Persona Non Grata (19 page)

“Y
OU SHOULDN
’
T HAVE
lied.”

“I didn’t lie.”

They were sitting in the public gardens behind the civic museum.

Little children played on the grass and in the balding sandpit. Mothers watched or talked or read photo romances.

Signorina Podestà had crossed her ankles and was looking at her shoes. She did not wear stockings and her legs were very white. Red spots showed where she had taken a razor to the leg hairs.

“Signorina, you were not attacked. There was no rapist.”

She turned her head. “What do you know?”

“Still not enough. That is why I am trying to get at the truth.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I know that you can.”

“Leave me alone, can’t you? Why did you send that woman to find me? And why are we talking here?”

“Because I wanted to save you the embarrassment of being interrogated in front of your colleagues in the insurance office.”

“I would have come to the Questura.”

“It’s now that I have to speak to you. I can’t wait—or perhaps you don’t understand.”

“I understand that you are accusing me of lying. You are intimidating me. You are preventing me from getting on with
my job. I don’t like your attitude. I am a woman of the twentieth century and I am not going to put up with this kind of bullying from a man.”

“The young policewoman who interrogated you is now dead.”

Signorina Podestà blinked her bulging eyes.

“Murdered, signorina. Murdered in cold blood.”

“I must get back to the office.”

A squirrel had come out from hiding behind the granite memorial to Garibaldi and was worrying at a twig. It looked at Trotti with small brown eyes and twitched its nose in disapproval. “Are you going to answer my questions?”

“You can’t make me.”

“Or do you want to be involved in a murder enquiry?”

Trotti was surprised to see that there was a hint of rouge on the pale cheeks.

“There’s nothing I can tell you.”

“How long have you been sleeping with him?”

She did not answer. “How long have you been sleeping with Riccardo?”

She had started to blush—a deep crimson blush that moved upwards over the pale face. “Mind your own business.”

“Riccardo Bianchini.”

A moment of hesitation, the eyes blinking. “I know nobody of that name.”

“He has been sleeping with you these last few nights, hasn’t he?”

She looked down at her hands, loosely clasping the handbag.

“It doesn’t worry you that his own mother doesn’t know where he is—that she worries because he no longer comes home?”

“My private life has nothing to do with you.”

“Or perhaps you really believe that it is love.”

“Love?”

“Perhaps you really believe that there is something between you and a boy half your age. Perhaps you really believe that there is a future for you—and that is why you are willing to perjure yourself, perhaps even risk a jail sentence.”

“Riccardo …”

“Riccardo is still a child—he is only just eighteen.”

“Eighteen and no longer a minor.”

“You admit you know him?”

“I admit nothing. And I don’t like the way—”

“I don’t give a damn. Believe me, I don’t give a damn what you do or what you think or who you are in love with, who you want to sleep with. But I do give a damn about Signorina Ciuffi—because she was a friend of mine and because she is now dead.” He added, “Murdered.”

Trotti caught his breath and then they sat in silence on the cold stone bench. It was nearly four o’clock and the sun had lost much of its harshness. A couple of wool-like clouds in the sky. Garibaldi stood with a foot forward and his eyes staring towards the city, his red shirt transformed into a dark grey granite.

Two little boys were shrieking in the sandpit, while a dog watched them in silent envy. The distant hum of traffic.

Beyond the park gate, Trotti could just make out the white Audi.

“The lady who came to fetch you in your office—she is Riccardo’s mother.”

“Riccardo is an adult.”

His ribs hurt—a dull, sullen pain. “He is her only child.”

“Riccardo loves me.” She turned her head and Trotti was surprised by the calmness that the woman showed. “You can’t understand that, can you, Commissario? You can’t understand how a young man can be interested in an older woman. But Riccardo is. Riccardo loves me, you see. And I love him.”

“And that is why you lied? That is why you invented your rapist?”

“We are going to get married.”

“I am pleased for you.”

Signorina Podestà blinked.

“But I don’t think you can have much faith in him if you feel you have to lie.”

“Riccardo is in love with me.”

