Death in August

by Marco Vichi

  Signora Giovanna couldn’t understand what was going on. She’d been waving for the last fifteen minutes, and still nobody had left. Finally she got up and started coming towards the three men with her fashion-model walk, legs popping out of her beach cover with each step. Piras’s eyes were glued to her. She realised this and pretended not to notice, but did so in such an obvious way that Salvetti raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed. Bordelli was fed up with the whole situation.

  ‘We have to go, Signor Salvetti, thank you ever so much,’ he said, grabbing Piras by the arm and dragging him away. The Sardinian, however, managed to turn round one last time to look at Signora Giovanna’s legs and smile.

  When they got into the broiling Volkswagen, Bordelli turned to Piras.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Beautiful woman.’

  ‘Aside from that.’

  ‘It’s an Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, Inspector. It can do a hundred and ten no sweat.’

  Bordelli wanted to see the sea again. They sought out the least crowded beach and went and sat down on an overturned pattino. Neither of the two said a word about the Pedretti murder, as if wishing to ruminate for a while alone.

  A sun-blackened lifeguard dozed on a deckchair under a vast umbrella, beside him a bottle of beer within arm’s reach, buried up to the neck in the sand, and, on the other side, a crumpled newspaper with a pack of cigarettes on top.

  A pleasant breeze had risen, lightly ruffling their clothes. Bordelli chased the image of Elvira from his thoughts and studied Piras’s wooden face. The young man’s pitch-black eyes, with their veil of ancestral nostalgia, seemed able to look past the horizon.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Piras?’

  ‘I’m not thinking about anything.’

  The inspector half-closed his eyes and looked at the sun setting slowly into the sea.

  ‘They say it’s impossible not to think about anything,’ he said. Piras did not reply. He picked up a handful of sand, letting it flow out of his closed fist. They both remained silent, each with his own thoughts, listening to the regular yet ever-changing sound of the surf. Bordelli again remembered Piras’s father … Sometimes they would sit on the ground, back to back, looking up at the black sky and its infinite points of light, not saying a word, while the others played cards or wrote letters that might never reach their destinations.

  ‘What do you say we leave, Piras?’

  ‘It’s your decision, Inspector.’

  ‘All right, then, let’s go. I need to have a little chat with Diotivede.’

  ‘You want me to drive?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’

  Bordelli dozed the whole way back, hands between his legs, head swaying to and fro against the seat.

  ‘I’m going to close my eyes a little, but not sleep,’ he said.

  ‘Do whatever you like,’ said Piras.

  ‘I’m just a little tired.’

  Bordelli closed his eyes and started to snore. Piras pulled into the courtyard at headquarters in Via Zara and turned off the engine. The inspector stirred, opened his eyes but then immediately closed them again to stop the burning. He pulled himself up with a grunt and shook his head, as if to throw off the cobwebs of sleep. Piras patiently waited for him to wake up fully.

  ‘You want me to take you home, Inspector?’

  ‘No, thanks. I can manage. First, however, I want to drop in on Diotivede for a minute. You want to come too?’

  ‘That’s fine with me.’

  ‘I’ll drive. It’ll help wake me up.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  They both got out of the car to trade places. Bordelli staggered. A stabbing pain in the back made him groan. He yawned at the wheel all the way to the Forensic Medicine lab, running a red light and clipping a kerb, but Piras remained unflustered.

  They entered Diotivede’s lab together, and Bordelli immediately sat down in the only available chair.

  ‘This is Piras, he’ll be joining us on Wednesday,’ he said.

  Diotivede made a gesture of greeting to the lad and then looked Bordelli up and down, slipping white rubber gloves off of his small, slender hands.

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better go and get some sleep?’ he said.

  ‘I shall, a little later. Listen, Diotivede, don’t get offended if I ask you something I’ve already asked; it’s just to be thorough.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘Are you sure Signora Pedretti died round nine o’clock? Couldn’t it have been later? Or much earlier …?’ He ran a hand over his face, unable to say anything else.

