Morning
BALISTRERI ARRIVED AT THE airport after yet another sleepless night. His beard was unshaven, his clothes dirty and wrinkled. He smelled of alcohol and tobacco. He wasn’t sure whether his excitement, wedded to his fatigue, was the result of going off of his antidepressants or was simply the result of how quickly things were happening now.
I don’t care. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, wherever that may be.
The last time he saw Franca Giansanti was twenty-four years ago on that wretched day when Ulla had launched herself into the air and the concierge had come back from India with her part of the truth. She was somewhat bewildered to find him in a state of total disintegration, but acted as if nothing were amiss.
During the flight to Lecce, Franca spoke through tears about her daughter, Fiorella. She was thirteen when Franca’s husband had died from cancer. Cardinal Alessandrini found a place for her in a boarding school, where they encouraged her studies. Then Fiorella went to Milan, where she graduated from the Catholic university, and recently she had begun working for a bank in Rome.
Balistreri’s thoughts wandered from Linda Nardi to Fiorella Romani—locked up without food and water in an isolated farmhouse where they would find her starved to death.
When they landed, a car with two policemen was waiting for them. They passed through Lecce’s splendid Baroque center, which was already hot in the morning sun. On the bypass they encountered the Saturday summer traffic and Balistreri ordered them to switch on the siren.
“My mother has heart trouble. We haven’t told her what happened to Fiorella.”
He remembered Gina, the touchy old concierge, devoutly religious and taciturn. “We may have to inform her in order to get her to help us.”
The car stopped outside a row of terraced houses on a quiet street in Lecce’s outskirts. Franca rang the bell, and Gina came to the door. Her severe, tight-lipped face was now wrinkled with age. The dark shadows under her eyes, her trembling, and her swollen ankles all indicated that she wasn’t in good health.
The house was full of crucifixes and photographs of Padre Pio, the pope, and Cardinal Alessandrini, as well as many photos of her daughter and her granddaughter, Fiorella: recollections of a life that was about to be shattered.
“I’m not surprised to see you, after Elisa’s mother’s suicide,” Gina Giansanti said. “Are you here to arrest me?”
“I’m here to talk about Elisa Sordi, but not to arrest you, although I suspect that twenty-four years ago you forgot to tell us something.”
“You’re only getting suspicious now?” Gina said harshly.
Franca intervened. “Mamma, did you hear on TV about that Romanian who killed the policeman and all those women?”
“Of course. They said that animal confessed to killing Elisa Sordi.”
“No, Mamma. He said he’d killed all of them except Elisa.”
The lines on Gina’s face deepened as she frowned. “What did the gypsy have to do with her then?”
“He was there at the time,” Balistreri replied. “He was working for Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno.”
“Oh, the count,” Gina mumbled with a tone that spoke of resentment that had survived for decades. “Only a man like him would give work to an animal like that.”
“It wasn’t the count’s fault—he didn’t know what kind of a man Hagi was. But please try to remember. Was there something you didn’t tell us at the time?”
“No,” Gina Giansanti replied firmly. “There’s absolutely nothing I didn’t tell you.”
Balistreri looked at Franca. She was biting her lip.
“Mamma, this is very important. I want you to swear on Fiorella’s life that you’re not keeping anything from Captain Balistreri.”
With the kind of contempt and authority that only a Southern Italian mother could muster, Gina Giansanti said, “How dare you ask me to swear on Fiorella’s life.”
“If you lie, Fiorella will die,” Franca replied.
Balistreri saw that threat transfigure Gina. There was no limit to the pain that Marius Hagi was able to inflict on his victims even from inside prison, using Balistreri as his blunt instrument.
“I don’t understand, Franca,” she said. All of a sudden she was an old trembling woman with a heart condition.
Franca burst into tears. “That man kidnapped Fiorella and is holding her somewhere, Mamma. And he says he’ll let her die if you don’t tell us the truth.”
Gina Giansanti looked as if she might pass out. “Oh, my God. Lord have mercy upon me.” She hugged her daughter and wept silently.
Balistreri watched the two women cry. Their bodies distorted with pain; their bony hands clutched each other’s shoulders. He remembered them embracing like that on a rainy morning outside the Via della Camilluccia gate, while Cardinal Alessandrini held Gina Giansanti’s hands in his.
He clearly remembered the sound of Teodori’s cup as it shattered on the floor tiles, the end of Michele Balistreri’s dreams of power, and the beginning of his farewell to life.
Elisa Sordi left while I was getting into the taxi to the airport, at eight that evening.
He cursed himself for having believed her, for having given up thinking and reacting, then and for the next twenty-four years, and for not having the courage to follow his instincts and his convictions, for not remembering Christ’s words to the Jews, when he said that faith comes before morality for God’s children, and also Cardinal Alessandrini’s words about divine and earthly justice.
How many times since then had Gina Giansanti remembered that untruth and then cursed herself for telling it? What debt had she paid with that lie?
Balistreri knew he had little time. “Gina, you have to tell me when you really saw Elisa Sordi for the last time.”
Gina Giansanti lifted her sorrowful face to him. “Elisa called me on the intercom just before five, before you and Angelo Dioguardi arrived. I went up to collect the paperwork from her to take to Cardinal Alessandrini. She was glad to be finished. That was the last time I saw her, poor child.”
There was no time for Balistreri to ask any more questions.
“I have to leave immediately,” he said.
The old woman embraced him, and for a moment she pressed her face against his chest. “I’m begging you, Captain, please save my granddaughter.”
In the car, Balistreri looked at the marks that Gina Giansanti’s tears had left on his jacket: damp rivulets right near his heart. They brought back ugly memories.
Twenty-four years earlier, in a residential complex that had seemed like paradise, a group of people above suspicion had deceived inexperienced and unconcerned police officers with lies and cover-ups.
Balistreri thought again of poor Teodori and the inglorious end to his career, and of all the deaths caused by that shameless lie. The truth that everyone was looking for had been buried under it for twenty-four years.
All of them, the investigators and those under investigation, had contributed to leaving a horrendous crime unsolved and had put in motion an infernal mechanism whose victims were still piling up.
Afternoon
He spent the return trip rereading the Elisa Sordi file. Gina Giansanti’s false testimony had turned the case upside down, raising suspicions again against Manfredi and all the other possible guilty parties associated with the Via della Camilluccia residential complex. By saying that she had seen Elisa leave the office at eight o’clock, Gina Giansanti had given alibis to everyone. With the World Cup final beginning at eight thirty and the celebrations afterward, everyone had a friend ready to swear they were somewhere else.
Now they were coming back to the point of departure, to the time card Elisa had stamped at six thirty. Between six thirty and eight o’clock, no one had a solid alibi: certainly not Valerio, Manfredi, or Paul. The count had gone to see the minister of the interior, and it would be necessary to reconstruct the details of that visit. Cardinal Alessandrini had gone to the Vatican, which would be difficult to check. And there were other people to add to the list: Hagi, Colajacono, Ajello—and who knew where they had been on July 11, 1982, after such a long time had passed?
