And they're doing it again today?'
'Every year, on the second Sunday in August, they have this celebration, where they slide a block down for about fifty yards. The event attracts about a thousand people who stand all along the roads for miles around. That's why the traffic's so slow today'
'Would you rather give up and go back?'
'No,' Ferrara said. 'They gave me a map of the quarries, all numbered. We'll be able to check out the ones that belong to Simonetta Palladiani. Seeing as we've come this far . . .'
But it still took them almost two hours to get to the spot where Claudia Pizzi's body had been found, and the area was so packed that it was impossible to park. They carried on and half an hour later reached quarry 206.
Ferrara got out of the car and, ignoring the sign that said PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO ENTRY walked around the barrier and continued along the stony path that led towards the excavation area. Everything seemed to be in order and completely devoid of life. He was struck by a strange smell, rather like rotten fish.
There was no sign of a watchman. A huge excavator stood near the terraced wall of the mountain, and close to a metal shack a tanker lorry was parked, whitened by marble dust. Ferrara walked up to it, wiped away the part of the window where he had caught a glimpse of writing, and read: MINING EXTRACTION LTD.
He wrote the name down in a notebook, went back to the car, and dialled Anna Giulietti's number on the mobile. But there was no reply.
Petra was coming towards him.
'I was worried,' she said.
He smiled and took her by the arm and they walked back to the Mercedes.
The other two quarries were similar to the first. In one of them there were no vehicles at all, in the other a lorry belonging to the same company.
By now they were near Colonnata, and they hadn't yet had lunch.
'How would you feel about having a bite to eat?' 'Why not?' She wasn't hungry, but she thought it would do him good.
'Maybe the traffic will ease off a bit while we're eating and the road will be clearer on the way back.'
Finding a spot in the little car park in Colonnata wasn't easy. Then they climbed the steep stone staircase leading to the main square, with its plaque dedicated to the anarchists, the arch that gives access to the historic centre, and a few bar-restaurants.
They chose one at random, and sat down at a table next to a group celebrating something with plates of Colonnata pate and bottles of white wine. They weren't tourists, but locals.
The guest of honour was a man of advanced years who still seemed lively and quick-witted. Ferrara overheard that he had won a bet.
'What was it?' he asked the man closest to him at the other table, a sprightly, white-haired man, who was perhaps already a little merry.
The man explained that Franchi had beaten everyone at guessing the weight of a huge block of marble simply by hitting it with a hammer.
'We know these mountains,' he concluded proudly. 'We have to know them, otherwise we'd all be out of a job.'
'You're born a quarryman, you don't become one,' another man said.
At that point everyone turned to Ferrara and Petra. Franchi, who for reasons of honour was acting as the head of the group, invited the couple to join them. Ferrara declined, saying that they had to leave soon but he took the opportunity to say, 'I've read that not all the quarries are run by firms from Carrara. How do you feel about people coming in from outside?'
The old quarryman shrugged. 'Live and let live.'
'I read an article in Il Tirreno by a journalist from round here, saying they don't really know what they're doing and are ruining the mountain.'
The old man shrugged again. 'We all mind our own business. We do our work, they do their work . . .'
'So you don't mind them?'
'What they do doesn't concern us. If they want to buy our waste, that's fine with us. They can do whatever they like with it.'
'If they're stupid enough . . .' another man said, and chuckled.
'And do they make marble dust?' 'Some, yes.'
'Is that why they use tanker lorries? I think I saw one ..."
'Yes, otherwise the dust blows away when they transport it.'
'Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. We're just going to have a quick bite and then go. Enjoy the rest of your party!' Ferrara stood up to go and get a sandwich and a glass of beer for himself, and tea and a slice of cake for Petra, because no one had thought of coming to take their order.
On the way back, the road was indeed clearer, and Ferrara even managed to park close to the souvenir stand.
The mouth of the gully had not been cordoned off because the body had been found much lower down, and the area had already been thoroughly searched by Lojelo's men.
He got out of the car and looked around, not sure what exactly he was looking for.
The mountain on the other side of the valley was partly covered by beeches and chestnut trees. Through them, he could see the white walls of marble all the way up to the summit. What had Claudia Pizzi been doing here at dawn, before the stand opened?
He walked along the wall of rock, which was separated from the rest of the mountain by the road. It was no longer than about ten yards. At the other end there was a stretch of meadow, strewn with wild bushes, and then the ground fell away sharply towards the bottom of the valley. A few of the branches were broken. Ferrara started climbing down, careful where he was putting his feet.
From here, it was possible to see the part of the mountain opposite which had previously been hidden by rocks and vegetation. The quarry was clearly visible, with a huge yellow excavator and a tanker lorry next to a metal shack.
He had a pretty good idea now of what had happened.
