The Puppeteer (15 page)

She placed her hands on her hips. “You know what I think of southerners—they’re all the same. When I worked in the town hall, there was the horrible Lepetit who thought he could put his hands on me when he pleased—and me a married woman.”

Trotti smiled. “And how’s your daughter?”

The woman shrugged. “She’s happy—or so she says. But in my opinion, she should never have married a southerner. My opinion and the opinion of her poor father, too. And do you know, because of that man, she couldn’t afford the money to come to her father’s funeral? Her father, who had carried her on his shoulders.”

“But you see her?”

Pia said dryly, “She comes at Christmas.” Then a smile. “And I get to see the little children who are lovely—despite the Neapolitan accent.”

Trotti took a packet of sweets from his pocket. “Signora Pia,
I won’t keep you—but you must tell me if you saw those people before.”

“What people?”

“You saw the big car—the Mercedes.” Trotti gestured with his thumb towards the via XX Settembre. “And you saw how they tried to kill me.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Your sister says that you saw the Mercedes earlier in the morning—at seven o’clock.”

There was a short silence. The woman frowned and her forehead was creased in thought. “I told my sister in secrecy.”

“The man who died,” Trotti said, “he was a friend.”

She sighed before speaking. “I saw a big car.”

“And you saw Maltese—the murdered man—you saw him get out?”

“A young man? Fairly thin and with dark glasses? A man who needed a shave?” There was a ring on the shop doorbell.

“Yes.” Trotti spoke fast. “And what time did you see him?”

“There’s only one road into Gardesana—and only one road out. I thought the car was leaving the village—you know, one of those rich Germans up at the residence who was spending the day in Milan and wanted to get there early.”

“What color?”

“I can’t remember.” She shrugged apologetically. “Perhaps it was black.”

“At what time did you see the car, Pia?”

“It must have been before seven. And the car parked just outside.”

“You recognized the car? It was a German car?”

She shrugged. “A big car.”

“Did you see the number plates?”

She shook her head.

“But it was the same car that tried to knock me over?”

She put her hands together and rubbed them. “It was a big car, Piero. I can remember that it was a big car.”

“And you saw the two other men?”

Now she frowned. “The two other men?”

“The same men who tried to run me over.”

“There were only two men, Piero. There was an older man.” She nodded with conviction. “He got out of the car and he shook hands with the young man—poor thing.” Again she nodded. “Of that I am quite sure—an old man. He smiled and I thought they were friends.” Again she nodded. “I didn’t see the old man’s face but I noticed they acted like friends—like a father and his son.”

“Y
OU WERE THERE
?”

Trotti nodded. “There were one hundred forty-nine witnesses for the prosecution and they had to be sworn in—it was worse than Borgo Genovese on market day.”

“And Ramoverde?”

“He never changed. The trial lasted twelve days—and Douglas Ramoverde remained always the same—cold, imperturbable, aloof. It was as if he were a spectator at his own trial.”

“You saw him?” Pisanelli asked.

“I was there throughout the trial—I had to be. And even if it hadn’t been forced upon me, I would have gone. I couldn’t have been more than five meters from him. It was as if he were indifferent. He didn’t care about the outcome—or perhaps he was quite sure.” Trotti took the packet of sweets from his pocket.

“He was innocent?”

“The evidence was damning in its quantity.” Trotti paused. “The car had been sighted on two occasions near the Villa Laura. And then there was the lack of an alibi—he had never been able to prove how or where he had spent the extra hours on his drive back to Piacenza from San Remo. He maintained he slept in the car—but he couldn’t prove it. And why sleep in the car when in a couple of hours—less even—he could have been back home, in a real bed between clean bedsheets?”

“It’s not proof.”

“There was blood on his car.”

Pisanelli frowned. He drove but from time to time he glanced at Trotti.

Trotti asked, “Do you want a sweet?”

“Bad for your teeth.”

“At my age everything’s bad for you.” Trotti unwrapped a sweet and placed it in his mouth.

“What blood, Commissario?”

“The Istituto Medicale was certain—it was human blood. But Ramoverde maintained that it came from a boy he’d taken in his car to the hospital in Piacenza—a boy who’d been knocked off his Vespa and cut his forehead. But Piacenza checked—it was only natural, when virtually the entire nation was following the trial.”

