Death in Tuscany

by Michele Giuttari

  Setting foot back in the office that Tuesday morning at seven was like being reborn.

  Not that his anxiety over Massimo's disappearance had lessened. On the contrary, it was increasing with every hour that passed. But sitting at his desk, surrounded by the objects he had become used to over the years, with his feet on that floor which had been trodden by other, greater heads of the Florence Squadra Mobile - he had almost been moved to tears when he had first crossed that threshold - pleased even by the slight smell of stale smoke with which the furniture and walls were impregnated, Ferrara felt his strength returning. He would need it, and all his organisational abilities and clear-headedness, to make sense of this complex tangle of drugs, paedophiles and Mafiosi. What had been uncovered in the abandoned factory, he well knew, was only the tip of the iceberg.

  He had even had a relatively quiet night, going over the various theories and working out strategies which he could not wait to put into practice.

  Only one thing was missing: Fanti. As usual, the sergeant had arrived before his chief, but he wasn't in his office at that moment.

  He summoned Rizzo, who soon appeared.

  'Have you sent the report to the Prosecutor's Department?' he asked after they had exchanged greetings. His deputy seemed relieved by his return, which somehow put things back on track.

  'Yes, chief. And I've also asked for a warrant to search Palladiani's apartment, office and car.'

  Add his yacht. He has one in the harbour in Viareggio.' He leafed through his own notebook, and tore off the half-page with the relevant details. 'Here.'

  'Okay, chief.'

  And another thing, Francesco,' he added, thinking of that planned escape to Nice, which Petra had brought up. 'It might be a good idea to have a look at his bank account and his phone records.'

  'Sure ... It would certainly be a strange coincidence if the man who was killed in Pietrasanta also turns out to be Stella's killer . . .'

  And in our business, there no such thing as coincidence, is there?'

  'That's right, chief . . .'

  In the meantime Fanti had returned, but had not dared to interrupt their talking.

  'Fanti!' Ferrara called. 'Come in here!'

  But the sergeant did not appear immediately. In fact, he did not appear even after several minutes.

  'Fanti, did you hear me?' Ferrara yelled, surprised and a little annoyed.

  He heard the chair being shifted in the next room, followed by slow, shuffling footsteps.

  When Fanti at last came in, he was pale and his eyes were watery.

  'What's the matter? Are you all right?'

  The sergeant nodded and lowered his eyes.

  'What is it? You look worn to a frazzle. You haven't even brought me in the mail. What's the matter, isn't anything happening in this city?'

  Fanti gave him a hangdog look. 'Right away, chief. I'll bring it in right away' He went out again.

  Not even 'Good morning' or 'Welcome back'! What was going on?

  He threw a questioning look at Rizzo, who did not know how to respond.

  The only item of mail that Fanti brought in was a one-page document.

  Ferrara felt the ground give way. All his renewed energy abandoned him suddenly. It was a scene he had already lived through and he had no desire to live through it again, in what looked like being its worst ever version.

  The hand he held out to take the document was shaking slightly.

  He realised immediately that it was not what he had feared, but the relief was short-lived.

  The document bore at the top the letterhead of the Head of the State Police and Director General of Public Safety.

  It was an official order.

  His hands were still shaking as he read it.

  The Head of the State Police ordered he be relieved of his duties for one month, without pay except for a living allowance equal to half his salary.

  The reason: Behaviour towards representatives of the Carabinieri in no way befitting the standards expected from the Head of the Squadra Mobile, and likely to damage the reputation of the State Police.

  'No way!' he cried, flying into an uncontrollable rage, and passing the document to his deputy. 'There's no way I'm going now! I don't give a damn about the Head of the Police, the Carabinieri, the Commissioner, the Public Prosecutor . . . Even if they send the Carabinieri to arrest me, I'm not moving from here!'

  'Calm down, sir,' Rizzo begged. 'You'll only make things worse.'

