Persona Non Grata (9 page)

The woman said, “He did his duty.”

A mischievous smile. “Something of a Prussian about the Baronessa von Neumann.”

“Saltieri did his duty.”

“He should have minded his own business.”

Trotti asked, “What did he do, Saltieri?”

“You know what southerners can be like, Piero—one of those southern policemen who are as innocent as some of their colleagues are corrupt. There was a black market—and Saltieri tried to stamp it out. With any sense, he would have collaborated.”

The Baronessa said, “He was not a southerner. He was from Ancona.”

“He arrested half a dozen of the black marketeers.”

“When?”

“It must have been as early as 1942 that there was the first trial. In Chiavari. I wasn’t here at the time—but I know a lot of people resented Saltieri. At least two villagers went to jail.”

“You met Saltieri?”

“Once or twice.” The priest set down his cup and now stretched back in his chair. The Baronessa watched him with a look of friendly disapproval. “By the time I came to Santa Maria there was more for him to worry about than a black market in meat. The whole zone from here to the Po going north and over to Genoa going south—the whole area was like the Wild West. A long, guerrilla war; and nobody knowing who was fighting who, and who was in charge. I was living here”—he tapped the well-worn wood of his chair to indicate the presbytery—“taking mass every day in church. But a lot of people knew that I was chaplain to the partisans.”

“Saltieri knew?”

“I could trust him. There was nothing dishonest about him.”

“Saltieri was honest, Gianni.”

“But unimaginative, Baronessa. He had that slow, unimaginative dullness that you find in some southerners. One day I met him in the street and he asked me if I was a partisan. I told him I was and he just nodded slowly.”

“Well?” the Baronessa said sharply.

They were like an old couple, Trotti thought. Fond of each other, yet continually bickering.

“Devoid of guile.” Fra Gianni shrugged. “And I realized that sooner or later they were going to kill him.”

“Y
OU BELIEVE MY
brother was murdered?”

The street was empty and Trotti was reminded of the days of curfew. Deserted and silent, except for the creaking of the street lamps hanging above the road; shadows that danced jerkily.

They reached the edge of Santa Maria. The cafe by the bridge was still open and a solitary old man sat outside, caught in the yellow light of the doorway, like a gnarled tree that had taken root.

Overhead, the sky was without a cloud and the stars had formed a dome of twinkling lights. There was no moon yet. Beyond the river, Trotti sensed the hills looming on the far side of the village. For a brief instant, nostalgia pinched at his heart. Nostalgia for Santa Maria as it used to be, nostalgia for the young man he had once been.

Trotti accompanied the Baronessa across the bridge. A wind was coming down from the hills, a sharp wind that announced the approach of autumn. It ruffled Trotti’s hair.

“The last months of the war I spent in Germany.” The Baronessa was out of breath from the exertion of walking.

“But your husband was here. He told you what happened.”

“You mean the bullion?”

“Was there a connection between the gold and my brother’s death?” Trotti took her by the arm and helped her down from the pavement. She had difficulty in walking. She took small, careful steps. Together they crossed the road.

(Trotti remembered the road. It had once been made up of cobbles worn to a roundness in the river bed. Then the Americans had come with their tanks and all the stones had been cracked or destroyed. Now the road was surfaced with tarmac.)

“The war was almost over and the partisans were getting bolder. It was very difficult for Pauli. Everybody knows that my husband was a good man—everybody. But for them I was a traitor—even though Pauli and I were married at a time when Italo-German relations were still good.” She stopped and it was almost bodily that Trotti lifted her and placed her on the far pavement.

The sound of the river joined that of the wind. The cold smell of the hills.

“You are very kind, Commissario Trotti.”

He gave her his arm.

She patted his hand. “I like to tease Gianni—you do understand?”

“Of course.”

“Gianni is a fine man—but like so many Italians, he doesn’t like to face up to the truth.” She had raised her voice against the wind. “Or rather, he prefers to create his own truth. And so he has got it into his head that all the partisans were good and everybody else was wicked. But you know, Commissario, before the war, before everything started going wrong, we all loved the Duce. We were all proud of him, proud for what he was doing to make our country a better place. We were all Fascists then—and the tragedy of Italy is that we didn’t all change sides at the same time.”

