by Franco Marks
“What do we do, Inspector?”
He was very pale. He was trembling with fear. It was as if it was the first time he had seen a dead person.
“Get a hold of yourself, Kristal. Get yourself organised for our colleagues arriving and stop anyone else from coming in.”
Soon there would be intolerable chaos – TV, the curious, other investigators, forensics, the big boss, Soprani.
Smelling of the paint and turpentine that his hobby of painting created, Dr Lanzetti, the medical officer for Valdiluce, entered hesitantly. Who wouldn’t be upset by the sight of four dead women?
“It can’t be… So young and beautiful…” Dismayed, he made the sign of the cross and, moving impetuously from one body to another, was unable to use his stethoscope.
He was sweating. His hairy hands raced to find some clue, a breath, an eye still veiled with life. He stared at Marzio with dull eyes.
“They’re all dead, Inspector. The evidence suggests that it was the methane gas. Their extremities are cyanotic. Asphyxia due to lack of tissue oxygenation. There are no traces of violence, except on the blonde girl.”
“Her name was Elisabetta.”
“She has a haematoma on her left wrist.”
What could have happened? That afternoon they had made love – passionately, but they hadn’t gone wild. At half past six in the evening, Elisabetta had left Marzio’s house in one piece, with no obvious marks on her body. Something must have happened to her on her way from his house to the Pino Rosso, the bar where she had an appointment with her friends to celebrate the end of their week in the mountains. That blue stripe around her wrist complicated the situation. It could be the consequence of an altercation, an argument with Angela, Stefania or Flaminia. The evening had become chaotic, as often happens – one word follows another until a quarrel breaks out. A fight? That was strange, though, given they were close friends. Angela, Stefania and Flaminia, surprised by death in their sleep, while Elisabetta seemed not to have resigned herself, aware that something tragic was happening to her. The wide eyes, the dishevelled hair, the body lying in a contracted position, the mark on her arm. Lanzetti was carefully examining the left wrist, abandoned, helpless, like the branch of a tree fallen under the weight of the snow.
“At first glance it looks like a bruise caused by a hand that violently squeezed Elisabetta’s wrist. It’s like a blue bracelet. Somebody grabbed her hard, but didn’t break anything, just caused this bruising.”
“A man or a woman’s hand?”
“Probably a man’s. A big hand, in any case.”
“How is it possible that three women died calmly but Elisabetta shows signs of having resisted? What do you think, Doctor? Did they commit suicide?”
“I couldn’t say. Perhaps Elisabetta struggled more than the others against the gas, woke up and tried to get up, but it was too late. She fell back onto the bed in this strange position.”
“And the bruise on her wrist?”
Dr Lanzetti wasn’t used to following the footsteps of a clue. Sorry that he didn’t know how to make himself useful the way he’d seen in detective movies, he didn’t feel comfortable being a coroner.
“I hope you can clear up all your doubts, I can’t help you any more. The only certainty is that all four died, that I can guarantee. That and the haematoma on the left wrist. It’s certain. Ante mortem.”
In the apartment, the gas had now dissipated and another smell was appearing, just as precise and pungent. Marzio went over to Elisabetta’s body. Respectfully, he inhaled the air around her. She smelled of Ginpin mixed with red wine. Vomit and drunkenness.
“Doctor, smell this.”
Lanzetti approached the woman’s body, then sniffed Angela, Stefania, Flaminia.
“Alcohol! Blind drunk, completely wasted.”
“Maybe that’s why they did something stupid.”
“Very likely.”
Out of breath, Kristal appeared. “Come with me doctor – Agostino Uberti’s not well!”
Pale and slumped in a chair, Agostino was struggling to breathe. He gestured impulsively, repeating obsessively, “What a disaster, what a disaster.” To judge by his psychological situation, the trauma must have been very profound. Agostino had never been normal, and then, when he was sixteen, he had suffered a serious skiing accident. As he was coming downhill in a competition, he had gone off the slope and swooped right onto a rock sticking out of the snow. Although he had injured his head, with exceptional strength he managed to get back on his feet, continue the race and cross the finish line. Afterwards, he had collapsed unconscious and fallen into a deep coma for months and months. He had emerged with his intellect further weakened and a hideous scar on his head. He was Valdiluce’s ‘village idiot’.
