Persona Non Grata (6 page)

“I told you. I am Commissario Trotti of the Pubblica Sicurezza.” He was not sure whether it was the same woman he had seen the previous day. If not, the two nuns looked remarkably alike: stocky, the wide coiffe that hid the ungentle face.

“You told me nothing.”

“I am telling you now.”

“It is too early to see the child.”

“Sister …”

“This is very irregular.” She turned away and said, “You’d better follow me.” She took short steps down the empty hospital corridor.

Trotti followed the small woman.

“You don’t think she’s a bit old for dolls?”

“We all need affection, sister. Some of us find it in marrying Jesus. Don’t begrudge children the joy of loving a bit of cloth and stuffing and a couple of glass eyes.”

“You laugh at me.” She stopped so suddenly that he almost walked in to her. She held out a thick, short finger. She had pale eyes and no eyelashes. “I could have married—I could have had
children. Don’t laugh at what you can’t understand. I didn’t have to become a nun.” She spoke in a flat monotone. “If loving Jesus means emptying bedpans, I am not ashamed of my love for Him.” She turned again. “This way please.”

They were new wards, part of the expansion at the beginning of the 1970s when there was money coming from Rome for the university. A room with six beds, at the same time both institutional and yet human. Posters of furry animals and television stars on the wall. Inspector Gadget and Heidi. A lot of flowers and two children in red pajamas running hurriedly towards their cots.

“Children!”

The underlying harshness in her voice reminded Trotti of one of his aunts. Zia Martina lost her husband at Vittorio Veneto and spent the next fifty years wearing shiny black dresses and resenting the happiness of others. She went to Mass every morning and lit a candle to the memory of her husband.

The two barefoot children scrambled into their beds and snatched the blankets towards their small, white chins.

A third bed was occupied and at first Trotti thought that Laura was asleep. On approaching the bed he realized that her eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Beneath the nightdress he could see that her chest was wrapped in tight bandages.

The nun placed a hand on the little girl’s forehead and then going to the foot of the bed, picked up the record sheet attached to the bedstead. “You’re doing well, Laura. We’re very proud of you.”

There was no movement in the girl’s eyes.

Trotti spoke softly. “Laura, how do you feel?” A long time since he had last been with children.

The girl said nothing.

Trotti smiled. “I have brought you a present.” He raised the large bear and set it beside her on the clean white sheet.

She shook her head.

“You don’t want a bear?”

The eyes blinked but they did not look at Trotti.

“I want to help you, Laura. I am your friend—and this bear
belongs to my daughter. She is a big girl now and soon she is going to get married. An old bear—his name is Chinotto and nobody has ever found out why. My daughter has left home and she has forgotten about him. And I am a busy man.” He tapped Chinotto’s chin. “Bears need people to talk to them.”

The nun was looking at him with a frown on her forehead.

“Chinotto,” Trotti said and he looked down at his feet. “You would be doing me a favor if you took him. For a day or two—or perhaps a bit longer. Every time I see Chinotto looking at me with his cross-eyes, I am reminded of my daughter—and I haven’t seen …”

Her nightdress did not have long sleeves and her left arm was a series of small bandages, neat flesh-colored squares anchored with sticking plaster.

“I am not a child,” Laura Vardin said tersely and, with a sharp nudge of her elbow, she pushed the bear off the side of the bed. “And you are not a friend of mine. I have never seen you before.”

“M
Y FAULT
,” T
ROTTI
said.

Dottor James Wafula smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about the nun, if I were you. They’re all like that. They’re very good—and, unlike the other nurses, they don’t have to be reminded a hundred times. Dedicated, but susceptible. Highly susceptible.”

“I’m talking about the girl.”

Wafula nodded and put the cup of coffee down.

A small room, both neat and comfortable, with two leather armchairs and a large mahogany desk. A white laboratory coat hung from the stand and the stethoscope had been thrown over the back of a chair. The odor coming from the fresh coffee drowned the smell of antiseptic.

“I am not a psychiatrist,” the African doctor said. “Although I did do a course in child psychology in Makerere.”

“Macerata?”

