Big Italy (34 page)

“Then why did he contact you?”

“Because he still hoped.”

“You told him there was no hope?”

“I told him that a long, long time ago.”

“Yet he still phoned you?”

There was a Gioconda smile on her face, both melancholy and complacent. “He thought I could help him.”

“In what way?”

“He kept telling me he was going to be rich.”

“Richer than a Socialist, signora?”

She ignored the jibe. Although it was Trotti who asked the questions, the young woman spoke to Signora Scola. “The Turellini affair. He told me about it. He said there was a lot of money to be made if he could identify the killer.”

“And what did you say?”

“Very little.” She glanced at Trotti. “Please understand. I liked Fabrizio. He brought a warmth into my life. There’s so much about him that reminds me of my cousin Jani. The same dark, good looks. D’you understand? There was nothing sexual. For me, Fabrizio was just like a cousin.”

“What exactly did he say about Turellini?”

“He knew who the murderer was.”

“Really?”

“He always knew it was a woman.”

“When did he tell you this?”

“Nearly every time we spoke together.”

“And who was the murderer?”

She laughed, suddenly gay. “My sister-in-law, of course.”

“Signora Quarenghi?”

“Precisely.”

“You’d spoken to him recently?”

“Fabrizio?” She nodded. “It must’ve been about two weeks ago. I’d told him not to ring anymore. I told him he was only hurting himself. But he insisted.” She paused. “Somehow Fabrizio always knew when my husband wasn’t here. I even wondered whether he was watching me.”

“What did Bassi say the last time you spoke to him?”

“He mentioned you, commissario. He said Commissario Trotti wanted to work with him. I believe you’re retiring quite soon.”

Simona Scola smiled. “Very soon.”

“What I don’t understand, signora,” Trotti said, “is why Bassi acted the way he did—if he knew your husband’s sister had murdered Turellini.”

“A murder of jealousy.”

“Precisely.” Trotti nodded. “Why didn’t he inform the police?”

“No proof.”

“What proof did he need?”

“He seemed to think I could help him. And I think he was worried for me. Or at least that’s what he said.”

“Worried in what way?”

She smiled. “Fabrizio saw himself as my knight in shining armor—although how he expected me to share that poky little apartment of his, he never did say.”

“What knight in shining armor?”

“My sister-in-law’s mad. And so, in his opinion, is my husband. It was to protect me from them that Fabrizio phoned me.”

“When did this start?”

“When did he start getting obsessed with my sister-in-law?” Again she stroked the soft, pale skin of her chin. “About a year ago.”

“A year?”

“A year ago.” The young woman nodded. The Gioconda smile remained. “With time, he grew gradually more obsessed. And the more obsessive he became, the more I tried to avoid him.”

“Why?”

“Fabrizio thought everything depended upon getting my sister-in-law arrested. Get her arrested and he’d be rich. And then, if he were rich, he seemed to think I’d leave Luigi to go and live with him.” The girl from Croatia smiled, but she could not hide the sadness around her eyes.

Trotti stood up and looked through the window. Late afternoon on a Sunday. The trees along the Po were becoming indistinguishable in the gathering dusk.

T
HEY WENT TOWARDS
the large lifts. Almost immediately, the steel doors drew apart and, as they stepped inside, Magagna hit one of the buttons. The lift moved swiftly upwards.

“Pisa’s going to be all right?”

It was very hot inside the hospital.

“I’d hate to be in one of these things during an earthquake,” Magagna said.

Trotti rummaged in his pocket for a sweet. “How’s Pisa, Magagna?”

Magagna looked at Signora Scola who was carrying a bunch of flowers. “You know what doctors are like.”

“What are they like?”

A movement of Magagna’s head and Trotti noticed the first signs of a double chin. Too much food and not enough exercise. “You needn’t worry about the girl—they’ve given her a bed so that she can be with Pisa.” Magagna smiled, “Italy,” he said, as if the word alone were a joke. “Go to Naples or Bari and you’re lucky if they don’t let you die on a mattress in a corridor. But because this is a university hospital where the professors are often politicians, they not only have enough beds for the sick, they even have beds for the relatives.” He gestured. “Anybody’d think we were in America.”

“All the pharmaceutical firms sponsor the university,” Signora Scola said.

“What do the doctors say, Magagna?”

