Petri’s sister was ten years younger than he was. She might have been a chain-smoker, but she kept herself well, despite the cloud of cigarette smoke that surrounded her.
Repetto showed his badge. It was out of date, but Simona Petri hadn’t seen a cop in a while, and wouldn’t have cared anyway. Repetto had neither the right nor the authority to be there questioning her, but she invited him in without protest.
‘That drug affair was bullshit, excuse my French. My brother got up to all sorts, but he’d never deal drugs. Your colleagues are idiots. No offence.’
Repetto grimaced.
‘Well, even if they took offence, I wouldn’t care: they are idiots.’
Simona was warming up to him.
‘I’m sorry if I seem forward, but do you have any idea what he did? Did you know anything about your brother’s life? Any detail, no matter how trivial, could be useful to us.’
She poured herself some lemonade from an ice-filled jug. Repetto had already had two glasses; it was excellent. She thought about it for a while.
‘Hm. Well, he called me and told me he’d discovered something about himself. That’s what he said. “I discovered something about myself.” And I went, “So what? What do you mean?” And he goes, “Just that”. It was about a year ago. Then nothing, until a week before his death he calls me. We chat for a while. I ask him, “So, how’s the discovery?” “Coming along,” he says. “I’m going forward, one step at a time. I’m following the truth right now.” He died seven days later.’
On his way home, he got a call from Canessa.
‘You’ve been in Turin for a while,’ he opened.
‘Simona is good company, as they used to say, very welcoming. She makes excellent lemonade.’
‘Hey, big guy.’
‘Oh please. I got very little out of her. Take down what I tell you.’
‘The truth shall set you free,’ Canessa commented.
‘What’s that about?’
‘Nobody. Everyone.’
Repetto knew these moments well, when everything stagnates and the investigation grinds to a halt. And yet the visit had confirmed something: Petri was going through some sort of turmoil and he’d wanted to share. With Canessa. And given that Canessa was neither a psychologist nor a priest, that something must’ve been a story. It had to be about the Lazzarini murder. Admittedly though, there was no trace of what he might have revealed. Yet Canessa was convinced that someone like Petri always had an exit plan ready, a safety exit. Insurance.
Buried treasure.
The time had come to retrace Petri’s life, hour by hour, step by step. So Canessa forced a tired Rossi to drive him to Pieve Emanuele, where he took the bus Petri had taken every day until a few months earlier.
29
Giannino Salemme was dripping with sweat. The air over Malpensa was a claggy film of humidity. Only the driver was there to pick him up this time; Claudio didn’t show up. They’d had a heated discussion during his last phone call from New York. Salemme senior had been euphoric: his gorgeous student lover had been particularly great, and all his worries had vanished. He’d felt good, and didn’t share his son’s alarm.
‘Come on, be a little optimistic,’ he’d murmured from across the ocean.
‘Dad, it’s better if I come and join you. Things here are getting seriously out of hand.’
‘So what – we run away? I thought you were less flighty. You seemed so on it. I was hoping you’d grown up a bit, but here you are, trembling like a child.’
His son had shown no sign of being offended. ‘Dad, even though he’s still a wanted man, no one’s looking for Canessa here. After those two E-FITs of Carletti – for the record, I sent him to Hungary where he’s got family – no one is buying the Canessa link to drugs.’
‘It doesn’t matter: we got him out of the game for a while. And there’s no way he’ll find anything, because there’s nothing to find.’
His son had been furious; he’d heard it clearly even on the phone. But he was holding back, and that was a good sign. He had grown up in some ways at least.
‘So why did we set up these killings?’
‘Because it’s always good to prune dead branches.’
‘If you say so.’
No one had ever got Giannino Salemme in a corner, and it wouldn’t happen now.
He waved to the driver and handed him his luggage. He moved towards the car, mopping his brow in the morning heat.
Annibale Canessa was lying on the sofa in Rossi’s safe house number three, in largo Rio de Janeiro. He was waiting for Repetto’s evening debrief and thinking about Petri’s commute to and from the Opera prison. He’d taken the route four times, changing his appearance each time – beard, moustache, glasses, t-shirt, a heavy jacket that made him sweat way too much – and leaving enough time between trips to confuse anyone who might’ve been watching. But no one was following him. Everyone on the bus was wiped out by the heat, their heads either stuck through the small windows or craning towards them to catch the slightest breeze.
Despite his freedom, Annibale hadn’t found a single lead. He looked around. This third safe house seemed the most welcoming, but also the strangest. It was on the ground floor, with barred windows looking directly onto the street. Despite this small concession towards security, it was a cheerful place. There were about two dozen paintings on the walls: men and women in ponchos, clearly South American, watching over the place. The Latino atmosphere was rounded off by colourful sofas, chequered pouffes, even a strange llama tapestry. Bolivian? Peruvian? Whatever it was, Canessa liked it and he hoped to stay there a couple of extra days.
The doorbell rang. Canessa grabbed the Beretta, and leaned against the wall next to the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ Repetto replied. He’d lost a lot of weight since his injury. ‘Barbara doesn’t know whether to curse you or thank you for helping me shift the pounds.’
