A Florentine Death (11 page)

'What about my bureau de change, Superintendent?'

'I said you could go, didn't I?' Ferrara's tone left him in no doubt: he had lifted that threat, at least for the moment.

'We ought to find out where the Velazquez was stolen from,' Ferrara said as soon as Sergi had returned. 'It would be nice if we could get hold of a photo or, failing that, a good description. We need to get authorisation from the Prosecutor to remove the seals from the shop. We can always tell him we have to carry out another search to see if the painting is still there.'

'It'll be there,' Serpico said. 'Salustri comes here almost every day to ask when he can get his shop back. The last time he did, they sent him to me. I told him he'd have to apply to the Prosecutor's Department, maybe with a request from a lawyer, and that in any case he'd be able to ask for compensation for the loss of earnings. He was really upset, said he'd be reduced to stealing in order to live, things like that.'

'It couldn't be clearer, could it? We need to keep an eye on this Salustri. I want him watched twenty-four hours a day, in shifts. And I want a tap on his phones.'

'How do we present the request to the Prosecutor? We can't tell him what we found out from Dieni or from Pino's friend. How do we justify a phone tap?'

'We won't say we suspect Salustri, just that we may get a few leads from listening in on his calls, maybe identify friends and acquaintances of the victim we don't know about yet. After all, Salustri was the victim's employer and the murder did happen in his shop.'

'So because we're asking to tap the phone of someone who's not being investigated, we don't have to mention the leads we have?'

'Precisely. I think two weeks should be long enough.'

'I'll get on to it, chief!'

At 10.28 p.m. on Sunday 16 January, in the room at the Prosecutor's Department where phone taps were monitored, the recorder connected to the phone line in Antonio Salustri's home began to show signs of life. One, two, three rings. Someone picked up the receiver.

'Salustri?' It was a man's voice, with a strong Sicilian accent.

'Yes. I know it's you.'

'What's happening, Salustri?'

'Still nothing. I can't get into the shop - we need to wait.' 'What the fuck . . .? I thought we had an understanding.' 'We do have an understanding, but I can't get in.' 'He can't wait.' 'Just be patient. It'll come.'

'He can't wait. We need that money. Let's hurry things up, shall we?'

'You'll get it all, don't worry'

Another week. Then we want the money'

'I have to get it first.'

'One week.'

'But—'

The Sicilian had already hung up.

What the officer on duty had heard was more than enough for him to phone Inspector Sergi at home at that late hour and for Serpico, in his turn, to call Rizzo and Ferrara.

'We've got him, chief,' he said, concluding his account.

'Let's talk about it tomorrow,' Ferrara said. 'Let me sleep on it for now. See you tomorrow.'

'Good night, chief.'

'Good night, Sergi.'

A transcript of the telephone call was already on Ferrara's desk by eight o'clock the following morning. Ferrara had summoned his deputy and Serpico.

'Now that we have corroboration, chief,' Rizzo suggested, 'we could ask for a warrant to search the shop. It's obvious the painting's still there.'

Ferrara read the transcript again. 'The painting's there,' he said. 'There's no doubt about it. The first thing to do is stop Salustri or anyone working for him from breaking the seals and taking it away. The shop will need to be watched round the clock.'

'Right, chief, but what about the search warrant?' Rizzo insisted.

'There's no hurry. I understand your haste, but just because we've had corroboration we shouldn't lose sight of the main objective, which is to catch a killer, not a fence. Let's take this step by step. The picture's not going anywhere for the moment.'

All right, chief. How should we proceed?'

'First of all, we check with the phone company and find out where the call came from. I want to know who he's mixed up with.'

'The phone company? That could take days, maybe even a week . . .'

'I know. We'll wait.' 'All right.'

'In the meantime we keep our eyes on Salustri. If he comes back to Headquarters, send him to me. Sergi, I want you to call the diocese in Messina and in Catania, in fact, every diocese in Sicily if you have to. Find out where this Velazquez was stolen from.'

'Superintendent Ferrara?' 'Speaking.'

'This is the officer in the guardhouse.' 'Go on.'

