The Edge of the Horizon

7

“Still No Name for the Victim of Via Casedipinte.” It’s the headline of an article by Corrado. His initials are at the bottom. It’s a resigned, tired piece, full of clichés: the police search, all leads meticulously followed up, the inquiry at a dead end.

Spino noticed the involuntary irony: a dead end. He reflects that one person is definitely dead and no one knows who he is, so much so that they can’t even legally declare him dead. There’s just the corpse of a young man with a thick beard and a sharp nose. Spino starts to use his imagination. He was dead on arrival at the hospital, but perhaps in the ambulance he mumbled something: cursed, begged, mentioned a name. Perhaps he called for his mother, as is only natural, or for a wife, or child. He could have children. He is married. There’s a ring on his finger, given, of course, that it is his ring. But of course it’s his. No one wears somebody else’s ring.

But no, says Corrado in his article. He didn’t say anything while he was being driven to the hospital, he was in a coma, to all intents and purposes already dead. The policemen involved in the shoot-out said so.

Spino found a pen and underlined the parts he thought most interesting.

“His photograph has been sent to every police station in Italy, but there appears to be no trace of him in police files…. It is believed that if he had been a member of an underground organization, his comrades would have made some kind of announcement by now…. As things stand at the moment the police cannot be sure that the young man was a terrorist…. What’s more, according to informed sources, the tip-off given to the police could be part of an underworld or perhaps mafia vendetta…. The identity-card found on the murdered man belongs to Mr. I. F. of Turin, who lost it two years ago and reported the loss in the usual fashion…. And lastly there is the curious detail of the name on the door. Written on a plastic strip, the kind of thing anyone can print out themselves with a Dyno machine, it says: Carlo Nobodi (not ‘Noboldi’ as we mistakenly reported yesterday). The name is obviously false, perhaps a significant adaptation of the English word ‘nobody’.”

Suddenly he thought of the ring. He telephoned the morgue and Pasquale’s voice answered.

“Has he still got his ring on?”

“Who is it? Can I help you?”

“It’s Spino. I want to know if he’s still got his ring on.”

“What ring? What are you talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Spino. “I’ll be right over.”

“Nobody shown up?” Spino asks him.

Pasquale shakes his head and lifts his eyes to the ceiling with a resigned expression, as if to say that the corpse will have to stay where it is. The clothes are in the locker, the forensic people have left them there because they didn’t consider them important. They didn’t even bother to search through them carefully, otherwise they’d have found a photograph in his breast pocket. Pasquale points to it, he’s put it under the glass top on the desk. It’s a snapshot from a contact sheet, about as big as a postage stamp. It must be an old photo, in any event he ought to hand it over to the policeman on duty, it’s compulsory. But the policeman’s not there at the moment. He was there half the morning and then they called him out for something urgent. He’s a young guy who does patrolwork as well.

Spino had expected to have trouble with the ring, but, as it happens, it slips off easily. The hands aren’t swollen and then the ring seems too big for the finger. On the inside, as he was hoping, there’s a name and a date: “Pietro, 12.4.1939.” Pasquale is surprised out of his sleepiness and comes over to take a look. Chewing a toffee, he mutters something incomprehensible. Spino shows him the ring and he looks at his friend inquisitively.

“But what are you after?” Pasquale says in a whisper. “Why are you so bothered about finding out who he is?”