Big Italy

by Timothy Williams

  “Some coffee, then?”

  Pisanelli smiled and nodded.

  The woman pulled at a long sash that hung by the window and immediately a Filipino majordomo appeared. He wore a white shirt, black trousers and a red and black striped waistcoat. “Coffee for these gentlemen please, Pablo,” she said, without turning to look at the small man. “You can bring me a glass of acqua frizzante.”

  The butler bowed acknowledgement and silently left the room.

  She sat down opposite the two men on a divan that was littered with silk cushions. “Perhaps you’ve finally identified my ex-husband’s murderer?”

  “Why did you hire Signor Bassi, signora?” Trotti asked.

  She did not hide her surprise. There was a tightening of the lines around her mouth. Small lines that ran towards her thin lips.

  “I suppose this is because of the article in Vissuto.”

  “Why did you hire him?”

  “My lawyer hired him. Avoccato Regni knew the man. Regni seemed to think he was efficient.”

  “But at your request?”

  She said nothing; she placed one hand on top of the other at the knee of her skirt. Freckles of skin cancer on the dry skin. She wore a long, pleated grey skirt that fell to beneath her knees.

  “Surely an unnecessary expense.” Trotti persisted.

  “I discovered it was unnecessary when we—my sister-in-law and I—realized the incompetence of Signor Bassi.”

  “Incompetent in what way?”

  “No need to tell you, gentlemen, I was quite furious about that terrible article in the magazine. I suppose that’s why you’re here. A muckraking journal, a magazine for concierges and superstitious peasants. Ever since the article appeared, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.” She nodded towards a portable telephone on the low coffee table. “Which only goes to show you can never be sure of your friends’ taste in literature. I prefer I promessi sposi.” She hid a slight shudder.

  “Why did you take on a private detective?”

  “My ex-husband was murdered. It didn’t take long to realize the police forces were more concerned about other things than discovering who shot poor Carlo.” She added, “Since that article, I’ve discovered the forces of order aren’t insensitive to bad press.”

  “He was no longer your husband. Why waste money?”

  “He was the father of my daughter. Carla was very fond of him. And so was I.”

  “There was a will?”

  “Of course.”

  Trotti paused. “Who inherited?”

  “My husband and I had been divorced for a long time. It was very civilized. I neither needed nor wanted his money, if that’s what you think. But my daughter—our daughter …”

  “Then the inheritance …”

  “Depends upon the outcome of the inquiry.” A nodding of her small head. “You see, Carlo was a self-made man. He was from the South and he grew up poor. Like so many Southerners, there was something driving him. It was as if he had to prove himself. All the time. Perhaps that’s why we broke up. He didn’t know how to be happy with the present. I would say to him, carpe diem.”

  Trotti frowned.

  “Seize the day—but it was no use. Carlo was always running, convinced he was getting to a brighter future. At the time I didn’t realize he was running forward to get away from the past.” She raised her shoulders. “That’s why he invested so much.”

  “You saw your ex-husband just before his death?”

  “He invested in his clinic and in his equipment. He wanted the best machinery. Like a little boy—but then, so many men are.” She tilted her head as she appraised Commissario Trotti.

  “There’s good money tied up in the clinic on Lake Maggiore.” She added, “The place is now being run by his lawyers.”

  “Then there aren’t many liquid assets?”

  She hesitated before shaking her head.

  “None?”

  “Not at the moment. You understand, Carlo’s work was his investment.”

  Pisanelli was sitting forward, his arms on his knees. He nodded.

  “I don’t want it all to go to that woman.”

  “The Englishwoman? Signora Coddrington?”

  “This isn’t for me.”

  “Not for you?” Trotti repeated.

  “It’s for our daughter. For Carla. It was always understood between Carlo and me that Carla should inherit her fair share.” Signora Lucchi shrugged. “He went off with another woman, younger and prettier than me. He thought he didn’t need me anymore. Perhaps he was right. I loved Carlo very dearly and when he left there was a sudden emptiness. But at the same time, my life became a lot easier.” She smiled. “Are you married?”

  “I haven’t seen my wife in a long time.”