“In Uganda. But that was a long time ago.”

“Strange behavior for a little girl. Eleven years old—my daughter was never like that.”

“Times have changed, Commissario. And an eleven-year-old child today is not like an eleven-year-old of ten years ago. Children are growing up faster—a lot faster.”

Trotti found himself resenting the suggestion that he was too old to understand.

“Eleven-year-olds are not interested in dolls—and certainly
not in teddy bears. They’re interested in boys.” Wafula leaned forward and picked up the cup of coffee. “Laura probably feels that she has been betrayed.”

“Why betrayed?”

“A girl likes to think that she is coping, that she is in charge. And at puberty most normal children manage to stay in control, even if it is not easy. But suddenly she is attacked—attacked in a way that was probably sexual.” Wafula’s Italian was perfect; only the slight accent betrayed the fact it was not his mother tongue. “In her mind, she is still just a little girl.” He shrugged. “Not the end of the world and certainly not something she’ll never get over. She’s a tough little thing.”

“I hope so.”

“We normally manage to forget what we don’t want to remember.”

“You said you weren’t a psychiatrist.”

A flash in the doctor’s eyes—perhaps even a flash of anger. “We are all psychiatrists to a certain extent. Even policemen.” He drank. “The wounds will heal, and so will the wound in her mind. Time cures everything—while gradually leading us onward to the grave.” He looked at Trotti. “Death is the cure to everything.”

Trotti said nothing.

“I don’t think you need worry about Laura. She has had a rather bloody introduction to adulthood. She will recover. And her reaction to you—in the circumstances—seems to me both healthy and normal.”

Trotti put his hands on the leather armrests. “Thank you for the coffee …”

“But it wasn’t about that, Commissario, that I wanted to talk to you. Have another cup of coffee.”

“I must be going—I’m driving up into the hills this afternoon.”

“The hills? Tarzi? I thought I recognized the accent.”

“For a foreigner, Dottor Wafula, you are very good at accents.”

“And to think my father ran around in a loin cloth, shaking a spear.” A brilliant glimpse of the teeth. “Perhaps you would like
to bring me back some wine from the hills—real, full-blooded wine. I’d be—”

“There are a lot of places in this town where you can buy good wine from the hills, Dottor Wafula.”

“Good wine, with good anti-freeze.”

“I see you have already developed your prejudices about the Italian people.”

“We are all prejudiced at some time or another.”

Trotti stood up. “I must be going.”

“We are not getting on very well.” A very wide grin. “Be careful, Commissario Trotti. My Ugandan predecessor in this job went back to Africa and became Minister of the Interior. In six months he managed to murder one hundred thousand of my compatriots.” An unassuming shrug. And then, with deadly irony, “We Africans are not always very bright—what can you expect from people who have just climbed out of the trees?—but we can be dangerous.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Do please have another cup of … Ugandan coffee.”

Trotti sat down again.

“I said I wanted to talk to you about the girl.”

“We have already discussed her, Dottor Wafula.”

“But we haven’t discussed her father.”

Trotti frowned. The doctor shrugged. “I don’t know why I want to tell you all this—I am sure you have got computers. And I know that you have better things to do than waste your time with a stupid black man.” A mischievous smile. “But it is not every day that I have the opportunity of chatting with a policeman—a real policeman.”

“An ageing policeman, who has been in the PS for too long. A policeman who has got another four years to get through before a well-earned retirement. A policeman who asks for nothing more than to leave this city and to go and live in the hills and make his own wine—wine without anti-freeze.”

“Commissario—we all have our bad days.” The smile was sympathetic. “Vardin,” the surgeon said, “you know who he is?”

Trotti shrugged.

“You haven’t always lived in this city, Commissario?”

“I was in Bologna—and in Bari. I came back in seventy-seven.”

“Then you do like the city?”

“It was my wife who wanted to return.” A dismissive movement of his hand. “Why do you ask about Vardin?”

“You have interviewed him, I suppose, and he has told you where he works?”

“He is unemployed.”

Wafula nodded. “And before he was unemployed he worked at the sewing-machine factory.”

“Well?”