“And what did Piacenza say?”

“It was true that he had taken a boy to the hospital. The boy even came forward and publicly thanked Ramoverde. But whereas Ramoverde maintained he’d put the boy on the front seat—that’s where the bloodstains were—the witness said he’d been put on the backseat.”

“More reasonable.” Pisanelli shook his balding head. “But that is all circumstantial. What was the evidence against Ramoverde? There must have been evidence.”

“Dell’Orto, the investigating judge, was convinced that the motive alone was sufficient. He’d already been forced to release Ramoverde once—and even then with the eye of the nation on our little city, he didn’t really have proof. But Dell’Orto was convinced of his guilt. It was like a religion with him. I know that several people—including Dario, who came up from Rome—tried to persuade him from going ahead with the trial. But Dell’Orto insisted. He said that there was a motive.”

“What motive?”

“The Villa.”

Pisanelli shook his head, not understanding.

“Ramoverde and his wife were frightened that the old man was going to marry Eva Bardizza—the housekeeper. She was
a young woman and they saw that he was infatuated with her. According to Dell’Orto that terrified them.”

“Why?”

“They needed the money. Ramoverde’s dental practice didn’t bring in enough.” Trotti clicked the sweet against his teeth. “Above all, they didn’t want the money to go to the girl. Not after all their years of waiting.”

“Did you believe that?”

Trotti shrugged. “Dell’Orto was desperate for a motive. Perhaps he was right—Dell’Orto was no fool. Ramoverde needed the money—he’d been counting on it for a long time. Dell’Orto thought it was because of the inheritance that he’d married Matilda Belluno in the first place. He certainly liked the good life—eating out, the theater, occasionally betting on a horse in Milan or going to the Casino in San Remo. But there was something else—a point that the prosecution insisted upon throughout the trial. There was hostility between Bardizza and Ramoverde’s wife. It had come to a head about seven months before the murder—in the villa at San Remo.”

“What happened?”

“Douglas Ramoverde slapped Bardizza.”

“What on earth for?” Pisanelli grinned.

“The girl insisted upon sitting at the table with Belluno and the Ramoverde family. Matilda Ramoverde told her to wait until they’d finished eating—and the girl had replied tartly that she wasn’t a maid. According to Ramoverde, the reply was deliberately insolent, intended to insult his wife. He always admitted to slapping her—once on either cheek—for her insolence. He maintained that at the time he wasn’t aware of any negative reaction from his father-in-law. But two days later, the lawyer was called in and Belluno insisted upon rewriting his will. And he bequeathed virtually everything to Eva. Furthermore, he got his lawyers to inform his daughter and son-in-law that he was putting the San Remo villa up for sale.”

“Belluno broke with his daughter?”

“That was never made very clear.” Trotti shrugged. “Both Ramoverde and his wife denied that there had been a break with
the old man. But there were several witnesses who claimed that Belluno didn’t want to have anything more to do with them. And that’s probably why they spent the month of July in San Remo.”

“July l960?”

Trotti nodded. “Belluno’s daughter was trying to patch things up. Probably she felt she could heal things with the help of her son. The old man Belluno was very fond of his grandson.”

“Who we know as Maltese?”

“He changed his name later.”

“And there was a reconciliation between Belluno and his daughter?” For some reason, Pisanelli was still smiling.

“According to Ramoverde, things got better. He was working throughout July and he could only take the weekends off to visit his wife and son at San Remo.”

“Wait a minute.” The grin disappeared and Pisanelli frowned; his eyes remained on the road ahead. His forehead was wrinkled in concentration. “Belluno was murdered at the Villa Laura, not at San Remo?”

“Belluno and the girl were on holiday in San Remo but they returned to Villa Laura because he had work to do.”

“Work?”

“Belluno was still involved with his publishing firm. Apparently there were proofs that he had to read—and he preferred to work away from the sea. But it was his intention to get back to San Remo early in August.”

“And during that time, Signora Ramoverde was alone at San Remo with her son?”

“Yes.”

“Strange that the father threatened to sell the villa and then allowed his estranged daughter to stay there in his absence.”