  “You live by yourself?”

  “You get used to it after a time.” Commissario Trotti shrugged.

  “Then you know that living with another person isn’t always a bed of roses.”

  “My wife works in America for a big multinational company.”

  “Carlo and I’d been happy together. People used to say he’d married me because of my money. But that’s not true. Carlo married me for other reasons—not least because I’m from an old Northern family and he was a poor Southerner … a Sicilian. And that, you see, is why it’s so important for me Carla should get her fair share of Carlo’s wealth.”

  “Why?”

  “He needed money to reassure himself he wasn’t a failure.” She laughed. “He needed money to reassure himself he’d come a long way. Just as he needed a beautiful house, a luxurious car and he needed to be surrounded by beautiful, admiring, young women.” She smiled sadly. “Unfortunately, I’m no longer young or beautiful. And I ceased to admire Carlo Turellini a long, long time ago. Love him, yes. But I could no longer admire him.”

  “It was for your daughter Carla’s sake you decided to hire Signor Bassi?”

  She nodded. “Also party to the decision to employ a private detective was Signorina Turellini, my sister-in-law.”

  “Did you see your ex-husband before his death?”

  A wry smile moved the narrow lips. “You’re trying to suggest I was responsible for his murder?”

  Pisanelli had cut his jaw while shaving in via Milano. He now smiled at her, moving his body further forward. His suede jacket was undone. He was wearing a woolen Canadian shirt with a checkerboard motif. It was a shirt that Trotti had lent him and it was a size too big for Pisanelli. His face was friendly and very intent. “Please answer my colleague’s question, Signora Lucchi. Nobody’s accusing you or anybody else.”

  “Why is it so important? It’s over a year since she killed him.”

  Trotti looked at her sharply. “She?” He could hear the flat, provincial accent in his voice.

  “Of course she killed him. And that man Bassi was too incompetent to be able to prove it.”

  “Who killed your ex-husband?”

  “We wanted that detective man to get the proof. The simpleton was not up to it. Just like the rest of you. I hope you’re better at dealing with the Mafia than you are in your murder inquiries.” She shook her head, an unhappy bird. “Polizia di Stato.”

  “Are you accusing the English teacher of murdering your ex-husband?”

  “A stupid woman.”

  “If you’re accusing the woman Dr. Turellini was living with at the time of his death, Signora Coddrington has an alibi. The maid gave evidence that she was still in bed at the time of the murder.”

  “You think I’m jealous of her?” She gave a brief cackle. “Mary Coddrington wouldn’t know how to heat water. She wouldn’t even know how to shit straight. Doubt if she knows how to use insecticide without poisoning herself. That’s why my husband lived with her. I just told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “Carlo needed to be surrounded by young and beautiful and worshipping women. I didn’t say intelligent women. Carlo Turellini hated intelligent women—that’s why he never realized he
needed me. He wanted to be surrounded by idiots, by pretty idiots.”

  “You think Signora Coddrington murdered him?”

  “I’ve just told you she didn’t.”

  “Who killed your ex-husband?”

  “I would have thought it was obvious.”

  “Who?”

  Signora Lucchi’s thin chest heaved with indignation. “Signora Quarenghi,” she said, sitting back, allowing her thin body to lean against the pillows.

  The majordomo entered with two cups of coffee, a bottle of mineral water and a plate of biscuits.

  32: Mistress

  TROTTI DRANK THE sweet coffee as a sour-faced cat came into the room and jumped on to the armrest of Signora Lucchi’s armchair.

  “According to the magazine, Dr. Turellini once had an affair with the wife of a colleague.”

  “The wife of his best friend—best friend and associate at the Clinica Cisalpina.” She laughed sardonically. “The wife of Dr. Quarenghi.”

  “Whom you accuse of murdering Dr. Turellini?”

  The woman said, “Carlo had been living with the Englishwoman. With Signora Coddrington. I know he never loved her. He never loved any woman other than me. Sometimes he’d call me.” She gestured to the telephone. “On several occasions Carlo would receive threatening phone calls during the night. And, of course, it was to me that he turned for support.” A smile. “I was like a sister.”

