Black August

by Timothy Williams

  “There’s no reason to be pissed off with me, Trotti. I told you that if you needed information, you could come to me. Remember?” Gabbiani took his hand from the steering wheel and held up a finger. “I told you it was just possible that I knew what you needed.”

  “You knew about the Casa Patrizia?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you said nothing?”

  Gabbiani laughed. “The Finanza were in there earlier this year. The Carabinieri and the Nucleo Antisofisticazione have been called in twice in the last two years.”

  “The Carabinieri?”

  “Concerning complaints of impropriety. A woman complaining that her mother was being kept chained to her bed.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “That’s not my fault, Trotti. You work in the city; what happens in the province seems to concern you less and less.”

  “Antisofisticazione never informed me.”

  “Perhaps you could be a bit more diplomatic in your dealings with the Carabinieri.” Gabbiani shrugged. “I’m supposed to be running Narcotici. Unlike you, Trotti, I can’t afford to have enemies.”

  “Narcotici have been keeping tabs on Carnecine?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Carnecine’s been dealing in drugs?”

  “No longer.” Gabbiani shook his head.

  “There’ve been drugs?”

  “Several years ago some students were getting their hands on pharmaceutical preparations. At the time, we suspected somebody inside the Casa Patrizia. Not Carnecine—it would’ve been too dangerous for him. It could’ve been one of the doctors . . .”

  “Silvi?”

  “I don’t know anybody of that name. It could’ve been an orderly.”

  “Then why surveillance on Carnecine?”

  “I never said surveillance.” He glanced at Trotti sitting beside him; then his eyes returned to the road. “There are a thousand places like the Casa Patrizia throughout the country. The cities and the provinces just haven’t got enough money for the number of beds required. And with the disappearance of asylums, it’s got a lot worse. Which means there are a lot of people for the private sector to cater for. Private homes for the mentally feeble—but also for the old. A booming industry. For every well-run home, there are a couple that are in the business for the money. And even if there is legislation, it’s hard for Health or the Carabinieri to keep a tight control. There’s just not the manpower to go round—and anyway, with political support, a man like Carnecine can always be sure that he’s going to get forty-eight hours’ warning when there’s to be an inspection.” He snorted. “I imagine that for the last few years, Carnecine’s been a Socialist.”

  “Why Narcotici, Gabbiani?”

  “Not drugs, I tell you.” He took his hands from the steering wheel in mock exasperation. “Carnecine can get money elsewhere. For years he’s been able to get money from old people. You know, with somebody whose brain is befuddled, who’s old and waiting to die, a personable young man—he can make himself a fortune. A good bedside manner and an understanding smile. It’s not very difficult to persuade an eighty-year-old woman who’s not completely compos mentis to change her will, to make a donation.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  Gabbiani let out a sigh in muted irritation. “Why should I have made a connection between the older sister . . . ?”

  “Rosanna Belloni.”

  “Why should I have made a connection between her and the Casa Patrizia? I thought it was Rosanna who’d been murdered. I didn’t know it was the mad sister.”

  “When did you find out it wasn’t Rosanna who was dead but her sister?”

  “I just found out—at four o’clock. Your friend Boatti called me—and that’s why I came looking for you.”

  “You know Boatti?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What does that mean? Boatti’s a friend of yours?”

  “He’s been to see me on several occasions—said he wanted to write a book about police procedure.”

  “You believed him?”

  “Of course I believed him—I’ve seen a couple of chapters. Not bad—but what he really wanted, he said, was a murder enquiry.” Seeing Trotti silent, Gabbiani resumed, “And now I’ve got something to show you.”

  “Show me, Gabbiani?”

  “Why do you think I came looking for you when I could be up in the hills with my family?” Gabbiani’s dark hair had kept the luster of youth. The wide mouth broke into a humorless smile. “The questore’s right, Trotti. In your way, you do indulge in the cult of the personality—you do believe that you can get by on your own. And I really do believe that you don’t care whose feet you tread on to get what you want. As the questore would say, with your eyes on the goal, you don’t see the obstacles. You’re obsessive, Trotti. Obsessive and your obsession can make you dangerous.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “Twice as many years as me in the police force, Trotti—but at times, you behave like a spoiled child. A spoiled, neurotic kid. You believe in friendship. That’s okay, all well and good. We all believe in friendship. But in your mind, that gives you the right to barge ahead. For you, your friendship with Rosanna Belloni is more important than any professional consideration. No compunction at all, Trotti—you really have no compunction about barging in on Beltoni—on Beltoni whom I’ve been slowly building up. My Beltoni, Trotti—my informer, and you just don’t give a shit.”

  A long and very awkward silence. The inside of the car was air-conditioned. Yet both men were sweating. Both men were trying to hold back their anger and frustration.

  “Why, Trotti? You didn’t need Beltoni. What was the idea in your hauling in my informer? My informer?”

  “I’ve been working with Beltoni for over ten years—long before you ever came to the city.”

  “In public, in front of a crowd of whores and transvestites? Did you really need to do that? Did you really need to screw all our work up? Or was it just a show you were putting on for Boatti’s sake? For Boatti, the novelist. Something exciting that he could put into his book? His book about the supercop, Commissario Piero Trotti.”

  Trotti did not reply.

  “Well?”

  “Beltoni owes me several favors.” Trotti rubbed his chin, now staring through the tinted glass at the approaching city skyline, the dome of the cathedral and the scaffolded towers, almost imperceptible against the darkening sky. Rain. “I’m an old man, Gabbiani—an old policeman.”

  “So what?”

