Gold, Frankincense and Dust (18 page)

The commissario stared at him and thought of Giulia Martini. A couple who hated each other but were held together by business interest, exactly like members of a board
of management. She kept him in exchange for being able to sell to bishops and cardinals the outward display of married life, while he moved from one bed to the next, deceiving young foreign girls. The commissario delighted in the opportunity to disrupt their minuet and cause trouble. “Your wife and your daughter tell me you spend money like water …”

Soncini gave the slightest of shrugs, as though bored. “My daughter used to love me a lot, but she’s come under her mother’s control.”

The distance between them seemed to bother him a great deal, but everything in Soncini appeared improbable. He was a man who must have dabbled in everything, but who had so completely wasted everything life had offered him that he was incapable of even one authentic emotion. The commissario looked hard at a face that could in another age have been Casanova’s, and had the displeasing impression of seeing in front of him a man embittered, exhausted and dissatisfied, let down by his body and by age. Quite suddenly, Soncini was transformed into a ghost.

“I’ve nothing more to ask you,” Soneri said, anxious to be free of the man.

Soncini rose slowly to his feet. He had maintained a kind of fading, early autumnal attractiveness, and his walk as he left the bar had the slow deliberateness of an elderly gentleman.

Soon after, Soneri too went out. The discussion with Soncini added nothing to what he had already known, but did leave him with some impressions he could not yet manage to decode. And no-one knew better than him how important impressions were when everything appeared inexplicable.

THE NIGHT WAS
a time of peace for the commissario, when the inexplicable ceased to torment him. The darkness of the
borghi
in the old town set itself up as a natural obstacle to anxiety, leaving it no option but to slink off. Momentarily washing his hands of his problems offered great relief and gave Soneri, as he strolled about in the mist, a break from his nightmares.

It did not last long. Once more the sirens blared out in the labyrinth of streets around the Duomo. Excitement exploded and transformed itself into a mob. An ambulance raced by, pursued by the curious on foot. They made for the Vicolo del Vescovado, but the entrance was blocked by a pair of police cars. In the midst of things, he made out the figure of Musumeci and immediately afterwards saw a flushed woman being taken by the arm by Esposito.

“We’ve made a cock-up of the whole thing,” Esposito shouted.

“You mean it wasn’t him,” the commissario said, meaning the Moroccan now being crucified as the Brute of Parma.

“No, no way. Oh, don’t get carried away. He was no saint, eh! He did try to hassle that girl.”

“Him and how many others, Esposito? There are
thousands of potential rapists, especially among respectable, apparently innocent fathers of families.”

“Maybe so, commissario, but this is one weird human being,” he concluded with an eloquent gesture of his finger.

Musumeci was conducting interrogations and a number of people were lined up along the wall of the Bishop’s Palace. There was something blasphemous or even perhaps deliberately provocative in raping a woman in that place. A symbolic coincidence, and Soneri had a continuing interest in both coincidences and symbols. A new piece of information crackled out on a radio held by one of Esposito’s colleagues. A man whose description fitted the rapist had been seen under the Portici del Grano at the City Hall. After a challenge to the spiritual power, it was the turn of the temporal power. Two cars sped off with tyres screeching. The commissario followed them on foot. A few metres on, some boys went racing past him, and he too broke into a run, abandoning himself to a puerile excitement that reawoke memories of leaping from stone to stone in furrows created by water or by tractors, and of boyhood competitions on sun-soaked paths lined by poplar trees, and at the same time contemplating how pitiless is time in burning us up.

Soneri stopped in Via Repubblica, in front of the police station, unable to decide if his breathlessness was due to emotion or exertion. He had the impression that, quite suddenly, that night he had begun to make some headway. Something must have been happening under the mist which seemed to be continually rolling over the city, even if to all appearances everything was returning to its customary stillness and to the subdued sounds of the night-time hours. He walked along Via Mazzini, and observed the faint lights on the far side of the river pierce the darkness, while the bells of the Duomo rang a quarter to midnight. He leaned on the
parapet of the Mezzo bridge and looked over at the river only a few metres below but almost silent. He was finally floating with a lightness he had been experiencing for some time, nothing more than a bubble released from the graceful hand of a child, rising without wind, tossed slowly about before bursting, forgotten.

