I walked slowly knowing I would be allowed to pass only once. After they had realised I didn’t live here, I would be hounded away with a choice insult. I slowed down even more as I came to the middle of the street. There was an ambulance, two carabinieri Alfa Romeos, and an unmarked car that was so badly parked it could only be the plainclothes.
Outside the block at number eight were men in white overalls taking measurements in the courtyard. I crouched down, pretending to be doing up my shoe-laces and saw between the various ankles a man’s face.
The chin was unnaturally far from the shoulder. The yellowing moustache was red. I tilted my head and saw the con torted features of Umberto Salati: the thick hair, the round cheeks. It looked like he was asleep.
I had an involuntary intake of breath. Seeing it like that didn’t leave much doubt about life and death.
I pretended that I had forgotten my keys and slinked away from my escort. I still couldn’t believe it.
I tried to think straight. I had been in the game long enough to know that something was suspicious. This had something to do with Riccardo. Whatever had started a couple days ago had caused Umberto Salati to jump. Or had persuaded someone to push him. Because it was always like this. A case was never just a case. It became many, each one knocking into the next. What I had assumed was a cold case had become suddenly hot. A bit of gentle sport had become dangerous.
I felt under threat myself, as if I were somehow responsible for what had happened. I was often tense on a case, but I never felt, like now, that I was somehow at the centre of it. It might even have been my aggressive openness the night before that had unhinged Salati.
I hated not being at the scene of the crime. If this really was a murder, every minute was precious. You needed to stop people moving. You couldn’t let them into or out of the building. You had to do everything quickly: take statements, swabs, photographs, measurements, record number plates, request phone records, dust every handle and button in the building. I didn’t trust the officials to be anything like thorough enough.
‘What are you doing?’ The voice made me jump and I stood up quickly. ‘Castagnetti?’ The voice sounded surprised.
It was Dall’Aglio. He had the same uniform as the young boy who had been escorting me, but he looked much older. ‘You shouldn’t be here. I’m going to have to move you on.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said wearily.
‘What are you doing here anyway? I know you’re quick, but this isn’t even public knowledge yet.’
‘Tip-off.’
‘Always a tip-off, eh?’
I looked at him, trying to work out if he was malleable. ‘Was it really suicide?’
‘I can’t answer that, you know the rules.’
‘What time did it happen?’
‘There will be an official announcement later today.’
‘What floor was he on?’
Dall’Aglio didn’t say anything, but subtly put his index finger vertically upwards.
‘Top?’
He nodded.
I looked at Dall’Aglio. We had been out for a drink together a couple of times but now he was in uniform and this was different. It was pointless to throw more questions his way.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘OK. See you around.’
I walked a little further on and took out my binoculars. There was a row of trees shielding the building from the street. I moved further on to see the building better. It was a six-storey block. It looked elegant and large. Through the brass and glass doors you could see the dark banisters. The lighting was low. It looked typical for this chic part of town: large awnings overhanging balconies laden with leafy plants.
The top floor was surrounded by a terrace which formed a continuous balcony on all four sides. It had no plants. I could see an open door leading on to the balcony above where the body lay.
I moved my gaze downwards, past the trees to the gravel path where Salati had fallen. Closer towards me was a sloping concrete drive leading down to what was presumably the underground car park.
I put the binoculars back and ducked under the cordon the other side of the street. I pulled out my mobile and called Crespi.
‘Umberto Salati is dead,’ I said bluntly.
‘Who is this?’
‘Castagnetti. You hired me a few days ago, remember? Umberto Salati is dead. There’s no official confirmation but I’ve been to the scene. It’s him.’
For once he was speechless.
‘We need to talk,’ I said. I didn’t want to go back to Crespi’s office. The man seemed impregnable there. ‘Let’s meet in the square at eleven.’
I snapped the phone shut. I looked back one last time at the palazzo. There were armed guards at the front and back entrance. By the cordon I could see an old-fashioned Italian circus. I could see the carabinieri taking statements in the car park, and the reporters were then taking statements from the carabinieri. Both were then reporting those statements to their superiors who would publicise them when it suited.
The people coming out of the cittadella paused to look at the disorder and ask questions.
‘What’s going on?’ people kept asking me. I shrugged so many times I got backache.
On the Stradone it was business as usual. Women in slack fur coats bustled along the pavements. They looked like hairy eggs. I saw a man carrying a dog in a Burberry handbag. A young girl was wearing a silver-grey Belstaff jacket, only it was imitation because the label said Belfast. Perhaps it was deliberate, a subversive logo. But it looked the same as the real thing. That was the important thing in this city: to look the part, to give off the signals if you only knew how.
I walked slowly towards the Circolo. I called Mauro and told him to meet me there. I wanted to do what the rest of the city would be doing: watch the story on TV.
Mauro was there before me, already nursing a glass of malvasia. The TV was on full volume. There were live feeds from Salati’s house. Only hours after his death there were camera crews outside his palazzo, some conducting interviews with his neighbours via the intercom, others filming the roof terrace from below. Funny how police always let in their favourite journalists.
‘What happened to you?’ Mauro asked cheerfully. ‘Looks like old Salati landed on you.’
On the TV, twenty police cadets were shown combing the gardens and shrubs below. Tall trees were being searched, prodded and pulled by policeman standing in the rectangular fist at the end of a crane’s yellow arm.
Then there was an interview with the slippery mayor. He chose his words very carefully, as if he were trying to save himself from something: ‘He was a dedicated man who represented the best of this city – enterprise, imagination, generosity. We are all in mourning. Our thoughts’, the mayor was now looking into the camera, ‘are with his family.’
As usual the institutional expressions of regret disguised any discord. I knew the official civility by now. It meant no one had a bad word to say against anyone who was dead. Death always made everyone wonderful.
‘Are you personally convinced’, the bald journalist asked the mayor, ‘that Umberto Salati voluntarily took his own life?’ It didn’t look right and the little journalist obviously knew it. No one dared to ask such a question on live TV to such a powerful politician unless the piazza was with you.
The mayor drew breath slowly and nodded. ‘From early indications it seems so. Although it does appear that Umberto Salati died by his own hand, I hope we remember him for the way he lived his life, not for the way in which he ended it.’ Mauro threw a shiny napkin at the set. ‘Balle’, he said. ‘You know that “suicidarsi” isn’t just a reflexive verb? Sometimes there’s a subject and an object involved. It’s something that someone does to someone else.’