Death in Tuscany (37 page)

On the other hand, compared with the other, more terrible possibility that he had been found dead, this news was, if not acceptable, at least tolerable. While there's life, there's hope, Ferrara said to himself, and while there was even just a thread of hope he had no intention of giving up.

AH right, Rizzo. Thanks. I'll think about it . . . You think about Operation Stella. No good news on that front either, I'm afraid. The deputy prosecutor of Bologna didn't recognise the symbol. He doesn't think it has anything to do with the Freemasons, at least not the official ones. He admits there are Masonic elements in it, but they're all very common: the sun, the moon, the stars, the columns, if they really are columns
..."

'It might be best to drop that line of inquiry and consider some of the other theories that could help us to identify the symbol.'

'The trouble is we've gone through all of them, without any luck at all so far.'

'Sorry to hear that. But anyway, have you informed Anna Giulietti?'

'Of course, chief, last night, as you told me.' 'What was her reaction?'

'Pretty much as you predicted. She was too polite to tell me to go to hell, but she did ask me to come up with something a bit less woolly . . .'

'Of course. Given the way things are, she did the right thing. I'm afraid I didn't make you look good, Francesco.'

‘I’m not worried about that at the moment.'

No. He was worried about something else. The same thing Ferrara was worried about.

They said goodbye, each determined to get back to his own work. Ferrara told Petra to get ready to go out, and Rizzo reluctantly started going through Venturis file.

Deputy Prosecutor Anna Giulietti hadn't slept well. Superintendent Rizzo's phone call, with that improbable allusion to the Freemasons, had disturbed her more than she had thought at the time. There was no doubt in her mind that Ferrara was behihd it, and she felt guilty about Ferrara. Partly because he was in trouble and had been forced to take a holiday, but mostly because she had a lot of respect for him and knew he wasn't the kind of person to clutch at straws in order to solve a case.

If anything, Ferrara was quite the opposite: down-to-earth, rational, scrupulous, flexible, ready to change tack in an investigation if the evidence showed him he was going in the wrong direction.

As a prosecutor, her behaviour had been irreproachable, and yet in her heart of hearts she kept wondering if she wasn't doing him a disservice.

She had woken late and had a not very appetising breakfast - heating up last night's coffee out of laziness, which had left a bitter taste in her mouth — and now she was wandering around the large apartment where she lived alone, filled with a mounting anxiety.

At 10.20 she made up her mind to call him.

'Hello?' It was Petra who answered.

'Good morning, Signora Ferrara. This is Anna Giulietti. I was looking for your husband.'

'Good morning. He's driving at the moment, we're on the autostrada
...
Is it urgent?'

'No . . . no, it's nothing. Tell him I'll call him again.'

'It was Anna Giulietti. But it couldn't have been anything important. She said she'd call back.'

They had just got on to the A12, heading for Carrara. Petra was giving him a rundown of Claudia Pizzi's articles, which she had carefully read through the previous day, underlining the most important passages. Some of the articles had been published, some were drafts she'd saved on her computer. It was Lojelo who had passed them on to Ferrara.

'All right. Carry on.'

'Most of the articles, especially the recent ones, are about the marble quarries. She was clearly worried about the situation and was investigating it. Some articles are quite long and even a little boring, full of technicalities. But the gist of them is that the local heritage is in danger because of over-exploitation, some of it by outside entrepreneurs. Do you want me to outline the situation as I've understood it? It might help you to see things more clearly'

'Go ahead. I'm listening.'

'Right. Well, to start with, it's important to know that the marble in this area is unique in the world. Without going into too many details, the key thing is that it's ninety-nine percent calcium carbonate - in other words, practically pure. A block of marble is nothing but compact calcium carbonate. They call it "white gold". The kind that's best for statues, the unveined kind, which is actually called statuary, is only extracted from a single quarry these days, which is known as "Michelangelo's Quarry" because that was where Michelangelo went to choose the blocks he needed. Although no one knows for sure whether it was actually that particular quarry'

'You're not going to tell me the whole history, are you?'

'Only what might be useful to us to know, and I think this

is.

Ferrara didn't mind the use of the word 'us'.

'The marble is extracted in blocks, usually weighing about twenty tons each, and from the waste they obtain marble dust, which has many uses: it's used for some types of plaster, to restore old statues, even to make glossy paper for illustrated books. They even - and this you really won't believe - give it to hens mixed with their feed to make more eggs!'