  “Why do you say Signora Quarenghi murdered your husband?”

  “Because she’s crazy.”

  Trotti suppressed a gesture of irritation. “You have proof?”

  “Because she’s jealous. And because she couldn’t have Carlo.”

  “And Signora Coddrington?”

  “The Englishwoman’s stupid—but at least she’s not frigid.”

  “Signora Quarenghi’s married.”

  “But there are no children, are there?” A triumphant glitter in the sharp eyes. “She’d always been buzzing around my husband. For years, like an aging dog in heat, except that she doesn’t know what heat is. As frigid as an iceberg. She even pretended to be my friend.” Signora Lucchi took a sip of acqua frizzante. “As if I needed her friendship!”

  “Why should Signora Quarenghi wish to kill Carlo Turellini?”

  “The police sighted that mad woman at the wheel of her car at Segrate. The cream Jaguar—near Carlo’s villa on the morning he was murdered. Later that same morning she went to the police and told them her husband had murdered my Carlo.” The woman’s voice went very soft. “Don’t think I’m naive. I knew all about Carlo’s affair with her a long time ago—twelve, fifteen years ago—long before Carlo ever wanted the divorce. And long before she started to grow old, before she finally went mad.”

  “Why would Signora Quarenghi want to kill your husband?”

  She laughed.

  “Why, signora?”

  “It’s so obvious.”

  The cat jumped to the floor as Signora Lucchi suddenly got up and went to the window.

  Seen from behind, in her lambswool sweater and her grey skirt, Signora Lucchi had a youthful figure. Narrow hips and a small bust. It occurred to Trotti that she must have been very beautiful in her youth. She belonged to the old, moneyed class of Milan. Pure Milanese, more bourgeois than aristocratic, more refined than hedonistic. And very rich; a spacious apartment in via Montenapoleone and in all probability a villa on the Lakes or in the Langhe. A class that was unafraid of using the Italian language as best it suited them. The Italian language or anything else.

  She turned to look at Trotti as if she had heard his thoughts. Amusement hovered on her thin lips.

  For a few moments Trotti and the rich woman stared at each other in silence. Then she turned back to the window.

  Signora Lucchi pulled at the lace curtain and looked down on to the silent traffic and the crowds of affluent Japanese shoppers in via Montenapoleone. The bright luxury shops that were impervious to inflation, to economic crisis, to Mani Pulite.

  (After the drive up in the swirling fog, Pisanelli had spent half an hour trying to find a place to park the old Citroën. The inner pedestrian zone of Milan was impenetrable. They had finally gone into a private parking lot. The man at the exit had raised his shoulders with philosophical forbearance. “Thirty-three thousand cars to four square kilometers.” He looked like an out-of-work university professor and possibly was. “What on earth d’you want to come to Milan for?” They had subsequently caught a yellow taxi. Pisanelli had insisted on asking for a receipt.)

  Signora Luciana Lucchi turned back to face the two men. She placed her hands behind her back and leaned against the sill. “You don’t behave like the other policemen.”

  “I really don’t know how other policemen behave.”

  “You’re from the Milan Questura?”

  “Why would Signora Quarenghi want to kill Dr. Turellini?” Trotti placed the cup back on its thin saucer and slipped a licorice sweet into his mouth.

  “Quite mad. She couldn’t have him—and she was as jealous of that stupid English bitch as she was of me.”

  The cat was now rubbing itself against her narrow legs.

  “Mad, completely mad.”

  “You believe Signora Quarenghi actually fired the gun?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “The police, the Carabinieri—everybody knew it wasn’t a professional killing. It was a killing carried out by someone who knew next to nothing about guns.” She shrugged her frail shoulders. “I don’t know much about guns but I was brought up in an environment where there were hunting rifles. I’ve been hunting with my brothers. Thank goodness, I’ve never killed anything. A horrid sport.” She visibly shuddered. “With this Common Market and all its foolhardy legislation, one of the rare, good things is that the birds are coming back to Italy after all these years. This country, this city—I used to be so proud of being from Milan.” Her face hardened. “If I were going to kill, I’d be sure to get something efficient. Not some rusting bit of matériel from the war in Libya. Something that would do permanent, irreparable damage to the person I was going to kill—and that wouldn’t blow up in my face.” The narrow features feigned incredulity. “One of the wretched bullets didn’t even go off.”

