Persona Non Grata (2 page)

A hesitant nod. “It must have been after twelve.”

“Not very late, then?”

“School starts next week. I don’t want my girls to be tired.” He paused, added, “A good education is the most important thing.”

“Of course,” Trotti said. “What school does Laura go to?”

“She is an intelligent girl—like her mother.” The hint of pride while the eyes remained on the packet of cigarettes. “And she is going to do well for herself. Not a job in a factory for Laura—she is going to go to university to become a teacher.”

“What school did you say, Signor Vardin?”

“She is at the Scuola Media in via Amfiteatro—and one day she is going to be a teacher. A math teacher.” For a moment he looked up and the dusty, grey eyes met Trotti’s.

Trotti said nothing.

“If she lives,” the man added in his whisper.

Trotti spoke briskly. “There was a public dance in the square and the girls were treated to a pizza that you bought for them at the Pizzeria Bella Napoli?”

Signor Vardin said, “My two daughters and Bettina.”

“Signora Vardin?”

“Bettina is my niece. You saw her. She and Netta, my other daughter, are good friends—they always have been, ever since they were little; and now with Bettina’s parents in Piemonte for the funeral of Zio Moisè, she is staying with us until the end of the week.”

“Until Sunday?”

“She is a friend of Netta’s.”

“And your niece is staying until next Sunday?”

He nodded. “She’s a sweet girl.”

“How old is your daughter Netta?”

“Netta—and Bettina—are seventeen. There’s two months’ difference between them.”

Trotti opened the drawer and slid his hand inside. “So there were five of you—your wife, you and the three girls?” His hand found old wrappers but no sweets.

Signor Vardin’s glance remained on the cigarettes. “It is nice to get out once in a while. And the mayor organizes the dances at this time of year. A chance to get out and meet old friends. Friends from the factory. The evenings are still quite warm and it is good to talk.”

“You work at the sewing-machine factory?”

“I used to work. Until last year.” The lips pressed against each other. “For six years. Not a bad job and I couldn’t go back to the quarries. Not after I started to lose my voice.” He nodded, without looking at Trotti. “The silicon in the air.”

“And then later, after the girls had danced and you had danced a couple of waltzes with Signora Vardin, you returned home? At midnight?”

“We went to the gelateria and had an ice. But the air had grown chill and we sat inside.” He added, “A mist coming up from the river.”

“And when did you get back to Piazza Castello?”

Their eyes met for a fleeting moment. “Just after twelve—the clock at San Teodoro was striking midnight.”

Trotti looked at the man and felt sorry for him. He was not very old—perhaps even younger than Trotti—but his pain was like a weight bearing down on the narrow, bony shoulders. He had put on a blue suit, but the collar of his shirt was undone and unshaven whiskers stood out from the skin of his neck. There was a quiet humility about Signor Vardin and the Friuli accent seemed to render him more vulnerable.

“You think she’s going to die, Signor Commissario?”

“Of course not.”

“She is a lovely child.”

“As soon as there is any news, the hospital will ring. Tenente Pisanelli is there with your wife.”

“If anything happens to our little girl, it will be the death of my wife. She has a poor heart—ever since she came to this city she has had trouble with her heart and if we didn’t need the money she would have given up working years ago. It is all my fault.”

“Please take a cigarette, Signor Vardin.”

“I never smoke,” he said simply and dropped the packet of Esportazione. “Not with my lungs.”

“Then perhaps some more coffee?”

“It is all my fault. Normally she sleeps in the big bed. But because of Bettina being there, we told her to sleep on the couch.”

Trotti frowned. “Who slept on the couch?”

“And the two big girls slept on the bed.”

“I don’t understand.” Trotti had been about to lift the coffeepot; now his arm was motionless and his eyes—tired and bloodshot—were fixed on Signor Vardin.

“The two big girls—Netta and my niece—slept in the bed.”

“Who normally sleeps on the couch?”

“On the couch?”

Trotti did not hide his irritation. “Where does Laura normally sleep?”

“When I was working at the factory …”

Trotti cut him short by banging the coffeepot on the table. “Did Laura normally sleep in the bedroom?”

The man looked at him in hurt surprise.

Speaking slowly and carefully as if he were dealing with a child, Trotti asked, “Are you saying that normally Laura slept in the big bed in the bedroom?”