“Things were supposed to be getting better.” Trotti placed his arm through the open window. They were traveling fast on the autostrada to Milan; beyond the green haze of the fields and the electric pylons, he could distinguish Segrate and the high blocks. “Then on the second day of the trial, the prosecution produced a bit of evidence that took Ramoverde by surprise.”

Pisanelli laughed. “What?”

Trotti spoke in a neutral voice. “He always maintained that he had turned off the autostrada—and anyway in those days, there weren’t as many autostradas as today—it was still the beginning of the Italian Miracle. Or perhaps you don’t remember.”

“I may not be as old as you, Commissario,” Pisanelli said, turning, “but I’m already beginning to lose my hair.”

“Increase your sugar intake—eat a few sweets.”

“What was the surprise evidence?”

“Ramoverde said he’d turned off the autostrada at Voghera and that he had slept in his Fiat 1100 for a couple of hours. But then the prosecution came up with his logbook. Ramoverde was a strange man—in a way. Very precise—like a machine.” Trotti’s face broke into a smile. “Perhaps it was his scientific background. Anyway, he kept a logbook. And he kept it religiously. On the night—July twenty-first, I think—when a car had been sighted by midnight runners near Villa Laura—Ramoverde had noted the mileage in the logbook. I can’t remember exactly what the mileage was. And I can’t remember what it was the following day, when he noted it down again. But the difference—and this was hammered home by the prosecution—was two hundred eighty-five kilometers. According to the logbook, between San Remo and Piacenza, the car had covered a distance of two hundred eighty-five kilometers. But the real distance was only two hundred fifty kilometers.”

“So what?”

“So what?” Trotti glanced at Pisanelli. “The prosecution maintained that Ramoverde never slept that night—as he claimed he did—by turning off the main road. Instead they accused Ramoverde of having driven the extra thirty kilometers or so to Borgo Genovese—to the Villa Laura where he hid his car.”

“Mere conjecture.”

“Of course, Pisanelli.”

Pisanelli drove in silence.

“Conjecture,” Trotti repeated. “And that’s what Ramoverde should have said. Or he could have said that he had taken his car for a run on the following morning … that he went to Zio Orazio. If he had wanted to, he could have invented an explanation.”

“What did he say?”

For a moment, Trotti was silent, lost in thought. He stared out of the car window and the wind pulled at his thinning hair. Pensively, he pushed the sweet against his cheek.

“What did Ramoverde say, Commissario?”

“He said that the odometer was defective.” Trotti gave a brief smile. “He said that it wasn’t working properly. That was how he explained the extra thirty kilometers. And of course, the judge immediately demanded that a test should be carried out on Ramoverde’s car.”

“Well?”

“The odometer was in perfect running order.”

“W
ELL
?”

Pisanelli did not reply. He sat behind the steering wheel of the car, nibbling at his mustache.

“Well, Pisanelli?”

He looked peeved. “There are times, Commissario, when you refuse to make allowances.”

Trotti looked at the Villa Laura. It had scarcely changed; it was the trees and flowers around it, the flowerbeds and the lawn that had altered with time.

Trotti could not remember so many cypress trees. Tall, they moved almost imperceptibly with the wind from the river.

“Not everybody has your experience, Commissario. You should realize that. However, I try to do my duty and I hope that I do it to the best of my ability.” He added, after biting his lip, “I’ve spent the best part of the last twenty-four hours with you—I believe that I’m entitled to a rest. I should like to go home.”

“Pisanelli, if you wanted short hours and English weekends, you should never have joined the PS.”

“It’s only the Squadra Mobile that works day and night, Commissario Trotti.” The young man’s face had hardened and for a moment Trotti did not speak.

“One day you will be a good policeman, Pisanelli.” He
placed his hand on Pisanelli’s arm. Then without waiting for a reply, he climbed out of the car and started walking towards the Villa Laura. The sun was almost overhead and the air was full of promise. Soon it would be summer. Somewhere, a solitary grasshopper was singing its private song. Through the trees, Trotti caught sight of the grey, glinting Po. Apart from a couple of sluggish chestnuts, all the trees were already in leaf.

Trotti went up the short flight of marble stairs and rang the bell. A distant tinkling echoed feebly within the building. Pisanelli joined him, pushed back the hair that had fallen forwards. Trotti said, “The two officers climbed in through the back window. Belluno’s room’s there—look, that window up there.” He pointed.