by Marco Vichi
‘Sorry, but I haven’t finished yet.’
‘You’re certainly not going to keep us here all night.’
‘You can leave if you wish.’
‘Lunacy!’
‘Please, just let me do my job.’
The interruptions became more and more frequent and annoying. The lawyer would raise an objection and Bordelli would politely ask him not to interrupt. Around two o’clock in the morning, Bordelli’s tone changed, becoming more impatient. At three, he banished the lawyer from the room and pointed his finger in Giulio’s face. When alone, the younger brother seemed like a child on the verge of tears.
‘You know how this is going to end up? You, Giulio, are going to pay for them all, that’s how. And do you know why?’
The lawyer protested in the corridor, rattling off various articles of the penal code and yelling that he would report the matter to Judge Ginzillo. Bordelli could hear Mugnai trying to calm him down. There was a noise of chairs and then Santelia’s powerful voice again.
‘At least bring me a beer! I’m thirsty, dammit!’
Giulio ran a hand over his eyes, trembling and stammering something incomprehensible. The lawyer’s voice boomed outside the door again, asking for something to drink. Bordelli couldn’t stand the confusion any longer and poked his head out of the door.
‘For Christ’s sake, Mugnai! Buy the man a case of beer and make him shut up!’ He closed the door unceremoniously and turned back to Giulio. He went and stood behind him, putting his hands on Giulio’s shoulders.
‘I’m waiting for a phone call, Giulio. Actually, we’re both waiting for this call. You and I, Giulio. Any minute now …’ he said in a tone that made Giulio shudder.
‘What … phone call …?’
‘You’ll know soon … but there’s no hurry …’
Outside the door, calm had finally been restored. Santelia had probably decided to wait quietly for his damned beer. Bordelli turned to Piras and nodded complicitly. The Sardinian immediately got the message and asked whether he could go to the loo. Bordelli winked at him.
‘All right, but be quick,’ he said, pretending to be annoyed. A minute later the phone rang, and Bordelli picked up.
‘Yes?’
Piras’s voice sounded tinny in the receiver.
‘Here I am, Inspector, calling just like you asked. Now I’ll hang up and come back. If this is what you wanted, say yes.’
‘Yes, of course … of course,’ said Bordelli. Piras hung up, but the inspector carried on by himself, assuming a serious, attentive expression. Every so often he looked over at Giulio’s fat, sweaty face.
‘What’s that? Right, yes, of course, just as I suspected. And in Salvetti’s car, too? Splendid, I knew it. And what about that scrape on the Alfa? Good, good, that’s what I thought. Yes, of course, thanks. Send me the reports as soon as you can. Goodbye.’
He put down the phone and then went and settled comfortably in his chair. He lit a cigarette and folded his hands behind his head.
‘Good, good, good. Now we can all go to bed,’ he said, smiling. Giulio, white as a sheet, moved in his chair.
‘Why to bed?’
‘Your fingerprints, dear Giulio. Your fingerprints on the Asthmaben bottle. Clear as a photograph.’
‘Mine …?’
‘Yours, Giulio. We also found them in Salvetti’s Alfa Romeo. And that’s not all.’
An enormous drop of sweat hung from Giulio’s chin. Bordelli paused deliberately, blew a mouthful of smoke upwards, then turned his stare back on poor Giulio Morozzi.
‘We have proof that Salvetti’s car was scratched on a side street near your late aunt’s villa. Do you know what this means? That my work is finished. One murder. One killer. For me, that’s more than enough. Actually, it’s better this way. I can close up shop and go home to bed. You, on the other hand, are screwed.’
Giulio reared back in his chair.
‘I …? What?’
‘You’ll get life, dear Giulio. You know that, don’t you? You’ll be inside till you die, while the other three will be outside, living it up, free as birds. Of course, I’m sure they’ll come see you at Christmas time and bring you delicious oranges wrapped in tinfoil. Do you like the idea?’
At that moment Piras came in and Bordelli shot him a dirty look.