“In the old days I would get up at half past five and have my breakfast.” The man nodded his narrow head. He had high cheekbones and sunken cheeks that were already dark although he had shaved. “In the old days, when I was working at the factory. But that’s nearly a year ago—a year that I haven’t had a job. And the wife doesn’t get up until after seven. So there’s no harm in letting Netta sleep there. She likes it. Don’t know why—it’s small for her.”

“Netta sleeps in the kitchen?”

He nodded slowly. “I haven’t had a proper job now for nearly a year. So rather than sleep with her sister …”

“But last night Netta was sleeping with her cousin Bettina? That’s right, isn’t it?”

“I don’t get up early in the mornings.”

“And your younger daughter, Laura, was sleeping in Netta’s place—on the couch?”

Then Signor Vardin frowned. “There’s nothing wrong in that.”

“It is possible the r—… the man … it is possible he knew your house?”

“Why would he know my house?”

“And it’s possible he was expecting to find not Laura but her seventeen-year-old sister, warm and tucked up on the kitchen couch?”

“But he attacked Laura—not Netta.”

“Does your elder daughter—does Netta have a boyfriend, Signor Vardin?”

Only then did the eyes seem to register what Trotti was saying.

T
HE FLOWERS HUNG
loosely from Vardin’s hand.

They entered the large waiting room and his wife stood up.

“Is there any news?” She did not notice Trotti but moved towards her husband, her eyes searching his face. Even though the air was now warm, she wore a green overcoat with a fur collar. She had been crying but she seemed calmer than before, calmer and slower. In one hand she held a crumpled handkerchief. She repeated, “Is there any news?”

Vardin kissed her and handed her the flowers.

“Tell me.”

He shrugged.

Trotti went over to where Brigadiere Ciuffi stood. A brief nod of her small head with its carefully brushed hair. “Any joy, Commissario?”

“Where is Pisanelli?”

“The ostetrica.”

“The maternity ward? What on earth for?”

“To have a baby.”

“A baby?”

Ciuffi did not smile. “Pisanelli went off about an hour ago. He said he would be back.”

“I told him to stay with you.”

“He’s with Commissario Merenda.”

“What does he think he’s doing? He works for me, not Merenda.”

“Any luck with the father?”

“I need Pisanelli.” Trotti turned to look at Ciuffi in puzzlement. “Father?”

Ciuffi nodded towards where Signor Vardin was talking with his wife. There were red rims to Signora Vardin’s eyelids and her husband was standing close to her. His hand held hers. The flowers had been placed on the stone bench.

“Maserati’s got a computer portrait of the attacker. We’ve had it distributed over the printer. But Vardin only saw the man for an instant—and I’ll be surprised if the identikit brings us anything.” Trotti shrugged. “How’s the little girl? She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

Ciuffi said, “There’s been a nurse—but she doesn’t seem to know anything.”

Trotti clicked his tongue with impatience. “You’ve been here for more than three hours.”

“I thought the best thing was to stay with Signora Vardin. The nurse gave her a couple of pills.”

Trotti pushed past Ciuffi and went through the green door into the hospital corridor. It smelled of floor wax and antiseptic and muted suffering.

There was nobody.

He started walking down the corridor. Flooding morning light came through the windows. At the end of the corridor he found a nurse.

“The little girl with stab wounds?”

She was plump and beneath the gull-wing coiffe of her religious order she looked stocky. The face was pale; a crucifix hung at her neck.

“I’m looking for the girl who was stabbed early this morning.”

“Who are you?”

“Pubblica Sicurezza,” Trotti said tersely. “Squadra Mobile.”

“What little girl?” She softened her Rs with a Piemonte accent. Before Trotti could reply she turned on her heel and said, “You’d better follow me,” heading off along the rubber-tile floor.

They went down the corridor, past the busts of earlier benefactors, now sightless in their whitewashed niches.

CHIRURGIA D
’
URGENZA
—Emergency Surgery.

The nun raised her hand and knocked on a door that had been painted mustard yellow. She turned to him. “Sit there.” She indicated a short bench. She then went through the door. It hissed shut behind her.

Trotti stared at his hands.

The nurse came back five minutes later.

