Nameless Serenade by Maurizio de Giovanni

Author:Maurizio de Giovanni
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2018-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

XXVI

He ought to have hurried straight home, Brigadier Raffaele Maione. He ought to have hurried home because it was raining and he was dead tired after working almost twenty-four hours straight. He ought to have hurried home because his children were waiting for him, as was his wife, Lucia, who had told him so over the phone from the apartment of the accountant Ruggiero, as usual shouting as if she were leaning out a window and he were down in the street. He had promised her that he’d come straight home as soon as he got off his shift, but then there had been this murder, and when there’s a murder, all bets were off.

He ought to have, certainly. And he would have liked to, as well, because the rain was penetrating deep into his bones through his trousers, and into his shoes through the soles; the umbrella offered a thoroughly inadequate protection from the elements.

And yet it was not toward home that a grim and determined Brigadier Raffaele Maione turned his steps. His shift had ended, that’s true, but then it’s a well known fact that a brigadier is always on duty, otherwise what kind of a brigadier would he be?

He turned eastward, heading straight into the wind that blew the rain right into his face from practically head-on, as if a misbehaving street urchin, or scugnizzo, had decided to drench him with a hose. His umbrella kept turning inside out, with the distinct likelihood of breaking once and for all, so at a certain point he shut it, abandoning entirely any hopes he might ever have had of keeping at least his jacket warm and dry.

As he walked along, he noticed that the network of lookouts was functioning even at that time of night, in spite of the terrible weather. A figure moving in the shadows, a shutter loudly slamming, a metal roller blind lifted halfway, with a hole in the center through which it was possible to see the shape of a face. The walls have eyes, Maione said to himself. Eyes and ears, and they even seem to talk to each other.

Welcome to the Sanità quarter, Brigadie’. The welcoming committee is ready to offer you its greetings.

The policeman didn’t slow his pace a bit, but just continued, striding confidently toward his destination. He had no doubt that he’d been checked out and promptly identified. If he had showed up with an entourage of officers, at a time of the day that might have suggested a police operation in force, he would have been greeted by an army, but walking along alone, no one was liable to stop him. The sole obstacle would continue to be the wind, chilly and laden with rain.

He turned the corner and walked past a tavern. Behind the plate-glass window were four young men rapt in conversation, with a straw-wrapped bottle of wine and a deck of cards in front of them. They turned to look at him with hostile faces, hands

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