The commissario looked at him gravely. “There was an easier way for you to take revenge. You had only to tell me the whole story.”
Pitti seemed to shrink nervously, his face painted with pale anxiety. “You see what I’m like. Elvira took advantage of my weakness. She threatened and humiliated me. I always swallowed everything, but over time resentment built up inside me and at the end it erupted.”
“You should never attempt things you’re not cut out for,” Soneri told him. “You’ve realised now that I understood everything from your indecisiveness. Elvira would have left the gas turned on, but she’s too smart not to know that suspicion would inevitably have fallen on her.”
Pitti had by now surrendered and was gazing at Soneri in admiration. He gave the impression of a poor, unremarkable, outraged soul in search of protection, about to throw himself into the commissario’s arms, like a girl.
“I was out to get it over and done with. I was in despair,” Pitti said, his voice distorted by a lump in his throat. Soneri imagined him stripped of his circus costume, dressed in the insignificant clothes of a very ordinary man in the street. “I began to cough and I was scared. So, stupidly believing I could undo what I’d done, I turned off the gas switch and fled.”
“And when did the idea of telephoning Chiastra occur to you?”
“Almost at once. As I was coming down the stairs, I thought of that despairing old man and it seemed to me I was almost doing him a favour. He would have died believing that Ghitta had not forgotten him. Don’t you agree that was generous of me? And at the same time, I’d have got Elvira into trouble. Lastly, the pensione would have been blown sky high. Better make it disappear than letting the memories linger.”
“And then you had the brilliant idea of stuffing a rag in the door so that it would stay open and Chiastra could walk right in. After that, you pretended to be Elvira’s father and arranged an appointment, except that I spoiled the plan and faced the risk of . . .” The commissario stopped. Only at that moment did he really think of the possibility of being blown to pieces, and only then did he feel the fear he should have felt earlier.
Pitti’s hands were shaking, and he nodded weakly. “And what’s going to happen now?”
The commissario’s thoughts were still on the explosion he had narrowly escaped, and the rage that welled up inside him made him want to beat Pitti about the face. He was sure he would not even try to ward off the blows. “You know perfectly well what should happen,” he said.
Pitti said nothing, his hands still trembling. The commissario let him take a sip of coffee before continuing. “However, seeing that you and I are the only ones who know about the gas . . .”
Pitti looked at him tentatively. He was obviously well practised in dealing with innuendo and the more sinister undertones. A split second later a little smile lit up his face. He was already prepared to undertake acts of treachery out of cowardice, and Soneri found himself once again tempted to slap him across the face, but instead, he did something worse. He shook Pitti to his very core by arousing in him what must have been the most unbearable of all nightmares. “What would your mother say if she were to find out about all this?”
Pitti began shaking once again, and then turned imploring eyes on him.
“You could help me,” the commissario said, in a tone which brooked no argument.
Pitti nodded vigorously, anxious to ward off more fearsome spectres.
“Do you know if Ghitta was receiving threats?”
“She gave the appearance of being well liked, but in fact she had many enemies. She could never form any kind of relationships except those based on give and take. She was confident only with people when she had the upper hand.”
“So obviously they hated her.”
“She was keen to act as the one in charge, maybe because she had previously been held in such contempt.”
“But then, with this Rosso, she couldn’t manage to win any advantage over him, and so she feared him.”
“Do you know the full story? Ghitta kept it under wraps. That man must have been a monster,” Pitti said, scarcely managing to conceal his admiration. “There had been real tension between the two of them.”
“Because of the farm on Monchio,” Soneri said.
“Exactly. A bit of nonsense. She should have let him have it. It was only a symbol, but she was keen on symbols, to show off, to let them see how far she’d come, because they still thought of her as a whore. Whenever she bought something, they’d say in the village, ‘There’s money in whoredom’. In other words, she had to start from scratch every time, buy something more, something bigger, to really flummox them.”
“Like the Landi farm?”
“I’ve already told you. It was a symbol.”
“Look, status symbols matter to communists too,” Soneri said, seemingly annoyed at having to listen to things he already knew. “The point is Ghitta was issuing threats as well.”
“Did you imagine anything different?”
“How long had they been quarrelling?”
“For a year, to the best of my knowledge. From the time she acquired the farm.”
“The threats were flying about, but only for three months.”
“I understand that Fornari raised a case in an attempt to have the deal declared invalid. The idea was to have old Landi declared mentally incapable when he signed over the farm. Fornari was trying to persuade the eldest son to reopen discussions about the whole thing on the basis that the price was too low.”
The commissario went back to the point that mattered most to him. “She was afraid of him. She was aware that Rosso knew all about what was going on at the pensione, probably because he was using Elvira. Or perhaps he had the sense to know that he could get the farm from her, since she’d tricked an elderly man suffering from dementia, but what I’d like to know is how she defended herself. She was threatening him, but with what?”
Pitti stared at him first with discomfort and then with mild bewilderment. Soneri understood he was afraid of disappointing him, and perhaps cause him to break their agreement.
