The Deliverance of Evil (47 page)

“What did you talk about?”

“Manfredi made confession for the first time in his life. The poor young man was shattered.”

“Shattered by what, Eminence?”

“It was a confession, Captain Balistreri. Just as I would never reveal the confession you just made to anyone, I would never reveal his. But I am concerned for Fiorella Romani’s life, so I will swear to you by the Virgin Mary that Manfredi was with me between six thirty and seven thirty and therefore could not have killed Elisa Sordi.”

“That doesn’t even make sense. Why didn’t Ulla tell the truth to prove her son’s innocence?” Balistreri said.

“You obviously don’t know Count Tommaso dei Banchi di Aglieno very well. Ulla was afraid to tell him that she’d taken Manfredi to confession. The marriage would have been over, and the count would never have spoken to Manfredi again. She begged me to keep quiet, and then I asked Gina Giansanti to lie.”

Balistreri realized that there was some sense to the explanation, but there were other consequences to the lie that Alessandrini could not pretend to ignore.

“Other people have benefited from Gina Giansanti’s lie, Your Eminence.”

“I know. I decided that saving an innocent man was more important than punishing the guilty. Honestly, I thought the police would find the real culprit—a face in the crowd.”

“And you don’t think it could have been someone on the inside, someone who received a cast-iron alibi from Gina Giansanti?”

“No,” Alessandrini replied sharply. Then more softly, “I don’t think so. Valerio Bona wouldn’t have done anything like that. And Father Paul is out of the question—he was at San Valente the whole time.”

“You could be mistaken, Eminence.”

“I admit I was mistaken about Hagi, but not about Valerio Bona and Father Paul.”

Balistreri decided to say nothing about Valerio Bona’s forthcoming interrogation.

“There’s also the count,” he said instead.

“Of course,” Alessandrini said, getting up. “And there’s me, Captain Balistreri. Now, however, I must tend to the living.”

The conversation was at an end. The cardinal rose, made the sign of the cross, and left.

. . . .

Balistreri went back to the office by bus, winding past sun-baked tourists in shorts and Romans out for a walk at that hour to avoid the worst of the heat.

When he arrived, Valerio Bona was waiting for him in the interrogation room. Balistreri wanted to see him under pressure. He was the former boyfriend, the one without an alibi. And the letters carved on the girls formed an anagram of his name.

He was accompanied by a young female lawyer who sailed with him. The public prosecutor had assumed responsibility for the Elisa Sordi investigation on the grounds that it was linked to the principal enquiry. Balistreri sat in front of Valerio, with Piccolo and Corvu at either side.

“I’d respectfully like to inquire why my client has been summoned here,” Bona’s lawyer said to the public prosecutor.

“We’ve reopened the investigation into Elisa Sordi’s death based on new evidence that emerged. Captain Balistreri will question your client, then we’ll decide whether to detain him.”

Bona looked shocked. “You’ve decided to reopen the investigation? That’s not what you said the other day.”

“New evidence has emerged in the last few hours, some of which involves you directly. We have to reconstruct the events of the afternoon of July 11, 1982.”

“What’s the point?” Bona’s lawyer protested. “Marius Hagi has already confessed.”

Balistreri remembered Valerio Bona’s insecurity and apprehension. At least back then, he’d given in to pressure easily.

“Hagi didn’t kill Elisa Sordi,” Balistreri said sharply.

Valerio turned pale and started fiddling with the gold crucifix around his neck.

“There’s important new evidence,” Balistreri continued. “Elisa Sordi could have been killed any time after six thirty. She left the office then, not at eight o’clock.”

Valerio Bona’s face displayed the incredulous look of someone called to account after twenty-four years. But he also showed a touch of relief. That surprised Balistreri.

Bona’s lawyer cut in. “I assume there’s no chance you’ll share the basis for this new theory with us.”

“You assume correctly,” Balistreri replied. “Now, Mr. Bona, let’s start at the end. Where were you after six thirty?”

“You already know; I told you at the time. I saw Elisa right after lunch, near the gate on Via della Camilluccia. Then I went to Villa Pamphili on my moped. I sat under a tree and studied for my exam. Around eight fifteen I went home to watch the game with my parents and some other people. Then I went to bed. My parents’ friends testified to that effect back then.”

