Intrigue In Milan

Chapter 6

Port of Trieste, 1815 (a year and a half earlier)

The cold Alpine wind blew north-easterly over the port of Trieste, cutting through like a straight razor.

The wharves were deserted and the fishing boats were all moored for the sea’s treachery.

Between the shacks of the old port, used to move and store wares from their arrival until their conveyance and circulation, a man dressed in a weighty green trench coat had been waiting patiently for hours.

A hunter’s cap with crêpe rubber ears and a heavy scarf covered almost of all of the man’s face, looking fixedly at the hangar-like construction with a platform raised by about a metre, used for loading and unloading wares.

A small carriage pulled by two people in mariners’ garb finally left the warehouse to stop at the wharf not far away.

Not making the slightest bit of noise, Ziani approached the carriage, sheltering behind many empty chests piled against the side of the warehouse. From that spot, he could make out the two mariners wishing to speak with two men; the first could not be identified, with his face hooded and the second was a Slovene miscreant with distinguishing marks known to the Trieste constabulary.

Before Ziani could hear the debate, the Slovenian stabbed one of the two mariners to death. The other did nothing in the least to defend himself or to flee.

‘Police! Hands to the air and away from the cart,’ Ziani cried out, coming out into the light.

The two miscreants, at first pretending to obey, accosted the policeman with their fists, signing their own death warrants in that moment.

The pistols, now bereft of shot, were disposed of and Ziani approached the hooded man, silent and as still as a statue. As he was to take the hood off, he was dealt a blow to his nape and his legs suddenly gave way. His eyes saw only darkness and the mind was willing, but his brawn would not comply. All but lifeless on the port’s wharf, he could only hear two voices, distorted by the sound of the wind.

‘Wait, don’t kill him! Better to have them believe these three fools came to blows and shot each other,’ the hooded man ordained, with his voice disguised.

‘They’ll think the Slovene had a score to settle with the smugglers and they’ll not investigate,’ answered the accomplice, arriving at just the right time.

‘Let’s take him to Borgolauro and throw him to the sea from the first cliff we find’.

‘What if his flatfoot friends think it was an accident?’

‘What’s important is that they won’t tie him to us’.

‘But he was watching our movements’.

‘This bastard was here covertly and off his own back!’

‘How do you know this?’

‘If you don’t want to see to these three yourself, stop asking questions, Oblak!’

‘As you wish, but I’ll still take a second precaution, by your leave!’

After a further terrible blow to the head, all was darkness to Ziani.

After this long torpor, he felt himself being held by his thick locks, finding himself lying on his belly, neither on the wharf nor on a hospital bed, but on the icy waters of the Adriatic, his muscles as firm as marble.

Before he took leave of his senses again, he heard a soft voice whisper:

‘Don’t resist, carry yourself away and help yourself by beating your feet on the water. Now you are safe’.

Milan, 22 October 1816 (one year later), 1 a.m.

Headquarters of the Directorate-General of the Austrian Police

‘Lieutenant, Sir, Lieutenant Ziani, wake up!’

‘Have you dragged me from the sea? Where am I?’

‘Sea? What? I’m Corporal Dei Cas and we’re in a cell at headquarters’.

Ziani opened his eyes, wiped his drenched brow and turned to the newcomer.

‘I had a dream about that accursed night again; I’ll spare you the story of an old enquiry of mine that failed. Is this something urgent, Corporal?’

‘In actual fact, there are two issues, Sir: first, quite aside from me admiring what you did last week by arresting that quartet and giving to the famished the bread they needed, I must put on the record …"

‘Dei Cas!’

‘Yes, lieutenant?’

‘That bread fell into the canal. The ration distributed to the poor by the St Vincent volunteers is of unknown provenance, understood?’

‘I don’t wish to contradict you, but regulations dictates that an official of the Directorate General of the Austrian police not bear false witness and that the patrol officer assigned to make the declaration write irregularities as to what is …"

‘Dei Cas!’

‘Yes, sir,’ answered the corporal to attention.

‘Either you write as I’ve ordered you to or I second you to the revenue men on Livigno street! What is the other problem?’

Afeared by the prospect of working in the cold in a place he well knew, the corporal responded on his feet:

‘They’ve found a body in the trombone of San Marco, sir; it appears to be a suicide’.

‘What the devil do you mean? Where on Earth did they find it?’

‘As I’ve just said, sir, within the trombone of...’

The man dressed in sergeant’s uniform arrived just in time to correct the mistake.

‘Tombone of San Marco, Dei Cas. Leave us be’.

With the corporal having left, Sangalli took a half-empty bottle from Ziani.

‘Commander in Chief Konrad has given me a written order. He wants us to investigate the tombòn, but without apparel so as not to alarm’.

‘Konrad? Does he … yes, in fact, does he know about that?’ he asked, pointing to the bottle.

‘All the Milan constabulary know, but at least he’s still the only one not to’.

‘It’s not often I do so, Paolo; just twice or thrice a month,’ Ziani admitted.

‘There is no drunkard worse than he who doesn’t think he is one. Why do you ruin yourself so?’

‘To wish away my nightmares, but it has the opposite effect. If only I had meaning to my waste of a life’.

‘I’ve just given you some. Wash your face, shave, put on your overcoat and come with me!’

In a fog-ridden Milan, a jaunting car crossed the Corsia del Giardino, later to become via Manzoni.

