‘I don’t know. They’ve been together as long as I can remember. 1997 I think.’
‘And your uncle, Umberto. Do you see him much?’
‘Hardly at all. He calls occasionally. If he’s in the area he’ll drop in.’
‘He and your mother don’t see eye to eye?’
‘Umberto doesn’t see eye to eye with anyone.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He only sees his own reflection.’
‘Says who?’
‘I do. He’s so vain he looks in the shop windows to check himself out. I’ve seen him do it.’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help myself being sharp with people. I’m, it’s like, I don’t know whether my father’s alive, whether my mother or my uncle were …’
‘What?’
‘Responsible.’ There was silence down the line.
‘You don’t know about your grandmother, do you?’
‘What?’
I waited, wondering whether the truth was a kindness or cruelty. ‘She died.’
‘Is that what all this is about? Nonna Silvia died? Is that it?’ She sounded as if she were losing control.
‘I’m sorry it’s me having to tell you this. She was buried this morning.’
There was a gasp and then the line went quiet. It sounded as if the girl was beginning to cry.
‘Listen, I’m driving. I shouldn’t even be talking on the phone. I’m going to do what I can to find out about your father. Just let me ask you one question. Have you ever been contacted by someone out of the blue?’
‘How do you mean?’ I could hear her sniffing.
‘Have you ever had any phone calls from a man wanting to talk to you out of the blue? Anyone ever hang around outside your school or write you letters? That sort of thing?’
‘No.’
‘All right, never mind.’
Back in my office I took out the white phone book. There was only one Massimo Tonin. The address was in a village on the banks of the Po.
When I got there, the villa looked grand. It was set back from the road by an avenue of poplars. There was a black iron gate and an intercom in a booth off to the right.
I peered through the iron railings to the side. There was a small lodge behind the main house. I guessed that was where they kept the domestics. It was getting dark and I could just make out a man clearing leaves from a ditch.
‘Hey,’ I shouted at the gardener.
The man looked up.
‘I’m looking for Massimo Tonin.’
He walked towards me, leaning his rake on the fence. He had a good-looking, weathered face with deep-blue eyes. He must have been in his fifties, but his bare arms looked strong and muscular. He had the rugged appearance of someone who spent most of his life outdoors.
‘Who are you, Mister?’
‘Castagnetti.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A chat with Massimo Tonin.’
The gardener came back a few minutes later.
‘Ring the buzzer, Mister,’ he said, ‘Mr Tonin will speak to you there.’ He pointed at the glass cage.
I stepped back and held the buzzer for long enough to appear rude. Eventually there was a click as someone picked up the phone from inside.
‘Who is it?’ said a lazy, disinterested voice.
‘Castagnetti, private investigator. You Massimo Tonin?’
‘I am. What do you want?’
‘A chat with you.’
‘We’re talking aren’t we?’
‘This isn’t how I talk,’ I said, staring at the eyeball behind the glass.
‘Why don’t you tell me what you want to talk about.’ The voice sounded distant.
‘I’m investigating the disappearance of Riccardo Salati’, I said, ‘and I have a funny notion he was your son.’
The man didn’t say anything.
‘I spoke to your granddaughter this afternoon.’
Tonin again didn’t say anything. I wanted to see his face, to see what his reactions were at the mention of Riccardo’s daughter. He hadn’t denied anything yet, which was a start.
Eventually he spoke very softly. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘this isn’t the way to talk about this. This is a delicate matter. Can I suggest we meet in my office at eight tomorrow morning? It’s in Via Farini.’
I grunted my assent and the line went dead. ‘Delicate’ was good. I assumed he was talking about the sex, not the disappearance.
I stared at the grill pondering whether to push the buzzer again. I watched the gardener who had gone back to his ditch. I wandered over towards him, as close as I could get, and shouted through the railings.
‘What’s Mr Tonin’s job?’
‘What’s that?’ the gardener said.
‘What does the big man do?’
‘He’s a lawyer. Retired now. Says he’s retired, but still goes in most days from what I can see.’
‘And you’ve worked with him long?’
‘Thirty years.’
