Death in Sardinia (33 page)

‘This is Dante,’ the old man said in his basso voice.

‘Dr Pedretti, do you remember me?’

‘Greetings, Inspector! It took me a moment to answer because I couldn’t find the telephone.’

‘How are you?’

‘Like the leaves on the trees. And you?’

‘Not bad, thanks. What are you doing for Christmas?’ Bordelli asked.

‘I haven’t given it any thought yet.’

‘Would you like to come to my place tomorrow evening? Ennio will be serving French dishes.’

‘I couldn’t ask for anything better.’

‘Then I’ll expect you tomorrow evening around half past nine.’

‘
À demain, Commissaire
.’ Only two days remained until Christmas. Streets in the centre of town were full of people and money. Bordelli still hadn’t found a present for Rosa and was beginning to feel a little anxious about it. He told her he’d already bought it, when in fact he was still at sea and simply couldn’t think of anything acceptable. He’d thought of getting her a new blender, but it seemed to him like the sort of gift a husband would give. A pair of slippers? Perfume? The ring of the telephone interrupted his meditation. It was Piras, speaking softly and seeming excited.

‘What’s happening, Piras?’

‘Nothing serious yet, Inspector. But I’d like you to do me a favour.’

‘Why are you speaking so softly?’

‘I don’t want my parents to hear.’

‘What do you need?’

‘I need some information on a man. I want to know everything you can find about him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘It’s a bit too complicated to explain, sir, and anyway, I can’t really talk.’

‘Hang up, and I’ll call you back, so your parents won’t have to pay,’ said Bordelli.

‘Thanks.’ Piras hung up and the inspector called back immediately.

‘How long do you think it’ll take, Inspector?’ asked Piras.

‘I’ll get on it straight away. What’s the man’s name?’ Bordelli asked, searching for a pen.

‘Agostino Pintus. He’s an engineer. Born at Custoza di Sommacampagna, Verona province, on 16 July 1912, but his parents were Sardinian. He now lives in Oristano, at Via Marconi 33 bis.’

‘Don’t you want to tell me even a little about him?’ Bordelli asked, his curiosity aroused.

‘Wait just a second,’ Piras whispered. He left the phone on the little table and went to see where his parents were. His father was already out in the field, and his mother was in the courtyard behind the house, washing sheets. In winter she couldn’t go down to the river, and it was a rather long operation in which she had to wash the linens with ash in a large earthenware washtub. Going back to the phone, Piras thought that one day he would buy her a washing machine. He picked up the receiver.

‘Here I am …’

‘Don’t start me worrying, Piras.’

‘Have no fear, sir.’

‘Who’s this Pintus?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘I have all the time in the world, Piras,’ the inspector said, suppressing the desire to light a cigarette.

‘He’s an engineer who wanted to buy a parcel of land from Benigno. They were negotiating but hadn’t yet agreed on the price …’

‘Nothing strange about that.’

‘Wait. I went to talk to the lawyer in charge of the negotiation. He’d just succeeded in arranging a first meeting between Pintus and Benigno the same Sunday as the suicide, a few hours before Benigno killed himself. And he told me something …’ Piras then told the inspector what he’d learned from Musillo, repeating all the details of that failed encounter. ‘The lawyer told me that Benigno had seemed to be in a good mood when he arrived, and that the moment he saw Pintus, his expression changed.’

‘As if he’d recognised him,’ said Bordelli.

‘Well, if that’s the case, they could not have been very good friends.’

‘I’m starting to get curious myself, Piras …’

‘I have to find out who this Pintus is as quickly as possible, Inspector. Something might turn up.’

‘I’ll send out some telexes straight away.’

‘Thanks, Inspector, and happy Christmas, by the way.’ Piras hung up, and when he turned round he saw his mother standing in the kitchen doorway.

‘Has something happened?’ Maria asked, brow furrowed.

‘No, no, nothing’s happened,’ said Piras, hopping towards the clothes stand.

‘What are you doing, Nino? Has something bad happened?’

‘No, Mamma, stop worrying.’

‘You must never hide anything from me, Nino,’ said Maria. The matter was taking a dramatic turn. Piras put on his coat and smiled.

‘I’m just trying to help a friend find a job, up in Florence. But I’m trying to keep it quiet … there are certain things a policeman isn’t supposed to do.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all, Mamma.’

