Vita Nuova (17 page)

‘I’ve got plenty to tell you if you’re sure you want to keep after him.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Well then—Wait—it looks like they’re here.’

Nesti was signalling the arrival of the funeral procession. There was nothing for it but to interrupt. The marshal’s presence there was official, furthering the pretence of looking for the unknown father of little Piero. The other two men must not be seen, so they arranged to meet at the same spot when it was all over.

The marshal got into his car. Only three cars followed the hearse apart from his own, one with the family, the other two with employees. At the burial niche, the marshal recognized Frida and Danuta. The others he wasn’t so sure about, but, judging by their size and aspect, at least two of them he reckoned were bouncers from the club and a young thin one could well be the character in the orange baseball cap. Was he perhaps the Mauro who drove the two cleaning girls back and forth between the villa here and the club and Cristina and the rest between the club and the hotel? It was only a guess, of course, but the marshal, staring at the back of his head, bare today, felt sure of it and sure, too, that he acted as postman. Something was wrong, though . . . to do with his driving the girls. . . .

He couldn’t see the priest, a short man, beyond the broad backs of the bouncers, but he heard the quiet clink of the aspergillum as he blessed the coffin.

‘May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’

‘Amen.’

Above them, the rainwashed cypresses raised sharp black sihouettes to the clean blue sky.

Teresa would be there by now. He’d put her on the seven twenty flight to Catania.

‘I’ll get a taxi straight to the hospital.’

‘I’m sorry . . . I mean—’

‘It doesn’t matter—I understand how you feel about the two
children—but you shouldn’t take things so personally. It’s still
only a case.’

‘Yes. . . .’
He couldn’t tell her the truth.

What was it he was trying to remember about the driver? It would come back to him. The brief word with his ex-colleague had agitated him. You can’t remember things if you’re agitated. You can’t observe things properly, either. Of all those standing around the coffin on its trestles, it was the mother he would have liked to observe, but he couldn’t see her face. There was a brief moment, when the group moved to allow the coffin to be slid into its niche in the wall, when he got a good look at Paoletti. He looked distressed. His face was paler and looked collapsed. After all, he was just a man who’d lost his first-born child. Frida and Danuta were standing to one side, a little apart, and he had a good view of them. They had little Piero between them. They each held one of his hands, and he kept trying to swing on them. The girls were dressed in black, but their short dresses and high heels looked more suitable for waiting on customers in the club than for a funeral, and so did their makeup. All that black eye makeup made the pale little things look haggard in the sunlight.

As for the mother, when he did manoeuvre himself into a position where he could see her, the marshal was surprised. On this day, of all days, she could have been expected to have an incapacitating hangover. But she was sober, well-groomed, and calm. Her face was expressionless. Moving again, he saw Silvana in profile, crying, leaning against her father. He put an arm around her, murmuring something that quietened her when her crying became audible. She put on a pair of dark glasses and stood up straight. But then she was obedient. The marshal himself had found her so. Surely, though, even Paoletti’s authority couldn’t cure an alcoholic overnight. . . .

‘She doesn’t drink!’

Silvana had snapped at him that first morning when he’d suggested she give her mother a drop of something to revive her. It would have worked, too. She had been too hungover—or even still too drunk—to register her daughter’s death. Of course, it was possible that she had been taking advantage of her husband’s absence to drink so much, but the timetable of the two girls who came and got her up at midday. . . .

‘Don’t hold on to the table. Lean on me.‘
They were used to dealing with it.

‘My mother’s not well. . . .’

All that stuff didn’t square with her composure this morning. Yet he was a witness to both states.

What
was
it he needed to remember about the driver, Mauro? The group standing before the niche was breaking up. The builders began walling it up. The low sun burned strong and clean this morning, so that the red icon lights on the marble plaques of the other niches burned in reflection. All the little bunches of flowers, real or plastic, still held unshed raindrops. He wanted to talk to the mother, the way she was now, sober. But Nesti and his ex-colleague were waiting for him, and he had no choice but to watch the cars drive away and then join them near the gates. Daniela was dead, buried now, and he had to give priority to those who were still in danger. He was going to have to be careful, too, since he shouldn’t tell the man anything he didn’t already know. It was obvious from his first question that he knew nothing about Daniela’s death.

‘So, who were they burying?’

‘Paoletti’s daughter, Daniela.’

‘His daughter? You mentioned a murder before— you don’t mean that she—’

‘Yes. You didn’t see that in the paper?’

