The Death of an Irish Consul (14 page)

McGarr then changed his tone to one of quiet compassion for this man who was now indeed like some unicorn hemmed in by hounds and hunters. “Signor Rattei—you lied to us that day out on the oil rig. You said you had dinner with a friend in London. We now know that wasn’t the whole truth. You said you didn’t know Hitchcock and Browne were involved with Tartan, and yet I’ve found out that you instructed your lawyers to query the Panamanian authorities three days before Hitchcock’s death about the principal officers of Tartan; you knew Foster much better than you let on when handing us his folder and saying he was African and not Jamaican; and ENI’s financial picture is extremely precarious right now, much worse than you pretended. Tartan is hurting you and your court case against them is weak. If they win, then the portable rig you erected to cut into their drill hole will allow them to sue you for triple damages. Also, as you told us yourself, they’ll be able to pump that cistern dry.”

But Rattei said, “You seem to know so much about me. What do you know about Cummings, eh? I know I’m no saint. But that son of a bitch of an Englishman
was a rotter to the core. Yes—I’ll admit it to you—I slept with Enna and not long after he married her too. Do you know that he was bisexual? He discovered
that
shortly
after
he married Enna. She, you see, didn’t really please him totally. But he, being a Catholic”—Rattei spit out that last word—“wouldn’t give her a divorce, and she, being a Ricasoli”—he treated the name similarly—“wouldn’t have sued for one anyhow. And then he was content to remain married to her for twenty-seven years while he knew—mind you, he
knew!
—I slept with his wife every chance I got.” Rattei drank off the wine. “I should have killed him way back when I sorely wanted to.”

McGarr wondered if that was a tacit admission in the present situation and poured Rattei some more wine.

“For me the situation was at once intolerable and unavoidable. I could do nothing about it, yet I loved her. He called me her Roman gigolo, told me not to be ‘ethnic’ when I shouted at him on the phone, told others who told me that it didn’t matter how much money I made, I was a peasant who could never get the dirt from under my fingernails.

“You know, we all have vainglorious ideas of what we want to be in life. Somebody has said that a man is happiest when he realizes his childhood ambitions. Look at me—I have everything I always wanted as a child, but for twenty-seven years I’ve secretly been miserable. That’s given me strength too, since in an ultimate way I felt I had nothing to lose and thus have been
able to take risks that would make other men cringe.”

O’Shaughnessy said, “Like the risk of killing not only Cummings but the others like him—Hitchcock and Browne—who had also treated you like a peasant only to try to steal from you too?”

Rattei shook his head. “No—I’m not sorry either of them are dead, and I’m overjoyed that Cummings died in the manner he did. It makes me believe that indeed justice obtains here on earth. But, no—I did not kill them.
And
, I did not kill Cummings, although I feel cheated that I’ve been denied the pleasure.”

McGarr thought for a moment. “If what you tell us is true, aren’t you even curious about why Foster killed Cummings and the others and tried to implicate you?”

“Yes. In a dispassionate way. Any man in a position like mine has made many enemies and most of them are undeserved. The rich hate me because I’m an upstart and have kept them from continuing to swindle the poor. The poor hate me because I’m no longer one of them. And the people in the middle hate me because they hate everybody including themselves and I’m more visible than most. And there you have it—not a very uplifting tale, eh?”

“What happens if Foster breaks down and confesses to your involvement?” O’Shaughnessy asked.

Rattei didn’t even glance up. He was looking down into his wine glass. “Why even think of that? Nothing will happen. It’s his word against mine. I’ll go to court. My face will be in all the papers more than
usual. People will gossip. Another facet will be added to that ‘infamous diamond in the rough,’ and I’ll be acquitted for lack of evidence. The Italian people will return me to my endeavors. They wouldn’t have it any other way.”

McGarr said, “And
with
Enna Ricasoli.”

Rattei smiled, “Hopefully, signor. Hopefully. You see, whoever hatched this plot has convinced Enna of my guilt and alienated her from my affections.”

