As far as you recall, were her feet bruised or particularly dirty?'
Again, the woman thought for a moment. 'No, I'm pretty sure they weren't
'Thank you. I'm going to try and find out if it was the paramedics who took her shoes off. But if it was, they would have given them to someone, wouldn't they?'
'Of course, to one of the nurses.'
'The strange thing is, she didn't have any bra or knickers on either.'
'I don't understand.'
'Was she wearing any underwear when she was brought in?'
'I really don't know. We didn't undress her. There was no need to when we administered the Narcan, or when we took the blood test and put her on a drip.'
'Were you there all the time they were working on her?' 'Yes, all the time.'
'And in your opinion, was every possible care taken?'
Absolutely Professor d'Incisa may have been tired, but he directed his team with total dedication and did absolutely everything that had to be done. I'd swear to that in court.'
Ferrara smiled. 'That won't be necessary. This isn't an interrogation. We're not even investigating a crime. I'm just trying to understand how a child ended up full of drugs in an isolated spot which isn't even a hangout for junkies, and how she ended up here without shoes ... or underwear.'
'When you put it like that, it does seem strange. Perhaps you should ask the nurses who looked after her when she was taken to the ward. They should know more about the clothes. You'll probably find they've been put somewhere by mistake.'
'I'm sure you're right. Do you remember which nurses?'
'One of them was definitely Elena Scandellari. She's here now, do you want me to call her?'
She was there, too! Could the day, which had begun so badly and continued to get worse, be ending well after all?
'You'd be doing me a great favour. Tell her I'm waiting for her here. You can go back to work. I've kept you too long. Thank you, you've been a great help.'
'If you need anything else, let me know. I didn't think she was so . . .'
'Young?'
'Yes.'
Ferrara wouldn't have been able to swear to it, but he had the impression her glasses had steamed up.
'Maybe she wasn't,' he said, trying to make her feel better. We're only guessing. She may have been fifteen or sixteen.'
'Even so . . .' the woman sighed as she went out.
The sigh made Ferrara think she might be feeling guilty that after that first day she hadn't seen the girl again, as if she had failed in her duty to her patient. But perhaps that was unfair, perhaps she had simply had some days off.
Elena Scandellari, who knocked at the door a few minutes later, couldn't have been more than thirty. She was buxom and quite pretty, and Ferrara guessed that she was usually lively and cheerful, but at the moment she seemed intimidated to be in the presence of a high-ranking police officer.
'Did Signora Finzi tell you why I wanted to see you?'
'About the clothes?'
'That's right. Apparently the girl wasn't wearing any shoes when she was admitted. Did the paramedics give them to one of you?'
'No, she didn't have any'
And she wasn't wearing underwear either, is that right?'
'That's right, signore.'
And didn't that strike you as odd?'
'Yes, especially as she must have had her period recently. I thought, "Look how these little whores go around these days" . . . I'm sorry,' she added, remembering that she was talking about someone who had died.
'Do you mean she had blood on her?'
'Yes, I saw the bloodstains when they stripped her to change her.'
'Where?'
'On the insides of the thighs. The genital area seemed clean, but as if it had been washed in a hurry, at least that was the impression I had. I remember it well.'
'Were there any bloodstains on her jeans as well?' Ferrara asked.
'I didn't notice.'
It didn't matter. He'd be able to check that out himself, or better still, Forensics would do it for him.
'I see. In the days that followed her admission, did she lose any more blood?'
'No, that's why I thought she must just have had her period. It was probably just finishing.'
'Right . . . Did she have anything in her pockets?'
'A few sticks of chewing gum ... I also remember a used tissue rolled into a ball. That was it.'
'Did you throw the tissue away?'
'It was rubbish, Superintendent..." she said, apologetically. 'Of course. So you cleaned her and put her in a hospital gown.'
'Yes, obviously'
And you didn't tell anyone about the bloodstains? You didn't report them?'
'No, I didn't. I thought that was her business anyway, the poor girl. If someone comes in who's been knocked down by a car and their underwear is soiled, I don't tell the whole department!'
Ferrara smiled. It was a slightly bitter smile: that rolled-up tissue might have been able to tell him something. But he certainly couldn't fault the nurse's humanity.
'One more thing. Has Signora Finzi been away?'
'Just for a few days. She came back today'
For some reason, that cheered him up.
It was a bit late now to go back to Headquarters, so he told the driver to drop him on the banks of the Arno, near where he lived.
On the way, he called Leone's office.
The pathologist greeted him with the words, 'You left without saying goodbye!'
'That's why I'm calling you now'
'Oh, I see, it's not because you wanted to ask me some questions
Ferrara smiled. 'Why didn't you become a detective, Leone?'
'For the same reason you didn't become a pathologist, judging by the way you ran off today just when things were getting nasty. The State needs both of us, and God in His infinite wisdom invented the division of labour. So what do you want to know?'
'Everything.'
