Giorgio Scerbanenco - A Private Venus

But he had to be kept quiet, too, otherwise he might try to escape and that wasn’t good. ‘No, no, don’t worry.’ He didn’t even kick him so hard, just enough to knock him unconscious for a while. Then he left the stable and lit a cigarette.

They arrived two minutes later. Davide in front in the Giulietta, followed by Carrua in the police Alfa Romeo, then the van for transporting prisoners.

‘I told you not to get mixed up in this,’ Carrua screamed as he got out, very angry, as if it weren’t just a formality: he had known everything about the investigation from the start, through Mascaranti.

‘They’re in the stable,’ Duca said. ‘I can come over tonight and give you a report, they’ve already told me a lot of things. Be careful, there’s a horse in the stable, it’s very nervous, it keeps kicking, it must have kicked those fellows a few times.’

Carrua turned red. ‘If you laid one finger on them I’ll put you inside. Where are you going?’

He didn’t reply, he’d stopped listening to Carrua’s yelling. He took Davide by the arm and led him towards the Giulietta. ‘Take me straight to the centre of town.’ He didn’t ask him anything until they were near the Via Porpora, queuing like robot sheep in the traffic that had resumed in all its fury. Then all he said was: ‘Did you see her?’

He nodded, yes, he had seen her. That meant that he had gone to the Ulisse Apartments, rushed up to the second floor and seen Livia Ussaro.

‘Was she conscious?’

‘Yes.’

That meant that she hadn’t fainted, that she was sitting on a chair, naked, with all the chess pieces lying on the floor around her, and she was dabbing her face with a towel, there wasn’t much blood, no, there really wasn’t much blood, but she had been about to faint when he had seen her face, when she had lowered the towel for a moment to let herself be dressed, because he had had to dress her, but she didn’t faint, she hadn’t fainted once, not even when he had taken her down to the car, she had even tried to walk by herself, barely supported.

‘Where did you take her?’

‘To the Fatebenefratelli Hospital, Carrua told me to do that on the telephone.’

‘Let’s go there now.’

‘We can’t.’

Then Duca noticed that Davide’s body was moving convulsively, like children who have cried too much, at first it seemed like a kind of sobbing, but then he understood. And he also understood why they couldn’t see her: she was being put back together. The worst thing, apart from the scars, was the vertical cuts at the corners of her lips-his father had once described to him in detail a full facial scarring-that would make it difficult for her to speak or eat for several weeks. Until she had been mended a little, they wouldn’t be able to see her.

‘Then let’s go straight to the Piazza Castello.’ He told Davide where they were going, who they were going to see, and what they were going to do, and how he, Davide, could help him. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t get out the back way,’ he said.

They left the car in the Piazza Castello and went the rest of the way on foot. After a while they reached the characteristically narrow old lane, where there was a shop for stamp collectors that seemed out of place here, with two pocket-sized windows on either side of the entrance displaying lots of beautiful stamps that probably nobody had ever looked at, not even the owner. They went in and walked down two steps into a little room, not much larger than a toilet, which functioned, with a certain claim to elegance, as the kingdom of philately.

There was nobody there, and it was very dark. Display cases hanging on the wall, stuffed full of stamps, gleamed dimly. Lying open on the counter was a very large album, then there was a small armchair, and a big red glass ashtray, which not only didn’t have any cigarette ends in it but was also veiled with dust: Signor A must have followed his doctor’s advice and stopped smoking some time ago. But above all there was silence, and when they had opened the door no bell had rung.

‘Is there anybody here?’ he asked politely, staring politely at the half-open door at the back, and then he understood the reason for the sense of unease he had been feeling: somebody he couldn’t see was looking at him from one of those display cases hanging on the wall, one of the stamps wasn’t a stamp, but a hole in the wall that you could look through from the other side. With really childish curiosity, he would have liked to know which stamp it was.

The little door at the back finally opened completely and an elegant gentleman appeared, smiling. He had a grey moustache, he was exactly as Livia had described him: Signor A.

‘I’m so sorry …’ Signor A’s intention was to apologise for keeping them waiting, but from across the counter the two of them grabbed him, dragged him over the counter and wedged him into the armchair, and Duca stunned him with a slap while Davide searched him.

‘Yes, here it is.’

It was a woman’s revolver: Signor A probably didn’t always carry it, he must have stuffed it in his pocket when he heard them come in.

‘Look for the light switch,’ he said to Davide, ‘then lower the shutter, go in the back, block the door and phone Carrua, tell him he can come and get another one.’

The slap-although the word wasn’t entirely accurate, more like an understatement-had turned one of Signor A’s eyes red with blood, but he hadn’t emitted a moan or said a word.

Duca now said something very specific. ‘Your friend the photographer and the other man have already told me a lot,’ he said. ‘Now it’s your turn to tell me all you know. There must be little shops like this in other cities in Italy, and you must also be in contact with people abroad. I need names, addresses, and details. Davide, find some paper and come here and write,’ he said to Davide, then turned back to the silent Signor A, who was not only silent but had the stony look on his face of someone who would never talk. ‘You’re over fifty, I give you my word as a doctor that you won’t be able to stand more than three blows to the liver, at the third everything will burst inside you. This is number one.’

At the same time, he covered the man’s mouth with his hand, but Signor A did not even have the strength to moan, his eyes looked as if they were coming out of their sockets, they lost that stony I’ll never talk look, and Duca asked him the first question.

‘Please answer at once.’

Breathing heavily, his nose now as white as his lips, he answered. Then he answered the second question, and the third, and the fourth, he answered all the questions.

‘Names and addresses.’

He gave names and addresses, but was starting to moan and to bend double.

‘Tell me everything, or I’ll hit you again.’ He might not survive even a second blow, whatever the doctors did to save his liver, but Duca would hit him all the same, and Signor A understood that and gave him the last name, the last address, the one he had promised over and over again never to reveal.

‘Yes, I think you’ve told me everything.’ He looked at him and thanked him. ‘Thank you, you’ve been very good.’

Davide had covered almost three large sheets of paper. Then they pulled up the shutter, switched off the light, and waited in the gloom, while the little boss moaned. They would get the big guys soon enough.

Then Mascaranti arrived with two officers and took away Signor A and the three written sheets, and Duca and Davide were free.

‘It’s over,’ Duca said to Davide.

They walked back to the Giulietta. It was all over, all had been explained, it was so nastily simple. ‘Let’s go back to the Cavour, at least to pay the bill.’