Inspector Cataldo's Criminal Summer

by Luigi Guicciardi

  ‘And you had foreseen this?’

  ‘Yes, I was right about him, about all of them, from the very beginning.’

  ‘From their school days?’

  ‘That’s right. I don’t say that out of pompousness, believe me, but simply because I understand young people, just as you said. Ramondini has a successful career, but Giulio too… I mean Zoboli, was just as good. In fact, in many ways he was sharper, more… intuitive, let’s say.’

  ‘But.’

  ‘But he was less sure of himself. Less confident, and a bit more fragile too. Ramondini has always been more of a hard worker, more reliable, totally concentrated on his work… partly because he’s on his own. No women, for example, to distract him.’

  ‘Are you referring to Zoboli’s wife?’

  ‘I’m referring to the fact that study, research, has to be a vocation. Something exclusive, which cannot be compromised by anything else.’

  He makes a gesture, as though wanting to take his glasses off, then he simply settles them on his nose, while Cataldo wonders, for the first time, if the priest’s judgement of his pupils is perhaps related in equal parts to his high level of industry and to a high degree of misogyny.

  ‘That’s the way it was from school onwards,’ he repeats, ‘then university confirmed it. Their destiny was already there in their characters.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’

  ‘Yes, because I’ve always been close to them. Culturally, in their work… right up to today. Partly because the town is a small one, partly because of the Foundation I run. And the publishing house.’

  ‘I’ve been told about that.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ he smiles, proudly. ‘I created both of them. And I’ve never stopped taking care of them. Not even now.’

  ‘As though they were children,’ says Cataldo and he almost regrets saying it, but he doesn’t know why.

  ‘Do you have children, Inspector?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘I understand.’ He walks round the table and when he starts speaking again, he seems to have changed the subject, but Cataldo knows he hasn’t and knows that this time he had better not interrupt him. ‘I always tell my students, my youngsters, that they have to learn to control the whims, to dominate inconstancy, to be patient too, in order to acquire an understanding of the sense of one’s life. To be able finally to love something.’ He looks around, makes a slight gesture in the air. ‘Here… I have loved all this.’

  There is some exaggeration, perhaps, in his tone. But Cataldo nods.

  ‘The books, the research. A publishing house, which belongs to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because a man is his desires. Because it is through our desires that we experience life. Because writing, publishing, is like deceiving death, letting the best part of us live on.’ He coughs now – once, twice – and he turns red in the face. ‘And a publisher is a man who offers another man a map that will never die, a map for exploring his present and his past.’

  There follows a silent pause. And when he hears his own voice, Cataldo feels that the atmosphere of this discourse has infected him too, infected his words:

  ‘But we are books. People who fall ill, wither and are forgotten… yes, this too. They are images of our lives…’

  ‘No, that’s not it!’ the priest raises his voice, his eyes motionless, his knuckles white for a moment as he tightens his fists. ‘That’s not true. Because what you write, what you publish, remains. And it’s possible to garner something, of men, of life… above and beyond time, beyond memory.’

  He swallows, he lowers his eyes. It would be highly instructive, thinks Cataldo, to listen to some more. But it’s time to return to more concrete ground.

  ‘And did they see it that way too?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Zoboli and Ramondini, for example.’

  ‘Yes, yes they did.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Oh… the others…’ and he smiles slightly now, in a superior manner. ‘All good folk, excellent, as people… but with different talents.’

  ‘Carlo Zanetti?’

  ‘Him… at school he was a real dunce, but he was good at football. He even had something of a career in it, but I don’t know much about that. Now he runs an estate agency, here in town… Tecnodomus.’

  ‘I’ve heard it mentioned. Did it exist eighteen years ago?’

  ‘Yes, it was owned by a chap from Guiglia, a cousin of Signora Cristoni. Cristoni, the businessman’s widow… the man who had that accident. Two of them bought Tecnodomus, I don’t know when – Zanetti and Calabrese.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  He nods. ‘They sat together in class at high school. Have you met Calabrese?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘He was good at school, especially at maths, despite the fact ours was a classics school. In fact he went on to get a degree in economics and now he’s an accountant.’

  ‘An intelligent man…’

  ‘Yes, and he knows it.’ He looks at a point in the air, as if to reflect better. ‘He loves to feel himself to be intelligent, but this doesn’t help him feel any happier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of his disability. Polio, as a child…’

  ‘Ah, yes. I’ve been told.’

  ‘A disability, I was saying, which he tries to compensate for with his pride, with professional success, but it’s obvious to everyone and he can’t forget it…’ He stops there and then adds, ‘That’s one of the reasons why he’s so close to Zanetti.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Because Zanetti has what Calabrese lacks. A physique, sport… and women. He admired him… he still admires him.’

  ‘And Zanetti needs his brains. I see. And that’s how they became partners…’

  ‘Yes. Equals.’

  ‘Fifty-fifty,’ says Cataldo. ‘What type of company is Tecnodomus?’

  ‘A private company, I think… with one office here and one in Vignola. They operate mostly in our Apennine area.’