O’Shaughnessy asked, “But don’t you feel two ways about this lady, that she caused much of the difficulty herself?”

He shook his head. “All of us are given certain talents, desires, and expectations, and the person who can achieve the most of them while hurting the fewest number of others least is best. Lord knows I’ve hurt my share. I’m not about to blame Enna for wanting certain things for herself and trying, although failing, to get them.”

McGarr stood and thanked Rattei for the interview. On their way out, McGarr stopped at the unicorn tapestry. It seemed more complex to him, as though he had missed something when first viewing it earlier.

By the time they reached Massa Maratima, a pink sun had begun to sink into the Mediterranean and made the western slopes of the steep, hardwood hills a tan color that McGarr had always thought was imagination in Tuscan landscape painting.

O’Shaughnessy was saying, “We haven’t reached
the bottom of that fellow yet. He’s a deep one.
And
tricky.”

McGarr again thought of the description of Rattei as a self-satisfied tiger. “I keep getting the feeling we’ve selected all the right rocks—the smoking gun, the disgruntled killer, the bank draft, Rattei’s description in all of the proper places at the proper times—but we’re missing the lever to prise up the big boulder.”

Suddenly, McGarr’s stomach reminded him of its presence. He checked his watch, 7:40—plenty of time to have dinner in Massa Maratima and still make Battagliatti’s rally at Piombino at 10:00. McGarr then remembered the
póllo arrosto
he’d contemplated in Chiusdino.

After many inquiries, they finally found a farmhouse
locando
which was reputed to have excellent chicken. It was one big room with oilcloth on the tables, linoleum on the floor, but with a fine view of the plain and the Mediterranean beyond.

Sipping a hearty, rawish red wine, they chatted with the old lady who was the cook. Her grandchildren, when they were present, waited the tables. They were working in Germany for the summer, and she allowed the two policemen to sit at the family table in the kitchen.

Her stove was antediluvian, a great iron monster with claw feet and cast-iron scrollwork along its top. The cooking surface, wood-fired, was cherry red in places, but capable of a slow simmer in others. The old woman said she had grown up with that stove. In spite
of the heat, she wore a black dress buttoned to the neck and a spotless white apron. The kitchen too was free from the debris of food preparation. Like most accomplished chefs, she cleaned as she cooked, and McGarr made note of every detail.

She cut the fresh young chicken into six parts. She then heated some butter and olive oil in an earthenware pot, diced some onions and a lean breast of pork, and tossed that in. When these had browned, she put in the chicken, a thinly sliced garlic clove, an herb bouquet, and the special ingredient,
tartufi bianchi
, a delicate white truffle that grows in Tuscany from late autumn to early spring. On a hot part of her stove, she sautéed this mixture until golden, then removed the lid and skimmed off the fat. She poured some brandy over the chicken, ignited it, and then poured on a pint or so of red wine. They talked for twenty minutes. The old woman could not place
Irlanda
but imagined, looking at O’Shaughnessy, that the air must be healthful there.

She then removed the chicken to a platter, thickened the sauce with chicken blood, a beaten chicken liver, and a little more brandy. This she poured over the bird.

Two hours later, McGarr and O’Shaughnessy were in Piombino, a city whose economy was based on iron, steel, petroleum processing, and general maritime commerce. In former times, iron had been brought in by ship from Elba, which lay about twelve miles offshore. Now, however, the ore was transported
from wherever it could be obtained, and the iron and steel mills shared the shoreline with petroleum cracking plants. Taking a walk to the harbor to kill time, McGarr and O’Shaughnessy found the water ocher from the sluices of the steel mills. Over this, dead fish formed an unsightly scum. Still, the Mediterranean beyond was azure, but McGarr wondered for how long.

THE RALLY BEGAN
with two big bass drums. They were rolled into the square. Behind them Communist party members marched, red armbands prominent on their right sleeves. The front line carried large red flags. Most of the crowd were factory workers, the men dressed in cheap suits, the women in dresses that were slightly dowdy.

