A Woman Much Missed

by Valerio Varesi

  Elvira shrugged angrily.

  “In any case,” the commissario continued, “he did find him. And he left the case with him.”

  Pitti trembled as he had done that time in the church when he lit the candles in front of the statue of Sant’Uldarico. It was warm, but he kept his overcoat on and buttoned up, all the while twisting his bowler in his hands.

  “What are you talking about?” Elvira said, feigning bewilderment but failing to conceal her fury. Soneri stared hard at her, at first expressing scorn before softening his expression to an ironic, mocking smile. He lit a cigar to calm himself and to help him choose carefully the most appropriate words. “You’d do well not to try to fool me this time,” he said.

  Pitti stood rooted to the spot, perspiration beginning to break out on his forehead.

  “You’re running this brothel now,” Soneri finally said. After a brief pause, he went on, “And they’re not coming here just to get laid. Besides, you were the one who gathered in the cash in Ghitta’s name, so what was to stop you carrying on, on all fronts?”

  Elvira listened, her cold eyes fixed on him. Her self-possession was astounding. She studied the commissario’s every move attentively, looking for some chink that might offer refuge and permit her to escape the trap she found herself in. She was an intelligent woman who knew she was facing an expert adversary, and who judged that her best hope lay in doing nothing and remaining indifferent rather than risk playing a dud card.

  “It was a shrewd move to take the blame for one sin so as to conceal another,” Soneri said.

  He gazed at both of them to see the effect of his words. Pitti looked like a statue. Large drops of sweat resembling blisters had formed on his almost bald skull. Elvira had understood only too well, and her silence was menacing.

  “We’ve got nothing to do with it,” she said at last.

  “That depends on what you’ve got nothing to do with.”

  “Nothing at all. My mistake was not getting out of this place immediately.”

  “It wasn’t easy to get away from Ghitta, was it?”

  Elvira shook her head. She appeared deeply shaken, perhaps feeling that she was the prisoner of too many secrets and too many threats.

  “In the early days Ghitta looked after everything, and I was just a lodger.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Soneri interrupted her. “You collected the rents, and you did so quite willingly. They describe you as a tough operator.”

  “She asked me and I was in no position to refuse.”

  “I know. She lent money to your family and in Rigoso you were all tenants of hers.”

  Elvira stared at him in surprise. “I wasn’t tough. The fact is I despised those women. They hated Ghitta, but they spoke about her as though she was a saint, while letting themselves be robbed of all they had. I’ve never understood people who praise their executioner.”

  “But you didn’t have the guts to get free of Ghitta yourself – no more than anyone else,” Soneri said.

  “That’s true, but I never liked her and even if I could have . . . Don’t you see? She’s still persecuting me even now that she’s dead. My parents are elderly and I couldn’t let her throw them out on the street. If it’d been up to me . . .”

  Pitti listened without moving, getting warmer and warmer. It was only then that the commissario noticed that the stove behind him was lit.

  “Once Ghitta was pronounced dead, you had every chance to get out, but something kept you tied to this place,” Soneri said, drawing on his cigar.

  “Exactly!” Elvira gave a nervous snigger. “I received her legacy.” She looked at Pitti with calm contempt, her eyes seeming to cut through him. He kept his eyes to the floor, staring at some imprecise point between the table legs. He was a pitiful sight, sweating and awkward, incapable of any reaction.

  “And he’s the legacy, is he? He was already working for third parties, so you could’ve left him to his own devices,” Soneri said.

  “The perfect servant: silent, devoted and open to blackmail.”

  “When were you drawn into executing these commissions?” Soneri said, turning to the still motionless Pitti, hat in hand like a peasant confronting his master.

  The reply did not come from him. Elvira interrupted again, reminding Soneri of his mother, who had always replied on his behalf to doctors or teachers. “A couple of years ago. Ghitta used him to deliver private messages. She didn’t trust the telephone.”

  “What did she have to tell people?”

  “At the beginning, only the times and arrangements of the various couples. He explained this to me,” she said, looking at Pitti, who remained obstinately silent. “The business came later.”

  Soneri bent down to look more closely at Pitti. There were drops of sweat running down his face from his forehead to his chin. His eyes seemed fixed under the table, wide open and staring as though confronted with a terrifying vision.

  “Leave him be. It’s like talking to a sulky child. Ghitta was smart enough to know how to manoeuvre him any way she wanted. She had a nose for that kind of thing. And then with that vice of his, everything about him made him weak. When the student intake thinned out and the rooms were left empty, Ghitta realised she could branch out into a more profitable, less stressful kind operation. In fact it started with former lodgers asking if she could provide a room for them. She’d remained on good terms with nearly all of them, so they’d drop by quite often to say hello. It seemed natural to allow a couple of hours’ intimacy to ex-students who were prepared to pay well for the privilege, and at the same time Ghitta became the keeper of the secrets of some very important people. She felt she was once again at the centre of city life, and she knew how to make the most of the position she found herself in.”

  “So you landed the job of making appointments on Ghitta’s behalf,” Soneri said, turning to Pitti and addressing him with what was meant to be a question but which came out like a statement.

