Big Italy (7 page)

“That’s why you asked me to phone you?”

“You read the article in
Vissuto
?”

“Over a cup of chamomile, Magagna. I fell asleep before I got to the end.”

“Bassi’s not making any friends here in Milan. Understandably, he’s been trying to get his hands on the Turellini dossier from the Pubblico Ministero.”

“Who’s got it?”

“Both Polizia and Carabinieri were involved in the initial inquiries, under the direction of the Sostituto Procuratore.”

“Who?”

“Abete.” Magagna paused.

“Go on.”

“Seems Abete’s decided to shelve the dossier.”

“Why?”

“It’s over—Abete doesn’t want anybody looking into it. Cold storage. Deep freeze.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning your guess is as good as mine.”

Trotti lowered his voice. “According to
Vissuto
, Bassi received a court order.”

“I made several phone calls earlier this morning—contacts in the Arma and at Giustizia. After twelve months the thing is still on Abete’s desk in the Milan Palazzo di Giustizia. Apparently Abete’s quite happy letting dust gather on the dossier.”

“Why, Magagna?”

“I also spoke to Durano.”

“Durano in via dei Mille? I didn’t know you were friends.”

“Durano’s a useful contact in the Carabinieri.”

“What does Durano say?”

“The Turellini thing’s political.”

“Why political?”

“Like everything else in Tangentopoli. As soon as there’s a whiff of political corruption, the Pubblico Ministero starts back-pedalling. There’s no alternative. For the last eighteen months, ever since the Mario Chiesa sting, the Mani Pulite pool of magistrates has been digging the dirt. And the dirt goes deep. They’re still a long way from the bottom.”

“There is no bottom.”

“Precisely. The more dirt they find, the more the investigating judges are accused of undermining the fabric—the political fabric of our republic. That’s why the PM’s got to be careful about anything that’s political. He can’t afford to make mistakes—not now.”

“After forty years of sitting on his hands.”

“Not now that all politicians, on both left and right, are on the defensive. On the defensive and united against the Pubblico Ministero. That’s why the Mani Pulite judges go for businessmen rather than politicians.”

“Why?”

“Look at Olivetti and Montedison. Pretty clear that businessmen don’t have the same clout—they’re the weak link.”

“Procuratore Abete’s involved with the pool at Mani Pulite?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Then where’s the problem?” Trotti snorted derisively. “The Turellini thing is a straightforward murder—probably a crime of passion.
Cherchez la femme.
”

“What?”

“Look for the woman—it’s French.”

“Strange way of pronouncing French.”

“Why would you think it’s political, Magagna?”

“Abete’s got the reputation of sticking at things. One of the younger judges—honest and ambitious. From Calabria and wants to show that they’re not all Arabs down there. Used to be a young Communist.”

A brief silence.

“Magagna, are you telling me Bassi and everyone else are off on the wrong track?”

“Wrong track, commissario?”

“Turellini’s a political killing?”

“I’m just repeating what I’ve heard.”

“Turellini was never involved in politics—or at least, not directly. He was too far out—Destra Nazionale. Not really the sort of person the Christian Democrats and the Socialists would want to get into bed with.”

“Durano believes in Abete’s integrity as a judge.”

Over the line, Magagna’s Abruzzi accent was accentuated and Trotti felt an unexpected sense of fondness for the man. Magagna, Pisanelli, Maiocchi—the good men whose company Trotti would miss after his retirement. An unwelcome tightening in his chest. “Thanks, Magagna.”

“You’re really not interested in Turellini?”

“I never said I was interested.”

“A lot better that way, commissario.” On the far end, Magagna chuckled noisily and Trotti could imagine him lounging in his chair, sitting back with his large feet on the desk, the telephone propped beneath his cheek and the premature stubble. Even in winter, Magagna wore sunglasses.

“A few more months and you can take your retirement, commissario. There’s no need for you to make any more enemies.” Magagna paused, then said, “Particularly not among the magistrates.”

“Instant virginity.”

“What?”

“The judges spend thirty years living off the rest of us and suddenly they decide they’re the moral guardians of the republic.”

“What republic?” Magagna’s laughter surged from the Bakelite handset.