“You know that he used to be friends with the Vardin girl. And you don’t trust him. You love him, but you don’t trust him.”

“Of course I trust him.”

“Then why the lies?”

“Lies, Commissario?”

“It is precisely because you think he attacked the girl that you try to protect him. And the best way of protecting Riccardo is by creating another rapist.”

“I love Riccardo.”

“I don’t care who you love or what you do or anything. Do you understand? I don’t care. I just don’t want you to lie to me.”

“I never lied. I am a woman of my word.”

“Of course you lied.”

“I love Riccardo, Commissario.”

“And where is he now?”

“Are you looking for the girl’s killer—or Riccardo?”

“I need to know why you felt you had to protect him.”

“Riccardo is impetuous.”

“You read about the little girl in the
Provincia
—and you must have known that Riccardo had been seeing her sister. But why go to all the length of inventing your little story.”

“Commissario, I am entering my fifth decade. I am no longer the young and dynamic woman that I once was. Even though I consider myself as a woman of my epoch, I have made mistakes and I cannot afford to waste any more time. Before long, I will be losing my beauty—you know that life is not kind to women. Perhaps Riccardo is young, perhaps he has still to grow up. But he loves me. He is old enough and intelligent enough to see in me a woman of her century—an emancipated and intelligent woman.”

Trotti nodded.

“His love is something that I cannot afford to throw away.”

“You suspect him of attacking the little girl?”

“Don’t ask me that question, Commissario.”

Sitting on the bench in the municipal gardens, the spinster with the bulging eyes had started to cry.

“W
ITH HER
?”

“Why not?”

“But the Podestà woman’s not even attractive.”

“At Riccardo’s age, I don’t think a man really cares.”

“But …”

“She’s ugly, perhaps—but she will do anything for him. And she will sleep with him.”

“You are disgusting.”

“Realistic, Signora Bianchini.”

“You are disgusting. I know Riccardo and I know he is a good boy. And at least the Vardin child is of his own age. For all her vulgarity, Netta Vardin has got a pretty little face. A pretty, stupid little face.”

Trotti made a gesture with two outstretched fingers. “But she won’t screw.”

Signora Bianchini took her foot off the accelerator and pulled the Audi on to the shoulder of the highway. The car came to a standstill near one of the blue Fiat road signs, indicating that Milan was forty-three kilometers behind them to the west. “You can get out of this car.”

“That won’t help.”

“Get out.”

“No.”

“I do not appreciate obscenity and I will not have you insult
my son. He is not an animal.” The corner of her lip quivered. “And he is not interested in such … such carnal things.”

“I’m in a hurry to get to Verona.”

The traffic rumbled past, the articulated trucks shaking the Audi as they ploughed their way towards Brescia, Verona and Venice, the Adriatic and Yugoslavia. The blue-grey fumes of unburnt petrol hung over the road and the polluted edges of the fields of maize.

Somewhere in the distance, beyond the fields and the motionless plane trees, there stood the green cupola of a village church.

In a voice that was little more than a whisper, the woman asked, “Why are you so spiteful, Commissario?”

“I am honest.”

“Have I not helped you? Did I not take you to my place, let you rest? Did I not give you food and attention?”

“I never asked to go to your house.”

“And am I not driving you to Verona?”

“Perhaps you haven’t got anything better to do.”

“You are ungrateful.”

“Cynical. I have been a police officer for too long to believe in disinterested generosity. You need me—because I can be useful to you.”

“I want to help you—and I want to help Riccardo. But believe me, there’s no pleasure for me in taking you to Verona.”

“I think there is.”

She did not look at him. “You are a powerful man, Commissario, with a lot of people working for you. Why ask me to take you? Why not go with one of your policemen?”

“Symbiosis—we can be mutually useful to each other.”

“You are devoid of feeling.”

“Tell me, signora, why you try to convince yourself that your son did not attack the little Vardin girl.”

“You know as well as I do that Riccardo didn’t attack her, Commissario.”

“I know that Signorina Podestà has been trying to protect him. She thought he attacked the girl, and that’s why she invented another rapist—to put us off the track.”

“Riccardo wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

“Then why doesn’t he talk to me?”

