“You choke to death as your leg muscles can no longer resist the tension.”
The first light of dawn on Trotti’s last day on earth.
As his head was pulled back, as the rope burrowed into his skin, Trotti finally knew where he was and smiled at the irony.
The smell of sulphur, the low clouds tinted by the street lights: an ugly place, the edge of the city where the old houses gradually fell away and where the surfaced road became a cart track, running parallel to the river—a no-man’s land inhabited by a thin phalanx of plane trees. Beyond them the allotments, then the textile factory, its smokeless chimneys and the satellite apartment blocks.
The man let go and Trotti, head pinned back by his bent legs, could see nothing other than the first light of morning on the waters of the Po.
Coming home.
Trotti bent his legs. He did not have the courage to throttle himself. He was afraid of pain, but he was also aware of the man standing beside him. Aware of his own fear.
There was the glint of a knife blade.
The rain was now falling heavily, running down Trotti’s face, seeping through his clothes.
Mutilated, strangled and burned to little more than a cinder lying in the dust beside the river Po.
No more pain, no more pain, Trotti prayed silently.
Somewhere towards the city, there was a distant whine of a siren.
88: Sacristan
Wilma was bent over him and she was kissing him; not the kisses of love, but fierce kisses that hurt his bruised parched mouth. Trotti ran his tongue along the edge of his lips and tried to pull away. In irritation, Wilma muttered something and as she spoke, her place was taken by the Uruguayan whore. There was garlic on Eva’s bitter breath; garlic and too many cigarettes. Trotti could feel all the strength in Eva’s arms. As she held her mouth to his, Trotti wondered if Eva was brutal with all her clients. He wondered how much she would charge to be more gentle.
Eva and Trotti had always haggled over money.
He raised his hand to caress the woman’s black hair, but Trotti’s hand was brushed away and he fell into a deep sleep.
Later he could hear the sound of the women’s voices.
He was coming out of a dream and the voices were talking to him, but when Trotti opened his eyes, he was alone. He could no longer recall the dream but he recognized the voices.
He saw the sky and the wind pulling at the curtains. The shutters were not completely closed; beyond the window the clouds were grey. It was raining.
Trotti climbed out of the bed.
His bed.
The old body ached, his tongue was still swollen, his head was spinning, and with difficulty he managed to keep his balance. Carefully he moved towards the bedside chair and put on the dressing gown that had been draped over the armrest.
His dressing gown.
Taking small and careful steps, Trotti made his way towards the voices, towards the familiar smells.
He had to lean against the wall.
“Buongiorno.”
They turned and smiled hesitantly, like two girls caught by the sacristan while gossiping in church.
“I thought I smelled coffee,” Trotti said.
Anna Maria was solicitous. “You’re still alive?”
“In a hurry for an answer?”
“A nice bruise, Piero.”
“Several nice bruises, and they all hurt.” He lowered himself onto the kitchen chair.
“Which only serves you right for gallivanting halfway across the country,” Anna Maria remarked with her habitual severity.
“I wasn’t gallivanting.”
“Why go to Rome? Have you suddenly decided in your old age you don’t like this part of the world anymore? You don’t care for your family? You don’t like via Milano?”
“I was in Rome for my friend’s wedding.”
“That’s how you nearly got yourself killed? Doesn’t sound very civilized.”
Trotti asked, “What time is it?”
“The doctor gave you something to make you sleep.” His cousin gave him a perfunctory kiss on the forehead and a reassuring tap on the shoulder. “Would you care for something to eat, Piero?”
“I’m starving.”
“You take these stupid risks. You honestly think you’re still a young man with a full head of hair. The nice policeman says you spent the night in the trunk of a car. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
“Sorry about that.”
Simona Scola had been drinking coffee. She stood up from the table—there was the parish newssheet and Pisanelli’s mobile phone on the formica top—and moved towards him, concern on her face.
She brushed her fingers against his cheek. “You hit your head, Piero?”
“Somebody hit my head.”
“Why?”
“Somebody hit my head, somebody hit my back, somebody trussed me like a pig and tried to throttle me to death.” Trotti shrugged. He could smell her perfume, he could see his reflection in the bright, dark eyes. Gentle eyes. “I lost consciousness. It’s my head that hurts.” Trotti moved away from the touch of her cool fingers. “The last thing I can remember was lying on the ground by the river. It was raining and I was cold and wet.”
“Your man called half an hour ago.” Anna Maria nodded in the direction of the old clock above the refrigerator. It was nearly ten o’clock. “He wants you to ring back.”
“What man?”
“With the Abruzzi accent.”
“Magagna?”
Anna Maria added, pointing a thin finger at the mobile phone, “Your daughter hasn’t stopped phoning since you got here.”
“How’s Pioppi?”
“Worried about you.”
“Pioppi’s all right? The girls are safe?”
“The girls are safe, Piero Trotti. Which is more than can be said for you.”
“Pioppi started talking in Slovene.”
