Death and the Olive Grove

by Marco Vichi

  ‘They’ve already been taken, Inspector,’ said Rinaldi.

  ‘What’s the girl’s name?’

  ‘Sara Bini. Five years old.’

  ‘Is her mother here?’

  ‘The little girl was with her grandmother, Inspector. She’s the one crying down there.’

  ‘Has the mother been told?’

  ‘Scarpelli’s taking care of it.’

  ‘Did the grandmother see anything?’

  ‘No, Inspector. She had started talking to a friend on that bench over there, and kept on turning round to keep an eye on the little girl, who was playing near that tree down there. At a certain point she noticed that the child was gone, and so she called her name, but the girl didn’t answer. And so she went looking for her but was unable to find her. Then she heard a woman scream and went in that direction …’

  ‘Send all these people away, including the journalists.’

  ‘Straight away, sir.’

  Rinaldi headed quickly towards the crowd thronging the grass. Bordelli and Piras went down the small lane that cut the oak wood in two, passing through dense, untended vegetation, and fifty yards later were at the scene. Two policemen stood guard over the girl’s dead body. Bordelli answered their salute with a nod and bent down to look at the child. She was laid out behind a bush at the edge of the lane, amidst the dead leaves. Blonde, with green eyes gaping wide to the heavens. Her neck bore the same red marks found on Valentina’s. The buttons had been torn off her little red overcoat, and there were marks of a human bite on her belly.

  ‘The same bite, Piras.’

  ‘It’s like some kind of signature.’

  ‘Maybe he wants us to know he’s the killer.’

  ‘Here comes Diotivede, Inspector.’

  The old doctor approached them with the light step of a child, his overcoat flapping in the wind. He looked grim. He made a single hand gesture and got right down to work. Bordelli left him in peace and, followed by Piras, returned to the policemen at the edge of the oak wood, where only a few journalists remained, scribbling furiously in their notebooks.

  ‘Where’s the witness, Rinaldi?’

  ‘It’s that lady down there, Inspector, the one in the brown coat.’

  She looked to be about fifty and was well dressed. She was pacing back and forth in front of a bench. Bordelli made a gesture to Piras, and they walked towards the woman. After they had introduced themselves, she grabbed hold of Bordelli’s jacket.

  ‘I got a good look at him – it was him all right! I knew he wasn’t normal, I knew it … I’d always said he was a degenerate, but nobody would ever believe me!’ Then she crossed herself two or three times. Piras looked at her with some suspicion.

  ‘Please calm down, signora,’ said Bordelli. The woman was made up and well coiffed. Not unattractive, though there was something unpleasant about her, and she had a grating voice.

  ‘He bent down over that poor little girl and started kissing her head, the swine! And when he saw me he took to his heels in a hurry! But I recognised him just the same, I did!’

  ‘You must calm down now, signora,’ Bordelli repeated, glancing over at Piras. The Sardinian sighed, resigned to putting up with the woman.

  The sky was hopelessly overcast, despite the strong wind. Bordelli lit a cigarette, protecting the flame for a long time with his hands. He was stalling. He was in a terrible rush, but he was stalling. He wanted to prolong as much as possible this moment of feverish hope and the electrifying feeling of already having the killer in his hands.

  ‘Meanwhile, please tell me your name,’ he said, to slow the pace.

  ‘Cinzia Beniamini,’ the woman said, raising her chin as she said it, as if everyone was supposed to recognise so famous a surname. The inspector turned again towards Piras, to see whether he was ready to start writing. The Sardinian already had his notebook in his hand, and with a look of disgust on his face he wrote down the woman’s name. Bordelli took a deep drag on his cigarette, then blew the smoke far away.

  ‘Now, Signora Beniamini, tell me calmly what you saw. And please start at the beginning.’

  ‘The beginning?’

  ‘The beginning,’ Bordelli repeated. The woman rolled her eyes, as if at a loss. She tried to collect the impressions in her memory and set them in order. She shot a glance at Piras, then again at the inspector, clearly the more important of the two. She looked at his face, but not directly in the eye. She seemed to focus on his lower lip.