The airplane landed in Rome early on Saturday afternoon. Balistreri crossed the blazing hot city by taxi; it was empty of its residents, the streets full only of tourists. Anti-immigrant graffiti was everywhere. He saw that the Pakistanis, who had once raced up to cars stopped at intersections to offer to squeegee their windshields, now approached cautiously. Passing by the Termini train station, he noticed that the Africans selling counterfeit goods had disappeared. Not a single Romanian was out. They had vanished into thin air.
When he arrived at the office, Piccolo and Mastroianni were waiting for him. They said nothing about his appalling appearance. The air conditioning was on and the blinds were half-closed. Balistreri immediately noticed the changes on the blackboard, the latest questions and answers were written in capital letters.
. . . .
What does the letter R mean? And the E? Is that the right order? OR BEFORE? AFTER THE V AND THE I OR BEFORE THE O AND THE A.
Why did Colajacono want to take Marchese and Cutugno’s shift? Because he knew Ramona might come in about Nadia.
And how did he know that? Mircea told him.
Why was Colajacono already tired on the morning of December 24? BECAUSE HE’D BEEN AT BELLA BLU ON THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER 23.
Why was Deputy Mayor Augusto De Rossi serviced by Ramona? In order to blackmail him and make him change his vote.
Who blackmailed him? Mircea and Colajacono. AND HAGI.
On behalf of whom and why? THE SAME PEOPLE AS IN DUBAI.
Is there an Invisible Man in the Samantha Rossi case? Who is he? There is, AND IT’S MARIUS HAGI.
Is he the same person who phoned Vasile to ask for the Giulia GT? YES.
When was the Giulia GT’s headlight broken? IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Where was Hagi between six and seven on the evening of December 24 when Nadia was taken away? And then after nine? FIRST COLLECTING NADIA, THEN KILLING HER.
Same question for Colajacono and Ajello. WE DON’T KNOW, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Where was Hagi the night Coppola and the others died? WE STILL DON’T KNOW.
Same question for Ajello. WE DON’T KNOW, BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Were Mircea and Greg guilty of murder in Romania? And who were the two victims? THE MEN WHO KILLED HAGI’S BROTHER.
How did Alina Hagi die in January 1983? SHE WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM MARIUS HAGI.
Why did Colajacono want Tatò with him, even though he knew he intended to spend time with his sister? HE WAS TOLD TO HAVE HIM THERE. IT WAS A TRAP SO THAT HE’D HAVE NO ALIBI.
Why did the Giulia GT slow down when the driver saw Natalya? HAGI TOOK HER FOR NADIA.
What was the relationship between Ornella Corona and Ajello and his son before her husband died? SHE ALREADY KNEW THEM.
Who suggested that she take out a life insurance policy on her husband? AJELLO.
How did Sandro Corona really die? IN AN ACCIDENT, PERHAPS LIKE THE ONE IN DUBAI.
Why did Camarà die? Because he’d seen Nadia with someone in the private lounge on December 23.
Who owns ENT? SAME PEOPLE IN DUBAI WHO WERE BLACKMAILING DE ROSSI.
WHERE WAS HAGI WHEN ORNELLA CORONA DIED? HE WAS THERE TO KILL HER.
WHERE WAS AJELLO WHEN ORNELLA CORONA DIED? HE WAS THERE JUST BEFORE.
WHAT DO THE LETTERS R, E, V, I, O, AND A MEAN?
WHAT WILL THE NEXT LETTER BE?
WHAT’S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN HAGI, BELLA BLU, DUBAI, DE ROSSI, ETC.?
IS FIORELLA ALIVE? WHERE IS SHE?
. . . .
The writing was Piccolo’s, but Balistreri recognized Corvu’s style. “Where did he call from?” he asked Piccolo brusquely.
“He’s back but he stayed home. He says that if you don’t want him in the office, he’ll take some personal days and spend them in Rome.”
Balistreri decided to ignore the tone of disapproval in Piccolo’s voice. This series of calamities had forged an indissoluble bond of solidarity between these deputies who were otherwise very different.
“Tell him to come in immediately. There are some key questions missing.”
Piccolo smiled and immediately sent a text message. Balistreri went up to the blackboard and added his latest questions.
WHY NADIA IN PARTICULAR?
WHOSE VOICE DID SELINA AND ORNELLA HEAR ON THE TELEPHONE?
DID HAGI DO EVERYTHING BY HIMSELF?
. . . .
Corvu arrived fifteen minutes later, looking contrite.
“What did Natalya say?” Balistreri asked him.
“That I should come back here, finish what I’d started, and then come back to Ukraine. If you don’t send me off to count goats, that is.”
“I wouldn’t want to inflict you on the goats, Corvu.”
He told him about the new details gleaned from his visit to Gina Giansanti. Corvu stared at the latest questions on the blackboard.
“So, there’s definitely a link to Elisa Sordi?” Piccolo asked.
“Yes, it all starts there, with Alina Hagi and the church of San Valente. And Hagi wants to know the truth. Why?”
“To get his revenge on someone who injured him. We’ve seen how cruel and vengeful he is. He waited years to get even with his brother’s killers.”
“Hagi played a role in Elisa’s death,” Balistreri explained, “and Alina learned about it from Ulla, I think. That’s where the problems between them started, and then she fled on her moped and died.”
“And in his sick mind, Hagi blames everything on Elisa’s murderer,” observed Piccolo. “For him, it’s as if the murderer killed Alina, too.”
Balistreri said, “Correct, but if he knew for sure who it was he would have taken his revenge already—he’s not lacking in means or imagination. But Marius Hagi knew that Gina Giansanti had lied. That’s why her granddaughter, Fiorella, is his latest victim. But did he know back in 1982, or has he only recently come to know?”
“How could he have known?” Mastroianni asked.
Balistreri thought about Mastroianni’s question. The answer was obvious.
Hagi knew that Elisa was already dead at eight o’clock that evening.
Corvu made a few calculations. “Now we know that Elisa did indeed leave at six thirty, as her time card showed. And no one has a rock-solid alibi. In the space of an hour and a half, someone she knew could have led her away to a secluded place, attacked her, tortured her, and killed her, then tied weights around her and thrown her in the Tiber and still gotten back in time for the game.”
Balistreri listened.
Corvu went on. “Then there are the letters.” The gears of his analytical mind were hard at work. “I’ve thought about it for the last few hours. Hagi was determined to let us know that we have to consider the letter A as well, the initial of his wife Alina. He wants her included among the victims. And that there’s still a letter missing. Now, if we accept for a moment that this isn’t a red herring—”
“Only for a moment,” said Piccolo, not entirely convinced.
