Death in Sardinia

by Marco Vichi

  ‘I hope you don’t think I killed him,’ Marisa said in a soft voice.

  ‘I just want you tell me quite honestly what your relationship with him was.’ By this point they were almost alone, and the few remaining kids in front of the school were watching them with curiosity, perhaps trying to understand who the man in the dark trench coat talking to Marisa was.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ she said, looking around.

  ‘Shall we walk a little?’

  ‘Don’t you have a car?’

  ‘It’s over there,’ said Bordelli. They crossed the street and got into the Beetle. The girl set her books down at her feet and sighed. She moved very naturally, like a wild animal. She was very different from how she appeared in the photos.

  ‘When I saw on the telly that the guy’d been killed I thought, “Good! He deserved it!” I know that’s not very nice,’ said Marisa.

  ‘Just tell me everything, slowly, from the beginning,’ the inspector said.

  Marisa breathed deeply. She seemed a bit agitated. ‘He told me he could get me into a film … with Mastroianni,’ she said, looking outside. She felt embarrassed for having fallen into the trap like a chicken.

  ‘And that was why he asked to take those photographs?’ the inspector enquired, sniffing the air. The compartment had filled with the girl’s lovely scent. Even the car’s dusty interior seemed to look better.

  ‘He was very insistent. He said he had to send some photos at once to Cinecittà, because Mastroianni was looking for a girl just like me.’

  ‘It’s a rather old trick.’

  ‘I was a fool, I know. At first I didn’t want to do it, but then I started thinking I was passing up a unique opportunity …’

  ‘Do your parents know?’

  ‘Noooo,’ said the girl, waving a hand in the air. She had slender fingers that looked as fragile as breadsticks. Bordelli studied her attentively. She was truly very beautiful. She had a finely drawn mouth and two red lips that looked made for kissing. She looked a little like a famous French actress he liked a great deal … What the hell was her name?

  ‘When did he take those photos?’ he asked.

  ‘And to think that you’ve seen them … I’m so embarrassed …’

  ‘Don’t think about it. When did he take them?’

  ‘Late last month. I skipped school one morning and went to the guy’s house. He said he had a very good camera and the right clothes, and would do it for me for free … And I fell for it, like a complete idiot.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘By chance, at the UPIM department store. He’d been staring at me for a while and always seemed to be appearing right in front of me. Then he came up to me and introduced himself. He started in immediately with that story about the movies and gave me his telephone number. He even said he was good friends with Celentano and Little Tony. Right then and there he seemed like a cool guy … Jesus, what an idiot!’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Do you swear never to tell any of this to my parents?’ Marisa asked with fear in her eyes.

  ‘You have my word that I have no such intention whatsoever,’ said Bordelli. The girl thought about this for a moment, then resumed speaking.

  ‘I went to his place and he gave me some things to put on, and we started taking pictures. He would tell me how I should stand, that sort of thing … He seemed to know what he was doing … How am I supposed to know how these things are done?’ She paused for a moment, seeming increasingly tense, as if the memory of those things made her feel very uneasy and ashamed.

  ‘At a certain point he told me to take off my bra and cover myself with my arms. I turned round and took off my bra.When I turned round again, he’d put the camera down. He started saying he couldn’t control himself, and he was in love with me … He put his arms around me and started kissing me. I tried to push him away, but he was holding me tight … I felt his mouth on my neck … I was really scared … He kept saying, “Come on, be a good girl.” He seemed like a different person, he had a wicked look in his eyes and was breathing heavily. He was holding my head and trying to kiss me. I kept pushing him away, but he was a lot stronger than me. Then I tried to scratch his face, and he got angry and threw me down on to the bed … and then he jumped on me and touched me all over. I started screaming and he put his hand over my mouth. He said that girls like me were made for this … and that I shouldn’t play the prude, because he knew I did it with everyone … and he kept repeating that I would like it, because a man is different from a boy … He seemed like an animal. I kept on kicking, and then he started slapping me. He would slap me and then bend down to kiss me. He said I was just a silly girl who would never amount to anything anyway … And then at a certain point I noticed … I don’t know how he did it … he’d opened his trousers …’

  She stopped talking and pulled her overcoat tightly around her.

  ‘Did you manage to get away?’ Bordelli asked, impatient to know. Marisa didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and two tears, as big as grains of maize, rolled down her cheeks. When she resumed speaking, her voice quavered a little.

  ‘… I tore off his glasses and threw them against the wall … He couldn’t see without them … And so I smashed my head against his nose … and I was finally able to get him off me … I put my coat on and grabbed all my stuff in a hurry and ran down the stairs … When I got outside I started trembling from the cold, because I had hardly any clothes on under my coat … So I went to a bar and got dressed in the bathroom … I felt so stupid I wanted to die …’

  Bordelli was trying to imagine the scene as she was recounting it, and suddenly found himself with a cigarette between his lips. Unlit. He bit it. He wished Badalamenti were still alive so he could have a few words with him, man to man.

