Although he had been expecting it, it was still a shock. He put it away in his pocket unopened, and mechanically leafed through the report on the forensic tests he had unofficially requested on the Fiat Argenta saloon which Gilberto Nieddu had stolen from outside the cemetery during Ruggiero Miletti’s funeral and left abandoned near the scene of the murder. He had pinned all his hopes on this report providing him with some positive evidence to lay before the investigating magistrate, Rosella Foria, and when it had arrived that morning he’d been bitterly disappointed.
True, the three Pirellis and the odd Michelin on the car corresponded ‘in their general type and configuration’ to the marks found at the murder site, as he had confirmed when he checked the car at the SIMP garage. But in the absence of ‘specific individuating features’ a positive identification was not possible, while the soil samples found were merely ‘consistent with types found throughout the area’. As for the interior, it was clear that the mechanic had done his work well. The only items found were inconclusive traces of paint and dust, some cigarette ash, a few yellow nylon threads and a fifty-lire coin which had fallen and lodged beside the seat support, whose metal base had protected it from the nozzle of Massimo’s vacuum cleaner. In short, nothing that would persuade Rosella Foria that there was any case for pursuing this line of inquiry, when to do so would mean admitting that the Miletti family was under suspicion. To justify that you would need a lot more than the vague phrases of the report and the confused statements of a single witness. You would practically need a photograph of one of them pulling the trigger, and it had better be a bloody good photograph, and even then the smart thing to do would be to tear it up, burn the fragments and forget you’d ever seen it.
The door opened and a grizzled face bound in a green scarf appeared. At the same moment the phone began to ring.
‘ May I speak to Commissioner Aurelio Zen, please.’
A woman’s voice, cool and distant.
‘Speaking.’
‘ This is Rosella Foria, investigating magistrate. I should like to see you in my office, please.’
The cleaning woman was already hard at work, banging her mop into the corners of the room.
‘Now?’
‘ If that is convenient.’
Her tone suggested that he’d better come even if it wasn’t.
‘It stinks!’ the cleaning woman remarked as he hung up.
‘What?’
‘He can’t control his pee.’
Her accent was so broad that Zen could barely understand.
‘I rub and scrub from morning to night but it’s no good, everything stinks.’
She waved at the crucifix Lucaroni had provided.
‘He hangs up there doing sweet fuck all and they expect us to feel sorry for Him! I just wish we could change places, that’s all! Half an hour of my life and He’d wish He was back on his nice cosy cross, believe you me.’
For once Zen accepted Palottino’s offer of a lift up to the centre of town. On the way he amused himself by constructing a prima facie case against Cinzia Miletti. The gun used to kill Ruggiero was the same calibre as the pistol registered in her name, and the old salad-gatherer said that the driver of the Fiat had blonde hair. Cinzia claimed to have gone to Perugia to meet Ivy Cook, but Zen had discovered that she’d lied about the copy of Ruggiero’s letter, and that lie too had been intended to throw suspicion on Ivy. Cinzia could have arranged the appointment in town, gone to avenge herself on the man who had abused her innocence, then driven into Perugia and made a point of accosting Zen in order to strengthen her alibi. She’d had the motive, the means and the opportunity, and if her second name hadn’t been Miletti they would have run a ballistic check on that little pistol of hers, questioned her in detail about the time during which she claimed to have been waiting for Ivy and staged an identification parade to find out if the witness who had seen the blue Fiat and its blonde driver could pick her out. As it was, that was out of the question. Luciano Bartocci might have risked it, which was precisely why he had been replaced. Rosella Foria wouldn’t make the same mistake. If only one of those nylon threads they’d found on the floor of the SIMP Fiat had been a blonde hair instead, Zen thought. But hair is either fair or yellow, Lucaroni had told him. It sounded like a line from a pop song, and he murmured it over and over to himself as the car burbled over the cobbles of Piazza Matteotti.
Rosella Foria turned out to be a rather primly dressed, fragile-looking woman in her early thirties. Although her manner was suitably authoritative, her face seemed to seek approval. Her office, although almost identical to Bartocci’s, was impeccably neat and tidy.
‘There are two matters which I wish to discuss with you, Commissioner,’ she began. ‘The first concerns a car belonging to the Miletti family which I understand has been impounded by the police.’
Zen had been expecting something of the kind.
‘Two days ago I was informed that a blue Fiat Argenta saloon had been found abandoned near the scene of the murder,’ he replied. ‘Since such a car had been sighted by a witness near the scene and at the time of the murder I followed normal procedure and sent the vehicle for forensic analysis with a view to eliminating it from suspicion.’
‘Yet you failed to notify the Public Prosecutor’s office of this development. Why?’
Despite her uncompromising tone, she was still smiling. Zen was used to dealing with men, whose signals, ritualized over centuries of aggressive display, were clear and simple to follow. But Rosella Foria was unencumbered by such traditions.
‘Because the correspondence with the car mentioned by the witness was only superficial, and I saw no reason to anticipate a positive identification.’
The magistrate drew her well-plucked brows together.
‘I don’t understand how you could fail to see the significance of your action for the investigation, given that the car belonged to the Miletti family.’
