I read the rest of the paper. There were the usual stories: left-wing extremists scribbling threatening graffiti under the houses of union leaders and politicians; something about the motor show preparations; an article about the discovery of archaeological remains in the suburbs which would slow up the work on the metro; a visiting academic from Spain was compared to half a dozen people I had never heard of.
This is where all the carabinieri came for refreshment throughout the day. Dall’Aglio was late for our appointment and was immediately dismissive of my insistence on locating Salati’s keys.
‘Even supposing what you say is true,’ he whispered in the crowded bar, ‘why would a person keep the keys? If Salati was pushed, gravity was the only killer. If you haven’t got a murder weapon, the keys are as close as you’ll get. It’s like having a hot gun in your pocket. No one would have kept hold of them.’
‘Unless the murderer was under the impression that Salati’s keys were of importance, that they might lead to evidence which was even more incriminating.’
‘Like what?’ Dall’Aglio said impatiently.
‘Maybe Salati was investigating his younger half-brother’s disappearance when he was murdered. The murderer might have kept the keys in the hope of destroying any discoveries which Salati had committed to paper.’
‘It sounds very far-fetched to me.’
‘Everything’s far-fetched until it becomes fact,’ I said quickly. I knew I was clutching at straws, but Dall’Aglio didn’t seem concerned to clutch at anything. ‘There are other possibilities,’ I went on. ‘They took the keys, for whatever reason, and then realised what you have just said: that they were a smoking gun. So they ditched them.’
‘You want my men to find a bunch of keys which could be anywhere between here and Potenza. How do you expect us to do that?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But until they turn up, you won’t get a conviction in this case.’
‘I don’t mean to be disparaging, Castagnetti,’ Dall’Aglio said, ‘it’s just that I don’t see what, practically, I can do to test your theories. We’re talking about a case in which not only do we not have any leads to the murderer, we honestly don’t even know if there was a murder at all.’
I was impatient. When something needs doing, I like to get it done. I don’t mind Dall’Aglio, he’s a hard-working, honest official, not something there’s exactly a surplus of. But he’s a stubborn, officious official. He has to justify every action to his superiors and that makes him more cautious than a blind dog crossing the motorway.
‘When was the autopsy?’ I changed tack.
‘They did it yesterday.’
‘Who?’
‘Garrone I expect. I’ll check.’
I stood up and bowed sarcastically.
I would have to approach it from the other side. Slip something to the press to put pressure on him, or else hire some staff myself. I could have done with two dozen men to command like Dall’Aglio had. He could comb a field quicker than he could comb his hair.
I walked down the street and asked myself why I bothered. I always say it’s the money, but if that was the case, I would hire staff and we could film every infidelity this side of Reggio. That’s a racket if ever there was one. But like I said, I don’t do infidelity. It’s no different to blackmail in the end and you end up selling your pics to the highest bidder.
So it’s more than just the money. I go through all this dirt because I’m fed up with everyone settling for appearances, fed up with conceitedness and menefreghismo. I’ve had it with the good life, the luxuries and the reputations that no one wants to offend. I don’t think my line of work is anything special. It’s usually grubby and aggressive. It’s fraught and frustrating. But it’s honest. It’s a bit like gardening: you’re never quite sure what’s going to come up, you work hard and keep guessing, just trying to keep things alive. And once in a while you can sit back and think you might have made a tiny corner of the world a better place.
I walked towards the Ponte di Mezzo. The river was a furious torrent now. All the snow in the mountains was melting and the river was surging through the city. The water curled and crashed only a few centimetres below the arches of the bridges, speeding away towards the Po with its cargo of tree trunks and drowned animals. The noise was so loud that you could barely hear anything else. The water was pounding under the bridge, speeding past but keeping exactly the same shape, the same frenetic rolls and whirlpools.
I walked to the other side of the bridge and only there did the roar of the water subside. That sudden change in volume shifted something in my brain. Maybe it was the image of that water, that sense that the real action of a bridge is not above it but below. All that water and talk about the keys had set something off. What happened to Salati, I realised, hadn’t happened upstairs, in the building, up top. It must have happened below.
I pulled out my phone and tried to get through to the pathology department. A sleepy voice came to the phone.
‘Garrone?’
‘Sì.’
‘My name’s Castagnetti. I’m working on a case and I believe you did the autopsy.’
‘I know you. You’re that private dick.’
I made a grunt. ‘You did an autopsy…’
‘I do dozens every day.’
‘Must be fun. The man’s name was Salati.’
‘The guy who used to have a shop on Via Cavour?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I zipped him up yesterday.’
‘And?’
‘The tidiest suicide I’ve ever seen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was over ninety kilos, but his fall was so light he didn’t break a bone in his body.’
‘He didn’t jump?’
‘If he did, he flew down.’
‘So why’s everyone talking about suicide?’
‘Guesswork.’
‘So what killed him?’
‘Head injuries, sure, but not from falling to the ground. I would say it was something with a series of small, sharp protrusions… like an athlete’s spikes, or football boots with sharpened studs.’
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘There’s not much certainty about death but some things seem quite probable.’
‘Like it’s long.’
‘Yeah, right.’ The man laughed. ‘His skull and neck and back were perforated with these little indentations.’
‘How big?’
‘Fairly tiny. There were between eight and fifteen spikes for each blow. On the skin you can just see the outline of the shape holding those spikes. It’s slightly larger than a postage stamp. It wasn’t the spikes that killed him – they’re fairly shallow – it was the force behind them. It was some kind of hammer…’
‘You’ve got photographs of these wounds?’
‘Sure. Sent them up to Dall’Aglio yesterday.’
‘Time of death?’
‘We got the body yesterday morning. He had been dead roughly twelve hours. That puts the time between nine and eleven the evening before.’
I put the phone down. If Salati hadn’t fallen from his balcony, it meant that a woman could have been responsible. There might not have been a fight up there at all. It might have happened on the ground and he might have been hit from behind. Someone had tried to make it look like suicide, gone upstairs to open a window, tried to make it look like a jump. It was an amateur, that was for sure.
It wasn’t surprising that Dall’Aglio wasn’t publicising the news. He had enough media interest around him without them getting even more excitable. But it would come out sooner or later. The giallo would become a murder. It would go national by tonight.
My phone was vibrating.
‘Sì.’
‘Castagnetti?’ It was Dall’Aglio.