Big Italy (20 page)

The pile of magazines by the television looked neater and thinner. The parish magazine next to the clock had disappeared. The clock had been removed from the top of the refrigerator and was now on the mantelpiece, along with the freshly dusted photographs of Pioppi and the little Francesca, Agnese and the little Francesca, the little Francesca alone.

“What’s that?”

“What?” Anna Maria set the plate of melon and ham on the tablecloth.

It was his photograph. A brown and white photograph of Piero Trotti in his first uniform. Trotti looking foolishly young and innocent.

The photograph was slightly crinkled and there was a white border and the edges were serrated, like a postage stamp.

“Where did you get that awful photo from?”

“It’s mine,” Anna Maria replied simply. “I’ve been carrying it around in my handbag for years.”

“What on earth for?”

She shook her head, dismissing the silliness of the question. “I had a nice long chat with your friend Signora Scola.”

Trotti looked at the television screen and frowned.

“I went to the shops and got something to eat. I never realized Italy had become so expensive.”

“You should have gone to the hypermarket.”

“Perhaps you’d care to grace the table with your presence.”

The same words, the same intonation as fifty years earlier. Anna Maria had not changed. Holland, marriage, children. The estrangement from her own son. The loss of Piet and now of her brother Sandro had not really changed the young, authoritarian woman who
had once regimented Trotti’s existence during the years of war. He could feel the resurgence of old resentments. Resentments because he, likewise, had not changed. Not really.

He rose from the armchair, switched off the television and sat down at the table.

“You could’ve bought a remote control, of course.”

Trotti started eating.

“Don’t worry about me,” Anna Maria said. She sat, arms folded in front of her. “I wasn’t going to wait for you. I have to eat at regular hours. With age and with my ulcers, I’m becoming a creature of habit.”

“You always were.”

The old, broad face, the wrinkles deepened by the shadows of the overhead lamp, came forward, an invitation to greater intimacy. “She’s married, isn’t she?”

“Who?”

“She sounded nice. She clearly likes you a lot, Pierino.” A raised eyebrow. “But do you think with a woman …” The question hung unfinished in the short space between them.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything.” The stiffness of her back suddenly matched Anna Maria’s moral rectitude. “But you’ve been living by yourself many years, Rino.”

“Happily.”

“I really think it’s about time you thought of your future.”

“A future at my age?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“My future’s my grandchildren.”

“There are a lot of women who’d be happy to share their lives with you.” Anna Maria hesitated. “And don’t talk to me about your goats and your chickens because you know you won’t be retiring to the hills. How you and Sandro could ever entertain such an idea’s quite beyond me.” She shook her head unhappily. “You have good memories of those years?”

“We were young, Anna Maria.”

“Young? Underfed, with bones pushing under the skin. All those years I suffered from boils. And you remember how you cut your leg and it never healed?”

“We were happy.”

“No, Pierino, you don’t belong in the hills. You belong here among your friends.”

“A policeman doesn’t have friends. Too many favors and I know too much about people.”

“I really do wish you’d stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’re like an old man.”

Trotti laughed and melon juice ran from the corner of his lips.

“I thought Pioppi was marvelous. Such a beautiful girl. So glad to see she’s put on weight at last. You remember how thin she used to be?”

Like the solicitous mother she had once been for him, Anna Maria took away the plate of melon rind and produced a warmed dish into which she ladled risotto. The steam rose and it seemed to soften the old face behind the austere Cavour glasses. Perhaps, for a moment, she reminded Trotti of the young Anna Maria of fifty years before.

“She really seems to like you, Piero.”

“Pioppi?”

“Sounds like a very nice woman and Signora Scola had such a lot of good things to say about you. What a pity she’s married.”

P
RISCILLA SAT ON
the floor. She had been given a large book but she showed no interest in the grey elephants, the bright-eyed tigers, the luxuriant baobabs.

Signora Scola raised her head.

She had been looking through the box of toys and several dolls and trains lay on the carpet beside her. She now looked towards the large mirror and gave a little wave.

Trotti wondered how she had seen him enter the cubicle.

