He did nothing to stop the tears that were streaming down his face allowing them to flow until he was quietly weeping…
His tired eyes were fixed on the walls which seemed white and immobile, but slowly he saw them open, splitting wide, spraying out blood, dark red blood, the same blood he had seen spurting out from the engineer’s slit throat, blood that ran from the ceiling, blood everywhere, flooding the floor.
Then, in the darkness, a light appeared…
It was Giulio running towards him, smiling, holding a bunch of red flowers in his hand, the ones from his garden, but then even the flowers opened, the petals dilated and turned into blood as well…
He got up, went into the bathroom, took another tablet and slipped back into bed.
The pulsing slowed down the pneumatic drill that seemed to perforate his brain and finally the pills overcame the emotions of the last hours, making him fall into the oblivion of a night with no more ghosts.
8
Saturday
The mobile had been ringing for a while in the semidarkness of the room, noisily vibrating on top of the table it was on, but DI Giovanni Veronesi of the Homicide Squad did really not want to answer it.
He waited until the phone stopped ringing before getting up, knowing that the notes of Mozart’s 40th symphony would soon ring out again.
He had forgotten to switch it off before going to sleep and knew he would receive some calls.
He really should change the ring tone; he was starting to dislike this one.
The ringing started up again.
Veronesi pressed the answer button.
A voice he knew well asked: “DI, is that you?”
“Yes, its me. What you do want at this time of day? It’s Saturday, which I believe is my day off dedicated to tennis.”
“Your first game is bound to be delayed, sir, in fact it will be cancelled!” it was the voice of agent Domenico Saturno “They’ve murdered your doubles partner, Mauro Ridolfi!”
“What happened?” His thinking was still dulled by sleep and his mind had not taken in the news he had been given.
“Murder. They cut his throat, last night, in the garage right beside his car. You’d better come right away. You know where Ridolfi lived, don’t you?”
The voice of his assistant with its clear southern accent seemed like a distant echo.
“Christ! Oh My God! How on earth..?”
“It happened. You knew him well enough to understand that he had enemies, especially because of the affairs with women he used to boast about, remember we talked about it once? It’s bound to be a crime of passion.”
“Oh yeah? If you say so it must be.“ Veronesi replied in a depressed and simultaneously resigned tone. “ But before we start suspecting half the betrayed husbands in Verona, wait for me in the car outside the headquarters.
I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
DI Veronesi ran his hands through his hair, put on the robe that was on the armchair and went into the bathroom, turning on the shower which pummelled his body with icy jets making him jump.
Shortly after he emerged wearing the robe and opened the door of the other bedroom where his wife was asleep.
She woke up with a jump and angrily demanded “Are you mad? What is wrong with you today? It’s Saturday and not even … eight o’clock yet” she said, looking at the alarm clock beside the bed. “All these years we’ve been living together and you know that Saturday mornings are sacred to me. The only evening I enjoy myself is Friday, when I go dancing.”
“Yeah, so that one of your latin American dancers can feel your ass. By the way, what time did you get in last night?”
“What do you care? Doesn’t the agreement we’ve had for the past couple of years say that we ignore each other and avoid asking the other one anything? I didn’t ask you what you got up to last night”.
“Me? I was on duty last night. I only wanted to let you know that last night somebody murdered your dear friend Ridolfi!”
“Who? Mauro?”
“Yes, the very same”.
The fog of the few hours sleep she had had in the night quickly cleared from Giorgia’s brain, and she opened her big green eyes, then she covered her face with her hands, slid both hands towards her mouth, biting them and starting a sort of low lament.
The DI watched her, drying his chest with the robe and then added “I’m going to see what happened and I’ll let you know”.
“Gianni!” his wife shouted, her eyes full of tears “I never really loved Mauro, not even when we were teenagers going out together. We were only friends.”
“Yeah, close friends. So close that you slept together every so often”.
“A lot less than you think, even though you are not interested in anything any more. You just love playing the part of the jealous husband.”
The DI paused with the robe half off his shoulders and then took it off in the corridor and went into his room to get dressed.
Before he left Giorgia caught up with him at the door.
“I was with him last night. I saw him at the Ribalta Bar with the usual group. It must have been midnight, we had a cocktail together with some other people, then he left and… I went to a disco with Laura. But I was not in the mood and I got fed up with dancing, so I came away earlier than usual, but before coming home I drove around for a while….”
Her penetrating green eyes and the natural perfume of her skin, which still smelt of flavours of a night spent who knows where, always had a profound effect on him.
The DI ran his eyes down her long wavy hair, carefully lightened by the magic touch of an expert hairdresser; he straightened the dressing gown she had hurriedly thrown on, without hiding the still attractive shape of a proud breast and moved a lock of hair, with a nostalgic glance.
“How long has it been since we made love?”