“Vardin?” she asked. “Laura Vardin?”

Trotti nodded and again the nun went away, this time to return with a young doctor who was in the process of peeling rubber gloves from his long, thin hands.

Trotti stood up and the two men nodded to each other without shaking hands. On one of the gloves there were dark traces.

“She’s sleeping.” His Italian was good but he spoke with a marked accent.

“Sleeping?”

His name was on his lapel. Dottor James Wafula. An African with large, brown eyes and a flat, intelligent face. His white coat was undone at the neck and there was no shirt beneath but several tight curls of dark chest hair. “You have just operated on her, Dottore?”

“Goodness, no.” The doctor noticed Trotti’s glance to the bloodstains. “We finished with the child a couple of hours ago.”

“Then she’s all right?” He was surprised by the excitement in his own voice. “She’s going to live?”

The laugh was infectious. “Of course.” Dottor Wafula added, “But there may be scars.”

“Her life is not in danger?”

“She is going to live to a ripe old age, I am quite sure, with children and grandchildren.” The eyes were rapidly squeezed shut with amusement. “She was covered in blood—she had been stabbed ten times.” The face immediately grew serious. “There was only one dangerous stab wound—on her shoulder and not really very deep. It was probably what woke her—perhaps saved her life. But I am not sure that her attacker was trying to kill her. If it was a knife he used, it was sharp but not very long. The wounds are not deep. I don’t think it was a knife.”

“What was it?”

“You see, I didn’t give her more than three stitches in all, and apart from the shoulder wound, everything was very superficial.”

“What instrument, Dottore?”

The doctor raised his shoulders slightly. “Perhaps they were just playing games.”

“They?”

Dottor Wafula looked at Trotti but he said nothing while he rubbed the gloves into a ball and placed them into the pocket of his white coat. He lit an English cigarette. “Stab wounds can leave traces,” he said, after exhaling smoke into the air. “I think I have done a useful job.” The teeth were not white but yellow; against the black skin, the smile was brilliant. “You white people are lucky.”

“Lucky to have you to sew us up?”

“You’ve never noticed the navel on African children?”

Trotti shook his head.

“Black skin can swell up when it heals. It is a phenomenon that is rare in white-skinned people.”

“Why don’t you think her attacker was trying to kill her?”

Wafula shook his head as he inhaled the cigarette smoke.

“In your opinion, why was she attacked? The wounds are not deep … it doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

“What did you say the name was, Ispettore?”

“Trotti, Commissario Trotti.”

“The girl’s name?”

“Vardin—Laura Vardin.”

The doctor stood still as he looked down at the ground. The cigarette was in his mouth and the smoke curled upwards into his eyes, causing him to squint. He put his head to one side, as if inspecting his shoe.

(It was in 1945 that Trotti had first seen a black man—an American soldier who had handed him chocolate and who had smiled from ear to ear.)

When the African doctor looked up, the dark eyes were moist. “Not a common name in this part of the world. A name from Friuli—and there can’t be many of them in this city, can there?”

“Friuli?” Trotti repeated in surprise but the surgeon hurriedly turned on his heels and disappeared through the mustard-colored doors. The smell of Virginia tobacco lingered in the air.

The nun accompanied Trotti back to Brigadiere Ciuffi.

“T
HE WOMAN REFUSES
to talk.”

“Where the hell have you been, Pisanelli? I thought I told you to stay with Ciuffi and the Vardin woman.”

“I’ve been in Ostetrica.”

“I never told you to go to Ostetrica. I told you to do a job—and instead you leave Ciuffi by herself.”

“Ciuffi didn’t need me.”

“It’s not for you to make the decisions.”

Pisanelli shrugged sheepishly.

“Ostetrica? You’re pregnant?”

“Merenda is over there.”

Trotti’s voice was cold. “You don’t work for Commissario Merenda, Pisanelli.”

A grin. “He’s with this woman …”

“You work with me, Pisanelli.”

“Of course, Commissario, but, you see, the doctors think she’s murdered her baby.”

Trotti paused, looking carefully at the younger man. “Who’s murdered her baby?”

“This woman. She lives out at Sicamario Po.” Pisanelli ran a nervous hand through the long hair at the side of his head. “Nobody can get her to talk.”