Death in Sardinia

by Marco Vichi

  ‘Don’t be silly, Oreste.’

  The sergeant gave a sort of smile and said nothing. His eyes were sunken and ringed with black. The few hairs on his head were tousled, like a newborn’s. The brunette nurse came in to administer a shot. The syringe was completely full.

  ‘How’s our policeman today?’ she said, trying to be cheerful, but it was clear she didn’t really feel like joking.

  ‘Not very well,’ said Baragli, half closing his eyes. The slightest movement cost him great effort. He wasn’t even able to pull down his pyjama bottoms, and Bordelli gave the woman a hand. The sergeant’s bum was swollen with needle pricks.

  ‘Had any more bad dreams, Sergeant?’ the nurse asked as she administered the injection.

  ‘Yes,’ said Baragli.

  ‘What did you dream?”

  ‘I was running through a field …’

  ‘Now, how do you think that makes me feel? Don’t you like me any more?’ the woman asked, withdrawing the needle. Baragli tried to smile, and with great effort raised a hand to the nurse. She took it in hers and squeezed it.

  ‘You are an angel,’ said Baragli.

  ‘My husband would not agree.’ She laughed, laying the sergeant’s hand down gently on the sheet. Then she took leave of the two men, walking away with her empty syringe.

  ‘Inspector. Haven’t you got anything to tell me about that boy?’ Baragli was exhausted, but his eyes burned with curiosity.

  ‘Don’t overtax yourself, Oreste.’

  ‘Please, tell me about that boy …’

  ‘De Marchi compared the hair samples,’ Bordelli said, sighing.

  ‘A match?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew it,’ Baragli muttered.

  ‘Not so fast. We still don’t know for certain whether he did it,’ said the inspector.

  ‘I knew it,’ Baragli repeated. Almost without realising, Bordelli shuffled the cards and dealt them for a game of briscola.

  ‘Shall we play?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t think I can, Inspector.’

  ‘Just one game.’

  ‘When are you going back to see that boy?’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ said Bordelli. Baragli closed his eyes and remained silent. He seemed to have suddenly fallen asleep. The inspector reshuffled the cards and started another round of solitaire. All at once someone grabbed his wrist. Baragli was pulling him towards him with all the feeble strength he had left.

  ‘Oreste, are you all right?’

  ‘I wanted to tell you something, Inspector.’

  ‘Tell me.’ Bordelli brought his face near. Baragli’s eyes were blazing, and staring at him. What life remained in him lay entirely in his pupils.

  ‘A policeman must do his duty to the best of his ability, Inspector. But above anything else, he must be … fair,’ he said. And his eyes added what he wouldn’t put into words. Bordelli smiled nervously. He suddenly felt a strong desire to smoke.

  He rang the buzzer and climbed the stairs, and when he got to the top, he found Rosa’s door ajar. A voice rang out from within, and Bordelli recognised it at once. It was Princess Doralice, mother of three girls. He found her in the sitting room, all covered with silvery veils and a great big hat. She was standing in the middle of the room, repeating the same lines in a variety of tones, addressing them to the cat, who was sleeping quietly on the couch.

  ‘How could you do such a thing! My own daughter, a murderess!’

  ‘How could you do such a thing! My own daughter, a murderess!’

  ‘How could you do such a thing! My own daughter, a murderess! … Well, which one do you like best?’ Rosa asked in the end, breaking the spell.

  ‘The second,’ said Bordelli, choosing at random. Rosa tried another dozen times, then came towards him, moving the way she thought princesses moved.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the ear.

  ‘Touching … Is it the last scene?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘The tragic tone.’ Rosa gave a sly smile.

  ‘Wrong! It may seem like the finale, but it’s the coup de théâtre … Would you like me to tell you the story?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Bordelli, knowing that any other answer would have been taken as an insult.

  ‘A nip of cognac?’

  ‘If I must …’

  ‘Sit down over there and get comfortable,’ she said, excited. She pushed him down on to the sofa and took his shoes off. Then she filled two small glasses with cognac.

