Deadly to the Sight (31 page)

Urbino and the Contessa had coffee in the cafe across from the hospital. The equestrian statue of Colleoni in the middle of the square, with its powerful image of a past age of forceful action, seemed to mock Urbino's confusion and hesitancy. It would have been an appropriate time to tell the Contessa what he had learned since they had last talked things over. He wasn't ready for that, however.

“I didn't hear any more clearly than you,” the Contessa said.

She had been staring at him silently from time to time as soon as they had sat down. It was obvious that she knew he was keeping things to himself.

“But I have faith in you. You'll make some sense of what he said. You'll make some sense of it all.”

What he caught in her voice was not so much a note of encouragement, however, but one of consolation.

18

Urbino turned his back on the scornful gaze of Colleoni and walked to the Piazza San Marco through the gray morning. The Contessa, sensing his need to be alone, had taken the boat back to the Ca' da Capo-Zendrini.

The chill air did nothing to clear his mind. It was still a confusing swirl. He stepped into the Basilica. The great church was empty, except for a scattering of tourists, one lone worshipper, and a man behind his easel. He seated himself in one of the wooden chairs.

The darkness and dampness of the church suited him, almost as much as it did on summer afternoons when he slipped inside to escape the hot light of the Piazza. He stared up at the vaults and into the various niches where the curved, mosaic figures against their golden background seemed to beckon and greet him familiarly. This morning they seemed a strange and impossible combination of the molten and the angular, the hollow-eyed and the observant, the faded and the brilliant. In all directions, his eye was being benevolently tricked.

He walked slowly over the uneven, undulating floor, both looking and not looking around at all the richness, both thinking and not thinking about all the things he had learned since the Contessa had found Nina Crivelli's body. He visited every corner of the church, and then began his circuit again.

He paused this time behind the young man at his easel. He had set it up outside the Baptistry. His painting was flat and dull, despite everything that he had to inspire him. Urbino was reminded of Habib's paintings that glowed with primitive life, although, perhaps wisely, Habib had never attempted to capture the Basilica.

Urbino checked his wristwatch. He had been in the Basilica for nearly an hour. It had seemed but a few minutes.

He went into Florian's and declined the invitation of some friends to join them at a table. He fortified himself with a glass of wine at the bar, and then went out into the gray day again.

He walked between the two columns of the Piazzetta and around the Ducal Palace to the Riva degli Schiavoni. The island of San Giorgio Maggiore, floating serenely and improbably in the Basin, was gradually left behind as he skirted the edge of the Castello quarter.

He went over, yet again, what he thought Polidoro had said. As he passed the Church of La Pietà where Vivaldi had written most of his work, his thoughts about noses became absurdly mixed up with Vivaldi's prominent one.

Surely, both he and the Contessa had misheard Polidoro. As he went down the Ponte del Sepolcro he asked himself over and over again what he could possibly have meant by referring to a nose.

Wrapped in reflections as impenetrable as the fog that was starting to come in from the Lido, he drifted past the Gothic Hotel Gabrielli Sandwirth where he and the Contessa sometimes came in summer to refresh themselves in the English rose garden. It wasn't until he had walked for ten more minutes that he realized his steps were taking him in a direction he hadn't been conscious of. He was going to Sant'Elena. He needed to talk with Jerome again.

19

This realization made him quicken his steps, but his only reward was to get no response after knocking on Jerome's door for several minutes. He called out Jerome's name. Either he wasn't there or he didn't want to talk to him. Urbino remembered how frightened he had been.

But Jerome would have to talk, Urbino said to himself as he went to the boat landing. He hoped he would find him at the language school, but if he didn't, he was determined to camp out in front of his apartment block, despite the weather, for as long as it took until the Senegalese either went in or came out.

Fortunately, Urbino didn't have to take this desperate measure. Jerome was in front of the school, darting nervous glances. He caught sight of Urbino. He looked as if he was about to bolt down the nearby
calle
. Urbino dragged him into the bar next to the school and pushed him into a chair, before seating himself across from him.