  'Worse than this? My best friend may be dead for all I know, and this jumped-up young captain who can't see any further than his own nose is looking for a couple on the run while the Mafia are playing fast and loose in his territory! No, Francesco, it's really not on! You don't defeat organised crime by being polite! The idiot thinks this is some kind of crime of passion, but while he's been wasting time reporting me instead of looking for Massimo, we've opened up something bigger than Pandora's box! And you think I should just step aside?'

  Ferrara's private mobile started ringing.

  'Of course not, but maybe if you talk to the Commissioner—'

  'Oh, sure, he's bound to be a lot of use!'

  It was odds on that Riccardo Lepri had been one of those pressing for this action to be taken - he'd virtually threatened as much.

  'But it's the only way'

  The phone was still ringing and Ferrara took it out of his pocket, irritably.

  'Who's that?' he yelled.

  'This is Anna, Michele. I'm on my way to Siena, but I heard all about Rizzo's operation yesterday and I just wanted to congratulate you. You were right. This could be the breakthrough you were looking for, don't you think? Now we'll really have to look into this Palladiani and coordinate our investigation with the one in Lucca. I think the best thing you can do is go back to Florence and take over the investigation again—'

  'I'm already in Florence, but I can't do anything.' 'What do you mean?'

  'That right now I'm not the head of the Squadra Mobile, and maybe I never will be again. In fact I'm nothing!' And he told her the whole story, from the exchange of threats with Captain Fulvi to the order he had just received, which must also have been sent to the Commissioner and the Public Prosecutor. 'Didn't you know anything about it?'

  'I haven't been into the office, I've got things to do in Siena first. . . How do you plan to handle it?'

  'I don't know. I think I should talk to Lepri.'

  'I don't know if that's such a good idea . . . Let me think about it.' It was obvious her brain was already working overtime. 'No, Michele, don't do it. Who's seen you at Headquarters?'

  Apart from the sentry, only Rizzo and Fanti.'

  'Do you trust them?'

  Are you kidding? I trust them more than I trust myself.'

  'Cover yourself. Go home and make sure no one can reach you. You haven't seen that order, okay? You mustn't receive it. I'll call you later.'

  'Okay, bye.'

  'Bye.'

  'Fanti!' he called after he'd hung up.

  The sergeant came back in. 'Yes, chief?'

  'Listen to me carefully' Ferrara said, addressing both of them. 'You haven't seen me. I haven't been here, okay? And you can't get in touch with me. You have no idea where I am.'

  Fanti and Rizzo nodded.

  'But what are you planning to do?' Rizzo asked. 'Stay head of the Squad as long as I can. Right now I'm going home. You know where to find me, if you need me.'

  'I've finished my report on the Sicilian companies,' Fanti said. 'Do you want it now?'

  'Yes, I'll take it with me, at least I'll have something to pass the time. Did you find out anything from Bellomonte?'

  'I talked to a colleague in Trapani who was at police academy with me. He'll try to give us a hand, but he says we shouldn't be under any illusions. The town is practically a Mafia stronghold. It's just like the Wild West, he says.'

  'Bring Superintendent Rizzo up to date on this,' Ferrara said, seeing that Rizzo wasn't following them. 'Try the Chamber
of Commerce if you have to, or the Ministry, or God Almighty. Whatever happens, we need to know who's in charge of Mining Extractions. I mean who's really in charge, I don't want the directors, they're sure to just be figureheads.'

  All right, chief.'

  He went out and walked across the courtyard. As he did so, a prison van came to a halt, and two guards brought out a young man in handcuffs. He was in his mid-twenties, of medium height, with a hollow face and a piercing in his left cheek.

  Ferrara recognised Inspector Guzzi, one of Ciuffi's undercover men. It was only in this disguise that he could set foot in Headquarters. Ferrara remembered that he'd been planning to ask Ciuffi what he thought of his theory that the quarries were being used for drug trafficking. But now he couldn't, because his own office and his own men were off limits to him.

  Out of handcuffs now, Guzzi made his report to Superintendent Ciuffi.

