The Darkest Winter E-Book

Carlo Lucarelli

• Herausgeber: Open Borders Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 490

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Bologna, 1944. World-weary Comandante De Luca is tasked with investigating three brutal murders, with the lives of ten Italian hostages on the line. The pitch-black prequel to the Inspector De Luca quartet, by the master of Italian Noir. 'A brutal evocation of a dystopian past, a stunning winter portrait of the debris and human detritus of wartime Bologna, and a gripping and complex trio of murders' Peter May 'A truly insightful, penetrating and raw portrait of a man and a city ravaged by bloody conflict and the terror of fascism and war' Paul Burke, European Literature Network 'One of Italy's most acclaimed crime authors' Barry Forshaw _____ In November 1944, in the worst winter ever known in Bologna, in the depths of the war, the bomb-scarred streets are home to starving refugees who have fled the advancing Allies. The Fascist Black Brigades, the officers of the S.S. and the partisans of the Italian Resistance compete for control of the city streets in bloody skirmishes. Comandante De Luca, who has proved himself "the most brilliant investigator" in Bologna, but who is now unwillingly working for the Political Police in a building that doubles as a torture facility, finds himself in trouble when three murders land on his desk: a professor shot through the eye, an engineer beaten to death, and a German corporal left to be gnawed on by rats in a flooded cellar. De Luca must rapidly unravel all three cases with ten lives on the line: ten Italian hostages who will face a Nazi firing squad if the corporal's killing is not solved to the German command's satisfaction. As he navigates a web of personal and political motivations – his life increasingly at risk – De Luca will not stop until he has uncovered the dangerous secrets concealed in the frozen heart of his city. _____ 'A stripped-down historical thriller loaded with tension' La Repubblica 'The Darkest Winter paints the portrait of a city devastated by war, scarred by bombs and with its poorest inhabitants living in desperation. The result is a living fresco, a snapshot of an era. The quality of Lucarelli's research, in-depth analysis and narrative style put him in a league of his own' Corriere della Serra 'Lucarelli has proven yet again that he is an extraordinary writer, navigating with ease the murky waters between crime fiction, historical novel and social commentary' La Nuova 'Lucarelli's best work' La Lettura Praise for Carlo Lucarelli 'A fresh and exciting new voice in Italian crime fiction' Booklist 'A stunning tour de force' Sunday Telegraph 'A compact and powerful masterpiece' Guardian 'Full of the tensions and atmosphere Lucarelli is so adept at creating' The Times

Leseprobe

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Carlo Lucarelli

THE DARKEST WINTER

Translated from the Italian by Joseph Farrell

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Contents

Title PageMapIntroductionEpigraphPART I: The MurdersPART II:The InvestigationsPART III:The AssassinsAcknowledgementsNotesGlossaryAbout the AuthorAlso by Carlo Lucarelli in English translationCopyright

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Introduction

On July 25, 1943, in a period of critical economic instability, and in the aftermath of a bombing raid a few days previously on the city of Rome and the invasion of Sicily by the Allies, the Fascist regime which had ruled Italy for more than twenty years collapsed. 

On September 8 of the same year, one year before this narrative begins, the new Italian government under Pietro Badoglio terminated the alliance which had bound it to Hitler’s Germany and agreed to join the war on the side of the Allies. Mussolini was arrested.

The German army immediately occupied that part of Italy which had not yet been liberated and made prisoners of the Italian soldiers in that territory, slaughtering those who attempted to resist. They then freed Mussolini and made him head of a satellite state, the Italian Social Republic, which controlled almost three-quarters of the country, although this territory was steadily reduced by the Allies’ gradual advance.

Mussolini’s attempt to reconstruct an army failed since most Italian prisoners of war preferred to die of starvation in the German concentration camps rather than take up arms alongside the Germans or the Fascists. The political structures of the Italian Social Republic were militarised and undertook ferocious acts 10of repression to keep control of the territory still under their command.

The Black Brigades – formations of volunteers in every province – were born, as was the National Republican Guard, which absorbed divisions of the military police. The Police Headquarters set up new Investigative Political Offices, while in every city groups of independent auxiliary police also sprang up. They grouped around a charismatic leader, had access to secret funds and established themselves in isolated villas from which they spread out to arrest, torture and kill genuine or alleged political opponents.

Alongside the Fascists, there were the repressive German organisations – the S.S., the Gestapo, the S.D., the Feldgendarmerie– as well as some divisions of the army, all engaged in maintaining control of the territory and countering a strong opposition movement which had developed in Italy and had united men and women against the German occupation and the Fascist regime: in other words, the Resistance, comprising those whom the Germans called Banditenand the Fascists called “anti-national rebels”, but who were known to the people as “partisans”.

They fought in the mountains in military units, but were also active in the cities under the name of Groups of Patriotic Action, organised by the Communist Party, or as “Justice and Liberty” of more bourgeois inspiration, or as the Badogliani (named after the first post-Fascist prime minister, Badoglio), who were close to the monarchy which governed that part of Italy which had been liberated. They launched attacks or committed acts of sabotage and espionage in support of the Allies, and helped rescue people in danger, among whom especially the Jews.

Their fellow Italians struggled on with rationing and 11smuggling, enduring Allied and German bombing raids and reprisals, laws, proclamations and dictats which changed from one day to the next. They faced the risk of being suddenly rounded up and deported somewhere, no-one knew where and no-one knew why.

In this period, the situation of Bologna was unique. On the morning of September 9, the city awoke to see the swastika flying over the Hotel Baglioni in the heart of the city, which became the German command H.Q. It was occupied by military and police units in the following days.

Among the forces active in Bologna were two Black Brigades of such ferocity that the Germans themselves disapproved of them, fearing the wrath of the citizens. These Black Brigades also carried out killings for personal or economic reasons, and frequently the police found themselves called on to disguise their murders by pointing the finger at the partisans. The climate was so tense and confused that, in addition to the indiscriminate detentions of citizens, the various police forces arrested one another in a power game in which the Germans, obviously, were on top.

