Persona Non Grata

by Timothy Williams

  “Don’t ask me that question, Commissario.”

  Sitting on the bench in the municipal gardens, the spinster with the bulging eyes had started to cry.

  40: Road

  “WITH HER?”

  “Why not?”

  “But the Podestà woman’s not even attractive.”

  “At Riccardo’s age, I don’t think a man really cares.”

  “But …”

  “She’s ugly, perhaps—but she will do anything for him. And she will sleep with him.”

  “You are disgusting.”

  “Realistic, Signora Bianchini.”

  “You are disgusting. I know Riccardo and I know he is a good boy. And at least the Vardin child is of his own age. For all her vulgarity, Netta Vardin has got a pretty little face. A pretty, stupid little face.”

  Trotti made a gesture with two outstretched fingers. “But she won’t screw.”

  Signora Bianchini took her foot off the accelerator and pulled the Audi on to the shoulder of the highway. The car came to a standstill near one of the blue Fiat road signs, indicating that Milan was forty-three kilometers behind them to the west. “You can get out of this car.”

  “That won’t help.”

  “Get out.”

  “No.”

  “I do not appreciate obscenity and I will not have you insult my son. He is not an animal.” The corner of her lip quivered. “And he is not interested in such … such carnal things.”

  “I’m in a hurry to get to Verona.”

  The traffic rumbled past, the articulated trucks shaking the Audi as they ploughed their way towards Brescia, Verona and Venice, the Adriatic and Yugoslavia. The blue-grey fumes of unburnt petrol hung over the road and the polluted edges of the fields of maize.

  Somewhere in the distance, beyond the fields and the motionless plane trees, there stood the green cupola of a village church.

  In a voice that was little more than a whisper, the woman asked, “Why are you so spiteful, Commissario?”

  “I am honest.”

  “Have I not helped you? Did I not take you to my place, let you rest? Did I not give you food and attention?”

  “I never asked to go to your house.”

  “And am I not driving you to Verona?”

  “Perhaps you haven’t got anything better to do.”

  “You are ungrateful.”

  “Cynical. I have been a police officer for too long to believe in disinterested generosity. You need me—because I can be useful to you.”

  “I want to help you—and I want to help Riccardo. But believe me, there’s no pleasure for me in taking you to Verona.”

  “I think there is.”

  She did not look at him. “You are a powerful man, Commissario, with a lot of people working for you. Why ask me to take you? Why not go with one of your policemen?”

  “Symbiosis—we can be mutually useful to each other.”

  “You are devoid of feeling.”

  “Tell me, signora, why you try to convince yourself that your son did not attack the little Vardin girl.”

  “You know as well as I do that Riccardo didn’t attack her, Commissario.”

  “I know that Signorina Podestà has been trying to protect him. She thought he attacked the girl, and that’s why she invented another rapist—to put us off the track.”

  “Riccardo wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

  “Then why doesn’t he talk to me?”

  “Perhaps …”

  “Why is he hiding? Why hasn’t he been home these last few days?”

  “Hiding?”

  She was wearing the sunglasses and he was struck by the beauty of her face. Beautiful but distant, the beauty of a doll. Again the memory of Ciuffi jabbed like a cold syringe at his heart.

  Signora Bianchini turned. “You are not really interested in Riccardo, Commissario. You know he never touched the girl. The interview with the ugly woman—it’s all a trick, isn’t it?”

  Trotti remained silent.

  “Why did you ask me to take you to Verona?”

  “There is somebody I must see.”

  “It’s not Riccardo you’re interested in at all.”

  He looked through the tinted glass at the endless stream of passing vehicles. In the opposite direction, beyond the skimpy barrier of blighted oleander, a Carabinieri Alfa Romeo flashed past, its siren squealing and the blue light revolving urgently.

  With a sigh, Signora Bianchini put the car into gear. After waiting for a gap in the flow of traffic, she pulled out on to the autostrada.

  “And I know it’s not me you’re interested in, Commissario. You don’t find me attractive.”

