The Fatal Touch (41 page)

“No mention of it to Nightingale.”

“I suppose not. But it was not like Nightingale was always visiting us. I saw him in our house about six times in twenty years. I know they met at his place in Rome a few times, but that, too, was extremely rare.”

“What’s in Treacy’s picture?”

“It’s just a picture of a vista in a park. A fountain, a few trees. It’s pretty unimpressive. Like a Sunday artist’s effort. It’s hard to imagine that he even painted it. It must have taken him five minutes.”

“And yet your mother keeps it in her bedroom?”

“Yes. She admits it’s no good either. Says it’s the thought that counts. He sent it once with a letter saying he was sorry, and he wouldn’t touch her again.”

“Did he touch her again?”

“I don’t know! I don’t think so.”

There was a soft knock on the door, and Angela poked her head in.

“That was just one cigarette,” said Caterina. “But that’s all right. I think we’ve finished here. For now.”

Chapter 33

As she walked out of the interview room, Caterina phoned Emma’s boyfriend. They had probably worked things out already, but there was no point in giving Emma another chance at fixing up her alibi. The voice that answered reminded her immediately of Elia. It tried to be gruff and it was certainly deeper than her son’s, but it still had the note of interest and expectancy of a young person. She said who she was and told him to come in immediately, and, before he could ask why or even think of refusing, she demanded to know how long it would take him.

He hesitated and said he had a lecture.

“Skip it,” she told him. “Are you at the university now?”

“Yes, engineering department.”

“Then it will take you no more than half an hour. Don’t keep me waiting. Give my name at the desk downstairs, they’ll send you up. Inspector Mattiola. Mattiola, yes. I’ll tell you that when you get here.”

She pressed the button for the elevator, and found herself standing beside Grattapaglia.

“Enjoy your walk?”

“It helped. I didn’t go for a drink, though. Alcohol’s not good for my mood. Even a Campari makes me aggressive.”

“Have you ever tried anger management?”

“Yes. And it doesn’t work.”

They stepped out of the elevator and went into the operations room, which was empty. Rospo’s absence was normal and welcome, but she was surprised Panebianco wasn’t there. Grattapaglia shuffled across the floor toward his desk.

She tried to think of some encouraging words. “Don’t clear out your desk. Maybe they won’t suspend you.”

“A ten-day suspension is automatic from the day I have my first meeting with the investigator, and that’s today. The difference is whether it will be with or without pay and what happens afterwards.”

“Oh.” She should have realized that. “Maybe you’ll be back in ten days’ time.”

“Sure.” Grattapaglia pulled open a drawer and emptied hundreds of staples and colored rubber bands into his bag.

“You’re filling the bag with rubber bands.”

“So report me.”

“I may have a lead on the mugger,” said Caterina. “Though it’s a long shot.”

“Yeah?” She could see as a vein in Grattapaglia’s neck began to pulse and swell. Grattapaglia balled his hands into fists and pressed them on his desk. “Looks to me like I won’t be helping you there. I’m going to get suspended, you know? All because a certain female Inspector didn’t . . .”

“What didn’t I do, Sovrintendente? Change your personality? Stop your anger in time? Do you need me to look out for you, to mother you, is that it?”

Grattapaglia took a threatening step toward her, and she stepped in toward him.

“You know what the secret of not getting angry is?” she said, as he stepped back in surprise at her move. “It’s not to get angry.”

“That’s useful. Did they teach you that in an anger management class?”

“I’ve never been to any such class, idiot. I’m self-taught. Look, half the time when you get angry, you probably have good cause and half the time you don’t. Or pick any ratio you want. Let’s say ninety-nine percent of the time you get angry, you’re absolutely in the right. So then what happens? Well, usually you think you have not only a right but an obligation to get angry, like it was compulsory. But it’s not. Next time, when something happens that fires a rage in you, just do nothing. Don’t bother. Don’t get angry. You’re right, the world has wronged you, like it wrongs trapped miners and starving children, car-crash or bomb victims, people swept away in floods, burned alive in their beds, women raped by soldiers. Except it’s probably wronged you a bit less than them. So fuck it. I’m not even asking you to drop the hate. Save it for later. Just don’t wrong yourself again. It’s not morality, it’s simple practical advice. Getting angry is like trying to treat a burn by burning yourself again in the very same spot. Stupid.”

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“I wasn’t, but you’re reminding me that maybe you are. Go into the interview. Hate the investigator, hate the questions, hate the unfairness, resent me, resent the Spaniard, Blume, the Questore—You are right. Fine. You feel the rage welling up, fine. But don’t act on it, don’t claim it as yours.”

“And you’re the great expert because?”

“Because I am a woman in law enforcement. Underpaid, underappreciated, overworked. Because I lost a husband to a criminally negligent driver who didn’t even get his license suspended, and because I have a mother who disapproves of how I’m bringing up what she considers her grandchild rather than my son, because I’m getting old, getting blamed, getting tired. Noise, dirt, and ignorance when I’m on the street, violence, waste, and pettiness at work. Want me to go on?”

“No. I get what you’re saying.”

“So maybe you’re not stupid, then.”

Grattapaglia grinned. “No one in here has ever dared call me stupid. Except for the Commissioner, but sooner or later he says that to everyone. But you’re right. I’m really fucking stupid.”

“Anger makes us do dumb things. It takes over our actions before we even know that it’s there.”

“That’s exactly what it’s like!” said Grattapaglia. “You don’t see it coming, then, suddenly wham!”

“And down goes a Spanish diplomat.”

“It took four blows, actually.”

“Don’t go to the opposite extreme and make light of it either,” said Caterina.