“Baronessa, you talk like a German.”

“I spent over twenty happy years in Germany.”

“You came back in 1965?”

“Pauli and I were living in Hamburg. He died in 1963 and I returned to Santa Maria in 1965—after my boy got married.”

“You knew Italo?”

“Italo?” Her eyes flickered.

“My brother—did you know him personally?”

The Baronessa seemed to hesitate. “Yes, I knew your brother.”

“Was there a connection between the bullion and my brother’s death?”

“They killed Italo Trotti because he knew about Saltieri. He had witnessed Saltieri’s murder.” She tugged at his sleeve. “This is my house.”

It stood by the river. It was a villa with closed shutters and a steep sloping roof. There was not enough light to see the color, but Trotti noticed the flowers creeping down the walls, a battered Fiat 600 in the drive, a large front garden and an iron gate that creaked as Trotti pushed it open.

They went slowly up the steps, the woman placing her weight on Trotti’s arm. She led him into the house.

“I cannot stay, Baronessa.”

They entered the drawing room where several photographs of Pauli von Neumann looked down from the immense piano. Pauli in the uniform of the Wehrmacht, Pauli smoking a pipe and swinging a golf-stick. Pauli—his hair now thinner—and a little boy on a windswept beach of the North Sea.

Velvet curtains and dark red wallpaper.

“A little something to drink.” A conspiratorial glance. “That priest doesn’t like me drinking alcohol. He would have made an awful husband.” From a cabinet she produced a bottle of Latte di Suocera. “Not schnapps, perhaps—but it can warm an old heart.”

She laughed to herself and Trotti smiled.

“You want to know about the gold?” She gestured him to one of the deep armchairs.

Trotti sat down. “I want to know if there is any connection between my brother’s death and the other murders since the end of the war.”

“Pauli was here. Over seven thousand German troops and everybody knew the end was near. They were surrounded.” She raised her glass. She did not sip her liquor as she had sipped the tea. She drank in two fast gulps. “Surrounded on all sides by the partisans. Pauli had heard about a special SS convoy that had been heading north—heading to the Austrian frontier. But when they saw that their line of retreat had been cut off, the SS
people joined up with the other Germans. It was a long time after the war Pauli discovered that, when he and his men surrendered, it wasn’t just the guns and armaments the partisans took. Seven thousand soldiers, Commissario. And each man heavily armed—but tired of war, tired of fighting. The partisans took all their weapons … They took everything.”

“Including the bullion?”

She nodded. “Booty that the SS were hoping to buy their freedom with.”

“And it all fell into the hands of the partisans?”

“In the Valley of Tecosa.” She put her head to one side.

“Where does my brother come into this?”

“That was before.” A click of irritation. “Saltieri was murdered in April—and at the same time they murdered Italo Trotti, April fourteenth. 1945.”

“There’s no connection between my brother and the SS gold?”

“Italo Trotti was a witness to the murder of the Carabiniere.”

“Fra Gianni seems to think my brother knew about the gold.”

“Gianni is an old man.” A harsh laugh. “And he is from Piemonte. What do you expect the Piemontesi to understand? He still refuses to believe that most of his partisans were criminals and black marketeers.”

“Did Saltieri and my brother know about the gold?”

“They were already dead.”

“You heard Fra Gianni talk about the deaths … the people who’ve died since the war. You don’t think those people were murdered? You don’t think their deaths had something to do with the gold?”

“Of course I do.” The eyes grew smaller and darker.

“Then who murdered who? And why?”

“I know very little about what happened here at the end of the war. I was in Germany and what I know is from asking questions. And here, when you ask questions, you make a lot of enemies.” She paused, poured herself another generous glass of Latte di Suocera. She had kicked off her shoes. Small misshapen feet in dark stockings. “Since my return to Santa Maria I have seen five people murdered. All of them connected directly or indirectly with
the partisans. All of them the same age. Like Draghin—Draghin was in the firing squad that murdered the young Repubblichini.” There was no softness in her face. “They found his body in the river about ten years ago. The back of his head had been smashed in.”

