Valerio Varesi - Gold, Frankincense and Dust

Soncini collapsed on a chair as though he were on the point of fainting. He appeared more distraught and unnerved than before. Soneri allowed the silence to emphasise the gravity of the confession, but his mind went back to the farce played out in front of him a few days previously by Soncini, his wife and daughter, and his fury increased. In comparison, Nina, no matter how casual with men, seemed to him like a lost soul trying to stay afloat in a sea of filth. The thought of her helped him nurture a little hope that he would not sink into that slime.

“It would have been better for you to keep the baby and pretend to be a caring partner. Perhaps even, for the first time in your life, you would have assumed responsibility for something. And you wouldn’t be where you are now.”

“Please,” the lawyer intervened, “avoid making judgments. It’s not your role.”

The commissario threw a contemptuous look in his direction. “You’re quite right. It’s up to the judge to do that.” He turned once more to Soncini. “You forgot to add one thing.”

Soncini looked up, giving him a quizzical look.

“You’d have had to resign your position as a kept man.”

Soncini bowed his head again and said nothing.

After he had signed his confession, they took him away. Soneri watched him being led off by two officers followed by the lawyer, done up like a mannequin, and wondered why at that stage murderers appeared to him always so banal, so bereft of all pride, even of the pride of malice. He invariably found himself confronting unremarkable faces or insignificant people who were nothing out of the ordinary. It was impossible to see them in the role of killers. He recalled substantial mafiosi who looked like pensioners, serial killers with the appearance of admin staff, rapists who could have passed for seminarians and pitiless female poisoners with the features of a doll. Never had there been one with the surly expression of a cut-throat, the menacing eyes of a basking shark or the insolence of arrogance.

As he reflected on this, he felt his disquiet grow. There was something artificial in Soncini’s submissiveness. He might have been playing a part. If it all went well for him, he might indeed be able to show it had been an accident and perhaps even get off with a sentence of a couple of years’ imprisonment. He might claim he had acted under the influence of cocaine, and that burning the body had been a reaction of fear produced by the drugs.

All these doubts were swept aside for the time being by a flood of congratulations, starting with those of Capuozzo, who knew that this way he was guarding his back against public opinion and laying the groundwork for the parade of the following morning’s press conference. The newspapers were guaranteed to write that the investigators had done their job, and the political bigwigs would express their renewed faith in justice. Even Esposito phoned him from his car: “Well done, Commissario. We’ve pulled it off. You’re the pick of the bunch.”

Soneri was pleased, but he found it hard to show his satisfaction in public. He was uncomfortable with compliments because he never knew what to say. Fortunately the investigating magistrate, Marcotti, who was very like him in this way, restricted herself to a vigorous handshake and an eloquent look which said it all. The thought occurred yet again to him that if they had been contemporaries, he could easily have fallen in love with her. Juvara, who had been gazing into the middle distance for a while, apparently wrapped in thought, attempted to bring him back to earth. “Don’t forget your promise, commissario.”

“What promise?”

“The computer, remember? If we’ve solved the case, it was all down to the hard disk.”

“It was down to chance. And self-interest. Young Sauro thought he could make a bit of money from a machine he should have put out. He did it because some guy had asked for a computer at a giveaway price, so he was acting in his own interests.”

“That’s a very reductive analysis. Sauro could have kept quiet, told us he’d thrown everything out and fitted the hard disk to another computer,” Juvara objected.

“He had just opened up and needed customers. He might have decided it’s always a good idea to stay on good terms with the police. Anyway, what did he care about Soncini? You’re a much better customer.”

The inspector surrendered. “You’re always too pessimistic. Anyway, the case is solved and that’s what matters.”

“Solved? Mmm … You know what bothers me? That note, the one at Nina’s house, covered with insults. Whoever wrote that must have known Nina’s intentions regarding Soncini, and presumably before finding out about the baby.”

Not knowing how to reply, Juvara threw up his hands helplessly, but at that moment the telephone on Soneri’s desk rang.

“Commissario, Dottor Capuozzo has called a press conference for tomorrow morning at ten and would like to invite you to come along,” the usual secretary announced.

“Unfortunately I can’t be there. Please give the questore my apologies,” Soneri said perfunctorily.

The secretary was by now accustomed to Soneri’s refusals, and acting almost mechanically she assured him she would tell her superior.

“I’m going out for a breath of fresh air,” he told Juvara.

He wandered about in the city centre and dropped in to a couple of tobacconists to buy cigars and the wooden matches he continued to use in preference to a lighter. He detested those bright little implements which produced fire with no smoke, these being two elements which should always go together. He made his way back to the questura, but when he was in the courtyard under the fir trees, he realised he had no wish to shut himself up in an office, so he got into his car. He had a vague idea of where he would like to go. He would like to drive across the plain towards the first of the Apennine slopes and from there climb above the mist. On the road towards the hills, the skies would gradually clear, the sun would begin to peep out, but then he would briefly plunge once more into the last of the white mist before everything would finally brighten and the world would change. At times it was only a matter of a couple of metres. He would be happy to warm his bones over lunch in a trattoria on a hillside, looking down at the plain under its sheet of chilly mist.

Such thoughts were in his mind as he got to Via Spezia but instead of proceeding in the direction of Cisa, he turned at Lemignano towards the industrial zone. He did not know what had made him abandon the idea of an outing to the hills, but he soon understood as he parked in front of Golden. He was missing Angela. Once in the hills, he would be reminded of their days away from the city, and that was what had made him turn back. He had no wish to invite pain. Better to face the hostility of Giulia Martini, who was even now staring resentfully at him. The commissario preferred to tussle with another person rather than with himself.

“Did you manage to visit your husband in jail?” he said.

“No, and I don’t care to. As far as I am concerned, you can keep him. That man has been my ruination.”

“You could have left him, if you hadn’t been slaves to a bella figura .”

“All my life I’ve had to put up with his affairs. The man is an inveterate womaniser,” she said, without restraint. “After a while, I told myself I didn’t care about him anymore and he could do what he liked. Once my daughter had grown up, she understood. However, I could not tolerate the idea of him breeding a litter of bastards. There is a limit.”

“Don’t go any further. That unborn baby had very little to do with it. What mattered was your self-interest. You’re not defending respectability, just business.”