The geographic position of Bologna – at the heart of the peninsula and as a railway junction – made it strategically important, and it was frequently bombed, so much so that the city emptied, with the people fleeing, evacuating, into the countryside.

Then, quite suddenly, the situation changed. The centre of Bologna obtained a Sperrzonestatute. So as to preserve its cultural and artistic heritage, the Germans undertook to keep it free of combat troops and the Allies undertook not to bomb it.

In the space of a few days all the evacuees returned, transforming 12the city into an enormous refugee camp with more than 600,000 people and 20,000 animals, among them cows, sheep and hens, because peasants from the country arrived too, bringing with them their livestock which they wished to preserve from German looting.

It was in this environment, at the opening of this story, with evacuees living under the porticos, piazzas transformed into stables, the sound of the S.S. marching at night, partisan bombs as well as murders perpetrated by the Fascist Blackshirts, and the scurry of the refugees the moment they heard the sirens, that my Commissario De Luca, like all the other citizens of Bologna, carried on his work.

During the month of September 1944, the weather conditions halted the Allied advance some kilometres south of Bologna, and there – beyond the Gothic line – they remained until in the spring Italy was to be liberated. The winter of 1944–5 would for everyone and forever be the Darkest Winter.

carlo lucarelli, Autumn 2024

Readers will find at the end of the book a Glossary of terms, historical figures, significant dates, military and police units and ranks.

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We have been overwhelmed, and yet something tells me it is not all over, that our idea of ourselves, of our nature will survive. Because the victors, the new rulers, will shortly need me. As long as man is made of the same shit. I count on you.

Carlo Castellaneta,Nights and Mists14

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PART I

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The Murders

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IlRestodelCarlino,Friday, December 1, 1944 – xx111, Italy, Empire and Colonies, 50 centesimi.

the enemy squanders its forces against the unyielding defence of thewehrmacht– new lethal german weapons devised for war at sea – battalions of the war-wounded volunteer for anti-aircraft and anti-parachute duties. In a locality in northern Italy the wounded and the injured flock to request admission to the Battalions whose banners carry the motto “Honour and Sacrifice”.

Report from Bologna: mattresses and clothing stolen. Mattresses and clothing to the value of 20,000 lire have been stolen from the damaged home of 53-year-old Dario Guizzardi, also known as Andrea. the blackout. Schedule: from 17.10 to 19.00.

just like in italy: Read the correspondence from Italian workers serving in Germany. In general these comrades say that, irrespective of their zone of employment, they retain a perfect impression of being still in Italy. these are the facts, judgment is yours.

The German pulled open the door and stuck his head inside the car, careful not to strike his helmet against the framework. He had taken off a glove and held it dog-like between his teeth, while in his other hand he clutched a sub-machine gun, his index finger padded with rough wool filling the trigger guard. He took the neatly prepared documents which Franchina offered him, and stood for some time staring impassively at the faces of the two men, the younger at the wheel with blackheads on his face and hair smoothed into well-oiled waves, and De Luca at his side, sunk into the seat of the 1100, wrapped in his plain 18overcoat which was too light for a winter which was already bitterly cold.

Franchina gave a forced smile, which the German did not reciprocate. He stretched over to look under the vacant seat in the rear, accidentally snagging the metal gorget of the Feldgendarmeriewhich trailed from the heavy material of his coat in the opening as he pulled back. He opened the door further, not just because he could not wriggle free, although he was a stout, heavily built individual, but also to indicate they were not to close it, and moved off.

Vicebrigadiere Aurelio Franchina kept him in sight as he walked over to a similarly substantial colleague who was resting his backside on a motorbike sidecar, his wrists at either end of a Machinenpistolearound his neck, a cigarette barely visible between his gloved fingers.

He said, “Damn these Germans, Comandante. They’re real buggers.” Under his breath, he gave a soft whistle of admiration, exhaled from between his lips in a puff of breath.

De Luca looked away. Two militiamen from the Black Brigade were seated on a pile of debris alongside one of the smaller arches of porta Saragozza, right under the sign which pointed to the entrance to the Sperrzonein the centre of Bologna, alongside another, smaller one which said verbotenand had been cut in half by falling debris during the last bombing raid. They too were smoking peacefully, their rifles across their knees.

De Luca reached for the handle to wind down the window, rapped his knuckles on the car door to attract their attention and with a nod of his head indicated the woman who was standing in front of them with her documents in her hand and a bag held tightly under her arm, stamping her feet on a pile of dirty 19snow. It was still early, the curfew had just ended and there was no-one out and about except her.

The militiamen stared at him, then the one with the little square beard in the Italo Balbo style restrained the other who was on the point of losing his temper, his furious eyes turned towards De Luca. He put out his cigarette, stubbing it delicately on a brick, put it into his jacket pocket and got to his feet to examine the woman’s documents. The slightest of glances, his attention elsewhere, he did even make her open the bag which had on one side traces of flour, contraband flour, certainly purchased on the black market from a mill outside the walls. De Luca, too, watched her from there, in the middle of the road.

The German leaning on the sidecar also raised his head when he heard the knocks on the car door. He seemed to have been struck by De Luca’s air of authority because he handed the documents back to his colleague, although he was still examining the first of them, the identity card belonging to Franchina, who repeated, “Damn these Germans, how tough they are.”

De Luca said, “Careful, Franchina. I have lived in Rome and I know the jargon, but here in Bologna if they hear you saying ‘Damn these Germans,’ they might misunderstand.”

Franchina blanched.

“Oh God, sir, I had no intention … you know what I mean … you know what it really means, don’t you? It was a compliment, I swear.”

He was babbling, and when the soldier put his head back inside the car, he swallowed hard. He took the documents and hurriedly handed them over to De Luca so as to free his right arm for a salute, to which the German made no acknowledgement. 