‘No—well, I confess I wasn’t taking much notice. Just saw Paoletti’s name and thought “Right, that’s it.” I’m out of the army now and I can say what I want, you know what I mean? He’s probably trodden on somebody’s toes if they’ve gone for the daughter. I can’t be any help to you on that. It’s Paoletti himself I’m concerned with, him and De Vita.’

‘De Vita? Fulvio De Vita?’

‘The prosecutor.’

‘You’ve seen Paoletti’s list, then?’

‘I haven’t seen any list. I suppose there had to be one. A list of the people who could be blackmailed—if that’s what you mean.’

The marshal glanced about him. Nesti was standing at a distance. He knew how to go after stuff, but he knew how to be discreet and wait too.

‘Yes, that’s what I mean. De Vita’s one of the people on it, so—’

‘De Vita’s on it, is he? You’ve got to hand it to that bastard Paoletti, he’s always one step ahead. Well, why not? With photographs, no doubt. I never saw any, but I know they took photographs. So De Vita’s on this list, eh? A sort of insurance policy in case he ever wanted to get out.’

‘Get out. . . .’

‘You’re not there yet, are you? Prosecutor De Vita may be on that list as an insurance policy, but he and Paoletti are in this together. They’ve been a double act for years. That’s what I found out by accident, and that’s what cost me my job.’

Ten

'Y
es, Your Excellency, exactly. No, that all remains in place, but I’ll need to talk to this ex-marshal ‘Y and then perhaps send him to you. The better informed we are are, the fewer risks . . . tomorrow, rather than today. Guarnaccia informs me that Paoletti has checked into the hospital for twenty-four hours for blood tests, and it’s essential we bring them all in together . . . yes. Yes. I don’t think he’ll get away from us this time even so, Your Excellency. Ah. That’s very good news. That will make all the difference. I’ll tell him immediately and yes, at three here. Good morning, Your Excellency.’

The marshal waited. From what he’d heard, it sounded like good news, but he was anxious to hear the Chief Public Prosecutor’s half of the conversation.

Captain Maestrangelo reassured him at once.

‘I know what you want to hear first. The new prosecutor is the one you hoped for.’

‘Good, good—he used to be a children’s judge and I’m sure he’ll follow up the question of these two afterwards. He still has the contacts, you see, and, besides, he’s a good man. I mean, it’s the children he’ll care about, not the television cameras.’

‘And you can tread water on the Paoletti murder for another day or so without arousing suspicion?’

‘Yes. I’m following up the ex-gardener, Marco Melis. It may take me a day or two to establish without any doubt—and produce the documentation to prove—what I already know about him from a couple of telephone calls.’

‘Which is?’

‘That he’s inside, has been for fifteen months.’

‘But the prosecutor will surely realize how quickly you could have found that out.’

‘No. Paoletti only gave me his name, no place or date of birth.’

‘So how did the database bring him up? It must be the most common name in Sardinia.’

‘Yes. But Paoletti’s only been inside once. I thought that would be where they met. There’s a record of Paoletti’s arrest in the station where it was made, and he was remanded in Sollicciano. There was a Marco Melis there at the time. It was a roundabout sort of business finding out, and I had to use some personal contacts, so. . . . And then, he. . . .’

‘What?’

‘Well, I’ve worked with this man before, as you remember. He knows I’m a bit slow.’

Captain Maestrangelo smiled. A fleeting smile, but a smile nevertheless.

‘And so this Melis is of no use in your inquiry beyond an excuse to tread water?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. He’s Paoletti’s age, for a start. I’d been thinking of a handsome young lad and those two daughters so confined. No, no. . . . And still there’s one thing about him that does interest me and, if there’s ever time, I’d like to talk to him about it later.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He got away from Paoletti, something not even our prosecutor can do.’

‘The Sardinian character. Might break but won’t bend.’

‘That’s true.’

The marshal waited. He and the captain together had talked to Don Antonino, and he was ready for the arrival of the women. The organization of tomorrow’s coordinated raids on Paoletti’s villa, club, and hotel was in someone else’s hands, and he didn’t think about it. Even so, his awareness of all that activity going on out of sight left him free to be still and quiet at the centre. He watched and listened, sometimes in his own office, taking calls, sometimes in the carabinieri car parked inside the villa’s gates, sometimes in the oppressive kitchen, watching Danuta and Frida go up and down the stairs, wearing rubber gloves and carrying brushes and plastic buckets. The stiller and quieter he was, the more things were revealed to him, both big and small. Impressions, details, images. He didn’t grasp at them, only recorded them in his head.

