Converging Parallels (23 page)

“And you studied languages?” Trotti asked flatly.

“History, Commissario.” Angellini looked around him and made a gesture towards the books scattered on the floor, desk and bed. “I still study. I’m preparing a doctorate.”

“On what?”

“The Prefetto Mori.”

“The policeman?”

“That’s right,” Angellini replied, “the policeman. The man that Mussolini sent to wipe out the Mafia—and who no doubt would have done it, if he hadn’t been working for another kind of mafia. And the time came, Commissario, when Mussolini realized he needed the Mafia more than he needed Mori.”

“You’d be better off studying in Sicily. Why do you remain here?”

“A hobby, Commissario. This is my adopted home and this is where I work. If I prepare a doctorate, it is to give myself a sense of continuity. I know I won’t ever finish it—I’ll never have the time.” He tapped one of the books. “Eight hundred meters—but I want to be running at full speed as I go through the tape.”

Trotti frowned again, but before he could ask his next question, Angellini said, “To get back to Sandro Mariani—that is what you were asking me about—I can tell you that he sold the car to me about a year ago. When he graduated. I finished before him because he was studying medicine. Seven years. This
last year, he’s been in the South somewhere doing his military service.”

“You are still friends?”

Angellini hesitated. “Yes. Yes, we are still friends—but as you grow up, you begin to see things differently. Friends, yes—but not as before.”

“Things such as what?”

There was a light tap on the door and Angellini heaved himself off the bed; he opened the door and Trotti heard him whisper hoarsely with his aunt.

Trotti looked at the books.

“The telephone, Commissario,” Angellini said, coming back into the room. “You’re wanted on the telephone.”

The telephone was in a small cubbyhole; an old plastic machine, the mouthpiece encrusted with damp dirt, screwed into the wall. The wallpaper had been scratched and worn by the movement of hands picking up the receiver.

The aunt watched him from the kitchen door. She wiped her hands slowly on a floral apron. Her eyes glinted.

Trotti turned his back on her and put the phone to his ear. He stared at the wall.

T
ROTTI HAD DRIVEN
past the Casa sul Fiume a thousand times, but he had not been through the gates, thick with ivy, for fifteen years.

It was here that he first met his wife. In those days there used to be a wooden dance hall, a creaking, pitted wooden floor that the young people used to dance on. Young men in baggy trousers and v-necked cardigans with colorful patterns; the girls in billowing cotton skirts. And he remembered how the band, four short, bald men with a wheezing accordion, managed to keep the same glazed smile throughout the evening as they bounced their instruments rhythmically to the music.

In the winter, the young people danced; Saturday nights they came to dance to the new rhythms from America, the translated songs of Edith Piaf and the timeless, lilting waltzes. In the summer, they came to bathe. On the verandah, a man would sell ice creams from his trolley, a bright red cart with two chromium lids. Gelati Motta—there was an advertisement on the side of the trolley, a blonde girl with blue eyes and short, waving, Germanic hair. She held an ice cream in her hand. Trotti remembered the advertisement and he remembered the taste of the pistachio ice cream.

Agnese had been eating an ice cream. A hot day in June, 1952, and she was already in her first year of medicine at the university; he kissed her. Against the broad elm tree. It was unexpected and
then, suddenly, so easy. For some time he had been intimidated by her, by the way she belonged to a different group, smarter and richer than he was and quite out of his reach. She was twenty years old and very sophisticated.

But when he kissed her, she did not resist; she held his head in her hands and her small tongue touched his lips. A milky coolness to her breath.

He remembered the rippling reflection of the river dancing against the bark of the tree. That was twenty-five years ago. The wooden hall had long ago been pulled down and in its place a long, low concrete building had been erected. It stood squatly on the hard earth.

On the new verandah, tables, dark table cloths and parasols advertising Italian liqueurs; a discreet juke box beside a refrigerator, this time white, but still advertising Gelati Motta; the Wagnerian girl had gone—just a blue and white logo. Waiters moved gracefully between the tables, leaning from the waist, and taking the lunchtime orders with professional detachment. Many of the tables were empty, plates of food still untouched.

