Gold, Frankincense and Dust by Valerio Varesi

Author:Valerio Varesi [Varesi, Valerio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: rt, tpl
ISBN: 9781906694371
Google: Sb7WnAEACAAJ
Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc
Published: 2013-11-06T05:00:00+00:00

12

AS HE TRAVELLED along the Cisa road, the bulls at Cortile San Martino came back into his mind. He wondered if they were still wandering loose in the Po Valley or if someone had managed to round them up. He hoped that instinct had driven them towards the woods on the Apennines and that they were living there in the company of the wild boars. He was still thinking of his own sun-baked mountains as he turned into the artisan district of Lemignano, with its workshops, warehouses and little villas. Suddenly, he caught sight of an oval bronze nameplate with the word GOLDEN in elegant italics. The atmosphere was typical of areas reserved for the prosperous. He rang and saw a light go on in the intercom. A woman’s voice asked, “Who is it?” but she was drowned out by a chorus of dogs barking in a yard nearby. The C.C.T.V. cameras, the guard dogs and the reinforced doors all added to a sense of tension in the atmosphere, which would have been like that in the trenches in time of war, had it not been for the workers in overalls inside the workshops and the coming and going of vans.

The interior was welcoming: rugs, heavy wooden furniture and a pleasing scent of rosehip perfume. Soneri introduced himself to a secretary with a serious and sad demeanour.

Giulia Martini, who must have been in her mid-forties, had the ascetic look of a mother superior. She was thin, short and sharp-featured.

“May I know why you are here?” she demanded.

“A Romanian girl has been murdered. You may have read in the newspapers …”

“What of it?”

Before replying, the commissario ran his eyes along the wall behind the woman, dominated by a portrait of the Pope. “Her mobile phone shows that there were some calls made from another mobile registered in the name of this company.”

If the woman were at all disconcerted, she had no difficulty in dissembling. She paused only a few seconds for reflection.

“We did have a Romanian employee some while ago. She used to come in after six o’clock in the evening to clean the offices.”

“Was her name Ines Iliescu?”

“Yes.”

“Her real name was Nina. She was murdered and her body burned.”

The woman did not betray the least sign of discomposure. She kept her thoughts to herself and said nothing.

“Don’t you think you have some explaining to do? When did she come here?”

“She came until a few weeks ago.”

“And then?”

“We neither saw nor heard anything further from her. She simply disappeared.”

“The telephone calls continued until a week ago,” Soneri said.

“We carried on trying to reach her. She was very good and it’s not easy to find reliable people nowadays.”

Soneri gave a smile which was more of a smirk as he looked at the samples of sacred vessels arrayed inside display cabinets.

“Whoever was trying to reach her did find her,” he snapped. “Twenty-one minutes of doing their best to convince her.”

The woman was growing impatient. She adjusted a plait behind her ear and glowered at the commissario.

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