“That’s fine, Corvu. We’ll accept it for a moment. Let’s say there’s a message in those letters. What is it?” Balistreri asked.
“What’s the most obvious meaning a series of letters could have?” Corvu asked.
Mastroianni said, “The name of the killer. That’s what it would be in a detective novel.”
Corvu wasn’t laughing.
Piccolo voiced an objection. “I don’t follow, Graziano. We already know who the killer is: it’s Hagi.”
“Except he didn’t kill Elisa Sordi. He knows all the details of the case, but he says he didn’t do it. And I don’t see why he would lie; one extra murder isn’t going to change anything. Besides, the man is dying.”
“Keep going, Corvu,” Balistreri said.
“Hagi says the last letter is missing, the one that will be carved on Fiorella Romani. I think it’ll be an L.”
Balistreri studied him.
Too simple. Or too complex.
“What do the letters mean?” Mastroianni asked. “
“Why on earth would Hagi go to all this trouble?” Balistreri asked.
“To suggest a solution for us. Because he knows who the perpetrator is, and he wants us to find the proof so we can nail him before he succumbs to cancer.”
“But Corvu, if he knew who it was already, he’d have killed them,” Mastroianni objected.
Piccolo the psychologist intervened. “Unless Hagi prefers to think of them locked in a cell for the rest of their lives—a worse revenge than a pistol shot. Hagi’s suffered all his life for Alina’s death. An eye for an eye.”
Balistreri came to a decision. “Notify the prosecutor and the judge. Today’s Saturday, so he’ll be out on his boat at Ostia. Go and pick him up—we’ll see if you’re right. But before that I want you to arrange another meeting with Cardinal Alessandrini.”
. . . .
Halfway through the afternoon he spoke to Floris, the chief of police, to bring him up to date.
“Cardinal Alessandrini will refuse to be questioned, Balistreri, and the treaty between Italy and the Vatican is clear: we can’t force him.”
“Leave it to me. It’ll be an informal chat. I don’t think he’ll refuse.”
“Do you really think the cardinal is connected to all of this?”
“Yes. It all started in 1982. Hagi thinks the person who killed Elisa caused his problems with Alina. Of course, he may simply be trying to frame an innocent person, but that’s a risk we have to take.”
“We’ll never figure out what happened in 1982—it’s too long ago,” Floris objected.
“Agreed. My priority is not to find Elisa Sordi’s killer but to save Fiorella Romani if she’s alive. Elisa Sordi is just the key to making Hagi tell us where Fiorella is.”
“Pasquali’s funeral is Monday afternoon, forty-eight hours away, and the government and the city council are concerned that if we don’t solve this case by then, the press will crucify us. That doesn’t concern me, Balistreri, but I am anxious to save that young girl’s life.”
. . . .
Linda was looking at the dome of St. Peter’s in the midafternoon light. There were so many things she could have told him, but in the end none of them would have changed reality. He wasn’t the one she needed. He had been, at one time. But not anymore.
Now she needed someone who could play for everything, someone who could bet it all on one hand. A different kind of man.
. . . .
At five o’clock on that sweltering afternoon, Balistreri arrived in St. Peter’s Square, which was packed with priests, nuns, and tourists. The assistant had said Cardinal Alessandrini would be waiting for him in his private study. Even Corvu’s contacts probably wouldn’t have gotten him back into the Vatican, but the kidnapping of Fiorella Romani had thrown the gates wide open.
He followed the assistant along the silence of the wide marble corridors, with their huge religious frescos. He found Alessandrini in gray pants, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, sitting at his desk buried under a mountain of paperwork. This time he greeted him without a smile and came to the point straight away.
“Captain Balistreri, I’m afraid you were right about Hagi. He seemed to me the type with a moral code that didn’t entertain the deaths of young women. Evidently I was wrong.”
Balistreri made no comment. He had no more time or patience for useless digressions. He had chosen a route toward the truth, impassable but necessary.
“I’m here for two reasons, Your Eminence, one professional and one private although closely connected. I’d like to begin with the private one.”
Alessandrini was quick to catch on. “Why exactly do you want to confess to me, Captain Balistreri?”
“You’re the best equipped to judge whether my penitence is enough. Besides, there’s a second private reason, which I’d prefer to talk about during confession.”
Alessandrini took his Cardinal’s cassock from a coatrack nearby and put it on. “We can go into a private chapel.”
Balistreri followed Alessandrini down a short corridor. The chapel was very small. It was dark and cool and smelled of incense. There were a few pews, an altar, a confessional. Alessandrini entered the booth and closed the door. Balistreri knelt and put his face to the grate. He could see the cardinal’s profile.
“I’m listening. Please go ahead.” In the darkness of the confessional, the cardinal’s voice seemed different, both closer and farther away.
“I haven’t made confession for more than forty years, since the priests wanted me to serve as an altar boy when I was in middle school.”
“Don’t worry; the Lord has no deadlines.”
“In forty years, I’ve committed a great many sins. But some are worse than others.”
“You don’t have to tell me all of them. The ones that trouble you the most will do—the sins that have brought you here today.”
Balistreri began to tell his untold story. He’d gone over it thousands of times in his own head, but he’d never spoken the words aloud before.
“I lived in Tripoli, Libya, as a child. I had a friend, a very good friend. And there was a girl I loved.”
For the first time, he told someone else the story that had shaped his whole life and, in doing so, he moved slowly toward a different and deeper level of understanding. His guilt was serious, but even more serious was the way he had chosen to atone for it: a progressive renunciation of life, a self-inflicted penitence, the equivalent of millions of Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
Alessandrini listened to the story in absolute silence.
“Would you grant me absolution, Eminence?”
He knew the reply, even before he heard it. “Do you repent, my son?”
A strict Catholic education. An overbearing, obsessive father. An adolescent incapable of being what his father wanted and who, in order to run away from his lack of success, went in the exact opposite direction, mimicking the heroes of the films he’d loved as a child. Honor, courage, loyalty.
“Eminence, my continual repentance and the need for salvation and forgiveness haven’t done anything for me except help me die a living death.”
The cardinal’s voice was a whisper. “My son, if you want God’s forgiveness you must allow God to be your judge; you cannot be the judge of religion.”
Fundamentally, that was what he had wanted to hear; that was where his adolescent rebellion had started. And he was coming back to it, to the one really great disagreement with his brother, Alberto, that had continued through the years. The only serious disagreement they’d ever had.
Nietzsche. Mamma. It’s not that today’s Christians believe in loving thy neighbor that stops them from turning on us. It’s the impotence of loving thy neighbor that stops them.
Balistreri stood up from the kneeler.
“Eminence, if there’s a penance I can pay, I’ll pay it here on this earth, whatever its nature. But it’ll be neither you nor God who decides.”
Alessandrini sighed and stepped out of the confessional. They were standing facing each other. Now they were two adversaries and, finally, equally armed.
