by Marco Vichi
‘Sweet dreams, beautiful,’ he said, kissing her fingers, and he started to go down the stairs, followed by Rosa’s kisses, which echoed in the stairwell.
It was cold outside, and a fine, dense rain was falling. The light of the street lamps shone bright on the wet asphalt. A few illuminated windows could be seen here and there. An old man smoked on his balcony, watching the drops fall from the sky. It really did feel like November. No sign of spring in sight. Feeling a chill down his spine, Bordelli turned up the collar of his jacket. As he was unlocking his car, a raindrop fell square on the burning end of his cigarette and extinguished it. So much the better, he thought. He flicked the butt away and got into the car. He felt a great weariness in his legs, as if he had been walking all day. He couldn’t wait to get into bed.
The Beetle whistled more than usual as he started it up, and coughed out a lot of smoke. The streets were deserted. He crossed the Ponte dell Grazie and turned on to the Lungarno, yawning all the while. A few minutes later he parked the car right outside his front door and dragged himself up the stairs.
As he entered his bedroom he heard some yelling in the street and went over and looked out the window. Two drunkards were quarrelling and cursing each other. Nothing serious. A rather normal occurrence in that part of town. He closed the window, turned out the lights, and threw himself down on the bed. He lit what was supposed to be his last cigarette, smoking it with eyes open, staring into the darkness. He thought of Valentina’s mother. How old could she be? Twenty-five, thirty at most. No, not even thirty. Maybe twenty-eight. Whatever the case, she was very beautiful. He snuffed out the cigarette and turned on to his side. Just a minute before, he had felt sleepy, but no longer. Groping through the confused memories spinning round in his head, he remembered the time he had got trapped in German crossfire with ten of his men. They didn’t know what to do and could only look at one another, wondering how they might ever get out of that bloody fix. They were lying belly down on the ground, faces in the tall grass, as the bullets flew a few centimetres over their heads. All at once Commander Bordelli started rolling down the slope like a log, arms folded over his face. The others all followed behind him as the German bullets ripped the grass from the ground. They all got away, but Bordelli never told anyone how afraid he had been at that moment, thinking they weren’t going to make it that time.
That night he had a dream. Nonna Argia had tied his hands to the sink so she could wash his face, and as she rubbed the soap over his mouth and nose she nearly suffocated him. He opened his eyes and sighed with relief. He couldn’t remember his grandmother ever tying him to the bathroom sink, but as a little boy he had always been a bit afraid of that gaunt, bony woman, her skull sharply outlined under her brownish skin. She walked with a cane and wore black shoes laced up to the calf. She died when he was eight years old. His parents brought him to her deathbed for a last goodbye to Nonna. She was dressed all in black, hands folded on her chest, a crucifix between her fingers. In the penumbra a shaft of sunlight made the hair on her face gleam. He bowed his head to please his mother and recited a random prayer, but he was worried all the while that Nonna would sit up in bed, and he couldn’t wait to get out of there …
He woke up with a start. It was already nine o’clock. He got up, aching all over. Feeling impatient, he phoned Diotivede.
‘Have you done the girl?’ he asked.
‘I finished a short while ago.’
‘Find anything?’
The pathologist told him he had no news and confirmed what he’d already said before. The girl had been strangled and then violently bitten on the abdomen just after death, the teeth having penetrated rather deep. Nothing else.
‘Shall we have lunch together?’ Bordelli asked.
‘I’m too busy. I’ll have something delivered to the lab.’
‘Ah, lovely.’
‘Why do you say that?’ said the doctor, sounding offended.
‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’
‘My work is no different from any other, Bordelli. Why can’t you all get that through your heads?’
‘You’re too touchy …’
Diotivede hung up without saying goodbye, but Bordelli knew he would get over it soon enough. That was just the way the doctor was. He could joke about everything, but he wouldn’t tolerate even the slightest irony about his job.