“I didn’t hear everything. Sometimes Ghitta would talk freely because she trusted me and knew I depended on her, but latterly when she was in conversation with Rosso, she wouldn’t allow anyone else to be there. Sometimes, when the telephone rang, she would answer and ask the person at the other end to call back later. From her apprehension, I knew it had to be him. I knew her well and could tell from her expression.”
“So you didn’t grasp everything?”
Pitti got agitated and stopped to think before launching into an explanation of matters which could not have been totally clear even to him. “Only once did I think I’d got to the bottom of it all. They seemed to be talking about somebody else. She said, ‘I know what he’s up to.’ She repeated those words twice before hanging up.”
Soneri carried on smoking without saying a word. He was deep in thought, but not coming to any firm conclusion. “Nothing else?”
“No, after that I didn’t hear a thing.”
The commissario glanced at the clock and saw that it was now twenty to twelve. He thought of the reception at the questura, and felt his stomach turn over. Apart from anything else, the spumante was invariably very poor quality, served from one of those bottles with a plastic top.
“Don’t you disappear as well,” he told Pitti before going out.
“You’ll find me around, or you can always come in here and leave word. The barman will get in touch with me.”
11
THE SPUMANTE WAS exactly as he had feared, a fizzy drink rather than a wine, an insipid propellant for corks which popped out in a gush of foam. The party was like a bureaucratic liturgy with a grotesque finale. Chillemi, standing in for the questore and the prefect, who were both on holiday, was charged with opening the bottles. Once he had raised his glass, Soneri took just enough of a sip to confirm his suspicions of the wine. He found a quiet corner where he emptied the rest into Chil
lemi’s fig tree and put the glass down on the table, declining a refill. When he made to leave, the vice-questore stopped him and took him aside. “Have you heard about the operation carried out by the Digos team?”
“Against the terrorists?”
“Exactly, the reds. Digos has a constitutional duty to keep me informed because we’re involved in a secondary branch of the investigation. You remember the Dallacasa case?”
Soneri nodded.
“It was them, the Tuscan column, who got rid of him. He knew too much and they were afraid he’d start talking. It’s an old case, as you know, but there have been suspicions flying about for years. It seems Dallacasa wasn’t in agreement over the armed struggle.”
The information Chillemi gave him was the only useful thing to come out of that evening. The commissario tried to think it over, but there was too much confusion in his mind. He heard Chillemi start up again. “I wanted to let you know myself, because they told me you got them to bring out the files on the case,” he said, with a touch of malice. Was he really alluding to the fact that Soneri was getting nowhere with this case, as with the Ghitta business?
“Thank goodness the Digos people are making the effort to solve cases,” Soneri said, with a fake sigh.
“I was only meaning to pass on some information,” Chillemi said, pretending in his turn to be offended. “In part, I was hoping to make up for the involuntary injustice over the bribery business. You know what the press are like.”
Soneri shrugged, feigning resignation, and turned to go, almost bumping into Juvara, who was standing behind him. Chillemi stared at him without knowing what to say or do.
Back in his office, Soneri flopped onto the chair behind his desk. He felt worn out. Juvara looked at him and came up with a malicious diagnosis. “You’re doing too much overtime. Working too many nights.”
“How else am I to pay the mortgage,” the commissario joked. Juvara looked almost convinced.
Soneri grabbed the telephone and pulled it towards him, but paused for a moment. “I’ve never been any good at communicating bad news,” he said to Juvara. “I’m going to call Marta Bernazzoli to tell her about another death.” Noticing Juvara’s puzzled expression, he added, “Dallacasa’s been killed a second time.”
*
Marta Bernazzoli replied after two rings of the phone. “It’s Soneri,” was all he could say. He heard a sigh and a kind of sob. “Perhaps I’ve got nothing new to tell you,” he went on, hesitantly.
“There are some things you know, but which you would rather not hear said aloud. Many patients prefer to avoid hearing in words what they already know only too well.”
“You remember that conversation we had some time ago? Then it was you who did not want to confirm what I’d heard about Ada.”
“Lies are often therapeutic. The important thing is to avoid pain, isn’t it? If you hadn’t wanted to get to grips with your past, you’d be a more balanced and happier man, wouldn’t you?”
“I’ve never been balanced. Happy yes, some of the time. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you any lies. You already understand everything, don’t you?”
“When I heard about the arrest of some members of the armed movement in Tuscany, my last doubts vanished. To be honest, I always knew. If they’ve got the man who killed him, it won’t give me any great satisfaction. It couldn’t. Am I wrong in thinking that you and I resemble each other in some ways?”
The question resonated in the commissario’s mind. For a few seconds he felt it vibrate inside his head like the tolling of a bell.
“Perhaps, but you’re not obliged to wade through all the sins and sorrows of the world every day.”
“I’d like you to come and see patients doubled up with pain, their mouths wide open in a scream, their faces deformed by a mask of suffering. Don’t you think that’s worse? Each and every time I step out of an operating theatre, I can’t help but tell myself that it’s all so senseless, futile. When I’m faced with such misery every day, how do you imagine I see this clown show?”