“There’s one more thing, Your Eminence. The professional reason I’m here.”
Alessandrini sighed.
“Do you want to talk to me about Elisa Sordi?”
“I do, Your Eminence. I want to talk about an evening in July 1982 when I wanted to watch a soccer game in peace.”
“You were a young man, Balistreri. You wouldn’t make those same mistakes today.”
“All these years I thought it was impossible to find the killer among the crowd, so I tried to silence my conscience. I buried Elisa Sordi in a corner of my memory.”
“And now that’s no longer the case?”
“Eminence, as you know, before his arrest Marius Hagi kidnapped Fiorella Romani. This morning I went to Lecce and spoke to Gina Giansanti.”
During the long silence that followed, Balistreri realized he was finally succeeding in controlling the anger he felt toward Alessandrini and turning it into positive energy. There was no doubt the Cardinal had performed good works for a great many people and a little evil for a few. Whatever reason he had in 1982 for asking Gina Giansanti to lie, it was unacceptable and had caused other deaths. No earthly justice would absolve him, and no God, either. But now what was needed was the truth. The truth that Hagi was demanding in order to free Fiorella Romani.
The cardinal kneeled in a pew. Balistreri let him pray undisturbed. He was a little light-headed from the smell of incense, on edge from tension and lack of sleep, shattered by Angelo and Linda’s betrayal and by disgust for what he had done to her himself the night before. But it was pulling back from that deranged state that had brought him back to life to seek the truth.
Alessandrini finished and motioned to him to come over. Balistreri knelt beside him.
“Gina Giansanti is not to blame. I asked her to say she’d seen Elisa Sordi leave at eight o’clock that evening. I called her in India and told her what to say. She had no interest in protecting Manfredi, but I swore to her that he hadn’t killed Elisa Sordi. I said the same to Ulla, poor soul. Unfortunately, Gina came back too late to save her.”
“I knew that, Eminence. What I don’t know is why.”
Alessandrini was plainly suffering. “To save an innocent man, Balistreri. I wanted to correct the mistakes that earthly justice was about to make. Manfredi was innocent. I knew this, and I know it to this day with absolute certainty.”
“Then you should have said so to the police. Here on earth we live in a secular and sovereign state. You should have given us the proof you had, rather than distorting the truth.”
“I couldn’t. I was bound by the confidentiality of the confessional. I couldn’t share what I’d learned.”
“The murder was committed in Italy, not the Vatican. I could have you arrested, Your Eminence.”
They both knew he could not, not even if Alessandrini had confessed to having done away with Elisa and all the other women himself. But the prelate had a more valid reason to speak out than Balistreri’s useless threats, and that was the life of Fiorella Romani.
“From six forty five to seven forty five on that day Manfredi wasn’t at the gym, nor was he murdering Elisa Sordi. But I couldn’t tell you that, and I decided to save him from those unjust accusations by means of Gina Giansanti’s lie.”
“Eminence, if you want to save Fiorella Romani, I have to know what really happened.”
Alessandrini, too, had been haunted for twenty-four years. And now, as both a Christian and a man, he would be haunted for many more if Fiorella died.
He said, “Ulla was very religious, but that went against the count’s principles. Unbeknownst to him, she came to me to confess almost every day.”
“Even after Elisa’s death?”
Alessandrini nodded. “The afternoon of the World Cup final, before the game started, something terrible happened while the count was out at his party meeting. After lunch, Ulla had gone to her room to sleep. She was very upset, so she took a sleeping pill and slept soundly. Around , she was awakened by loud noises from Manfredi’s room. She could hear him in there, shrieking like an animal. She opened the door and found Manfredi covered in blood. There were cuts all over his body. The count came home right then and told Ulla to leave, but she stayed and listened from the other side of the door.”
“What did she hear?”
Alessandrini ignored the question. “After twenty minutes, the count called her. He’d given Manfredi a sedative to calm him down and had tended to his cuts, which weren’t deep. He ordered Ulla not to tell a soul what had happened, for the sake of Manfredi’s future. Then they all left together. He went to see the minister, and Ulla went shopping. Manfredi left on his bike. The count had ordered him to go to the gym as usual.”
Balistreri was trying to put his jumbled thoughts in order. “When did Ulla tell you these things?”
“That same evening, before the final. While the count was changing before he went to see the minister, Ulla managed to persuade Manfredi not to go to the gym and to come with her to the Vatican instead so that he could speak to me. Ulla called me while you were in my apartment and Angelo Dioguardi was on the terrace, checking Elisa’s work.”
Balistreri remembered the call. He remembered, too, that right after that the cardinal had left in a hurry. “Did Ulla and Manfredi come to see you in the Vatican?”
“Yes, they came to see me without the count’s knowledge. He’d forbidden Ulla to involve Manfredi in anything that had to do with the Church. They arrived a little after six thirty on Manfredi’s bike. I was waiting for them in a taxi outside a side entrance, and we went to my private study.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Manfredi made confession for the first time in his life. The poor young man was shattered.”
“Shattered by what, Eminence?”
“It was a confession, Captain Balistreri. Just as I would never reveal the confession you just made to anyone, I would never reveal his. But I am concerned for Fiorella Romani’s life, so I will swear to you by the Virgin Mary that Manfredi was with me between six thirty and seven thirty and therefore could not have killed Elisa Sordi.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. Why didn’t Ulla tell the truth to prove her son’s innocence?” Balistreri said.
“You obviously don’t know Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno very well. Ulla was afraid to tell him that she’d taken Manfredi to confession. The marriage would have been over, and the count would never have spoken to Manfredi again. She begged me to keep quiet, and then I asked Gina Giansanti to lie.”
Balistreri realized that there was some sense to the explanation, but there were other consequences to the lie that Alessandrini could not pretend to ignore.
“Other people have benefited from Gina Giansanti’s lie, Your Eminence.”
“I know. I decided that saving an innocent man was more important than punishing the guilty. Honestly, I thought the police would find the real culprit—a face in the crowd.”
“And you don’t think it could have been someone on the inside, someone who received a cast-iron alibi from Gina Giansanti?”
“No,” Alessandrini replied sharply. Then more softly, “I don’t think so. Valerio Bona wouldn’t have done anything like that. And Father Paul is out of the question—he was at San Valente the whole time.”
“You could be mistaken, Eminence.”
“I admit I was mistaken about Hagi, but not about Valerio Bona and Father Paul.”
Balistreri decided to say nothing about Valerio Bona’s forthcoming interrogation.
“There’s also the count,” he said instead.
“Of course,” Alessandrini said, getting up. “And there’s me, Captain Balistreri. Now, however, I must tend to the living.”
The conversation was at an end. The cardinal rose, made the sign of the cross, and left.
. . . .
Balistreri went back to the office by bus, winding past sun-baked tourists in shorts and Romans out for a walk at that hour to avoid the worst of the heat.
