Death in Sardinia (22 page)

‘Does the name Buchenwald mean anything to you?’ he asked, fully expecting the answer to be no.

Raffaele looked at him and shook his head. ‘Treblinka, Sobibor, Birkenau, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Majdanek … I know every piece of shit that ever rained down upon the earth, never mind that we’re drowning in it. You Methuselahs think you know everything,’ he said all in one breath.

‘Methuselahs?’ Bordelli wondered, never having heard the word before.

‘Old fogeys,’ said Raffaele.

‘We all get old sooner or later.’

‘People like you and my father are old inside. Age’s got nothing to do with it. I see twenty-year-old kids who are older than my grandmother,’ Raffaele said disdainfully. Bordelli didn’t know what to say. It had never occurred to him that he might be
old inside
, and he tried to understand what this could mean. But, looking at Raffaele, he started to get an idea. The kid was made of a different
material
which Bordelli had never before seen up close. He wasn’t arrogant or offensive. He was just a young man full of anger and rancour, as if the world had done him a great wrong by not being the way he wanted it. Seen from the outside, he was very different from Odoardo, and yet the two youths had something in common. Perhaps it was their attitude. It was as if they never had enough breathing room, were disgusted by just about everything, and their patience was at its limit.

Tiny drops of rain started to dot the Beetle’s windscreen, and Raffaele slapped his thigh.

‘Fuck,’ he said in a low voice, thinking of the motorbike.

‘Pay close attention, Raffaele, it’s all very simple. A murder has been committed and I, unfortunately, am a policeman. You went to the victim’s house, and it wasn’t for a candlelight dinner. Badalamenti was killed on Friday the tenth. All I want is for you to tell me what you did that day, and if you have an alibi I’ll have to verify it … Does that seem so strange to you?’

The young man sighed.

‘I almost certainly spent the whole day with Guido, but I can’t remember exactly what we did minute by minute,’ he said, looking outside. Every so often a strong gust shook the car, as the wind gained in intensity. Pages of newspapers and plastic bags started to fly across the pavement.

‘Is this yours?’ Bordelli asked, taking out the ring found in Badalamenti’s stomach.

‘No,’ said Raffaele.

‘All right, then, I guess that’s all for now.’

‘I only ask that you don’t call on me at home. My parents would make a tremendous scene. And, at any rate, I’m always at Guido’s.’

‘So there wouldn’t be any problem if I came to your friend’s place?’

‘There’s never anybody there.’

‘All right.’

‘Now it’s my turn to ask you a question,’ said the youth.

‘Go ahead.’

‘Are you really so interested in finding out who killed that guy?’

‘It’s my job.’

‘Don’t you have a less banal answer than that?’ Raffaele asked, without malice. Bordelli thought about it for a moment. Not so much about what he should say, but about what words he should use. He was suddenly feeling anxious about not being
modern
enough. It was the first time this had ever happened to him. In his youth he’d been quite aware that his father had grown up in another era, but it was nevertheless an era he recognised.This young man, on the other hand, seemed to look at him as if he were from another planet. There was an abyss between them. Maybe it was all due to the fact that Bordelli had never had children and therefore didn’t know this new race from up close. But Raffaele was waiting for a less banal answer, and he had to give him one.

‘If we accept that it’s all right to kill arseholes, there’s a little detail that must be clarified at once: who decides which people are arseholes? It may all seem clear to you now, but things can change, as happened only a few decades ago … You said you know all about those things,’ said Bordelli.

Though it had come out as a little speech, the inspector felt he’d expressed the concept fairly well. He took a last drag and crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray. Raffaele sat for a few seconds in silence, thinking it over.

‘Somebody always decides,’ he said. Then he shook the inspector’s hand and got out of the car. It was still drizzling, but very little. The young man straddled the BSA, kicked the starter a couple of times, rolled off the pavement, and went off, raising the front wheel. He disappeared round the corner of Viale Volta, but the noise of the bike could be heard for a good few seconds more.