Holding the receiver in his hand, Soneri stood there searching for something appropriate to say, but he could not find it. He felt the vibrations continue to resonate inside his body, without realising that it was because his heart was beating faster. Marta continued talking, her voice no longer sobbing but as precise and sharp as a blade.
“It’s time to stop deceiving ourselves and others. When I enter the operating theatre, I see what we’re made of: stinking innards, chimeras and spectres, all making up a briefly attractive whole which old age then destroys. Nothing else. Any hopes of constructing a more comfortable world have long since deserted me. Neither we nor the priests have managed it. Can I ask you one thing? Give up rummaging in your past? None of it is going to last in any case.”
Soneri heard a short sigh and immediately afterwards she hung up, leaving the commissario with the receiver in his hand, staring into the middle distance where he met Juvara’s eyes. “She already knew. She’s always known,” Soneri said.
“If you ask me, that woman knows the whole story, but we’ll never get anything out of her. Maybe she’s afraid, or maybe she doesn’t want any more pain to add to what she’s already suffered.”
“I understand her. She’s lucky she can avoid it,” the commissario said.
He was already on his feet when his mobile rang. “Do you think we could manage to spend a quiet day together at Christmas, or are you off to a reception with your squad?” Angela said.
“I’ve already had one glass of spumante and that’s quite enough for me.”
“Alright, you can have the panettone.”
“I’d rather have Christmas cake.”
“Listen, commissario, are you going to give me a straight answer? Are you going to spend Boxing Day as well as Christmas in the sanctuary of your own home?”
“There’s still some time to go. I can’t make up my mind right now.”
“It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow! Are you trying to tell me Santa Claus is going to bring you some exciting presents and you have to be there for him?”
“I wrote him a long letter and I do believe I’ve almost persuaded him.”
“After the arrest of the terrorists, you mean? Have they anything to do with Ghitta’s murder?”
“I’ve got half an idea on that subject. Anyway, doesn’t everybody go back home for Christmas?”
“Except you. But let’s get one thing clear. I’m not going to be standing over a hot stove preparing your anolini, waiting for you to turn up.” She hung up.
Soneri turned towards the cloisters, where he saw a group of officers from the Guardia di Finanza walking in the direction of the stairs leading to the questore’s office. He made out the figure of Maresciallo Maffetone, solemn and upright, with his cap pulled almost over his eyes.
“They’re going for afternoon tea with Chillemi,” he thought aloud, as Juvara called him to the telephone. “Friar Fiorenzo for you.”
It seemed as though everything had suddenly sprung to life, in keeping with the frenetic pace of the Christmas shopping. For a quarter of an hour, he had been trying unsuccessfully to get away.
“Commissario, the woman who left the knife has come back,” the friar began, in a state of agitation.
“When?”
“Two days ago, at dawn, more or less the same time as before.”
“Why didn’t you let me know sooner?”
“I had many doubts about it. Even now I’m not sure whether I’m doing the right thing.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Oh, nothing particularly new, but my intuition told me that she had a heavy weight on her conscience.”
Soneri muttered something in agreement, but it did not amount to much. Matters of conscience did not come within his professional competence – although he was no longer entirely convinced of that certainty.
“Do you have any idea why she came back? She’s not a regular churchgoer.”
“No, and
she’s not one of my parishioners. I don’t know why. Perhaps because every so often she drops by here. She told me the last time that she took great comfort from my words, so it may be . . .”
“Did you at least get a look at her as she was leaving?”
“I saw something of her, but she was wearing a heavy overcoat and had a scarf over her head. In any case, I only saw her from behind. A woman of medium height.”
“She might have had the decency at least to be very tall or very short,” the commissario snapped.
“I realise . . .” Friar Fiorenzo apologised. “However, I did ask her to come back and make her confession before the Christmas period, or even on Christmas Day itself.”
“And what did she say?”
“That she might come, but she couldn’t promise.”
Soneri sighed, thanked the friar and put the phone down. He turned to look at Juvara. “You’re not a very good Christian, are you?” he said, pointing a finger at him.
The inspector gave him a perplexed look and shrugged.
“So to make up, you’re going to have to do some penance,” Soneri said. Juvara was already uneasy, and now he began to go red with a blush which started at his neck and worked its way up to his face. He leaned back to listen.
“Tomorrow morning you’re going to go to the Chiesa di Sant’Uldarico to wait for the good friars to open up. You’ll go inside, kneel down and start saying your prayers like a good Christian preparing for Christmas. Since it’s Christmas Eve, you won’t arouse any suspicion. The number of believers swells at Christmas time.”
Juvara was about to ask for more detail, but Soneri got in first. “While you’re there, keep your eye on the confessional and the moment you see a youngish woman of medium height, dressed in an overcoat and headscarf, stop her and call me.”
A Woman Much Missed Page 21
