Free Death and the Olive Grove by Marco Vichi

sat inside the car for a few minutes, smoking a cigarette under the moon, which that night was as slender as the stroke of a pen. Tossing the butt out the window, he started the engine. He climbed up the Via del Bargellino and a moment later stopped in front of the villa’s entrance. He got out of the car and went up to the gate. All was dark. He pulled on the bell insistently, not giving a damn that it was the middle of the night. Lights came on on the first floor, and then on the ground floor. A moment later the door opened, and Miss Olga appeared in silhouette in the lighted doorway.
    â€˜Miss Olga, please forgive me for coming at this time of the night,’ he shouted. ‘It’s me again, Inspector Bordelli.’
    The woman wrapped her shawl about her neck and came forward through the garden. She stopped a step away from the gate and did not open it. This time she was in a dressing gown, and her eyes looked very angry.
    â€˜I vas asleep,’ she said, annoyed.
    â€˜I wanted to talk to you for a minute.’
    â€˜Then talk.’
    â€˜Has the baron returned?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Do you know where he is?’
    â€˜Africa, I think.’
    â€˜And you don’t know when he’ll be back?’
    â€˜ Nein .’ Uttered drily by the puckered mouth of Fraulein Olga, that word brought Bordelli back to the war days. He stared at the woman, imagining her in an SS uniform.
    â€˜Does the villa belong to the baron?’
    â€˜ Ja … Yes.’
    â€˜When did he buy it?’
    â€˜You can research zese things by yourself.’
    â€˜If you tell me now you’ll save me a lot of time.’
    â€˜After the war,’ the woman said with a sigh, increasingly irritated.
    â€˜Forgive me for asking, signorina, but does the baron by any chance have a large black spot on his neck?’
    â€˜I really sink you mistake him for anozzer persson.’
    â€˜And one last thing. Have you noticed anything strange around here lately?’
    â€˜If dare was somesing strange I call the police,’ said Olga, staring at him. Bordelli tried to smile.
    â€˜When the baron returns, would you be so good as to tell him to come and see me?’
    â€˜Baron stays away long time, maybe months.’
    â€˜Well, if you’re in touch with him by telephone, please tell him to give me a ring at police headquarters.’
    â€˜All right.’
    â€˜Thank you, and sorry to disturb you.’
    â€˜Good night,’ said Miss Olga. She did an about-face, marched to the house and closed the great door behind her with a thud. You certainly couldn’t call her hospitable.
    One evening in January 1944, in a little town in the south, Bordelli and Gavino Piras, the father of Bordelli’s young assistant, had gone out for a walk along the roads. They had put civilian coats over their uniforms. The 8th of September was still a recent memory, 7 and the area was still full of Nazis. It was foolhardy to be out like that, and they knew it. Round a bend they were stopped by a German military lorry and forced at gunpoint to climb aboard the flatbed, where there were other men, old and young, with fear in their eyes. They were all brought to a farmstead just outside the town and forced to dig a large pit in the muddy ground, perhaps to bury their dead. Bordelli and Piras were in a cold sweat. If the Germans ever discovered that they were with the San Marco Battalion, they would have them shot as traitors. And so they shovelled earth and mud with the others for almost three hours, with nobody opening his mouth, and then they were all released. Once they were round the corner, Piras and Bordelli burst out laughing. Not from amusement, but from the tension accumulated in their guts, which demanded release. It seemed almost impossible that they’d come out alive. They returned to camp and didn’t tell anyone what had happened. They spent the night awake, smoking like chimneys.
    Bordelli got