  ‘Was that the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Yes,’ the girl said, wiping her face with her fingers. Then she added that a week later she had phoned him from a public place to ask him for the photos back, and Badalamenti had replied that she could come and get them whenever she liked … But he’d said it in a tone that left little room for doubt …

  ‘What was the date?’

  ‘I dunno, the fifth or the sixth.’

  ‘Have you told any of this to anyone?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but could we go closer to home?’ Marisa asked, looking at her watch. Bordelli started up the car and drove off.

  ‘Have you told this story to anyone?’ he asked again.

  ‘No … I mean, yes …’

  ‘To your boyfriend?’

  ‘No,’ she said, staring at the street.

  ‘Don’t you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I told my brother,’ Marisa said, blushing.

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He got really pissed off,’ said Marisa, eyes widening.

  ‘At you?’

  ‘At me too …’ The inspector was driving slowly to buy time, and perhaps also because it was pleasant having so much beauty right beside him.

  ‘Did your brother ever go to Badalamenti’s house?’

  ‘Surely you aren’t thinking …’

  ‘I’m not thinking anything, I’m just trying to understand,’ Bordelli said, smiling placidly.

  ‘It wasn’t him,’ Marisa said.

  ‘Did your brother ever go to Badalamenti’s house?’ the inspector repeated.

  ‘Yes, but … all they did was quarrel.’

  She explained what had happened. When she’d tried calling that guy again, he’d only laughed in her face and called her a ‘whore’. And so, to get it all off her chest, she’d told the whole story to her brother, and that same afternoon, rather late in the day, they’d gone together to a bar in Piazza della Libertà, where there was a booth with closing doors, and called Badalamenti. Hearing a man’s voice, Badalamenti had an even worse reaction and started insulting Marisa …

  ‘Slut, prostitute, cunt, and even worse,’ she said, blushing. And her bro
ther, for his part, was not about to be outdone. Badalamenti then said he didn’t want to be bothered any longer and threatened to send the photographs to some men’s magazine … At this point her brother had got pissed off in earnest and told Badalamenti that if he didn’t turn the pictures over of his own accord, he would go there and get the bloody things himself. Marisa thought her brother was saying this just to frighten him, but the following day he’d actually gone to the guy’s house. And they’d nearly come to blows … But nothing more of this sort had happened after that. And her brother had never managed to get the photos back. She hadn’t learned about it till afterwards, otherwise she would have tried to prevent her brother from going … Because that guy was crazy.

  ‘So your brother never went back there after that?’

  ‘No … I don’t think so,’ Marisa said, unsure. She added that her brother had wanted to report Badalamenti, but she’d begged him not to, because she was terrified at the thought that her parents might find out about the whole thing. There really seemed to be no easy solution to the problem, and in the end she had almost thought of letting it all drop. At a certain point, however, she couldn’t stand it any longer. Knowing that Badalamenti had those photos and could look at them whenever he wanted made her feel too terrible. And so she’d tried calling him again, hoping to convince him one way or another, even if she didn’t quite know how. But he hadn’t answered the phone. She’d kept on calling for a few days more, at all times of the day, but he was never in … Then one evening she’d seen the newspaper …

  ‘What does your brother do?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘He plays electric guitar,’ she said.

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘He’s very serious about it …’

  ‘Where can I find him without going to your parents’ place?’

  ‘He’s hardly ever at home, anyway. He’s always at a friend’s house,’ said Marisa.

  ‘What the friend’s name?’

  ‘Guido Fontana.’

  ‘Is he related to the lawyer?’ asked Bordelli, who knew the man by reputation.

  ‘He’s his son.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘In Via Stoppani.’ Bordelli knew the street well. It was a cross-street off Viale Volta. A private, rather posh street at that.

  ‘I think I’ll go and look for him straight away,’ he said.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Marisa asked anxiously, perhaps imagining an interrogation of the kind she’d seen in American movies.

  ‘I just want to talk to him.’

  ‘Pay no attention to his manners … He’s a lamb.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Raffaele, but we call him Lele.’

  ‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

  ‘I don’t think so … You can let me out here,’ said Marisa, at the corner of the Ponte Rosso. Bordelli pulled up to the kerb but left the engine running. She opened the door, put a foot outside, then turned round.

  ‘Could I have those photos back some time?’ she asked, embarrassed. Bordelli opened the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope.

  ‘Here you are. The negatives are there, too,’ he said. Marisa opened her mouth in surprise, hastily checked to verify that they were really the photos, then hid them in her satchel.

  ‘I’m going to burn them,’ she said, a flash of joy in her eyes.

  ‘I cut up two of them to help my patrolmen find you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, blushing. How old is your brother?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘So he saw the war through the eyes of a small child‘

  ‘He hardly remembers anything …’ Marisa said, shrugging. She seemed more relieved since he’d given her the photos. She’d even managed to smile … A beautiful smile, full of little white teeth surrounded by soft lips fresh as cherries.

  ‘Did you hear me, Inspector?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said goodbye,’ Marisa said.

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Bordelli said, coming to, and he blushed as if the girl could read his mind. He’d been spellbound for a few long moments in a dream … where he was twenty-five and had just met Marisa and was trying to arrange a date with her.