  “Who would you like to kill, signora?”

  “L’embarras du choix.”

  Trotti frowned.

  Signora Luciana Lucchi returned to the seat. “I wouldn’t have minded doing away with that Bassi man.” Her laugh was surprisingly humorous. “And with my lawyer, too, for ever having engaged him.”

  “You didn’t like him?”

  “Out of his depth, and that’s why I had to sack him. Quite amazingly, Signor Bassi has the reputation for being reliable. From the provinces. Not a Milanese.” She paused, her glance lingering on Trotti. “I think he must’ve just got bogged down. He seemed enthusiastic enough but I suppose he wanted to be paid by us for as long as possible. I told him I wanted the Quarenghi woman arrested fast. If he’d tried harder, he could’ve gotten the evidence against her, the hysterical cow.”

  “That’s what you paid him for?”

  “What?”

  “You wanted Bassi to prove Signora Quarenghi guilty?”

  “She’s guilty.”

  “That’s why you paid him?”

  She stared evenly at Trotti. “Of course.”

  “Bassi told you about the article in Vissuto?”

  “Signor Bassi seemed a nice enough man at the time.” She glanced appraisingly at Pisanelli. “But you can never tell.” She turned back to Trotti. “Why this interest in my husband’s death after so long? I don’t think the article’s going to change anything. You didn’t want to arrest Quarenghi when you could have. You were afraid of her, afraid of her powerful husband.”

  “How can you be so sure Signora Quarenghi killed your ex-husband?”

  “It’s obvious.”

  “Is it not possible the killing was related to Dr. Turellini’s business
affairs? To the job he was offered as director at the Sant’Eusebio clinic?”

  There was an uneasy silence. She turned away and again stared out on to the street.

  “Please answer my question.”

  “This may surprise you. Particularly when it’s coming from a woman who gave to her husband the best years of her life. Who gave her youth and her body, only to be tossed aside like a used and dirty tissue when Carlo Turellini had no further use for her. My ex-husband treated me shoddily—and I think I’ve forgiven him. A selfish man—but for all his failings, Carlo Turellini, for all his womanizing and his immaturity, was scrupulously honest.”

  “He had enemies.”

  “Carlo was a Sicilian. The Sicilians are more puritanical than our Protestants from the Alps. You know what the Valdesi Protestants are like? Honest and rigorous in all their business dealings. To the point of being insufferable. Just like Carlo.” She laughed. “That’s what the Mafia was like thirty, forty years ago before it became an offshoot of the Americans—with cheap American values. And before the easy money of drugs turned Palermo into Beirut.” She gave her birdlike nod. “As I said, Carlo Turellini was scrupulously honest.”

  “Except when it came to having affairs with women.”

  “Carlo was very attractive to women.” She added softly, “As I imagine you must be.”

  Pisanelli glanced sharply at Trotti.

  Trotti continued, “According to the article in Vissuto your ex-husband had many enemies.”

  “Perhaps people were jealous of him, perhaps people were envious of Carlo’s success. And like most doctors, particularly parvenu ones, he wanted to go into politics.”

  “Destra Nazionale?”

  She nodded. “My ex-husband was not a broad-minded man. Many years ago, when we were still together, Carlo was introduced into the political circles of the Democrazia Cristiana. Lots of his medical friends—particularly those from the Mezzogiorno—were doing well for themselves. After only three or four months, he got out of the DC. He’d wasted a lot of his money. But, as he told me, he’d retained his dignity as a human being and as an Italian.” For a moment, her voice seemed to tremble. “It was around 1969, around the time of the first acts of terrorism. Piazza Fontana. Strange, really. Carlo was terrified by the idea of international communism.” She laughed, truly amused. “Whereas a cousin of mine, who’d never known what it was like to travel in the metropolitana or on public transport, who’d had a chauffeur all his life, blew himself up at the foot of a pylon, dying for the cause of the downtrodden masses.”