used to say with a bitter smile. Then, during the war, she’d had the pleasure of meeting Fascists and Germans, she said, and she told stories to make your hair stand on end.

  ‘The world is full of cowards and sons of bitches,’ she said, knitting away like a grandmother.

  Slowly the candles reached their end. Rosa got up to light some more and then sat back down. It was almost two o’clock.

  ‘You know, monkey … I just love sitting here with you and talking,’ she said, crossing her once-beautiful legs.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I’ve never told you this, but ever since I met you, I’ve always thought that something would happen between us. I think it has yet to happen, even though I don’t quite know what it is.’

  Bordelli handed his empty glass to Rosa for her to refill. Her comment stuck in his head and wouldn’t go away: ‘something has yet to happen … has yet to happen …’ Perhaps the murder of Casimiro should be interpreted in a completely different way. Perhaps the dwarf had stumbled upon something that had yet to happen and was kicked aside like a clod of dirt in the road … The inspector shook his head. Enough was enough. At night, at least, he had to stop thinking about these things. Anyway, it was pointless to fill his head with conjectures. He downed his glass and slid his feet into his shoes. Rosa put down her knitting needles and went and sat down beside him, preventing him tying his shoes, like a little girl wanting attention.

  ‘C’mon, Rosa …’

  She chuckled. ‘Do I bother you?’ Gideon, too, came up to him and started sharpening his claws on Bordelli’s trousers. The inspector pushed him away, and the tomcat went off, snapping his tail.

  ‘When are you going to come and see your Rosina again?’ she asked, sticking a finger in his ear.

  ‘You know I can’t stay away from you for very long.’

  ‘I can believe it! Where are you going to find somebody else like me? Eh? Where?’

  ‘Now, I couldn’t say … But a few years ago, at that little villa up on the Lungarno del Tempio,’ said Bordelli, already shielding his face with his hands.

  ‘Bastard!’ she said, giggling as she tried to slap him. She had bony little hands that could inflict damage. In the end Bordelli managed to tie his shoes. He stood up and kissed Rosa’s fingers.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said.

  Rosa blushed and couldn’t suppress a giggle. She loved this sort of thing, perhaps because for most of her life she had been treated quite differently. She saw her monkey to the door, her arm looped through his, and after their last kisses she slipped into his pocket a small, blue silk sack full of something and tied with a blue ribbon.

  ‘Put this in your underwear drawer, it’ll make everything smell nice.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Lavender and rosemary.’

  The inspector thanked her by kissing her hand again. Then he descended the stairs, fingers squeezing the scented little sack that made his pocket bulge. He couldn’t remember whether he actually had a drawer just for underwear.

  He was dreaming … Before him stood Mereu, the most illiterate member of the San Marco Battalion, looking at him and smiling, and the next second flying through the air after stepping on a mine. The scen
e kept on repeating itself, and each time Bordelli failed to warn him in time … He would run over to him and then find his head in a bush, still smiling … Then he’d see him stepping on the mine again, he would run over to him and find his head in the bush again … And it would start all over again … Mereu would smile, step on the bloody mine and … All at once Bordelli heard an infernal ringing, boring through his brain. It took him a moment to realise it was the telephone. Groping wildly in the dark, he seized the receiver.

  ‘Yeah … Who is it?’

  ‘Marshal, did I wake you?’ asked a woman’s voice in an excited whisper. Bordelli was thick tongued, still seeing Mereu’s face in the dark … but he realised at once that he needed to do something decisive.

  ‘The marshal is in Spain on an investigation and won’t be back for three or four months,’ he said, faking a Neapolitan accent.

  ‘And who, may I ask, are you?’

  ‘A relative.’

  ‘Another carabiniere?’

  ‘Plumber.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame! Strange things are happening in my building, very strange things … Had the marshal mentioned them to you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Please do me a favour. If you hear from the marshal, tell him to phone me at once. I am Signora Capecchi, he’ll understand.’

  ‘I’ll pass it on,’ said Bordelli, hanging up before the old woman could say anything else. He turned on to his side, hoping to fall back asleep at once, but in the haze of his forced awakening, the image of the loutish young Nocentini, who chewed gum like an American and spat in the stairwell, kept coming into his mind. He was unable to fall asleep again. In the end he turned on the light and started staring at the ceiling. He felt dead tired, but his brain was as busy as ever. There was no point in trying to sleep any more. He got up out of bed and started rummaging through the pockets of his jacket. He’d remembered Simone Fantini’s short story, which he’d snatched from the young man’s desk. The Tower. Good title. He went back to bed and started reading. He already knew what would happen, but kept on reading with the same curiosity as the first time. The story had something at once horrifying and sweet about it, something he had difficulty fully understanding. When he had finished reading it, he let it slide off the bed. It really was quite a coincidence that Fantini had written a story in which the protagonist was suspected of raping and killing a little girl. But it was a good story and, still thinking of Fantini, he fell back asleep with the light on.