Each report of the drums seemed to sidle McGarr’s chair. A shiver ran up his spine, and he thought for a moment he would sneeze. The atmosphere was festive, the night balmy, and the skies clear. Kids coursed over the sidewalks, pushcart vendors sold ice cream, cotton candy, and red balloons. Shopkeepers came out onto their stoops to watch, and carabinieri directed traffic away from the square.

As was usual in affairs of this type, several speakers harangued the crowd on local issues—wages, low-income housing, public transportation, and schools—for the first forty minutes, and then Battagliatti, the little David of Italian politics, rose to speak about national concerns. Like other gifted public speakers, he appealed to the emotions of the crowd, not to its intellect.

They, he said, who did the world’s work, alone suffered the world’s miseries. Big landowners, big businessmen, big bureaucrats, and “others” were fat and happy living off the backs of the workers and peasants. The tables needed turning; that’s what they were about. Battagliatti never once alluded to big labor or big politicians.

Specifically, he would never think of allowing his party to join any coalition government that included the Christian Democrats, the predominant political entity in Italy since World War II. They were the compromisers, they had no values. “What puts money in their pockets is the only ideal they embrace. And that, comrades, is the same corrupt approach which takes the money you made out of your paycheck at the end of the week and gives it to all those”—Battagliatti waved a hand—“all those middlemen, which is another word for——”

“Leeches!” the crowd roared. The bass drums boomed.

“——in the name of law. That’s the sort of legislation the Christian Democrats have passed.”

Standing on a platform behind a podium, Battagliatti’s slight frame looked solid. McGarr imagined that this particular double-breasted gray suit was heavily padded.

“Never, never,
never
will we truckle to conciliate with those low-lifes! Remember, this is a class conflict in which we are engaged, you and I. And we must approach those political hacks who have misled their followers over the years with the same disdain that they have shown your efforts—the good work of the Italian laborers and peasants—since they bartered away our property and wealth for power after the last war.”

Battagliatti did not mention that the Christian Democrats had not once offered the Communists a role in any of their governments, and probably would step down from power rather than do so. Years before, McGarr had heard Battagliatti say that never, never,
never
would elected Communist officials take part in any corrupt, bourgeois legislative assembly, yet they now were there. Conditions had changed, Battagliatti had said, and Italy needed the moral leadership of the proletariat in the Chamber of Deputies. Politics was, after all, the art of the possible.

Battagliatti then heaped on the shibboleths, building his declamation into a crescendo of catch phrases that had the crowd roaring, the drum booming. He left the stage amidst thunderous applause, returned, harangued them for several more moments, then quickly walked toward his car.

The crowd was hoarse and breathless.

McGarr was waiting beside the Lancia sedan, which was a rather chic automobile for a Communist leader.

“Ah, Signor McGarr,” Battagliatti said in English, extending his hand. “I saw you and your compatriot among our comrades just now. I didn’t realize you were interested in Italian politics, nor was I aware that the Communist point of view has any chance of success in your country.”

“Ah, we tried a form of communism in my country about a thousand years ago. It only led to the British invasion and a nine-hundred-year occupation. One such lesson is enough for an eternity. But with a gifted speaker and organizer such as yourself, sir, sure and we’d all be chanting ‘never, never,
never
’ in no time at all, at all. But, it’s not that I came to see you about.” McGarr was standing right in front of the car door that Battagliatti had planned to enter. “It’s about your friend, Enrico Rattei.”

Battagliatti seemed to turn to see if any of his assistants had heard or understood McGarr. Standing out in the open, like this, their voices had not carried.

“I was wondering, could you tell me a little bit about the gent? People seem loath to talk about him now that he’s been clapped in the can, and the police tell me this is an internal matter. I’m making little progress in the completion of my investigation. And I’ve got to write a report, I do.” They were still speaking English, which allowed McGarr to phrase his questions with a self-conscious ingenuousness that Battagliatti might doubt.
Only a native speaker whose people had been infantilized in the recent past could accomplish this.