Jerome's face was drawn and ashen.

“I know you're afraid, Jerome. You'll continue to be afraid as long as you keep silent. And you'll feel guilty. Think of Habib. Hasn't he been a good friend to you?”

The young man put his head down.

“You have no choice but to tell the truth, to me and then the police!”

“The police!”

His head snapped up. Fear gleamed from his eyes.

“Yes. It's the only way to help yourself and Habib. The photographs, Jerome. You did give Giorgio photographs of yourself, didn't you?”

Something seemed to collapse in Jerome. He put his face in his hands. The waiter chose this moment to come over to their table. Urbino ordered a bottle of mineral water and waved him away.

“I'm right, aren't I, Jerome?”

“Yes,” he said in a defeated tone.

“And some of the other students as well?”

He nodded.

“What about Habib?”

“I don't know. I don't think so.”

“Giorgio promised you false identity papers and a passport.”

“But I never got them! Never! So I am innocent of anything bad.”

Urbino let this pass.

“Was a lot of money involved?”

“Too much. My brother sent it to me. He is a merchant in Dakar. But he did not know the reason! He will not be punished, will he?”

“Your brother did nothing wrong.”

At this, Jerome stared at him, tears brimming in his blue eyes.

“But I have, yes. I will be punished.”

“If you tell the police the truth, the punishment will be less severe. It might be forgotten about completely. But if you remain silent, you definitely will be punished.”

“You will tell?”

“I have no choice. Habib is in prison. They think he murdered Giorgio!”

Jerome broke out into rapid French that Urbino couldn't follow. The waiter brought the mineral water and two glasses.

Urbino poured out a glassful for the both of them. Jerome gulped his down.

“The police will think that I killed Giorgio!”

“I'm sure they won't. Tell me, Jerome, was Giorgio the only person you were doing business with?”

“It was only to Giorgio that I gave the photographs and the money, but I saw him speaking sometimes with a lady. I think I saw him hand her a photograph of someone. She put it in her purse very fast.”

“What did she look like?”

Jerome gave a fair enough description of Regina Bella.

“Come on. We're going to the police.”

20

Based on Jerome's testimony, and that of three other students, the police brought Regina Bella back from the clinic near Florence three days later. A thorough search of her apartment turned up incriminating documents that she had attempted to conceal, but not cleverly enough.

According to Corrado Scarpa, Bella confessed to having been involved in a lucrative traffic in false documents and passports, not only at Habib's language school, but two others in Venice and one in Milan. Financial difficulties had led her into the hands of a Milan-based group involved in smuggling and human trafficking. She had been put in contact with Giorgio, ostensibly during a vacation on Capri. Illness was forcing Ugo Mazza, who was a member of the group, to retire. Over the previous three years Giorgio had gained experience with transporting and collecting money from illegal immigrants, most of them from North Africa and Albania. An injury to his foot during one of these transactions was the mundane explanation for his limp, which so many women, including Bella, had found a touch romantic.

Bella had shown some ingenuity that hadn't gone unremarked by the group when she learned that Oriana was going to Capri. With Oriana's flirtatious manner and her eye for a handsome man, the rest had quickly fallen into place. Giorgio had been established at the Ca'da Capo-Zendrini, a position of trust and mobility that would make his and Regina's work all that easier.

Obviously enough, Habib had been particularly good prey. If they played their game well, they had hoped to benefit, through him, from Urbino's resources and perhaps those of the Contessa. To this ultimate end, Giorgio had calculatedly befriended the trusting Habib.

Bella also admitted that she had attacked Frieda in order to retrieve the photographs. When Giorgio had told her about the other envelope, which he had taken by mistake from the kitchen, she had realized what had happened.

One thing that she was adamant about, however, was that she had had nothing to do with Giorgio's murder. She had gone to the clinic because she had been emotionally exhausted in the days after his death and fearful for her own life. She knew that her relationship with him would eventually be exposed because they had grown careless.

