As Bordelli continued his story, flashes of the Morozzi trial came back to him. Four life sentences. Santelia had bent over backwards trying to get a reduced sentence for Giulio and Angela, waving his arms under his gown for a good half-hour, every so often bringing his fist down on the bench. But it was all for naught. The heat during the trial was unbearable, but the courtroom was nevertheless packed with people, owing perhaps to the interest the press had shown in the case. Piras even ended up getting his picture in the paper with the caption: ‘Young Officer Piras, who played a decisive role in solving the murder’.
Dante had appeared in the courtroom dressed as he always was, in his oil-stained white smock. He sat in the last row, following the trial attentively, perhaps more interested in observing the people than in knowing the outcome. No one dared ask him to put out his smelly cigar. Since he was a strange person, photographers and journalists took aim at him as if he were a movie star. He simply ignored them. After the sentence was read, he had got up and left in silence.
‘My good Inspector,’ he had said to him over the phone a few days later, ‘my mice are very worried. Please help me find some wonderful woman to care for Gideon.’
That same evening Bordelli had paid him a call, taken the cat and brought it to Rosa, who adopted it on the spot.
‘Hey, are you in a daze or something?’ said Rosa, waving a hand in front of his face. Bordelli snapped out of it.
‘I’m sorry. Where was I?’
Rosa took the empty glass out of his hand.
‘I get it. You need something strong.’
As Rosa went off in search of alcohol, Bordelli saw Elvira’s face before his eyes. This was certainly nothing new. She troubled his sleep every night, in fact, walking across the hard floor in her bare feet, staring at him with her beautiful, piercing eyes.
It was an evening like so many others, Bordelli dozing on Rosa’s couch, coddled like a child. He gazed at the sky through the open window, following his dreams. He had no way of knowing that only a few months later, one nasty afternoon, he would be dashing off to the park of Villa di Ventaglio after a particularly monstrous murder.
At that moment a shooting star streaked across the sky, and Bordelli became agitated. He saw his aunts’ passion-flower pergola again, and Annina bent down to kiss a sad little boy goodbye.