Big Italy (23 page)

Signora Quarenghi was in her early forties. She had no doubt once been an attractive woman, with blue eyes and blonde hair, but the hair had lost its texture and her eyes appeared tired. Her skin had aged, as if from too much exposure to the sun. There were lines around her large mouth. Lipstick had been applied haphazardly and scarcely followed its natural ridges. There was blonde hair along the upper lip.

“I won’t waste your time, signora.”

“I’ve already wasted enough time in these last thirteen months. I really don’t see how a new inquiry is going to change anything. Carlo’s dead and, anyway, you know who’s guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“You know as well as I do who murdered poor Carlo.”

Trotti gave her a bland smile. “I’ve absolutely no idea who murdered Carlo Turellini.”

She was not wearing a brassiere. She had put on a powder-blue sweater over a flat chest. The nipples pushed against the woolen weave. Beneath the short skirt, the tights had a bright harlequin pattern of greens and reds. Narrow hips that managed to give her a boyish look. A loose blue scarf was tied at the neck in an attempt to hide the premature wrinkling. Several rings on her fingers and large plastic earrings. “Then you are wasting my time. Goodness knows why you never arrested her.”

“Her?”

“That awful Englishwoman.”

Commissario Trotti smiled. “Would you mind if we sat down?”

With a broad gesture, she invited Trotti and Signora Scola to use the vast Chesterfield.

The room was large, decorated in Spanish hacienda style. The furniture was of black wood and there were various ornaments to suggest that the proprietor raised cattle—rough-hewn yokes and wheels with wooden spokes.

A cellular telephone lay on the piano, near a pile of telephone directories. In a far corner stood a beige computer with its satellite printers and matching accessories.

The room would have been somber but for the daylight coming through the large French windows. Beyond the windows was a garden with a hedge of cypress trees. The hedge gave on to the flat rice fields.

“Signora Quarenghi, do you know Signor Bassi?”

“Bassi?” She shook her head. “It’s not about Carlo you’ve come to see me?”

“Do you know Fabrizio Bassi?”

“I know some Bassis—but not in this city.”

“A private detective. I believe you spoke to him.”

“Ah!” She smiled with recollection. “You mean that strange man who left his tie undone.”

Trotti nodded.

“Like some character on television. Or Umberto Bossi of the Lega Lombarda. Yes, I met him.” An amused curving of her lips. “A friend of yours?”

“Fabrizio Bassi was a private detective who used to be a policeman.”

“Why do you mention him? He was, you say. He’s dead?”

“Bassi was making an inquiry into Carlo Turellini’s death.”

“That’s what he said.”

“When did you meet him?”

“Is he dead?”

“Please answer the question.”

Another cold glance at Signora Scola as the woman tried to recollect. “It must have been some time after Carlo’s death. He came to see me.” She raised her thin shoulders. “I’m afraid I got the impression he was somebody in from the fields. A nice man—but not terribly intelligent. Bit of a peasant.”

“He asked you a few questions?”

“You all do.”

“What sort of questions?”

“The same questions that everybody else asks.”

“When did you last see Fabrizio Bassi?”

She thought for a moment before replying. “I saw him twice. The first time soon after Carlo’s death. Then he came back six, seven months later. The second time I let him in and he told me he was working for the old woman.”

“What old woman?”

“Carlo’s ex-wife.” A movement of her hand. “The man was sitting where you’re sitting now and he asked all sorts of stupid questions about me and Carlo, about me and my husband. Worse than the police and all the time he was playing a little recorder to get my answers on tape.”

“You never saw him again?”

“Like the police, he wanted to know why I was in the vicinity of Carlo’s place at Segrate when Carlo was murdered …”

“Why were you in the vicinity of Carlo Turellini’s place when he was shot?”

“I see you’re no more imaginative than all the others.”

“Kindly answer my question.”

Signora Quarenghi lowered herself into the leather armchair opposite. Beside the chair was a potted rubber plant. The woman
sat with her back to the French windows and her face in the shade. Girlishly she brought her legs up beneath her thighs. “I had a premonition.”

“Premonition?”

