Death in Tuscany

by Michele Giuttari

  Even Ascalchi was aware that Albanian gangs were active in Florence. He knew that for some years now there had been a huge increase in the number of prostitutes from Eastern Europe. The traditional figure of the pimp was on the way out, replaced by specialised groups who recruited women abroad, smuggled them into Italy, and once they had arrived, forced them into prostitution. The groups were well organised, efficient, highly feared, extremely violent and determined. They had made a lot of money from prostitution and now, if Ciuffi's hypothesis was correct, were investing heavily in drugs.

  'One sign of this,' Ciuffi continued, 'is the number of fights and attempted murders involving North African pushers.'

  'I don't follow you.'

  'For years the North Africans have been the main, if not the exclusive suppliers to addicts in Florence and the province.'

  'I know that, but where do the Albanians fit in?' 'Let me finish. They're the ones who supply the North Africans, but they're playing a double game.' 'What do you mean?'

  'They're trying to lose them their customers. If the rumour starts spreading among addicts that the stuff the North Africans are selling isn't as good as it used to be and puts you in a coma, they've won. The addicts are going to look for other sources of supply, and the Albanians will be waiting for them with open arms.'

  'So the bastards are supplying these stupid dealers with crap to make them lose face.'

  'That's what we think. As I said, it's the likeliest explanation, and one we're actively working on. The Albanians are trying to monopolise the drug market, not just wholesale but retail too. We've had some tip-offs that bear this out, and we've got a few names . . . But you know what the Albanians are like! They never stay in one place for very long. Today they're in Florence, tomorrow in Milan, Naples, Turin . . . And the gangs do each other favours, swap members. With all these people working in different places, it's harder to identify and investigate them.'

  Ascalchi nodded.

  Extreme mobility was one of the characteristics of the Albanian underworld. The traditional methods of surveillance didn't work any more. Most of the time, no sooner had you located one of the criminals than you lost all trace of him, because the Albanians rarely used the same means of transport or the same telephones twice.

  In addition, they frequently resorted to violence in their daily operations and as a means of resolving conflicts, had fingers in many different pies, used intimidation, and had a code of silence typical of Mafia-style organisations. Organised into clans, following the traditions of their home country, they used the same methods as the Mafia but with even greater determination and cruelty.

  'I see what you're saying. If this girl who died yesterday was supplied by a North African who'd been screwed by an Albanian, we're fucked, right?'

  'If you're thinking of nabbing the dealer who gave her the stuff, I'd say you were. Either we grab him in some other operation, or you forget about it.'

  'Sorry, one more thing. At what age do the kids around here start taking drugs?'

  'Why?'

  'Because the girl in the Ospedale Nuovo may have been only thirteen, or even less.'

  A grave expression appeared on Ciuffi's face. 'Really? We came across a boy of sixteen two months ago. Younger than that I find hard to believe. Though it's hard to know where the limits are these days. I don't know if there's anything that would surprise us any more.'

  Ascalchi went back to Ferrara to report, but only Fanti was there.

  'Involuntary manslaughter,' he said in answer to Fanti's questioning look. 'The culprit is a black bastard who doesn't know his arse from his elbow manipulated by a white bastard who strikes at random and doesn't give a damn who the victim is. Got that?'

  'I'll pass it on.'

  'Forget it,' Superintendent Ascalchi said, not sure if Fanti was serious or pulling his leg. 'Just tell him I was looking for him.'

  'Join the queue, Superintendent. The Commissioner has been looking for him too.'

  3

  Because of the traffic, Ferrara had taken nearly half an hour to reach the area where the hospital was located. The car from the police pool was baking in the sun, and the defective air conditioning wasn't much use. He had had to open the window, so now in addition to the heat he had to put up with the nerve-racking cacophony of horns, voices and the exhaust pipes of motorbikes and mopeds.