  ‘What shall we drink to, monkey?’ she asked, raising her glass.

  ‘To Princess Rosa?’

  ‘And to 1966 … I want it to be a marvellous year.’ They clinked glasses, looking each other straight in the eye, and took a sip.

  ‘Now let me tell you the story of Doralice,’ she said, setting her glass down on the table. Bordelli lit a cigarette, determined not to miss a word. Rosa stood up and clapped her hands, as if to open the performance.

  ‘This story takes place in the past, centuries ago, in a great castle surrounded by cypresses at the top of a hill. Princess Doralice, who’s me, has three delightful daughters, Amelia, Camilla and Rinuccia, all very sensitive and sweet, all as beautiful as their mother, who’s me. Rinuccia is the youngest and prettiest of all …’

  Bordelli couldn’t stop fidgeting. There was a spot on his spine that hurt. Perhaps a draught had chilled him. However he tried to settle, he felt a pinch in a vertebra halfway down his back.

  ‘… all was going smoothly, when one day Rinuccia meets a man, Adalberto, and falls head over heels in love with him. And this is where things go awry, because Rinuccia doesn’t know that Adalberto is her cousin, a distant cousin on the side of an aunt who was the second wife of her mother’s brother, that is, my brother, and who Rinuccia had never seen before. In the meantime, Doralice’s son-in-law, Otello, that is, my son-in-law, the one married to Amelia, my eldest daughter, falls in love with my second daughter, Camilla, who is, however, already engaged to Manlio, who is cheating on her with a peasant girl, the natural daugher of Gaspare, my second husband … Did I mention that Doralice is twice widowed?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Bordelli, feeling a mild headache begin to set in. Rosa was pacing back and forth on the rug, still moving like a princess.

  ‘There’s also a great-uncle, by the name of Giulio, a gloomy, wicked man who wants to marry me, even though, in fact, my second husband was the nephew of an in-law of his … But everything gets complicated when we learn that Romualdo is on his way there – he’s my first husband’s brother, and a distant relation of Ettore … Have I mentioned Ettore yet?’

  ‘Of course,’ Bordelli lied. Gideon raised his head and exchanged what seemed like a glance of tacit understanding with him, then went right back to sleep. He wasn’t required to follow the plot of the story …

  The whole thing grew even more complicated, with fourth cousins and illegitimate children, rival lovers and trysts so contorted that even a police inspector couldn’t make head or tail of them. It was anybody’s guess where Rosa had dug all this up. Bordelli felt numb and decided to stop trying to keep up. He simply stared at Rosa and occasionally nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of Odoardo, of the scissors stuck in Badalamenti’s neck, of mortar fire, of Nazis rolling about on the ground … The important thing was to grasp the end of the story, rouse himself in time, and say something meaningful. He only hoped Rosa wouldn’t ask him anything specific about the plot.

  ‘… and so I run off to the castle like a bat out of hell and when I enter the dining hall I find Amelia, my eldest daughter, with a knife in her hand … dripping blood … and a dead body at her feet … Amelia has just killed Odoardo, stabbing him thirty times in the heart …’ Hearing the name Odoardo, the inspector suddenly snapped out of his reverie. He wasn’t sure he had heard right.

  ‘This is the scene I was rehearsing when you came in … How cou
ld you do such a thing? My own daughter, a murderess! And then I despair and fall to the floor, weeping, because I am convinced I’m the mother of a ruthless killer who has committed murder out of envy. But then I discover the truth, which is that Amelia killed Odoardo to achieve justice, because he was driving Zia Bettina’s daughter to suicide so he could get his hands on her inheritance. And so I embrace Amelia, still crying, but now they are tears of joy, and it all ends well … What do you think?’

  Bordelli scratched his head and started searching for his cigarettes.

  ‘What about Amelia? Does she end up in jail?’

  ‘Why should she? She certainly didn’t kill Odoardo out of wickedness. She did it out of the goodness of her heart.’

  ‘Ah, I see …’

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s good. Really good, I must say.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Absolutely … A nice little intrigue. I’m just sorry I can’t come to see it.’

