Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence by Marco Vichi Page A

hoping that when the film was over the two girls would say he was a wonderful man and invite him to have a drink with them. Foolish old fogey. He stood up, sighing, and joined the mob descending the stairs. He saw the two girls in the distance and tried to work his way through the crowd and rejoin them. He fantasised about introducing himself and inviting them for a drink at the Giubbe Rosse or perhaps at Gilli’s.
    When at last he came out, he saw them walking leisurely under the arches. He pulled up beside them, heart beating fast. Then he turned to look at them and even opened his mouth to say something, but the girls only gawked at him in bewilderment, and so he gave up, walking away quickly, telling himself that they weren’t so pretty after all. There was a lesson to be learned in the fable of the fox and the grapes.
    There are worse things in life, he kept repeating to himself as he walked home. There were worse things than seeing a pretty girl and desiring her hopelessly. He lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke skywards. Crossing the Ponte alla Carraia, he turned down Borgo San Frediano. On the opposite pavement was old man Nappa leaning against a wall, coughing and spitting up pieces of lung, cursing with the little bit of breath he had left. Bordelli gave him a slight nod of greeting and continued on his way. He saw a big red cat crouched on the roof of a Fiat 500, lazily watching the night around him, and he thought at once of the kitten with the bad eye. Who knew whether Rosa would manage to save it?
    At the corner of Piazza del Carmine two drunkards were discussing the great themes of life, staggering on gimpy legs. Bordelli turned round for a second to look from afar at the building in which, barely a year before, a loan shark had been murdered, stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors. It hadn’t been hard to put himself in the killer’s shoes.
    At last he arrived home. He took a hot shower, feeling as if he was washing away several tons of sadness. Then he got into bed and turned out the light. Though very tired, he couldn’t fall asleep. Confused memories merged gently in his head, taking him on a melancholy journey through time. Little by little, from the sludge of remembrance, a clearer vision surfaced, like a monster rising up from the tranquil waters of a lake …

One day in the Abruzzi, he and Molin had gone out together on patrol. There was silence all around. The same silence as in other villages they’d passed through after the Armistice, when they could feel behind the closed shutters the distrustful gaze of women and old folk who could no longer stand to see any more outsiders, be they Italian, American or German. They only wanted whoever came to leave just as fast.
    They trudged up to Torricella Peligna, a small stone village at the top of a mountain, which looked out on to the Majella massif. Molin was a giant from the Veneto with a heart of gold, but the sight of him was frightful. His broad, flat face was the opposite of harmony. Whenever he ducked into a farmhouse to ask for a piece of lard or a little cheese, the women would scream and run and hide.
    It was early June. The line of resistance at Cassino had just been broken, at the cost of tens of thousands dead. At that altitude the air was cool, and the climb got one’s blood running. They were both sweaty and smelly. The bulk of the Wehrmacht was close by, and aside from the high street, the hilltop town was a spider’s web of narrow passages. It seemed purposely made for playing hide-and-seek. They advanced slowly through the deserted streets, machine guns in hand, checking every corner and window. It seemed quiet enough, but appearance was the worst sort of deception. Suddenly four Stukas flew overhead at low altitude, making an infernal racket. Bordelli and Molin flattened themselves against a wall. The Luftwaffe didn’t kid around. They waited for the planes to pass, then resumed walking, but the sudden noise had put them on