Death in Tuscany (13 page)

'Thanks, Gianni. I owe you dinner. Ever eaten
pezzogna?'

'What's that? Vegetable soup?'

'Make a note of it. If I don't buy you
pezzogna
for dinner before the end of the summer, then you really are entitled never to talk to me again.'

'No, the reason I won't talk to you is because you're making me sift through rubbish for no reason, remember that.'

Later, on the way home, Petra felt her spirits lightening, hearing her husband whistle a tune from
The Barber of Seville
as he drove through the night. And so she repressed for the moment what he called - making fun of her - 'the unsuppressable Teutonic gene'. It was not until they reached home that, unable to hold back any longer, she again reminded him of his unforgivably thoughtless attitude towards his friend.

7

The first thing Michele Ferrara did on the morning of Sunday August the fifth was to call Massimo. He and Petra were on the terrace, where they were having breakfast: the usual German-style breakfast made entirely with Italian ingredients. Petra often joked that it expressed the alliance between their two countries better than any bilateral treaty. To which Ferrara always replied that it was expressed even better in their marriage.

'"The number you have called is unobtainable at the moment",' Ferrara recited, mimicking the recorded voice he heard.

'He's probably sleeping and took the phone off the hook. Nothing unusual about that. It's Sunday, he's on holiday. He must have gone to bed late.'

'Of course . . . Lucky him. But that means I have to carry my remorse around with me.'

'Good, you deserve it!' Petra said, wickedly. 'I hope he sleeps till midday!'

'Too bad if he does,' Ferrara replied, the solemnity of his voice belied by the amused look in his eyes. 'He's going to miss the heartfelt apologies of the head of the
Squadra Mobile.'

'At least he's having a rest. You should try it some time.'

'Well, right now, I'm going to have a shower,' he announced, finishing the last slice of ham and standing up.

Later, washed and dressed in his Sunday best, he called Anna Giulietti.

After a few fruitless attempts to reach her, he got her on her mobile.

'Michele, why on earth are you phoning me at this hour? And on a Sunday? Is there news?'

'Yes, there is. I know you're not on duty, but I need your help.'

He updated her on what Gianni Fuschi had discovered.

'That's good,' she commented. 'But if it's an unrepeatable act, we'll have to follow procedure.'

'Isn't there any way we can get round it? After all, we don't have anyone under investigation yet, we don't even know who the victim's family are, and we really need a result as soon as possible. You do see that, don't you?'

'Yes, Michele, I do, but you're talking to a representative of the Prosecutor's Department and procedure has to be respected . . . But let me think about it. I'll call you back later.'

‘I’ll wait until I hear from you, then.'

'I promise I'll call.'

They hung up.

'How about trying Massimo again?' Petra suggested. Ferrara did so.

The same unfailingly polite recorded message. 'Too bad for him.' He kissed his wife in the doorway. 'See you later.'

'You'll be back for lunch, won't you?'

'Of course, if the Commissioner doesn't kill me.'

Commissioner Lepri and Chief Superintendent Ferrara often met on Sundays. Sometimes it was a planned meeting - they would take advantage of the fact that it was a quiet day to sum up the week that had just passed and to map out the one ahead - but more often it was by chance: there were so few people in the building, they couldn't help bumping into one another.

That Sunday, they could hardly avoid meeting, and it was up to him to see Lepri first before the Commissioner sent for him or, worse still, pounced on him in his office. Lepri wouldn't be in a good mood if that happened: it would have meant that he had had to come all the way downstairs, and his already ruddy complexion would be quite purple with the exertion.

So Ferrara went upstairs, after a last vain attempt to speak to Massimo. He was calm, and ready for the confrontation. He had decided to try and stay as correct and civil as possible.

Riccardo Lepri was not an irascible person and was more inclined towards mediation than conflict. In face to face discussions, he preferred to win over the other side by appearing flexible and understanding. On rare occasions when he lost his temper, however, he exploded with a vehemence which went beyond all bounds of reasonable behaviour, with consequences that were impossible to predict. Michele Ferrara entered his office ready to be the target of one of these rages.

The Commissioner's welcome caught him completely off guard.

He was sitting at his shiny desk, reading the newspapers. He looked up from them and smiled. 'Ah, good morning, Chief Superintendent. Come in, take a seat. Would you like a coffee? Or would you prefer a nice glass of cold water on a hot day like today?'