“And before that he worked for AVIS.”

“So what?”

“AVIS, Commissario. The voluntary blood bank. I knew I recognized his name. He was the porter—and it was he who gave evidence about the comings and goings at the dispensary. About Galandra.”

“The AVIS dispensary?”

“You have records in the Questura, Commissario—and I can’t remember very much. But I remember the name—because I remember thinking that he was courageous. From Udine or Trieste, isn’t he? A man with guts.”

Trotti had picked up his cup although it was empty.

“It must have been in seventy-five or seventy-six. No, seventy-six, because that was the year I arrived in this city and I was working for Professor Adunata. That’s right, seventy-six.”

“What happened in seventy-six?”

“The AVIS trial.”

“And Vardin was involved?”

“Vardin—I am quite sure. Either him or a relative—or else a coincidence. It’s not a common name and I have got a good memory. The people at the blood bank—they were getting all the blood from the donors and then selling it to the hospital watered down. They were selling plasma and pocketing the money. And in the end it was Vardin’s testimony that sent them to jail. The man—the ringleader—he was sent away for seven years.”

Trotti listened in silence.

“Ten years ago—it took over three years for the thing to get to court. So by my calculations, he should be coming out of prison any moment now. With a grudge against Vardin.”

“A grudge?”

The wide grin. “More coffee, Commissario?”

I
NSTINCTIVELY HE PUT
his hand to his mouth.

Over the last couple of months it had been getting stronger, more assertive, making life on the third floor of the Questura more unpleasant.

Today the smell was overpowering; it worked its way down the back of Trotti’s throat.

As Trotti stepped out of the lift, Gino looked up and smiled wanly.

“Any news?” Trotti asked, lowering his hand.

Under the table, Principessa was motionless, curled up and her paws outstretched. Hardly a hint of movement although the dog’s eyes were open, pink and looking at Trotti without interest. Gino and Principessa had been together for more than fourteen years.

“A woman waiting for you, Commissario. Signora Bianchini—with her son.”

Trotti placed his hand briefly on the blind man’s shoulder then went down the corridor into his office.

She was sitting in the canvas armchair. She wore the same skirt and her slim legs were crossed. She turned her head very slightly as Trotti entered his office.

“Buongiorno, Signora Bianchini.”

A small smile. “My son has decided that he would like to see you.” She gestured to where Riccardo Bianchini stood by the window, staring out at Strada Nuova.

“It is very kind of you to cooperate.”

The smell had worked itself into the dingy office. It was coming through the wooden hatch in the wall.

“Riccardo is willing to answer any questions you may have.”

Trotti opened the window, took a deep breath and then sat down behind the desk. He moved a pile of dossiers on to the floor.

“I don’t want you to think that my son has anything to hide.”

Trotti looked towards the boy. Riccardo continued to stare at the street below; the oblique light fell on a sallow, thin face.

“You want to help the Commissario, don’t you, Riccardo?”

The boy turned and glanced coldly at his mother. Riccardo had put on a white shirt, a tie and a sports jacket. Trotti noticed the dirty fingernails and the grime embedded in his fingers. The boy—eighteen years old, tall and slim—looked ill at ease in his clothes. The shoes were new and uncreased.

Signora Bianchini placed her hands on the armrests. “If you wish to speak to Riccardo alone …”

Trotti gestured her back into the low chair and smiled at her.

She returned the smile. There was something of Agnese about her—the fine bone structure and the way the almond eyes held his glance. But there was a softness to Signora Bianchini—a softness that Trotti’s wife had long abandoned in her dealings with her husband.

A breeze came through the window and it partially carried away the sickly smell. The smell of death.

Trotti’s mouth was dry. “Something to drink?” He ran his tongue along his lips.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Something to drink?” He smiled.

Signora Bianchini shook her head. Her French perfume competed valiantly with the smell of the dying dog.

“You won’t say no to a cup of coffee?” He turned in his seat and banged on the hatch. “Gino, get somebody to bring me a pot of coffee from downstairs.” Then he looked carefully at the boy.

Riccardo Bianchini fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Riccardo, you know what has happened?”