The Cold Summer by Gianrico Carofiglio & Howard Curtis

Author:Gianrico Carofiglio & Howard Curtis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2018-08-01T16:00:00+00:00

14

Lopez had just started looking through the photograph album when someone knocked at the door.

“Come in,” D’Angelo said, suppressing a gesture of annoyance at the interruption.

The door opened slowly and Colonel Morelli looked in. It was the first time he’d put in an appearance since the interviews with Lopez had begun. The other carabinieri got to their feet. So did Lopez after a few moments. Morelli didn’t come in.

“I’m sorry, dottoressa, may I speak with you for a moment?”

There was something strange about the colonel’s hesitant tone. Morelli was normally very military in the way he moved and spoke. Lacking in halftones, perfectly commensurate with the traditional idea of how a commanding officer should behave.

Now, though, his voice and movements were uncertain; and he was alone. This, too, was unusual, Fenoglio thought. Commanding officers rarely go about on their own; there is always someone with them, as if to symbolically underline their role in the hierarchy they represent.

That afternoon, though, Morelli was alone. No hierarchy, no symbols, no rituals. Something was wrong.

D’Angelo looked around for a few seconds. “Of course,” she said, getting to her feet and picking up her packet of cigarettes.

“You too, Valente,” the colonel said to the captain, disappearing into the corridor.

“The colonel looked odd,” Pellecchia commented after a few minutes’ silence.

“What can have happened?” Avvocato Formica asked.

Something very serious, Fenoglio thought. Someone had been murdered, maybe a relative of Lopez’s. Something had happened that was bringing the situation to a head.

D’Angelo came back some ten minutes later, without the captain. Her eyes were moist and there was a lost expression on her face. She seemed to recognize neither the room nor the people in it.

“We have to suspend the interview. I mean, we have to … We can’t continue.”

“What happened, dottoressa?”

She didn’t reply. She probably didn’t even hear Fenoglio’s voice. “Write this, sergeant,” she said, staring straight ahead. “At” – she looked at her watch, staring for several seconds at the dial – “18.50, before proceeding with the identifications, but after the interviewee has already viewed the first pages of the photograph album, the interview is suspended for serious reasons unrelated to the object of the present procedure.”

She pronounced the words emphatically, but it was as if her voice was coming from somewhere else.

“Please print the transcript. We’ll resume on Monday. I’m sorry, Avvocato, I’ll let you know the time of the next interview. I’m sorry,” she repeated, “but something’s happened.”

Her words hung there for a few moments, perhaps longer.

“There’s been an explosion on the highway.”

“Where?” Fenoglio asked.

“In Palermo. Apparently there are survivors, apparently Falcone and his wife are being taken to hospital.”

In the most tragic situations, we tend to remember apparently insignificant details. What remained in Fenoglio’s mind was Sergeant Calcaterra’s face. It was usually unmoving, expressionless, as if the only thing that interested him was getting statements down on paper, transforming terrible, bloodthirsty events into bureaucratic, aseptic language, sterilizing them, draining them of the incomprehensible violence of life, domesticating them, making them the material of files and records.

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