  “So what? A woman I once cared about was killed. No clues, nothing. Beltoni’s been a contact for years—perhaps you don’t know that.”

  “And so you brawl with him in the city?”

  Trotti caught his breath. “I don’t trust Boatti. I don’t trust him and I didn’t trust his motives, his story about wanting to write a book.” Trotti shrugged. “I couldn’t help feeling he’d been sicced on to me—he was there to report back. I was most probably wrong—but I felt he was the questore’s man.”

  “That entitles you to screw up all our work?”

  “Come on, Gabbiani—are you telling me there are people who don’t know Beltoni’s an informer? You’re really trying to tell me that?”

  “You’re dangerous, Trotti.”

  “Dangerous perhaps.” Trotti laughed caustically. “But at least I try to be honest. In my own way, I try to be honest.”

  It suddenly seemed to get very chill inside the German car.

  “And I’m not, Piero Trotti?”

  “I thought that Maria Cristina was involved in Rosanna’s murder—and I was looking for information off the street.”

  “I’m not honest like you?”

  “Information that perhaps Beltoni could give me.”

  “Answer my question.”


  Trotti remained silent.

  Gabbiani pointed a finger at Trotti. “Is that what you’re trying tell me? I’m bent?”

  Silence.

  “I’m bent, Trotti?”

  “Not for me to say, Gabbiani.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You have your conscience and I have mine.”

  “You accuse me of not living up to your high standards of probity? Piero Trotti’s high deontological standards of probity?”

  Trotti did not reply.

  “Is that it? Drug money—I’m living off drug money?”

  “The last time you gave me a lift, it was in a little Innocenti.”

  “Because I drive a BMW, I’m on the take? Is that it, Trotti?”

  “And a luxurious villa at Pietragavina?” Like venom that had a mind of its own, that Trotti could not hold back.

  “Luxurious villa at Pietragavina,” Gabbiani repeated.

  “Not the sort of thing that could come out of my policeman’s salary.” Resentment. Old bitterness.

  Gabbiani took a packet of Nazionali cigarettes from the dashboard. “You don’t have a villa on one of the lakes, Trotti?” The grey eyes now squinted behind the long, dark eyelashes as he lit the cigarette. Smoke rose from the dashboard lighter. The hand shook slightly.

  “You’re head of Narcotici. You do your job as you think best—and I try to do mine. We may not share the same values. I’m sorry about Beltoni—I’m sorry. Next time, I’ll keep you informed. I’ll send you a request in triplicate, Gabbiani. I’m sorry. As I said, I was making an enquiry into the death of a friend.”

  “You don’t have a villa, Trotti? On Garda, you’ve got a villa, haven’t you?”

  “It belongs to my wife.”

  “And you’re the only policeman to have a wealthy wife?”

  72: Peace of the Senses

  Boatti and Commissario Merenda were standing together beneath the same black umbrella.

  Boatti was speaking into his voice recorder.

  Finally the rain had started to fall, thick drops that fell on to the dusty earth and into the slowly moving waters of the river. 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. One or two farmhouses beyond the high-water mark, mostly uninhabited. Beyond them, the allotments, then the textile factory, its smokeless chimneys and the satellite apartment blocks, squalid beneath the rain.

  Trotti and Gabbiani got out of the car.

  Toccafondi caught sight of them and hurried over, carrying an umbrella. Despite the warm evening air, he was wearing his uniform leather jacket and gloves. He grinned nervously, touching his beret.

  “What is it?” Trotti gestured to where police lines had been put up. A small crowd had gathered, but there was no artificial light other than a police car with its main beam. It was hard to make out the dark, stumpy object that had been cordoned off.

  The object cast a long shadow over the ground.

  “Looks like a professional job. Badly mutilated, very badly mutilated. And then burnt with petrol.” Grinning bravely, Toccafondi closed his eyes. “They cut most of his fingers off. Not a very pretty sight . . . I couldn’t help . . .” He swallowed hard, then the smile returned to his young face.

  “Who is it?” Trotti frowned and moved forward.

  The arms and legs must have been tied together behind the back.

  “Classic Mafia killing,” Gabbiani remarked calmly. “You choke to death as your leg muscles can no longer resist the tension.” He snorted. “And then they burnt him. Probably cut his tongue out, as well. Organized crime doesn’t like informers. I think he’s got a lot to thank you for, Piero.”

  Beltoni.

  Trotti stepped away from Gabbiani’s umbrella; he ducked under the police rail and moved towards the black hump.

  Surprisingly, the flames had left much of the face intact. Everything else was carbonized—black like a burnt tire—but the face was untouched, cheek against the ground. The long hair had been singed, and the empty mouth lolled open against the dusty earth that was now forming rivulets of rainwater.

  Trotti crouched down in the headlights. The rain was now falling heavily, running down his face, seeping through his clothes.

  Piero Trotti looked at what had once been the body of Beltoni, addict, drug dealer and police informer. Thirty-five years earlier, a mother’s baby, and now dead.

  No more hunger or thirst, no more desires, greed or pride. The true peace of the senses. Tortured, strangled and burnt to little more than a cinder lying in the dust beside the river Po.

  “Too many deaths, too many deaths,” Trotti repeated to himself.

  Somewhere towards the city, there was a distant whine of a siren.

  He stood up.

  Boatti, Merenda, Maiocchi, Pisanelli, Toccafondi and Gabbiani were there. They stood in silence, beneath the rain, looking at him.

  “Gabbiani, for God’s sake, give me one of your Nazionali.” Trotti ran a hand over his wet face. “Fast.”

  break