‘How long’s it take you to have a piss? I told you to be quick.’
Piras turned his back to him to hide the fact that he was smiling, then said in a tone appropriate to their little comedy:
‘Sorry, Inspector, but it wasn’t only pee,’ hurrying back to the typewriter.
Bordelli crushed his butt in the overflowing ashtray and rested his elbows on the desk. He pulled out a friendly smile.
‘You know, Giulio, it doesn’t seem right that you should pay for the others. Think about it. I want to be your friend. Tell you what: I’m going to give you one last chance. Tell me everything you know, right now, or I’ll close the case exactly where it stands, and you’ll go to jail while the others go free. Think it over calmly. I’ll give you …’ He removed his watch and laid it in the middle of the desk.‘… let’s say three minutes. Starting now.’
He lit another cigarette and leaned back in his chair, humming a little tune. Giulio opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out; then he looked down and began to touch himself all over, as if looking for help. He turned round to look at Piras, who returned only an impenetrable stare. A few moments later, Bordelli glanced at his watch.
‘Two minutes left,’ he said. Then he turned and looked at the rectangle of sky framed by the window. Among the millions of stars he hoped to see a shooting star so he could make a wish. To see Elvira again.
Giulio broke down after the second minute. He started slapping himself in the face and making strange noises with his throat, and when Bordelli checked his watch again, he burst out crying like a baby. It was a painful scene. And it was hard to understand what he said, since what came out of his mouth was a kind of wail that only later became comprehensible.
‘The witch … was her … the slut …’s what I said …’s her fault …’s what I said …’
Bordelli strapped his watch back on his wrist and gestured to Piras not to start typing.
‘Who are you talking about, Giulio? Her who?’
Giulio wiped his nose with his hand.
‘Her … Gina!’
‘You mean Gina, your brother’s wife?’
‘Yes, she did it, she organised the whole thing … I kept saying it wouldn’t work … she … She did it.’
Bordelli stood up, dragged a chair over beside Giulio, and sat down.
‘Now I’m going to ask you a question, Giulio, and I want a clear answer. Are you ready?’ he said, in a tone at once severe and protective.
‘Yes,’ Giulio blubbered, drooling.
‘Were you all in it together?’
Giulio couldn’t bring himself to look up, keeping his eyes fixed on an inkwell.
‘She did it, Inspector, she organised everything,’ he said.
‘Of course. But you knew about it and didn’t do anything to stop her, did you?’ he said.
‘Yes, I mean no … I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do it.’
‘All right, you didn’t do it, but if you all got away with it, some of the inheritance would have gone to you, too, wouldn’t it?’
Giulio said nothing and kept dribbling. Every so often a sob shook his whole body from the waist up. Bordelli brought his chair even closer to Giulio’s and made a sign to Piras to resume typing. The horrible clacking began to assail their ears again.
‘Did your wife and your brother know?’
‘Yes, they knew, and I knew too, but it was Gina who did everything.’
‘What do you mean by “everything”? Let’s run through the whole thing. Who was it that switched the medicine bottles?’
Giulio started whimpering again, and sniffling.
‘Gina.’
‘And who put the
pollen on Gideon’s back?’
‘Gina.’
‘Good. And who went back to the villa that night to switch the medicine bottles again? Gina again?’
Giulio’s face collapsed once and for all.
‘No. It was my brother.’
‘All right. So they did it. But you and your wife knew everything, isn’t that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘One last thing. Was it you who put the nitroglycerine in Dante’s bottle?’
‘That was her idea, Gina’s, I mean … I knew it wouldn’t work … I knew it!’ he said with a sob, and then he buried his fat face in his hands and started whimpering like a dog. Bordelli sighed. It was a truly nasty affair, more sordid than most.
‘All right, then. Bring them all in, Piras. The lawyer, too. Let’s give them the good news, and we can all go and get some sleep.’
‘So, Rosa, how are things with the cat?’
