THE PHONE WAS DRILLING into my brain. I felt the weight of Vanessa’s head on my thigh and caught the damp smell of sex from Cristiana where my cheek was resting. My eyelids were heavy blinds shut down on my apartment’s stale smoke. My tongue was stuck fast to my teeth, palate, and gums. It had been one of those magical nights when my wildest fantasies had finally come true.
I didn’t want to answer the phone; I just wanted to sleep. But the ringing wouldn’t stop. I managed to open one eye. The digital clock said seven twenty.
“Oh, fuck off, will you?” I groaned.
Several minutes passed. The phone continued to ring. It was like drops of water eroding my brain, going ever deeper, up to the point where I began to wonder what was reality and what was dream.
Teodori sounded upset.
“Get down to Via della Camilluccia right away.”
“Jesus, what happened?” I asked, suddenly awake.
“Manfredi’s mother threw herself off the balcony at dawn.”
. . . .
It was raining in Rome. A summer storm. The drops beat on the Duetto’s roof while I was parking in front of that violated paradise. I’d never liked rain. In Africa the sun was always out, but in Italy it rained even in summer. I couldn’t bear the sense of sadness that rain gave me. It was as if something were coming between life and me and slowing it down.
There were screens all around Building A. Behind them were Teodori, the forensic guys, the forensic pathologist, and Cardinal Alessandrini in a sweater and dark trousers. Parked in a corner were the count’s Aston Martin and Manfredi’s Harley Davidson. Ulla’s body was covered with a sheet from which a stream of blood was mingling with the rain. I felt a desperate need to smoke, but it was neither the time nor the place.
Teodori was shattered. He put a hand on my shoulder and pointed to the sheet.
“The body’s about to be taken away.”
I gently lifted one corner of the sheet. Ulla was fully dressed. Maybe she’d had a sleepless night; her delicate features had been crushed when she hit the pavement.
“Any witnesses?” I asked Teodori without much hope.
Teodori pointed to Gina Giansanti’s young daughter, who was slumped in a chair next to the gatehouse.
“She starts work at six o’clock. Through the gatehouse window she saw the countess come out onto the terrace, climb onto the railing, make the sign of the cross, and throw herself off. It was five past six.”
“So she waited for a witness,” I muttered.
“I don’t understand, Balistreri. Why would she want a witness?”
“To be certain that no one could accuse her husband of throwing her off.”
Teodori looked at me, shocked.
“Enough with the accusations, Balistreri. Manfredi’s in prison and rightly so. But this family has suffered enough, and that includes the count.”
However, I still wasn’t convinced. Something had come out in the talk with Ulla—some detail, a fear. Now I was certain something was missing. All of a sudden I felt a little twinge of anxiety.
You did what you could. And that monster’s guilty.
We were interrupted by the chief of police and the undersecretary to the minister of the interior. They approached Teodori and Cardinal Alessandrini, pointedly ignoring me.
“We’re really in the shit . . . Oh, I’m sorry, Cardinal!” groaned the undersecretary, looking at the sheet. Typical example of Christian Democrat piety, I thought.
The chief of police whispered to Teodori. “You’re certain about the arrest last night? I mean, one hundred percent certain?”
I caught Teodori’s worried look and nodded yes.
“I’m absolutely certain this young man killed Elisa Sordi,” Teodori said.
Cardinal Alessandrini turned around and stared at me. There was no need to speak. He wasn’t so certain. We were ordinary mortals, and therefore fallible.
I felt a sudden chill. It was the unseasonably cold dawn at the end of July, the rain sticking my shirt to my skin, or else it was the fear of having gotten it all wrong. Irritated, I went over to the young concierge.
I had her repeat in detail what she had seen. Between her tears, she confirmed everything, with no room for the slightest doubt. The countess was alone on the balcony; she climbed onto the railing of her own accord, then made the sign of the cross and leaped into the air.
“Your mother’s coming back from India today, correct?”
“She flew into London from Bombay yesterday, and she landed in Rome an hour ago. She called me to say she was taking a taxi. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.”
“She doesn’t know Elisa Sordi is dead?”
“I don’t think so. She was in an out-of-the-way village with no telephone.”
