Marco Vichi - Inspector Bordelli 04 - Death in Florence Read Free Page B

… A series of unlucky coincidences? Was it a premeditated kidnapping, or had chance stuck her grubby paws in this?
    The internal phone line rang. It was the radio room. A car with two corpses inside it had been found a few hundred yards from the monastery of Montesenario. A man and a woman. At first glance it looked like a double suicide.
    ‘All right, I’m on my way … Inform Diotivede and the assistant prosecutor,’ Bordelli said calmly before hanging up.
    ‘What is it?’ Piras was already standing.
    ‘I’ll tell you in the stairwell,’ the inspector muttered, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. He was doing his best not to smoke, but between women and corpses, it wasn’t easy.
    ‘Slow down, Inspector,’ said Piras, limping.
    ‘Sorry, I always forget.’
    He slowed to the young man’s pace and they went down into the courtyard. It was deluging. Mugnai saw them and came running out with a large green country umbrella that covered all three of them. While walking them to the Beetle, he asked what seven-letter word might describe the
Hill ever dear to Leopardi
.
    ‘Forlorn,’ Piras and Bordelli said in chorus. They got into the car and left, leaving Mugnai behind to his thoughts.
    As they drove through Piazza delle Cure the rain let up a little, but the sky was still black. The inspector was thinking that it was a relief to deal with something concrete, even if it meant two dead.
    Half an hour later they were at Montesenario. There was a pair of patrol cars there, as well as a few onlookers. It was still drizzling with a monotonous persistence that tried even the most steadfast patience. Bordelli approached the Fiat 600 and looked inside. A man of about forty with a hole in his left temple and a woman of about thirty with her hand on her bloodstained lap, both with their mouths half open. The back seat was stacked high with fabric catalogues.
    ‘Keep those people away,’ Bordelli said to one of the uniformed cops. He tried opening the door on the driver’s side. It was unlocked. He stuck his head inside to have a close look at the corpses and bullet holes. The woman had been shot in the belly. Unlike hers, the man’s eyes were wide open. He searched the man’s jacket and the woman’s handbag for their papers, then stepped aside to let Piras have a look. He was almost convinced he knew how things had unfolded, and wanted to see whether the Sardinian agreed. He waited patiently for Piras to finish.
    ‘What do you think?’ he asked him.
    ‘It wasn’t premeditated,’ said the young man.
    ‘Go on …’
    ‘Two illicit lovers. They had a quarrel, he threatened her with the pistol, she perhaps made fun of him, saying the pistol wasn’t loaded, and so he pulls back the slide and lets it go, not knowing that would make the gun go off. Seeing that he’s killed her by accident, he loses his head and shoots himself.’
    ‘Makes perfect sense to me,’ said Bordelli, handing him the two poor souls’ papers. The man was married, the woman too, but not to each other.
    At that moment the Fiat 1100 of Dr Diotivede pulled up, as black and shiny as a politician’s shoe. The old police pathologist got out with his medical bag in hand, also black, naturally. His snow-white hair gleamed in the morning light. As he approached the two lovers’ car, he gave an almost imperceptible nod of greeting. He always wore a childlike frown on his face, as if he’d just been woken up to go to school. Opening his bag, he stuck his hands inside and then withdrew them already sheathed in rubber gloves. He ducked into the car to touch the corpses. Less than a minute later he peeled off his gloves.
    ‘The woman died two hours later than the man, maybe even two and a half,’ he said, jotting his first notes down in his notebook.
    ‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Bordelli.
    ‘No, I was just kidding,’ Diotivede grumbled, still writing.
    ‘It wasn’t really a question …’
    ‘I have to go now, I have a rendezvous with