‘Swear it,’ said Maria. Piras looked her straight in the eye.

‘I swear,’ he said, thinking that any god would have forgiven him. His mother went up to him and stroked his face.

‘I only want what’s best for you,’ she said with a sad smile. Piras couldn’t stand that whingey tone of hers. He sighed.

‘Apart from these crutches, I’m fine, Mamma. Don’t make that face,’ he said with irritation. Then he felt guilty and kissed her forehead.

‘God bless you,’ she said.

‘I’m going out for a walk,’ Piras said. He went out of the house and headed in the direction of Milis. Trying at first to advance on one crutch alone, he decided it wasn’t time yet. The usual children were playing in the road. There weren’t many of them in Bonarcado. Almost all the young people moved away to work in the cities or in Italy proper. There weren’t even many people around the age of forty. Many had died in the war and in German labour camps.

Round about three o’clock, Bordelli parked in Via dei Benci, near Rosa’s. He’d already had telexes sent to the police headquarters of Verona and Oristano, and only had to wait for the replies. A fine rain was falling, but to the west the sky was clearing. The medieval façade of San Miniato, at the top of the hill, looked as if it were lit up with floodlights.

The inspector hardly ever called on Rosa at that hour, but that day he had a good reason. He hadn’t yet bought her a present, and he had to come up with something quickly. It was a serious problem that had to be resolved before evening. He hoped that going to see her might suggest something to him, perhaps when he saw what she had in her flat, or if she mentioned something she liked. But he had to take care not to show his hand. It was a difficult mission.

Before going up to Rosa’s he stopped to have a coffee at the bar next door, which belonged to Carlino, a former partisan fighter who was still angry at the way things had turned out.

‘Ciao, Carlino.’

‘
Eia eia alalà
, Inspector.
²⁵
I feel like I’m back in the old days,’ said Carlino, hands on the counter. Two big hands full of ‘Fascist scars’, as he called them.

‘I wouldn’t paint it so black,’ said Bordelli.

‘It’s blacker than a coal miner’s lungs, Inspector. The other day in the newspaper I saw the picture of an MP from the MSI, and you know who it was? A little Fascist from Salò who used to shoot women and shake his bum behind Pavolini … And now I see him in the paper making speeches about social policy.’

‘What’s so surprising about that, Carlino? We’ve had Almirante since ’46.’

‘We should have killed them all on 26 April, Inspector.
²⁶
Fuck the so-called pacification. Togliatti was a bleeding fool.
²⁷
The bastards will be back sooner or later, and they’ve already tried several times. One fine day we’ll find the doors to Parliament locked and a general on the telly …’

‘Let’s hope not, Carlino. But if it does happen, it will only mean we have to get busy again.’

‘Coffee, Inspector?’

‘Thanks.’ While preparing the coffee, Carlino kept on raving against the things he didn’t like about Italy … Which was everything, except for the women and the wine. Bordelli found it amusing. It pleased him to see that not everyone had forgotten. Carlino might exaggerate at times, but there was always something sound behind his arguments.

‘It’s on me, Inspector,’ Carlino said, setting the little cup down on the counter.

‘Thanks.’

‘But there’s one thing I have to tell you: I’d be a happier man if you weren’t a policeman,’ said the former resistance fighter.

‘You always say the same things, Carlino.’

‘I must’ve picked up the habit watching TV.’ Bordelli gulped down his coffee and found himself mysteriously with a cigarette in his hand.

‘Going up to see Rosa?’ Carlino asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Give her this.’ Carlino handed him a pink rose in a pink pot, the whole thing wrapped in pink paper. Bordelli would never have imagined that a permanently pissed-off woodsman like Carlino could think of such a thing, and he made an admiring face.

‘It’s not from me, Inspector. A whore friend of Rosa’s left it with me,’ said Carlino to clarify.

‘Ah, I see …’

‘I gave her a bottle of grappa.’ Now it all made sense.

‘’Bye, Carlino, have a good Christmas.’

‘You too, Inspector, though the best Christmas we ever had was in ’45,’ the barman said, putting the empty cup into the sink.

‘Did you like the cake, monkey?’

‘Loved it.’