  ‘I was talking to a friend,’ she began, ‘over there, where those benches are. Then at one point we got up to walk a little …’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It must have been half past nine or so, perhaps a bit later … Does it matter?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘As I was saying, I was chatting with my friend, Marcella. We were sitting on that bench down there. We sometimes meet here early in the morning, to have a little walk before we go into town to do our shopping. At one point we stood up and went in that direction, just to stroll a bit. We wanted to go as far as the Arno and then back to the car, as we often do. And so we turned down that little lane over there, the one through the trees, and from a distance we saw the silhouette of a young man in sporting clothes walking ahead of us.’

  ‘Was he coming towards you?’

  ‘No, he too was going towards the Arno. He was moving his arms about the way they do in gymnasiums.’

  ‘How far was he from you?’

  ‘I don’t know … More or less as far as those trees over there.’

  ‘Write “about thirty yards”,’ Bordelli said to Piras, then he turned back to face the woman.

  ‘Were there other people around?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘At a certain point the young man stepped off the path and bent down to the ground. We couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, because it’s always very shady under those trees, even during the day. So we continued on our way, and when we got closer, we saw that he was on all fours, hunched over something colourful that we hadn’t noticed until then. Marcella got scared and stopped, but I was curious, and so I went on ahead. When I got fairly close to the man – perhaps fifteen paces or so – he was still on all fours, but he seemed to be vomiting. I thought he was unwell – what else could I think? And so I called to him. “Are you unwell, sir?” I said. Until that moment he hadn’t noticed us, because he shot to his feet like a spring … And I recognised him at once. He’s a misfit, a maniac who lives not far from me …’

  ‘And where do you live, Signora Beniamini?’

  ‘In Via Trieste.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘The young man ran off like a rabbit. And so I went up to look at that red thing on the ground, and saw that it was a little girl. I let out a scream to signal for help, but nobody came … And the lad disappeared at the end of the path.’

  ‘How old is this person?’ asked Bordelli, who had noticed a furrow of disappointment on the woman’s brow.

  ‘About twenty-five, I’d say,’ she said.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Simone Fantini. He also lives in Via Trieste, at number thirty-two.’

  The inspector sighed and tossed his cigarette butt aside.

  ‘Does he live with his parents?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he lives alone.’

  ‘Tell me, signora, are you absolutely certain that the young man you saw was Simone Fantini?’

  ‘What do you mean? I see him almost every day, I’d recognise his sick face anywhere!’

  ‘Why do you say he’s sick?’

  ‘You should see the way he looks at women.’

  ‘How does he look at them?’

  ‘It’s as if he wants to eat them alive. And he does it to my daughter Ottavia. You should see how pretty she is …’

  ‘If she’s pretty, then everyone must look at her,’ the inspector commented.

  ‘Not the way he
looks at her, I tell you,’ said Signora Beniamini, eyes narrowing in contempt.

  ‘Has this Fantini ever bothered your daughter?’ Piras asked provocatively.

  ‘He wouldn’t dare …’ the woman said without even looking at him.

  ‘Have you anything else to add?’ the inspector asked her, feeling rather discouraged.

  ‘Why, haven’t I told you quite a lot already?’ said the woman, looking offended.

  ‘Thank you, Signora Beniamini, I’ll send for you if I need anything else,’ said Bordelli, cutting things short.

  ‘He killed her,’ the woman said, staring hard at the inspector.

  Piras closed his notebook and looked at the woman as if he wanted to make her disappear.

  ‘Goodbye, signora,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘He’s a monster,’ she continued, goggling her eyes, then she turned and walked away, ladylike, towards the lane. Piras shook his head and exchanged a glance of disappointment with the inspector.

