When she was gone he cut the string on the first sack with a penknife, let half the mail dribble out on to the reception desk then started to sort it by department, laying the envelopes and packages out across the desk from left to right. It took him twenty minutes, and he finished by tying up each departmental bundle with an elastic band. While doing the job he managed to unload a couple of piles on to people passing through the reception area. No one complained if you asked them to take up mail for their department. It saved them having to explain where they had been. They could say they were waiting for an important letter. As a rule, they’d been out of the office for coffee or a cigarette, sometimes both.
He loaded the remaining bundles on a little cart, then took the lift to the top floor.
The president’s secretary, Paolo Gualducci, was working on the computer.
‘Morning, Sandro. What have you got for us today?’
There wasn’t very much. Six letters with handwritten addresses in small, expensive envelopes embossed with the titles of the senders, or the names and symbols of the towns that had sent them. Those would be invitations to official events. There was a flimsy oversized white envelope that might have contained a report or papers.
‘And then there’s this,’ said the porter, holding up a padded yellow envelope which seemed to be heavy at one end and light at the other.
Paolo Gualducci looked up. ‘What is it?’ he asked, taking the envelope from the porter and weighing it in his hand. The address was written in capital letters and red ink – a leaking biro by the look of it. The writing seemed to slant to the left, as if whoever had written it was no great expert with a pen. Gualducci turned the envelope over, looking for the address of the sender which was generally written on the back in case the letter got lost or couldn’t be delivered for some reason. The back of the envelope was blank. He laid it down flat on his blotter.
‘Thanks, Sandro,’ he said, telling him to get lost, more or less.
As Sandro Gioli went out of the door, he heard Gualducci pick up the telephone and say one word: ‘Security.’
Sandro Gioli was back behind the reception desk when a large black van with a flashing blue light pulled up outside the Regional Government building five minutes later. He held the door open as four uniformed men charged into the building, each carrying two large black canvas bags which were stamped with the letters R.B.D.S. He’d never seen officers like those in the building before. They didn’t say a word to him or to each other. They commandeered the lift, passing the bags from one man to the next like a human chain, then they all piled in and pressed the button. The door closed and Sandro watched as the floors lit up on the panel, stopping on the top floor. The red light started flashing off and on, off and on. Evidently they had blocked the doors to the lift, which meant that both the lifts were out of action.
‘You’ll have to take the stairs,’ he said as two girls came in from their coffee break.
‘We’re on the fourth bloody floor!’ one of them protested.
While they were standing there, trying to decide what to do – wait for the lift or climb the stairs – a voice came over the public announcement system.
‘For your safety, you are advised to evacuate the building immediately. Leave all personal belongings behind you. Please, do not run. Use the stairs in an orderly fashion. The lifts are out of action. Go at once to your designated assembly point and identify yourself to your appointed safety officer.’
That was when the scramble started. The two girls were hardly out of the door before the stampede caught up with them.
‘Don’t panic!’ Sandro Gioli shouted, holding open the door to the street as people went charging out. ‘No pushing, please.’
Sirens sounded and two squad cars screeched to a halt in front of the entrance.
The policemen didn’t enter the building. They took positions outside the main door instead, guarding it the way the Securicor men used to guard it, hands on pistols, in the old days when salaries and cheques had been delivered on the last Friday of every month.
Within three minutes, the building was empty.
As far as Sandro Gioli knew, the only people who remained inside were the president, the president’s secretary, the four police officers and …
‘Oi, you!’ A policeman came running up the steps from the street. ‘What the fuck are you doing in there? This place could go up at any minute.’
Next thing, Sandro Gioli found himself standing alone in the street. He had no idea where to go or what to do. He was the early porter. No one had ever told him where his designated assembly point was, or who his safety officer might be.
‘What’s up?’ he asked the policeman.
‘A bomb scare,’ the man snarled. ‘Now, get out of here!’
It wasn’t a bomb.
Sandro Gioli heard the details on the six o’clock news that night.
Members of the Regional Bomb Disposal Squad had been called to the office. They had opened an envelope, the newsman said, ‘which had been carelessly passed from hand to hand. No one seemed to be aware of the danger to which top staff and management had been exposed’.
The report had cut to an interview with a high-ranking police officer. ‘Incidents like this one,’ he said, ‘often result in serious injury, and sometimes even death.’
And yet, it wasn’t a bomb. The bomb disposal experts had found three unexploded bullets. There was a shot of the Queen as well.
‘I will not be intimidated,’ she said defiantly, looking straight into the camera, as if she knew who might have sent her those bullets.
What a pair of balls she has, thought Sandro Gioli.
THIRTY
That evening
It took him a moment to identify the voice.
The Queen sounded even more agitated than she had the day they had met.
‘President Pignatti, I am so pleased to—’
She didn’t let him finish. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, General Corsini. I seem to remember you saying that you had the situation under control.’ Her voice was taut with anger. She didn’t swear, but it required an effort.
General Corsini frowned and the nerve in his eyebrow began to throb.
‘Has something happened, dear lady?’
