Big Italy (24 page)

“A liaison? Of course there was a liaison. We were screwing, we were making love. We were friends. Carlo was good. He was good because he was like a little boy.” She started to laugh but she could not control the movement of her eye. “But there was no affair. There was no future. You think I didn’t realize that? I knew about the Englishwoman. I knew all about her. And I wasn’t jealous.” Her voice grew louder. “And I really don’t appreciate your making these insinuations. You’re in my house and it is not for you to insult me under my roof.”

Trotti held up a calming hand. “Nobody’s making any insinuations. We’re simply trying to get to the truth.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Like a deflated puppet, she fell back into her seat, the cigarette forgotten between her fingers. “Carlo’s dead, isn’t he? And I’m still here.”

“Even unnatural death matters, signora. If it didn’t, I’d be out of a job.”

“You haven’t done a very good job so far.”

“We’d’ve done an even worse job if we’d believed your accusations against your own husband.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps my judgment was unsound.”

“Perhaps?”

She had grown calm, like a child curled up against the dark, leather armchair. The Muratti smouldered between her pale fingers. “My husband wouldn’t murder anyone.”

“And now you accuse Mary Coddrington.” Trotti raised his eyebrows. “How do you expect us to place more importance on this accusation than on your earlier one?”

“She murdered him.” Signora Quarenghi inhaled deeply then folded her arms against her chest. She snorted smoke through her nostrils.

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s obvious.”

“There was no motive. Carlo Turellini and this Englishwoman were living together. She was going to have his baby. She was happy.”

“The bitch.”

“Harsh language, Signora Quarenghi.”

“Carlo didn’t love her.”

“That doesn’t mean Signora Coddrington murdered Carlo Turellini.”

“Of course she murdered him.”

“She had everything she wanted. A house, a job, security and the prospect of a child on the way. Why murder him?”

Suddenly, unexpectedly the woman sitting in the armchair started shouting. “She murdered him. She murdered him. Because she hated him. She didn’t like him. She wanted his money. But she didn’t want Carlo. She couldn’t stand Carlo.”

The voice had risen louder and louder.

Signora Scola glanced unhappily at Trotti.

Signora Quarenghi now stood up. She was gesticulating and there were traces of froth at the corner of her lips. “She couldn’t love him as I loved him. Of course she knew Carlo loved me. It was to spite me. Don’t you understand? Of course she wasn’t pregnant. That was just another of her clever little tricks.”

The Muratti cigarette had fallen to the floor.

“The English cow was jealous and it was to spite me that she killed him. To spite me, the stupid, scheming little bitch.”

The maid had reappeared. She carried a tray, a glass of water and a medicine bottle.

“To spite me, and now my dear sweet Carlo’s dead.” Then Signora Quarenghi started to sob.

S
HE HAD PUT
the sunglasses back into place. “I don’t believe her.”

Trotti raised an eyebrow as he turned to look at Signora Scola.

Her headache, if indeed there ever was one, had now disappeared. She was driving, leaning, forward slightly and holding the small wheel of the Fiat Seicento between her beige gloves. “Signora Quarenghi’s lying.”

Trotti asked, “How do you know?”

“You couldn’t see it was an act—the frothing at the mouth?”

“I appreciate your feminine intuition.” Trotti smiled and touched the sleeve of her coat. “My problem is I always work with men.”

“You used to work with the Ciuffi woman before she got herself killed.”

“What makes you think Signora Quarenghi was lying to me?”

“Like all men, Piero, you only see what you want to see.”

“All my fault. My daughter got me to buy a pair of glasses but I hate to wear them.”

She took her eyes from the road. They were invisible behind the sunglasses. “You see, you do have a sense of humor.” The corners of her lips moved upwards in a tentative smile. “Despite your advanced age and thinning hair.”

Trotti liked the way the soft skin of Signora Scola’s cheeks formed slight ridges of amusement. Wrapped in the large fur coat, she seemed almost fragile.

“Very rudimentary sense of humor at best. A peasant from the hills beyond the Po.”

“Quarenghi was playing with you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, Piero.”