Battagliatti breathed heavily. His smile crumpled somewhat. “How can I help you?”

“He went to university with you, right? Can you tell me, had he a happy home life?”

“His father was a Carabiniere, a Fascist.” Battagliatti tried to say this last word without contempt but failed. “His mother died when he was quite young.”

“Therefore, his father’s influence was all the greater upon him.”

“I suppose so, but he was—
is
—very much his own man in everything he does.”

“How does he feel about blacks? I mean, like that Foster fellow we collared?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. There were Africans at university with us when we were students. None of them was friendly with him, I don’t think, nor with me either, for that matter, although I bear Negroes no ill will.”

“Haven’t you and Rattei been pretty much at odds over the years? I ask only because I’m trying to assess the man’s personality. Whereas the police have got him dead to rights in this country, in all candor, the evidence we have against him in Ireland is strictly circumstantial.”

Battagliatti tried to look surprised. Overacting, he dropped his narrow jaw. “Why—what is it that Enrico is supposed to have done in your country, Chief Inspector?”

“Only a couple other murders, as a cover, against the
real object of his mania, Cummings himself. He was going to make it seem like Foster, a dissatisfied former agent of SIS, systematically knocked off all the former chiefs.”

Battagliatti nodded his head. “I see, I see. But, he didn’t succeed, did he, Signor McGarr? You and your associate here were too smart for him.” He glanced up at O’Shaughnessy and smiled, then said to McGarr, “Yes, we’ve always had what I call an agonistic relationship—one based on competition.”

“For Enna Ricasoli?”

“Yes and no. You must remember that her legal name
is
Cummings. The Englishman removed her from our contention years ago.”

“But both of you continued to see her on a regular basis.”

“Yes,
see
her.” Battagliatti was no longer smiling. He was probably remembering his conversation with McGarr in Siena earlier in the day.

“Were you jealous?”

“Of whom? Of Rattei or Cummings or of any other male who looked upon her?”

“Excuse me, I meant to ask if Rattei was jealous. After all,
he
is the subject of our investigation.” It was McGarr’s turn to smile at Battagliatti.

“Of course he was. Anybody will tell you that Enrico Rattei has never been the master of his own emotions. And they will also tell you that he was devastated when she chose to marry Cummings. He wouldn’t eat.
He lost weight. He even left school for a time, although he couldn’t afford to.”

“Was she in love with Cummings?”

“I don’t know. How can I know how she felt? Frankly, if I could have made her love me, I would have done so. Any man would.”

“Had she many suitors?”

“Has the sky many stars?”

“Who was her favorite?”

“In some ways, almost everybody. She has the knack of singling out what’s best in a person and developing it.”

“And with you it was your wit, your quick mind.”

Battagliatti looked away.

“And with Rattei it was his good looks, his good-heartedness, his desire to help the little guys—workers, peasants—and——”

“I have that desire too! What the hell do you think
this
”—he swept his hand to mean the political rally—“is all about?”

“——
and
his passion. In particular, his passion for her.”

“Enna was afraid of him. He wanted to own, possess, crush her. She told me so herself.”

“So she fled to Cummings. He was a way out of her relationship with Rattei, with you and the others, a way of extricating herself even from the country.”

Battagliatti removed his glasses. “Look, Chief Inspector, I’m tired. Enna was young, emotionally im
mature. Rattei, with his lower-class talk of the worker’s state and the need for order and harmony, frightened her.”

“But didn’t you—don’t you—have your own conception of those things?”

“Yes, but the difference was I was perceptive enough to keep myself from talking about things that would frighten away a sheltered young woman from a noble background. Rattei was always raving like a wild man. And then, when Cummings arrived with his Oxonian charm, his ease of manner, he seemed so stable, mature, part of her own class, which he was. All of us, Rattei, Zingiale, Pavoni, and the rest were so busy squabbling over her amongst ourselves, the Englishman stole her right away. We hadn’t really a chance. We—rather Rattei—had created a climate that forced her to flee from us.” He reached for the door handle. “I really must excuse myself, Chief Inspector. I’m exhausted what with the events of yesterday and all. I’ve got a busy schedule tomorrow.”

