Death in Tuscany

by Michele Giuttari

  Amilcare Pizzi was waiting for him in the doorway of the apartment. He was a tall, bald man, who looked as if he was at the end of his tether. 'You were quick,' he managed to say.

  'I've been trying to call her on her mobile.'

  'So have I.'

  'Mind if I have a look around?' 'Please, go ahead.'

  The apartment was small, airy and very tidy. There was little furniture, but what there was was of good quality. There were many books, magazines and newspapers, and a modern computer. Ferrara looked closely at the large white desk, which had one long drawer.

  'Is it all right if I open this?' he asked.

  'Of course.'

  'Or perhaps it would be better if you did it? This isn't my apartment and I feel as if I'm putting my nose in someone else's business.' He was lying in order not to make the man suspicious. Pizzi would have been even more alarmed if he had realised this was a precaution in case the Carabinieri later checked.

  'I understand, but it's necessary, isn't it?' the man said, opening the drawer. It contained a small diary, a few reams of extra-thick paper, some neatly arranged pens and pencils, and some cosmetics. The drawer was very deep, and Claudia's father pulled it out some more. There was a digital camera, various kinds of batteries and some manuals for computers and electronic equipment.

  'You can close it now.'

  As he did so, Pizzi encountered a strange resistance.

  'Wait!' Ferrara said.

  He bent down. A brown envelope fixed with tape to the bottom of the drawer had come away on one side and was hanging down. He pulled it out. It wasn't sealed. He opened it and took out two photos.

  They were both photos of the same mountain. One of the two was a closer shot, showing an area that had been excavated, with two lorries in operation, one of them a tanker lorry. No signs or licence plates were visible on either of the lorries.

  'I don't know what these photos are,' Claudia's father commented without waiting for Ferrara to ask him.

  So why was she keeping them hidden?

  'Do you mind if I take them?' Ferrara said. 'I'll give them back.'

  'Take them, please. I'm sure you'll get them to her.' 'You have my word.'

  There were many other things he would have liked to do -switch on the computer, study the diary, listen to all the messages on the answering machine, and so on - but he had already wasted too much time.

  'Signor Pizzi, I'm sure nothing's happened to your daughter, but just to be on the safe side

  'It's better to call the Carabinieri, right?'

  The barracks was just round the corner, in the Via Eugenio Chiesa.

  'I'd rather go to the police. I saw the station in a square not far from here. Someone there is bound to know me.' 'That's the town hall square.' 'It's really not far. Shall we go?' 'You'd come with me?' Pizzi asked, surprised. 'Of course.' 'Thank you.'

  *

  For some offences, such as drug trafficking and kidnapping, the police in the province of Massa-Carrara did not come under the jurisdiction of Florence but, even though it was still in Tuscany, under that of Genoa. It was an anomaly which in these circumstances might be to Ferrara's advantage.

  The Carrara police were commanded by Superintendent Giuseppe Lojelo, a youngish, calm-looking man, who greeted him with a big smile.

  Tm honoured, Chief Superintendent. I've heard so much about you, it's a real pleasure to meet you in person. And congratulations on today's operation.' Obviously he had seen the TV news. 'You're on holiday, aren't you?'

  'Yes. But I'm worried about a friend of mine, a journalist on Il Tirreno who lives here in Carrara, Claudia Pizzi. This gentleman is her father.'

  'Pleased to meet you. What's happened?'

  'She's been missing from home since yesterday,' Signor Pizzi said.

  'Does she live with you?'

  'No, she lives alone. But we phone each other practically every day'

  'And yesterday evening she didn't show up for an appointment she had with me,' Ferrara said.

  'Well, it is summer. Maybe she went out with some friends. How old is she?'

  'Thirty-four,' her father replied promptly.

  'Is she married?'

  'No.'

  Any boyfriends?' 'There is a young man 'Have you tried calling him?'

  'Listen, Superintendent,' Ferrara cut in. 'We've already tried everything we can. The reason I'm here with Signor

  Pizzi is that I think it'd be a good idea to start searching for her without wasting any more time.'

  'If you say so. But what do you want me to do? Perhaps the best thing is for the gentleman to report his daughter missing, as per normal, and give us a description and anything else that could be useful ..."

  'He'll do that, of course. But in the meantime, his daughter's mobile is ringing and there's no reply. I think it would be a good idea to get authorisation from the Prosecutor's Department to put an urgent trace on the phone.'

  The staff at the phone company would be able to locate Claudia's mobile through its IMEI number - the fifteen-digit code unique to each phone - provided it was still switched on and the battery had not run out. They would call the mobile, and the signal would be picked up by an ultra-sophisticated device which would indicate on a monitor within which cell the phone was located. If this was not enough because that particular cell covered a wide area - several miles, for example — which could happen if the phone wasn't in a city but in an isolated area, another sophisticated device would be used to locate it within a margin of error of only a few yards.

  Superintendent Lojelo looked at Ferrara incredulously. 'You're saying I should . . .?' It was a big step to take and it might cost him dearly if this turned out to be a false alarm -for example, if the woman turned out to have simply gone away somewhere with a lover. The deputy prosecutor would never forgive him for the costs in manpower and money incurred by such a technical procedure.

