Gold, Frankincense and Dust (6 page)

Soneri and Nanetti stood listening to Alceste in amazement. When they went out, they walked in silence because there was nothing to say. A sort of burning inner wound tormented them, but without their being able to identify it precisely.

“What a story! Seems unbelievable,” Nanetti said finally.

The commissario shook his head. “No, it’s just that poverty causes scandal and hides itself away.”

BY THE TIME
Soneri was walking across the yard at the police station, the afternoon was rapidly dying. Gusts of mist were burying the fading day and the neon lights from the offices announced the onset of darkness.

“Did you find anything in the missing persons register?” he asked Juvara.

“No. The usual names, the ones we already know. I also checked recent crime reports, but I found nothing. I’m afraid we’re dealing with an illegal immigrant.”

“There’s a surprise!” The thought had been preying on Soneri’s mind. Someone dies miles from home, no-one knows where she is and no register with information on her can be found. At least the old man on the coach had a scrap of paper in the form of a visa. That thought unleashed a torrent of associations. The image of the bus leaving the
Pensilina
passed through his mind. The dead man on it came from Romania and there had been Romanian travelling people in the encampment next to the dump at Cortile San Martino. The burned body could have been an illegal immigrant too.

Under the inspector’s astonished gaze, he jumped abruptly to his feet, but his rush to the door was interrupted by the telephone. Once again it was Pasquariello, who launched
straight in: “It looks as though the Lower Po Valley has become a hunting estate.”

“Has the questore given orders to fire on those poor bulls?”

“Are you serious? He couldn’t give a damn about the bulls. Somebody from the transport company that was taking the beasts to the slaughterhouse came here to see me, and he told us that this morning when they went to round them up they heard shots.”

“Somebody could have been shooting out of fear.”

“Who knows? I dispatched a couple of squads, but in this mist not even the company vets managed to make any headway.”

“It would’ve been hard enough to catch them even in sunlight. We’ll just need to be patient and let them graze.”

“Whatever. I’ve passed on the information to you, seeing as there was that murder.”

“I’m on my way now,” Soneri said, looking anxiously at the wall of grey mist outside. “Picnic time again,” he announced to Juvara when he hung up.

They left the city in the evening traffic. On the narrow roads of the Lower Valley they were forced to get out of the way of cars travelling too fast or to pull in behind cars travelling too slowly.

“There are some madmen on the loose,” the inspector said.

“They want to escape this oppressive darkness,” Soneri replied quietly.

It was the same as the night before: the mist streaked with the yellow of the lights in the service area, the hideous music from the showground and the groping search for the right road. The only novelty was the gunfire. They heard the first shot as they drove alongside the autostrada. Soneri braked and rolled down the window. He could hear the constant roar of the traffic racing by, oddly similar to the echo of the
detonation hanging in the heavy air. They were about to drive off when another shot rang out.

“A shotgun,” he said. “A twelve-bore hunting shotgun, I’d say.”

“You obviously know what you’re talking about.”

“Once they used to send us to the rifle range for target practice. Now they don’t even have the funds to buy the bullets.”

“I’m jealous of your expertise, commissario. I don’t know much about guns.”

“Forget it. If you’re jealous, that only means I’m getting old.”

A van emerged suddenly from the mist and drew up alongside them. A man in uniform who evidently took himself very seriously leaned out and looked them up and down with a distrustful smirk: “You’re either police or carabinieri.”

“Police. How did you guess?” Soneri asked with a hint of irony.

“Who else would be out in this weather?” replied the man, misjudging Soneri’s tone. “We’re looking for the bulls, but so far we’re getting nowhere. Maybe you should take a look at those gypsies,” he suggested, pointing in the direction of the dump. “They’re picking off the bulls.”

“You sure it’s them?”

“And who else would it be? As soon as it got dark, they started up with their firing practice.”

“Have you managed to round up any animals?”

“One cow and three pigs, but the bulls … we sent out a team of marksmen and they tried to herd them against the fence alongside the autostrada, but they didn’t manage it.”

