The Death of a Mafia Don Page 2

  She could have called the driver, or Ferrara’s ultra-efficient secretary Fanti, or his deputy Rizzo, or even the commissioner. Someone must know where the head of the Squadra Mobile was at that moment.

  She could have done that.

  But women don’t waste time on things they know will get them nowhere. When something needs to be done, they do it.

  She threw on a raincoat, closed the door behind her, not even bothering to double-lock it, and ran down the stairs without waiting for the lift - if she had stopped for a single moment, her legs would probably have given way.

  ‘It’s like an anthill down there,’ the helicopter pilot said a few minutes later to his co-pilot as he flew low over the square, which was hidden beneath a curtain of smoke. It was a centre of both attraction and repulsion, with people either dazedly stumbling away in fear or running towards it to offer help, report back or be there out of simple, reckless curiosity.

  Her vision fogged by tears she couldn’t hold back, Petra was unable to get through the crowd of onlookers being held back from the site of the explosion by the police, who were starting to cordon off the square and the Lungarno Soderini. She felt lost. But just as she was thinking she would have to give up, she heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Signora Ferrara, Signora Ferrara!’

  It was Rizzo, who was coming towards her. Held up by the crush of ambulances, fire engines and cars, he had left his own car in the Piazza Goldoni, on the other side of the river, and had reached the scene panting for breath.

  ‘Rizzo, where’s my husband?’ Petra somehow found the strength to ask.

  He had been hoping she could tell him that. ‘We haven’t seen him, but don’t worry. What are you doing here?’

  ‘This is the way Michele came this morning to get to Headquarters. The explosion happened just after he left home. You don’t think—’

  ‘No, I’m sure there’s no connection. This is a terrorist thing, the whole of the West is under attack. Look, I’m going to see what’s happening, but first I’ll have one of my men take you home and as soon as I see the chief superintendent I’ll tell him to call you.’

  ‘I want to come, too.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Signora Ferrara, that’s not possible.’

  ‘Rizzo,’ was all she said, and there was such a mixture of authority and entreaty in her voice and eyes that Rizzo knew there was no point in insisting.

  ‘The chief will never forgive me,’ he said, walking ahead of her and showing his police badge to get through the crowd.

  Ahmed Farah, the Egyptian journalist from La Nazione, who had helped Ferrara in the past, recognized Rizzo and fell into step behind him.

  ‘This is a terrorist attack, isn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t know that yet. It’s too early to say.’

  ‘Do you need another September 11 before you wake up?’

  ‘You have your theories, we have to investigate.’

  ‘If they don’t blow you up first. These guys mean business, Superintendent.’

  ‘I know, but for now let me do my work.’ Rizzo let Petra through the cordon, but stopped Farah when he tried to follow them. ‘Not you, you stay here.’

  ‘So you don’t want to make a statement to the press?’

  ‘No, Chief Superintendent Ferrara will do that when the time is right.’

  ‘By the way, where is he? I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘He’ll be here.’

  ‘Tell him to call me. I may be able to help him in this business. I’m a Muslim, I know these people. I know this whole scene much better than you do.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell him, but—’ Rizzo broke off in consternation: he had lost sight of Petra.

  Ferrara’s wife had walked away, heading unsteadily but without hesitation for the mail van, behind which she had glimpsed the Alfa Romeo 156.

  Rizzo found her again, ran to her side and was just in time to catch her as she fainted in his arms.

  She had walked past the van and had found herself facing the shattered car windows.

  The crushed, twisted and bloodstained car was empty.

  4

  Petra had been lifted up by two officers who had come running at a signal from Rizzo and was taken in a semi-conscious state to the superintendent’s car. Now the car was speeding to the Careggi Hospital, its siren blaring. The piercing sound shattered Petra’s eardrums, increasing the nausea she was already feeling as the driver wove in and out of traffic.

  The first drops of rain smudged the windows.

  Rizzo was talking excitedly on the phone. His voice was muffled by the siren and the windscreen wipers, and their hypnotic rhythm felt like hammer blows as Petra struggled to make sense of the muttered words.

