47
Valentina parks up at the morgue and makes a phone call before she heads inside to see Medical Examiner Filomena Schiavone.
It’s not Tom she’s calling, but another man.
One she thinks of almost as a father.
‘Vito?’
‘ Si.’
‘Vito, it’s Valentina. How are you?’
‘I’m good. Very good. And you – how are you?’
‘ Bene. Va bene. But I could do with your advice.’
And so for ten minutes Rome’s newest Carabinieri captain tells her old boss about her brush with her sexist new boss and the dismissal of her disloyal lieutenant.
Former Major Vito Carvalho listens wryly. Discrimination and bullying are nothing new to him. He built his early career in the old days of the armed forces. A time when women were taken on to nurse or file or cook, but very little else.
‘He’s going to come for me, Vito. He’ll be hurting now and lying low, but at some point Caesario is going to come for me. What should I do?’
‘You’re thinking of handing in the recording anyway?’
‘It’s on my mind. Maybe if I go to the colonel, it’ll lay down a marker. I’ll say I don’t want to press charges, don’t want to cause difficulties, but I’ll ask for a guarantee that I’m not going to be set up or wrongly accused of anything.’
‘Politics is a dirty game, Valentina.’
‘I know. But what choice do I have but to play?’
‘None. But don’t go to the colonel, leave it with me. I have an idea of how to buy you a little protection, but I need to call some old friends first before I guarantee anything.’
‘ Grazie. I’m so sorry to bother you. It’s just that I’ve always respected-’
‘Shush, I’m glad to help.’ He laughs. ‘It feels good to still be needed by my former staff.’
Now it’s her turn to lighten up. ‘I think I’ll always need your counsel, Vito. I’m pretty much what you made me.’
‘You mean troublesome and awkward?’
Valentina laughs now. ‘I guess so.’
He’s more worried about her than he lets on. ‘Have a think about what you did to that lieutenant. Slicing and dicing a colleague in front of a crime squad can have a way of backfiring.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I’m sure most people fully agree with what you did. I certainly do. But you can be sure there’ll be some who don’t. His friends, for a start. They’ll stick by him. They have to. That means you made a whole new pack of enemies today. Players who know the local turf and the local game a whole lot better than you do.’
Valentina never thought of it like that. ‘You mean the cloud that I thought had a silver lining actually turns out to have an even cloudier lining?’
He laughs. ‘Maybe not that bad. I just suggest you give it a little more thought, and work out a smart way to make sure the cloud doesn’t turn to rain and leave you surprised and soaked to the skin.’ Vito’s said his piece and knows it’s now time to change the subject. ‘I saw your parents a couple of nights ago. They looked very well. Said how proud they are of you.’
She smiles. ‘I think they’d be proud of me if I was working tables for five euros an hour.’
‘Of course they would. That’s the privilege of being parents.’
Valentina sees the time on the car dashboard. She’s about to be late for the appointment she’s made with the ME. ‘I have to run, Vito. Thanks again for your advice. I am indebted.’
‘Yes, you are. Never forget it. I’ll call you when I have an answer on that other matter. Ciao! ’
‘Ciao! ’
She’s still smiling as she locks the car and walks into the hospital.
If only her new boss could be like her old boss.
Then life would be perfect.
48
‘So, who are you today?’
Sylvio Valducci smiles at the cleverness of his opening question as he lowers himself on to a hard bedside chair.
The young woman sitting a metre from him says nothing.
If she’s faking, he knows he’ll be able to tell.
He can always tell.
The little actress might be able to fool Verdetti, but not him. ‘I asked you for your name. Who are you?’
The answer comes creeping back in the voice of a frightened child. ‘Suzie.’
Valducci leans forward on his elbows. ‘Good. Thank you for telling me that. Suzie, my nurses say you’ve been drawing. Can I see? Would you like to show me what you were drawing?’
‘No.’ She puts her hands across a sheet of crayoned paper on her lap.
‘No?’ Valducci smiles and pretends to peek at the picture. ‘What is it? I’d really like to see.’
She looks down at her knees. ‘I don’t want to show you. I don’t have to show you if I don’t want.’
‘Then tell me about it, Suzie. What’s in the drawing?’
She thinks for a minute, then gives in to the trade-off. ‘Romans.’
‘ Bene. I like Romans. What are they doing in your picture?’
Grudgingly Suzie takes her hands away and lets him see.
Valducci doesn’t know what to make of it.
It’s a scribble.
Thick red and orange lines rubbed hard on to the paper like a three-year-old would. There’s a sort of stick man in black lying down as though he’s sleeping, but nothing to suggest he’s Roman. Then there’s a bad drawing high in one corner of a star that looks more like a crucifix. ‘Can you tell me what the picture is about, Suzie?’
She shakes her head and looks down at her knees again.
‘Why not? It’s lovely; I’d just like to understand it a bit more.’
‘It’s not lovely, it’s horrid.’ Nervously she twists her hair around her fingers. ‘It’s not supposed to be lovely.’
‘It’s not? Why not?’
Suzie bites her lip and buries her chin further into her chest.
Valducci kneels in front of her and sits back on his heels so he can see her eyes. ‘Please don’t be frightened of me. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to help.’
She turns her head to one side to avoid his gaze.
He lets out a sigh. ‘Why won’t you talk to me, Suzie?’
She finally looks his way. ‘Because you’re a stranger. Momma told me not to talk to strange men; they might be bad people.’
Valducci tries to reason with her. ‘Aah, now I see. Normally Momma would be right. But not this time. This time is different, because you’ve been brought to my hospital, and all my doctors and nurses are trying to help you. So you see, I’m not a bad man.’
‘Momma says you’re bad.’
He’s not so easily put off. ‘No, Suzie, you said your momma had told you not to talk to strangers because they
