White Death (5 page)

The Ufficio del Catasto was the local land registry office, the kind of place where time seemed to slow down. Like a lot of the people in public offices, they appeared to have been expelled from charm school a long time ago. You stood waiting by a window for ages before anyone even came by, and when they did they walked past without looking at you. You could spend a lifetime in there before you met something called service. If you succeeded in getting their attention, they gave the impression of being disturbed and irritated, like you had woken them up from an enjoyable dream.

The only way to get the information I needed was to waft a couple of fifties in the air. A surly man who had taken pleasure in ignoring me for a long time found his smile all of a sudden. ‘Via Pordenone, you say?’

‘Number 17. I’m interested in the owner who came between Lombardi Carlo and Masi Amedeo.’

He scribbled down the names and disappeared through a small door. I went and sat down on a plastic chair. They had a couple of old copies of
Bell’Italia
on a table and I picked one up. It had stunning photographs of emerald coves and mountain peaks and strong stallions in gentle meadows. It made me think about everything Lombardi had said, about how our peninsula was so blessed with beauty. Beauty in this country is like the ice on a lake in spring, so fragile and thin
that as soon as you touch it the whole surface will splinter and crack, and you’ll fall into the cold, dark waters beneath. We’re obsessed by beauty because it allows us to escape the terrors of life, it allows us to cover up the brutal realities. We’re illusionists, battling against ageing and death. It’s a way of life, an attempt to defy decay. We beautify ourselves and our houses incessantly to make them appear nobler, stronger, more civilised, to make life appear fairer and kinder. But then you begin to realise that behind the pristine flat lies a
burnt-out
shell of a car, that our obsession with looking good is actually an attempt to look away, to ignore reality. We don’t want to see things as they really are. We would rather have good-looking lies than the dull, ugly truth. That’s how we ended up with the politicians we’ve got. We prefer fantasy to fact.

‘Scusi.’ The man was back with a piece of paper and was knocking on the glass. ‘Ecco.’

He passed a slip of paper underneath the window. I read the name: Luciano Tosti. There was an address too. I pushed the two bank notes towards him and flashed him a false smile.

As I walked down the wide staircase I looked at the name. It meant nothing to me. The address was somewhere in Milan.

It took me a couple of hours to get there. The place was in a nondescript suburb. Every balcony had Inter or Milan flags hanging on its railings. Black and blue and red and black. I parked up and found the right block. I stood outside the building looking at the buzzers and there was no Tosti. I assumed the man at the Ufficio del Catasto must have given me the wrong address. I buzzed another name at random. No
one answered. I held down another, but still nothing. I stepped back and waited. Either way the pavement was deserted. No one appeared to be coming in or out of the building. I rang all the buzzers one after the other. Eventually someone squawked ‘Chi è’?

I told her I was looking for Luciano Tosti. She didn’t say anything. I repeated what I had said and heard her calling a man’s name.

‘Who is this?’ A gruff voice came on.

I told him my name and that I was trying to find Luciano Tosti. ‘I haven’t seen him for years,’ I said, which wasn’t, after all, a lie. ‘I used to be at school with him,’ I went on, which was.

‘I better come down,’ the man said.

A few minutes later I heard the front gate click. I looked up and saw an elderly man walking towards me, head down. He struggled to pull the gate open on his own, so I stepped forward and tried to help him. It was so well sprung that it almost knocked him sideways as it started to shut.

‘What did you say your name was?’ he asked.

I told him and he looked at me with suspicion. ‘I thought you said you were at school with Luciano.’

I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded as if confirming it.

‘You look older than him,’ he said.

I ran a hand across my short, greying hair. ‘To be honest, it was my younger brother who was at school with him.’

He was still looking at me sideways. ‘And what is it you’re after?’

‘My brother’s ill. Very ill. And he’s asked me to contact a few of his old friends before … you know, before …’

At the mention of illness the man seemed to soften. He looked at me and nodded. ‘I don’t talk in front of citofoni,’ he said, glancing at the box of buzzers. He started walking slowly along the pavement. ‘It was an ugly thing,’ he said, stopping to look at me. ‘A very ugly thing.’

‘What was?’

‘What happened to Tosti.’ He looked at me again, as if to make sure that I really was as ignorant as I sounded.

‘What happened?’

He stared at me as if preparing me for bad news. ‘He was killed. Killed right here.’ The old man pointed at the ground. We were just in front of a larger gate which sloped downwards to the block of flats’s garages.

‘When was this?’

‘Less than a year ago. He was sitting in his car, just waiting for these gates to open and they …’ He tailed off.

I looked around. It was strange how normal the place felt, like a battlefield decades later that becomes just a field again. There was no hint of the blood-spilling, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. The yellow light above the gate started flashing and the man stepped back as the gate began to open in automated jerks. I moved to the other side and we watched a car drive in.