At that moment Building A’s main door opened. Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno was dressed in his usual impeccable manner. His haughty face was set in a fixed, inexpressive mask.
The Christian Democrat undersecretary came forward. “Excellency, may I extend to you my most heartfelt condolences and those of the minister of the interior.”
The count glared. The undersecretary, unnerved, took two steps back, sending him straight into the approaching chief of police. The rain was coming down harder. It would take a lot of rain to wash away Ulla dei Banchi di Aglieno’s blood from that pavement. Rivulets of water, mud and blood were coursing over the ground. When the count went over to the sheet and lifted it, a clap of thunder exploded overhead, making us all jump. All except him. He calmly let the sheet fall. He looked at the undersecretary and the chief of police, who averted their eyes.
“Please thank the minister on my behalf,” he said coldly. Then he turned on his heel and went back inside.
Ulla’s body was loaded onto an ambulance and taken to the morgue. I was the first one to see the taxi arriving at the green gate; the young concierge rushed to open it, and the cardinal turned to follow her.
“Stop,” I said firmly. I put myself between him and the gate.
“Why are you stopping me?”
“Gina is a witness and must be questioned by the police before anyone tells her what’s happened.”
“I thought you had already solved the case, Captain Balistreri,” Alessandrini said.
I ignored his comment. “We’re not in the Vatican here. I expressly forbid you to speak to Gina Giansanti before we do.” I was beside myself, numb with anger and cold.
Alessandrini turned around and saw the two women hugging. Mother and daughter held each other tightly. The young woman choked out words mixed with sobs, while Gina listened. I moved toward them, but before I could stop her, Gina ran toward us and kissed the cardinal’s ring, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Eminence, help me. I can’t believe it. First Elisa, and now the countess.”
Teodori approached a little uncertainly; he hadn’t met Gina Giansanti before. The cardinal grasped both the woman’s hands without saying a word. She stared at him, begging him for comfort. I stepped between them.
“Ms. Giansanti, we need to speak to you right away.”
The concierge looked at me, bewildered.
“What do you want with me?”
Teodori introduced himself in a manner more reassuring than mine. We went into the small house where Gina Giansanti lived. Her daughter made coffee, and we sat around the kitchen table. The house smelled strongly of floor wax and soap. She’d cleaned everything to a shine for her mother’s return.
“Ms. Giansanti,” Teodori began, “are you aware that on the day you left for India another terribly unfortunate event occurred?”
The woman lifted red-rimmed eyes red. “My daughter just told me about Elisa Sordi.”
I had the impression that her look went beyond the window behind me toward an indistinct point in the open square. Teodori shook his head in annoyance, watching the daughter pour out the coffee. “What have you said to your mother, young lady?”
The girl was trembling. “Only that Elisa Sordi was killed and the countess committed suicide.”
“Did Manfredi kill Elisa?” Gina Giansanti asked. The harsh mask of her face had become fossilized in pain.
Teodori looked at her in amazement.
“How did you know?” he asked her.
“Because that boy’s a monster, and his father’s worse than he is. The poor countess, on the other hand, was an angel, like Elisa.”
I decided to get the point, before the blanket of impressions and emotions veiled Gina Giansanti’s recollections like a mist.
“Do you remember the Sunday afternoon of the final? I came here with Angelo Dioguardi toward half past five; you’d already packed your bags to leave.”
“I remember perfectly. I’d gone up to Elisa’s office a little before that, and she’d given me some papers to take to the cardinal. Then you arrived with Dioguardi. He went up to see the cardinal while you finished a cigarette. When Dioguardi called you she’d already joined them.”
“When Dioguardi, the cardinal, and I left at about ten past six, you weren’t there anymore.”
“No. I went to Mass and I bought some holy pictures from the priest to give out as gifts in India. I chatted awhile with some of the parishioners and then came back here about half past seven finish packing. I’d reserved a taxi to the airport for eight.”
“All right, ma’am, we’ve already checked all this. Both your parish priest and the parishioners remember that you were there, and the taxi driver remembers you, too,” said Teodori.
“You checked on my whereabouts?” she asked resentfully.
“We had to. Elisa Sordi was killed, not on the premises, during that time. She punched out at six thirty,” Teodori explained patiently. “In these cases we confirm everybody’s stories.”
