Big Italy (13 page)

Pisanelli did as he was told. The ring of overhead neon flickered and then came to life.

Trotti whistled softly.

“A pigsty,” Pisanelli said. “Bassi was very messy or …”

“Somebody’s made the mess for him.” Trotti took a deep breath, looking at the disorder, at the scattered possessions.

The short hallway gave on to a larger room.

Diffidently the two policemen moved forward. Pisanelli kept his back to the wall.

Everything that could be opened, spilled or emptied had been opened, spilled and emptied. There were books and papers scattered across the floor. A divan had been tipped over backwards and a knife had been run along the bottom, slicing the jute protection.

“Unlike us,” Trotti remarked, “Bassi’s visitors knew what they were looking for.”

“Unless of course it was Bassi himself who set to work. One of those evenings when they’re showing the same Alberto Sordi film on every television channel.”

Beyond the living room were a bedroom and a kitchen. Ripped
bedsheets trailed from the bed, spilled coffee in the sink, saucepans on the floor.

“The neighbors must’ve heard something.”

“What the hell were Bassi’s visitors looking for?” Trotti asked.

“If we knew that, we’d know why we’re here.”

The two policemen returned to the hall, walking carefully to avoid treading on the cassettes, books and papers. Old, yellowing copies of the
Provincia Padana
, dating back to the mid-eighties.

They entered the small study that Bassi had transformed into an office.

“Looking for a document or something. Something that could have been hidden between the sheets of a newspaper.” Pisanelli slipped the Beretta into his hip pocket. He ran his hand nervously through his lank hair.

The damage was worse in the study. Filing cases had been prized open and the contents cast across the floor. One chair leg was snapped, but apart from that there were no signs of a struggle. “Doesn’t look as if Bassi was murdered here,” Pisanelli said. “Nothing broken, no signs of blood.”

“Bassi wasn’t necessarily here. If he’d been taken by force, there’d’ve been a fight. He was a big man. The neighbors would have heard.”

“Bassi could have been drugged.”

“Which would mean carrying him down four flights of stairs.” Trotti raised his shoulders. “Eight families living here. Somebody would have seen something.”

“Perhaps we ought to ask.”

Neither the curtains nor the blinds were drawn. A grey light came through the window.

“We can’t ask because we’re not here.”

Pisanelli pointed. The drawers were open but the locks were undamaged. “The drawers weren’t locked or else these people had the key.” Pisanelli stood beside Trotti. He was still breathing heavily.

“If you were a private detective, doing divorce work, wouldn’t you keep everything under lock and key, Pisa?”

“Depends. Is this where his clients came?”

Trotti shrugged. “I don’t imagine Bassi let many people in here.”

“He had children?”

Trotti did not reply.

There were several posters in the living room, the Duomo in
Florence, and on the walls of the office were a couple of diplomas. There was only one photograph.

It had fallen from the desk. The glass had divided into shards that were still kept together by the plastic frame. Trotti crouched down and looked at the picture. He pointed without letting his finger touch the glass. “That’s her.”

“Who?”

A banner fluttered behind their heads.
FESTA NELLA CITTÀ, LUGLIO 1988
.

Bassi was wearing a short-sleeved summer shirt. He appeared to be young and healthy. He was looking at the woman who smiled back at him quizzically. Together they were standing near an open trestle table that was loaded down with watermelon.

Behind the couple, Trotti recognized the curved arches of the Ponte Coperto, the bridge where fêtes were frequently held in summer.

A black and white photograph.

It was hard to tell whether the couple was together or whether the photographer had unwittingly seized the moment of their meeting.

The woman was in her mid-twenties, broad and slightly fleshy like a German or a Scandinavian. She was wearing a summer frock that showed much cleavage to an ample chest. Delicate, intelligent features.

Pisanelli bent over beside him. “The mayor’s wife?”

“Signora Viscontini, the ex-mayor’s wife.”

“Bassi kept this photo in the office?”

“Perhaps it wasn’t in the office before the spring cleaning,” Trotti said, turning to look at Pisanelli.

Pisanelli was no longer listening; a confident smile had split the greying stubble of his face. He was pointing his finger.

