Death in Tuscany (38 page)

'Would you rather give up and go back?'

'No,' Ferrara said. 'They gave me a map of the quarries, all numbered. We'll be able to check out the ones that belong to Simonetta Palladiani. Seeing as we've come this far . . .'

But it still took them almost two hours to get to the spot where Claudia Pizzi's body had been found, and the area was so packed that it was impossible to park. They carried on and half an hour later reached quarry 206.

Ferrara got out of the car and, ignoring the sign that said
PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO ENTRY
walked around the barrier and continued along the stony path that led towards the excavation area. Everything seemed to be in order and completely devoid of life. He was struck by a strange smell, rather like rotten fish.

There was no sign of a watchman. A huge excavator stood near the terraced wall of the mountain, and close to a metal shack a tanker lorry was parked, whitened by marble dust. Ferrara walked up to it, wiped away the part of the window where he had caught a glimpse of writing, and read:
MINING EXTRACTION LTD.

He wrote the name down in a notebook, went back to the car, and dialled Anna Giulietti's number on the mobile. But there was no reply.

Petra was coming towards him.

'I was worried,' she said.

He smiled and took her by the arm and they walked back to the Mercedes.

The other two quarries were similar to the first. In one of them there were no vehicles at all, in the other a lorry belonging to the same company.

By now they were near Colonnata, and they hadn't yet had lunch.

'How would you feel about having a bite to eat?' 'Why not?' She wasn't hungry, but she thought it would do him good.

'Maybe the traffic will ease off a bit while we're eating and the road will be clearer on the way back.'

Finding a spot in the little car park in Colonnata wasn't easy. Then they climbed the steep stone staircase leading to the main square, with its plaque dedicated to the anarchists, the arch that gives access to the historic centre, and a few bar-restaurants.

They chose one at random, and sat down at a table next to a group celebrating something with plates of Colonnata pate and bottles of white wine. They weren't tourists, but locals.

The guest of honour was a man of advanced years who still seemed lively and quick-witted. Ferrara overheard that he had won a bet.

'What was it?' he asked the man closest to him at the other table, a sprightly, white-haired man, who was perhaps already a little merry.

The man explained that Franchi had beaten everyone at guessing the weight of a huge block of marble simply by hitting it with a hammer.

'We know these mountains,' he concluded proudly. 'We have to know them, otherwise we'd all be out of a job.'

'You're born a quarryman, you don't become one,' another man said.

At that point everyone turned to Ferrara and Petra. Franchi, who for reasons of honour was acting as the head of the group, invited the couple to join them. Ferrara declined, saying that they had to leave soon but he took the opportunity to say, 'I've read that not all the quarries are run by firms from Carrara. How do you feel about people coming in from outside?'

The old quarryman shrugged. 'Live and let live.'

'I read an article in
Il Tirreno
by a journalist from round here, saying they don't really know what they're doing and are ruining the mountain.'

The old man shrugged again. 'We all mind our own business. We do our work, they do their work . . .'

'So you don't mind them?'

'What they do doesn't concern us. If they want to buy our waste, that's fine with us. They can do whatever they like with it.'

'If they're stupid enough . . .' another man said, and chuckled.

'And do they make marble dust?' 'Some, yes.'

'Is that why they use tanker lorries? I think I saw one
..."

'Yes, otherwise the dust blows away when they transport it.'

'Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. We're just going to have a quick bite and then go. Enjoy the rest of your party!' Ferrara stood up to go and get a sandwich and a glass of beer for himself, and tea and a slice of cake for Petra, because no one had thought of coming to take their order.

On the way back, the road was indeed clearer, and Ferrara even managed to park close to the souvenir stand.

The mouth of the gully had not been cordoned off because the body had been found much lower down, and the area had already been thoroughly searched by Lojelo's men.

He got out of the car and looked around, not sure what exactly he was looking for.

The mountain on the other side of the valley was partly covered by beeches and chestnut trees. Through them, he could see the white walls of marble all the way up to the summit. What had Claudia Pizzi been doing here at dawn, before the stand opened?

