Free The Disappearance of Signora Giulia by Piero Chiara

brought up and laid out on the ground with the help of the two builders. They had to use a canvas, because the limbs were falling off.
    Fumagalli had gone up to the house to stop his wife – who might have become suspicious or been told something byTeresa – from coming into the park and being confronted by the scene. He’d also telephoned a photographer at the magistrate’s request, and shortly afterwards there were photos of everything, especially the cadaver.
    There was no doubt about its identity. Esengrini was the first to say: ‘It’s her.’
    Her face, once so pale, had turned honey-coloured and transparent. Her undamaged hair spread over the ground, and from between the trees a ray of sun threw over it a warm reflection, so that it might almost have been confused with the dry, crumpled leaves spread across the lawn.
    Her clothes were faded and practically moulded to her body, like those of a statue. The graceful, lively figure of Signora Giulia was no longer recognizable in that form. Stretched out along the ground, she looked like a dressed-up skeleton. A pool of putrefaction, which the paving stones couldn’t soak up, slowly formed around her. Her hair alone seemed immune to transformation; it was loose in a way no one there had ever seen apart from her husband. Her head seemed like that of a young girl, and except for the empty eye sockets strongly recalled her daughter’s face around the cheekbones and forehead. When they moved her, a thick, dark liquid flowed out of the sockets. Her golden wedding band was removed from her ring finger. Inside the circle, the date of her wedding was still legible.
    The corpse was taken to the morgue for an autopsy, and in order to get it out, the gate on the country road was opened. The old key hanging on the nail in the coach house still worked. The van arrived, and Signora Giulia made her last journey.
    The magistrate, the registrar, the Commissario and Pulito remained, along with Esengrini and the two officers. There wasn’t much joking in the conversation that followed.
    ‘Esengrini,’ said the magistrate, ‘I’ve telephoned the court and informed them fully. They suggest a provisional arrest. I don’t know what to say to you: you’ll defend yourself. Sciancalepre will accompany you to the cells. Let’s go out by the gate – that way we’ll avoid onlookers.’
    Sciancalepre felt no need to speak. He stood beside the lawyer, head bowed. Then, leaving the magistrate at the end of the pathway, he went the short distance to the cells with his prisoner. The guard let them through, as on so many other occasions, thinking that they needed to speak to someone inside.
    Instead, his mouth agape, he had to welcome the lawyer himself amongst his guests.
     
    His orders carried out, Sciancalepre went straight home. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t thinking about his spaghetti at that hour. His head whirled with a jumble of thoughts and problems. The jewellery hadn’t been found, either in the suitcases or at the bottom of the cistern, even though it had been thoroughly searched.
    In the records, there was an inventory of the jewellery Signora Giulia had taken with her. Esengrini himself had reconstructed the list: four diamond rings, three pairs of earrings, a strand of pearls, a diamond necklace, two pins set with precious stones, a watch and two bracelets also set with diamonds.
    Sciancalepre could recall the jewellery by heart. He’d seen it who knows how many times on the poor woman. Where had all that stuff gone? He thought about making a detailed search of the lawyer’s house and office and felt some hope. And suddenly it occurred to him that neither he nor the magistrate had charged Esengrini with the crime of homicide; and that Esengrini hadn’t made the slightest admission of being the perpetrator of the crime. He’d attended the identification of the corpse as an interested bystander, but had never shown any sign of confusion.
    At table he gave