As he was driving on the bridge over Le Cure, the inspector thought of Baragli and felt his stomach tighten. He decided to go and pay him a visit. Every time he went there, he was afraid he would find him dying or already dead. Reaching the end of Via Lorenzo il Magnifico, he turned right. As he was driving down Via dello Statuto, he pulled out his cigarettes, and as he lit one he thought seriously about the possibility of quitting for good. He could do it; he only had to find the right moment. Or else he only had to stop making all these excuses and go cold turkey. But it wasn’t easy. Perhaps he could reach a compromise. Three or four cigarettes a day, and some exercise. If he’d been younger he would have gone back to Mazzinghi’s gymnasium and sparred a little, but at his age, he no longer felt up to it.

He drove slowly through the irritating drizzle, which forced him to activate the windscreen wipers every thirty seconds or so. If he left them on the whole time, the glass dried up at once and the wipers dragged noisily; if he left them off, after a few minutes he could no longer see anything. It was one of life’s little annoyances.

Halfway down Via Alderotti, he saw a man on the pavement walking briskly, hat pulled down over his eyes. He thought he knew him. Turning the car around, he drove past him again. It was him, in fact: Clemente Baroncini, known as

‘The Baron’, a con artist nobody’d ever been able to nab. A great one, in his way. The inspector stopped the car and got out. The man was coming towards him.

‘Hello, Baron,’ Bordelli said, accosting him. Clemente stopped dead in his tracks, looked him straight in the eye, and his face broadened into a smile.

‘Bordelli! What a lovely surprise!’

They embraced, slapping each other on the back. The Baron was tall and well built, and rather handsome.

‘You’re looking good,’ said the inspector.

‘You don’t look too bad yourself.’

They were on familiar terms, having attended elementary school together.

‘What are you up to these days?’ Bordelli asked.

‘Oh, nothing much, the usual stuff.’

‘Are you about to rob another dunce of his millions?’

‘Bordelli! You know well that there are certain things I don’t do any more,’ said the Baron, pretending to be offended.

‘Ah, sorry, I’d forgotten.’

‘It’s all water under the bridge.’

‘Of course it is … Did you hear about that Milanese collector who bought a fake Cézanne a couple of months ago?’ The Baron narrowed his eyes, trying to recall.

‘Yes, that does ring a bell.’

‘Sixty-five million,’ said Bordelli, raising his eyebrows.

‘Damn!’ said the Baron with a look of amazement.

‘You should have seen how angry he was …’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Just think, the gentleman was even a great connoisseur of art, especially French Impressionism. I do wonder how he could have fallen for it.’

The Baron was staring at Bordelli with a twinkle in his eye, but said nothing. The inspector was sincerely curious to know how it had been done. He couldn’t understand how one could so deceive an expert in French art. And if the unfortunate Milanese man could realise the Cézanne was fake after buying it, why not before? Bordelli would have paid a hundred thousand lire to know the whole story.

‘It’s not so easy to make a monkey out of an expert like that,’ he said.

‘I realise that,’ said the Baron, repressing a smile.

‘How would you have done it, Clemente?’

‘How would
I
have done it?’ said the Baron, with the same barely repressed smile in his eyes. Bordelli put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it amicably.

‘I know it wasn’t you … I’d just like to know how you
would have
done it, that’s all.’

‘I really don’t know,’ said Clemente with a satisfied air.

‘I’m sorry, you’re quite right. You’d really have to be a genius to pull off something like that.’ The Baron seemed stung by these words, and his smile vanished. His vanity was bleeding.

‘Well, actually, I can imagine
one
way it could be done,’ he said, massaging his chin. He knew he was giving in to a provocation, but he couldn’t help it.

‘How?’ asked Bordelli, feigning innocence.

‘Well, you would need two paintings, a real one and a fake … But a good fake, a fake with bollocks. At the first meeting, you show the sucker the real one, and then, at the moment of payment, you bring the fake, making sure to arrange the meeting in a room without good lighting. It’s a classic bait-and-switch, requiring manual skill and a touch of psychology. But it could work.’

‘And where did you— I mean, where
would
you get the original?’

‘I would borrow it from another collector, replacing it temporarily with the fake. And obviously on the sly.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand … If you’ve got the original in your hands, why not sell that?’

‘Well, in my case, because I’m not a thief.’

‘Ah, I see. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘But there might be another reason too.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Sentimentalism,’ said the swindler. They exchanged a glance of understanding and smiled.

‘Thanks, Baron, that’s a load off my mind. Got any plans for Christmas?’

