by Marco Vichi
‘Gideon, what are you doing! That’s naughty!’ Rosa shouted, picking up the kitten.
‘He realises he won’t be Mummy’s little darling any more.’
‘Poor Briciolina, who knows how long it’s been since she’s eaten … I must call the vet at once. When they’re this small they sometimes have trouble surviving,’ said Rosa, heading for the entrance hall.
‘I’m leaving her in good hands,’ said the inspector, following behind her. Rosa found the number in the telephone book … Before the vet picked up, Bordelli blew her a kiss by way of goodbye and left.
As he was descending the stairs he pulled out of his pocket the telephone bill he’d found in the woods. If not for the mewling kitten, he would never have found it, and he hoped it was a sign from destiny. He read the name of the subscriber: Panerai Butcher Shop. Three thousand two hundred and thirty-five lire’s worth of phone calls. He put the bill back in his pocket with a shudder, even though the butcher might well have dropped it while hunting or looking for mushrooms. The discovery proved nothing concrete, but it was still a tiny flame in what had been total darkness.
He went back to the station, knowing he had next to nothing in his hands, but at the same time he had trouble controlling his excitement. He told Mugnai to send for Piras at once, then went up to his office. Flopping into his chair, he lit a cigarette and tried to calm down. He started studying the telephone bill, as if seeing it for the first time. It had been paid seven days before, but who knew when it had been lost? It was hard to tell. Anyway, there was no guarantee that Livio Panerai had paid it in person. Maybe his brother-in-law, or a friend, or an errand boy had gone to the post office to pay it in his stead. But what if in fact it was he who had buried the little boy? Maybe he’d dropped the bill when he pulled out a handkerchief to mop his brow, and the wind had carried it away …
He heard a police car drive off with tyres screeching and siren blaring, but didn’t care to know what had happened. His mind was on the telephone bill. He continued to study it carefully, as if somewhere it might contain, in code, the killer’s name.
At last he looked up and started gazing at the sky through the window. Lacking any real clues, he had three options before him: the frontal attack, the spider’s web, and the keyhole. Which was the right one? Frontal attack had one advantage: surprise. You batter the presumed culprit with firm accusations, hoping he’ll collapse. In short, a bluff by the book, but if you didn’t bring home the goods, it was the same as in poker: you lost everything. The spider’s web was a work of embroidery that aimed at exhausting the suspect with vague but incessant insinuations, like Porfyry Petrovich with Raskolnikov. Obviously, it didn’t always work. Everything depended on the suspect’s nerves. And anyway, to put it into practice you needed a lot of time and, most importantly, you had to be a good actor. The keyhole approach was a long operation, one which required patience and skill. Stakeouts, tailing, endless searches. And if you had the right person on your hands, sooner or later something would come out. It was the most demanding approach, but also the least risky. You just waited in the shadows for someone to make a wrong move …
There was a knock at the door, and he gave a start. It was Piras, with dark circles under his eyes. He limped to a chair and wrinkled his nose, smelling the stale cigarette smoke in the room. Bordelli noticed but pretended not to. He showed Piras the telephone bill he’d found and told him about his walk in the woods, the kitten, and all the rest. Lastly he laid out the three options for him.
‘What would you do?’ he asked, though he’d already made up his mind. Piras bit his lip before speaking.
‘The likelihood that this bill was dropped by the killer is very slim, extremely slim, in fact. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, and it happens to be the only lead we’ve got. The best thing is to spy through the keyhole and hope we get lucky.’
‘I agree,’ said Bordelli, blowing smoke out of his mouth like Godzilla. Piras fanned the air with his hand and then went and opened the window without asking permission.
‘Didn’t you want to quit smoking, Inspector?’
‘I’ve been wanting to quit ever since I started, Piras.’
‘So for now you want to force me to smoke, too.’
‘I want to go and see what he looks like,’ said Bordelli, standing up.
‘Who?’
‘The butcher.’