Trotti’s glance followed the line of Pisanelli’s outstretched hand.

Outside, in the city, dawn was lighting up the sky and there was enough daylight for Trotti to recognize the answering machine.

An answering machine placed on a shelf beneath the top surface of the desk.

“Want to hear, commissario?”

Pisanelli was wearing only the right-hand glove. He deftly pulled the machine out on its revolving support beneath the desk. He pressed the replay button.

A click. A short silence, then an angry whir. A second click as the answering tape began to play.

The Friuli accent. “I think you’d better give me that, don’t you, Tenente Pisanelli?”

Together Pisanelli and Piero Trotti swung round in surprise.

Framed in the door, wearing a neat shirt and herringbone jacket, stood the Questore. He was smiling and his loden overcoat was held jauntily over one arm. The other hand was held out towards Pisanelli.

He wore a tartan tie.

“T
HE ANSWER IS
no.”

Trotti looked at the Questore in silence, trying to retain his anger.

“Perhaps you’d care to sit down, Piero.”

“I don’t see what else there is to say.”

“Why don’t you go home then? Get shaved and get dressed.” The Questore’s smooth face broke into a friendly smile. “I believe you’re wearing pajamas beneath that pair of trousers.”

“Perhaps you’d care for my resignation?”

The Questore had moved to behind the large, empty desk in his office. He casually dropped his coat on to the glass surface. He did not take his eyes from Trotti, but leaning over, pressed a button and spoke into the telephone, without having to remove the hand set. “Giulia, could you bring me a pot of coffee?”

There was no reply.

“Damn lazy bitch’s not in yet.”

“You want my resignation, Signor Questore?”

“Just ten months away from a well-earned retirement? A bit melodramatic.” He stood up straight, his hands on his hips and straightening his shoulders.

“On Tuesday you were asking me to stay on.”

“Of course I’d like you to stay on, Piero.” The Questore sat down. “And before you make any rash decisions, I’d like you to consider my proposal carefully.”

The office was large and decorated in the same Italo-Californian style as the rest of the Questura. Modern and antiseptic. The air smelt of synthetic carpet.

“In Italy there are something like four thousand violent deaths a year. In our city, there are scarcely eight at most.”

Beyond the window, in the grey fog of the early morning, the national flag hung limp over the buses in Strada Nuova.

Trotti could feel his anger slowly ebbing away. A kind of clinical coldness was creeping into his body, into his head and his reasoning. He had become a spectator. “You want me to stay on but you don’t want me on this murder case?”

“You had no right to go to his place. I know you and Bassi were once friends.”

“Bassi was a colleague.”

“In your way, Piero Trotti, you’re one of the best.” A thin smile. “But I’m afraid I don’t want you on this case.”

“You haven’t told me, Signor Questore, why you went to his office this morning.”

“You’re not part of the Reparto Omicidi and for reasons that really are nothing to do with me, you fail to collaborate with Merenda. Merenda’s a good investigator.”

Trotti took a sweet from his pocket. “Let me work with Merenda. Let me work with anybody you care to name, Signor Questore.” His voice was calm, composed.

The Questore hesitated. His hand stroked the soft material of his loden overcoat.

“I should be quite happy to collaborate with Commissario Merenda. I am quite sure that …”

“Piero, for God’s sake, why don’t you just sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

Trotti lowered himself into one of the uncomfortable chairs.

“You know what I think of you, don’t you, Piero?”

“Signor Questore, you don’t know what I think of you.”

A generous brushing aside of any hostility. “You’re a good policeman.”

A light knock on the door and a woman entered carrying a silver tray with a steaming pot of coffee and two cups taken from the dopolavoro.

“I thought you weren’t there.”

She wore a beige skirt and blue high heel shoes. The sweet perfume battled with the aroma of coffee. She placed the tray on the desktop, turned and went to the door.

“Thank you, Giulia.”

Before closing it behind her the woman spoke almost inaudibly. “I should like to remind you I try to be diligent even if I am a lazy bitch.”

The Questore blushed to the roots of his glossy hair.

Silently the door was closed.

With his hand, Trotti rubbed his lips. He frowned, “Why can’t I work on Bassi’s death?”

