The Second Life of Inspector Canessa Page 23

  ‘Shit.’ The former Carabiniere quickly checked. ‘I’m such an idiot, I hadn’t noticed!’

  ‘Maybe it’s a technical error…’ Carla sat down and handed him his mug of tea. ‘Careful, it’s hot. Do you remember his murders, or should we look them up?’

  Canessa searched his memory. ‘I remember who he killed, but I’m having difficulty connecting names and dates. Let’s see…’ He handed her the list. ‘You check them off, okay? His first victim was the prison guard in Vallette… Rossetti, Paride Rossetti, in 1977.’ He paused. ‘Process of elimination. Marchetti was at the end of the summer of 1978. The two police officers, one buried in Gargnano, were June 1979. The last one was the doctor, Moscati, in 1980. What’s left?’

  ‘February 1978, or maybe late January, if the dates are all from after the murders. Then January 1979 or late December 1978, and December or late November 1979.’

  Canessa sipped his tea. His face lit up. ‘End of January 1978, Professor Saldutti, vice-president of the High Council of the Judiciary, and his driver-bodyguard, Ferroni. Early 1979, security guard Presatti, in Modena, during a robbery to fund their operations.’

  ‘Saldutti was buried in Rome, in Verano. Do you think he travelled that far?’ Carla pointed out a detail from her own research on Petri.

  Canessa smiled. ‘Well remembered. You’re good at this. He may have sent flowers to the more distant ones, or asked someone to take them over, or maybe he went in person, but it’s irrelevant. We know that even if he didn’t go, and I believe he did, he definitely wanted to. So, what’s left?’

  Carla stared at the paper. ‘13 December 1979 is the edition, but we already have eight murders.’

  The noise of Milan’s nightlife filtered in through one of Carla’s open windows. Canessa seemed to be listening to it, as if seeking inspiration.

  Suddenly he stood.

  Carla also got to her feet. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, worried.

  He took her hand in reply and gently pulled her towards him, unbuttoning her shirt. Sliding his hands under the fabric and across her shoulders, he let it drop to the floor.

  Completely naked, she looked at him with a twinkle in her eye.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  Annibale traced her nipple with his finger, making her shiver.

  ‘Thanks to you, we may have found an even stronger lead, and I wanted to thank you appropriately…’

  17

  Annibale Canessa was religious. Maybe not observant, but definitely a believer. His morning ritual involved diving into the sea and swimming out as far as the statue of Christ of the Abyss, resting at the bottom of the San Fruttuoso bay. He’d dive down to the base of the statue and pray, for the living and the departed.

  As he stood in front of the building on the corner between via Caravaggio, via California and piazza Bazzi, he realised that he missed that swim. He should take a break and head back there with Carla. They would eat pasta with pesto and white bass roasted with tomatoes and Ligurian olives. They’d sit on the terrace of his aunt’s restaurant, and in the evening, when the tourists went home, they’d go for a swim. Instead of that view of urban Milan, he flashed on Carla in a bikini, with a backdrop of San Fruttuoso bay at sunset. A black bikini. The image he liked best, though, was of her diving into the water wearing nothing at all.

  Annibale knew very well that he wouldn’t be taking any breaks, not now. He was simply putting off the inevitable with those fantasies. Carla’s research had led them nowhere. There was nothing in the online phone registries. There were no articles or news about the family. All the material was old. Over time, people’s memories coalesced around a killer rather than his victims, unless the latter also became famous somehow.

  There was no proof that anyone from the family still lived on the fourth floor of this corner building. But there was no proof to the contrary either. The internet really wasn’t the oracle it was supposed to be.

  They had to move, look, knock on doors. Pull a finger out, as Repetto would say. And Canessa agreed: that was the best way of finding the truth.

  It had been exciting to discover the anomaly. The date was no longer a mistake. Instead, that extra line from the past was the key to understanding the killings in the present. But after his initial enthusiasm, Canessa had ended up here, and the details of the story had overwhelmed him, drowning his enthusiasm.