‘If you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,’ said the Sardinian, limping towards the door. Who knew how much longer he’d be walking like that? In the end, however, he’d been lucky. The robbers had shot to kill.
They got into the Beetle and drove off. It was just eleven o’clock, and almost all the people on the streets were women, shopping. After the viaduct of Le Cure, they turned on to Viale dei Mille. The inspector kept an unlit cigarette between his lips, puffing on it as if it were lit. Not far away, in Viale Volta, was the house he’d grown up in. He didn’t know the Panerai butcher shop. Maybe in his day it didn’t exist yet, or he’d simply never noticed it. His mother had always bought meat in Via Passavanti.
They went the entire length of the Viale, keeping their eyes on the numbers of the buildings. They’d gone almost all the way to the municipal stadium when at last they saw number 11/r, Panerai Butcher Shop – Chicken, Rabbits, Game. They drove past it and parked in front of Scheggi’s, the most famous grocer in the area.
‘Shall we have a panino, afterwards?’ said Bordelli.
‘Sure, why not?’ said Piras.
‘Wait for me here.’
The inspector got out and walked towards the butcher’s shop. On the pavement he crossed paths with a good-looking chestnut-haired girl in a decidedly short skirt and a face somewhere between cute and haughty. He forced himself not to turn to look at her. It didn’t seem like the right moment. But the call of the forest came anyway, and in the end he turned round … Only for a second, but it was enough to make him suffer. Shaking off the vision, he slipped into the butcher’s. It was a clean, brightly lit shop, with a crucifix hanging on one wall and a lot of beautiful, bleeding meat. The butcher himself looked to be a little over forty. Fat, square face, blue eyes, and a merchant’s smile. His head was bald and shiny but for two tufts of hair at the temples, and he ran his tongue continuously over his lips. The inspector felt an instinctive antipathy for the tubby hulk and his blustery manner, but this certainly wasn’t proof of his guilt. Indeed, over the years he’d met more than a few charming murderers and unbearable innocents.
There were two customers there, a rich lady in a fur coat weighted down with bracelets and a stout man with a huge nose and deep-set eyes. The woman was very demanding and just as indecisive. She took a very long time to choose. The butcher had the patience of a spider and didn’t miss a chance to let drop a couple of double entendres. The lady smiled with bourgeois detachment, visibly amused.
The inspector observed the butcher, trying to figure out who he looked like. At last it came to him: he looked exactly like Goering. If he’d had more hair, he could have been his twin. He continued studying Panerai, his movements, his eyes, his facial expressions … He seemed like the perfect sex maniac, capable of rape and murder. But Bordelli was well familiar with the power of suggestion. To free himself of all prejudice he tried imagining that someone of authority had told him that Panerai was a scientist. And the butcher turned into a scientist. He imagined someone had told him he was mentally ill, and the butcher was transformed into a madman making incomprehensible gestures. He continued the game, transforming him into a do-gooder, a loan shark, an accountant, an orchestra conductor … A useless exercise that could go on for ever.
The fur-clad lady at last overcame her reservations and declared to the world what she wanted. The butcher threw a large piece of meat on the chopping board, as if it were an enemy he’d just killed, and started working on it with his knife.
‘Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona …’7 he declaimed, pursing his lips like a rose. The lady shuddered with vanity. Then
she paid a considerable sum without batting an eyelid and left, carrying the meat-filled package almost with disgust.
‘What can I get for you?’ the butcher asked, turning to Bordelli.
‘Wasn’t the gentleman ahead of me?’ asked the inspector, gesturing to the customer beside him.
‘Go ahead, thanks, I’m in no hurry,’ said the man.
‘You’re very kind … I would like a steak for the grill,’ Bordelli said to the butcher, looking at the slabs of meat spread out in the refrigerated display case. He was thinking he would bring the steak to Totò and eat it that same evening.
‘This is Chianina,’8 said the butcher, putting a gorgeous block of meat on the chopping board. He took two large knives, rubbed them together with the grace of habit, and thrust the blades in.
