Converging Parallels (25 page)

Trotti went back to his desk, sat down and opened the bottom drawer. He lifted the bottle onto his desk, unscrewed the top and poured colorless grappa into the lid. He drank. The slightly serrated edge of the lid cut at his lips. Two lidfuls. He shuddered, ran a hand through his hair and returned the bottle to the bottom drawer. He sat then for five minutes, staring out of the window
over the terracotta rooftops while the alcohol burned its way down to his stomach.

“Magagna.”

There was no sound in the corridors; just the pigeons, who did not know that it was Sunday.

He’s gone home, the lazy bastard, Trotti thought and, picking up the telephone, managed, after a long wait—seventeen rings—to get through to Central Operations. The woman spoke in a soft voice with a marked Milanese accent. He wondered whether he had ever seen her.

“About Pisanelli and di Bono.”

“Which extension, please?”

“This is fifty-seven. Trotti of Squadra Mobile.”

“Ah, you, Commissario.” She laughed.

“Can you tell me where they are?”

The line went dead while the woman made her enquiries; when she came back, her voice seemed distant. “Last report was at eleven o’clock.”

“Where from?”

The woman paused. “They were together. On the Piacenza road, at the riverside.”

“Nothing since?”

This time the phone squealed as she put her hand over the mouthpiece. Her voice was muffled; yet Trotti heard her mention the name Pisanelli.

There was a forgotten packet of sweets in one of the drawers. Tutti frutti; bright greens, reds and oranges and on the side of the packet, a couple of darkly printed lines, stating the artificial colorings. E 110, E 133.

“No further information, Commissario. Do you want me to contact you?”

“That would be very kind. Thank you.”

Then the woman said, “We don’t often see you these days, Commissario. You no longer eat here.”

“Things have been busy lately.” He felt embarrassed.

“A good-looking man like you.” She laughed.

He thanked her and hung up; he could feel that he had blushed
slightly. Then he stared out of the window while sucking on a succession of sweets.

It was another half-hour before Magagna tapped on the door and then put his head into the room.

“Where the hell have you been?”

He grinned, the hairs of his mustache stretching along the upper lip. His teeth were bright.

“Well?”

Magagna shrugged, still grinning. “Someone here for you.”

“On a Sunday?”

Magagna stepped back and the woman came into the office; smaller than Trotti remembered her and had it not been for the hair pulled back from the high, pale forehead, he might not have recognized her immediately.

“So I was right?” The corner of her lips gave the very slightest hint of a smile.

“Right about what?”

“When you came to the school, you told me you were a social worker but I can sm—I can recognize a policeman.”

While Magagna closed the door behind her and then hurried past her to usher the woman to an armchair, she looked at Trotti with her unblinking eyes. Unblinking and cold.

“Kindly be seated, signora.”

She sat down without looking at either Magagna or the chair. She was wearing corduroy jeans and she crossed her feet at the ankles and looped her arms about her knees, pulling them up towards her chin.

“You see.” Trotti gave her a brief smile and pointed at the piled folders, the dusty radiator, the scratched desktop, the various, fading wall maps, the threadbare armchairs. “This is where I work. A policeman—and I spend my weekends here.”

The grey eyes looked at him; they were devoid of expression.

“You have already met Brigadiere Magagna.”

Magagna said, “I met her at the main entrance. She was looking for you.”

Again Trotti smiled. “So you remember my name, signora?”

“It has been in the papers.”

“Ah.”

Magagna had pulled up an armchair beside her; now he was leaning forward, his hands hanging between his knees and his face towards the young girl. He was frowning slightly.

Trotti took a sheet of paper from one of the drawers and unscrewed a ballpoint pen. “How can I help you?”

She sounded surprised. “Help me?”

“A young married woman like you—I imagine you can think of better ways of spending your free afternoons than in the gloom of the Questura. You have better things to do. I know that I have.”

She pulled her knees closer to her chin. “It’s about Anna.”

“Then I think I should perhaps tell you that the affair is over.”

“Over?” Her head to one side.

“The child is back with her father.”

“You’ve found the kidnappers? You’ve got them?”