'A lawyer named Nicola Biffi is here with his client, a man named Salustri. They're asking to see you.' 'Bring them to my office.'

It was midday. Ferrara was overjoyed. He hadn't even needed to summon them, they'd come to him!

A few minutes later, the two men were in the room. Ferrara knew the lawyer well.

'What brings you here, Signor Biffi? It must be important if you went to the trouble of coming yourself instead of delegating the job to one of your colleagues.'

'You're quite right, Chief Superintendent. It is important.'

'Go on.'

'My client here, Signor Salustri, is the owner of the antique shop where Alfredo Lupi was murdered.'

'I know that. I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting him personally'

Salustri, a man in his fifties with a pale, drawn face, said nothing. He was carefully avoiding direct eye contact with Ferrara.

'After all this time, the shop is still sequestrated property,' the lawyer said. As I'm sure you must realise, my client is losing a great deal of money. What should he do? The shop is the only source of income for him and his family.'

'I understand, Signor Biffi, but you know I can't do anything. Signor Salustri has come here several times to ask for the sequestration order to be lifted, and he's been told that he must apply to the Prosecutor's Department. The premises are the responsibility of the legal authorities, it's not up to us.'

'Obviously I know that, but I also know that the Prosecutor's Department won't hand back sequestrated property, especially if there's a murder involved, unless they receive a favourable opinion from those conducting the investigation. We're dealing with a human tragedy here. My client hasn't committed any crime, yet he's suffering a grievous wrong.'

Salustri intervened for the first time. Tm ruined, superintendent,' he said, still without looking Ferrara in the eyes. That was one thing that irritated Ferrara: the other was his voice, artfully made to sound cracked in order to inspire pity. 'There are payments I'm waiting for that have been frozen. What can I do if I can't sell?'

'I understand, Signor Salustri,' Ferrara replied politely, finding it hard to hold back what he really wanted to say. 'But you really need to apply to the Prosecutor's Department, preferably through your lawyer.'

'If I've understood correctly, Chief Superintendent,' Biffi said, 'you'll give a favourable opinion.'

'No, Signor Biffi, that's not what I said. I simply explained the procedure. Your client should follow it, and I'll decide when the time comes.'

The two men left, disgruntled.

As soon as they had gone, Ferrara phoned the prosecutor and brought him up to date, making an appointment to discuss the matter in person. By the time he put the phone down, he knew for certain that Salustri would not succeed in getting the sequestration order lifted.

The following Friday, the phone company informed them of the number and location of the telephone from which Salustri had been called. It was a public phone inside an Agip service station on the autostrada a few kilometres outside Palermo, on the way to Messina.

The same day, Ferrara learned that the Velazquez painting had been stolen from the parish church of Ali Superiore, in the province of Messina, not far from Taormina.

'I spoke to the parish priest, chief,' Sergi said. 'He's very happy. He was so excited, he wanted to come to Florence straight away'

'But what did you tell him? That we'd found it?'

'No, I didn't, but that's what he understood at first. So I explained that we still had a lot to do and that we'd keep him informed. But he was beside himself. His parishioners, which means basically the whole village, have been desperate since the painting was stolen. They consider it part of their heritage.'

'Did you ask him what the painting looks like?'

'Yes. It's from the seventeenth century, and it's attributed to the famous Spanish painter Diego Velazquez - according to him, one of the greatest portrait painters of all time.'

'What's the subject?' Ferrara asked, impatiently.

'It's the portrait of a priest or a monk, wearing a dark cloak and holding an open book in his hands. Next to him, on his right, there's a big bird that you can't see clearly, some kind of condor. The colours are very dark, he said.'

'Good. Keep your fingers crossed, this could turn out to be very useful.'

*

In the monitoring room at the Prosecutor's Department, the recorder again indicated that Salustri's phone was ringing. It rang only twice this time, and when the voices came on the line, they were the same voices as on the previous Sunday. A week had passed: it was 11.03 p.m. on Sunday 23 January. Rizzo and Sergi had been waiting with the duty officer for the call to come.