The Questore’s eyes focused anew on Trotti. “Why do you want to?”

“At the end of my career you can allow me that.”

“Since the death of the Ciuffi girl …”

“I do not care to discuss Brigadiere Ciuffi.”

“I don’t want you on murder. It’s as simple as that.”

“I identified the killer of the Belloni woman.”

It was as if Trotti had hit a button. A smile spread across the Questore’s complacent face. He ran a hand through the well-cut hair. “Precisely.”

“Then why can’t I work on this Bassi killing?”

“You identified Belloni’s murderer—but you used your own, highly idiosyncratic methods. Against my express will. Against my orders, Piero Trotti. You identified the killer but in so doing, you managed to get another man killed.”

“A drug dealer.”

Suddenly exasperated, the Questore slammed his open palm against the desktop, causing the coffee cups to rattle. “It’s not for you to play God. It’s not for you to decide who gets killed and who doesn’t.”

“The man was a drug dealer, Signor Questore.”

“He was a human being—and I was answerable to the public of this city when his charred remains were on the front of the
Provincia.
” The man from Friuli caught his breath. “The answer’s no, Piero. I don’t like having you out in the streets. This isn’t Los Angeles. It isn’t Palermo or even Crotone. A small, middle-class town, getting on with its life beneath the twin udders of the university and the hospital. A city that used to vote Socialist and now—unfortunately—votes solidly for the Lega. Can’t you understand, Piero, that you’re a dinosaur?”

“Because I’m going bald?”

“Because you use the wrong methods.”

“And that’s why you want me to run the Child Abuse Unit?”

“The wrong methods on the street. But you’re a good man, Piero.”

“I’d like to believe you.”

“A good man, because you care. Because you get involved. You’ve done some sterling work with Signora Scola and the others in the past eighteen months.” The Questore gestured to the files against the far wall, next to a Piranesi-like print of the city’s towers. “Glowing reports from the hospital, for heaven’s sake. You’re a gifted policeman—but when you get on to the front page of the paper, I need to know why.” He took the coffeepot and started pouring into the cups. “You’re answerable to me. And I have to carry the responsibility for your actions.”

“Signor Questore, the answer’s no.”

“No coffee?”

Trotti was now standing up. “Your Child Abuse Unit—you know where you can put it.” He turned on his heel and walked across the synthetic carpet. “Just as you know where you can put that Po water that you like to call coffee.”

Trotti left the office.

“Get showered and shaved, Piero Trotti, and get changed into some decent clothes,” the Questore called out after him. “We’ll talk about it all once you’ve had a good rest.”

“A
H, COMMISSARIO
.”

Trotti squinted against the light.

“I was looking for you,” Pisanelli said cheerfully. He looked tired.

“What for?”

“What did the Questore say?”

“It’s not important.”

“I can drive you home, if you wish.” Pisanelli ran a hand across his stubbly chin, repressing a smile. “You don’t look your best in your muddy pajamas. Even with that fashionable English jacket.”

Trotti shrugged and together the two men stepped through the metal detector and out on to the steps.

The man on duty gave a perfunctory salute. He was wearing a leather jacket and was stamping his feet to keep them warm.

They were standing, Trotti and Pisanelli, outside the entrance of the Questura. It was still too early for the sun to break through the morning fog. A couple of university janitors cycled past, smoking and chatting happily on their ancient bicycles.

Italia Felix, land of saints and heroes, poets and navigators.

“You found out what the Questore was doing at Bassi’s place?”

Trotti said, “Take me home, Pisa. I need some coffee.”

“You need some sleep.”

“Time for that when I retire.”

“When are you going to retire?”

“Probably this afternoon.”

They went down the steps and around the side of the building
to where Pisanelli had left his Citroën. The doors were not locked and Trotti climbed in beside Pisanelli. Pisanelli turned on the noisy engine, and taking the one-way street in the wrong direction, he turned into Strada Nuova. He drove the car over the cobbles, heading out of the city center, away from the white signs of the pedestrian zone.

“He lives opposite.”

“Who?” Pisanelli turned, one hand on the wheel, two fingers on the lateral gear lever.