Death and the Olive Grove Read online

  ‘Inspector Bordelli’s the name. Sorry to disturb you at this hour.’

  The woman appeared to be about fifty. She was tall and slender and did not look Italian. She had a hard mouth. She stood there without moving, back erect, watching Bordelli from behind her glasses.

  ‘Vhat can I do for you?’ she asked in a strong German accent, pulling the shawl tightly around her. Her hair was all white and gathered into a perfect bun at the back of her head. Bordelli had the feeling that someone was spying on him from behind a shutter on the first floor, but he pretended not to notice.

  ‘And you are Signora …?’ he asked.

  ‘I am baron’s housekeeper,’ the woman said icily.

  ‘And his name is …?’

  ‘Baron von Hauser.’

  ‘And you are …’

  ‘Miss Olga.’

  ‘Is the baron at home?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘May I ask where he is?’

  ‘Baron ist alvays travelink, he’s not often at home.’

  ‘Does anyone else live here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You live here alone?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Year round?’

  ‘I don’t understant … Vhy all these qvestions?’

  ‘I’m sorry, somebody called in and reported a shooting in this area.’

  ‘I hear nothink, I go to sleep early.’

  Bordelli threw his hands up and smiled.

  ‘Well, that’s all I have to ask. Sorry again for the disturbance. Goodnight,’ he said.

  ‘Goodnight,’ the woman replied, poker faced.

  Bordelli gave a slight bow of respect and headed back towards the gate, but after taking a few steps he stopped and turned round to face the woman again.

  ‘One more question, Miss Olga … Have you got a Doberman in this house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know by any chance if any neighbours—?’

  ‘I don’t know much about dogs,’ the woman interrupted him, with a note of scorn in her voice.

  ‘All right, then. Goodnight,’ said Bordelli, and he headed back down the dark garden path. Closing the gate behind him, he noticed that the woman was still standing in the doorway. He walked back towards the Beetle without turning round, and moments later heard the sound of the great door closing.

  In the car he found Casimiro asleep. The dwarf’s head had fallen to one side, and he was snoring. The moment Bordelli started up the car, the little man raised his head abruptly and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Did you discover anything, Inspector?’

  ‘No, but there’s something fishy about all this,’ said Bordelli, staring into space. Then he turned the car round again and headed back towards town. During one straight stretch of road he pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket, took out two thousand lire, and put the money in Casimiro’s hand.

  ‘You could use a little, no?’ he said. The dwarf hesitated for a moment, as he always did, then took the money and put it in his shoe.

  ‘Thank you, Inspector, I can’t be too picky,’ he said darkly.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘No, thanks … If you want, I can try to find something out myself.’

  ‘But you’ve already shat your pants once …’ Bordelli said, laughing.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ the little man said, slightly offended. He didn’t like to be seen as a coward.

  ‘Never mind, Casimiro, it might be dangerous,’ Bordelli said in a serious tone.

  ‘Why dangerous?’

  ‘You never know.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ said Casimiro, squeezing the little skeleton tightly in his hand.

  ‘And what if you run into another puppy dog like the last one?’

  ‘I’ll bring a pistol this long …’ said Casimiro, playing the tough guy. He seemed in the grip of a fit of pride.

  ‘This isn’t a cowboy movie, Casimiro … But I may have another little job for you in a few days,’ Bordelli lied, already trying to think of something. Once he had even had the little guy tail Diotivede, telling him the doctor was a mafioso …

  They rode for a few moments in silence. The Beetle descended slowly towards the city. At San Domenico, Bordelli turned to pass by way of the Badia Fiesolana for no reason in particular, perhaps only because he wanted to see one more time the steep descent he used to take in his toy wagon, always risking a broken neck.

  ‘Have you got any news of Botta, Casimiro?’ Bordelli hadn’t seen Ennio Bottarini for quite a while. He wanted to arrange another dinner party at his place, with Botta at the cooker. The luckless thief wasn’t a bad cook at all. He’d spent a number of years in jails across half of Europe and had learned from his various cellmates how to make the local dishes.