He noticed, for instance, that Danuta, who had at first seemed indistinguishable from Frida in that they were both young, thin, and colourless, had a slight squint in one eye, a defect that had surely saved her from the second floor of the hotel. Once he’d noticed that, he watched Frida, who must also have some defect. He soon found it out. Under her thin, cheap T-shirt, he could see that she had hardly any breasts. That was on the evening of the day of the funeral. He had been there all afternoon, walking around the grounds, watching from a distance as Silvana and Frida played with the little boy in the pool, sitting out in his car and saying a few words to his driver, returning to the crime scene up in the tower, walking around the grounds again, circling closer and, as it started getting dark, coming inside. He asked no questions of anybody; he just wanted to be there. There was no sign of the mother. He supposed she knew he was there and was in her bedroom up on the first floor. Silvana was up there, too, somewhere. He’d heard her earlier playing the piano. Every now and then she sang a few notes, quiet, hesitant, and then stopping. It had seemed out of place to the marshal, music on the afternoon of the funeral, but he’d been the one to suggest it, he recalled, and anything was better than her crying. Judging by the dishes on the table, the evening meal was over. Frida had already put the little boy to bed. They had improvised a bedroom for him and Frida on the ground floor, and the marshal himself had brought over the long-nosed fluffy animal from his bed in the tower.

It was almost nine. Both girls were in the kitchen, clearing up. Perhaps because her Italian was better than Frida’s, it was Danuta who, when they’d finished, dared to say, ‘We eat something at this time. I have to go. . . .’

‘That’s all right. Eat.’

They ate at a marble worktop near the fridge, sitting on high stools, silent. Aware that his presence embarrassed them, he got up and climbed the stairs to go out to his two men in the parked car inside the gates of the villa.

It was dark.

He got into his own car which, hours earlier, his driver had taken care to park in the shade. The front passenger seat was pleasantly cool, but the driver was more than a little heated. The marshal appreciated his energy and enthusiasm and would have been only too pleased to satisfy his curiosity, but what was there to tell him? That his own memory was failing him? That he couldn’t for the life of him work out what didn’t add up about those girls, only that it had something to do with this moment? The child was in bed. Frida was kept here because Silvana couldn’t be left to cope alone—well, not to be unreasonable, the child wasn’t hers and there was a drunken mother in the mix—so be it. . . .

Mauro, the driver, postman, setter-up of compromising photographs . . . had it something to do with him?

‘Marshal . . . ?’

‘I won’t be a minute.’ He got out and went over to the other car. One of the two carabinieri was talking quietly into the radio. The window was wound down. The driver turned the ignition.

‘No, no . . . nothing yet. I wanted to ask you something. Were either of you two on duty here last Saturday night?’

‘Not me,’ the driver said. ‘Only got back from my holidays on Sunday—you were, weren’t you?’

‘The night you came, late on, to ask how it was going? Yes, I was here. You didn’t talk to me, though, I remember. It was my partner—’

‘Who said two young women left in the black mini.’

‘Yes. That was what you—’

‘And he said they had tits on them like . . . I don’t know what. Is that right?’

‘You know what it’s like . . . I mean, sitting here for hours. He didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘Right.’

‘What’s the matter with him . . . ?’

The marshal overheard that, but he didn’t stop to explain. He went back to his own car.

‘Is something happening?’ The young carabiniere reached for the ignition.

‘No, no. Don’t.’

He got into the car and sat still a moment, trying to decide what was best. Mauro hadn’t been seen here, and neither of those two girls would have driving licences. What should he do? The driver beside him was young, inexperienced. To send the other two would be better, but if something happened here? The marshal himself had to stay in the house, which would leave this boy out here alone. No. . . .

Should he call for backup? On what grounds? A vulgar remark? No. He must decide.

You take it upon yourself. . . .

Your little independent ways. . . .

He tried these remarks on himself a few times, to no effect. Water off a duck’s back. Inside, he was calm.

‘You’re going to have to do something for me—no. No, don’t turn your engine on yet. Two women will come out and drive away in the mini—’

‘You want me to follow them?’

‘Yes . . . and no. I can’t leave here, but I need to know who drives the car. That’s all.’

‘You don’t want to know where it goes?’

‘I don’t know. . . . They’ll probably take the motorway and go out to Paoletti’s club. If that’s the road they take, just come back.’

‘Oh . . . right.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘There’s no radio in here, though. . . .’

‘Keep your distance from the mini, turn back if they take the motorway. Don’t be in a hurry to follow them. There’s hardly any traffic, and I’d rather they didn’t notice you if you can manage that. Call me on your mobile if there’s anything. That’s all.’