“Take him to his house. It’ll be absolute chaos here in a while.”
Dr Lanzetti and Kristal took care of Agostino. Marzio began to do a brief search while he waited for the big brains to arrive from the city. It was all perfect. Suitcases packed for departure, gifts wrapped in wrapping paper, the room ready and clean, the dishes put away. Examining the sink carefully, he found fragments of spinach. That was unusual, he thought. Elisabetta, assistant to the great cook, Franz Binetti, was the only one of them who cooked. She was very talented – just like that, off the cuff, she had made Marzio tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, rabbit ravioli and sour cherry tart. And what was more, she was obsessed with hygiene. The inspector had even teased her about it.
“You’d be a terrible wife – living with you would be like living in a hospital.”
“And you live like a pig. Your house is filthy, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
She had polished every dish until the kitchen shone like a mirror.
“I hate things being dirty. It’s like a stain that hangs around in my conscience.”
It was odd to think that Elisabetta had forgotten about those pieces of spinach. Something must have happened. Suddenly.
Now that the outside air had cleared away the gas, White Wolf started putting his brain to work. The few clues implied suicide, but how was it possible that all four women had decided to take their own lives together? And none of them had refused. Elisabetta showed signs of having struggled: she was the only one who didn’t fit the story. Perhaps the doctor was right: Elisabetta had been woken up by the gas, she had reacted. But what about that haematoma on her wrist? One could even imagine that one of the girls had decided to turn on the gas and that they’d all been so drunk that none of them had noticed what was happening. Their thinking clouded, their senses dazed, they might have thought that it was the effects of the Ginpin mixed with the food, and the tiredness, that was causing that strange disorientation, and not been alarmed. And so, dazed, they’d died half asleep.
But Elisabetta had reacted, had tried to turn off the gas. There had been a scuffle, one of the three women had grabbed her wrist tightly enough to hurt her, to stop her from turning off the gas at the mains. In that weightless atmosphere where the poison was beginning to dominate, there was no escape. But why were the other three women lying peacefully in bed? That meant it wasn’t one of them who had stopped Elisabetta. Dr Lanzetti had confirmed that the grip on her wrist was unlikely to have been that of a woman. A man, then? Who had entered the apartment? Pale, anxiety devouring his thin frame, Kristal suddenly came back. Trembling. With a tuft of hair that made him look very like Stan Laurel.
“Inspector, I’ve had a thought. What if it wasn’t a suicide, or an accident bu—?”
“But… Say it, Kristal, say the word.”
“I don’t know, do you think it’s possible that it’s a…?”
“… murder? Until the facts show that it’s impossible, it’s always possible, especially when there’s a death involved.”
Kristal leaned over the sink, retching. Marzio stopped him.
“Please – you’re getting your fingerprints on the crime scene. Go and find another bathroom. Go on…”
Seen from beh
ind, Kristal inspired even less confidence: he staggered like a drunk, leaned against the wall and looked as if he might pass out at any moment.
Marzio observed apartment twelve: the sun had flooded into the room, and there was something ethereal about those rays mixed with the mist that had formed above the bodies. The luminous energy wrote its own, almost solid, path, while in the background the window showed the beech forest. It wasn’t fair that Angela, Stefania, Flaminia and Elisabetta had had to end their beautiful holiday in Valdiluce like this.
Memories distracted him from his mental path. It wasn’t easy to forget. Marzio kept trying to follow the thread of his thoughts, but the further he went, the more he unravelled.
Even accepting that all four had committed suicide in a collective act of madness, it was strange that White Wolf had never noticed the misery of profound existential malaise in the eyes of the four girls over the last few days. His Elisabetta had sunk her teeth into life, absorbing light, smells, passion. She lived in harmony with the universe.
*
“Moon’s waning – we should make tagliatelle, they’re better behaved when the moon’s waning.”
Swaying, Elisabetta worked the dough, her backside beautifully undressed.
“See how easy it is! The dough’s more amenable – the rolling pin goes over it like a Ferrari.”
Marzio went over to her. He stroked her with a kiss on her cheek. She dusted him with white flour.
“A bit of snow to make my little boy happy.”
