by Marco Vichi
‘Forget about that, Mugnai. I’m a farmer now.’
‘I still can’t believe you’re not in your office any more …’
‘Today I dug holes for my artichokes,’ Bordelli cut him off.
‘It feels like the end of an era …’
‘If you don’t stop I’m going to start crying.’
‘I mean it.’
‘Me, too … Could you please get me Piras?’
‘Straight away, sir. Stay in touch, eh?’ said the guard, after which Bordelli heard only a great many rustling noises.
‘Hello, Inspector,’ Piras finally said.
‘I need you to do me a favour, Piras.’
‘Whatever you want, Inspector …’
‘Could you find me a telephone directory? I still haven’t received my copy.’
Then he asked him to do something a little more delicate: to look in police archives for the file on Orlando Gori Roversi’s suicide and to take it out.
‘I’ll do what I can, Inspector,’ said Piras, voice cracking with joy.
‘Perhaps you could come to dinner here; you could bring it all then.’
‘I can tell you’re in a hurry. Have you already got a lead on a killer?’ The idea that Bordelli was back investigating some violent crime excited him.
‘Nothing concrete yet, Piras … I’ll tell you later …’
‘I knew you couldn’t just sit there twiddling your thumbs.’
‘Indeed, today I hoed my garden … So I’ll expect you for supper?’
‘I can’t make it before nine.’
‘Come whenever you like …’
He was awakened by two small birds quarrelling furiously outside his bedroom window, and he took advantage of this to get up. It was barely a quarter to eight. Bordelli staggered to the bathroom to wash his face, anxious to start the day. He’d supped with Piras the previous evening and told him about his meeting with the contessa. The Sardinian had brought the case file on Orlando’s suicide and his own home telephone directory.
After taking coffee, he settled himself comfortably into the armchair and opened the file. There were only two documents. He read the very brief report, signed Inspector Carlo Bacci. It said the case was indeed a suicide, and presented a few details. Orlando had been found hanging from the sturdy chandelier in his study with the curtain cord round his neck. On the desk they’d found a note with the words Forgive me. The dynamics of the suicide were clear, but at the mother’s insistence, after she’d stubbornly insisted that her son had been murdered, further verifications were conducted. The shoeprints left on the desktop were found without any doubt to be those of the dead man, and there were no factors that might lead one to conclude that anyone else had entered the room. The windows and doors, moreover, had been thoroughly inspected and found to have all been firmly locked from the inside: the main door and the one at the back were secured with massive bolts, the shutters and windows with deadbolts and crossbars impossible to reclose from the outside. No one could have left the castle after a hypothetical ‘murder’. There was no doubt that Orlando had killed himself. The Forensic Pathology certificate attested that the cause of death was asphyxia and that it had occurred between 1 and 2 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, 7 June. There were no signs of a struggle, no indications of anything unusual. The death certificate was signed by Diotivede, therefore there was no reason to doubt it.
Bordelli closed the file and added Carlo Bacci’s name to the list in his notebook. Then he opened the telephone directory. The office of Manetti & Torrigiani wasn’t listed, but there was a number for Giulio Manetti, lawyer, in Viale Augusto Righi. There were several Torrigianis listed, but none by the name of Ronaldo. He nevertheless wrote down the numbers for all the different Torrigianis and continued his research. He found Gianfranco Cecconi Marini in Via Pian dei Giullari. He took down the number of the only two Bargioni Tozzis, who lived in Costa San Giorgio a little outside of town. He looked up the surname of Orlando’s former girlfriend and to his relief found that there was only one Vannoni in Via San Leonardo. They all lived in areas that hadn’t been touched by the flood. That left only Inspector Bacci, whom he would ask someone in police archives to track down.
He drank another demitasse of coffee and, standing at the telephone, started calling the numbers he’d written down in his notebook. He would lie and introduce himself as Inspector Bordelli.