“Years, I can assure you” she replied, slightly irritated, adjusting his grey silk scarf and tightening it at his throat.
“You’re always out with your friend Laura. Ever since she first appeared we…”
Giorgia looked at him reproachfully, frowning.
“She is a friend and a work colleague and not one of the usual gossipmongers” she replied sharply.
“Well… let’s hope I don’t have to put you in the list of suspects, I don’t know, I don’t know anything yet. I’ll let you know in any case, but in the meantime try to remember that you are the wife of an important official.”
9
The policemen were marking off the area around the entrance to the garage where the crime had taken place with yellow plastic tape to keep out a small crowd of curious people who had gathered around the building.
DI Veronesi got out of his car and, showing his identification, made his way through common people, journalists and television technicians who were keeping vigil in front of the crime scene.
He was followed like a bloodhound by agent Domenico Saturno, in jacket and tie, covered by his usual grey raincoat.
Short, with hanging jowls, a neat but underdog appearance, with a slight paunch and short legs, the DI’s assistant really looked like a bulldog, but he did not consider him as faithful…
The scientific squad technicians, in white coats, gloves and masks, were already searching for clues.
A sturdy policeman from his section went to meet him.
“What have we got so far?” the DI asked immediately, acknowledging his salute with a gesture.
“Very little. No direct witness on the scene of the crime. It must have taken place between 1 and 2am at which time all the inhabitants of the building were in bed. The scientific is getting traces, there are some near the car, but they look like plastic rubber marks. The garage can hold about 150 cars, but most of them belong to employees and directors who work in the offices until Friday. At weekends the residential area practically empties.
I have just been up to the victim’s apartment: fabulous! At a first glance the assassin would appear not to
have entered.
The body was found by one of the few residents who live here all year round, a man who went fishing this morning at 6am.”
The DI approached the body of Mauro Ridolfi, lying on the ground, half turned over; the head seemed to dangle awkwardly, the neck slit open, the stomach open and immersed in blood.
He recognised his wife’s old … friend, who in turn became an intimate friend.
He had met him the first time on his wedding day; he was one of the noisier guests.
Giorgia had never stopped spending time with him socially as well as on a professional level through ties the builder had with the architect’s studio where she worked.
They had been members of the same tennis club for years and recently Ridolfi had insisted he join him for several doubles matches. Gianni Veronesi had accepted, even if he did not particularly like the man. At first his company was pleasant, then his conversation always moved on to the subject of women and then Mauro Ridolfi became uncontrollable and dull, almost unbearable…
Furthermore he was, according to most, disloyalty personified.
The DI noticed that somebody had been through his wallet and that none of his several gold Rolex watches was on his wrist.
He loved showing off and usually carried a lot of cash.
“The assassin must have searched him for money or something else and emptied his pockets. We found no money on him” said the policeman.
“Then it could be a simple murder with intent to rob?” interrupted Saturno.
“Hmm, it’s not that simple. There’s more., come and have a look “ the policeman continued.
“Crime of passion … with robbery” the officer insisted.
“Saturno, Saturno. The way you mutter half finished sentences makes you look more and more like a famous film star!” DI Veronesi broke the silence he had kept while watching the scene, listening to the first theories nervously due to the fact that he knew the victim quite well.
“Yeah, I know. You mean Panunzio in the film “Investigations into the life of a citizen above all suspicion”, you’ve told me that dozens of times before. Anyway, if I was an assassin and found a wad of cash in the victim’s wallet, I’d take it.”
They walked round the body; the door of the car was still open, the body on the ground in a puddle of blood, the hand clutching a black paper mask, similar to the ones used during carnival.
“It looks as though our assassin wanted to leave his calling card” Veronesi commented.
“The murderer was hiding and came up behind the victim with a long knife. First he put his hand over the mouth and then he slit his throat with one decisive, fatal blow from left to right. Taleban style or, even better, like a surgeon. In fact, who knows why, with the same knife he opened the stomach…” interrupted another member of the scientific squad who was taking signs of evidence from the body, miming the act.
“Man or woman?” the DI asked, wondering what the calling card could mean.
“I ‘d say it was a man, but it could have been a woman. The killer didn’t use force, but precision. They must have seen it on television, or maybe he or she wanted to imitate a terrorist. Could there be a political motive?”
“I’d rule that out” snapped Veronesi “ that was the one thing he had no interest in”.
“And what do you make of the mask? Could the victim have snatched it off the killer?”
“I don’t think so; it looks as though someone placed it in his hand. It looks like Zorro’s mask! He stole from the rich” Saturno immediately concluded.
“Who knows? Saturno have you checked to see if there is a Z anywhere on the body?” Veronesi said jokingly, winking at the other policeman.
Thoughtfully he turned back and picked up the mask using tweezers, looking at it more closely.
“Mind you, you could have found a good name for the new case “he told his assistant with a pleased and admiring tone.
