A Private Venus

PROLOGUE FOR A SHOP ASSISTANT

‘What’s your name?’

‘Antonio Marangoni. I live over there in Cascina Luasca; I’ve been going to Rogoredo by bicycle every morning for more than fifty years.’

‘Don’t waste your time on these old geezers, let’s go back to the paper.’

‘He’s the one who found the girl, he can describe her for us, otherwise we’ll have to go to the morgue, and we’re already late.’

‘I saw her when the ambulance arrived, she was wearing a sky-blue dress.’

‘A sky-blue dress. What colour hair?’

‘Dark, but not black.’

‘Dark, but not black.’

‘She had these big round sunglasses.’

‘Round sunglasses.’

‘I couldn’t see much of her face, it was covered by her hair.’

‘Move on please, there’s nothing to see.’

‘There’s nothing to see, the officer’s right, let’s go back to the paper.’

‘Move on, now. Why aren’t you lot at school?’

‘Yes, what are all these kids doing here?’

‘When I arrived I could smell blood.’

‘Go on, Signor Marangoni.’

‘I could smell blood.’

‘Yes, she must have lost a lot of blood.’

‘I couldn’t smell anything, too much time had passed before we got here in the van.’

‘Go on, officer.’

‘They’ll tell you all you need to know at Headquarters. I’m here to keep the riff-raff away, I don’t talk to reporters. But you couldn’t smell the blood, that’s just not possible.’

‘Well, I smelt it, and I have a good nose. I got off my bike because I needed to pass water, I put the bike down on the ground.’

‘Go on, Signor Marangoni.’

‘I went to the bushes, the ones over there, and that’s when I saw the foot, well the shoe anyway.’

‘Move on now, keep moving, there’s nothing to see, all these people looking at a bit of empty field.’

‘At first all I saw was the shoe, I didn’t see the foot inside it, so I reached out my hand.’

‘Alberta Radelli, twenty-three years old, shop assistant, found in Metanopoli, near Cascina Luasca, the body was found at 5:30 in the morning by Signor Antonio Marangoni, sky-blue dress, dark hair, not black, round glasses, I’ll go and phone this in, then I’ll come back and pick you up.’

‘Then I realised there was a foot inside the shoe and I felt sick, I moved all those weeds and I saw her, it was obvious straight away that she was dead.’