Another van filled with people, perhaps the marksmen, pulled up. “We’re off,” said one of the men. “We’ll be back
tomorrow morning. We can only hope there’ll be some left.”

Soneri switched on the ignition and set off. A few moments later he came within sight of the bonfires in the campsite, and a few hundred metres further on he saw the sign for the dump. There was a strange calm among the caravans. The side of pork had been removed and the fire had died down. The commissario sounded his horn, but the only ones who answered his call were the children, who clustered round the car. Two old women appeared between the caravans, but quickly took to their heels.

The peace was disturbed by excited shouting and a group of men came rushing in their direction, seemingly carrying a heavy weight. As they drew closer, Soneri and Juvara saw they were carrying an injured man. The commissario jumped out of his car and ran over to the small group but none of them took any notice of him. In the general agitation he was pushed aside. At the same time, two women, one elderly and the other younger, came onto the clearing and began screaming.

“Do you think he’s dead?” Juvara asked quietly.

The commissario grimaced as if to say he had no idea, but then he noticed Manservisi’s Borsalino.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s been gored by a bull.”

“So you were the ones firing the shots.”

“You see? You always blame us. Why don’t you take a look around? There are no weapons here.”

“So how come one of your men got gored?”

Manservisi shrugged. “He’s drunk. Every evening he goes roaming about. When he’s had something to drink, he gets the urge to go for a walk. We’re not even sure it was a bull. Maybe he just fell. Once he was run over by a car and the kind gentleman didn’t even bother to stop.”

The women’s screams changed into a keening lament. Someone threw more logs onto the fire, sending sparks flying into the air.”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t think so. Mariotto’s made of rubber.”

“Better call an ambulance.”

“No need. Once he gets over his hangover, he’ll have nothing worse than a couple of bruises.”

A police car drew up and Esposito, once more in charge, got out. “What did I tell you about behaving yourselves?” he started off menacingly. “Now you’ve taken up big-game hunting.” He was about to add another threat when he noticed the commissario standing nearby. “Sorry, sir, but these people are mad.”

“They say it wasn’t them who fired the shots.”

“Did they tell you they’ve got fairies at the bottom of their garden?”

“We’ll get an investigation underway. As soon as the magistrate signs the order, we’ll search the camp,” Soneri said.

Manservisi became agitated. “I’ve already told you. Why don’t you search the houses around here? They’re all armed to the teeth.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll treat everybody the same,” Soneri said. “I’m in charge here,” he continued, addressing Esposito.

As he got into his car, Esposito could not refrain from issuing a new threat. “If we hear one more shot, even from a water pistol, we’ll kick your arse so hard …” he said, with a forceful gesture of his booted foot.

Manservisi did not look in the least intimidated. He stared at Soneri with hostile indifference. The commissario put his arm into his and led him over to the fire. Juvara understood the situation and stayed a discreet distance away from the two men.

“You realise, don’t you, that if we do have to search the camp, there might be some unpleasantness.”

“Who says?”

“Listen, Manservisi, you know who we are and we know who you are. And both of us know that neither of us are saints. You follow?”

The man turned proudly to Soneri, and it was clear he was prepared to do a deal, but only on terms of equality. “What do you want?”

“Information on the person whose body was burned.”

Manservisi said nothing for a while. The silence was filled with music from the fairground and roars from the autostrada still shrouded in mist.

“I can only report rumours.”

The mooing of a cow distracted them for a moment. “They could be helpful,” Soneri said encouragingly.

“Rumours told by drunks.”

The commissario’s brows furrowed. “Mariotto?”

Manservisi nodded. “Are they worth anything?”

“As much as any other man’s. Wine makes people talk more freely, as you well know.”

“All he told me was that the night before the accident on the autostrada, he saw somebody in a black car throw something onto the embankment. This person opened the right-hand car door and hauled out a bag. Then he went along the slope a bit, perhaps to avoid being seen. He emptied the bag and made off.”

“What kind of car?”

“A B.M.W. convertible. This is the one absolutely certain detail, because Mariotto is a motor car fanatic. As for all the rest …” His voice trailed off, betraying his scepticism.