“One more question.” McGarr opened the door for Battagliatti. “Didn’t Rattei force you to flee Italy for over thirteen years?”

Battagliatti sat in the car, then flashed a seemingly genuine and full smile at McGarr. “That’s just one of his victories in our
agon
, McGarr. It’s a Greek word. You should look it up. Then, perhaps, you’ll understand more completely our relationship, Rattei’s and mine.”

Slowly the car pulled through the crowd.

At a discreet distance McGarr and O’Shaughnessy followed.

The newspapers had said Battagliatti was speaking to merchant mariners in Livorno next morning, students at the university in Pisa the next afternoon.

McGarr planned to dog Battagliatti until he lost his aplomb.

The rally was on the docks of Livorno, in a warehouse alongside a barge canal. Mostly coastwise tankers plied that water and, now that the tide had fallen, the pilings that contained the banks were black with sludge. The sky was overcast, and it wasn’t only the cool breeze off the Mediterranean that kept McGarr and O’Shaughnessy in the car. A clutch of party members, red stars pinned to their lapels, had clustered around the door of the corrugated metal building. They allowed only merchant mariners, dock workers, Italian policemen, and journalists inside. McGarr, wondering if Battagliatti had had anything to do with their exclusion, parked their car in front of the party chairman’s Lancia.

While the building on occasion filled with shouts and cheers, McGarr ambled down the canal bank to a road, where in a tobacco shop he phoned Carlo Falchi, the carabinieri commandant in Siena, who said, “Foster has just confessed, implicating Rattei in everything.”

McGarr said, “You just happened to volunteer to
grill him all day long after your Roman co-workers were exhausted.”

“Esattaménte.”

“You just happened to know what to ask him so that he cracked.”

“The technique was Irish, of that much I am sure.” Falchi was beside himself, having succeeded in extracting a confession from Foster after the big-shot Roman carabinieri had failed. “It was a highly detailed confession. He told of meetings he had had with Rattei, what Rattei wore, what he said. He remembered the names of restaurants, descriptions of waiters, the numbers of taxicabs they had taken, dates, times, places, everything. It appears that we’ve got Il Condottiere Rattei now. The sheer mass of the evidence is overwhelming.”

“Have you picked up Rattei yet?”

“It’s only just happened. We haven’t got through to Chiusdino yet. In any case, it’s early still. You must realize Italian hours differ from those of less civilized countries. Anyhow, I doubt that Rattei has gone anywhere.”

At that very moment McGarr was conceiving of a very good place for Rattei to go and it was not jail, where McGarr’s access to him would be constrained. In an official way, McGarr wasn’t at all concerned about the Cummings murder. If Rattei had been an accomplice in the murders of Hitchcock and Browne—and McGarr still had not made up his mind about
that—McGarr would bend every effort to get the Italian back to Ireland and justice, including a little official duplicity.

Falchi was saying, “We’ve begun to check Rattei’s whereabouts on each occasion Foster said he met him. It all seems to dovetail.”

“A work of art,” said McGarr, his tone too wry for Falchi.

“Thank you. I don’t mind saying I deserve the compliment.” He was gloating.

“What, exactly, did he say?”

“When he discovered that his two superiors in the ENI security department were involved in a rival company, let’s see—I’ve got the name someplace here——”

“Tartan,” McGarr supplied.

“That’s it. Then he, Foster, went to Rattei.”

Here, McGarr thought, was an apparent discrepancy, since McGarr already knew Rattei, through his lawyers, had checked with the Panamanian government. Rattei could merely have been checking Foster’s story, however.

Falchi continued, “In conversation, they discovered how much the both of them hated this certain type of Englishman. Foster, because of his prior involvement in the British Secret Service—do you know about that, Pietro?——”

“Yes.”