And we eat the eggs?'

'Well, we don't eat the shells. It's the shells that contain the calcium carbonate.'

'Okay . . . but do you want to tell me what all this has to do with anything? We'll be in Carrara soon.'

They had in fact left the autostrada and were now driving along the Viale XX Settembre towards Carrara. From there, Ferrara intended to continue to the spot where Claudia Pizzi's body had been found and even further, if necessary. He had decided to take advantage of the fact that it was Sunday to take a closer look, and that was why he had asked Petra to brief him on the articles, which might contain a clue to Claudia Pizzi's death and perhaps lead to Simonetta Palladiani.

'It does have something to do with it! The thing is, the trade in marble dust, although it doesn't have the prestige of the trade in marble blocks, is a lot easier to handle, and the profit margins are impressive. The manpower required is minimal because most of the work is done by machines. Basically, it's an activity the - what shall we call them? - the purists look down on, and Claudia Pizzi was a real purist. In fact, she'd launched a virtual crusade against it. The way it works is, the market in marble is cyclical, depending on the state of the world economy. When things are going well, rich people in the richest countries build themselves villas, minarets, palaces, using our precious marble, but when things are going less well there's less demand for marble, and the economy of the area suffers. So they use the trade in marble dust as a stopgap, and keep the blocks in reserve until times are better. What Claudia Pizzi was trying to draw attention to was the fact that in the last few years the exploitation of the marble dust has been growing out of all proportion, even when the economy's fine. It's got to the point where sometimes even perfectly good blocks are sacrificed. And the thing is, a lot of this is being done not by the locals, but by companies that have come into the area from outside. Listen to this for instance
..."

Petra put on her tortoiseshell glasses and leafed through the papers.

'It is impossible not to ask why a company based in Bellomonte di Mezzo, Sicily, should invest in the revitalisation of old quarries which have been unproductive, and then exploit them only for the manufacture of marble dust, using non-specialised, non-local workforces, and even getting fresh supplies from other quarries in order to increase production. Everyone knows that a ton of marble dust is not worth even a tenth of a block, and the old timers regard the newcomers as naive fools. But is that really the case? Or is there something behind it that no one sees or wants to see? Money laundering, for example, which would be a terrible stain on the whole of our community, or something even worse, something your reporter hopes to reveal when she has gathered sufficient evidence?'

'The woman certainly didn't use kid gloves,' Ferrara said. 'If the Mafia really is behind this, it's no surprise she ended up the way she did. When was this article written?'

'It's just a draft, Michele. The file was last opened on July twenty-sixth. And listen to what she wrote four days later in another file:

'Go on, go on reducing our mountain to dust. It's already shrinking! Come on, people of the islands, fill your pockets, and leave us with the crumbs! But be careful, there are predators in the mountains, and some have already smelled the stench of rottenness. They won't let you rest!'

A brave woman, don't you think?'

'Reckless, I'd say' he commented. 'Imagine if that had been published! But I suspect she'd already exposed herself quite a bit during her investigation. I'm certain she knew something about Simonetta's disappearance. Simonetta inherited the lease on the quarries from her father. She must have reinforced or even confirmed her theories. "I'm adding powder to the fire," she said to me . . . What did she mean? What fire? If there's any truth in what she wrote, she was sitting on something really big . . .'

They were driving through Carrara now, but their progress seemed to be blocked by an endless line of cars and coaches. Ferrara made a detour and found himself in the central square, where he saw a stand belonging to the Provincial Tourist Authority and was struck by an idea.

He parked the car and asked Petra to wait for him.

He soon returned with a leaflet and a grim expression on his face.

'It isn't going to be easy to get up there today,' he said. 'They're holding the annual sledge celebration.' 'What's that?'

'You mean it wasn't written in Claudia Pizzi's notes?' It was meant to be a joke, but it fell flat. This wasn't the right moment.

'No, it wasn't, so what is it?'

'It was the method they used to use to bring the marble blocks down from the mountain. That's what the tourist information person told me. They slid them down on tree trunks laid over a bed of stones, like a sledge. Just think. They carried them all the way from up there right down to the sea! It was dangerous, too, people sometimes got killed . . . Fortunately it's all different now.'

And they're doing it again today?'

'Every year, on the second Sunday in August, they have this celebration, where they slide a block down for about fifty yards. The event attracts about a thousand people who stand all along the roads for miles around. That's why the traffic's so slow today'