The Dark Heart of Florence: Number 6 in series (Michele Ferrara) (11 page)

The main branch of the Florentine Savings Bank was in the city centre, right next to the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital.

At five minutes past eleven in the morning, after taking a moment to admire its beautiful sixteenth-century façade, Rizzo went in through the main door. There were two customers at the counters. At the first window, a young woman rocking a pushchair to send her child to sleep was waiting for the cashier to finish counting out her money. At the next one along, an old man leaning on a stick was complaining to an official about the ridiculous interest rates, which were barely enough to cover the annual fees he paid for the handling of his account. When this customer had moved away, muttering incomprehensibly to himself, Rizzo approached the official.

He was tall and thin as a rake, with white hair and glasses perched at the end of his pointed nose.

Rizzo introduced himself, showed his police badge, and explained the reason for his visit.

‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘Of course,’ Rizzo replied, taking it from his pocket and handing it over. Deputy Prosecutor Luigi Vinci had not made any fuss about issuing it, but had advised him to tread carefully and let him know what happened immediately.

The official took the warrant and read it carefully. ‘Do you really have to do this?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I do. I’ve got my orders and I have to follow them. And I don’t have time to hang around.’

The official sighed. ‘All right, but I’ll have to inform my manager first. Please follow me.’

They went up to the first floor. The official asked Rizzo to wait for him outside the manager’s office while he went in. After ten minutes or so, he came out again and asked Rizzo to follow him down to the vault. When he opened Costanza’s safe-deposit box, Rizzo was baffled.

He had expected to find valuables, important documents, jewellery. Instead, there was nothing but a key. For another safe-deposit box.

‘It’s not one of ours,’ the official immediately clarified.

‘I’ll have to take it away,’ Rizzo said. ‘I need to know when this box was accessed recently.’

‘Within what kind of time frame?’

‘Let’s start with the last quarter.’

‘All right. I’ll check the records.’

From the records, it emerged that the last time Enrico Costanza had opened the box had been the previous week.

‘Was anyone else authorised to access it?’ Rizzo asked.

‘No.’

‘Please follow me to the office,’ the official said once they had returned to the ground floor.

No sooner had they entered than Rizzo asked him for the statements of Costanza’s withdrawals, deposits and transfers during the last quarter. This request also met with a certain resistance. The official explained that a specific search warrant was necessary: the other warrant had only referred to the safe-deposit box.

Unfazed, Rizzo took out a second warrant authorising him to check all Costanza’s accounts. ‘Here you go,’ he said, putting it on the desk.

The official read it then started typing on the keyboard of his computer.

Costanza had only one current account, with a balance of almost two hundred thousand euros. Rather a lot to keep in a current account, Rizzo thought. But maybe he wasn’t all that bothered about not earning interest.

‘What about withdrawals?’ he asked.

‘There are a lot of them. It’s going to take a while to put them all together.’

‘In that case, can you tell me the most recent ones?’

‘The last one was a week ago. He withdrew fifty-five thousand euros.’

The same day the safe-deposit box had been opened. Surely too much of a coincidence.

‘In cash or in a banker’s draft?’

‘In cash.’

‘Could I speak to the cashier?’

‘Certainly, I’ll call her in.’

After a couple of minutes a very pretty and very tanned young woman no older than twenty-five entered the office.

‘I’ve already explained the situation to my colleague,’ the official told Rizzo.

Rizzo stood up and introduced himself. ‘What can you tell me?’ he asked.

‘I remember that withdrawal. I knew the Senator, and I was surprised when he asked for such a large sum in cash. He wanted it all in five-hundred-euro notes.’

‘Where did he put the money?’

‘In a leather briefcase. I remember it well. I was amazed that the Senator would use such a shabby-looking case.’ She clearly had a very good memory.

‘Was he alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you see whether anyone was waiting for him outside?’

‘I couldn’t see outside from where I was sitting.’

‘Can you remember what time it was?’

‘We’d only just opened.’

‘Thank you, signorina.’ Rizzo took a business card from his wallet and gave it to her. ‘If you should remember any other details, please give me a call.’ He turned to the official. ‘When will the paperwork be ready?’

‘In a couple of days.’

‘Either I or someone else from the
Squadra Mobile
will be back the day after tomorrow.’

‘All right. It’ll be ready for you.’