  Soneri thought he saw Pitti nod ever so slightly. “Take off your coat,” the commissario said. Only then did Pitti raise his eyes, revealing the utter terror by which he was gripped.

  “Did you hear me? I told you to take off your coat,” Soneri repeated peremptorily.

  Pitti raised his eyes, but he made no move, until Elvira, with that authoritarian tone she always adopted with him, ordered him, “Take your coat off! Are you deaf?” After a few seconds she went on: “The party’s over, Pitti. Everything’s bound to come out now.”

  She spoke as though she had nothing to do with it. Pitti did not dare reply. The commissario wondered if deep down Pitti took pleasure in submitting himself.

  At that point he got up slowly, undid the belt and with equal calm unbuttoned the coat, pausing an instant before he pulled it open. There was something feminine and inviting in his movements, although he was trembling. The commissario moved forward, taking hold of the coat at the level of the top button, like a butler assisting a newly arrived guest, and at that moment he saw a package neatly tucked into the deep inside pocket.

  He ripped off the wrapping and pulled out a plastic envelope, just like the ones Forensics used to contain their finds. Inside he found several bundles of one-hundred-euro notes. He tossed them onto the table with that mixture of relief and satisfaction a cardsharp finds when he plays an ace in the last round, except that this was not the last hand.

  “So this is the pay-off,” he said, moving his eyes from the envelope to the couple, and letting his gaze rest on Pitti.

  “Certainly, but not for me,” Pitti said, finally opening his mouth. As had happened when he first heard him speak at their meeting in the doorway of the Chiesa di Sant’Uldarico, the commissario was taken aback by the low, bass tones of his voice.

  “You’re not going to tell me again that you owe money to some friend or other.”

  “No, but she knows what it was for,” Pitti said.

  “I imagine she does. You’ve been round to see Avanzini and you left off some do
cuments relating to the bids for what used to be the Battioni industrial area. In exchange, you were given the bribe you were to hand over to some official in the Council. You’ve both been obliged to play away from home because after the death of Ghitta this boarding house has become a minefield. But explain to me why you didn’t just go straight to the person the bribe was meant for? Why did you come here first?”

  Pitti looked nervously at Elvira, waiting for guidance. He did not dare reply, even though he gave the impression of wanting to, so as to get the commissario off his back. The seconds went by. Soneri stood completely still, observing the scene, watching Pitti breathe heavily but saying not a word, until the ringing of a mobile cut through the atmosphere. The ringtone was a distorted, music-box jingle of the “Hymn to Joy” – bizarre in that situation.

  “Not answering?” Soneri said, noting Elvira’s hesitation.

  She made no move, allowing Beethoven’s music to play on. When it died away, Soneri grabbed her mobile to take a note of the caller’s number, but there was no indication of it in the record of calls. He put the mobile down and turned to Elvira. Behind her the long lobby stretched out, with the doors leading off it and, at the far end, the living room which overlooked Via Saffi. The wall-mounted telephone and the shelf beneath it with the device for calculating the cost of calls were a bit further back, next to the main door. At that moment, Soneri understood those mysterious nocturnal calls where he had made out only anxious silences, murmurs and whispers.

  “That was the person who was to receive the bribes, wasn’t it?” He spoke quietly from behind Elvira, in a tone which might have even seemed gentle.

  She nodded, but her expression was serious. Quite suddenly, she appeared bent and cowed. Perhaps she had given in.

  “Since the people in question had to stay away from the pensione, they called to let you know where the handover of the money would take place. Is that right?”

  Once again a nod of assent, while Pitti now wore a relieved expression, freed from the responsibility of answering.

  “Pitti picked up the money, came round here and waited until the call came telling him where to take it?” Soneri went on.

  “Originally it was all done here,” Elvira said. “They would turn up with their lovers, hand over the cash and do their screwing. Everybody was happy. Ghitta had a tidy income, the city officials got rich and the mistresses received a little something to celebrate all that money.”

  “But now you two take the share that used to go to Ghitta.”

  Elvira said nothing, but her expression spoke for her.

  “Is the mobile used for the communications registered in your name?” Soneri said.

  “No! The S.I.M. card must have been bought in the name of some company. We’re talking about smart, powerful people. They’re all convinced they’re untouchable.”

  Soneri saw in his mind’s eye that shadowy world of dealers, ex-revolutionaries converted to the cult of money, nouveaux riches, blackmailers, the undergrowth of a province engulfed by dubious wealth. He recalled too the barricades and the glorious disobedience of a people poor but proud, capable of heroism. The contrast aroused in him a powerful feeling of disgust and made him turn his thoughts away for fear of succumbing to a deep depression.

  “Smart, no question they were smart,” he repeated as though talking to himself, “but there was a weak link,” he added, looking over at Pitti, who had not moved.

  “Who would ever have thought that someone like him . . . All his life he’s been parading around the city dressed in that ludicrous style,” Elvira said, making no effort to conceal her contempt.

  “The only one to understand would be another person who loves walking about at night as much as he does,” Soneri said, realising immediately that he had spoken instinctively, without reflecting.

  “You mean that you too . . .” Elvira sounded astounded. She stopped in her tracks, her expression half incredulous and half curious.

