The Second Life of Inspector Canessa

by Roberto Perrone

  Petri’s words didn’t help.

  ‘Look, I don’t know why you wanted to see me, though I may be able to guess. And I’m telling you, we both made a mistake: you seeking me out, me agreeing to come here. I don’t think I can help you.’

  ‘I actually think you can, and I won’t take much of your time. Trust me.’

  They came to the crossing on via Boscovich. The road was clear. On Saturday mornings in Milan, the whole business area practically empty. A car pulled over and a smiling face leaned out of the window.

  A man with a Southern accent asked, ‘Excuse me, can you help?’

  ‘They’re coming towards you.’

  Nando Panattoni slipped his phone back into his pocket and started the engine. Driving slowly, he circled the block to take via Vittor Pisani towards the station. Beside him, Rocco pulled out the AK-47 and started loading it.

  ‘I don’t like this. Can’t we wait until they’re somewhere else? Plan this out better?’

  Panattoni was furious with Rocco’s last-minute hesitation. ‘Now you say it, arsehole! Do your job, and do it well.’

  Rocco saw them walking. The other guy, the one from the train, suddenly turned round.

  ‘They’re onto us. There’s no going back now.’

  Panattoni pulled over on the corner of via Boscovich, cutting them off. Rocco leaned out the window and beamed his best fake smile. ‘Excuse me, can you help? We’re headed for viale Fulvio Testi.’

  Napoleone Canessa moved closer to answer him and almost didn’t hear Petri’s scream: ‘Run! It’s a trap!’ A black weapon appeared in the man’s hands.

  From where he was in the middle of the road, Napoleone saw flashes, but the shots weren’t for him. The volley was aimed at Pino Petri, who might have been able to save himself if he hadn’t grabbed Napoleone’s arm to get him to move. Napoleone heard Petri’s body thud as it hit the ground. Then, just like in a syncopated FPS game, the weapon swung towards him. It was the last thing he saw. He collapsed next to Petri, riddled with at least fifteen explosive rounds.

  The silencer allowed the killers to leave the scene calmly. Panattoni accelerated only once they crossed the first traffic lights on via Vitruvio, disappearing on the roads leading to corso Buenos Aires. The following day the car, stolen just hours before the crime by Panattoni, was found burning at the Idroscalo. No one connected it to the murders.

  While the killers were escaping unnoticed, a guy out for his Saturday morning jog on via Vittor Pisani almost stumbled over the corpses.

  He called the emergency services and soon after, a couple of railway police officers hurried over from Centrale station. ‘Jesus, what a mess,’ the younger one said. His colleague contacted the police station. ‘Double murder on the corner of Vittor Pisani and Boscovich. Numerous shots, two dead.’ He hung up, looked at the victims and let out a long whistle.

  ‘Hey, have you seen who that is?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The older guy. Don’t you recognise him?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘It’s Giuseppe Petri! Pino, one of the most famous terrorists in Italy. No one actually knows how many victims. What the fuck do they teach you in schools these days – ancient Egyptian history?’

  9

  Chief Magistrate Calandra was dreaming. A woman was calling him from below. He was somewhere up high but the location of the dream was hazy. A building maybe? or a villa. He pushed the heavy brocade curtains aside and leaned out of a window. The woman was in a pool, gesturing for him to join her. ‘Come down, the water’s great!’ Beyond the pool, he could see a scorched savannah with grassy patches and scattered boulders. Strange place for a villa. Calandra considered going back to his room to put on his swimming costume and join the woman. She did have a gorgeous face. But it was no longer a room – it was an office. His office. Before he could take a single step, the phone on his desk started ringing. He didn’t move. The phone kept ringing. But he wouldn’t move. Then the place where he was standing vanished, but the phone kept ringing.

  He suddenly realised it wasn’t part of the dream. He reached out to his bedside table and grabbed the phone.

  The display read 8:16 am. Why hadn’t his alarm gone off? Oh! it was Saturday, and he slept in as long as he could on Saturdays.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you…’

  The voice, less attractive than the one in his dream, belonged to one of his assistants.

