Tancredi’s call came as I was leaving the clerk of the court’s office, after a depressing look through a number of files.
“Carmelo.”
“Where are you, Guerrieri?”
“In Tahiti, on holiday. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Be careful. With jokes like that, someone might die laughing.”
He told me he had to see me. From his tone it was clear it was about something he had no intention of telling me over the phone, so I didn’t ask him any questions. He suggested we meet in a bar near the courthouse, and twenty minutes later we were sitting in front of two of the worst cappuccinos in the region.
“Do you have the passenger list?”
Tancredi nodded. Then he looked around, as if to check that no one was watching us. No one could have been watching us, because the bar was empty, apart from the fat lady behind the counter. The perpetrator of those delightful cappuccinos.
“Among the passengers coming from Montenegro was a gentleman who’s quite well known in certain circles.”
“How do you mean?”
“Luca Romanazzi, class of 1968. He’s from Bari, but lives in Rome. Twice arrested and tried for Mafia connections and drug trafficking, twice acquitted. Middle-class family, father a municipal employee, mother a nursery school teacher. Brothers normal. A normal family. He’s the proverbial black sheep. We’re sure he took part in a series of armoured-car robberies – according to various informants – and that he was involved in trafficking with Albania. Drugs and luxury cars. But we have nothing that’ll stick. The son of a bitch is good.”
“He could have organized this whole operation.”
“Yes, he could. He could also be an accomplice of your client’s, to take another plausible hypothesis.”
“I need to show his face to Paolicelli.”
“Of course.”
“That means I need a photo, Carmelo.”
He didn’t reply. He looked around again, moving only his eyes, and then took a yellow envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and gave it to me.
“I’d be grateful if this stayed confidential, Guerrieri. And after you’ve shown it to your client I’d be grateful if you burned it, or ate it, or whatever you like.”
I was listening to him with the envelope in my hand.
“And I’d also be grateful if you put it away. For example, doing a complicated thing like putting it in your pocket before everyone in the bar realizes that Inspector Tancredi delivers supposedly confidential papers to a criminal lawyer.”
I didn’t bother saying that “everyone in the bar” seemed to me a bit of an exaggeration, seeing that the lady behind the bar had been joined only by a little old man who was drinking a double brandy, completely uninterested in us or the rest of the world. I thanked him and put the envelope in my pocket. Tancredi was already getting up to go back to police headquarters.