Death in August

‘I’m sorry about your holiday, but unfortunately I must ask you not to leave the city until the investigation is over.’

‘What investigation, Inspector?’

‘You want to tell them, Piras?’

Piras stood up and planted himself beside the desk.

‘The post-mortem results clearly show that Signora Pedretti-Strassen was murdered,’ he said with great gusto.

Giulio grabbed hold of his brother’s elbow, lower lip dangling like a ripe fig. Anselmo squirmed in his chair, and when he spoke his voice came out hoarse.

‘No, I’m sorry, Inspector, perhaps I’ve misunderstood … First you said you didn’t know anything yet … and that, actually, it was almost certain that … Aunt …’

Bordelli hunched his shoulders and made the face of someone who had to suffer the whims of fate.

‘It’s a nasty job, being a policeman. Sometimes we’re forced to tell lies … though always with the best of intentions, of course.’

Both brothers stammered some half-formed words, opening and closing their sweaty hands like two newborns.

‘But does that mean … we’re considered suspects?’ asked Anselmo, eyes popping.

‘I’d say so,’ Bordelli said serenely, fiddling with his pen. Anselmo made a weary gesture of rebellion.

‘That doesn’t seem right to me, Inspector. Why didn’t you tell us that to start with? It just doesn’t seem right. We’re honest people. We work like slaves year round … And now you come and tell us that … we’re suspects! This is really … unacceptable!’

Carried away and perhaps fascinated by his own voice and courage, he was about to slam his hand down on the desk when he looked at Bordelli and froze, hand in the air. Wiping away a drop of sweat from one eye, he said again, in falsetto:

‘We’re honest people …’

Piras intervened of his own accord.

‘We merely need to confirm your alibis, nothing more. If you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear,’ he said, exchanging a complicitous glance with Bordelli. In the dead silence someone’s stomach gurgled audibly. Giulio blushed and pressed a hand to his belly. Bordelli smiled coldly.

‘You can go now,’ he said, crossing his arms. Anselmo loosened his tie and stood up, gasping for air, lips moving like a fish’s. He had left a sweaty imprint on the chair. He took Giulio by the arm and made him stand up.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, looking deeply offended.

‘Piras, see them out for me, if you would,’ said Bordelli, lighting the cigarette he had kept unlit in his mouth for God knows how long.

The two brothers turned their backs and went out, escorted by Piras. Although the windows in the corridor were all open, the air was stagnant and stifling. Anselmo took laboured steps, dragging his feet, his brother panting behind him, staring at the back of his head. Their wives were waiting for them in the street, both blonde, in high heels and dressed for the beach, ready to return to the coast. Their stylish, oversized sunglasses made them look like two giant insects. They all climbed into a blazing Fiat 600 Multipla without saying a word, and drove off. All of Anselmo’s rage could be heard in the way he shifted the gears.

Piras returned and, seeing the smoke rising to the ceiling, waved his hand to dispel it.

‘So, Piras, what do you make of the dear brothers?’

Piras shrugged.

‘Not exactly the most likeable pair I’ve ever met,’ he said.

Bordelli started drumming his fingers on the transcript.

‘Tomorrow dress in civvies. We’re going to the beach.’

It was hotter than hell in Toto’s kitchen. The oily, burning smoke stuck to the skin like glue, but the baccala alla livornese was sublime, and the cool white wine went down without effort. Bordelli had rolled his sleeves up past the elbow. Toto was cleaning squid in the sink. He was in the middle of a monologue, telling another of his blood-curdling stories about home. It was difficult to stop him.

‘… and so, next day, pardon the language, they found him in a straw hut with a fish shoved up his arse, one of those fishes with prickles on its back, the kind that go in easy but come out hard, if you get the picture …’

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a little more baccala, Toto, would you?’

‘Certainly, Inspector.

‘Just a little bit.’ Toto went to get the pan and dished out another whole serving, with lots of sauce. It was like starting lunch all over again, wine and all. Bordelli didn’t even try to protest; he knew it was no use. The only way to spare himself would have been not to ask for anything. Toto went back to skinning his squid and resumed his story.

‘It took them all night to pull it out, Inspector. You can imagine the screams.’ He recounted all the details of the procedure from A to Z, with due respect to the victim, of course. Then he launched into another story, someone who had had his ear cut off.

‘And then they made him eat it, just like that, raw. He had to swallow the whole thing.’

Bordelli swallowed his last bite of baccala.

‘Don’t you know any nice love stories, Toto?’

‘Of course I do, Inspector.’ And while removing the bone from the squid, he told the story of a certain Antonino, some poor bloke who wanted to marry the daughter of a rich landowner. Naturally they told him to keep away and slammed the door in his face, and so one night, Antonino sneaked on to the landowner’s property and set fire to the wheat.

‘I was just a little kid, but I can still see it, Inspector. The smoke was visible for twenty miles around. People came from all the neighbouring towns to watch. There was a good sea breeze and the fire charged ahead like a stampede of horses. Not one grain of wheat was spared.’

Not waiting to hear what kind of end poor Antonino came to, Bordelli got up to leave.

‘Duty calls, Toto.’

‘You won’t have a coffee?’

‘I’ll have it at the office.’

‘Come back soon, Inspector.’

‘Where else would I go?’

‘I say it for your sake, Inspector. In the coming days I’m going to make swordfish my own special way.’

‘I’ll be sure not to miss it.’

Walking out on to the street, Bordelli ran into a wall of heat. It was half past two. The air quivered incandescently above the asphalt. A large yellow cat was sleeping open-mouthed on the seat of a Lambretta, undone by the heat.

Before getting into his Volkswagen, Bordelli opened all the windows. The plastic covering of the seats was soft and emitted a noxious, sickly-sweet smell. Down the street came a Motobecane racing bicycle, ridden by a man wearing only underpants and singing. Bordelli envied him with all his heart. Then he summoned his courage and got into his Beetle. The side vents, opened all the way, deflected the wind on to him, but it made little difference. The steering wheel was so hot he could only manoeuvre it with one finger. The white wine he had drunk was behaving in the usual fashion: it goes down easily, but then suddenly your ears start ringing. It was impossible to visit Toto without endangering one’s health. All the same, it was fun to sit down in his kitchen to eat and chat, watching the greasiest cook in the world at work, four foot eleven inches of peasant joy. Bordelli would definitely have included him in the hypothetical, impossible family he sometimes imagined for himself in his old age: a farmhouse in the vineyards, six or seven faithful friends, walks in the country, endless dinners and an avalanche of memories, listening to or telling stories of the past by the fire in winter, or under the pergola in summer, with the crickets filling your ears. And every so often — why not? — a round of bocce behind the kitchen garden. Diotivede, by then pushing a hundred, could care for wounded animals, Botta and Toto would be fixtures in the kitchen, Fabiani the shrink could attend to bouts of depression, and Rosa could brighten the cloistered life with her immaculate naivety. He could even imagine the visionary Dante there, who would charm everyone with gadgets for cutting mozzarella or peeling bananas.