“And now they’ve gone the way of the dinosaurs. Only to be replaced by new dinosaurs.”
“I thought you voted for the Lega Lombarda.”
“Of course I did. We’ve now got a bright new Lega mayor but it’s really not too hard to see the Leghisti are just the same as the Socialists. The same or worse.” Pisanelli suddenly grinned. “There was talk of bringing out a commemorative stamp to Bettino Craxi, our Socialist prime minister—only they were afraid people would spit on the wrong side of the stamp.”
Trotti smiled perfunctorily.
“The Questore had Bassi thrown out of the police because Bassi was screwing the mayor’s wife.”
“The Questore was jealous?”
“A couple of weeks ago Bassi came looking for me.”
“I know.”
The radio continued softly emitting its metallic monologue, only now it was a man’s voice.
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
Trotti turned and looked at Pisanelli. In the feeble light of the dashboard, he looked prematurely aged and weary; Pisanelli was gnawing at his lip.
“Bassi talked to you?”
“Yes, commissario.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Seemed to think we were friends.” Pisanelli shrugged and then fell silent.
“We?”
“Bassi for some strange reason believed you and I were friends.”
For a moment, Trotti did not speak. He could feel Pisanelli’s resentment and for once he did not know what to say. Or perhaps Trotti could not bring himself to say the words he should have said a long time ago.
“Thanks for coming to fetch me, Pisa—even if it meant destroying my cyclamen plant.”
“I’ll buy you another one.”
“What made you come looking for me?”
Pisanelli pursed his lips.
“Why, Pisa?”
“Bassi wasn’t very intelligent.”
“Not if he thought you and I were friends.”
“Not very sharp. And perhaps he wasn’t particularly honest. He wasn’t my cup of tea. A womanizer with a dick bigger than his brain.”
“I wouldn’t know. Both organs atrophied away many years ago.” Trotti grimaced. “In my case.”
“Too many boiled sweets.”
“Why d’you come out to via Milano and pull me out of bed?”
“Away from your seventy-two-year-old girlfriend?”
“You’re talking about my cousin.”
“Incest?” Pisanelli grinned again and steam rose from his nostrils. “Best to keep it in the family.” He continued to peer at the road.
Trotti sighed.
From time to time a truck went past in the opposite direction, trundling northwards to the metropolitan area of Milan, to the sprawling, sleeping hinterland.
Trotti had forgotten that his feet were cold, he had forgotten the taste of the cigarette and the bile rising in his throat. “What made you come for me? I thought you were angry with me.”
“They treated Bassi like dirt. He’d done nothing wrong—other than getting into bed with the wrong woman. They kicked him out of the Polizia and he had to go into private investigation. Cheap divorce work that I wouldn’t even give to my dog. And instead of finishing out his career in the Questura, warming his fat backside on a radiator like the rest of us, drinking instant coffee and grappa, he’s now dead in a ditch.”
“You didn’t know he was dead.”
“I knew it was Bassi—and I knew he’d seen you.”
“Thanks,” Trotti said simply. “I appreciate your thinking of me.”
“You want me to drop you off in via Milano?” Pisanelli asked flatly. “You’ve got mud all over your pajamas.”
“Are you hungry?”
Pisanelli shook his head without taking his eyes from the road.
“I thought you were angry with me, Pisanelli.”
“What on earth for, Commissario Trotti?”
“Angry with me because you’re not married.”
Pisanelli hesitated, bit his lip and was about to speak when Trotti held up his hand. “Perhaps we should have a look at Bassi’s bureau first.”
“I’m thirty-nine years old and I’m still unmarried. A single man, commissario, with no wife and no children to go home to. I think I’ve got a lot to thank you for.”
“Let’s go to Bassi’s place.”
“I’ve got better things to do, commissario. Like sleeping.”
Trotti started to laugh. “You shouldn’t have got me out of bed, Pisa. Now let’s go to Bassi’s office.” He slapped the younger man’s shoulder. “Then I can treat you to breakfast. Care for a rhubarb sweet?”
26: Bureau
“YOU THINK BASSI’LL complain? He’s dead.”
They had reached the first suburbs of the city, the apartment blocks that had been built in the seventies before the piano regolatore began to slow down the sprawling concrete.
“You know where he lives, commissario?”
They were about a kilometer from the Visconti castle, in a well-kept quarter of the city. Trees, public gardens, sufficient parking space for the cars along the streets. “On the left, Pisa. You see that mini-supermarket? Turn left and then you go over the canal.” Trotti’s face was drawn. “You can park over there, next to the van.”
Pisanelli brought the Citroën to a halt, turned off the engine but left the soft crackle of the radio. Together the two men got out into the cold morning and crossed the street, headed towards a four-story building.
Through the swirling cold fog drifted the smell of baking bread.
It was now seven o’clock and there were already people around. Men in winter coats were leaving home, climbing into their cars or walking briskly towards the nearby bus stop.
In this part of town there was no litter on the streets.
“Ten hours of sunlight,” Trotti said. “I hate the winter.”
“Why don’t you retire to Argentina? I thought you had an uncle in Buenos Aires. You’d be happy there.”
