Gold, Frankincense and Dust (27 page)

“You’re a visionary!” Martini screamed, hissing like a
cobra. “You can believe anything you like, but she was no more than a common whore. She gave herself to one and all, and I’ll tell you something else. She had a great talent for getting men all worked up. She knew how to appeal to their weaker side, playing each one in a different way. She sniffed them out like a snake, and then drew them into her trap. I can’t help laughing at your portrait of her as a victim. A vulgar prostitute! A slut!” She was yelling at the top of her voice, all pretence at being
una vera signora
cast aside.

Soneri stared at her in consternation. At that moment for the first time he grasped just how venomous to each other women can be, and to a degree unimaginable in a man. Her eyes expressed infinite ferocity, and her snarling mouth twisted by hatred could have torn off chunks of meat with a single bite. The commissario took a step back when she screamed at him to get out of the office. He felt sick, and as he left he was glad once again to breathe in great, reviving gulps of fresh air. He felt himself growing lighter and lighter, less bound to life and for this reason more pitiless in his judgments of it.

He sat behind the wheel of his car and when he got to the turn-off for Via Spezia he contemplated for a moment which direction to take, Cisa or the city. He remembered it was time for lunch and thought it would be a waste of time to go looking for the sun when the sky would already be taking on the colours of dusk. In the mountains in winter, only morning counts.

When it was almost two o’clock, anxiety began to take hold of him again. He was still hoping for some communication from Angela, but he sensed that she would not call that day. He decided to go to Alceste’s, once again looking for refuge in food and drink. With a wry smile, he recognised that there was not much else available to him.

There were not many people there, but Sbarazza had had the luck to find one table which apparently three women had just left.

“You’ve chosen a place where there’s not much for you to eat,” Soneri said, coming up behind the Marchese.

“Man does not live by bread alone,” Sbarazza replied. “I was very taken by the lady who was seated here.”

The outline of her lips had been imprinted on the serviette in crimson, and Sbarazza gazed longingly at that trace of femininity. “I can smell her perfume and the seat still has the warmth and the very form of her body,” he said, as if in a dream.

The commissario smiled. The old man was one of the few people with whom at that moment he was happy to spend the afternoon. There was something profound and consoling in his conversation.

“I hear you’ve solved the case of that unfortunate Romanian girl,” Sbarazza said. “So did you finally draw the right card from the pack?”

“It did finally emerge, although I was on the point of despair.”

“You see? Never give up. Never lose faith.”

“For the last few days I had been thinking I would never get a good hand.”

“It’s when it seems that nothing can happen that chance does its work for us. Even at this moment while we’re here eating, absorbed with nothing more than flavours and scents, perhaps something which concerns us is occurring. A billiard ball rolling into a pocket can be the result of a thousand cannons,” the Marchese chuckled.

“Maybe you’re right,” Soneri said as a plate of
tortelli di zucca
arrived at the table. “Maybe something will cannon off something else in my path this afternoon and change the
prospects for me. This morning …” He tasted the first
tortello
.

“What happened to you this morning?”

“I was making for the hills when, on an impulse, I changed direction. I made a choice, there and then. If I’d gone the way I first intended, I’d have spent the morning quite differently. For a start I wouldn’t be here talking to you, and instead of having a plate of
tortelli di zucca
I’d be having a plate of
gnocchi ai funghi
.”

Sbarazza made a sign to him to stop. “Don’t go down that path. It’d be an infinite process and finish up in complete nonsense or with the conclusion that everything you do is wrong because there’s always a more promising possibility.”

“So? Is that not true to life?”

“I prefer to believe that if a choice has been made, there’s a reason for it. You could call it providence, or determinism, but in both cases our will is only in part responsible. The rest is something obscure that we are not permitted to know, whether it’s transcendent or immanent,” the Marchese declared, in philosophical mood.

“I deal with much more banal but all too human causes: money, sex and the passions which spring from them.”

