Marco Vichi: Death in August

‘There’s no problem, Mugnai, I’m listening, but try to make things simpler.’

‘I’ll try, Inspector, but nothing is clear, not even to me; I wrote everything down, otherwise I’d forget it … A little while ago a woman, called Maria, phoned saying she was the lady companion of a certain lady with two surnames … What’s a lady companion?’

‘I’ll explain another time.’

‘Does it have anything to do with whores?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Go on.’

‘Sorry, Inspector. Anyway, this woman, Maria, I mean, says she spends the whole day with the lady, but then at eight o’clock she leaves because the lady wants to be alone at night. Every night, however, round midnight, she phones the lady to see how she’s doing, because the lady is old and sort of sick.’

‘You should say “elderly”, Mugnai; “old” isn’t very nice.’

‘Whatever you say, Inspector … Anyway, so tonight Maria called at round about midnight, but there was no answer. She tried again a little later, but still no answer. She kept calling every fifteen minutes till one o’clock, and then she took a cab to go and check on the lady in person. She says she can see the light on inside, but the lady won’t come to the door. So she called us.’

Bordelli had already started getting dressed.

‘So why didn’t she go inside?’

Mugnai slammed his hand down on the table.

‘That’s what I said, too, Inspector! Why didn’t she go inside? And you know what she said?’

‘What?’

‘She said nobody else has got the keys to the villa, because the lady doesn’t want to give them out.’

The inspector sighed.

‘If she was so worried, she should have gone there with the woman’s doctor and broken down the door,’ he said. Mugnai practically ate the receiver.

‘That’s what I said, too, Inspector! And you know what she replied?’

‘What?’

‘She said the lady’s doctor is so small that if he tried to break open the door he would break his shoulder.’

‘Well, then the fire department.’

‘I swear I said that, too. And so she says: “Well, at this point, there’s nothing more to be done. The lady’s dead.”’

‘Fine, I think I get the picture.’

‘And you know what she said next, Inspector?’

Bordelli buckled his belt, holding the receiver between chin and shoulder.

‘Go on, Mugnai, stop playing guessing games.’

‘Sorry, Inspector.’

‘Well, what did she say next?’

‘She said the lady was murdered.’

‘And how does she know that?’

‘She doesn’t know it. She only said she could sense it. Then she started crying.’

‘Maybe she reads too many mysteries.’

Mugnai slammed his hand down somewhere else.

‘That’s what I thought, too, Inspector! So what are we gonna do?’

‘Let me put on my shoes, and I’ll be on my way.’

‘Sorry about this, Inspector, but you always told me that-’

‘Forget about it. I couldn’t sleep, anyway. Give me the address.’

By half past two Bordelli was driving his VW Beetle up Via della Piazzola, a narrow little street in the hilly, posh end of town. The headlamps lit up the grey asphalt, which was full of potholes and patches. On either side of the street loomed the great facades of aristocratic villas and the monumental gates of villas hidden farther within. Against the black sky, the great, motionless manes of the trees stood blacker still. Bordelli felt an acidic bubble expand in his stomach and rise up into his mouth, prompting him to suppress, with some effort, the desire to light a fifth cigarette. He pulled up at number 110. The gate of Villa Pedretti-Strassen was closed. As the street was too narrow for him to park, he was forced to leave the car a hundred yards ahead, where the road widened. There wasn’t a breath of wind. It was still hot outside, even at that hour.

He walked back down to the villa. Beyond the colossal cast-iron gate, at the back of a dark garden full of trees, he could make out the villa’s dark silhouette. And, behind a towering hedgerow of laurel parallel to the house, the lighted rectangle of a window. Bordelli put an unlit cigarette in his mouth and suddenly felt all his accumulated fatigue. He wished he could lie down on the ground and savour the peace enveloping the villa, immobile, watching the sky and thinking of the past.

He tried to push the great gate open, but it was locked. It was also very tall, with pointed spikes on top. He had better find another solution. Walking along the enclosure wall, he found a small side gate. He pushed it open, forcing the accumulated rust in the hinges. The garden was in a state of abandon, but not completely, as if a gardener tended it perhaps three or four times a year. The villa, with its crumbling facade, must have been from the seventeenth century. Three storeys, five windows per storey, all closed except for the one with the light in it, on the first floor. Through the uneven panes he could see a frescoed ceiling.

Hugging the walls of the villa, he arrived at the rear. There was a large park with very tall trees and a small lane that vanished into the darkness. Beside the house, an enormous, age-old cedar thrust its bristling branches well above the roof. Bordelli threw his head back to look at it, then began to feel dizzy, losing his balance. He leaned against the wall and rubbed his eyes, to ward off fatigue. Returning to the front of the house, he rang the doorbell. He heard a gloomy trill beyond the great door, as in convents. He waited a minute, but nothing happened.

He lit a match and examined the lock. After an apprenticeship with his friend Botta, a petty thief who lived a stone’s throw from his place in San Frediano, Bordelli could open almost any lock with a common piece of metal wire, and each time he did, it was a source of great satisfaction. Having burglars as friends had its advantages. But Botta wasn’t only a thief; he was also a fabulous cook, having learned a variety of international dishes in the jails of half the world … But this was no time to be thinking about such things.

The lock resisted Bordelli’s efforts for a good five minutes, then finally yielded. The inspector opened the door and was relieved to feel on his face a breath of cool air typical of old villas. He crossed the threshold and, once inside, called out the signora’s two surnames. No reply. The light from a half-open door filtered out from the top of the stairwell. As his eyesight adjusted to the darkness, he began to look around. Some antique furniture, a Baroque mirror, many paintings. A monumental staircase in grey pietra serena ascended to the upper floors. A worn carpet of red fabric ran up the centre of the steps.

‘Signora Pedretti, don’t be afraid. My name is Inspector Bordelli, I’m with the police,’ he called, slowly ascending the stairs towards the light. He stopped in front of the half-open door and knocked. No reply. He pushed it and felt a slight shudder pass over his face, as if he had walked into a spider’s web: an elderly woman lay face up across a bed, her nightgown raised up to her belly. Bordelli approached, suppressing the impulse to cover her accidental nudity. The woman’s wrinkled hands were round her neck, her eyes bulging in an expression of fear. Her narrow brow looked blackened round the temples. Her bony white feet, veined with blue, were suspended in air, just over the edge of the bed. On the sheet beside the woman’s head was a glass, half overturned. The lady companion had guessed right: Signora Pedretti-Strassen was dead. On the bedside rug were her slippers, lined up straight, as well as a bottle of water, uncapped and half empty, and a book that looked as if it had been unceremoniously tossed aside. The inspector cocked his head to read the title: Fatal Passion . On the bedside table he noticed a small dark bottle with a black cap; without touching it, he bent down to read the label: Asthmaben. Fact number one: the lady suffered from asthma.