He succeeded in tracking down an old cousin of solicitor Torrigiani, but the man had absolutely no idea where Ronaldo might be, and from the man’s frosty tone it was clear that he wasn’t keen to find out. Bordelli pressed him for a little more information, but the lawyer’s cousin said only that Ronaldo had left Italy many years before and hadn’t been heard from since. What country had he moved to? Nobody knew.
At Giulio Manetti’s house, the lawyer’s wife answered the phone and said in a whisper that her husband had passed away a few years earlier. Bordelli expressed his belated condolences and politely excused himself.
The two Bargioni Tozzis were relatives of Orlando’s friend, and both said, in almost the same words, that Neri had gone to live in Paris some ten years ago.
He kept on phoning people, rediscovering the thrill of when he was still a police detective. He liked trying to unravel an enigma; he couldn’t help it. Instead of an office at police headquarters he now had a large country kitchen with a fireplace that had seen a lot of wood go up in smoke, but that was the only difference. Maybe Piras was right … A leopard can’t change his spots … And in spite of everything he did not feel as if he was wasting his time, as might seem normal. Could it be just a desire to play at being a police inspector?
At Gianfranco Cecconi Marini’s house it was the housekeeper who answered the phone, and she said in a haughty tone that the signorino would be home around seven that evening. So he’d finally found one.
He’d saved the call to the Vannoni home for last. Ortensia’s mother answered the phone, but was at first so frighetened at the idea of speaking with a police inspector that she very nearly lost her composure. Bordelli tried to calm her down, reassuring her that there was nothing to be worried about. After a long pause, in a faint voice from beyond the grave, the lady informed him that her daughter had married the architect Giampiero Falli in 1960. They lived in Fiesole, she added, and breathlessly gave him their phone number. Bordelli thanked her and politely said goodbye. As soon as he hung up, he dialled the architect’s number.
After many rings, it was she, Ortensia, who answered. She had a sweet voice. She, too, seemed somewhat taken aback at first, and she got even more upset when she heard him mention Orlando. She lowered her voice, as though afraid someone might be listening. Bordelli asked whether she would be so kind as to meet with him, assuring her that he wouldn’t take more than half an hour of her time. After some incomprehensible stammering, Ortensia asked him to leave her his phone number. She would call him back by late morning, or perhaps the following day. After muttering goodbye, she hung up.
Bordelli stretched his back, emitting a groan. He wasn’t done phoning yet. He rang police headquarters, and Mugnai, after his customary nostalgic comments, told him that Piras had raced off in a squad car with the young junior inspector Anselmi.
‘A murder?’ Bordelli asked, curious. Mugnai said that as far as he knew a man had been found dead in his bathtub, electrocuted by an electric shaver still plugged in. The junior inspector had gone to the scene to verify.
Bordelli had him connect him with Porcinai, the fat fellow in charge of the archive. They exchanged some small talk, and then he asked him to look up the name of Carlo Bacci in the police department catalogues. After flipping pages for a few minutes, Porcinai told him that Bacci had been made full inspector and was now working at the commissariat of Verona. He also gave him the number. Bordelli thanked him and immediately rang Verona. Moments later, he’d managed to track down Bacci, who remembered Orlando’s death quite well.
‘I’m sorry to say, but the contessa isn’t all ther
e in the head. She kept repeating that her son had been murdered …’
‘She still thinks so, apparently,’ said Bordelli.
‘She’s insane, I tell you. I couldn’t take her complaining any more, and so I took her and showed her every door and window in the castle … even on the first and second floors, just to eliminate all doubt. Deadbolts and latches everywhere. But she didn’t want to hear about it and just carried on like a broken record, repeating that her son had been murdered. I realise that in a situation like that, a distraught mother might … but in the face of the evidence …’
‘Did you talk to any neighbours, to see whether anyone had seen or heard anything? Just to be thorough …’
‘Some people were questioned, again to make the crazy old woman happy, since she kept badgering us … But, I repeat, it was a suicide, I would bet the house on it.’
‘All right, then. Thanks, Bacci.’
‘Not at all … Cheerio.’