‘I’m sure it’s not necessary to say this, but I must ask you to be totally discreet.’

The official and the cashier both nodded.

When Rizzo left the bank, he found himself buffeted by a hot wind: the sirocco. He stopped for a few moments, looked around, then walked in the direction of the Via Cavour. After about a hundred yards, he went into a bar. He ordered a glass of mineral water and a cold coffee, then gave in to the temptation of a chocolate croissant. He needed the energy. He still had a long day ahead of him and he would almost certainly skip lunch.

What safe-deposit box did that key open? he wondered. Above all, why had Costanza withdrawn so much cash on the same day? And where had that worn briefcase and its fifty-five thousand euros ended up?

He had been present throughout the search of the villa, and certainly couldn’t remember their finding a case like that. Was it possible the killer had taken it with him?

And had it contained anything else apart from the money?

Immersed in his thoughts, Rizzo went back to his car, which was parked near Headquarters. And he realised that the surprises weren’t over yet.

The ticket was for parking in a no-parking zone. Rizzo slid it out from under the windscreen wiper with a grimace of annoyance.

The traffic wardens really had it in for the police. The bastards!

He checked, and he had left the sign with
State Police
in plain view on the windscreen. Clearly the warden hadn’t given a damn about that, even though he must have known he was increasing the nervous tension the police had been feeling for some time now.

Why were the wardens picking on them? Why were they so determined to fine private cars and motorbikes in the area around Headquarters?

Rizzo got in the car, started the engine and drove off.

Once in the office, he would write a report to explain that his decision to park there had been motivated by urgent police business. Then he would send it to the traffic wardens’ head office along with the parking ticket, asking for it to be cancelled. He was certain the ticket would be quietly shelved.

The Isolotto district.

Once it had been all vegetable gardens and fields.

Then it had been taken over by workshops and majolica pottery factories. In the twentieth century, housing for the working classes had started to spring up: anonymous apartment buildings of little commercial value, just like those found on the outskirts of any other city. But they had the advantage of being close to the historic centre of Florence.

Almost all the apartments, even those on the higher floors, had sturdy iron bars over the windows to discourage burglars. But on the streets there were none of the pickpockets who infested the city centre, a constant threat to tourists. In fact, in this district, certain crimes were virtually unknown.

Fabio Biondi, the expert suggested by the head of Special Ops, lived in one of these small apartment buildings.

The driver parked near the left bank of the Arno, opposite the Parco delle Cascine, and Teresa got out.

‘Wait for me here,’ she said, looking around. The morning rush hour had been over for some time, and the street was half deserted. She immediately found Biondi’s bell by the entryphone. When she pressed it a man’s voice said, ‘Third floor’. After a few moments, she heard the click of the lock turning and the front door opened.

On reaching the third floor, she found that there was only one apartment on the landing. Although the door was ajar, she rang the bell anyway. On the doormat in front of the door, which looked very dusty, as if it had not been beaten for some time, there was a drawing of a dog.

After a few moments, a man appeared in the doorway. He was thin, with closely cropped reddish hair and a freckled face. At first sight, he could have been taken for a teenager but, looking at him more closely, Teresa saw the lines on his face, especially under the eyes, and realised he must be older than he seemed.

‘Signor Fabio Biondi?’ she asked.

The man smiled. ‘Thanks for the “Signor”, but Fabio’s fine.’

She introduced herself and told him straight away that she was a colleague of Barba’s.

‘I know Barba well. He told me you’d be coming. I’ve been expecting you.’

She took a small package from her bag and held it out to him. ‘This is for you. I hope you like it.’

He seemed dazed as he took the present, then he looked up and smiled as he opened the package. ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed when he discovered what was inside.

It was a miniature ceramic model of a policeman in uniform with his white helmet under his left arm, his cap on his head and an eye-catching white belt with a holster at his waist. Teresa had received it as a present from a colleague during her course at the Academy. She had looked after it carefully, keeping it in the display cabinet in her office, but she was prepared to give up her memento to obtain the help they needed.

‘I’ve been missing this one. I’ve got the models of all the police and the Carabinieri, including the ones with the wooden bases and the logos of the different specialist branches. Thank you so much! I’m really grateful. But don’t just stand there, take a seat.’

