by Marco Vichi
Despite his scepticism, he got ready to flip the coin again, this time for something other than love. Tails, the business with Beccaroni would go well. Heads, it would go badly. With some apprehension, he tossed the coin into the air, let it fall into his palm and then closed his hand into a fist. He didn’t believe even remotely in this sort of thing, but he knew that if it came up ‘heads’, he would feel uncomfortable. No more than an impression, but still he would prefer not to have to carry it around with him. He stared at his fist, opened it suddenly, and felt a shudder pass through his chest: tails. So the stupid coin was on his side, too … But if he gave credence to this prediction, he should also believe the verdict on Eleonora, and again he felt a pang in his midsection. And yet he liked Adele, more than a little. What would he do if he were forced to decide? If one fine day the two of them together put him on the spot and demanded that he choose between them? He didn’t know … Damn it all, he didn’t know. He tossed the apple core into the bushes, shaking his head … He kept on fantasising, like a little kid, imagining himself as a bone of contention between two dogs and enjoying the thrill of it.
Blisk had disappeared again, but every so often he heard him running through the shrubs nearby. A large lizard popped out at the edge of a crag, and after stopping for an instant to look at Bordelli, its head almost vertical, it fearlessly continued its course, coming straight at him. Taken by surprise, Bordelli shot to his feet and stood aside, letting the lizard climb the boulder and disappear into the tall grass overrunning the courtyard of the farmhouse. He sat back down, smiling. In a way he admired the little reptile brave enough to challenge a living being a thousand times bigger than him. It was as if a man were to start running straight at King Kong, convinced he would frighten him … But wasn’t everything like that, in life?
Mid-morning he started packing his bag. He’d already been in town to do the shopping, and had put three panini with prosciutto and three with salami, well wrapped, in the fridge. Along with the things he’d decided to bring he added a towel, which he would spread out on the floor of the attic of Beccaroni’s villa, to catch any crumbs he might leave. Had Orlando’s assassins done likewise? It was the first time he found himself trying to think like a killer, and it wasn’t a very nice feeling. Normally he sent killers to jail, or tried to, at least. And indeed, in his investigations he’d always succeeded in getting to the bottom of things – except once, in ’52. A woman was found murdered in the woods, completely naked, with dozens of stab wounds. No clues, no witnesses, not even any documents that might lead to the victim’s identity, not a soul coming forward to declare her missing. The case was shelved after three weeks. Every so often Bordelli would think about this mystery, imagining that one day he might come across something that would lead him to the killer … Apparently by chance …
The bag was now ready. It was as though the gears of some complex mechanism were turning and could no longer be stopped … He could think and reflect, but he couldn’t change things. He was unable to keep things he’d thought over many times from continuing to pass through his head: the most important thing was for people to think, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Beccaroni had committed suicide … Nobody must investigate … It must all be as clear as sunshine from the very first glance … Otherwise there was always the risk that something would turn up. This must not happen. If anything went wrong, the deadly wrath of Monsignor Sercambi might make itself felt … This time the prelate of the Curia might even go beyond rape and order the murder of a friend of the hard-headed ex-inspector. One selected at random, perhaps followed by all the rest … No, this must not happen. He could never forgive himself if it did. The half-hour of hell that Eleonora had lived through must remain the only wound. It must never happen again. Everything must work to perfection …
Was it perhaps better to take care of Monsignor Sercambi first? He seemed to be the more dangerous one, but he was also the hardest to strike. Bordelli shook his head, thinking things were fine as they were. Beccaroni might even be a freemason, in which case the problem would remain the same. So it was better to start with him …Who knew what the respectable lawyer was doing at that moment. Was he at court, upholding the cause of Justice, engaging in a spirted harangue full of quotations from ancient philosophers and Latin maxims? Was he studying a case file, comfortably seated in an armchair at his desk? Or perhaps penning an astronomical bill for some industrialist he’d just rescued from fraud charges? Whatever he was doing, he was unaware of his fate. He had no idea that in just a few hours …