She made an impressive amount of fettuccine – enough for a restaurant rather than for two people. She spread them out to dry on the bedhead, on the chairs, on the spiral staircase, on the clothes hangers. That dancing way she had of moving triggered a voracious, insatiable desire. They made love several times and then, for the first time, she had turned over on her front and offered him the other side. He had been indecently moved. Dressed up in tagliatelle, the bed looked like a greased pole at a fair. Elisabetta made the sign of the cross before she ate.
*
Marzio didn’t have long before the DNA people arrived with the briefcases carrying the forensic police’s equipment: he had to try and make the most of it and get his uniform on. The act bothered him, as though he were playing a part, dressing himself up as a sheriff.
“The four women committed suicide.”
“It’s too early to say.”
“You have doubts?”
Mayor Tonioli had appeared without warning, dressed in a parka, his whiskers smelling of cigars, his eyes terrified, finally a genuine expression on his face. Such a momentous event in Valdiluce would create problems for tourism. There would be political pressure from some parts to play it down.
“Can I see the room where the suicide happened?”
“Are you joking, Mayor Tonioli? You can’t go in there,” said Marzio firmly. “The room is a crime scene. Not the scene of a suicide or anything else.”
Weak and with the complexion of unbaked pastry, Kristal leaned against the door.
“Please, Mr Mayor, don’t insist.”
“Aren’t I a public official? I have the right!”
Marzio began to grow impatient.
“Make a request to the ministry. In the meantime I’m going home to put on my uniform.”
Tonioli pursued him for a few steps. He smelled of onion omelette with red wine and sauerkraut.
“Just think what’ll happen if news of the scandal spreads. There aren’t any mysteries to discover, it was just a tragic accident that we should all try and forget. An accident. Remember, you’re from Valdiluce too. They’ll accept a suicide, or an accident, but a murder would wipe out the town’s reputation forever. We’d have to close one of the most important winter resorts in the country. Put hundreds of people out of work. A real tragedy.”
Four women dying in those mysterious circumstances would arouse so much emotion that no one would be able to control it, Marzio thought. More than any other event. More than if the cable car wire snapped, or the dam on the Lima river collapsed, or if all the tree trunks from the logging companies came floating downstream.
Hateful, cynical, bent under the weight of his responsibilities, the mayor was thinking about the survival of his four hotels.
“Remember, an accident is the best solution, it’ll keep everyone happy. People will forget about the four girls in no time, but if it were something else…”
“Mr Mayor, please, go somewhere else.”
4
Marzio undressed completely. He needed to get some air on his body, get rid of the death. He, who loved the cold, was frozen. He was trembling, too. He got under the shower and scrubbed himself like an animal, hoping that at least the most hostile molecules, the bacteria of that absurd morning, would disappear, that he could sluice away the memory of Elisabetta. He rubbed himself with soap and sponge until it hurt, until his skin was sore. It had been a long time since he had felt the details of his body. Powerful and muscular. Invincible. Elisabetta too, as young as him and at the height of her strength, seemed invulnerable. And in an instant she had been scattered across the sky like smoke from a chimney.
He passed in front of the mirror. He was able to not look at himself for months at a time. Only when he injured himself with a razor blade or had a pimple did he discover that he possessed a face. He didn’t like the way he looked naked: he was frighteningly hairy, like a monkey. His penis dangled dormant, useless. Despite the terrible moment, his expression was calm. He had the chaste look of the religious, the man who had arrived like a lightning bolt in Elisabetta’s heart. When she cuddled him, caressed his ears and nibbled on his penis, Marzio became an astonished child. His eyes opened defencelessly, partly because he had never received so much sweetness in his whole life.
He put on his uniform. It was like slipping into another existence. He fiddled with the tie. He was so unused to knotting it that it took a while. He had to cling to these little things; only his job and his policeman’s mind would allow him to survive. He summoned up all his professional vigour, his desire to investigate thoroughly, to discover the truth. To honour Elisabetta’s memory.
His Vespa awaited him faithfully. A certainty, the only one he had left. He started it and there was the thunderous noise of exhaust and petrol, the metallic tremor, all homely sensations. It was the friend he had left. Almost as though not wishing to disappoint him, the engine seemed more aggressive than usual – it had a new rumble, and it popped at the curves and took the gear changes easily, an indomitable little devil. At that speed, the heat that was making even the forest sluggish turned into cool air. Marzio took deep breaths, filling his lungs. It was a supply that he would need over the next few torrid hours.
