Marco Vichi - Death in Sardinia

He managed to open the front door to the building in just a few seconds. Then, after tiptoeing up the stairs to the top floor, he met with disappointment. One look at Badalamenti’s door and he knew he was faced with a lock that his teacher classified as ‘curseworthy’. Bordelli was incapable of opening that kind. Only Botta could.

The following day the inspector had gone looking for him at home, only to learn that he’d been in jail for several weeks. He’d been arrested near Montecatini, at Pavesi di Serravalle, trying to shift a television set stolen from the office of a service station. Botta was an artist of burglary, and a very good cook, but he was terrible at disposing of stolen goods.

The inspector was shocked to learn he’d started doing these small jobs again. The last time he’d seen him, Botta was still coasting on the money he’d made on a successful scam in Greece.

The following Sunday morning Bordelli had gone to see him at the Murate prison. A guard accompanied him down the long corridors, opening and closing gates along the way. Water dripped from the ceilings, and the floor was scattered with dirty little piles of sawdust. The doors of the some of the cells were open, and the inmates walked about the corridors in groups, dragging their feet. Under the general murmur of voices the inspector heard the distant sound of an ocarina. After the umpteenth barred door, the guard pointed to a man scrubbing the floor at the end of a long, deserted corridor. It was Ennio. The inspector went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Ciao, Botta, how’s it going?’

‘Inspector! What are you doing here?’ Ennio asked, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

‘How much time did they give you?’

‘Fourteen months, Inspector. I’m supposed to come out in March of next year, but by now I know how these things go. If I’m good, they’ll let me out for Christmas.’

‘And the money from Greece?’

‘The horses, Inspector. It’s the last time, I swear.’

‘I certainly hope so, for your sake.’

‘Fourteen months for a television set … Though I must say it was a Voxon, one of the best.’ Botta sighed histrionically.

‘Why don’t you ever call me when you have a problem, Ennio? You know I’ll help you if I can.’

‘But you already own a television set, Inspector! A beautiful Majestic …’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘And I hadn’t even stolen it myself! I was just lending a friend a hand … You know who gave it to me?’

‘I don’t want to know. Listen, I’m here to ask you a favour.’

‘A nice Greek dinner at your place?’

‘That too … but there’s something else.’

‘What is it, Inspector?’

‘I want you to pick a lock for me,’ Bordelli said, lowering his voice.

‘Did you lose the keys?’ Botta asked, laughing.

‘I want to get inside the flat of someone who should be in here instead of you.’

‘And what about all those things I taught you?’

‘It’s the kind of lock that calls for Botta.’

Ennio puffed up with pride.

‘No problem, Inspector, as soon as I get out of here I’ll open it for you.’

‘Just so it’s clear, what we’re going to do is illegal. If they catch us, they’ll bugger us both.’

‘No problem all the same, Inspector. If you’re there it’s fine with me.’

‘Thanks.’

‘At any rate I assure you, Inspector, you’ve got a real knack for it. I mean it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’d make a pretty decent burglar yourself.’

‘Well, coming from you, that’s a compliment.’

‘I’m not kidding, Inspector, it’s the truth.’

‘You’re too kind, Ennio,’ Bordelli said, and as he shook Botta’s hand before leaving, he slipped two thousand-lira notes in his friend’s shirt pocket.

‘This may come in handy.’

‘I owe you one, Inspector,’ Ennio said, winking.

‘Don’t forget to give me a ring as soon as you get out.’

‘You’ll have to be patient, Inspector, I’ve still got thirteen months to go. And even if I get out at Christmas, that still leaves ten.’

‘We can wait. Break a leg, Ennio.’

‘Thanks.’

For some time thereafter the inspector had carried on his personal investigation of Badalamenti, without results. He had discreetly tried to initiate a review of the city’s banks, in order to comb through the usurer’s accounts, but without a court order it would have been like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon. He had even thought of having Badalamenti’s phone tapped, but it was too risky and, most importantly, would have involved other people. He didn’t feel like taking anyone else into his unsteady boat. And it was anyone’s guess whether it really would have helped. Badalamenti was very shrewd and seemed to feel quite protected by his acquaintances. As Ginzillo had said, the man had an entree into the homes of rich businessmen and ambitious young politicians. It led one to the disturbing conclusion that everyone present at those dinner parties had something in common. This was one of the more unpleasant faces of the new, changing Italy, Bordelli said to himself, thinking of all those who had died in the hopes of leaving a better world to their children …

In short, stopping Badalamenti had proved to be a far more difficult matter than expected. But the inspector was determined to see things through. He would have to wait for Botta and hope for a bit of luck.

The months went by.

The second channel of the RAI, the national television network, inaugurated by Mina 4three months earlier, expanded its programming, and to some it seemed as if the world had doubled in size. The television news programmes vomited out information from all over the world. From Algeria came troubling reports: after a century of colonialism and a million deaths, the country was in chaos. The French were leaving en masse, including legionnaires and pieds noirs , heeding the advice of the FLN, whose slogan was:

‘The boat or the coffin’. In June Ben Bella was swept away by Colonel Boumedienne, while, back in France, De Gaulle was preparing for the presidential election against the socialist Mitterrand.

From the US and the UK came new music, new faces, new fashions. Girls’ skirts became impossibly short, men’s hair grew longer and longer. It was anybody’s guess what it all meant. Everywhere one heard the songs of Adriano Celentano, Bobby Solo, Nicola di Bari and Gigliola Cinquetti. Bordelli often found himself humming a tune of Petula Clark’s, but could never remember the words.

Italy was advancing at a gallop, even though there weren’t enough horses for everybody. The number of Motoms and Vespas on the roads steadily increased, and there were more and more cars, especially Fiat 600s and 1100s. But there was no lack of Lancias and Alfa Romeos, either, and there were even a few Jaguars here and there. The traffic was already worse than the year before; at certain hours of the day one had to queue up at junctions. Billboards were getting bigger and bigger, and the laundry was now done by a machine.

Everything seemed to be going right. Money seemed to reproduce like loaves and fishes, the dream of wealth spread like a disease. But one had to be on the right side, or there was trouble. Trains kept coming up from the south, full of men without return tickets heading north to sell their flesh and muscles, dragging their poverty behind them. They kept the whole sideshow moving, but couldn’t climb aboard …

More than anything else, one felt the young people’s yearning to change the world, which to them seemed to have grown old and decrepit. Bordelli thought that it wasn’t only, as some believed, a desire to have fun. Nor was it only that they wanted to be rid once and for all of the dark past the old people were always telling them about with reproach and admonishment in their voices. At least from a distance, these kids almost looked as if they were of another race. They didn’t give a damn about the war that had ended not long before and which their parents claimed to have won.