“I’m well aware of that. Every other time Italy won, you went out and celebrated with your friends, but after the game of the decade, you went to bed.”

“I was worried about the exam. I wanted to get some sleep.”

“And because of an exam you didn’t end up taking, you didn’t go out to celebrate Italy’s victory in the World Cup. I don’t believe you. I saw the pictures of the 2006 champions on your boat. I think you were upset, Mr. Bona, about what had happened that afternoon.”

Valerio Bona was shaking. “No. I didn’t speak to her again that day, I swear to God.”

A mix of emotions flitted across Bona’s face: pain, shame, and remorse.

He shook his head. “I don’t believe you. And, leaving God out of it, there are other reasons I don’t believe you.”

The lawyer lost her patience and turned to the public prosecutor. “I’d appreciate a little more transparency here.”

The public prosecutor nodded to Balistreri, who then continued.

“We think there’s an outside accomplice in the series of crimes attributed to Marius Hagi in the past year. You knew him back in 1982. And you have no alibi for these crimes. In fact, you were in Ostia on your boat the day Ornella Corona was killed.”

Valerio Bona’s eyes opened wide. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

“I’m deadly serious, and you should take this seriously, too, Mr. Bona. Tell me the truth about that day in 1982.”

The lawyer asked for a break in order to speak to Bona alone. Balistreri took the opportunity to smoke a cigarette in his office.

“He’s guilty,” Corvu said.

“I’m not sure,” Piccolo said.

“He’s guilty of something, but I don’t know what,” Balistreri said.

When they went back into the room, Valerio Bona looked resigned and relieved, almost resolute. He was gripping his crucifix tightly.

“My client will make a voluntary statement about the events of the afternoon of July 11, 1982,” his lawyer said. “He will respond to any questions on that matter. He will not respond to any questions about more recent events and states categorically that he has no connection with them.”

“Okay, Mr. Bona, let’s hear what you have to say,” Balistreri said.

Valerio was now resolved, like a child who’s been persuaded to take some very bitter medicine and wants to do so quickly, to get it over with.

“I couldn’t concentrate in the park at Villa Pamphili. I was sure that Elisa was seeing someone, and I wanted her to tell me to my face. A little after five, I went to Via della Camilluccia to speak to her. I parked my moped around the corner and saw you, Captain Balistreri, with Count Tommaso, who had just arrived. It must have been around a quarter to six. You and the count spoke for less than a minute, and then he went to Building A and you went around the long way to the cardinal’s.”

Balistreri nodded. He remembered every instant well.

He wanted to go up to see her
.

Valerio took a breath and continued. “I was hiding around the corner. I saw Father Paul hurrying out—you’d probably already spoken to him. He got into his Volkswagen with Gina Giansanti, who was going to Mass, and they drove off together.”

While I was looking up at that window and couldn’t make up my mind.

“The door to Building B was open. I went in. The elevator was in use—it was you going up, Captain Balistreri. I waited a minute, because I couldn’t decide what to do. Then I made up my mind and went up to the third floor on foot.”

Valerio Bona stopped. His face reflected the horror of that memory.

“I knew Elisa wouldn’t let me in, and the door to the offices was closed, but not locked. I went in and immediately noticed that it was absolutely silent. I figured she’d gone out to buy cigarettes and left the door unlocked. I paused outside her office door.”

Valerio stopped to take a breath, and in that moment, before he opened a door that had remained closed for twenty-four years, Balistreri knew that the mistake he’d made that day was far worse than he’d imagined all this time. Now the specter glimpsed while he was attacking Linda Nardi began to take shape.

“If I hadn’t gone in, my whole life would have been different. I’d have stayed with IBM and gotten married. I’d have children today. But I wanted to speak to her. I was desperate, so I went in. Elisa’s body was on the floor next to the wall. Her blouse and her bra were torn and there was blood on her breasts. She had a black eye, a cut lip, and a bruise on her cheek. I didn’t go any closer. I stood and stared at her for a moment. Then I ran out and shut the door behind me. A minute later I was on my moped, and I got out of there as fast as I could.”