“See what you can do, Magagna.”

“Do?” There was incredulity in the younger man’s voice. “Do what?”

“I’d prefer it if you’d phone me in the evening. At my place after eight. Or better still, you can drop by—if you can endure my cooking. You liked the Sangue di Giuda.”

“Assuming I don’t have a wife and children at home waiting for me and assuming I enjoy crisscrossing Lombardy in my own car, paying for the petrol out of my own pocket, what exactly d’you want me to do, Commissario Trotti?”

“There’s this veto on Bassi.”

“I just told you why, Trotti.”

“Bassi’s been told by the Milan magistrates—most probably by Abete—to drop his inquiries. That’s why Bassi went to
Vissuto
in the first place. There’s money in the Turellini case for him. It’s Turellini’s family who want to know why the doctor was murdered. Bassi’s trying to enlist my help because, as a private investigator, he’s being shouldered out. He doesn’t want the case to go cold on him before he gets paid.”

“Why are you getting involved?”

“I never said I was getting involved.”

Magagna asked, “You need the money?”

“You’re in Milan, Magagna.”

“You’re not getting involved but you want me to help you?”

“You haven’t got the Questore telling you to stick to rape victims and abused infants.”

“Sounds like good advice.”

“Approach Abete. See if you can find out why he’s calling Bassi off. Turellini looks to me like a crime of passion. There’s no reason for the PM to go slow—unless there’s pressure from somewhere; I think the problem’s there.”

“Why bother, commissario?”

“Find out if it really is political, Magagna.”

“Why don’t you ask Bassi?”

“Bassi’s a womanizer who’s best sticking to divorce work—the kind of stuff he can understand. He wouldn’t know how to solve a murder even if you gave him a confession in triplicate.”

I
T HAD SUDDENLY
turned into a beautiful day.

Magically, the dampness had vanished into the air; to the south the sun shone bravely in a sky now cloudless. Overhead, a jet plane flew northwards, taking its encapsulated passengers over the Alps to Switzerland, Germany and beyond, to a land as cold and pure as the perfect sky.

Trotti walked with his hands in his coat pockets; the sound of his footfalls on the cobbled street echoed off the closed buildings.

A Tuesday morning in late November, and the city was strangely quiet. He crossed Piazza Carmine. Ochre walls, brown blinds and the morning smells of coffee and baker’s yeast. A fairytale city—except for the occasional car coming from behind and edging him towards the high, cold walls.

(The Lega Lombarda mayor wanted to abolish the pedestrian zone; he was allowing it to die away, ignored and unregretted. The Greens complained, of course, although they had done nothing to save the traffic-free zone or indeed anything else while they were sharing power with the Socialists.)

A woman was sluicing down the stone entrance to a building in via Tre Marie. Steam came from her mouth and from the head of the mop as she slapped it to the ground. Trotti could hear her singing. The song was in a Lombardy dialect that caused him to smile.

Old posters along the walls in the city center, advertising hearing aids, announcing the recent death of dear ones and inviting the people of the province to vote for the League. There was the helmeted silhouette of the Lombard warrior of Pontida, his sword
held way above his head, in a defiant stance against the new Barbarossa—Rome and the perceived ills of the South.

Trotti popped a banana-flavored sweet into his mouth.

He deposited the wrapper into one of the green bins that the city used for collecting recyclable paper.

“Barbarossa,” he muttered under his breath. Distant memories of primary school in the hills and the unsmiling, asthmatic war veteran who had tried to drum Fascist history into Trotti’s bony head. In those days, before the Axis, Barbarossa was Adolf Hitler. Alberto da Giussano, the helmeted Lombard warrior, was Benito Mussolini.

He reached via Mascheroni and stopped in front of the marble plaque. It was screwed into the bricks of a somber building, a seventeenth-century palazzo. The wall had blackened with age.

MINISTERO DELLA GIUSTIZIA, CASA CIRCONDARIALE DI CUSTODIA PREVENTIVA
.

Then, as an afterthought, on another plaque, this time without the insignia of the republic, the star and the laurels,
SEZIONE FEMMINILE
. Rain had run from the bronze letters, staining the plaque.

Trotti rang the bell and waited.