They were returning to the city and the wintry sun glinted on the lead plates of the cathedral roof. Beside the dome there was the emptiness where for over a thousand years the Civic Tower had once stood, between Duomo and Broletto. Like a tooth that had been removed—you grew to accept the change but you could not forget the loss and the disfigurement.

“You think Signora Quarenghi killed Turellini?”

“That’s not what the Carabinieri think. The paraffin test was negative—she hadn’t fired any gun that morning.” Signora Scola smiled. From where Trotti was sitting beside her, he saw the wrinkling at the corner of her eyes behind the dark lenses.

“What d’you think, Simona?”

“I’m not a policeman.”

“Then how do you know she was lying?”

“Because I’m a woman. And like all women, I use the same tricks to get what I want.”

“There’s no difference between you and Signora Quarenghi?”

“A difference of motives.”

“What are her motives?”

“I don’t know that, Piero.”

“What are yours?”

Signora Scola bit her lip, then, “You shouldn’t ask me.”

“Why not?”

“You may not care for the answer.”

“What’s the answer?”

She hesitated before answering. “We’re all the same. Women all want the same things.”

Trotti turned away and looked at the rice fields that were slowly being replaced by the spreading expansion of the university and its satellites—new housing, new shops, new services.

“We women can be quite ruthless.”

“I have a wife and a daughter,” he said. “I learned about female ruthlessness a long time ago.”

“Why do you always have to talk about your wife, Piero Trotti?”

He shrugged as if he had not heard her question. “A woman has three lines of attack to get what she wants.”

“Only three?”

“Her favorite method’s flattery. It works wonders—even with the worst misogynist.”

“You’re a misogynist?”

“I don’t hate women in particular, if that’s what you mean. My wife once told me I hate everybody.” He smiled. “You haven’t told me your motives.”

“What are the lines of attack women use?”

Trotti held up a finger. “The most efficient is flattery. A woman will tell you you’re a wonderful, wonderful man and her voice promises so much pleasure. The voice in the Garden of Eden.”

“You’ve been there?”

“For a very short time—just before my marriage.”

“You really are a misogynist.”

“If flattery doesn’t work, the woman then resorts to blackmail.”

“Blackmail?”

“And if blackmail doesn’t work, she retreats to the third and last ditch of war. That’s when the pots and pans start to fly.”

“Breaks diplomatic ties and recalls all her ambassadors?”

“But the strange thing is, Signora Scola …”

She kept her eyes on the road. “A minute ago you called me Simona.” She was smiling.

“A man can give in to a woman’s charm, a man can give in to her blackmail, he can even run up a white flag of truce when she brings out the heavy artillery—it doesn’t make any difference.”

“We always get what we want?”

“Of course you get what you want.”

“Then we’re nice to you?”

“Nice? A woman can never stop herself from despising a man who’s given in to her, to her silly, feminine whims.”

Simona Scola, thirty-two years old, with a degree in child psychology (110 marks, cum laude), beautiful, elegant and with a very wealthy husband, put her head back and laughed, almost taking the car into the back of a municipal bus.

“You said you knew nothing about women.”

“I know nothing about women.”

“And where does that place Signora Quarenghi, Piero?”

“Now tell me what your motives are, Simona.”

“You’ll find out in time.”

“Precisely what frightens me.”

“That woman was acting, Piero. You could see that.”

“What were her motives?”

“Acting because she wanted something from you.”

“What did Signora Quarenghi want from me?”

“You tell me.”

“To be left alone, I suppose.” Trotti shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Worse than her brother. More devious and even less honest … if that’s possible.”

Trotti ran a hand through his hair. “Her brother?”

Again Simona Scola laughed, and if Trotti had been listening to her laugh he would have found it pretty. Like clear water running through the pines of the Penice on a summer’s day.

“Her brother?”

“Methuselah of the Questura—and you don’t even know Signora Quarenghi’s maiden name is Viscontini? You don’t even recognize our Socialist mayor’s sister? Why else do you think a man like Quarenghi married her? An unattractive neurotic like her. Unattractive and flat-chested.”