When he arrived, Valerio Bona was waiting for him in the interrogation room. Balistreri wanted to see him under pressure. He was the former boyfriend, the one without an alibi. And the letters carved on the girls formed an anagram of his name.
He was accompanied by a young female lawyer who sailed with him. The public prosecutor had assumed responsibility for the Elisa Sordi investigation on the grounds that it was linked to the principal enquiry. Balistreri sat in front of Valerio, with Piccolo and Corvu at either side.
“I’d respectfully like to inquire why my client has been summoned here,” Bona’s lawyer said to the public prosecutor.
“We’ve reopened the investigation into Elisa Sordi’s death based on new evidence that emerged. Captain Balistreri will question your client, then we’ll decide whether to detain him.”
Bona looked shocked. “You’ve decided to reopen the investigation? That’s not what you said the other day.”
“New evidence has emerged in the last few hours, some of which involves you directly. We have to reconstruct the events of the afternoon of July 11, 1982.”
“What’s the point?” Bona’s lawyer protested. “Marius Hagi has already confessed.”
Balistreri remembered Valerio Bona’s insecurity and apprehension. At least back then, he’d given in to pressure easily.
“Hagi didn’t kill Elisa Sordi,” Balistreri said sharply.
Valerio turned pale and started fiddling with the gold crucifix around his neck.
“There’s important new evidence,” Balistreri continued. “Elisa Sordi could have been killed any time after six thirty. She left the office then, not at eight o’clock.”
Valerio Bona’s face displayed the incredulous look of someone called to account after twenty-four years. But he also showed a touch of relief. That surprised Balistreri.
Bona’s lawyer cut in. “I assume there’s no chance you’ll share the basis for this new theory with us.”
“You assume correctly,” Balistreri replied. “Now, Mr. Bona, let’s start at the end. Where were you after six thirty?”
“You already know; I told you at the time. I saw Elisa right after lunch, near the gate on Via della Camilluccia. Then I went to Villa Pamphili on my moped. I sat under a tree and studied for my exam. Around eight fifteen I went home to watch the game with my parents and some other people. Then I went to bed. My parents’ friends testified to that effect back then.”
“I’m well aware of that. Every other time Italy won, you went out and celebrated with your friends, but after the game of the decade, you went to bed.”
“I was worried about the exam. I wanted to get some sleep.”
“And because of an exam you didn’t end up taking, you didn’t go out to celebrate Italy’s victory in the World Cup. I don’t believe you. I saw the pictures of the 2006 champions on your boat. I think you were upset, Mr. Bona, about what had happened that afternoon.”
Valerio Bona was shaking. “No. I didn’t speak to her again that day, I swear to God.”
A mix of emotions flitted across Bona’s face: pain, shame, and remorse.
He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. And, leaving God out of it, there are other reasons I don’t believe you.”
The lawyer lost her patience and turned to the public prosecutor. “I’d appreciate a little more transparency here.”
The public prosecutor nodded to Balistreri, who then continued.
“We think there’s an outside accomplice in the series of crimes attributed to Marius Hagi in the past year. You knew him back in 1982. And you have no alibi for these crimes. In fact, you were in Ostia on your boat the day Ornella Corona was killed.”
Valerio Bona’s eyes opened wide. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.
“I’m deadly serious, and you should take this seriously, too, Mr. Bona. Tell me the truth about that day in 1982.”
The lawyer asked for a break in order to speak to Bona alone. Balistreri took the opportunity to smoke a cigarette in his office.
“He’s guilty,” Corvu said.
“I’m not sure,” Piccolo said.
“He’s guilty of something, but I don’t know what,” Balistreri said.
When they went back into the room, Valerio Bona looked resigned and relieved, almost resolute. He was gripping his crucifix tightly.
“My client will make a voluntary statement about the events of the afternoon of July 11, 1982,” his lawyer said. “He will respond to any questions on that matter. He will not respond to any questions about more recent events and states categorically that he has no connection with them.”
“Okay, Mr. Bona, let’s hear what you have to say,” Balistreri said.
Valerio was now resolved, like a child who’s been persuaded to take some very bitter medicine and wants to do so quickly, to get it over with.
“I couldn’t concentrate in the park at Villa Pamphili. I was sure that Elisa was seeing someone, and I wanted her to tell me to my face. A little after five, I went to Via della Camilluccia to speak to her. I parked my moped around the corner and saw you, Captain Balistreri, with Count Tommaso, who had just arrived. It must have been around a quarter to six. You and the count spoke for less than a minute, and then he went to Building A and you went around the long way to the cardinal’s.”
Balistreri nodded. He remembered every instant well.
He wanted to go up to see her.
Valerio took a breath and continued. “I was hiding around the corner. I saw Father Paul hurrying out—you’d probably already spoken to him. He got into his Volkswagen with Gina Giansanti, who was going to Mass, and they drove off together.”
While I was looking up at that window and couldn’t make up my mind.
“The door to Building B was open. I went in. The elevator was in use—it was you going up, Captain Balistreri. I waited a minute, because I couldn’t decide what to do. Then I made up my mind and went up to the third floor on foot.”
Valerio Bona stopped. His face reflected the horror of that memory.
“I knew Elisa wouldn’t let me in, and the door to the offices was closed, but not locked. I went in and immediately noticed that it was absolutely silent. I figured she’d gone out to buy cigarettes and left the door unlocked. I paused outside her office door.”
Valerio stopped to take a breath, and in that moment, before he opened a door that had remained closed for twenty-four years, Balistreri knew that the mistake he’d made that day was far worse than he’d imagined all this time. Now the specter glimpsed while he was attacking Linda Nardi began to take shape.
“If I hadn’t gone in, my whole life would have been different. I’d have stayed with IBM and gotten married. I’d have children today. But I wanted to speak to her. I was desperate, so I went in. Elisa’s body was on the floor next to the wall. Her blouse and her bra were torn and there was blood on her breasts. She had a black eye, a cut lip, and a bruise on her cheek. I didn’t go any closer. I stood and stared at her for a moment. Then I ran out and shut the door behind me. A minute later I was on my moped, and I got out of there as fast as I could.”
The public prosecutor looked at Balistreri in disbelief, and Balistreri looked at Bona. He felt no sympathy at all for him. What he felt was fury. If only he had had eyes, ears, and a heart that day.
He shook himself out of his pointless, gloomy thoughts. He had to save Fiorella Romani. That was the only real, urgent, fundamental thing to be done. And the road was laid out—he only had to sweep aside whoever had put themselves in the way.
“There are two possibilities, Mr. Bona. The first is that you’re lying and you killed Elisa Sordi outside the office between six thirty and eight. The second is that you’re telling the truth, and if you’d told the truth at the time the perpetrator would now have been in prison for many years.”
“I know, and I’ve tortured myself over that. I didn’t say anything because I was so shocked, and later I was confused. The body was found in the Tiber. The concierge said that Elisa had left at eight that night. I thought I’d had some kind of hallucination.”