  The doctor shot a quick glance at Piras and took a step forward, stiff as a tree trunk.

  ‘No offence taken, but if I was unable to establish that sort of thing, I wouldn’t do the work I do.’

  ‘But errare humanum est, no?’

  ‘Science is not human. If you’d brought me a body that had been dead for a month or a year … then I might have trouble determining the hour and day of death. But in this case … there are very precise stages, and there’s the science to back it up. It’s as impossible to make a mistake as it is to make a hole in water.’

  Bordelli looked convinced.

  ‘All right, then, I promise I won’t ask you again. I was only hoping to make some progress, and instead I’m back to square one. Oh well.’

  Piras squirmed as if wanting to say something, but remained silent. Bordelli got up, one hand on his back, and waved goodbye to Diotivede with the other.

  ‘See you Wednesday,’ he said.

  ‘Bye,’ said Diotivede without looking at him.

  Bordelli insisted on driving again, and Piras said not a word. The car windows were completely open but only hot air blew in. One way or another, they arrived at headquarters. Bordelli’s eyes were bloodshot and lifeless. Walking through the corridors like a drunk, gesturing hello to the various cops on duty and trailed by Piras, he went and sat down at his desk. He pressed his eyes with his fingers.

  ‘Listen, Piras. I’m too tired and really don’t feel like talking. But I wouldn’t mind hearing you say something. Were you able to make anything of all this?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to hear it now?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And you promise to go to bed afterwards?’

  ‘Promise.’

  Piras asked whether it was all right if he paced about the room. Bordelli assented by drooping his eyelids and nodding ever so vaguely. He was trying, in the heat, to keep his exertions to a minimum. Piras came to a stop in the far corner. Bordelli followed him with his eyes, waiting for him to begin. To aid concentration, he was about to give in and light a cigarette, but the phone rang. It was Zia Camilla, asking after Rodrigo.

  ‘Did you go and see him? How was he? All right?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Oh, quite all right, I’d say. He’s just a little upset over-’

  ‘Oh my God, has something happened?’

  ‘No, no, nothing serious. Or maybe yes. He’s in love, head over heels, like a teenager.’

  ‘Oh, the poor dear. He’s certainly not used to that. He must be in terrible shape.’

  ‘You can rest easy, Zia. Rodrigo is only a little confused.’

  Zia Camilla hung up, and Bordelli turned his eyes back to Piras.

  ‘I’m ready,’ he said.

  ‘Do you mind if I start at the beginning?’ asked Piras.

  ‘Take all the time you need.’

  Piras resumed pacing, with short, slow steps. He cast a glance at the photo of the president behind Bordelli, then made a fist and raised his thumb.

  ‘Point number one: Signora Pedretti died of an asthma attack.’ He raised his index finger. ‘Point number two: only mate pollen could have ended her life that way.’ He raised his middle finger. ‘Point number three: mate doesn’t grow here.’ And he brought his three fingers together. ‘We know that somebody killed the signora by triggering a lethal asthma attack through the use of the pollen of a tropical plant. A murder by t
he book. Furthermore, the cap of the Asthmaben bottle was screwed on too tight, which leads to the hypothesis that someone came into the room after the lady was already dead. Everything clear, so far?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Good. We know the Morozzis are telling the truth — that is, that at the exact time their aunt was dying, at nine p.m., they were at a restaurant. One could conclude they are innocent.’ And he gestured as if to put this hypothesis in a drawer. ‘Now let’s pretend we know for certain that it was they who killed Signora Pedretti. The mechanism, in the abstract, is easy to grasp: they found a way to make their aunt inhale that pollen while they were miles away. You see, Inspector? The theory is easy. But how the hell did they do it? That’s the hard part.’

  ‘Maybe they paid somebody.’

  ‘So they could be blackmailed for the rest of their lives? No, and anyway, they’re a couple of milquetoasts; they would never know where to find someone to do a job like that.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bordelli.

  Piras continued to explain the dynamics of the murder of Signora Pedretti-Strassen, speaking in a clear, clipped voice, succinct in every respect.