‘Work well …’
Bordelli hung up and stood there for a moment staring at the wall. He was getting more and more drawn into this affair, but he didn’t mind. For the sake of thoroughness, he decided to ring his friend in the SID, the Italian Secret Service, Admiral Agostinelli, known as Carnera for his massive physique.7 Luckily this time he had no trouble getting through to him.
‘My dear Franco, how nice to hear from you … Let me guess … you’ve finally decided to come and work for us …’
‘I prefer the peasant’s life, Pietro. I’ve moved to the country.’
‘That’s my point … Now that you’ve left the police, you could come and work with us …’
‘Ah, so you already knew?’
‘You’re talking to the SID, after all …’
‘Right.’
‘But the real reason for your decision is something only you can tell me.’
‘Let’s just say that being a police inspector became incompatible with other concerns.’
‘How mysterious …’
‘Maybe I’ll tell you one day, Pietro. First, however, I have to wait for the fairy tale to end with the sentence: And they all lived happily ever after …’
For whatever reason, he’d had something against fairy tales for some time now.
‘I’ll patiently wait until your grandmother has finished telling it to you,’ said the admiral, though his tone was serious.
‘My grandmother is very old. She speaks very slowly …’
‘I’ve always been a very patient man, dear Franco.’
Agostinelli was dying of curiosity and didn’t hide it, but he didn’t insist.
‘And how are things up your way?’ asked Bordelli.
‘Always on the razor’s edge … You’d like it too, I assure you …’
‘I doubt it, Pietro … Not my cup of tea. To each his own.’
‘I think you’d fit right in,’ Agostinelli said with conviction.
‘I don’t think so. It’s a question of character … I can’t see myself scheming in the shadows creating files on potential enemies of the state, possibly for even worse enemies …’
‘Let’s not exaggerate …’
‘You know perfectly well I’m not exaggerating.’
‘And yet when you need information on somebody, I’m the one you call …’ The admiral laughed.
‘I also go to the baker, since I don’t know how to make bread.’
‘In an emergency you’d work it out fast.’
‘I’m sure I’d make a bloody mess of it … At any rate, Pietro, you guessed right. That’s exactly why I called.’
‘Haven’t you stopped working as an inspector?’
‘I have to say it’s not easy stopping altogether. Sort of like smoking … And so I cracked at the first opportunity …’
‘Anything to do with the fairy tale you mentioned?’ the admiral prodded him.
‘No, this is something else.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘If you have any information on a lawyer named Rolando Torrigiani, who apparently hasn’t lived in Italy for a while.’
‘How soon do you need it?’
‘I’m in no hurry,’ said Bordelli, but he wasn’t really being sincere. For whatever reason, this affair was pulling him in more and more.
‘Give me your phone number. I’ll give you a ring as soon as I know anything.’
‘It’s probably better if I call you. I’m often out and may not be here for your call.’
‘As you wish. Try me late tomorrow morning. I’m not sure I can do anything today.’
‘Listen, while you’re at it, could you look and see if you’ve got anything on another laywer by the name of Giulio Manetti?’
‘All right, I’ve written down the name.’
‘Thanks, Pietro … Here’s my phone number anyway, in case you feel like chatting some time …’
He gave him his new number, which in his area had only five digits. When he hung up it was almost eleven o’clock. Feeling the need to clear his head, he went out for a short walk in the vicinity, leaving his cigarettes at home.
He set out on the trail that led down to il Ferrone, skirting the olive groves and thickets of wood. When passing by a ramshackle farmhouse he saw an old peasant sitting on a chair under the portico and eyeing him.
‘Good morning,’ he said, approaching.
‘Good morning, my arse …’ the peasant muttered.
‘Anything wrong?’
‘And who would you be?’
‘I live up the path a bit, just bought a house.’
‘You’d do better to go back to where you came from, take it from me … People’s nasty round here … Bloody communists … Think they own the world, they do … damn the mothers that brung ’em into the world … They’re all a bunch of lice in disguise … Forget about it, or else … I know what I’m talkin’ about, I do … Goddam it all … At any rate, good on you, sir … But nobody’s gonna stick it up my bum, I can tell you that … I’m not some stinkin’ peasant, you know … I worked with horses, I was a groom … Ten years in the Foreign Legion …’
As the groom kept talking, Bordelli looked up and saw a herring hanging from a rafter over the porch with a sign attached to its tail, saying: GUESTS STINK.