Bordelli put on whatever clothes he found within reach, shaved, and then got into his car to go to the office. The sky was clear, but a cold wind was blowing from the north. The kiosks were all plastered with giant headlines: SEVEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL MURDERED.
When he got to headquarters the inspector sent Mugnai down to the bar across the street to fetch him a coffee. He felt very tired, and his thoughts were muddled, as if he hadn’t slept a wink all light.
Late that morning Rinaldi came in to report the initial findings of the investigation into the murder of Valentina Panerai. They had questioned dozens of people who lived in the immediate area of the Parco del Ventaglio.
‘We went door to door, Inspector. Nobody saw anything,’ Rinaldi said in an almost guilty tone.
‘Carry on.’
‘Of course, Inspector.’
The policeman left in a hurry. Bordelli lit a cigarette and smoked it in front of the open window. He felt as if his feet were stuck in a bog. At a certain point his eye fell on the bottle of de Maricourt cognac he’d found in the olive grove, and he immediately thought of Casimiro. They’d talked a few days before, and the little man had said he would call again soon to tell him something important about that villa in Fiesole. He had seemed quite convinced and very agitated. The inspector had told him to forget about it, that it wasn’t very important at the moment, but to all appearances Casimiro had taken a liking to playing cop.
‘I’m getting close now, Inspector,’ he’d said.
‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
‘I never do anything stupid.’
Casimiro had hung up before Bordelli had a chance to reply, and the inspector hadn’t heard from him since then. It might not be a bad idea to pay him a call and tell him to stop playing spy.
After their infamous evening together, Bordelli had even phoned the Fiesole police to find out whether anyone had reported the disappearance or killing of a Doberman, but there was nothing. It seemed quite strange.
Although at that moment Bordelli’s thoughts were taken up with the murder of the little girl, this whole business had him worried. Especially as he hadn’t heard from Casimiro. Every so often the man with the black mark on his neck, who had looked out from the garden balustrade, came into his head. He was almost certain he had seen him before, but he couldn’t recall where or when.
He felt nervous and needed to move. After an afternoon spent fruitlessly ruminating, he decided to go back to the olive grove.
It was already dark when he got there. He left the car in the usual spot on the Via del Bargellino and climbed up the low wall. The same cold wind was still blowing, and he buttoned up his jacket. He crossed the stretch of woods and entered the olive grove with his Beretta drawn. It was darker than last time, and colder. The only sound was the dull hum of the city below, too far away to mar the silence. He kept his ears pricked as he walked along, never losing sight of the baron’s great villa, which as usual loomed dark above him. Arriving at the foot of the massive buttresses, he looked around a little, raising his eyes repeatedly towards the top of the wall. All at once he felt like a silly fifty-four-year-old in search of adventure, and wondered what the hell he was doing in such a place. He put away his pistol and returned to his car. Descending back towards the city, he decided to drop in on Casimiro.
The Case Minime was one of the poorest working-class quarters of Florence, home to smugglers and brawling rival gangs. Bordelli left his Beetle in a courtyard criss-crossed with hanging laundry, and made his way into the labyrinth of hovels. He entered the tenement house in which Casimiro lived and walked to the end of a long corridor. He knocked on Casimiro’s
door, but nobody replied. So he knocked hard on the door opposite, and a moment later a huge man in singlet and socks opened up.
‘Inspector! What are you doing here?’
‘Hello, Beast.’
The Beast was an ageing smuggler who knew everyone. In his youth he had repeatedly landed in jail for the cartons of cigarettes the authorities never failed to find under his bed, but now that he was old, the police left him alone.
‘Want to come in for a minute, Inspector?’
‘Thanks, but I’m in a hurry. I was just wondering if you had any news of Casimiro.’
The Beast scratched an old scar that cut across his face, and said he hadn’t seen the little guy for three or four days.
‘He owes me five hundred lire,’ he added.
‘Does he often stay away for days like this?’ Bordelli asked.
‘Not usually.’
‘Thanks, Beast. Take care of yourself.’
‘Long live anarchy, Inspector.’