The ringing of his mobile brought him back to earth. “Commissario,” the voice of Pasquariello’s deputy came booming out, “we’ve got the car you described to us, the black B.M.W. Remember?”

“The one with the horse on the side? Of course I remember.”

“Well, you won’t see much of the horse, because there’s a scrape on the side of the car, but we think this is the one you’re after.”

“Where is it now?”

“Here with us.”

“Who was driving?”

“Two Romanians. We’ve checked with the vehicle registration office, and it turns out the car’s stolen.”

Soneri muttered something incomprehensible. “When?”

“Couple of months ago. But that’s not all. The pair who were in the car are underage. The guy who was driving is seventeen and the other one’s sixteen.”

“How did you apprehend them?”

“They crashed into another car at the Crocetta and ran off. A squad car gave chase until they turned into a cul-de-sac. There may have been a third person who got away.”

“Don’t let anybody touch the car, and first thing tomorrow morning call in the forensic squad. I want that car examined,” Soneri ordered.

Shortly afterwards, he was at the police station. On the way he tried to get through to Angela, but without success.
He sent her an ambiguous text:
I don’t know if I’ll go to bed tonight. What about you?
He saw the B.M.W. parked in the courtyard, not the most recent model, but one still in vogue. It had a long scratch on one side, but the galloping horse could clearly be made out.

“Where are the two you’ve arrested?”

A custody officer escorted him to the interrogation room, but before they went in he warned him: “I think you’re wasting your time. They won’t open their mouths.”

They were young, but they had the look of having been through a lot.

“You stole the wrong car,” the commissario began. “Any one in possession of it is in deep trouble, facing much more than a straightforward charge of car theft.”

The two remained impassive. They seemed not to have understood what was being said to them. Soneri turned back to the officer.

“Do these two understand Italian?”

“They understand perfectly well. They’re bluffing.”

“It’d be better for you to come clean, much better,” the commissario threatened. Not a muscle on the face of either man moved.

“Even if you are underage, a murder charge is no trivial matter,” the commissario said.

Only at that point did the two exchange a brief glance, but still did not say a word. They gave the impression of being in a waiting room rather than a police station, and the idea of ending up in jail seemed not to have crossed their minds. They stared straight ahead impassively, with an inexpressive, almost obtuse look on their faces. The commissario wondered how they could maintain that pose except by anaesthetising the brain, leaving it dulled during the hours and hours of waiting, with no other aim than to let time pass. He would
have liked to punch the pair of them and shake them out of a silence he found deeply irritating.

“Where are you from?”

No reply. Soneri looked questioningly at the officer.

“They had no papers on them, commissario. We’re making enquiries with the immigration office.”

He peered at the two young men impotently. Although in a fury, he did no more than take a seat opposite them, attempting to intercept any glance they exchanged. Their clear eyes darted about like lizards’, but when they were still they had the fixed vacuity of a pane of glass.

“I don’t understand why you’re so keen to make trouble for yourselves! Ruining your lives before they’ve really begun.” Addressing the officer, he added, “The car was the one used in the Iliescu murder.”

He hoped to make some impact on the boys, to shake them out of their apathy, but they were plainly hard cases. Or simply two lads who had been trained in a code of blind obedience to the clan, imposed by beating after beating. Or else they were terrified. Only once did the younger of the two display a sign of concern, throwing his mate a glance which the commissario read as a willingness to yield, but immediately afterwards everything settled back as before: the same apathy, the same immobility, the same lizard-like looks.

The commissario cut short the interrogation. “O.K. You’ll be spending the night in the cells.”