“They can’t have heard me, can they?” he muttered, pulling 20too quickly at the gearstick, causing it to screech. De Luca grabbed the door handle as the car bounced along the tram tracks.

“Calm down, Franchina, I was joking. Where are we going exactly?”

“Via … what’s it called … Senzanome. The street with no name. Really, Comandante, that’s what it’s called.”

“I know. It’s near here. Look, there it is there.”

There were only three people under the portico, but it was so narrow, the narrowest in Bologna, that they seemed to make up a crowd. One was a commissariofrom the Crime Squad whom De Luca had known from his days in the flying squad. Officer Something, but he could no longer remember what. The other one was also an officer known to De Luca, Maresciallo Something Else. He stepped out from the portico, pulling up the rifle which had been on his shoulder, when he saw the car draw up. 

The third was the dead man, seated on the ground, his back against one column and his feet against another, with his knees bent inside that tight space.

“Relax, relax,” said the commissarioto the maresciallo, “it’s the Political Division. You’re De Luca, right? What are you doing here? Is this your case? We’ll clear off right away.”

De Luca said, “We were just passing when we saw you.” He recalled that the commissario’s name was Santi. Short and fat, wrapped up in a grey coat which made him appear even more rotund, his nose pointed upwards, like a pig’s. But he was a good policeman.

De Luca went round the dead man’s column into the portico, turning his back on Santi who took a couple of steps back to make way for him. 

21“May I?” he asked. “A policeman’s curiosity …” – while thinking to himself: when I was one.

Santi shrugged. “Go ahead. I haven’t even touched him. I was waiting for the police doctor. Anyway, we’ve just arrived on the scene. They called last night, but we waited till it was daylight. You know what it’s like in the dark. Between the Germans and the other lot, you just never know. Not that I’ve anything against our German colleagues, don’t get me wrong, but accidents will happen. I was meaning, above all, the partisans, that’s to say the outlaws from the anti-national gangs. With them, you know what it’s like, don’t you? I mean, it’s not that we’re scared, but it’s better to be cautious, isn’t it?”

He was talking faster and faster, obviously anxious, but De Luca was not listening to him. He was kneeling over the corpse, his back turned to the commissario. He was waiting for something, and in fact Franchina, who was standing beside the car in the middle of the street smoking with the maresciallo, shouted over to Santi, who was only too glad to be allowed to move away. De Luca stretched out his hand and unbuttoned the dead man’s coat, a fine camel hair overcoat which would have kept him warm, earlier, when its owner was still alive. Then he took out a piece of folded notepaper which he kept in the inside pocket of his own raincoat and slipped it into the man’s overcoat. Swiftly, struggling somewhat with the beginnings of rigor mortis reinforced by the cold of the night.

He got back to his feet, causing his arthritic knees to creak, called to Santi, moved a couple of steps away, leaned his back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Maybe you should take his documents, just to establish who he is,” he suggested. 

22The commissariomade a sign to the maresciallo, who slung his rifle strap over his shoulder and put his legs astride the corpse. Because he was too tall to bend down inside the portico arch, he rummaged gently inside the overcoat with the tips of his fingers. He extracted a wallet and a folded sheet of paper and handed them over to the commissario.

“Tagliaferri, Francesco, son of Giuseppe of that name. He is, well, he was, an engineer. He lived near here.” The commissarioopened the wallet, which was empty apart from the identity card and a head-and-shoulder photograph of a smiling woman with curly hair and traces of lipstick on her lips. A good-looking woman. He said, “No cash, and yet you can see he was a gentleman. Perhaps it was robbery. He reacted and they fired.”

He held the note between his fingers, distractedly, as though he had forgotten about it, and perhaps he had, since he was taken aback when De Luca indicated it with a movement of his chin. The commissarioopened it and scowled, his lips jutting out in a way which really did make him look like a piglet.

“ThisishowFascistsperish,” he read out, before turning it over to let De Luca see it. ThisishowFascistsperish, written with slanting, subtle calligraphy, scratched out rather than traced onto the paper. Santi folded it over, slipped it into the wallet and handed it to De Luca.

He said, “All yours. Politics. We’ll get out of your way right now. Delighted to have met you again.”

“That’s absurd. You arrived first on the scene of the crime and it’s your business. A case of murder, the remit of Crime Squad.” 

“But it’s obvious that the partisans shot him! Or should I say, those cowards in the anti-national gangs.”

De Luca sighed. Santi was a good officer, as he was aware, 23and from the quick glance which the commissariohad thrown at the overcoat, he was sure that, even if he did not say anything, he had noted that De Luca had left it hanging open, whereas earlier it had been buttoned up. So why did he insist?

It was completely clear that the man under the portico had been beaten to death. His head had been reduced to a mass of blood which scarcely allowed his white hair to show through, his face was as black with the bruises as that of a coal miner and there was not a single hole in his coat, which was certainly dirty but intact. They had not shot him but clubbed him to death. 

He knew that was what had happened. It had been one of the National Republican Guard, or someone from the Black Brigade or some other political office who had dragged him to some barracks, murdered him and then brought the body back. That’s why Rassetto, commander of the Autonomous Unit which included De Luca, had dispatched him, since he understood about these matters, to muddy the waters in the right way, seeing that some weeks previously the Black Brigade had left on their dead claims from the partisans written with office pencils on fragments of cream-coloured cards, like criminal records. Weare doing a favour to some friends, De Luca, as a payback.

Alright, he knew beyond all doubt that they had beaten him to death, but surely Santi could imagine it. So why then was he insisting they had shot him?

He asked him, “Santi, why do you continue to say that they shot him?”

“Because the guy who telephoned said he’d heard gunfire.” 

“It might have been some patrol firing at somebody else entirely, maybe because of the curfew.”

Santi stretched out his short arms. “Could be, but …” 

24“But what?”