  ‘He must be still in Greece,’ said Casimiro.

  ‘Free or in jail?’

  ‘A few days ago I ran into a friend of his, who said Botta’d made a little money down there and is supposed to return soon.’

  ‘You don’t say …’

  * * *

  A few days later, a phone call came in to the station, and Bordelli set out in his VW, stepping hard on the accelerator. As usual, young Piras was with him. It was almost 7 p.m., and the sun had already set a while before.

  There was a big crowd at the entrance of the Parco del Ventaglio, along with three police cars with their headlamps on. Bordelli parked the car beside the gate and got out, blood pounding in his brain. Piras walked beside him in silence. Ever since the tough, intelligent lad had joined the force, Bordelli had been bringing him along on every investigation, and to avoid always having a uniform at his side, he’d told him to dress in civvies. He got on well with Piras, just as he had got on well with Piras’s father, Gavino, during the war.

  The moon was covered by a thick blanket of cloud, and the park was as gloomy as the sky. To their left was a grassy slope, steep and dark, and at the top of the hill shone the glow of the police’s floodlights, as a crowd of people gathered round. Bordelli and Piras began to climb. The soles of their shoes slipped on the wet grass, and the cuffs of their trousers were soaked after only a few steps. They heard a siren in the distance. When they got to the top of the hill, Bordelli started clearing a path through the crowd, advancing in long strides. Piras followed right behind him, stepping into the opening before it closed again. There were already some journalists scribbling in their notebooks, as well as a few photographers. The press were always the first to arrive on the scene, though it was never clear how they did it.

  The inspector kept elbowing his way until he got to the police cordon. And suddenly he saw her: under the white light of the police lamps, the little girl looked like a bundle of rags thrown on the grass. She lay face up at the foot of a big tree, legs straight and arms open, like a tiny Christ. The inspector went up to her, with Piras still following, and they both bent down to look at her. She must have been about eight years old. Her mouth and eyes were open wide, and she had jet-black hair tied in a braid that was coming undone. She was so white in the light that she seemed unreal. And on her neck were some red marks. Her jumper was pulled up, and her belly bore the traces of a human bite. Bordelli looked at her a long time, as if to burn that image into his memory, then turned towards his Sardinian assistant. They looked at each other for a few seconds without saying anything.

  Busybodies were falling over one another to get a look at the child, grimacing in horror and exhaling vapour from their mouths. A few women could be heard weeping and, farther away, someone was vomiting. But what most bothered Bordelli was all that commotion of legs and shadows around the little girl’s dead body. He pressed his eyes hard with his fingers. He felt very tired, though perhaps it was only disgust for what lay before him.

  The sound of the siren grew closer and closer, and the inspector wondered whether it was indeed coming towards the park, since, at this point, he thought, the b
laring sirens were useless. The girl was dead, and nobody was to touch anything before Diotivede, the police pathologist, got there. Bordelli glanced at his watch. How bloody long was Diotivede going to take? He took one of the uniformed policemen by the arm.

  ‘Rinaldi, do you know if anyone saw or heard anything?’

  ‘No, Inspector, nobody saw or heard anything.’

  ‘Then please send them all away.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Suddenly a man’s voice was heard above the crowd:

  ‘So what are the police doing about this?’

  Bordelli stiffened and started looking for the imbecile amid the herd of onlookers. He wanted to grab him by the collar and bash his head against a tree trunk. What were the police doing? Come forward, jackass! What do you want the police to do? Piras saw he was upset and squeezed his elbow.

  ‘Forget about it, Inspector,’ he said.

  The ambulance entered the park, turning off its siren. Bordelli and Piras stared at the ground. Five men got out of the ambulance and started climbing the grassy incline, carrying a stretcher. Bordelli scratched his head.

  ‘What are they doing?’ he said to himself. He went up to the doctor, a fat man climbing up the hill with a black bag in his hand.

