Converging Parallels (35 page)

He was interrupted by the sound of running along the corridor. The heavy regular fall of shoes. Magagna got up and went into the corridor, closing the door behind him.

“Go on, please.”

“It was just before I reached the Corso. I heard the sound of brakes and I looked up to see a car. I saw it clearly, Commissario. I have managed to keep my eyesight into the evening of my life. I can see well—even at night.” He smiled. “I eat a lot of carrots, you know.”

“What sort of car?”

“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. A sports car—a foreign one, I think, with a convertible roof—and it was going very fast. Very fast and down the wrong side of the Viale. One hundred and thirty or forty kilometers an hour and heading towards the river. I thought it was going for the bridge. I stopped to watch—I knew that something was going to happen, I was frightened.
Then at the last moment the car swung left; it went through the traffic lights and into the Lungo Po. It must’ve gone up onto the pavement. At least I suppose so—I couldn’t see.”

“What did you hear?”

“The screech of brakes and then—it wasn’t my imagination, I heard a thump. A soft thump like a body being hit.”

“A body? A human body?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anybody around? Anybody else along the viale?”

“Nobody.”

“What did you do?”

“Giuseppina and I, we hurried back to the river.” His smile revealed the false teeth. “You may not believe it, Commissario, but I was once an athlete. When I was a student at the university, I ran the two hundred meters in the Olympics. I am still sprightly. We got there in less than four minutes. Yet when I got to the corner of the viale and the Lungo Po, there was nothing.”

“Skid marks on the tarmac?”

“It was too dark to see.”

More noise came from the corridor; the banging of doors and somebody—it sounded like Pisanelli—shouting.

“And there’s something else,” the old man said.

The rain continued to splatter against the pane; there was no break in the low grey clouds.

“One other thing,” Avvocato Romano repeated. He already had his bony hands against the arms of the chair and was raising himself to an erect position. Giuseppina, now awake, her whiskery muzzle against the cold floor, looked up at her master. “A few seconds after I heard the screech of brakes and the thump,” he shuddered, “just after that …”

“Yes?”

“And after I was sure that the car had gone up onto the sidewalk.”

“What?”

“I started running—well, walking as fast as I could and Giuseppina pulling at her lead—down the viale and I saw a taxi coming off the bridge. And his right light was on—he was
preparing to turn into the Lungo Po. But he stopped at the end of the bridge, at the traffic lights. He stopped, the lights changed but he didn’t move off.”

“You mean the driver could see?”

The old man shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“You could see the taxi—but not the car on the sidewalk?”

“That is right.”

“A yellow taxi?”

Avvocato Romano nodded. “It was as though the driver was interested—he must have seen the accident, if there was one—but was scared. Because I heard the sound of the tires as the car made a sudden U-turn. The driver turned the car round and went back in the direction he had just come from, back over the bridge.”

“Commissario!” The door opened and Magagna put his head through the door. The dog stood up angrily and yapped.

“Commissario, you’re wanted.” Magagna’s face was white.

“A yellow taxi,” Trotti said, almost to himself.

“Leonardelli wants you, Commissario.” His voice was strained, unnatural. “They’ve found him—they’ve found Moro! Murdered—several bullets in his body. Between Piazza Madama and Botteghe Oscure. The BR have killed him!”

Trotti was smiling.

R
ELIEF CAME AS
a surprise.

The sense of frustration, the feeling that for five days things had been out of control, now vanished. He felt well. He was in charge. Five days? It seemed longer, so much longer. And Trotti was tired. But it did not matter. Everything was clear.

Along the hall, people were going to and fro, their faces drawn and their eyes revealing a sense of shock. Trotti stood up. “Close the door.”

Avvocato Romano was sitting, his mouth slightly open, the tongue visible behind the dentures. He nodded slowly to himself. “The poor man,” he muttered.

Later, when the lawyer had gone and Trotti was alone in his office, he sat back in his chair. Outside, through the closed door, there was confusion. Somebody was shouting and from one of the offices there came the sound of sporadic radio static. Trotti unwrapped another sweet and sucked it thoughtfully.

He did not immediately notice the blinking light on the telephone.