The elm tree was still there, nor had the river changed. It continued to flow as it always would, slowly in summer, fast in the spring and autumn when the snow melted in the Alps, just visible beyond the far pine trees.

Magagna was leaning against the elm; he stood with one leg against the bark. He was stroking his mustache while he held a notebook before his sunglasses. His face was pale. He did not see Trotti until he was beside him.

“Ciao.”

Trotti said, “I haven’t eaten yet.”

“And you won’t want to.”

Trotti followed Magagna. They went across the hard earth, cut across the edge of the verandah, down four concrete steps and onto the stretch of sand beside the river. There was a crowd of people, many in swimming costumes—Trotti noticed a couple of lithe bikinis and softly tanned backs, blond hair running the length of the spine—that jostled forward against the rope. Magagna
pushed through the crowd and a policeman in uniform lowered the rope to let them past.

The smell of the river brought back forgotten memories. A clean smell that caught at the nostrils, reminiscent of washed clothes. It was a smell of the summer.

Dr. Bottone was wearing a dark suit and the steel of his stethoscope appeared from the corner of his jacket pocket. He was kneeling. His highly polished shoes were now dusty, a grey patina covering the thin black leather.

The body, too, smelled.

A woman’s body. Two breasts that tilted sideways, over the side of the ribs. A patchy triangle of pubic hair. No arms and no legs. The body had been decapitated.

“In another black bag,” Magagna was saying with laudable matter-of-factness. “Washed up upon the beach here and some swimmers”—he nodded towards the crowd—“noticed the smell.”

The skin was a yellowish blue and had been attacked by fish; a series of irregular, mauve pockmarks.

“Badly bruised before death,” Bottone said, then looking up, he saw Trotti. His thin face smiled behind the steel glasses. “We’re gradually piecing it all together, Commissario.”

Another man whom Trotti did not recognize nodded. He was smoking a cigar, which he held between his teeth. Rings glittered on his fingers. The odor of the cigar and the sight of the pale, inert flesh, the red circles and the ragged edges where the limbs had been severed—Trotti remembered the corpses of his childhood. He turned away and, moving through the crowd, hurried to a bush. An empty Limonsoda can and a water rat that darted away beneath the dead leaves. Trotti kneeled and retched.

Five minutes later, when he came back, Trotti found Magagna talking with Bottone. Bottone spoke without looking up; the delicate plastic gloves ran over the flesh. “We’ve just got the arms and head to find.”

Magagna nudged his sunglasses. “It won’t change the identification. We know who she is.”

Bottone continued to caress the lifeless torso. “Probably
beaten to death with a blunt instrument.” There were several converging lines and a damp, black gash beneath the right breast. “Or several instruments. A stick or a spade, perhaps.”

Trotti’s mouth tasted of yellow bile but he felt better. To Magagna, he said, “Give us a cigarette.” He took an MS from the box and snapped off the cork filter; then he lit the cigarette and inhaled. A familiar taste that soon washed at the bitterness in his mouth, at the side of his tongue. He let the shortened cigarette smolder in the corner of his mouth. There was silent surprise behind Magagna’s sunglasses.

“Who would want to beat her up?” Trotti kneeled down beside Bottone, who kept about him the antiseptic odor of the morgue.

“That’s your job, Commissario.” He spoke evenly; and in the same, detached tone, he added, “I need to get her on the table and have a good look at her. Should be interesting.” The eyes glinted behind the steel spectacles.

Trotti stood up. “You know who she is?” he asked Magagna.

“The name is Irina Pirvic. Yugoslav—about forty-eight years old, with no fixed address. She has no work permit.” He corrected, looking up from his notebook, “or rather, she didn’t have. She won’t be needing it now.”

“She works here?”

“She’d been here for the last six months. Probably came down from Milan where the competition is stiff and where a woman of her age would be outclassed. Younger, prettier girls from South America or even the Mezzogiorno, with better protection. Probably edged her out of a job. Or perhaps she was looking for a better class of clientele—she’d had enough of standing by a roadside fire, keeping warm through the night in the dreary suburbs.”

“How did you find this out?”

“She was reported missing this morning by Signora Cucina, who runs the hotel.”

“Hotel?”

“Albergo Belsole—a whorehouse in the center of the town, near the fish market. Dirty place. It should have been closed down a long time ago. But apparently Signora Cucina has friends in high places.”