  Diotivede had finished jotting down his initial observations on the corpse of Sara Bini and was waiting for the inspector with medical bag in hand, standing motionless in the middle of the path. The wind was gusting straight into his frowning face, which was as pink as a child’s, despite his seventy-one years. Seeing him from afar, Bordelli and Piras quickened their pace and got to him in a hurry, anxious to know what he’d found.

  ‘At first glance, everything’s exactly the same as with the first murder,’ the pathologist said.

  ‘Will that bite be of any use to us?’ asked Bordelli.

  ‘I don’t think so. Tooth marks on such a soft part of the body are very imprecise.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, not for now.’

  Bordelli shook his head, feeling more and more discouraged.

  ‘Want a lift?’ he asked the doctor.

  ‘I’ve got a car waiting for me.’

  ‘Call me the minute you’ve got any news.’

  ‘I’m already sure there won’t be any,’ said Diotivede, frowning darkly. Nodding goodbye, he headed towards the grassy meadow. Piras stared into space. The deaths of these little girls were having a bad effect on everyone.

  ‘Wake up, Piras, we’re going to go look for that young man.’

  ‘He didn’t do it,’ said Piras, following behind him.

  ‘I’m well aware of that,’ said Bordelli, shrugging. Signora Beniamini had seen Simone Fantini walking ahead of her, and the corpse of the little girl lay farther ahead. Only afterwards did Beniamini see Fantini step off the footpath and bend over the girl, who was already dead. What sense would there be in the murderer coming back and kneeling down over his victim right after killing her?

  They got into the car, and as they were leaving the meadow, they saw two technicians from Forensics arrive. Bordelli waved at them and noticed that they, too, looked very tense.

  ‘What should I do with Signora Benianimi’s testimony, Inspector? Shall I put it in the report?’ asked Piras, already knowing what Bordelli would say.

  ‘Forget it, Piras … If it ended up in the hands of you-know-who, it would trigger a useless manhunt.’

  Piras tore Beniamini’s deposition from the notepad, crumpled it up and put it in his pocket. Ginzillo would never get to read it.

  They parked in Via Trieste and rang the buzzer to Fantini’s flat, but nobody answered. It was a fine stone building, with big windows and a monumental entrance.

  ‘What should we do, Inspector?’

  ‘Let’s hear what the neighbours have to say,’ said Bordelli, pressing another button at random. A few seconds later they heard the front door unlock with a click and then open. The atrium was spacious and luminous, and a number of large potted plants created a nice effect.

  They began to climb the fine granite staircase. A girl was waiting for them on the second-floor landing with a wooden spoon in her hand. She was wearing a blue apron and a white bonnet.

  ‘Was it you who rang?’ she asked, looking at them with big green eyes. She was quite pretty, and Piras ran a hand through his hair to smooth it down.

  ‘Police,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘The masters of the house aren’t here,’ said the girl, a bit frightened. She shot a quick glance at young Piras and felt embarrassed, as he was staring at her insistently and puffing his chest like a rooster.

  ‘Do you know Simone Fantini?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘He lives upstairs, on the fourth floor … Why, what did he do?’

  ‘What kind of a person is he?’

  ‘He’s very nice,’ said the girl, blushing slightly.

  ‘As far as you know, does Fantini have any friends in this building?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘I see him often with the Sicilian girl who lives across the landing from him. She’s called Sonia.’

  ‘Is she his girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Does Fantini have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t know. For a while he was with a girl who lives across the street, but she left him a few months ago.’

  ‘Ottavia Beniamini?’ asked Piras.

  ‘Yes,’ said the girl, rather surprised. Bordelli and Piras both gave a hint of a smile and exchanged a glance of understanding.

  ‘Do you know by any chance at what time we might find Simone at home?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘He’s usually at home studying at this hour,’ the girl said in a ringing voice. Then, realising she had spoken with too much enthusiasm, she blushed again.

  ‘Thank you, and sorry for the disturbance,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘Not at all,’ said the girl.

  Bordelli and Piras headed upstairs. The girl remained standing in the doorway, watching them, and when Piras turned round to look at her, she quickly ducked back inside.

