fact that you see the entire dead animal on the plate. The eyes, the little teeth jutting out…’
Bazza put down his fork and held up a hand. ‘Please.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to put you off.’
The magistrate did not speak to her again until he had quite finished. Caterina pushed away her own plate and waited for him, registering in the back of her mind that she had already forgotten what she had just eaten.
‘How well do you know Massimiliano Massimiliani?’ asked Bazza eventually.
‘Not very well. Not at all. Commissioner Blume had a new mobile phone number, which I called. Massimiliani answered, and I told him I was worried about Blume who wasn’t answering his proper phone either. He told me not to worry. That’s the extent of our conversations so far. Massimiliani gave me another number to contact him on and told me the number I had just called would be deactivated.’
The word was so full of ill omen that she wanted to say something about Massimiliani but failed to think of a way that didn’t make her sound superstitious and foolish.
‘I don’t know much about Massimiliani, either,’ said Bazza. ‘What I do know, I don’t like. Nor do I much like what I know of Commissioner Blume. But I like you.’
Whether as a woman or an investigator was left ambiguous. She remained silent and held her head firm, neither nodding in stupid acquiescence nor shaking it in embarrassed modesty until Bazza himself became uncomfortable.
‘As an investigator, of course.’
Caterina allowed her neck muscles to loosen a little.
‘I called you up to Milan, not because I need you to do any more investigative work but, on the contrary, because I don’t want you to persist with your inquiries.’
‘And to apologize.’
‘Apologize?’ Bazza smiled generously. ‘Not at all. Your investigative work, the way you tracked down the van used to transport Arconti’s corpse, was exemplary. We could do with people like you in Milan. There is nothing to apologize about.’
‘Not me to you. You need to apologize to me.’
Bazza opened his mouth in a way that reminded her of the fish he had just consumed.
‘For holding back on the discovery of the bodies in Sesto San Giovanni. For allowing me and my team to spend a weekend away from our families working our asses off to track down people who you knew were dead. All it would have taken was a call.’
‘Don’t be insolent!’ Bazza raised his voice loud enough to cause the only other occupied table in the dreary velvet-curtained trattoria to glance over at them. ‘That was confidential information. Phone up a bunch of policemen in Rome and tell them where our investigation is going? I don’t think so.’
‘Fine.’
‘In fact, I demand to know who told you that we had found the bodies of the van driver and his accomplice.’
‘Nobody. I just phoned up the Chief Prosecutor, gave him my name, explained I was working with you, and asked him to have you call me once you had the autopsy report on the victims in the van. He didn’t ask me what van. So I knew. Then, on Monday, you called and let me know the investigation was out of our hands. I’ve been following progress ever since, making a few calls here and there. Another magistrate, a former colleague of yours, found Arconti’s ring. I won’t say I have all the details, but I do know enough to say that your story about a gang of East European kidnappers is risible and transparent.’
‘How much do you know?’
‘I’m beginning to think maybe more than you.’
‘Have Blume and Massimiliani been giving you details? If so, I need to know.’
‘Is that why you called me here, Magistrate?’
‘No, it’s not,’ said Bazza. He wiped his brow with his napkin. ‘Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I called you because I need your help. I need you to sign off on a simplified story about an East European kidnap gang. I know you know better, but I need you to help persuade other people that it’s true.’
‘What other people?’
‘Your colleagues in Rome, the press, and, above all, the victim’s family. We have already told them it was an East European gang that was trying to intimidate Magistrate Arconti.’
‘What difference does it make for the family? An East European gang murdering their husband and father because he happens to share a name with a magistrate, or an Italian criminal organization doing exactly the same? How could one version possibly be better than the other?’
‘We need to let Curmaci go. We want to give him rope to hang himself. In any case, he is untouchable for the Arconti killing, and possibly unconnected. It is hard to tell. Now that we are watching him very closely and know a bit more about him, we wish him success in a way, because it is good to know the enemy. So we let him walk away from this. For now. You understand that this is part of what we have to do.’
‘I understand,’ said Caterina.
‘You know, you’re wrong about the story making no difference for the family, because as far as they know, the people who dreamed up and carried out this atrocity are dead. They think they have had their revenge, and so they have closure. If they were to find out it was the Ndrangheta…’
‘What would happen if they found out?’
‘Then,’ said Ezio Bazza, Deputy Director of the Milan section of the Anti-Mafia Prosecution Bureau, ‘they would know Arconti was the victim of an organization that Italy can never defeat.’
Polsi
Towards the end of the day, Basile raised a glass of wine, and said, ‘I am a man of peace. A man of peace must know how to turn the other cheek. I know that many of you are outraged at the desecration that the authorities, accompanied by a horde of Germans and journalists, intend to visit upon this holy site tomorrow, but we shall not rise to the bait. It is not in our interest. Let them provoke us all they like, for now. We shall have other occasions to show them the error of their ways.’
The sixteen men seated below had feasted, negotiated, drunk and danced all day, and now sat in the soft orange light of the evening sun, and yet his words caused a murmur of discontent to run down the table before they finally raised their glasses and joined in his toast.
They drank and smoked, and exchanged some bawdy jokes. The women came in with liquors and aniseed biscuits, and some of the younger children broke through and started running around the table, receiving caresses, pretend punches and hugs from the men. When sufficient time had passed for it to be clear that no contradiction of Basile’s toast was intended, a man named Macri addressed himself to Basile.
‘Capo, I have heard a rumour that the police intend to return at the end of the month and perform their own procession in honour of the Archangel St Michael. Twice in one month, they intend to come here.’
‘Yes. It will be an empty gesture. And they will not do it next year. That is a promise.’
This time, the murmur sounded more satisfied.
Later, when the noise level had gone up again, Agazio Curmaci came up and sat down on an empty chair near Basile.
‘We have already spoken, Agazio.’
‘I know. But if you’ll forgive me, I want everyone here to see you speaking with me.’
‘If I wanted to be seen speaking to you in front of these men, I would have called you over. What you are doing is disrespectful and arrogant.’
‘I am sorry. I also wanted to say something that I hope may be of use. We have a bargaining chip with the police.’
‘We have more than one. Are you referring to the commissioner who was seen entering but not leaving Locri?’
‘If they found his body, mutilated and strategically placed…’
Basile held up his hand. ‘Did I not just say I was a man of peace? We will not respond to the provocation of the authorities. You have this commissioner alive in a safe place?’
‘Immured where he cannot be found.’
