Death of a Showgirl (14 page)

I caught up with Mori eventually at Tony Vespa’s house. I went round there as soon as I left Biondi’s place and saw two cars in the drive. One was the same convertible that had been there before, but now there was another car, an old, dented Fiat that looked out of place.

There was no reply to the doorbell. I tried to look through the shutters but they were all lowered. I rang the doorbell once more but nothing happened. The side gate was closed so I scaled it and walked down the path that went down the side of the building. There was another gate at the end of the path and I jumped that too, landing on the terrace in front of two large glass doors. I saw two startled people sitting on the sofa there. The man, Vespa, suddenly stood up and pulled a gun, aiming it from his hip through the glass. I put my hands up and he moved towards me, pulling open the sliding door with one hand as the other kept the pistol on me.

Behind him I could see Simona. She was holding a screwed-up tissue in her two hands. Her eyes were red as if she’d been crying and her hair looked wet and dishevelled.

‘You again?’ Vespa looked high, like he was getting off on adrenalin. His eyes were excited and he was glowing with weird energy.

‘I’m here for the girl.’ I nodded the top of my head in Simona’s direction.

‘She and I are just having a little chat. You’re intruding.’

‘You normally chat with a firearm?’

‘You should see what happened to the last intruder.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I took a step closer to him, but he raised the pistol and smiled maniacally.

‘A man burst in here threatening me and my property. I had to defend myself.’

‘Who? Mori?’

‘I didn’t have time to ask his name. Ask him yourself.’

‘Where is he?’

‘You can see his feet just there,’ he waved his free hand behind him, ‘he’s having a lie down.’

I made a move to walk past him and stopped. I wanted to see if he was twitchy with the rod, but he let me past. I walked into the room and saw a body lying parallel to the sofa. His limbs were at unnatural angles and his whole chest area was wet with brown blood. I didn’t need to look twice to know it was Fabrizio Mori. His long, grey ponytail was splayed out behind him. I looked across at the girl. She was in shock, rocking backwards and forwards and muttering odd phrases that made no sense.

‘Simona,’ I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m here to take you home.’

She looked at me with scared, wide eyes. She looked like a trapped animal. I knelt down beside her.

‘Simona,’ I whispered, ‘I’m here to take you home.’

Her breathing was rapid and uncontrolled. ‘Home?’ She looked at me with scorn. ‘Back to my parents?’

Mori had clearly told her everything, that she wasn’t who she thought she was. It didn’t surprise me. It would have made him appear more honest than her own relatives. It would have persuaded her to stick with him. But now she wasn’t only in the throes of an existential crisis, she was also traumatised by having witnessed close up someone getting whacked.

‘Simona,’ I said, but she was pulling at her hair and moaning.

Vespa’s woman, Basia, came in, saw Simona and went and sat next to her. She pulled Simona towards her with an arm round her shoulder. With her other hand she started stroking the girl’s hair. They were rocking together now, making a low moaning sound – one traumatised and the other soothing.

I walked over to Vespa, who had his hands on his hips as he looked out across his parched, yellow lawn.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘That man barged in here, started threatening me. I had to defend myself.’

‘And defend Di Angelo?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were defending his empire. Mori was blackmailing him and you dealt with the threat.’

‘I told you. I defended myself from an intruder.’

‘You think she’ll confirm that?’ I flicked my head towards Simona.

‘Sure. She’ll confirm it. Of course she will.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You weren’t here.’

‘I know what happened.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know what happened. Mori checked into the Hotel del Fiume because that was the only way he knew how to get a message to Di Angelo. He knew it was a dive, but he remembered who the owner was from when he used to go there in the nineties. He checked into the hotel with a special guest and sent a message up the chain of command that he had Simona Biondi, the girl who could prove that Di Angelo was running a prostitution ring to skew viewing figures. Di Angelo set you on Mori’s case, told you to find him, which is how you and I became friends, right? Eventually Mori got hold of you and you were spooked. This could bring down the whole house of cards – your paymaster’s political career could be over. His business empire would be broken up. So you arranged to meet Mori here. You wanted to set up this story about an intruder. He knocked on the door, you invited him in and it was easy. A twitchy finger on the trigger and you packed him off to eternity. Problem solved.’