The mechanism was already in place to trace the call within a few minutes. All switchboards were being manned by an employee of the phone company and a police officer. Members of the Palermo
Squadra Mobile
had the service area where the previous call had been made under surveillance.

'What's happening, Salustri?'

'Still nothing. I can't get in.'

'What about our understanding?'

'But—'

'Get it now,' the man interrupted Salustri. 'We'll talk again tomorrow night.'

'What do you mean?'

At the other end, the line went dead.

'Too short, damn it,' Sergi said. 'I don't think there was time to trace it.'

Rizzo called the officer at the switchboard to check, then Sergi called Ferrara. 'Impossible, chief. Too short. Not even thirty seconds. All we know is that the call wasn't made from anywhere near Florence. They're trying at least to find out which area it came from.'

'We'll wait. But let them do whatever they can to identify the number.'

He was hoping it was a domestic number, but he doubted

it.

They were informed by their colleagues in Palermo that nobody had used the phone in the Agip service station. They

were clearly dealing with professionals, Serpico thought, professionals who wouldn't use the same phone twice.

Ferrara went to bed disappointed, but didn't have time to fall asleep. The phone rang again. It was another call from Sergi.

'Sorry to call at this hour, chief.'

'Go on.'

'Salustri has cut loose.' 'What?'

'We've just heard from the officers who've been staking out his home. They saw him leave with a suitcase in his hand. He took his car and set off in the direction of the autostrada.'

'I hope they're following him.'

'Of course. I told them not to let him out of their sight.'

'Let me know what direction he's going. Keep me updated. Doesn't matter how late it is. I don't think any of us are getting any sleep tonight.'

'Of course, chief.'

The phone calls kept coming, with Sergi keeping him up to date with every development. Salustri had taken the Autostrada del Sole heading north, had exited at Modena, and had taken a room at the Holiday Inn near the tollgate. Local officers were now keeping watch on the hotel.

He's trying to save his skin,
Ferrara thought.
He can't get to the painting, his big deal has gone belly up, and he knows the Sicilians aren't joking.
At last, some time in the middle of the night, he finally managed to get to sleep. The next day was going to be busy.

'Salustri left the hotel at eight,' Ferrara said. 'Right now, he's on his way to Milan. We're following him discreetly. At this point I need a warrant to take him into custody'

Ferrara and Rizzo were in Prosecutor Gallo's office. They had arrived first thing in the morning.

'What offence are we charging him with?' Gallo asked. 'We don't have anything against him.'

'We know there's a stolen artwork in his shop. We know he's a fence and that he has contacts with the Mafia. We've recorded two phone calls—'

'It's not sufficient, you know that - not for an arrest warrant that'll have to be endorsed within twenty-four hours by an examining magistrate from another district, perhaps Milan, who knows nothing about the case.'

'I understand the problem, chief . . .' Ferrara remembered, with a touch of regret, the days when deputy prosecutors would issue warrants with all the details left blank. But that was a long time ago, when legal procedures were different. Nowadays, maybe there was too much safeguarding of civil rights. It was always hard to find the middle way: perhaps it didn't even exist. 'But you could issue a search warrant for the shop. At least we can seize the Velazquez. In the meantime, we'll keep an eye on Salustri. If we really have to, we could get the traffic police to stop him and charge him with some traffic violation, just as an excuse to take him to their barracks. Add the painting to the phone tap evidence, and our problem is solved.'

'Good idea, Chief Superintendent. I think it's the only practical solution.'

At 10.30 a.m., Ferrara, accompanied by Rizzo, Sergi, Ascalchi and a group of officers, had the seals removed and entered the shop.

The smell of death still lingered.

The air didn't seem to have changed since the day of the murder.

The search began. In the absence of Salustri, a member of his family or a person he trusted - required for legal reasons -they had sent for Lupi's wife, on the pretext that they had to check if there were any objects there that had belonged to her husband.

They had hardly begun when they heard a mobile phone ring. It was Sergi's.

'Chief, it's the patrol that's following Salustri,' he said in Ferrara's ear, drawing him into a corner. 'They say he's coming up to Ponte Chiasso. He's obviously trying to cross the border. They're waiting for instructions.'