“And my pigs?”
They went through a small gate and approached the varnished front door of the building, via Nazioni Unite, 7. There was a camera above the nameplates.
FBI—Fabrizio Bassi Investigations was on the fourth floor.
“You’re going to attract attention, commissario?”
Trotti did not answer but pressed one of the bells.
After a few moments, a small sheet of metal slid back and the peeping, black eye of a camera squinted at them. There was a red light and the squeaky sound of a woman’s petulant voice.
“ENEL.”
As if offended, the camera withdrew and the sheet of metal slid back into place. Another short silence while the two men looked at each other.
Pisanelli smiled. In the feeble light, his face seemed less tired.
Then a click and the front door was released.
“You never told me whether you’re still carrying that Beretta?” Trotti asked as he pushed back the door and they entered the building. It smelt of polish and paint. A couple of bicycles leaned against the stairs.
From somewhere a voice was calling, “Who is it?”
“Electricity, signora. Reading the meters.”
“At this time of the day?” the disapproving female voice replied and there came the angry snap of a door being closed.
They went up stairs of polished marble. The banisters were of iron with a wooden handrail.
“Nice place to have an office.”
Trotti said, “Bassi lives here.”
“You’ve been before, commissario?”
“At the time of his problems in the Questura, I came here.”
“Why?”
“In eighty-eight or in eighty-nine. Time goes by so fast.”
Pisanelli said, “Not for Bassi—not anymore.”
They reached the top floor. Here the apartments were smaller than those on the lower floors because of the slope
of the roof.
Pisanelli pointed to an old brass name plate on the left-hand door. FAMIGLIA BASSI. “I didn’t know he was married.”
“Divorced,” Trotti said tersely and knocked noisily on the door. “Like most policemen.”
“Or unmarried.”
Trotti knocked again.
No sound.
They waited a minute before Trotti turned the handle.
“Don’t you even have a warrant, commissario?” Pisanelli’s breath was warm on Trotti’s cheek.
The door did not budge. Trotti turned the handle in the opposite direction, leant slightly against the glazed wood and the door moved slowly, ponderously.
The two men entered the apartment.
Pisanelli held a small pistol in his right hand.
27: Pigsty
“YOU’VE GOT GLOVES?”
Pisanelli shook his head. “A Kleenex.” His voice was strained and he seemed out of breath. His fingers were white around the butt of the Beretta.
Trotti took a pair of shabby leather gloves from his coat pocket. “Put these on before you turn on the switch.”
Pisanelli did as he was told. The ring of overhead neon flickered and then came to life.
Trotti whistled softly.
“A pigsty,” Pisanelli said. “Bassi was very messy or …”
“Somebody’s made the mess for him.” Trotti took a deep breath, looking at the disorder, at the scattered possessions.
The short hallway gave on to a larger room.
Diffidently the two policemen moved forward. Pisanelli kept his back to the wall.
Everything that could be opened, spilled or emptied had been opened, spilled and emptied. There were books and papers scattered across the floor. A divan had been tipped over backwards and a knife had been run along the bottom, slicing the jute protection.
“Unlike us,” Trotti remarked, “Bassi’s visitors knew what they were looking for.”
“Unless of course it was Bassi himself who set to work. One of those evenings when they’re showing the same Alberto Sordi film on every television channel.”
Beyond the living room were a bedroom and a kitchen. Ripped bedsheets trailed from the bed, spilled coffee in the sink, saucepans on the floor.
“The neighbors must’ve heard something.”
“What the hell were Bassi’s visitors looking for?” Trotti asked.
“If we knew that, we’d know why we’re here.”
The two policemen returned to the hall, walking carefully to avoid treading on the cassettes, books and papers. Old, yellowing copies of the Provincia Padana, dating back to the mid-eighties.
They entered the small study that Bassi had transformed into an office.
“Looking for a document or something. Something that could have been hidden between the sheets of a newspaper.” Pisanelli slipped the Beretta into his hip pocket. He ran his hand nervously through his lank hair.
The damage was worse in the study. Filing cases had been prized open and the contents cast across the floor. One chair leg was snapped, but apart from that there were no signs of a struggle. “Doesn’t look as if Bassi was murdered here,” Pisanelli said. “Nothing broken, no signs of blood.”
“Bassi wasn’t necessarily here. If he’d been taken by force, there’d’ve been a fight. He was a big man. The neighbors would have heard.”
“Bassi could have been drugged.”
“Which would mean carrying him down four flights of stairs.” Trotti raised his shoulders. “Eight families living here. Somebody would have seen something.”
“Perhaps we ought to ask.”
Neither the curtains nor the blinds were drawn. A grey light came through the window.
“We can’t ask because we’re not here.”
Pisanelli pointed. The drawers were open but the locks were undamaged. “The drawers weren’t locked or else these people had the key.” Pisanelli stood beside Trotti. He was still breathing heavily.
“If you were a private detective, doing divorce work, wouldn’t you keep everything under lock and key, Pisa?”
“Depends. Is this where his clients came?”
Trotti shrugged. “I don’t imagine Bassi let many people in here.”
“He had children?”
Trotti did not reply.