“You and Agnese always spoiled her. That young lady knows how to look after herself.” Anna Maria rose from the table—she no longer wore her Dutch slacks, but the shapeless, somber clothes of an old woman from the hills beyond the Po. At seventy-six, Anna Maria was an old woman from the hills. “You’d care for strong coffee with your sugar, Piero?”
Trotti noticed a conspiratorial glance that passed between the two women.
Signora Scola smiled, coughed and said, “Your cousin called me as soon as the Carabinieri brought you here.”
“Carabinieri?”
Anna Maria remarked, not without pride, “Even as a little boy, Piero Trotti was always getting into trouble. A stubborn, headstrong child—affectionate and sweet but very, very stubborn.”
“Really, Piero, apart from that nasty bruise, you look fine. In fact, for once you don’t look tired.”
“I must’ve slept round the clock.” He had once loved the woman.
“Is there anything that I can do to help?”
Trotti did not answer Signora Scola’s question.
Anna Maria busied herself with the coffee. She poured fresh milk into a saucepan. Her back was towards Trotti and Scola.
(“Perhaps you thought the Scola woman would keep quiet about your nasty habits?”)
“Is there anything I can do for you, Piero?” Scola asked again.
“Best if I’m left alone, for the time being.”
“I can nurse you.”
“Nurse your husband, signora. He needs you—he’s in a wheelchair.”
“You’re angry with me, Piero?”
“You don’t need to look after me, Signora Scola.”
“I want to help.”
“You know all about my nasty little habits.”
Signora Scola frowned; standing in front of him in the kitchen of via Milano, she looked slim and graceful and
very feminine. “Habits?”
“My nasty little habits with children.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“You understand, Signora Scola.”
She shook her head.
“You know how everybody’s been covering up for Commissario Trotti.”
Scola shook her head a second time.
“Commissario Trotti, the pervert, the child molester, the sodomite.”
Her mouth fell open. Trotti saw the pink triangle of her tongue and the white, even lines of her teeth.
“I need a hot shower,” Trotti said. “I’ll drink the coffee later.”
89: Solihull
Clouds had come south from the Alps, and it was now raining along the Po valley: heavy, fat drops that fell noisily onto the tarmac.
Trotti sat behind the wheel of the old Seicento. He went over the bridge and the buildings grew more scattered as he reached the open, flat countryside north of the river.
The Seicento gathered speed.
The heater was on and it was stuffy in Anna Maria’s car. Beyond the windscreen, the countryside was still bare with the scars of winter. In the distance, the long line of plane trees was tinged by a shadow of green. At last, the promise of spring.
At Gravellino, he turned left and went through the new residential areas, inhabited by people who had moved out from Milan; people who commuted daily into the metropolis just thirty kilometers to the north.
In the village, Trotti parked the car outside a small café. It was one of the few original buildings, old stables that had been transformed many years before. A rain-washed ochre façade that still carried the script of a Fascist slogan.
Better to live a day as a lion than a hundred years as a lamb.
The other houses were low buildings that imitated the style of the farmhouses that they had replaced.
Gardens were hidden by high privet hedges, and the cypresses demarcated well-kept barriers between neighbors. In one garden, Trotti saw a fountain—water that spouted enthusiastically into the damp afternoon air.
It had stopped raining.
For a moment, Trotti stood by the roadside, breathing in the air of the countryside—a bittersweet mixture of rich earth, dung, fertilizer, and rain.
Trotti had not been back to the house in eight years. It was still there at the end of the unsurfaced road. The trees in the front garden had grown and the hedge was thicker. Two cars stood in the garage, a spotless Range Rover and a mud-stained Volkswagen.
He went through the gate and rang the bell.
It was a while before the woman answered.
Signora Bianchini was wearing a pair of jeans that accentuated the flatness of her belly, and on her feet, she wore small yellow slippers. She must be nearly fifty years old, and it was not the first time that Trotti had seen Bianchini without makeup, but he was surprised by the freshness, by the youthfulness of her face.
And by the radiance of her smile.
“Piero, how nice to see you!” She stepped back and Trotti could see the pleasure was not feigned.
“Surprised you’re not in Tuscany, Signora Bianchini.”
“Tuscany?” She laughed in surprise. “What do you want me to go to Tuscany for?”
“Or Sicily.”
“Come in, commissario, and stop talking your foolishness. And my name is no longer Bianchini. You know I’ve been married for eight years now.”
“Is your husband with you?”
She laughed happily. “My husband’s got nothing to hide.”
She had left her native Caserta as a teenager, had come north and had done a lot of degrading jobs before marrying the wealthy Bianchini. She had lost all trace of a southern accent and now she spoke in the flat accent of the Po valley.
“He’s certainly been hiding from me.”
“You, commissario, who’s the recluse. You never leave that lair of yours in via Milano.” Watching him carefully, she added, “Somebody was telling me you’ve got a girlfriend now.”
“My cousin.”
She shook her head mockingly, turned lightly on her toes and led Trotti into the house.
