Death in Tuscany (54 page)

baroque characters.

The text read:
Oath

I the undersigned, Ugo Palladiani, in the presence of the brothers here assembled, do hereby unite sincerely and solemnly with them. Of my own free will I promise not to reveal to anyone the secrets of this Grade.

I swear to observe all the Statutes, Regulations and Instructions inherent in the grade of Secret Master unless they are contrary to the sincere impulses of my reason. I promise to conform to the internal Laws and decisions of this Lodge until I have reached this Grade. Finally, I promise and swear to be faithful unto death to the protection of every secret that is imparted to me, to every task which is imposed upon me, to every duty which is requested of me for the good of my Country, my family, my brothers and friends and never to abandon them in times of need, danger or persecution. I promise to destroy every prejudice and superstition in myself and to try to constantly improve my Initiatory and profane knowledge.

Florence, 24 March 1999

Ugo Palladiani

There followed the signatures of the regional inspector, the speaker and the secretary. All were illegible.

The other document was, if possible, even more unsettling. It was the recommendation for Palladiani to be accepted into the new grade. Among the names of the brothers sponsoring this, all of them from the thirtieth, thirty-first and thirty-third grades, was that of Alberto Gallo, Public Prosecutor of Florence.

The voice Ferrara had heard off-screen.

35

'Incredible,' Anna Giulietti said, handing him back the two sheets of paper.

She was not only incredulous, she was worried. Extremely worried.

Not only did she have the drug racket to deal with - and she couldn't forget that time was passing and a decision would have to be made soon - but now she had been presented with a discovery that could shake the whole edifice of the judiciary to its foundations!

It was evening, and they were sitting in the shade of the arbour on Ferrara's terrace. The sultriness had eased off, and Petra had prepared aperitifs and sat down next to her husband. Each time she discovered the depths of depravity to which the human heart could descend - and given her husband's profession, that happened all too often - she would open her eyes wide and exclaim,
Ach du lieber Gott!
Is that really true, Michele?'

Ferrara was not in a very good mood.

He had only just got back from interviewing the three men in Sollicciano prison. The journey had proved pointless. The Albanians, Nard and Alex, had remained silent,

had pretended not to know Zancarotti, and had not responded to threats or promises. Zancarotti had been apparently more malleable, but whether it was true or not, he had claimed to be just a small fish in a large pond, who had only ever heard other people talking about Zi Turi and knew nothing about how his gang and his clan worked.

The only time he had looked a little afraid was towards the end of the interview, when Ferrara, in exasperation, had first threatened to accuse him of complicity in the murder of Claudia Pizzi, and then offered to get him into the witness protection programme if he decided to cooperate seriously, giving him no more than twelve hours to make up his mind.

'Now we know why Gallo was so determined to block any investigation of the Freemasons,' Anna Giulietti resumed. And I fell for it hook, line and sinker! And it's also clear now why he supported the request for you to be suspended . . . Not to mention what I had to go through to get authorisation to see the medical records from the Ospedale Nuovo and then, worse still, when he found out that the request for you to be reinstated came from me. The only thing that saved me was the fact that the Prosecutor's Department of Lucca was involved as well, otherwise I don't think I'd be here to tell the tale.'

'Thank you.'

Ferrara was genuinely grateful to her. Few deputy prosecutors have the courage to oppose their boss, even when they know he is wrong.

Petra, who was listening to them attentively, was still astonished by the ease with which Michele and Anna went from being formal with each other to talking like old friends.

'I thought he still had it in for you personally for all those things in the past. . .'

'Which aren't over yet,' Ferrara said.

'. . . and it turned out to be something else entirely. Well, he won't have anything to crow about now. He'll have to tell us who the other people at the party in the factory were, and help us to find them
..."

'Some won't be difficult. We have the complete list of the members of the Lodge of the Innocents . . . What nerve to think up a name like that! It's almost blasphemous. What kind of mentality do these degenerates have?'

'Do you want to bet they'll all swear they love children?'

Ferrara and his wife exchanged looks of disgust mixed with sorrow.

'The poor children will be harder to identify,' he said.

'That's what I was thinking,' Anna Giulietti replied.

'We have the video, but if they're all immigrants like Anila, God knows where they are now.'

