Tobias Jones - The Salati Case

‘Never sure about anything. But he didn’t deny it this morning.’

She stared blankly over my shoulder and considered the implications. I guessed that her first thought would be dismay that there might exist yet another man to destabilise her daughter. But when she spoke she seemed only piqued by the hypocrisy of the Salati woman. Her lips were pursed.

‘So all that time she was criticising the way we were living, she was lying to all and sundry. She must have known this might have something to do with Ricky’s disappearance, and yet she never…’ She looked into the distance and then stared at me. ‘You’re sure about this?’

I nodded.

‘Nothing surprises me any more,’ she said dreamily. ‘All the stability we construct around ourselves collapses sooner or later. I’ve had so much collapse that I don’t bother trying to construct anything any more.’

Except your hair, I thought to myself. ‘You said Tonin came round here looking for Ricky that week after he disappeared…’

She nodded.

‘What happened exactly? He came round to your caravan?’

‘Sure.’

‘And did he go inside?’

She shut her eyes. ‘I can’t possibly remember.’

‘Think about it. It’s important.’

She shook her head and looked at me. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t know.’ Witnesses were unreliable at the best of times, but fourteen years later they’re as good as useless.

‘Did you ever get the impression he was looking for anything other than Riccardo?’

She shook her head and frowned, not sure what I was implying.

‘Is Elisabetta in?’ I asked.

‘I’m not going to allow you to slip a hand grenade like this into her life. She’s unstable enough as it is right now. She’s barely recovered from what happened yesterday.’ She tried to stare at me with anger, but it was all burned out now. ‘I think she’s mourning her grandmother and her father and her childhood all at once, and this would only confuse her further. Let her sleep.’

The phone started ringing inside and she held up a finger and went in to answer it. I followed her into her flat and whilst she was still talking on the phone I started opening the doors. I found the girl in a small bedroom with the blinds down. She was propped up on pillows and was staring at the ceiling.

‘Elisabetta?’ I said quietly. ‘It’s Castagnetti. We spoke on the phone yesterday.’

She moved her eyes rather than her head to look at me.

‘Your mother seems to think I’m to blame for upsetting you yesterday.’

‘My mother’, she said with her eyes shut, ‘will always blame anyone except herself.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘She thought I had got overexcited by the thought of… you know, the thought that you were going to find my father.’

‘I told you, I don’t think he’s still alive.’

‘Yeah,’ she said like she was high and couldn’t care less, ‘I know.’

I felt sorry for her, but I didn’t want to be accused of building up her hopes. Ricky was dead, I felt sure.

‘I don’t think he’s alive. But I’ll try to find out what happened.’ It was my standard speech. It was what the bereaved normally wanted most. If they couldn’t have their loved one back, alive and well, they wanted to know, that was all. They yearned for what they most feared. They wanted, just once, to see the kill, because it couldn’t possibly be worse than what they had imagined.

‘You need some sleep. I’ll be back again one day when you’re better and we can talk about what’s come up.’

She just nodded and followed me out with her eyes.

As I was walking down the corridor it struck me that I couldn’t understand how a man could resist contacting his granddaughter. Surely he would want to write to her, arrange to see her, try to claim her as his own whatever the consequences. It didn’t seem natural to me. Tonin appeared to be a pretty cold-blooded customer, and it was true that he had kept his distance from his son all those years. But there didn’t seem any good reason not to reach out to a granddaughter, especially since his wife knew everything anyway. It didn’t make sense to me.

I was still in the narrow corridor when the di Pietro woman came back. ‘What are you doing in here?’ She took me by my collar and dragged me to the door. She pushed me towards the stairs and waved me away. ‘Leave her alone. Can’t you understand? I’m trying to look after her.’

I waved her goodbye with over-zealous politeness and walked down the steps.

I could understand her. Protecting a girl made more sense than ignoring her, that was for sure. If it was really the girl she was protecting. My mind started going paranoid. I began to wonder why she wouldn’t want me to talk to her daughter. It hardly seemed like little Elisabetta could be a threat to anyone. A toddler can’t keep a secret. That was Tonin’s speciality.

As soon as I walked into the hotel it felt wrong. Almost all the lights were off and there was no one at the front desk. I walked through to the bar, but it was empty.

‘Lo Bue?’ I asked to the empty room. I was just reaching under my arm for the rod when I was smacked across the shoulders by a metal pole. My cheek caught the corner of a glass table as I went down.

A couple of kicks were aimed at my stomach and head. I put my hands up to protect my face and I rolled over into a ball, but the kicks kept coming against my spine.

‘Basta.’ The voice sounded mean, but it came as a relief.

I looked up through the warm blood which was dripping off my eyebrow. The fat barman from yesterday was retreating, sweating slightly after the effort of his little game of football.

The man who had called time put his face in mine. ‘Don’t ever come into my joint and wave a pistol at my staff.’ It was the Calabrian I had spoken to on the phone yesterday.

‘This the welcome you always offer your guests?’ I said, spitting out some blood.

‘The hotel is closed.’

‘I can see why.’

Fatso stepped forward wanting to go again, but the short one held out his hand and knelt down near my face. He pulled back my head by taking a fistful of hair. ‘You know who I am?’

‘Lo Bue, the manager of this shit-hole?’ I tried to sound casual.

‘Very good.’ The man smiled. His teeth appeared bright and expensive, out of keeping with the rest of his ugly face. He looked like an up-ended anvil: a thick nose on a narrow head. ‘My barman tells me you were here yesterday playing the tough guy. You were lucky he didn’t kill you.’ The man let go of my hair and my head smacked on to the floor.

‘What do you know about Ricky Salati?’ Lo Bue asked.

‘Ricky Salati?’ I repeated, trying to work out what was going on. ‘I told your heavy back there. He went missing in 1995. That’s all I know.’ I glanced up at Lo Bue. He looked more greedy than guilty.

‘Why are you interested?’ I asked him.

The man slapped me with the palm of his hand. It felt almost soft after the toe-caps I had taken already.

‘I was asking what you want. Why are you poking around now, asking questions? What’s the idea?’ The man put his face real close. I could smell whisky and mint. His skin was saggy and tired, even as he grimaced. ‘What’s it to you? What are you doing exactly?’

‘Trying to find out what happened to the boy. No one’s seen him for fourteen years. His mother’s died. There’s an estate.’ The man nodded and I took my chance: ‘You seem almost happy I came along.’

The man leaned forward and hit me with a backhand. I poked my tongue into a new hole on my lower lip and tasted the blood: it tasted like chestnuts.

‘I don’t think you know who I am,’ Lo Bue said. ‘What makes me happy is seeing debts paid and, if that’s not possible, punishing the debtors.’