Big Italy (11 page)

“Why Brescia?”

“I couldn’t phone any earlier. How’s Nando, Pioppi?”

“Nando’s with me now.”

“How’s the pregnancy coming along?”

“What’s wrong, Papa? Why are you in Brescia? You’re going to the lake? I thought you were coming here for Christmas.”

“I’ll try. Perhaps I won’t be retiring next year, after all.”

“Papa, tell me what is wrong.”

“I’d like to come to Bologna for Christmas but I don’t want to impose.”

“You never phone during the day, Papa. Why are you phoning now? Why don’t you want to retire? What’s happened? And whoever said anything about you being an imposition?”

“Sandro’s dead.”

“Who?”

“Your Zio Sandro. I’m in Brescia with Zia Anna Maria. She flew in from Holland yesterday. I picked her up at Linate and this afternoon we’ll be driving up to Santa Maria. For the funeral tomorrow morning.”

“Zio Sandro’s dead?”

“I thought it best to tell you.”

“How did he die?”

“His heart. He was in intensive care for nearly a day in his clinic. There was nothing the doctors could do.”

“Zio Sandro was young.”

“Nearly seventy.”

“I’ll catch the train first thing tomorrow morning.”

“There’s no need. You’re pregnant, Pioppi, you must rest …”

“Have you told Mamma?”

“Agnese’s got better things to worry about.”

“Mamma’s in California on holiday. I’ve got a number somewhere. I’ll try to phone. Mamma’s very fond of Sandro.”

“Give your mother my best wishes.”

“I’ll catch the six o’clock train for Turin.”

“That’s absolutely stupid.”

“I’ll be in Voghera by tomorrow morning. What time’s the funeral?”

“Why are you so stubborn, Pioppi? You’re five months pregnant. You shouldn’t tire yourself.”

“You’re my father. I want to be with you.”

“It’s really not necessary. And the little boy, Pioppi?”

“What little boy?”

“The baby—it’s going to be a boy, I suppose.”

“The baby’s not due for another four months, Papa! I don’t wish to know whether it’s a boy or a girl. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll get a taxi from the station. Years since I last saw Zia Anna Maria. Just look after yourself, Papa. Ciao, amore.”

“But Pioppi—”

“I love you, Papa. Ciao.”

“P
RONTO
.”

The telephone was taken off the hook on the second ring and he recognized Signora Magagna’s soft voice immediately.

“Piero Trotti.”

She did not try to suppress her squeal of joy, nor her Abruzzi accent. “Commissario, I’m so angry with you. You never come and see us. You never come and see the little boys.”

“I’ll be retiring soon.”

“You’ve been saying that for the last ten years.”

“For the last ten years I’ve been wanting to retire.”

“It was good of you to send the present for Mino, but like me, like us all, he wants to see you. In flesh and blood.”

“Soon, signora. Once I’ve retired.”

“See you, commissario. It’s time you got away from that awful Questura and you started visiting your real friends.”

Trotti could not restrain a smile. “Your husband’s there, signora?”

“He left this morning for Chiasso and he won’t be back before late.”

“Can you ask him to ring me, signora?”

“Signora? Don’t call me signora, Commissario Trotti. You know there’s always a plate of pasta and a bottle of wine waiting for you here. And there’s a kilo of acacia honey we’ve been keeping for you for goodness knows how long.”

Trotti laughed. “In September, Giovanna, I’ll be free and then I swear I’ll come and see you all in Sesto—unless you’ve already moved back to Pescara.”

“Gabri told you, then? There’s nothing I’d like more than to leave Milan.”

Trotti heard her sigh, and he smiled into the mouthpiece imagining her sitting at the telephone in the neat apartment near the Rondò at San Giovanni. He had not been back in years and he had not seen Magagna’s wife since the birth of the second boy. No doubt her waist had thickened, but she had kept her girlish voice and her infectious laugh.

“Do you have a pencil?”

“Just a second,” Giovanna Magagna said, and he heard the click as she went to look for something to write with.

When she came back Trotti said, “It’s about the Turellini dossier. Can you ask your husband to try and get a copy for me? We’ve already talked about it but I need to see it as soon as possible. Or sooner. If necessary, tell Magagna to get me a photocopy. It’s urgent.”

“Turellini—wasn’t he the doctor they murdered at Segrate?”