'Obviously. Okay, let's say . . . today is Friday, tomorrow we start the lab tests, so . . . You can call me again next Friday, all right?'
'Can't you at least tell me part of it?'
'You mean, let's stop joking?'
'If possible . . .'
'At your service, Chief Superintendent. Given what I've seen so far, I think the hospital's diagnosis was correct.'
'So do I, but that's not the most important thing. It's the circumstances in which the drugs were taken that interest me. And there's something else: I've just found out that when the child—'
'I wouldn't necessarily call her a child. You saw her yourself.'
'The girl, then, if you like. When she came into the hospital, she had blood on the insides of her thighs, near the groin. Is it possible to establish if she was having her period or if she'd just finished it?'
'Of course, from the histological test. I'm going to do a biopsy on the sample I took from her uterus. We just have to wait.'
'In the meantime, if - hypothetically - she wasn't having her period, would that mean she had sexual relations very close to the time of her death?'
'Yes, of course, and if there was blood, that would mean those relations were probably violent and repeated, since we know she wasn't a virgin. But we'd have to ascertain that the blood was hers.'
'What if you had a sample?' Ferrara asked, thinking of the jeans.
'We'd be home and dry!'
'Good. What impression did Professor d'Incisa make on you?'
'A competent professional, I'd say, someone who knows his stuff, but a bit of a cold fish. Why?'
'One of my inspectors has been following the case since before the girl died, and he has the feeling the girl might not have been treated as well as she could have been. He said he thought she'd been a bit neglected.'
'So what are you thinking? Malpractice? Well, we won't be able to ascertain that from the autopsy, but it would be useful to have a look at the hospital's medical records. Do you have them?'
'I've pu
t in a request to the deputy prosecutor.'
'If you do get them, make sure I'm sent a copy. It's possible the doctors there aren't as careful as they should be. I did notice an alteration in the mucous membranes of the nose, and d'Incisa said it was due to the tube they put in. But I've seen similar cases where microscopic analysis has revealed the presence of foreign bodies.'
And would that be important?'
'If it's what I'm thinking, it'd be curious to say the least.' 'Why, what are you thinking?'
'Well, all the other cases I was talking about were cocaine users.'
For a moment, Ferrara was speechless. 'So apart from the heroin, she may have taken coke, too? At that age?'
'Not only at that age, but not even as a habitual user. But all this still has to be demonstrated. Let's wait for the test results.'
'When will they be ready?'
'I'll see if I can get some preliminary results to you in forty-eight hours.'
They had arrived. He got out of the car and walked along the banks of the Arno. The narrow pavement was crowded with tourists, many of them stopping to photograph the Ponte Vecchio in the nostalgic orange light of early sunset.
He needed that short walk, despite the heat, to try to put the whole tangle of things inside his head into some kind of order. Drugs: too many. Malpractice: possible. Clothes: missing. Sex: too much of that too, probably.
A pair of jeans, a T-shirt with an unknown label, a small imitation gold ring - why did the ring affect him as much as it did? The professor, the pathologist, Ascalchi, Violante, Fanti, the Commissioner who was looking for him . . .
The Commissioner! He hadn't even called him back!
5
'You didn't call him back?' 'No.'
'You mean you didn't even speak to him?' Deputy Prosecutor Anna Giulietti insisted. 'You've been out of touch all day?'
'I was busy'
'I hope for your sake it was an important case. He was beside himself. You know what he said to me when I ran into him in the corridor about five?'
'I can imagine.'
'I don't think you can. He said, "Who does this Ferrara think he is? Always breaking rank, no respect for authority, no esprit de corps, no discipline! But I'll get him, one of these days. I'll nail him, like Christ on the cross." Word for word, give or take a comma, apart from a few expletives which I won't repeat because they offend my feminine modesty.' Anna Giulietti sounded half amused and half worried. Outside office hours, her tone towards him these days was increasingly friendly and conspiratorial.
It was just after nine o'clock in the evening and the terrace of Ferrara's apartment was still bathed in the golden light of sunset. The leaves of the bougainvillea in the arbour glinted. Ferrara and his wife were having dinner there, as they did every evening.
On getting home, Ferrara had immediately noticed the two brown leather bags, packed and ready for tomorrow, and had perked up a little. The prospect of a relaxing weekend with Petra and his friend Massimo made up for all the effort he had put in on what had been an extraordinary day.
His exhaustion must have been obvious because, even before giving him a hug, Petra had asked, 'What did my chief superintendent do today?' - a question she always asked when she saw him in that state.
Anna Giulietti's phone call had come as he was about to take a mouthful of fish and Petra was telling him how she had gone all over town in search of her favourite deodorant and hadn't been able to resist buying him some swimming trunks.
Anna Giulietti had called to find how things had gone with Riccardo Lepri.
'So you saw him today?' Ferrara asked, vaguely surprised because the Commissioner didn't often visit the Prosecutor's Department.
'Gallo sent for him. All very hush-hush. Some kind of summit meeting, I guess. What are you planning to do?'
