A Quiet Death in Italy

Book 1: Daniel Leicester

by Tom Benjamin

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Political Thrillers

Synopsis

'The locale is brought to life . . . the plot keeps you guessing' The Times

Bologna: city of secrets, suspicion . . . and murder

When the body of a radical protestor is found floating in one of Bologna's underground canals, it seems that most of the city is ready to blame the usual suspects: the police.

But when private investigator Daniel Leicester, son-in-law to the former chief of police, receives a call from the dead man's lover, he follows a trail that begins in the 1970s and leads all the way to the rotten heart of the present-day political establishment.

Beneath the beauty of the city, Bologna has a dark underside, and English detective Daniel must unravel a web of secrets, deceit and corruption - before he is caught in it himself.

A dark and atmospheric crime thriller set in the beautiful Italian city of Bologna, perfect for fans of Donna Leon, Michael Dibdin and Philip Gwynne Jones.

Release date: November 7, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

Like much else in a city that had once been governed by the Catholic Church, the old morgue was a muddle of the sacred and profane. The brick-domed room with its crucifix above the doorway felt as reverent as any crypt, the corpses were stacked on marble shelves in white body bags that could have passed as shrouds. The strip lights suspended from the ceiling and capital-lettered ordinances of the secular authority reminded us that God had since died and we would all end up in this place or somewhere like it one day, tagged and bagged in white if we were lucky and no suspicious circumstances were associated with our passing.

But we weren’t stopping here. Doctor Mattani unlocked the door to the autopsy room and paused. ‘Better that we allow a moment,’ he said, opening it halfway. He meant to acclimatise. Not a hint of the macho humour that usually bludgeoned you in places like this – if one of us threw up, the doctor would probably have to dispose of the mess himself. This was not an official visit, after all.

‘They found him attached to some fencing,’ said the doctor. ‘Apparently, that was what alerted the authorities in the first place – some kind of blockage in the canal system. He went missing two weeks before, and the state of decay would be consistent with this timeframe.’

That peculiar hybrid smell – from the butchering and the pickling – exited the doorway. Not so disagreeable until your imagination got to work. That was when your stomach would begin to tighten and you were glad you had had a light breakfast. But it wasn’t the anatomy that really troubled me, it was the entropy. The toll time took on an abandoned body; the reminder that death was not only an event but a process, and a progressively ugly one.

Standing outside that room alongside my boss, the Comandante, and our friend the doctor, I began to sense its presence: insinuating itself behind the blood and chemicals like the base note to a particularly sickly perfume.

The doctor opened the door fully and we stepped in. This room was like a smaller version of the ‘crypt’, only whitewashed and with a pair of gleaming stainless-steel tables plumbed to sinks. Lying flat on the first was a black body bag zipped to the top.

The extractor fan came on and a weary rattle began to escape from the vent. I turned to the Comandante. ‘A black bag,’ I said. ‘Didn’t our guy at the Questura confirm it wasn’t being treated as suspicious?’

The Comandante shrugged. Doctor Mattani shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’ He stepped forward and positioned himself beside the corpse. ‘If you wouldn’t mind closing the door.’

I felt it click behind me. The doctor took hold of the large plastic zip and, walking the length of the table, opened the bag from head to toe. Despite having adjusted to the stink, the accumulated gasses caused us to step back and place our hands across our faces. We stood observing the corpse for some time, each, I think, unwilling to make the necessary effort to speak until our senses had sufficiently recovered and the ventilation system had played its part.

Death had utterly claimed Signor Solitudine, who was unrecognisable from the photo I had stored on my phone – the sinewy, clean-shaven older man with windswept hair and bright eyes marching behind a protest banner – unless, that is, you were looking for the Man on the Moon. A fortnight in the river that ran beneath the centre of Bologna had done its damnedest to swell his features to comic proportions. He had assumed a flattened, almost two-dimensional appearance, bolstered by the silver-grey patina that always came with corpses that had spent too long in dirty water. His eyelids and mouth were bloated closed, his fingers swollen together like fins, and from his collarbone to his pelvis there were broad post-mortem stitches, as if he’d been sewn up in a hurry.