The living room was dark and smelled of varnish and cigar smoke. A grandfather clock stood in one corner and a vase of freshly cut flowers stood on the polished credenza. The furniture looked unused.
There was a portable computer, and two men were facing each other from either side of the polished table. They had been staring at the computer’s blue screen; they looked up in false surprise as Trotti entered the room.
Both men nodded, but neither smiled.
The woman invited Trotti to sit down. “Gentlemen,” she said, “perhaps you’d care for a drink.”
Trotti took the chair and his glance went from one man to another.
“I’m sure Commissario Trotti would like some wine—genuine wine from the OltrePò.” Then Signora Spadano turned to her husband—to the man she had married after the death of Bianchini, “You, Egidio, what would you like? You’re not really supposed to touch alcohol if you want to lose weight. And you, Signor Portano? Some wine and some homemade salami for you, too?”
90: Disney
“You lied to me.”
The Sicilian shook his head.
“You lied to me, Spadano. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you lie?”
“Why does anybody lie to you, Piero? Because you’re arrogant, because you must always be right, because you only believe what you want to hear. Because you won’t take any advice from anybody.”
“That entitles you to risk my life?”
“I’ve never risked your life.”
“Watching the killer bundle me into the trunk of a car—that wasn’t risking my life?”
“You risked your life the day you allowed Beltoni to die. It wasn’t me who murdered Beltoni. I never told Enzo Beltoni to come out of hiding in America and avenge his brother’s death. I never told him to kill Commissario Trotti.”
“You wanted to get your hands on Enzo Beltoni and you used me.”
Spadano shrugged. “A lot of people want Beltoni.”
“I became your bait—your unwitting bait.”
“You already were his bait, Piero.”
“You put me on the front page of the paper—on the front page of every damn paper.”
“Enzo Beltoni wanted his revenge whatever I did.”
“You handed me to him on a plate—without telling me.”
“I told you Beltoni was out to kill you.”
“Thanks to you, he nearly succeeded.”
The Carabiniere shook his head wearily. “Sooner or later, some fisherman was going to find your charred remains on the banks of the Po.”
“The decent thing would have been to tell me the truth.”
“I warned you Enzo Beltoni’d left America and was back in Italy. I told you he was looking for you. What more could you want?”
“You didn’t tell me you were using me.”
“You never listen, Piero.”
“Who says I wouldn’t have listened?”
“Piero, Piero,” Spadano said unhappily. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re like.”
“Like?”
“Stubborn and opinionated and contemptuous.”
“Stubborn and opinionated and contemptuous when a friend’s risking my neck for the sake of his own advancement?”
“Bit old for advancement, aren’t I?” Spadano laughed in feigned disbelief. “In Siena, you talked all your rubbish, your peace of the senses. You told me you’d lived out your usefulness.” Spadano snorted derisively. “Piero Trotti’s Nunc Dimittis—or have you forgotten?”
“In Siena, I believed you were a general of the Carabinieri, Spadano, and I thought you were doing me a favor.”
&
nbsp; “I am a general of the Carabinieri and I was doing you a favor, Piero Trotti. A big favor.”
“By sending me to see the Lia Guerra woman?” Trotti had started to raise his voice. “For heaven’s sake, Spadano, the man nearly killed me.”
Spadano gestured with the cigar towards Portano. “If Harry hadn’t intervened, you’d now be dead meat down by the river.”
Trotti glanced briefly at the other man.
“Burnt steak. You’ve got a lot to thank Harry for. Not least the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
“Harry?”
Portano was wearing his shabby, crumpled suit. The Neapolitan had been sitting at the varnished table, smoking his cigarette, never taking his eyes off the computer. He was very pale. Now a smile worked its way across the long face as he removed the cigarette from where it hung at the corner of his mouth.
“Harry Portano of the DEA.”
Trotti said to Spadano, “I thought your Harry was in the hospital with a case of mumps.”
“Drug Enforcement Agency,” Spadano said. “Harry’s people in Washington have been helping us look into BRAMAN.”
“Perhaps I owe you an apology, commissario,” Portano said.
“Washington.” Trotti gave a whistle.
Portano’s head moved slowly as he turned to face Trotti. “I owe you an apology, Commissario Trotti. I overreacted.”
“Hitting an old man? Striking him across the face when he’s handcuffed. Knocking him senseless when he’s unarmed? Insulting him when you know he’s innocent? Accusing him of murder? Of pedophilia and incest?” Briefly returning the American’s glance, Trotti softly asked, “What makes you think for a minute you were overreacting?”
Spadano said, “My fault, Piero.”
Trotti turned back to Spadano, “Your fault this bastard knocked me senseless?”
“We wanted to piss you off a bit.”
“You told this shitbag to beat up an old policeman? Is that what you’re saying, Spadano? You wanted me spitting spinal fluid?”
No reply.
“My good friend General Spadano of the Carabinieri was deliberately pissing me off?”
“Not always easy to be your friend, Piero.”
The Second Day of the Renaissance Page 23