Magagna looked at Trotti with his lively smile. He nodded and
was about to say something when the illuminated roundel in the panel indicated they had reached the fifth floor.

The doors slid open. Magagna stepped aside to allow Trotti out of the lift.

Simona Scola held Trotti’s arm.

“I don’t know whether you’ll be able to go in. At least not immediately.”

“I can wait.”

Magagna shrugged. “Deep coma and there’s not much Pisanelli’s going to tell you.”

“Deep coma? What does that mean?”

“Ask the doctor.”

“I can’t find any doctor.”

Typical of Riparto Rianimazione.

There was a long corridor. Evening had fallen—it was now past six o’clock and the place was lit by harsh neon. The sound of their footfalls echoed off the spotless walls.

There was a smell of perfumed detergent. Trotti had found a banana-flavored sweet and placed it in his mouth.

“Anna’s with him now. They wouldn’t let me in—there’s a God-awful nurse who must’ve been a Swiss guard in an earlier incarnation.”

“Anna?”

“I picked her up at the Stazione Centrale, as you asked me to.” Magagna grinned. “She recognized me before I recognized her—I hadn’t seen her since she’d gone back to the South with her parents. At least ten years ago. Pretty girl. She’s filled out a lot since then.” Magagna said admiringly, “Pisanelli’s got good taste.”

“What do you mean by deep coma?”

“I saw one of the doctors about twenty minutes ago—they all look so young, for heaven’s sake. They’re unwilling to give any prognosis. They just say it can go either way.”

“Deep coma, Magagna?” Trotti repeated and he could sense a tightening of Simona Scola’s fingers on his arm.

Magagna held his hands down in front of him, like a contrite child. “Either way, commissario. There’s nothing wrong with his body apart from a few bruises. Whiplash. At some point when the French car was sliding over, there must’ve been a sudden deceleration of the body. You were lucky. Goodness knows why—it seems unfair.”

“Who said life’s fair?”

“The doctor was telling me it’s like pilots when they use the ejector seat. The body can’t always cope with sudden, excessive acceleration. Or, in Pisa’s case, deceleration.”

“Deep coma?”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“So I see.”

“Pisanelli’s been here all day. You’ve had ample time to consult a real doctor.”

Trotti replied tersely, “I’ve been busy.”

“Now you’re no longer busy?”

“For Christ’s sake, Magagna, who can tell me about the coma?” Signora Scola spoke from behind the bunch of flowers. “The difference between sleep and coma is that somebody can be woken from sleep. In a coma, the brain’s activity as a whole is suppressed.”

“Meaning?”

“You can cough or sneeze in your sleep. They’re spontaneous reflexes which are unaffected by sleep. But not when you’re in a coma.”

Although the temperature in the corridor of Riparto Rianimazione was high—outside it had started to snow again—Trotti felt cold. “What are the chances of Pisa’s pulling through?”

“When there’s continuous bleeding in the brain or if the body continues to absorb poison, a coma can go deeper. Which means the brain’s slowing down. Which means the brain’s less and less able to carry out its functions. Such as breathing.”

“Pisa’s going to stop breathing?”

Signora Scola said, “I don’t know anything about Pisa’s situation. But there are a lot of people who pull out of a coma without any side effects.”

“Is he going to pull out?”

“I studied it a bit for my degree. Epilepsy’s a brief form of coma—and nobody really knows what causes it. But that’s why you’ve got to have intensive care.”

They had come to a door and Magagna gestured with his thumb. “The deeper the coma, the more attention that’s needed to prevent the patient from choking to death. From choking on his own saliva. Or mucus.”

Magagna had folded his arms. “They won’t let us in.”

Trotti turned the handle. The door was locked. Glancing at
Magagna, he knocked, not softly, at the painted surface. “I should’ve come earlier. I didn’t realize …”

Trotti felt slightly giddy. The sickly fragrance of the sweet cleaning liquid that could not completely mask the underlying hint of ether. Even the perfume of the flowers made him feel uncomfortable. The neon lighting hurt his eyes.

He knocked again. It was as if his knuckles suddenly unlocked the door. It was opened by an unsmiling nurse.

Perhaps she was a nun. She did not wear a coif but Trotti noticed the discreet cross attached to her lapel.

Behind her was the bed, bathed in a subdued light. Both the head and the feet of the bed had been raised.