  “There’s one other matter to be cleared up,” the commissario said, turning back to Pitti. “What were you doing in Via Bixio? The far side of the river is not on your usual round.”

  Pitti started at Elvira, with the bewilderment of a child looking to his mother for advice. She gave a wave of her hand, granting permission.

  “Cornetti’s son lives there,” he said in his deep voice.

  “What did you have to tell him?”

  “To keep calm.”

  “What about? Whose message was that?”

  Pitti stretched out his arms to imply that the reply was self-evident. “Avanzini, obviously.”

  “Why was he being told to keep calm? Was he threatening to reveal something inconvenient?”

  Pitti shook his head in denial and as he did so a bead of sweat rolled down behind his ear. “He was to keep calm about the firm – his firm.”

  It was only then that the commissario grasped the situation. It was a threat disguised as reassurance. “Was he deeply in debt?”

  “So it would seem, but they told me to let him know that the banks wouldn’t move unless something changed.”

  “In other words, if he keeps quiet about various shady dealings,” the commissario concluded, thinking immediately of a son who betrays his father just to keep afloat. The whole story was marked by acts of betrayal, and perhaps this was the least of them.

  There followed a silence which seemed to last an eternity. Soneri was deep in thought and the other two could do no more than wait anxiously. It was, unexpectedly, Pitti who spoke first. “What are you going to do now?”

  The commissario shrugged. “You can explain everything to one of my colleagues. I can’t make head nor tail of finances and public tenders,” he said, while a deep disappointment, as dark as sewage water, threatened to overwhelm him. He had been digging and digging, and had found a path, but he was convinced it was not the one which would enable him to explain Ghitta’s death.

  9

  HE WOKE EVEN later the following morning, when the city was buzzing with cars and with people on the move. As soon as he got up, he felt a strange sense of disorientation, but thinking back to what had taken place the previous night, he realised he was internalising the disappointment and profound bitterness he had felt then and was feeling still. After the half-hearted confessions he had heard, he had lost all interest in the story of bribery and furtive couplings at the Pensione Tagliavini. He remembered Juvara turning up, half asleep and dishevelled, and he recalled handing over the plastic envelope and explaining to him what he had learned. After that, he left without even saying goodbye. He felt let down, primarily by his own intuition.

  Standing beside his coffee maker as it bubbled away, unsettled because his routine of rising in the silence of dawn had been disrupted, he reflected that he was back to square one. He saw Ghitta stretched out, already rigid, and was convinced he knew no more now than he did at that moment. He had to begin again, but from where? He had not even had time to think the matter over when his mobile rang just as he was dipping his first biscuit into the coffee.

  It was Chillemi. “Soneri, we must meet. You’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest.” His tone was confidential, but the acting vice-questore was a hypocrite, always pretending to be everyone’s best friend.

  “Have you spoken to Juvara?”

  “I’ve seen the report,” Chillemi said, lowering his voice to a whisper to underline the gravity of the situation. “We’re dealing with powerful people here. Do you realise whose toes we may be treading on? These people are friends of politicians and can get access to the Ministry in three moves, do you understand?”

  “You’d be better off entrusting the case to someone else. I’ve had all I can take of Ghitta’s murder.”

  “I’ll see what the magistrate has to say.”

  Soneri switched off his mobile and turned back to his caffelatte. Was it his fault that the city had become corrupt and appeared more rotten by the day? Was he to blame if the spark and colours dancing over the streets were
no more than the polychrome mould that blossoms as an organism decays? Later, as he made his way through the bowels of the city centre, he was almost overcome by the sickly-sweet smell of vomit and fermentation which pursued him all the way to Piazza Duomo. Trombi was waiting for him with photos of Ada’s mysterious companion, and when he turned into Borgo Angelo Mazza the spectacle which met him seemed in his eyes similar to the one he had seen in the foyer of the Teatro Regio, even if the fairy lights created the atmosphere of a country dance hall.

  From below street level that maddening clatter of feet, like a column on the march, seemed louder than ever. The photographer asked him to wait, and disappeared into his dark room. When he closed the door, a flickering red light went on in the corner above them. Together with the noise of the footsteps, it reinforced the impression of a siege.

  “Here we are,” Trombi said, as he reappeared. “It’s all I could find. They’re images from some years back. I’ve got nothing more recent. That means he lives a quiet life or else he’s left for another city.”

  Soneri scrutinised the prints. The sight of Ada’s face revived in him the collision between police investigation and personal autopsy which was tearing him apart. Perhaps, more than anything else, it was the chance to escape from rummaging about among the detritus of his own past that had made him so keen to follow the trail of the bribes. Chance had dangled before him the prospect of an emergency exit, and he had seized that opportunity.

  He thanked Trombi, said his goodbyes and came out from the tomb in which the memory of the city reposed. He found himself once again immersed in that disorderly flood of humanity seeking happiness in shop windows. As he arrived at the sentry post outside the questura, he remembered that he was supposed to call on Chillemi.

  The vice-questore was his usual toadying self, standing close to him, speaking in fawning, insinuating tones which reminded him of an elderly parish priest or a street-corner dealer.