'Water would be fine, thanks,' he replied warily. This opening could well be deceptive, he thought, and the explosion was still to come. But he had not noticed any malice or irony in the Commissioner's words.

Lepri poured the water and handed him the glass. Ferrara sat down in the small armchair on the left reserved for visitors.

'Take your jacket off, if you like,' Lepri went on. He himself was in his shirtsleeves, although he had not loosened his collar and his tie was impeccably knotted. 'Florence in August is worse than an oven. No surprise our Dante's best work was the
Inferno,
don't you think?'

Ferrara said nothing, not sure what to reply.

'What are we doing here in August - and on a Sunday, too? Our duty, of course! As ever . . . Always too much to do, eh, Chief Superintendent?'

Here comes the first thrust,
Ferrara thought. 'That's why I came to apologise—' he began.

'For what?' Lepri seemed genuinely surprised.

'For not calling you back.'

'Oh, please, that's water under the bridge. I knew you were busy. How could I not? I'm always so busy myself. No, don't worry. All I wanted to know was whether you're making any progress. I hope this thing can be resolved quickly and without fuss. We wouldn't want the world to think Florence is a city full of prostitutes and junkies. Heaven forbid!'

'Thank you for being so understanding. I'm doing my best, but it's rather a complicated case.'

'Go on.'

We're dealing with a minor, probably an immigrant, most likely not an addict, but in all probability, given what we know so far - and we're still in the very early stages - drugged and raped by one or more people. These same people then took her and dumped her in the place where she was found - either because they thought she was dead, or because she was in a very serious condition. As subsequent events unfortunately demonstrated.'

As he spoke, Ferrara realised that he had lost his reserve and was addressing the Commissioner as if thinking aloud to a colleague.

A real murder, then,' Riccardo Lepri commented, sympathetically. 'Homicide. A nasty story. Any suspects?'

'Not at the moment. But what we've found out so far would tend to point in the direction of either drug pushers or paedophiles, because although we're not sure of the girl's age we think she could be quite young. We can't rule out the possibility that she was gang-raped or that she was forced to have sex at one of those infamous parties involving adults and children . . .'

Lepri made an irritated gesture. But it wasn't aimed at Ferrara. The existence of these paedophile parties was one of the most persistent urban legends of Florence. It resurfaced from time to time, and in some cases the police had come quite close to getting somewhere, but somehow or other, the whole thing always fizzled out. The reason, Ferrara tended to think, was that the people who organised the parties belonged to the upper echelons of society and could count on protection at high levels.

Lepri was probably thinking the same thing, and shuddering at the thought of the scandal that would be caused by a wide-ranging investigation that led in that direction.

'Let's hope not, Ferrara, let's hope not! Once again, I must impress upon you how important it is to be discreet. You know I trust you. Don't complicate my August, eh?' He wagged his index finger in a jokily threatening manner, then added, 'You said she might be an immigrant?'

Almost certainly'

'Poor girl,' he said, and the implication was, 'Weigh it up: an insignificant illegal immigrant on one side, the reputations of the finest names in the city on the other.' But he didn't say this. It was up to Ferrara to draw his own conclusions.

Ferrara walked back downstairs feeling slightly confused. He was actively pursuing the train of thought set in motion by the hypothesis of the paedophile parties, which had been on his mind ever since Leone had aired the possibility that in addition to heroin the girl might also have taken cocaine. The use of cocaine was more widespread among the well-to-do, which would tend to push the idea of a gang rape into the background. But this train of thought risked derailing the whole investigation. It hadn't even been demonstrated yet that the girl was raped by several people, and there were other lines of inquiry that still needed to be followed up before he could concentrate exclusively on this one.

What confused him was the almost religious care with which both he and Lepri had avoided the subject of the Ospedale Nuovo. For his part, he had not wanted to set a bad example after Lepri had downplayed the question in such a lordly manner. Clearly, the reason he had been looking for him on Friday was to advise him, in response to pressures it wasn't hard to guess at, that he should be tactful in dealing with the doctors. And yet today he had called the episode 'water under the bridge'. Ruling out a direct connection between Leone and Lepri or Gallo - and he had to rule it out - that could mean one of two things. Either d'Incisa had assumed that Ferrara had tacitly agreed to his implicit request to go easy on the hospital staff, and had reassured the Commissioner, through the prefect. Or else Anna Giulietti had reassured Gallo that Ferrara wasn't going to interfere, and then Gallo in his turn had
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