The public prosecutor looked at Balistreri in disbelief, and Balistreri looked at Bona. He felt no sympathy at all for him. What he felt was fury. If only he had had eyes, ears, and a heart that day.

He shook himself out of his pointless, gloomy thoughts. He had to save Fiorella Romani. That was the only real, urgent, fundamental thing to be done. And the road was laid out—he only had to sweep aside whoever had put themselves in the way.

“There are two possibilities, Mr. Bona. The first is that you’re lying and you killed Elisa Sordi outside the office between six thirty and eight. The second is that you’re telling the truth, and if you’d told the truth at the time the perpetrator would now have been in prison for many years.”

“I know, and I’ve tortured myself over that. I didn’t say anything because I was so shocked, and later I was confused. The body was found in the Tiber. The concierge said that Elisa had left at eight that night. I thought I’d had some kind of hallucination.”

Have you confessed to this? Has a priest given you absolution? How many Our Fathers and Hail Marys? Do you think you’ve earned a spot in heaven?

All his hatred for those who had deceived him was focused on Valerio Bona, as if by destroying him he could wipe out his past.

“I hope you’re lying, Mr. Bona. I hope so for your sake, because if what you’re saying is true, your silence caused the death of four young women, a young Senegalese man, and four policemen, as well as the suicides of Manfredi’s mother and Elisa’s mother.”

Valerio looked petrified. His hands with their chewed fingernails searched desperately for the crucifix, but his eyes stared off into space.

His lawyer said, “At most, you can charge my client with making a false statement in the Elisa Sordi case. He’s not involved with anything else.”

There was no more caution, no balance, no remorse, only his carefully controlled anger and the thought of Fiorella Romani.

Balistreri said in an icy voice, “That’s the legal position. But your client is a practicing Catholic, someone who believes in heaven and in hell.”

He did what he should have done without a second thought twenty-four years earlier and had not done until Giovanna Sordi leaped from her balcony while Italy exploded over another victory.

He looked scornfully at Valerio Bona huddled on his chair. “You thought you could bury your guilt by giving up your cushy job at IBM and working with the orphans. Is that it, Mr. Bona? Would you like to see photographs of the corpses of these young women, all dead because of your cowardice?”

He caught Piccolo’s disapproving look, the lawyer’s contempt, the Prosecutor’s and Corvu’s embarrassment.

Marius Hagi. The grief you’re dishing out is endless. And I happen to be the right instrument for your vendetta.

Valerio Bona lifted his tear-streaked face, the face of an old man. “You’re right, Captain Balistreri, I can’t wipe away my guilt. But the Lord will be my judge. All I can offer you is the truth, no matter how late.”

“Tell me the whole truth then. You lost control of your boat when I asked you if Francesco Ajello had gotten Elisa into bed.”

Valerio shut his eyes. “Once when Elisa came to watch one of my regattas he got a look at her, and he begged me to introduce him to her, but I refused.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Balistreri said.

Bona nodded. “That afternoon, when I ran out of Elisa’s office and went to get on my moped, Francesco Ajello’s Porsche was parked around the corner.”

A recent abortion, an unknown lover.

Balistreri spoke to the public prosecutor. There was insufficient evidence to hold Valerio Bona. They seized his passport and let him go. The public prosecutor would try to get a warrant for Ajello from the judge that evening.

Now they had to reconstruct the journey Elisa’s body had made from her office on Via della Camilluccia to the bottom of the Tiber.

. . . .

On the telephone the count’s personal secretary said he was out of the country, but that Manfredi was home and was willing to meet with him. Balistreri went to Via della Camilluccia alone at dinnertime. The area was deserted: all the wealthy residents were away for the weekend at their villas and on their boats, or dining outside in the center of town. The residential complex was silent and almost completely dark; only the lights of Building A’s penthouse shone brightly.

The young secretary ushered him onto the terrace, where Manfredi joined him. He was silent; no smiles or pleasantries were exchanged. The atmosphere was very different than it had been a few days earlier. Balistreri decided to pick up where their last conversation had ended.

“Last Saturday you asked me to uncover the truth about Elisa Sordi. Since then many others have asked me to do the same.”

Manfredi looked at him. He had Ulla’s eyes, though they now contained his father’s cold arrogance as well.