  ‘Nobody can touch anything before the medical examiner gets here,’ Bordelli said. The fat man stopped in front of him, happy for the rest.

  ‘And who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Chief Inspector Bordelli. Tell your men not to touch the girl.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but we’re here for a woman.’

  ‘A woman? What woman?’

  ‘Somebody called us about a woman who collapsed. How do you do? I’m Dr Vallini.’

  The inspector shook his hand and turned round to look at the stretcher-bearers, who were walking towards a small group of people. He saw them lay a woman down on the stretcher. Then they came back, and the doctor began at once to examine the woman. He felt her pulse, looked inside her mouth, then opened her eyes and shone a light into her pupils with a small pocket torch. Bordelli got close to have a better look at her. She seemed very young. Her face was pale, and rested on a cushion of black hair. A beautiful girl. Her mouth was half open, and she gently batted her eyelashes at regular intervals, about once per second. One of her arms slid slowly off the stretcher, and the doctor put it back at her side.

  ‘It’s nothing serious; she just fainted,’ he said.

  ‘Who is she?’ Bordelli asked.

  ‘The little girl’s mother,’ said one of the stretcher-bearers. The inspector bit his lip … The mother, of course. How could he not have thought of it? He leaned over her for a better look, and at once the young woman opened her eyes wide, found Bordelli’s face right in front of hers and stared at it as if it were something amazing. Then she raised her arms and grabbed his hand. Ten small cold fingers wrapped around his own.

  ‘Valentina … Valen …’ she whispered, staring at him with empty eyes. Dr Vallini was already preparing an injection of sedative.

  ‘Please be brave, signora. It’s better if you sleep a little now,’ said the doctor, and he stuck the needle in her arm and pressed the plunger down. The woman opened her mouth to speak, but it was too late. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her arms fell. The doctor gestured to the orderlies, and the group trudged off.

  Bordelli pointed at the woman.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ he asked.

  ‘To Santa Maria Nova.’

  ‘When could I talk to her?’

  ‘Try phoning the hospital in two or three days, and ask for Dr Saggini.’

  ‘All right. Thanks.’

  ‘Goodbye, Inspector.’ The doctor began his difficult descent down the slippery grassy slope, balancing his massive body with the help of his medical bag. Bordelli lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply. The white face of Valentina’s mother, as delicate as that of her daughter, remained etched in his mind.

  The siren of the Misericordia ambulance suddenly blared and just as suddenly stopped, as if it had been turned on by mistake. The vehicle then glided slowly and smoothly away into the darkness, engine whirring gently. Bordelli stood there watching it until it passed through the park’s gate, then looked up over the roofs of the city, then down, lost in thought. Piras’s voice shook him out of it.

  ‘Inspector, can you hear me?’

  Bordelli ran a hand over his eyes.

  ‘What is it, Piras?’

  ‘Dr Diotivede is here.’

  Bordelli wasn’t surprised he hadn’t seen him arrive. Diotivede was as sly and silent as a beast of the forest.

  ‘Come,’ Bordelli said to Piras. They began to walk towards the doctor, whose almost phosphorescent shock of white hair was visible from a distance.

  Diotivede was kneeling down over the little girl’s body, his knees on a newspaper. He was studying her from very close up, touching her from time to time. His gestures were those of his profession, but he wore an offended expression on his face, as if he had just been slapped.

  Bordelli and Piras stopped a few yards away so as not to disturb him. People were finally starting to leave, pushed away by the uniformed cops. The inspector smoked one cigarette after another, impatient to speak to Diotivede. A light wind was blowing, spreading a scent of dead leaves through the air. It was April, but it felt more like a nice November evening. The clouds were thinning out, and in the black sky a few stars were beginning to appear, along with a yellowish sliver of moon.

  Bordelli kept an eye on the pathologist, trying to guess where he was in his examination, not daring to disturb him. He well knew that at such moments Diotivede didn’t want anyone bothering him. One had no choice but to wait.