They had found Giorgio's murderer, she said, and it was Habib. Perhaps someone had helped him. Giorgio had complained to her about Habib's impulsive behavior and his sudden, late-night visits to his apartment.

She claimed that no one associated with Il Piccolo Nettuno knew about her activities. Despite what Urbino had told Commissario Gemelli the previous week, the topic of Nina Crivelli hadn't been pursued.

In the opinion of the Questura and the Substitute Prosecutor, Habib became a stronger suspect, and he would continue to be detained. Along with what Bella had said against him, the revelation of the traffic in false documents did him absolutely no good, despite his denials.

And so Habib remained in prison.

21

“She's lying,
caro
,” the Contessa said two evenings after Regina Bella's confession as she and Urbino sat in the
salotto blu
. “She killed Giorgio. It wasn't Habib.”

“It's no good, Barbara. Your heart isn't in it.”

Urbino had brought her up to date on everything he knew, including Habib's assault on the Spaniard and his desire not to have Urbino visit him in prison.

“My heart
is
in it. But my mind, my mind! When everything looks black, am I to tell myself it looks white? Are you?”

“I know the way things look. And I know that you're on my side, and that means you're on Habib's.” He brushed his hand across her cheek as he got up to go to the liquor cabinet. “You're right. Bella is lying. She's lying about Habib and probably a lot of other things.”

“Lying about not having killed Nina and then Giorgio to cover it up, or for some other reason!”

“I wish I could believe that, Barbara. It would make things easier. If only it were true! But I can't delude myself into believing something just because I want to.”

She held his gaze until he looked away and poured himself more wine.

“But doesn't it make complete sense,” she went on, “that Nina discovered what Regina and Giorgio were up to and was trying to get money from the both of them?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “And also that Nina wanted to sell you information against Giorgio. It fits in with everything she said to you, and with the way she became cautious and nervous when he walked into Santa Maria Formosa. She could have been taking the fullest advantage of what she knew.”

“Which led her to her death,” the Contessa said flatly. “That's what you should be arguing with Gemelli to get Habib out of prison.”

“I'm well aware of that, but I just don't feel that it will come to anything. And then it will only be the worse for Habib. No, Barbara, I have a feeling, an intuition about this—”

“Feeling!” she cried out. “Haven't we had enough of feeling? Isn't it time to look at things in the cool light of reason? Isn't that what you've always done?”

“I know what you're thinking, that my feeling for Habib is blinding me, but something else is going on here. Regina didn't kill Giorgio or Nina. You're forgetting about the attack on Polidoro. How does that fit in? He appears to have been bludgeoned, just as Giorgio was. Whoever attacked Polidoro most probably also killed Giorgio.”

“But Nina wasn't bludgeoned to death! You're making a big mistake.”

“It won't do any harm to assume that I'm right. If Bella is the murderer, she's already locked up.”

“If she isn't, then the murderer is free to strike again.” The Contessa nodded. “Well, perhaps there's some method in your madness. The police aren't going to be any help. They aren't even considering that the two deaths are related, or that Nina was murdered. You have an advantage over them.”

“Cold comfort.”

They turned to speculations about what Polidoro had said, or what they thought he had. They soon reached a dead end.

Noses
and
conflicts
—or
wells
—didn't add up to anything as far as they could see. Urbino theorized that Polidoro could have been referring in shorthand to fisticuffs with his assailant, whose nose he might have hit.

“It's a possibility, but it's like too many others,” the Contessa said. “Unless we know exactly what he was saying, it's like the telephone game children play. By the time they get to the last child the word or sentence can mean the opposite of what it started out as.”

As Urbino walked back to the Palazzo Uccello through the dark, deserted alleys, he tried once again to rearrange the various pieces in different combinations. Sometimes they grouped themselves around Salvatore, at other times Frieda, Beatrix, and Marie. He was stymied, yet at the same time he felt that if he had only one more piece, or if he were able to see one of the pieces he already had in the proper light or at the proper distance, he would have the answer he needed.