“I didn’t say that. No—we have arrested nobody. But because of the political situation, I am afraid we have more pressing things to do.” He watched her face carefully, looking for her reaction. “Anna is safe with her father—that is what matters most.”

“It’s precisely why I’ve come to see you.” She was wearing a loose checked woolen shirt, several sizes too big for her, with a worn collar. She took a packet of cigarettes—American, without filters—from the breast pocket and with a casual, strangely masculine movement, she flicked at the bottom of the packet. A cigarette jumped upwards and she set it in the corner of her mouth.

Immediately, Magagna had a flickering cigarette lighter in his hand. He held it to the end of the cigarette; the tobacco smoldered and came alight. She inhaled and thanked him perfunctorily. Her eyes remained on Trotti.

“Ermagni phoned me,” she said.

“What did he want?”

“Twice. He phoned me twice to make accusations. To tell me that I was responsible for the disappearance of his daughter.”

“He said that you kidnapped her?”

She shook her head. “No—but he said it was all my fault.”

“Your fault?”

She breathed on her cigarette and watched with worried disapproval as the two streams of smoke poured from her nostrils. “He phoned me last night. It must’ve been late and I was alone and about to go to bed. At first I didn’t know who it was—at first I thought it was my husband playing a joke. The sort of thing he does. The funny, gabbling voice and the strange accusations; it was only when I caught Anna’s name that I realized it was Ermagni.” She put a hand to her large, pale forehead. “My God, he’s quite mad. Neurotic, paranoid. He is quite convinced that everything that happens is directed against him—a universal plot and everybody is ganging up on him. Me, his father-in-law and you—he seems to think we have all mounted a fiendish plan together to take his daughter away from him. She hates him, he says, and it is our fault. We’ve all told her that he murdered his wife. His daughter is scared of him, it is our fault.”

Trotti was frowning. “Anna’s back with him. What more does he want?”

“It doesn’t seem to have stopped his drinking. He was offensive. He started calling me names and I hung up. He rang back and started to make threats.”

“What sort of threats?”

“He didn’t say—he just said that I’d be well advised to be careful—careful in the way I teach his child.” She ran a hand along her hair, following the straight, combed lines. “He feels guilty, of course.”

“In what way?” It was Magagna who asked the question. He looked from the girl to Trotti.

“About his wife.” She shrugged. “Perhaps he feels that he really did kill her; he’s trying to punish himself.”

“You don’t kidnap your own daughter to punish yourself.”

“No—but perhaps that’s how he interprets things. Divine retribution.”

“That’s all very well,” Trotti said, playing with the pen, “but it doesn’t explain why the girl was taken.”

“She was kidnapped,” Magagna said.

“Ermagni has not got any money.”

“Several million lire—a fling on totocalcio, a nice little holiday in Pescara, the best restaurants. I could do with several million.”

Trotti asked Signora Perbene, “He mentioned his wife?”

She nodded. “He always does.” More smoke from her nose. “He says that I look like her.”

Again Magagna spoke. “You think he killed her then?”

“She died of leukemia. You can’t drop leukemia pills in your wife’s cappuccino.” The hurried glance the young woman gave Magagna was far from flattering.

“You said,” Trotti went on, very slightly embarrassed, “that he made advances. Sexual advances, when his wife was in the hospital.”

The girl nodded.

Trotti tapped with the pen on the desk; for a few seconds he looked out of the window. The roofs were beginning to be ridged with the lengthening shadows of their own tiles. The pigeons continued their ceaseless cooing. “There is something in what you say. He couldn’t have killed his wife—that’s obvious. And anyway, he’s not a killer. A few days ago, he came round to my house and he had a gun that he pointed at me.” A dry laugh. “I knew he wouldn’t do anything. Too gentle. He was too gentle for his job in the police force. But it is possible—as you say—that he is trying to punish himself. Unwittingly. Or perhaps …” He stopped and put the pen to his lips.

“Yes?”

“Who took the child? Somebody must’ve done it. But so far, there is no motive. It was not for money. If we could find the reason for her disappearance, then we’d know where to look for the culprit.”

“You said the matter was over.” Signora Perbene’s eyes were sharp.

