‘Hey, pal,’ came the voice again, concern creeping in, and Sandro raised his head and saw his oldest friend standing in the lee of a building, the low, square shape of a farmhouse behind him.
He was drenched in sweat, quite suddenly, and Pietro’s hand encountered a sopping sleeve.
‘You didn’t bring the car?’ Pietro was aghast. ‘Madonna, Sandro. What are you thinking?’ From the far side of the hill, down towards Scandicci, there was an ominous rumble.
‘I’m fine,’ Sandro muttered, feeling the reassuringly regular thump of his poor old heart. He mopped his forehead, leaned against the rough brick. The city was hazed below him now; was that the light, or were his eyes doing something funny? He took a moment. Pietro remained silent, watching him.
‘No need to ask why here, then,’ Sandro said when he began to feel more normal, although the light was still strange and thick. Pulling out the newspaper. This was the farmhouse in the picture, with Galeotti’s car in the foreground, the body under its sheeting. Car and body gone, now.
‘No,’ Pietro said shortly. ‘The girls are cursing me. This job. Now another murder. And we were hoping to get away.’
‘It’s connected,’ Sandro said. Both had their eyes on a bleached stretch of road towards the mulberry trees.
Pietro looked at him curiously. ‘They found a cutting in his pocket,’ he said. ‘About Brunello’s body being found. But you didn’t know that.’
Sandro nodded towards the trees. ‘Come on,’ he said, and together they set off, towards the crime scene. Pietro’s car was parked in the shade of the farmhouse: his own vehicle. They walked past it and carried on.
‘Where’s Matteucci?’ Sandro said. ‘Your shadow?’
Pietro chewed his lip. ‘He’s not so bad,’ he said. ‘Just young. Following something up this morning. I’ll tell you about it.’
The short row of manicured mulberry trees, and a view down towards the white tower blocks of Scandicci, glittering in a distant shaft of sun cast down from a heavy sky. Meadow grass and the dried heads of wild iris: the cicadas, he realized, had fallen silent.
‘Storm coming,’ he remarked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Pietro said. ‘The forecast was crazy, this morning. They said there was a mini-tornado on the Po plain last night. A lot of damage.’
Below them lay the foothills of the Alps, visible on a good day. This was not a good day: a thunderhead a couple of kilometres high was spread across the entire western horizon, darkening by the minute.
They stood quite still. ‘Better out here,’ Sandro said, feeling his head clear. ‘Sometimes you need to get out of the city.’ But he felt exposed; what was the rule about lightning? Don’t stand under a tree.
There was a silence. ‘Oh,’ said Pietro suddenly. ‘We found Brunello’s car. It had been towed away on Monday when the street-cleaning vehicles came through. It had been by the river, just down from the bank; where he always parked it for work, according to the woman.’
‘What woman?’ Sandro was alert, thinking of Roxana Delfino.
‘What’s her name? Goldman: his second-in-command.’
Another silence. ‘Yes’, Sandro said slowly. ‘About her. About Marisa Goldman. Did she tell you where she was, that weekend?’
Pietro eyed him warily. ‘She did,’ he said. ‘She was away with her boyfriend. On his yacht.’
Sandro nodded. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You might want to corroborate that. With the boyfriend, to begin with.’
‘Oh yes,’ Pietro said, with just the faintest trace of a smile. ‘I’ll get Matteucci on to it.’
‘Someone saw her. Standing on the doorstep of Brunello’s apartment, at seven that Friday night. After she was supposed to be gone for the weekend. After he was supposed to be gone, too, for that matter.’
Pietro nodded. ‘The traffic wasn’t as bad as usual, you know. That Friday night. I didn’t want—’
‘You didn’t want to mention that to Irene Brunello?’ Sandro said. ‘To suggest that her husband might have been doing something else that night?’
Pietro shrugged. ‘He might have been packing, for all I knew,’ he said. ‘The fact that his car wasn’t logged through the tolls until eight-forty-five, even though he left work early – well. I was going to wait until I had more information. Before telling anybody.’
Even me, thought Sandro. Claudio Brunello wasn’t his client, nor was his wife. Why should Pietro tell him?
‘The two tumblers,’ he said, remembering. ‘On the draining board in Brunello’s flat.’
And then he remembered where he’d seen Galeotti’s letterhead: lying on Marisa Goldman’s desk.
‘You mind if I talk to Marisa Goldman first?’ he asked, knowing this would be a big favour.
Pietro gave him a sharp glance, then sighed. ‘Christ knows, this murder’s tying me up. All right,’ he said. ‘But do it now.’