An old man cycled past. He wore a brown coat and a battered, flat cap. The bicycle was painted a fluorescent green. No mudguards above the thick, knobby tires. There was even an electronic speedometer attached to the flat handlebars.

It was time Trotti got the Ganna out of the garage, oiled it and pumped the tires. Time he started getting some exercise again.

Time he gave up sweets and the after-hours chino. And the Sangue di Giuda.

The door opened and the officer saluted cheerfully. “At least the fog’s disappeared, commissario,” the man remarked as he closed the wooden door. There followed a series of electronic clicks.

Trotti crossed the courtyard, past the statue of a naked goddess and into the main building. There was no particular smell or sound that revealed the repressive nature of the place.

The prison director was waiting for him.

Signora Bianca Poveri was smiling broadly and held out both her hands as Trotti entered the bright office. “You got my message, Piero?”

Her office was full of cut flowers, set in vases placed strategically around the room. They kissed. Or rather, he was about to kiss her right cheek when she turned her face, presenting the other cheek.

“Karma,” she said, gesturing him to a seat. Bianca Poveri waited before sitting down opposite him on the far side of a wide desk. The inlaid surface was cluttered with piles of beige dossiers, newspapers and, incongruously, a doll in some regional costume. She moved a vase of carnations aside to get a better view of Trotti. “How are you, commissario? I thought you must have already gone into retirement.” There was laughter in her voice. “I see you so rarely.”

“How’s Alcibiade?”

A slight hesitation, as if she were not expecting the question. “I scarcely get home before nine most evenings. Just time to eat and then bed. Head on the pillow and I’m out like a light.” A sigh of her cashmere sweater. “With this job I don’t get time to see my husband or my daughter.”

“And Anna Giulia?”

“Thank heaven for the weekends. That’s when we can be together. My greatest source of joy, commissario.”

“She must be three years old.”

“She’ll be five in April.” A proud smile.

“Nothing to stop you having another child. Anna Giulia will cease to be the center of attraction.”

Bianca Poveri’s countenance hardened. “I don’t think so.”

“There are times,” Trotti grinned, “when you don’t go out like a light.”

Signora Poveri swiftly changed the subject, but not before Trotti noted her brief frown of displeasure. “And you, Piero Trotti? Isn’t it about time you settled down?”

“I’m not divorced.”

“Shame on you.”

He shrugged. “I belong to a different generation.”

“Divorce has been legal in this country for twenty years, Piero. You could easily find a companion. You’re an attractive man—in your way.”

He held up his hand.

“Although you must be a difficult person to live with.” Bianca Poveri laughed to herself and then, turning her glance away, started rummaging among the piles of dossiers on her desk. “You got the message?” she asked as she shifted a pile from the table on to her lap and started going through it.

“You have something for me?”

“A letter, Piero. A letter from a friend of yours. Should be here somewhere.”

“A friend,” Trotti repeated absentmindedly, looking out through the window. The terracotta rooftops gave the city its fairy-tale appearance—everything neat, reassuring, cozy. His glance went from the sea of rooftops to the internal courtyard. A courtyard like any other in the city. Like any other in the city except for the high wire fence, topped with barbed wire and ungainly spotlights.

“Ah!”

Trotti returned his glance to Signora Poveri. She was a pretty woman beneath a harsh, brunette perm. She had married Alcibiade Poveri almost ten years earlier. At the time Poveri worked for a local publishing house, while the young Bianca was still a student in economics at the university. She had always been an ambitious girl and at the age of twenty-nine, thanks to a lot of hard work, she had become the youngest female prison director in Italy. Two months later she was pregnant. Her first posting should have been Sassari in Sardinia. Trotti had been instrumental in her being sent to her native city and the women’s prison.

“I think you have an admirer, commissario,” the direttrice said, handing him a dog-eared envelope.

Trotti Piero
.

The envelope was grubby; the handwriting was that of someone who was unused to putting pen to paper.

Trotti smiled as he opened the envelope.

“H
ER NAME IS
Eva. She’s from Uruguay. She was a prostitute and she stayed at my place a couple of years ago before she was sent back to South America.”

“Your friend’s not in South America anymore.”