The Salati Case

by Tobias Jones

  I moved my gaze downwards, past the trees to the gravel path where Salati had fallen. Closer towards me was a sloping concrete drive leading down to what was presumably the underground car park.

  I put the binoculars back and ducked under the cordon the other side of the street. I pulled out my mobile and called Crespi.

  ‘Umberto Salati is dead,’ I said bluntly.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Castagnetti. You hired me a few days ago, remember? Umberto Salati is dead. There’s no official confirmation but I’ve been to the scene. It’s him.’

  For once he was speechless.

  ‘We need to talk,’ I said. I didn’t want to go back to Crespi’s office. The man seemed impregnable there. ‘Let’s meet in the square at eleven.’

  I snapped the phone shut. I looked back one last time at the palazzo. There were armed guards at the front and back entrance. By the cordon I could see an old-fashioned Italian circus. I could see the carabinieri taking statements in the car park, and the reporters were then taking statements from the carabinieri. Both were then reporting those statements to their superiors who would publicise them when it suited.

  The people coming out of the cittadella paused to look at the disorder and ask questions.

  ‘What’s going on?’ people kept asking me. I shrugged so many times I got backache.

  On the Stradone it was business as usual. Women in slack fur coats bustled along the pavements. They looked like hairy eggs. I saw a man carrying a dog in a Burberry handbag. A young girl was wearing a silver-grey Belstaff jacket, only it was imitation because the label said Belfast. Perhaps it was deliberate, a subversive logo. But it looked the same as the real thing. That was the important thing in this city: to look the part, to give off the signals if you only knew how.

  I walked slowly towards the Circolo. I called Mauro and told him to meet me there. I wanted to do what the rest of the city would be doing: watch the story on TV.

  Mauro was there before me, already nursing a glass of malvasia. The TV was on full volume. There were live feeds from Salati’s house. Only hours after his death there were camera crews outside his palazzo, some conducting interviews with his neighbours via the intercom, others filming the roof terrace from below. Funny how police always let in their favourite journalists.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Mauro asked cheerfully. ‘Looks like old Salati landed on you.’

  On the TV, twenty police cadets were shown combing the gardens and shrubs below. Tall trees were being searched, prodded and pulled by policeman standing in the rectangular fist at the end of a crane’s yellow arm.

  Then there was an interview with the slippery mayor. He chose his words very carefully, as if he were trying to save himself from something: ‘He was a dedicated man who represented the best of this city – enterprise, imagination, generosity. We are all in mourning. Our thoughts’, the mayor was now looking into the camera, ‘are with his family.’

  As usual the institutional expressions of regret disguised any discord. I knew the official civility by now. It meant no one had a bad word to say against anyone who was dead. Death always made everyone wonderful.

  ‘Are you personally convinced’, the bald journalist asked the mayor, ‘that Umberto Salati voluntarily took his own life?’ It didn’t look right and the little journalist obviously knew it. No one dared to ask such a question on live TV to such a powerful politician unless the piazza was with you.

  The mayor drew breath slowly and nodded. ‘From early indications it seems so. Although it does appear that Umberto Salati died by his own hand, I hope we remember him for the way he lived his life, not for the way in which he ended it.’ Mauro threw a shiny napkin at the set. ‘Balle’, he said. ‘You know that “suicidarsi” isn’t just a reflexive verb? Sometimes there’s a subject and an object involved. It’s something that someone does to someone else.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. I had heard it all before: people were always being ‘suicided’.

  ‘You’ve got a crazy situation’, said Mauro, ‘where you might suspect Umberto of murdering Riccardo back in 1995, but at the same time you now suspect Riccardo of murdering Umberto over fourteen years later. And until you find Riccardo, walking or rotting, you won’t know which one it is.’

  ‘Maybe neither,’ I said with resigned frustration. It was like trying to thread a needle with cooked spaghetti.

  It was surely too much to think that Salati’s death was Ricky’s doing. Things like that just didn’t happen. People didn’t turn up out of the blue to commit a fatal push and disappear again. The only connection I could find between the brothers was some meaningless word like ‘cursed’ or ‘jinxed’. Silvia Salati’s sons were gone. And for the time being not even death connected them, at least not until I found Ricky’s skeleton somewhere.

  Even if Riccardo was alive, why would he bump off his brother? If it was greed, he surely would have done something before their mother died. That way her estate would all be his. As it was, Umberto’s share of the estate would now pass to his ex-wife or their children. There didn’t seem to be a motive.

  Maybe it really was suicide. Maybe Umberto was distraught at the death of his mother, distraught at the fact that he might never have truly known who she was. He might have been filled with remorse for what had happened, or what he had done, to his brother. Maybe he thought I was closing in on him and had preferred to face death than face the music. There were certainly enough motives for suicide.

  But it just didn’t add up. Umberto didn’t seem like a broken man. He seemed like the sort to get angry, to get even, rather than let life run him over.

