Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence (29 page)

‘I couldn’t really say, to be honest …’ Bordelli lied.

‘I always know what I’m thinking about.’

‘What are you thinking right now?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she said, staring at the road.

‘You’re more honest than I am,’ Bordelli admitted.

They continued chatting and joking around, but neither suggested they use the informal address.

‘Is this radio for talking with headquarters?’ she asked.

‘With the radio relay system I can talk to all of Italy,’ Bordelli lied to impress her. Mostly he was avoiding asking the most important question of all, for fear of the reply. When they were at the tower in Piazza Piave, he summoned his courage.

‘It’s already dark outside, I guess we can’t work any more without light,’ he let drop, taking a roundabout approach.

‘What we need is a floodlight like that one,’ said the girl, gesturing at the beam of light shining down from Piazzale Michelangelo.

‘Feel like eating something?’ There, he’d managed to say it.

‘I could eat a tyre,’ she said.

‘What do you say we go and get a bite?’

‘Where?’

‘I was thinking we could go to a restaurant.’

‘Dressed like this?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘All right, then … Where shall we go?’

By eleven he was already in bed, head buried under the pillow. Herodotus could wait. Never had he felt like such a wreck, not even during the war. His bones were weary and his muscles ached. He felt as if he’d just sparred with Muhammad Ali. And as if that wasn’t enough, he was agitated and even a bit frightened. He had a swarm of butterflies in his stomach and kept nervously shuffling his feet between the sheets. All because of the girl …

They’d gone to a little restaurant in the Arcetri district south of the city, surrounded by well-dressed people eyeing the two evacuees as if trying to figure out who they were. All the tables were reserved, and so he’d shown his badge to a waiter, asking politely that they not be sent away with empty stomachs. The waiter had almost sprung to attention, and then went and set up a small table in a corner. He even brought a candle, which made the girl laugh. The menu was limited to a few very simple dishes, and they hadn’t taken more than a second to decide on their order. A nice plateful of pasta in tomato sauce, roast chicken, baked potatoes and red wine. After several glasses of wine, Bordelli had started talking about the war and, spurred on by the girl’s curiosity, recounted some rather macabre stories … Like the time in the countryside of Le Marche when he and his men were de-mining a field to allow the armoured Allied troops to pass through, and a trip-wire connected to the ground had set off an anti-tank mine, sending Cavadossi flying through the air in pieces. Bordelli and the others had gone running to look for the human scraps and his identification tag. They’d managed to collect almost all of his remains, except a hand, and had put the pieces of Cavadossi in a sack and closed it with a rope. Only when they’d started heading back to camp had Bordelli found the hand. It was whole, intact, half open, cleanly severed as if by a hatchet. As the sack was already closed, Bordelli wrapped the hand in a handkerchief and put it in his rucksack.

‘Good God, that’s horrible …’ she’d said.

They’d sat there for over two hours chatting, still using the polite form of address. Then the weariness of the day began to make itself felt, and after Eleonora’s first yawn he asked for the bill. He drove her back to San Niccolò, and she asked him to stop the car at the corner of Via San Salvatore al Monte. He was hoping they might stay a little longer in the car, talking, but she opened the door at once and put one small foot on the ground.

‘Leaving so soon?’ he’d asked, blushing in the dark.

‘I’m bone-tired. Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said, with a smile that looked a little ironic.

‘It was a pleasure …’ he muttered.

He got out to see her to her front door, but she said firmly that it wasn’t necessary. She didn’t want to be escorted home; there was no danger whatsoever. But the truth was perhaps that she didn’t want to be seen with him by the people sleeping outside. What could it mean? Simply that she didn’t want others to know her business? Or was she embarrassed of him because he was too old?

They stood face to face in the moonlit darkness, staring at each other in silence. Then she drew near, still smiling ironically … her lips parted … and at the last moment she took a step back.

‘Goodnight,’ she’d whispered, then turned and went down the sloping street. He watched her walk away, listening to her footsteps on the cobblestones … Was the beautiful Eleonora actually tempted for a moment to kiss him? Or was it only his imagination?