She let out a snarl. ‘Three bullets. Three of them! That’s what I’m talking about. In an envelope addressed to me. It will be on the news at any minute. My bloody secretary called in the bomb squad! Are you quite certain that you have everything under control, General Corsini?’
He heard the sarcasm in her voice, but he didn’t respond to it. ‘The envelope was addressed specifically to you?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t I just told you? Three big, shiny bullets!’
Corsini didn’t say anything. He was thinking.
‘Did you hear me, General?’
Corsini sat down behind his desk, his thumb nail jammed between his teeth.
‘General Corsini, for Christ’s sake!’
Corsini grabbed the bull by the horns. ‘This means that I was right, President Pignatti. These people are very dangerous indeed, and it is time for us to act. They have decided to raise the stakes, it seems. But we can beat them at their own game—’
‘Game, General Corsini? Which game are we talking about? My life is in danger, and you talk of games? You’re joking, I hope.’
General Corsini took a deep breath. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, ‘and listen carefully. Thanks to those bullets … thanks to me, you will be sitting in Parliament before too long. Do you understand me? All you have to do is follow my instructions to the letter …’
When he put the phone down some minutes later, General Corsini sank back in his padded chair and closed his eyes. Three unexploded bullets in an unsigned envelope. What was it that Sun Tzu had said?
‘Take full advantage of new horizons as they open up.
Exploit the vulnerability of human nature.’
THIRTY-ONE
The next day
Maur
izio Truini pulled up in the supermarket car park.
It was Thursday afternoon, so the place wasn’t full. Then again, it wasn’t empty either, as people started stocking up on stuff for the weekend. As he strode towards the entrance, heads began to turn his way.
He was wearing a pencil-striped seersucker blazer over a yellow shirt and straw-coloured trousers, a red tie and a matching breast-pocket handkerchief. But it wasn’t only the flamboyant clothes that caught the shoppers’ eyes – it was the state of the mayor’s face that pulled them up sharp. Bright red cheeks, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, a look of stern determination clouding his features.
‘Ciao, Maurizio!’ someone called across the parking lot.
The mayor ignored them and kept on walking, straight in through the automatic doors.
A woman coming out with a loaded trolley and two young kids was forced to one side as he rocketed past her. There were six checkout counters, young girls in orange overalls ‘manning’ three of the tills and half-a-dozen shoppers queuing up to pay. About twenty witnesses, if you thought of it that way, but Maurizio Truini just saw faces that lit up for an instant as they recognized him – ooh, you’ll never guess who we saw today! – then looked away when they realized that he wasn’t in a vote-seeking mood.
‘Where’s the manager?’ he barked at one of the cashiers.
The girl at the checkout blushed bright red and pointed at a door with a ground glass window on which the word private was written.
Truini turned away without a word. He didn’t see the looks he left behind, didn’t hear the whispered comments. ‘He’s in a proper state. Did you see the way he was scowling?’
‘Someone’s in for a right old rollicking,’ the checkout girl murmured as she dealt out change.
Mayor Truini didn’t knock on the door marked private, didn’t wait to be invited in. He pushed the door, walked straight into the office then slammed the door hard behind him.
A young woman was sitting behind a desk. Blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, a pretty face, nice tits. At any other time he might have tried it on. But Cesira was sitting in front of her.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Mayor Truini growled.
Cesira whimpered something that he didn’t catch.
‘I’m sorry to say …’ the girl began, but Maurizio Truini wasn’t having it.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ he repeated, separating the words, one from another.
‘The lady here—’
Truini stopped her. ‘You know who the “lady” is, I presume?’
The young woman in the white cotton blouse opened her mouth to speak, but the mayor got there first. ‘And who the hell are you?’
The girl pinched a plastic nameplate on her shirt with her finger and thumb. ‘I’m the assistant manager, Loredana Salvini. I …’
‘Where’s Rodolfo?’ the mayor insisted.
A trace of a smile seemed to grace the girl’s lips for an instant. ‘The manager’s in hospital in Corfu. Food poisoning, I believe. Rotten lobster. For the moment, I’m in charge here.’
Maurizio Truini’s face snapped into a smile that was as stiff and humourless as a wooden puppet’s. ‘Just remember who you’re talking to,’ he said, ‘or you mightn’t be in charge for long.’
The girl stared back at him, abashed but not subdued. ‘I’ll try to remember that, sir,’ she said, as if she had a hard life dealing with difficult customers on a regular basis. ‘The lady here was caught trying to leave the store with goods she hadn’t paid for.’
‘Goods?’ Truini repeated. ‘Which “goods” are we talking about?’
The assistant manager waved her hand over a tube of toothpaste and a little green box containing a pair of tights. ‘These,’ she said.
Maurizio Truini groaned out loud. He should have known they’d catch her sooner or later. Cesira’s little habit. She had this thing about nicking stuff. ‘How much are we talking about?’ he said, pulling open his jacket and reaching for his inside pocket, his hand poised.