  ‘Is it doing well?’

  ‘I don’t know any of the details, but I think so, yes. Why?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just thinking that buying it must have cost a tidy sum…’

  ‘That’s possible. But Calabrese has always had plenty of money.’ He looks at Cataldo. ‘Did you know that too?’

  ‘I had heard something along those lines, yes. From Miriam…’

  ‘Ah, her. I have no doubt she’s well informed. She always knows everything, that one…’

  Something in Lodi’s tone strikes him. It is a shame he cannot probe deeper.

  ‘So he’s really rich, then?’

  ‘An inheritance, I think. Then he made investments – the stock exchange, or at least that’s what they say. I know nothing about Zanetti’s money.’

  ‘When did they buy it?’

  ‘The agency? I’ve already told you I don’t know.’

  ‘After the accident?’

  ‘Cristoni’s accident? Yes, certainly. A few years after.’ From behind the glasses now comes a teasing look, ‘You could always ask Miriam…’

  ‘I’ll ask Calabrese.’ He is not going to probe into the priest’s attitude towards Miriam, it’s not the right moment. ‘I thought I’d pay a visit, to the agency.’

  ‘But he never goes there, he just put the money into it.’

  And the brains, obviously. Cataldo thanks him: ‘You did the right thing in telling me, I’ll go to his house. And Zanetti?’

  ‘Yes, he’s always there.’

  ‘With his wife?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I just thought she probably helped him…’

  ‘No, no. She stays at home, with their son.’

  ‘She doesn’t work?’

  ‘No. She went to university, she was good. But then she dropped out.’

  He doesn’t ask why because he knows Lodi will tell him anyway.

  ‘Not such a great couple, that one. In f
act they’ve both hurt each other, and they know it. He basically made her give up her studies because he wasn’t interested, and she made him marry her, falling pregnant when he seemed to be a good catch with the mirage of the football career. Even though she lost the child…’

  Cataldo cannot decide if he is unbelievably frank or unbelievably misogynistic, but he decides anyway to play the game.

  ‘I think I understand the type. A bright girl, basically honest, but ready to make the most of any opportunities that come her way. Is that right?’

  ‘More or less, yes.’

  ‘What’s more she’s pretty, and the pretty girls usually have more opportunities than the others…’

  ‘I don’t know about Katia, but I think you’re right. I say that on the basis of logic, you understand… certainly not on the basis of my experience, which is most limited.’

  Cataldo smiles in order to defuse (or at least to try to) a certain tension he perceives now, as they gradually get closer to the final words, the crucial ones, the ones with which someone contradicts himself, or makes a mistake. Or lies.

  ‘To change the subject. You know that Marchisio, the stranger in town, told me he saw Zoboli in a car at midnight at the Torre bend… at the scene of the accident, while Miriam swears she went home from the party with him an hour before?’

  ‘I don’t remember when and with whom he went home.’ He stares at something far off, in the void, or beyond the open window, trying to remember, to concentrate, but it is just an instant. ‘I really don’t know. In fact, I can’t know because I left the party first. She said at eleven?’

  ‘Yes, at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I’d already left, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it was a Saturday and on the Sunday morning I had to be at Stresa for a conference on Rebora.’ He stops and smiles proudly. ‘I had a paper to present, you see? My first paper at a conference, that’s why I still remember.’

  ‘Rebora?’ says Cataldo quietly, slightly puzzled.

  ‘Yes. “A Reading of the Lyrical Fragments’’, that was the title. A mixture of theology and literature…’

  Cataldo stares at him, carefully, and the other man continues as though flattered.

  ‘I went through his development as a poet, between faith and reason. Or rather between rationalistic illumination and divine communion.’ He smiles again. ‘So I went to bed early.’

  He must have been a good teacher, judging by the language and the passion. And in private a man with a complex, articulated personality. I have never met such a multifaceted person, thinks Cataldo, and at the same time he has a fundamental coherence to him. But in those last words – or at some other moment in their talk, he cannot remember – he also picked up on a slight cracking of the voice, almost a fear. That was the impression he had.

  ‘I’ve heard that a photographer came from the tourist office to take some pictures that evening. Do you remember that?’

  ‘Vaguely… yes, someone came.’

  ‘And an article was published…’

  He opens his arms, almost pathetically, ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. And where is it supposed to have appeared?’

  ‘In Guiglia Oggi, perhaps. That’s what they say.’

  ‘That’s why then. Decidedly not something I read. And it must be a limited circulation publication…’

  ‘I think you’re right. I wonder if Nunzio might have it, in the library… but it doesn’t matter.’

  They shake hands, Cataldo thanks him and says that will be all for now.