  'The Albanians' boss is called Viktor. The drugs were meant for him. The suppliers are definitely Mafia. Apparently the drugs are brought in from Asia, especially Afghanistan. The Mafia use Zancarotti to launder the money in Albania, but he either doesn't know or won't say who the important Mafiosi are. He says he's always contacted by different people. He's a kind of middle man between the two gangs. He knows the Albanians and works on commission for the Sicilians. Usually he isn't directly involved in the traffic, not even in small quantities, but in this case they were forced to use him because he had to get the fee directly from Viktor's hideout. That's because Viktor didn't trust the Sicilians, but he knew Zancarotti wouldn't fuck around with him, given the way he's got things set up in Albania.'

  'But why directly from Viktor's hideout? Couldn't they have met on neutral ground?'

  'Even he doesn't know that. Those were his orders and he had to follow them.'

  At least you managed to get something out of him. Congratulations.'

  'Pure luck. He needs me. He's really scared the other two are going to kill him. Now they're inside, they hate each other. The brothers think it's Zancarotti's fault they were arrested, because the car was his and he was driving, and Zancarotti's convinced the traffic cops stopped them because Nard wasn't wearing a seat belt.' He smiled ironically. 'The Albanians are another matter. They don't really talk to me. It's not surprising, they think I'm on Zancarotti's side. But they don't know I can understand their language and sometimes I catch a few words, like their boss's name. Every now and again they mention this guy Zitturi, the one Zancarotti also mentioned, and when they do they look at him. It could be the name of the man in charge of the Sicilians. I tried to ask Zancarotti, as casually as I could, but he said he had no idea what I was talking about.'

  'Which would seem to confirm it. He was the one who said they'd fucked it up for Zitturi.'

  'Precisely. Have you found out who this guy is?'

  'No. We've tried the name Zitturi and several variations, but so far we haven't come up with anything. Let's hope we get something from the mobile phones we confiscated, but I doubt the boss used his own phone!'

  'Well, good luck. I think my interview with the examining magistrate must have ended by now, and it's time for me to be taken back to my cell.'

  'I'll call the guards.'

  Being a prisoner in his own home, Ferrara decided to get down to studying Fanti's report. But first he had one phone call to make. To Carrara, to find out what was happening with the investigation into Claudia's murder.

  But there was no news. When Superintendent Lojelo asked him how things had gone the previous day in the quarries, he was almost tempted to mention the Bellomonte connection but something held him back. He told himself it must have been because the lead was quite a weak one, but in his heart of hearts he was afraid that it needed a lot more experience than Lojelo had to avoid compromising everything and alerting the criminals.

  By the time he had finished examining Fanti's report, he was sure he was on the right track.

  He had just put the report down when Anna Giulietti called him.

  Tm on my way back from Lucca,' she began. 'I thought you went to Siena.'

  'That was this morning. Then I went to Lucca, because I can't set foot in my office, if I did I'd find out you'd been suspended. And besides, I wanted to meet this Armando Lupo, who's a Sicilian like you. He has a lot of respect for you. You didn't tell me that.'

  'He may respect me, but he wasn't very cooperative the last time we met.'

  'Strange, I got the opposite impression. He had nothing but good to say about you, and anyway the most important thing is that he agrees we should link the two investigations. We've arranged a meeting tomorrow morning, in Lucca, with you and Captain Fulvi.'

  'Tomorrow? August bank holiday?'

  'Why? Have you ever taken it off?'

  Ferrara thought about it. 'Yes, twenty-seven times . . . then I joined the police.'

  'Lucky you, I didn't even get that many!'

  Anyway, I don't know if I should . . . given the way things are . . .'

  'Why? How are things? I know you're on holiday, but in the light of recent developments in a case involving murder, paedophilia and possible criminal conspiracy, I need you, and I'm forced to call you back on duty urgently'

  26

  Captain Fulvi was nervous.

  After his first, relatively cursory but accurate assessment of the results obtained from both the crime scene investigation and the autopsy on the victim, he had not found it difficult to formulate a plausible hypothesis about the events leading up to Ugo Palladiani's murder. The housekeeper's testimony and the fact that the two lovers had absconded had reinforced it, and there was more than enough evidence to lead him to expect a result very shortly.