Bordelli went out of the house, with the dog following behind, and as he passed the vegetable garden, he cast a glance at his labours. The tomato plants were growing, the artichoke shoots had sprouted new leaves, and the first chilli pepper seedlings had finally appeared. It was terribly satisfying to watch plants grow. Who knew what it might be like with a son or daughter …
He started walking through the olive grove. A cold wind carried away the sun’s warmth on the skin. All of a sudden a doubt came over him. It was the first time. Might there not be some other way to settle accounts with Beccaroni? Force him to write a confession, for example? Life imprisonment would do just fine. A nice confession in which he also named the upright monsignor of the Curia … But what was a confession extorted at gunpoint worth? Beccaroni would immediately renegotiate, perhaps passing the poor inspector off as a madman who never got over his failure to solve a terrible murder. He was a lawyer; he knew how to manage these things. The only result would be to anger Monsignor Sercambi … No, he had no choice. So even this last doubt had come to nothing. There were no more obstacles in his mind. Full speed ahead …
For lunch he cooked himself a dish of spaghetti according to the gospel of Botta, and ate it while watching the midday news and drinking only half a glass of wine. As usual, the most boring news stories were the ones on politics. The Moro government was still standing, but for how long?
After his coffee he went and sat down beside the fire to read Bulgakov, smoking a little and having a great deal of fun. At moments he even laughed out loud. The phone rang several times, but he didn’t answer. He needed solitude and silence. He kept turning the pages, engrossed in the plot, oblivious to the time passing.
When he instinctively looked up at the clock, it was ten minutes to six. It was time to get moving. He closed the book and got up. After letting Blisk out, he warmed some stew for him and changed the water in his bowl. He checked his bag again. It was all there … Gloves, chocolate, book, torch, ski mask, almonds … He added the panini, apples and bottle of water. He tried lifting it, and was amazed to find how heavy it was.
He went to change his clothes, choosing old articles he hadn’t worn for years. He slipped the pistols into two holsters fastened to his sides, and buttoned up his jacket. He put his grandad’s spectacles in his pocket, took an elegant old hat out of the wardrobe, and went back into the kitchen. The dog was already scratching at the door, and as soon as he entered he went straight for the stew, sniffing the air. He seemed a little astonished to find dinner ready so early, but after a moment’s hesitation, he plunged his muzzle into the bowl. Bordelli ran his hand over the animal’s big head.
‘Tomorrow morning Ennio’s going to come to let you out and give you din-din, and I’ll see you again in a couple of days.’
The dog turned round to look at him, barely moving his tail, then resumed eating. Bordelli grabbed his bag, locked the door behind him, and got into his car with a sigh. The sun had set half an hour earlier, and despite the fact that night had descended on earth, the sky was still veiled with a fading light.
When he parked in Viale Petrarca it was ten minutes to eight. Before getting out of his car he disguised himself as best he could. He put the hat on his head and donned his grandfather’s glasses, keeping them down at the end of his nose to avoid looking through the corrective lenses. It was just a minimal device to make him look a little different, should anything go wrong. Anyone who might see him prowling aroun
d Beccaroni’s villa would remember a bloke with glasses and a hat.
At that hour many were returning home after a day’s work, and the boulevard was buzzing with cars and motorbikes. The pavements were teeming as well, though nobody seemed to notice the anonymous-looking man with a bag in his hand. When he got to Porta Romana, he continued at a leisurely pace along Via Senese. He’d decided to leave his cigarettes at home. He had no way of knowing how long he would remain shut up inside the lawyer’s house, and he didn’t want to risk giving in to the temptation to smoke. It would be hard, he knew that, but he couldn’t afford to leave that kind of trace behind.