He sat down at the desk. There were several stools but they were all uncomfortable. He took the only chair. It was low and he had to sit forward in order to see what was happening in the adjacent room.

Overhead the camera gave its black and white picture on to the monitor screen.

From where he was sitting, Trotti could see Priscilla’s mother. She sat by the window, nervously smoking, her eyes going from her daughter to the garden of the hospital, dark and enclosed by the gloomy architecture of the pediatric wing.

“I’m playing with this doll. You know, she’s got lovely blonde hair.” Signora Scola had found a plastic comb.

Priscilla took no notice. Priscilla said nothing. Priscilla did nothing.

The radiator creaked noisily and somewhere in the building someone shouted.

Trotti placed an anisette sweet in his mouth.

“I don’t like snakes,” Priscilla announced suddenly, not looking at Signora Scola.

“Neither do I.” Signora Scola nodded her head in friendly agreement. “They do naughty things and they’re not nice. She paused. “Have you seen this lovely doll? She has long black lashes, just like you.”

The child began to show interest.

“Perhaps you’d like to help me dress her. She’s a bit silly and she’s put her clothes on all wrong. A big girl and she can’t even dress properly. Have you ever seen such a thing?”

Through the speaker Trotti heard Signora Scola’s cheerful laughter.

(“Sounds like a nice woman and Signora Scola had such a lot of good things to say about you.”
)

He was smiling as the door of the cubicle was abruptly opened.

Turning in surprise, Trotti removed his headphones.

“Ah, Piero,” Commissario Merenda said as he entered, “I was hoping you might be here.”

“C
IAO
, M
ERENDA
.”

He held out his hand and smiled.

They rarely spoke to each other. An implicit rivalry kept them apart, reduced their intercourse to brief nods and hurried smiles. No doubt Trotti envied Merenda his youth and his success.

Perhaps Merenda resented Trotti’s reputation as the grand old man of the Questura.

Of course, in many ways the two men were similar. In a Polizia di Stato that was a creation of Fascism and subsequently the victim of nearly forty years of a crippled democracy, both Merenda and Trotti had the reputation for implacable, almost aggressive probity.

And they were both Northerners.

(“You know you can’t work with Merenda—you’re not a man to collaborate. Reparto Omicidi functions as a team. You like to do things in your own way—whatever you say, everybody knows you despise Merenda.”
)

“How are you, Piero?” Merenda’s glance went from Trotti’s face to the room beyond the one-way mirror. “I see you’re still working with children.”

Trotti shrugged. “Signora Scola asked me to come down this morning.”

“There are even rumors you’re staying on beyond your retirement age.”

“Rumors?”

Merenda smiled cautiously. He was a tall man in his late thirties who was courteous with everyone but had no close friends within
the Questura. No one ever got invited back to his place in San Martino Sicomario where he lived with his family. It was generally believed that his wife was French and a former model.

Merenda kept his own company. He had grown up in the Camargue, where his parents went to grow rice. He had returned to Italy in the early seventies. Apart from the guttural, French R in his speech, there was no regional accent. He had not picked up the slow, drawling baritone of provincial Lombardy.

“For the children’s sake.” Merenda gestured to where Signora Scola and the little Priscilla were now playing. “I think it would be a marvelous idea. You’re the right man, Piero, and it’ll be our loss when you go.”

“Thanks.”

“I hear you were at Melegnano yesterday morning.”

Trotti said nothing.

Merenda continued, “They found Bassi’s corpse and I’m now running the inquiry. I want to get this out of the way fast.”

“So the Questore told me.”

“Thing is, with a private detective like Bassi, there are so many leads you can never be sure you’re following the right one.”

“I’m not sure that as a private detective Bassi had all that much work.”

“At four in the morning, how did you find out he’d been killed?” Merenda smiled. He had a wide smile and regular teeth. He was one of those men who appeared unshaven at any time of the day, a shadow of darkness across his cheeks and chin.

“I have my contacts.”

“You’re not part of Reparto Omicidi, Piero.”

“I think I know that.”