'I'll go and see him on Monday. I can't go tomorrow, I have a previous engagement, and there's no way I can give it up.'
Petra nodded her approval.
'Maybe you should say you're ill, or just go away on holiday, and he'll forget all about it. But what was he so upset about anyway?'
Apart from the fact that I was rude to him by not phoning him back, I really have no idea, believe me.'
'Let me know when you find out.'
'Feminine curiosity, eh?'
'Call it professional anxiety about a friend, Michele.'
'Don't worry, I've seen worse.'
'Just satisfy my curiosity, okay?'
'All right. Bye.'
'Bye.'
'That was Anna, wasn't it?' Petra asked. 'Yes.'
'Who were you rude to?' 'The Commissioner.'
'I thought so. Is that what's worrying you?' 'Is it so obvious?'
'Ich sehe das, Michele ... I can see it. When have I ever not seen it?'
'You're right. But it isn't that. I'm always having run-ins with Lepri, but then everything gets sorted out. Basically, he's quite an accommodating person, as long as it suits him. He prefers not to get on the wrong side of anyone.'
'What is it, then?'
Ferrara was almost tempted to tell her about the girl. A woman's sensibility, Petra's sensibility - when Petra was a child, as he knew from her photos, she'd had the same green eyes he imagined that poor girl having, and the same ash-blonde hair - might have been able to help him to see things that he, a man and a Southerner to boot, would otherwise never have thought of. But they had made a tacit rule never to talk about his work and he preferred to keep to it. His wife's question had been a spontaneous expression of her unswerving love for him. He understood that and it was enough.
'Forget about that,' he said, smiling. 'How about showing me those famous trunks?'
'No, no, no,' she replied, flirtatiously. 'Your bag's already packed, and I don't want you messing it up.'
'At least tell me what colour they are,' he insisted, pouring out two half glasses of Friulian Tokai, which he liked for its fruity flavour and its slight aftertaste of bitter almonds.
'Green with blue stripes,' she replied, radiantly.
It reminded him of something, and at first he wasn't sure what it was. Then he remembered. 'Like the ones—'
Absolutely identical!'
More than thirty years had passed.
Thirty years since they and their inseparable friend Massimo Verga had spent a summer camping on Lampedusa, that dream island with its view over the Isola dei Conigli and the transparent blue sea which would have inspired envy in a coral reef; that island where they had set the seal on their love.
The memories returned, and he could feel tears pricking at his eyes. Petra had been so beautiful, tall as a goddess, merry, full of life. It hadn't been her eyes, or her mouth, or her long slender legs, or her lovely breasts, which had driven him wild. It was her voice. He was crazy about her husky, sensual voice, which sent him into an ecstasy of laughter and adoration every time she mangled the Sicilian dialect.
It had been a summer that had seen the birth of their love, but a cruel summer too, because in their own self-absorption they did not see in time the fire that was smouldering so close to them.
Ferrara realised it when he left the tent, incredulous at what had happened, and ran down to the beach, breathless with happiness, to tell Massimo, and his friend's glowering look forced him to hold back the river of words bursting inside him. And later, when they were sitting around the fire, roasting potatoes and cuttlefish as big as steaks, and no one said a word, Petra realised, too, and she was stunned, knowing she should feel guilty but unable to do so. But it was already too late.
Massimo had introduced them, Massimo loved them both. But when he realised that they were a couple and he was the unwanted third part of the equation, he vanished. As soon as they got back to Catania. He vanished for good, and many years passed before the Ferraras met him again, in Florence.
'I'm pleased we're going to see Massimo,' Ferrara said, casting these memories aside.
'Tell me about it. We've hardly seen him since he rented that
place in Marina di Pietrasanta. He's never at home.'
'Cherchez la femme!'
'That's what I'm afraid of!'
Massimo Verga was an inveterate womaniser. Petra had two nicknames for him: Peter Pan and 'the tombeur' - the ladies' man. Perhaps because he had never found a woman who could replace Petra, or more simply because of his innate character, he often fell head over heels in love, but it never lasted long. His love affairs amused Michele but worried Petra, who could see him getting old without a companion. She had another worry, too. He had already squandered a great deal of his inheritance, but she was afraid that sooner or later he would get into even worse trouble.
'Do you want to bet we'll solve the mystery tomorrow?' Ferrara said with a smile.
As he spoke, the telephone rang again.
'It's me again.' Anna?'
'Sorry to disturb you, Michele, but it's urgent. It's about this business of the Commissioner and the girl who died in the Ospedale Nuovo.'
'The child?'
'Child? They told me she was a prostitute.'
Rumours travelled fast. Especially the worst ones.
'Who told you that?'
'I can't tell you. We have to meet.'
'How about Monday?'
'I can't. I'll be busy all day, I'm in court and then I have a meeting with some of my colleagues. Tuesday's pretty full, too.'
Death in Tuscany Page 5