We came back together as the gate started to shut. ‘Did they ever find the person responsible?’

He smiled briefly. ‘You know what it’s like. They accused plenty of people but convicted no one.’

‘Who was accused?’

‘Mah!’ he said like he didn’t believe any of it. ‘They said he was involved in big money deals.’ He shook his head.

‘You don’t believe it?’

His shoulders rose slowly like they were being inflated. ‘He always seemed, excuse me saying this of the dead, he always seemed a little sfigato, you know? From what I heard, he struggled to pay the ground rent each year. He always paid late if he paid at all. He drove around in an old Fiat Duna.’ The man laughed gently at the memory and shook his head. ‘He just, he didn’t seem like the sort of person who would be making big deals.’

‘Who said he was?’

He looked at me through narrowed eyes. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions. I thought you were only looking for an old schoolfriend.’

He had the honest intensity of a good man smelling a rat and I didn’t like being the rat. I told him why I was really there, told him that I was investigating property deals a while back in a nearby city. He stared at me in surprise, like he didn’t know whether to be offended or excited by the revelation.

‘Why’, I said slowly, not wanting to rush the questions, ‘did you say he was involved in financial deals?’

‘Something his widow said. Said he had come into a lot of money.’

I looked up at the block of flats behind him. There was a woman on a balcony hanging out her laundry. ‘Does his widow still live here?’

He shook his head. ‘They moved away.’

‘They?’

‘She had a little boy. She was called Rosaria something. Can’t recall the surname, but she’s from down south. Nice girl.’

‘Where did they move to?’

‘No idea. Can’t blame them though. It must have been terrible, seeing this spot every day.’ He grimaced and pointed at the pavement again as if there were still blood down there.

‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’

‘You would have to ask the administrator.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Giancarlo.’

‘He in?’

He led me back towards the citofono. He buzzed Giancarlo and we went into his apartment. He fussed around looking through his files and eventually came up with a piece of paper. ‘Ecco,’ he said, pulling on his glasses. ‘It’s not exactly a forwarding address. Just a note to say any post can be left for her at some shop. Carla’s Intimo, Via della Salute.’

The shop was a few blocks away. I had to stop a woman to ask her where exactly and she pointed me in the right direction. Carla’s was the cheap end of the underwear market. The window displayed rows of knickers and bras and pyjamas that seemed to have lost their colours in the sun. Inside, the place felt unexpectedly like a library. There were boxes piled high on neat shelves behind the counter and in front of them there was an old wooden stepladder.

‘Buongiorno,’ said a dark-haired woman as I walked in. She was half-way up the ladder so that her waist was at eye level.

‘I’m looking for Rosaria,’ I said.

‘Join the club,’ she said without humour. She stared at me. Her dark eyes had a very slight squint.

‘A lot of people looking for her?’

‘Were a while back.’

‘You know why?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Name’s Castagnetti. I’m a private detective. I’m trying to work out what happened to her husband.’

‘Or to his money?’

‘What money?’

She snorted like she didn’t believe my ignorance. ‘Why do you care what happened to her husband?’

‘Did I say I cared?’

She looked at me with disdain.

‘I’m trying to find out what happened to him because his name came up in an investigation I’m involved in. I traced him to a block around the corner and then found out he was killed a while back. That kind of thing arouses my curiosity.’

She started folding a pair of knickers into a box like her mind was elsewhere.

‘Where will I find Rosaria?’ I insisted.

She put the lid on the box and turned around to insert it in one of the stacks behind her. Then she turned back towards me and shook her head. ‘Rosaria doesn’t want to be found.’

‘Doesn’t she want justice?’

She laughed at the silly idealism of the question and started walking up the first step of the ladder. ‘She wants to be left alone.’

‘Give her this.’ I gave her one of my cards. ‘If she cares about justice for her husband, tell her to get in touch.’

The woman looked at it, looked at me and nodded. She put the card between two fingers and flicked it onto the counter. It fell off and I reached down to pick it up and put it back on the counter.

I stood there watching her. She was dark and feisty and looked like a strong woman. Her accent was from the south somewhere. She kept walking up and down the ladder, putting underwear in boxes and inserting them into the stacks, resolutely ignoring me.

‘Allora?’ she said impatiently, as if she was demanding to know what I was still doing there.

I was about to go to the door when I heard a voice from the inside of the shop. ‘Rosaria, come here a minute.’

The woman up the ladder froze, looking at me. The voice called her again and since it didn’t get a reply, the body behind it walked into the shop: a small, tense-looking woman who I imagined was the boss.

‘Buongiorno,’ she said, looking me over. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise we had a customer. Can I help?’

‘You just have.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I was just looking for Rosaria.’

The small woman looked over at her assistant. Rosaria descended the ladder slowly, her head held back like she was still feeling defiant.

