Death in Tuscany (6 page)

'I can't tell you that. As I've already said, there are no signs of violence. Maybe that was the day she stopped being a little saint. . .'

'Had you noticed this?' Ferrara asked d'Incisa.

'That she was a whore?' the professor replied in a contemptuous tone that angered Ferrara: considering the girl's age, it was not a term he himself would have used. 'Why should that have concerned us? This unknown girl was brought in showing clear signs of an overdose. We administered Narcan - that's an antidote to opiate poisoning,' he said to Ferrara, 'which confirmed our suspicions, as did all our subsequent tests, as I've already said. The death that occurred after the coma was clearly due to the overdose. I wrote that in the report and I repeat it now. The rest was none of our business.'

'Not even if she was drugged in order to be abused?' Ferrara retorted.

'Not even then,' d'Incisa said firmly. 'We're doctors, not policemen. Let's each of us do our job.' The scornful undertone was obvious.

Ferrara ignored him and turned to Leone. 'Is it still possible to find traces of sperm after so many days?' He thought he knew the answer but, lacking the technical knowledge, he preferred to make sure. 'I'm sorry, Professor, but as you yourself said I have to do my job.'

'I appreciate that. As a matter of fact, it's a sensible question. A patient in a coma is washed and catheterised, and you may well think that would affect any traces of sperm. But it isn't so, is it, Dr Leone?'

'No, it isn't. The sperm remains in the mucous membrane of the uterus for a long time, and laboratory tests should be able to find it, if the girl had complete intercourse, without precautions.'

'Does it remain for more than five days?'

'Sometimes more than double that, Chief Superintendent.'

And given her profession,' d'Incisa said, dryly, Td be surprised if there wasn't any, and from different men, too!'

Perhaps Ferrara was influenced by Violante's suspicions, but he definitely didn't like the man. He wasn't thinking of that, though - he was weighing up other possibilities: the girl had been someone's sex slave, a paedophile had shot her up with heroin to make her docile, she'd been gang raped, or she'd taken part in one of those parties involving adults and minors about which there had been persistent rumours in Florence, without there being any concrete evidence.

There were many possibilities. Including the possibility that the girl was just an underage prostitute who'd taken an overdose. D'Incisa was clearly convinced of that, and Leone might also be inclining that way. It was certainly the simplest explanation. But it was too simple. If they could confirm that she wasn't a habitual drug user, it would start to crumble.

Once he had finished the external examination, Leone nodded to the technician, a short, stocky man of about fifty, who until now had been standing by the instruments trolley, watching and listening with cool detachment. Now he walked over to the wash basin, picked up a plastic headrest, and fixed it beneath the girl's chin.

It was at this point that Ferrara realised he had no desire to be present at the slaughter that was about to begin: Leone would make a Y-shaped incision and open the thorax, then he would cut open the abdomen, and finally he would pull back the scalp and saw through the cranial vault.

Pathologists have a special relationship with death, but he didn't. It had been a while since he'd last been present at an autopsy and he had got out of the habit. He realised now that he preferred not to reacquire it.

'I have to go,' he said before Leone could proceed. 'If you have a minute, Professor, I'd like to ask you a few questions before you leave.'

For the umpteenth time, the consultant looked at his watch. 'I'm in a bit of a hurry, to tell the truth
..."
He glanced at Leone.

'Don't worry,' Leone said. 'I'll be quick.'

'It won't take long,' Ferrara said. 'Just a few questions.'

D'Incisa sighed. 'All right.'

'This is for you, to pass the time,' Leone said to Ferrara as he walked him to the door, and handed him a small plastic bag. 'The dead girl's personal effects.'

Once he was out in the corridor, Ferrara was assailed with doubts. What if he was barking up the wrong tree? What if this was nothing but the drug-related death of a young girl forced into prostitution, like millions of others her age all over the world?

He sat down on a bench, opened the bag, and took out a pair of dirty, faded blue jeans, without any label, a cheap lavender cotton ‘I-shirt with a label he didn't recognise, a pair of tacky earrings - too flashy for a child - and a small imitation gold ring set with a piece of purple glass trying to imitate an amethyst.

That was all.

Apart from three sticks of mint chewing gum in the pockets of the jeans, that, sadly, was the sum total of the dead girl's personal effects.