‘There was evidence of trauma to the cranium,’ said the doctor, ‘but we are unable to say whether this took place before or after he was submerged, or what caused it. There is water in the lungs—’

‘River water?’ I said. The doctor smiled.

‘Yes, Daniel, river water – he was not drowned in his bathtub and dumped, I can tell you that at least.’

‘The bang on the head, though,’ I said, looking at the Comandante, ‘baton?’

‘It certainly could have come from human agency,’ said the Comandante, ‘but equally a boat or even the debris in the current … isn’t that so, Matteo?’

‘In those conditions,’ said the doctor, ‘it would be impossible to say for sure.’

‘Anything else?’ said the Comandante.

‘We scraped his fingernails and so on but nothing.’

‘River water …’ said the Comandante. The doctor nodded.

‘Remarkably corrosive. I always say that if I was to commit a murder, that would be how I would dispose of my victims. River water doesn’t just wash any evidence away, it scrubs the corpse clean.’

‘And you’d be the perfect murderer too,’ I said, ‘being the one to examine the bodies.’

‘If we are ever asked to hunt an elusive serial killer,’ added the Comandante, ‘who dumps his victims in the Reno, we will know where to come.’

The smell had now almost disappeared, although that had as much to do with mankind’s faculty to adapt to new odours, no matter how unpleasant, as the efficacy of the ventilation system, and we found ourselves smiling over the mouldering corpse. Looking back down at it sobered us up.

‘Done?’ said Doctor Mattani. The Comandante looked at me. I took in Paolo Solitudine’s body one last time. Thought of the handsome older man he had been, of the woman who had sent us here.

‘Done,’ I said.

If morgue time was set to perpetual midnight, back in the land of the living it was past midday. Despite our grisly encounter, I wasn’t surprised the Comandante and Doctor Mattani headed straight to Diana’s – it would take more than a soggy cadaver to get in the way of an Italian’s lunch. I was not invited. Here, old men ate with old men and the young grabbed sandwiches, although because I was close to Mercato delle Erbe I headed for the fish place where they had a cheap menu. I was not that young, after all.

I had bought a copy of Il Carlino di Bologna, which I propped against the bar, the only spot that still had seats available. Ever since a British TV chef had visited the eatery on a tour of the lesser-known Italian cities, Banco’s regular clientele had been bolstered by tourists cooing over its top-notch grub. Today our primo was tortelli filled with potatoes, capers and mint on a crab bisque, no less, which the locals were wolfing down as if this was nothing more than their due, while the foreigners oohed and snapped photos.

Solitudine featured on pages three and four of the Carlino. Apparently the rag was still running with the official line and hadn’t yet got wind he’d been ‘black bagged’, so there was none of the usual SOS CRIMINE that ran above crime stories. Instead they were using the space to rehash events of forty years past, when the country had been consumed in a maelstrom of political violence and our man had found himself in the centre – sent down for a seven-year stretch after a botched robbery. It was mostly ‘End of an Era’ stuff featuring various ageing gents opining about the old days, among them one Mario Cento, described as a former cellmate and co-founder with Solitudine of ‘Civil Action’, the current moniker of the local squatting movement. I made a note to look him up.

‘It’s a shame,’ said Niccoló as he lay down my bread.

‘You knew him?’

Niccoló shrugged. ‘Everyone knew of him. The old guard. Those days …’ He looked misty-eyed even though the events Solitudine had been caught up in must have happened long before he was born. ‘They got him in the end.’

‘Who do you mean “they”?’

Niccoló arched his eyebrows. Wasn’t it obvious?

‘The cops, authorities …’ He gesticulated as if to evoke the invisible hands everyone knew were pulling the strings. ‘Fascists.’

‘I heard there was trouble in Via Zamboni,’ I said. ‘Some kind of demonstration.’

‘If they think they can get away with this, they’re crazy.’

I thought about saying – what do you care? You’re hardly a radical, you’re minting it as a partner in this restaurant. But as soon as anyone put on a black t-shirt in this city they seemed to feel instantly connected to its revolutionary past. And black was de rigeur for the staff at Banco.

A British couple were placed beside me. Late-middle aged empty-nesters who began trying to decipher the menu as they might clues in the Telegraph crossword.

