The Villa Triste Read online

  ‘Boss?’

  Enzo dodged past the policewoman who, having placed the bollards in the road outside, was now standing guard under the portico, her neon anorak dripping onto the tiles. Enzo himself was soaked, and apparently oblivious to the fact. He had an excited clip to his stride, and was holding up an evidence bag for Pallioti to examine. In the dull light, it took Pallioti a moment to see that it was a wallet. A long black leather man’s wallet.

  ‘His ID’s inside,’ Enzo said. ‘Initials on it.’

  He flipped the bag so Pallioti could see a brightly embossed gold G.B.T. It would be Giovanni Battiste, of course. Pallioti didn’t need to ask what the man’s birthday would turn out to be.

  ‘Where?’ he asked.

  Enzo grinned.

  ‘Alley beside the house, about halfway down. I’ve had it taped off. There’s the ID, a couple of cards. Not a single banknote inside it. But there is this.’

  He produced a second evidence bag from somewhere inside his jacket, flourishing it like a magician. Inside was what appeared to be a soggy piece of white paper.

  ‘Cheque receipt,’ Enzo said.

  Pallioti had almost forgotten the things existed. Little plastic cards had taken over the world.

  ‘It was in the cash pocket,’ Enzo was saying. ‘He cashed a cheque for five hundred euros at twelve minutes past three yesterday afternoon. I’m going upstairs to find the chequebook.’ Enzo wheeled away and took the first steps of the staircase two at a time. ‘The safe guy’s on his way,’ he called.

  His words echoed in the hallway. Watching him, Pallioti wondered what it was he had been about to ask Marta just before Enzo appeared. Then he remembered. Turning back towards her, he said, ‘Forgive me, Signora Buonifaccio, but the letter?’

  ‘The letter?’

  Marta was staring at the spot on the landing where Enzo had vanished, turning up the next flight of the staircase. ‘Oh,’ she said suddenly, ‘the letter. Yes.’

  She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out an envelope. She handed it to Pallioti. The paper was thick, expensive. The inky writing on the envelope had run slightly in the rain, making the address look as if it had dripped. He turned it over and saw the little dragon rearing in its circle. Then he said, ‘It’s open.’

  Marta looked at him. Then she nodded, nothing more than a slight dip of her head.

  ‘It was open when you found it? In the waste-paper bin?’

  Marta’s head dipped again. ‘I thought I should check,’ she said. ‘Be certain he hadn’t made a mistake. It didn’t look like the sort of thing you’d mean to throw away.’

  October 25, 2006

  My Dear Signor Trantemento,

  It was such a pleasure to see you, as ever, last month in your beautiful city.

  I have considered the proposal you made at the time in order to help me expand my collection, and after some thought on the matter, have decided that it is by far the best course of action, since – as you pointed out – I am unable to travel as frequently as would be desirable in order to view potential acquisitions. Your proposal also, as you remarked, avoids the increasingly intrusive nature of the ‘wretched airport security’ (may they rot in Hell!). I would therefore like to empower you to act on my behalf, as I consider your taste impeccable and in close tandem to my own. I look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration in celebration of our shared enthusiasm.

  Yours truly,

  The letter was typed on a single sheet of paper embossed with the heading David, Lord Eppsy, Eppsy House, 15 Pont Street, London SW1. For the life of him, Pallioti would never understand why it was that the fancier a man’s title was, the less likely it was that he would be able to sign his name as anything more recognizable than a scrawl.

  He pushed the letter away with a pang of disappointment. He had not seriously expected that it would hold some magical clue that would give him the name of Trantemento’s killer. But he had hoped that it might be marginally more interesting than a little billet doux between pornography collectors.

  Of course, he thought, looking at it again, David, Lord Eppsy might have been referring to a shared passion for stamps. But the reference to, and damnation of, the already benighted airport security workers suggested otherwise. A pair of dirty old men, he thought sourly. That was what was disappointing him. The Englishman – well, they liked that kind of thing. But somehow it made him unhappy to think of a great hero of the liberation, one of those sharp-eyed, too-thin boys with a rifle slung over his shoulder, being reduced to this – a lonely old man living out his life in a mangy overstuffed apartment surrounded by exquisitely drawn depictions of sodomy.

