Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence (2 page)

Every so often Botta would bend down to the ground to examine a cluster of odd-looking mushrooms, some slender and whitish, others squat and dark, still others very fragile, then frown and mutter a few scientific or ordinary names. Then he would dismiss them and resume climbing.

‘Why didn’t you pick those? Are they poisonous?’ Bordelli asked, following behind him. Botta shook his head.

‘It’s porcini or nothing,’ he said solemnly, then fell silent again. At a certain point he stopped suddenly and opened his eyes wide.

‘What is it?’ Bordelli asked, worried. Botta looked at him, round-eyed.

‘You’re not going to believe this, Inspector … but I can smell porcini from afar. I don’t need to go around scouring every corner of the woods.’

‘Don’t worry, I know an excellent psychiatrist,’ said Bordelli.

‘You don’t believe me, eh?’

‘I’m trying as hard as I can.’

‘Voilà …’ said Botta, as though inspired.

‘What’s happening?’

‘The mushrooms are up there,’ Botta said, pointing upwards, and a second later he dashed off. The inspector let him go on ahead, since he was unable to keep up with him. He could still feel the dinner of the night before in his legs:
Pappardelle alla lepre
,
arista con patate
, and Totò’s Apulian wine at the Trattoria da Cesare. He watched Botta vanish through the black trunks of the chestnuts. He continued climbing, sweating from the effort. Fifteen minutes later he came out on to a broad path and stopped.

‘Ennio … are you here?’

‘Over here, Inspector,’ Botta’s voice called through the leaves. Bordelli caught a glimpse of him some fifty yards ahead, bending over amid the trees. He resumed walking and caught up to him.

‘Careful not to step on them,’ said Botta, alarmed. He was kneeling and delicately cleaning a few large porcini with an ordinary bristle brush. There were dozens of mushrooms all around them.

‘So you
can
smell them …’ said Bordelli, sincerely astonished.

‘Do I make things up, Inspector?’ Ennio was serious and concentrating, still carefully brushing the mushrooms with gestures that looked as though inspired by some archaic religion. Bordelli would have to wait for Botta to finish his work, and so he sat down on a rock. His gaze jumped from one chestnut tree to another, looking for wild animals. The only movement was that of the leaves falling from above. They would become suddenly detached and float slowly to the ground, as in a famous poem he knew nothing about. In the peace and quiet his thoughts turned back to Giacomo Pellissari, the boy’s desperate parents, the long discussions with Piras … How could a little boy vanish just like that, into thin air?

‘There must be at least two kilos here,’ said Botta, weighing the full basket in his hand. He was beaming like the victor after a battle.

‘I’m truly amazed.’ The inspector sighed, rising to his feet.

‘Let’s have another look around.’

They resumed their climb, feet sinking into the bed of dead leaves as blackbirds fluttered between the trees. They forged on in silence, one behind the other, Botta inevitably leading the way.

‘Can I ask you something, Ennio?’

‘Go right ahead …’

‘What are you doing these days to put food on the table?’

‘Are you asking as a police inspector or as a friend?’

‘As a friend.’

‘I’m doing what I’ve always done.’

‘Burgling and swindling?’

‘What unpleasant words, Inspector …’

‘I don’t know what else to call it.’

‘Let’s just say I’m implementing a policy of redistribution of wealth while waiting for more honest laws.’

‘I’m touched …’

‘You can cry all you want up here, I won’t tell anyone,’ said Botta, still studying the ground.

‘Why don’t you just get a normal job, Ennio? I say it for your own sake. You’ve always had bad luck as an outlaw. You’re always getting into trouble.’

‘I’m never going back to jail, Inspector.’

‘You could become a cook …’

‘Well, it’s possible I might open a trattoria sooner or later.’

‘Where would you get the money?’

‘If a certain job goes well for me …’ Botta trailed off, stopped suddenly, and let out a long moan and opened his arms.

‘Are you all right?’ Bordelli asked, concerned.

‘Look at this, Inspector. The first Caesar’s mushroom of the season.’ Botta sighed, full of emotion. An orangish sort of ball was poking up through the leaves on the ground.

‘I’ll try not to scream for joy,’ said Bordelli.

‘You can’t understand, Inspector. It’s like kissing a girl for the first time.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about …’

‘Amazing,’ Ennio whispered, delicately picking the mushroom.