  Fanti had called him on his mobile as they were nearing the hospital, to tell him that the Commissioner had phoned. As he was already late, Ferrara decided he wouldn't return the call yet: he had more than enough to worry about already. He smiled, pleased that he had never given the Commissioner the number of his private mobile, only the official one, which he always kept switched off when he was out on an investigation. That way, only Fanti could contact him if it was necessary.

  His relations with Riccardo Lepri, who had succeeded Mephisto and was so different from him, had never gone beyond mutual tolerance, despite a few attempts on both sides which had soon come to nothing.

  Built in the Sixties to replace the old hospital in the city centre, the Nuovo, as it soon came to be called, could house

  more than a thousand patients. Situated on the south-western edge of the city, it was still a relatively modern complex after all these years and had stayed in the forefront of scientific and technological advance. The only thing the original planners had not foreseen was the exponential increase in traffic on the roads leading to it. There were often jams close to the main entrance, making it hard even for ambulances to go in and out easily.

  Today, Friday 3 August, was no exception.

  They were held up a hundred yards from the gate. Ferrara didn't see any point in adding his own siren to that of the ambulance making its way out, with great difficulty, at that moment.

  'Wait for me at the entrance of the emergency department,' he said to the driver. He got quickly out of the car and started walking towards the intensive care unit. This marathon left him in a state of dishevelment that was unusual for him: his tie loose, his shirt collar open, his silk shirt stained with sweat, his jacket hanging over his arm like an unwanted rag.

  The patients, doctors and nurses moving around the forecourt or entering and leaving the various buildings paid no attention to him: many looked as dishevelled as he did. When, at last, he climbed the stairs to the first floor of a low glass and concrete building where the office of the consultant in charge of intensive care was situated, he tried to smarten himself up as best he could, wiping the sweat from his face and hurriedly putting his jacket back on. With little success, to judge by his image reflected in the glass wall that ran alongside the corridor, but he had no time to do anything more.

  The air conditioning had been turned up to maximum. By the time he found the right door, it had frozen his damp clothes.

  'Come in, come in!'

  The voice from inside was forceful and impatient. Not unpleasant, but Ferrara shuddered and wasn't sure if it was because of the sudden cold or that not very cordial invitation.

  Anyway, he couldn't complain: he hated latecomers, too.

  Leone greeted him with a smile. 'Hot, isn't it, Chief Superintendent?' The allusion to his rumpled state could not have been more obvious, even though the pathologist clearly intended it as a friendly rather than a disapproving remark.

  A lot of traffic, too,' Ferrara replied, trying to spare himself further apologies.

  'Doctor Leone also had to get here from the centre of town.' The comment came from the other man in the room, who was studying him closely. He said it calmly, as a statement of fact, rather than as if he were trying to provoke him.

  Leone hastened to introduce them before Ferrara could respond in kind to the concealed rebuke. 'Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara, Professor Ludovico d'Incisa.'

  The contrast could not have been more striking.

  D'Incisa was distinguished, elegant and tanned. Cool, Ferrara might have described him with a touch of envy. As cool as the vague smell of sandalwood perfume he ga
ve off. A successful man, sure of himself, tall, nearly seventy but still robust, his apparently placid but clearly inquisitive blue eyes and the thick, well-groomed fair hair making him all the more authoritative. Everything about him seemed to command awe and respect, and Ferrara felt even more slovenly in comparison.

  Glancing at his solid Franck Muller wristwatch - Ferrara was no connoisseur but he doubted it was a fake like the ones sold by Moroccans at the seaside - Professor d'Incisa rose from his armchair. 'Now we're all here at last, we can begin.'

  He led them out of his office and along the corridor to a flight of stairs. The morgue was in the basement.

  They walked across a room of hermetically sealed freezer cabinets to the autopsy room, which had a sign in Latin above the door: HIC MORS GAUDET SUCCURE VITAE. Memories of school Latin came to his rescue: 'Here death delights in helping life' or something like that - an epigraph illustrated by a reproduction of Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp on the wall of the autopsy room.