On board was the Triestine lieutenant Marco Ziani, an officer in the Austrian army seconded to the police and former adjutant to Field Marshal Bellegarde, and sergeant Paolo Sangalli, born in Bovisa and former soldier of the Bonapartist Kingdom of Italy.

The former, clad in a grey overcoat, was tall with thick brown hair, his eyes and moustache of the same colour.

The latter, in a green overcoat, was stockier with a well-kept Van Dyke.

As the carriage turned in the fog onto Fratebenefratelli street, Sangalli turned to Ziani, engrossed in reading a written order.

‘What did that auld goat write, this Konrad?’

‘Simply that I’m to direct the enquiry about a man who’s thrown himself from the Medici bridge, also known as “Suicide Bridge” for it being frequented by those at the end of their rope.

‘The whole constabulary is busy on the lookout for seditious Bonapartists or secessionists and is under the control of the starving masses; we haven’t time for these odds and ends, in his opinion’.

‘The master ordains, the steed obeys!’ the good sergeant determined, speaking in dialect.

Ziani turned to look out of the carriage window, trying in vain to hear the voice or to make out the features of the person to have saved him some time ago from the freezing sea’s embrace.

Milan, 22 October 1816, 3 a.m.

Piazza San Marco

The carriage stopped close to piazza San Marco. Both men moved on foot towards the tombone ─ big tomb ─ of San Marco, one of the three river bridges in Milan. In their dialect, this is what the Milanese called the point in the Naviglio in which its waters, fed from different canals and waterways, formed perilous whirlwinds due to their difference in depth. The fog, often like a leaden windowpane, led none to see past the end of their nose. Ziani, of little practice in the area, asked:

‘Do you know where to find the suicide bridge? As for me, that may be anywhere’.

‘I have an infallible method of finding the Naviglio without falling in’.

‘And that would be?’ asked Ziani, moving perchance towards its edge.

‘Follow the stench and you’ll get to the jakes. It’s mathematical’.

‘It smells everywhere in this square, Mr Engineer. Have I gone the right way?’

‘From there is the Conca delle Gabelle water basin and, if you take a few steps further forward, you’re bathing in the pond of San Marco. Follow me to the other side of the tombone’.

‘Excuse me, where will the police be in this quarter?’

‘They’ll be at the bridge to a man, even if they’d have to send some officers to guard the exits. They can’t have brought in reinforcements in such a rush’.

After some moments taken to get their bearings, Sangalli brought Ziani to the Medici bridge, where three young officers of the local police were busy precisely washing the bloodied cobbles.

Drawing near to one of them, Ziani asked:

‘What are you doing, young man?’

‘I’m sure not drinking a beer with the Emperor! What do you think?’

‘This gentleman is Oberleutnant Ziani from the Directorate-General of Police! More respect, boy!’ Sangalli exclaimed imperiously.

The poor young man’s face went white and he stood to attention. He began to stammer.

‘At y... your s... service, sir!’

‘You’re obliterating the evidence from the scene of a crime. Just what are they teaching you in the local constabulary? And most important of all: where’s the body?’ asked Sangalli.

‘Second Lieutenant Spreafico from the local police has had him brought to the morgue’.

‘What are you called, lad?’ asked Ziani, looking him right in the eye.

‘Officer Biraghi, sir’.

‘Tell me, in few words, what occurred!’

‘The lock warden beckoned us, having found the man’s body right under the bridge pillar. Luckily, with there being not much water of late, it surfaced quickly, at least I believe it did, and also …"

‘That should be all! How come your superior from the constabulary is not present?’

‘Well, with the cadaver sent to the morgue and having ordered the blood to be washed, there was no reason for him to stay and...’

‘What did you say he was called? Sparafico?’

‘Spreafico, sir, Second Lieutenant Egidio Spreafico’.

In dialect, Sangalli ventured: ‘Praise be he doesn’t understand aught!’

Ignoring this barb, Ziani turned to the young officer:

‘Very well, Biraghi, stay here with my sergeant whilst he examines the scene of the crime and collects evidence and accounts from witnesses, is that clear?’

‘Loud and clear, sir!’

‘Not for me, it isn’t, at all!’ Sangalli called out. ‘Why must I do everything? You’re the one to run this!’

‘As a matter of fact, I’m going forthwith to the morgue to examine the body. Unless you’d like to...?’

The sergeant looked aghast, just at the thought of entering the mortuary.

‘I’d rather not, thank you; I prefer the cold, the fog and the sewer rats to the smell of a dead body and the stupid ideas your friend has of a joke!’

‘We’ll meet tomorrow at headquarters. Where is the carriage from?’ Ziani concluded.

‘Are you taking the coach? And where am I to find another at this time of night?’

‘Don’t you want me to go on foot to Cà Granda at this time of night?’

‘Well, really, I...’

‘A walk through the morning dew to headquarters will do the world of good to your body and spirit’.

‘Get catching ’em mice, then!’

Ziani laughed, if only for a second.

Since Dei Cas roused him in that cell, he felt at the mercy of disquiet that couldn’t leave him. The many particularities of that night he’d been assaulted came back to haunt him with every time the dream was repeated, but there was still something missing, something vital that the mind failed to seize on, which gave him no peace, something to perhaps put a face or a name to someone who wished him dead and another who had saved his life.