Anna was there. She was sitting in an armchair. Her eyes were closed; she appeared to have fallen asleep.

The woman asked crossly, “Commissario Trotti?” She looked tired, with lines under her eyes.

Beyond her stood a couple of monitors. A dancing spot, like a ball in a strange video game. The feeble guarantee of Pierangelo Pisanelli’s survival.

“How is he?”

“Commissario Trotti?” A harsh face, red, blotchy skin. “You’re wanted.”

“Wanted?”

“An urgent call just a couple of minutes ago from the Questura. There’s a car coming for you now. Should be downstairs any minute.” For a moment, the weary face softened. “You mustn’t worry, commissario,” the woman said softly as she closed the door. “Trust in the Lord.”

“T
HERE SEEMS TO
be a blackout on the radio, commissario.”

The driver took the car fast over the cobbles through the back streets, heading towards the Questura.

“Who told you I was at the hospital?”

“Commissario Merenda.”

“On a Sunday evening?”

The speeding car crossed the Ghislieri piazza, almost hitting a student on her bicycle. Then going past the Carabinieri barracks, the revolving light reverberating off the cold walls, the car braked slightly. The driver accelerated into Corso Carlo Alberto and turned right into Strada Nuova.

For a moment, Trotti thought it was a road accident. There were cars parked haphazardly in front of the Questura. Doors hanging open and the revolving lights, out of phase, were swirling to different rhythms.

Trotti and Magagna jumped out of the car before the driver had brought it to a halt.

Up the granite stairs.

The man on door duty was trying to hold back a small crowd of journalists. Another man, in dark civilian clothes, was helping him. Recognizing Trotti, he stood back, making way for Trotti and Magagna to step through the metal detector.

Inside the Questura people were running up and down the stairs. No one took any notice of them. The lift door was open. Together Trotti and Magagna stepped into the small cubicle with its
permanent smell of old cigarette smoke and the hammer and sickle scraped into the aluminum paint.

Surprisingly, the third floor seemed empty.

Nobody was at the desk.

Trotti headed towards his office just as Merenda stepped out of the Questore’s bureau. “Where in God’s name were you?”

It was, Trotti realized, the first time he had ever seen Merenda ruffled.

Merenda beckoned vigorously and they entered the office.

The first person Trotti recognized was the Questore’s personal secretary. She was impeccably dressed. It could have been nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning. The woman was wearing the same beige skirt and blue high heel shoes.

She rarely, if ever, spoke to Trotti, but he knew that her first name was Giulia.

Giulia saw him and she stepped aside. As she did so, Trotti saw that she was crying. Mascara ran down her powdered cheeks in two dirty rivulets.

Maserati from Scientifica, his plump face pale, nodded.

“Ciao, Piero.” He also stepped back.

Trotti and Magagna approached the vast desk. Somebody must have ripped off the bag—a recycled plastic bag with the logo of
Esselunga
. For some reason, Trotti recalled an article in the newspaper, announcing the merger of the Esselunga chain with the biggest supermarket in England.

The expensive loden coat lay on the desktop.

“Must’ve been dead for ten minutes. His secretary found him.”

String, tightly knotted just above the Adam’s apple, encircled the Questore’s swollen neck.

The body had been pulled back against the armchair and now the bulging eyes stared up at the Italo-Californian chandelier.

Behind Trotti, Maserati remarked flatly, “Classic example of cyanosis and petechial hemorrhaging.”

“Not even a suicide note,” Merenda was saying in Trotti’s ear. “Self-inflicted death from asphyxia.”

“A
HUMAN LIFE
,” Trotti raised the glass of Sangue di Giuda. The kitchen light bulb was refracted in the dark wine.

“You don’t seem particularly upset.”

“I’m not going to cry crocodile tears, Magagna.”

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked noisily. It was past ten and Trotti knew he had drunk too much.

Anna Maria said nothing. She sat with her hands folded on the table, her eyes fixed on Trotti, her lips pressed together, as if she had just taken a vow of eternal silence.

“He killed Pisanelli.”

“Pisanelli’s not dead,” Magagna retorted.

“He tried to kill me and Pisanelli’s going to die. Trouble is, the Questore killed the wrong man.” In one swallow, Trotti emptied the glass. He smacked his lips noisily.