  Rosa blushed with delight. It was easy to make her happy.

  ‘Do you like my hat? I made it myself, with a panettone box.’

  Under the veils one could read the name Motta.

  ‘Beautiful … Aaaah!’ said Bordelli.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘One of my vertebrae hurts. Perhaps a storm is on the way.’

  ‘I guess you need a Bertelli plaster like the old folks.’

  ‘Aaaah …’

  ‘You’re always so tense … Want one of my little cigarettes?’

  ‘Not today, thanks.’

  ‘Then I’ll make you some herbal tea with honey.’

  ‘With honey?’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Rosa said with a maternal expression and then left the room. Bordelli tried to relax.

  He looked out at the rooftops with their chimney-pots and antennas. Rosa was bustling about in the kitchen, rushing from cooker to sink in her spiked heels. Moments later she returned with a steaming cup and a plate of teacakes. Bordelli sat up and took a sip of tisane. Rosa was watching to see whether he liked it.

  ‘That’s good. What’s in it?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘Lemon balm, marigold, passion-flower, corn poppy and hawthorn … all mixed together.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Soon you’ll feel all your muscles relaxing.’

  ‘I can already feel it, I swear.’ Bordelli finished the tisane and stood up, back still sore. His headache had also intensified, but it certainly wasn’t the fault of Mamma Rosa’s herbal tea.

  ‘I’m going to go,’ he said, moving his neck to feel where it hurt most.

  ‘Why don’t you stay? My girlfriends are coming in a little while for a rehearsal.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m expected at headquarters,’ Bordelli lied.

  ‘Oh, rot …’ said Rosa. Then she dashed into her bedroom and returned with her hands behind her back.

  ‘Surprise!’ she said, bringing one hand forward, a golden ribbon dangling between her fingers. Bordelli gave her a kiss on the cheek. He was about to unwrap the present when she snatched it back out of his hands and put it in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Open it later,’ she said.

  ‘Whatever you say.’ The cat was still asleep, and on his way out Bordelli stroked his head. Gideon moved his tail but didn’t open his eyes.

  ‘Don’t overtax yourself,’ Bordelli said to the cat.

  ‘All he ever thinks about is eating, and chasing girls,’ said Rosa.

  ‘I think he’s discovered the meaning of life,’ said Bordelli, heading for the door. In the doorway he kissed Rosa’s hands, which she loved, then started down the stairs with the distinct feeling that his headache was getting worse.

  ‘Will I see you before 1966?’ Rosa called down the stairwell.

  ‘I can’t promise.’

  ‘If I throw a party, will you come?’

  ‘I can’t promise.’

  ‘You’re such a shit!’ she said, blowing him kisses. Bordelli reached the bottom of the stairs and then ran into Princess Doralice’s daughters, all dressed in veils, in the entranceway. They made a big fuss over him and covered him up to the ears with lipstick.

  ‘Ciao, Inspector, you coming to see us on Thursday?’

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t, I have to work.’

  ‘Oh, bollocks!’ said one of them. Even in their present get-up, they still hadn’t lost any of their whorish manners. The one called Cristiana got her hair all tangled up in the letterboxes and let out a stream of rapid-fire obscenities. Then they raised their swishing skirts all together and ran up the stairs, laughing and calling each other tarts and sluts at every step. It would have been interesting to see how Rosa was going to persuade them to pipe down and rehearse …

  The sky was black and laden with clouds, but it still wasn’t raining. Bordelli opened Rosa’s present while driving, steadying the steering wheel with his knees. He read the note and smiled: To the handsomest monkey in the kingdom, from your Rosita. The square little box contained a great deal of pink cotton, at the bottom of which was a tiny heart made of jade. It was smooth and sparkly. He pulled over to the side of the road and hung Rosa’s heart from the little chain he wore round his neck.

  After dessert, he poured a drop of grappa into his glass and lit a cigarette. His headache had subsided a little. During the entire meal Totò had done nothing but talk about violent crimes from his home town in the south … Hands chopped off, tongues chopped off, goat-tied corpses, dead bodies with rocks in their mouths … all the while turning juicy, dripping steaks over on the grill.