“Y
OU
’
LL HAVE SOMETHING
to eat with us, won’t you Piero?”

They went under the bridge of the Genoa-Milan railway line and came to the traffic lights where the traffic converged at the feet of the statue. Minerva, goddess of learning, deity of the university city, stood proud and erect, immune to the noise and pollution of the angry cars, the delivery vans, the articulated trucks coming in from the city bypass.

“I need to get back to the Questura.”

It was as if she had not heard him. Simona Scola took the car nimbly around the statue—Minerva as arrogant and immutable as the Socialists before Mani Pulite—and headed down viale della Libertà, with its long line of trees and six-story apartment blocks. A street that was built in the years following the Second World War and the ravages of Allied bombardment, when the architects abandoned the pebbles from the Po and the red, Roman brick of the city for massive granite façades and concrete.

She found a parking space opposite the Communist bookshop and was out of the car before Trotti, opening the door for him and almost forcibly hauling him from the low seat.

“I should be getting back to the Questura, Signora. I need to see Maiocchi.”

She silenced him with a finger to his lips. She then took his arm in hers and together they crossed the pavement and went into an apartment building.

The iron and glass doors swung open and as they went up the
highly polished steps a concierge put his head out of a small window to acknowledge their passage.

“A nice part of town to live in,” Trotti remarked.

“My husband’s family bought the place in nineteen sixty-two,” Signora Scola replied simply.

They did not take the lift but went up two flights of steps. With the young, lithe woman beside him, Trotti felt old and overweight. He was soon out of breath.

Reaching the second floor, Signora Scola rang the bell of a polished walnut door. Almost immediately various heavy-duty bolts were pulled back and the door was opened by a maid.

“Ah, Enza,” Signora Scola said. “I’ve brought a colleague home for lunch. Could you set another place—if that’s not too much trouble?”

The maid nodded and Trotti followed Signora Scola into the house.

A smell of cooking, of olive oil and garlic.

The maid took Trotti’s waxed jacket and his shabby scarf.

“Come on through.” Signora Scola removed her gloves and sunglasses. She beckoned him into a bright living room.

There were paintings on the wall and various photographs. Photographs of the city, of the Duomo, of the covered bridge, of San Teodoro and San Michele.

There was also a large portrait of Signora Scola in student robes and the peaked academic cap, set above a mock fireplace.

More photographs on the piano and on the bookshelves.

Lots of bookshelves.

Heavy Garzanti and UTET encyclopedias and dictionaries in various languages, but the books gave the appearance of not having been disturbed in a long time.

The furnishings, expensive and somewhat old-fashioned, were comfortable and indeed elegant, but there was a lumpiness that dated them as late fifties or early sixties.

“Perhaps you’d care to wash your hands, Piero?”

She took him to a bright and spacious bathroom. He could feel the touch of her body against his. “Clean towel by the sink.”

Left to himself, he washed his hands and face and ran a comb through his hair.

The bar of French soap was new and unused.

(“You’ll find out in time,” she had said in the car.)

In the tinted mirror, his eyes appeared tired and bloodshot. They stared back at him noncommittally.

“Ready to eat?”

The table was placed by the window and the midday light flooded on to the spotless tablecloth, the cutlery and fine china plates. Packets of grissini and freshly cut white bread.

The table had been set for two.

A dish of celery was in the middle of the table and the slices of parma ham had already been served.

Two places facing each other across the dazzling breadth of the tablecloth.

“Piero, do sit down.”

“And your husband, signora?”

“This morning you were calling me Simona. You make me feel like a schoolmistress when you call me Signora. An old schoolmistress.”

Trotti smiled sheepishly. “I thought we were having lunch with your husband.”

She had kicked of her shoes and her feet were small against the grey wool of the carpet. She moved towards him. He admired the movement of her girlish hips beneath the neat skirt. Simona Scola took hold of his forearm. “Before we eat,” she said.

“What?”

She was a lot smaller without her shoes. “You want to meet Massimo?”

She crossed the room, pulling him like a child in need of guidance. She opened the far door.