‘Scusi?’ The guy called Niccoló over. He asked what was what in his phrase-book Italian. Niccoló played along – he could speak English fluently, but gamely replied as he might to any local.

Watching the couple in the bar mirror I clocked the incomprehension behind their smiles. They thanked him anyway and he went away presuming he had been perfectly understood – for the moment, tourism remained a novelty in the city and waiting staff had yet to lose patience with visitors, which was great if you wanted to learn the language, less so if you couldn’t actually speak it.

‘Did you get any of that?’ said the man. The woman shook her head.

‘Not a clue,’ she said. The man took out his phone, presumably to try and translate. I reached around the bar for an English menu and handed it to him.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Grazie!’

I nodded. ‘You’re welcome.’

The man looked at my Carlino and frowned. ‘You’re … English?’

‘Guilty,’ I said.

‘But …’ He looked at the paper again. ‘You’re not a tourist.’

I shook my head. ‘I live here.’

‘Nice?’ said the man, clearly trying to get the measure of me. There are few things more suspicious to an Englishman abroad than another Englishman abroad.

‘It’s all right,’ I said.

‘Better than just all right, surely,’ said his wife, who clearly didn’t share his apprehension. ‘Such wonderful food. You’re so lucky.’

I smiled. ‘So I’ve been told.’ In the mirror I noticed a flatfish at the fishmongers behind us, lying like a grey puddle upon the ice. The Image of Solitudine on that slab flashed before my eyes.

Niccoló plonked down my pasta and the lady nodded her approval. What else could I do? I scooped up the tortelli and turned back to the Carlino.

Marta Finzi lived in the old Jewish Ghetto. When we arrived at the entrance, a line of riot police was blocking our way. Chatting, resting against their shields, smoking. Beyond them, it sounded like a carnival of drunks – the thud-thud-thud of an amplified bass drum, angry Italian rap, whistles, cheers and chants bouncing off the Renaissance porticoes on either side of Via Zamboni, the thoroughfare that ran through the university zone.

A megaphone screeched some slogan, a smoke canister popped and sent vanilla wisps of grey drifting our way. They sounded like thousands down there but I knew there were probably just a few hundred.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ A riot cop, his visor raised above his navy blue helmet, stepped in our path.

The Comandante pointed to the archway. ‘We just need to go through there.’

He shook his head. ‘Not today,’ he said, ‘you’ll have to go the long way around.’

‘Officer,’ the Comandante smiled through his tidy grey beard, ‘we are a little late for a business appointment. I can assure you, we are not here to make trouble.’

Another carabinieri came up and pulled the first one out of the way. ‘Stefano,’ he said, ‘don’t you know who this is? Please –’ he waved us through ‘– Comandante.’

‘Thank you, Corporal.’

‘You’re welcome, sir.’ He saluted.

‘What would we do without you?’ I said as we passed beneath the arch.

‘Take the long way around,’ said the Comandante. It must have been almost twenty years since he had taken early retirement but his reputation, along with his former rank, still preceded him.

The archway marked the entrance to the Ghetto, which dated back to the days when Bologna’s Jewish community had been confined to cramped quarters close to the market. Once through it, the city shrank to medieval scale: narrow, cobbled lanes, low porticoes propped up by reclaimed Roman columns.

The quarter’s official title suited it better: Ex Ghetto, as the signs rather emphatically proclaimed. What would have once been an overcrowded, ramshackle area with Via Inferno – Hell Street – running down the middle was now one of the most sought after addresses in the city. The second-hand clothes shops were strictly vintage, the osterie featured fine wines and artisanal beer. The shoemaker’s immaculately crafted wares bore no price tag. This was the home of professors at the nearby university, youthful beneficiaries of old money, successful filmmakers. And the Finzi-Manzis.

We walked along the low-hanging portico until we came to their door, perfectly nondescript, even down to the white, blue and green graffiti tags that covered it from top to bottom. This was par for the course: the closer you got to the university area, the denser the graffiti became.

I rang the Finzi-Manzi bell. There was an immediate response, as if Signora Finzi had been waiting by the intercom.

‘Come through the building and into the garden at the back,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’ The door buzzed open.

Inside, I switched on the hallway light and we began to walk down a gloomy corridor. There was a metal and stained-glass door at the end. Deprived of any other options, I tried the handle.