“The guy spoke about two distinct shots, pistol shots. Then a scream. And then another shot shortly afterwards, as if it were a coupdegrâce.”

De Luca nodded, deep in thought. His work was done and now he could get back into the car with Franchina and return to his office with the electric heater at the desk where he could rest his feet as vicecomandanteof the Autonomous Unit of the Political Police, pretend he was working and put off as long as possible the moment when Rassetto would summon him for a new task, usually to find someone whom no-one else could manage to smoke out.

But he did not move, and from the way Santi was looking at him he was sure that he too was thinking along the same lines.

“So it means there’s another dead body.”

He did not return to the office.

Santi went into a café to telephone H.Q. and request reinforcements. De Luca followed him and then stayed there with Franchina to have some breakfast. All that was on offer was the surrogate of barley and chicory with a black doughnut which was more bran than flour, but the vicebrigadiereproduced his identity card and real coffee and sugar appeared.

“Well done,” De Luca said. Franchina smiled.

“Thanks.”

“I was being sarcastic. Now they all know we’re police. O.K., probably it was obvious anyway, but now it’s official.”

And in fact, there was a couple leaning on the bar drinking a cup of some sort of dark swill, he with a leather bag under his arm and wearing what must once have been a good coat, now 25worn away at the elbow, she with her overcoat turned inside out and what had once been a nice fur collar, both somewhat elderly. He pulled from his bag a parcel made of newspaper pages which she took with some delicacy, cupping her hands underneath, as though about to take Communion. She said, Eggs at nine lireeach!Atthisrate,iftheAlliesdon’tgetamoveonandgetheresoon,we’llallbedeadofhunger.Then she noticed Franchina’s I.D. card and was struck dumb, her face paler than her hair, which was gathered in a bun. The man said out loud, OurGerman Allieswiththeirsecretweapons!And with that they both rushed out, leaving the surrogate coffee in their cups.

But that was not what was preying on De Luca’s mind. Now, with the front blocked by winter, partisan actions had become less frequent, whereas earlier, when it seemed that the Allies were about to break through and enter Bologna, ambushes on the National Republican Guard, on the Black Brigades and on the Germans were everyday occurrences. And even now, however badly demoralised by the delay, two officers of the Political Police in a café on their own would be a tempting target for the partisans of G.A.P.

When De Luca brought this to his attention, Franchina gave a shrug, brought out his pistol and laid it on the bar. “Let them come. I’ve got a secret weapon!”

De Luca shook his head, pushed back his seat so that its back was up against the wall, perfectly balanced, and with a sigh closed his eyes to savour that genuine coffee, bitter and hot, which burned his lips.

He had no wish to go back to the office. 

He wanted to see the body.

Knowing there had been another crime besides the one he 26already knew about, and having discovered it himself with an intuition which may indeed have been simple but was his own, arrived at ahead of anyone else, gave him that subtle feeling of motivation which he had not felt for some time, not since “the most brilliant investigator in the Italian police”, as they used to call him, the one most able to solve the thorniest murder cases, had been reduced to covering up errors made by other killers.

It was something he wanted to think over, so he finished his coffee quickly, burning his tongue in the process, and picked a lump of sugar from between his teeth, crushing it slowly as he turned his thoughts back to the dead man.

Yes, undoubtedly, it could have been someone else’s coat he slipped the note into, perhaps a militiaman surprised by the partisans, a political matter, fortunes of war, but from the outset, when Santi had spoken about those three shots, he had had a different feeling, unmotivated, irrational, a policeman’s sixth sense which had made him think differently. He had never believed in what detective stories and newspapers, when they could still cover crime, called the nose, but at certain moments, stirred by a feverish frenzy which agitated him like that coffee on an empty stomach and drove away more fastidious thoughts, he enjoyed imagining that it might be like that.

To find him, that dead man. The position, the place, the wounds on the body, to attempt to understand what had happened. To ask questions, dig down, reflect, concentrate, lose himself in that trembling fever which was overwhelming him, and to find him, the killer. Who, how and why?

He had finished crunching the sugar lump and was about to order another coffee when a guard turned up, looking for him.

He was panting for breath, as pale as a ghost, his eyes bulging, 27one hand on the back of a chair and the other on his chest. He could not speak.

Sottotenente Attilio Stanzani had been precise. He was a veteran of the Albanian front, where he had lost an arm in a bomb blast, and since he could not sleep, he passed the night seated at the window of his living room with a blanket over his knees, feeling the cold air which filtered in through the windows on his burning skin. He even smiled when Franchina pointed out that the lights in the room broke the blackout regulations, as did keeping the windows open at night so that … what was the name of that airplane that fired at lights as it flew past, Pippo?

De Luca took a hold of his arm and Franchina blushed because it was utterly obvious from his vacant eyes that Sottotenente Attilio Stanzani was blind.

But he could hear perfectly well. And he was absolutely precise.

Three shots, in the silence of the night. Small calibre, non-military .22, which makes a particular noise, like the snap of a broken bough, and he was certain because in the army he had been a shooting instructor.

Two shots in quick succession, then a man’s scream. Of fear and more especially of pain, raucous and plaintive, he knew that too.

A few seconds and then the third shot.

Silence? No. No shouts but shortly afterwards the footsteps of someone running. A woman’s steps, heels on the cobblestones of the vicolo della Neve, which, before they got as far as his window, were quite suddenly interrupted. And yes, then silence. 

So he had awakened his wife, and since they had a telephone, 28and in fact anyone could see it was a well-appointed apartment, almost luxury class, he had got her to telephone the central police station. It was exactly 22.35, he had taken a note of the time. Why had it taken them so long to get there?

Sottotenente Stanzani pointed to a spot over to his left, towards via Nosadella, as the direction of the shots and the origin of the footsteps, but they did not find him, the dead man, there.

