‘Yeah.’
She didn’t say anything. I looked at the condominium. It had long brass letterboxes at the entrance and it looked spacious and calm: there were a couple of armchairs by the porter’s glass lodge with ashtrays on their arms.
‘Ground floor,’ she said.
The door clicked open and I walked in towards the main door. I stopped and looked at the block. It was the standard thing. They’re all the same: six or so stories, a flat on each corner. I once saw an old painting of these kinds of places from way back. Then they had courtyards, communal areas on the inside. The flats were like lines of a square, and in the middle was a well with some chickens or some pigs. It had been beautiful, a perfect design for a sunny country.
But now, in these palazzi, the tiny communal part was on the outside: little patches of scrawny grass between the outer and inner gates, rickety bike racks and bins and curls of dog shit. That was it. You had no shared view. No one ever looked over the centre of the place, only at the fringes, at the cars speeding past.
She came out of a flat to the left as I was going through the inner door. She was a slim, blonde woman. She had a beautiful face with bright eyes. But there was a sadness about her. It looked like it had been with her long before Umberto died.
‘I’m sorry about your husband,’ I said as she showed me in.
‘He was an ex,’ she said, bowing her head slightly as if to acknowledge the condolences. ‘You knew him?’
‘I met him on Monday, as soon as I was hired. When did you last speak to him?’
‘At the funeral on Tuesday.’
‘And you had a cordial relationship?’
‘Friendly enough. We had fewer arguments after separation than we did before, that’s for sure.’
‘Why did you separate?’
‘I don’t think that matters now, do you?’
There was something mechanical about her, as if she was getting by out of habit. I had seen it before, the pride and defiance of a middle-aged woman bringing up children on her own. It was as if she were proving a point all the time, trying to show that she could still be attractive, but in doing so only showed that she had mislaid her spontaneity.
‘He was a good man and a good father,’ she said. ‘He just couldn’t stick to one woman. But he was always generous and warm. That’s what all those girls saw in him, I suppose. He lavished presents on them, the same as he had with me when we met.’
I looked at her. It sounded like a wife trying to show her late husband’s best side, trying to justify his behaviour.
‘He told me that the night his brother went missing, in June 1995, he was with you.’ I looked at her. ‘Can you confirm that?’
‘To be completely honest, I have no memory of where I was that night, but I remember telling police years ago that we were together that evening, and if I said that then, it must have been that way.’
‘But you don’t remember?’
‘Do you remember where you were on a given night fourteen years ago?’
I shrugged. ‘I probably would if it was the night my brother-in-law was murdered.’
She looked at me with disdain.
‘Was there any rancour between the two of them, between Ricky and Umberto?’
‘They didn’t exactly get on. They were competitive.’
‘And what happened between them the year Ricky went missing? In 1995?’
She drew a deep breath.
‘I knew that Umberto had lent him a lot of money. I knew because it meant we couldn’t move house that year. Umberto had found out that he was borrowing money from all and sundry and they had quite an argument.’ She looked at me as if she didn’t want me to get the wrong impression. ‘But he was incapable of… there’s no way he would have ever…’
‘Did his disappearance have an effect on Umberto?’
‘To be honest, he didn’t seem unduly worried at the time. It had happened before. And then, when it became clear Ricky wasn’t coming back, I think Umberto was more concerned about the effect on his mother.’
‘And recently?’
‘I think he changed when he saw Silvia dying. I think he longed to be able to bring news of Ricky to her dying bedside, even if it was only confirmation of what they all feared.’
‘What made you think that?’
‘I inferred it from the way he was speaking to the boys recently.’
‘Your children?’
‘Sure. He was always talking to them about the importance of the family, of looking after your own, of loyalty.’
‘Did he think Ricky was still alive?’
She paused. ‘I don’t think so. I think he knew he was never going to find him. But he was looking for him, trying to work out what had happened.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘What?’
‘That he was investigating Ricky’s disappearance?’
‘Sure. He told me about it at the funeral.’
‘On Tuesday?’
She nodded. ‘We were standing beside each other at the burial and he whispered to me about his desire to sort everything out once and for all. Umberto liked the idea of playing the hero. He felt like he had to avenge those who had insulted his family. He got very worked up when talking about it.’
I listened to her as she spoke. She talked with precision and speed and I imagined she was a strict mother.
‘Have you thought,’ I said slowly, ‘that the reason Umberto was keen to find Ricky was merely this: he wanted his mother’s money and wanted to confirm his brother’s death. He didn’t want to share the jackpot with anyone else.’
She looked at me closely with her eyes almost shut. ‘I thought exactly the same thing. I can’t pretend I didn’t.’
‘And now that Umberto’s dead, it makes a big difference to your family.’
‘Finding Ricky?’ She laughed, amused at the optimism.
‘But it does, doesn’t it?’
She stopped laughing and looked at me seriously.
‘It makes a difference financially doesn’t it?’ I said again. ‘Your mother-in-law died and left an estate. Now your husband is dead and your boys might be millionaires.’
‘Sure. Sure it does. It makes a difference to my boys.’
‘If Ricky can be proved to have died prior to Silvia Salati,’ I wanted to make sure she knew the situation, ‘then Umberto inherits the whole of his mother’s estate. And now he’s dead, your children might be very wealthy. If it was the other way round, half of what Umberto was expecting goes up in smoke.’ I paused.
‘Of course it does, I’ve just said it does. Is there anything else you want?’
Her warmth had gone and she was preparing to usher me out.
‘Do you think the two are linked?’ I said, standing my ground.
She was shaking her head nervously, like a horse being badly handled. It was as if she didn’t want to think about the implications.
‘And last night,’ I said, ‘where were you?’
‘I was here, with the children.’
‘Are they in?’
She put a hand on my chest. ‘Keep them out of this. They’re mourning their father.’
I left her there and apologised for the disturbance.
Friday
I was sitting in the bar opposite the carabinieri barracks watching my hands move from force of habit. My thumb and forefinger took the corner of a sugar sachet and shook it before ripping it open and emptying the contents into the piping black coffee. My right hand took up the spoon and stirred it.
Every morning millions of us perform exactly the same gestures learnt from observation. Having a coffee is as ritualistic as taking communion and I couldn’t do it any differently to anyone else.
I stretched over to a next-door table and picked up the morning’s edition of La Gazzetta. Even the news was ritualistic. The way the whole Salati case was reported followed a tried and trusted path: the reporter used the same phrases that are used every time a murder is committed. This was the ‘Salati Giallo’. They never missed a chance to churn out the old giallo label. That word – meaning both ‘yellow’ and ‘thriller’ – makes dark crimes sunlit and exciting. In this charming country, even death is made sumptuous.