  He glanced at his watch. The autopsy was due to start in half an hour. He had volunteered to be present, leaving Enzo free to get his team up and running. It was a strange thing, but Pallioti, who had been known to feel queasy putting a sticking plaster on his own finger, had never found autopsies bothersome. He sometimes found it difficult to deal with the wounded living, but never the dead. They had no pain left in their eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t just his mouth.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The medical examiner looked up at him and nodded.

  ‘Yes. Oh. There is salt in his stomach, oesophagus, and throat. Rather a lot of it. In fact,’ she added, ‘if he hadn’t been shot, he probably would have choked.’

  ‘So the killer made him—’ Pallioti shook his head. There was something about it. It was brutal in a way he hadn’t before encountered. He had seen stabbings, shootings, stranglings – any number of things. But there was some kind of odd, symbolic – and very personal – cruelty to this that made him cold despite the ample heating in the observation room.

  ‘Eat it,’ the medical examiner said. ‘Whoever killed him, made him eat salt.’

  ‘How much?’

  She cocked her head and considered the eviscerated body that lay open on the table in front of her.

  ‘Quite a lot,’ she said. ‘I’ll be precise in the report, obviously. But I’d say at least half a kilogram. Perhaps more.’ She glanced up at him. ‘It must have been horrible. But people can do extraordinary things when they’re terrified.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  Pallioti was no longer entirely sure he wanted to know, but the question had to be asked.

  ‘Not really.’ She shook her head. ‘There are no defensive wounds. None. Which is a little strange. For whatever reason, it looks like he ate the salt more or less willingly. Didn’t even try to fight back. From where the body was, I would have thought that was because he was taken by surprise. Except for the salt. I’ll analyse it by the way, of course,’ she added. ‘But I think your Tybalt was right.’

  Despite himself, Pallioti smiled at her description of Enzo. He did look suspiciously like one of the Capulets.

  ‘My guess is ordinary table salt,’ she continued, shrugging. ‘He was in good condition otherwise, for a man of his age. Eyesight going, a bit. The glasses. But he didn’t wear a hearing aid, or have a plastic hip or a pig valve in his heart.’

  She contemplated the body thoughtfully. As of now, the investigation was following the obvious line of enquiry, looking for a burglary or some kind of rendezvous that had gone wrong. Pallioti had heard of escorts, gigolos, and rent boys who carried guns. He had never heard of one who carried bags of table salt. As far as he knew, no more than a tiny dish of sea salt crystals had been found in the apartment’s kitchen. He reached behind him for his overcoat. A restless, itchy feeling had come over him and he wanted to be alone for a few minutes before he talked to the Mayor, or even to Enzo.

  ‘Oh, and I was right,’ the medical examiner added, looking up at him. ‘About the bullet. I’ll get it down to ballistics, pronto. But it was small calibre. No exit wound. It lodged. One shot, definitely. At contact, into the back of the skull.’ She smiled. ‘From above.’

  Pallioti’s hands stopped in the act of buttoning his coat.

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘Fr
om above,’ she repeated. ‘I told you, I was almost certain when I was back there in the apartment, but now I’ve measured the angle. Whoever shot this man was standing directly above and behind him, close enough for the gun barrel to make contact. You can see clearly, the burn markings—’

  ‘Powder burns?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘that’s right. On the back of his head. And the killer was aiming down. Definitely down.’

  ‘So what do you think happened?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, shrugging, ‘it looks to me as if his killer made him kneel, eat a large quantity of table salt, then stuffed his mouth with it and shot him in the back of the head.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘You’re saying that it was an execution?’

  The term was too melodramatic for Pallioti’s taste. If this was a gang killing, some half-witted bunch of drug dealers picking each other off, he wouldn’t have hesitated to call it what it was. An execution. A hit. An assassination. All of which implied, not a random crime, but some kind of vendetta. A planned act of revenge. Which in turn suggested that the victim had done something to deserve it.