He stared at me, trying to guess my price. ‘What exactly is it you want? Are you selling your silence the same as Mori?’

I held his stare, interested to hear him open negotiations.

‘I can give you what you want,’ he said. ‘Anything you want.’

‘Tell me about Anna Sartori.’

He didn’t say anything.

‘Did you pack her off as well?’

He chuckled quietly to himself as he shook his head. He still seemed intoxicated by what he had done. He was looking at the pistol in his right hand, turning it over so he could feel its weight and see both sides.

‘I don’t care about what went on,’ I said, watching the polished wood of the grip in his hands. ‘The inflated invoices, the fake viewers, the call girls and escorts. Not interested. I want to know what happened to Anna Sartori.’

‘Yeah, me too. She never showed.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Listen, she was a hustler the same as Mori. She was trying to throw mud at a man who likes to keep everything clean. She was sounding off about this and that, the same as that stiff on the carpet.’ He flicked the pistol in Mori’s direction. ‘Di Angelo told me to sort it out, to give her a pay-off. I was just the studio fixer – I sourced girls, sorted problems, smoothed feathers. And there are lots of feathers in TV, believe me. I went round there, he opened his safe and gave me a shoebox of cash.’

‘So?’

‘I went round to the hotel to wait for the girl.’

‘Del Fiume?’

‘Right. That was where I tended to do business. It was quiet and out of the way.’

‘How well did you know her?’

‘Well enough. She had been around the fringes for a while, always pestering me for a role on screen, a chance to step onstage with the chorus girls. I heard she was about to get taken on until Mori started touting around snaps of her pleasuring men. I sell dreams, but he stole them. That girl was distraught. Di Angelo heard she would have done anything to get back at him or at us. That’s why I needed that cash. Truth is, I was a bit apprehensive. I had been ordered to buy her silence, but you can only do that when someone’s prepared to sell it. I figured if she was that distraught she might go public whatever we offered her. And then the whole operation would collapse. We would have had the authorities crawling over us like maggots over a corpse.’

‘What did you say to her then?’

‘She never showed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She never showed up. I waited in that wretched hotel for two hours, having my ear bent by that loser who runs the place. I stood in the foyer all that time, expecting that girl to show up, but it never happened. I phoned Di Angelo who told me to wait some more, so I did. But eventually I gave up, drove round to his and gave him back the money.’

He told the whole story with resentment rather than self-justification. Like he was still annoyed, after almost twenty years, that he had been stood up. I looked at him closely, trying to detect deception, but he seemed, for once, on the level.

‘You never saw her? Never touched her?’

He shut his eyes, shaking his head as he smiled. ‘I told you. That’s not my line. Go talk to that old guy at the hotel. He’s still there the last I heard. He’ll put you right.’

‘And you’ve no idea what happened to her?’

He shrugged. ‘Probably one of her men got jealous. She was the sort of girl who could arouse the passions from what I heard.’ He sneered nastily like he was letting his imagination freewheel.

He saw me sizing him up and smiled. ‘You still think I’m in the frame?’

‘You killed Mori. You’re not exactly Padre Pio.’

‘Listen,’ he said, suddenly serious. ‘I’ve done lots in my life. Haven’t always been a giver, I’ll admit. I’ve broken hearts and broken careers. I’ve made a lot of money out of peddling dreams. I’m no angel, I’ll give you that, but that girl’s not on my conscience.’

‘What about Simona? If she doesn’t confirm your version, you’re looking at a couple of decades behind bars.’

He nodded with a carefree smile. ‘She’ll confirm it.’

We both looked over at her. The two women were static now on the sofa, still hugging but motionless. Simona was staring at the wooden flooring as the older woman stroked her hair.

‘She’ll confirm it,’ he said again.

I was surprised by his confidence. His fate was in the hands of an unstable young girl and if she didn’t tell it the way he wanted, he was finished.