Trotti smiled. He continued. “Perhaps somebody wanted to put pressure on him. Why? I don’t know. A taxi driver, an ex-policeman, it is not as though he were in a position of importance or power. But it is possible that he told somebody how he felt—about his wife and how she had died. Somebody
who was close to him and somebody whom he thought he could confide in.”

“I don’t understand.” Magagna was still frowning.

“The way to blackmail was then clear. Blackmail him for what—I don’t know. But the way to do it was there. Ermagni believes that he was responsible for his wife’s death; by taking the girl, the kidnappers knew they could blackmail his conscience.” Trotti stopped; then brusquely, he threw the pen down onto the desk. “That’s where we’ll have to leave things for the time being.”

“You mean you have no wish to search for the kidnappers?”

“I’m afraid, signora, that I have to obey my orders. There are other more pressing occupations for this office.”

“And the threats to my life? Make no mistake, Commissario …”

“There are no threats to your life, Signora Perbene. Believe me.”

She unclasped her hands and let her legs down onto the floor. “It doesn’t matter, then, that this man can make threats, that he can make my life a misery. I’m just a woman—a silly, hysterical woman. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Signora, you are not silly and you are not hysterical.”

“Then what do I do, Commissario Trotti?”

Trotti stood up. He picked up the pen and screwed the top on tightly. “You go home.”

“And if Ermagni phones again?”

“If he pesters you, you tell him the truth. You tell him that you have been to the Questura and that you have spoken with me.”

Her eyes flashed angrily. “You are his friend.”

“Perhaps—but I am a policeman.” Trotti shook his head. “No, signora, you have nothing to be afraid of. I will do my duty.” He moved round the desk and approached her; she remained seated.

A knock on the door.

“However, I must repeat that the Anna Ermagni affair is over, for the time being at least.”

An appuntato who worked in Communications, a Sicilian. He put his head through the door; his face was pale.

“Commissario Trotti?”

“Yes?”

“Ah.” He seemed relieved. “I’ve been trying to get you on the phone. Your extension doesn’t seem to be working.”

“What is it?”

He pulled at his tie. “Somebody on the phone for you. Can you come down to take the call?”

“Who?”

He clicked his tongue, his head went backwards slightly. “A journalist. He said it was very important—something about the kidnappers having contacted him.”

T
ROTTI GOT HOME
at six and though his head felt hollow—three very strong cups of coffee at the offices of the
Provincia Padana
—he was nonetheless cheerful. Agnese’s small car was parked outside the garage and as he came up the stairs, he heard the noise of the television.

“Ciao, Papa.” Pioppi was sitting cross-legged before the flickering image, its light reflecting on her features. She smiled and as he bent over to kiss her, she whispered softly, “Mama is here.”

Agnese was in the kitchen.

She sat at the small table with her arm outstretched across the plastic top. In her hand, she held a glass that was almost empty. Small cubes of ice, the edges rounded, jostled against the moist sides. The liquid was red. A bottle of Campari stood in the middle of the table; a wasp worried at the open mouth and the spots of crystallized sugar. Propped against the bottle, the parish newssheet that Agnese appeared to be reading.

He noticed the ticking of the clock.

She was wearing a velvet dress that sloped down from one shoulder, revealing the brown softness of her skin and the gentle divide of her breasts. Her dark hair glistened; across the back of the kitchen chair, she had placed a stole.

He approached his wife and kissed her on the cheek.

Her hair smelled as it had always smelled and the memory of the elm tree by the river flashed through his mind.

“Buona sera,” he whispered.

She did not move. The motionless green eyes stared at the piece of paper; one hand was on her lap. He looked at her long, thin fingers.

“I’ve put a suit out for you.” Her voice was cold. “A suit that isn’t too shabby. And a shirt and tie. And I’d be very grateful if you’d polish your shoes—the black ones, of course. And you had better shower. You smell of the Questura.” She turned her head and at last the green eyes looked at him. “By the way, what do you want me to do with the pistol you left in the washing machine?” Before he could answer, she went on, “And for God’s sake, shampoo your hair. Don’t put on that wretched hair oil. It makes you look like a village gigolo.”