  'Yes, Superintendent, trust me on this.'

  'But—'

  'Excuse us, Signor Pizzi,' Ferrara said, drawing his colleague aside, out of earshot.

  'Use my name if it helps, Superintendent. Tell them the request came from me. The thing is, this disappearance may be related to a very serious case that could also have implications for an investigation we have under way in Florence.' 'Well, if you put it like that. . .'

  'In the meantime Signor Pizzi can go through all the necessary formalities with you. I have to get back to Marina di Pietrasanta' - he was thinking of Petra - 'but I'll keep in contact. Let's exchange phone numbers.'

  They did so, and he added the phone number of the hotel to his business card. ‘I’ll call you soon to see if there's any news, if you don't mind.'

  'Of course, Chief Superintendent.'

  'And you can call me at any time, understood?'

  Absolutely, don't worry'

  Superintendent Lojelo handed them over to a sergeant who immediately sat down at the computer to write up the missing persons report.

  'I have to go, Signor Pizzi, but try to keep your spirits up. As you can see, Superintendent Lojelo is already on the case. You'll see, they'll find her soon.'

  What he did not tell him was that the mobile might have been mislaid somewhere, so that even if they found it, Claudia might be miles away. But no one had picked it up, which was strange in itself, and even if she wasn't in the same place as her mobile, he was becoming increasingly worried about her, so was pleased to get a search for her under way.

  'Let's hope so,' her father replied, with forced optimism.

  'Call me if you need to. You have the number of the hotel.'

  He did not find Petra in the television room or even in the swimming pool. She was in their room, reading one of the German novels she always brought back from her trips to Germany: they often went there together, especially at Christmas time, which was a period that always made her feel homesick for the smell of vanilla and cinnamon from the desserts her mother made.

  But she might not even have been reading. He
noticed that her eyes had misted over.

  Petra was a practical, down-to-earth woman, and many were the times she had give him moral support when he had felt discouraged. But now she seemed lost, almost numb. It was a sight Ferrara found hard to bear.

  'Come on, get dressed. We're going out to dinner.'

  'Can't we eat in the hotel restaurant?' she protested, listlessly.

  'Don't even think about it. Have you seen the menu? No way. We're going to have dinner in a good restaurant and that's an order!'

  'If you like, Michele.'

  She had to make an effort, and was not good company on the car ride, but she seemed to come back to life a little when they were in the little square of the 'Athens of Italy', struck by the strange, disharmonious beauty of the place and distracted by the cheerfulness of the people crowding into the bars and restaurants.

  Petra was interested in the plaque for the poet Carducci, but was rather less enamoured of the brick bell tower which threw a shadow over the cathedral with its clear white marble facade. They visited a few art galleries then had dinner at the Trattoria San Martino, where the food and wine were authentically local and very good.

  Ferrara phoned Lojelo, as agreed, and learned that the Prosecutor's Department had authorised the trace and the phone company was already at work. There was nothing else he could do.

  He just had to wait for them to locate the phone.

  *

  He received the kick in his back soon after he had lain down, and he did not have time to react before he felt the weight of the Italian on him.

  'You, leave him alone - leave him alone!' Alex yelled, going to the aid of his brother and trying to separate the two bodies.

  It didn't take him long. Even though Emilio Zancarotti weighed almost two hundred and twenty pounds, all of it muscle, there were two of them. It was rather more difficult to stop Nard retaliating and keep the two men apart.

  'No be stupid!' Alex said. 'Want to finish up separate cells?'

  'That's fine by me,' Zancarotti said, 'if it means I don't have to see him any more.'

  'Nothing to do with me!' Nard protested, returning to his bunk.

  'Do you hear him? Do you hear him? Did I tell him or didn't I to put on his seat belt? Did I tell him or not? A thousand times, I must have told him

  Alex said nothing.

  'He got us caught and now we're fucked, am I right?'

  'Qetesi!' Nard cried.

  'What the fuck did he just say?'

  'He say shut up, no pay attention . . . He scared.'

  Inspector Oliva of Narcotics held his breath, hoping they wouldn't stop there.

  He was in a small room on the same floor of Sollicciano prison as the warden's office, a long way from the cell where the three men were, but as soon as he'd heard the first words, he had stood up from his chair, gone to the listening post and put on the headphones. He didn't want to lose a single word of what these men were saying.

  The Albanian brothers Alex and Nard Dakaj had been living in Italy illegally for several months. They had been arrested several times for dealing, found guilty and deported, but each time they stubbornly returned to Italy with different papers. They had so many aliases, they probably didn't know their real names themselves by now.

  The third occupant of the cell was a Florentine, Emilio Zancarotti, the owner of the car, and its driver when they had been stopped by the traffic police.

  Narcotics had had their eyes on them for several weeks after a tip-off from an informer, a young Romanian prostitute who'd had enough of Alex's violence and had turned herself over to the police in Montecatini, who had then contacted Narcotics in Florence.