That was how he said goodbye, the way someone else might say ‘God bless you’. Bordelli was about to leave, then changed his mind. Casimiro’s strange absence had him worried.
‘Beast, give me a hand breaking open Casimiro’s door.’
‘Lemme put something on my feet. I’ll be right back.’
The giant went back into his flat and returned immediately, shuffling in slippers. At the count of three, they put their shoulders to the door. The frame came detached from the jamb with the first thrust, and they were inside. Bordelli flicked the light switch, and a small ceiling lamp came on. The air smelled musty. Casimiro’s den consisted of one big room with rotting plaster and almost nothing in it aside from two pieces of old furniture, a table, and a straw mattress on a platform of upside-down fruit crates, to protect against the humid floor. Beside the bed were a few carefully folded rags laid on top of a sheet of newspaper. A small door led to the loo, which was tiny and dirty. On the wall was a calendar of naked women, and hanging from the same nail was a crucifix.
‘He’s not here,’ said the Beast, looking at a dusty glass full of cobwebs on the table. Then he went up to the girlie calendar and started thumbing through it.
Bordelli advanced a few steps into the room, looking around. He opened the only wardrobe, which was old and dirty. Inside were a few child-sized rags and a pair of shoes in bad shape. He closed the doors and looked up. On top of the wardrobe was a rather large brown suitcase. He reached up to grab it, but his arm wasn’t long enough.
‘Beast, you’re tall …’
‘I’ll be right there.’ The Beast dropped the naked women, grabbed the suitcase without much difficulty and set it down on the table with a thud. It seemed quite heavy. The inspector tried to open it, but it seemed locked.
‘Shall I open it for you, Inspector?’
‘Please.’
The Beast pulled out a penknife and in a few seconds had snapped the locks open. Opening the suitcase, Bordelli found a grim sight before him. Casimiro’s dead body was wrapped up tightly in a sheet of transparent plastic, and his contorted face looked as if it was immersed in water. His wide-open eyes were upsetting. They looked alive.
‘Fuck!’ said the Beast.
‘I don’t think you’ll be getting your five hundred lire back.’
‘Fuck …’ the Beast repeated.
The inspector leaned forward to have a better look at the dwarf. The body had been very carefully enclosed, and one smelled almost nothing. There was some dried blood smeared on the victim’s head, matting the hair. The upper teeth stuck out unnaturally, as if the jawbone had been dislocated, and his forehead, blackened at the temples, looked as if it had been squeezed in a vice.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Bordelli.
‘I know, Inspector.’
‘Do you remember exactly when you last saw Casimiro?’ asked Bordelli, lighting a cigarette.
‘Let me think …’ The Beast concentrated for a moment, scratching his scar with his fingernails. ‘I think it was three or four days ago … I ran into him in the hallway. He was going out as I was coming in.’
‘What time of day was it?’
‘It must have been about two o’clock in the morning.’
‘Did he tell you where he was going?’
‘He didn’t say anything to me, and I didn’t ask him anything. We just said hello,’ the Beast said, shrugging, and he went back for another look at the calendar.
Bordelli looked around again, to see whether there was anything that might be of help. He started searching every corner very carefully, but found nothing.
‘Where’s the nearest telephone, Beast?’
‘In the bar down the street, Inspector.’
The north wind bore holes in one’s ears. As Bordelli was about to insert the key into the front door of his building, he was accosted by a lady of about seventy, very thin, almost transparent, with hair tinted a silvery violet and eyeglasses attached to a delicate chain. She was wearing a small black cap with a veil and hatpins.
‘You’re a police officer, aren’t you?’ she said, her voice whistling.
‘More or less,’ said Bordelli.
‘Carabiniere?’
‘What can I do for you, signora?’
The old woman cast a furtive glance around her, then looked at him and whispered something.
‘Signora, if you talk like that I can’t hear a thing,’ said the inspector.
The woman came closer and partially raised her veil, uncovering only her chin.