They went to work. Canessa reported on his trips while Repetto took notes and drew lines. They were trying to find something, but without knowing where to look.
At one point, studying the timing of the route, Repetto muttered, almost to himself, ‘I mean, he could’ve taken his time leaving the prison, if he had to wait in piazza Duca D’Aosta for Ragiomatica to open. Maybe the owner gave him a set of keys.’
Canessa froze in the midst of opening a beer. ‘What time did his shift start?’
‘Nine.’
He grabbed his notes. ‘He didn’t arrive at eight, and he didn’t wait around. Alfridi told me something – where is it?’ He rifled through his notes. ‘Here: I’d see him come out of the underground, and we’d often walk into the office together.’
‘So he didn’t just wait around?’
‘He did wait, but somewhere else. He’d get off somewhere earlier on the route, so we need to find out where. I’d better take a closer look. I missed something.’
‘It’s not easy to spot from a bus.’
‘You’re right!’ Canessa sounded like he’d had a revelation. ‘I’ll walk. But from the final stop of the 24. It doesn’t make sense before then.’
‘It’ll be dangerous to walk.’
‘I’ll ask Rossi to follow me in the car in case I need to make a quick escape.’
Canessa was leaning against one of the pillars outside the building, sheltering from the morning sun and looking at the church. A strange building, with a cross on its façade and an imposing steel statue of the Virgin Mary. It had been hard to see from the tram, that was for sure, as it wasn’t on a main road but an inner square at the end of a street crossing corso di Porta Vigentina. The Church of the Madonna of Fatima was a modern construction in the limbo between the suburbs and city centre. He’d spotted it walking back up the road, but he went on, filing it mentally under ‘irrelevant detail
s’. He’d already walked another two hundred metres when he’d had one of his sudden hunches.
Petri’s change, the mysterious small book, his search for truth, ‘one step at a time’, visiting the cemeteries to atone for his past. It wasn’t so strange. It had happened to many before him. Prison changes your perspective, forces you to look at yourself. So simple, so banal, and because of that, hard to understand, especially in the third millennium.
If I’d gone to church with my aunt, as she’s always wanted me to, I might have thought of this sooner! he told himself off as he retraced his steps.
Canessa had always considered Petri’s behaviour – the candles, the flowers – as some sort of reparation, an acknowledgement of the evil he’d done and nothing more. Since his discovery of Petri’s pilgrimage to the tombs, he’d taken a secular view of Petri’s decision, and it left no room for any alternative explanation. He’d thought it had been a moral impulse, and that was saying something. But maybe it was an urge that came from somewhere deeper… It was a risk, but he had nothing to lose and plenty of time.
The bell rang for 7 a.m. Mass. If Petri’s newfound depth was real, he would soon find out, of that he was certain. He gestured for Rossi to park the car and get a coffee – not for the coffee itself, but to avoid sitting in the car for too long and raising suspicion.
He stepped into the church and crossed himself.
30
Three days after Canessa’s visit to the Church of the Madonna of Fatima, on a Friday evening, northwestern Italy and the entire Tyrrhenian coast, nearly all the way south to Naples, was hit by a storm. One had been forecast, though not at such strength. It was no summer storm, rather a full-blown monsoon, with whirlwinds that wrecked marinas, bungalows and coastal chalets and bit into produce fields.
Surprised by the sudden downpour on his way home, Giannino Salemme somehow managed not to get completely soaked, zigzagging under balconies and ledges. But it had dampened his mood, so he decided to cancel his evening with a willing young woman. The architecture student (or so she’d claimed) in the new bar where he’d stopped for happy hour had mentioned her rates with a twinkle in her eye. Rates? During their initial chat, she seemed to be hanging off his every word… The idea of paying for sex set off an alarm in him. It was easier just to cancel. Fuck her. Or rather, let some other fool do the dirty.
He called his favourite pizzeria in via Vincenzo Monti, and ordered a pizza with Gorgonzola plus a few snacks.
Claudio Salemme had been at home with two young women since earlier that afternoon. He didn’t feel like working. He didn’t actually feel like having fun, either. He didn’t want anything. For the first time in his life, he didn’t recognise himself: he was worried about his future. He’d always lived day to day, but that undertaking, the first in which he’d fought in the trenches with his father, had changed his outlook on life. At first he’d been excited, galvanised. He’d enjoyed the sense of danger and he hadn’t considered the consequences. Until a week earlier, ‘consequences’ were an abstract concept. Not any more. He was waiting for the backlash to everything they’d set in motion by killing Pino Petri, Napoleone Canessa, and the rest. He’d never paid for anything in his life, despite his worst behaviour, from the school bullying and his disgusting attitudes towards women, to fights for the hell of it, car crashes and the first real crimes with his father. He’d never been afraid of consequences, always sure he’d come out of it just fine. He had his protector, his father, to thank.
Right now, all he wanted to do was run away, but he was even more afraid of Salemme senior. Had he been out of the picture, Claudio would already be on a plane to the Cayman Islands, where he could dip into their most sizeable offshore account.