Have you confessed to this? Has a priest given you absolution? How many Our Fathers and Hail Marys? Do you think you’ve earned a spot in heaven?
All his hatred for those who had deceived him was focused on Valerio Bona, as if by destroying him he could wipe out his past.
“I hope you’re lying, Mr. Bona. I hope so for your sake, because if what you’re saying is true, your silence caused the death of four young women, a young Senegalese man, and four policemen, as well as the suicides of Manfredi’s mother and Elisa’s mother.”
Valerio looked petrified. His hands with their chewed fingernails searched desperately for the crucifix, but his eyes stared off into space.
His lawyer said, “At most, you can charge my client with making a false statement in the Elisa Sordi case. He’s not involved with anything else.”
There was no more caution, no balance, no remorse, only his carefully controlled anger and the thought of Fiorella Romani.
Balistreri said in an icy voice, “That’s the legal position. But your client is a practicing Catholic, someone who believes in heaven and in hell.”
He did what he should have done without a second thought twenty-four years earlier and had not done until Giovanna Sordi leaped from her balcony while Italy exploded over another victory.
He looked scornfully at Valerio Bona huddled on his chair. “You thought you could bury your guilt by giving up your cushy job at IBM and working with the orphans. Is that it, Mr. Bona? Would you like to see photographs of the corpses of these young women, all dead because of your cowardice?”
He caught Piccolo’s disapproving look, the lawyer’s contempt, the Prosecutor’s and Corvu’s embarrassment.
Marius Hagi. The grief you’re dishing out is endless. And I happen to be the right instrument for your vendetta.
Valerio Bona lifted his tear-streaked face, the face of an old man. “You’re right, Captain Balistreri, I can’t wipe away my guilt. But the Lord will be my judge. All I can offer you is the truth, no matter how late.”
“Tell me the whole truth then. You lost control of your boat when I asked you if Francesco Ajello had gotten Elisa into bed.”
Valerio shut his eyes. “Once when Elisa came to watch one of my regattas he got a look at her, and he begged me to introduce him to her, but I refused.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Balistreri said.
Bona nodded. “That afternoon, when I ran out of Elisa’s office and went to get on my moped, Francesco Ajello’s Porsche was parked around the corner.”
A recent abortion, an unknown lover.
Balistreri spoke to the public prosecutor. There was insufficient evidence to hold Valerio Bona. They seized his passport and let him go. The public prosecutor would try to get a warrant for Ajello from the judge that evening.
Now they had to reconstruct the journey Elisa’s body had made from her office on Via della Camilluccia to the bottom of the Tiber.
. . . .
On the telephone the count’s personal secretary said he was out of the country, but that Manfredi was home and was willing to meet with him. Balistreri went to Via della Camilluccia alone at dinnertime. The area was deserted: all the wealthy residents were away for the weekend at their villas and on their boats, or dining outside in the center of town. The residential complex was silent and almost completely dark; only the lights of Building A’s penthouse shone brightly.
The young secretary ushered him onto the terrace, where Manfredi joined him. He was silent; no smiles or pleasantries were exchanged. The atmosphere was very different than it had been a few days earlier. Balistreri decided to pick up where their last conversation had ended.
“Last Saturday you asked me to uncover the truth about Elisa Sordi. Since then many others have asked me to do the same.”
Manfredi looked at him. He had Ulla’s eyes, though they now contained his father’s cold arrogance as well.
“Did you really need encouragement, Balistreri? Aren’t you interested in the truth for its own sake?”
“You all lied in 1982.”
Balistreri could hear the rage creeping into his voice and fought to control it.
Rage is not a shortcut to the truth.
“And so? You’re the police, not us. And in 1982 you were consumed with your vices and prejudices. According to you, a disfigured young man, and a nobleman to boot, was the perfect suspect.”
“Did you kill Elisa Sordi?”
Manfredi assumed his father’s scornful tone.
“After everything that’s happened, that’s all you can think to ask?”
“Of course. Either we clarify this point definitively or we go nowhere. And this time you’d better be more convincing. Another young girl’s life is in the balance. I’ve got no more time or patience for your lies.”
For some ridiculous reason Manfredi gave a half smile, then nodded.
“Good. I see you’re finally resolved, Balistreri. Will the truth about Elisa Sordi really help save this young woman?”
“Yes. Marius Hagi, the man we arrested, is demanding the truth before he’ll help us.”
I could ask if you know him, but I wouldn’t know if you were telling the truth.
Manfredi absorbed that piece of information in silence. “All right, I’ll tell you something I won’t ever repeat to anyone under any circumstances.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was very attracted to Elisa Sordi. So were you, right?”
Balistreri said nothing.
“Of course you were attracted to her. Everybody was. But all you wanted to do was get her into bed, while I was in love with her.”
Manfredi continued, “The afternoon of the World Cup final, Rome had come to a halt. It was deserted. Most people were resting up. It was as if every Italian was going to play in the final. But Elisa came to work. I saw her arrive mid-morning, then I saw her leave for lunch and come back again, followed by Valerio Bona. They were arguing. Then she left him outside the gate and went up to her office.”
“Where were your parents?”
“My father was at the Hotel Camilluccia, near here, at a party meeting. My mother had taken a sleeping pill. The two buildings were completely deserted; the only two people awake were Elisa and myself. It was the ideal moment to have a quiet word with her. What would you have done in my position?”
Balistreri didn’t reply. He was transported back to that afternoon. He was hot, half-drunk, and excited about that evening, when he wanted to be free to do whatever he wanted. He saw it all in slow motion, second by second.
I wanted to go up and see her.
Manfredi continued, “I hoped maybe she liked me at least a little. I knew she wasn’t going out with Valerio, but I suspected she was seeing someone. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was obsessed. I kept going from my room to the terrace and back. I took several showers. In the end I made up my mind.”
The truth. The truth you confessed to Cardinal Alessandrini.
“I saw Gina Giansanti go up and then leave.”
“What time was it?”
“I think it was a little after five. I went down, then crossed through the interconnecting basements so Gina Giansanti wouldn’t see me from the gatehouse. Then I went up the stairs. The door was closed. I knocked and called out to Elisa. She let me in and said she was happy to see me. She asked me for some help with her new computer. I fixed the problem she was having.”
Balistreri looked toward the window of Elisa Sordi’s office. Behind the closed blinds he saw Linda Nardi’s dark living room the previous evening. He could imagine what came next.
“Elisa kissed me on the cheek to thank me. I tried to kiss her on the mouth. She politely pushed me away. She was smiling. But then I glimpsed my own face in the mirror and thought she was laughing at me. I lost it.”
Someone who fights monsters has to be careful not to turn into a monster himself. If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss starts to stare back at you.