He’d got back in the car, puffed hard on a cigarette, and gone home without knowing what he should be feeling. Maybe she was just amusing herself at his expense, taking him for a ride, trying to drive him mad, just for the hell of it, for fun, with the blitheness of youth, which often looks a lot like wickedness … But if, on the other hand … Come on, how could a beautiful girl of twenty-five … Although it was true that, sometimes … And why else would she have drawn near to him the way she did? In the end it was as if they really had kissed … They’d come close, very close … Or maybe she was just amusing herself at his expense, taking him for a ride, trying to drive him mad …

He was going round and round in circles. It would be better to sleep on the whole question. Thinking with a tired brain doesn’t yield good fruit. He tried to occupy his mind by imagining Eleonora sweeping the mud on the street, counting the swipes of the broom … one … two … three … four … five …

He woke up with a start, realising that someone was knocking insistently at the door. It was still night outside. He turned on the torch and looked at the clock. Ten to one. Who the hell could it be? He heard the knocking again. He put both feet on the floor and ran his hands over his face. He felt as if he had spent the day shattering rocks in the hot sun. He went to open the door in his underpants and found a quite tall man standing before him.

‘Hello, Inspector, I’m Bruno Arcieri.’

‘Arcieri? Didn’t we meet a few years ago?’

‘In ’57, when I came to ask you a favour. Could I come in?’

‘Please do …’

He flung open the door to let him in and, running his fingers through his hair, gestured to him to follow. He went back to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Arcieri stopped at the foot of the bed, still standing and staring at Bordelli with a worried expression.

‘Are you unwell?’ he asked.

‘Aren’t they ever going to retire you, Colonel?’

‘They’re still keeping me on for a spell. I can’t see you very well. Are you all right?’

‘I’m just a little tired. I’ve been swimming in this shit for the past three days. Please sit down, Colonel.’

‘No, I’d rather stand.’

‘As you wish.’

‘I have a favour to ask of you, Bordelli.’

‘I scarcely imagined you came to chat about the flood …’

‘It’s a very delicate matter.’

‘I’m all ears, but first I have to get a few hours’ sleep or they’ll soon be shipping me off to the madhouse at San Salvi,’ said Bordelli, looking for his cigarettes. The colonel sighed.

‘You’re better at negotiating with Fascists than I am. I always get immediately enraged.’

‘Are you kidding me, Colonel?’ the inspector asked, smiling.

‘Heaven forfend.’

‘Still hunting down Fascists?’ As Bordelli was lighting the cigarette, Arcieri dropped a small sheet of paper on to the bed.

‘An old hand from the Salò days, who may have been chief of the secret service …’

‘What do you mean,
may have been
?’

‘There’s no proof, unfortunately, so we can’t touch him. But he probably knows some things that could be of use to me. I need to talk to him at once, but he has to be softened up first …’

‘Why not send one of your own spies?’

‘No. This is a personal investigation, Bordelli. Anyway, there’s no time left. I can’t have people coming up from Rome now. And more importantly, I don’t trust anyone.’

‘As usual. But what exactly am I supposed to do?’

‘Just pay the gentleman a little visit. Find a plausible pretext for questioning him, something innocuous, an administrative check, whatever you can think of. But be sure you frighten him.’

‘How much?’ asked Bordelli. In the half-light he saw Arcieri smile.

‘A lot, as much as possible. I’m sure you can think of something creative. But be quick about it, I have very little time left.’

‘Is he one of the bad Fascists?’

‘I didn’t know there were any good Fascists in your book, Bordelli.’

‘Some were just ignorant fools …’

He reached out and looked at the sheet that Arcieri had dropped:
Alfonso Gattacci, Via di San Domenico 71/A
. He knew this Fascist. Even personally. And he didn’t like him one bit.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, blowing smoke towards the ceiling.

Arcieri was fretting nervously.

‘It’s very urgent, Inspector.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘And I needn’t mention how important it is that none of this matter—’

‘Nobody will know anything,’ the inspector cut him off, sitting up and arranging the pillow behind his head.

‘I’m afraid I have to insist, Bordelli. I want you to go there … as soon as possible.’

‘Of course. But now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get a little sleep.’

‘I meant … right now, in fact. Every minute is precious,’ Arcieri insisted, looking worried.