  41: The Lake

  IT WAS LATE and yet Trotti insisted that they leave the autostrada and take the smooth road down to Desenzano and Lake Garda.

  It was nearly a year since Trotti had been back to the lake, and he found himself excited just at the thought of seeing it again.

  Lights had come on along the lakeside and were reflected in the rippleless water. To the north, the pre-Alps and Monte Baldo were lost in the failing light. As the Audi followed the long line of cypress trees, Trotti saw a motor launch making its steady way towards Sirmione.

  Garda.

  Self-pity, perhaps, or just the sense that he was growing old while Lake Garda remained unchanged, timeless. Whatever the reason, Trotti resented the pang of sharp regret that rose in his throat with an almost physical reality.

  For a moment he was tempted to tell Signora Bianchini to turn the car around, to take them to Gardesana and the Villa Ondina. They would sit on the wooden pontoon and look out over the water at the shadow of Monte Baldo. And he would feel—for a moment, or for an evening—that he, too, like the lake, was untouched by time.

  Trotti wanted to say something but then it was too late and they were entering the outskirts of Verona.

  “Where are we going to spend the night?”

  “We, Signora Bianchini?”

  She turned and looked him. “Now we’ve arrived, you’re sending the chauffeur back home?”

  It was the end of the opera season and as they got closer to the city center and the Roman arena, the more pedestrians there seemed to be. Women with silver handbags and flowing evening robes, men in bow ties and tortoise-shell glasses. Some carried instrument cases. The gelaterias and the neon-lit cafes were all doing brisk business. Carabinieri in khaki uniform and riding boots walked along the pavement, heedless of the admiring glances that they attracted. There were other policemen on horseback.

  Signora Bianchini found a parking place near the Ponte Nuovo and together they went for supper.

  “You still haven’t answered my question, Commissario.”

  “Question?”

  “Where are we spending the night? I imagine you have friends in the Questura here …?”

  “I phoned before leaving. There is a hotel in via Pigna.”

  “A hotel?”

  “You don’t mind, I hope. It’s not the most expensive, but it’s clean.”

  “And where am I sleeping? We’re not sleeping in the same room?”

  Trotti laughed. “The idea frightens you.”

  “What sort of woman do you take me for?”

  “In the car you said that I wasn’t interested in you.”

  “I wonder if all policemen are the same.”

  “The same in what way?”

  “You are a cold man.”

  He put down his knife and fork and sipped some mineral water.

  Embedded in one wall was a natural fountain that poured an unending stream of water into a thick, carved marble basin. The Ristorante Fontanella was small, and reluctantly Trotti had agreed to an indoor table because all the tables on the terrace had been taken by Scandinavian tourists—blond young men and women in pastel clothes.

  She sat back—Signora Bianchini had eaten the spaghetti alla veronese with considerable appetite—and looked at him. The wall-lighting made shadows that softened her face, that a
ccentuated her appearance of youth. “Why did you bring me here?”

  Thirty-eight years old. A beautiful woman in the bloom of her life. Trotti looked admiringly at the long, delicate fingers on the tablecloth. He smiled. “You’re the chauffeur.”

  “You think that I’m involved, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  “You think I’m trying to protect my son.”

  “That would be quite normal.”

  “And you think that somehow I am connected with the death of the girl.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Don’t you, Commissario?”

  “Don’t I what?”

  “You believe I won’t stop at anything to protect my son.”

  Trotti shrugged.

  “Well?”

  “Riccardo is all that you have.”

  “You think that I knew about the shooting down on the river.”

  “Listen—you came to the hospital. You took me to your house. I didn’t ask for that. I never asked Magagna to contact you—and there was no reason for you to want to help me.”

  “You never give a straight answer, Commissario.”

  The serving girl came to take their plates.

  With an empty table between them, neither Trotti nor Signora Bianchini spoke for several minutes. He looked at her graceful hands.

  “What is it you want, Commissario?”