  But that result was taking rather longer than he had thought.

  The detention order on Simonetta Palladiani and Massimo Verga had produced no results so far. The two of them seemed to have vanished into thin air. Without them, the investigation had stalled, and the summons from Deputy Prosecutor Armando Lupo, on a public holiday, didn't bode at all well.

  Lupo had told him to expect an important piece of news, but the fact that this news was coming from another source and not from himself merely increased his unease. His birth sign was Virgo and he didn't like surprises.

  When he entered Lupo's office and saw, as well as from Lupo, a woman he didn't know, with vaguely aristocratic and authoritarian features, and the chief superintendent from the Florence Squadra Mobile, whom he'd already met in circumstances he'd have preferred to forget, he knew this would be an August bank holiday to remember.

  'Please sit down, Captain, we were waiting for you,' Lupo said cordially, offering him a seat next to him, facing the other two across the desk.

  The woman was smiling, and seemed at her ease. Ferrara was smoking a cigar, which did not seem to bother the others.

  The captain did not sit down immediately. He stood by the chair, waiting for the introductions.

  'Deputy Prosecutor Anna Giulietti, of the Prosecutor's Department of Florence,' Lupo said. 'Chief Superintendent Michele Ferrara you already know.'

  'Pleased to meet you,' he replied, addressing Anna, as he sat down.

  In those few seconds he tried to prepare himself. This unexpected tableau was eloquent enough: the two Prosecutor's Departments had got together to try to settle the dispute between the police and the Carabinieri, in an attempt to save Ferrara from an unpleasant procedure: a procedure he, Fulvi, had requested. Was he ready to negotiate? He wasn't sure. After all, Ferrara had been the first to threaten to go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he had simply got in ahead of him in order to safeguard himself and his own investigation. If Ferrara was eating humble pie now, he would have to sweat to obtain his 'forgiveness'.

  Ready to savour Ferrara's unconditional surrender, he was caught off guard by Lupo's introduction, which was about something else entirely.

  'Captain, allow me to bring you up to date on a number of developments which cast a new and unexpected light on Ugo P
alladiani. Thanks to these developments, we have decided that the investigation into his death can only benefit from a collaboration between this department and the one in Florence, represented by Deputy Prosecutor Giulietti, who is in charge of the investigation into the murder of an unknown girl in Florence. Once we have pooled our knowledge, it will be easier to decide on the strategies to follow in pursuing our respective investigations.'

  ‘I’m listening,' Captain Fulvi said.

  Lupo, appealing only twice for confirmation, once to Ferrara, once to Anna Giulietti, effectively summarised the events which had led to the discovery of paedophile activities in Palladiani's abandoned factory, culminating in the death of a young girl, still unnamed, beside whose body a cufflink had been found bearing the letter P. He showed Captain Fulvi the photograph.

  At this stage of the investigations,' he concluded, 'we don't know if Palladiani's death is related to his paedophile activities, but Deputy Prosecutor Giulietti and I have agreed that it would be negligent on our part not to consider the possibility that there may indeed be a connection. That's why we think it's desirable for there to be an exchange of information between the forces dealing with both cases and, if necessary, active collaboration on the investigation into Palladiani's murder. I know that you and the chief superintendent haven't seen eye to eye over the involvement of Signor Massimo Verga, but I hope your differences can be put aside, in the interests of justice. Is everyone agreed?'

  Giulietti and Ferrara nodded. Fulvi, unable to find an immediate counter-argument, did the same.

  He was, however, thinking hard. Even though the paedophile angle did not necessarily contradict his own theory of a crime of passion, it did weaken it. It was hard to imagine a man with such perverse sexual interests harbouring resentment towards the boyfriend of a mature woman from whom he had been virtually separated for years and who had certainly had many other lovers. But if he was on the right track - and he didn't doubt for a moment that he was - then the conclusions which Chief Superintendent Ferrara and Deputy Prosecutor Giulietti were trying to reach must be wrong.