Bordelli knew the feeling well, having found himself a thousand times in the same situation. Even recently, in the case of the murdered boy. Perhaps it was best to make the anxious colonel happy, though he had no desire to do so. Heaving a sigh of resignation, he got out of bed, grumbling a half-curse. He started to get dressed, taking his clothes from the back of the chair.

‘On second thoughts, I suddenly have a keen desire to have a little chat with a Fascist,’ he muttered. Arcieri finally smiled. He was still standing at the foot of the bed, not moving, hands in his coat pockets.

‘I’ll wait for your call at the Prefecture, the number’s on that piece of paper. I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight. Goodbye, Bordelli.’

‘You won’t be the only one to go without sleep. There are still tons of mud to be shovelled, and who knows what we’ll find beneath it?’

‘Everything will go back to the way it was.’

‘I wouldn’t even bet a bowl of pasta on that,’ said the inspector.

Lighting the way with his torch, he showed the colonel to the door. They shook hands, but had nothing more to say to each other. After a last nod Arcieri disappeared down the stairs. Bordelli closed the door and straggled into the kitchen to make coffee. A conversation with a Salò Fascist was the last thing he’d expected to be doing that night. But he’d decided to lend the unbending colonel a hand, and now he almost felt as if he himself couldn’t do without it. He trusted Arcieri instinctively. The colonel seemed a survivor from another era, a man of another age. Perhaps he and Arcieri were more similar than at first appeared.

He knocked back his coffee and put on his coat. While descending the stairs he thought of Eleonora’s mouth opening a couple of inches away from his own, and he bit the inside of his cheek. It was ridiculous for him to be so besotted at his age, but in a way he enjoyed feeling ridiculous.

The instant he stepped into the street he shuddered from the cold. Hidden behind clouds, the moon cast a spectral light over the building façades. He went and got the Fiat, lighting a cigarette as he drove off, holding the steering wheel with his knees. The unencumbered Viali were a pleasure. A rare car, a few tracked military vehicles, army lorries full of soldiers, and now and then a patrol car of the
carabinieri
or police, looking out for looters. Beyond the flood-damaged areas, the street lamps were on, and a few illuminated windows could be seen in some of the buildings.

He crossed the Cure viaduct and went down Viale Volta. As usual, he turned to look at the closed shutters of the house he’d grown up in, and felt a pang of nostalgia … As a child he’d never imagined that he would one day miss the years of runny noses and scraped knees.

At the end of the Viale he continued on towards San Domenico, thinking of that coxcomb Gattacci. In the days of the Duce he was a quite public personage, a puffed-up turkey who fancied himself a poet and boasted of being a friend of Pavolini. By no means a bore, he was actually quite cultured. His old haunt used to be the Giubbe Rosse, and he sat many a time at the tables of Vittorini, Landolfi, Montale, Gadda, Pratolini, Rosai … Once, in that same café, he’d dealt a backhanded slap to a young poet who had dared to speak facetiously about the glorious Ethiopian war and the necessity of empire. The blow had made the rounds of Florence, and Gattacci’s fame increased. Somebody had introduced him to Bordelli in the late thirties, probably at a dinner party. He hadn’t liked him, that much he remembered well. Some ten years later they’d crossed paths again, during an investigation into the murder of a woman, a very good friend of Gattacci and possibly his mistress. They’d recognised each other at once, and Bordelli had reacted coldly to the Fascist’s friendly manner. And now he had to see him again. He hadn’t even finished dealing with another fool pining for the old regime, and now this. It really seemed as if fate was having fun trying his patience.

He turned on to Via di San Domenico, reading the numbers of the buildings on the uneven side. He drove slowly past 71/A, a small villa with its front door directly on the street. Gattacci was still up, as a number of windows were illuminated. A great many cars were parked tightly along the pavement, bumper to bumper, most of them luxury models. He drove another hundred yards or so and turned left on Via Donati, a narrow little street which ran parallel to Via di San Domenico for a stretch. Stopping the car, he got out and heard some music coming from the ground floor of a large villa. It must have been a party, which would expain all those cars along the pavement. Bordelli approached a window and, peering through a shutter left ajar, he saw young people dancing amid clouds of smoke. Clean faces and pretentious looks. The girls were almost all wearing miniskirts and shaking their heads like she-devils … A cheerful little gathering of souls who didn’t give a damn about the flood …