‘Not a lot,’ the assistant manager said with a conciliatory smile. ‘The toothpaste’s €1.35. Three or four euros, I suppose … I’m not really sure of the price of the tights. But the thing is, Signore Truini …’
‘Mayor Truini,’ the mayor reminded her.
‘As I was about to say, Mayor Truini, this is not the first time. We have filmed your wife shoplifting quite a few times. I’ve discussed the matter on a number of occasions with the manager …’
‘Rodolfo Venturini,’ the mayor said, as if the name made a difference.
‘We know who the lady is, of course. We know who you are, too. We have overlooked the matter previously. But it really does have to stop …’
‘This will stop it for today,’ Truini said, whipping out a €100 note from his wallet and dropping it on the desk in front of her. He took his wife by the arm and pulled her roughly to her feet. ‘Grab your purchases,’ he said. He turned to Loredana Salvini again. ‘Keep the change,’ he said. ‘It will cover the next twenty visits.’
The assistant manager was on her feet now, too. ‘We hope there won’t be any more visits, Mayor Truini. Indeed, we … I would be most grateful if your wife took her business elsewhere.’
While the assistant manager was speaking, Cesira picked up her ill-gotten trifles and stuffed them back inside her handbag.
‘I’ll talk to Rodolfo when he gets back from Corfu,’ Maurizio Truini said. ‘You can bet your life that we’ll be talking about you. Take my advice, love – start looking for a new job!’
As the couple left the office and the door slammed hard again, Loredana Salvini noticed the folded piece of paper that Cesira Truini had left behind on the desk. She picked it up and would have followed them out of the store and given it back to her, except for the fact that the mayor, her husband, had been so rude.
What should she do with it?
It might be nothing more than a shopping list, something of no importance. If that were the case she would drop it in the wastebin and forget about it. On the other hand, it might be something important. In that event, she thought, the mayor or his wife would be back for it. Loredana took an envelope from a drawer, wrote the manager’s name on the front, then placed the €100 banknote inside it. Let Rodolfo sort it out when he got back.
She went into the shop and had a word with the girl on the nearest checkout. ‘How much are the striped Golden Lady tights?’ she asked.
‘Two-forty nine,’ the girl said.
‘Ring up a damaged goods sale for €3.84,’ Loredana told her.
Back in the office, she unfolded the sheet of paper and read what was written there. A list of names. There must have been a hundred of them. What had Cangio told her the other day about lists of names?
She folded the paper into four and put it in her handbag.
Maurì was in a right mood.
He gave her ‘what for’ all the way home.
‘One of these days I’ll wring your bloody neck,’ he said as the car pulled up in front of the house. ‘I won’t be in for dinner tonight.’
Cesira was frightened, shocked. She had almost been arrested for shoplifting and all Maurizio could think of was his job at the town hall, his position in society, what people would say if the news got out that his wife was a thief.
She didn’t have the courage to tell him about the piece of paper she’d taken from his briefcase the night before. She’d seen it lying on the assistant manager’s desk, but Maurì was dragging her out of the supermarket door by then. What if it really was important?
She could tell him that she’d found it lying on the floor, then put it away in her bag, meaning to give it to him the minute he got home …
The blow caught her completely by surprise, a back-hander that split her lip and caused her nose to bleed.
‘Don’t ever do anything like that again!’ he snarled.
As blood dripped on to her best pink blouse, she reached inside her blue Fendi bag for a paper tissue
and decided to tell him nothing. It would serve him bloody right!
THIRTY-TWO
The next morning
He looks like Mister Nobody.
The idea popped into Cangio’s head as General Corsini came striding down the corridor towards him, the spitting image of his maths teacher at secondary school. Cangio couldn’t remember the teacher’s name, but the nickname had stuck forever. The general wore the same sort of glasses, too – round metal frames with blue-tinged lenses that had a way of reflecting the light back into your eyes.
General Corsini and Mister Nobody might have been twin brothers.
The similarity ended there, of course. General Corsini wasn’t the sort of man who would take kindly to fun at his expense. His had been a ‘meteoric career’, as more than one journalist had described it, making him, at fifty-one, the youngest ever head of the national Carbinieri Special Forces.
Cangio stood a head taller than the general, but his heart leapt into his mouth as the small man stopped before him. His legs were quaking as he snapped to attention and stiffly returned the general’s military salute. He had been standing out in the corridor for almost an hour by then.
‘You must be the ranger from Umbria,’ the general said.
‘Sebastiano Cangio, sir.’
‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘I didn’t expect a reply so soon, sir.’
The general smiled. ‘That wasn’t what I meant, Cangio. Have you been waiting here in the corridor for long?’ As he spoke, he took out a key and unlocked the office door.
Cangio saluted again. ‘Not long, sir.’
‘Good.’ Corsini nodded, waving him in through the door like a policeman directing traffic. ‘Let’s waste no more of your time then,’ he said. ‘We need to clear this situation up.’
The office was empty. No secretary, no junior officers. No one but themselves.
Why had he been summoned so quickly? Was Corsini going to tell him that he had reported Cangio to his superiors for contacting an officer from a separate branch of the police force?
Cry Wolf Page 15
