Morning
CORVU’S RELATIONSHIP WITH NATALYA was having a rejuvenating effect on him. He’d changed his haircut. He’d bought new clothes. Even his poker strategy these days was a little more daring and less analytical.
“Alberto says no poker game tomorrow. Angelo can’t make it.”
“All right,” Balistreri said.
He hadn’t slept a wink. He’d tossed and turned all night thinking of Linda and that voice on the hill that had announced Colajacono’s death. And a motocross bike.
“But Alberto’s still expecting you for dinner around eight thirty.”
“All right.”
It was the second “all right” that aroused Corvu’s suspicion.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Balistreri lit a cigarette, the first of his five for the day.
“Sit down, Corvu.”
That “sit down” left no room for doubt. Playtime was over.
Balistreri pointed to the blackboard. It was an old habit. Sometimes, when an investigation had stalled, he asked Corvu to set his analytical gifts in motion and write all the important details on this board, where they stayed until the investigation was over.
“You can start writing,” Balistreri said.
Corvu remained seated.
“What do you want me to write, sir?”
“Whatever you want. Details, questions, doubts,” Balistreri said.
Corvu found the courage to look him in the eye. “Up there? After Dubai you told me that—”
“We’ll keep the office locked.”
Corvu went hesitatingly up to the board. “Let’s do it like this,” said Balistreri to encourage him. “Let’s put down an exhaustive list of questions, along with any doubts. You do one, I’ll do another, until we can’t think of any more. We’ll write the answers next to them as soon as we know them.”
“What does the letter R mean? And E? Does it come after?” began Balistreri.
As he wrote this down, Corvu found renewed confidence and energy. They went on with growing enthusiasm for two hours. The blackboard was very large and Corvu’s writing was tiny. By the end they were exhausted.
. . . .
What does the letter R mean? And E? Does it come after?
Why did Colajacono want to stand in for Marchese and Cutugno? Because he knew that Ramona might come in about Nadia.
And how did he know that? Mircea told him.
Why was Colajacono already dog-tired on the morning of December 24?
Why did Ramona offer her services to deputy mayor Augusto De Rossi? In order to blackmail him and make him change his vote.
Who blackmailed him? Mircea and Colajacono.
On behalf of whom and why?
Is there an Invisible Man in the Samantha Rossi case? Who is he? There is, but we don’t know who he is.
Is he the same person who phoned Vasile to ask for the Giulia GT?
When was the Giulia GT’s headlight broken?
Where was Hagi between six and seven on the evening of December 24 when Nadia was taken away? And then after nine?
Same question for Colajacono and Ajello.
Where was Hagi the night Coppola and the others died?
Same question for Ajello.
Were Mircea and Greg guilty of murder in Romania? And who were the two victims?
How did Alina Hagi die in January 1983?
Why did Colajacono want Tatò with him, even though he knew he intended to spend time with his sister?
Why did the Giulia GT slow down when the driver saw Natalya?
What was the relationship between Ornella Corona and Ajello and his son before her husband died?
Who suggested that she take out a life insurance policy on her husband?
How did Sandro Corona really die?
Why did Camarà die? Because he’d seen Nadia with someone in the private lounge on December 23.
Who owns ENT?
They decided not to write down the reply to the last question, nor to the question about the instigators of the Augusto De Rossi blackmail. The secret service would have been an inadequate reply, anyway. The question was who was behind it.
“For goodness sake,” said Corvu, looking at the blackboard. “With all the things we don’t know, it’s a miracle we’ve got any guilty parties in prison.”
“That’s assuming they’re really the guilty parties,” Balistreri said. “I’ve got two more questions to add, but I’d rather you didn’t write them down.”
“Why’s that?”
“Let’s just say I’m superstitious. The first is this: Where was Adrian’s bike on the evening of December 24 while he was at Casilino 900?”
Corvu looked at him. He paged through the statements made during questioning, then looked up again. “Why do we need to know that?”
“Because there are at least two things we don’t know, and I’d like you to find out the answers. Where was that bike on December 23 when Camarà was killed? And where was it on December 24 when Nadia was kidnapped and killed?”
“I still don’t get it. What does Adrian’s motocross bike have to do with a guy on a motorcycle outside Bella Blu?”