“What kind of names do they give the streets here? Do you know what they used to call this one? Via Fregatette, understand? Via Rub-tits because it was so narrow that if a woman came along, with a balcony before her, you couldn’t help brushing up against her.”

Franchina laughed, the outstretched fingers of both hands held open at a distance in front of his chest, but De Luca did not bother to look at him. The centre of Bologna was filled with evacuees from the countryside who were milling around everywhere, filling every free space, but the department store at the top of via del Fossato had stood empty since a bomb had blown apart the underground pipes, filling the basement with stagnant, filthy water. Sooner or later, they would drain it and fix the flooring of the central hall which had fallen in, but for the moment it remained as it had been.

There was a guard at the door who had just vomited, and further off a child sitting on the ground under a portico, clutching his knees under his chin, trembling, shaken by sobs. Even Franchina stopped laughing once he was inside, although he still held out his hands to support that huge, imaginary breast.

Santi said, “We heard children yelling. They come here to 29throw bricks into the water and they saw it. They all made off, except for one who was practically paralysed.”

The cellar, lit up by the faint rays of the sun coming in through a hole in the roof, resembled a cave. Half the floor above had collapsed into that black pool making it look like a pile of rocks, and on it lay the body.

Naked, lying on his back, filthy, legs and arms outstretched as if on a cross, dumped there by the guards, including the one who had thrown up on the street outside, and who had hauled him out of the water in which he had been floating.

He had lost his nose, ears and lips, and through the dark hole of his mouth it was obvious that his tongue had been ripped out, as his eyes had been too. The sockets were empty.

De Luca said, “He’s not one of ours.” The silently screaming mummy in that bombed cavern would have left even him distraught had he not immediately noted the bluish colour of the skin, and that was what he was thinking of. Santi followed him as he leaned over the body, one step behind and with his fists clenched in disgust, but he too was interested. He was a good policeman.

He said, “He must have been in the water three or four days, and certainly the cold will have preserved him, but all the same …”

De Luca said, “Maybe a week.” He pointed his finger at those eyes staring sightlessly in his direction, and stopped a few millimetres from the face, drawing from Santi a frightened gasp. There were some minuscule signs around the eye sockets which looked like scratches.

De Luca said, “Bites. The mice have been nibbling at him.” There were in fact scores of them, cutting through the water, 30swimming like snakes, and some had even made it to the nearby rocks, standing upright on their hind legs, their noses vibrating in the air as they scented the intruders, but with no sign of fear. De Luca heaved himself up onto his knees, managing this time to rise without making any creaky sounds.

He said, “Let’s turn him over,” but then he put up his hand and addressed Santi. “Sorry, this is your business. I forgot I’m not a policeman any longer.”

He took a step back, but in all probability Santi was thinking along the same lines because apart from the mouse bites on the soaked body, there were no signs of visible wounds, at least not in that light and in those conditions.

Santi said, “Yes, let’s turn him over.” He gestured to the maresciallowith the rifle slung over his shoulder, who looked around, but they were the only ones left in the cellar apart from a German soldier who had appeared at the door and was looking on curiously from the entrance, almost closing off the source of light. The maresciallosighed, put his hands under the corpse’s armpits and with one great heave, as though the deceased were a big fish at a fishmonger’s stall, turned him over with a damp thud which almost made them vomit, every one of them, including De Luca.

But not the German.

He had moved from the doorway to see better, and the sun on via Fregatette, faint though it was, had suddenly shone in to cast light over the mummy’s intact back, his bright buttocks and the right side which, with the way he was lying, had previously been hidden. The arm was raised, straight out, as if making a salute, and there, on the underside of his left arm, was a stain. Not a wound, but a blackish shadow, seemingly faded with time. An old tattoo. 

31De Luca, curious, made to move closer still, but the German let out a loud yell and pushed him aside with his shoulder to allow him to draw more closely to the body. He rubbed his fingers on the tattoo as though in an attempt to wipe it off, then unloosed his holster with a tug, pulled out his revolver and started to shout.

Having been quite often at the Kommandantur, De Luca understood a little German, so he raised his hands, spread his arms and walking backwards led Santi and the maresciallooutside.

He said, “Let’s get out of here, all of us. The Germans will be here in no time and they’ll be furious.”

He had had time to take a look at the tattoo which was small and round like a circle, but he knew it was an O, since members of the S.S. had their blood group tattooed under their arm.

The screaming mummy was a German.

“And anyway, this one is not our dead man either.”

De Luca said, “I have hunted down heads without bodies and bodies without heads, but I have never managed to lose an entire corpse.” Rassetto smiled, pulling back his lips over his wolf-like teeth.

He said, “When you were a policeman.”

“When I was a policeman.”

“A lowly officer who pursued petty thieves, bag-snatchers and whores. While now you are defending the nation against traitors, outlaws and foreign spies who are out to undermine the implacable will to resist. A real policeman’s work. Are you happy that way?”

“I was not hunting down only petty thieves. I was pursuing murderers as well. Once.” 

32Rassetto shrugged. Sitting at one corner of De Luca’s desk, he swung one leg about, rhythmically knocking the heel of his boot against the wooden structure. He had picked up the allusion to murderers, because the thin moustache which he sported along the edge of his upper lip straightened out into a smile which, as De Luca knew well, became malevolent when he was tense. But he was not afraid, or at least no longer afraid.

“Did you put the note on that one?”

De Luca nodded, looking down to stare at something else, somewhere. He was making him pay for that allusion, because he still had a smile on his lips, and it was even more malicious.

“Did you let the policeman find it?”

“Yes,” De Luca muttered between his teeth. 

“Well done.”

It sounded like something you would say to a pet, and when Rassetto moved his arm, De Luca thought he wanted to give him a pat on the head, exactly as you would a dog, and instinctively he hunched his shoulders. In fact Rassetto just wanted to adjust his belt. He got up, smoothed down the uniform he always wore, shiny and very black, the jacket always buttoned up, even in his office. He was like that even in bed, the other members of the squad would say with a smirk, but never in Rassetto’s hearing.