“I shoved her and she flew against the wall. I held her wrists with one hand and tore at her blouse and bra with the other. She offered no resistance at all; she was paralyzed with fear.”
Manfredi stopped. He didn’t appear upset at the memory. He must have gone over it thousands of times with his psychiatrist in Kenya. He was just pausing to give Balistreri a chance to take it all in.
“When she didn’t react, I turned into an animal. I punched her in the face. I think I broke her cheekbone. Her head hit the wall, hard, and she fell to the floor. I stood and watched her for a while. She was breathing softly. Eventually, I calmed down a little. I took a compact from her bag and held the mirror in front of her mouth to check whether it fogged up. She was breathing.”
“So, Elisa was alive?”
“Absolutely. But I didn’t know what to do. I was desperate. I could hear the elevator traveling to the floor above. I was shaking with fear. Then I heard Angelo Dioguardi ring the bell and say hello to Cardinal Alessandrini. So I took Elisa’s keys, which were in the door, locked the office, and hurried back here through the basement. It took me less than five minutes.”
“And you did nothing to the girl while she was passed out?”
“You want to know if I put out several cigarettes on her and suffocated her? Absolutely not.”
Balistreri decided to press on further. He could have come back at another time to carve the letter O.
“And once you were home what did you do?”
Manfredi looked at him calmly. “What would you have done?”
“I would have called my father, especially if he was a powerful man.”
“I called him immediately from the telephone by the balcony and told him everything. He ordered me to go to my room and not move from there. He said he would be home in a couple of minutes and would take care of everything. Before I went back to my room, I looked out with my binoculars and saw you, Balistreri. You were smoking a cigarette near the gatehouse, chatting with Gina Giansanti. Then I went straight to my room.”
I looked up toward the balcony of Building A. A fleeting reflection, then nothing. Manfredi was acting shy that day.
“My father sent Ulla away and gave me a sedative to calm me down. He promised me that my life would change, that our relatives in Africa would help. He would talk to Elisa and apologize; he would give her a permanent job. In those few interminable moments my life was decided. For better or worse.”
I stopped to look up at her window. It was the only one open, and this time there was a flower on the windowsill. She must have put it there when the sun was no longer as strong. I still didn’t know what to do, so I stayed there for a couple of minutes, thinking about her. Then I got into the elevator. When the doors opened on the cardinal’s landing, Angelo was standing there.
“I gave Elisa’s office keys to my father. He told me to act normal and go to the gym until the guests arrived for the game. A person he trusted would talk to Elisa while he went to his appointment with the minister of the interior.”
Balistreri remembered it clearly.
“I saw you leaving; he took the car with Ulla and you took your bike. But you didn’t go to the gym.”
Manfredi told him exactly the same version of events as the cardinal had. He was with Ulla at the cardinal’s. The count didn’t know about this part. He would rather have gone to prison than told him.
“What about the next day, when Elisa’s body couldn’t be found and the police arrived?”
Manfredi said, “My father never told me what happened. That night after the game, he told me to deny having seen Elisa Sordi that day.”
“You didn’t ask him for an explanation when they fished Elisa’s body out of the Tiber?”
“I didn’t have the courage. You don’t know my father. He told me again that I should deny having seen Elisa Sordi that day. I asked him if he believed I’d left her alive. He told me it didn’t matter. When things died down, he was going to send me to Kenya and I’d be happy there. Even as you were taking me away, he told me to hang tough and be patient and everything would be sorted out.”
“And your mother? Didn’t she suggest you use her as an alibi? You could have said you and she were together with Cardinal Alessandrini.”
“She was too upset, and then the next day she killed herself.”
“Manfredi, I need to speak to your father right away.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that until tomorrow evening. He went away three days ago. He’s with his brother, Giuliano, and my cousin Rinaldo in Uganda; they’re sailing down the White Nile in an area that even satellite phone can’t reach. But tomorrow afternoon he’ll be in Nairobi. From there he’s flying to Frankfurt. We’re meeting there Monday morning, then I’m going back to Africa and he’s coming back to Rome. You can see him then.”
“So you maintain that you don’t know what your father did that day. And expect me to find out the truth? After twenty-four years?!” Balistreri asked, furious.
“We’ve never spoken about Elisa Sordi again. It’s as if she never existed. He never asked me if I killed her and I never asked him how she came to be killed or what happened to her body. Someone killed Elisa Sordi after I attacked her. You accused me because it was the most obvious answer. Ulla killed herself because she saw no way out.”
Balistreri looked him in the eye. “Don’t you feel any remorse for what you did to Elisa Sordi?”
Manfredi turned to look at what had been Elisa’s office window.
“I can look at that window today, Balistreri, better than you can. I still come back here, and I bet you’ve avoided walking down this street ever since. Remorse is useless. Look at what I’ve done for the poor in Africa, while you can’t even sleep at night.”
Manfredi stared at him with something worse than hate—something deeper and more painful.
“It’s time you made yourself useful, Balistreri. You look like hell. Go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, take a shower, shave, and eat a good breakfast. If your mind is in the same condition as your body, that missing girl doesn’t stand a chance.”
Balistreri got up. At the door Manfredi said good-bye without shaking his hand.
“At least try to save this girl, Balistreri, rather than your own soul.”
Evening
Balistreri returned to the office at ten, exhausted. Ajello was nowhere to be found. Corvu had checked his home, but his wife said he had left on a business trip and she didn’t know where he was. They had checked with border control, the ports, and the airports, but there was no trace of him.
Balistreri decided he needed to talk to Hagi again and tell him all that he’d done to save Fiorella Romani, if she was still alive. The Prosecutor was absolutely against sharing confidential information with Hagi, such as what had been learned from Valerio and Manfredi, but Floris was in agreement with Balistreri. He called Avvocato Morandi on his cell phone and suggested an informal chat without lawyers, just Balistreri and Hagi alone in the prison courtyard. Morandi was helpful and said he would suggest it to Hagi right away. Ten minutes later Balistreri called Floris back to say that Hagi was agreeable.
Corvu and Piccolo went with Balistreri to Regina Coeli by car around eleven. They had to switch on the siren to get through the heavy Saturday night traffic. Trastevere’s bars and restaurants were humming with sunburned crowds fresh from the beach—coated with moisturizing cream and now in need of drinks, amusement, and a cool breeze.
Balistreri was shattered at the end of an interminable day that had begun at dawn with the trip to Gina Giansanti in Lecce. But saving Fiorella Romani allowed no time to pause.
Hagi was ready and waiting, handcuffed, in the prison courtyard. Balistreri coud see that since he last saw him, Hagi’s physical state had deteriorated; his cough was heavier, continuous. His body was quickly being eaten up, but his black soul was still thriving.
“I’m a dying man, but you look worse than I do. Take off my handcuffs and light me a cigarette.”
Balistreri did as he asked. The yard was empty but floodlit. The air was cool, and the traffic and general racket of Trastevere were just discernible. They walked and smoked.