  But what most struck Ferrara was the girl's corpse, lying on the metal table in the middle of the room.

  Seen in the flesh, completely naked, she seemed even more beautiful and innocent. The undeveloped breasts with their small pink nipples, the mount of Venus with its sprinkling of dark hair, the delicate, tapering limbs: objectively, it was hard to say if she had been an undeveloped adolescent or a somewhat precocious child, although Ferrara still inclined to the latter.

  In life, she must already have had her own undeniable sensuality, but her hands - the fingers still slightly chubby, the nails chewed and bearing traces of Vermillion varnish, the kind used in children's games - were certainly a child's, and of aching tenderness.

  A sacrificial victim, he thought, obscenely exposed to the avid curiosity of the doctors Rembrandt had portrayed so well. They would cut her up, extract every secret they could from her body, and then she would be laid in the ground and return to dust.

  At least sixty years too early, Ferrara thought sadly.

  There was a label tied to the big toe of her right foot. On it, someone had drawn a question mark with a black felt-tip pen where the name should have been. The same mark appeared on one of her legs.

  Two people were waiting for them beside the corpse: the autopsy room technician from Leone's team - Ferrara had met him a couple of times before - and a young doctor.

  In the meantime, d'Incisa and Leone had put on white paper aprons, latex gloves and masks. Ferrara did the same, although he left off the gloves.

  Leone began the external examination. 'Female, Caucasian, indeterminate age, though at first sight I'd say about fourteen. Do you agree, Professor?'

  He was speaking in a loud voice for the benefit of those present, but also so that his words could be captured by a small portable tape recorder. He was a short, thin man, his hair prematurely white in marked contrast to his thick black eyebrows. He wore big, round steel-rimmed glasses, which stood out on his long, hollow, perennially tanned face.

  'I wouldn't like to hazard a guess,' Professor d'Incisa replied, cautiously.

  'Well, it doesn't matter for the moment,' Leone said, as he opened the corpse's mouth to study the teeth. 'When we have the results of the bone density tests we'll be able to make a good stab at it, but the teeth suggest she's probably at least fourteen, but no older than sixteen. Which confirms the previous hypothesis that she was between thirteen and sixteen. The body measures 146 centimetres. There are no external signs of lesions, contusions or blows. The state of nutrition appears to be within the normal range for her height and weight.'

  He looked carefully at both arms.

  'There are no obvious marks to indicate the use of syringes, apart from those which can be attributed to the drip she was on and the blood tests that were taken in the hospital. Can you confirm that?'

  'Of course. I would add, though, that when she arrived here she did have one or two marks. That was why we did blood and urine tests which showed the presence of morphine, the fundamental metabolite of heroin.'

  'Yes . . .' It seemed to Ferrara that Leone hesitated for a moment, lost in thought. 'I'd say it was very likely she died of an overdose, but I'd be curious to know if she was a habitual user. We should be able to ascertain that from an examination of her hair, liver and bile.'

  The professor nodded in agreement. It was clear that he wasn't really interested: he had treated a case of overdose, and provided this was demonstrated, anything else was for others to speculate about.

  Leone went on to examine the hands and feet.

  'Nothing under the fingernails or toenails, no mould, no hard particles.'

  'Isn't that strange, considering where she was found?' Ferrara asked.

  Leone shrugged. 'Hard to say. We don't know how she got there or what she did there.'

  D'Incisa agreed, throwing Ferrara a reproving glance, as if annoyed by this untimely interruption from a layman.

  Francesco Leone moved to the genital organs. He looked closely at the labia majora, frowned, and thrust a finger into the vagina. 'The hymen is broken and, unless tests prove otherwise, already atrophied.'

  'What does that mean?' Ferrara asked, at the risk of further antagonising d'Incisa.

  'That she hadn't been a virgin for some time,' Leone replied. 'Contrary to popular belief, the hymen doesn't disappear after the first act of sexual intercourse, or even after the succeeding ones. Adaptation to coitus is a gradual process. Eventually the hymen atrophies, as it has in this case, and loses its morphological features.'