“Tell Magagna to tell no one. It’s a personal favor—I don’t want anyone other than Magagna knowing I’m interested.”

“Commissario, why don’t you come here?”

“Perhaps I will.”

“I’d love to see you.” She added, “You’re phoning from the Questura? Very noisy, isn’t it?”

“I’m in Brescia.”

“You want Gabri to ring you in the Questura?”

“Tell him to contact me on my home number. Tell him I’ve decided to go ahead with the inquiry.”

“To go ahead?”

“For personal reasons. I want to get Turellini’s murder sorted out before Christmas.”

“Why don’t you spend Christmas with us?”

“I’m staying with my daughter in Bologna but yours might not be a bad idea, Giovà,” Trotti said.

Suddenly the line went dead and the blinking letters announced peremptorily that the credit had been used up.

Trotti smiled as he replaced the receiver. He abandoned the magnetic card in its red tray.

As he stepped out of the kiosk, Trotti glanced briefly at the huddled tramps. He noticed a syringe poking from a threadbare coat pocket.

T
HE DRY COLD
of the hills?

It had started to rain in Santa Maria. The clouds were coming up from the valley, encircling the pines, the fir trees and the gaunt power pylons and rapidly hiding the sun. The drizzle began to splatter down on the naked chestnut trees, onto the black umbrellas and the tombstones.

Piero Trotti stood beside his cousin. He held Anna Maria’s arm. There were one or two people from the village whom Trotti recognized. There were also a couple of distant relatives who had hurriedly driven up from Milan. A few colleagues from the clinic in Brescia, including two pretty young women, probably nurses. There was nobody from Trotti’s side of the family.

Anna Maria was wearing her black coat and the pillbox hat with its veil. She held a white handkerchief in her hand.

(The funeral arrangements, the transport from Brescia had all been organized by the vice director at Sandro’s clinic, Riccardo Germani, a man with stooped shoulders and an ingratiating manner. He had seen to everything and Trotti was very grateful.)

Somebody had opened an umbrella for the priest.

Germani had arranged for the priest to be driven up from Tarzi. Trotti had never seen the ecclesiastic before. A plump man with slicked back hair and neat robes. He was from the South. He mumbled the prayers, as if embarrassed by death in general and by the death of Sandro in particular.

Trotti assumed that Anna Maria had not informed him that the cause of death was suicide.

The years that Trotti had spent with his two cousins had been hard. They had been the years of Fascism, of numbing poverty, of war and of sacrifice. They were in many ways the best years of Trotti’s life. Years of innocence and hope. Innocence that was soon to be defiled and hope that slowly atrophied as Italy put poverty aside and finally found its place among the wealthy nations.

Days of innocence, and now Sandro was gone.

Suddenly the funeral was all over. The rain fell on the damp casket and the distant relatives threw their flowers, paid their last respects, crossed themselves beneath the drizzle and then headed towards the gate, the waiting cars and the Po valley.

Trotti dropped the flowers on to the grave, not knowing whether he was crying or whether the damp of his cheeks was simply the cold rain. Then the men began to shovel the hard dirt of the hills on to the casket. A harsh, scrabbling sound and Sandro was gone.

Germani was hovering at his side. He had intent blue eyes behind thick lenses.

“I’ll need to see the death certificate, of course,” Trotti told Germani as he turned away from the grave.

Santa Maria was emptier than Trotti remembered it. Many villagers had emigrated to the Po valley or to the mines in Belgium. The fields where people used to toil had grown into unkempt woodland.

Somebody had daubed
Viva S. Maria Ultras
on the low wall of the graveyard, exhorting the local football hooligans.

For a brief moment Trotti wondered how the village managed to find eleven players, let alone supporters.

Then he saw his daughter.

Pioppi was climbing out of a taxi at the cemetery gate. She wore a fur coat that could not hide the swell of her belly.

“Life goes on,” Trotti said to himself.

Pioppi was holding a bunch of flowers. Pregnant and slightly overweight, she radiated beauty.

Behind her was Nando holding the sleeping, precious Francesca in his arms.

“Cheese in the mousetrap?”

Anna Maria turned her broad face towards him. “What are you mumbling, Piero Trotti?”

For the first time in a long, long time, Trotti felt there was indeed a purpose to his existence.