At the Bucaneve he found a crowd of villagers all pressing around Kristal. He looked like a twig atop a tidal wave. He was skinny and afraid of the cold but couldn’t manage to dress like a mountain man. He’d been born in Turpino, a northern city, but he hated the mountains. Marzio looked at him while he held back the crowd that had formed around the place. His heart went out to him – where were the tough cops who were supposed to be able to face people down?
“Go and get into uniform right now, quickly.”
Reinforcements were necessary. Marzio knew that within the hour, hundreds of people would arrive. Carabinieri, magistrates, investigators, half to investigate and half just to show their faces. Soprani would come by helicopter.
Marzio struggled through the crowd. The ones most persistently asking questions were the usual group of skiers. They still smelled of Nutella and malted milk, and their boredom was driving them to focus their attention on the tragedy. He also passed a gang of villagers and caught a strong whiff of Ginpin. Many of them were already drunk – it was one way of dealing with such an upsetting event. Outside the door of apartment twelve he found Dik, Osvaldo’s Irish setter. He was scratching at the door as if he wanted to enter. Dik, who was always calm, had nervous eyes and was whining. Marzio stroked him and realised
that he was trembling, his shining coat shivering. Dik sensed something, a feeling. If it had not been too odd to countenance, he would have sworn that the dog was crying. Marzio led Dik out of the Bucaneve. The setter gave him one last look of understanding, then ran quickly towards the beech forest.
When Inspector Santoni returned to apartment twelve, the air was clean and the light livid, as if the four bodies had spread the colour of death around them. Marzio looked at Elisabetta: she had crystallised. The grimace that didn’t belong to her made her look even more unrecognisable, almost like a mask. In a way it comforted him – it would make it easier to carry out the investigation.
The remains in the rubbish confirmed the revelry. Elisabetta had cooked a large quantity of fish and the leftovers were separated between the different bins: in the one for kitchen waste was the remains of the fish, buttered spinach, apple peel and cores; in the one for glass, three red wine bottles and one of Ginpin.
He checked the paper bin carefully; there was no message, only greasy yellow sheets of paper from the butcher’s, some disposable containers, a newspaper, their unused ski passes and a large envelope of rough paper. It smelled like fish. Tissues too, some seemingly dirty with vomit. There were signs in the bathroom that one of the girls had been sick. Very strange that Elisabetta, who was so fussy, had forgotten to clean the sink thoroughly. Those fragments of spinach were a puzzle, like the stained bathroom. It was hard to believe she hadn’t bothered. Elisabetta had sorted out the rubbish with zeal, but had been so drunk that the pieces of spinach had escaped her? Overcome with sleep, perhaps something had happened. And the blue mark on her wrist? Had she been attacked? What if one of them had decided to turn on the gas? A crazed assault on life itself?
Drowned in the deadly mix of Ginpin and wine, probably none of them had reacted to the pungent smell of methane. They had settled down to sleep. A mystery. Four women. A small village in the provinces. Repressed wives. With great difficulty, they had managed to free themselves of their husbands for a week of fun and sex that they had indulged in almost violently. Each had got themselves a lover. Elisabetta, the cook, had taken Marzio, the police inspector known as White Wolf. No one could understand why Flaminia, the most beautiful, shapely and exuberant, had fallen for the thin, scruffily dressed Olinto, a small time industrialist who owned the company that produced Ginpin. Getting on in years with his hair dyed yellow. Flaminia, who was a florist, was probably charmed by the beautiful Porsche and the chalet that overlooked the valley of the echo. Stefania, instead, was a young hairdresser – very restless, a little wild, skinny and tense, curt in her answers. Marzio remembered, when they had all gone out together, how she was the most taciturn. Osvaldo, her lover, ran the ski rental in the square at Valdiluce. As tall and stiff as a ski-jumping ramp, he always wore his blue overalls and his hands were wrinkled and scarred by the laminates after having repaired thousands of pairs of skis over the years. He knew about wax, tar, paraffin. A cantankerous man who was well suited to Stefania’s character. They were always in the company of Dik, almost symbiotically. The Irish setter gave a touch of joy and humanity to the couple. Perhaps that was why Dik was scratching at the door of apartment twelve: his instinct had surely sensed that something had happened. He was fond of that woman. As infatuated as Osvaldo was. He had wanted to save her life.
