Death in Tuscany (19 page)

'Let the best man win!'

'Go all the way along the Via Roma and stop when you see the Carabinieri,' Ferrara said to the driver. He was still furious.

The villa was not hard to spot. The Carabinieri were guarding it, as he had expected. But there was no point stopping.

Above the high perimeter wall rose a canvas barrier stretched over steel scaffolding, which completely blocked the view. He decided he would have to come back.

11

Despite flashing his light and sounding the siren, it took Ferrara more than an hour and a half to get back to Headquarters. On the way, he received two phone calls. One was from Petra, whom he told everything. The other was from Rita Senesi, and he told her he hadn't heard from Massimo either, but he was looking into it and she shouldn't worry. As a piece of advice it was as stupid as it was pointless, but he did not yet feel like filling her in on what had happened, communicating his own anxiety to her, when she was already anxious enough.

He himself had called Fanti, but he wasn't in. He had then asked the switchboard operator to get him the phone number of
Il Tirreno.
He spoke first to the local news editor, without much success, then to the chief editor, who confirmed that OP did indeed stand for Claudia Pizzi. But she was out on a job that day. He finally managed to obtain her mobile and home numbers. She lived in Carrara. The mobile seemed to be switched off, and when he tried her home number all he got was an answering machine. He left a message, asking her to call him back.

He was still beside himself when they finally got to Headquarters. He hurried along the corridors like a cyclone, screaming 'Fanti!' before he had even crossed the threshold of his office.

No reply from the sergeant.

'Fanti!' he repeated, entering the office and walking to his desk. 'Where the hell is he hiding himself?'

It was clear that the sergeant wasn't in his office. What Ferrara found instead was a note telling him that he would be away all morning checking various things -
It's almost three in the afternoon!
he thought - and that Dr Francesco Leone had called twice.

'Of course!' he said to himself in a low voice. 'Operation Stella.' He had forgotten all about the dead girl. But he called Leone, perhaps in the secret hope that he had discovered something which would miraculously solve the case, leaving him free to devote himself to his missing friend.

'Thanks for the report, Doctor. It's been very useful.'

'Don't mention it. And I have something else to tell you about the girl.'

'Stella,' Ferrara said.

Ah, was that her name?'

At that moment, Fanti returned, waved to him in greeting, and went into his room to switch on the computer.

'No. I don't know. That's what we decided to call her.'

'Good for you! Well, Stella wasn't an addict, that's definite.'

'How do you know?'

'From the analysis of the hair and the toxicology tests, which we've just finished. In habitual drug users the drug leaves a deposit on the hair; hers was as pure as an angel's. Same thing when we tested the bile and liver samples, neither of which showed any trace of addiction. She was clean, Chief Superintendent. But the bile and liver did show the presence, although in minimal traces, of benzoylecgonine, the metabolite of cocaine - which indicates that at about the same time she consumed opiates, the girl . . . what did you call her?' 'Stella.'

'Right. . . Stella had also taken cocaine.' 'Confirming what you found in the mucous membranes of the nose.' 'Precisely'

Ferarra could distinctly hear Fanti tapping away at great speed on the keyboard of the computer in the next room, through the thin walls.

'So she was drugged and raped.'

'That's for you to establish. I supply the facts, you make the deductions.' 'Anything else?' 'Isn't that enough?' 'More than enough. Thanks, Leone.' 'Just doing my job.'

There was a knock at the door while he was still replacing the receiver.

'Fanti, who is it?' he cried, and immediately added, 'Fanti! Where were you before?'

The sergeant ran to the door, then back to Ferrara's desk.

'It's Chief Inspector Violante, chief,' he said, looking pained and worried.

'Send him in, but first do you want to tell me where the hell you've been?'

'Checking up on Palladiani, chief,' Fanti replied. 'Like you told me,' he added, almost under his breath.

'Oh, I see. Good for you. What did you find out?' 'Several things, chief.' 'Go on.'

'Now? What about Chief Inspector Violante? Anyway, I'm still collating the material. If you like, I could prepare a preliminary report. It'll be ready in half an hour at the most.'