‘I was thinking of going up to Paris. It’s quite a village. Apparently people sleep with chickens there … but I don’t know in what sense, so I thought I’d go and check.’

‘Keep the purse-strings tight, Baron. In Paris you can spend seventy-five million in a hurry.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind, copper.’

‘Take care of yourself.’

‘Ciao. I’ll send you a postcard from Montmartre.’ They embraced again and the Baron went on his way. Bordelli got back inside the Beetle and watched his friend in the rear-view mirror, giving him one last look.

Baragli looked well that day. Some colour had returned to his face, and he was no longer in pain.

‘I’m feeling much better, Inspector,’ he said. He was sitting on the bed, in excellent spirits, and more confident in his movements.

‘Maybe you’ll even be able to spend Christmas at home,’ said Bordelli.

‘The doctor’s against it, but if I keep feeling this way I’ll lower myself out of the window,’ the sergeant said. Bordelli was well aware that it was the morphine that made him feel that way. He looked at Baragli with the knowledge that these were probably his last days, and felt very sad.

‘Diotivede came by to see me today … and the moment I saw him I thought he’d come to cut me open,’ said the sergeant, smiling.

‘From him, it would be an act of friendship,’ Bordelli said to keep them both smiling, though deep down he wasn’t smiling at all. With one hand, Baragli reattached a corner of the adhesive bandage holding the needle of the intravenous tube in the hollow of his elbow, then looked up to see whether the bottle was empty, but in fact it was still half full.

‘And how’s our Sardinian boy?’ he asked.

‘He’s spending Christmas in Sardinia, but then he’ll be back, just wait and see.’

‘Is he still with the pretty Sicilian blonde?’

‘Apparently.’

‘What a beautiful girl,’ said Baragli, staring into space.

‘I agree,’ said the inspector. Baragli stopped smiling, leaned forward, away from the pillows behind his back, and brought his head close to Bordelli’s.

‘See that bed there, Inspector?’ he whispered, gesturing to the bed opposite his.

‘There was an old man there, no?’

‘He died last night,’ said the sergeant, raising his eyebrows and drawing a cross in the air. Bordelli sighed in commiseration. He really wanted a cigarette. He looked Baragli in the eye and tried to smile. It was embarrassing knowing more about his death than he did.

‘A game of cards?’ he enquired.

‘Sure,’ said Baragli, rubbing his hands together. He was in a good mood. The inspector took the deck and dealt, and they started playing.

‘Any news about the loan-shark case, Inspector?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Diotivede is certain the killer is left-handed.’

‘Well, if he says so …’

‘Anyone can make a mistake.’

‘Except Diotivede,’ said Baragli in a knowing tone.

‘I haven’t seen any evidence to the contrary,’ said the inspector.

‘Have you called on any of the people on that list?’

‘I’ve made a first round.’

‘You’ll have to be patient, Inspector.’

‘I’ve got patience to spare,’ said Bordelli. As they played he started telling Baragli about his visits to the usurer’s various debtors, going into considerable detail. Then he told him about the post-mortem and the ring. They both joked about it a bit. Baragli laughed and the inspector forced himself to laugh along, but he was feeling more and more dejected. Bordelli even told the sergeant about Marisa, and how the beautiful young girl had fallen for Badalamenti’s lies about the movies. Baragli shook his head.

‘Today’s kids want to do things too fast, Inspector. It’s as if they’re snakebitten.’

‘Maybe we just don’t understand them … Maybe we’re too old,’ said Bordelli.

‘Have you ever gone into one of those dance clubs where the kids go? I have, when I was on the job … You get a headache just watching them.’

The inspector also told him about Raffaele and Odoardo, again in great detail. He said that Raffaele was left-handed and could not remember what he’d done that Friday. Then he told him about his difficult conversation with Odoardo and his suspicions about the reticent and seemingly fragile youth. Thinking aloud, he said that putting a tail on either Odoardo or Raffaele, or tapping their phones, would probably serve no purpose, and the same was true for any other potential suspect. The murder was not the sort of crime that would be repeated. There wasn’t anything to keep watch over. Baragli listened to the inspector with the attention of a child. Bordelli fully satisfied his curiosity, and shook his head when he had finished.