“Those are only effects. Don’t muddle them. If you think about it, that obscure, pre-eminent cause which directs our lives conducts itself in such a way that killing or loving are, when all is said and done, on the same level of potentiality, but then, in time, the balls cannon off each other in a certain way and produce now one outcome, now the other, or both.”

The commissario savoured another
tortello
, and then muttered his dissent: “Do you know why I enjoy your company? You make me feel an optimist. I can’t resign myself to the thought that we’re all machines controlled from long range. Neither one of us can rule out the possibility that we might
become murderers, but the fact is that we are not. The majority of people are not.”

“From fear, only from fear. For a minority there’s also an element of awareness.”

“What is this awareness? Morality?”

“A conquest, a point of arrival. When someone in thought or deed falls to the very lowest point of humanity, he begins to be aware. Then and only then, after dabbling in evil, can he choose. Other people draw back from fear of the reaction which wickedness arouses, but life with its limitless sequence of possibilities could entice them to say yes to even the most nefarious acts.”

“Are you one of the fellowship of the aware?”

“Don’t you know I’ve done all sorts of things? And you too are a member of the fraternity, after all you’ve seen.”

The commissario smiled and got up. “I do see so much that is appalling,” he said, thinking of his most recent meeting. “And I see no end of it.”

“Seize every opportunity. You know what to do.”

“Well …” Soneri said. “I’ll go and face whatever the afternoon brings.”

*

The first thing was the authorisation to interview Medioli. Soneri arranged to see him in the evening, and hoped he had decided to talk. He was seeking some enlightenment on the world of the Romas. All those years spent in the caravans could not have been in vain.

The second thing to arrive was news brought by the beguiling policewoman who had made such an impression on Musumeci.

“There’s someone here who wants to talk to you. Looks like a gypsy,” she told him.

In the commissario’s mind, the Roma camp and the man asking to see him fused into one.

“Send him in.”

The man was dressed like the old peasants in the Apennines, in the modest but dignified elegance seen in ageing prints. He said his name was Floriu and he must have been in Italy for some time, for his Italian was fluent.

“You’ve come from Suzzara?”

The man nodded. “From the camp.”

“If it’s about the gold, you’ll have to go and talk to the carabinieri.”

“I know, but that’s not why I’m here. I’ve come about those two boys.”

“The ones in the B.M.W. stolen from Soncini?”

He nodded once again. “I wanted to tell you they had nothing to do with it. They were just showing off.”

“Are you the father of one of them?”

“No, but I’ll take responsibility for what has happened. I stole the car. I came to give myself up, provided you let the boys go free.”

“I doubt if it really was you who carried out the theft, and anyway the legal system does not allow exchanges of that sort.”

“They had nothing to do with it,” the man repeated forcefully. “The car was in the camp to be dismantled and sent off to Romania. There are lots of our people going there and back. They would have reassembled it over there. It’s the safest way, but those two pinched the keys and went out for a run. That’s all there is to it.”

“Are you telling me this to get revenge on some family enemy? Why otherwise would you give me a tip-off like this? To save two boys who’d be let out soon in any case?”

Floriu straightened up, betraying his embarrassment. “No
vengeance, and no tip-off. It’s the first car we’ve handled. I know others do it, traffic in cars, but in our camp it’s the first time it’s happened.”

“Why should that be? You’ve decided to branch out?”

“No,” the old man stammered. “There’ll be no trafficking in cars.”

“Well then, explain yourself more clearly.” Soneri was growing impatient. “None of what you’ve said so far makes any sense to me.”

“It was those four. They did it.”

“Which four?”

“The ones who were involved in stealing the gold. They took the car, even if they’ve never done it before. I don’t know why. One night they came back with it. There are honest and dishonest people among us. Like among you Italians.”

“Now you’re making more sense,” the commissario said. “The four found by the carabinieri with the gold are the same ones who stole the B.M.W. Is that what you’re saying?”

The Romanian nodded, but without much conviction.

