Converging Parallels (16 page)

“We let her sleep,” Giovanni nodded.

“So when did she wake up?”

“Half an hour ago. We’ve called for the doctor—but I managed to wake her.” She glanced at her hand and its grey, dirty fingers. “I slapped her, you understand. Just enough to bring her round. But it was getting late and it’s high time that I went home. My husband doesn’t like me home late.” She looked at Trotti. “Beppo recognized her.”

“Beppo?”

“That’s me.” Another driver, small and wiry, with a friendly face, humorous wrinkles at the eyes. “I came in on the Piacenza run. I saw the girl sleeping and I recognized her. I used to know Ermagni.” The corner of his mouth implied that Ermagni was not a happy memory. He shook his head. “Poor little girl.”

Trotti crouched in front of the child. Her eyelids were heavy and there was no flicker of recognition. She was still half-asleep. Her body was slumped forward and she had difficulty in keeping her head upright.

“Get an ambulance—quickly.”

Magagna was standing beside him. “It’s coming.”

For a while, nobody moved, nobody said anything. Trotti stared into the young, drugged eyes and he was aware of the smell of spilled gasoline. Then in the distance he heard the wail of the ambulance.

He stood up.

“N
O
.”

Trotti was driving, one hand on the steering wheel the other holding the door. His elbow leaned through the open window and caught the breeze. Saturday morning, seven o’clock; the streets were empty as he drove through the city center. A vigile urbano stepped into Strada Nuova; he wore a pudding bowl crash helmet and his large motorcycle was parked diagonally across the road. He was about to flag Trotti to a halt and then he caught sight of the sticker fixed to the windscreen. He saluted; he was wearing lace-up leather boots that went almost to his knees.

The bars and shops were beginning to open.

“I looked for you but you weren’t at home and nobody knew where you were.”

Ermagni sat on the back seat. His eyes were bloodshot and he had not shaved. But there was hope in his eyes. He raised his body from the dirty upholstery. “I was asleep. At home. I had been drinking.” He added lamely, “Too much, perhaps.”

“I thought you were on nights.”

“Not always.” He clicked his teeth. “Are you sure she’s all right?”

“She’s still suffering from the sleeping pills—but otherwise she’s okay.”

“Sleeping pills?”

Trotti looked at the man’s eyes in the car mirror. It was
difficult to believe that this was the man whose wedding he had been to only a few years earlier. His face was drawn and the skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor. The uncombed hair revealed a fast receding hair line. “She’s sleeping them off.”

Ermagni hesitated. “Did they—have they …? Is she, well …?”

Their eyes met in the mirror. “You must ask the doctors.”

They pulled over the railway bridge just as the Milan train came into the station; Trotti caught sight of the station master with his blue peaked cap and red baton.

The hospital porter recognized Trotti as they pulled into the courtyard and he nimbly saluted. The flowerbeds were still damp with the morning dew.

Trotti parked the car and they went into the main hospital building, up a flight of stairs and along an endless green corridor. Trotti’s legs ached; he had slept for just over four hours. One of the doctors—a young man with stainless steel glasses and a matching stethoscope—had unlocked a whitewashed room and he had slept on the high bed that smelled of chlorine until Magagna had come to wake him at six.

“This way.”

They went up some more stairs and then through two pivoting doors, along a dark corridor until they came to a door where a policeman sat. He was staring at his shoes—they were spotlessly clean—and Trotti had to shake him by the shoulder before he came awake. He jumped to his feet and saluted clumsily.

“The girl?”

“She is sleeping.”

“Lucky girl.”

The policeman took a key from his hip pocket and was about to unlock the door.

“Wait.”

“I want to see my daughter,” Ermagni said.

“The doctor will be along at seven thirty.”

“I must see her. Let me touch her. She’s my daughter.”

“I know and that is why we haven’t notified the grandparents yet. I wanted to speak with you first.”

“Let me see her.”

“In a minute. Sit down.”

He pushed a wooden chair towards Ermagni and the large man allowed himself to fall onto the imitation leather seat. Tears had formed at the corner of his eyes. Without looking at Trotti he asked, “Is she safe?”