  The brothers had turned out to be regulars of a bar in the Santa Croce area, run by Emilio Zancarotti, who was already suspected of collecting money from criminal activities and sending it to Albania, where it was used to buy drugs for the European market and women to work as prostitutes in Italy. But it was not clear who he was working for. Under authorisation from the deputy prosecutor, Giuffi had done bank and postal checks on him, but so far they had not produced any results. Since Ferrara had asked him to help on Operation Stella, he had increased the surveillance on the three men.

  That night, in the confines of their narrow cell, they continued to trade accusations and threats, but did not come to blows. At about midnight, once all their frustration and anger had finally been vented and they fell silent, except for their snoring, Inspector Oliva started transcribing, word for word, what he had heard and recorded.

  16

  They were both awake, after yet another sleepless night spent trying to suppress their anxiety and brooding over memories and regrets, when the receptionist put through Lojelo's call.

  'They've located the phone. It's near the quarries, over towards Bedizzano. We're on our way there now.'

  ‘I’ll join you,' Ferrara said. 'How do I get there?'

  'After Carrara, follow the signs to Colonnata. Make sure you take the road that goes to Bedizzano.'

  ‘I’ll be there,' he said and hung up.

  'Can I come, too?'

  Ferrara looked at his wife. It was the first time she had ever asked to be present at a police operation. He could understand it if they had been going to find Massimo, wherever he might be and if he was still alive, but this . . .

  Petra's face was drawn, with deep rings under the eyes. She had taken to wearing her blonde hair drawn back, and her complexion was even more pale and transparent than ever. She looked as if she had aged a few years in a couple of days. But Ferrara loved her just as much, if not more: with sudden emotion, he realised that the passing of time and the difficult period they had been going through had not in any way diminished the beauty of that face, but rather gave it an authority consistent with the resolve and steadfastness of her character, which had been such a boon to him over the years.

  There was no imploring in her bright green eyes: it had not been a request, more a statement.

  'But Petra . . . it's only the journalist we're looking for. Most likely all we'll find will be the mobile phone, abandoned somewhere. It'll be just one more line of inquiry that leads nowhere, but unfortunately we have to follow it up. It doesn't have anything to do with—'

  'I can't just stay here all day, sitting in front of that stupid TV set, mein Gott! And don't think I want to go to the swimming pool or the sea

  Ferrara resigned himself. There was almost certainly no danger: if the mobile was still ringing, it was unlikely that Claudia had been kidnapped or anything like that.

  They got dressed quickly.

  By 6.15 they were already on the autostrada, and half an hour later they were climbing the curving road from Carrara towards Colonnata.

  The landscape was dramatic, perfectly in tune with their state of mind. As they got closer to their target, the deep scars the hand of man had inflicted on the mountain over the centuries became more evident, gaping chasms that were almost blindingly white appearing in the first light of the August sun.

  It was still early, but there were already a few tourist coaches on the road, slowing them down.

  Three police cars were parked at the Bedizzano exit, where the road meets the lorry lane also coming from Carrara. There was only one police officer beside them.

  Ferrara parked the Mercedes on the right, leaving space for

  any vehicles coming from the branch road to manoeuvre, and got out. Petra followed him.

  ‘I’m Chief Superintendent Ferrara,' he said, showing his badge.

  'Superintendent Lojelo is waiting for you up there,' the officer replied. 'How far?'

  'About half a mile. But the road is narrow, I don't know if you'll have room for your car. Do you want me to drive you up there?'

  He looked at Petra, who shook her head. 'I prefer to go on foot, thanks.' They set off.

  To the right, the hill sloped upwards, thick with oaks and ilexes; to the left it descended in a series of stone embankments above sudden precipices. They had more tha
n half a mile to climb, perhaps as much as a mile, and it was hard going because of all the bends. But by the time they realised that, it was too late to turn back.

  As they got closer, they caught occasional glimpses of police uniform through the vegetation on either side: that was where the officers were busy searching.

  After a last bend, more or less halfway between Bedizzano and Carrara, they came within sight of a low corrugated iron building painted yellow, a souvenir stand, in front of which was an open space where two cars were parked. One was a police car, and Lojelo stood beside it with his mobile stuck to his ear. The other car was a dark green Renault Clio.

  As soon as Ferrara had joined him, Lojelo pointed to the Renault. 'That's Claudia Pizzi's car,' he said. 'It fits the description her father gave us and the licence plate is registered in her name.'

  A bad sign, Ferrara thought, as Lojelo tried his mobile again.

  'I keep calling at regular intervals,' he explained. 'Fortunately the battery is still working, but the signal is weak. I hope she hasn't put it on vibrate and one of my men hears it. It's been located to somewhere around here, but not to an exact spot, and as you can see this is a very wooded area. It won't be easy. The only hope is if we hear it ringing.'

  Just as Lojelo was about to switch his phone off, Petra, who had lingered to look at a small altar fixed in the rock and adorned with buttercups, probably in memory of someone who had died in a road accident, heard a faint ringing.

  'Try again, Superintendent!' she cried, coming forward a little.