He picked up the receiver. “I want you down here, Trotti.” Leonardelli. He was out of breath.

“Immediately, Signor Questore.” But instead of replacing the receiver, he dialed Gino. It was some time before the blind man answered. “Put me through to the Scuola Elementare Gerolamo Cardano.”

Trotti then waited, the telephone to his ear. He pulled a directory that was on his desk towards him.

“I can’t get through,” Gino said.

“Then give me sixty-seven–twelve–twenty.”

“Leonardelli wants everybody in his office.”

“Shut up and give me the line.”

The distant phone rang several times before a man answered. “City Taxis.”

“Commissario Trotti, Pubblica Sicurezza.”

“You.” Surprise and hostility. “Haven’t you got anything more important to do with your time?” The man sounded out of breath as though he had run to answer the phone. “Like capturing terrorists. That’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?”

“Badly paid.”

“Then you’re in the wrong job.”

“You’ve got a man working for you,” Trotti said, “Ermagni.”

“Used to.” A short, angry laugh. “He doesn’t work here any more, thank goodness. A neurotic. I told him he could go, I don’t want to see him again—a drunkard and a maniac.” Then more cautiously, “Are you a friend of his?”

“He used to work for me.”

“I can believe it.” Again he snorted. “Pubblica Sicurezza.”

“Last Tuesday.” Trotti leaned over his desk to look at an open calendar. “Who was on the night rota?”

“Ermagni, of course.”

“Why of course?”

“He’s always worked nights. It’s something to do with his daughter, something to do with his taking her to school when he came off work.” He paused. “A drunkard. He killed his wife. Perhaps if he’d worked different hours and spent the nights with his wife …”

“When is the night rota?”

“Midnight to six.” He stopped suddenly. “Last Tuesday, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, wait.”

There was the sound of pages being turned.

“Last week he swapped with Pistone—another alcoholic. That’s right. Pistone’s gone south and before he went … that’s right, Pistone was standing in for him most nights last week. They share the same vehicle. Pistone told me about it. But I don’t want Ermagni back here, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s too unreliable and I’ve got a business to run. He can take his bleeding heart and his self-pity elsewhere. And his boozing.” The man hung up angrily.

Trotti laughed.

He kept the line open and asked Gino to put him through to the school. While he waited he stared at the telephone directory. The idea came to him suddenly. He ran through the pages, looking for Tarzi.

And there, at the bottom of the narrow column, he saw the name: Dottor Eduardo Perbene.

“H
E WAS COVERED
in blood. On his hands and down the front of his shirt.” Her face was hard, the corner of her lips pulled down. She ran a hand across her hair.

Trotti was standing by the wall, a grey pencil sharpener with a steel handle screwed into the wall at his elbow. “When was this?” he asked.

“Three o’clock, four o’clock.” She shrugged, her shoulder rising almost to her ears; she returned the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled, as though hoping to find support in the nicotine. “I was asleep and he woke me. Covered in blood; blood and dirt.”

“What did you do?”

She looked at Trotti coldly. “He’s my husband, isn’t he?” No grievance in her voice; she was stating a fact in the same way that she stated facts to her children in the classroom. “He was like a child. He had been drinking but trying to hack away at the corpse—there were smears of blood on his face, he was pale—had started to sober him up. He was swaying and he had to lean against the door so as not to fall over. A knife in one hand—a damn stupid kitchen knife and tears of frustration and self-pity pouring down his face.” She shook her head. “Not a very nice way to be woken up by your husband who’s been out with one of his women.”

“Tell me what you did.”

She breathed again at the cigarette. “Once I got over the
shock, I got up and I got dressed. He needed me—he can’t do anything by himself—so I went down to the garage. He hadn’t even thought of putting a sheet of plastic down on the ground. The cement was stained, there were several dark puddles. And of course, the body. I knew it was a prostitute; the short mini-skirt with its lurid buttons and the yellow sweater. But she had been badly mangled—even before he’d started his handiwork. The head had been pushed back.” She shivered and folded her arms beneath the high breasts. “A human being.”

“He’d already cut the body up?”

“One leg. He’d hacked away, splattering everything.”