'Precisely' Anna said, sadly. Anyway, thanks to what you found out we can widen the investigation three hundred and sixty degrees, involving all national and international police forces. It may take months, even years, but I promise you this, Ferrara: someone's going to pay. In the meantime, though . . .'

'Yes, I know. I'm certainly not neglecting the other case. I have much more to lose than you, I think . . . But first I have to nail Laprua definitively. And I still don't understand the link between the parties in the factory and the drugs racket. The only connection seems to be Viktor, who was Anila's brother and master and also the person who was waiting for the drugs that were seized on the autostrada.'

'Do you think you'll be able to track him down? As you say, he could be the crux of the whole thing.'

'We have an identikit of him, and just today Superintendent Ciuffi of Narcotics told me there's talk on the streets about a ruthless gang leader called Viktor Makregi, who's been operating for quite a while in Tuscany - which is quite unusual in itself because the Albanians never usually stay in one place for very long. But no one seems to know much about him. Either they're scared, which is quite likely given the kind of person he is, or he's good at melting into the background.'

'I see,' Anna Giulietti said.

Anyway, as far as Laprua is concerned, don't worry' Petra said calmly. 'Michele will get him, because he's the one who has Massimo.'

She had broken her tacit rule not to interfere in her husband's work, especially in the presence of a third party - a prosecutor, to boot! But it had been stronger than her, and she hadn't been able to restrain herself.

'Either him or Viktor,' Ferrara corrected her.

The two women exchanged questioning glances.

Ferrara's eyes narrowed like a cat's and after a very brief pause, he continued, 'I've been thinking about it a lot. We know now for certain who killed Anila. It was an accident, but all the adults at the party were responsible. Especially the two men who subsequently died. Ugo Palladiani, who owned the factory and probably organised the evening, and Ludovico d'Incisa, the head of the Lodge,
de facto
the person who got rid of the body by dumping it at the side of the road, and who later injected the fatal dose.

'By coincidence, the two main culprits both die, too
...
I
thought first of all that d'Incisa killed Palladiani for fear that he might talk, then killed himself . . . It's possible. Or at least it would be, for a normal person. But for the head of a powerful Masonic group, with connections to the judiciary and God knows what else
..."

Anna Giulietti nodded pensively. She was following the thread of Ferrara's argument and starting to anticipate it. 'Whereas Viktor . . .'

'Precisely. What's one of the most frequent motives for murder? Revenge. The Albanian loved his sister
...
in a perverted way, I agree, but he loved her. And anyway, he got a good profit out of her. Clients don't pay peanuts to have sex with minors. That night something unforeseen happened. The members of the Lodge of the Innocents killed Anila. How did Viktor react when he went to pick her up and probably found no one there? The factory had been abandoned in a hurry, remember?'

The two women nodded, fascinated despite themselves by this reconstruction, which seemed to put every piece of the horrifying jigsaw in its place.

'Viktor is a violent man. He knows Palladiani, but probably not the others. Palladiani is scared, and plans to get out of the country. But Viktor tracks him down to his wife's villa, and kills him with a drug overdose, the way they killed Anila. But first he tortures him. Why?'

'To find out the names of the others,' Petra said immediately.

After which we find another corpse,' Anna Giulietti said, looking increasingly worried. And he also died of an overdose . . .'

'It's just a theory, mind you,' Ferrara said.

'But a bloody convincing one,' Anna said. 'Much more so than any of the others. Only, if it's true . . .' She broke off, perhaps fearing what she had been about to say.

Ferrara finished the sentence for her. 'If it's true, then all the others are in danger, too - including Gallo.'

'We'll have to warn him, provided it's not too late.' She rummaged in her bag for her mobile.

'No!' he stopped her. 'You can't. First of all, it's just a theory, it might not even be true. And if it is, you'll only alert him and may never find him again
...
or any of the others!'

'Are you joking, Michele?' she replied, angrily. 'What are you trying to do, force me to make a moral choice? A man's life on the one hand, letting justice take its course on the other? Well, it may surprise you to hear this coming from me, but I don't give a damn about justice!'

Ferrara smiled. It was the first time he had ever heard her express herself in that way about something to which she had devoted her life. Obviously the woman not only had balls, she had a heart, too.