  Mauro switched to the other local channel. An anchorman announced an interview with Salati’s grieving ex-wife from Traversetolo, Roberta. She was filmed stepping on to her doorstep to say she was saddened to hear of the death of her former husband, and that for the sake of their children the family would ask to be allowed to mourn in private.

  ‘Auguri,’ I said sarcastically.

  I knew that the television would pollute everything about this case. It would be the source of all information. We always complain about the lack of justice in Italy, about the fact that most iconic crimes in the country’s history go unpunished. But that’s largely because everyone expects clarity to come from the television. Its studio experts speculate on these misteri, they combine excited guesses with stoked indignation. Every new scoop pretends to offer clarity, but actually spreads confusion to keep the story going. That way the spectacle will never finish and it can be rewritten through bar-room gossip. And then the grande pubblico will be able to show, through paranoia and fantasy, that you really can’t believe in anything. In the end, everyone will have their own, breathtaking explanation for what happened in this or that tragedy.

  I watched for another hour, hearing the same bulletins repeated every few minutes.

  I wondered how much the carabinieri knew about Riccardo Salati, Umberto’s missing brother. Dall’Aglio would be contacting me, that was for sure. I would almost be their first lead. That was something I didn’t need: being leaned on by resentful uniforms who had nothing else to go on. The only advantage was that the information would have to go two ways. I would spill the little I knew about what had happened in 1995, and Dall’Aglio would let slip some forensic detail or anomalous alibi they had turned up.

  I slugged the dregs of my wine and said goodbye to Mauro.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, hurt.

  I didn’t say anything. I just slapped his shoulders and left the hardened drinkers of the Circolo to their favourite poisons.

  I wandered aimlessly and listened to people’s conversations. There’s a saying that the city is so quiet that people whisper. That’s what it seemed like this morning. There were small groups gathered together in the corner of bars, leaning close together so that no one else could hear. I could guess what they were saying. I had heard all the old men at the Circolo. I had heard people in the bus-stops. They
were all asking about the Salati suicide and saying it sounded wrong. It was a mess which had been served up too neatly.

  There was too much I didn’t know. And even when I knew the facts, there might only be one pointer hidden amongst them all. Like the time Umberto Salati had returned home. Where had he been? Who he had spoken to? Who was in the block of flats? What had they heard?

  My phone was ringing. I slid it open and before I even got it to my ear I heard a man’s voice: ‘Castagnetti?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Mazzuli from La Gazzetta. We met the other day. We’re running a story tomorrow about Umberto Salati’s death.’

  He hadn’t said suicide and I felt on edge.

  The journalist kept talking. ‘Is it true you were investigating the disappearance of Riccardo, Umberto Salati’s younger brother?’

  I paused. I could hear the hack tapping his keyboard impatiently.

  ‘What are you writing?’

  ‘Just taking notes.’

  ‘I haven’t even said anything yet.’ I couldn’t be sure what he already knew. La Gazzetta was the official mouthpiece of the city’s wealthy industrialists, and it didn’t go out on a limb for a story like this without being very sure of its facts. If this man was being given space to write about the Salati death they must have had some information.

  ‘I wanted to ask you a couple of questions. Is it true there’s evidence Riccardo Salati is alive?’

  So much for them knowing their facts. ‘Absolutely none at all.’

  ‘Didn’t he publish a mourning notice in our newspaper on the occasion of his mother’s death?’

  ‘That was someone else,’ I said disdainfully.

  ‘Have you got any proof of that?’

  ‘You know the answer to that.’ I remembered the Visa slip that this same journalist had passed me only two days ago.

  ‘You’ve traced the payment?’

  ‘Sure,’ I lied.

  ‘Who made the payment?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘I thought we had a deal?’

  ‘That doesn’t include passing information to a journalist before it’s passed to the appropriate authorities.’ When I lie I become more self-righteous than an altar boy.

  ‘Is it true Riccardo Salati is a suspect in his older brother’s murder?’

  I laughed. ‘You’re talking to the wrong man. I don’t know who’s a suspect any more than you or your chickens.’

  ‘Do you believe the suicide story?’

  Mazzuli was waiting for a reply. I didn’t say anything and eventually I heard him fingertipping a keyboard.

  ‘This is all off the record,’ I said. ‘You put my name in print and I’ll never speak to you again. You with me?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said like he hadn’t heard. ‘So?’

  ‘Put it this way: I would be amazed if it were suicide.’

  ‘Let me ask you another question. Is it true Umberto was investigating Riccardo’s death?’

  ‘That’s a more intelligent question.’ I scratched a sideburn. It sounded loud inside my head.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was probably doing something similar to yourself. Asking the wrong questions and getting the wrong answers.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Listen, you want a scoop on the Salati story, I’ll give it to you the minute I find it, believe me. I’ll call you. We had a deal and I’m a man of my word. But for now I know nothing about it other than what I’ve heard on TV.’

  ‘Had you already interviewed Salati about his brother’s disappearance?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’

  ‘You can take that as goodbye.’ I hung up and stared at the phone. So much for trying to swap favours with a journalist. This was exactly what I had dreaded from the start. I was at the centre of a media storm.