“No, I won’t. Look, about you not warning me . . .”

“You’re right, I should have mentioned it.”

“You weren’t to know what I was going to do. Shit,
I
didn’t know I was going to do that.”

“I know.”

A young man appeared at the far end of the room.

Grattapaglia pointed at him and said, “Who’s he?”

Caterina looked across the room. “A witness. Probably a false alibi. I’d almost forgotten about him. I wanted to get out of here soon.”

“So break his alibi quickly,” said Grattapaglia. “I can give him a slap if you want. Nothing left to lose anyhow . . . From the look on your face, I can tell you don’t know when I’m joking. Women rarely do.”

Caterina went over to the youth and led him to her desk. He looked to her like he was thirteen, not twenty-six. He looked like he was about to vomit from fear.

She sat him down in front of her. “You are Pietro Quaglia?”

The young man cleared his throat, cleared it again, but his voice still came out in a squeak. “Yes. Can I ask why—?”

“No. Just answer me this. Manuela Ludovisi. Do you know who she is?”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“I see. Where were you last Friday night? Friday September 26.”

“I was with her. All evening and all night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“No trips to the Bar San Callisto, out and about.”

“No. We watched a video.”

She could see he was ready to fire off the name of the movie, so she didn’t bother asking. Instead, she leaned sideways to look behind him and addressed Grattapaglia. “Is that holding cell free?”

The youth turned awkwardly in his seat to see the policeman she was talking to.

Grattapaglia paused in the middle of moving piles of papers from the top of his desk to Rospo’s trash can. “What holding cell?” he said. “We don’t have any . . . ” He caught Caterina’s eye. “We don’t have any free. Shit, you know better than to ask me that. You’ll have to put him in with those two . . . ” he made a clutching movement with both hands. “You know, the two who . . .”

Pietro spun around and stared at Caterina.

“What two? Two whats?”

“Choo choo, chuff, chuff !” said Grattapaglia from behind, and laughed. “Looks to me like he’ll like it.”

“Jesus Christ, what is he talking about?” said Pietro. “I want a lawyer.”

“Have you got a lawyer?” said Caterina.

Pietro glanced around the room, desperately looking for someone resembling a lawyer. But he was alone there with Caterina and Grattapaglia.

“No. But I have a right!”

“I’ll go and get you one, Pietro. Maybe it’ll take a few hours.” She pulled out a pair of plastic handcuffs. “So if you don’t mind I’ll just slip these on you and leave you in the holding cell until . . .”

“No!”

“It’s OK, Pietro,” said Caterina gently. “Listen to the advice the Sovrintendente here gives you, and you’ll be fine.”

Grattapaglia came over. “Once you’re in there, just talk to the small guy with the brown hairpiece. Don’t look at his hairpiece though. Whatever you do, don’t let him know you know. Then if he likes you, his friend won’t hardly touch you.”

“Why did you tell me about it? If you hadn’t mentioned the hairpiece, maybe I wouldn’t have noticed. Now he’ll see me looking.”

“
Managgia
. I should have thought of that,” said Grattapaglia. “They don’t teach criminal psychology to people of my rank.”

“Wait!” said Pietro, glancing around at Caterina.

Caterina stood there twirling the plastic bracelets, a perplexed expression creasing her brow. “What?”

“Can’t we just talk in here?”

“In here?” She looked confused. “You mean a voluntary witness statement? Sure. But we can only do that if there is full cooperation. Once it becomes antagonistic, we go from interview to interrogation, which means . . . ” She spun the plastic cuffs absentmindedly on her finger.

“I get that.”

“So when I start asking questions, you tell me what I need to know.”

“Sure.”

“Show me you’re serious about cooperating,” said Caterina. “Prove it.”

“How can I prove it? What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. OK, let’s start over. Manuela Ludovisi. Do you know who she is?”

“Like I said, she’s my girlfriend.”

“Good. And Emma Solazzi?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Caterina looked into his eyes which darted back and forth as he avoided her gaze.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! You have to have the wrong person. I know Manuela, but not this Emma.”

“OK, let’s forget about Emma. You just said you were with Manuela on Friday night, all night. Was that true? Just say ‘yes’ if it is, ‘no’ if not.”

“No.”

“A second ago you said you were. Manuela told me you were. What’s going on here?”

“I was doing her a favor. But I wasn’t with her.”

“Fine. But now I’m going to ask you another question that may put you in a difficult moral quandary. OK?”

“OK.”

“Manuela is citing you as an alibi for that evening. Do you still say you weren’t with her?”

“I was not with her.”

“She’ll get into trouble, you know. She’s sort of depending on you to say yes.”

“I can’t say yes, you just told me to be honest!”

“Well then, she’s in trouble.”

Pietro looked at his feet under the table.

“So where were you?”

“I wasn’t even in Rome that night. I was with friends in Terracina. I was there for the whole week.”

“Can your friends corroborate?”

“Yes.”

“Give me their names.”

Pietro obliged and Caterina noted them down. Then she dismissed him.

“Where do I go now?”

“I don’t care. Back to the reptile house or wherever it is you live.”

Pietro made his way unsteadily out of the office, and Caterina picked up her bag. Grattapaglia was still standing at his desk, smiling.

“Thanks for helping out. That was quick and inspired thinking, Sovrintendente.”

Grattapaglia looked at her. “That was pretty funny. I’ve never seen someone break down a suspect so fast.”

“He was not a suspect, only a witness.”

“Little shit. I wish we had thrown him into a holding cell. Who was he?”

“Emma’s boyfriend,” said Caterina. “I’d prefer to see my son wrongly jailed than turn out like that.”