‘I didn’t know that it did.’
Rosella Foria’s frown deepened.
‘Do you mean to say that you failed to take the elementary step of tracing the registered owner of the vehicle?’
‘On the contrary, that was the first thing I did. The car proved to be registered to a Fiat dealer. From what you have just told me I assume that it was one of those leased by the Miletti firm and used by the family.’
‘It didn’t occur to you to contact the dealer in question?’
‘I certainly should have done so if the tests had produced any positive results. But in fact they were inconclusive.’
She looked at him long and hard, but he noticed her shoulders relax and knew that it would be all right. She might or might not believe him. The main thing was that he had given her a story she could pass on to Di Leonardo and the Milettis. She was off the hook.
‘All the same, it’s most unfortunate that this has happened. Needless to say, the family are extremely displeased.’
Zen did not need to ask how they had learned of it. Like every top family, they would have a contact in the force.
‘The car was apparently stolen from outside the cemetery while they were attending their father’s funeral,’ the magistrate added, watching him carefully.
Zen’s grey eyes remained impenetrably glazed.
‘Probably some youngsters took it for a joyride and then dumped it.’
‘Possibly. In any event, we may consider the incident closed. But in the present situation misunderstandings of this kind are to be avoided at all costs. I should like your assurance that you will take no further initiatives without consulting me.’
‘Are you suggesting I have exceeded my powers?’
He knew very well that she wasn’t, of course, just as he knew what she was doing: telling him to forget the legal niceties and please not lift so much as a finger without her consent, because the situation was so delicate, the moment so critical, the stakes so high.
‘I don’t feel it’s the letter of the law that we ought to be concerne
d with here,’ she went on in a conciliatory tone, fingering the single-strand pearl necklace which looped above the neck of her Benetton cardigan. ‘It’s more a question of not hurting people’s feelings by hasty or ill-considered gestures, of not wounding a family which has just lost one of its members in deeply distressing circumstances. Above all it’s a question of not doing this when it is demonstrably gratuitous and irrelevant to the purpose of apprehending those responsible for this crime.’
‘But it’s not demonstrably anything of the kind,’ Zen protested. Although he lacked the hard evidence he’d hoped for, it was surely time to open this woman’s eyes a little, to remind her of the possibilities that were being swept under the carpet. ‘On the contrary, in my experience it’s unheard of for criminals to phone a number they know is being monitored in order to give the location of the body of a man they have just killed. If they wanted to murder Miletti, why didn’t they do it up in the mountains or wherever they were holding him? Why risk moving him to a spot close to Perugia only to shoot him dead?’
The investigating magistrate carefully rearranged the stack of papers on the desk in front of her so that the edges were perfectly aligned.
‘If I chose, I could answer these objections with a much stronger one. You seem to forget that Dottor Miletti was murdered almost twenty-four hours before the call informing us that he had been released. During that period of time only the kidnappers knew where he was. So how could anyone else possibly have committed the crime? However, this is all beside the point. I said I had two things to tell you. The first concerned the Milettis’ car. The second is that the Carabinieri in Florence have detained a number of men who are believed to be members of the gang which kidnapped and murdered Ruggiero Miletti. I’m going there tomorrow morning to conduct the formal interrogation, but I’m informed that they’ve already made a full confession.’
This was different, this was real. Zen felt like a child on the beach whose sandy battlements have melted beneath the first big wave. Appropriately, Rosella Foria’s concluding words sounded almost maternal.
‘Don’t take it too hard, Commissioner. It’s a pity that your efforts here have not been rewarded with success, but once you’re back in Rome you will no doubt soon find other outlets for your energies.’
As soon as he got outside Zen took out the telegram which had been waiting for him at the Questura. As he had thought, it was from the Ministry, informing him that his temporary transfer to the Questura of Perugia would terminate at midnight on Friday and his normal duties at the Ministry resume with effect from 0800 Monday.
For at least a minute he stood motionless on the kerb, oblivious to the animated scene around him. Then he crumpled up the telegram and walked back to the Alfetta, where he made Palottino’s day by telling him to drive to Florence as quickly as possible.
At Carabinieri headquarters in Florence Zen was received with just that air of polite suspicion that he had expected. When he announced that he had important information about the Miletti case he was taken upstairs and handed over to Captain Rivolta, a young officer with an aristocratic appearance and a languid manner who denied any personal involvement in what Zen referred to as ‘this magnificent coup’.
‘It was a tip-off, I suppose,’ Zen suggested.
Captain Rivolta gave a minimal nod.
‘From a Sardinian gang, I believe. The usual rivalry.’
‘So they were based here in Florence?’
Rivolta repeated his fastidious gesture of assent.
‘Two brothers. They ran a furniture showroom and recycled the ransom along with takings from the business. They handled the negotiations themselves. It was they who had the Miletti’s representative killed. Apparently he caught sight of one of them during the negotiations.’
Zen nodded sagely. It was going quite well, he thought. The young captain was relaxing nicely.
‘Anyway, I understand you have some information to pass on,’ Rivolta murmured.
‘No, that’s just what I told them downstairs.’
