‘I’m sorry, but I would like to see her first.’
‘By all means. She’s upstairs. I’ll wait for you in that room over there,’ Bordelli said, pointing to one of the sitting rooms. The doctor trudged up the stairs, head bobbing to one side. He returned a few minutes later and rejoined Bordelli. Stopping in the middle of the room, he stood completely still and stared into space. Bordelli had made himself comfortable on a sofa that smelled strongly of old velvet.
‘Tell me, Dr Bacci, we know that the signora suffered from asthma … but to what degree?’
Bacci turned round, in a daze.
‘What was that?’
‘I was asking whether your patient’s asthma was serious, or if, perhaps-’
‘Ah, yes, of course. She suffered from tissual asthmatic allergy, a rather serious form of it, I should say.’
‘Could it prove fatal?’
The doctor began to wander slowly about the room, hands at his sides, eyes darting from painting to painting. There was great sadness in his voice.
‘The signora was allergic to many types of pollen. She sometimes had violent attacks, but never anything life-threatening.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Bacci turned to face the inspector. He looked bewildered.
‘To tell you the truth, there was one plant that could be very dangerous,’ he said. Bordelli waited to hear which plant. The doctor began to move again and stopped in front of the portrait of a judge dressed in ermine, hunching his shoulders round his head.
Bordelli coughed into his fist.
‘You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette, would you?’ he asked.
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘So much the better. Tell me, Doctor, how did Signora Pedretti ever find out?’
‘Find what out?’
‘That she was allergic to that tropical pollen.’
The doctor took his eyes off the painting and returned to Bordelli. He said that from a very young age the signora had always travelled a great deal. A few years earlier, during a stay in Colombia, she had experienced a very serious attack and had to be rushed to hospital.
‘They snatched her from the jaws of death. It was almost a miracle.’
The Colombian doctors discovered that the flowering mate had triggered the attack. The signora spent several days in hospital and recovered quite nicely in spite of everything. But the terrible experience had changed her, and after her return she hardly ever went out of the house any more.
‘I used to say to her: Signora, you mustn’t live like a recluse. Colombia is on the other side of the world. That plant doesn’t grow here.’
‘So, in short, that plant was the only thing that might trigger a fatal attack.’
Dr Bacci removed his spectacles, which were as thick as glass-bottoms, and pressed his eyeballs hard with his fingers. He resumed walking along the walls of the room.
The inspector stretched his legs, which had grown numb.
‘As far as I know, yes, it was the only thing.’
‘And what can you tell me about Asthmaben?’ Bordelli asked.
‘The signora always kept a bottle within reach. Luckily she responded well to it. Twenty drops, and in a matter of seconds, she could breathe again. That doesn’t happen with everyone, I can assure you.’
‘And what would happen if she didn’t take it?’ asked Bordelli.
‘It’s hard to say. Probably in normal cases she would have a few minutes of crisis, but I really don’t think she would die.’
‘With that tropical plant, on the other hand-’
‘With mate it’s almost certain that, without Asthmaben, she would die within minutes, especially after her previous crisis in Colombia.’
‘And with Asthmaben?’
‘Well, I have no proof, obviously. But I’m fairly convinced that with a double dose she would have been all right.’
The inspector sighed by way of conclusion.
‘So, if I’ve understood correctly, seeing that there was a bottle of Asthmaben on her bedside table, we can rule out that she was killed by an asthma attack. Is that right?’
‘I can’t swear to it, of course, since asthma is a treacherous disease and can cause death by heart failure. The only thing we know for certain is that we are in God’s hands.’
Bordelli remained silent, fingers pinching his chin, thinking of something. Then he stood up and held his hand out to the doctor.
‘That’ll be all for now, thank you. I’ll ring you if I need you again.’ They shook hands. The doctor was trembling a little.
‘I am very grieved by this,’ he said slowly. ‘Signora Pedretti was not a very pleasant person, but I was fond of her. Very fond.’ He said it in the tone of someone confessing to an unrequited love. His bloodshot eyes, huge behind their lenses, seemed to dance. Then he gave a sort of smile and left. Bordelli collapsed on the sofa again. He didn’t like the look of this. Didn’t like it at all.
A few moments later he heard the stretcher-bearers on the stairs and went back into the entrance hall. The stretcher with Signora Pedretti’s mortal remains passed before him, covered entirely by a white sheet. Russo and Bellandi touched the visors of their caps to say goodbye to Bordelli, and left. Diotivede was the last to come down, his medical case swinging in his hand like a schoolboy’s satchel.
‘Could you give me a lift?’ he asked.
They headed back to town together, with the Beetle backfiring and spitting flames out of the exhaust pipe. Someone had told Bordelli it might be a dirty filter or something similar. It was a Volkswagen, which was saying a lot, but now and then, it too needed a little medical care.
‘What are your thoughts about this murder?’ Diotivede asked.
‘First we have to establish that she was actually killed.’
‘You still have some doubt?’
‘Well …’
‘Then you really must be tired.’
‘I’ve already said that.’
They fell silent. This happened often when they were in the car together; each ruminated as if he was alone. The Beetle advanced slowly, as if it, too, was thinking. The sky began to lighten; it was already past five. Bordelli’s window and vent were both open, but he was sweating just the same. Diotivede had never had much trouble with the weather. Summer or winter, he never complained.
They descended into town, along Via Volta, and crossed the Ponte del Pino on their way to Diotivede’s house. The only sign of life was a few stray dogs roaming about.
‘I want to have a dinner party at my place. Feel like coming?’ said Bordelli.
Diotivede rubbed his head with his hand.
‘Why not?’ he said.
The sun was already rising over the city, but Bordelli’s night was not over yet. After dropping Diotivede off at home in Via dell’Erta Canina, he went straight to police headquarters to have a chat with Maria, Signor Pedretti- Strassen’s lady companion. By this point he was so tired he would never have been able to sleep.
The woman had been waiting for him for nearly an hour, sitting on the bench outside his office. She was in a whiny state, hands full of wet handkerchiefs, white hair gathered in a tidy ponytail. He had her sit down in front of his desk. She was a tiny little thing, with big round eyes and a lipless mouth. She looked like some sort of nocturnal bird. Bordelli offered her a glass of water and waited for her to calm down. Once the woman had stopped sobbing, he asked what made her think the signora’s death was a murder. She waved her hands over her head and, starting to cry again, talked about the greed of the signora’s nephews and their respective wives, whom she termed