‘So, it’s mushroom season again,’ the inspector let drop, the way people do in shops while waiting to be served. He wanted to find out whether the butcher went up into the hills for reasons other than for burying a corpse.
‘For those who know how to find them,’ said the butcher, picking up a cleaver to break the bone. At that moment a transparent little old man popped out from the back room, looking as if he was breathing his last. He had a submissive gaze and the manner of a fairy-tale grandfather, which clashed with his bloodstained apron. The butcher changed expression and looked at him harshly.
‘You already done?’
‘Yes,’ the old man whispered, intimidated.
‘Don’t just stand around twiddling your thumbs, go and take care of the pig … What, you’re still here?’ he said, proud of his power. The little old man vanished without a word, silent as a cat. The inspector imagined the miserable life he must lead, spending his days cutting up animal carcasses, hands covered with blood … He felt sorry for him.
‘A few days ago I found a lot of porcini at Poggio alla Croce,’ he boasted, resuming the conversation.
‘You’re either not really a mushroom hunter, or you’re fibbing,’ said the butcher, smiling again, lowering the cleaver to the bone and breaking it with one blow. The man knew what to do with knives.
‘I swear I found some,’ Bordelli insisted, trying to get him to open up.
‘Whoever finds mushrooms never tells where he found them,’ said the butcher, shaking his head in a friendly way.
‘There were so many I decided to be generous,’ the inspector explained, realising his mistake.
‘There are never enough,’ the butcher grumbled.
‘You found some?’
‘Very few.’
‘Where?’
‘Up in the woods …’ said the butcher with a grin, glancing at the customer, who was in no hurry.
‘I’ve learned my lesson. From now on I’ll keep my secret to myself,’ said Bordelli, throwing his hands up.
‘A sacred vow …’ said the butcher. He clearly was a mushroom hunter, and there was nothing odd about his going around in the woods. He could easily have lost his phone bill bending down to pick a porcino.
‘Have a look at this thing of beauty,’ the butcher said, holding up the steak, which he then dropped on to the scale.
‘How much do I owe you?’
‘A thousand seven hundred … well spent,’ replied Panerai, wrapping the meat up. Bordelli paid and returned to the car.
‘Still feel like that panino, Piras?’
‘What was the butcher like?’ the Sardinian asked.
‘A fat guy with a bald head who looks like Goering,’ said the inspector, tossing the steak on the back seat.
‘A likeable sort, in other words,’ said Piras.
‘And a mushroom hunter …’ muttered the inspector, shaking his head as though disappointed.
They went into Scheggi’s. There was a bit of a queue and they had to wait. When their turn came, they ordered two stuffed panini, Bordelli’s with finocchiona salami and Piras’s with mortadella. They set to them straight away, with gusto. The moment they got back in the car, the inspector saw the man who had let him go first walk by on the pavement. He had a slight, rather comical limp, head bobbing lightly every two steps. Bordelli followed him distractedly with his eyes, with the strange feeling that something had escaped him.
‘What is it, Inspector?’ asked Piras.
‘Nothing …’
‘Don’t tell me I limp like him.’
‘No, no, compared to him you move like a dancer,’ said Bordelli, starting up the car.
Giacomo’s mortal remains were returned to the family, and the funeral was scheduled for the following morning at the Badia in Fiesole. The inspector was half tempted to attend, then decided that there was no point in it. He phoned Signora Pellissari to reiterate his condolences, but above all to ask her what butcher shop she patronised. The woman gently replied that she went normally to Mazzoni’s in Piazza Edison, a bit taken aback by the strange question. Bordelli assured her that the investigation was proceeding without delay, then left her to her grief.
The butcher was put under round-the-clock surveillance. He didn’t take a single step without being watched. The men in the radio room had the phone numbers of all the places where they could reach the inspector: home, trattoria, Rosa. In the event of big news, they had orders to ring him at any time of the night or day. No matter what happened, at the end of each surveillance shift, he was brought a detailed report of Panerai’s movements. Bordelli never missed a chance to repeat to the men in the field that they should use the utmost caution, change cars frequently, and never get too close. The butcher must never suspect anything, even if this meant losing him when he was being tailed.