De Luca relaxed against the back of the chair and put his feet up on the desk because he knew that Rassetto did not like that, but he wanted to get his own back in some way, however stupid, for that dog-like sensation he had felt a moment before.

“Who killed the engineer?” he went so far as to ask.

“Friends.”

“But why?”

Rassetto leaned over the electric heater which sat in a corner 33of De Luca’s office and opened his hands over the red coil behind the grill. It was a small room and that was all it took to heat the whole space.

“And who cares? He was on the list, was he not? He was a traitor. Are you not coming for a bite to eat?”

De Luca shook his head. The others had already gone down to the refectory and there was an unnatural silence in that wing of the Faculty of Engineering which had been assigned to Rassetto and his Autonomous Unit of the Political Police. Originally they had been in a villa in via Dante with ivy framing the windows and a tree in front of De Luca’s office, as well as an iron gate at the foot of the street.

With the screams from the cellars and an armed guard at the door, there did not seem to be any great difference, but when they moved to 20 viale del Risorgimento, into that very modern building which was once again so white in the sun as to dazzle the sight, for De Luca the contrast had been even stronger. Screams from the basements, the militia of the G.N.R., the National Republican Guard, under the colonnade and when the Germans of the Kommandanturmoved out, they took over almost the whole building.

Rassetto said, with his moustache in a straight line along his lips, “The temple of modernity. In fact, with the kind permission of the rector, we will experiment here with the most modern interrogation techniques.”

Now there was silence, or near silence. Vilma’s typewriter rattling at the speed of a machine gun, Maresciallo Massaron calling out from one office to the next, Franchina’s laughter bellowing out at the slightest pretext, Rassetto shouting, “De Luca!” with a Sardinian-style double L when he was annoyed. All 34suspended, even the screams from the laboratory of the Institute of Electronics on the floor above, used for interrogations.

Now there was silence, almost. Only the suppressed coughs from one of the cells on the floor below, softened by the carpeting but still intense. And continuous.

De Luca said, “I’m not hungry.”

“I am, and I’m going down now. Don’t let it get to you. You enjoyed playing the police officer in the old days, but that’s all over now. You’re in the Political Division, not the Crime Division. Have you found the Lawyer?”

“I’m working on it. I’ve got an informer.”

“That’s police talk. Real officers like us say ‘a spy’. Is he reliable?”

“I think so. We’ll soon see.”

“Get a move on. The Lawyer is the link between the Banditenin the city and the Allies, and now that the front is less than twenty kilometres away …” His expression darkened and the smile froze on his lips and almost disappeared. He gave a shrug. “But I don’t care, because we are going to win. Find that communist for me. And get your feet off that desk.”

De Luca did as he was told. Rassetto went out, shaking his head on the threshold because that choking cough was even louder when the door was left open. He heard him mutter, “That bastard Massaron who always strikes from behind,” but he was talking to himself and still shaking his head.

There was a file on the desk. There were several but that one was in the centre, on top of the others, and on the cream-coloured paper someone had written Lawyerin black ink, with a pen with a broken nib.

De Luca opened it, rifled through the papers it contained, all 35typed by Vilma with handwritten annotations by him. He knew it all by heart. He put his elbows on the desk and stared out the window towards the grey cement wall which faced him, immobile, intact, hypnotic. For a moment, he thought he should get a shave since he could feel the bristles with his fingers, but then he gave up the idea, dragged down by a tiredness which was not sleep, was not anything other than a thick mist, as yielding as cotton wool and which almost managed to absorb even that sick, sick and cursed cough from the floor below.

The ringing of the telephone on the desk shook him awake, if he had ever been asleep, but it was all the same, because he jumped in his chair, pulling his hands away from his aching jaws.

“De Luca, is that you?”

Santi’s voice was different, sharper, on the telephone. Genuinely like a pig’s, a young milk pig. 

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Listen, you asked me to call you because you’re interested. In any case, look, I think we’ve got him this time.”

Yes, De Luca thought, yes.

It was him.

They had got off to a bad start. When their 1100 turned into via Ca’ Selvatica, which, in spite of being in the centre of Bologna, looked like the wildest countryside, with all those cows and the haystacks in the middle of the street piled up by the peasants with their pitchforks, it all seemed to him beyond belief.

But it was hardly surprising. The Sperrzone, the Closed Zone, from which, at least in theory, soldiers were barred from entering and which, at least in theory, the Allies would not bomb, 36had been transformed into one enormous, reverse ghetto, packed with authorised residents as well as evacuees and refugees numbering 500,000 according to the Podestà. A mass of people. 

But above all, considering that the Germans, once again in theory, were not there and would not steal the cattle or provisions, and nor would the Fascists, the centre of Bologna had become an open-air stable. Eighteen thousand beasts in all, according to the Podestà, but it was a purely approximate calculation.

So via Ca’ Selvatica looked like a farmyard. Carts lining the street, hen coops against the walls of the houses, cows tied by ropes, goats in a compound, not to mention a tractor. The doorway in which they had found the body, down at the far end, via Frassinago, resembled a barn, and there were even two oxen with wide horns attached to a ring fixed in the wall.

It was for that reason that it all seemed to him impossible. Apart from the overseers armed with clubs who must have been there, the shots would have awakened all the animals. So even if the people, except for Sottotenente Stanzani, were in the habit of locking themselves inside their houses at the sound of screams or gunfire and of not saying anything to anyone, the animals were not. The hens too would have started squawking like eagles. 

Santi said, “This is true, and in fact that is exactly why we did not bother coming to have a look. Then we found out this morning that this circus was not here last night. In other words, they only moved here this morning.”

That changed everything, but it was only when he saw the corpse on the steps, twisted round on itself in a spiral and with a hole in the eye, that he was convinced that this was indeed the right body.

