As they closed behind me I stopped. I looked at the buzzer and walked towards it one last time. I pushed the button and held it. No one answered. I had wanted to know how many children they had, how many children of their own. I made a mental note to find out.
The taxi driver was impatient when I returned. We headed back to the city in silence. I was thinking about what I had heard. The woman seemed to know all about Riccardo. She had the weary, sarcastic tone of the wronged woman who didn’t want to be reminded of a past humiliation or slight. She must have been able to see what was coming. Umberto Salati had felt so indignant that he decided to confront the Tonin family, to insist that they compensate him for anything they had done wrong. I wondered what that was. What, other than dishonouring his father, did he blame them for?
I looked at the fields in the dark.
‘You been in this business long?’ I asked the driver.
‘Twenty-odd years. Since I left school.’
‘Always hanging around the station?’
‘Station, stadium, schools. You never know where you’re going to end up. That’s why I like it.’
The car was speeding back towards the tangenziale.
‘You the longest serving in that line-up?’
‘Just about. There’s a couple been there longer than me. But apart from them, I’m the veteran.’ He laughed.
Within a minute or two, we were approaching the outskirts of the city. There were static cranes and unfinished housing blocks amidst the frozen mud.
‘What’s the furthest anyone’s ever gone with you?’ I asked.
The man chuckled to himself. ‘I used to have a good number driving an Austrian girl to Vienna and back. Lovely girl, an Erasmus student.’
‘Ever take anyone to Rimini?’
‘Couple of times, sure. In the summer.’
‘In 1995?’
The driver put his brakes on gently and the car slowed down into the darkness.
‘What is this?’ he said quietly, catching my eye in his mirror. ‘If someone wants to ask me a question, I prefer they do it straight, if I explain myself.’
‘Try this: you ever heard of a boy called Riccardo Salati?’
‘Yeah, sounds familiar. Who is he?’
‘Was he. He went missing in 1995 whilst waiting for a train to Rimini.’
The man was nodding slowly like it was all coming back to him. I looked at his ID on the dashboard and memorised the number just for luck.
‘Yeah, I remember. I read about it.’
‘No one ever ask you about it?’
‘Not until now.’
‘You mind asking your colleagues if they know anything?’
The man nodded without saying anything.
‘No one’s under any suspicion. I’m just starting from scratch and trying to put the pieces together.’
The man nodded again, his suspicion and curiosity aroused.
He dropped me off at Borgo delle Colonne and asked for a small fortune. He stared at me closely as I handed over the cash. I realised that my face was bound to arouse interest for the next few days.
‘Here, take this,’ I said, slipping him a card. ‘There’s a reward for any information,’ I lied.
I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I was shocked at what I saw. Only my cropped hair looked normal. My right eye had swollen mauve and my ear lobe was caked in dark red crusts. The lower lip of my mouth looked bloated. I tried to roll my shoulders, but each millimetre of movement hurt in different ways. I was surprised how the pain shot to my back or fingertips as I tried to move my arms. I swallowed some painkillers and crawled into bed. I fell asleep to the hypnotic sound of the rain lashing against the windows.
Thursday
Thursday morning. I had been getting dressed when the phone went. It was Mauro. I found the news more confusing than surprising.
‘Salati’, I heard him say, ‘committed suicide.’
I thought it was him telling me his take on the Riccardo case. It sounded like a statement about what had happened to the young boy. But his voice was urgent and it was barely morning.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Umberto Salati. He’s committed suicide.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I heard it from a friend.’ Mauro told me the news. They had found Umberto outside his condominium early this morning. He had sky-dived from the top floor.
I kept hearing myself say I couldn’t believe it.
‘I heard this morning’, Mauro said, ‘when I was out buying the paper. Someone at the edicola told me.’
‘Is it public yet? Is it on the news?’
‘The radio said at six that a dead body had been found. They haven’t formally identified it.’
‘So how do you know it’s him?’
‘Because this guy seemed to know the details. He said Salati had jumped.’
‘I can’t believe it. You’re sure it’s Umberto Salati?’
‘Like I say, it hasn’t been confirmed. What are you going to do?’
‘He lives in Via Pestalozzi, doesn’t he?’
‘By the cittadella.’
‘I’ve got to go. Thanks Mauro.’
I threw the phone on the bed and finished getting dressed. It was freezing. I pulled on a jumper and went to put on the coffee.
Salati had committed suicide. Umberto Salati had jumped and I was the one who had pushed him to the edge. I had tried to break him and I had succeeded nicely. I don’t normally feel guilt because I live, if I may say so, a pretty clean life. But now I felt guilt like an ice-cube in the heart. If it was true that Umberto was dead, I knew I was to blame.
It was still early and after last night’s rain the sky was a slightly lighter grey than yesterday. I slugged the coffee and headed out towards the cittadella. The city was still asleep, just the odd bike or moped heading off to work.
As I got closer, though, there were people running towards Via Pestalozzi. It made me impatient to get there first and I started walking more quickly. There were carabinieri at either end of the street holding back people with microphones.
‘Is it true?’ I asked a man with a camera on his shoulder.
‘Don’t know.’
‘What’s the official line?’
‘They’ve found a body.’
‘Has someone tried to call him?’ I didn’t even need to mention Salati’s name.
‘No reply.’
I moved towards the carabinieri.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘There’s been a suicide.’
‘Have they identified the body?’
‘No.’
The carabinieri didn’t like privates muscling in, but I had to try. I showed them my licence but it didn’t make any difference. I got the usual, dead-pan brush-off.
There was nothing to do. I went and sat in the bar at the corner of Via Solferino. Other journalists started turning up. Someone from La Gazzetta, one of the staff reporters from the local radio station, the local Rai guy.
Carabinieri kept coming and going. The first reliable confirmation we got was when one of the neighbours emerged from the condominium.
He was immediately besieged by the journalists and he seemed to enjoy the attention.
‘Is it true it’s Umberto Salati?’ one of the journalists asked.
‘It’s unbelievable. Poor man. I had no idea he was, no idea he might…’
‘Could you identify who it was?’
‘Umberto,’ he said, hearing the question for the first time. ‘He was on his back, but his head was, it was horrible.’
I looked beyond the crowd. I had to get to the site, but it was still cordoned off. I had already shown my badge to the blank carabiniere this end of the street, so I did three sides of a rectangle, walking along Solferino to the Stradone, along that to Passo Buole so that I came at the street from the other end. An officer held up his hand as I approached.
‘Forbidden,’ he said.
‘I live here.’
‘What number?’
‘Seventeen.’ I pointed at a building and the carabiniere fell into step with me, expecting to accompany me to my door just to make sure. He kept looking back every few steps to check that no one else had ducked under the thin plastic ribbon.