Balistreri told him about his conversations with Carmen and Cabot. Corvu frowned. A second connection between Nadia and Bella Blu. Bella Blu meant ENT. And ENT meant big trouble, as Balistreri himself had made clear.
“What’s the second question, sir?” he asked.
“There are too many invisible men in this case. The one who had the bike is the easiest one to find.”
“Right. What do you want me to do?”
“Get ready to find the answers to these questions, except for the questions about ENT and Alina Hagi—I’ll take care of those. And send Margherita in.”
Corvu looked down, not meeting his eye. “Yesterday when you were in Naples she asked me if she could take the rest of the week off and I gave it to her.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. I think she and Angelo are going away together.”
Afternoon
The death toll from mopeds was seemingly infinite. No one gave a damn except the victims’ parents. Everyone said that mopeds had been Rome’s salvation, and that without them traffic would have ground to a halt twenty years earlier. The center could have been turned into a pedestrian-only area, but store owners wouldn’t hear of it. Government offices could have been moved out to the outskirts, but public employees wouldn’t hear of it. The roads could have been better maintained and the cobblestones paved over so that moped riders didn’t bounce around as if they were in a pinball machine, but historic preservationists wouldn’t hear of it. And so the death toll climbed higher.
Alina Hagi was just one of the countless victims. In Rome, a moped accident that cost a twenty-year-old her life was a purely routine case. Her accident might have had a few more details because it had been her uncle, Monsignor Lato, who filed the report, but there wasn’t even a photo of her stapled to it. She’d died on a rainy night in January 1983, shortly after ten o’clock. Many witnesses saw her take the curve around the Colosseum at top speed, hit a hole in the road, swerve off to the side, and crash into a plane tree. Helmets weren’t yet mandatory then, and she wasn’t wearing one. No one had cut her off, and nothing unusual had occurred.
Balistreri read Monsignor Lato’s statement, which the monsignor had later retracted. He said that a few days earlier Alina’s arms had been covered in bruises. One of Alina’s friends had told him that after the girl’s funeral. However, there was no direct link between those bruises and the accident, and after a month Monsignor Lato regretted that he had mentioned it.
Linda Nardi’s question nagged at him. When did Alina die?
The one-way roundabout suggested that Alina was coming from home and going somewhere in the dark after ten on a rainy January night, riding a moped at idiotically high speed. And Alina Hagi by all accounts had been an exceptionally sensible young woman, well-mannered, religious, and with a good head on her shoulders.
. . . .
He called Angelo many times that day, but his cell phone was always off.
He called Corvu and told him to track down Monsignor Lato. Corvu told him that he’d organized the investigation and set it in motion and that Piccolo was ready to jump in again. That enthusiasm worried Balistreri. The last thing he needed was a mountain of muscle ready to avenge wrongs against women.
The desire to call Linda came over him in waves, but he resisted. Not out of pride—there was no tug-of-war between them—but for a better reason: secrets are a barrier against complicity.
He spent hour after hour at his desk. He read all the statements again on his computer, then the list of questions on the blackboard. He knew that the solution was there in the answers to those questions. He read the first one again.
What does the letter R mean? And the E? What comes next?
When did Alina die?
Linda’s question bounced around in his head.
When? Why “when” and not “how”?
. . . .
Corvu called him around nine o’clock while he was walking home, alone, without Linda for the first time in many months.
“Monsignor Lato went back to Poland ten years ago. But he’s alive and well, and I dug up his phone number.”
“Excellent. You’re still managing to get some work done.” Corvu didn’t catch his drift.
“I also contacted a friend of mine at the Vatican and found out where Alina Hagi worked. I sent you an e-mail about that.”
“Good work.”
“One more thing, sir. Natalya and I are going out for a pizza. Would you and Linda like to join us?”
“No, thanks. Not tonight.”
He ended the conversation with Corvu. Now the desire to call Linda was irresistible.
Corvu’s e-mail was very short. It began with the Monsignor’s phone number in Poland and then noted in the driest terms that in 1982, Alina Hagi had worked in the San Valente parish on the Via Aurelia Antica.
I did it, memory says. I couldn’t have done it, says pride. In the end, memory relents.
. . . .
Linda Nardi was looking beyond St. Peter’s toward the river that now separated them.
She had tried with all her might to convince herself that he could understand or at least accept it.
But that wasn’t the case. She knew that very well now, from that evening on the terrace. She spoke to her mother. She made the necessary phone call.