“Don’t be stupid, of course she is safe.” He placed a comforting arm on Ermagni’s sleeve. “Now tell me, has anybody been in touch with you? Has anybody contacted you?”

Ermagni shook his head.

“No messages? Nobody’s approached you?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“I was asleep. Last night I went to bed early and I didn’t wake up until you arrived.” He continued to shake his large head. Strands of spiky dark hair stood up on the back of his scalp.

“Do you have any friends in the area of Alessandria?”

A look of surprise. “Alessandria? I’ve never been there.”

“In the vicinity? Do you ever go that way? Friends, acquaintances? Do you ever take your taxi out that far?”

“Why should I?”

“Answer my question.”

“I’ve told you—I never go there.”

“Anna was on the Genoa-Milan bus and she got on it yesterday at about seven o’clock. At Albana—which, as you know, is just into the Province of Alessandria. The driver says that she was waiting at the bus stop with a man. A well-dressed man, with mustache and glasses. He paid for Anna’s fare and then got off.”

“Albana’s off the main road.”

“That’s right. The bus makes a short detour to drop off passengers.”

Ermagni shrugged. “I’ve been to Genoa often enough—I sometimes get customers who can’t be bothered to wait for the train—it’s usually in the afternoon when there are no trains for a couple of hours. But I don’t think I’ve ever stopped in Albana.”

“Or in the immediate area?”

He ran his hand across his forehead. “When Anna was little,
when she was very little, we used to go up into the hills on Sundays. For a picnic and a day out.” He brushed a tear from the corner of his eye. “Further to the east. But coming back, rather than take the slow roads, I’d sometimes head for the autostrada. We’d get on it at the Albana intersection.” He paused. “In those days, the autostrada wasn’t expensive.”

“Where’d you go for your picnics?”

“Anywhere—nowhere in particular.” He was about to say something, but there was the sound of shoes on the corridor floor and he looked up. The doctor appeared from around a corner. He was bald and wore white shoes.

“Can I see my daughter?” Ermagni had stood up.

The doctor smiled. “But of course,” and he stretched out his arm towards Ermagni’s large, stooping back.

“Is she all right?” Trotti asked.

“No problem,” he said breezily, nodding towards Trotti. “No problem at all. She has not been touched, I can assure you. All the tests are negative—we had to check of course, even though there was no sign of blood or bruising. No problem.” He gave Ermagni a large, professional smile. “She’ll be a bit comatose for the next twelve hours or so. She’s still under the effect of the sleeping drugs. What I don’t understand is how she managed to get on the bus unaided.”

“The bus driver says that a man helped her; she was unsteady on her feet.”

The doctor looked at Trotti with interest. Then to Ermagni, “But her system’ll soon clean itself out. Have faith in the human body.” He nodded to the uniformed policeman, who, after a quick glance for approval from Trotti, unlocked the green door.

Ermagni pushed his way past and in a strange, ambling run, headed towards the bed.

A vase of bright roses had been placed by the bedside and the red and yellow petals were lit up by a shaft of morning sunlight.

T
HE
Q
UESTURA SEEMED
almost empty.

They ate breakfast in silence. Magagna had phoned the bar opposite, and ten minutes later, the thin-shouldered boy, his white waiter’s jacket mysteriously dirty even this early in the morning, had brought over the tray; a pot of coffee and a pot of milk. It was not yet nine o’clock; another hot day. The pigeons were already cooing among themselves.

Wisps of steam rose from the coffee pot. Magagna, who was sitting in the canvas chair that he had positioned close to the desk, dipped the end of a croissant into his bowl of coffee and then, like a juggler with a cricked neck, brought the food to his mouth. He ate noisily; coffee dribbled on his chin.

Trotti felt feverish and his eyes ached; but the food, croissants, rolls and butter, made him feel better. While eating he looked at the papers,
Corriere della Sera
and
Provincia Padana
. In neither was there any mention of Anna. The
Corriere
published a photograph of the Red Brigades’ Communiqué Number Nine. He read the political jargon and snorted.

There was a portrait of the Socialist First Secretary on the front page of the
Provincia
. He was reading a speech and looked like an absent-minded professor with his half-frame glasses. In the circle of light cast by the photographer’s flash, there were several local dignitaries, including the mayor, Gaetano Mariani.