It was Gina Giansanti’s look that gave me the first sign of alarm. The second came from inside my body, from a hidden corner of my brain where I’d wanted to bury all my doubts. My eyes traveled beyond the kitchen window toward the pavement stained with Ulla’s blood. The blood was there; we couldn’t go back. The invisible blood came from wounds in the soul.
Gina Giansanti’s words came from a great distance away, like the first breath of wind that precedes a storm.
“No, that’s not right. Elisa Sordi left while I was getting into the taxi to the airport, at eight that evening.”
The coffee cup slipped from Teodori’s grasp and dropped onto the tiles, where it shattered, along with our certainty.
. . . .
We had her repeat her story three times. The taxi to the airport, as the taxi dispatcher confirmed, had been booked for eight sharp. Gina Giansanti was keeping her eye on the green gate from the kitchen window. At five to eight she saw Elisa Sordi coming from Building B, crossing the grounds in a hurry and then leaving through the gate on Via della Camilluccia. She didn’t see if anyone was waiting for her. She only noted that she was moving in a hurry and assumed she was late for the game. Five minutes later her taxi arrived—a fact we’d already checked. Gina checked in at Fiumicino at eight fifty two and got on the last flight to London, and from there she took the flight to Bombay at six the following morning.
There were no doubts of any kind. At five to eight Elisa Sordi left from Via della Camilluccia, just before Manfredi got in. It was ruled out that the long business of her death could have taken place in a few minutes in the middle of Via della Camilluccia while it was still daylight.
We’d had it: me, Teodori, the chief of police, the minister. Ulla killed herself through our blundering. Through my blundering, because of my certainty. The count would destroy us; he’d annihilate us all.
. . . .
“Where’s your car, Balistreri?” Teodori asked me. We got into the Duetto. The rain was pounding down.
Teodori took out his pipe and lit it. He seemed calm, lost in his thoughts.
“I’ll tell the chief of police you didn’t agree with me,” I promised, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. He was the boss; there was no way I could save him. They would force him out with a dishonorable discharge.
He looked at me with his yellow eyes and smiled. He was only a humble bureaucrat and not that smart. But I had solved the biggest problem in his life for him. And he was a good man.
“You can’t save me, Balistreri. I outrank you. Besides, I’m the one who demanded Manfredi’s arrest. You weren’t even there.”
“But I was the one—”
He interrupted me with a gesture. “I took all the credit for the investigation. I said I had the idea of consulting the records of the gym’s electricity consumption, and I was the one who explained everything to the prosecutor, the chief of police, and the undersecretary. I never mentioned your name; I took all the credit. So you’re not a factor—you haven’t done a thing.”
I stared at him in amazement. Now I understood. “You weren’t a hundred percent sure, and so you kept me out of it.”
He avoided my eyes. “That was my mistake. I had some doubts and I shouldn’t have arrested Manfredi. The countess would be still alive.”
“You had doubts,” I muttered, bewildered.
“I have a daughter, Balistreri; I know things you couldn’t know. Elisa Sordi would never have gone down to the Tiber with Manfredi of her own free will. With another man, yes, but not with him.”
I was appalled. It was a simple explanation. And true. “But you can’t assume responsibility for my mistakes, Superintendent Teodori.”
He now looked at me more firmly. “I’ll say it was all my idea and you were against it from the start. I’m old, and I have hepatitis that’s turned into cirrhosis. In exchange, you can do me another favor, the biggest one I can ask of you.”
“Claudia?”
“Exactly. My daughter. I’ll be dead before long; you must be a guardian and a friend to Claudia. I think you’ll know how to protect her until she’s more certain of herself. And you can do it far better if you remain a policeman.”
“You trust me to do all that?”
He forced himself to smile. “Not entirely. You have to swear to me you’ll never touch her. Look, you would be an excellent guardian but a very crappy boyfriend.”
I was at a point in my life where I was fully convinced of what my father had said, which was that I’d never amount to anything good because I had no talent and no will, nor the motivation to change it. And I didn’t really care at all—whatever happened to me from that day on didn’t matter to me. It was for this reason I accepted Teodori’s offer, not to save my own ass but because I was worn out. All I wanted was to say yes, and then float away and fall asleep forever.