Teresa followed the man down the hall and into the first room on the right, next to the kitchen. She looked around. The place was in an unutterably chaotic state and everything was covered with a layer of dust. She wondered how long it had been since anyone had cleaned this apartment.

The room, probably intended as a living room, was kitted out like a genuine technical lab. The floor was a tangle of cables. Everywhere there was equipment whose function was a complete mystery to Teresa. On seeing it all, she wondered how much it had cost, what it was for, where he had got it from and, most of all, what money he had used to pay for it. Various screens and laptop computers on a long table were the only things she recognised.

‘Welcome to my lair,’ the man said. ‘What can I do for you, Superintendent?’

Teresa looked around again, then explained why she had come and took the video out of her bag. The man pushed a chair towards her and got straight down to work.

The press conference took place in the large room on the second floor.

They had called all the media together to stop the reporters, who had so far been denied an official statement, from going on a hunt for confidential information, with the risk that they might harm the investigation.

It was just after one when Ferrara and the Deputy Commissioner entered the room. The chatter stopped at once.

Deputy Commissioner Carmelo Zichichi was filling in for Adinolfi, who was away. Zichichi was just a few months from retirement and was not at all unhappy at the prospect. He couldn’t wait to devote himself full time to his hobby: photography.

He actually looked more like an artist than a high-ranking police officer. He was proud of his thick head of hair, even though it was now almost completely grey, and his long seventies-style sideburns. He smoked a pipe and often kept it in his mouth unlit, giving him the air of a thinker, even on those Sundays at the stadium when Fiorentina were playing and he was in charge of public order.

No sooner was he seated than he removed the microphone from its stand, cleared his throat and began speaking. He went straight to the point, promising the media and the citizens of Florence that the murders would not go unpunished.

‘The investigators will be working non-stop to bring the person or persons responsible to justice,’ he said, in a well-mannered if somewhat tense tone. ‘Our colleagues from the SCO will soon be arriving from Rome and will work alongside the
Squadra Mobile
. There will be a combined effort to bring about a positive result within a reasonable time.’

Then he invited the journalists to ask Chief Superintendent Ferrara any questions they might have.

After the first fairly straightforward questions, which Ferrara had no difficulty answering, the cheap shot he had been expecting arrived. It came from a freelance newspaperman, a short, shabbily dressed character, getting on in years, who liked to pose as an investigative journalist. In local circles he also had the reputation of being a skinflint and a drunk. Among his colleagues there were also those who, if you spoke to them privately, would go so far as to describe him as a fraud who had passed other people’s investigations off as his own.

‘Ah, look, it’s Presti as usual!’ Ferrara said in a low voice when he saw him raise his arm.

‘Chief Superintendent, I’d like you to tell me whether Florence can still be considered a safe city after all these horrific murders. The victims are very well-known individuals. Wouldn’t you agree that your department is proving unequal to the task of providing the required degree of security to the public?’

Quite unfazed, Ferrara was about to respond when Zichichi put his hand on his arm to stop him.

‘The Chief Superintendent is responsible for catching criminals once crimes have been committed,’ he said in a firm voice. ‘Crime prevention and public security are the responsibility of the Commissioner. In his absence, I can assure you that the city is safe. The crimes to which you refer were uncovered thanks to the activities of the
Squadra Mobile
, and this double murder will also be solved. This conference is now over. Thank you all for your participation.’

He stood up, picked up his pipe from the desk and put it in his mouth.

Voices could be heard from the back rows, and a murmur of protest spread through the room. There was the sound of chairs scraping the floor. Zichichi raised his arm to impose silence. A woman had got up and had to shout to be heard over the noise. ‘Is it true that the Commissioner has been summoned to Rome by the Head of the State Police in connection with these murders?’

It struck Presti that it might be a good idea to phone and make an appointment with his old friend Guaschelli.

Without missing a beat, Zichichi removed his pipe from his mouth and said, ‘The Commissioner is in Rome for a scheduled meeting.’

His words were met with a general muttering. Clearly it was not the answer they wanted, but nobody responded.

Then it was the turn of another journalist, who asked Ferrara whether the killer had had accomplices.

‘We don’t know,’ Ferrara replied, ‘but, should it prove necessary, we will consider the possibility. I have no further comment, as I’m bound by confidentiality. Please, no more questions.’

He stood up and followed Zichichi out of the room. He had things to do.