  He could see it all over again. He had been there only once before that humid afternoon, fast becoming a muggy evening. It had been a dark, cold, filthy morning. A leaden, grey day, as only Milan’s winter can offer. Even if it had been as nice as today, Canessa thought, no one would have noticed. It had only been his oversight, his laziness that had prevented him from seeing that extra date, the anomaly.

  The building’s main door opened onto via California, but the windows of the flat looked onto the piazza and the street behind it. Looking at them now, he remembered being here in early December 1979. He remembered everything. Over the years, he’d glazed over the memory of what had happened in order to protect it. A cover that would help him keep the pain at bay. When he was on the front line, he’d always maintained some form of emotional distance from the dead in the street – whether they lay under a sheet or on full display – and from their grieving families. He’d always told his subordinates to treat the families as they would the killers. They often omitted, concealed or forgot details that could be crucial to an investigation. ‘No emotion, no kindness. Cold determination.’ That was his motto.

  But on that cold morning in 1979, something had breached his defence. The family, the man lying on the ground with only one white sock on, his shoe a few metres away… yes, they’d got to him. And he’d repressed it, but it didn’t take much for Canessa to access those violent emotions all over again.

  A woman walked out the door. Smiling, he held it open, and let her out first. The caretaker had already closed up. He’d chosen his time, between 7 and 8 p.m., since it would be easier to find someone at home. But he had no luck finding the surname on the doorbell.

  The lift was one of the old models with a seat. He resisted trying it out, though he’d always liked the style. He opened the double doors first, then the metal cage, and stepped onto the landing. He remembered the door, though it also lacked a name plate.

  He didn’t know who he might find there, if anyone.

  But he was here now.

  He rang the doorbell.

  For a few minutes that seemed to last forever, he heard nothing. Then, his senses – now back to full power – noticed something, or someone, rustling across the floor on the other side, and the door opened.

  Canessa found himself facing a young woman, or so he thought. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, with blonde hair falling over her shoulders. She was wearing a baggy blue silk shirt. A short denim skirt revealed her long, tanned legs.

  Canessa looked her over. She was clearly used to such attention, and she seemed not to notice or mind. But Canessa wasn’t there for her looks. He wanted to know if his hunch was correct.

  As if in confirmation, the young woman’s face lit up with a smile. ‘It’s you!’

  He returned her smile, and it took him back to that day. To a different life, and to the pain that had never truly left him.

  ‘Yes, it’s me. Hello, Caterina.’

  DECEMBER 1979

  ‘Caterina!’

  Investigating judge Rodolfo Lazzarini checked his watch first, then his reflection in the mirror. He smiled. He was sporting his trademark crumpled look, his white shirt coming out of his trousers and ready to fall to his ankles any second. He tucked it back in. He needed to get another hole punched in his belt: it was new, but he always forgot how skinny he was and his trousers inevitably ended up sliding down. If only that were the extent of his problems.

  Some men boast a certain innate ele
gance. Lazzarini thought of his friend and colleague Federico Astroni, who was always impeccable. He’d be more at home in London’s Old Bailey than the old courts of Milan. Lazzarini, on the other hand, was a small man who dressed badly and looked worse. He was aware of it, but it didn’t faze him. Even if he’d been George IV with his own Lord Brummell on hand for advice, he knew he wouldn’t look any better.

  He looked at his watch again and raised his voice. ‘Caterina!’

  It was late, but his five-year-old daughter was still in her room. When she’d checked that same hallway mirror and noticed an imperfection in her hair, unlike her father, she’d headed back to her room to sort it out.

  Seven-year-old Piero was fidgeting by his side. ‘Daddy, we’re going to be late!’ Even at that age, he was already serious and precise like Rodolfo. His paternal grandmother called him a little gentleman. She was so proud of this grandson. And Piero was beautiful, like Mama and Caterina.