  He has already decided where he is going. And he is pleased it is nearby, pleased to be able to go there on foot, to stretch his legs and do some thinking. And immediately something strange jumps into his mind as he is walking along Via Di Vittorio, in the afternoon heat. Despite all the initial caution and reluctance, it is strange that two people remember so well, with so many details, a supper from eighteen years ago. Experience has taught him, however, just how much reality is distorted and even wiped out, when filtered through the suggestions of time. And yet, despite the many memories, there is still a good part of that evening and that night missing from the record. But a part of anything can be broken into fragments, and these fragments can be found one by one with the tenacious application of patience. Yes, it is just a matter of patience.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The beautiful woman

  It is in Via Del Voltone, behind the pine wood and there is not much to it, seen from the outside. It almost makes you think he cannot be doing very well. A two-storey building, which once upon a time must have been white but now is a dirty grey and near the top of the walls has a wide brown band, a stain from the rusting gutter.

  When he rings the doorbell, a woman’s voice replies on the intercom: ‘Just a minute,’ as the door buzzes open. He nods, starts climbing the stairs and hears her voice getting closer as he rises. She is on the phone, and when he reaches the landing he can see her too, her shoulders, through the half-open door. He stops and waits.

  She carries on talking – perhaps she cannot cut the conversation short, perhaps she doesn’t realize he is already upstairs, standing behind her. He could cough, certainly, call her attention to himself, but he prefers listening in silence, soaking up her gestures, the tone of her voice. Just like that, with no particular motive.

  She has a French ‘r’ and a girl’s voice – much younger than her forty years. Squeaky, confident. Then she feels his gaze on her, she turns, gestures hello, lowers her voice. ‘I have to go,’ she whispers. ‘I’ll call you back.’ It is a shame he cannot ask whom she was speaking to.

  Standing on the threshold, she studies Cataldo’s badge then gives it back to him, moving to one side to let him in. Then she closes the door.

  She looks him in the eye for a moment in the entrance and she clears her throat, as though she is a bit hoarse, or as though she is about to make a long speech, but she remains silent. Maybe it is just out of shyness, prudence, who knows? She straightens her summer dress – light cloth, with a floral print – it’s all creased and clinging to her, as though she has been out in the sticky heat and has just got back. As she does so, however, she catches sight of herself in the mirror on the wall, grimaces as she notes how dishevelled she is. Cataldo says nothing.

  ‘Come in,’ she says eventually. And he sits on a two-seater sofa, looking around in the tiny living room of an apartment that seems as small and neglected as he had guessed it would be, from looking at the building from out on the street. Then she sits too, in the armchair facing the sofa, again not saying a word. For a moment, possibly to hide her impatience or her embarrassment, she plays with an earring – just the one, turquoise, that she had taken off who knows when – then she puts it back on her right ear. Cataldo does nothing to break the silence, rather he savours it because it allows him to observe this woman, to place her in her home. No trick, no errors in perspective.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  She is a beautiful woman, more so than Miriam. Her honey-blonde hair is the first thing that strikes him – combed straight on either side of a central parting and cut between her ears and her shoulders. And the long eyelashes, and the deep, dark eyes. Cataldo thinks she still looks like a student, except for those small crows’ feet around the eyes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it… about Zoboli?’

  ‘Yes, it’s about him. I know you were friends.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So I was hoping, coming here… that you might help me understand what type of person he was – his character, his personality.’

  ‘To understand what type of person he was?’ She lowers her eyes, shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know him that well. We were only at school together. Then later at university, Faculty of Letters. No, I didn’t know him very well… assuming you can ever know anyone well.’ And since Cat
aldo says nothing: ‘We were only at university together at the very beginning, because I dropped out…’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘So you understand?’

  During the pause that follows she stands up, taking the cushion out from behind her back as she does so and holding it in her hands, as though in need of comfort.

  He offers her a cigarette. ‘You don’t smoke? Good for you. So you were saying that Giulio…’

  ‘Zoboli, yes… I didn’t see him often. When I think that he’s dead now…’

  But even a blind man would see that she has been crying. Her red, spent eyes are a giveaway, as are the swollen face and the red patches round her cheeks. Why?

  ‘As far as you know, did he have any enemies?’

  The word takes her by surprise.

  ‘Zoboli? Enemies? What do you mean?’

  ‘Enemies to the point where they’d want to kill him’

  ‘I don’t know… but didn’t he kill himself?’

  ‘We have to wait for the post-mortem, Signora. We can’t just decide that.’

  Suddenly she is afraid. She pulls the cushion to her breast, instinctively, almost as though it were a child in need of protection.

  ‘Why? Is it possible he was killed?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Just that we don’t have the report yet.’

  ‘Ah…’

  ‘Another thing, while I’m here. Eighteen years ago… the night of 21 February 1980 to be precise, there was a fatal accident near here. A businessman, Cristoni, came off the road on the Torre bend and a suitcase containing seven hundred million lire went missing from the car. Who knows how much it would be worth today.’ He looks at her, seriously. ‘Did you ever hear about it?’

  ‘Something about it, yes…’

  ‘In fact that night you were all nearby, celebrating Ramondini’s graduation. Remember?’

  She runs a hand through her hair and seems undecided, almost as though she doesn’t really remember that evening, but she understands how difficult it must be to make him believe her.