There wasn’t much information to be had on Livio Panerai. Forty-four years old, son of Oreste Panerai, an honest butcher who’d died seven years earlier, and Adelina Cianfi, still alive and living in Via del Ponte alle Riffe. An ordinary past as a Fascist Youth, then as a repubblichino,9 but without any major blots. No recorded political activity since the end of the war. He’d grown rich with his butcher’s shop. Five years ago he’d bought a ground-floor apartment in a small three-storey villa in Via del Palmerino. He’d married Cesira Batacchi in 1948 and they had a seventeen-year-old daughter, Fiorenza, who attended the Liceo Dante. Clean record. Hard worker. Licence to bear arms for hunting. Owned a dark grey Lancia Flavia and a cream-coloured Fiat 850, which he used to drive to work. Didn’t do anything out of the ordinary during the day. Seemed to live only for his family and his work. One morning before going to the shop he’d gone to the post office to pay a bill. In short, unless proved otherwise, it was probably him who had lost his telephone bill in the woods. One afternoon he’d closed the shop ten minutes early to go and buy a box of shotgun cartridges at the armoury at Ponte del Pino. On Sunday he’d taken his little family to lunch at his mother’s. He almost always stayed home after dinner, though it was true that the constant rain didn’t make one want to go out. In one week, he went out only once, with his wife, to the Cinema Aurora, to see The Incredible Army of Brancaleone. And that was all.
In short, a goody two-shoes. Perfectly innocent. But Bordelli didn’t want to give up on the only clue he’d sniffed out, and so he kept having him watched. As for requesting authorisation to have his phone tapped, he hadn’t even tried. He already knew that Judge Ginzillo would never grant it: Let me get this straight, Inspector Bordelli. You want to violate the intimacy of a free citizen of the Italian Republic because of a telephone bill? Which you found over two hundred yards away from where the corpse was buried? I wonder, are you mad? You need much better clues than that, my dear inspector … That was more or less what the rat-face would have said. Not out of procedural zeal, but for fear of getting into trouble. He’d never forgotten some small ‘trifle’ which according to him had very nearly derailed his brilliant career.
Commissioner Inzipone was getting increasingly nervous and making no effort to hide it. He harried Bordelli with useless telephone calls, always repeating the same things … Have you seen the newspapers? What the hell are you waiting
for? Why are you sitting on your hands?
The inspector was patiently waiting for the surveillance teams to turn up something new, but as the hours and days passed, his hopes were beginning to crumble. Jack the Ripper, too, was never caught, like so many others. What if the band of monsters killed again?
During the long wait, there was another suicide he had to deal with one morning. A pretty girl of humble origin had hanged herself with the sash of her dressing gown in a luxury apartment she owned in the centre of town. The body had been found by the cleaning woman, the morning following the death. The girl’s mother explained between sobs that Matilde would never have committed suicide and must have been murdered. She was bewildered, having been unaware of the existence of that apartment and wondering how her daughter could possibly have bought it, since she worked as a salesgirl at the UPIM department store. Bordelli likewise thought it seemed fishy and got down to work. It didn’t take long to figure things out. The girl had got sacked almost three months earlier and was the mistress of a sixty-year-old industrialist from Prato. Bordelli paid a call on him, and the businessman immediately owned up to his affair with the girl. He said he was deeply saddened by it all. He made no mystery of all the money he had spent on her. He’d given her the apartment as a gift and even paid the cleaning woman. Appealing to male complicity, he begged Bordelli not to let the matter get into the papers. The inspector smelled a rat. He asked him to come with him to the station and started pressuring him. After less than an hour of questioning the businessman confessed. They’d had a furious row and the slaps had started flying. The girl fell, hitting her head against the corner of a table and died almost instantly. In a fit of panic, he’d hung her from the sash of her dressing gown, to make it look like a suicide. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, it was the last thing he wanted, it was an accident.