  Teresa Aliprandi, now Lazzarini, was tall and blonde, with mesmerising green eyes. Her only flaw was her name. At least, that’s what students and colleagues thought when they met and fell in love with her. She’d always been the main topic of conversations, first in the Law faculty at university, then at work. Teresa wasn’t really a fashionable name, and it definitely didn’t suit that goddess. Her beauty was legendary. Everyone asked the same question when they met her for the first time, and the answer was always the same: she would never be a model. Rumour had it that her parents rejected the scouts from fashion firms who wanted her to model for them. The truth was, all she cared about was her studies and becoming a lawyer.

  When she crossed via Festa del Perdono, she looked like ‘the only force capable of stopping the revolution’, a leader of the student movement used to say. In common with all the other men she met, he had only three things on his mind, and not necessarily in this order: 1) catch her attention, 2) start a conversation with her and 3) get her into bed.

  Teresa had a few close friends, but she was kind to everyone and even if she was aware of her looks, she never showed it, a fact that only enhanced her reputation.

  Rodolfo Lazzarini knew her, but he wasn’t interested in her. He was methodical, a planner, and during his first years of university his plan was to change his looks for the better. He didn’t care that much, but he figured it was something he could do. The point was, there were other priorities and his primary focus was his studies. He didn’t worry too much, as he’d had his fair share of adventures since school. He’d always been an exceptional student, never swotty or snobby. He was kind and selfless, reserved yet charming. With his intelligence, his sense of humour and a self-deprecating streak, he was a magnet for girls rejecting film stars in favour of intellectuals. In his parka and carrying a Marxist philosophy book, Lazzarini offered an entirely unique experience.

  So when he quite literally crashed into Teresa Aliprandi, it was love at first sight. Not for him, however. She was running out of a classroom and she tripped over him as he was walking down the corridor, lost in his own thoughts. The man of her dreams suddenly emerged from a flurry of papers and books. He didn’t have the slightest inkling that the person in front of him would eventually be his life’s companion.

  Their first kiss took place in a dark cinema showing a film neither of them would remember. It was that kiss, more than her beauty or intelligence, that snapped Lazzarini out of his obsessional focus on his studies. A new, unknown world was opening up to the future judge, an unexplored universe: that of physical pleasure born of love and desire.

  Later in life, he got laughs from friends and light slaps from his wife when he admitted that he’d entered their relationship in the spirit of a researcher taking on a new subject.

  Against all predictions, their union was cemented with the birth of Piero, and shortly after that, of Caterina. Though both had law degrees, they’d taken different paths. Rodolfo won the competitive magistrate exam, and after two years in Apulia, they moved back to Milan. Teresa was employed in the legal department of a multinational pharmaceutical company, where she earned twice as much as Rodolfo. The Italian offices were based in Lainate, so Teresa was always the first to leave the house. That morning, she’d left even earlier to catch a plane to Zurich for an important meeting in the company’s central offices.

  Whenever Rodolfo talked about his wife’s job, everyone – everyone – looked at him as if he were a madman. He understood why. They all thought that a woman that gorgeous could easily have found some ‘distraction’ in her position. ‘A woman like that…’ a lawyer once said to him, ‘I’d lock her up at home.’ Lazzarini just shook his head. No one really understood what united them, from ideas to values, from educating their children to sex, which everyone else obviously saw as disappointing for her. All unfounded, ridiculous rumours that Rodolfo and Teresa Lazzarini dismissed, strong in the knowledge of what held them together.

  With Teresa leaving so early, he was the one to get the children ready, give them their breakfast and take them to school. They were always pressed for time, chiefly because of Caterina’s dawdling, and that particular December morning he was sure to be even later, despite both schools being practically downstairs.

  The little girl finally emerged from her room. Lazzarini tried to detect what had induced her to go back and change her hair at the last minute. She had on a black, knee-length skirt with dark tights, gym shoes, and a polo neck jumper. There it was: the woolly hat! The previous one had had a pompom. Her blonde hair, just like her mother’s, poked out from beneath it.