  ‘Let us recapitulate in another fashion. A lady suffers from allergic asthma and I want to kill her, but of course I want it to look like an accident. I know that mate pollen can trigger a fatal attack, but I also know that her medicine, in most cases, even this one, can save her. The goal is to make her inhale that tropical pollen without giving her a chance to take her medicine …’

  Bordelli got more comfortable in his chair and lit a cigarette, promising himself he would put it out halfway. He was anxious to hear Piras’s conjectures, but he would rather have listened to a long, perhaps fictionalised expose, so he could sit there comfortably for a few hours, listening to someone tell a story. He wished it would pour outside, to give some hope of a cooler night. Piras didn’t seem to have such problems; despite the torrid heat, he looked cool and, most importantly, didn’t sweat. He resumed talking, his eyes looking up at the corners of the ceiling.

  ‘The first thing I need is the keys to the lady’s house. This takes some doing, but in essence it’s easy. All I have to do is make a cast, or else take the keys on the sly and get copies made.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Then I have to procure the pollen. I’ve done some research and found that they have a variety of specimens of mate at the botanical gardens.’

  ‘In the greenhouse?’

  ‘Of course. I need only pluck a few flowers when nobody’s looking.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But I have to arrange things so that the signora will inhale some pollen, but without arousing any suspicions, either in her or anyone else.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Piras stopped in front of the window and looked out at the rows of rooftops.

  ‘There is a way to do this; the point is to find it. But this is not the only problem. I must also find a way to prevent the signora from taking the medicine she always keeps within reach.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bordelli, staring at a big black fly walking on the windowpane. Piras turned to face him.

  ‘That’s easier. You replace the real medicine bottle with an identical one containing only water.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have copies of the keys. In a house of that size I can easily hide, and when Auntie is on the ground floor, I can go into her bedroom, switch the medicine bottles, and put the pollen where I need to put it.’

  Bordelli rested his chin in his hand.

  ‘And what if the police find the bottle with water instead of medicine in it?’

  ‘Good question. For this reason, I return in the middle of the night and put everything back in its proper place. I put a couple of drops of medicine in the signora’s mouth, so that it looks as if she did manage to take some, then I put the real bottle back in its proper place … But I’m very nervous and I forget to unscrew the cap.’

  Piras fell silent for a moment, pinching his lip between thumb and forefinger, then continued.

  ‘That blessed cap,’ he said.

  Bordelli sighed.

  ‘If that’s really the way things went, all we need to do is find out who did it and how,’ he said ironically.

  ‘The most likely thing is that it was one of the heirs. A murder of this kind goes through a long period of maturation and is organised with great care. But there must be a good motive, and money is an excellent motive, at least for some.’

  Bordelli found himself with another cigarette in his hand but didn’t light it. He offered one to Piras, who refused politely but with a certain disgust. Apparently he never smoked.

  ‘All right, Piras. Let’s pretend you’re right. The killer is here before me, I know he did it, I have no doubt about it. Now, however, we need to find proof, otherwise there won’t even be a trial.’

  ‘Before anything else, we need to uncover the mechanism of the murder.’

  ‘Right. The mechanism.’ At this point Bordelli could wait no longer to light his cigarette, and took two deep puffs, immediately shaking away the first ashes.

  ‘How the hell did they do it?’ Bordelli repeated, talking mostly to himself.

  Piras not only didn’t smoke, he couldn’t stand smoke. Stepping back instinctively, he started waving his open hands in the air to dispel it, as if only now finding the courage to vent his dislike. Bordelli pretended not to notice.

  ‘All right, let’s begin the game again,’ the inspector said. ‘Let’s pretend we have the killers here before us. We know they did it, and they know we have no proof. What, at this point, would you do?’

  ‘I think it would be totally pointless to apply any pressure on them before having first demolished their alibi. In short, we must figure out how …’ All at once he stopped to swat away the smoke in the air around him, assumed a very serious expression and pointed to the pack of cigarettes on the table. ‘Did you know, Inspector, that every one of those things shortens your life by one hour?’