  Crespi was already waiting under the hooves of Garibaldi’s horse when I arrived.

  ‘You will obviously’, the notary said first up, ‘have to make a statement to the police about your own investigations.’

  That angered me. Crespi was condescendingly telling me my own moral duty as if I didn’t know what it was. I already knew that my poking around would have to be made public and I didn’t need Crespi reminding me of it.

  ‘My commission’, I said slowly, ‘was merely to verify the legal status of the subject Salati, Riccardo.’

  ‘And had you already contacted the now deceased older brother?’

  ‘Of course I had contacted him,’ I spat. ‘I interviewed him briefly in his shop, nothing more.’

  My words sounded aggressive, and it shocked me how quickly I was brushing myself clean of a man who had only just died.

  ‘Dear Castagnetti, they were brothers. You surely realise that their fates were in all probability linked? What happened to one is almost certainly related to what happened to the other.’

  I didn’t know what to say. It was undeniable. Crespi knew it. Riccardo might have been killed by Umberto, or – if you were imaginative – the other way round. Somewhere there was the crime of fratricide, that was likely. My problem was that if one of the brothers had murdered the other, that still left one dead body unaccounted for.

  ‘What you tell the police is your business,’ Crespi carried on. ‘All I ask is that you provide me with a report regarding the legal status of my client’s younger son, Riccardo.’ He spoke as if he were dictating a letter.

  ‘Coglione,’ I said to myself as I walked away.

  I walked back to my place in Borgo delle Colonne. I picked up the phone and dialled the number of the di Pietro woman in Rimini.

  ‘You’ve heard then?’ I said when she came to the phone.

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The suicide.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where were you last night?’

  She laughed. I repeated the sentence a little more slowly.

  ‘I was here, with the family.’

  ‘Giovanni and the children?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And they can confirm that can they?’

  ‘Come and ask them. Where else would I be?’

  I nodded to myself. It was far-fetched to see her wrestling Salati out of a window, but I had to ask. It was another fact that would need checking.

  ‘You need to get a guard on Elisabetta,’ I said.

  ‘She’s very safe here,’ Anna said. ‘What she needs is rest, not all this anxiety around her.’

  ‘There’s no point looking after her well-being if she’s dead, you with me? Her uncle has been murdered, and her father has been missing for more than a dozen years. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s next.’

  The woman didn’t say anything but was breathing heavily. I could hear little coughs like she was trying to get a fishbone out of her throat. It’s strange listening to someone you don’t know crying on the phone. Almost like listening to them have a shower through a bathroom door.

  ‘I want to hire you,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If she really is in danger, I need someone to look after her.’

  ‘I’m already hired,’ I said sadly. Working freelance is like waiting for a bus. Nothing turns up for ages, then everything comes at once.

  ‘Couldn’t you do both?’

  ‘Conflict of interests, sweetness.’

  ‘But you just said, she’s in danger.’

  ‘She might be. Call the police, let them know. Or call a private. There are enough in Rimini from what I remember. You could always call in the heavies from the Hotel Palace. Another thing, you’re going to get a herd of hacks coming your way. They’re probably on the Via Emilia as we speak.’

  She didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to labour the point, but I had seen clients of mine in the past who had been in the blizzard of publicity and it was a cold and frightening place. It felt like the wo
rld was staring at you, sneering and pointing. ‘Your number’s in the book, isn’t it? You might want to take the phone off the hook.’

  By the time I got back to my office there was a small gathering of the city’s worst journalists. I recognised Mazzuli there as well.

  There was no point trying to blank them. We would have to come to some sort of deal.

  They recognised me long before I even got to my front door. About half a dozen thrust microphones under my chin and asked me questions simultaneously so that I couldn’t understand any of them.

  ‘I’m only talking if that camera is switched off.’

  The cameraman pointed it at the pavement and opened a grey plastic gate on the side of the machine to shut it down.

  All journalists were like predators, but the TV crowd were the worst.

  ‘Right, I’m not making any comment until I’ve spoken to the relevant authorities.’ There was a groan of disappointment from the journalists. ‘I will happily talk to you as soon as I have arranged to share with my uniformed colleagues any information I might have regarding this case.’

  They stared at me in silence, and then all started throwing questions. I walked inside and shut the door on them. I dropped the tapparelle, allowing the cord to run through my fingers just fast enough to warm them.

  I sat down and dialled Dall’Aglio. As soon as I gave my name I was put through.

  ‘Castagnetti,’ said Dall’Aglio, ‘just the man.’

  ‘Did you give my name to the press?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. If it’s any consolation, we’ve probably got more journalists out here than Palazzo Chigi. There have been fifteen of them on my tail all morning.’

  ‘Understandable. It is a murder.’ I said it pointedly, trying to trip Dall’Aglio into an indiscretion.

  ‘Listen, it’s far too early to know what it is. My instinct says you’re probably right, but I’m not going to go public until I’m very sure of the facts.’

  ‘Which are?’