“That’s what I told the police. I may be a stupid woman—a lot of people tell me so, not least my dear, dear husband—but I believe in premonitions. I dreamt Carlo was going to be murdered—and I tried to help him.”

“Too late.”

She nodded. She placed a thin hand on her thigh. There was an ashtray on the arm of the chair.

“Why did you accuse your husband of Dr. Turellini’s murder?”

“At the time …”

“Yes?”

“At the time, I thought …” She stopped.

“What did you think?”

“I was having problems with my husband. Paolo’s not always a very understanding man. You see, he is quite a bit older than me. He’s an intellectual and he’s not really interested in anything he can’t measure—measure or weigh.”

“Why did you accuse him?”

“I was being silly. It was a mistake. I realize that now.”

“Where is Dr. Quarenghi at the moment?”

“In Rome,” she said, raising the shoulders of her V-necked sweater. “He has an apartment there. I haven’t seen Paolo for a couple of weeks. He often has to go to the ministry for weeks on end.”

“You don’t have any children?”

She shook her head, and then looked carefully at Signora Scola who was sitting beside Trotti taking notes on a pad. Signora Scola did not return the glance.

“Why did you accuse your husband, Signora Quarenghi?”

“Paolo knew about me and Carlo. Of course, the affair had been over for some time. By then Carlo had found someone younger and more beautiful and more stupid—a foreigner. But you can’t imagine how jealous my husband is. He found a letter—that was the evening I had the terrible dream.”

“A letter Turellini had written?”

“I’d written.”

“Why would your husband want to kill Turellini? The two men were friends.”

“They used to be friends.”

“They were colleagues.”

“That was before.” Again her glance turned to Signora Scola. “Doctors can be as jealous as women, you know.”

“Why kill Carlo Turellini?”

“My husband killed nobody.”

“You said he’d killed Turellini.”

“On the day of Carlo’s death, my husband was in Rome.” She shrugged her acquiescence. “Carlo had been having an affair with me. That was something my husband could not bring himself to accept.”

Trotti coughed. “I imagine Dr. Quarenghi, living alone in Rome, must have ample time to have his own affairs.”

The woman said flatly, “I hope so for his sake.”

“Why?”

“It would be something other than his work.” Signora Quarenghi shrugged. “My husband’s a jealous man. But don’t think he’s some passionate Latin lover.” She laughed to herself and it was then, as her face caught the light from the window that Trotti noticed there was a nervous tic agitating her eyebrow. “His job, his house, his car, his dog, his young wife. They’re symbols of his success. And he doesn’t want anyone touching them. Because if you do …”

Signora Scola raised her head. “Yes?”

“You touch them at your own risk.” She met Trotti’s glance. “At your own very considerable risk.”

“C
ARLO
T
URELLINI WAS
murdered early in the morning of Friday, October twenty-third while leaving the garage of his villa in Segrate.”

Signora Quarenghi nodded.

“The previous evening, your husband found a note you had written to Carlo Turellini and there was a quarrel?”

“No.”

“No what?”

“There was a letter—it’s true. A stupid letter I wrote to Carlo.”

“And your husband found it?”

“My husband was in Rome.”

Simona Scola held her pen motionless above the note pad and watched the other woman in silence.

“About a week before Carlo’s death. A letter I’d sent him.”

“To Turellini?”

She nodded again. “Somebody—goodness knows who—made a photocopy and sent it to my husband at the Ministry in Rome.”

“And your husband was furious?”

“I wasn’t with him.”

“Then how did you know about the letter?”

“I didn’t—at least, not until much later.”

“But you had a premonition?”

“I think I was still in love with Carlo. He was with the Englishwoman but I still loved him.”

“And, on the basis of a premonition, you accused your husband of murdering Carlo Turellini?”

She started to fumble with a packet of Muratti cigarettes that lay on the black piano near the directories. “I was acting strangely.”

“When did you see your husband?”

“I spent the day at the barracks in Segrate. The day Carlo was murdered. They tested me because they seemed to think I could have murdered Carlo.”

“And your husband?”

“He came up from Rome on the Pendolino to take me home.”

“There was a quarrel?”