Claudia Pizzi must have taken up position here to photograph quarry 206 and whatever was going on there. From here, she had probably seen a vehicle coming up the road from Bedizzano. It must have scared her, and she had tried to get back to her own car, but her assailants had got to her while she was running along the edge of the gully. The impact of the bullets had sent her tumbling down the slope.
The killers had probably not climbed down to check on her, otherwise they would have found the handbag and the camera and, if they were Mafiosi, they might have shot her a few more times to make sure she was dead. The escarpment was very steep and she had fallen a long way: they must have assumed that even if the bullets hadn't finished her off, the fall had.
It was late afternoon by the time they got back to the hotel.
Petra was tired, Ferrara worried and nervous.
The porter came up to them. 'There's a lady to see you, Chief Superintendent.'
'To see me? Where is she?'
'Over there, in the lounge.'
'Has she been waiting long?'
'About half an hour.'
The woman was reading a magazine as she waited for him. Ferrara recognised her immediately.
Anna?' he said in surprise as he and Petra walked towards her.
22
'So, was it you or wasn't it, who got Rizzo to make that phone call?'
'If you're asking me in your role as a deputy prosecutor, I won't say yes and I won't say no. I'll just say that Rizzo is in charge of the investigation now and has full responsibility to take whatever measures he sees fit in order to reach a satisfactory outcome. If on the other hand you're asking me as a friend, I'll say that he's the one who mentioned the Freemasons, farfetched as the idea is, but that I was the one who urged him to talk to you about it. And I'm sorry if I made him look an idiot.'
Anna Giulietti smiled. They were sitting in the lounge of the Principe and had ordered aperitifs. Ferrara had lit a cigar: he hadn't been able to smoke one in the car and really needed it now.
'Let's talk as friends,' Anna said. 'It may not have been such a bad move. To begin with, because it was obvious it came from you ... it made me think. What if the hospital really did make a mistake? It may not have anything to do with the other part of the investiga
tion, even though Rizzo -or rather, you - seem to think the opposite, dragging in the Freemasons at the very spot where they found the girl . . .'
'Stella.'
'You found out her name? You identified her? I didn't know that..."
The same reaction as Leone, with an added degree of touchiness, Ferrara thought.
'No, no. It's just the name we're using for her, so that we don't have to be constantly calling her "the girl" or whatever.'
'I see. Anyway, the point is, if the hospital did make a mistake, perhaps I shouldn't just drop it. There are other patients, it's not right that. . . Anyway, I came to say that tomorrow I'm giving the authorisation for you to look at the medical records.'
'Thanks Anna, I appreciate it. But you'll have to talk to Rizzo about that. I'm away from there now, and I have other problems ..."
And he told her everything. The only detail he left out was the curious presence of the letter P, which might link Palladiani, the Freemasons and the cufflink. But if he brought that up, it might risk muddying the whole doctors-Freemasons-d'lncisa connection, which Anna Giulietti had finally taken on board. Best to leave that be and just take a look at the clinical data, which might help both Leone and Fuschi.
As Ferrara spoke, Anna's mounting apprehension was indicated with mathematical precision by the gradual increase in the number of lines on her forehead. And you're sure Massimo had nothing to do with it?' she said when he had finished.
'If we can't be sure of our friends, who can we be sure of?' Ferrara said, although it was not clear whether this was an admission of certainty or of weakness.
'Massimo ist kein Mörder,' Petra said, categorically.
Anna Giulietti looked from one to the other and shook her head. 'Unfortunately, as far as that case is concerned, there's nothing I can do. It's in the hands of a different Prosecutor's
Department, and I don't know this man Lupo ... So tell me, Michele, how can I help you?' 'You can't,' Ferrara replied.
At that point his mobile started ringing. He looked at the screen. 'I'm sorry, I have to take this, it's Rizzo.'
'Hold on to your hat, chief!' his deputy began. 'What's up?'
'Isn't Ugo Palladiani the guy your friend Massimo is supposed to have killed, according to the Carabinieri?' 'Yes, why?'
And didn't he have a factory making jeans and things like that?'
'No ... he was in public relations . . . but he had one before.'
'So it is him.'
'What do you mean?'
'The owner of the factory'
'What are you talking about, Francesco?'
'There's a factory half a mile or so from the place where they found Stella. A former jeans factory registered to Casual Clothing Ltd - director: Ugo Palladiani. It was abandoned after the company went into liquidation, but as far as we can tell from the maps and the land registry, it's still the property of the director, Ugo Palladiani. Curious coincidence, don't you think?'
It was a lot more than just curious, just as his idea about the P had turned out to be less absurd than it had seemed at first.
Not so curious,' Ferrara replied, in not much more than a whisper. He was no longer thinking about the Stella case, but about the implications of that discovery. If Palladiani was now part of their investigation, then Florence might have official jurisdiction over his case. If that was so, he'd be able to investigate Massimo's disappearance openly.
'We need to take a look at the factory,' Rizzo went on. 'Do you think Anna Giulietti will give us a search warrant?'