He wondered if Leone had been trying to tell him something by giving him the bag. Had he, too, noticed the curious lack of shoes and underwear? There was no bra, though the girl could have done without it. But there were no knickers either, and it was harder to believe she didn't wear them, whether she was a convent girl or a whore, someone with her papers in order or an illegal immigrant.

As he put the things back in the bag - he'd pass it on to Forensics - the ring fell to the ground. He watched it rolling, feeling strangely disturbed.

The personal effects of the dead are always disturbing. It is as if they have suddenly lost their value along with their owner. They appear as what they are, piles of objects more or less worn down by a use to which they will no longer be put. Some will find other owners and live again, acquire other meaning, other memories. Others - the majority - will fade.

Objects full of melancholy, in any case. But that wasn't what disturbed Ferrara as he bent to pick up the wretched market-stall ring. It was the image of the girl reaching out her little hand to choose it from among others, the childish illusions she may have had in her mind as she slipped it on her finger.

And there was something else, too, something he couldn't put his finger on, but which gave him the incentive he needed.

He phoned Headquarters and asked to speak to Ascalchi.

'I was just about to report to you
..."
Ascalchi began.

'Never mind, you can tell me later. Now listen. Check with the emergency services and find out the exact spot where they found the girl, let me know, then go out there with a few people from Forensics. Get Sergi to help you out, if he's not busy with Violante, and anyone else who's available. Cordon off the area and give it a thorough going over. I'll join you there as soon as I can.'

'Do you think it's murder?' Ascalchi asked in surprise.

'I don't know, but act as if it is.'

'Is this all above board?'

'Don't worry about that. I'll take responsibility'

'Are we looking for anything in particular?'

'The usual things. But shoes, bra and knickers in particular. And condoms.'

All right, chief,' Ascalchi said, unenthusiastically. He hadn't joined the police to be a street cleaner, and if those wooded hills were the way he imagined, the harvest of used condoms would be plentiful.

Disgustingly
plentiful, he thought with horror.

Immediately after, Ferrara called Fanti.

'Yes, chief?'

'Find out everything you can about a make of T-shirt called "Steaua Rosie".' He spelled it for him. 'Have you written that down?'

'Yes, chief.'

He rang off and settled down to wait, wondering if he wasn't wasting precious time. But at this stage of an investigation, all leads were equally vague and equally important. Many would turn out to be inconclusive, but none could be ruled out.

The one interruption while he waited was a call that Fanti put through. It was Ascalchi, with details of the place where the body had been discovered.

Ferrara did not have to wait as long as he had anticipated. At the first opportunity, as if to prove that he really was in a hurry, Professor d'Incisa emerged from the autopsy room.

Ferrara leapt to his feet and joined him. 'As I promised, this won't take long.'

'Can we talk as we're walking? I have to meet my wife. We're off to Viareggio today and we're already late. We were hoping to leave early to avoid the traffic.'

'I understand,' Ferrara said, walking beside him. The doctor had a rapid, energetic gait. 'I also have to go somewhere. Marina di Pietrasanta. I'm leaving tomorrow. So I'm in a hurry, too, if I want to get through everything today. It's only for the weekend, though. Are you going on holiday?'

'If only! No, I'm taking my wife to our villa, but I'm coming back on Sunday. Our work here is never done

'Tell me about it.'

'What did you want to ask me?'

'Was the girl in a coma all the time she was here? Didn't she ever come to, even for a moment? Did she ever speak in her sleep? Did she moan?'

After we administered Narcan, she started breathing again normally, but that was the only reaction I observed. As far as I know she never regained consciousness, and I never heard her moan.'

'Could a nurse have heard something?'

'It's possible. But you'd have to ask them.'

'Is there anyone in particular I can talk to?'

'The head nurse, Signora Finzi.'

Ferrara wrote the name in a notebook. 'One more thing.' They had left the building and were descending the steps which led to the reserved parking spaces. 'Go on.'

'The girl was in a coma for five days. Do you think she was given the care she needed during all that time?'

Professor d'Incisa stopped dead, but did not explode as Ferrara had feared he might. On the contrary, the inflexibility and hostility he had shown him from the start appeared suddenly to thaw - at least as much as a consultant in a large Florentine hospital could thaw. It was as if he'd been relieved of a burden.