  He cleared his throat, assuming his usual curt manner.

  ‘Don’t apologise. There must be a reason for your call.’

  ‘There’s been a shooting in Milan, and I believe it might have repercussions on the developments we’re following.’

  ‘Keep talking.’

  1984

  The fist that slammed onto the Alfetta’s dashboard sent one of the radio dials flying, but the air conditioner gave no sign of life. Not a breath of air filtered out of the useless device.

  They’d taken the Serravalle motorway for Milan shortly after dawn. At that hour there’d been almost no traffic and the cool early morning air had blown in through the open windows. Now, on the way back, the unbearable mugginess was starting to suffocate them.

  ‘You fucking idiot, why didn’t you make sure it was working before we left?’

  But it wasn’t the muggy July afternoon or the bugs crashing against the windscreen that were getting to major Annibale Canessa. It was the time he’d wasted, the pointlessness of it all. The trip to Milan for a court hearing, which was immediately adjourned, and then the drive back along a shimmering, hot motorway through flat plains shrouded in haze. It was all wearing on him. It wasn’t even tiredness, though he’d slept very little in the past few weeks. It was impatience.

  The young Carabiniere in the driver’s seat was sweating profusely, and not just from the summer heat. The excitement of being so close to this legend made him more nervous than usual. As he tightened his grip on the steering wheel, he noticed one of the red display lights start to blink.

  Canessa saw that something was wrong from his sudden terrified expression. He glanced at the dashboard.

  ‘I can’t believe it! We’re running out of petrol? Didn’t you fill the tank before we left? You’re the living inspiration for all those jokes about the Carabinieri!’

  The calm voice of Marshal Ivan Repetto came from the back seat. ‘Easy, Annibale – the next service station is only a couple of kilometres away. I don’t know about you, but I was going to ask to stop anyway for a piss.’

  Repetto was Canessa’s right hand, his escort, but most of all his conscience. He shadowed him everywhere, spoke with irony and wisdom and watched his back whenever Canessa acted rashly. Repetto was his only confidant, the only dam against the major’s impetuous tides.

  The young driver overtook a long-haul vehicle and turned on his indicator. The moment they took the exit ramp, the services restaurant materialised from the shimmering summer horizon like a mirage.

  ‘Go and get some petrol, then join us inside for a cold drink,’ Canessa told him, calm once more. He jumped out the door with the motor still running, seeking shelter in the cool oasis of the café, and didn’t even hear the young man’s shy thanks. Giordano, his regular driver, had left a couple of weeks earlier and Canessa was looking for a substitute.

  ‘One thing’s for sure: this one’s a definite no,’ he murmured to Repetto, who mentally crossed another off the list. ‘Number five is out.’

  Canessa had had a weird feeling ever since they’d left that morning. His bullet wound had started bothering him, as if trying to warn him that things weren’t going the right way. Something was wrong.

  ‘It’s really late,’ he told Repetto as they sipped a cold soft drink, surrounded by holiday makers admiring the small group of uniformed Carabinieri. Onl
y a couple of years earlier, they would have avoided appearing in public in full uniform. Repetto smiled at his friend. He always addressed Canessa informally, even in front of superiors. It was a privilege allowed to him and no one else, not even generals.

  ‘I don’t get your hurry. He’ll never get away from you now.’

  ‘I don’t know. This call feels weird, summoning me for absolutely nothing the night after his arrest. As if they didn’t know how important it is to interrogate him immediately.’

  ‘Annibale, what’s got into you? You and interrogations… Just because a couple of them talked when you took them down, it doesn’t mean they all will. Remember: most of them keep their mouths shut. Petri’s one of the toughest. He ain’t gonna talk. He’s not like Filippi and his posse of young rich kids playing terrorists. They started crying for mummy as soon as we nicked them – they wanted to play at something safer. This one believes in what he does. You could electrocute his dick and he still wouldn’t talk.’