Sandro exhaled. ‘So,’ he said. ‘The car. You found the car.’
‘Goldman and Brunello?’ Pietro turned to gaze without focusing across the glittering valley, gave a slow nod. ‘Could be right. Maybe.’ He turned back to look at Sandro. ‘The car was dean, or near enough. No violence, no bloodstains, it had obviously just been sitting there since Saturday afternoon, then some helpful
vigile
ordered it to be towed out of the way of the street cleaners. Clean enough, except for just one thing: a scrap of paper in the passenger footwell.
Josef C
, and a number written on it.’
‘Ah,’ said Sandro, and felt it loosen, the intractable tangle of this damned case, one thread coming free, at last. ‘So the person who called him was Josef. Josef C is Josef Cynaricz. My Josef, Anna’s Josef. Not Goldman, or Galeotti.’
Sandro thought of Brunello, the scrupulous bank manager, sitting inside his holiday house while his wife prepared the children for the beach. Josef C repeating to him, ‘Take the number, write down the number.’ Even though it would have appeared on the phone, Brunello was old-school, like Sandro. He wanted it written down.
Pietro said nothing, then nodded quickly.
‘He called Brunello out on the first day of his holiday. A young man he knew only as a low-grade customer, who maybe once came in and asked for a loan, no more than that? He must have had something important to say.’
‘Must have.’
They’d reached the bloodstain, and both stopped and looked down.
‘And now Galeotti.’ Pietro looked at Sandro through eyes narrowed against the sky’s glare. ‘You didn’t know about the cutting he had in his pocket. But you thought there was a connection. Between Galeotti and – who? And Brunello?’
‘Not Brunello,’ said Sandro. ‘Josef.’
Pietro took a step back, watching him, and Sandro went on, ‘Galeotti was the agent for the apartment my Josef was “borrowing.” Only I think Josef believed he was going to get to keep the place. Someone let him think that. Maybe Galeotti, or maybe Galeotti was doing it as a favour to someone else. Galeotti’s just the middle man, isn’t he? The agent, doing favours to get favours. Keys to empty apartments are part of his currency.’
Pietro nodded cautiously. ‘Still,’ he said slowly. ‘Murder? Over a borrowed apartment?’
Sandro nodded too. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I can’t help thinking – it’s connected. Perhaps whoever was doing the favour – whoever was trying to keep Josef happy—’ He stopped, unable to follow his train of thought. Was it the heat? He started again. ‘I heard Galeotti was a crook,’ he said. ‘And I heard he had some big deal going down.’
Pietro let out a quick, astonished laugh. ‘How’d you know this stuff?’ he said, shaking his head a little.
Sandro examined his expression. ‘It’s true, then?’ he asked.
Pietro chewed his lip. ‘We went down to his office last night, a place on the Via Romana. We talked to the girl. Secretary-cum-receptionist, more or less the only other employee. He kept her pretty much in the dark, and she didn’t seem too bright to start with, but she said he’d been involved with a big deal for the last couple of months, very secretive about it because it wasn’t in the bag, a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, she said. Some big backhanders involved, you know how it works. The buyer’s in cahoots with the agent, they get the place cheap and slip him some money on the side. In this case who knows – maybe someone else was involved, someone the seller trusts.’
Sandro frowned. The only trustworthy bloke he’d come across in this whole business was Brunello, and he was dead.
Pietro sighed. ‘A month or so back it was all on, then it was all off, then it was back on again. Something kept blocking the sale. And, if I remember right, she said he’d gone off Friday night all keyed up for a big showdown, and he came in on Monday full of something. She was in shock when she heard he was dead. Total shock.’
‘He was the kind of man – I don’t know,’ said Sandro. ‘Cocky. Full of life.’
And there was that nagging regret again. For the loss of even a man like Galeotti, with his gleaming car and his crisp collars.
‘You met him?’ Pietro asked.
‘I told you, didn’t I? This place we were looking to buy, in San Niccolo.’ Pietro looked sympathetic, and Sandro shrugged. ‘Not much chance of that now. What with one thing and another.’
Pietro’s hand came up to Sandro’s shoulder. ‘It’s good to see you, Sandro,’ he said. ‘You know? Sometimes it’s hard to do this without you.’
Sandro said nothing. Instead, he squatted, and Pietro came down beside him. There were chalk marks on the road and the blood had turned black. It would disappear, eventually.
‘Last Friday night. Galeotti was expecting big news last Friday night,’ said Sandro softly, almost to himself. Then he remembered something, took the paper out of his pocket. The sweat had dried on his forehead; he felt almost human again.