‘If one of those shits dares come this way I’ll shoot ’im in the bollocks, I tell you … And not with birdshot, mind, I use boarshot … Won’t be a pretty picture, I can tell you that … An’ I won’t think twice about it … I’m not afraid, you know … I’ve killed a lot of lice in my day, one more or less won’t matter … Bloody communists … They’re the ones ought to be afraid …’
‘Nice day today, don’t you think?’ Bordelli tried saying, but there was no stopping the old man’s tirade.
‘I don’t talk much, I can tell you … In my house it’s martial law … If a cat kills a chicken, he gets shot …’
‘I’ll be on my way …’ said Bordelli, waving his hand. As he headed back towards his house, the peasant kept on grumbling, but after a while he could no longer hear him. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was less cold than the day before, and one could almost feel the first shudder of spring in the air.
His thoughts turned to the countess and her stubbornness … A madwoman, Inspector Bacci had said. Bordelli was tempted to think the same, but with a little compassion. For nearly fifteen years now the woman had obstinately persisted in thinking her son had been murdered; the desire to find the killer must have been her only way to survive her grief, the impetus that kept her going … And what if one day she finally discovered the truth, whatever it might be? Most likely her life would cease to have any meaning …
First, however, one had to get at that truth. He couldn’t suppress a smile, but it was directed at himself. He’d let himself be willingly dragged into an adventure that wouldn’t lead anywhere, and he already knew it … Then why did he have the feeling that he wasn’t wasting his time?
At around nine o’clock that evening he got in
the Beetle with an unlit cigarette between his lips. Driving along in leisurely fashion, he went through the village and then down the Imprunetana di Pozzolatico. He was still thinking about Orlando’s suicide and his own childish and perhaps slightly unhealthy desire to play cop.
Earlier, at seven o’clock sharp, he’d rung the Cecconi Marini house, and the housekeeper had gone to fetch the signorino. Gianfranco had a shrill, almost feminine voice. After introducing himself, Bordelli more or less explained the reason for his call and asked him whether they could meet. After a moment of highly aristocratic perplexity, Gianfranco suggested they meet at noon on Monday, in the Salla Rossa at the Circolo Borghese. As Bordelli had no desire to tread on soft, precious carpets and sit in uncomfortable gilded chairs, he’d persuaded Signorino Gianfranco to have lunch with him at a trattoria near the Sant’Ambrogio market, assuring him that it would be a wonderful experience …
Upon hanging up he’d felt like a pathetic former inspector of almost sixty who couldn’t resign himself to throwing in the towel … And he knew well that he wouldn’t desist. Maybe it was just a way of staying in shape, in the hope of ageing more slowly. Whatever the case, he wanted to wait until he had a few more elements in hand before establishing once and for all that the contessa was an unlucky madwoman … Even though he already considered he would never get anywhere in this affair …
But weren’t there sometimes instances where an apparently clear, straightforward case was undermined thanks to a detail that had remained buried for years? One had to be careful, however, not to be fooled by the desire to unveil a hidden truth at all costs … Just as it was best not to get so discouraged that one was afraid to fall into absurd conjectures, bearing in mind, of course, that intuition can sometimes prove to be an illusion … At any rate, it would be no easy matter to wriggle out of this affair, and that might well be why he refused to give up … Even if, in the final analysis …
He burst out laughing and shook his head. He was going round in circles like a bloody fool, jumping from one doubt to the next and congratulating himself on his own contorted arguments … He had to stop pussyfooting around. The wisest thing was to put everything off till tomorrow and try to have a quiet evening. A nice dinner at Cesare’s trattoria, some good wine and coversation with Totò … Maybe afterwards he could drop in on Rosa and lie down on her sofa with his shoes off, as he used to when with the police …