  Canessa smirked. ‘Yes, but I haven’t interrogated him yet. He might let something slip. Or maybe he’s had a change of heart because he wants to go back to his girl on the tomato farm.’

  Repetto’s humour kept the tension in check for a while. They’d been partners since 1977. Seven years of the same high intensity that had distinguished the career of the young Lieutenant Canessa, fresh out of the academy. He’d forged ahead thanks to his arrests and some impressive operations. They’d got through all those years of terrorism together, somehow surviving a brutal existence and sharing with their enemies the uncertainty of life under the threat of war. And in a way, they too had embarked on a life of secrecy, never sleeping more than one night in the same place, staying away from home for months at a time. The Carabinieri had bulging folders on the terrorists, sure, but the terrorists had equally thick ones on them. They were targets, same as anyone on the front line.

  It had been harder for Repetto since he was married and, during the brief respites, had managed to have a family. But he’d never abandoned that kid ten years younger, that uncompromising lieutenant who too often mixed personal with business on duty. The son of a retired general with a medal from Libya in 1940, Annibale Canessa had no romantic ties, only flings that lasted a few dates, a holed-up weekend, or a night. Those that might’ve lasted longer never did. The major was still a handsome man, with messy hair that had gone prematurely grey. Women liked him and stories had started spreading about his lovers. About how he’d sleep with his colleagues’ wives, because he had no time to find anyone outside his circle. He’d ‘help himself in the barracks’, ran the rumour.

  Bollocks. Repetto took it all with a pinch of salt. Canessa’s mother had died when he was still young. His father had given him and his brother Napoleone a military education, and got proud results from one, rebellion from the other. His younger son had thrown over his military career for a degree in Bologna on the trendy new Drama, Arts and Music programme. ‘A hotbed of extremism,’ was the general’s response. In the confidential reports Annibale had sent to him, you could trace the ‘black sheep’ all the way through the radical left. No ties to the armed wing of the party, however; no violence or beatings, only active participation in ‘proletarian expropriations’. Clean record. And yet, the grey area his brother operated in was one used by terrorists to recruit not only new soldiers but also sideline supporters, the ones who never joined the ranks but were crucial to operations, providing homes, food and other forms of support. Annibale worried that his brother Napoleone might end up doing something of that sort. He had no proof, only a hunch. He’d had him followed, discreetly of course; if Napoleone ever found out, their already rocky relationship would explode. And Annibale didn’t want that, out of respect for their father.

  Annibale occasionally met up with his brother, but he never told anyone except Repetto. Napoleone’s name was forbidden, and everyone, including his superiors, knew it. It had become like the story of Cyrano’s nose: those unfortunate enough to intrude on Major Canessa by mentioning his brother ended up very badly.

  Repetto looked around, taking in the crowd in sundresses, shorts, tank tops and flip flops. He set his glass back down on the bar. Seven years. He hadn’t had the courage to tell Annibale that this arrest spelled the end of their long breathless chase, at least for him. Enough. He’d already sent in his notice, asking them to hold on to it. He had to tell Annibale first. He’d go and work with his father-in-law, who’d started a security firm: from security doors to alarm systems, all the way through to full surveillance for companies. With his experience and the name he’d made for himself during those dangerous years, Repetto would be marketing and publicising the business. He’d been on the verge of telling Canessa the night before when they’d landed in Genoa on their way back from Cartagena, the Spanish city where they’d finally tracked down Pino Petri and taken him into custody. He was the last fugitive, a member of the hit squad of the infamous, bloody Red Brigades. But then they’d received the court summons, Annibale’s temper had spiked, and he’d decided to wait till things settled down.

  Petri was one the most dangerous killers during the Years of Lead. With an alleged record of six murders and sentenced to life a couple of times over in absentia, he’d fled the country two years earlier. Canessa had been hunting him for years, but he’d only really focused on the case for the past few months. He’d tied up loose ends on his list (the legendary ‘Canessa List’) before going after Petri. He’d tracked him halfway across the world, from France to the US, to Brazil, then back to Europe, and Spain.