‘I am Signora Capecchi, and I have a very urgent matter to discuss with you. You should come up to my place for a moment,’ she whispered a bit more audibly.
‘All right,’ said Bordelli, detecting an unpleasant scent of chestnut flour and stale sweets.
‘Please follow me,’ said Signora Capecchi, and she started walking briskly towards the Arno. Bordelli followed behind, thinking he would have done better to skip the whole matter.
‘Don’t walk so close to me, Marshal4,’ said the old woman, crossing over to the opposite pavement. The inspector let her go on a few steps ahead of him, still following her, and feeling more and more like a fool. When the woman got to Borgo San Frediano, she turned right, crossed the street, then immediately turned left, passing under the Volta di Cestello. Moments later she nodded complicitly at Bordelli and went through a door. The inspector waited a few seconds, then approached. When he arrived at the door, he hesitated, thinking it might be a trap, then shook his head and pushed the door open.
‘You don’t seem very alert, Marshal,’ said the old woman, turning towards the staircase. She climbed it one stair at a time. She was wearing a dress too large for her and full of wrinkles. Bordelli followed her without saying a word. At the first-floor landing, Signora Capecchi stuck the key in her door, but before entering, she turned to Bordelli.
‘Are your shoes clean? I certainly hope so, I spent the whole morning cleaning the place,’ she said.
‘I think so.’
The woman shot a glance at Bordelli’s shoes, then opened the door. Once inside, she slipped on a pair of mules and began to walk about without raising her feet, sliding them across the floor. Bordelli followed behind her until they reached a small drawing room with a shiny waxed floor. There were a number of small glass-fronted cupboards with little lace curtains, and the walls were covered with trinkets, travel souvenirs and small paintings. Signora Capecchi sat him down in an armchair, sat herself down in front of him, and raised the little veil over the top of her cap. She had a big mole on one cheek, bristling with hair. Her kerosene stove was at maximum setting, and the room was unbearably hot. The air was dry and insalubrious; it smelled of rosolio5 and old sofas. Bordelli started sweating and unbuttoned his shirt.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Not at all, Marshal.’
‘What did you have to tell me?’ Bordelli couldn’t wait to get out of there. The old woman opened her eyes wide and raised a ring-studded hand in the air.
‘The fact is that strange things have been happening in this building,’ she said with an air of mystery.
‘What do you mean?’
‘People coming and going, up and down the stairs, above and below, laughing, shouting – the traffic never ends …’
‘Oh really?’ said Bordelli, feeling a drop of sweat roll down his neck.
‘You have no idea the racket they make!’ whispered Signora Capecchi, waving her hands in the air and making all her bracelets tinkle.
‘A nasty business …’ said Bordelli.
‘You’re telling me! And it’s all the fault of that man on the top floor … the new arrival, Nocentini, he’s called … a shady character, that one, with an ugly face. It’s all his fault … Before him, Signora Meletti lived up there on the fourth floor, but then she died, poor thing …’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Would you like something to drink, Marshal?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘No need to be coy, now. An Alkermes,6 perhaps?’
‘Thank you, no, I don’t want anything.’
‘Good Signora Meletti … nobody ever so much as paid a call on her, poor dear. She was a tiny little woman, a delightful person, always polite, never missed a day of mass … Not like that little tart up there now, I can tell you …’ And Signora Capecchi cast a glance upwards, in a specific direction, and shrivelled up inside her dress. Bordelli asked whether he could smoke and lit a cigarette.
‘Can’t you tell me any more about these noises?’ he asked, hoping to get this over with quickly. The old woman nervously shuffled her slippers back and forth on the floor.
‘Noises … There is … how shall I say?… a lot of commotion, slamming doors, raucous laughter … yelling that doesn’t even sound human … and then a deafening sort of music that makes the whole building shake … But you could hardly call it music! It’s just a lot of meaningless racket … What ever happened to the beautiful songs of Otello Boccaccini, or Rabagliati, or Spadaro, or—’
‘What else can you tell me about this Nocentini?’