  There were two doors on the fourth-floor landing. They rang the doorbell to Fantini’s flat, but again there was no answer. On the door opposite was a plaque with the name Zarcone. Bordelli rang the doorbell and heard a sweet ding-dong sound within. The door opened, and there stood a tall blonde girl with green eyes, totally different from how one might expect a Sicilian to look. She was wearing a form-fitting black sweater that looked very good on her, and a red skirt that ended well above the knee.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, somewhat perplexed. Bordelli flashed his badge before those smiling eyes.

  ‘Police,’ he said. ‘Are you Sonia Zarcone?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her smile fading.

  ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Nothing serious,’ said the inspector. The girl looked first at one, then the other, with a confused expression. Piras’s face brightened in a broad smile, to the great surprise of the inspector, who had never seen him smile like that.

  ‘We’ll only take a minute of your time,’ said Piras, casting another furtive glance at Sonia’s legs, which were as beautiful as a movie star’s.

  ‘All right,’ she said, pulling the door open and standing aside to let them pass. They followed her into a fairly large room, rather unusually furnished. It was a lovely apartment to begin with, but the girl’s imagination had made it even more pleasurable, with its combination of antique and modern furnishings.

  ‘Please sit down,’ said Sonia, gesturing towards a black-leather sofa, then sitting down opposite them in an old armchair that had probably belonged to her grandmother. Piras studied the girl’s figure, eyes wandering everywhere. She, too, was an interesting mix of antique and modern, he thought.

  The primordial female and the woman of today, combined in the best manner possible. The Sardinian liked her. A lot, in fact. It was the first time since he had arrived ‘on the continent’ that he had met a girl he really, truly liked. He even liked her Sicilian accent, which got all the O and E sounds wrong. Bordelli noticed Piras’s admiration for the girl but said nothing.

  Sonia, meanwhile, had recovered her smile, and her eyes sparkled with a hint of vanity. She, too,
seemed to notice how Piras was looking at her. She asked the policemen whether they wanted something to drink, then blushed as if she had said something silly. They were hardly a couple of guests paying a social call.

  ‘Please don’t bother, thank you,’ Bordelli replied for both of them. ‘We only wanted to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ said Sonia, her curiosity aroused. She rearranged her hair and crossed her legs, much to the embarrassment of Piras, who couldn’t stop looking at all those wonders of nature. The inspector grabbed his packet of cigarettes.

  ‘May I?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Sonia.

  Bordelli lit up, took a deep drag, and exhaled the smoke towards the ceiling. Piras was too busy with other concerns to grimace with irritation. It was the first time he had failed to do so.

  ‘Are you really Sicilian?’ the inspector asked. Sonia smiled.

  ‘You Northerners seem to think Sicilians are all four foot tall and black as coal,’ she said. ‘But there are a lot of people like me.’

  ‘Because of the Normans,’ said Piras.

  ‘Very good,’ she said. Piras smiled with satisfaction. Staring at the girl, he felt glad that the Normans had passed through Sicily.12 The inspector glanced at his watch: almost noon.

  ‘The young man who lives across the landing, Simone Fantini … is he a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes. Why? Has something happened?’ asked the girl, alarmed.

  ‘No need to get upset. Do you know where we can find Simone?’

  ‘Normally he’s at home at this time of day.’

  ‘We tried, but nobody answers,’ said Bordelli.

  ‘He must have gone out for a walk, or to study at a friend’s house.’ Sonia seemed rather concerned, which brought a slight furrow to her brow that Piras liked very much.

  ‘What does Simone do?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘He’s in his last year of Engineering, but his real passion is writing.’

  Sonia had a lovely voice, warm and deep, and a vague smile in her eyes which never faded. It was a pleasure just to look at her. Every so often she shot a quick glance over at Piras, who was getting as excited as a little kid. Bordelli witnessed everything and smiled to himself.

  ‘Forgive my asking, miss,’ said the inspector, ‘but are you and Simone just friends or are you …?’