The door opened onto a small park. I shouldn’t have been surprised – the city was built around its hidden spaces – but even by Bolognese standards this was impressive. Stepping out of the dark passageway onto a gravel path, nature expanded around us. Ancient trees towered above an expanse of uneven lawn. Islands of plants and shrubs studded the grass, while closely cropped vines were garlanded around copies of Roman and Greek statues (at least, I presumed they were copies). Old red brick walls rose, some way distant and partly camouflaged by flora, on either side.

The path led us toward an age-smoothed fountain decorated with the fauna of the Renaissance: cherubs, cupids and other chortling child-creatures, while beneath them sea nymphs spouted from their upraised breasts.

‘It’s Giambologna,’ said the Comandante. ‘After he’d finished the statue of Neptune in Maggiore, the owners commissioned this. Ah,’ he said, ‘there she is.’

A woman was coming toward us between a trio of gnarled pines, tall and slender, her long frizzy hair streaked with grey. Behind her, partially screened by the trees, stood a three-storey palazzo.

‘Marta,’ said the Comandante, clasping her hand.

‘Giovanni,’ she said. She looked at me.

‘My partner, and son-in-law, Daniel.’

‘Of course,’ she said. She held out a long-fingered hand. Despite her even gaze, her palm, I noticed, was damp. ‘In fact, we’ve met before. But you probably won’t remember me. I was at the funeral – Lucia had been one of my students.’

She was right – I didn’t remember her. I couldn’t, in truth, remember much from those times.

Signora Finzi gave me the smile I hated most – of pity. It may have showed – in any case, she changed the subject: ‘How’s your Italian these days?’

‘It puts my English to shame,’ said the Comandante.

‘But then in our day, Giovanni, we were taught only French, no?’

‘So were we,’ I said. ‘And my French is terrible.’

‘But your Italian seems okay.’ She looked around the garden.

‘An oasis,’ said the Comandante, ‘as ever.’

‘We should go inside,’ she said.

Despite its venerable façade there was little inside the palazzo that appeared to have fallen under the auspices of Bologna’s notoriously strict department for the preservation of historical monuments. Abstract art hung from the otherwise featureless whitewashed walls; a modern, wood-burning stove took centre-place in the living room, its flue suspended from the ceiling so a glass-fronted oblong bulb hung half a metre above the dark-stained parquet.

I passed an Antonello Ghezzi mirror with guardami ancora – look at me again – etched across it in illuminated script, and was momentarily surprised by what I saw on second glance: in my dark overcoat and suit, my neatly cropped hair with that widows peak about to fall off the cliff, I caught the reflection not of an Englishman, but an Italian.

I evoked Lucia’s spirit – not bad, she was laughing, although I didn’t doubt that on closer examination no matter how well I dressed, from the shape of my skull to the size of my feet, my origins would speak of the East Anglian Fens and London smog rather than the Po Plain and Bolognese guilds.

We stepped into a modern, industrial style kitchen that had been created out of only the most expensively distressed materials.

Signora Finzi made us a coffee. She opened the window looking out onto the garden and produced a pack of cigarettes. She offered one to the Comandante, who accepted. I declined.

‘I presume Carlo is in Rome,’ said the Comandante, ‘for the conference?’

‘Hm. Rome, yes.’ Marta Finzi’s eyes swivelled around the kitchen as if she was worried her husband was about to come sauntering in.

‘The PD these days is quite a mess.’ The Comandante meant the political party to which her husband, Carlo Manzi, belonged.

Signora Finzi made another strained smile. She took a sharp drag on her cigarette and expelled a short plume of smoke in the direction of the window. ‘Isn’t it,’ she said.

There was a boom from outside, so loud it rattled the window. We watched a smudge of black smoke rise against the Mediterranean-blue sky.

‘You know what it’s about,’ said Signora Finzi, ‘this protest?’

‘The man they found dead in the canal,’ I said. ‘The man we’ve just paid a visit, at your request, Signora Finzi.’

She nodded, contemplating the cigarette smouldering between those long fingers. ‘That man,’ she said, looking first at me, then at the Comandante, ‘Paolo Solitudine, was my lover.’