  A few minutes later Diotivede had finished examining the corpse and, still kneeling, began to write in his black notebook, lips pouting like a schoolboy’s. At last he rose and came towards the two policemen.

  ‘Strangled. And she has a nasty bite on her belly, which probably happened after she died.’

  The inspector tossed his fag-end far away.

  ‘Nothing significant, in other words,’ he said.

  ‘For the moment, no. But I’ll let you know after the postmortem. You never know, something might turn up.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ said Bordelli, disappointed. He went up to the girl’s body again and lit his umpteenth cigarette of the day. He knelt forward and looked closely at that now grey little face spattered with mud. He saw an ant walking along the sharp edges of the little girl’s lips and flicked it away with a finger, very briefly touching the dead flesh. She must have been a beautiful child. She looked a little like a woman he had once loved, many years before … He shook his head to banish the thought. Who knew why he thought of such things at moments like these? He took a last glance at the girl, her naked little feet looking as if they’d just sprouted from the ground— and then he turned towards the others. Diotivede was clutching his briefcase tightly against his stomach with both arms, ready to leave. Behind the thick lenses his eyes looked as if they were made of glass.

  ‘I hate to say it, but this crime looks like the work of a maniac who may strike again,’ he said.

  ‘Unfortunately, I agree,’ said Bordelli, tossing his cigarette to the ground.

  ‘Unless it’s a vendetta,’ Piras mumbled, teeth clenched, thinking of the cruel feuds of his homeland.

  ‘Need a lift, Doctor?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  The inspector gestured to Rinaldi to say that the body could now be taken away. Rinaldi raised a hand, and two policemen laid a cloth down beside the little girl, picked her up and laid her down on it.

  ‘We can go now,’ Bordelli said with a sigh, heading towards the park exit without waiting to see the body being taken away. The three descended the wet, grassy slope, taking care not to lose their balance. Piras was quiet, staring into space and looking sullen. He climbed into the back seat of the VW, letting Diotivede ride in front. Bordelli started up the
car and drove off slowly, an unlit cigarette between his lips.

  ‘Shall I take you home, or do you want to go back to the lab?’ he asked, turning on to Via Volta.

  ‘You can take me home, thanks,’ said Diotivede. He remained silent the rest of the way. They dropped him off in Via dell’Erta Canina, in front of his little house and garden. Piras came and sat down in front like an automaton.

  ‘What do you think of this murder, Piras?’

  ‘What was that, Inspector?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  They returned to police headquarters and got down to work. Bordelli sent a few officers out to question people who lived in the neighbourhood of the Parco del Ventaglio. With a little luck they might find someone who had seen or heard something of interest, though he didn’t have much hope of this. He drafted a communiqué for the television and radio to broadcast the following morning, to put the whole city on alert. And with Piras’s help, he organised the shifts of plainclothes officers to patrol the city’s parks, which were always full of mothers and children. But these were general measures that gave no assurance at all. The killer might strike again in another way and another place, as Bordelli well knew. In the meantime, however, there wasn’t much more that could be done.

  The in-house telephone rang. It was Mugnai.

  ‘There are more journalists here, Inspector,’ he said.

  ‘Send them to Inzipone. I don’t feel like talking to anyone.’

  ‘Commissioner Inzipone told me to send them to you.’

  ‘Then send them away. And the same goes for the next few days.’

  ‘As you wish, Inspector.’

  Bordelli hung up. He had nothing to say to the journalists. He massaged his eyes with his fingers. They burned as if he hadn’t slept for three days.

  To avoid being seen by anyone, he left headquarters through a side door that gave on to Via San Gallo. He got into his Beetle and, head full of thoughts, drove to the trattoria Da Cesare. Gesturing in greeting to the owner and the waiters, he slipped into Totò’s kitchen, as he always did. He greeted the cook and plopped down on the stool that had been his place for years. He couldn’t get the image of that little girl on the ground out of his head.