His eyes focused on his cousin. “What you need is a cup of coffee, Anna Maria.” He smiled as he added, “I could do with a packet of rhubarb sweets.”

T
ROTTI TRIED TO
push the hammering away and rolled on to his side, but the banging continued and he opened an eye, squinted at his watch—an ancient present from Agnese.

Ten to four.

It was cold and Trotti wanted to burrow back beneath the warmth of the sheets but the banging would not go away.

Banging accompanied by the jabbing ring of the doorbell.

Trotti threw back the bedsheets. He could not find his slippers and the stone floor was cold. He slipped into his nightgown.

Ten to four, Friday morning.

A further burst of knocking and the bell was ringing with unbroken insistence.

“I’m coming,” Trotti shouted irritably. He had no idea who the visitor was. It was now more than fifteen years since his wife used to come home at all hours of the night.

It briefly occurred to Trotti that it was stupid to risk your life when you were a grandfather, when you were only a few months from a well-deserved retirement in the hills of the OltrePò and when you could receive a bullet fired through the flimsy wood of the front door.

A friend of Eva’s?

There was a service revolver somewhere in the house that he had brought home after Eva’s sudden departure. Trotti did not bother searching for it. The experience of a professional policeman, the training from the police school in Padua were forgotten in a sleepy mist. “Who’s there?” he asked, more annoyed than worried.

The ringing suddenly ceased and in the silence, he heard the voice, almost apologetic. “Pisanelli.”

Trotti laughed as he pulled back the iron bolt and opened the door.

Tenente Pisanelli of the Polizia di Stato stood in the yellow circle of light of the doorstep. He had knocked over one of the pots of cyclamen by the balustrade.

“Who is it, Piero?”

Trotti spun round.

Anna Maria was in the hall, wearing a shapeless cotton nightgown and a bed cap from a different century. Concern had tautened the sleepy features of her face.

“A colleague.” He gestured Anna Maria away, back to Pioppi’s old bedroom.

Now that Pisanelli’s hands had ceased their knocking, they were returned to the pockets of baggy trousers. Pisanelli was wearing his old suede jacket. With his bald head, with the long side hair hanging over his ears and down to his collar, he looked more like an unemployed mechanic than a lieutenant in the state police. He needed a shave.

“Felt like dropping by for a chat, commissario,” Pisanelli said cheerfully, and ducking his head, slightly brushed past Trotti into the hall.

“You’re carrying that Beretta of yours?” Trotti asked. He added, “I enjoy being woken up in the middle of the night.”

“Then you’d better get dressed.”

“Keep your voice down.” Trotti gestured to the open door of Pioppi’s bedroom. A myopic teddy bear stared down from where it perched on the top of the wardrobe. Its one glass eye was dusty. “There’s somebody in there trying to sleep,” Trotti said in a hoarse whisper. “Like most people in Italy at this time of night.”

“I thought I’d have to wake up the entire city. The way you sleep, commissario, you must have a blameless conscience.”

Despite the cold, Pisanelli was sweating. He ran the back of his hand along his forehead. “Which I find very hard to believe.”

The two policemen went along the hall to the kitchen.

Trotti turned on the light. Plates and utensils were in the sink. The tap was dripping slightly. There was a smell of wine and chamomile and Anna Maria’s eau de cologne. The clock faithfully continued its ticking on the top of the refrigerator.

“You’d better get dressed, commissario,” Pisanelli said and unceremoniously slumped down on one of the chairs. He took out a packet of cigarettes.

“At four in the morning?”

“Perhaps I’m interrupting something.” Pisanelli gestured towards the bedroom door.

“A seventy-two-year-old lady.”

“Can you be fussy?”

“You’re not going to smoke a cigarette here,” Trotti said, but there was no anger in his voice. He noticed in the kitchen light that Pisanelli’s thin hands were trembling as he fumbled with the packet of untipped Esportazione. “Want a coffee?”

“Not a bad idea, commissario. Go and get dressed before your feet drop off from frostbite. I’ll make some coffee. Six sugars?” Pisanelli stuffed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth—the stubble was grey beneath his chin—and went to the sink. “We’re in a hurry.”

“We? I’m in no hurry.”

“Get some clothes on fast, commissario.” Pisanelli unscrewed the espresso machine. “A cold night to get murdered.”