“No quarrel.” A thin laugh. “My husband isn’t like that. He doesn’t have to shout or raise his voice to impose his will.”

“Your husband was very angry?”

“I had accused him of murdering my lover. What do you think, Signor Commissario? Paolo’s always considered me as a personal possession.”

“In this instance, his own wife was being seduced by a close friend.”

“You understand perfectly, commissario. Only Carlo didn’t seduce me. He screwed me, he penetrated me, we made love for nights on end.” She nodded as she placed a cigarette in her mouth. “Paolo Quarenghi gave up sharing the same bed with me a long, long time ago. He had better things to do.”

“You had a premonition your husband intended to do something rash?”

“I told you my husband was in Rome.”

“If your husband was in Rome, how could you be afraid of his reactions?”

“I was acting strangely. Perhaps …” She shook her head, as if trying to dismiss an idea. “I knew it was over between Carlo and me. That’s what frightened me. I knew he was with the Englishwoman—but I couldn’t take it seriously. A stupid, ignorant Englishwoman.”

“She wanted to have his child.”

She looked at Trotti and she could have been a little girl. She spoke very softly. “The realization I was going to be alone again.”

“Why were you afraid of your husband?”

Signora Quarenghi’s hand went to the blue scarf. “Paolo Quarenghi’s not a violent man. He’s never raised his hand to me, if that’s what you think.”

“You had reason to believe he could be violent if he was angered?”

“Nothing like that.” A thin smile. “We hardly quarrel anymore. My husband has other interests in his life.”

“You didn’t quarrel over the letter?”

“Paolo simply becomes very distant. It’s as if I were the maid from Mauritius. He speaks to me only to give me orders or because he needs something. Sometimes he disappears from the house. The rest of the time he sits in front of his computer and does his homework.”

“It might be a good idea if I spoke with Dr. Quarenghi.”

“My husband’s in Rome.”

“Then when he returns.”

“Paolo is a very busy man. He works for the Ministry of Health. This entire affair has understandably irritated him considerably.” There was another movement of the nervous eye. She lit the cigarette with a large lighter in the form of a conquistador. “All my stupid fault, of course. I should never have made my silly accusations. I suppose I just can’t have been thinking clearly.”

“You take medication, Signora?”

“Not really.”

“Either you take medication or you don’t.”

“I used to.”

“But not now?”

She put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled, her eyes on Trotti.

“No sleeping pills?”

“Just the occasional one.”

There was silence.

Outside a wind was causing the plane trees to sway gently.

Trotti wanted to get away. To get out. Signora Quarenghi made him feel uncomfortable.

She spoke again. “I wanted to have a child, you see.”

Signora Scola looked up.

“I often felt that with a child, perhaps …”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps my husband and I would have been closer. You understand, Dr. Quarenghi and I aren’t very close. Perhaps children would have drawn us together.”

“What has stopped you?”

“I am forty-six, you see.”

“That’s not too late.” Signora Scola spoke softly.

“I was taking sleeping pills. There wasn’t really much else I could do, was there?”

“Do?”

“Sleep—I needed to sleep. Because as long as I was sleeping, I didn’t think about anything else. And most of the time I was here by myself. With just the maid for company. While Paolo’s in Rome to earn money for both of us.” Her wan smile went from Trotti to Signora Scola. “Paolo was very angry I made those silly accusations. I wanted to have a child and then I discovered that Carlo wanted to have children with that awful Englishwoman.” She added softly, “I thought I was in love with Carlo Turellini.” She tapped her chest. “On my own again. I’m a woman—and I need to be desired, I need to be wanted.”

Trotti asked, “Why an affair with another man?”

Simona Scola asked, “Why didn’t you adopt?”

Signora Quarenghi did not answer either question.

“If you really wanted a child,” Trotti said, “why did you have an affair with another man?”

“My husband was living most of the time in Rome.”

“You could have joined him.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t care for children. And he doesn’t want me in his bed.”

“So you had an affair with Turellini?”

The eyes suddenly blazed behind the cigarette smoke. “I wasn’t having an affair.”

“You wrote letters,” Trotti said. “According to various people, there was a liaison between you and Turellini.”