Tobias Jones - The Salati Case

‘Castagnetti,’ said Dall’Aglio, ‘just the man.’

‘Did you give my name to the press?’

‘Of course I didn’t. If it’s any consolation, we’ve probably got more journalists out here than Palazzo Chigi. There have been fifteen of them on my tail all morning.’

‘Understandable. It is a murder.’ I said it pointedly, trying to trip Dall’Aglio into an indiscretion.

‘Listen, it’s far too early to know what it is. My instinct says you’re probably right, but I’m not going to go public until I’m very sure of the facts.’

‘Which are?’

‘You tell me.’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Had you spoken to Salati about your investigations?’

‘Sure.’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday. In his shop. His assistant was there. I’ve been in regular contact with him ever since Monday.’

‘No sign he had something like this in mind?’

‘None at all. He was a man in mourning, he looked tired, but he wasn’t broken. There’s no way this was suicide. I feel, somehow, like I caused his death…’ I let the sentence hang there, hoping Dall’Aglio would agree to cooperate.

‘Meaning?’

‘You’ll reciprocate?’

‘Don’t I always? Go on, tell me…’

‘It turns out Riccardo, the younger brother, wasn’t quite what he seemed. He was the son of Massimo Tonin, the lawyer. Tonin had an affair with the Salati woman back in the 1970s. I told Salati as much yesterday and he was round there in a shot.’

‘Where?’

‘The Tonin estate.’

‘You tailed him?’

‘Sure.’

‘And you saw him come back?’

‘I saw him get back in his car, the black jeep, and leave the Tonin place. That was the last I saw of him until this morning.’

‘What time did he leave their place?’

I looked at my notebook. ‘Seven thirty-nine. If he went straight home, he would have been there by eight.’

Dall’Aglio was silent. It was probably the best lead they had and I thought I might as well pass on everything. ‘There’s something else. I’ve got a Visa slip for a payment that interests me.’ I read the six numbers out of my notebook. ‘Six Two Two Zero Four Nine. Put a trace on that and let me know.’

‘What is it?’

‘Someone appears to have been impersonating the younger brother. Published a notice of mourning in Monday’s Gazzetta .’

‘You’re sure of this?’

I didn’t reply because there wasn’t any certainty about anything.

‘You’re sure it’s not Riccardo himself?’

‘I would be very surprised. But yeah, it’s just about possible. Trace it.’

‘OK. What else?’

‘That’s it so far.’

Dall’Aglio sighed.

‘You?’ I asked expectantly.

‘Not much yet. The autopsy is due back this afternoon. That’ll tell us more.’

‘Who’s doing it?’

‘I don’t know. One of the regulars. There’s just one thing that worries me at the moment. We haven’t found his keys.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We haven’t got Umberto Salati’s keys. It’s a minor detail and I’m sure they’ll turn up, but for the moment we haven’t found any. Not on his person, and not in his flat.’

I frowned. That was something and Dall’Aglio knew it. He was pretending it was a minor irritant, but they would already have been through the flat with a toothcomb and if they hadn’t found the keys it meant they weren’t there.

‘The keys weren’t on him?’

‘Nothing in his pockets except cigarettes and a lighter.’

I suddenly had something to go on and felt restless. As always, it wasn’t something so much as the absence of something. It didn’t make sense that no keys had been found. It made the whole official narrative of the suicide seem implausible. If Salati had let himself into his flat, where were the keys? If they were in his pocket when he jumped, why weren’t they on him when he was found? If Salati didn’t have his keys, how had he let himself into the flat?

‘It’s definitely murder isn’t it?’

Dall’Aglio gave a non-committal grunt. ‘If so, we have another problem. There was no murder weapon.’

‘Gravity,’ I said. ‘That and the ground.’

‘And the push,’ Dall’Aglio said, as if he was fantasising, imagining people behind Salati, pushing him off the balcony. ‘I can imagine lots of people at his shoulders, itching to give him a nudge. He had enough enemies from what I can work out.’

‘Friends too,’ I said, ‘they’re the real danger.’

‘Bad friends are like beans,’ Dall’Aglio said. ‘They make noise behind your back.’

I laughed. ‘He had more than noise behind him, by the look of it. You’ll let me know about the autopsy and that Visa slip?’

‘Yes, yes.’

I needed to get hold of Salati’s shop assistant. I phoned a friend who had a small clothing boutique the other side of the piazza, on Via Nazario Sauro.

‘It’s Casta,’ I said. ‘You heard about Umberto Salati?’

‘I heard just now. Is it one of your cases?’

‘Not really. I’m investigating something else, but now this has come up. Listen, I wanted to know about Salati’s assistant, Laura. You don’t know her surname by any chance?’

‘Laura? I know her. Cute chick.’

‘A name?’

‘Laura’s all I ever heard her called.’

‘Did they have something going on?’

‘Umberto didn’t employ girls unless something was going

on, if you know what I mean. He liked a high staff turn-over, liked to keep everything fresh.’

‘And you don’t remember her name?’

‘No idea. But I could ask the girl who works here on a Saturday, she would probably know. I’ll call you back.’

The line went dead. I stared out of the window. There were two men playing cards on the steps by the statue of Padre Pio.

The phone started ringing again. ‘Laura Montanari, that’s the name.’

I thanked him and reached for the phone book. There were hundreds of Montanaris. I could have found out which one it was from Dall’Aglio, but I wanted to work on my own. I phoned them one by one until a man came on the phone and started shouting about how the press should leave his daughter alone. That was a decent giveaway.

I wrote down the address and was there within a few minutes.

Her father answered the door.

‘I’ve told you, she’s not making any statement…’ He stopped as he looked at my badge.

‘Who are you?’

‘Private investigator. I need to talk to your daughter. She knows me. I was a friend of Umberto Salati.’

Montanari looked at me with suspicion but opened the door. I walked inside and saw the young girl lying on a sofa. By the high standards of a shop assistant she was dressed down. It looked like she had been crying.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly. Her father had left the room. ‘When did you hear?’

‘This morning. When he hadn’t opened up I went round there.’

‘To his?’

‘Sure.’

‘You reported it?’

She nodded. It looked like her eyes were going to overflow again, so I waited.

‘You’ve got keys to his place?’

She looked up to see if her father was in earshot. ‘Sure,’ she said softly.

‘I want to know about his keys. Were they all on one ring?’

‘Big bunch, sure.’

‘Could you describe Umberto’s key-ring to me?’

‘It was one of the free ones from the shop we give to our customers.’

‘Have you got any here?’

‘No. But I could show you…’

‘What’s written on them?’

‘Just the name of the shop, Salati Fashions.’

‘Did he ever forget them?’

‘All the time.’

‘How many times in the last month?’

‘Three or four. He would normally call me just as I was going to bed. He would phone to ask me to let him into his flat. I was never sure whether he really had lost them, or whether it was a ruse to get me round there. That was part of the reason my father didn’t like him. He would call me late at night, and I would have to go round there to let him in, and then usually I would go up and you know…’ Tears fell off her cheeks on to her lap.