  ‘How long ago? . . . Serious? . . . We’re on our way . . . Ten, fifteen minutes at the outside . . . Yes, Commissioner.’

  When he had finished with the call, Petra tried to speak, but the effort simply made her retch.

  ‘They’re both injured, but alive,’ she heard Rizzo say to the driver. ‘The commissioner’s already there, so hurry.’

  ‘Yes, chief, but how seriously injured?’

  That was the question Petra was also dying to ask.

  ‘He doesn’t know, he’s only just got there.’

  They were silent for the rest of the journey, Petra’s muffled sobs swallowed by the wail of the siren.

  The square in front of the emergency department was filled with police cars. Among them, Rizzo recognised Riccardo Lepri’s car. An officer led them to the room where the commissioner was sitting impatiently, his right leg moving back and forth in a nervous manner.

  Rizzo would have preferred to entrust Petra, who was still unsteady on her feet, to the care of a nurse, but she had been so firm in her objection - predictably - that he had given up the idea.

  When they entered the room, the commissioner stood up, went to Petra and took her hands in his, solicitously.

  ‘Don’t worry, he’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Where is he? I want to see him.’

  ‘They took him to X-ray.’

  ‘How is he?’ Rizzo asked.

  ‘We just have to wait. They only brought him in a little while ago, still unconscious. Doctors never say anything until they’re sure. But I’m very confident,’ he added, presumably for the benefit of Petra, who could feel her nausea coming back.

  Noticing this, Rizzo walked her to one of the cold, grey metal chairs lined up along the walls of the room.

  A man in a white coat came in through a frosted glass door and signalled to the commissioner. Leaning on Rizzo’s arm, Petra made to stand up, but the doctor shook his head. With a reassuring gesture, Lepri asked her to wait.

  ‘But I’m his wife,’ she protested weakly, collapsing back on the chair as the door closed on Lepri and the doctor.

  When at last it opened again, the commissioner was accompanied by another doctor, an older man with an authoritative air. His round pink face, with its crown of snowy white hair, was grave but serene. Lepri, on the other hand, looked really grim, and it was his face that drew Petra’s anxiety like a magnet.

  But it was not Lepri who went to her. Instead, he called Rizzo over, while the doctor shifted one of the chairs and sat down facing her, smiling good-naturedly.

  ‘Good morning, Signora Ferrara. And it is a good morning, I can tell you. Your husband is a very lucky man. I’m Professor Giombi, the consultant. I can assure you you have nothing to fear. We have to operate on his jaw and remove a few small foreign bodies, but it’s really not serious, believe me. There are a few cuts from flying glass, a few minor burns. But we haven’t found lesions in any vital organs. With all these various things, though, he will have to stay here for a while. He needs complete rest, and I mean complete. Do you understand? No visits from colleagues, no work until further orders. Consider it a holiday.’ It was a feeble attempt at a joke.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Not now, we’re getting him ready for his first
operation.’

  ‘All right, I’ll wait here,’ she said wearily, closing her eyes and leaning back in the chair. With her left hand she gripped the back of the chair next to her to stop herself falling to the side.

  She wasn’t feeling at all well. And she didn’t believe him.

  While the doctor had been reassuring her, she had several times taken her eyes off his face and glanced over at Commissioner Lepri and Superintendent Rizzo, who were whispering together, their expressions a clear denial of everything the consultant was telling her.

  At the same time, he had noticed that her condition gave cause for concern.

  ‘Please, don’t move,’ she heard the doctor say, as he pushed back the chair with a metallic squeak.

  Petra wouldn’t have been able to move, even if she had wanted to. She felt dizzy, and very close to fainting again.

  5

  ‘He’s a lucky man.’

  Again.

  This time the voice was Rizzo’s.

  He had taken the consultant’s place without her even noticing. She had not fainted, but had slipped into a kind of emotionless limbo. Shaking herself out of it, she realised that the commissioner and the consultant had gone, leaving only Rizzo and her in the room. She also saw that Rizzo was not smiling.