  ‘He’s the type who’ll come back,’ he’d once told Repetto. ‘We’ll catch him close to home. He’s not one of those wankers who end up making pizza in some small South American country or being protected by the French and their love for due process. No, he’ll be back, sooner or later.’

  For the past year Petri had been living between Cartagena and Murcia on a farm in the countryside. He’d met a local woman while in hiding in South America. She’d studied agriculture and was involved with a cooperative project over there. Her father owned a farm, and on his death, she’d gone back to Spain. Petri had followed her and started growing tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, peppers, and more on that good soil.

  The day they found him, Repetto had tasted one of the tomatoes, plucking it out of a crate while the Guardia Civil searched the house. He’d brushed the soil off it and wolfed it down as the sun set in the hills. He turned to Canessa, his mouth full.

  ‘You should try one. They’re amazing! I’d happily take a box. Actually, I might ask that Spanish captain, what’s his name…’

  Canessa wasn’t listening, though. He was staring out towards the Mediterranean – you could see the water thirty kilometres away that evening, even from the farm. Or maybe he was looking deep inside himself.

  Repetto knew that expression well.

  Canessa was frustrated. First of all, he’d realised when he’d found himself face to face with Petri that the fierce terrorist was no longer the man they knew. He was sitting at the table in a blue vest and dirty work trousers next to the woman he’d let his guard down for. They didn’t need weapons or bulletproof vests to cuff him. When they burst through the door, they found him with his partner and the other workers, eating vegetables and jamón, laughing, a dinner like any other interrupted by fully armed men in uniform. They’d found him thanks to her. A tip had taken them to Paraguay. He’d been smart, Petri, heading to a country famous for having given refuge to ex-Nazis. The police informant on the ground had told them that a Spanish woman was having a thing with an Italian, a commie. Had he been the opposite colour, they probably wouldn’t have reported him. Using her name, they’d contacted airlines and border control posts to see if any other name regularly appeared with hers. And so they’d followed the intricate route they suspected the terrorist had travelled. It had taken them months, but they’d finally located the woman there, in Spai
n. A week-long stakeout had confirmed that Petri was at her farm.

  At the moment of arrest, all he was holding was a fork. He’d lowered it, slowly, and raised his hands.

  On his way back from talking to the Guardia Civil’s special unit (they’d blessed his request for a few crates of tomatoes: ‘they’ll rot anyway, hombre’) Repetto found the major sitting at the table, finishing up the scraps of food.

  Annibale Canessa looked up from his plate.

  ‘You’re right, the vegetables are really tasty, but you were going to toss the jamón?’

  Repetto shook his head. He’d never really get used to Canessa’s mood swings.

  Petri had surrendered without a word and didn’t open his mouth until the arrival of the special flight in Genoa. Once they got into the armoured van waiting for them at the Cristoforo Colombo airport, packed with a small squad of Carabinieri with assault rifles (Canessa had been clear: ‘if you send me a bunch of academy kids, I’ll kick them all the way back to you’), he addressed the major as a peer, the captured enemy acknowledging his victorious opponent.

  ‘The woman doesn’t know who I am. She did suspect I was a fugitive, but she has no idea why. She has nothing to do with this.’

  Canessa looked at him with contempt. ‘You’d better worry about what’s going to happen to you, you son of a bitch.’ But when they reached the barracks he said, ‘She’s already out of the picture, but she’ll be charged with aiding and abetting. She’ll get through it.’

  That was the major, Repetto mused. He’d explode in anger, crawling all over people in his fury, but then he’d be back, apologising, or showing – like just then – a scrap of humanity towards someone who hadn’t demonstrated any to the people they’d massacred. It would’ve been seen as a weakness in anyone else, but it actually made Annibale a bigger man, fostering respect in those close to him, especially his team. Maybe it was a smile, or just a reflection of the lights from the van, but something glinted on Petri’s face as they led him away.