Captain Rivolta appeared to wake up fully for the first time.
‘I’ve come to see the prisoners,’ Zen explained.
‘Well, that’s a bit difficult, I’m afraid. As you are no doubt aware, requests for interrogation rights must be presented through the appropriate channels.’
‘That’s all right, I don’t want to interrogate them. I want to beat them up.’
The young officer’s superior smile froze in place, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.
‘Beat them up,’ he repeated mechanically.
‘Well, just one of them actually. The one who called me a fuckarse and a cocksucker when they had me at their mercy during the pay-off, up there in the mountains. The one who kicked me in the balls and in the face and then left me there to die. If your men hadn’t come out and found me, God bless them, I would have died! Phone them, if you don’t believe me!’
The captain held up his hands placatingly. Zen gave an embarrassed smile.
‘Anyway, perhaps you understand now why I came straight here as soon as I heard that you’d laid hands on the bastards. Just fifteen minutes, that’s all I ask.’
‘Well, I’m really not sure that I can agree to authorize you to, ah…’
‘I won’t leave a mark on him.’
‘Possibly not, but…’
‘I’ve done this sort of thing before.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you have. Nevertheless, there is the question of…’
Zen shot out of his chair.
‘There’s the question of teaching these fucking bastards to respect authority, Captain, that’s what the question is! Next time it might be you out there, remember. Now the politicians have taken away the death penalty what have these animals got to lose? We’ve got to stick together, Captain, make our own arrangements. Just fifteen minutes, that’s all I ask.’
Rivolta stared up at Zen, seemingly mesmerized.
‘You’re sure there won’t be any marks?’ he murmured at last.
Zen smiled unpleasantly.
‘Like I always say, it’s the ones that don’t show that hurt the most.’
The corridor was straight, evenly lit and apparently endless, with steel doors set at equal intervals on either side. Zen had unconsciously adopted the same pace as his escort, so their footsteps rapped out a single rhythm on the concrete floor. At length the sergeant stopped, produced a set of keys and unlocked one of the doors. Zen’s nostrils flared at the smell which emerged, sheep and smoke and dirt and sweat all worked together, overpowering the antiseptic odour which he hadn’t been aware of until it went under to this blast from another world.
There were two men in the cell, one lying on the bunk bed, the other leaning against the wall. They stared at the intruders. The Carabinieri sergeant produced a pair of handcuffs and snapped them with practised ease on to the wrists of the man on the bed.
‘On your feet, shithead,’ he remarked without animosity.
He grasped the man’s left elbow between forefinger and thumb and pushed him towards the door. The man winced and said something in dialect to the other prisoner. Then the door slammed shut and they were walking again, three of them now rapping out the same rhythm along the corridor.
They passed through a set of doors like an airlock, separating the cells from the rest of the building. The prisoner didn’t move fast enough for the sergeant’s liking and again he made him wince, although the only contact between them was the two-fingered grip on the man’s elbow. Then they turned left through a pair of swing doors into a small gymnasium.
‘Jesus!’ the Calabrian muttered.
The sergeant guided him over to a set of wall bars.
‘You’ll fucking well speak when you’re spoken to and not unless,’ he remarked.
‘But we talk already!’
‘You don’t understand,’ the sergeant told him. ‘That was work. This is pleasure.’
He spun the prisoner round, undid one end of
the handcuffs, looped it through the wall-bars and locked it back on the man’s wrist so that the handcuffs wrenched his arms up and back in the classic strappado position.
‘O??’
Zen nodded appreciatively.
‘Very nice.’
The sergeant chopped the edge of his hand down on the elbow he had been gripping earlier. The prisoner groaned.
‘Hurt his arm,’ the sergeant commented conversationally. ‘He’s all yours, then. Fifteen minutes.’
The swing doors banged together behind him a few times and then all was quiet.
Zen lit a cigarette.
‘You remember me,’ he said, placing it between the prisoner’s lips.
The man stared at him through the smoke which drifted up into his unblinking eyes.
‘Was it you?’
The prisoner drew on the cigarette. His gaze was as absolute and incurious as a cat’s. His head shook.
‘They come looking for him but he is not there. They take the brother instead and later he is dead. From then he hates all police.’
For the Calabrian the Tuscan dialect called Italian was as foreign a language as Spanish, but Zen dimly perceived the general outlines of the story.
‘We know this only after,’ the prisoner went on. ‘We phone them to get you. We don’t want anyone killed.’
‘Except Ruggiero Miletti.’
The man mouthed the cigarette to one side.
‘We don’t kill Miletti!’
‘You’ve confessed to doing so.’
‘We don’t want to end like the brother. When the judge comes we deny everything.’
‘I don’t think she’s going to be very impressed by that.’
The prisoner looked sharply at Zen.
‘It’s a woman?’
This seemed to disturb him more than anything else.
‘What of it?’
‘They’re the worst.’
Zen sighed.
‘Look, you had the means, the opportunity and a reasonable motive. Everyone is going to assume you did it, no matter what you say.’
The prisoner let the cigarette drop from his mouth and trod it out with the care of one from a land where fire is not completely domesticated.
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