  Bordelli was well aware of this, but like all smokers he calculated only the damage done by a single cigarette, without ever tallying the final sum. He crushed the still-long butt in the ashtray, if only so that Piras would stop waving his arms in the air in disgust.

  ‘I know it’s a stupid vice, Piras, but it’s not so easy to quit. I started during the war.’ Piras was satisfied with the destruction of that cigarette and resumed his lecture.

  ‘I was saying we need to work out how they managed to kill her from afar.’

  ‘We’ve been circling round it for an hour.’

  ‘Let me finish. The killers feel protected by their alibi, and they’re right, in a sense. But once we discover their trick, we’ll strip them down to their underwear by showing how flimsy their alibi is. And at that point we can try to make them confess.’

  ‘Think so?’

  ‘We can try, I say. If they lose their alibi, they’ll get scared. I don’t see any other way.’

  Bordelli remained lost in thought for a good minute, chin in hand, eyes trained on Piras’s wooden face. Then he looked at the sky outside the window as a breath of wind blew in, at long last. A distant rumble of thunder revived his hope for a good storm. It was almost nine, always the most melancholy time of the day for Bordelli. Down on the street, somebody called after his dog. The swallows were gobbling up insects, flying low and screeching between the buildings.

  The inspector sat there for a long time staring out of the window, lulled by a string of vague thoughts, which often happened to him at that hour. He wasn’t thinking of anything specific, but was rather in a state akin to daydreaming. The screeching halt of a car snapped him out of it. He stuck another cigarette in his mouth and reassured Piras with a hand gesture.

  ‘I’m not going to light it. It’s just to console myself.’

  Piras said nothing, but his silence was as eloquent as his father’s had been. His indignation and bitterness over this sordid killing could be read in his eye
s.

  ‘Let’s rack our brains a little, Piras. We need to wipe out this damned alibi.’

  ‘I’m doing my best, Inspector, but it’s not a game. It’s like trying to understand the composition of water by watching the rain fall.’

  Piras could see that Bordelli was running out of steam and asked him again whether he wanted to be taken home, but the inspector refused.

  ‘Thanks, Piras, but I can make it on my own.’

  ‘As you wish.’ They parted with a look of understanding.

  Bordelli settled a couple of matters and then tried to phone Rodrigo — for the hell of it, just to find out how things were going with his belle — but there was no reply. He imagined his cousin half naked, clinking glasses with his woman, properly drunk and happy to be so, the flat a shambles, a splendid layer of filth on the bedroom floor, the phone ringing and ringing with neither one of them paying any mind, the once untouchable desk covered with dirty dishes.

  He turned off the light and sat for a while in his office, watching the sky turn slowly red. At last he lit the cigarette he’d been craving for the past half-hour.

  It wasn’t quite eleven when Bordelli lay down in bed and turned out the light. The air smelled of zampironi, but the mosquitoes continued to buzz round his face. He lit his thousandth cigarette and smoked it, sweating and thinking of Elvira. He concentrated all his thoughts on her, in the hope of forgetting her more quickly that way. Perhaps it was only his fatigue, but he pictured her on the beach, next to his aunts from Mantua, then lying on the marble floor playing with him at two o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe it was because she looked like somebody else from long ago and who-knows-where. He saw Elvira’s bare feet again, her pink mouth standing out on her tanned face … She was smiling at him, looking him straight in the eye as she lay back in bed, opening her arms, and he ran to kiss her, caressing her fragrant blonde hair, holding her tight until her bones began to crack … Maybe that was it … She resembled someone else from half a century before, during a summer with his aunts, a sixteen-year-old housemaid who seemed like a grown woman to him at the time. What was her name? Mariolina, Giannina, Annina … something like that, a name that ended in ina. Maybe Annina, yes, blonde with big green eyes and an imperfect little nose that he loved to death. He was about eight years old at the time, give or take a year, with eyes wide open, curious to see the world.