  He made a faint humming noise.

  ‘Well,’ he said, finally, ‘I have to admit, I don’t know how else you’d describe torturing someone, making them kneel, and shooting them once in the back of the head.’

  ‘It doesn’t fit,’ Enzo said. ‘The shooting, maybe. But when you throw in the salt. The kneeling.’ He shook his head. Then he added, ‘Or maybe it does. There’s not a fingerprint anywhere. Not in the elevator, on the door, in the apartment – nothing. There’s not a fibre, a hair. Anything. Maybe some grit from the street.’

  Pallioti shrugged.

  ‘That could mean whoever did it wore gloves and got lucky.’

  Even as he said it, he didn’t think he believed it.

  Enzo glanced at him. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ignoring the ‘get lucky’ theory, ‘if whoever it was was that good, why drop the wallet in the alley? Why take it at all? Opportune cash theft and execution doesn’t fit. Any more than the salt. It doesn’t make any sense.’

  For a moment, the image of Giovanni Trantemento’s face hung in the room between them. Pallioti flicked his hand as though he was flicking away a fly. He had just had a brief conversation with the investigating magistrate who, for now, was busy enough on what he considered more important cases to be content to stand on the sidelines. Prior to that, he had filled in the Mayor. In between, he had taken a call from one of the Questura’s press officers who bore the unwelcome news that a small piece had already appeared in one of the evening papers. So far, it was not much more than local colour. Ageing Hero Slain in Safety of Own Home. For now, the Questura had simply issued a confirmation of the tragic killing. But there was no guarantee that the story wouldn’t – and in fact a fair to good chance that it would – grip, if not the public’s imagination, then the imaginations of the city’s editors. Should that happen, a press conference would become inevitable. Having something concrete to say at it would be advantageous.

  ‘It makes sense to someone,’ he said. ‘So, what are we doing about finding them?’

  Enzo sank down into one of the black leather armchairs by the window and began ticking off points on his fingers.

  ‘We’re sweeping all the gay bars and clubs. We’ve got good contacts, so if there’s something there we ought to hear about it. Somebody with some weird salt fetishes, likes to play execution games – I don’t know. We’re going over CCTV footage from cameras near the building—’

  Pallioti, who had been studying the edge of his blotter, looked up.

  ‘Are there any?’

  ‘Not really,’ Enzo said. ‘An indoor parking garage a couple of blocks away. But you never know, we might get lucky. Spot someone we recognize.’ He ticked off another finger. ‘I’ve got people back at the building now, going apartment to apartment while everyone’s home for dinner. Did he have enemies? Get any threats? Behave strangely? Any strangers lurking around? We’re checking the guy who distributes the fliers in case he noticed anybody. I’m getting hold of Trantemento’s bank records. We’re trying to find out everything we can about his business contacts. And with any luck, sometime tomorrow we’ll get the ballistics back on the bullet. We should get something off it. If we do, we’ll get it out on the databases. Between that and the salt, it should be distinctive. If our friend has done this before anywhere in Europe, it’ll show up. In our dreams, we get a match to the weapon. If we don’t find it first. We’ve impounded the rubbish containers within five blocks. The other thing,’ he added, ‘is the safe.’

  Pallioti raised his eyebrows. The thing had looked like it came from an American gangster film from the 1930s. He’d assumed it could be opened with a bent paper clip, or at a stretch, a nail file.

  ‘Apparently,’ Enzo said, ‘Signor Trantemento was security minded – at least with his papers, if not his front door. The safe is fitted with some very fancy mechanism. Our guy couldn’t open it. We had to get a specialist. The closest one is in Genoa.’

  Why, Pallioti thought, did that not surprise him?

  Enzo glanced at his watch. ‘He should be there now.’

  Pallioti looked out of the window for a moment. The piazza was dark. Lights glittered on the wet pavement.

  ‘What do we know about Giovanni Trantemento?’ he asked.