Trotti could hear the whine of the wind.

“And Dandanin. Not an intelligent man, perhaps, but he had been among the partisans. A loud mouth and a drinker. He beat his wife. Then in 1979 he was attacked in the lane that runs at the back of the house. They found his body the following day.” She smiled grimly and finished her drink. “His head had been smashed from behind.”

“Was Dandanin in the firing squad?”

“You must ask Gianni.”

The sound of the wind and the river outside.

“And why have they all been murdered? Why the deaths since the war?”

“The gold, Piero Trotti.”

Trotti frowned. “You knew Italo well?”

“A nice boy, but the retreat from Russia had unbalanced him—made him strange.” For a moment, she closed her eyes.

“What happened to the money, Baronessa?”

“Perhaps the partisans shared it among themselves.”

“They must have spent it—at least some of it … in forty years, some of the money must’ve surfaced.”

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “No flashy cars or nice houses. Just the same old people, living their quiet lives.”

Trotti stood up slowly. “Then there is no money.”

“Commissario, the money is there. Pauli told me—and Pauli never lied. Rivalries between families,” the Baronessa said. “Smoldering anger that in forty years has killed at least ten men and women.”

“Ten, Baronessa?”

“In the last days of fighting, about five villagers were killed. Always the same thing—it was never clear whether they had collaborated with the Fascists or whether they were partisans. After that, for about fifteen years, everything was calm. Then
just a year or so before I came back from Germany, the killing started again. Since 1964, at least five people have been murdered … and nearly always with a blunt instrument.” She paused, a brittle smile on the thin lips. “Hit from behind with a blunt instrument.”

“And nobody’s gotten rich.”

“In a small village, you don’t always want to show what you’ve got. Tongues can wag.”

“Or of course it could be the opposite.”

“The opposite, Commissario?”

“Perhaps the money is there. Somebody had hidden it.”

“Somebody?”

“A secret that must be kept. And the only way of keeping it is by killing those who share the secret.”

“It is possible.”

Trotti set the glass down. “Aren’t you afraid, Baronessa?”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of knowing more than you should, perhaps?”

“Afraid of dying?” She laughed again, a strangely girlish laugh, while her eyes remained on his. “My son lives in Stuttgart now, he is married and his children are grown up. The eldest is at university. My two daughters have their own lives to lead. They write regularly but they don’t need me—a silly old woman. And as for Gianni, he has got his memories of the life in the hills, of his partisans and of his beloved Primula Rosa.” She turned away to look at the photographs on the piano. “I have lived long enough.”

“I
CAN
’
T HELP
you.”

“Of course you can, Piero.”

Trotti shook his head. “I have no jurisdiction outside the city.”

They entered Voghera and the priest took the wide, empty boulevards towards the station. Trotti looked at his watch; the train was due in another twenty minutes.

“You can look for Primula Rosa.”

“Santa Maria comes under Carabinieri jurisdiction. You can’t expect me to tell the Carabinieri they haven’t been doing their job properly. Tell them that my good friend the priest has reason to believe six people have been murdered under their noses—and they haven’t noticed a thing.”

Fra Gianni braked sharply. His lips were drawn tightly against each other.

They parked outside the station, in the bright light of the street lamps. Several billboards announced films at the local cinemas. Cars stood in the forecourt and there was the bustle of anticipation in the station. Trotti went to the ticket office. He joined a queue of people that included a few young men in army uniform.

The priest placed his hand on Trotti’s arm. “I’m not asking you to open new enquiries. Of course not.”

Trotti paid for his ticket, for a moment surprised how cheap it was. Then they went to the bar and ordered two coffees.

“Primula Rosa, Piero.”

“What about him?”

A couple of soldiers were laughing. They wore ties tucked into their shirts and neat jackets, but the trousers were crumpled and the shoes dusty. They had slid their berets beneath their epaulettes.

“Find out where he is.”

“Why?”

“Because I think he knows.”

They were standing at a chest-high table. Trotti raised the small cup of coffee.