He sat watching the two women pleasing each other: at any other time, the blonde on brunette action would have really got him going. But now he felt not a speck of desire to join in the fun.
It was Carla’s shift at the Corriere. Since Strozzi had come back from holiday, their interaction had dwindled to nothing. Previously, his slimy nature would have led him to compliment her for the scoop, but he was furious: during his break he’d been plagued night and day with phone calls from his legal contacts, accusing him of high treason. It was enough that he had to put up with his family for two weeks, but this had screwed up everything. He’d come back two days earlier.
When he showed up at the office again, he’d nodded to Carla, and that had been it. Before, when she was on the night shift, Strozzi would find excuses to stay behind. Not any more. He left early now.
It was definitely better this way: she’d finally stopped thinking about her night with him. Now she was focused on his deceit, on how he’d repaid her professional trust. Whatever she’d told him he’d passed on to someone else. But who?
Carla dialled Annibale’s number: no answer. This had been going on ever since he’d discovered her betrayal.
The rain was turning into a storm.
Federico Astroni was finishing up his indictment, the one reserved for the last politician who hadn’t come crawling to him. The trial was expected to open four days from now. He wrote by hand, on the living-room table. No Friday evening company for him. He wasn’t in the mood, wasn’t up to dealing with human company, even less anyone’s physical needs. In any case, his harem seemed to have disbanded. The wealthy ladies had disappeared, and Marta Bossini no longer even said hello. She actually looked at him in disgust, in a way that hadn’t happened to him since 1992. The prosecutor was sure she was having a fling with the gym rat, Guidoni. And she held him responsible, he could tell, for pushing her onto the drug-trafficking trail, for having to hunt down Canessa and then leaving her alone to face the aftermath. She wasn’t wrong. Having gone down that route and stumbled, she realised her career was now in jeopardy. The investigation had reached a dead end, and even though Canessa still eluded them, no one believed he was involved with drugs. In a matter of hours, days at most, the allegations would be dropped.
Where was the damned colonel? What was he doing? Astroni wanted to be alone and to work on that upcoming trial. He hoped for darkness to fall and a deep sleep to free him from all of this, from his thoughts and worries. But even when he managed to fall asleep, Federico Astroni always woke up tired and tense. The situation was making him jittery, just like all those years ago.
Chief Magistrate Calandra was in Sabaudia with his special lady friend, the one with the red thong (he was obsessed with lingerie and he liked to categorise his lovers according to the colour and size of their lingerie). He’d promised her a night-time swim, and they had got wet, but not from their swim.
He’d brought a hamper with a selection of treats from the best delicatessen in Rome: foie gras, pan brioche, chicken thighs in aspic, caviar, a few slices of Pont-L’Èvêque, his favourite cheese, a bottle of Sauternes and one of champagne. Calandra had laid towels on the beach and placed the hamper between them, and then she’d taken his hand and invited him to stroll along the beach. He’d removed his socks and shoes, rolled up his trousers. Calandra wasn’t exactly a romantic, but his optimism about the Canessa situation was making him distracted and sentimental, less alert to signs of a storm. Any other time, and he would have noticed the black clouds gathering on the horizon. But how could you focus on the sky when you were hand-in-hand with such an angelic babe? They were walking along blissfully when the sky opened on them. Calandra turned back for the basket.
‘We can’t leave all this good food here!’
Now they sat shivering in the car as they sped back to the five-star hotel. A shame not to be able to finish that romantic moment on the beach. Calandra looked at the creature next to him, her tight dress highlighting the lack of any clothing other than the thong…
At least the night wouldn’t be a total waste.
Annibale Canessa parked the car between two chestnut trees. He spotted the signs of heavy rain in the distance and
changed as quickly as he could. He needed to reach his destination before the storm broke.
31
The sound of the crackling wood fire brought him unexpected joy. A raging storm, with wind blowing through trees that his grandfather had planted in the garden, now grown tall and strong, brought back memories of distant summers and of storms suddenly arriving, just like now: the children, including himself, would run into the house, their faces glued to the window on the lake, squealing in fear at the waves crashing over the boats in the dock, the trees threatening to blow away in the wind.
Milan’s public prosecutor, Antonio Savelli, made for that same window. The fire had been lit by the old caretaker, whose experience told him that although it was late June, the night would be cool. It was just like old times, with the waves crashing over the dock and the trees rustling furiously. Savelli was utterly captivated by it, and he hadn’t wanted to renounce his solitary weekend in the family villa on Lake Maggiore, where the gem of his fleet, the Alessia I awaited him.
He walked over to the comfy armchairs in front of the fireplace, deciding to stay there for a while to warm up, before heading to the kitchen for some food left by the caretaker’s wife. His security detail all slept and ate in the annexe, coming over to check at regular intervals. A police car was parked in front of the main gate, too. Savelli felt safe inside these walls.
So the shock was entirely real when he sat down in his favourite of the two armchairs. He froze halfway, legs bent, his behind hovering ridiculously above the cushion.
The Second Life of Inspector Canessa Page 33