‘Weren’t you only looking for porcini?’

‘There must be more of these around,’ said Botta, ignoring him. He wrapped the golden mushroom in a handkerchief, put it in his pocket, and continued looking around. He found six more. He looked very satisfied.

‘That’s enough for today,’ he said. ‘We mustn’t be greedy.’

Bordelli looked at his watch. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock.

‘What a beautiful place this is. It feels so good to be here.’ He sighed, looking around. A moment later he slipped on a rock and fell on his bottom. He picked his aching body up off the ground, ignoring Botta’s laughter. He’d muddied his trousers and his ears were ringing from the tumble.

‘Bloody hell …’ he said, picking the wet leaves off himself.

‘You should never say out loud how great a place is, Inspector. The devil can’t read our minds, but he can hear us just fine when we talk.’

‘Did the nuns teach you that?’

‘
Sah vah sahn deer
, Inspector,’
¹
said Botta, who’d learned a little pidgin French in a Marseille prison.

They continued walking along the trails, forging on through the chestnuts and oaks, accompanied by strange birdsongs and the rustlings as the wind gusted through the branches. They saw a few more animals scamper off through the underbrush, and here and there they passed an old campsite, where the ground was still charred black from the fire. Old memories streamed confusedly through Bordelli’s mind. Memories of childhood, the war, old girlfriends now faceless. But elbowing its way through every thought was the mystery of the missing boy. Bordelli was beginning to think he’d been kidnapped by Martians …

Bordelli drove Botta back to his basement flat in Via del Campuccio then quickly dashed home to change clothes. It was already half past ten. After a long hot shower he began to get dressed, in no hurry. In his mind he could still see the dark tree trunks, the wisps of fog, the wild boar … but his thoughts were elsewhere. For the umpteenth time he reviewed in his head the reports of the disappearance of Giacomo Pellissari, in the absurd hope that he might finally discover a detail that would give him a lead to follow.

The boy had vanished the previous Wednesday, after coming out of his grammar school, the Collegio alla Quercia, in a torrential downpour. His father had taken him there at 8.25 that morning, as always. Normally when the school day ended, one of his parents was always there to pick him up. But that day, when his mother had gone down to the garage to get her Fiat 600, the car wouldn’t start. She rang her husband at the office, and he’d got in his car immediately and headed for the Collegio. But he arrived more than an hour late, owing to an accident on the Viali caused by the downpour. Protecting himself with an umbrella, he’d gone into the school’s entrance hall, expecting to find his son waiting there for him, but there was no sign of Giacomo. The school caretaker threw up his hands. He said the boy had waited for him until well past one o’clock and had even phoned home, but the line was always busy … In the end he’d left, running out into the rain, and there was no stopping him.

Bordelli lit a cigarette, again reviewing the matter down to the small details. By this point it was like watching a film. He was quite familiar with the area between the Collegio alla Quercia and the Pellissaris’ villa in Via di Barbacane. In fact he’d grown up in that very neighbourhood.

Barrister Pellissari had asked the custodian if he could phone his wife, but he, too, had found the line always engaged. And so he got back in his car and drove slowly along the route home: Via della Piazzuola, Viale Volta, Via di Barbacane. Giacomo wasn’t at home. His wife was worried, but not terribly so. Perhaps Giacomo had ducked into a doorway to get out of the rain …

The barrister had gone over to the telephone in the hall and found the phone slightly off the hook. He upbraided his wife, and she began to get anxious. Pellissari went out again in his Alfa Romeo and combed the streets of the neighbourhood. He went up and down Via Aldini, a small, deserted street connecting Viale Volta and Via di Barbacane, several times. Giacomo knew the street well. It was just round the corner from home, and he liked to bicycle there with his friends …