He went back down to the kitchen, empty now, and waited, listening. Before too long, he heard footsteps above; the door. The car doors. The engine. Then it was quiet.

He was sitting at the table where he had sat on his first morning here, running over images from that day. The still water of the pool, the sunlight on the rumpled white bed, that fine spray of blood on the side, shattered glass. . . .

He ran the whole morning again, knowing now about the prosecutor. But what did he really know about him? That it had happened on his watch, very conveniently on his watch.

In his new subdued, compliant role, the marshal had demonstrated to De Vita his total concentration on matters other than The Emperor yesterday by talking about the ex-gardener, hoping to elicit two more warrants besides the one for the child’s DNA. One for a search of this whole house, in case a weapon was missing that Paoletti hadn’t noticed. That was refused.

‘I can see no necessity for it. What makes you think he has
any weapons?’
the prosecutor had asked.

‘Just the fact that one was used, and not a professional’s
weapon, as we agreed at the time. There was no one in the
house except Paoletti’s wife. She was asleep and she wears
earplugs. . . . Anyone could have got in.’

‘I think all that’s necessary is that I ask him myself once the
funeral’s over. I can see no need to disturb the family.’

Weapons. He had said ‘weapons,’ not ‘a weapon.’ Well, that had been refused.

The other warrant he would have liked was one to pull the phone records for the whole household; but, needless to say, that hadn’t materialized, only one for the victim’s number.

‘That’s already in hand. Now, I want you to stay close to the
family until Paoletti has had these tests done in the hospital
and is back at home. I understand they’re monitoring his blood
pressure for twenty-four hours. We don’t want anything untoward
happening in his absence. Imagine how that would look.‘

Well, it was all nonsense, of course, but, even so, the phrases he used. . . . Anything untoward . . . how it would look. . . .

‘Hmph. . . .’ He stood up. He was here to ‘stay close to the family.’ So, where were they? He had so far been excluded from anywhere except the entrance and this kitchen; but now he was going to stay close, as instructed. He started up the stairs with a sensation that he remembered from childhood: the excitement of that very rare occurrence, being alone in the house. Why a house looks so different to a child left alone is a mystery. Every room takes on a personality, forbidding, secretive, with its own special smell, and an opened drawer provokes tingles of guilty excitement. He remembered once, he was walking with his mother along the pale, dusty lane to the village to shop, and she had sent him back because she’d forgotten her list. Why were they walking there? They had their first Fiat 500 then, surely. Maybe his father was already in the village and was going to drive them back with the shopping. It was a long walk.

He’d found the list right away on the kitchen table, but he’d lingered. It was early on a summer morning, and his mother had already baked a sponge ring and cooked some green beans. Both were cooling on the kitchen table. It would be too hot to cook anything but the pasta and a thin slice of meat later. The beans didn’t interest him but, of course, the cake did. He’d managed to slide one finger under it and withdraw a morsel. It was warm and buttery and so much better than it would be later, a cold slice on a plate. He’d confessed it on the Saturday. Wickedness in a silent house.

Up on the ground floor, he stood and listened. To his right, the door to the library was closed. He knocked, waited, opened it, and switched the lights on. Glimpsed through the door the other day, the high room had been impressive, but from inside he could see into the wings of what was a bit of a stage set. Those wall-to-ceiling shelves facing the door were filled with matching leather-bound volumes, Boccaccio, Tasso, Ariosto, Dante. They were new but a little dusty and quite probably unopened. Paoletti’s big, ornate desk where he’d been sitting the other day was used. The stuff on it was mostly household bills and bank statements, but there was a biggish photograph in a silver frame. He picked it up. Paoletti and a thin, dark-haired child. That must be Silvana. She looked about six or seven. He was bending down towards her as though telling her something special, and she was gazing up at him, head tipped to one side, a winning smile, a strand of long hair twined around her finger. They were totally absorbed in one another. He put it down. The shutters of the three tall French windows were closed. There were huge expensive-looking carpets. When he turned to leave, though, he saw that the shelves flanking the doors were empty, though there were a couple of cardboard boxes there with more books wrapped in transparent packaging. There was a white formica table in the corner loaded with electronic stuff, with a tangle of black wires and white cables underneath. There were more boxes, too. Big ones, closed with shiny brown packaging tape, their contents scribbled with a black felt-tip. ‘Office stationery,’ ‘spare light fittings,’ ‘summer shoes.’ That suggested that they’d been there since the family had moved into the house. The condition of Paoletti’s wife would explain that.