  ‘The truth, Rizzo. I’m prepared to hear it, whatever it is. I don’t want soothing platitudes, I want to know, do you understand? ’

  Rizzo gave her a bewildered look. ‘The chief isn’t seriously hurt. Didn’t Professor Giombi explain?’

  ‘What was he supposed to say? He could see the state I’m in. But I wasn’t born yesterday. I saw you - you and Lepri. You looked as if you were at a funeral. So don’t tell me everything’s fine. I want the truth, Rizzo, the truth!’

  Rizzo swallowed and bowed his head.

  Perhaps he didn’t want her to see his watery eyes.

  ‘Your husband is going to pull through very quickly, Signora Ferrara, thank God. He isn’t seriously hurt. Unfortunately,

  Officer Franchi wasn’t so lucky. He probably won’t make it.’

  Petra burst into tears. It was not just a release of the tension that had been accumulating, it was also remorse: all this time, she had been thinking only of her husband, not of the innocent driver who had shared his fate. A woman as solid and down-to-earth as her German origins, Petra Ferrara, having chosen to spend her life in the shadow of her Michele, had always had a kind of respectful fellow-feeling for the men in her husband’s team. Now she realised how weak she’d been and, worse still, how selfish.

  Rizzo waited for her tears to subside, then said gently, ‘I’ll take you home, there’s no point in your staying here. Don’t worry, they’ll let us know when you can see him. Let’s go.’

  At that moment, the door opened and the consultant came in, accompanied by a nurse.

  ‘No, no, you go, Superintendent, the commissioner is waiting for you. But I’d like to keep Signora Ferrara under observation. She needs medical care. I’ve given instructions to the staff and we’ve got a room ready. It’s a double room, the best we have. The other bed is reserved for Chief Superintendent Ferrara.’

  Although he was impatient to return to the scene of the attack, Rizzo could not refuse when the commissioner insisted on buying him a coffee in the hospital cafeteria. Given the circumstances, this wasn’t going to be a break, but a ‘working coffee’. That was the way of the world, even in Italy, even in Florence. The old habits were dying, no one had time for anything, everyone was always in a hurry.

  ‘This is a bad business,’ the commissioner began.

  ‘Terrible,’ Rizzo agreed.

  ‘Were you expecting it?’

  Rizzo did not understand. ‘I’m sorry, how do you mean? Oh, because of September eleventh? Well, obviously, we’ve all been on our guard since that circular from the Ministry, and Florence is a potential target, but to tell the truth . . .’

  ‘Of course, of course. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was referring to the fact that Ferrara was there. What was he doing?’

  ‘He was on his way to work.’

  ‘But to get to the Via Zara from the Lungarno degli Acciaiuoli where he lives, why cross the river?’

  ‘It’s one of the possible routes. For security reasons, the driver never goes the same way twice in a row.’

  ‘That’s as maybe, but doesn’t it strike you as odd that a bomb should go off just as the head of the Squadra Mobile is passing? We all know how Ferrara is, how he thinks of himself as a maverick. If I find out that he was following some private lead . . .’

  ‘No, Commissioner. I really don’t think so. I would know.

  It was just a coincidence.’

  ‘If you say so, but it is very strange. But then we’re living in strange times! Any clues so far, any leads?’

  ‘It’s too soon to say. Right now, I think I should get to the scene.’

  The commissioner regarded him with what Rizzo interpreted as a doubtful expression. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ he sighed. ‘Strange times!’

  ‘I’ll be going, then. Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘Yes, go, and keep me up to date. And please, Superintendent Rizzo, I want maximum cooperation with all the investigative bodies, don’t be like your chief. Everyone’s going to want to put their nose into this thing. Military Intelligence are saying they want to send someone from Rome, they don’t want to rely on their Florence bureau!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Commissioner,’ Rizzo said to cut him short, glancing irritably at his watch.

  It was 10:05.