The building which closed off the street stood sideways on a 37slope, with an entrance hall running through it like a tunnel. On the far side there were two long, narrow staircases, which is why no-one had seen him immediately. The man had tumbled over the threshold and if a hen had not escaped he would have remained there for who knows how long, the stench of death mingling with cow droppings and dung. He was lying head down, his legs up, one twisted in an unnatural position under the other, and the upper body turned to one side with the head thrown backwards. Instead of an eye, he had a bloody hole, like a little red flower withering in the sun.

“They shot him,” Santi said with conviction, but De Luca paid no heed. He was so focused on the dead man who had finally been found that he forgot that this was not his case. He leaned over the body and pulled back the flap of the coat which covered his backside to reach into the pocket at the back of his trousers. The wallet was still there, together with documents. 

Franco Maria Brullo, university professor, Faculty of Medicine. Driving permit for special needs. A good-looking man, judging by the photograph.

He had been wearing a black coat of worsted wool, marred by a shiny streak along the right shoulder, and a very elegant suit with the tie still neatly knotted, in spite of everything.

The memory of a smell, more sweetish than the scent of death and more pungent than the smell of dung, gave him an idea. He stretched out one arm and with the back of his hand touched the dead man’s cheek, as though he were caressing him.

“What the hell …” muttered Santi.

“He gave himself a shave in the evening as well. With his curly hair and dark complexion you can feel it. And he must have practically taken a bath of eau de cologne.Despite all that has 38happened to him since, you’re still aware of it. Either he was enormously vain, or else he had a romantic assignation. Or both. Did you call the doctor and the forensic team?”

“I’ve sent off Guarrasi.”

That was the name of the maresciallowith the rifle, but De Luca had already forgotten. The professor’s left arm was stretched over the steps, with his fingers folded over a blackish burn. De Luca forced them apart one by one, with due delicacy, while he observed the burn which ran across at the level of the second joint.

“Want to know how it went?” Then he added, “In my opinion.” 

“Love to.”

“Someone shot at him while he was on the steps but without hitting him although they may have grazed him.” He pointed to the streak on the shoulder of his coat and waved the fingers of one hand in the air in the direction of the open space beyond the entrance where the bullets must have ended up. Santi stared in that direction as though it were significant. “Then he fell and broke his leg.” He pointed to the man’s knee, bound up by the grey material of his trousers in a knot which it was painful even to look at. “That’s the scream the witness heard. Two shots which didn’t pierce anything.” An open hand towards the intact coat and clothes. “A scream of pain. Whoever fired the shot came forward with the pistol, the professor grabbed the barrel of the gun, burned his fingers with the heat of the shot and got a bullet in one eye.”

“Inmyopinion,” De Luca added once again, and Santi, who had turned away to follow De Luca’s hands in all directions, nodded. 

There were people behind them, a small crowd of passers-by and peasants held back at the foot of the entranceway by 39Maresciallo Guarrasi. De Luca turned to look and saw Franchina leaning against the wall, rubbing the sole of one shoe against a stone in disgust. Another man stood nearby, on the near side of the maresciallo’s security line. Slim, not particularly tall, his hands plunged in the pockets of a grey overcoat. Obviously curious, he was straining his neck but he stood apart as though he did not wish to cause any disturbance. De Luca noted his shoes which were bi-coloured, two tones of grey and black, as though they too wished to avoid drawing attention.

“Who’s he?” De Luca asked, indicating the man with his head.

“A colleague,” Santi said brusquely, because his interest was elsewhere. “I agree with your reconstruction. What now?” 

“What do you mean – what now?”

“Who could it have been?”

De Luca smiled. Santi was undoubtedly bright, but at times he was so simple as to induce feelings of tenderness.

“Who knows? Maybe a jealous husband. Ask the patrol men on duty last night. If you’re lucky enough they may have stopped someone linked to the dead man, and then the case is solved.”

“If I’m lucky enough to get them to answer me,” Santi said.

“Or else search for the pistol. The bullet is still in there,” he said, pointing to the man’s head, “behind the eye that was blown in, there’s no exit hole among his black curls, and if it really was a .22 calibre, as the sottotenentesays, and the hole in the eye is small enough to make that plausible, and someone who’s been having an affair et cetera, et cetera, owns a .22 calibre, and the scratch and maybe even the paraffin on a glove correspond, the case is closed.”

He rose to his feet having been bent over a cadaver for the third time that morning. He would rather have waited for the 40police doctor, the expert from the Forensic Division, to tell him what to photograph and to dispatch his own men to ask the right questions, but as he thought it over, that mania, that burning fever consuming him inside, ferociously and uselessly, made it seem better for him to leave immediately.

He passed alongside the colleague with the two-tone shoes, returned the greeting the other made with a nod of the head.

Yes, he had seen him some time ago, on a few occasions, in Police H.Q.

In another life.

41

PART II

42

The Investigations

43

IlRestodelCarlino, Monday, December 4, 1944 – xx111, Italy, Empire and Colonies, 50 centesimi.

tactical deployment of the “v” weapons. american ninth army front under lethal fire from flying bombs – end of german occupation regretted by the belgian people.

Report from Bologna: the bolognese and the war. They described it to us as a ravaged, martyred city where life was impossible. Instead we see Bologna moving forward with its cyclists, its workers out of bed and on the way to work, its women ready for the shopping. rationing; those who have been late in submitting their coupons for the delivery of butter in October or oil in November are reminded that failure to have such coupons submitted by the 5th of the month will incur heavy sanctions. Shopkeepers are reminded that sugar must be reserved only with coupon II of the ration book printed in red ink.

what treatment will i be entitled to? Volunteer workers serving in Germany may now count on an organisation of truly perfect assistance. these are the facts. the decision is yours.

Snow was in the air. Its freezing, damp odour could be smelled as it was carried by a wind which cut the face and made the nose tingle. De Luca had managed to borrow a scarf and regretted not having borrowed gloves as well. He would have been glad to keep his hands in his pockets, but he had to hold up the newspaper.