He walked along the wall of rock, which was separated from the rest of the mountain by the road. It was no longer than about ten yards. At the other end there was a stretch of meadow, strewn with wild bushes, and then the ground fell away sharply towards the bottom of the valley. A few of the branches were broken. Ferrara started climbing down, careful where he was putting his feet.

From here, it was possible to see the part of the mountain opposite which had previously been hidden by rocks and vegetation. The quarry was clearly visible, with a huge yellow excavator and a tanker lorry next to a metal shack.

He had a pretty good idea now of what had happened.

Claudia Pizzi must have taken up position here to photograph quarry 206 and whatever was going on there. From here, she had probably seen a vehicle coming up the road from Bedizzano. It must have scared her, and she had tried to get back to her own car, but her assailants had got to her while she was running along the edge of the gully. The impact of the bullets had sent her tumbling down the slope.

The killers had probably not climbed down to check on her, otherwise they would have found the handbag and the camera and, if they were Mafiosi, they might have shot her a few more times to make sure she was dead. The escarpment was very steep and she had fallen a long way: they must have assumed that even if the bullets hadn't finished her off, the fall had.

It was late afternoon by the time they got back to the hotel.

Petra was tired, Ferrara worried and nervous.

The porter came up to them. 'There's a lady to see you, Chief Superintendent.'

'To see me? Where is she?'

'Over there, in the lounge.'

'Has she been waiting long?'

'About half an hour.'

The woman was reading a magazine as she waited for him. Ferrara recognised her immediately.

Anna?' he said in surprise as he and Petra walked towards her.

22

'So, was it you or wasn't it, who got Rizzo to make that phone call?'

'If you're asking me in your role as a deputy prosecutor, I won't say yes and I won't say no. I'll just say that Rizzo is in charge of the investigation now and has full responsibility to take whatever measures he sees fit in order to reach a satisfactory outcome. If on the other hand you're asking me as a friend, I'll say that he's the one who mentioned the Freemasons, farfetched as the idea is, but that I was the one who urged him to talk to you about it. And I'm sorry if I made him look an idiot.'

Anna Giulietti smiled. They were sitting in the lounge of the Principe and had ordered aperitifs. Ferrara had lit a cigar: he hadn't been able to smoke one in the car and really needed it now.

'Let's talk as friends,' Anna said. 'It may not have been such a bad move. To begin with, because it was obvious it came from you
...
it made me think. What if the hospital really did make a mistake? It may not have anything to do with the other part of the investigation, even though Rizzo -or rather, you - seem to think the opposite, dragging in the Freemasons at the very spot where they found the girl . . .'

'Stella.'

'You found out her name? You identified her? I didn't know that
..."

The same reaction as Leone, with an added degree of touchiness, Ferrara thought.

'No, no. It's just the name we're using for her, so that we don't have to be constantly calling her "the girl" or whatever.'

'I see. Anyway, the point is, if the hospital did make a mistake, perhaps I shouldn't just drop it. There are other patients, it's not right that. . . Anyway, I came to say that tomorrow I'm giving the authorisation for you to look at the medical records.'

'Thanks Anna, I appreciate it. But you'll have to talk to Rizzo about that. I'm away from there now, and I have other problems
..."

And he told her everything. The only detail he left out was the curious presence of the letter P, which might link Palladiani, the Freemasons and the cufflink. But if he brought that up, it might risk muddying the whole doctors-Freemasons-d'lncisa connection, which Anna Giulietti had finally taken on board. Best to leave that be and just take a look at the clinical data, which might help both Leone and Fuschi.

As Ferrara spoke, Anna's mounting apprehension was indicated with mathematical precision by the gradual increase in the number of lines on her forehead. And you're sure Massimo had nothing to do with it?' she said when he had finished.

'If we can't be sure of our friends, who can we be sure of?' Ferrara said, although it was not clear whether this was an admission of certainty or of weakness.

'Massimo ist kein Mörder,'
Petra said, categorically.

Anna Giulietti looked from one to the other and shook her head. 'Unfortunately, as far as that case is concerned, there's nothing I can do. It's in the hands of a different Prosecutor's