‘Says here, you’ve got a suspect,’ he said.
Pietro looked at him, a slow smile spreading across his face at last, running his hand through the grass at the verge. ‘Well, there’s the thing,’ he said, and he pulled out an ear of wheatgrass. ‘We have.’
‘Not my Josef?’
Pietro shook his head. ‘Not your Josef, no.’ Still smiling. ‘You remember that little weasel Gulli? Nasty little dealer from Campo di Marte, prone to violence?’
Sandro nodded. He remembered Gulli as clear as day the last time he’d seen him, being marched into the courts of justice in Piazza San Firenze, between him and Pietro on a charge of aggravated burglary. Twenty-five or so then, but skinny as a kid, hard, thin arms under Sandro’s hand, stonewashed jeans, slicked hair. White trainers.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I remember Gulli.’
‘We’ve got a witness.’
‘Saw him do it?’
‘Good as,’ said Pietro ruminatively. ‘Old woman at the soft drinks stall at the bottom of the hill on the
viale
, saw him go past about two on a Vespa, saw him turn up the hill; she even says she saw something like a tyre iron strapped to the back of the moped. Recognized him. Must be tricky for him, plenty know Gulli, he’s done enough people enough bad turns, considering he’s still under thirty. It seems he mugged the old girl’s daughter three years back and did only six weeks for it; she held a grudge.’ Pietro spread his hands, dropping the piece of grass. ‘Galeotti’s body was discovered at just before three and he was barely dead then.’
‘All right,’ said Sandro, thinking hard. ‘So where’s Gulli now?’ Pietro stood up with sudden, enviable ease. He was, Sandro couldn’t forget, five years his junior. More creakily, he followed.
Pietro’s smile faded, but not by much.
‘We’ll find him,’ he said. ‘Kid like Gulli never goes too far from home.’
‘What’s the motive?’ Sandro asked. Something about this wasn’t right. ‘What was it, just a mugging? A bit off the beaten track for that.’
‘And he wasn’t robbed,’ said Pietro. ‘Mobile gone, yes. But a full wallet. Man had seven hundred-odd euros on him, as well. Untouched.’
‘Cash backhander, no doubt,’ pondered Sandro, momentarily sidetracked. ‘Lot of cash. Not like Gulli. Unless—’
‘Unless Gulli’s taking a step up the career path. From violent burglar to hit man.’
‘Incompetent hit man: that would figure,’ Sandro murmured. It had always surprised him how stupid criminals like Gulli could be. ‘Bad luck he was recognized.’ He paused. ‘I wonder where Gulli was on Saturday afternoon?’
He could see Pietro chewing the inside of his cheek gloomily. ‘In custody, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘I checked arrest reports, first off, to make sure he wasn’t inside and it was mistaken identity. Because Gulli’s been inside more than out, this last ten years.’
Nothing to lose: prison was like home to the likes of Gulli. Get paid plenty to hit someone; the worst that happens is you’re inside another fifteen years. They had no concept of the span of a life, these kids. Of what it might be like to wake up when you’re forty and know it was all gone. The best of it, anyway.
Pietro sighed. ‘He was brought in for trying to pickpocket Saturday morning, released without charge Sunday morning. But we’ll find him. There’ll be DNA, it’ll stick, too.’ But he sounded demoralized.
‘So where are you looking?’ Sandro wanted to keep on this trail. ‘Who might have asked him to hit Galeotti?’
‘Gulli’s gone upmarket,’ said Pietro thoughtfully. ‘He’s been seen in some very smart places.’
‘Smart places?’
‘That bar, by the British Consulate. San Niccolo, up here even.’
The sweat was beading again on Sandro’s upper lip. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Listen. What have we got? A crooked estate agent, a banker, a porn cinema up for redevelopment. A lowlife like Gulli.’
Where, he thought, where had he seen Galeotti’s name? His letterhead.
‘Ah,’ said Pietro, and now a wind got up, fierce and hot, flattening the grass, sweeping across the hillside down to Scandicci. ‘There’s something—’ he said. ‘The cinema, you said? There was something I had to tell you. About Brunello.’
‘Yes?’
‘The ash, on his feet. Celluloid: burned film, old film. Old ash, too, not recently burned, more like dust with traces of the ash in it.’
Film. Sandro had known all along, it seemed to him: had known even before he raised himself up on that pallet. Pietro was still talking, but Sandro’s mind was already elsewhere.
‘The lesion on his leg – a burn, they say, inflicted post-mortem, thought there might be a connection with the ash but—’ A pause. ‘Sandro? Are you listening?’