‘You’d better call the authorities,’ I said.

He pulled out his phone. I heard him describing the break-in and the threats.

I walked back into the room. I stood in front of the two women and caught Basia’s eye.

‘She hasn’t said a word,’ she said.

I put a hand on Simona’s shoulder, but she was immobile.

‘Simona, you’re going to have to answer a few questions for the authorities, then I’m going to take you home.’

She said nothing, but looked up at me. Her eyes were red and her cheeks looked swollen and blotchy. Vespa had finished his call and came in behind me. He sat down beside Simona. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on his thighs.

‘Detective,’ he growled, ‘give us a couple of minutes.’

I walked outside and stood by the pool. The water was lapping at the smooth marble surround. The area smelt of chlorine and wet soil and cigarette stubs. I heard footsteps behind me and saw Basia walking towards me.

‘He’s offering her the dream,’ she said with derision. Her accent was foreign, but subtle.

I looked back at the two of them sitting on the sofa side by side. Vespa was talking and talking, and Simona was drying her eyes, even laughing slightly as he whispered in her ear. He was talking her out of her shock, persuading and cajoling and she was responding like a newborn to the bottle.

‘Which dream?’ I asked Basia.

‘He’s offering her what all those girls want. She’s going to get a screen test. A trial in the studio.’

Anna had abased herself for years in the hope of getting that break, and now Simona was going to walk straight in just for toeing the line. I stood there, watching the water for a few minutes as glinting hexagons bounced across the surface, forming and reforming. I called Biondi.

‘I’ve got Simona,’ I said. ‘She’s safe, but in shock. She’s seen some stuff.’ I told him she would have to make a statement to the police and that I would bring her round after that. He seemed almost grateful.

The authorities turned up and started asking the obvious questions. They took photographs and measurements and asked the same questions again. They wanted to know how Mori had got in, how he had threatened Vespa, what Vespa had been threatened with. Vespa had a reply for everything: he was precise, deferential, regretful. Once they had got the preliminaries out the way, they called for back-up and we were all taken to the Questura for interrogation. We were there for hours. The same questions, the slow tapping of keys by disgruntled office clerks, the forms to sign. The dark night slowly gave way to dawn. When it was all over, Vespa and Simona exchanged kisses on both cheeks like they had a deal.

Simona slumped in the passenger seat of my car and curled up, pulling her knees up to her chest so that her shoes were on the seat itself. I reached round and put the seat belt over her.

‘I’m taking you home.’ I put the keys in the ignition.

‘I don’t want to go back there.’

I let go of the keys, leaving them hanging as I turned round to face her. ‘Your parents have been very worried about you.’

‘They’re not my parents.’

‘They’ve looked after you all your life.’

‘I’ve spent half my life looking after them. I’ve been a nurse and a waitress.’

I could understand her anger. She had been the perfect daughter only to find out that she wasn’t, in reality, the daughter. And that she wasn’t perfect either.

‘Would you rather I took you to Chiara’s house?’

She was staring blankly out of the windscreen. Her face was immobile.

‘What did Mori tell you?’ I asked.

‘He said that Chiara is my mother. That she got pregnant when she was turning tricks.’ Her voice raised slightly hysterically, as if incredulous. ‘So she got rid of me, gave me to her parents and started her own little lovely family.’

‘You’re part of that lovely family.’

‘I’m not part of any family.’

I twisted the keys and the engine kicked in. ‘Me neither,’ I said.

We drove in silence. I went slowly, hoping that she might fall asleep or calm down before I took her home.

When we eventually got to the Biondi villa she groaned. I parked outside.

‘I’m paid to bring you in,’ I said. ‘I’m like a bounty hunter and today you’re my bounty.’

‘This is what you do, is it?’

‘This and that. I’m hired by people with problems.’

‘And I was your problem?’

‘You were. Now I’ve got another one.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Come on. Let’s go in. You don’t have to stay; you’re old enough to leave.’

Reluctantly she got out of the car and came with me to the gates.

‘It looks like a prison,’ she said to herself.