'Yes, I think she will,' Ferrara said, throwing a glance at the deputy prosecutor, who replied with a look of curiosity.
It was time to satisfy that curiosity as thoroughly as possible.
'Well, well!' Anna Giulietti said when Ferrara had finished updating her. 'Of course I'll issue a search warrant. By itself, owning a warehouse in the vicinity of the place where the girl was found isn't much, or we'd be searching every building in the area, but taken together with the letter P on the cufflink and the fact that the owner died in mysterious circumstances, there's more than enough there to justify it.'
And don't forget the symbol on the cufflink, which may be Masonic'
'Not that again! You have a one-track mind, Michele . . . First the doctor, now Palladiani
'Well, they're both Masons, aren't they? Though not from the same lodge.'
'Yes, and God knows how many other Masons there are in Florence . . . and in the whole of Italy, and France, and England, and America. I think we should drop that for the moment. We have more than enough to be getting on with without stepping on the toes of a lot of powerful people who may just respond by getting rid of the lot of us.'
As always, she was being sensible. She might even be right. But the whole Masonic aspect hung there like a shadow and it bothered him.
'But you're still going to give the authorisation for the medical records, right?'
'I promised, didn't I?' she replied, unconvinced.
23
The week of the August bank holiday looked all set to be chaotic, and not only because of the rush to the beaches. Rizzo's discovery had given Ferrara a shot of adrenalin which had kept him awake all night - though he was getting used to that - and had got him out of bed at dawn on Monday morning. He found himself pacing nervously up and down the deserted corridors of the hotel and then along the side of the swimming pool, smoking his cigar and waiting for a decent time to make his first phone call.
When finally the hands of the clock started to approach seven, he called Fanti.
'Good morning, chief. I haven't yet finished that research you asked me to do on Sicilian companies in Tuscany, but I'm working on it. . .'
'Don't worry about that for the moment. Right now I want you to find out all you can about a company called Mining Extractions, based in Bellomonte di Mezzo.'
'Yes, I think that's one of the names I already came across.'
'What did you find?'
'Nothing. Just that it's one of the Sicilian companies working up here.'
'Find out more.' 'Leave it to me, chief.'
As soon as you know anything, call me, okay?' 'Of course.'
After the call, he had two more immediate goals he had set himself: to find out the results of the factory search, and to go further into the question of Simonetta Palladiani's quarries. For the first, he would have to wait at least until late morning. For the second, the best thing to do was to go back to Carrara.
He preferred not to wake Petra, who must have fallen asleep just as the sun was rising. He left a message on her bedside table, making sure it was conspicuous so that she would read it as soon as she woke up, and went out.
At eight on the dot, he entered Superintendent Lojelo's office.
'What time does the town hall open?' 'Ten o'clock.'
'Too late. I have to find about those quarries as soon as possible. But I assume the staff start earlier than that?'
'That's no problem. As long as the land registry officer is there.'
'Can you get one of your men to go with me?'
'I'll go myself, Chief Superintendent, but I'll make sure first.' He ordered an officer to go and check and phone him as soon as the land registry officer had arrived.
'Thanks. Anything from the interviews?'
'We're still sifting through the answers, but I don't think anything important came out. Claudia Pizzi was respected because she didn't put on airs. You know, a woman in a small town who manages to get a job on a major paper, even if it's not a national one, counts for something. She was considered a bit of a "writer", an artist, even though she dealt with fairly mundane things: local news, interviews . . . Everyone agrees she was very serious and conscientious. A tough cookie who didn't give up easily. She got excited about her various "crusades", but she didn't let her imagination run away with her, she always double-checked everything.'
'If only they were all that way,' Ferrara remarked, thinking of other journalists he knew who, in their search
for a scoop, were ready to spread the first piece of local gossip they came across as gospel truth.
'Right . . . We spoke to her boyfriend. His name is Fabio Rubini, same age as her. He works as a sales rep for a company making building materials. He said she'd been very tense lately, but that was nothing new. They'd been together since university, and in those days whenever she had exams she usually became impossible. They always ended up quarrelling. He thinks she always did it deliberately, so she could be alone and concentrate on her studies. The same thing happened later, too, whenever she was involved in researching or investigating something difficult, only now they didn't quarrel. He'd learnt his lesson and left her alone . . . That's what happened during the last week, in fact.'
'So he can't fill us in on what she was doing?'
'Unfortunately not.'
'And you don't think they quarrelled and he . . .'
'Well, where couples are involved, anything's possible, we both know that. But I don't think so, in this case. Her father speaks well of him, and he has an alibi which we're checking: on Thursday ninth and Friday tenth he was working in the north of his sales area: Ameglia, Sarzana, Aulla, Pontremoli. He spent the night at a hotel in Pontremoli. We should be able to eliminate him very soon.'
Death in Tuscany Page 21