A hundred or so yards later, he began the steep climb of Via Sant’Ilario, in the wan light of a few rare street lamps. By this time he was used to hiking in the woods, so it was pretty effortless for him. He had a clear sense in his mind of what he wanted to do, but it all depended on one thing: that Beccaroni came home at the usual hour, and came alone, with no one waiting for him, either outside the gate or inside the villa. Again Bordelli put his trust in destiny, and swore to himself that if, that evening, for whatever reason, he was unable to carry out his mission, he would give it up once and for all. In other words, if fate was not on his side, as he believed, it was best to drop everything.
He turned down Via delle Campora, which was darker than ever, and, seeing a car approach, he buried his face in the collar of his jacket. He’d spent a good deal of time in this area a few years back, when investigating the murder of several little girls, and, turning round, he saw the killer’s villa, immersed in darkness, in the distance. He remembered when, with Piras’s help, he’d succeeded in cracking the case. After his arrest, the killer was found mysteriously hanged in his cell … Another fake suicide – and a rather crude one at that. He had to do better …
By this point in his life, every street in Florence brought back one memory or another. And not just murders … Women, too, passionate kisses, old love stories, desperate moments of rejection, and many other things … A forest of memories from which he would never break free …
The moment he turned on to Via di Marignolle, he looked at his watch in the yellow light of a street lamp. 8.14. Normally he would have said 8.15, but in that situation he paid attention even to the seconds. The villa was still some three to four hundred yards away. If, before getting there and before having time to take up position, Beccaroni’s Jaguar were to pass, or if, when looking in through the gate, he noticed that the lawyer was already at home, there would be nothing more to do, and he would give the whole thing up. The following morning he would go to the Trespiano cemetery and apologise to Giacomo, telling him that one can only do certain things if one has destiny on one’s side; otherwise there’s no point, and one risks doing more harm. Would Giacomo understand?
The street sped by under his feet, the seconds passed, the villa loomed ahead … He crossed paths with a long-haired youth walking with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and not deigning to cast a glance at the elderly gentleman with the glasses and hat. A couple of cars passed, but he’d spotted the beam from their headlights enough in advance to hide in the shadows of a gate. The fewer people noticed him, the better.
At twenty-one minutes past eight, he was outside the villa. He stopped at the gate and looked into the garden. A wall lamp at one corner of the house cast a lunar glow on flowers and gravel. There was no light filtering through the locked shutters. Suddenly he saw two low shadows in the garden come silently towards him, and the two Dobermanns appeared. They stopped a short distance away without barking, but growling softly. They must have been trained.
He kept walking, in search of a good spot to lie in wait. Some twenty yards down, the road curved softly, lined by two high stone walls. That was what he needed. With his back to the wall he could comfortably watch for the Jaguar approaching, without being seen by the driver. This was a first sign from destiny. If the road had been straight, he would not have been able to count on the element of surprise, and everything would have been much more difficult.
Time now seemed to stand still. The least he could have done was bring along one cigarette, damn it all … 8.23 … He put on his gloves, keeping the ski mask ready in his jacket pocket … 8.24 … He heard a car approach from behind him and pretended to be walking normally, until he saw it disappear round the bend. He quickly turned back and resumed his position behind the bend … 8.26 … 8.27 … 8 …
Out of the darkness at the far end of the road he saw the white beam of two headlights approach. That’s him, he thought. He was certain it was Beccaroni. He quickly removed his glasses and hat and put on the ski mask. Flattened against the wall, he heard a powerful engine downshifting. As soon as he saw the car stop with its nose outside the villa’s gate, he grabbed the Beretta. He had to hope that no one passed by in the next two minutes. That would be the second ‘sign’. Scanning the street, he saw Beccaroni’s shadow get out of the Jaguar and thought: Now! He nearly ran and came up behind the lawyer just as he was about to open the gate …
‘Keep calm and everything’ll be all right,’ he whispered, pressing the gun to Beccaroni’s neck. The lawyer raised his hands, trembling like a leaf.