  6

  ‘Like a lion in a cage,’ Mafia boss Salvatore Laprua had said disdainfully to his wife only two days earlier, and he had thought of the other Lion, who was free and safe and crouching in his lair, depriving him of the support on which he had stupidly counted.

  He wasn’t used to being behind bars. He had defied the boss of bosses, Antonio Caputo, who was still in charge in Sicily even though he was on the run. He had left Sicily for the Versilia coast and set up the biggest drug trafficking organisation there had ever been. He had robbed, embezzled, blackmailed, killed and ordered killings, and had reached the age of seventy-seven without ever having been convicted of a crime. There was no way he was going to resign himself to rotting in jail now.

  That was why he had yielded in the end to his lawyer’s entreaties. Not that he trusted him: like all lawyers, he was all talk and no action. But it was possible this lawyer had found the only way out. Ferrara, the head of the Florence Squadra Mobile. It was Ferrara who had pursued him in August, Ferrara who had put him in the frame for the murder of the journalist Claudia Pizzi, Ferrara who had confiscated two hundred and fifty kilos of heroin hidden in blocks of marble in the port of Carrara, ready to be shipped to America. But Ferrara was a Sicilian, and a man of respect, unlike this timid attorney Liuzza, who was now sitting opposite him in the interview room, looking pale and agitated, a bird of ill omen.

  ‘Did you talk to him?’ he asked, without any preamble.

  ‘I nearly did, Don Laprua. I’ve been after him for a while, as you know. It isn’t easy . . . this is a delicate matter . . . it takes tact, you need to find the right moment.’

  ‘You didn’t talk to him! You’re taking all this time to tell me you didn’t talk to him!’

  ‘That’s not true. I phoned him this morning as we agreed.

  Really early, in fact, so we’d have a chance to talk in peace. He answered the phone, and we said hello, exchanged the usual greetings, but then . . .’

  ‘Then what, Liuzza?’

  ‘Then the bomb went off.’

  ‘The bomb? What bomb? What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘I was just opening my mouth when I heard this terrible explosion and we were cut off. It was like an atomic bomb! They’re saying on the radio there was an attack in the Piazza del Cestello, near where Ferrara lives.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No one knows, they took him to hospital. We don’t k
now anything for certain yet.’

  For a moment there was a gleam in Laprua’s eyes, but it immediately vanished. He bowed his head, passed a bony hand through his white hair, let out a long sigh and muttered something in Sicilian dialect. To the lawyer, it sounded as if he was saying, ‘The fools!’

  ‘Fools?’ he echoed. ‘Who do you mean?’

  Salvatore Laprua looked at him with the contempt he reserved for the incompetent. ‘You’re the only fool here.’

  Silverio Liuzzi’s dense, confused expression almost amused him.

  He lowered his voice abruptly. ‘In my village, Bellomonte di Mezzo, we grew up on bread and proverbs. One in particular. “The man who talks too much is a cuckold.” Do you know what that means?’

  ‘Of course,’ the lawyer replied promptly, and a touch smugly. ‘It means you shouldn’t tell tales.’

  ‘Wrong. That’s what I said to my father when I was thirteen.

  I was cocky, sure of myself. It was like a leaving examination, only in the school of life. All I got in return was a slap. “The man who tells tales is dead,” he said. “But the man who talks too much doesn’t do much. He wastes time, and the others get off with his wife!” I learned three things that day. That actions speak louder than words, that men with white hair are to be respected, and that before you say anything you should think, not twice, but three times. I was thirteen. How old are you?’

  Liuzza ignored the provocation. ‘All right, I understand,’ he said, anxious to redeem himself. ‘But there are other avenues we can try. There’s the prosecutor who co-ordinated the investigation, her name’s Anna Giulietti. I can get to her.’

  ‘You don’t understand a thing. You didn’t do what you were supposed to do. Now it’s over.’ His voice had dropped almost to a whisper. ‘Over.’

  ‘What do you mean? Is this a joke? I assure you I still have several strings to my bow - I have my ways, my contacts—’