“But you insist you’ve never stolen a car?”

“No, never.”

Soneri said nothing for a few moments. He was trying to understand, but the whole matter was beyond him.

“In your opinion, why did it happen?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”

Floriu’s attitude had changed, and now he seemed keen to get away. Perhaps he was disappointed at the way the interview had gone.

“You do know why it all happened,” Soneri insisted.

“I’m here to state that those boys had nothing to do with it, but if you don’t believe me, I have nothing more to add.” He stopped there. It seemed as though a shutter had been
pulled down. The Romanian’s grim expression was distrustful, so much so that when he had gone, Soneri felt he had not been up to the challenge. Perhaps subconsciously he had believed the case was all but closed and he had failed to pick up the signals the Romanian was giving him. He had not remained open to every possibility, as Sbarazza would have said.

“Juvara, do you remember that text relayed from the mast at Cortile San Martino, the one to Nina saying that everything was ready?”

“Yes, from the stolen mobile.”

“What do you think it meant?”

“I haven’t a clue,” the inspector said. “On the other hand we have found something interesting among Soncini’s papers.”

“What’s that?”

“There was money deposited in a current account in Iliescu’s name at the Savings Bank.”

“What’s so extraordinary about that?”

“That she had 750,000 euros in that account.”

“Do you think the money was hers?”

“No. Aimi has access to the account as well.”

“The accountant?”

“Commissario, if there’s one thing in this whole story I just don’t get, it’s the bomb at Golden. Everything up to that point has a logic of its own, but not that explosion. And now there’s this account.”

“I know. If only these Romanians would talk. The guy who came today seemed to want to tell me something.”

“They’re releasing the two teenagers. This morning they were let out of the Young Offenders prison and now they’re with Marcotti at the magistrate’s office.”

Soneri jumped to his feet at once, as though his desk was
on fire. Juvara watched him walk briskly across the courtyard in the direction of Via Repubblica and disappear through the gate.

Ten minutes later he was in the investigating magistrate’s office. The young men had the same hostile expression as before.

“Commissario, don’t waste your breath. These two have made up their minds not to speak. They must have been ordered on pain of death to keep their mouths shut,” Marcotti said.

The commissario pulled up a chair and sat facing them. “We know you didn’t kill the girl, and we know the B.M.W. was stolen by other people, in fact by the four men arrested at Suzzara,” he began.

The two exchanged glances and for a moment it seemed their hostility softened a little. “You’ll be out in a short while. All I want to know is why you took the car when you knew that the men who had stolen it planned to send it to Romania bit by bit to make some money on it. You knew that you risked being stopped and that would wreck the whole scheme.”

The two said nothing, staring straight ahead with the same impassive expression.

“Isn’t it odd?” Soneri said to Marcotti. “There’s a car which is really hot and two boys with no licence take it out for a ride. They say they were framed, but they framed themselves. A right pair of idiots, amateurs.”

The last words struck home with the pair, who were apparently unwilling to be taken as fools in what they considered their line of work.

“That car no stolen,” the older of the two burst out. “That car given.”

Soneri continued to look at Marcotti. “Given by whom?”

“By Italian man. No know name.”

“Soncini?”

“No know name,” the Romanian repeated, raising his voice slightly.

The peremptory tone indicated that there would be no further dialogue. After a few minutes more, Marcotti cut proceedings short. “Let’s take it slowly,” she said, handing the two boys over to the officers who would take them back to the Suzzara camp.

“Commissario, you should be pleased,” the magistrate said. “You’ve learned one important thing. It seems the car was not stolen as Soncini claimed.”

“Do you think they’re telling the truth?”

“Do you think someone who does my job could risk putting her hand in the fire? But if you really want my opinion, I do believe it,” she said, winking at Soneri. “Why should they make up a story? People only do that when they have some reason for it, but in this case they’ve nothing to fear, don’t you agree?”

The commissario nodded. “That means the Romas and Soncini were in business together.”