  Lazzarini couldn’t help himself. ‘Caterina, did you change your hat?’

  She stared at him with her piercing green eyes, almost pitying him. ‘Daddy, it didn’t go with the jacket,’ she replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Rodolfo avoided looking at himself to see just how little of his get-up went together. He gently nudged his children onto the landing and called the lift.

  Rodolfo’s penultimate thought came to him in the form of an adjective. Opaque.

  ‘This city is opaque.’

  He was formulating the sentence as he opened the door to his building and found himself assaulted by the grey smog that blanketed Milan in winter. He was used to it, having been born in Barona, but Milan was the one, unspoken dissatisfaction of his life – even before his two years in Apulia, and the discovery of entirely new flavours and smells, before he developed his penchant for windy, briny days with a view of the sea. He didn’t have a single drop of southern blood, and yet he felt like a southerner, and would proudly become one if he could. On mornings like this, he imagined what it would be like to walk his children to school in an explosion of colour, even in winter. Apulia. If he hadn’t been married to Teresa, he’d probably have stayed down there.

  Lazzarini walked to the left and emerged in piazza Bazzi, just opposite the school on the other side of the road.

  ‘Lazzarini!’

  Rodolfo’s final thought was I hope they can aim. He’d turned round to see who was calling, only to find two guns pointed at him. Piero was holding tight to his right hand, while Caterina was walking on his left.

  Lazzarini was afraid for them, not for himself. More than anything, he was surprised. There had always been a trail of blood across the judiciary sector, and though he’d considered that he might be a victim, he reasoned that moving into financial crimes would remove him from the list of targets. Clearly not.

  He was shot eight times in total. The first bullet caught his arm, but the second had already fatally hit his lung. He shoved his children aside, silently apologising to them. Caterina ended up on the pavement a few metres away from him while Piero held even tighter to his father’s hand. When Rodolfo fell, Piero went down with him. He saw one of the two killers come closer for a final shot to the man’s head – but the shot never came. The killer turned and walked away.

  P
iero Lazzarini uttered a howl of despair. As one of the witnesses reported: ‘I’ve never heard anything that sounded less like a human.’

  ‘Are you animals? Cover that body immediately!’

  Captain Annibale Canessa’s yelling washed over the Carabinieri standing next to the corpse of Judge Lazzarini, along with some high-ranking officers of the special branch of the police.

  Canessa and Repetto had been in Milan following up a tip about a Red Brigades hideout when they’d heard about the ambush. Canessa was baffled by the name ‘Lazzarini’: he had no idea who the man was.

  ‘Who is this poor guy?’ he’d shouted to the team, as they organised themselves in the via Moscova barracks.

  Silence. The only thing moving in that filthy, unused room was the dust. Everyone knew the real reason behind the captain’s fury. A few months earlier he’d compiled a list of potential terrorist targets, and Lazzarini did not feature on it. He couldn’t have, not even with the best will in the world. They couldn’t protect all of Italy’s judges and magistrates. The ‘Canessa list’ contained only the names of those who might be active targets. It started with people on the front line against terrorism, be it red or black, and included any who might somehow represent the State. Lazzarini belonged to neither category.

  ‘He dealt with financial cases, tax evasion, insider trading, laundering, that kind of thing. He was good, best in his field. Everyone had great expectations for him.’

  ‘Who said that?’ the captain asked, clearly impressed.

  A young brigadier, a recent addition to the team.

  Canessa didn’t wait for an answer. He’d already moved on.

  And now Investigating Judge Rodolfo Lazzarini lay on the ground, his head and chest in the grass and his legs on the pavement. His great expectations had been drowned in a pool of blood, and he had fallen victim to a group of ruthless fanatics, certain they could change the world by killing and maiming in order to draw it in their own image.