‘Shouldn’t you be retiring soon?’
‘You saying I look old?’ The man smiled with a boyish glint in his eye. He dropped the smile suddenly and looked at me closely. ‘What’s this about?’
‘I’m investigating the disappearance of a boy from way back. You ever heard of Riccardo Salati?’
‘Means nothing to me. Was he one of Tonin’s clients?’
‘You could say that.’
It was dark now and the fog was like the inside of a damp duvet. I walked back to the car and flicked on the lights. They only made everything murkier. I could barely see the ditches either side of the road and drove slowly, only glimpsing the bends by the sudden disappearance of the roads.
Back in the office I phoned Dall’Aglio to get a bit of background on Lo Bue.
‘Lo Bue?’ Dall’Aglio said when I gave him the name.
‘Yeah, he owns a hotel out in Rimini. You ever heard of him?’
‘No. But I can run some checks.’
‘Do it.’ I said. ‘He owns a hotel called Hotel Palace. No guests for most of the year, so what he does with the space is anyone’s guess.’
‘Could be anything,’ Dall’Aglio said wearily. ‘Brothel, immigrant dive. Have you been there?’
‘Went round this afternoon. No one about but a bruiser and his boys.’
‘And Lo Bue’s the owner?’
‘I think so.’
‘I’ll find out.’ Dall’Aglio hung up.
I looked at the phone and wondered why Dall’Aglio was being so helpful. He usually lent a hand if he could, but he pleaded busy nine times out of ten.
I got up and looked out of the window of my office. I could see the entrance to the deli. Even in this cold, the door was open and coloured plastic ribbons acted as a threshold. I guess it saved on their refrigeration costs. I could see all the tortelli and cappelletti displayed on cardboard trays in the window.
Food is the fuel of this city. It’s not just the cheeses and hams, it’s all the sophisticated engineering that goes with them: the bottling machines, the slicing machines, the percolating machines — all are beautifully designed in those drab buildings along the Via Emilia.
Something had been bothering me all day and I couldn’t work out what it was. It’s worse not knowing why, because then I start going through all the things that might be bothering me and I’m there all afternoon: staring out of the window, unable to get out of my seat because there’s so much to do. I get like that sometimes. I speed around like a maniac for a few days, and then one comes along and I can’t even swing my feet out of bed.
I was still worried about that mourning notice. Assuming it wasn’t genuine, it meant someone was wanting to impersonate Riccardo. That seemed a pretty strange thing to do. At best it was tasteless. It sounded to me like someone wanting to muddy the waters. But it wasn’t only that that bothered me. It was the fact that the notice had gone into the paper on Monday, so it must have been paid for on the Sunday, a day before the case was reopened. If someone was trying to muddy the waters, they must have known there were waters to muddy.
Whoever placed the mourning notice must have known the case was about to be reopened before I was even hired.
I managed to haul myself out of my chair and went over to Crespi’s office.
‘Tell me something,’ I said to him when I was finally ushered into his regal presence. ‘Did Umberto bring you his mother’s will last weekend, when his mother was still warm?’
‘No. I’ve had it in the company safe for a year or so. Silvia gave it to me when her last illness was getting serious. She brought it into this office and said it was to be opened as soon as she died.’
‘And when did you open it?’
‘On Saturday morning. I was informed of her death and followed instructions. I took her letter out of the safe and read it.’
‘And did she name me personally or ask you to hire the first name out of the phone book?’
‘She wanted you.’
‘And who did you tell about this?’
Crespi frowned. He realised he was under polite interrogation and he didn’t like it.
‘Who?’ I asked again, so there could be no mistake.
‘I must have … I mentioned it to my secretary. I keep her informed of all the cases I’m dealing with.’
‘She’s the statue in the front office?’
‘Giovanna Monti,’ he said gravely, as if my description was a slur on her honour.
‘You told her on Saturday the case was going to be reopened.’
He shrugged and nodded in one movement. ‘She would never divulge anything that goes on in this office.’
‘So who else did you mention it to?’
The man paused long enough to show that he was running a memory check. He wasn’t as discreet as he made out.