Via Duca d’Aosta was a wide and empty street, and even if Bologna had more porticos than any other city in the world, there was never one nearby when you needed it. He would have been happy to take refuge in any arcade, preferably one with a 44column he could hide behind instead of having to lean against that news stand, narrow and pointed like a torpedo, where he was pretending to read the Carlino.

They had parked the car in a nearby lane, with Massaron, Franchina and the tenenteand their automatic weapons in it because a petrol-driven 1100 with all three of them inside would have drawn too much attention. He also kept well away from the little door at number 18, and especially out of sight of the window on the second floor above, from which there was a clear view of both sides of almost the whole street. An anonymous building, a reddish rectangle scarred by shrapnel, as isolated as an old man’s single tooth, clearly it had not been chosen at random, and it was a good choice.

However, a little further on there was a food distribution post with a long queue of women, because this was the morning they distributed the butter. De Luca had made Vilma stand among them, although in spite of that old coat, scarf tied over her head and large straw basket, she still seemed, with her painted fingernails, new shoes with heels and even stockings, too buxom and too impatient to blend in with the other women.

They were waiting for someone to go and knock on the door. Three quick knocks followed by another two, this they had been told by the spy who, so as not to be seen, was in the car with the others. It might even be the Lawyer, since every other Monday around that time he went into the building to do something, they did not know what, perhaps to meet or coordinate with someone whom they did not know, and nor did they even know where exactly in the building, 18 via Duca d’Aosta, because it was impossible to keep it under surveillance without themselves being observed. 

45But it was the right Monday, or so said the spy. Reliable information, he swore. Valuable too. It was worth 5,000 lire, a certificate of exemption from forced labour and six kilos of salt.

De Luca peeped round the news stand and caught Vilma’s eye as she snuggled into her overcoat, and then turned back to his newspaper. He had been holding it in front of his face practically without seeing it, and when by chance he focused on the Bologna local news, he noticed the headline in big letters in the middle of the page.

“Brullo case solved thanks to shrewdness of brilliant police officer.”

De Luca scowled and folded the paper, because a gust of freezing wind had made it swell out before his face. He then made a further fold around the article. He allowed himself a wry smile when he saw the name of Santi, “the sharp-witted officer Santi, of the CommissariatoSan Francesco”.

He had taken his advice and had struck lucky. The night of the crime, near via Ca’ Selvatica, a patrol had stopped a man still out and about after curfew. He was a doctor and had a permit to go out on urgent calls, even after nightfall, but he had been unable to specify which patient he had been attending. He knew the victim, a colleague in the Faculty of Medicine, and he had a beautiful wife who was said, according to evidence gathered, to have been having an affair with Brullo. He was also the owner of a .22 calibre revolver registered in his name but which could not be found.

Professor Doctor Lorenzo Attanasio, now detained in San Giovanni in Monte, on a charge of deliberate, probably premeditated, murder. Case closed.

He’s not too bad, that Santi, De Luca thought, and smiled as 46once again he imagined the commissario’s face, beaming and even more rotund with satisfaction, and yet more pig-like. The satisfaction was his too, since he had got it right, first time, as the article underlined, praising the “swiftness of the inquiry which demonstrated that even in the midst of wartime difficulties the Fascist Criminal Police Force is equal to its duty to protect the citizenry and enforce the law”.

“De Luca! I’ve been waving for about half an hour to attract your attention. Did you not see me?”

Vilma grabbed him by the shoulder because she was about to stumble. She had been running with high heels and a skirt that was too tight, and had slipped on a muddy puddle in front of the news stand, digging her red nails into his neck.

De Luca said, “Has someone turned up?”

“A man. He knocked at the door.”

“What sort of man?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t get a good look.” 

“A gentleman, a worker, a young man?”

“I didn’t get a good look! He had a leather bag. He knocked the way you said.”

She punched the air with her fist, three punches and then another two. De Luca nodded. He came out from behind the news stand and moved along the street to the first lane.

The car was parked round the corner, and as soon as Franchina saw De Luca waving his rolled-up newspaper like a stick, he switched on the engine, turned into the street and swept past him. The 1100 went a few metres along the road and roared to a stop outside number 18 with one wheel on the pavement. Franchina, Massaron and the tenentejumped out with their weapons uselessly concealed under their overcoats because by 47now they had been spotted. On the far side of the street, many of the women broke away from the queue and made off swiftly, but others stood their ground, close against the wall and massed around the door of the distribution point, because the butter was more important.

The tenenteraised his fist in the air ready to knock on the door in the same way, but Massaron pushed him aside. He handed his M.A.B. pistol to Franchina, put one of his giant hands on his shoulder to keep his balance, raised one leg, and bent back his knee to unleash an almighty kick squarely on the lock.

The door flew open with a crash which echoed along the dark, narrow corridor. Massaron picked up his machine gun and ran in with Franchina, leaving the tenenteto bring up the rear. He was young, slim and tall, and was called tenentebecause he claimed to have been a lieutenant in the bersaglieribefore September 8, the day of the Italian surrender and of Hitler’s decision to occupy Italy. Rassetto took him at his word, and since it did seem that he had been a soldier, at least for a short time, he put him in charge of the squad’s military operations, young, blond and pale, with a shiny, foppish brand-new leather jacket, and nobody paid him much heed.

The corridor opened onto a small courtyard beyond an iron gate, which Massaron had already broken open with a shoulder charge. There were two doors on the opposite side of the courtyard. The tenenteshouted “Let’s split up,” but De Luca, coming onto the scene with his pistol in his hand, had already taken into consideration the alignment of the window in the low doorway and indicated the right-hand door.

He thought to himself, Too late, and too much of a shambles. If they were as smart as it seemed, they would certainly have 48worked out an escape route and would even now be making their escape.

But they were not so smart.