All right. Send Violante in, and bring me the report as soon as he's gone.'

'Okay, chief.'

'Good afternoon, chief,' the inspector said, sitting down. 'Do you think so?' Ferrara replied.

'I'm sorry?' Violante said, not understanding, or more likely not hearing.

Ferrara raised his voice. 'I said, do you think it's so good? Not to me it isn't! Never mind - do you have any good news for me?'

'Well, chief, we were in touch with the phone company several times this morning and finally got a reply from them.'

To get himself back on the wavelength of the Stella case, Ferrara looked through Violante's correspondence with the Prosecutor's Department and with the phone company. He noted that Anna Giulietti had sent copies of everything to her colleague, Deputy Prosecutor Erminia Cosenza, who was dealing with other overdose cases being investigated by Narcotics. This at least cheered him up: he knew how important it was for prosecutors to coordinate their investigations, since even apparently unrelated cases sometimes turned out to have something in common.

'Good. Go on, I'm listening!' he said to Violante, who had been waiting while he read.

'Whoever made the call made it from a public phone booth a few hundred yards from the place where Stella was found, quite close to a bar, which was still closed when the ambulance arrived. A five-thousand-lire phone card was used for the call. The phone company have supplied us with the serial number.'

'That's good. Have you identified the owner?' 'Unfortunately, not yet. There are no names on phone cards.'

'I know that, Chief Inspector, but they're made to be used.'

Violante gave him a blank look.

'You have to put in another request immediately'

'Go on, chief.'

'We know for certain that the call was made at 6.45 a.m. on July twenty-ninth. We need the records of the phone booth to see what calls were made just before and just after that one.'

Violante was starting to understand. A few years earlier Ferrara had managed to identify the killer of a prostitute in that way. But in that case the killer had stupidly telephoned his wife and then his victim just before going to see her and killing her, whereas now they were dealing with a single emergency call.

'Just before and just after, chief, meaning . . .?' At least half an hour before and half an hour after,' Ferrara said.

'Okay. I'll get on to it right away, but it may take a few days, maybe even a week, before we get an answer.'

It was true: it could well be that long, because it took several days for the phone company's computer data to be completely updated. Worse still, if the technicians at the phone company thought the police were investigating some trivial case - nuisance calls, something like that - they took even longer.

'I know, Violante. But the sooner you put in the request, the sooner you'll get the answer. You just have to keep on at the phone company, keep reminding them this is a homicide investigation.'

All right, chief,' Violante said, making as if to stand up. 'Wait, I haven't finished.'

'Go on, chief.'

'We also need the records for the phone card. We need to know if the caller used it before or after, which phones he used it from, and who he called.'

'Okay, chief.'

Violante left the room.

Fanti came in and handed him his report. 'Would you like a coffee, chief?'

It was only then that he realised he hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day. The Carabinieri hadn't even had the courtesy to offer him a coffee!

'Why not?' he replied, forcing himself to smile and take advantage of this break to try and relax. 'And see if you can get me a sandwich, too. But I want a good coffee, okay, Fanti?'

As always, chief,' Fanti said, withdrawing to his own office.

The taste of Fanti's coffee tended to vary. Whenever Ferrara had remarked on this in the early days, Fanti had tended to reply with an enigmatic smile, like someone who knows a secret he has no intention of revealing, even under torture. Then one day, he had yielded to Ferrara's insistence and had explained that he used different blends, from different manufacturers, which he then blended before putting in the filter. A blend of blends: that was the secret and the reason for the sometimes alarming variability of the coffee he so thoughtfully served to his chief.

His secretary really was unique, Ferrara had thought, with a laugh. He was lucky to have found him, because he couldn't have invented someone like that.

Cheered by that memory, he opened the file. He was still immersed in it when Fanti returned with a ham roll and the coffee. The sergeant did not dare to interrupt him. He almost tiptoed in and carefully placed the tray on Ferrara's desk.

Ferrara continued reading as he ate and drank. The coffee was bland and slightly watery.

UGO PALLADIANI/SIMONETTA PALLADIANI NEE TONELLI - COLLATION OF OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS AND REPORT