‘What do you want?’ she said, staring at me with her black eyes.

Her boss looked from Rosaria to me, feeling the tension.

‘Just what I said. I want to ask you a couple of questions.’

‘Why?’

I explained to her how I had come across her husband. Told her about the fire at Bragantini’s factory and the possible link to Via Pordenone. Her chin was in the air whilst I was talking, her bottom lip jutting out like she was still suspicious of me. When I had said my piece she stood there, staring at me with her hands on her hips. After a couple of seconds she dropped her hands to her sides as if she had given up on resisting. She turned to her boss like she was asking advice or permission.

‘Why don’t you go and have a quick coffee?’ the older woman said, looking from Rosaria to me.

Rosaria went into the back to get her coat. Her boss and I were left alone and she smiled at me. ‘She’s been through a lot,’ she whispered. ‘She’s a lovely girl, but she’s lost all trust in people.’

I nodded, smiling at her silently as gratitude for the insight.

‘He’s still asleep,’ Rosaria said, coming through the back door of the shop. ‘Call me if he wakes up.’

‘OK my dear.’

She walked past me and out of the door without saying anything. I caught up with her on the pavement and followed her. She turned into a bar on the corner and only when she was leaning on the curved chrome of the bar did she look at me.

‘What are you having?’

‘Coffee.’

‘Two coffees,’ she shouted at the barman.

‘Subito,’ he shouted back. ‘Two coffees.’

We took them over to a table in the corner. There was a fruit machine next to the table that was making irritating noises. I could see the flashing lights reflecting on her shoulders.

‘Allora?’ she said again. ‘What do you want exactly?’

‘I want to find out who killed your husband.’

She didn’t say anything, so I asked her the same question she had asked me. ‘What do you want?’

‘To be left alone.’

‘You get bothered a lot?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Who’s bothering you?’

‘The same people who were hassling Luciano before he died.’

‘Who’s that?’

She snorted, looking at me with contempt. ‘You’re trying to broker a deal for them, right?’

‘For who?’ I couldn’t follow what she was saying.

She stared at me and threw her coffee back. As she put the white tazzina back in the saucer she looked at me again and, for the first time, smiled. There was still a trace of contempt in her face, but she was genuinely amused as well. ‘You really don’t know anything?’

‘I only found out that your husband got hurt five minutes ago.’

‘Hurt?’ she said scornfully. ‘That’s one way to put it.’

She was hard all right, but it was the kind of hardness that came from fragility. She seemed vulnerable despite that tough exterior, like an animal defending its young in the wild. The sort that would suddenly turn on you when you weren’t even threatening her.

We sat there in silence for a while. I watched the jingling fruit machine spill colours at her back: lime green, bright orange. It kept making its demented tune. At least, I thought, it would keep our conversation private. If we ever got some conversation.

‘How old’s your boy?’ I said softly.

She looked at me like she was about to lash out to protect him, but she closed her eyes wearily. ‘Almost two.’

‘And you have him with you there in the shop?’

She nodded. ‘La signora is very good to me. She looks after him half the time. She gave us a room above the shop. She
was widowed too about a year ago, more or less the same time that Luciano was killed. We sort of found each other. I had gone there before a few times, so we knew each other vaguely, but one day, soon after it happened, I went in to buy something and I stayed there all day, just talking things through with her. By the end of the day, she had invited us to stay in her spare room and had offered me a part-time job.’

‘Kind woman.’

She nodded slowly, staring beyond me to the outside world.

I moved the tazzina round in its saucer, waiting for the right time to ask her about her husband.

‘You know,’ she started without prompting, ‘for a while they thought I had done it.’ She put her head sideways.

‘That’s always their first thought. Bound to be the spouse.’

‘Built up quite a case against me.’ She exhaled in derision, her smile turning into a bitter grimace. ‘Luciano had come into some money. The first time in his life. He was flush. They thought,’ her voice wobbled for an instant, ‘they thought I had killed him, or had him killed, for the money.’ Her lower lip was quivering now.

‘What money?’ I asked quietly.

Her sigh sounded more like a growl. She pulled her hands apart, then put them back together. She shrugged, then looked at me shaking her head. ‘It was some stupid investment scam. The only investment in his life that ever went well. Trouble was, it wasn’t his money and it wasn’t his scam. He was just the frontman.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘He was lent money to buy a business.’

‘A prosciuttificio?’

‘How did you know?’ She looked at me suddenly, surprised and scared.

‘That’s how I got his name. From the Ufficio del Catasto.’

‘So you know all about it?’

‘Hardly anything. I know he bought the joint and sold it to Masi Costruzioni.’

‘That’s just about all I know,’ she said with regret. ‘That and the fact that he bought the place with someone else’s money.’

‘How did you find that out?’