'He mustn't leave the country!' Ferrara cried. 'Contact customs. Have them detain him, claim they need to check his papers, search his car . . . Whatever they like, but they mustn't let him cross the border.'

'Of course, chief.'

Ferrara and Rizzo went back to supervising the search. Lupi's wife had sat down on a chair, a long way from where her husband's body had been found.

The officers began literally dismantling the shop, piece by piece. Every corner was checked, every piece of furniture shifted and inspected, every painting carefully examined.

'Chief!' Ascalchi's excited voice came from the back room. 'Come here, chief!'

Ferrara, Sergi and Rizzo ran into the back room. Ascalchi was surrounded by a group of officers, who moved aside when they saw Ferrara. In Ascalchi's hands was the painting they had been searching for.

Ferrara stared at the canvas with unexpected reverence and a touch of dismay. He felt as if the sharp, intense eyes of the clergyman in the painting, staring out of the dark background as if lit by an inner light, were staring back at him, judging him, following him when he moved.

'It was behind the bookcase, chief, propped up against the wall,' Ascalchi said, pointing to a piece of furniture next to an old desk cluttered with papers. "We moved it and saw there was something wrapped in sheets of newspaper. We took them off and here it is.'

'Good work, boys. It should be plain sailing from now on. I'll phone the Prosecutor immediately and update him. In the meantime, carry on searching, we may find something else. Sergi, check to make sure Salustri has been detained.'

At 3 p.m., Ferrara was travelling along the autostrada on the way to Ponte Chiasso. Rizzo, Sergi and two other officers were in a car behind him.

Before leaving, Ferrara had faxed the warrant for Antonio Salustri's arrest on the charge of receiving stolen goods. In the car with him was Prosecutor Gallo, who would want to interview Salustri in person as soon as the judge in Como, who had already been informed, had endorsed the warrant.

What with the long journey and the time spent on legal procedures, it was already after nine in the evening before they finally found themselves sitting opposite the accused man at the Remand Centre in Como.

'Signor Salustri, I am the Public Prosecutor of Florence, Doctor Gallo, and this gentleman sitting beside me is the head of Florence's
Squadra Mobile,
Chief Superintendent Ferrara.'

'I know Superintendent Ferrara. My lawyer and I went to see him to ask for the sequestration order on my shop to be lifted.'

'Well, you have already been informed of the warrant I issued this morning so you know what this is about. You are under investigation for the offence of receiving stolen goods, in particular a painting by Velazquez, stolen in Sicily, which we found behind a bookcase in the back room of your shop. I have a duty to advise you that you can either choose a defence attorney for yourself or you can let me choose one for you. As you are under investigation, I need to interview you in the presence of a lawyer. That's the procedure.'

'I don't know anyone here. My lawyer's in Florence. Biffi. Do you know him?'

'Yes, but we can't wait for him to get here. The demands of the investigation require us to carry out the interview immediately'

'So choose a lawyer for me, like you said. I have no problem answering your questions. I can explain everything. Even how I came to have that painting.'

Ferrara was following the conversation, and watching the man closely. Antonio Salustri was pale, and he had heavy rings under his eyes, but he did not seem any more submissive or humble than he'd been before.

It was obvious that he had used the time since leaving Florence to construct a line of defence, and now they would have to dismantle it without the element of surprise on their side. What Salustri didn't know was that they weren't looking to nail him for the theft of the painting, but for something else entirely.

They waited until the lawyer - the one on duty that day according to the list provided by the Como Prosecutor's Department - had arrived.

After the ritual introductions, Prosecutor Gallo continued, 'You are charged with receiving stolen goods, in that you had in your possession a priceless painting by the famous Spanish artist Velazquez, stolen some years ago from the parish church of Ali Superiore. In addition, I should like to ask you some questions about the murder of Alfredo Lupi, which took place in your shop on December 31st last year.'

Ferrara frowned.

The lawyer was listening, but did not say a word.

'What's the murder got to do with me?' Salustri protested. 'The police interviewed me the day it happened. I answered all their questions!'