At three o’clock the barrister had finally decided to call the police. Two patrolmen had gone to the Collegio alla Quercia to speak with the custodian, Oreste, a small man with very little hair and pink cheeks, who blanched upon hearing the news. They asked him to recount the sequence of events, and Oreste was very precise. After the usual chaos when school let out, he’d gone into the street to look at the rain. He’d found the boy in the doorway with his satchel between his feet, gazing anxiously out at Via della Piazzuola. He asked him whether he wanted to call his mother. Giacomo said yes and followed the caretaker to the porter’s desk. He dialled his home number several times, but the line was always engaged. He seemed afraid, and Oreste had tried to reassure him. Somebody’d be along soon to pick him up, he’d said to him, there was no need to worry, it was obviously because of the rain. The boy went out again to look down the street, with Oreste following behind him. And then, less than a minute later, Giacomo had run out into the rain, coat over his head, satchel bouncing on his back. Oreste shouted to him to wait, saying that he would walk him home himself, but the child didn’t listen and kept on running. The caretaker had tried dialling Giacomo’s parents’ phone number again, but the line was still busy. In the end he’d decided there was nothing to worry about, and he stopped thinking about it.

A squad of policemen had questioned the inhabitants of all the buildings and houses along the road that went from the Collegio to the Pelissaris’ villa, including Via Aldini. Only an old woman had seen from her window a young boy walking hurriedly in the rain at the corner of Viale Volta and Via della Piazzuola, around quarter past one. The clothes, the colour of the satchel, and the time left no room for doubt. The boy was Giacomo Pellissari. The old woman had been the last person to see him, and her testimony eliminated any shadow of a doubt as to the caretaker’s sincerity. Nothing else had come out since, but that was to be expected. When Giacomo had left the school, it was lunchtime and raining cats and dogs, and everyone else was minding his own business.

Photos of the boy had appeared in all the newspapers and been broadcast on the national news and that of Channel 2, but nobody had come forward as yet. How can a boy disappear into thin air?

When he parked the car in the station’s courtyard it was past 10.30. Mugnai popped out of the guardhouse and came up to him, looking as if his dog had just died.

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Hello, Mugnai … Why so cheerful?’

‘The commissioner’s got a stick up his arse, if you’ll pardon my language.’

‘That’s nothing new,’ said Bordelli.

‘It’s not my fault the kid hasn’t turned up! He treated me like a blockhead.’ He was very offended.

‘Don’t take it so hard, Mugnai,’ said Bordelli.

‘The boss said he wants to see you at once.’

‘Fuckin’ hell …’ The inspector sighed.

‘Prepare yourself. He’s really pissed off today.’

‘Too bad for him. Find Piras for me, would you? And tell him to come to my office.’

He gestured goodbye to Mugnai and started up the stairs. He went up to the second floor with a cigarette in his mouth, promising himself he wouldn’t smoke it before noon. He knocked on Inzipone’s door and went in without waiting. The moment he saw him, the commissioner jumped to his feet, but certainly not out of politeness. His eyes looked like burnt chestnuts.

‘You must find that child, Inspector!’ he shouted, shaking his hands in the air.

‘I want to more than anyone else, sir,’ Bordelli said calmly.

‘Then what’s taking you so long? Have you read the papers?
POLICE POWERLESS!
LAW ENFORCEMENT ASLEEP!
’ He came towards Bordelli, waving
La Nazione
in the air.

‘We’re doing everything we can.’

‘I’m not interested in your excuses! Get on with it, dammit!’

‘He vanished into thin air,’ said Bordelli, with a strong desire to light the cigarette between his fingers.

‘Nobody vanishes into thin air,’ said Inzipone. He tossed the newspaper aside and went and sat back down at his desk. Bordelli drew closer, still standing.

‘We’ll find him,’ he said, more to himself than to the commissioner.

‘I certainly hope so, Inspector, for your sake. I got a call this morning from the Deputy Minister of Transport. Barrister Pellissari is a very dear friend of his.’

‘Ah, I didn’t know. That changes everything. You’ll see, we’ll find the boy before the day is over.’

‘Drop the sarcasm, Inspector,’ said the commissioner, raising his chin with an air of menace. Bordelli put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, before the commissioner’s goggling eyes.

‘Then I’ll be clearer. I don’t give a damn whose son he is.’

‘And you think I do?’ said Inzipone, furious at Bordelli’s insolence.

‘I can never speak for others, sir,’ said the inspector, taking his leave with a slight nod and heading for the door. He heard the commissioner stand up again, making the legs of his armchair squeak.

‘I don’t like your way of doing things one bit, Inspector.’

‘I am truly sorry,’ Bordelli said without turning around.

‘And you know I’m not the only who feels this way.’