  He smiled, feeling the muscles pulling at his eyes. “I have been asked to take a holiday.”

  “You need rest. I can understand that.”

  “Mine is not an official enquiry. At this moment, I should be lying in bed, watching twenty different channels on my TV.”

  She had raised one hand to her throat.

  “The Questore doesn’t want me interfering with the enquiry into Ciuffi’s death.”

  “But why Verona?”

  “Somebody that I have got to see—somebody who can help me find Ciuffi’s murderer.”

  “Then I really am just the chauffeur?”

  Trotti looked into the almond eyes.

  42: Melbourne University

  “NEVER REALLY LIKED Italian opera—too much shouting.”

  “Then what do you like?”

  The journalist shrugged but did not reply.

  MacSmith had aged since Trotti had last seen him, and put on weight. More flesh to the chin, the long hair had started to go grey and the bags under the eyes bore witness to too much alcohol and too many cigarettes.

  “You smoke, Trotti?”

  Trotti shook his head. “I gave it up.”

  “Lucky man.” MacSmith grinned, letting the smoke of the Marlboro flood through his nostrils. “What are you drinking?” He nodded towards the empty coffee cup.

  He was an Australian. Many years previously he had taught English in a language school. Then there had been a strike of the teachers and MacSmith had submitted a series of articles to a London-based educational newspaper. The start of a career as a foreign correspondent. Now he was the stringer for several Australian and American newspapers. Over the years he had moved away from education, specializing in crime. Political crime, industrial espionage, the Mafia, the Years of Lead and carbonized corpses—English-speaking readers had an insatiable appetite for Italian violence. MacSmith had slowly built up the reputation as a reliable, well-informed journalist. He had developed a wide circle of contacts. He had worked in Sardinia and Sicily. He had even gotten to be friends with a killer in Palermo. The resulting article had won a prize in New York.

  (It was believed that in 1977 there had been an attempt on his life. Shots were fired through his front door at a time when MacSmith was researching into a leak of toxic gas from a Swiss-owned factory in the Brianza. MacSmith gave a dossier to his lawyer with the instructions that it should be sent to the newspapers in the event of his untimely death. There were no more shootings, but on two separate occasions MacSmith was refused entry into Switzerland.)

  MacSmith had an easy manner and a slow, stumbling way of speaking Italian that belied a sharp mind and an impressive memory.

  Trotti had first met MacSmith in Bologna. In those days, MacSmith had been thin, poor and poorly dressed. Now he had a large belly that pushed at the buckle of his corduroy trousers. His clothes were of good quality, although they had acquired a look of shabbiness.

  “Another coffee, Trotti?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Or you’ll join me in a grappa?”

  Trotti shook his head.

  MacSmith called the thin waiter, who removed the dirty cups.

  “And how’s the family? Your daughter must be quite a big girl now.” He smiled. “I can never remember that strange name of hers.”

  “Pioppi’s studying in Bologna.”

  “Married?”

  A toneless voice, “She has a boyfriend.”

  “She was a delightful little girl. So fond of her father. So proud of him.”

  “My wife has left me. She’s now living in America.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” MacSmith took the cigarette from his mouth. “You get back to Bologna ever?”

  “Don’t have the time.”

  “A city I miss—the food, the people. I miss the Emilia.”

  “You’re better off here in Verona.”

  “Verona?” More smoke from his nostrils. “Not my favorite city.”

  “An attractive place.”

  “If you don’t have to live here.”

  “I find it very civilized.”

  “Verona must be the only city in Italy without a pedestrian precinct.”

  Trotti laughed. “That’s important?”

  MacSmith raised an eyebrow. “Do you still cycle to work, Trotti?”

  “I’m getting old—and fat.”