It was nighttime, on the last Sunday in September. Bordelli lay comfortably on his friend’s sofa in front of an open window giving on to the neighborhood rooftops. He had taken his shoes off and was sipping a thirst-quenching concoction. Rosa was deeply tanned and deeply decolletee, arms covered with clinking bracelets.
‘Gideon’s a darling. I couldn’t live without him,’ she said.
‘I’m so glad you’ve become friends. Where is he now?’
‘I leave the terrace door open for him, so he can go wandering over the rooftops. You won’t believe it, but every evening at nine o’clock sharp he comes into my room to cuddle with me. He’s such a dear … why won’t you tell me where you got him?’
‘I’ve already told you. One night he came knocking on my door and asked me to introduce him to a wonderful woman.’
Rosa looked over her shoulder at him, smiling with embarrassment and pleasure.
‘You’re such a liar, dear Inspector, but that’s why I like you so much … Come on, tell me.’
‘He was given to me by a friend of mine who couldn’t keep him.’
‘And why couldn’t he keep him?’
‘Because his house is full of mice.’
‘Oh, you’re so silly!’
‘This time I’m telling the truth.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘I swear it’s true.’
Rosa flicked his nose with her finger.
‘Okay, I get it, you want it to remain a mystery.’
‘No, I tell you.’
‘All right, then, tell me again about the judge, it’s so funny … What did you say to him?’
‘I’ve told you that at least ten times; aren’t you getting tired of it?’
‘No, tell me again.’
Bordelli took a sip and lit up a cigarette.
‘So I go in and Judge Ginzillo shows me the chair. He looks very nervous. Then he looks me in the eye and says: “Do you know that interrogating a suspect without his lawyer present is a crime?” So I say: “Then go ahead and report me.”’
Here, as always, Rosa burst out laughing.
As Bordelli continued his story, flashes of the Morozzi trial came back to him. Four life sentences. Santelia had bent over backwards trying to get a reduced sentence for Giulio and Angela, waving his arms under his gown for a good half-hour, every so often bringing his fist down on the bench. But it was all for naught. The heat during the trial was unbearable, but the courtroom was nevertheless packed with people, owing perhaps to the interest the press had shown in the case. Piras even ended up getting his picture in the paper with the caption: ‘Young Officer Piras, who played a decisive role in solving the murder’.
Dante had appeared in the courtroom dressed as he always was, in his oil-stained white smock. He sat in the last row, following the trial attentively, perhaps more interested in observing the people than in knowing the outcome. No one dared ask him to put out his smelly cigar. Since he was a strange person, photographers and journalists took aim at him as if he were a movie star. He simply ignored them. After the sentence was read, he had got up and left in silence.
‘My good Inspector,’ he had said to him over the phone a few days later, ‘my mice are very worried. Please help me find some wonderful woman to care for Gideon.’
That same evening Bordelli had paid him a call, taken the cat and brought it to Rosa, who adopted it on the spot.
‘Hey, are you in a daze or something?’ said Rosa, waving a hand in front of his face. Bordelli snapped out of it.
‘I’m sorry. Where was I?’
Rosa took the empty glass out of his hand.
‘I get it. You need something strong.’
As Rosa went off in search of alcohol, Bordelli saw Elvira’s face before his eyes. This was certainly nothing new. She troubled his sleep every night, in fact, walking across the hard floor in her bare feet, staring at him with her beautiful, piercing eyes.
It was an evening like so many others, Bordelli dozing on Rosa’s couch, coddled like a child. He gazed at the sky through the open window, following his dreams. He had no way of knowing that only a few months later, one nasty afternoon, he would be dashing off to the park of Villa di Ventaglio after a particularly monstrous murder.
At that moment a shooting star streaked across the sky, and Bordelli became agitated. He saw his aunts’ passion-flower pergola again, and Annina bent down to kiss a sad little boy goodbye.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-f2a151-d8f7-0848-728a-4b10-dd23-7158ec
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 12.02.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.18, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Marco Vichi
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