She laughed bitterly. ‘Wasn’t hard. Luciano never had money of his own to speak of. I knew he couldn’t afford to buy a beer, let alone a whole business. Someone put him up to it.’

‘He was someone’s stooge?’

She nodded. ‘Only,’ she hesitated, ‘he started getting ideas that he wasn’t. The place he bought was placed inside the residential land belt a few months later, and he realised he was the legal owner of a goldmine. He thought he could make a lot of money and he did. He sold it to Masi Costruzioni for a huge profit.’

‘Only it wasn’t his money in the first place?’

She shook her head, closing her eyes as if to try and blank out the memory. ‘Luciano thought he had hit the big-time. He said it was time to pack our bags. Said we had enough money to live on for a few years. He wanted to go to Spain.’ She put her forehead into the palm of her hand and stayed in that position for a few seconds, her shoulders bouncing like she was coughing silently.

It sounded like her man had tried to trouser money that belonged to someone else and had paid the ultimate price. I asked her who had lent him the money and she rolled her eyes.

‘That’s what the authorities wanted to know. After his death, that’s what they asked me. I told them I had no idea, but they found out.’

‘And?’

‘It was some bank. You should ask the Carabinieri.’

‘I will. Who was in charge of the case?’

‘Speranza. Never seemed very in charge to me,’ she said with bitterness.

It sounded like a good lead. I looked at her and wondered if she was strong or honest enough to talk about her husband as something other than just a victim. I assumed that if he had bought the place he had had some hand in lighting the fires and making the threatening calls. I tried to ask the question as tactfully as possible.

‘The man who sold his prosciuttificio to your husband was subjected to arson attacks and threatening phone calls.’

‘So I heard,’ she said curtly.

‘Did Luciano ever talk about that?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not possible.’

‘What’s not possible?’

‘That Luciano would ever threaten anyone. If anything it was the opposite.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Luciano was getting some heat himself.’

‘Meaning?’

‘When he sold the place on, a man came round here,
shouting at him, threatening him, calling late at night. That sort of thing.’

‘Who was it?’

She shrugged.

‘Did you ever see him?’

She nodded.

‘And you would recognise him again?’

‘Of course,’ she said quickly as if the question were stupid.

‘What did he look like?’

‘An accountant. He didn’t look like the normal kind of thug.’

‘And what did Luciano do?’

‘He laughed it off. Said it was nothing, just some sfigato who was jealous of our success.’ So far she had confirmed what I already suspected. Masi was being tipped off about lucrative land deals. But he couldn’t make the purchase himself. His name was too well known. If he had stepped forward to make a deal, everyone would have known land was about to be redesignated and he would have had to pay through the teeth. So he was using frontmen. They bought the land and then sold it on to him. Masi had to trust those frontmen to sell at the price he wanted. But when Tosti found himself the proud owner of valuable land, he had started to think he had finally made it. He was dreaming of zeros in his bank account and had tried, like many before him, to take them to some sandy beach abroad. That’s why, presumably, he had taken a hit.

‘How much money did your husband make on the deal?’

She looked up at me as if she didn’t understand.

‘It must have come to you when he died.’

She shrugged.

‘So?’

‘He left me almost a hundred thousand.’

‘You’re a lucky woman,’ I said with more sarcasm than I intended. It was the wrong thing to say and she stared at me with scorn.

‘I’m a widow. I have no home and my son has no father. I don’t want that money. I don’t know where it comes from or where it belongs.’

‘So why not give it back?’

‘To who? To the first person who threatens my family? To someone who might be responsible for my husband’s death? Who should I give it to?’

I didn’t say anything. She stared at me with her large black eyes as if it were my fault. I couldn’t give her a reply. She pushed back her thick hair and growled a sigh.

‘What do you think I would rather have? My husband or the filthy money that cost him his life?’

I nodded, not needing to reply to the rhetorical question. ‘Before all this happened,’ I said slowly, ‘had you ever heard of Amedeo Masi? Did Luciano ever talk about him?’

She shook her head brusquely like it was all useless. She was looking at the floor and I took the chance to study her face again. It seemed on the cusp between beauty and sadness. Her large, dark eyes were framed by a permanent, almost imperceptible, frown.

‘Where did you meet him?’ I asked quietly.

She didn’t move, but started smiling slightly. ‘Monteleccio.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Somewhere in the Apennines. A tiny town way up in the
mountains.’ She looked at me and then stared at her hands. ‘We had gone there for some sagra. I can’t remember what it was. Some cheap wine and food festival, and a couple of friends and I had nothing better to do. He was in the queue behind us with a few of his friends. You know what it’s like. They were talking and joking, we were pretending to ignore them. In the end we sat at the same table and things just went from there.’ She closed her eyes, like she was trying to see the whole scene again. ‘I should get back,’ she said abruptly, as if she were embarrassed at having wasted time in useless reminiscing.