‘Biondi,’ I said when he came on the line. ‘It’s Castagnetti. I’ve got Simona.’

The gate started opening and within seconds the front door was open and Biondi was walking quickly towards us, his wife in his wake.

Simona didn’t move towards them. She stood next to me muttering something under her breath. They slowed down as they got closer, seeing her reticence. Their smiles froze and they turned their attention to me.

‘Thank you,’ Biondi said, shaking my hand with two of his. There seemed to be tears in his eyes. His wife started to hug me and I could smell the familiar scent of booze on her breath. Then they moved on to Simona, hugging her and kissing her as she stood there with all the warmth of a lamp post.

We walked into the villa together. I felt uneasy. The whole place seemed fake now. Before it had felt empty, as if the precious daughter had been snatched away. But now it was simply phoney, an unreal family reunion in which the relatives needed to admit their real relationships. Simona, with all the honesty of an angry adolescent, realised how phoney it all was and was rigid with contempt.

‘Darling,’ Giovanna said, bringing Simona into the hall, ‘you must be famished. What do you want to eat?’

Simona shrugged and didn’t reply.

‘Let me look at you,’ the woman kept fussing. She took Simona’s face in her two hands and held her there. ‘My darling girl.’

‘But I’m not your girl, am I?’

Both Biondi and his wife froze. Biondi tried to fudge the issue. ‘No, you’re not a girl any more. You’re a woman. We should treat you like one.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Simona, her spite rising the more the charade went on. ‘I’m not your daughter. You’ve lied to me all my life. You’ve never been honest with me.’

Giovanna began to mutter something to herself. She was beating her chest and her head with her palms, the way you see mothers mourning at a child’s funeral. And that, perhaps, was what this was. Simona was no longer their daughter and it had finally sunk in. Biondi was trying to say some soothing words, but Simona was just looking at him and shaking her head. She took the well-trodden exit of all angry adolescents and stormed up the stairs to her room. As I watched her disappear, Biondi slumped in a chair by the hall table. He was staring at the floor with a glazed, melancholy look in his eyes.

‘What did you tell her?’ he asked in a hissed whisper.

‘I didn’t tell her anything. Mori did.’

‘I’ll kill that bastard.’

‘Too late. Someone’s already done it for you.’

He looked up at me briefly, and then went back to staring at the floor. I listened to his heavy breathing as his wife got herself a refill. We listened to the sound of ice clinking in her glass as she poured her poison on top.

We sat in silence for a while. I had grown tired of his self-justifications. I knew that teenagers yearn more for honesty than protection. Throwing off protection is part of the rite of passage of becoming an adult, and poor Simona had discovered quite how much dishonesty there was behind that protection.

‘Mind if I go and talk to her?’ I asked.

He threw his head over his shoulder as if to say I could go up. As I walked up the wide staircase I could hear loud music coming from behind one of the doors. I knocked but got no answer. As I went in I saw her lying face-down on her bed. I turned down the volume of the music and she rolled over to look at me. As she turned on her side she pulled her knees close to her chin and wrapped her thin arms around them.

‘They’re not bad people,’ I said.

She shook her head, in disbelief or denial. ‘They’re my grandparents,’ she whispered.

‘They are, yes.’

She was still shaking her head. ‘Even now, they can’t admit it. They can’t be honest with me.’

‘Honesty’s a habit. They’ve got out of it.’

She smiled bitterly. ‘Telling me.’

I pulled up a seat and sat near her bed. I felt like a doctor with a patient.

‘Let me take you round to see your mother.’

She groaned, screwing up her face at the thought. ‘She’s even worse than them. My own mother and she never, she never . . .’ Her voice gave way and I saw tears falling down her perfect cheeks.

I put a hand on her arm and the contact only seemed to increase the flow of tears. It was like she was letting go of it all. Eventually, she pushed herself up on her bed and growled, staring at me through wet eyes.

‘Who are you anyway?’

‘I told you. I’m the detective your father—’ I stopped myself, ‘that your grandfather hired to bring you home.’

‘So why are you still here?’