“Who make use of her services?”

Magagna smiled wryly. “Unlikely. It’s the old Albergo Zuavo; it’s changed names but it still caters for out-of-town workers or soldiers doing their military service who can’t afford anything better—who need to satisfy their needs and who aren’t too demanding. Not very salubrious. The sort of place you’re likely to get more than you paid for.” He grinned and ran a finger along his mustache. “Gonorrhea,
papillon d’amour
.”

“The Cucina woman—she’s taken nearly a week to inform us.”

Magagna shrugged. “She claims that the woman had been talking of going back to Milan—for the weekend, to see some friends.” Magagna took a cigarette from his packet and lit it. “Not very convincing, I’m afraid.”

Some men in white overalls were pushing through the crowd. They carried a rolled stretcher; through the trees, where the cars were parked, Trotti saw the blue flashing light of the ambulance.

The police photographer wore a loose, seersucker jacket and jeans; dark black hair fell into his eyes. Without taking any notice of Trotti or Bottone, he had moved about the corpse, taking photographs. Now the large camera hung in his hand and like a child who had lost interest in a game, he stood staring, his back towards the dead body, at the far side of the river where young people were splashing in the water.

A kayak went past.

The ambulance men wore soft shoes and as they lowered the stretcher beside the severed remains of the body, Trotti had the unpleasant impression that he had been here before. The sun was strong on the back of his head. The ambulance men unwrapped a colorless plastic sheet. The sand was white and the reflected glare hurt Trotti’s eyes. Somebody was talking to him. His mouth was dry with the taste of cigarette smoke.

He threw the cigarette into the river and as he watched, the charred paper began to disintegrate and the specks of tobacco were carried away by the eddies of the current.

“Signor Guerra.”

The man with the cigar now stood with his hands behind his back. He was addressing Trotti while his eyes followed the deft
movement of the ambulance men. The crowd drew apart and the odd bulk of the stretcher—they had placed a grey woollen blanket over everything—was carried away to the impatient ambulance.

“You must be Commissario Trotti.” He had removed the cigar from his mouth and was smiling. He held out his hand.

Trotti tried to concentrate; very slightly, he shook his head. “Yes.”

They shook hands. “Guerra.” He wore a well-cut suit with thin lapels and a white shirt without a tie. Almost apologetically, he went on, “I own the restaurant. And I believe I have the honor of knowing your wife.”

The sleepy sensation of living through the events for the second time disappeared suddenly. Trotti looked at the man. Guerra. Bright eyes, his grey hair neatly combed, quiet elegance. A curved nose.

“My wife?”

“Signora Trotti.” He nodded. “She sometimes comes here to eat. On several occasions I have asked her to bring you. But you are a busy man.”

Dr. Bottone and the photographer were walking away; the camera banged loosely against the photographer’s thigh.

“She used to be a doctor,” Trotti said, without knowing why. It was a foolish remark; Guerra simply nodded.

“She told me that. I must compliment you, Commissario. A truly beautiful woman.” The glance he gave Trotti suggested both admiration and surprise. “Perhaps you’d care for a drink.” His voice was persuasive. “You and your friend. A strong drink after this unpleasant experience.”

Trotti called Magagna, who was writing something in his notebook. Magagna threw his cigarette away.

Together, with Signor Guerra holding Trotti’s arm, they went through the crowd and up the concrete steps, out of the afternoon sun into the cool, conditioned air of the Casa sul Fiume.

W
ITHOUT SMILING
, M
AGAGNA
told a couple of jokes about the Carabinieri and Trotti laughed, noisily and unexpectedly. They had drunk too much, both of them. It had been a normal reaction to the ghastliness of death; and l’architetto Guerra had been generous with his whisky. But now, as they rode the lift up to the third floor of the Questura, Trotti had difficulty in controlling his laughter. He giggled while his fingers ran across the hammer and sickle engraved in the metallic paint. The enclosed space was thick with the alcohol of their breath.

When the lift stopped and the doors slid open, Trotti was looking in the mirror. His own image appeared blurred. He did not look at his face but at the reflection of Magagna’s head and his thick black hair. It seemed squashed.