Neither I, nor the Comandante, was exactly bowled over. We had not needed to discuss it to assume. I was sure, it would be something like this – it seemed unlikely the lady would have gone to the trouble for her window cleaner. On the other hand, there was certainly novelty about the coupling: Marta Finzi, wife of Bologna’s Mayor, Carlo Manzi, PD bigwig synonymous with the affluent Leftist consensus that had ruled this town for more than half a century, carrying on with a leading light of their sworn enemy, the anarchists, who hated everything the PD stood for and were wont to demonstrate it by smashing up the city on a regular basis.

But although it didn’t come as much of a surprise, I wondered whether it was my imagination or the Comandante had turned a shade greyer than usual. Certainly his cigarette had grown a pyre of ash that now balanced precariously above his knuckles. He cleared his throat. ‘My condolences,’ he said, and tilted it into the ashtray.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Marta, ‘after everything you did for us.’

The Comandante shook his head. ‘That was a long time ago. But tell me, Marta, what it is we can do for you now.’

‘The police are treating it as an accident,’ she said. My thoughts returned to that black bag – officially he should have been in a white one. Yet there he was, dressed in black. Had they just run out of white, or was someone playing silly buggers?

‘But you don’t believe them?’ said the Comandante.

She looked out of the window again, gazed at that dark stain against the sky. She shook her head.

‘You believe the anarchists, then?’ I said. ‘That it’s somehow connected to this raid on their squat?’

She scoffed. ‘Who would you believe?’

Only in Italy, I thought, would the city’s very own Marie Antoinette, ensconced in this elegant palace, place more store in the judgment of a rabble than the forces of law and order.

‘There’s more,’ she said. She took another cigarette out of the box and was about to light it when she realised she still had one on the go in the ashtray. She tried to place the unlit cigarette back in the box but her hand was trembling too much, so she left it on top. She picked up the lit one and lifted it to her lips. She looked back out into the garden.

Her features slackened as if her real face was emerging from behind the mask. Then tears began to run down her cheeks and splash upon the work surface.

‘Come,’ the Comandante took her arm, ‘come, Marta, darling, let us sit down.’ He guided her to the burnished-metal island in the centre of the kitchen and pulled up a chair, sitting beside her and placing an arm tentatively around her shoulders.

When Signora Finzi spoke again, the strength had drained from her voice. ‘It’s … Carlo,’ she said. ‘His behaviour. He’s changed. These past few weeks, no, that’s the thing – months –’ she shuddered ‘– I’ve noticed … it’s like this: it’s as if he’s been watching me. I don’t mean like … like you do, like spying and so on, but it’s like he’s really been paying attention.

‘You know, Giovanni, in every marriage … in every long marriage there’s always a sense of complacency, but with him, these past years, especially since the kids have left, it’s been … it’s been like I hardly exist. Once I went to a conference for a weekend and when I got back I realised, well, he didn’t say anything, but I just realised – he hadn’t even noticed I’d gone. But now, recently, that’s all changed. It’s as if … as if, suddenly, he’s zoomed in on me.

‘It’s … unnerving,’ she said. ‘At first, you know, I was flattered … I began to feel guilty … about Paolo and me, but then, after what happened, to Paolo I mean, I began to think –’ she raised a hand to her mouth ‘– my god, that’s it – he found out.’

I caught the Comandante’s eye. Not only did we have an accusation of murder on our hands, but one involving Bologna’s first citizen.

‘With respect,’ I said, ‘there might be any number of reasons why Signor Manzi has begun to pay more attention to you, signora. Perfectly innocent reasons.’

‘It’s not like him,’ she said, ‘not like him at all.’

‘Things like flowers,’ I said, ‘dining out?’

‘Oh, nothing that obvious,’ she said, ‘you think he’s so stupid? No, he’s just more attentive, questioning, interested … it’s the little things …’

The little things – a wife would know, I had to admit, and that phrase would be enough for us to take on an adultery case, but murder? ‘Is there any hard evidence you can provide us with? For example, has Signor Manzi ever threatened you,’ I said, ‘been violent?’ She shook her head, looked at me with a mixture of pity and contempt.

‘He doesn’t understand,’ sh. . .