  “After Peking, Parma has the highest number of bicycles per inhabitant.” There was an awkward silence. “But Parma is in Emilia—and here we are in the Veneto. I miss Emilia—Bologna, Modena, Parma—even Piacenza which has now become little more than a suburb of Milan. The Emilians are lively, full-blooded. But here in the Veneto, the people are mean and hypocritical. Fervent church-goers, mind, and anti-Communist. Wealthy peasants.” The Australian took the cigarette from his mouth. “Culture, the opera, the tradition of music? A shopping mall. That’s what Verona is really. Culture? An endless string of shoe shops and boutiques. Benetton and Timberland.”

  “All good for business.”

  MacSmith laughed. “You know the business of Verona?”

  “An international opera? It must bring in a lot of money.”

  “Drugs, Commissario. We have the highest percentage of addicts in the entire peninsula. And the easy money you see—it’s not from the opera.” He gestured with his thumb. “Go down to the river at night—and you can see them, the addicts, huddling together for warmth.”

  “As in any other Italian city.”

  “The kids of the wealthy—that’s okay. Their parents can get them into clinics and have them looked after. But there are the rest, too. Working-class people, out of work and with no future—other than hepatitis, or an overdose. Or AIDS.” There was no humor in his brown, tired eyes. He looked at Trotti, his head to one side and the smoke rising from the cigarette towards the dark awning of the terrace.

  “It gives you something to write about.”

  MacSmith stubbed out his cigarette. “What can I do for you, Trotti?”

  Piazza delle Erbe, ten o’clock in the morning.

  The winged lion of the Venetian republic—la Serenissima—stood proudly atop its column, a rain-stained paw placed on the open book. Behind it, the Palazzo Maffei was being restored and cleaned. Scaffolding had been set up and a green net—it looked like a mosquito net—spread the length of the scaffolding to retain the dust and rubble.

  Reaching towards the sky, like a sturdy tree determined to survive, the Gardello tower rose above the green netting.

  The waiter brought MacSmith’s drink.

  “Sure you d
on’t want some grappa, Trotti?”

  “I had breakfast in the hotel.”

  The sound of a pneumatic drill was hardly audible against the noise in the piazza. Permanent canvas roofs protected the various stands—sausages, cheeses, wines, old detective magazines, doughnuts. Tourists wandered aimlessly backwards and forward, mixing with the Veronese housewives and the amiable merchants. “Where are you staying?”

  “Via Pigna.”

  “You could’ve stayed at my place.”

  “I’m with a friend.”

  “A lady friend?” MacSmith raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations.” He swallowed a thirsty gulp of grappa.

  “You were married once, I seem to remember.”

  The dark eyes watered. “What do you want from me, Trotti?”

  “You heard about the murdered policewoman?”

  “I got your message.”

  “A man called Galandra. I think he may be involved directly or indirectly in the girl’s death.”

  “Galandra?”

  “He got seven years for watering down blood and selling it at the Policlinico San Matteo.”

  “In your city?”

  Trotti nodded.

  “What’s that got to do with me—or with Verona?”

  “He was in prison here.”

  “So what?” A tone of aggression had crept into MacSmith’s Australian accent.

  “You can help me.”

  He held up the glass. “You’re paying for the drinks?”

  “Official channels are temporarily closed to me.”

  MacSmith laughed unexpectedly and the bags beneath his eyes seemed to have a movement of their own.

  From the Piazza dei Signori came the sound of a church bell.

  43: Dresden

  SHE HAD PUT a woollen shawl over the gently tanned skin.

  “I thought Pisanelli was a friend.”

  “Who’s Pisanelli?”

  “He works with me in the Questura.”

  “Have I met him?”

  “He came to your house, signora. He brought the flowers.”

  “He was the same man who phoned me?”

  “No—that was Magagna.”

  The arena was always full for the operas, particularly the Puccini and Verdi. Now only the bank of seats directly opposite the stage was filled. All the scenery from Aida had been removed—sphinxes that sprawled nonchalantly into the streets around the arena—and in its place five columns supported a strange, undulating canopy that appeared to be made out of polystyrene foam. Beneath this temporary roof, the chairs in the bright light were empty, awaiting the arrival of the orchestra. The music stands were barren, like skeletons, without their scores.