“What was he doing there? What time was it?”

“How do I know? He was drunk, as usual. If you knew
how many times we’ve had to go and drag him out of a ditch before he died of exposure. When he’s been drinking, he staggers off, singing dirty songs.”

“Nothing else to tell me?”

“Nothing else, commissario.”

Soneri turned back to his car, but as he was opening the door a shot rang out from nearby, followed by the sound of a cow mooing. He stopped to listen, but there was complete silence. He got into the car and drove off.

“Any news about where the old man found dead on the coach came from?”

“Bucharest,” Juvara replied, who was more concerned about the speed at which Soneri was driving. “Wouldn’t it be better to concentrate full time on the burned corpse?”

“I just don’t know where to begin. Is Medioli still our guest?” he asked, as though he had only that moment stumbled on a new lead.

“I understand the investigating magistrate, Dottoressa Marcotti, is questioning him.”

“I have a few questions to put to him as well.”

“But he’s got nothing to do with the case.”

“He does. That drunk who’s supposed to have been gored by a bull saw a black B.M.W. stop on the hard shoulder and tip something that might have been a corpse onto the embankment. He was there. Up to the gills in wine admittedly, but he was there.”

“When did this happen?”

“The night before the accident.”

“A B.M.W. Not much to go on.”

“A convertible. There can’t be that many around.”

“Commissario, you don’t spend much time nowadays in discotheques. There are more people with money to burn than you might imagine.”

“Living on credit …”

“Can we be sure he was seeing straight? A drunk …”

“In this world, it’s easier to find a drunk telling the truth than a sober man. And anyway, Mariotto knows all there is to know about cars. And Medioli is a mechanic.”

“Do you think they might have spoken about it the following day?”

“I don’t know, but I hope so. When I have nothing to hand, I follow my instincts. It’s as good a method as any, isn’t it?”

Juvara looked puzzled and nodded, unconvinced. Finally they reached Via Ventidue Luglio and turned into the Borgo della Posta before arriving at the police station. The inspector got out of the car with sense of liberation, as though he had landed from a spaceship.

They walked across the yard and found Nanetti standing next to the glass door.

“You were worried about us, weren’t you?”

“The moment I discovered you weren’t back, I got onto the telephone to the carabinieri,” he said sarcastically. “I’ve got news.”

The commissario gestured to him with his extinguished cigar, inviting him to go on.

“It’s a woman,” Nanetti declared with a certain solemnity. “It’s been confirmed by the first tests. In my opinion, she was a streetwalker who stepped out of line and paid the price. They struck her on the head and then set her on fire. Classic underworld behaviour.”

Soneri stared at his colleague for a few seconds before winking at him. “You knew that from the start.”

“Intuition and experience, now confirmed by science.”

The commissario groaned. “They shattered her skull?”

Nanetti nodded. “She was already dead when they set fire to her.”

“Any hypotheses on the weapon employed?”

“A fractured cranium, so therefore a blunt instrument without point or blade. Might have been a club, a bar, a metal object.”

“Age?”

“Not more than thirty. More probably around twenty.”

“Anything else?”

“We’ll continue with tests over the next couple of days. Perhaps further elements will come to light.”

“I dare hope so,” Soneri said.

“Do you want to know something else? They put the girl’s body beside Dondescu’s, the old man on the coach. With her, nobody knows her name; with him, nobody knows if he had anybody in the world. No-one has claimed him.”

Soneri reflected on that detail as he walked along the corridor towards his office. In fact it struck him as very curious.

“Is Dottoressa Marcotti finished with Medioli?” he asked Juvara.

“She’s finishing now. She said you could go in.”

*

Dottoressa Marcotti was a no-nonsense woman with a still youthful face which seemed to clash with her head of soft, white hair.

“He’s convinced he’s had to pay too high a price, and looking at him, it’s hard to disagree,” she explained to Soneri, indicating the room where Medioli was detained. “He looks scared out of his wits, or maybe he regrets having run away from the gypsy camp. I wouldn’t like to think they threatened him in prison.”