‘I made it with my own two hands.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Just look at this lazybones …’ Rosa said, going towards the cat. Gideon was sleeping with his head turned upside down and his hind legs dangling off the edge of the chair. Rosa picked him up and laid him against her neck like a baby, then held him in the air and swung him around the room without the animal moving a muscle, then set him back down in the same place she’d picked him up. The cat slept through the whole thing as if nobody had touched him.

‘It’s almost revolting,’ said Bordelli.

‘I was the same way when I was a child. You could throw me out of bed and I wouldn’t wake up,’ Rosa said with a giggle. Then she filled two glasses with
vin santo
. Bordelli lit his sixth cigarette … or maybe it was already his seventh. He had to remind himself that he’d decided to quit. He would pay more attention starting tomorrow.

‘Shall we have one of my cigarettes?’ Rosa asked, with a naughty, childish smile.

‘I’d probably better not, at this hour. I have to go back to the office.’

‘But we
will
smoke it next time …’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s no fun alone,’ she said, shrugging.

Bordelli looked at her and tried to imagine her as a little girl. He pictured her at age ten with her lips smeared with lipstick and wearing her mother’s high heels.

‘What are you doing for Christmas, Rosa?’

‘What are
you
doing?’

‘A dinner with old friends.’

‘Jerk. You could have come here with us.’

‘Who’s us?’

‘Five women, all fabulous cooks,’ said Rosa in an alluring tone.

‘I would only get in the way,’ said Bordelli, crushing his cigarette butt in the ashtray.

‘What a lame excuse …’ said Rosa.

‘Anyway, I would feel awkward in the company of five women.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was the same way even as a child.’ Rosa sniggered.

‘And what were you like as a child, Inspector?’

‘Always sad and snotty-nosed.’

‘You must have been so cute … I can picture you, you know. With scabs on your knees …’

‘Shall we have another little glass?’ he asked.

‘I’m not used to it at this time of day. I already feel drunk.’

‘You’d rather make me drink alone?’

‘Poor dear …’

Rosa filled his glass, then sat down on the carpet in front of the coffee table and started writing the last of her gift tags. She tried to think of something funny, perhaps mischievous, for each. She would stare into space and concentrate, then giggle and start writing. Gideon woke up, jumped down from the chair and walked slowly into the kitchen to eat. The inspector kept looking around for an idea for Rosa’s present, but felt more confused than ever. A corkscrew? A cup? A succulent plant?

The cat returned full of energy from his snack. He played a little with a Christmas-tree bauble and almost made it fall. Then he changed his mind, leapt up on to the sideboard and approached a ceramic fruit bowl. Rosa looked up.

‘Gideon, leave the hazelnuts alone,’ she said in the tone of a mother scolding her son. The cat stuck a paw into the bowl and, after a few swipes, made a hazelnut fall out, then knocked it off the sideboard and headed off in pursuit of it. He started dashing round the room, swiping at the nut and sending it off in every direction.

‘That’s become a bad habit of his,’ Rosa said with resignation, still writing her gift tags. Every so often Gideon would stop, circle round the hazelnut with apparent indifference, then pounce anew on that strange little ball, batting it away and then running after it. Bordelli watched the scene in amusement, hypnotised by the sound of the hazelnut rolling across the floor, pursued by that sort of miniature white bear … He was falling asleep, glass in hand, eyelids drooping, head falling to the side. All at once he started snoring.

‘Did you know I’m taking tennis lessons?’ Rosa asked, slapping him lightly on the head. Bordelli gave a start. He opened his eyes and realised the glass in his hand was gone. The cat was no longer playing, having gone back to sleep in an armchair.

‘Eh?’ said the inspector, dazed. Rosa was sitting beside him, sticking her fingers in his ears.

‘Look at all this hair, monkey.’

‘Come on, that hurts.’

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘I think I heard something about
tennis
. Where’s my glass?’

‘Here, monkey, you were about to spill it all over yourself,’ said Rosa, handing it to him.

‘Rosa, if I didn’t have you …’ he said. Rosa kept touching his ears and giggling.

‘Do you think I’m too old for tennis?’

‘Old? You’re still a child …’

‘Liar! At any rate, Artemio says I have a natural talent.’

‘Who’s Artemio?’

‘My teacher.’

‘Ah, well, if he says so …’

‘He’s also a good-looking lad.’

‘Then he must be a champion.’ Bordelli imagined Rosa running across a clay court in stilettos, arms jangling with bracelets, and started laughing.