‘No one. Absolutely no one,’ he said with certainty.
‘All right, call her in.’
He looked at me with disdain and pressed an intercom on his desk. ‘Signora Monti, would you mind coming in here one minute?’
He looked at me again now with defiance. The woman came in. I stood up out of politeness, but she still towered over me. She nodded in my direction, and I took it as a chance to sit down again.
‘Please,’ Crespi pointed at another armchair on the other side of his office. She sat on the arm, her spine as straight as a sword.
‘As you know, Signora,’ Crespi intoned, ‘Castagnetti here is helping us to honour the last wishes of the late Salati, Silvia, in order to establish the legal status of her son, Salati, Riccardo.’
She nodded briefly.
‘He believes knowledge of his ensuing investigation preceded his commission. He is curious to know whether you, or I’, he said hastily, ‘might have informed anyone else of the investigation during the course of last weekend.’
She looked at me, but turned back to Crespi and answered to him.
‘I …’ She didn’t say anything more than that.
‘Who?’ I said.
‘I might have mentioned it to a friend.’
‘Who?’
‘Serena.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Works in a law firm off Via Farini.’
‘The Tonin firm?’
She nodded.
‘Who is this Serena? One of the lawyers?’
‘Receptionist.’ The woman looked across at Crespi as if to apologise. I nodded at them both as if I had won a small victory. That was one of the satisfactions of this job: showing conceited people that they weren’t as perfect as they thought they were.
I was walking towards the Tonin office when the phone started ringing.
‘Sì.’
‘Your friend Lo Bue’s a nice piece of work,’ Dall’Aglio said.
‘Meaning?’
‘He opened up his wife with a carving knife when she said she was leaving him. He did four months for battery.’
‘Four months?’ I sighed. The court case usually lasts longer than the sentence in Italy.
‘He’s done time before that for the usual: fencing stolen goods, importing Albania’s finest tobacco, that sort of thing. He’s certainly been through the university of life.’
‘Only problem with that university is the graduation.’
Dall’Aglio laughed.
‘Who’s he with?’ I said, serious again.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Has he got a big family?’
Dall’Aglio caught the inference. ‘He’s from Calabria, but that doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Means enough,’ I said, and hung up. I’m not one of those people who pretend they’re not prejudiced. I think everyone is
prejudiced, I reckon it’s impossible not to be. All our wisdom is received rather than invented. I’m willing to be proved wrong, but when a tough nut and his crew are from Calabria, I assume he’s only a phone call away from the ’Ndrangheta.
When I got to the law offices, there was a girl on the front desk. She was so beautiful that I looked for longer than I needed to. She had round cheeks, big eyes and thick hair in loose curls. She wasn’t wearing any jewellery or make-up, and it didn’t look like she needed to.
‘Can I help?’ she asked as I walked up to the desk.
‘Already have.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Never mind. Tonin not in?’
‘No.’
‘You Serena?’
She nodded.
‘How long have you worked here?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Castagnetti. I’m an investigator. I had a little chat with old Tonin this afternoon. He said it would be OK if I asked you a couple of things.’
She looked around at the shut doors of the adjoining offices.
‘The name Riccardo Salati mean anything to you?’
She looked at me and shook her head.
‘How about Giovanna Monti, know her?’
‘Sure, she’s a friend.’
‘You talk to her on Saturday?’
‘I expect so, I don’t remember.’ She was smiling like she was more amused than worried.
‘She tell you they were reopening a case from way back?’
She closed her eyes. ‘Yes, I remember. She might have said something.’
‘And did you tell anyone else in this office?’
‘I don’t talk to anyone in this office about anything other than work.’
‘You don’t like them?’
‘It’s not that. It’s just that our relationship is professional.’
I wondered just how professional she was. She looked it all right, her blouse all buttoned up like an ice-cool receptionist. But she might have let something slip, or someone might have overheard her conversation. Either way, the arrows were pointing towards Tonin.
‘What’s old Tonin like?’ I asked.
She looked at me like I was asking her to be unprofessional. ‘He’s an old-fashioned gentleman.’
‘Meaning?’
‘He’s courteous and kind.’