He got up and walked slowly to the door. As he squeezed past the custody officer, he stopped and turned round for a last look at the two Romanians staring into the void, as impassive as ever.

In the corridor he bumped into Pasquariello, who had the grim expression on his face of a man dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.

“So? Where are these two little shits?”

Soneri nodded in the direction of the room he had just left. “It’s a waste of time going in. They’re like two statues.”

They both went into the office of the head of the flying squad. There were three officers at work on the case, but at that moment the commissario felt the absence of Juvara and his computer skills.

“The car was stolen from some firm,” one of the policemen announced.

“Which firm?” asked Pasquariello.

“It’s called Golden. It’s a goldsmith’s firm based in Lemignano.”

Something clicked in Soneri’s mind, even if he would not have been able to identify the connection which was suggested. Unquestionably he was facing another coincidence: he had just been talking to the irreproachable family which held the reins in that firm.

“Do you know it?” Pasquariello said.

The commissario nodded. “Nina Iliescu worked there for a while and then she became the lover of the owner’s husband.”

The chief of the flying squad gave a malicious grunt. “So the skin trade was part of it after all. Who would have guessed it? What about these two Romanians? Can we put a name to them?” Pasquariello asked the officers.

“No. Either they’re illegals or else we’re going to have to do lengthy research. Meantime, we’ve taken their fingerprints.”

“Have a look in the camps of the Roma travellers. It’s likely they come from there,” Soneri suggested, remembering Medioli’s ill-fated flight.

Pasquariello agreed. “Maybe you’re right. Running off with a car with no licence is typical of them. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“There were some Romanian Romas at Cortile San Martino in the clearing near the rubbish dump. They left a couple of days ago and who knows where they’ve ended up? I requested help to trace them, but we’d need the collaboration of our cousins,” the commissario said, referring to the carabinieri.

“Is there no way to get them to talk?” Pasquariello asked.

“No, and even if they did, they’d give a false name. Who knows how many aliases they have,” Soneri said.

“And how many expulsion orders …” added one of the officers, his eyes still glued to the computer screen.

“Anything found in the car?” the chief of the flying squad said.

“A quick search didn’t reveal anything, but maybe tomorrow Nanetti will come up with something,” Soneri said, as he left with Pasquariello.

“Do you think these two clowns have anything to do with the murder?” Pasquariello asked.

Soneri shook his head. “I don’t believe so, but who knows? They could set us on the right track.”

He turned away without saying goodbye. As he walked under the archway which led to the Borgo della Posta, he heard the bell on the Duomo strike one. Immediately after, the mobile in his pocket vibrated.
Perhaps I won’t either
, he read on the screen. He knew she meant she would not go to bed that night any more than he would. A state of agitation once again overcame him. These few words could indicate either that she had complex work in hand or that she would not be going home.

He felt the need for some slices of Parmesan and a good, dark Lambrusco, always the best remedy at moments like these. He was about to head home but had to jump aside to avoid a squad car arriving at top speed. The car stopped in
the archway, lights flashing and sirens blaring, until the officer raised the barrier. Two other cars also arriving at high speed came in behind the first.

Soneri rushed back into the courtyard. In the absence of Parmesan and Lambrusco, throwing himself into the thick of the action could well be the best way to keep worried thoughts at bay.

“We got him! This time we caught him with the mouse in his mouth,” shouted Esposito, hauling out a man of distinguished appearance but plainly distraught.

Soneri watched him go past, ashen-faced, head bowed, dressed like an executive: jacket and tie, finely fashioned knee-length overcoat, English shoes, elegant trousers with flares. The commissario followed the short procession into the offices and it occurred to him that this was the night of the reckoning. He left to his colleagues the satisfaction of the first interrogation and went off to pour himself a coffee from the machine. At that instant, he felt once again refreshed. All the clamour around him seemed to him a vacuous, grotesque pantomime and for that reason, with that coolness which follows disappointment and disengagement from spent passion, he succeeded in seeing the world in a wholly new light.