Magagna leaned forward and poured more coffee into his
bowl. “It doesn’t make sense.” He nudged at the thin-framed sunglasses. He needed a shave; his civilian clothes were grimy and crumpled after a night at the hospital. “Kidnapped and then returned safe and sound two days later … without a ransom.”

Trotti did not reply immediately; he stared at his left hand that lay motionless on the front page of the
Corriere
. He frowned, trying to concentrate, trying to getting his mind to work. His vision was slightly blurred. He drank some more coffee.

There was dampness at the end of Magagna’s mustache. “If they wanted money—if that’s why they kidnapped her—there was no reason to release her.”

Trotti looked up. “You remember Martini in Naples. A case of mistaken identity. It’s happened before.” He shrugged, drank more coffee. “Ermagni’s not rich. Anna was perhaps mistaken for another child. Another girl whose parents are a lot richer.”

Magagna clicked his tongue. “Via Darsena’s not the sort of place where rich kids go. And anyway,” he said, looking over the rim of the bowl, “that wouldn’t explain why Anna went with a man, apparently of her own accord, when we know that she’s a shy kid. And when they kidnapped her and they phoned the
Provincia
—it’s on the tape—the man knew her name. He knew all about her.”

“He could have got information from Anna herself.” He paused. “It’s possible that Ermagni’s richer than he admits—but I don’t think so. Where would he have got his money from? More likely that the kidnappers wanted to put pressure on the grandparents. They’re not poor and since the mayor closed the city to traffic, there has been a boom in the bars and restaurants. More shoppers coming from out of town. And the San Siro has the added advantage of being right on the edge of the pedestrian zone.”

“You think somebody is trying to pressure Rossi, perhaps? Pressure him into selling?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“But it doesn’t explain why they telephoned the
Provincia
. Whether they wanted money or simply to put pressure on Rossi, they would have wanted to observe a certain amount of secrecy.” Magagna went on, “And twenty million, by today’s
standards, is nothing. Peanuts. Even Paul Getty would have paid that.”

“Telephoning the newspaper certainly doesn’t make sense.”

“None of it makes sense.” Magagna heaved another dripping horn of a croissant into his mouth and, speaking through a mouthful of wet dough, added, “No sense at all.”

Trotti rubbed his hands against his face. His voice muffled, he asked, “What did Anna say?”

“You were there. You heard.”

“Later, when the doctor put her to bed. Did she say any more?”

The younger man shook his head. “You heard everything, both last night and this morning. She couldn’t remember much, poor kid. A woman who was nice to her and a man who was gruff.”

“It was with him that she left the gardens?”

“She couldn’t remember the gardens. Nothing at all. But she remembered that it was the same man who took her to the bus stop at Albana. He gave her sweets, she said—probably sleeping pills. And she never saw the woman because they put a bandage round her head and she couldn’t see a thing. They kept her in bed and most of the time she slept. The doctors reckon they must have pumped her full of sleeping pills and it was when she was in a semi-comatose state that the man took her to the bus.”

“Why did she leave the gardens?”

“You heard her; she couldn’t remember anything. The only memory she has—apart from sleeping—is the angels. But the doctors say that this is quite normal—an illusory effect of mild drugs, probably due to a ringing in the ears. Something to do with blood pressure.”

Trotti said, “It could have been a radio. Or perhaps somebody singing. Angels, and on the tape there was the sound of bells.”

“She could’ve been kidnapped by her recording angel and taken to the pearly gates of heaven. Perhaps Saint Peter put her on the bus at Albana.”

The phone rang.

Trotti picked up the receiver.

“Papa?”

He smiled. “Pioppi. You’ve just woken up.”

“You didn’t come home last night and I’d prepared some gnocchi.”

“We’ve found the child.”

“Congratulations.” Her voice was distant. “It’s Saturday, Papa, and you did promise me—you remember—that you’d come with me to church tonight. I am singing in the choir.”

“I’ll try—I promise you I’ll try; but I am busy.”

“It’s a long time since we’ve been to church together, Papa, you’re always busy. But without you, I’m lonely here. Alone in the house, without you and without Mama.”

“No news?” he asked, almost against his will and trying to keep his voice normal, matter of fact. “Nobody’s phoned?”