“Then why bother with a murder?” A mocking tone had entered Merenda’s voice. “You’re not happy dealing with molested children?”

“I’ll be a lot happier when I’ve left here.”

“So you really are going to retire?”

“After a lifetime in the Polizia, I’m beginning to feel I could do with a change.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Yes, Merenda, I am going to retire. In September. I will get out of the Questore’s hair. He has always accused me of practicing a cult of the personality.”

Merenda’s grin widened. “Nicolae Ceauşescu?”

“That sort of thing.”

“I know how you feel.”

“He accuses you, too, Merenda?”

“When it suits him.” The younger man had lowered himself on to one of the high stools, half-sitting, half-standing with his legs unbending and his hands in his pockets. Merenda was well-dressed. His shoes, Trotti noticed, were thick-soled Timberlands, much like the ludicrously expensive pair Pioppi had bought him for his birthday.

“You surprise me.”

“What were you doing at Melegnano at four in the morning?”

“I told you. I have my contacts.”

“No need to tell you that Tenente Pisanelli’s with the Reparto Omicidi and for murder inquiries comes under my command.”

“How is Pisanelli? You know, I hardly ever get to see him. I heard he was getting married.”

“Being arch, Piero?”

“I don’t think Pisa’s ever forgiven me. Seems to believe I came between him and my goddaughter. They were engaged and then something happened.” Trotti clicked his tongue, “I haven’t heard from Anna Ermagni for over a year. Sweet little thing. Always said she wanted to be an interpreter at the FAO in Rome.”

Merenda held up his hand. “Piero, Spare me.”

Trotti smiled.

“You seem to think it’s my fault you’re not in Reparto Omicidi.”

“At my age, I’ve learned not to think anything. Start thinking and you get ulcers—or even worse.”

“You’re devious, Piero.”

“That’s not what our Questore from Friuli thinks. He tells me I share his innocence. The innocence of an outsider. That’s why I never managed to get further. Too innocent of Power Politics.”

“Devious and intelligent.”

“You flatter me.”

“Not at all. The grand old man and they’ve shunted you over to the hospital to watch abused children through a dark glass. I think I can understand your rancor.”

“Why bother? There’s no need for you to have come here, Merenda. You have a nice office on the third floor of the Questura. Unless I’m mistaken, you have my old office, now nicely renovated.”

“You neither forget nor forgive.” Merenda smiled and then started to laugh. “Perhaps it’s your grudges that made you the best officer in this city.”

“And now I work with children. The Questore’s even hoping we can set up a national center.”

“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much over the Questore, Piero. In many ways he’s a spent force.”

Trotti was astounded but he hid his astonishment.

Merenda had arrived in the city a year after the Questore from Friuli. It was well-known that Merenda was one of the Questore’s appointments. Merenda was perhaps not a Socialist, but he was perceived as the Questore’s man. Between the two of them there was a symbiosis that many, not least Piero Trotti, resented. Neither of them really understood this small university city of the Po valley. They were outsiders yet they wielded enormous power.

“You see, Piero, I want you aboard.”

“Aboard what?”

“I would have offered you a cup of coffee and we could have talked about Bassi like professionals. Like civilized people. But I know your high standards in coffee—or indeed in everything else. You have your bars that you frequent and a tasteless coffee would have been just another thorn in your heavy crown.”

“I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

“I surprise you?”

“I thought you were French.”

The flash of bright teeth. “You were with Pisanelli yesterday and I don’t give a damn what he does in his spare time—provided it isn’t against the law. To be honest, Piero, I don’t really care what you do.”

“What I do? You think I’m a necrophiliac or a pedophile?”

“I want you in on this Bassi thing. You knew Bassi because he worked for you before he was kicked out of the Questura.”

“You want me in on the Reparto Omicidi inquiry, Merenda?”

“Of course, Piero.”

“I don’t think the Questore’s going to be thrilled. He believes my methods are out of the dark ages.”

“I’ve always had a soft spot for the Inquisition.” Merenda shook his head. “Perhaps you’ll make an effort for me.”