‘Please don’t kill me …’
The dogs had approached and were growling more loudly.
‘Put your hands down and do not at any moment raise your voice.’
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ the lawyer whispered.
‘At the proper time …’
‘Yes …’
‘Send the dogs away and open the gate.’
‘Yes … Yes … Adolfo! Benito! … Go to your bed!’ Beccaroni whispered at them, again revealing his nostalgia for the good old days. The dogs withdrew immediately.
‘Open the gate and get in the car,’ said Bordelli, still in a whisper, to avoid the danger of being recognised from his voice. The lawyer opened the gate wide, glancing at the pistol pointed at his head. They got into the car, with Beccaroni at the wheel and Bordelli in the back seat. They pulled into the driveway. Before getting out of the car, Bordelli warned him, ‘If I see the dogs appear, I’ll shoot you first and kill them second.’
‘They won’t come … I swear … And if they do … I’ll send them away …’ He had trouble speaking, as he was breathless with fear.
‘Let’s go.’
They went back together to close the gate and then headed towards the villa, still side by side. Bordelli studied the darkness for unpleasant surprises, ready to shoot, but the dogs were nowhere to be seen. The lawyer’s hands were trembling, and only after several tries did he manage to get the key into the lock. At last they entered the house. Beccaroni turned on the light switch, and a number of wall lamps in the spacious vestibule came on. Bordelli quickly shut the front door, sliding two large bolts to secure it, then looked around. Fancy furniture from a variety of epochs but well matched, a magnificent floor of red and black hexagonal tiles in alternating diagonal rows. It was a beautiful house, tastefully furnished, sumptuous but welcoming. If he’d seen it without knowing Beccaroni, he would have thought it was the creation of a refined sensibility.
‘Let’s go into your study.’
‘Yes … it’s over here …’ the lawyer muttered, heading down the corridor. He seemed more and more terrified, continually running his hands over his face to wipe away the sweat.
They went into a large room, furnished in the Classical style, with shelves full of books and a beautiful antique desk of burnished wood. A vast carpet covered most of the floor, allowing just a glimpse along the edges of the antique terracotta tiles. In one corner lay a tiger’s skin with an embalmed head and eyes of glass.
‘Where do you keep your gun?’ asked Bordelli, bluffing.
‘In the left-hand drawer …’
The lawyer looked at the stranger with the ski mask over his head, clearly wondering who the hell he could be and what he could want. Bordelli laid his bag down on the carpet and circled round behind the desk. He opened the drawer and fou
nd a pistol, a Browning 7.65 with a full cartridge clip. Another fateful sign, he thought, putting it in his pocket. If Beccaroni hadn’t had a gun, he would have had to sacrifice one of his own.
‘Sit down at the desk and keep your hands visible at all times,’ he ordered him.
The lawyer obeyed without a word. Bordelli sat down in front him, pistol still pointed at him, and took off his ski mask.
‘You …’ said Beccaroni, stunned. He even couldn’t suppress a sort of smile. It wasn’t clear whether the discovery frightened him even more or made him feel less in danger.
‘I’m here to remind you of your sins,’ said Bordelli.
‘What sins?’ Beccaroni stammered, pretending not to understand.
‘I’m your conscience now, since it seems you’ve lost your own.’
‘Please explain what you mean …’
‘I know everything, you’re perfectly aware of that.’
‘Everything about what?’
He was a pretty good actor, like all lawyers. Bordelli shook his head slowly, showing disapproval.
‘If you act that way, I’m going to have to get angry, and when I get angry, I become rather wicked,’ he said very calmly.
Beccaroni, despair in eyes, searched for the right thing to say. ‘It’s not what you think … Just give me time to explain …’ he finally managed to say.
‘Allow me to explain something to you … If five demons tore your clothes off and took turns having their way with you, you might get a vague sense of what Giacomo Pellissari went through, when you and your friends raped him in that basement …’