Outside in the hall a bell rang.

“What else could I do? He had killed her. Drunk and out with his woman in his fancy French sports car.” She laughed while tobacco smoke poured from her nose. “He was surprised that I knew all about that—his sordid little affair. He wanted to know how I knew.” She shook her head. “With his woman and drunk out of his mind, he’d driven the car up on to the sidewalk. He’d killed the poor bitch.” Again she shook her head. “And said it wasn’t his fault, that she got winged by the bumper and then it was too late for him to stop. So he bundles her into the trunk, takes his girlfriend home and then comes home to me. Perhaps he thought he could get rid of her without my knowing. A kitchen knife—an electric kitchen knife.”

Signora Perbene stopped; she walked round the desk, her arms folded while she stared at the floor.

Trotti waited.

Outside it was still raining; above the high windows he glimpsed the grey sky, deformed by the refracting raindrops. He looked at the woman and then at the poster on the wall. The white cathedral in Bari. He smiled to himself; instead of being in this classroom, he should have gone to see Leonardelli. But he had stealthily moved out of the Questura, going down the fire escape.

Trotti looked at the blackboard. The name Aldo Moro had been written in the unsteady hand of a child. Trotti looked at the small desks and at the row of shoe bags hanging from their hooks. The innocent, embroidered names—Antonia, Sandra, Giovanna.

“I told him to make some coffee—at least he could do that—and I then got on with the job he had started. I put a sheet down and I took a kitchen chopper.” She smiled. “A wedding present, Commissario.” She now stood beside the teacher’s desk, a closed hand resting on the dark wood. “You understand, it was too late to go to the police. And anyway, once he had bundled the corpse into the boot—he panicked because he saw the taxi—there was nothing else that I could do. I managed to persuade myself that getting rid of the body was the best solution.” She shrugged. “Manslaughter—that is not very serious.”

“It was serious for the woman.”

“She was dead, wasn’t she? There was nothing I could do to save her. I couldn’t bring her back to life. She was dead.” The face was belligerent; yet the eyes had begun to water. “My father—that’s what stopped me from contacting Pronto Intervento. He has got friends among the Carabinieri and the PS—he’s a good friend of the Questore—friends who owe him favors. But it couldn’t be kept secret. Not now—not just before the elections. He would never have forgiven me. As it is, my relationship with him has been strained enough. I couldn’t go to the police—it was out of the question. And I couldn’t go to him, either. It would’ve embarrassed him and he’d never have forgiven me.” She attempted a smile, but already a tear had formed at the corner of her eye. “Embarrass him—lose votes, even—no, he would never have forgiven me.”

“So you cut the body up?”

“With a small kitchen chopper on a piece of plastic on the garage floor. While Renzo made the coffee.” She brushed at her cheek. “The plastic bags were his idea. I wanted to bury the parts—at least they would rot—but he said that we didn’t have the time. And anyway, with the current, the bags would go downstream and there could be no reason for associating us with the bits of body.” She shivered, pulled her arms tighter together. “No reason for our being associated with a dead whore.” She stopped short, her mouth snapped shut as though closed by an internal spring. She turned to look at Trotti. Hostility in her eyes. “She told you.”

“She?”

“There is no other way that you could know. She told you—the bitch.”

“Nobody told me anything.”

“The bitch—a dog on heat—she invites him round to her place, she gets him to drink and then, like the whore she is, she lets him screw her. Afterwards she makes him pay. She told you, didn’t she?”

The tears had disappeared. She looked at Trotti with anger and outrage. Her lips were drawn back to reveal her teeth. She trembled, the cigarette burned between her fingers. “The bitch, the fornicating bitch—she’d do anything to come between Renzo and me. She’s jealous and she wants to destroy us; and like the idiot he is, he doesn’t understand. But I can see through her cheap plans.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” He held up his hand, “And I don’t want to know. Nobody told me anything.” He paused. “Signora Perbene, everybody has lied to me.”

The woman took no notice of Trotti’s remark. “She wants to take him from me.”

“But you told me that marriage was a free union. When I last came here,” he gestured towards the rows of small desks and chairs, “you seemed to have a more liberal attitude towards marriage.”