It was a good question. I didn’t know myself. I avoided it and gave her one of my own. ‘You think honesty’s important, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do. Life’s nothing without it. Otherwise, it’s just lies and fantasy and make-believe.’

I nodded, giving her time to get self-righteous.

‘Can you imagine, never telling me who my real mother was?’

‘Or father.’

She looked up at me sharply.

‘Did Mori tell you about that as well?’

She shook her head slowly.

‘I saw him recently. He’s dying. He wants to meet you before he checks out.’

The grunt was one of disdain. She was shaking her head, still trying to come to terms with her confusion.

‘Honesty’s important, Simona. You’re right. Like you said, anything else is just lies. So tell me what happened between Vespa and Mori today. There wasn’t any self-defence back there. He killed him in cold blood.’

She was staring ahead like she wanted to avoid the conversation. ‘I told the authorities what happened.’

‘Told them the truth?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘Or did you tell them what Vespa told you to in return for a slice of stardom? Isn’t that what you want, to get a screen test as one of the showgirls?’ Her eyes were glazed over, as if she weren’t really listening to me any more. ‘I can understand that,’ I said. ‘You’ll be famous, a national icon courted by rich men, envied by your peers. Why not?’

She shrugged as if she didn’t want to answer.

‘But you’ll only get there if you lie about a murder. That’s quite a compromise. You see, it’s not as easy as saying the truth is important. That we always have to be honest. Everyone makes their own deals with deceit. Everybody has to blur fact and fiction. You can’t be too tough on the people you thought were your parents. They did what they did through an excess of love, out of a longing to protect you and nurture you. They lied, but because of love. What’s motivating your lie about Mori’s murder? Only ambition?’

‘I’ve looked after the woman I thought was my sick mother for years while her husband stood by and let me.’ She exploded. ‘They didn’t protect or nurture me.’

‘It didn’t work out the way they expected. But their motive was good. What’s yours? Ambition? Vanity?’

She looked away, reluctant to answer.

‘Come on, get up.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re going to have an honest chat with your mother. Your real mother.’

She stood up wearily and we walked down the staircase.

‘Where are you going?’ Biondi asked when we saw us turn the corner. ‘Where are you taking her?’

‘To meet her mother.’

We walked out of the front door, listening to his weak protests behind us. Simona didn’t say anything, but she didn’t protest. I walked round to Chiara’s place. The street was full of children and prams, people playing football between the cars. We rang the buzzer and the husband buzzed us in.

In the lift Simona was shaking her head. ‘I’ve come here thousands of times over the years, and now it feels like it’s the first time.’

‘You OK?’

She nodded. She looked tired but stronger somehow, as if the last hour had given her determination and grit. The doors to the lift slid open. Chiara was standing in the doorway of her flat, her face apparently prepared to cry or smile. Simona walked towards her and they hugged. I saw both their torsos bouncing as they cried, holding each other.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Chiara kept saying. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I decided to leave them together. I was just walking back to the lift when I heard a male voice behind me.

‘You found her, then?’ Chiara’s husband was right behind me, looking eager for information.

I nodded. I didn’t think it was my place to break family secrets, but I hinted at the surprise speeding its way towards him. ‘She’s come back rather different.’

He frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘She’s not the same person who went missing a few days ago.’

‘In what way?’ He was curious and concerned at the same time.

‘She’s different. The same girl, but very different.’

‘What did the bastards do to her?’

‘Nothing. They haven’t done anything to her. It’s something that happened years ago.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He and Chiara were one of those couples that surprised you: she seemed so beautiful and classy, and he seemed plain and ordinary. You suspected he either had hidden strengths or she had hidden weaknesses. Now her weak point had been revealed, he would have to prove that he really was strong. He was likely to find out that his wife had been the plaything of an elderly, rich businessman and that he was suddenly a step-father to someone he thought was his sister-in-law. I looked at his kind, dull face and wondered how he would deal with it or whether, deep down, he already knew.

‘You’d better ask your wife that question,’ I said.

He looked at me quizzically as we shook hands. I got into the lift and left them to it.