“If you read the letters page, there are three more contributions to the debate about the new hotel, the one at the center of the spiral on the board there, the place where twenty-two of our thirty-eight victims were staying. The debate has something to do with ruining historic quayside buildings, disrespecting the architecture of the area.”
Rospo looked blank, but Blume had been following the matter. The hotel chain was accused of failing to respect the architectural exceptionalism of a series of eighteenth-century buildings, knocking down old walls, and, worst of all, creating a new upper floor that blocked the light of neighboring buildings. The letter writers seemed to know a lot about planning permission laws, and municipal directives, and nothing about concision.
“If you read these letters or follow the debate in the local news section of Il Messaggero, you’ll soon come across the name of the chief campaigner: Alfonso Corsi. He’s a bitter man. A nobleman in decline, whose family has been selling off property in the area since after the war.”
“You think he’s the mugger?” asked Rospo, the skepticism in his voice giving way to scorn.
“He’s eighty-two years old,” said Caterina, “but I still think he might be worth talking to.”
“It’s a long shot,” said Blume.
“There is another thing,” said Caterina. “Leporelli and Scariglia.”
“Those two fuckers handed themselves in this morning,” said Rospo. “Let’s hope they get what’s coming to them in Rebibbia.”
“They will,” said Blume. “Inspector, what’s their connection to the mugger?”
“None that I can see,” said Caterina. “But their file contains a list, sadly a short one, of the names of people who came forward to protest at their racketeering efforts. There was one case in particular that merits attention. Three years ago, a certain Corsi Hotel opened in Trastevere. It was a private aristocratic villa, and the occupants decided to open a guest house. They didn’t get the necessary permits, or not all of them, but they went into business anyhow, and soon after those two vultures arrived demanding protection money. The Corsis, father and son, came straight to us and denounced the would-be racketeers. Nothing was done.”
“Yeah, well… ” said Rospo.
“Then two months after that, there was a mysterious fire at the Corsi Hotel. It was a minor thing-basically a perimeter wall was blackened-but the Vigili Urbani and the Fire Department inspected the premises, found around eighty health and safety violations, and closed down the hotel directly afterwards. It never reopened. I followed this up, and Agnolo Corsi…”
“ Agnolo? ” said Rospo. “That’s the gayest name I’ve ever heard.”
Caterina smiled. “Apparently that’s the poor man’s name. Agnolo filed a complaint in which he alleges that Leporelli and Scariglia were working for the Hudson amp; Martinetti Hotel chain, owners of the Noantri Hotel, which is where most of the mugging victims were resident. The Hudson amp; Martinetti Hotel chain sued for defamation, and the case is pending. The investigating magistrate appointed to look into the accusation wrote off Corsi’s claim as ‘highly improbable’ and ‘delusional,’ which it is. A few months later, the first mugging, perpetrated against a guest from the Noantri Hotel, occurred.”
“It’s bullshit that Leporelli and Scariglia were working for the Hudson amp; Martinetti Hotel,” said Rospo.
“Of course it is,” said Caterina. “But it’s interesting Corsi should make this claim.”
“That’s a strange… ” began Blume. He stopped as his cell phone rang. He excused himself and answered, walking away from Caterina and Rospo toward his office. The caller was Paoloni, who sounded very pleased with himself.
“I thought you’d like to know,” he said. “Two men have just broken into your apartment.”
Chapter 32
When blume clapped a phone to his ear and wandered off to his office while she was in mid-sentence, and Rospo, already annoyed at being upstaged by her that morning, returned to his desk with a shrug, Caterina had to work hard to keep the disappointment and anger from her face.
She decided to wait for Blume to emerge from his office and advise on her next step. But when he did reappear it was only for the time it took him to walk quickly out of his office, through the operations room, and down the corridor.
She started mapping out an investigative approach, trying to find something for Rospo that he would not find demeaning and might possibly do well, when she got a call from downstairs to say that a certain Emma and Angela Solazzi were looking for her.
Blume had specifically removed her from the case, yet the arrival of these two was something she knew he would be interested in. Her hand hovered over her phone, but she made no call. Seeing as he saw fit to leave without saying where, and they had asked for her, not him, Caterina had them sent to the interview room.
Mother and daughter, alike in the shape of their noses and in their posture, but little else, sat side by side at the far end of the table when Caterina entered.
Emma Solazzi said, “I thought it would be like killing two birds with one stone, interviewing us together.”
“Are we allowed to smoke in here?” asked Angela. “I’m nervous.”
“No one asked you to come here,” said Caterina. “And, no, you’re not allowed to smoke.”
“Smoking gave me these crow’s feet around my eyes. I probably have cancer of the something, too. But I like my husky voice.” And continuing in her husky voice, she said, “I wanted to clear up a few things about John Nightingale. And about Henry Treacy, too.”
Caterina shifted her gaze to Emma. “And you?”
“I’m here to hear what she has to say.”
Caterina glanced at her watch to make a point. “OK, but let’s make this quick. I have other business. What sort of person is John Nightingale, Emma?”
Her asking Emma the question caught both visitors by surprise for a moment. Emma shrugged and said, “He is decent enough, I guess. Gentlemanly. Generous. Kind of… boring? I hardly know him. Ask her: she’s the one who slept with him.”
“She’s right,” her mother said, nodding at Caterina. “John is very dull. Mostly in a good way. I have come to appreciate dullness in people. They are safer, more dependable, less violent. That’s essentially why I am here. I want you to know that John Nightingale is not violent. It is not possible that he had anything to do with Henry Treacy’s death.”
“Who told you that he did?”
“No one,” said Angela. “But I know that if you’re investigating, this is certain to come up as a possible line of inquiry. John would not hurt a fly. If there was a dangerous one, it was Henry.”
“Did you have a relationship with Henry, too?”
“Oh, yes. I thought that was clear.” Angela looked taken aback and her daughter looked embarrassed. “Haven’t you been investigating? I worked for them, just as Emma does now. Henry was my… Emma, if you lean any further away from me, you risk falling off the chair.”
“I am not very comfortable with this sort of thing. It’s only natural,” said Emma.
“Of course, darling. But Henry was my lover. There, it’s not so bad a word now that I have said it. Henry came long before Nightingale, and was, well, he was Henry and John is just John. But I had to leave Henry.”
“Was he violent?” asked Caterina.
“He was a raging fire who burned people up. Literally. Look.”
Angela rolled up the left sleeve of her black cashmere cardigan, revealing a long white scar that curved up her forearm, branching as it went. “It reaches up to my clavicle, down to my breast. It doesn’t look too bad now. But for years when I tanned, it would remain stubbornly pale, like a white snake.”
“Treacy did that?”
“Accidentally. A splash of boiling linseed oil. He whipped it out of a pot with a ladle when I was standing behind him. I held my arm up to protect my face. He was drunk.”
“Please, mother,” said Emma.