  ‘Apart from the fact that somebody, somewhere, apparently thought he was important enough to torture and kill?’ Enzo shrugged. ‘So far, not much. Never married. Lived in the apartment more than forty years. Forty-one to be exact. No criminal record. Doesn’t own a car. Doesn’t have a computer. We’re going through his desk and address book, all that. And I’ll send someone to Rome. But I thought I’d wait until we can get hold of a copy of his will.’

  Pallioti frowned.

  ‘He has a sister,’ Enzo explained. ‘Apparently his only living relative. In Rome. Polizia down there have sent someone along to break the news. But of course I’ll send one of our own people as well. I just thought we might as well wait, though, see if there’s a will in the safe and who inherits before we ask questions.’

  ‘I have to be in Rome tomorrow. If you can wait that long.’

  An inter-agency briefing at the Ministry had been scheduled for months. Wriggling out of it was out of the question. Paying a visit to Giovanni Trantemento’s sister might not be everyone’s idea of excitement, but it would at least provide a counterpoint to the rest of the day, which promised to be bureaucratic and possibly vicious.

  Seeing his face, Enzo smiled.

  ‘It would be an honour, Dottore,’ he said, ‘if you think you could possibly fit it in.’

  Marta Buonifaccio stood in her doorway and watched as the men came down the stairs. There were two of them. They were both wearing jeans, running shoes, and leather jackets. Not that it mattered. They moved like every other policeman she had ever seen.

  There were others upstairs, two women knocking on doors. They had thrown her slightly at first, because they were women. And young. Barely girls. So she’d opened her door and stood there, confused. Then she’d looked in their eyes and understood. They didn’t need a badge. They could go where they liked, ask whatever they wanted.

  Had she seen anyone? Noticed anything strange? Or out of the ordinary? Did she know Signor Trantemento? Did he have visitors?

  No, no, no, not really, and not that she noticed. As answers went, they weren’t entirely untrue. But even if they had been, that’s what she would have said. Because that was how you did it. That was how you made your own luck – by keeping your eyes down and your mouth shut.

  The men were on the last steps. The first one, who had been talking on his mobile phone, flipped it closed and dropped it into his pocket. The second one, behind him, adjusted the box he was carrying, holding it out in front of him in both arms as if it were valuable, which it was. All of Giovanni Battiste Trantemento’s secrets were in it. That’s what they were taking awa
y. They’d been at it all evening.

  He hadn’t been dead for a day yet, Marta thought, and already they were gutting his life – pulling his entrails out so they could read them the way the fortune-tellers had read the guts of cows and pigs centuries ago. Slit them open and thrown the innards down on the slick stones, then taken a gold coin to see the future in them, until Lorenzo got sick of the smell and banished the butchers from the bridge, handed it over to the gold-sellers who still sat there today in their rabbit hutches.

  The men’s shoes squeaked as they crossed the flagged floor of the hall. Marta did not move. She had been so still that they had not even noticed her, standing in the shadows beside the fireplace.

  As soon as they were gone, as soon as the big front door had creaked and slammed and cut off the gust of damp air that floated in, she stepped back through the open door of her apartment. Marta closed it so quietly that it didn’t make any noise at all. She was good at that.

  She stood and looked around her little sitting room. The inside of her oyster shell. If they came for her, what would they find? Which pearls would they pluck?

  None. Nothing. Not one thing.

  She resolved it then and there. The boxes they carried away would be full of china cups, a teapot. Photographs. Frames. Worn clothes. A sweater with a darned elbow. A jacket with a muskrat collar. A hat that looked as if someone had sat on it. All the leftovers of her life.

  But no secrets. She would make sure of that.

  Enzo Saenz gave a low whistle.

  ‘No wonder he wasn’t happy with the original locks.’

  Pallioti, who had been fingering a pile of papers, looked up. The safe had been opened. Now the heavily guarded contents of Giovanni Trantemento’s little Aladdin’s cave, all of which had been pirated away in a series of cardboard boxes, were being laid out for examination.

  ‘How much is there?’ he asked.

  Enzo frowned, then thumbed the stack of notes he was holding. Even with the latex gloves on, he could count money as fast as any casino cashier.