  While speaking, he had raised the corpse's pelvis slightly and was now inspecting the anal sphincter.

  The professor was following his colleague's work with curiosity, although he continued to glance every now and then at his expensive watch.

  'The folds around the anus present traces of discolouration, and despite the rigor mortis I note that there is a decided loss of tone in the sphincter and some relaxation which appears to be funnel-shaped.

  'In other words,' he added for Ferrara's benefit, switching off the tape recorder for a moment, 'she was entered repeatedly from behind.'

  'Does that mean she was raped before she went into a coma?'

  'I can't tell you that. As I've already said, there are no signs of violence. Maybe that was the day she stopped being a little saint. . .'

  'Had you noticed this?' Ferrara asked d'Incisa.

  'That she was a whore?' the professor replied in a contemptuous tone that angered Ferrara: considering the girl's age, it was not a term he himself would have used. 'Why should that have concerned us? This unknown girl was brought in showing clear signs of an overdose. We administered Narcan - that's an antidote to opiate poisoning,' he said to Ferrara, 'which confirmed our suspicions, as did all our subsequent tests, as I've already said. The death that occurred after the coma was clearly due to the overdose. I wrote that in the report and I repeat it now. The rest was none of our business.'

  'Not even if she was drugged in order to be abused?' Ferrara retorted.

  'Not even then,' d'Incisa said firmly. 'We're doctors, not policemen. Let's each of us do our job.' The scornful undertone was obvious.

  Ferrara ignored him and turned to Leone. 'Is it still possible to find traces of sperm after so many days?' He thought he knew the answer but, lacking the technical knowledge, he preferred to make sure. 'I'm sorry, Professor, but as you yourself said I have to do my job.'

  'I appreciate that. As a matter of fact, it's a sensible question. A patient in a coma is washed and catheterised, and you may well think that would affect any traces of sperm. But it isn't so, is it, Dr Leone?'

  'No, it isn't. The sperm remains in the mucous membrane of the uterus for a long time, and laboratory tests should be able to find it, if the girl had complete intercourse, without precautions.'

  'Does it remain for more than five days?'

  'Sometimes more than double that, Chief Superintendent.'

  And given her profession,' d'Incisa said, dryly,
Td be surprised if there wasn't any, and from different men, too!'

  Perhaps Ferrara was influenced by Violante's suspicions, but he definitely didn't like the man. He wasn't thinking of that, though - he was weighing up other possibilities: the girl had been someone's sex slave, a paedophile had shot her up with heroin to make her docile, she'd been gang raped, or she'd taken part in one of those parties involving adults and minors about which there had been persistent rumours in Florence, without there being any concrete evidence.

  There were many possibilities. Including the possibility that the girl was just an underage prostitute who'd taken an overdose. D'Incisa was clearly convinced of that, and Leone might also be inclining that way. It was certainly the simplest explanation. But it was too simple. If they could confirm that she wasn't a habitual drug user, it would start to crumble.

  Once he had finished the external examination, Leone nodded to the technician, a short, stocky man of about fifty, who until now had been standing by the instruments trolley, watching and listening with cool detachment. Now he walked over to the wash basin, picked up a plastic headrest, and fixed it beneath the girl's chin.

  It was at this point that Ferrara realised he had no desire to be present at the slaughter that was about to begin: Leone would make a Y-shaped incision and open the thorax, then he would cut open the abdomen, and finally he would pull back the scalp and saw through the cranial vault.

  Pathologists have a special relationship with death, but he didn't. It had been a while since he'd last been present at an autopsy and he had got out of the habit. He realised now that he preferred not to reacquire it.

  'I have to go,' he said before Leone could proceed. 'If you have a minute, Professor, I'd like to ask you a few questions before you leave.'

  For the umpteenth time, the consultant looked at his watch. 'I'm in a bit of a hurry, to tell the truth ..." He glanced at Leone.