“There are traces of cocaine on the hand” the technician pointed out. “You knew him, did he use drugs often?”
The DI grimaced briefly.
“The autopsy will tell us how many grams he took last night” he said, referring to the expertise of the pathologist when finding traces on bodies and the quantities of drugs used.
He glanced inside the car where he spotted the mobile phone on the passenger seat.
“Once you’ve gone over it for fingerprints I’d like to have that brought to my office so that we can check who he spoke to before he was murdered.”
Only then did Veronesi notice with a touch of disappointment that he had treated the body under his nose as if it was any other crime, completely naturally without showing any signs of emotion. And yet it was that of an acquaintance, almost a friend, a person he had a relationship with, with whom he played tennis, as he was meant to do that very morning.
Mauro was basically a lonely figure, even if he loved being surrounded by people. When he went home, he had to deal with solitude.
He stood watching the body for a few seconds longer and realised that he himself was not much different, in fact despite the fact that he had a family he had also become a solitary person.
His only son lived abroad and things had not been going well with his wife for some time. He had practically no true friends and the only people he spent time with were his work colleagues.
The evening before he had wandered around for an hour before going home, he knew Giorgia was out and something inside him kept him away from the domestic environment….
He turned to the policemen who had met him when he arrived at the garage.
“I believe you said you have the keys to the victim’s apartment. Can you take me there? I’d like to have a look around.”
Ridolfi’s apartment was still immersed in the faint light of the dull morning even if the sky, filled with clouds, seemed a little closer up there on the tenth floor of the elegant building.
The interior demonstrated the opulence of its owner, with suffused lighting everywhere, carefully positioned, just like the antique carpets..
Veronesi could see his wife’s expert touch in the elegant furniture and Mauro had obviously allowed her a free reign with spending.
Knowing Giorgia’s love of expensive and beautiful things, he frowned.
He pressed a button to open the electric shutters on the large windows and stepped out onto the balcony.
It was a splendid view.
He looked down at the city laid out at his feet, crossed by the river Adige as if the city had been built first and the river had insinuated its way between the streets like a snake.
It was almost as if the sound of the water trickling over stones could be heard from up there.
He was fascinated; his eyes were far away while a shiver ran through him.
It had started to rain again and the cold weather was back.
He went back inside and walked towards the central wall, attracted by an important painting which dominated it and looked as it had only recently been hung there.
He moved it slightly to look behind it and noticed the outline of a picture that had previously hung there.
The painting was of a country scene, a shepherd playing the flute near some ruins, surrounded by farm women while sheep pastured in the fields. The style was typical of the Flemish artists who worked in Italy in the seventeenth century, the Romanists, and that is how he judged it, at first sight, from the little knowledge he had gained from exhibitions and the magazines on antiques that filled his house…
A table in a corner of the vast living room displayed several photographs in elegant silver frames.
One of these held a picture of his wedding, dedicated by Giorgia to her eternal friend.
His wife also appeared in another more recent photo which showed Ridolfi in swimming trunks happily surrounded by the women of the party, in a village with a Caribbean air.
The DI gave one last look and took the lift directly down to the garage.
The victim�
��s Porsche was on the other side compared to the wall where the lift was, a sure sign that the assassin entered through the car entrance and not via the shared entrance to the building.
He went to find Saturno and noticed a small camera pointing out over the garage entrance.
“Get the tape and ask the lab to examine it, if they haven’t already done so. Maybe your Zorro was not so clever after all. In the meantime I’m going to the Ribalta bar. I haven’t been there for ages but I know it was Ridolfi’s favourite haunt, I’m sure he was there last night as well”.
Saturno looked at him as if he had read his mind, with the expression of someone who knows a lot more than he was admitting, while the technicians were busy closing the garage to start using the crime scope, the special light used by the criminal scientific squad to check for fingerprints, footprints and any other sort of prints.
10
At the Ribalta bar the DI was sipping a cappuccino he had just ordered, studying the first arrivals in an attempt to uncover some clues.
News had spread and Ridolfi’s so-called friends, dragged out of bed by whoever had heard the news, appeared shocked.
Nobody loved him or considered him an intimate friend, but in the circles they moved in they were all like that, friends on the surface but actually very distant to one another.
More of less well-off, or people who acted as if they were rich, the false wealthy who tried to mix with the real rich people, men over 40 who tried to look 20, showing off hairy chests and tanned faces, women of the same age and social status, willing to throw themselves back into the game…
None of them dreamed of mentioning any of the stupid rivalries which took place in the bar, or particular intimate past or recent events, in which Ridolfi often played a main part, in order to avoid drawing suspicion on to anyone in their circle.
The first theories suggested it was theft, and that clues led to a comforting Albanese source, connected to the spread of organised criminal bands which were targeting the villas surrounding the town.
Dark Peony Page 4