“I did what you asked, Mr. Hagi.”
“Good. I’m listening.”
“First you have to give me your word that Fiorella Romani is still alive.”
Hagi’s deep black eyes stared at him with curiosity. “You’ll take my word for it?”
“In this case, yes.”
“I can’t be sure she’s alive, but she was in the best of health when you arrested me and I have no reason to believe she’s dead. Now tell me who killed Elisa Sordi.”
Balistreri told him the information he’d gotten from Gina Giansanti, Cardinal Alessandrini, Valerio Bona, and Manfredi. Hagi nodded and listened.
“That’s all?” he asked finally.
“I still have to question the count and Ajello; without them we’re at a standstill.”
“Why is that?” Hagi asked.
“Because we have to know what the count did with those keys and how he took care of Elisa. Did he send Ajello, or did he go himself? Was she dead or alive? Do you have anything you want to share?”
Hagi said, “This case is yours and has been for twenty-four years.”
“But everyone lied,” Balistreri protested.
“Exactly. Everyone lied, despite the fact that you Catholics have a commandment against it, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Mr. Hagi, I’ll do anything you ask me to do, but I want Fiorella Romani alive and back with her mother. We can’t wait until the count comes back the day after tomorrow. It’ll be too late.”
“That’s true, it will be too late,” Hagi said. That sentence hung in the air with brutal force.
Hagi looked at him in silence. Balistreri felt fatigue coming over him in waves, together with the memory of his attack on Linda Nardi and the image of Fiorella Romani tied up in a cave. His body was giving in to sleep while his brain was fighting to stay awake, grasping at the hope of saving Fiorella. Suddenly another image made its way into the fog of his mind.
“You were on the hill the night they shot me,” he said.
“Of course I was. I was the boss,” Hagi admitted.
“And you killed Colajacono but decided to spare me?”
Hagi smiled. “We’re getting off track, Balistreri. You’re supposed to tell me who killed Elisa Sordi.”
“Who carved the letters on the victims?”
Hagi started coughing. He spat blood onto the ground. “The same person who carved one on Elisa Sordi,” he answered.
Balistreri knew he was telling the truth.
“You already know who it is.”
“Balistreri, we’re back at the beginning again. It’s you who has to know. You’ve been going around in circles for years. Have you any idea how much damage you’ve caused with your fucking amateurism? If it wasn’t for you . . .” Hagi’s cough swallowed up the end of the sentence.
If it wasn’t for my lack of professionalism Alina Hagi would still be alive. But we only have the future in our hands.
“The letters point to Valerio Bona,” Balistreri said.
Hagi looked at him, laughing. “The letters? At the same time you’re forgetting the suicides of two mothers—that’s another two letters.”
“Another two letters?” Balistreri repeated.
“What kind of killer would carve his own name? This isn’t some nineteenth-century British crime novel. Have you gone and accused poor Valerio Bona?”
You know very well I have, you bastard, because you’re the one who led me down that path.
Hagi looked at the prison wall, as if he could see through it.
“Are you worried yet, Balistreri? And has Cardinal Alessandrini repented for what he did? Will he think about it as he’s reciting prayers with the pope?”
Balistreri had no more cards to play. Fiorella Romani was lost.
Just then Corvu and Piccolo burst into the yard.
“Valerio Bona hanged himself from the mast of his boat,” Corvu announced.
Hagi’s eyes showed a gleam of interest. A Mephistophelian grin appeared on his sick face.
“Finally, someone is repenting in earnest, Balistreri.”
Balistreri reeled at the news. He turned to Hagi. “Valerio Bona didn’t kill Elisa Sordi or any of the other victims. He just lied about what happened.”
“Everybody lied. A very grave sin. But not everyone’s paid the price like I have. Now it’s their turn to pay. Only the judge is not your benevolent God, Balistreri. The judge happens to be me.”
“Mr. Hagi, I’ll pay any price if you’ll spare Fiorella Romani.”
Hagi leaned against the wall. “Give me another cigarette,” he said, coughing.
Strangely, smoking seemed to calm his cough. Hagi spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.
“I want an answer by tomorrow noon, Balistreri. If you give me the right answer, Fiorella Romani’s life will be saved. Now pay close attention, I already know something here. If you try to trick me, Fiorella dies.”
“What do I have to do?”
“There’s another reason Cardinal Alessandrini forced Gina Giansanti to lie. Make him confess his sins in full. Show me that you know how to act like a policeman outside the gates of paradise as well as inside them.”
. . . .
Balistreri sent Corvu and Piccolo back to the office, arranging to meet them again at eight the following morning. He left the prison by himself a little after midnight after that infinitely long day. The Saturday night partying around the Tiber was in full swing with rows of vehicles tooting horns, crowds with beers and ice cream cones, open-air restaurants jam-packed.
Only twenty-four hours had passed since he’d fled from Linda Nardi’s and himself. He walked on, staggering with fatigue. He’d been deceived by everyone: Gina Giansanti, Cardinal Alessandrini, Manfredi, the count, Valerio Bona, Ajello, even by Angelo and Linda, up to the point where he now found himself in a labyrinth—and Marius Hagi was holding the thread.
He needed to sleep, to sort out the ideas that were scattered around like playing cards by the gust of his emotions. But he needed peace to find that sleep.
He hadn’t dialed that number for over two years. Antonella answered at the first ring. She was at home, alone, and said she’d be waiting for him.
He found her in an old sweatsuit, her eyes puffy and underlined with dark shadows. Despite everything, Pasquali had been a courteous and properly behaved boss toward her—something rare for the time. Balistreri knew, however, that those tears were partly wasted. Pasquali had gone to Casilino 900 with a gun in his hand, intending to kill Marius Hagi and put a lid on the whole business, but someone smarter and more powerful had decided otherwise and had drawn him into a deadly trap. But there was no point in saying this to Antonella.
Seeing him in such a state, she made him lie on the sofa with his head resting on her knees, and lit one of those joints that, during the years of their relationship, he had always disdainfully refused.
“What was Pasquali like during his last few days?” Balistreri asked, exhaling slowly.
“Pretty much the way you are right now. Of course, for Pasquali if the knot in his tie was crooked or he had a hair out of place, he felt as miserable as you look right now.”
Antonella stretched out an arm and picked up a small book from the table.
“I cleaned out Pasquali’s office, Michele. This calendar was in a hidden drawer.”
It was a small black calendar, the size of a deck of cards. It was for 2006. Balistreri was reminded of Coppola’s calendar, handed over by his son, which had reopened the case. He leafed through Pasquali’s calendar, but his eyes kept fluttering closed. There were no names and no numbers, no appointments. Several dates were circled and there were a few cryptic notes.
Antonella slowly ran her fingers through his hair and caressed his face. Those dates were familiar, but his fatigued brain didn’t know why. At last, he closed his eyes and slept.