  The inspector downed his grappa and got up to leave, patting the cook on the shoulder by way of goodbye. He walked out of the still-full trattoria and got in the Beetle. It was barely nine o’clock. He didn’t feel like going home. Putting an unlit cigarette between his lips, he let the car take him where it would. When he found himself driving through Piazza Alberti, he suddenly had an idea. He parked in Via Gioberti and ducked into the first bar he encountered. The shelves inside were full of panettoni. Sitting at two small round tables were four motionless codgers, staring at their empty glasses and cigar butts. Over their heads was a television blaring at high volume. It looked like a film. Near them were some children playing pinball. The telephone was just inside the entrance, in one of the quieter spots. Bordelli bought a token and phoned the home of Fontana the barrister. A woman answered, probably the governess.

  ‘Casa Fontana,’ she said.

  ‘Good evening, I’d like to speak with Signor Guido please,’ the inspector said, covering the speaker with his hand.

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘This is Inspector Bordelli.’

  ‘Please wait while I call him.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He could hear a television in the background, broadcasting the same film as in the bar. A good minute passed, then he heard some footsteps approaching the telephone.

  ‘Hello?’ the young man said in a low voice.

  ‘Hello, Guido …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m calling because I’d like to have another little chat with you and Raffaele.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Guido, not the least bit surprised.

  ‘Is Raffaele there with you now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will he be coming later?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You won’t be seeing each other tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes in what sense?’

  ‘We will be seeing each other.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘Guido, please, try to speak in complete, comprehensible sentences … This is starting to sound like an interrogation.’

  ‘I thought it was.’

  ‘Don’t be silly … So you’ll be meeting Raffaele somewhere else tonight, if I’ve understood correctly?’

  ‘We’re playing music,’ said Guido. Prising a few consecutive words out of him was an achievement.

  ‘Ah, I see, a
nd where?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘Via de’ Bardi.’

  ‘Then I’ll meet you there. Number?’

  ‘Thirty-two.’

  ‘What’s the name on the buzzer?’

  ‘No name.’

  ‘How will I recognise it?’

  ‘There’s just the number.’

  ‘What time will you be there?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Wait for me before you start playing, otherwise you won’t hear me.’

  ‘All right,’ said Guido.

  When Bordelli hung up he felt tired, as if he’d just done some heavy lifting. Talking to Guido was thoroughly exhausting. He went over to the counter and asked for a coffee. He drank it slowly, watching one of the elderly men in the mirror. The old codger was asleep in a sitting position, hands on his legs. He had a small head, a sallow face furrowed with wrinkles and two oval leather patches on the elbows of his jacket. Not even the noise of the pinball machine could rouse him from his slumber. The barman glanced lazily at him several times while rinsing cups.

  It was almost half past nine. The inspector left the bar and got back in his car. He drove slowly, smoking a cigarette. He felt strange, as if he were on his way to a party where he didn’t know anybody. Then there was the fact that he really hadn’t been straight with the lad. There was no need to talk to Raffaele or Guido. For the moment there was no longer any need to talk to anyone … except Odoardo, that is. Whereas he’d gone and made up that story. Perhaps it was only out of curiosity, to see the two youths one more time from up close.

  There was still half an hour to go before his unlikely appointment, and luckily it hadn’t started raining yet. He crossed the Arno and left the Beetle in Via dei Renai. He went through Porta San Miniato on foot and started climbing the staircase that led to Viale Galileo. There were no street lamps, and he could barely see. The last stairs were the steepest, and he reached the top out of breath. Crossing the Viale he went all the way up to the basilica of San Miniato, which to him was the most beautiful church in Florence. The façade of white and black marble was decorated with fine inlay and geometric figures reminiscent of oriental textiles. At the top, in the place of the cross, was an eagle whose talons clutched a roll of fabric, symbol of l’Arte dell Lana, the wool guild of medieval Florence … Even back then, money was more powerful than faith.