“Perhaps …”

“Why is he hiding? Why hasn’t he been home these last few days?”

“Hiding?”

She was wearing the sunglasses and he was struck by the beauty of her face. Beautiful but distant, the beauty of a doll. Again the memory of Ciuffi jabbed like a cold syringe at his heart.

Signora Bianchini turned. “You are not really interested in Riccardo, Commissario. You know he never touched the girl. The interview with the ugly woman—it’s all a trick, isn’t it?”

Trotti remained silent.

“Why did you ask me to take you to Verona?”

“There is somebody I must see.”

“It’s not Riccardo you’re interested in at all.”

He looked through the tinted glass at the endless stream of passing vehicles. In the opposite direction, beyond the skimpy barrier of blighted oleander, a Carabinieri Alfa Romeo flashed past, its siren squealing and the blue light revolving urgently.

With a sigh, Signora Bianchini put the car into gear. After waiting for a gap in the flow of traffic, she pulled out on to the autostrada.

“And I know it’s not me you’re interested in, Commissario. You don’t find me attractive.”

I
T WAS LATE
and yet Trotti insisted that they leave the autostrada and take the smooth road down to Desenzano and Lake Garda.

It was nearly a year since Trotti had been back to the lake, and he found himself excited just at the thought of seeing it again.

Lights had come on along the lakeside and were reflected in the rippleless water. To the north, the pre-Alps and Monte Baldo were lost in the failing light. As the Audi followed the long line of cypress trees, Trotti saw a motor launch making its steady way towards Sirmione.

Garda.

Self-pity, perhaps, or just the sense that he was growing old while Lake Garda remained unchanged, timeless. Whatever the reason, Trotti resented the pang of sharp regret that rose in his throat with an almost physical reality.

For a moment he was tempted to tell Signora Bianchini to turn the car around, to take them to Gardesana and the Villa Ondina. They would sit on the wooden pontoon and look out over the water at the shadow of Monte Baldo. And he would feel—for a moment, or for an evening—that he, too, like the lake, was untouched by time.

Trotti wanted to say something but then it was too late and they were entering the outskirts of Verona.

“Where are we going to spend the night?”

“We, Signora Bianchini?”

She turned and looked him. “Now we’ve arrived, you’re sending the chauffeur back home?”

It was the end of the opera season and as they got closer to the city center and the Roman arena, the more pedestrians there seemed to be. Women with silver handbags and flowing evening robes, men in bow ties and tortoise-shell glasses. Some carried instrument cases. The gelaterias and the neon-lit cafes were all doing brisk business. Carabinieri in khaki uniform and riding boots walked along the pavement, heedless of the admiring glances that they attracted. There were other policemen on horseback.

Signora Bianchini found a parking place near the Ponte Nuovo and together they went for supper.

“You still haven’t answered my question, Commissario.”

“Question?”

“Where are we spending the night? I imagine you have friends in the Questura here …?”

“I phoned before leaving. There is a hotel in via Pigna.”

“A hotel?”

“You don’t mind, I hope. It’s not the most expensive, but it’s clean.”

“And where am I sleeping? We’re not sleeping in the same room?”

Trotti laughed. “The idea frightens you.”

“What sort of woman do you take me for?”

“In the car you said that I wasn’t interested in you.”

“I wonder if all policemen are the same.”

“The same in what way?”

“You are a cold man.”

He put down his knife and fork and sipped some mineral water.

Embedded in one wall was a natural fountain that poured an unending stream of water into a thick, carved marble basin. The Ristorante Fontanella was small, and reluctantly Trotti had agreed to an indoor table because all the tables on the terrace had been taken by Scandinavian tourists—blond young men and women in pastel clothes.

She sat back—Signora Bianchini had eaten the spaghetti alla veronese with considerable appetite—and looked at him. The wall-lighting made shadows that softened her face, that accentuated her appearance of youth. “Why did you bring me here?”

Thirty-eight years old. A beautiful woman in the bloom of her life. Trotti looked admiringly at the long, delicate fingers on the tablecloth. He smiled. “You’re the chauffeur.”