  ‘My brother hasn’t killed anybody,’ said Marisa, shaking her head. She seemed to be talking as much to herself as to him. The inspector pulled himself together and tried to assume an impassive expression.

  ‘Is your brother left-handed?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, why do you ask?’

  ‘Nothing, just curious,’ said Bordelli, feigning indifference.

  ‘Lele likes to act tough, but it’s all put on,’ Marisa said. Then she gestured goodbye and got out and ran across the piazza. When she reached the pavement, she slowed her pace and turned round for a second to look at the Beetle. Then she quickened her pace again. Bordelli sat there and watched her. She looked like a filly agitated by a storm. She was as beautiful as the full moon, he thought. She had to be more careful than the other girls.

  Right after the funeral, Piras asked Ettore and Angelo to take him to Benigno’s farmhouse, saying he wanted to check something. He’d asked Pina for the keys, with the excuse that they ought to turn off the electricity. She’d given them to him without batting an eye.

  Ettore drove fast, and fifteen minutes later they were already on the dirt road that led to the Zocchinu quarry. When they pulled up in front of the house, the sun was high in the sky. There was a rusty Motom motorbike propped up against the wall. It must have belonged to Gioacchino Barraccu, the shepherd who’d been looking after Benigno’s animals since his death. At that hour he was out in the pasture.

  They entered the house and went upstairs. Going into the room in which Benigno had shot himself, Piras started pacing back and forth, looking at the floor.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Ettore asked.

  ‘The shell.’

  ‘The shell?’ Angelo asked.

  ‘It must be around here somewhere. Give me a hand, you two, if you don’t mind,’ said Piras.

  All three of them started searching. They looked in every corner of the room and under the furniture and even dug their fingers into the folds of the armchair. But they didn’t find it.

  ‘It’s not here,’ Ettore finally said, throwing his hands up.

  ‘Shit,’ said Piras, still circling about the room with his eyes on the floor.

  ‘What the hell do you need the shell for?’ Ettore asked, having already grown bored.

  ‘Can’t you figure it out for yourself ?’ Piras said without looking at him.

  Ettore thought about it for a moment, staring into space, then shook his head. ‘No … What do you need it for?’

  ‘It’s not possible … it has to be here. Let’s keep looking,’ Piras said, getting agitated.

  ‘Maybe it got tangled up in his clothes,’ Angelo said blithely. Piras thought about this for a second, then shook his head and continued searching the room. The others exchanged a glance and raised their eyebrows, resigned, then resumed looking for the shell without much conviction, just to make their policeman friend happy.

  ‘C’mon, Nino, there’s nothing here,’ Angelo finally said, putting his hands in his pockets.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Ettore. They were fed up. Piras looked at his watch. It was almost one o’clock.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ he said, walking towards the door. There was no point in carrying on the search. The goddamn shell just wasn’t there. Piras turned off the electricity and then locked the main door. He remembered that on the night of the suicide it had been closed with only the spring-lock, not with a turn of the key or bolted. But that, of course, might be perfectly normal, since Benigno was about to go out to Pina’s place for dinner.

  ‘So?’ said Ettore, seeing that Piras’s thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Wait, I just want to have a quick look behind the house,’ said Piras.

  ‘Arrazze ‘e segamentu,’14 Angelo mutter
ed between clenched teeth. The other two followed Piras behind the house. The fold was empty, the sheep out to pasture along with the dog. The pigs had plenty to eat, and the sty had been cleaned that morning. The donkey was placid. Everything seemed in order. Barraccu was doing a good job looking after everything. Piras checked the windows of the house and made sure the back door was locked tight.

  ‘All right, we can go,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir, General, sir,’ said Ettore.

  They circled back to the front of the house, got into the car, and drove to the main road. The little Fiat’s motor whirred like a fine watch. Piras sat in silence, rehashing the question of the missing shell in his mind, while his two friends chatted about the upcoming Christmas dinner, discussing which relatives would or wouldn’t be coming.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone what we went to do there,’ Piras said when they were within sight of Bonarcado. Angelo and Ettore swore to keep their mouths shut, though from the way they said it, it was clear that they thought that all this mystery was a bit overdone.

  Ettore dropped Piras off in front of his house, then continued on his way with Angelo. Piras glanced at his watch. He looked over at the Setzus’ house, hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind and went and knocked on the door. When Pina appeared, he returned the keys to her and asked her whether he could please have a look at the clothes Benigno was wearing when he died. Pina was so tired she didn’t even ask him why. She let him in and led him upstairs to the room where they had changed Benigno’s clothes. She opened a wardrobe and took out some clothes.

  ‘Here they are,’ she said.

  Piras asked her please to lay them out on the bed, then propped a crutch against the wall and with his free hand began to squeeze the sweater and trousers. He then held them up in the air and shook them. There was no shell.

  ‘All right, I’m done. Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘What were you looking for?’ asked Pina without much interest.

  ‘Nothing. I’m going to go and eat. If you need anything, don’t be afraid to ask. Come whenever you like.’