There were several posters in the living room, the Duomo in Florence, and on the walls of the office were a couple of diplomas. There was only one photograph.
It had fallen from the desk. The glass had divided into shards that were still kept together by the plastic frame. Trotti crouched down and looked at the picture. He pointed without letting his finger touch the glass. “That’s her.”
“Who?”
A banner fluttered behind their heads. FESTA NELLA CITTÀ, LUGLIO 1988.
Bassi was wearing a short-sleeved summer shirt. He appeared to be young and healthy. He was looking at the woman who smiled back at him quizzically. Together they were standing near an open trestle table that was loaded down with watermelon.
Behind the couple, Trotti recognized the curved arches of the Ponte Coperto, the bridge where fêtes were frequently held in summer.
A black and white photograph.
It was hard to tell whether the couple was together or whether the photographer had unwittingly seized the moment of their meeting.
The woman was in her mid-twenties, broad and slightly fleshy like a German or a Scandinavian. She was wearing a summer frock that showed much cleavage to an ample chest. Delicate, intelligent features.
Pisanelli bent over beside him. “The mayor’s wife?”
“Signora Viscontini, the ex-mayor’s wife.”
“Bassi kept this photo in the office?”
“Perhaps it wasn’t in the office before the spring cleaning,” Trotti said, turning to look at Pisanelli.
Pisanelli was no longer listening; a confident smile had split the greying stubble of his face. He was pointing his finger.
Trotti’s glance followed the line of Pisanelli’s outstretched hand.
Outside, in the city, dawn was lighting up the sky and there was enough daylight for Trotti to recognize the answering machine.
An answering machine placed on a shelf beneath the top surface of the desk.
“Want to hear, commissario?”
Pisanelli was wearing only the right-hand glove. He deftly pulled the machine out on its revolving support beneath the desk. He pressed the replay button.
A click. A short silence, then an angry whir. A second click as the answering tape began to play.
The Friuli accent. “I think you’d better give me that, don’t you, Tenente Pisanelli?”
Together Pisanelli and Piero Trotti swung round in surprise.
Framed in the door, wearing a neat shirt and herringbone jacket, stood the Questore. He was smiling and his loden overcoat was held jauntily over one arm. The other hand was held out towards Pisanelli.
He wore a tartan tie.
28: Twin Udders
“THE ANSWER IS no.”
Trotti looked at the Questore in silence, trying to retain his anger.
“Perhaps you’d care to sit down, Piero.”
“I don’t see what else there is to say.”
“Why don’t you go home then? Get shaved and get dressed.” The Questore’s smooth face broke into a friendly smile. “I believe you’re wearing pajamas beneath that pair of trousers.”
“Perhaps you’d care for my resignation?”
The Questore had moved to behind the large, empty desk in his office. He casually dropped his coat on to the glass surface. He did not take his eyes from Trotti, but leaning over, pressed a button and spoke into the telephone, without having to remove the hand set. “Giulia, could you bring me a pot of coffee?”
There was no reply.
“Damn lazy bitch’s not in yet.”
“You want my resignation, Signor Questore?”
“Just ten months away from a well-earned retirement? A bit melodramat
ic.” He stood up straight, his hands on his hips and straightening his shoulders.
“On Tuesday you were asking me to stay on.”
“Of course I’d like you to stay on, Piero.” The Questore sat down. “And before you make any rash decisions, I’d like you to consider my proposal carefully.”
The office was large and decorated in the same Italo-Californian style as the rest of the Questura. Modern and antiseptic. The air smelt of synthetic carpet.
“In Italy there are something like four thousand violent deaths a year. In our city, there are scarcely eight at most.”
Beyond the window, in the grey fog of the early morning, the national flag hung limp over the buses in Strada Nuova.
Trotti could feel his anger slowly ebbing away. A kind of clinical coldness was creeping into his body, into his head and his reasoning. He had become a spectator. “You want me to stay on but you don’t want me on this murder case?”
“You had no right to go to his place. I know you and Bassi were once friends.”
“Bassi was a colleague.”
“In your way, Piero Trotti, you’re one of the best.” A thin smile. “But I’m afraid I don’t want you on this case.”
“You haven’t told me, Signor Questore, why you went to his office this morning.”
“You’re not part of the Reparto Omicidi and for reasons that really are nothing to do with me, you fail to collaborate with Merenda. Merenda’s a good investigator.”
Trotti took a sweet from his pocket. “Let me work with Merenda. Let me work with anybody you care to name, Signor Questore.” His voice was calm, composed.
The Questore hesitated. His hand stroked the soft material of his loden overcoat.
“I should be quite happy to collaborate with Commissario Merenda. I am quite sure that …”
“Piero, for God’s sake, why don’t you just sit down? You’re making me nervous.”
Trotti lowered himself into one of the uncomfortable chairs.
“You know what I think of you, don’t you, Piero?”
“Signor Questore, you don’t know what I think of you.”
A generous brushing aside of any hostility. “You’re a good policeman.”
A light knock on the door and a woman entered carrying a silver tray with a steaming pot of coffee and two cups taken from the dopolavoro.
Big Italy Page 10
